Msi click bios reset to default
The Real Driving Simulator
2010.09.24 19:01 The Real Driving Simulator
A subreddit dedicated to the Gran Turismo series. Come here for news, discussion, speculation, and help. Post your garage collection, strategies and techniques, photos and everything in between!
2017.11.16 13:41 Flerbenderper Australian PC Enthusiasts
The official subreddit for Australian PC Enthusiasts of Facebook. We are exclusively an Australian group who are focused on high end computer hardware, software, custom builds, and latest news in technology.
2023.03.29 02:53 notrazz New PSU and now PC boots up like this
Was upgrading my parts today, I installed a new PSU (EVGA 850W G3 -> EVGA 1200W P2) CPU (12900K -> 13900KS) and GPU (3090 -> 4080)
At first the screen would not show anything. This was presumably because I forgot to update the bios.
Then I swapped the CPU, and that screen showed up, flickering on and off. I think that’s the New CPU American Megatrend screen
I reset the CMOS, same thing
So then I thought it was the GPU so I swapped it back and was the same issue.
The last thing I haven’t tried is PSU, would that be the issue? It’s a ton of work to replug all the wires and route them so I’m asking here before I do so.
https://streamable.com/glpgbn
submitted by notrazz to buildapc [link] [comments]
At first the screen would not show anything. This was presumably because I forgot to update the bios.
Then I swapped the CPU, and that screen showed up, flickering on and off. I think that’s the New CPU American Megatrend screen
I reset the CMOS, same thing
So then I thought it was the GPU so I swapped it back and was the same issue.
The last thing I haven’t tried is PSU, would that be the issue? It’s a ton of work to replug all the wires and route them so I’m asking here before I do so.
https://streamable.com/glpgbn
2023.03.29 02:51 sleeping0dragon Void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium 2 Review
 | submitted by sleeping0dragon to u/sleeping0dragon [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/ig10ee0tbkqa1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7bb88658aa5502037d80be8b4680d7990a7a45b KEY NOTES:
Back in 2020, NIS released void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium (VT1) which didn't seem to sell particularly well. The game remained quite unknown to many people to this day even when compared with other NIS' niche games. Despite that, the game had won the hearts of a small fanbase with its fun rogue-lite combat loop, the charming characters and the surprising emotional story beats. About 3 years later, the sequel finally gets released in the west. For people new to the games, I highly recommend checking out my Review of the first game since it will cover overlapping content that aren't necessarily covered here. Void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium 2 (VT2) is essentially more of the same from the first game, but with some new gameplay changes. STORY VT2 begins right after the events of the first game and the Terrarium trio has moved to a new location. In addition to adapting to their new home, they also start investigating into Toriko's origins, the last surviving human on the planet. Like the first game, VT2's story is filled with happy and sad moments that did an excellent job of making me interested in seeing where the story was heading to despite not a whole lot actually does happen. Fans of the first game will most likely feel the same level of investment here. What VT2 does different and a bit better is that there is a story direction right at the start. It didn't feel as aimless as seen in the majority of VT1. If you wanted another roller coaster of emotions, then VT2 is the ticket that delivers. I didn't expect to experience the same level of raw emotions as the first game, but the second game had surprisingly exceeded it. CHARACTERS The three returning characters are as lovable as they were in the first game. They haven't really changed much either. Robbie is still the loyal and kind robot. FactoryAI is still the very expressive chatterbox, but her fondness for Toriko may have reached a new level. https://preview.redd.it/ugdn9x40ckqa1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09f3c3327551c7bb3537bd6c64ca4639f4d8381b As for Toriko, she remains as cute and adorable as ever, but her new animations and interactions have allowed her to seemingly express even more of herself than before. Toriko has picked up a few new tricks ART DIRECTION/GRAPHICS The graphics hasn't changed a whole lot from what I noticed. It is still quite beautiful during the Terrarium scenes. VT1 seems to have more vibrant colors while VT2's colors are "softer" in comparison which I think looks a bit more pleasing to me. The graphics in the dungeons remains pretty mediocre and uninspiring, but they weren't very noticeable as I went through my exploration runs. MUSIC The music style hasn't changed much either. The dungeon music range from upbeat techno music to relaxing atmospheric ones. I think the quality is roughly the same for both games so I still enjoyed the music here. GAMEPLAY At its core, the gameplay loop for VT2 is nearly the same as VT1. Go to the dungeons, reach the end or until you die, collect any blueprints and materials you find along the way, return to the Terrarium hub, feed and interact with Toriko before going back to the dungeons. This is part rogue-lite so your level and skills obtained will reset back to the default each time you die or return to the Terrarium. Items obtained are converted into one of the four main resources in the game which are used to craft things. Resources are noticeably more in abundance this time around even Contaminated ones so you can craft most of the blueprints as you obtain them. The items you do keep are food items, blueprints, and special items needed to craft blueprints. Fortunately, these games aren't too challenging in progressing compared to other rogue games. You can permanently increase your stats by crafting blueprints. All of them except for clothing related ones come with a permanent stat upgrade when crafting it for the first time. It gives you a steady pacing of progression just like a typical JRPG so it's not too demanding or stressful on the player. The core gameplay loop aside, there are some new changes and mechanics. DUNGEONS Dungeons are now connected with each other so instead of picking one dungeon from a list and then going directly to them, you start at the same one in the beginning and then eventually get to branch out at the later ones during the same expedition. It was annoying at first that you have to keep running through the same dungeons just to reach other dungeons, but fortunately, you will eventually get shortcuts that allows you to skip ahead. Although, you might not always want to do that considering your level will always be at one at the start and the tough enemies found in the later dungeons do not scale down to you. New to dungeons are the portals that randomly appears on a floor and will transport you to a random mystery room. The concept is similar to the Mystery Rooms in the Disgaea games, but aren't as varied. Nevertheless, they provide helpful benefits for entering them which includes items and even a bonus temporary skill. Probably most important is the room with the gem trader. One of the few mystery rooms in the game where you can get a free item You can collect gems for completing various tasks. The time allowed for the tasks reset after a set amount of expeditions, but are generally very simple to do. The tasks mostly involve defeating a certain type of enemies x amount of times, use an item x amount of times or just clear a specific dungeon. The gems can be used to trade for special items from the trader. The concept sounds nice in theory, but I found it to be not as good as I'd liked. https://preview.redd.it/4ts5gyovckqa1.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e8ca916498d8c9210fc21e6c18bf839cba12670a First, it takes a while to accumulate a decent amount of gems. The reset period is often too long so there is a noticeable gap as to when your supply just stops increasing for a while. The second issue I had was that the gem trader's appearance is too reliant on RNG. It's already random if a mystery room portal would appear, but there's a second level of RNG with its appearance too. If the trader's inventory was just decent and not that important, then I wouldn't be bothered as much. However, the trader has many exclusive robot customization blueprints so being able to get them is key to creating and customizing for fun builds. It will take a really long time to clear out the Gem Trader's inventory Other than the above points, the dungeons and its mechanics remains the same. Dungeon layouts are randomly generated so none of the floors are fixed. In addition to the returning Endless Dungeon where time stops outside and you can go on an infinite dungeon expedition until you die, there's a new optional Danger Zone dungeon. This actually consists of five separate dungeons each with a noticeably higher difficulty. All of them have only 11 layers with the first and last completely voided of enemies. The first layer has four random items to start with. The last has unique blueprints on the first run and the special exclusive Gold materials needed to make them. These blueprints are meant to be made multiple times to essentially power up for the end/post game. Most are stat upgrades, but others provide certain effect upgrades like Critical Chance % Up. Each Danger Zone level is meant to prepare you for the next one considering the high difficulty of each subsequent one. The optional dungeons are great if you want to reach an even higher level of power than before, but it can be a pain to clear. Other than simply power grinding the permanent stats for it which may take a long time, it heavily relies on good RNG to clear them otherwise. The initial items you get are very important to determine how you fare and in many cases, make or break your expedition. TORIKO CARE Other than enemies and the items in the dungeons, you have to pay attention to Toriko's condition while she's left back at the Terrarium. The tamagotchi-like image in the bottom left corner of the screen will reflect her condition. The hearts represents her health gauge which if she loses all of it, will be a Game Over. The Pet Nanny system is available right at the start and allows you to deal with the issues that will routinely arise such as clean the terrarium or play with her. The system is usable anytime during an expedition at the cost of some EN points. A new function allows you to even feed her food that you already have. It does not recover any hearts like when you feed her directly back at the Terrarium, but it will at least stop her hunger momentarily and prevent her from losing any more hearts. Even if you prevent her from losing all of the hearts, if you let her Terrarium continue to pile up the dirt without promptly cleaning it, she may fall ill regardless. The same would happen if she gets bored and you don't play with her. In regards to her illness, many of them return along with some new ones. They range from minor tame ones like Toriko suddenly become pixelated to more disturbing nightmare fueled ones. Treating them is a bit different this time around too. Before, an illness would unlock a temporary new dungeon that has the material needed to treat it. This time, all of the materials needed will be placed in one of the currently available dungeons. Furthermore, the time duration to cure her has been extended for some of the illness. It just took one expedition to normally cure her before, but a few now requires multiple expeditions and it's not because more materials are needed. It's because it just takes several expeditions for Toriko to recover after administering the medication. For some, it can take up to 5 expeditions which can be a hassle. You can't advance the story while Toriko is ill or while she is recovering from an illness. COMBAT The combat itself hasn't changed much. Despite how it may seem, the underlying mechanic for the combat is turn-based. Characters move on an invisible grid and each action takes a turn. If you're standing completely still, then enemies don't attack or move. Any action other than simply changing the direction you are facing counts as a turn. That said, some of the higher tier enemies are allowed multiple actions per turn up to about three. In those cases, those enemies can attack or move more than once before you can take a subsequent action. With these information in mind, you can slowly take your time to calculate your next move and approach accordingly adding a decent layer of strategy to the game. It's worth noting that health will regenerate at a slow pace unless you're poisoned. It is also based on turns so if you stand completely still, your health will not regenerate. Other than attacking with melee, you can throw bombs at enemies. In addition, you can activate gadget items for various effects. Active Skills are high powered attack skills with various effects and can be very strong. The drawbacks to them are the turn cooldown after using them and that they cost EN to use each time. EN is Robbie's endurance gauge which continuously drains as you go through the dungeons. Once it reaches 0, your health regeneration stops and instead, health starts to decrease instead. EN can be recovered using items like Batteries. https://preview.redd.it/ojqnermoekqa1.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e39cc6a89fe5ce37c9a40c9efbe8688cc68b890 One new notable change with the combat mechanics involve the weapons, armors and the Active Skills. With Active Skills before, you have a chance to learn them on level up as a random skill. Now, they aren't included as part of the pool anymore and are instead attached to weapons as a skill there. You can level up weapons with continuous use. Each new level unlocks a passive skill or effect which may include a straight stat boost or a new Active Skill. It was fun to unlock new levels especially since they are permanent upgrades. If you find the weapon type again on a subsequent expedition, the level will be the same as where it left off before giving an additional sense of progression in this game. Armors have their own levels and effects as well The biggest change with the combat comes from the skills you get on leveling up. The skills seems to have been re-balanced with many new ones. The OP builds from the first game don't exist anymore especially with the high criticals and evasion builds based on the mods in your inventory. The evasion skills in general have practically been removed other than maybe one. It took out part of the fun for me, but at least this game gave more varied builds to work with instead. The addition of the different weapon and armor effects also help in creating different builds. ROBOT CUSTOMIZATION While the vast majority of blueprints consists of Terrarium objects, there are some that directly affects the customization and builds you can experiment with. First are the Knacks which are labeled like various job classes (Fighter, Assassin, Berserker, etc..). They affect the type of skills that are more likely to appear on level up. So for Offensive Oriented Knacks like Berserker, more offensive related skills would more likely to appear. You can have up to 3 Knacks equipped to further focus on a combination of skills. You can equip up to four customization parts which have various effects including decrease chance of a specific tier of skills to show up on level up. You can also have three or four skills show up on level up instead of the default 2. Finally, you can also have a chance at picking an additional skill instead of just one for each level up. The last major customization mechanic is the Skill Removal. The general Skill Removal blueprints allows you to outright remove specific skills from even appearing at all thus increasing the chances of obtaining the other skills. The combination of the three major customization functions in addition to the weapon/armomods you can find, all help to create a build you can experiment with for a more varied experience. TERRARIUM Customizing the Terrarium was surprisingly addicting in VT1 and a big component of why I enjoyed these games so it was great to see that it has been improved greatly in VT2. The new Terrarium has a flat ceiling and side which makes it seemingly larger in size than the previous one. This allows you to fit more things inside which will delight people who are fans of the customization. The number of different Terrarium blueprints are quite large which includes many (if not all) of the ones from VT1 and its DLC. The new atmosphere type objects will change the Terrarium BGM NIS took it one step further by adding up to three total Terrariums to use at a time and even allow saving Terrarium settings so you may quickly switch back and forth. The Terrariums aren't connected directly so Toriko won't be able to cross one to another by herself. You would have to manually hold Toriko's hand and walk with her to another one. Fortunately, the distance between each one are noticeably small so it's not a long trip. To my great delight, Toriko will interact with more things now such as picking up a feather duster and dusting some objects. She will even dust Robbie at times. A fun past time that involves Robbie is playing catch with her which has them throwing a ball back and forth between the two. Toriko doing her part to keep the Terrarium clean You can still play hide and seek with her Then there are some subtle actions from Toriko that makes it feel like she is more alive than before. Every now and then, she would just smile and follow you around. When you return from an expedition, she sometimes stands by the edge of the Terrarium and welcome you back with a wave. Interacting and spoiling Toriko had never been more fun. GROWING PLANTS A major new function of the Terrarium now involves growing plants and small trees. You can craft a seed which would quickly grow so that you can eventually harvest them. When you harvest a plant, you get to use it as a Terrarium object, but more importantly, you can obtain various "Cores" which are items needed to craft some blueprints. It is annoying that harvesting a Core is random and not a guarantee. You can also obtain clothing blueprints from harvesting. Fortunately, you get a new seed after harvesting so you don't have to craft new ones unless you want to grow multiple at a time. The growing process is short in steps, but does take a while to complete in-game. It goes through three phases which starts with the planted seed, half grown and then full maturity. It takes one expedition to reach the half grown phase and then another to fully grow it. You have to water it one time each for the first two phases. It's a simple process, but having to go through two expeditions just to reach full maturity for harvest does take longer than I'd liked. Especially considering it's not a guarantee to get a Core from it or a clothing Blueprint. There is an added layer for growing plants that can be tricky at times depending on how many concurrent different plants you are growing together. Each plant requires the Terrarium's temperature and humidity to fall within a certain range for it to actually grow. Temperature and humidity slightly fluctuates after every expedition, but to make significant adjustments to them, you can install electronics like heaters or various Terrarium plants/objects to change the values. If you're growing just one plant or multiple copies of one type of plant, then it's not really an issue dealing with that. But if you're growing different ones together then getting the right amount to overlap can be tricky. Furthermore, extreme temperature and humidity can get Toriko sick if she's inside that specific Terrarium. It's nice to see Toriko helping out, but it does not count as watered if she does it Overall, it's a nice new mechanic to the game even if I had some issues with how they worked. SIDEQUESTS For those that have played VT1, it might be surprising to hear about the existence of sidequests. They do in fact exist in VT2 and they actually make up a large portion of the overall game. The sidequests consists of mostly fetch quests where you have to find certain items in the dungeons and then bringing it back to craft something else. It doesn't sound all that interesting, but you can take care of those along with any story related expedition at the same time so it's not really going out of the way too much. The rewards are more blueprints which are very helpful. Surprisingly, I thought the story related to these quests are quite good. I got emotionally invested in a number of them and despite the large amount of them, they are very well worth completing just to experience that. That said, most of the story isn't directly related to the main story. FINAL REMARKS Overall, VT2 is very much like VT1, but with a bit more content and changes. Fans of VT1 will likely enjoy what VT2 has to offer, but those that were expecting a full blown set of changes and additions to the overall game might be disappointed with it. The story has its relaxing moments, but as expected, some pretty powerful emotional moments as well. The endings had lingered in my mind days after viewing them. The more focused story direction early on is appreciated. I had mixed feelings about the new skills and its rebalance, but trying to experiment with new builds was still an enjoyable process. While VT2 does directly follow right after VT1, you can technically jump straight to VT2 and understand much of it since VT1 wasn't that plot heavy to begin with. That said, I highly recommend starting with the first game to familiarize and appreciate the characters and the world. It makes the events of VT2 much more powerful and meaningful if you do. I sincerely hope that a third game will be developed which will be a Day 1 purchase for me. |
2023.03.29 02:46 John2k4 [USA-AZ] [H] i7-6950X Workstation PC, WiFi Routers, HD HomeRun Prime Tuners, M4300 Laptop [W] Local Cash, Paypal
Good afternoon,
I have a few things I'm looking to sell. Please comment then PM; I use old reddit, so I do not receive messages via the new chat system.
I am local to the central Phoenix area and can meet up anywhere within or near the Valley.
Prices are negotiable, please feel free to make an offer if you're interested in something.
submitted by John2k4 to hardwareswap [link] [comments]
I have a few things I'm looking to sell. Please comment then PM; I use old reddit, so I do not receive messages via the new chat system.
I am local to the central Phoenix area and can meet up anywhere within or near the Valley.
