Lmt mars lower parts kit

Goldman Sachs continues to be bullish on oil amid the banking crisis.
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On Tuesday, local time, Goldman Sachs global head of commodities Jeff Currie publicly said that this banking crisis will ultimately be good for oil prices because it will have a bigger impact on supply than on demand.
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He said there are no signs yet that the spread of the crisis is weakening physical demand for raw materials. The biggest impact of this regional U.S. banking crisis could be to limit lending to shale drillers, which would ultimately curb oil supply.
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If the Fed suspends rate hikes at this week's meeting in response to the banking crisis (which is Goldman Sachs' current base scenario), it would also be good for oil prices, Currie said.
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The problem is with U.S. regional banks, which are lending less. What kind of loans will be hit?
That would be the part of the U.S. shale merchants. So when we look at the longer term, this is more of a supply-side hit than a demand-side hit.
Amrita Sen, head of research and co-founder of Energy Aspects Ltd. also said that the plunge in crude oil prices poses a threat to supply. At current prices, about 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day of U.S. production is at risk, while demand could increase by 200,000 barrels per day.
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Goldman Sachs, which has long been very bullish on oil, last week slightly lowered its forecast for oil prices. Goldman expects Brent crude to reach only $94 a barrel in the next 12 months and $97 a barrel in the second half of 2024, compared with a previous forecast of $100 a barrel, due to concerns about the banking crisis and the possibility of a recession.
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Still, Currie said he is more confident that there will be a super cycle in commodities than before this crisis. He believes that the oil market will fall into a supply shortage in June, which will attract investors back into the sector

Hey guys question If I needed some warranty work done for my X95 in 300blk could I get that done? I know the kits are no longer made but I’m curious if I could get parts or is it an SOL thing

Hi HiFi folks!
I need some expert knowledge.
I just upgraded to my first hifi stylus.
I bought the MP-110 from turntable lab. It came mounted to a headshell and mounted right in to replace my old trackmaster.
It played fine for a few days but now I’m getting multiple pops per side on brand new records.
Is it possible that the stylus is damaged or do these super high fi stylii get dusty super easy?
Here’s a couple things: When I took the stylus guard off the day I got it I tapped the needle ever so slightly. I also lowered the needle once too far out and it skated off the record (but didn’t fall to hit anything!). And, once I was lifting to to start a side over (with my finger like a dumbass) and it bounced / lightly skipped over the grooves on the way.
Did I break it already? How fragile are these nice stylii? Or is this part of the “ breaking in” period that I don’t entirely understand?
Thanks for educating this scrub of a turntable user!

So long story short, I am tired of running cables through my attic! So far, I have fished 5 cables and in one case it's 2 parallel runs because much like the dog painting in Good Fellas, I have one camera pointing one way and the other way and I want to put another camera in the middle but I am really really tired of going back in the attic.
A few months ago, I tried buying some ebay cables that split up USB-minis but both variants I tried did not work. I'm not sure why they didn't work - perhaps the voltage was getting split between the two instead of them being in parallel. I miss the V2 cams and the ability to jump to another camera.
So now that I saw the new stack kit, I am curious if that will work. I will have to throw out the OG parts I don't need and then buy a usb-micro to usb-A adapter but it'll still come out cheaper than buying another 35 foot cable and going back in the attic.
If there is a known splitter that works, I'm all ears too.

Hello OrrukWarclans! I'm primarily a 40K guy but have been getting more into skirmish games lately, and an Orc/Goblin Mordheim warband is my next foray. Kitbashing and giving individual models lots of character is probably my favorite part of the hobby, but I've never messed around with Orruk/Orc/Ork models before so I was wondering if there are any kits or recommendations in particular that you lot might have that could point me in the direction of something flavorful and grimdarky as I start assembling my boyz. Thank you!

Have you ever been tail down the side of a mountain by a band of angry machete-wielding onion people with Jack o’lantern like faces and major territory issues?
Have you ever been followed through the woods by a mysterious hooded figure crunching through the brush and stalking your every move from just beyond the tree line?