Prices are negotiable, please feel free to make an offer if you're interested in something.
| Item | Price | Timestamp | Info |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSI Workstation, i7-6950X | $390 Local | Updated Timestamp, older timestamps | I have an MSI Workstation tower that I am looking to sell. The case is a Thermaltake Overseer RX-1 with the SATA drive dock built in to the top panel. Both side panels have some scuffs and scratches, but no dents or major damage. I have a couple close up images of the scratches in the timestamp album. Inside the case is an i7-6950X processor in an X99A Workstation motherboard. The mobo has 8 RAM slots, and comes with 2x4GB DDR4 Viper sticks installed for a total of 8GB. The processor has a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo cooler installed on it. Power supply is an FSP Aurum 1000W PSU. Also comes with a 120GB SSD (2.5") a DVD RW drive, and a USB 3.0 card reader combo. The fans inside are all in great condition and still spin freely with no noise. System passed a couple runs of Memtest, and I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 on the SSD. The only thing that this system does not come with is a GPU. The processor does not have integrated graphics, so you will need a GPU for it. I took the timestamp images and ran tests using an old Geforce 9500GT card, which has since been removed. |
| Dell Precision M4300 | $25 Local | Timestamps | This is a Dell Precision M4300 laptop that I have had for many years. Has a Core 2 Duo at 2.5Ghz, and 4GB of RAM. Hard drive has been upgraded to a Kingston 240GB SSD. Has a fresh install of Windows 10, but it is not currently activated. Comes with a Dell 240W charger. |
| ASUS Blue Cave AC2600 Mesh Network Router x2 | $30 ea local, $40 ea shipped | Timestamp | Two ASUS Blue Cave AC2600 Mesh Network routers. Used them for a couple months before ultimately switching to a different mesh network solution. They are in great condition and come with everything in the box. |
| HD HomeRun Prime x2 | $25 ea local, $35 ea shipped | Timestamp | Two HD HomeRun Prime boxes. Used for a couple of years with Cox cable, but ultimately deactivated TV service because I just don't watch it anymore. Both boxes are still in great condition, and come with their original boxes and power supplies. |
| Netgear GS305 Gigabit Switch | $10 local, $15 shipped | Timestamp | Gigabit switch, pretty simple. Upgraded to a larger switch so don't need this smaller one. Please note it does not come with the dc power supply. Just the switch itself. |
| ASUS RT-AC66R Router | $10 local, $20 shipped | Timestamp | Gigabit, Dual Band wireless router. In good condition, and comes with the AC adapter. Does not come with original box. |
| TP-Link N600 Router | $10 local, $20 shipped | Timestamp | Another gigabit, dual band wireless router. This one comes with original box and ac adapter, and is also in good condition. |
| Netgear Nighthawk X6S AC4000 | $30 local, $40 shipped | Timestamp | Netgear Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band wireless router in good condition. Used to be my primary router before switching to a meshed system. Comes with router and power adapter; the barrel jack on the router feels somewhat loose, but it turned on just fine when I was testing/resetting it for the timestamp images. |
2023.03.29 02:45 ATRDoctor 2023 CARDING METHOD - ABCs OF CARDING - A TO CASHOUT CLONING TUTORIAL
https://preview.redd.it/g087a5zirkqa1.png?width=2045&format=png&auto=webp&s=36985aee5e94e627e0dcf3ac1f96e7ff1f947ba4
https://preview.redd.it/p4bqjaokrkqa1.png?width=2046&format=png&auto=webp&s=c00eaf6ef6259ac49633959feff87d02c152a70b
https://preview.redd.it/iyupgkalrkqa1.png?width=1070&format=png&auto=webp&s=7d13c2d1fd2c3c0810dc96a1582e58d523fd6ae3
https://preview.redd.it/gqcisocmrkqa1.png?width=2168&format=png&auto=webp&s=3da62cd55e56cb2fabf557bd0c713ead18e13ed9
To successfully clone a dump in 2022-2023, you need Official Smartcard Software Bundle You can get it Here. This process will only work with the updated smartcard software. Ensure you are using the correct one. There are a lot of fake software going around. This one is completely clean and does not require you to turn off any antivirus. Contains everything you need to card.
After you have the Official Smartcard Software Bundle, you are going to follow the steps below very carefully. One wrong move will mess up the entire process.
https://atrstudio.org/product/allinone-smartcard-bundle/
Formatting
#1. Open jcopEnglish
#2. Inserted your blank (Java Card J2A040 suggested) into your respective card reader.
#3. Click “Delete JCOP Files”
#4. Under “Script Type” select “Debit”
#5. As a final step click on “Format JCOP Chip”
#6. Once done, remove your blank. In this case, we'll be using a "Java Card J2A040” for maximum compatibility.
Format is now complete.
(Use jcopManager to ensure your card is unfused!)
Part One Of The Cloning Process
#1. Open the X2 2021 and click on the “IST Generate” option (top left).
#2. Click on the “Read Card” button (middle bottom).
#3. From the details that appear on the screen “Copy Track 2 Data.”
#4. Click on the “EMV” option (located top left).
#5. Paste that “Track 2” data and replace “D” located in the middle of “Track 2” with “=”
#6. Insert “Card Holders Name” in its field it should be in “LAST NAME FIRST NAME” format (insert capital letters).
#7. In “Application Label Field” insert “Card type” in our case it’s “VISA DEBIT” (insert capital letters).
#8. In “Track 1 Discretion Data”, checkmark the box first then delete the “Default Value” that gets generated, then click on the “IST Generate” tab to copy “Track 1” then go back to the “EMV” tab and insert “Track 1” in its field there.
#9. In the “Credit” field select your card type select “VISA” as our card was VISA (make sure to check track 1 again as changing the value in this section will replace Track 1 with a default value, so if that happens just replace that default value with Track 1 again) and in “Writer” field is “MCR200” as our hardware is MCR200.
#10. In “AID” for “VISA” it’s “31010” for master it’s going to be “41010” so we typed “31010”
#11. In “Country Code” insert your country code, ours is “0840” for the US.
#12. In the “PIN” box insert your “Card/Dump Pin”
#13. In “Currency Code” insert your “Card/Dump Currency Code” for USD its “0840”
#14. In the “ARQC” section just “ignore that” for now.
#15. For “Pref Name” we can leave that “as it is” for now.
#16. For “Effective Date” click on the “Change Data” checkmark and then see the “Expiry Date” and Reverse it 4 years so for example if the expiry date of the card/dump is 28/02/2022 the “Effective Date” AKA Issue Date would be 28/02/2018 and you will insert it in “YYMMDD” format like “180228” inside “Effective Date”
#17. For “Expiration Date” check the “IST Generate” tab and then see the “Expiry Date” on that page for example if the expiry date of the card/dump is 28/02/2022 you will go back to the “EMV tab” and insert it in “YYMMDD” format like “220228”
#18. Now take out the “Original Test Card” and insert the “Java White Card” to clone in your “MCR200” (or otherwise applicable) hardware.
#19. Now it’s time to burn the “White Java Card” by clicking on the “Credit” button located at the bottom right.
#20. You will see once you click “Credit” the “MCR200” will start writing and once done it will say “Completed Job.”
#21. Leave everything as it is! Step one is complete.
Part Two Of The Cloning Process
#22. Click on the “IST Generate” tab and then click on the “Read Card” button at the bottom.
#23. You must see the same data as you did when you inserted the “Original Test Card” and clicked on “Read Card” in “Step 1 and 2” and if you see the same info then congrats, let’s get to the next step.
#24. Now go to the “IST Generate” tab you see on top and click on the “Save” button that you see top right beside the “load” button, it will ask you to save that file with the “ZLD” extension so save it at the desktop with whatever name you like, Now you will click on “load” button and browse this file that you just saved with “ZLD” extension and it will say “Successfully Loaded Tree data from a file.”
#25. Now on the same “IST Generate” page, it’s time to click on the “Generate IST” button that you see at the bottom and save that with whatever name, it will save with extension “IST” we will need this file later in step “35 below”.
#26. Now go to “EMV tab” and copy “Track 2” then go back in “IST Load” and paste that “Track 2” in there, you do NOT need to fill in any other details on this page.
#27. Now you will open “BP tools Cryptographic Calculator”
#28. In the top tabs of this “Bp Tools Cryptographic Calculator,” you will see the “EMV” tab click on it and select “Application Cryptograms” then select “EMV 4.2” and you will see you will end up on a screen with “UDK” tab selected.
#29. Now you will see options boxes for “MDK” “PAN” and “PAN Seq Nr” you will also see “UDK Derivation Option” with “Option A” and “Key Parity” with “Odd” Selected.
#30. The only thing you need to change on this screen is “PAN” which obviously stands for “Primary Account Number” and you will get that from your “Track 2” so see the first 16 digit number that is also the “16 Digit Card Number.”
#31. Go back to X2 2021 and in the “EMV tab” you will see the “first 16 digits of the card number” copy them and now go to the “BP tools calculator” to replace the default PAN number with “Your own PAN number” leave everything as default.
#32. Now you will click on the “Green Padlock” and you will see that will add “MDK” and “UDK” inside the “output screen” on the right side.
#33. Then you will click on the next tab called “Common Session Key” and without changing anything “Click the padlock” this will add more data such as “Common Session Key Derivation” and other keys in our “Output Screen”
#34. Then click on the second last tab called “AAC/ARQC/TC” and hit the “Green Padlock” now this is the last step to get what we are looking for see the bottom of your “Output Screen” and you will see the “AC Generated Number” and that’s the ARQC we are looking for, so copy that number and close this “BP tool” as all the work for this is done.
#35. Go back to X2 2021 in the “IST Load” tab and paste that “Ac Generated Number” from BP tools inside the “ARQC 1” box, now its time to browse the file that you saved with the “IST” extension in “Step 25” above by clicking the “Open” button.
#36. Once you have the “IST File Path” + Track 2 + ARQC 1″ on this page it’s time to click on the “Burn” button.
#37. Once you have done everything right you will see the “Completed Job” popup.
#38. The “Java White Card” is now written and ready to go!
Possible Reasons your Card Failed:
- Bad or Fake software. MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING THE OFFICIAL SMARTCARD BUNDLE FOR 2022-2023 HERE: https://atrstudio.org/product/allinone-smartcard-bundle/
- Bad Dump (Fake, Used, or Empty Balance)
- Old Dump (Dumps need to be active, old card info is likely less active. ARQC changes every ATM use.)
- Bad ATR / IST / Dump Type Match Up (Incorrect IST with ATR) (I.E Bank Of America Visa Credit Cards IST FILE, AND ATR must match the DUMP.)
- Incompatible Blanks (Ensure that you're using the correct blanks. If you bought them for 30 cents a piece, they're not what we're looking for.)
- Impatience/Bad Luck (Don't skip a single step. Cloning is a game of patience, luck and persistence.)
https://atrstudio.org/product/allinone-smartcard-bundle/
submitted by ATRDoctor to u/ATRDoctor [link] [comments]
https://preview.redd.it/p4bqjaokrkqa1.png?width=2046&format=png&auto=webp&s=c00eaf6ef6259ac49633959feff87d02c152a70b
https://preview.redd.it/iyupgkalrkqa1.png?width=1070&format=png&auto=webp&s=7d13c2d1fd2c3c0810dc96a1582e58d523fd6ae3
https://preview.redd.it/gqcisocmrkqa1.png?width=2168&format=png&auto=webp&s=3da62cd55e56cb2fabf557bd0c713ead18e13ed9
To successfully clone a dump in 2022-2023, you need Official Smartcard Software Bundle You can get it Here. This process will only work with the updated smartcard software. Ensure you are using the correct one. There are a lot of fake software going around. This one is completely clean and does not require you to turn off any antivirus. Contains everything you need to card.
After you have the Official Smartcard Software Bundle, you are going to follow the steps below very carefully. One wrong move will mess up the entire process.
https://atrstudio.org/product/allinone-smartcard-bundle/
Formatting
#1. Open jcopEnglish
#2. Inserted your blank (Java Card J2A040 suggested) into your respective card reader.
#3. Click “Delete JCOP Files”
#4. Under “Script Type” select “Debit”
#5. As a final step click on “Format JCOP Chip”
#6. Once done, remove your blank. In this case, we'll be using a "Java Card J2A040” for maximum compatibility.
Format is now complete.
(Use jcopManager to ensure your card is unfused!)
Part One Of The Cloning Process
#1. Open the X2 2021 and click on the “IST Generate” option (top left).
#2. Click on the “Read Card” button (middle bottom).
#3. From the details that appear on the screen “Copy Track 2 Data.”
#4. Click on the “EMV” option (located top left).
#5. Paste that “Track 2” data and replace “D” located in the middle of “Track 2” with “=”
#6. Insert “Card Holders Name” in its field it should be in “LAST NAME FIRST NAME” format (insert capital letters).
#7. In “Application Label Field” insert “Card type” in our case it’s “VISA DEBIT” (insert capital letters).
#8. In “Track 1 Discretion Data”, checkmark the box first then delete the “Default Value” that gets generated, then click on the “IST Generate” tab to copy “Track 1” then go back to the “EMV” tab and insert “Track 1” in its field there.
#9. In the “Credit” field select your card type select “VISA” as our card was VISA (make sure to check track 1 again as changing the value in this section will replace Track 1 with a default value, so if that happens just replace that default value with Track 1 again) and in “Writer” field is “MCR200” as our hardware is MCR200.
#10. In “AID” for “VISA” it’s “31010” for master it’s going to be “41010” so we typed “31010”
#11. In “Country Code” insert your country code, ours is “0840” for the US.
#12. In the “PIN” box insert your “Card/Dump Pin”
#13. In “Currency Code” insert your “Card/Dump Currency Code” for USD its “0840”
#14. In the “ARQC” section just “ignore that” for now.
#15. For “Pref Name” we can leave that “as it is” for now.
#16. For “Effective Date” click on the “Change Data” checkmark and then see the “Expiry Date” and Reverse it 4 years so for example if the expiry date of the card/dump is 28/02/2022 the “Effective Date” AKA Issue Date would be 28/02/2018 and you will insert it in “YYMMDD” format like “180228” inside “Effective Date”
#17. For “Expiration Date” check the “IST Generate” tab and then see the “Expiry Date” on that page for example if the expiry date of the card/dump is 28/02/2022 you will go back to the “EMV tab” and insert it in “YYMMDD” format like “220228”
#18. Now take out the “Original Test Card” and insert the “Java White Card” to clone in your “MCR200” (or otherwise applicable) hardware.
#19. Now it’s time to burn the “White Java Card” by clicking on the “Credit” button located at the bottom right.
#20. You will see once you click “Credit” the “MCR200” will start writing and once done it will say “Completed Job.”
#21. Leave everything as it is! Step one is complete.
Part Two Of The Cloning Process
#22. Click on the “IST Generate” tab and then click on the “Read Card” button at the bottom.
#23. You must see the same data as you did when you inserted the “Original Test Card” and clicked on “Read Card” in “Step 1 and 2” and if you see the same info then congrats, let’s get to the next step.
#24. Now go to the “IST Generate” tab you see on top and click on the “Save” button that you see top right beside the “load” button, it will ask you to save that file with the “ZLD” extension so save it at the desktop with whatever name you like, Now you will click on “load” button and browse this file that you just saved with “ZLD” extension and it will say “Successfully Loaded Tree data from a file.”
#25. Now on the same “IST Generate” page, it’s time to click on the “Generate IST” button that you see at the bottom and save that with whatever name, it will save with extension “IST” we will need this file later in step “35 below”.
#26. Now go to “EMV tab” and copy “Track 2” then go back in “IST Load” and paste that “Track 2” in there, you do NOT need to fill in any other details on this page.
#27. Now you will open “BP tools Cryptographic Calculator”
#28. In the top tabs of this “Bp Tools Cryptographic Calculator,” you will see the “EMV” tab click on it and select “Application Cryptograms” then select “EMV 4.2” and you will see you will end up on a screen with “UDK” tab selected.
#29. Now you will see options boxes for “MDK” “PAN” and “PAN Seq Nr” you will also see “UDK Derivation Option” with “Option A” and “Key Parity” with “Odd” Selected.
#30. The only thing you need to change on this screen is “PAN” which obviously stands for “Primary Account Number” and you will get that from your “Track 2” so see the first 16 digit number that is also the “16 Digit Card Number.”
#31. Go back to X2 2021 and in the “EMV tab” you will see the “first 16 digits of the card number” copy them and now go to the “BP tools calculator” to replace the default PAN number with “Your own PAN number” leave everything as default.
#32. Now you will click on the “Green Padlock” and you will see that will add “MDK” and “UDK” inside the “output screen” on the right side.
#33. Then you will click on the next tab called “Common Session Key” and without changing anything “Click the padlock” this will add more data such as “Common Session Key Derivation” and other keys in our “Output Screen”
#34. Then click on the second last tab called “AAC/ARQC/TC” and hit the “Green Padlock” now this is the last step to get what we are looking for see the bottom of your “Output Screen” and you will see the “AC Generated Number” and that’s the ARQC we are looking for, so copy that number and close this “BP tool” as all the work for this is done.
#35. Go back to X2 2021 in the “IST Load” tab and paste that “Ac Generated Number” from BP tools inside the “ARQC 1” box, now its time to browse the file that you saved with the “IST” extension in “Step 25” above by clicking the “Open” button.
#36. Once you have the “IST File Path” + Track 2 + ARQC 1″ on this page it’s time to click on the “Burn” button.
#37. Once you have done everything right you will see the “Completed Job” popup.
#38. The “Java White Card” is now written and ready to go!
Possible Reasons your Card Failed:
- Bad or Fake software. MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING THE OFFICIAL SMARTCARD BUNDLE FOR 2022-2023 HERE: https://atrstudio.org/product/allinone-smartcard-bundle/
- Bad Dump (Fake, Used, or Empty Balance)
- Old Dump (Dumps need to be active, old card info is likely less active. ARQC changes every ATM use.)
- Bad ATR / IST / Dump Type Match Up (Incorrect IST with ATR) (I.E Bank Of America Visa Credit Cards IST FILE, AND ATR must match the DUMP.)
- Incompatible Blanks (Ensure that you're using the correct blanks. If you bought them for 30 cents a piece, they're not what we're looking for.)
- Impatience/Bad Luck (Don't skip a single step. Cloning is a game of patience, luck and persistence.)
https://atrstudio.org/product/allinone-smartcard-bundle/
2023.03.29 02:36 TeachingBudha B550M-PLUS WI-FI F8 key no longer brings boot menu.
Hello, asking if someone has observed this happening in your AMD ASUS mobo.
I have several storage/OS devices on my rig, so I have to select which one I want to boot up with *everytime* I boot up my computer. If there was an option to allow to always boot to the BIOS BOOT menu, I've set it up as the default since long ago.
I've noticed F8 does not bring the boot menu anymore, going straight to the first configured boot device. So now I have to DEL or F2 to BIOS and select the boot device from there.
Meh, just raising my hand, curious if somebody else has noticed this as well.
submitted by TeachingBudha to ASUS [link] [comments]
I have several storage/OS devices on my rig, so I have to select which one I want to boot up with *everytime* I boot up my computer. If there was an option to allow to always boot to the BIOS BOOT menu, I've set it up as the default since long ago.
I've noticed F8 does not bring the boot menu anymore, going straight to the first configured boot device. So now I have to DEL or F2 to BIOS and select the boot device from there.
Meh, just raising my hand, curious if somebody else has noticed this as well.
2023.03.29 02:29 2600_yay CDS Credit Default Swaps data sources
 | Introduction(Scroll down to the last picture if you just want the juice details!)With MSNBC removing credit default swap data for many banks (see list below) in recent days I challenged myself to find low-cost – ideally free! – Credit Default Swaps (CDS) data sources that are updated frequently and are accurate. This post is a synthesis of that research and provides some alternative sources for CDS data since CNBC has yoinked the five-year CDS data for most banks from its website. ImpetusI saw this post on HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35317366CNBC just deleted 5 pages showing the current and historical 5 year Credit Default Swaps for:I then looked up where to find some CDS data: https://quant.stackexchange.com/questions/22819/where-to-get-price-data-on-credit-default-swaps On that Stack Exchange pages one person says something below which I have no idea what they mean - "collect your password"? What? Make a unique password for each website and store it in a password manager. And use a disposable / throwaway email address. Problem solved. Both datagrapple and assetmacro are fake sites that collect your email address and password. Don't be fooled, CDS data isn't free.Someone else on that page mentions MacroVar which "has a freemium proprietary database of corporate and sovereign CDS historical data since 2007". That sounds like what we want! Macrovarhttps://macrovar.com/ is awesome! The CDS page on the free-tier plan is shown below:Now, we're interested in banking-related CDSes, so let's try to create a list of banking companies. We select `Financials` under the drop-down list for Sectors. And under the `Industry` drop-down list we select `Banking`. That still leaves us with quite a large list of CDSes – six pages worth – but this is just what we're looking for! https://preview.redd.it/t7eq2uwrokqa1.png?width=2290&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=628cdeb710cfe50243b44ed86cedbfe29df634e2 Oh no! I used `old.reddit.com` but used 'New Reddit' to create and save a draft of this post and it ate the pictures :( Anyway, I found a better alternative to Macrovar, Data Grapple. I think you should use both data sources as they provide supplementary information! Other sources: DataGrappleWe made a DataGrapple account using a 'for junk' email address that we don't use for any important email. We also gave 'em a fake name and telephone number. After creating an account / when you first log into DataGrapple it looks like this:Click on the CDS Expert Tree button in the sidebar. Then click on US. Then click on Financial (I forget what it said exactly but it has the word "financ" in it.) Now, the chart below only shows CDSes for the past 3 days. https://preview.redd.it/lhrjuq3jokqa1.png?width=3248&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=6cd968758e6117b80c631401baae19046a0bde99 Let's take a slightly longer view: 1 month. What a bloodbath! https://preview.redd.it/2941e1nhokqa1.png?width=1938&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=41190bdadc3d905ad1468bb2f5e5400634ba50e4 Man, these charts are really low information. Let's see if we can find something that actually tells us what's going on in the US Investment-grade Financial CDS space: https://preview.redd.it/omhx524eokqa1.png?width=2618&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=d34e7d222de192e38830920df37089561dcae2e2 The two lines up in the 350 - 400 range are CIT (Citi) with a value of 371 on 27 March and LNC with a value of 305 on the same date. Link to this exact chart is here: https://www.datagrapple.com/Grapple/6/10246/180375/5/YTD/false/HistoGraph You can also check out other countries CDS values too! European banks are having a bad time now too - some of 'em - so I'd encourage folks to check out those chart. Another good source: http://www.worldgovernmentbonds.com/cds-historical-data/united-states/5-years/ |
2023.03.29 02:22 Trash_Tia I’ve been talking to the boy next door through my window for a while. Update: The thing is… I don’t think he’s alive?
The boy next door is no longer an enigma.
No longer a mystery.
For the last few days, I have been laying low after Mrs Wilder kidnapped and threatened me in my own home. I’ve had barely any sleep and my lack of it has definitely disrupted my ability to write. I’m sorry if this update is messy or full of typos. I just don’t know what to do.
I’ve been a mess. I’ve been jumping at every movement. Every time there’s a knock on the door I feel part of myself splinter into pieces I can’t put back together. I did something crazy stupid two days ago. And that stupid mistake has fully exposed me to Mrs Wilder’s secret. What she is hiding behind her walls—and just how fucked I truly am if I disobey her again. Like I said, over the last several days I have been keeping my head down.
I went to school and did my homework and went to bed. That was it. When mom asked if I was talking to any Wilder kids, I shook my head. I had quickly grown afraid of Casper Wilder’s window. I knew something was wrong with him.
Something is wrong with his head.
He had told me. At least, the part of him which was bleeding between consciousness and a submissive state not being controlled by his psychotic mother. I saw him. I saw who he really was. I saw the boy next door crying out to me for help through bloodied fingers and cryptic messages splattered in scarlet. If he had intentionally hurt himself to get messages across to me, there was something he was fighting.
Mrs Wilder’s words were haunting me. The paper-doll rendition of me, blackened and smouldering orange between her nimble fingers-- I couldn’t get it out of my head.
So, I grabbed all the paper I could find and taped up my window, blocking him out. It sounds ridiculous. And it was. Because once I had spent over an hour feverishly taping pieces of paper over my window, I tore them down with a knot in my gut. When I clawed away the last piece of paper, I got a glimpse of Casper. His curtains were open, allowing me to see inside his room once more.
I saw a normal guy’s bedroom once again, guitars leaning against the walls, clothes strewn over the floor and sketchpads littering the bed. Warm light illuminated the window, and I wished what I was seeing was normal.
I wished I had seen nothing bad, and this was just the boy next door.
My completely normal neighbor.
But I couldn’t deny what I’d seen two nights ago. Casper Wilder wasn’t standing at his window with a twisted expression, a cocktail of pain and anger and confusion burning in mismatched eyes I was sure glinted with something metallic. Something man-made—which had been inserted, no, forced inside him.
I expected him to be awake. Even if it was just a single look in his eye which told me he was still there—still holding on. No. It was like nothing had ever happened. The window had been cleaned of blood, and there were no traces of the boy who had cried out for help. In his place was the Wilder son I had found friendship with. Before he cracked, and something inside him, something buried deep, deep, down, ignited. I missed that version of him. Who he used to be.
Because this guy was not Casper Wilder. I didn’t know who he was—and neither did he from the way he’d reacted days before. Underneath this name being forced onto him, there was nothing.
Just a broken kid with no name. No memory, except ones filled with her. I missed the personality Mrs Wilder was trying to hide. Who had told me she wasn’t his fucking mother, and sworn at me, his writing erratic and confusing, clawing into his head with this desperation to be let go.
Seeing him through the window at that moment, I realised, a sickly paste crawling up my throat, that all of that had been erased. He had returned to default. Casper was sitting on his bed playing guitar with a look of content, bed hair falling in sleepy eyes. He was wearing his glasses this time. His fingers moved up and down, feet bouncing to a beat I couldn’t hear.
Stumbling back, I tripped over my backpack with a shriek, which caught Casper’s attention.
When his head twisted around, empty eyes floating towards the window, I ducked. I couldn’t stop myself. After counting to ten, I slowly lifted my gaze.
He was still staring at me, and I noticed he’d stopped playing the guitar, fingers entangled in the strings. Casper’s smile had dimmed slightly. I wondered if seeing me brought something back. Maybe he remembered writing his own bloody messages on the window and trying and failing to speak through his mother’s control. The boy blinked at me before slowly getting to his feet. I didn’t see the chord thing this time. Casper strode over to the window, a giddy smile curling on the edges of his lips.
He pressed his palm against the glass, and I was already grabbing my notepad and a pen. But then his mother’s words sliced through my thoughts. I was back inside my lounge, foggy headed, the stink of pool cleaner still thick at the back of my nose and throat.
Mrs Wilder loomed over me, my paper-doll she had ravaged sticking from the doll-house on mom’s coffee table constructed from our letters. “I hope you understand that if you talk to, or even breathe the same air as my children again, I will rip you apart too.”
Her breath was heavy in my face. I couldn’t help looking at Mrs Becker for help, but her eyes were equally as cruel. I watched perfectly manicured nails pick up one of the four Wilder dolls, making it dance around in circles.
“Do you understand me, Phoebe?”
“Yes.” I said, my words twisted on my tongue.
“I… I understand.”
The memory was painful enough to feel physical knives digging into my gut. Mrs Wilder had made it clear that if I pursued her children, she was going to hurt me. Mom, too. I dropped my notepad and pen. Casper was still smiling at me. His eyes were vacant. He had no idea who I was after months of us talking. Mrs Wilder had taken all of it away. Including him breaking apart and waking up as a confused shell with no name. “Hello.” Casper’s lips mouthed the words, and I took several steps back, my heart in my throat.
He didn’t even blink. I watched his expression fail to flicker and wondered just how the fuck had I never noticed there was something wrong with him in the months I knew him. I watched him search his desk for a notepad and pen. Maybe seeing me was unravelling something inside him, I thought. Maybe I could try and wake him up again. At the back of my mind, however, I could still see my little paper doll’s head being torn off, its body ripped apart.
“What’s your name?” Casper had written in bubble writing. It’s like everything had been reset. His frenzied and wild eyes, that desperation to escape. Gone.
His handwriting was boiling my blood. Just looking at this perfect calligraphy which wasn’t even his. It had been forced onto him. Because Mrs Wilder expected this boy to be the perfect son, a creative prodigy like his siblings. I looked for a splinter in his eyes, just a glimpse that he was still in there. Still fighting whatever his ‘mother’ had done to him. But I saw nothing. I saw a blank fucking slate.
“Phoebe.” I mouthed.
Inclining his head, he scribbled a follow up message. “Can you write it down?”
Swallowing a lump in my throat, I shut my curtains, blocking him and his message out. Then I jumped into bed, turned off my light, and dreamed I was that paper-doll with no mouth to scream with, as Mrs Wilder slowly tore me limb from limb. The next day felt like a blur. I don’t think I snapped out of it until mom poked me with the prongs of her fork, tearing me from a scenario I was going over in my head.
If Casper was a prisoner, were his siblings too? I’d only caught a glimpse of Issac and Freddie Wilder. Mrs Wilder talked of being pregnant with four children. But she spoke like she had lost them. So, my guess was that she had kidnapped four teenager’s in their place—and was raising them as her dead children. “Are you okay, honey?”
Mom’s voice slid through my thoughts, and I realised I had been pushing my pasta around my plate. I wasn’t really hungry.
Mom had made this sort of red pepper spaghetti, but every time I tried to take a mouthful, I was seeing spatters of scarlet running from Casper’s temples, dripping down his face and smudged on the glass of his window. THUD. The image of him slamming his head into the pane, wild eyes and twisted lips, an agonising panic bringing him to the edge of hysteria caught me off guard, and my fork slipped through my fingers, tomato sauce slowly creeping its way back up my throat.
Fuck. I couldn’t forget about him. I couldn’t leave him and block him out after his mother had threatened me. Because if I didn’t help him, who would? It was my word against the town.
Mom cleared her throat
“Phoebe, are you listening to me?”
“Huh?”
“I said, have you been abiding by the rules?” Mom twirled pasta around her fork and took a dainty bite. Since joining Mrs Becker’s book club I had noticed a certain gleam in her eye. Like she was looking through me. “You haven’t been talking to the Wilder children, have you?”
“No.”
After three mouthfuls of spaghetti, I ended up with half of my dinner dripping down my face.
Mom grabbed a napkin, handing it to me. “Clean yourself up. You are seventeen, not seven.” Her expression softened. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“Yes.” I said, struggling to appear it. I knew she could see my sleep circles.
“Have you been talking to the Wilder kids? I’ll know if you have.”
Technically, I had been communicating with him. But it was one-sided.
Still though, paranoia turned my thoughts against me. Shovelling down spaghetti, I spoke through a mouthful. “No.”
She handed me another napkin. “So, if I talk to Mrs Wilder…”
“Mom.” I grabbed her hand, squeezing it for dear life. Mrs Wilder knew, I thought dizzily. She must have known Casper’s attempt to talk to me, even if he was exactly who she wanted him to be. Still under her demented control. But it was confusing me just how she had that control. This wasn’t a movie or a TV show.
Mind control didn’t exist, right? And if it did, it was barely even a thing—induced by cocktails of drugs and torture. Casper didn’t look like he’d been tortured.
Except that thing inside his head… my thoughts grew foggy, and I was suddenly overcome with emotion. What I meant to tell her was all about what I had seen, and what Mrs Wilder had done to me. Though knowing what the woman was capable of, and thinking about that chord-like thing which surely had been forced into the back of Casper Wilder’s skull… “Can we just…move?” I choked out. “I want to move. I hate it here.” I gestured around.
“I hate this house. It’s too big, I feel like I’m lost every time I go upstairs. I hate school. The kids there freak me out.” Holding her gaze, I curled my lip. “And I hate our stupid neighbors.”
“Phoebe.” Mom’s tone darkened. “What did I tell you about being respectful?”
“It’s not like they can hear us!” I spat. “Did they fit cameras in here, mom? I wouldn’t be surprised! We’re under draconian rules!”
“Young lady, you are acting like a child.” She said stiffly. “Take several deep breaths and tell me what is wrong.”
“I’m fine.” I whispered.
“No, you are not.” Mom sipped red wine. “I know when there is something wrong with my daughter, and you cannot look me in the eye.”
I took a sharp breath and forced myself to stay calm. “Mom.” I sputtered through a sob. “It’s Mrs Wilder. She… she did something to me.”
Mom’s expression twisted. “What?”
“The other night,” I forced out. The images were flooding my head. Smouldering orange tearing its way through paper white. “She knocked me out, and she had this… dollhouse. And four paper dolls.”
I heaved out a breath. “She threatened me, mom. Mrs Wilder threatened me, and I need you to believe me.” I grabbed for her hand again, my own trembling. “Casper Wilder is not her son.” I said. The words felt foreign on my tongue. Wrong. They felt like a time bomb. “I think she kidnapped him. All of them. And she’s brainwashed them into thinking they’re her real kids.” There was a pause, and my mom’s expression didn’t change. So, I continued. “We need to call the police.” I reiterated. “Okay? You’re listening to me, aren’t you?” I swallowed sobs wracking my chest. “Because… you’re my mom. And you’re supposed to believe me.”
She surprised me with an eye-roll. “You are being ridiculous.”
THUD.
It felt like the walls were suddenly closing in. I could smell the stink of pool cleaner and Mrs Wilder’s perfume intoxicating my senses.
THUD.
I was seeing Casper slamming his head into his window once again, his eyes alive with a light I couldn’t understand. Like something was entwined inside his pupil.
THUD.
“Help me.”
God, it wouldn’t stop.
His voice. It was driving me crazy.
“I don’t know who I am.” Casper’s sobs echoed. “I don’t… I don’t fucking know who I am! I can’t remember… I can’t remember who I am!”
I could see his words clear in my mind, red scrawled against white until they were barely readable.
WHO.
AM.
I?
WHO AM I? WHO AM I? WHO AM I? I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM. THAT WOMAN IS NOT MY MOM.
I was going to be sick.
“Mom,” The words were choking from my mouth before I could stop them. I didn’t mean to sound so childlike, but that is exactly what I felt like. A child. I was alone. Drowning.
Looking at my mother’s curled lips, her eyes burning right through me, I felt myself start to come apart.
Like that stupid doll.
“Mom, please—”
She cut me off with a snort. “What? Is this because you're not allowed to talk to the boy next door? You’re creating your own narrative, and it’s… endearing. Childlike, but you are a child after all." Mom chuckled. “Sweetie, I know you love your mysteries, and sure, I can understand the cliché Romeo and Juliet thing going on, but really, there are plenty more fish in the sea. You don’t have to make up ridiculous scenarios.”
I let go of her hand, my toes curling. They didn’t sound like her words. They were someone else’s.