Have you ever been stabbed through the center of your palm by a stumpy little demon shrub with needle like spikes hiding beneath the leaves and running down its trunk like exterior? Not to mention the erratic demonic tendencies some of the plants around here seem to sometimes possess.
Well, if you have experienced any and or all of what I had just mentioned, then you probably already have a good idea of the place and some of the things I am about to tell you.
If you haven’t, however, then are you in for one heck of a tail. Because the stories I am going to be sharing with you during my free time moving forward, might just be some of the craziest things you've ever heard. But before that, there are a couple things you should know about me first.
My name is Blake, and I live on a farmhouse.
It's nothing fancy (obviously) just a big old building right in the middle of nowhere surrounded by layers upon layers of thick bushes, trees, and mountains high as the eye can see. The kind of place where cellular towers are practically non-existent, and the nearest civilization is at least a gazillion miles away. That kind of farmhouse.
I also work here. Making around eighty bucks an hour. Which I guess is a little above average for most gardeners, but I did let the owners know I was just about ready to work for free. All I needed was a roof over my head and a place to sleep. But they insisted I take the money or go find some other place to sleep. And so I did.
Other than being a full-time gardener at the farmhouse, I am also a part time forest runner on most days. Although it's not my second job of choice, it's just something I do on the side whenever I want to. Plus it bumps up my salary a bit, and I appreciate the extra money I get from doing it. Despite how crazy and insanely dangerous it almost always gets.
What is a forest runner? Well, on the one hand, I want to say it is one of the easiest things in the world. Since it mostly involves walking into a single patch of forest, making a loud noise, and immediately turning back to run in the opposite direction. But what you run from is what makes it tricky. And whether or not you are fast enough to outpace whatever hears you, also makes the difference. I can't believe I am about to say this, but I also run away from monsters for a living.
Ferocious, blood thirsty creatures ready to tear you limb from limb The second they grab hold of your jacket and pull you towards them. Those kinds of monsters. But I don't just run away from monsters in the forest. I also run away from other things too. Wildlife. Creatures of different shapes and sizes. Spirits. Ghouls. Ghosts. Goblins. And my list favorite of them all: Mermaids.
Okay. Maybe mermaids aren't supposed to be on the list. I just had that one "experience" with a particular mermaid a few weeks ago, which almost scarred me for life. I kinda have most of the memories a bit blurry but let’s just say because of her, I was literally almost seafood. But before then, I've never actually seen one in person. But I've heard stories.
Stories of how they rarely swim up to the surface and whenever they do, you are not to approach any of them, under any circumstance, unless invited. I wasn't. And I approached one anyway. Safe to say, it really didn't bode well for me when I did that. Lesson learned that's for sure. But do you know what? Let that be the first story I tell you.
The first thing I remember from that experience was the image of a blonde girl sat crying by the riverbank. It was a Saturday evening, and I was out raking a bunch of leaves when her incessive sobbing was carried over to the farmhouse by the wind. At first I chose to ignore it. Hoping that, it was just that. Incessive sobbing carried over by the wind and nothing more. But then the sobbing grew louder, and I promise I had a very good reason to go check it out.
At this point, it was just me at the farmhouse and no one else. My boss "Frank" was out hunting with the farmhouse dog, and his wife "Linda" was out supplying a fresh batch of mixed herb to the nearby villages and markets. Which reminds me.
Remember how I said the nearest civilization was at least a gazillion miles away? Technically, that's not entirely accurate. The nearest civilization is not a gazillion miles away as I initially had you believe. Sorry about that. The nearest civilization for real this time, is actually just a couple walks downhill. Past the field of murdering bush lilies, and through the enchanted trees of killer mushrooms. Then, voila. Civilization. But the nearest 21st century civilization however, that's the One that is at least a gazillion miles away. The place where the rest of present-day humanity lives. Yeah. Super far from wherever this place is. Anyway, back to the story.
So there I was. Standing in the middle of a clearing in front of the farmhouse, a small pile of dried grass and leaves sitting in front of me and starting to Russell over from the wind. I placed the bud of my rake on top of the heap, preventing it from spreading any further and causing me to start over, while I lifted my head up to listen intently to the sounds in the wind. Again, it was just as I described. Sobs. Someone crying. Soft sniffles, coughs, and everything. You didn't need an otolaryngologist to help identify what your ears were picking up in that moment, it was just so clear that the person doing the crying might well have been right next to you.
I jumped at the thought of something sneaking up behind me while I was distracted and began searching my immediate environment for any potential anomalies that might have gotten past the wooden fence surrounding the farmhouse. Poltergeists. Trolls. Ogres. And a sumo sized demon gorilla with red eyes and muscles the size of bowling balls. Believe it or not, but these are just a few of the abominations that have somehow managed to cross on to the compound one too many times before, and if it weren't for the intervention of Frank and Linda, the power couple currently running the farmhouse, the aberrations would probably have done a lot more than break a few things while also nearly giving me a heart attack in the process.
But after a few quick nervous glances over my immediate environment, and finding not one thing out of place, I turned my attention over to where the sobs sounded the loudest. It was coming from a fairly large crack in the fence on the west side of the farmhouse. A demarcation that when gazed through, revealed a whole new world consisting of a deep gray sky, rocks, a bunch of trees that were hopefully weren't harboring zombie tree people, and its most alluring feature of it all. A great body of water that is almost as gray as the sky itself. That is where the sobs were coming from. And like any reasonable person in that situation, my initial thoughts were NOT to check out the strange noise emanating from beyond the fence.
I mean, just think about it. I was all alone, on a hill. In a farmhouse located right in the center of a very large, very enchanted mystical forests, capable of hoarding a huge amount of very dark, very demented creatures, which are seemingly on a never-ending hunt for lonely gardeners, and farmers, and small groups of villagers to torment, or possess, or straight up consume whenever they are feeling a bit frisky.
So yes. I most definitely wasn't about to leave the comforting embrace that the squarish wooden structure around the farmhouse provided, to go investigate a strange sound that just so happens to be coming from the same place I was warned on multiple occasions never to visit. And whenever I asked, I was straight up told mother nature herself was sleeping at the bottom of that very river and waking her up was asking for trouble.
I never could tell when Linda is joking, or when Frank is being serious. But when it comes to things concerning the forest and around the farmhouse, I always listen. So if mother nature herself is sleeping in that very river, then mother nature herself is sleeping in that very river. And instead of investigating the strange sobs, I ignored it. But then, it got worse.
There was a sudden ear-piercing screech as whatever was crying by the river, let out a scream that almost blew out my eardrums. The intense whale only lasted for about a moment, but every second was an excruciating eternity, causing me to let go of the rake I was holding and cover my ears in reflex. It was so loud it must have reverberated round a good chunk of the forest, sending a few hundred birds scattering into the air, and a dozen more rodents dashing for cover. When the screeching finally stopped, it was as if the world fell silent, and nothing moved.
It took a few seconds for me to be comfortable enough to uncover my ears, setting my hands by my side in the process. I blinked a couple times before scanning my environment once more, searching for anything out of the ordinary. For some reason, I was certain a display of such fierce vocal capacity, especially one of such intensity, was bound to disturb the mother of forest, rousing her up from her slumber. But instead of waiting around to find out, I gathered up my equipment, abandoned the rest of my work for that evening, and began marching towards the farmhouse where it was safe. Ish.
Besides. I run away from monsters for a living. I don't face them. If anything, I want to say that was consistent with my character. Also, when that monster is essentially a superpower of the forest resting in your backyard, it kind of puts a lot of stuff into consideration. Plus, I was all alone so. Yeah. Definitely wasn't waiting around to find out.
Approaching the farmhouse in a haste, I made a beeline for the equipment's shed positioned on the east side of the compound, almost directly opposite where the strange sobs were initially coming from. Now, the sobs were quiet. But that doesn't mean something was not still back there.
Reaching for my keys in my lower right pocket, I pulled them out in a flurry of clinks and jingles, while instinctively feeling for the specific key I needed with the tips of my fingers. As the farmhouse is situated in a very remote area of the forest, we don't often get that many unwanted visitors from the nearby villages and settlements who want to take things from us without asking. But it is still advised we lock up anything of value because, well, where do you think some of the creatures around here get their weapons of callus destruction from?