What was she talking about, ridiculous scenarios? Did my mother really think I was capable of imagining all of this shit?
I couldn’t reply. Not when part of me wondered if these were even her words. I had a strong suspicion my mom was just a puppet.
Like someone was talking through her.
“Do you like him?” Mom pressed. In her eyes, I could see Mrs Wilder was asking that question. “Is that why you’re being so… “ She trailed off with a sigh, and I glimpsed her fingers tighten around her wine glass, pressing enough pressure to leave marks on the rim. “Difficult?”
Mom’s lips splintered into a grin which wasn’t hers, and something inside me snapped. She was joking around.
When Casper was suffering, a prisoner of his own mind, my mother was treating me like I was fucking love-sick.
"No!" I shook my head. “No, I want to move.” I whispered. “I want to go back to our old house.”
“That’s not going to happen, sweetie. You know I can’t just leave my job. Phoebe, you’re a senior at school. You have SAT’S.”
“But—"
Her expression softened. “You’ll grow to like it. Don’t worry.” She said, before standing up and carrying our plates to the faucet. “I have a late shift tonight, so I expect your best behaviour.” I barely felt mom press a kiss to my forehead.
Her presence felt strange, like I wasn’t even seeing my mother. After what she said, I was sure her words were being pupiteered. When mom went to work, after yelling that there were leftovers on the counter, I was left with the soundtrack of a stupid dripping tap, and our humming refrigerator. I made several promises to myself in the time I was in the kitchen.
I would save Casper and his siblings, and then I’d force mom to drive all of us out of town. There were logistics I didn’t want to think about. These were feverish thoughts which controlled me. I had to get them out of that house. Time seemed to go by slowly. When I lifted my head from where I’d been staring at leftover meatballs I dropped onto the table, my phone vibrated in my jeans. Pulling it out, there was a DM regarding my post I wrote on here.
I read it. Then I read it again and again until I could process it.
“Film it. Literally get evidence of what is going on with Casper. You need people to believe you. And if people are going to believe you, you need to make a scene. If you want that house stormed, make as much noise as possible. I know it sounds stupid, but think about it like this. All you need is attention. Mrs Wilder can’t hide from the world if you show the world what’s going on. Good luck, Phoebe. Please be safe.”
-- A friend.
I was shaking when I knocked on the Wilder’s door fifteen minutes later. I knew exactly how to cause a scene.
Mrs Wilder answered, her expression cross between frustrated and bewildered. But I could barely focus on her, or the fact that she was holding a ladle like a weapon. The second the door opened revealing Casper’s mom drowning in a homely golden light, something slammed into me. Nothing physical, though it might as well have been. I forced myself to breathe through the stink which hit me like a brick to the face, suffocating my nose and mouth. Lavender. Not just lavender. The expensive flowers mom would get grocery shopping.
The ones which made me sneeze when I leaned too close. The house stunk of flowers—and that was just from standing on the threshold. But I knew better. I knew, once sweet smelling salts and flowers entwined in my senses, that the stink was to cover something up. And the more I edged closer over the threshold, the true smell of the Wilder house began to snake into my nose. Rot. I had once left a donut under my bed as a kid as an experiment to see if I could grow a whole new species. But this wasn’t mouldy food. It was far more potent. More like a decaying animal.
“Phoebe!” Mrs Wilder folded her arms across her apron. “I’m sorry, were my instructions not clear?” She cocked her head, an amused smile curving on her lips. She was triumphant, knowing exactly how to get under my skin. “Are you aware of what a restraining order is?”
Ignoring the smell choking the air, I held up my phone. “I’m live on Instagram.” I said. “Can I come in?”
I’m not sure why, but seeing her cheeks turn white made me feel like I was the one in control. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Live.” I repeated with a cheery wave. “On Instagram.”
I expected her to shove me back, or call out my bluff (yes, I was bluffing). Instead though, the women’s resolve seemed to crumble, her expression twisting, fear igniting in her eyes. She stammered for a moment, her gaze flashing to my phone before she wrapped her arms around herself and seemed to force a nod. “This is my house.” Her voice came out in a hiss.
Mrs Wilder was talking straight to the camera, and clearly faking terror. “Phoebe Daly, this is far past your usual games. This is… this is trespassing! Do you hear me? I’m calling the police!” Mrs Wilder didn’t call the police.
She held her phone to her ear but didn’t dare dial a number. I could see her options flitting across her eyes.
Was she going to attack me, or play it cool? Playing it cool, it was. With a face like thunder, she stumbled aside when I took a step forward and asked to be let inside. I wasn’t live on Instagram. I had barely 10 followers.
But she didn’t know that. Instead of being live, I was filming everything with my normal phone camera, angled at a height so she couldn’t slap it out of my hands. Watching her stumble back, panic twisting her expression into fury and frustration filled me with satisfaction. I had her. The crazy witch really thought I was streaming. I used that to my advantage, making sure to commentate to my imaginary audience as she led me down the main hallway, and I made sure to point the camera at everything I could see. Kids photographs covered neat paintwork.
But they were all different young children taken from a distance. Towards the end of the hall, what I saw did send my heart into my gut. And for a moment—just a brief second—I actually felt sympathy for Casper’s mom.
Four ultrasound’s.
I didn’t let the camera linger on them, instead going to the woman herself, who was following me, trying and failing to stall my effort to delve further inside the house. She stepped in front of me with a huff. “Phoebe. That is enough! You have terrorised me to no end!” her voice rose into a whine. “Whoever you are, Phoebe’s friends! This brat is targeting my children!”
“Casper!” I yelled, ignoring her. “Are you there?”
No answer.
My heart dropped into my gut, though I wasn’t giving up. I had the advantage, and I had to play to it.
“Casper!”
I ran up the first few steps leading upstairs, but Mrs Wilder seemed far too focused on shielding the door at the end of the hall.
“What’s in the kitchen?” I asked with a lump in my throat. Backing down the stairs, I made my way towards her.
“Nothing is in the kitchen!” she spat back, feigning innocence. “We’re having dinner if you must know. And you are ruining it!”
I shook my head. “This is Mrs Wilder,” I announced, pointing the phone at her. “She is holding four teenagers against their will and claiming them as her own children.” I said smoothly. When we reached a sliding glass door leading into the kitchen, I grabbed the handle with force.
Her rough hand slammed over mine, claw-like fingernails slicing my flesh. “Get out of my house,” she said stiffly. “Young lady, you are trespassing on my property.” Every word came out in globules of saliva hitting me in the face. “I have never met such a disruptive and outright disrespectful child without discipline. Your mother should be ashamed of herself.” She shot a nervous look at my phone camera.
“Where’s Mrs Becker?” I asked.
“What?”
Mrs Becker.” I repeated. “She helped you kidnap and scare me into staying quiet the other day. So, where is she?”
She spluttered, clearly caught off guard. “You are delusional!”
“Then show me them.” I said, pointing the camera at the door. “Your children, Mrs Wilder. I want you to show me Issac, Matilda, Freddie, and…” I swallowed hard. “And Casper.” Ignoring her steel grasp on the door handle, I pulled it open, trying to ignore the sudden squawking noise which had escaped her mouth, slamming into my ears. I can’t describe it. Mom has spoken about a mother instinct, and I wonder if it truly was that. This was animalistic. Feral.
Immediately, Mrs Wilder was behind me like a beast, her trembling arms trying to grasp hold of me and drag me back violently. But I was stronger, and desperate. I had to know the Wilder's secret. Stepping over the threshold, I was first aware of a far dimmer light. And when I fully focused on the room, I realised I was seeing candlelight. In front of me was a hardwood dining room table, and five chairs—four of which were occupied. The kitchen was a copy of our own. Except ours had always been lit up and bright.
It felt more like I was stepping inside a cave. An orangeade blur illuminated each face. Three out of four bodies sat stiff, almost… doll like. Mechanical. The way the three were facing me. Their expressions matched perfectly. Wide eyes and wider grins splitting lips apart. I drank each Wilder kid in slowly, as my brain struggled to take in the real horror of the room. What I was failing to fully take in. I couldn’t. I don’t think I could physically understand what I was seeing. I was aware my phone had slipped from my fingers, that I was paralysed to the spot.
The smell of stink and rot, I thought.
It was them.
I couldn’t move. There were three boys, and one girl. Matilda Wilder was a mousey redhead while her brothers were all brunettes. She wore a purple dress which fit her perfectly, her hair tied into pigtails with red ribbons. Issac and Freddie Wilder sat shoulder to shoulder.
They were the twins, I thought dizzily. They were identical twins in Mrs Wilder’s eyes, but these guys looked nothing like each other—one of them sporting a handsome face and razor jawline, while the other had an odd looking nose and jutting chin. Still though, I could tell Mrs Wilder had made an effort to make them look… beautiful. Perfect. I could see her attempt at stitching their lips together.
It wasn’t their appearance that was gluing me to the ground, however. Because looking closer, past the made-up faces on both the boys and the girls, the ribbons and fancy clothes and empty eyes staring right through me, soft candlelight was slowly bringing them to life in front of me. These kids had been hidden away for so long, and I was finally seeing them for who they were. My gaze flicked to each of them. I was seeing… stitches. I was seeing rugged stitches and gashes in their flesh, patchwork skin making up fingers and elbows and cheeks. They had been taken apart over and over again and put back together.
Matilda’s neck was a collage of flesh, rugged markings where a marker pen had clumsily sliced into her skin and pieced her like a jigsaw through mangled body parts and anything left over. Freddie and Isaac’s heads were cocked at an angle, and looking closer I glimpsed the bad stitch-job which had knitted them together.
I could see it in all of them. None of these kids were their original selves. They reminded me of dolls built through old doll pieces. I didn’t know I was screaming until the gravity of the situation hit me, and I realised I was suffocating on dead skin which made them up, their bodies stitched and knitted together, transforming them into her ideal children. Flickering candlelight revealed the last Wilder kid.
There were two significant things which were different about Casper.
The first, was that he must have been her most recent. He was her most… original—and the second? Unlike the others, he was awake.
Until that moment, Casper had been sitting amongst his siblings, head cocked to the side like the others, catatonic.
His dazed eyes slowly found mine—and I glimpsed recognition flickering in his expression, his rigid body starting to contort back to life. He was her paper-doll.
But Casper wasn’t finished.
“Phoebe?” When the boy spoke, his voice was barely a whimper. Frenzied eyes flicked from Matilda to Issac and Freddie, all of which were still wearing their perfect smiles. I noticed the rugged skin of his neck, and my heart sank.
Something was moving behind him, and I forced myself to step forwards. I glimpsed that same chord-like thing. This time it was fully attacked to him. No, it was buried directly inside his head. A sour paste crept up my throat when I saw the carnivorous hole burrowing deeper inside his head. I could glimpse the intense white of chipped skull and a strange looking fluid leaking out —but it looked… wrong. I’ve always imagined the internals of someone’s brain to be pinkish grey. Though what I was seeing was more like a black ooze sliding down the back of his neck. It reminded me of squid-ink. Definitely not blood.
It looked like he had been shot in the head, or had been pulled out of the operating theatre mid-surgery. And somehow, he was still alive. Just like the description, the chord-thing seemed to be attached in two places—to the back of the head, directly on the brain, and stapled to his spine. The device was humming, but I don’t think it was working.
Casper was looking directly at me, and the way his body was angled was different to his siblings. Instead of sitting straight, he was trying and failing to jump to his feet, his eyes wide, almost unseeing. I could see that frustration and anger, that pain from the other night alive in his face. I opened my mouth to speak, though Casper was already lifting a trembling hand, his fingers twining around the chord and giving a pathetic tug. A thin line of dark red, almost black, slid from his nostril.
I knew it was him. “Can you… can you get… it… out?” His hand found the chord again, and his grasp slipped. “Please.” He whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “There’s something… in my… my head, and I need you to… I need you to fucking get it out…. right now.”
“Casper.” I couldn’t resist a relieved hiss. “This woman.” I twisted and pointed at Mrs Wilder.
“Who is she to you?”
The kid blinked, his eyes narrowing. He jolted, twisting around to try and see the thing attached to him. “Why would I know her? Get this shit out of my head!”
He let out a hysterical yell. His cry was more of a demand, and that nameless boy underneath splintered doll pieces began to unravel.
“Get it out.” He kept repeating. “Fucking get it out! There’s something inside my head!”
I nodded, choking back a cry.
He slammed his hands down, but seemingly couldn’t move from the chair. “What the fuck.” He side eyed the others. “What the fuck is this?”
I struggled to answer without screaming myself. “Stuff.” I managed to get out through a sputter. “Can you stand up?”
“What?” He blinked rapidly at me, I was seeing it again. That odd light flickering in his pupils.
“No. I can’t move!”
The humming grew louder, and at the corner of my eye, that thing seemed to dig deeper inside his head.
More blood spurted from his nose, and I could tell that he was fighting it.
The boy’s eyes found mine, his words tangling into an almost slur. “Get it out! I can’t… I can’t fucking think straight. I…. I….”
His eyes rolled back for a moment before he shook his head, lunging against the chair. His head twitched. “I don’t know I am.”
I couldn’t move. Watching this thing take control in real time, it was both fascinating and horrifying, sending my knees buckling.
“Who… who am I?”
His whole head twitched, like he was glitching.
“I know her. I… I know her. I’m her… I’m her son… I’m her s—son.”
Casper hummed, his twitching lips pricking into a demented smile. “I’ll always know her. She’s the one who… who s---saved me.”
Choking on a shade too vivid and dark to be blood, he sputtered, his head drooping.
“Mom?” Casper spoke through mouthfuls of pooling black. He lifted his head, unseeing eyes blinking in dim candlelight. The chord-like thing sounded more like it was drilling into his brain, and I knew I was fucked when his lips spread out into a childlike smile, and he swayed to the left and then the right, the light in his eyes burning. “There’s… water.” He whispered. “So… so cold. I’m so cold.” His voice broke.
“I don’t… want to be cold.”
“You won’t be cold.” Mrs Wilder’s voice was a sharp cry behind me. “Ever again. Your mom is here.”
“Promise? You n… need to… prom…promise me.” His teeth chattered. “You need to… tell me… I won’t… be cold. That my mom… is coming.”
“I promise, darling.”
“Mommy?”
“No,” I swallowed back frustrated tears. “Casper, she’s not your mother!”
His next words split into a guttural screech which almost sent him toppling off of the chair. He grabbed at his head, clawing at face.
But the more he was tugging, the machine fought against him. I could see metallic clamp-like legs stubbornly holding on.
His next words were mangled between cries from his conscious self, and whatever the fuck his ‘mother’ was forcing into his head.
And yet it barely grazed my ears. I was trying to figure out how to get that monumental THING out of his brain. There was no way I could just pull it out. That could kill him, right?
I started forwards to grab him, to try and pry the clamp off his spine, before I was being smothered with the stink of rich lavender. I hadn’t noticed Mrs Wilder swipe up my phone. She was holding it up in the air. “Live? You were never filming anything, you stupid girl! Do you understand what you have done?” She laughed—and I mean cackled like a witch. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
I got one last glimpse of Casper. His whole body was jerking under the chord inside his head, but he wasn’t crying out anymore.
Before I knew what was happening, I was being dragged back, and in front of me a Wilder boy shoving his struggling brother back into the chair. I didn’t have time to cry out.
With strength I had no idea the crazy bitch had, I was being violently yanked by my hair. And while I was flailing, I saw the ultrasound’s once again. Looking closer though, each one had a different name. A different mother. My head spun. That couldn’t be right. Mrs Wilder told me she was pregnant with four children, so who’s ultrasound’s were these? And why had she framed them? I didn’t have time to check it out.
I was dumped on my ass and the door was slammed straight in my face. I tried to get back in, throwing my fists into the door, until my own mother’s arms were pulling me back. I was hysterical. I couldn’t breathe, and mom wasn’t getting through to me. I’d kicked and thrown myself into the door, attracting the attention of our neighbours. That’s what I wanted. I wanted one of them to call the police, and when I picked up a brick, struggling against mom’s attempt to restrain me, and throwing it through the Wilder’s front window, I finally got it.
Two cops arrived, and I was so relieved I almost sobbed into one officer's chest. While my mom was trying and failing to explain my “breakdown” I begged them to take a look inside. And I was loud. I was screaming.
Which they couldn’t ignore.
“Phoebe!” I was partially aware of mom’s voice trying to calm me down, but I all I could see was that thing in Casper’s head, and his siblings made from knitted flesh. When the officer’s exited the Wilder’s house after five painful minutes waiting, I stumbled over to the two.
“Well?” I demanded, shoving away my mom. “Did you see them?” I yelled. “She’s turned them into… into dolls!” I was already going on a tangent, hysteria plunging me further into my own insanity.
“They’re not her children.” I gritted out. “She kidnapped and.. and stitched them up like… like Frankenstein! Mrs Wilder likes dolls! She had this paper-doll of me when she kidnapped me and lit it on fire to threaten me because I was talking to Casper. And he… he’s one of them, and not even her son! She’s controlling his mind with this thing stuck inside—"
“That’s enough!” Mom snapped.
The officer in front of me chuckled. “Breathe, kid!” He said. “Jeez. You’re not even giving us time to talk.”
“What?”
Instead of speaking to me directly, the officer turned to mom. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary, ma’am.” He said. “The Wilder’s were enjoying a family dinner, and…” his gaze flashed to me. “Well. It appears someone ruined it. There are no current reports of child abduction.”