Nearing the doors of the shed, I finally picked out the key I needed from the bunch, then used that to flick open the rusty metal lock and entered the belly of the Makeshift storage unit. Inside were rows after rows of very sharp, very blunt instruments of numerous shapes and sizes, with each one Easley being the perfect leading murderous tool for any band of pissed off bulbus shaped vegetable people to ransack, steal, and utilize to illegally carve out any portion of the forest and claim it as their own.
They were knives. Blades. Scissors. Hoes. Clippers. Shovels. Diggers. Daggers. Slicers. Splicers. And of course. A big ass sword standing in a stone on the opposite side of the far wall. The rest of the stuff were just scattered haphazardly, with some of them still hanging on the metal rings connected to the woodwork lining up the ceiling, while others were resting on the tables, and some lying on the floor.
I dumped all of my equipment, then stepped out closing the doors behind me and remembering to lock it. I continued my march toward the farmhouse, but just as I rushed up the flight of small stairs and placed my hand on the doorknob, I heard it again.
The crying from before.
This time however, it was different.
This time, it sounded more human.
I don't know what came over me. It was as if a million little metal fists shot out of nowhere and punched me right in the gut. The creature's pain became my pain, and its worries became my worries. I did not like the feeling.
The crying took me back to a point in my life I really did not like to think about. It made me sick to my stomach and made my eyes want to water. Every cough. Every sniffle. Every audible inhale I now heard emanating from just beyond the fence, made me felt gross to my core. I wanted it to stop.
But instead of running upstairs and throwing on a pair of earplugs, I decided to do the opposite.
I went to go investigate the strange sobs coming from beyond the fence.
And before you role your eyes at me, I promise. I had a very good reason for doing so. I just can't tell you about it at the moment. Brings up too many unwanted memories. Just know I needed to confirm that whomever or whatever was crying by the river, wasn't going through a similar thing I ones did. And if he or she wasn't peaceful, or friendly, then I will simply not approach them.
That's it.
So after releasing the doorknob and taking in a few deep breaths, I backed away from the front door and took off down the flight of stairs, turning in the direction of the west side of the farmhouse. To where the sobs were coming from.
Although now it wasn't full on sobbing, it was more of a blend between sniffling and coughing. Which was starting to decrease in frequency and intensity as I got closer.
I was halfway across the yard, mere feet away from gazing through the crack in the fence when I suddenly remembered the vicious scream from earlier, which then prompted me to do a quick u turn to go grab a pair of earmuffs from the top of my desk within the farmhouse. Sometimes, strange noises emanate deep within the forest at night, and the earmuffs primarily helps to preserve my sanity whenever that happens. It also helps to block out sounds like annoying chattering crows, shadow whisperers, and sleepwalking inducing river sirens. Amongst other things. But the main reason why I went back for it that evening, was to help protect my ears from the screeching.
I used the opportunity after snagging the pair of blue earmuffs, to gaze out my window overlooking the river on the west side of the farmhouse. I didn't quite catch a glimpse of whatever was crying by the water, on the count of my window not being in exact focus to the sobs, so I threw on the muffs, went downstairs, and headed out the front door.
I once again turned in the direction of the sobs which, I could no longer here as much. But blocking out the crying like I said, wasn't really what I was going for. I wanted to make sure whoever was crying was okay. And just as I was approaching the fence, ready to peer through the crack in the wooden structure surrounding the farmhouse, someone got in my way.
There was a sudden pressure against my back as something had landed so gracefully behind me, that it completely escaped my sense of hearing, bringing me to a literal standstill. I didn't even need to turn around to find out who it was. The scent of fresh blood in the air. The waves of dark aura pushing against my back. The ability to move as fast and as silent, so as to completely evade the senses. There was only one forest aberration I knew could do that.
"And just what do you think you are doing?"
I heard the voice of Sebastian ask from inside the back of my head, sending ripples of dread down the length of my spine. I turned around slowly and came face to face with the thing that would forever be the number one reason why I find owls to be one of the scariest species of birds on the planet.