I couldn’t resist a laugh. “Are you serious? Did you not… did you not see—”
He cut me off. “There they are!” He chuckled. “The Wilder siblings!” The officer saluted the four of them who had wandered outside trailing their mother. Ignoring the other three, I made my way over to Casper. But he looked… I don’t know, he looked like he usually did through his window? There were no stitches or patchwork skin. He was wearing a beanie, and I reached to yank it off, when his hand caught mine.
He was freezing cold.
His skin felt almost slimy, like I was touching the skin of a dead fish. I wanted to hold on, to force the cops to believe me, but he was already speaking—his voice was different, a lot deeper than the hysterical cry of the boy underneath. “Mom?” Casper’s eyes were cold. He shoved my hand away before taking a shaky step back. Like I was crazy. He quickly joined his siblings.
“Who is this girl?”
“We’re going home.” Mom said, grasping my arm. “Can’t you see you’ve embarrassed me enough?”
“Phoebe, huh?”
I turned to find the other Wilder kids. The guy with the jawline still had that doll-like smile. “Please leave our brother alone.”
I couldn’t resist spitting at him. “He’s not your brother. You’re brainwashed.”
Something in his expression seemed to twitch suddenly. Mom tried to pull me back, but I stubbornly stayed where I was.
Issac or Freddie cocked his head. “Brain... washed?"
He started to speak, before Mrs Wilder ushered them all away. But I did notice him turn back to frown at me.
Needless to say, I was grounded—and threatened with a restraining order.
That didn’t stop me peeking through the gap in Casper’s curtains that night. I caught him stumbling around, struggling to get the chord-thing out of his head with manic hands. He came over to the window several times, his bloody hands slamming into the window before slipping away. I'm not sure, but I don't think he knew why his legs kept drawing him to the window.
Mrs Wilder joined him soon after, forcing him to bite into something plastic, as she led him to sit on the bed, her fingers wrapping around the chord, and yanking it out. I didn't hear his scream, but his reaction to it, body writhing, eyes squeezing shut, I knew he could feel it. And part of him was awake. Just part of him.
Not the parts who knew our window sessions and his horrifying reality.
Casper came to his window all bandaged up. He didn’t hold up a message, and his eyes were vacant.
Though his expression told me everything I needed to know.
Engines woke me up several hours later. It was midnight. Sliding out of bed, my gaze went straight to Casper’s window. But it was dark. I pressed my face against my own window and glimpsed Mrs Wilder standing on her lawn in her robe.
A car pulled up, and the cop from earlier jumped out. In his arms was what looked like a body bag. He dropped it on the ground. “Freshly dead.” He said, when I opened my window to hear what was being said. “Car crash. Victim is male. Eighteen years old.” He folded his arms with a light laugh. “I got him straight from the morgue. His parents think there’s no body.” Both of them knelt next to the bag, and Mrs Wilder zipped it open with a hiss.
When the bag jolted suddenly, I realised the body was still alive.
The officer stumbled back. “Jesus. I didn’t even use that much. You said a single shot, right?”
“Mmm.”
Mrs Wilder pulled out a carving knife from her robe, and I felt my entire body turn to ice.
The cop raised a brow. “You came prepared.”
She sighed, her hands on her hips. “He’s spare parts. The expiry is approaching which is why they’re… acting out.”
With startling precision, she aimed the knife above what I guessed was the body’s head, before bringing it down with a sickening crunch. The bag stopped squirming.
I can’t remember anything else from that night.
My mother was gone the next morning. A paper doll replica of her was sitting next to a note and a plate of freshly baked cookies.
“Dearest, Phoebe.
I baked these thinking of you! And my, you should be grateful I have even bothered to do this after playing your games last night. Honestly, I am not the monster you think I am. Your mom asked me to let you know she will be busy with me for a few hours.
I’ve been asked to take care of you, so here are some chocolate cookies! Please maintain the rule I set in place and do not go near or talk to my children. I’m sure you know what will happen if you happen to slip up. I took the liberty of asking your mother to fit specialised devices in your room so I know when you are talking to my son. Writing equipment has been taken away. I hope we can be friends and I can start calling you my daughter. If something were to happen to your mom, do not worry. I will take you in. I want you to remember that.
Love,
Mrs Wilder.
PS: I can’t wait for you to (not) meet my newest son!
submitted by Trash_Tia to TheCrypticCompendium [link] [comments]
No longer a mystery.
For the last few days, I have been laying low after Mrs Wilder kidnapped and threatened me in my own home. I’ve had barely any sleep and my lack of it has definitely disrupted my ability to write. I’m sorry if this update is messy or full of typos. I just don’t know what to do.
I’ve been a mess. I’ve been jumping at every movement. Every time there’s a knock on the door I feel part of myself splinter into pieces I can’t put back together. I did something crazy stupid two days ago. And that stupid mistake has fully exposed me to Mrs Wilder’s secret. What she is hiding behind her walls—and just how fucked I truly am if I disobey her again. Like I said, over the last several days I have been keeping my head down.
I went to school and did my homework and went to bed. That was it. When mom asked if I was talking to any Wilder kids, I shook my head. I had quickly grown afraid of Casper Wilder’s window. I knew something was wrong with him.
Something is wrong with his head.
He had told me. At least, the part of him which was bleeding between consciousness and a submissive state not being controlled by his psychotic mother. I saw him. I saw who he really was. I saw the boy next door crying out to me for help through bloodied fingers and cryptic messages splattered in scarlet. If he had intentionally hurt himself to get messages across to me, there was something he was fighting.
Mrs Wilder’s words were haunting me. The paper-doll rendition of me, blackened and smouldering orange between her nimble fingers-- I couldn’t get it out of my head.
So, I grabbed all the paper I could find and taped up my window, blocking him out. It sounds ridiculous. And it was. Because once I had spent over an hour feverishly taping pieces of paper over my window, I tore them down with a knot in my gut. When I clawed away the last piece of paper, I got a glimpse of Casper. His curtains were open, allowing me to see inside his room once more.
I saw a normal guy’s bedroom once again, guitars leaning against the walls, clothes strewn over the floor and sketchpads littering the bed. Warm light illuminated the window, and I wished what I was seeing was normal.
I wished I had seen nothing bad, and this was just the boy next door.
My completely normal neighbor.
But I couldn’t deny what I’d seen two nights ago. Casper Wilder wasn’t standing at his window with a twisted expression, a cocktail of pain and anger and confusion burning in mismatched eyes I was sure glinted with something metallic. Something man-made—which had been inserted, no, forced inside him.
I expected him to be awake. Even if it was just a single look in his eye which told me he was still there—still holding on. No. It was like nothing had ever happened. The window had been cleaned of blood, and there were no traces of the boy who had cried out for help. In his place was the Wilder son I had found friendship with. Before he cracked, and something inside him, something buried deep, deep, down, ignited. I missed that version of him. Who he used to be.
Because this guy was not Casper Wilder. I didn’t know who he was—and neither did he from the way he’d reacted days before. Underneath this name being forced onto him, there was nothing.
Just a broken kid with no name. No memory, except ones filled with her. I missed the personality Mrs Wilder was trying to hide. Who had told me she wasn’t his fucking mother, and sworn at me, his writing erratic and confusing, clawing into his head with this desperation to be let go.
Seeing him through the window at that moment, I realised, a sickly paste crawling up my throat, that all of that had been erased. He had returned to default. Casper was sitting on his bed playing guitar with a look of content, bed hair falling in sleepy eyes. He was wearing his glasses this time. His fingers moved up and down, feet bouncing to a beat I couldn’t hear.
Stumbling back, I tripped over my backpack with a shriek, which caught Casper’s attention.
When his head twisted around, empty eyes floating towards the window, I ducked. I couldn’t stop myself. After counting to ten, I slowly lifted my gaze.
He was still staring at me, and I noticed he’d stopped playing the guitar, fingers entangled in the strings. Casper’s smile had dimmed slightly. I wondered if seeing me brought something back. Maybe he remembered writing his own bloody messages on the window and trying and failing to speak through his mother’s control. The boy blinked at me before slowly getting to his feet. I didn’t see the chord thing this time. Casper strode over to the window, a giddy smile curling on the edges of his lips.
He pressed his palm against the glass, and I was already grabbing my notepad and a pen. But then his mother’s words sliced through my thoughts. I was back inside my lounge, foggy headed, the stink of pool cleaner still thick at the back of my nose and throat.
Mrs Wilder loomed over me, my paper-doll she had ravaged sticking from the doll-house on mom’s coffee table constructed from our letters. “I hope you understand that if you talk to, or even breathe the same air as my children again, I will rip you apart too.”
Her breath was heavy in my face. I couldn’t help looking at Mrs Becker for help, but her eyes were equally as cruel. I watched perfectly manicured nails pick up one of the four Wilder dolls, making it dance around in circles.
“Do you understand me, Phoebe?”
“Yes.” I said, my words twisted on my tongue.
“I… I understand.”
The memory was painful enough to feel physical knives digging into my gut. Mrs Wilder had made it clear that if I pursued her children, she was going to hurt me. Mom, too. I dropped my notepad and pen. Casper was still smiling at me. His eyes were vacant. He had no idea who I was after months of us talking. Mrs Wilder had taken all of it away. Including him breaking apart and waking up as a confused shell with no name. “Hello.” Casper’s lips mouthed the words, and I took several steps back, my heart in my throat.
He didn’t even blink. I watched his expression fail to flicker and wondered just how the fuck had I never noticed there was something wrong with him in the months I knew him. I watched him search his desk for a notepad and pen. Maybe seeing me was unravelling something inside him, I thought. Maybe I could try and wake him up again. At the back of my mind, however, I could still see my little paper doll’s head being torn off, its body ripped apart.
“What’s your name?” Casper had written in bubble writing. It’s like everything had been reset. His frenzied and wild eyes, that desperation to escape. Gone.
His handwriting was boiling my blood. Just looking at this perfect calligraphy which wasn’t even his. It had been forced onto him. Because Mrs Wilder expected this boy to be the perfect son, a creative prodigy like his siblings. I looked for a splinter in his eyes, just a glimpse that he was still in there. Still fighting whatever his ‘mother’ had done to him. But I saw nothing. I saw a blank fucking slate.
“Phoebe.” I mouthed.
Inclining his head, he scribbled a follow up message. “Can you write it down?”
Swallowing a lump in my throat, I shut my curtains, blocking him and his message out. Then I jumped into bed, turned off my light, and dreamed I was that paper-doll with no mouth to scream with, as Mrs Wilder slowly tore me limb from limb. The next day felt like a blur. I don’t think I snapped out of it until mom poked me with the prongs of her fork, tearing me from a scenario I was going over in my head.
If Casper was a prisoner, were his siblings too? I’d only caught a glimpse of Issac and Freddie Wilder. Mrs Wilder talked of being pregnant with four children. But she spoke like she had lost them. So, my guess was that she had kidnapped four teenager’s in their place—and was raising them as her dead children. “Are you okay, honey?”
Mom’s voice slid through my thoughts, and I realised I had been pushing my pasta around my plate. I wasn’t really hungry.
Mom had made this sort of red pepper spaghetti, but every time I tried to take a mouthful, I was seeing spatters of scarlet running from Casper’s temples, dripping down his face and smudged on the glass of his window. THUD. The image of him slamming his head into the pane, wild eyes and twisted lips, an agonising panic bringing him to the edge of hysteria caught me off guard, and my fork slipped through my fingers, tomato sauce slowly creeping its way back up my throat.
Fuck. I couldn’t forget about him. I couldn’t leave him and block him out after his mother had threatened me. Because if I didn’t help him, who would? It was my word against the town.
Mom cleared her throat
“Phoebe, are you listening to me?”
“Huh?”
“I said, have you been abiding by the rules?” Mom twirled pasta around her fork and took a dainty bite. Since joining Mrs Becker’s book club I had noticed a certain gleam in her eye. Like she was looking through me. “You haven’t been talking to the Wilder children, have you?”
“No.”
After three mouthfuls of spaghetti, I ended up with half of my dinner dripping down my face.
Mom grabbed a napkin, handing it to me. “Clean yourself up. You are seventeen, not seven.” Her expression softened. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“Yes.” I said, struggling to appear it. I knew she could see my sleep circles.
“Have you been talking to the Wilder kids? I’ll know if you have.”
Technically, I had been communicating with him. But it was one-sided.
Still though, paranoia turned my thoughts against me. Shovelling down spaghetti, I spoke through a mouthful. “No.”
She handed me another napkin. “So, if I talk to Mrs Wilder…”
“Mom.” I grabbed her hand, squeezing it for dear life. Mrs Wilder knew, I thought dizzily. She must have known Casper’s attempt to talk to me, even if he was exactly who she wanted him to be. Still under her demented control. But it was confusing me just how she had that control. This wasn’t a movie or a TV show.
Mind control didn’t exist, right? And if it did, it was barely even a thing—induced by cocktails of drugs and torture. Casper didn’t look like he’d been tortured.
Except that thing inside his head… my thoughts grew foggy, and I was suddenly overcome with emotion. What I meant to tell her was all about what I had seen, and what Mrs Wilder had done to me. Though knowing what the woman was capable of, and thinking about that chord-like thing which surely had been forced into the back of Casper Wilder’s skull… “Can we just…move?” I choked out. “I want to move. I hate it here.” I gestured around.
“I hate this house. It’s too big, I feel like I’m lost every time I go upstairs. I hate school. The kids there freak me out.” Holding her gaze, I curled my lip. “And I hate our stupid neighbors.”
“Phoebe.” Mom’s tone darkened. “What did I tell you about being respectful?”
“It’s not like they can hear us!” I spat. “Did they fit cameras in here, mom? I wouldn’t be surprised! We’re under draconian rules!”
“Young lady, you are acting like a child.” She said stiffly. “Take several deep breaths and tell me what is wrong.”
“I’m fine.” I whispered.
“No, you are not.” Mom sipped red wine. “I know when there is something wrong with my daughter, and you cannot look me in the eye.”
I took a sharp breath and forced myself to stay calm. “Mom.” I sputtered through a sob. “It’s Mrs Wilder. She… she did something to me.”
Mom’s expression twisted. “What?”
“The other night,” I forced out. The images were flooding my head. Smouldering orange tearing its way through paper white. “She knocked me out, and she had this… dollhouse. And four paper dolls.”
I heaved out a breath. “She threatened me, mom. Mrs Wilder threatened me, and I need you to believe me.” I grabbed for her hand again, my own trembling. “Casper Wilder is not her son.” I said. The words felt foreign on my tongue. Wrong. They felt like a time bomb. “I think she kidnapped him. All of them. And she’s brainwashed them into thinking they’re her real kids.” There was a pause, and my mom’s expression didn’t change. So, I continued. “We need to call the police.” I reiterated. “Okay? You’re listening to me, aren’t you?” I swallowed sobs wracking my chest. “Because… you’re my mom. And you’re supposed to believe me.”
She surprised me with an eye-roll. “You are being ridiculous.”
THUD.
It felt like the walls were suddenly closing in. I could smell the stink of pool cleaner and Mrs Wilder’s perfume intoxicating my senses.
THUD.
I was seeing Casper slamming his head into his window once again, his eyes alive with a light I couldn’t understand. Like something was entwined inside his pupil.
THUD.
“Help me.”
God, it wouldn’t stop.
His voice. It was driving me crazy.
“I don’t know who I am.” Casper’s sobs echoed. “I don’t… I don’t fucking know who I am! I can’t remember… I can’t remember who I am!”
I could see his words clear in my mind, red scrawled against white until they were barely readable.
WHO.
AM.
I?
WHO AM I? WHO AM I? WHO AM I? I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM. THAT WOMAN IS NOT MY MOM.
I was going to be sick.
“Mom,” The words were choking from my mouth before I could stop them. I didn’t mean to sound so childlike, but that is exactly what I felt like. A child. I was alone. Drowning.
Looking at my mother’s curled lips, her eyes burning right through me, I felt myself start to come apart.
Like that stupid doll.
“Mom, please—”
She cut me off with a snort. “What? Is this because you're not allowed to talk to the boy next door? You’re creating your own narrative, and it’s… endearing. Childlike, but you are a child after all." Mom chuckled. “Sweetie, I know you love your mysteries, and sure, I can understand the cliché Romeo and Juliet thing going on, but really, there are plenty more fish in the sea. You don’t have to make up ridiculous scenarios.”
I let go of her hand, my toes curling. They didn’t sound like her words. They were someone else’s.
What was she talking about, ridiculous scenarios? Did my mother really think I was capable of imagining all of this shit?
I couldn’t reply. Not when part of me wondered if these were even her words. I had a strong suspicion my mom was just a puppet.
Like someone was talking through her.
“Do you like him?” Mom pressed. In her eyes, I could see Mrs Wilder was asking that question. “Is that why you’re being so… “ She trailed off with a sigh, and I glimpsed her fingers tighten around her wine glass, pressing enough pressure to leave marks on the rim. “Difficult?”
Mom’s lips splintered into a grin which wasn’t hers, and something inside me snapped. She was joking around.
When Casper was suffering, a prisoner of his own mind, my mother was treating me like I was fucking love-sick.
"No!" I shook my head. “No, I want to move.” I whispered. “I want to go back to our old house.”
“That’s not going to happen, sweetie. You know I can’t just leave my job. Phoebe, you’re a senior at school. You have SAT’S.”
“But—"
Her expression softened. “You’ll grow to like it. Don’t worry.” She said, before standing up and carrying our plates to the faucet. “I have a late shift tonight, so I expect your best behaviour.” I barely felt mom press a kiss to my forehead.