Sebastian was a part man, part owl hybrid thing, with a ghostly white face, deep black eyes, and a feathered, makeshift winged cloak that was just as deep, dark, and menacing as his eyes. He has no beak. But lips. And it doesn't really matter because when he speaks, they don't move. At all. No matter the circumstance.
"Have you suddenly lost your tongue boy? I asked you a question. What do you think you are doing?" he added, his cold voice bouncing around in my head and his gaze frozen solid.
I tried saying something, but I was so captivated by fear I forgot how to speak. My entire body was shaking like a leaf, and I was pretty sure I was about to piss my pants.
Among all the aberrations in the forest and Frank just so happen to pick the creepiest looking one of them all to serve as my babysitter. Thanks Frank. I really appreciate it.
"Don't make me repeat myself boy," Sebastian said, his tone dropping to sinister levels.
"SPEAK!" he ordered, and the ferocity of his pitch almost caused the inside of my skull to split in two.
I swallowed the fear stuck in my throat and finally spoke.
"There's... It's... Someone needs our help," I said. My words somehow managing to form a cohesive sentence. "I just wanted to..."
Sebastian jerked his head to the side to glance over my shoulder. More specifically, he glanced over my shoulder to stare through the crack in the wooded fence behind me.
We both heard the sniffling noises simultaneously.
After a second or two, Sebastian then snapped his head in my direction, returning his soulless gays back on me.
"Were you invited?" he asked, a hint of calm resignation in his tone.
"What?" I replied, genuinely confuse at his question.
"Were you invited?" he asked again, with his voice starting to shift into enraged annoyance.
In fear of not wanting to piss him off any more than I already did, I simply shook my head in response, hoping that was enough non sassy, non-disrespectful way of indicating I was still at a loss of what he was asking.
Letting out a sigh, he said, "Take a look." And I began to slowly step backwards while keeping my eyes trained on him. It was not until my back connected with a flat wooden surface behind me that I finally broke eye contact in order to turn around, crouch, and gaze out the crack in the fence standing on the west side of the farmhouse. And the view was just as I described.
There was the deep gray sky with all its glory. The smooth dark rocks. The towering trees looming overhead. And the large body of water that had her swampiness resting underneath. Everything was as I described with one exception. Now sitting on one of the rocks by the left side of the river, with her back turned and both of her legs stuffed into the water, was a girl. Or more specifically, a young woman.
Her hair was a mixture of white and yellow, with rows of beads running half circles along the back of her braid, decorating her already very colorful, very voluminous hair all the way down to her lower back. Her shoulders each held three sets of clothing strips, which appeared to act as the primary (hold me up support) for the rest of her slim green looking attire, and the tone of her skin was a pale shade with a hint of Olive undertone. She looked hunched over in her sitting position, with her hands, each one decorated with rows of transparent blue bangles, lifted up to her face, cupping her eyes and nose as she continued to sniffle and sob quietly into the morning breeze. I didn't even have to sight her tail to know what kind of creature she already was.
Some of the creatures in the forest, especially the mermaids, take great pride in the kinds of accessories they wear, and in the way they look. If you were to ask me why, I would say it probably has something to do with ethnic origins or simple personal aesthetic choices. Suddenly, the question Sebastian kept repeating to me made a lot of sense. If you don't ask a mermaid for permission before approaching, things for you can become really painful. And for a brief moment, I wondered if the screeching noise from earlier had anything to do with the kinds of things they are capable of.
So, in light of the sudden Discovery that I was in fact dealing with a potentially hostile mermaid, my drive for wanting to help her process whatever grief she was going through suddenly plummeted. Especially now that I knew she was capable of letting out a screech that could easily rip apart my skull if she wanted to. And because of that, I ceased staring through the gap in the fence to lean back and look up at the frozen stature of Sebastian looming just behind me. He kept silent as always, and continued to observe me with a steady gaze, waiting for me to speak of my findings. I gave myself a second to process the image I had just witnessed before speaking.
"It's a mermaid," I said, perplexed at my Discovery.
"Yes," Sebastian replied, his lips shut, and his voice reverberating around the inside of my skull.