Her presence felt strange, like I wasn’t even seeing my mother. After what she said, I was sure her words were being pupiteered. When mom went to work, after yelling that there were leftovers on the counter, I was left with the soundtrack of a stupid dripping tap, and our humming refrigerator. I made several promises to myself in the time I was in the kitchen.
I would save Casper and his siblings, and then I’d force mom to drive all of us out of town. There were logistics I didn’t want to think about. These were feverish thoughts which controlled me. I had to get them out of that house. Time seemed to go by slowly. When I lifted my head from where I’d been staring at leftover meatballs I dropped onto the table, my phone vibrated in my jeans. Pulling it out, there was a DM regarding my post I wrote on here.
I read it. Then I read it again and again until I could process it.
“Film it. Literally get evidence of what is going on with Casper. You need people to believe you. And if people are going to believe you, you need to make a scene. If you want that house stormed, make as much noise as possible. I know it sounds stupid, but think about it like this. All you need is attention. Mrs Wilder can’t hide from the world if you show the world what’s going on. Good luck, Phoebe. Please be safe.”
-- A friend.
I was shaking when I knocked on the Wilder’s door fifteen minutes later. I knew exactly how to cause a scene.
Mrs Wilder answered, her expression cross between frustrated and bewildered. But I could barely focus on her, or the fact that she was holding a ladle like a weapon. The second the door opened revealing Casper’s mom drowning in a homely golden light, something slammed into me. Nothing physical, though it might as well have been. I forced myself to breathe through the stink which hit me like a brick to the face, suffocating my nose and mouth. Lavender. Not just lavender. The expensive flowers mom would get grocery shopping.
The ones which made me sneeze when I leaned too close. The house stunk of flowers—and that was just from standing on the threshold. But I knew better. I knew, once sweet smelling salts and flowers entwined in my senses, that the stink was to cover something up. And the more I edged closer over the threshold, the true smell of the Wilder house began to snake into my nose. Rot. I had once left a donut under my bed as a kid as an experiment to see if I could grow a whole new species. But this wasn’t mouldy food. It was far more potent. More like a decaying animal.
“Phoebe!” Mrs Wilder folded her arms across her apron. “I’m sorry, were my instructions not clear?” She cocked her head, an amused smile curving on her lips. She was triumphant, knowing exactly how to get under my skin. “Are you aware of what a restraining order is?”
Ignoring the smell choking the air, I held up my phone. “I’m live on Instagram.” I said. “Can I come in?”
I’m not sure why, but seeing her cheeks turn white made me feel like I was the one in control. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Live.” I repeated with a cheery wave. “On Instagram.”
I expected her to shove me back, or call out my bluff (yes, I was bluffing). Instead though, the women’s resolve seemed to crumble, her expression twisting, fear igniting in her eyes. She stammered for a moment, her gaze flashing to my phone before she wrapped her arms around herself and seemed to force a nod. “This is my house.” Her voice came out in a hiss.
Mrs Wilder was talking straight to the camera, and clearly faking terror. “Phoebe Daly, this is far past your usual games. This is… this is trespassing! Do you hear me? I’m calling the police!” Mrs Wilder didn’t call the police.
She held her phone to her ear but didn’t dare dial a number. I could see her options flitting across her eyes.
Was she going to attack me, or play it cool? Playing it cool, it was. With a face like thunder, she stumbled aside when I took a step forward and asked to be let inside. I wasn’t live on Instagram. I had barely 10 followers.
But she didn’t know that. Instead of being live, I was filming everything with my normal phone camera, angled at a height so she couldn’t slap it out of my hands. Watching her stumble back, panic twisting her expression into fury and frustration filled me with satisfaction. I had her. The crazy witch really thought I was streaming. I used that to my advantage, making sure to commentate to my imaginary audience as she led me down the main hallway, and I made sure to point the camera at everything I could see. Kids photographs covered neat paintwork.
But they were all different young children taken from a distance. Towards the end of the hall, what I saw did send my heart into my gut. And for a moment—just a brief second—I actually felt sympathy for Casper’s mom.
Four ultrasound’s.
I didn’t let the camera linger on them, instead going to the woman herself, who was following me, trying and failing to stall my effort to delve further inside the house. She stepped in front of me with a huff. “Phoebe. That is enough! You have terrorised me to no end!” her voice rose into a whine. “Whoever you are, Phoebe’s friends! This brat is targeting my children!”
“Casper!” I yelled, ignoring her. “Are you there?”
No answer.
My heart dropped into my gut, though I wasn’t giving up. I had the advantage, and I had to play to it.
“Casper!”
I ran up the first few steps leading upstairs, but Mrs Wilder seemed far too focused on shielding the door at the end of the hall.
“What’s in the kitchen?” I asked with a lump in my throat. Backing down the stairs, I made my way towards her.
“Nothing is in the kitchen!” she spat back, feigning innocence. “We’re having dinner if you must know. And you are ruining it!”
I shook my head. “This is Mrs Wilder,” I announced, pointing the phone at her. “She is holding four teenagers against their will and claiming them as her own children.” I said smoothly. When we reached a sliding glass door leading into the kitchen, I grabbed the handle with force.
Her rough hand slammed over mine, claw-like fingernails slicing my flesh. “Get out of my house,” she said stiffly. “Young lady, you are trespassing on my property.” Every word came out in globules of saliva hitting me in the face. “I have never met such a disruptive and outright disrespectful child without discipline. Your mother should be ashamed of herself.” She shot a nervous look at my phone camera.
“Where’s Mrs Becker?” I asked.
“What?”
Mrs Becker.” I repeated. “She helped you kidnap and scare me into staying quiet the other day. So, where is she?”
She spluttered, clearly caught off guard. “You are delusional!”
“Then show me them.” I said, pointing the camera at the door. “Your children, Mrs Wilder. I want you to show me Issac, Matilda, Freddie, and…” I swallowed hard. “And Casper.” Ignoring her steel grasp on the door handle, I pulled it open, trying to ignore the sudden squawking noise which had escaped her mouth, slamming into my ears. I can’t describe it. Mom has spoken about a mother instinct, and I wonder if it truly was that. This was animalistic. Feral.
Immediately, Mrs Wilder was behind me like a beast, her trembling arms trying to grasp hold of me and drag me back violently. But I was stronger, and desperate. I had to know the Wilder's secret. Stepping over the threshold, I was first aware of a far dimmer light. And when I fully focused on the room, I realised I was seeing candlelight. In front of me was a hardwood dining room table, and five chairs—four of which were occupied. The kitchen was a copy of our own. Except ours had always been lit up and bright.
It felt more like I was stepping inside a cave. An orangeade blur illuminated each face. Three out of four bodies sat stiff, almost… doll like. Mechanical. The way the three were facing me. Their expressions matched perfectly. Wide eyes and wider grins splitting lips apart. I drank each Wilder kid in slowly, as my brain struggled to take in the real horror of the room. What I was failing to fully take in. I couldn’t. I don’t think I could physically understand what I was seeing. I was aware my phone had slipped from my fingers, that I was paralysed to the spot.
The smell of stink and rot, I thought.
It was them.
I couldn’t move. There were three boys, and one girl. Matilda Wilder was a mousey redhead while her brothers were all brunettes. She wore a purple dress which fit her perfectly, her hair tied into pigtails with red ribbons. Issac and Freddie Wilder sat shoulder to shoulder.
They were the twins, I thought dizzily. They were identical twins in Mrs Wilder’s eyes, but these guys looked nothing like each other—one of them sporting a handsome face and razor jawline, while the other had an odd looking nose and jutting chin. Still though, I could tell Mrs Wilder had made an effort to make them look… beautiful. Perfect. I could see her attempt at stitching their lips together.
It wasn’t their appearance that was gluing me to the ground, however. Because looking closer, past the made-up faces on both the boys and the girls, the ribbons and fancy clothes and empty eyes staring right through me, soft candlelight was slowly bringing them to life in front of me. These kids had been hidden away for so long, and I was finally seeing them for who they were. My gaze flicked to each of them. I was seeing… stitches. I was seeing rugged stitches and gashes in their flesh, patchwork skin making up fingers and elbows and cheeks. They had been taken apart over and over again and put back together.
Matilda’s neck was a collage of flesh, rugged markings where a marker pen had clumsily sliced into her skin and pieced her like a jigsaw through mangled body parts and anything left over. Freddie and Isaac’s heads were cocked at an angle, and looking closer I glimpsed the bad stitch-job which had knitted them together.
I could see it in all of them. None of these kids were their original selves. They reminded me of dolls built through old doll pieces. I didn’t know I was screaming until the gravity of the situation hit me, and I realised I was suffocating on dead skin which made them up, their bodies stitched and knitted together, transforming them into her ideal children. Flickering candlelight revealed the last Wilder kid.
There were two significant things which were different about Casper.
The first, was that he must have been her most recent. He was her most… original—and the second? Unlike the others, he was awake.
Until that moment, Casper had been sitting amongst his siblings, head cocked to the side like the others, catatonic.
His dazed eyes slowly found mine—and I glimpsed recognition flickering in his expression, his rigid body starting to contort back to life. He was her paper-doll.
But Casper wasn’t finished.
“Phoebe?” When the boy spoke, his voice was barely a whimper. Frenzied eyes flicked from Matilda to Issac and Freddie, all of which were still wearing their perfect smiles. I noticed the rugged skin of his neck, and my heart sank.
Something was moving behind him, and I forced myself to step forwards. I glimpsed that same chord-like thing. This time it was fully attacked to him. No, it was buried directly inside his head. A sour paste crept up my throat when I saw the carnivorous hole burrowing deeper inside his head. I could glimpse the intense white of chipped skull and a strange looking fluid leaking out —but it looked… wrong. I’ve always imagined the internals of someone’s brain to be pinkish grey. Though what I was seeing was more like a black ooze sliding down the back of his neck. It reminded me of squid-ink. Definitely not blood.
It looked like he had been shot in the head, or had been pulled out of the operating theatre mid-surgery. And somehow, he was still alive. Just like the description, the chord-thing seemed to be attached in two places—to the back of the head, directly on the brain, and stapled to his spine. The device was humming, but I don’t think it was working.
Casper was looking directly at me, and the way his body was angled was different to his siblings. Instead of sitting straight, he was trying and failing to jump to his feet, his eyes wide, almost unseeing. I could see that frustration and anger, that pain from the other night alive in his face. I opened my mouth to speak, though Casper was already lifting a trembling hand, his fingers twining around the chord and giving a pathetic tug. A thin line of dark red, almost black, slid from his nostril.
I knew it was him. “Can you… can you get… it… out?” His hand found the chord again, and his grasp slipped. “Please.” He whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “There’s something… in my… my head, and I need you to… I need you to fucking get it out…. right now.”
“Casper.” I couldn’t resist a relieved hiss. “This woman.” I twisted and pointed at Mrs Wilder.
“Who is she to you?”
The kid blinked, his eyes narrowing. He jolted, twisting around to try and see the thing attached to him. “Why would I know her? Get this shit out of my head!”
He let out a hysterical yell. His cry was more of a demand, and that nameless boy underneath splintered doll pieces began to unravel.
“Get it out.” He kept repeating. “Fucking get it out! There’s something inside my head!”
I nodded, choking back a cry.
He slammed his hands down, but seemingly couldn’t move from the chair. “What the fuck.” He side eyed the others. “What the fuck is this?”
I struggled to answer without screaming myself. “Stuff.” I managed to get out through a sputter. “Can you stand up?”
“What?” He blinked rapidly at me, I was seeing it again. That odd light flickering in his pupils.
“No. I can’t move!”
The humming grew louder, and at the corner of my eye, that thing seemed to dig deeper inside his head.
More blood spurted from his nose, and I could tell that he was fighting it.
The boy’s eyes found mine, his words tangling into an almost slur. “Get it out! I can’t… I can’t fucking think straight. I…. I….”
His eyes rolled back for a moment before he shook his head, lunging against the chair. His head twitched. “I don’t know I am.”
I couldn’t move. Watching this thing take control in real time, it was both fascinating and horrifying, sending my knees buckling.
“Who… who am I?”
His whole head twitched, like he was glitching.
“I know her. I… I know her. I’m her… I’m her son… I’m her s—son.”
Casper hummed, his twitching lips pricking into a demented smile. “I’ll always know her. She’s the one who… who s---saved me.”
Choking on a shade too vivid and dark to be blood, he sputtered, his head drooping.
“Mom?” Casper spoke through mouthfuls of pooling black. He lifted his head, unseeing eyes blinking in dim candlelight. The chord-like thing sounded more like it was drilling into his brain, and I knew I was fucked when his lips spread out into a childlike smile, and he swayed to the left and then the right, the light in his eyes burning. “There’s… water.” He whispered. “So… so cold. I’m so cold.” His voice broke.
“I don’t… want to be cold.”
“You won’t be cold.” Mrs Wilder’s voice was a sharp cry behind me. “Ever again. Your mom is here.”
“Promise? You n… need to… prom…promise me.” His teeth chattered. “You need to… tell me… I won’t… be cold. That my mom… is coming.”
“I promise, darling.”
“Mommy?”
“No,” I swallowed back frustrated tears. “Casper, she’s not your mother!”
His next words split into a guttural screech which almost sent him toppling off of the chair. He grabbed at his head, clawing at face.
But the more he was tugging, the machine fought against him. I could see metallic clamp-like legs stubbornly holding on.
His next words were mangled between cries from his conscious self, and whatever the fuck his ‘mother’ was forcing into his head.
And yet it barely grazed my ears. I was trying to figure out how to get that monumental THING out of his brain. There was no way I could just pull it out. That could kill him, right?
I started forwards to grab him, to try and pry the clamp off his spine, before I was being smothered with the stink of rich lavender. I hadn’t noticed Mrs Wilder swipe up my phone. She was holding it up in the air. “Live? You were never filming anything, you stupid girl! Do you understand what you have done?” She laughed—and I mean cackled like a witch. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
I got one last glimpse of Casper. His whole body was jerking under the chord inside his head, but he wasn’t crying out anymore.
Before I knew what was happening, I was being dragged back, and in front of me a Wilder boy shoving his struggling brother back into the chair. I didn’t have time to cry out.
With strength I had no idea the crazy bitch had, I was being violently yanked by my hair. And while I was flailing, I saw the ultrasound’s once again. Looking closer though, each one had a different name. A different mother. My head spun. That couldn’t be right. Mrs Wilder told me she was pregnant with four children, so who’s ultrasound’s were these? And why had she framed them? I didn’t have time to check it out.
I was dumped on my ass and the door was slammed straight in my face. I tried to get back in, throwing my fists into the door, until my own mother’s arms were pulling me back. I was hysterical. I couldn’t breathe, and mom wasn’t getting through to me. I’d kicked and thrown myself into the door, attracting the attention of our neighbours. That’s what I wanted. I wanted one of them to call the police, and when I picked up a brick, struggling against mom’s attempt to restrain me, and throwing it through the Wilder’s front window, I finally got it.
Two cops arrived, and I was so relieved I almost sobbed into one officer's chest. While my mom was trying and failing to explain my “breakdown” I begged them to take a look inside. And I was loud. I was screaming.
Which they couldn’t ignore.
“Phoebe!” I was partially aware of mom’s voice trying to calm me down, but I all I could see was that thing in Casper’s head, and his siblings made from knitted flesh. When the officer’s exited the Wilder’s house after five painful minutes waiting, I stumbled over to the two.
“Well?” I demanded, shoving away my mom. “Did you see them?” I yelled. “She’s turned them into… into dolls!” I was already going on a tangent, hysteria plunging me further into my own insanity.
“They’re not her children.” I gritted out. “She kidnapped and.. and stitched them up like… like Frankenstein! Mrs Wilder likes dolls! She had this paper-doll of me when she kidnapped me and lit it on fire to threaten me because I was talking to Casper. And he… he’s one of them, and not even her son! She’s controlling his mind with this thing stuck inside—"
“That’s enough!” Mom snapped.
The officer in front of me chuckled. “Breathe, kid!” He said. “Jeez. You’re not even giving us time to talk.”
“What?”
Instead of speaking to me directly, the officer turned to mom. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary, ma’am.” He said. “The Wilder’s were enjoying a family dinner, and…” his gaze flashed to me. “Well. It appears someone ruined it. There are no current reports of child abduction.”
I couldn’t resist a laugh. “Are you serious? Did you not… did you not see—”
He cut me off. “There they are!” He chuckled. “The Wilder siblings!” The officer saluted the four of them who had wandered outside trailing their mother. Ignoring the other three, I made my way over to Casper. But he looked… I don’t know, he looked like he usually did through his window? There were no stitches or patchwork skin. He was wearing a beanie, and I reached to yank it off, when his hand caught mine.
He was freezing cold.
His skin felt almost slimy, like I was touching the skin of a dead fish. I wanted to hold on, to force the cops to believe me, but he was already speaking—his voice was different, a lot deeper than the hysterical cry of the boy underneath. “Mom?” Casper’s eyes were cold. He shoved my hand away before taking a shaky step back. Like I was crazy. He quickly joined his siblings.
“Who is this girl?”
“We’re going home.” Mom said, grasping my arm. “Can’t you see you’ve embarrassed me enough?”
“Phoebe, huh?”
I turned to find the other Wilder kids. The guy with the jawline still had that doll-like smile. “Please leave our brother alone.”
I couldn’t resist spitting at him. “He’s not your brother. You’re brainwashed.”
Something in his expression seemed to twitch suddenly. Mom tried to pull me back, but I stubbornly stayed where I was.
Issac or Freddie cocked his head. “Brain... washed?"
He started to speak, before Mrs Wilder ushered them all away. But I did notice him turn back to frown at me.
Needless to say, I was grounded—and threatened with a restraining order.
That didn’t stop me peeking through the gap in Casper’s curtains that night. I caught him stumbling around, struggling to get the chord-thing out of his head with manic hands. He came over to the window several times, his bloody hands slamming into the window before slipping away. I'm not sure, but I don't think he knew why his legs kept drawing him to the window.
Mrs Wilder joined him soon after, forcing him to bite into something plastic, as she led him to sit on the bed, her fingers wrapping around the chord, and yanking it out. I didn't hear his scream, but his reaction to it, body writhing, eyes squeezing shut, I knew he could feel it. And part of him was awake. Just part of him.
Not the parts who knew our window sessions and his horrifying reality.
Casper came to his window all bandaged up. He didn’t hold up a message, and his eyes were vacant.
Though his expression told me everything I needed to know.
Engines woke me up several hours later. It was midnight. Sliding out of bed, my gaze went straight to Casper’s window. But it was dark. I pressed my face against my own window and glimpsed Mrs Wilder standing on her lawn in her robe.
A car pulled up, and the cop from earlier jumped out. In his arms was what looked like a body bag. He dropped it on the ground. “Freshly dead.” He said, when I opened my window to hear what was being said. “Car crash. Victim is male. Eighteen years old.” He folded his arms with a light laugh. “I got him straight from the morgue. His parents think there’s no body.” Both of them knelt next to the bag, and Mrs Wilder zipped it open with a hiss.
When the bag jolted suddenly, I realised the body was still alive.
The officer stumbled back. “Jesus. I didn’t even use that much. You said a single shot, right?”
“Mmm.”
Mrs Wilder pulled out a carving knife from her robe, and I felt my entire body turn to ice.
The cop raised a brow. “You came prepared.”
She sighed, her hands on her hips. “He’s spare parts. The expiry is approaching which is why they’re… acting out.”
With startling precision, she aimed the knife above what I guessed was the body’s head, before bringing it down with a sickening crunch. The bag stopped squirming.
I can’t remember anything else from that night.
My mother was gone the next morning. A paper doll replica of her was sitting next to a note and a plate of freshly baked cookies.
“Dearest, Phoebe.
I baked these thinking of you! And my, you should be grateful I have even bothered to do this after playing your games last night. Honestly, I am not the monster you think I am. Your mom asked me to let you know she will be busy with me for a few hours.
I’ve been asked to take care of you, so here are some chocolate cookies! Please maintain the rule I set in place and do not go near or talk to my children. I’m sure you know what will happen if you happen to slip up. I took the liberty of asking your mother to fit specialised devices in your room so I know when you are talking to my son. Writing equipment has been taken away. I hope we can be friends and I can start calling you my daughter. If something were to happen to your mom, do not worry. I will take you in. I want you to remember that.
Love,
Mrs Wilder.
PS: I can’t wait for you to (not) meet my newest son!
2023.03.29 02:22 Symeni TECH SUPPORT: PC Black Screen and Auto Restart
Hello! I am sorry if this is not the correct place to post something like this but I am quite desperate. I have a very strange situation and have tried damn near everything to fix it. I built my PC about 3 months ago and have had an issue on and off where the PC screen will go black and automatically restart. When I checked Event Viewer the error is a Critical Kernel 41 Error. All the parts were bought new except for an older NVME SSD that I brought into my new PC from my old system. When it powers off, the fans keep running and everything seems to still be turned on but it crashes anyway. It happens anywhere and everywhere, sometimes while gaming, sometimes while watching YouTube, and it even happened in BIOS one time which means it is likely not a software issue. My temps are stable enough, with the CPU reaching a max of around 75C when gaming and the GPU hitting 65-70C when gaming but it is usually lower than that.
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps, including taking out the old SSD, updating drivers from ASUS website, doing a fresh install of windows multiple times, and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. He said my hardware passed but he was not able to directly test the power supply, and he said he was 90% sure that it was because I had to daisy chain one of the PCIe power cables on the 12vhpwr adapter that goes to the 4080. I have done some research on this and most say it isn't an issue. I contacted corsair to get a 3rd PCIe cable but they take forever to respond, and I'm not even sure if this is the issue because as stated earlier these crashes happened with both cards. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.
submitted by Symeni to techsupport [link] [comments]
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps, including taking out the old SSD, updating drivers from ASUS website, doing a fresh install of windows multiple times, and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. He said my hardware passed but he was not able to directly test the power supply, and he said he was 90% sure that it was because I had to daisy chain one of the PCIe power cables on the 12vhpwr adapter that goes to the 4080. I have done some research on this and most say it isn't an issue. I contacted corsair to get a 3rd PCIe cable but they take forever to respond, and I'm not even sure if this is the issue because as stated earlier these crashes happened with both cards. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.
2023.03.29 02:19 Symeni TECH SUPPORT: PC Black Screen and Automatically Restart
Hello! I am sorry if this is not the correct place to post something like this but I am quite desperate. I have a very strange situation and have tried damn near everything to fix it. I built my PC about 3 months ago and have had an issue on and off where the PC screen will go black and automatically restart. All the parts were bought new except for an older NVME SSD that I brought into my new PC from my old system. When it powers off, the fans keep running and everything seems to still be turned on but it crashes anyway. It happens anywhere and everywhere, sometimes while gaming, sometimes while watching YouTube, and it even happened in BIOS one time which means it is likely not a software issue. My temps are stable enough, with the CPU reaching a max of around 75C when gaming and the GPU hitting 65-70C when gaming but it is usually lower than that.
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps, including taking out the old SSD, updating drivers from ASUS website, doing a fresh install of windows multiple times, and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. He said my hardware passed but he was not able to directly test the power supply, and he said he was 90% sure that it was because I had to daisy chain one of the PCIe power cables on the 12vhpwr adapter that goes to the 4080. I have done some research on this and most say it isn't an issue. I contacted corsair to get a 3rd PCIe cable but they take forever to respond, and I'm not even sure if this is the issue because as stated earlier these crashes happened with both cards. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.
submitted by Symeni to pcmasterrace [link] [comments]
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps, including taking out the old SSD, updating drivers from ASUS website, doing a fresh install of windows multiple times, and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. He said my hardware passed but he was not able to directly test the power supply, and he said he was 90% sure that it was because I had to daisy chain one of the PCIe power cables on the 12vhpwr adapter that goes to the 4080. I have done some research on this and most say it isn't an issue. I contacted corsair to get a 3rd PCIe cable but they take forever to respond, and I'm not even sure if this is the issue because as stated earlier these crashes happened with both cards. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.
2023.03.29 02:02 wspnut Idle Dyson Swarm Easter Eggs (Spoilers Hidden)
I finally found them all, so I figured I'd share (with increasing hints, if you want to still try to find them yourself!)
You'll know you've done it correctly when a cute drawing of a zen avocado appears on your screen.
One note - the Avocato drawing that appears in Chapter 3 of the story is _not_ part of the quest.If it ain't a little stick figure man, it ain't a step.
FYI - there is a bug that I found where, if you change your phone from portrait to landscape (or vice versa), your progress resets. Fair warning!
submitted by wspnut to incremental_games [link] [comments]
| # | Slight Hint | Heavy Hint | Just Tell Me... |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quantum Management Tab (provided by dev) | Tap everything in the Quantum Management tab | On the Quantum Management tab, tap the "Skill Unlocks" heading so that a small avocado appears to the right |
| 2 | Tap everything, especially mid-game | Tap everything in the Infinity tab | On the Infinity tab, tap the "Infinity Points" header at the top so that a small avocado appears to the right |
| 3 | Tap everywhere, especially when you just start | Tap everything in the Bots tab | On the Bots tab, tap the "NN Worker Bots producing NN Panels / s" bar at the bottom so a small avocado appears to the right of the bar |
| 4 | You have 5 of these to configure in the game | There are 5 of these to configure within the Skills tab | On the Skills tab, open your Options and click the name of the first Preset so an avocado appears next to it |
| 5 | BSG | It's the name of the company that made the game | On the Settings tab, tap "More by Blindsided Games" |
| 6 | Not many tabs left! We haven't hit this early one yet. | Don't forget to go into sub-windows inside the tabs | On the Research tab, open the Tab Settings - the gear icon -and tap the "Purchase Buttons" header |
| 7 | It's not in a tab. | Check the main menu | Open the main menu and click the top "Menu" header; congrats! |
One note - the Avocato drawing that appears in Chapter 3 of the story is _not_ part of the quest.If it ain't a little stick figure man, it ain't a step.
FYI - there is a bug that I found where, if you change your phone from portrait to landscape (or vice versa), your progress resets. Fair warning!
2023.03.29 02:01 Vinny2424 PC Black Screen and Auto Restart to Lock Screen
Hello! I have a very strange situation and have tried damn near everything to fix it. I built my PC about 3 months ago and have had an issue on and off where the PC screen will go black and automatically restart. All the parts were bought new except for an older NVME SSD that I brought into my new PC from my old system. When it powers off, the fans keep running and everything seems to still be turned on but it crashes anyway. It happens anywhere and everywhere, sometimes while gaming, sometimes while watching YouTube, and it even happened in BIOS one time which means it is likely not a software issue. My temps are stable enough, with the CPU reaching a max of around 75C when gaming and the GPU hitting 65-70C when gaming but it is usually lower than that.
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.
submitted by Vinny2424 to Troubleshooting [link] [comments]
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.
2023.03.29 02:00 BlueArchiveMod Daily Questions Megathread March 29, 2023
Please use this thread to ask any questions you have about the game. Please search though the comments section as your question may have been answered already or through the search bar.
For global, dailies reset at 19:00 UTC and weeklies reset on Sunday.
[02] Should I re-roll this account?
This will depend on your priorities with PvE, PvP, or both, but you can generally see the “ideal” units as Iori, Hibiki, and Tsubaki for most content, while Shun and Haruna are great for PvP.
[03] Who should I spend my elephs on? Who should I mystic unlock?
At the start, prioritize spending your blank elephs on getting Serina to 2-star for the increased healing stat, Tsubaki to 3-star for the extra tankiness when she is reloading. It is generally advised not to spend your elephs on increasing characters to 4-star and 5-star ratings, since there is only a stat increase and the amount of elephs needed is quite high.
[04] What do my support students’ stats do?
Aside from increasing the stats of their own skills, support students will provide additional stat boosts to your striker team. The specific increase(s) can be viewed by clicking on “Support” on the right side of the team formation screen.
[05] What should I buy in the shop?
This is purely cosmetic, as it changes which student’s chibi shows up on the map.
[07] What benefits are there to joining a club?
You need to pull, at a minimum, 200 times in order to get 200 recruitment points that are redeemed for the character you want. The recruitment point system does not carry over from banner to banner, it is only shared between banners that are concurrently running.
[09] Why can’t I find my friend’s club?
While the servers’ updates are separated from JP and global, the global servers are separated further into smaller divisions. You need to be on the same server as your friend, which you can check from the home screen: top-right menu button > account > version info. The server must be the same.
[10] When is X banner coming? Should I save for X student?
We never know for sure, due to the fact that global servers are on an accelerated schedule compared to JP. Please refer to this guide for some more info.
[11] Should I use Pyroxenes to refill my AP?
If you want to prioritize progression, the first three daily refills are decently valuable, this is because the Pyroxene cost of refilling will increase for every three refills. If you are focused on character collection or future banners, you should be saving your Pyroxenes.
[12] Why can’t I buy X student’s eleph in the shop?
You can only buy elephs of students you own.
[13] What should I craft?
At the start, prioritize crafting cafe furniture until your comfort is maxed out, then students’ gifts, then whichever upgrade materials you need. The crafting system is the only way to get furniture and gifts at the moment.
[14] What is the “Anniversary” in account settings?
This is your birthday, used for characters to wish you happy birthday.
[15] When will the beginner guide missions for Nonomi end?
This is a permanent addition, so feel free to take your time with the tasks.
[16] What is the best place to farm EXP?
You can run any map to farm EXP, as the EXP gain is equal to the amount of AP spent (i.e. 10 AP spent = 10 EXP gained). You should be looking at the stages that drop the equipment upgrade materials that you need.
[17] What is the “Secret Tech Sheet” in the Total Assault shop?
This is used to upgrade a student’s (non-EX) skill to level 10.
[18] Is it worth doing a raid if I can’t pass X difficulty level?
It is always more efficient to clear the highest difficulty you can finish instead of failing/forfeiting a higher difficulty.
[19] Can I claim the Limited Students through exchanging Expert Permits? How often does the Expert Permit shop resets?
You cannot get the limited students via this method. You will still need to pull for them. There's no specific mentioned but it's expected to be monthly.
submitted by BlueArchiveMod to BlueArchive [link] [comments]
General Resources
- General Database
- Gameplay Overview
- Min-Turn Stage Guide YouTube
- PvP Guide
- Raid Guide
- Raid Character Guide
- Unique Equipment Guide
- Upcoming Banners
- Upcoming Banners V2
REMINDER: Bind your account!
Please remember to bind your accounts and take note of your UID, member code, server location, and any information related to your account (e.g. amount spent, student roster, etc). If anything happens to your account (e.g. losing access, unauthorized access), you will need to provide as much info as you can to Nexon's customer support email. Guest accounts that are unbound will be extremely difficult to recover, perhaps impossible.Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
[01] When does the server reset?For global, dailies reset at 19:00 UTC and weeklies reset on Sunday.
[02] Should I re-roll this account?
This will depend on your priorities with PvE, PvP, or both, but you can generally see the “ideal” units as Iori, Hibiki, and Tsubaki for most content, while Shun and Haruna are great for PvP.
[03] Who should I spend my elephs on? Who should I mystic unlock?
At the start, prioritize spending your blank elephs on getting Serina to 2-star for the increased healing stat, Tsubaki to 3-star for the extra tankiness when she is reloading. It is generally advised not to spend your elephs on increasing characters to 4-star and 5-star ratings, since there is only a stat increase and the amount of elephs needed is quite high.
[04] What do my support students’ stats do?
Aside from increasing the stats of their own skills, support students will provide additional stat boosts to your striker team. The specific increase(s) can be viewed by clicking on “Support” on the right side of the team formation screen.
[05] What should I buy in the shop?
- Credit Shop - Buy out the bottom row of materials, then the first two tiers of enhancement stones as needed. Feel free to buy the higher tiers of enhancement stones if you feel that you have an excess of credits, which is very common.
- Eligma - This will depend on you, can reference question [03].
- Total Assault (raid) - Prioritize Maki’s elephs (until you unlock her) and save the rest of your currency for future updates that will add more low-rarity students to the shop, meaning you can unlock mystic for them without spending your eligma. You can also purchase the skill discs/blu-rays depending on your needs.
- Tactical Challenge (PvP) - Buy out the energy drinks as needed (warning: they are instantly consumed, they won’t be moved to your inventory). Many suggest to save these for events in order to buy drinks, refresh the shop, and repeat.
This is purely cosmetic, as it changes which student’s chibi shows up on the map.
[07] What benefits are there to joining a club?
- 10 AP are given daily and deposited automatically on teacher's mailbox, upon checking in.
- A maximum of two assistant can be set for Total Assault and Joint Firing Drill respectively.
- Students assigned to assist with TA cannot also be selected to assist with JFD.
- 20 credits are rewarded every minute by setting assistants.
- The specific unit that is borrowed can be only used once a day.
- There's a fee of 40,000 credits, when borrowing a assistant student.
- The donor receives 50,000 credits instead; even though the fee is 40,000 credits.
- The fee can only be received 20 times a day.
- It can be unlocked after clearing Mission 3 Act 4
You need to pull, at a minimum, 200 times in order to get 200 recruitment points that are redeemed for the character you want. The recruitment point system does not carry over from banner to banner, it is only shared between banners that are concurrently running.
[09] Why can’t I find my friend’s club?
While the servers’ updates are separated from JP and global, the global servers are separated further into smaller divisions. You need to be on the same server as your friend, which you can check from the home screen: top-right menu button > account > version info. The server must be the same.
[10] When is X banner coming? Should I save for X student?
We never know for sure, due to the fact that global servers are on an accelerated schedule compared to JP. Please refer to this guide for some more info.
[11] Should I use Pyroxenes to refill my AP?
If you want to prioritize progression, the first three daily refills are decently valuable, this is because the Pyroxene cost of refilling will increase for every three refills. If you are focused on character collection or future banners, you should be saving your Pyroxenes.
[12] Why can’t I buy X student’s eleph in the shop?
You can only buy elephs of students you own.
[13] What should I craft?
At the start, prioritize crafting cafe furniture until your comfort is maxed out, then students’ gifts, then whichever upgrade materials you need. The crafting system is the only way to get furniture and gifts at the moment.
[14] What is the “Anniversary” in account settings?
This is your birthday, used for characters to wish you happy birthday.
[15] When will the beginner guide missions for Nonomi end?
This is a permanent addition, so feel free to take your time with the tasks.
[16] What is the best place to farm EXP?
You can run any map to farm EXP, as the EXP gain is equal to the amount of AP spent (i.e. 10 AP spent = 10 EXP gained). You should be looking at the stages that drop the equipment upgrade materials that you need.
[17] What is the “Secret Tech Sheet” in the Total Assault shop?
This is used to upgrade a student’s (non-EX) skill to level 10.
[18] Is it worth doing a raid if I can’t pass X difficulty level?
It is always more efficient to clear the highest difficulty you can finish instead of failing/forfeiting a higher difficulty.
[19] Can I claim the Limited Students through exchanging Expert Permits? How often does the Expert Permit shop resets?
You cannot get the limited students via this method. You will still need to pull for them. There's no specific mentioned but it's expected to be monthly.
OthePast Megathreads
- Daily Questions
- Weekly Club Recruitment
- Weekly Kivotos Lounge
- Weekly Storytelling Plaza
- Technical Issues
2023.03.29 01:54 fliberdygibits Number of movies per page
Anyone know if a Roku is somehow able to override the setting for number of items displayed per page? I've got a friend on my server pointing out that their roku stops at number 59 even tho it's currently set to 100 in their account. They can click a letter over to the right and see the other movies.... but me adjusting that number in the account settings does not change the fact that their roku continues to only display down to 59. The roku has been reset. I'm not sure what else to do. Changing the setting on my OWN account (but not a roku) did precisely what it was supposed to do.
submitted by fliberdygibits to jellyfin [link] [comments]
2023.03.29 01:49 Anixanmander Improving on my first project: Running/Rest/Lap
Earlier I made my first count-down timer, now I have created a countdown timer. I want to create a running app, which allows the person to select how many laps or sets they want to do. You can choose the activity and rest duration be. For example, If I want to do three laps of run 5 minutes and rest 1 minute, the program will repeat the 5 min/1min duration three times. I plan to improve the GUI (extremely basic right now) and add sounds, and eventually make it an app.
I was getting very lazy at learning python but having a clear target, an object like "make a clock" etc, has really helped me focus and stay motivated.
code below:
submitted by Anixanmander to learnpython [link] [comments]
I was getting very lazy at learning python but having a clear target, an object like "make a clock" etc, has really helped me focus and stay motivated.
code below:
import tkinter as tk from functools import partial root = tk.Tk() root.title(' COUNT-DOWN TIMER') root['background'] = '#6B6B6B' root.geometry('260x450') BG_ROOT = '#6B6B6B' BG_BUTTON = 'white' BG_LABEL = '#6B6B6B' FG = 'black' FONT_BUTTON = ('Arial', 14) FONT_LABEL = ('Arial', 24) lap =0 total_time = 0 rest = 0 rest2 = rest total_time2 = total_time pause = False total_click = 0 def count_down(): global total_time, lap, total_time2,rest, rest2 if total_time2 > 0 and pause == False: total_time2 -= 1 label2.config(text=f" {(total_time2 // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(total_time2 // 60) % 60:02}:{total_time2 % 60:02}",fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) root.after(1000,count_down) elif total_time2 == 0 and pause == False and rest2 > 0: rest2 -= 1 label_rest.config(text=f"{(rest2 // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(rest2 // 60) % 60:02}:{rest2 % 60:02}", fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) root.after(1000,count_down) elif rest2 == 0 and total_time2 == 0 and lap > 1 and pause == False: total_time2 = total_time+1 rest2 = rest label2.config(text=f" {(total_time2 // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(total_time2 // 60) % 60:02}:{total_time2 % 60:02}", fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label_rest.config(text=f"{(rest2 // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(rest2 // 60) % 60:02}:{rest2 % 60:02}",fg=FG) count_down() lap -= 1 label_lap.config(text=f"LAP:{lap:02}",fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) elif lap <=1 and total_time2 == 0 and rest2 == 0: label_lap.config(text=f" DONE",fg='#00FF00', bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label2.config(text=f" {(total_time2 // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(total_time2 // 60) % 60:02}:{total_time2 % 60:02}", fg='#00FF00', bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label_rest.config(text=f"{(rest2 // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(rest2 // 60) % 60:02}:{rest2 % 60:02}", fg='#00FF00', bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) def start_stop(): global pause, total_click total_click +=1 if total_click % 2 != 0: pause = False button_main.config(text=' STOP') count_down() else: pause = True button_main.config(text='START') button_main.config(state='disabled') button_main.after(800, lambda: button_main.config(state='normal')) def add_run(sec): global total_time, total_time2 total_time += sec total_time2 += sec label2.config(text=f" {(total_time // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(total_time // 60) % 60:02}:{total_time % 60:02}", fg=FG, font=FONT_LABEL) def add_rest(sec): global rest, rest2 rest += sec rest2 += sec label_rest.config(text=f"{(rest // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(rest // 60) % 60:02}:{rest % 60:02}", fg=FG, font=FONT_LABEL) def add_lap(l): global lap if lap == 0: lap+= 2 else: lap += l label_lap.config(text=f"LAP:{lap:02}") def add_lap2(l): global lap lap+= l label_lap.config(text=f"LAP:{lap:02}") def reset(): global lap, total_time2, total_time,rest,rest2, lap, total_click total_click = 0 total_time = 0 total_time2 = total_time rest = 0 rest2 = rest lap = 0 label2.config(text=f" {(total_time // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(total_time // 60) % 60:02}:{total_time % 60:02}", fg=FG) label_rest.config(text=f"{(rest // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(rest // 60) % 60:02}:{rest % 60:02}",fg=FG) label_lap.config(text ="LAP:--", fg=FG) button_main.config(text='START') ### Actvity label00 = tk.Label(text="-----ACTIVITY-----", fg=FG,bg=BG_ROOT, font=FONT_LABEL) label00.grid(row=0, column=1 , columnspan=3) label2 = tk.Label(text=f" {(total_time // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(total_time // 60) % 60:02}:{total_time % 60:02}", fg=FG,bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label2.grid(row=1, column=0, columnspan=3) button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕", command=partial(add_run,3600),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON ) button.grid(row=2, column=1 ) button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕", command=partial(add_run,60),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON ) button.grid(row=2, column=2) button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕",command=partial(add_run, 1),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON ) button.grid(row=2, column=3) ##REST label00 = tk.Label(text=" REST", fg=FG,bg=BG_ROOT, font=FONT_LABEL) label00.grid(row=5, column= 1, columnspan=3) label_rest = tk.Label(text=f"{(rest // 3600) % 3600:02}:{(rest // 60) % 60:02}:{rest % 60:02}",fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label_rest.grid(row=6, column= 1, columnspan=3) button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕", command=partial(add_rest,3600),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON ) button.grid(row=7, column=1) button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕", command=partial(add_rest,60),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON ) button.grid(row=7, column=2) button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕",command=partial(add_rest, 1),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON ) button.grid(row=7, column=3) ##lap label label_lap = tk.Label(text ="LAP:--", fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label_lap.grid(row=8, column=0, columnspan=3) #########buttons############### button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕",command=partial(add_lap, 1),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON ) button.grid(row=9, column=1) button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕", command=partial(add_lap2, 5),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON) button.grid(row=9, column=2) button = tk.Button(root,text = "➕",command=partial(add_lap2, 10),fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON) button.grid(row=9, column=3) ##buffer: label_buffer = tk.Label(text ="", fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label_buffer.grid(row=10, column=0, columnspan=3) ##############start-button-reset button_main = tk.Button(root,text = "PLAY", command=start_stop,fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON) button_main.grid(row=11, column=2, padx=20) #>>buffer label_buffer = tk.Label(text ="", fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label_buffer.grid(row=12, column=0 ,columnspan=3) button = tk.Button(root,text = "RESET",command=reset,fg=FG, bg=BG_BUTTON) button.grid(row=13, column=2, padx= 30) label_buffer = tk.Label(text ="-----------------------", fg=FG, bg=BG_LABEL, font=FONT_LABEL) label_buffer.grid(row=14, column=1 ,columnspan=3) root.mainloop() 2023.03.29 01:32 Jumpy_Lion_6407 Fall 2023 Admission Thread
Fall 2023 Applications - Deadline Approaching!
Apply Here: https://ms-datascience.utexas.edu/
Deadline to apply
- Priority Deadline: Apr 1, 2022 (11:59 p.m. CST)
- Final Deadline: May 1, 2022 (11:59 p.m. CST)
- Because it is a twofold process to apply to UT Austin, the school recommends that applicants apply before the priority deadline to allow for their materials to be processed.
Required Materials
- Statement of Purpose
- CV/Resume
- Transcripts
- Mathematics & Programming Preparation Form
- Quest Assessment
- TOEFL or IELTS (for international applicants)
Optional Materials
- Up to 3 letters of recommendation
- GRE scores (optional for Spring/Fall 2023)
Template
Please use the template below. Using this template will help make the results searchable & help with parsing to automatically compile statistics that we can include in the next iteration of the thread for acceptance rates or patterns in backgrounds that are successful in applying for the program.**Status:****Application Date:** **Decision Date:** **Education:** **GRE Scores (Q,V,W):** **Recommendations:** **Experience:** **Statement of purpose:** **MOOCs**: **Comments:**
Example
Status: AcceptedApplication Date: 09/15/2022
Decision Date: 11/01/2022
Education: Big State School, BS in Stats, 3.3
GRE Scores (Q,V,W): 160, 160, 4
Recommendations: 2
Experience: 3 Years, Google, Not DS related
Statement of Purpose: Explained how my previous internships are related to data science, and my long-term career goal is to become a research scientist.
MOOCs: 2 machine learning MOOCs
Comments: Do you know MSDSO has a community discord? Click here to join
2023.03.29 01:29 JBizzley Pc won’t post after bios change
Hello to everyone seeing this. Today I went into my pc bios looking to fix the problem of my pc running slower than advertised. What I didn’t expect was to create another one. I realized that my ram speeds were defaulted in bios at 2133mhz and not 3200mhz. I changed it to 3000mhz there not being an option for 3200 and pushed save and boot. Then nothing happened. My pc stopped posting for whatever I did and only the fans would run. I looked everywhere for an answer and all I could find was to reset CMOS, but that did nothing. My specs are the following below, thanks for your time:
•RTX 3060 GPU •Rysen 5 4500 CPU •32gb (16x2) ddr4 3200mhz ram AsRock B550M Pro4 MicroATX motherboard
submitted by JBizzley to PcBuildHelp [link] [comments]
•RTX 3060 GPU •Rysen 5 4500 CPU •32gb (16x2) ddr4 3200mhz ram AsRock B550M Pro4 MicroATX motherboard
2023.03.29 01:24 The_New_Doctor Anyone else having launch issues? (after 7.2.1 update)
After 7.2.1 the launcher gets to the play button but won't launch
I can click it once and it remains highlighted
I can click it again and it darkens but never does anything, eventually it just resets to highlighted
I've reinstalled swtor, and set it to run as admin.
Not sure what else to do from here, or if it's something they know about?
Thanks for your time
submitted by The_New_Doctor to swtor [link] [comments]
I can click it once and it remains highlighted
I can click it again and it darkens but never does anything, eventually it just resets to highlighted
I've reinstalled swtor, and set it to run as admin.
Not sure what else to do from here, or if it's something they know about?
Thanks for your time
2023.03.29 01:19 CarterMac40 Ball player issue. equipment won’t show up on my player
So far I don’t have a whole lot of equipment so I’m using default equipment but some of the default equipment won’t show up on my player. For example I put a long compression sleeve on my right arm and I also wear batting gloves but I click accept changes and go back to the rtts hub my player doesn’t have the sleeve or is wearing batting gloves when I bat. Just wondering if any of you guys are having with the same issue or do you have any tips to help me.
submitted by CarterMac40 to MLBTheShow [link] [comments]
2023.03.29 01:11 yelzinho 104: Connection reset by peer while reading response header from upstream
Trying to connect nginx to php-fpm container in kubernetes, and receiving 502 error, php-fpm container is healthy, no error logs, no errors, no restarts, there is also enough resources to run.
NGINX LOG:
submitted by yelzinho to PHPhelp [link] [comments]
NGINX LOG:
2023/03/28 22:27:37 [error] 31#31: *423 recv() failed (104: Connection reset by peer) while reading response header from upstream, client: 10.116.0.3, server: homolog.main-api.fretegestao.com.br, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://10.244.0.24:9000/favicon.ico", host: "homolog.main-api.fretegestao.com.br", referrer: "https://homolog.main-api.fretegestao.com.b" 10.116.0.3 - - [28/Ma2023:22:27:37 +0000] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 502 559 "https://homolog.main-api.fretegestao.com.b" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/111.0.0.0 Safari/537.36" "-"Dockerfile:
# base ####################### FROM php:8-fpm-alpine as base RUN apk update && apk add --no-cache --virtual .build-deps \ autoconf \ zip \ libzip-dev \ gettext \ postgresql-dev \ git \ openssh \ libxml2-dev RUN docker-php-ext-install zip pdo_pgsql opcache pcntl soap RUN apk add --no-cache pcre-dev $PHPIZE_DEPS \ && pecl install redis \ && docker-php-ext-enable redis.so ENV PHP_OPCACHE_VALIDATE_TIMESTAMPS=0 COPY --from=composer:latest /usbin/composer /uslocal/bin/composer RUN mkdir -m 700 /root/.ssh; \ touch -m 600 /root/.ssh/known_hosts; # build ####################### FROM base AS build COPY . /vawww/html WORKDIR /vawww/html # run ####################### FROM build AS run COPY devops/opcache.ini $PHP_INI_DIconf.d/ RUN mv "$PHP_INI_DIphp.ini-production" "$PHP_INI_DIphp.ini" ENV LOG_STREAM="/tmp/stdout" RUN mkfifo $LOG_STREAM && chmod 777 $LOG_STREAM COPY devops/php-entrypoint.sh /uslocal/bin/php-entrypoint.sh RUN chmod +x /uslocal/bin/php-entrypoint.sh RUN chmod -R 777 storage/ RUN sed -i '/^default = default_sect/a legacy = legacy_sect' /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf RUN sed -i '/^\[default_sect\]/a activate = 1' /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf RUN printf "[legacy_sect]\nactivate = 1" >> /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf RUN chmod -R 777 public/uploads RUN chown -R www-data:www-data /vawww/html USER www-data CMD ["/uslocal/bin/php-entrypoint.sh"]I have this very same image working on ECS (aws) and on a EC2 instance, its working fine, idk why this doesnt work in Kubernetes, tried everything I found googling it, idk what can it be.
2023.03.29 01:00 mr_apik Boot black Screen & Cannot wake from sleep - Sometimes
Hi,
thank you for reading this post and thank you all in advance for any support.
I know these threads were here before, however I haven't found any solution to my problem yet.
Specs:
The problem: PC is sometimes booting to black screen. It happens usually on the first boot of the day. During the day, even if I try to replicate it, everything works mostly fine. If it does not boot into black screen, performance of the components is like nothing is wrong. I can play games on full details, no spikes, etc.
What happens: PC starts, I see the manufacture logo and BIOS enter tooltip. Then nothing, just black screen. Sometimes my keyboard is lit, sometimes it isn't. Fans are moving, GPU lights are lit, everything seems alright except I just see black screen (to be accurate: no-signal). Sometimes it can get into the windows login page - frozen.
How it started: It happened last week for the first time. I haven't changed anything in my PC nor I installed any software.
What I tried so far:
My guess is that it's not SW, but HW issue. It's very strange that it happens almost every day, but only on the first time boot or if I leave the PC alone for a longer period of time (but again - sometimes). As I mentioned above, I tried turning on/off, restart, and I could not replicate the issue on my own.
Does someone know what can be the issue?
Thank you in advance for your help!
submitted by mr_apik to techsupport [link] [comments]
thank you for reading this post and thank you all in advance for any support.
I know these threads were here before, however I haven't found any solution to my problem yet.
Specs:
- OS: Win11 (started on win10)
- Mobo: MSI MAG B460M MORTAR WiFi
- CPU: i7-10700F
- GPU: RTX 3070
- PSU: Seasonic Focus 650
- CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 34
- RAM: 2x 16 GB 3200 MHz CL16
- Drives: Seagate BarraCuda 2 TB HDD, WD Blue SNB550 1TB SSD (Windows)
The problem: PC is sometimes booting to black screen. It happens usually on the first boot of the day. During the day, even if I try to replicate it, everything works mostly fine. If it does not boot into black screen, performance of the components is like nothing is wrong. I can play games on full details, no spikes, etc.
What happens: PC starts, I see the manufacture logo and BIOS enter tooltip. Then nothing, just black screen. Sometimes my keyboard is lit, sometimes it isn't. Fans are moving, GPU lights are lit, everything seems alright except I just see black screen (to be accurate: no-signal). Sometimes it can get into the windows login page - frozen.
How it started: It happened last week for the first time. I haven't changed anything in my PC nor I installed any software.
What I tried so far:
- Cleaning the PC from dust
- Check cables connection
- Update from win10 to win11
- Clean install of win11
- Memtest overnight - 0 errors.
My guess is that it's not SW, but HW issue. It's very strange that it happens almost every day, but only on the first time boot or if I leave the PC alone for a longer period of time (but again - sometimes). As I mentioned above, I tried turning on/off, restart, and I could not replicate the issue on my own.
Does someone know what can be the issue?
Thank you in advance for your help!
2023.03.29 01:00 Sorry-Negotiation-84 cant switch to 144hz
Hi guys, i have a 144hz monitor and have been using it for gaming playing on 144hz monitor for a while. i went on holiday and came back and for some reason i cant switch it to 144hz. its set to 60hz, and whenever i change it, it just resets ;/. idk what to do. also not sure if this is related but randomly my pc monitor will go black then come back to normal, and i always hear a clicking sound. idk if its my pc making that or like my extention cable or something im clueless. any1 know what i can do?
submitted by Sorry-Negotiation-84 to pcmasterrace [link] [comments]
2023.03.29 01:00 HowIsYourBreathing The Big Dawgs are your 2017 NBA champions!
submitted by HowIsYourBreathing to BasketballGM [link] [comments]