"I can't believe it. I've never seen a mermaid before," I said.
"You should count yourself lucky then rabbit," Sebastian said, unmoving. "Those who sight a mermaid for the first time from such close distance don't usually walk away to tell about the tail," he added. "They always end up doing something stupid."
"Stupid?" I asked, flashing a nervous smile.
Sebastian picked up on my former intentions and shot me a disappointed angry stare.
"Stupid like trying to get nearer for an even closer gander," he said, his pitch-black eyes narrowing and warning. "What were you thinking?" he asked, and luckily for me I did not have to answer the question.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash as if a tree had toppled over in the distance. Sebastian spun his head around, twisting his neck so the back of his head was now facing me. I squirmed at the site of his forward backwards appearance, never having gotten acquainted with most of his characteristics and capabilities in the short time I've known him working at the farmhouse. After a second or two, Sebastian then twisted his neck back into place, returning his dark gaze back on me.
"What is it?" I asked, standing up from my crouched position by the fence and allowing the thought of the mermaid disappear from my mind for a moment.
"You should get inside. Now," Sebastian replied, taking a step back before opening his massive dark wings and spreading them to the sides.
He arced his knees a little bit, and with a single downward flap of his wings, he was airborne. Off the ground by a total of eight feet, before coming to a halt midflight to stare down at me.
"Get inside and lock the doors. Now!" he barked, eyes narrowed, and his wings flapping up and down by his sides keeping his suspended state.
"But you still haven't..."
I never got the opportunity to complete my sentence.
Just then, an almost invisible ball of spiraling blue energy, shot out from somewhere behind me and collided with the body of Sebastian, sending him flying across the front yard and expelling him from the premises entirely.
I immediately took out my earmuffs and was hit with an eerie silence. My heart was pounding. My brain was starting to enter a hyperactive panic mode. And my breathing became ragged and intense. What the hell just happened?
I didn't have to wait for my answer.
I spun around to the sound of rapid approaching footsteps, and almost had a heart attack from what I saw.
Running towards the farmhouse from the other side of the fence. Bare feet. With the lower half of her dress dripping with river water, and the top part of her attire and voluminous hair flowing in the evening breeze, was the mermaid. In full spectacle.
Her eyes were the color of midnight. Her gait, although a little hindered by her dress, seemed just like the way a normal girl would run. The rows of transparent blue bangles on her forearm and wrist, were now a bright luminescent glowing color. And they were streaks of dried-up black makeup tears running down the sides of her cheeks, prove she was indeed the one crying moments earlier.
She resembled something straight out of a marionette's horror movie running towards me and I was a deer caught in headlights. I couldn't believe it.
I started to back off slowly and she snapped her head in my direction, causing my heart to almost leap out of my chest.
"Hey! No! Wait! I'm not going to hurt you!" she yelled, rushing towards the fence, and lifting up her hands defensively. "I just want to help," she added, finally coming to a halt, and staring at me through the gap in the fence.
"Something terrible is coming this way and it's all my fault," she said. "Please. We need to leave"
She continued to stare at me through the crack in the fence, a look of genuine concerned plastered across her face. Her dark blue eyes held a tinge of guilt behind them, and her cheeks and lips were flushed with honest worry. She reached out an arm through the fence, as if physically showing she wasn't a threat. That's when I looked down and found that the rows of bangles on her hand, the same ones that were glowing a bright luminescent color only seconds before, were now dimming back into their original shade, almost as if they were in a state of powering down.
"Please," she whispered, and I lifted my head up to meet her gays once more.
For a second, I didn't move. I was frozen in fear and contemplating weather to Make a run for the farmhouse and lock myself in, or run away with this stranger offering to take me to a new location. The safety of the farmhouse had already been compromised thanks to her, and it was about to become a hotspot for major forest aberration activity.
I took a moment to consider my options. I really did. But the renewed sound of trees toppling over from somewhere behind me, accompanied with the ground shaking rumble of a dozen legs digging into the ground and barreling towards the farmhouse in a rush, suddenly made my decision that much obvious.
"Please. We need to go. Now!" she said, with her arm still stretched. And without a second thought, I carefully placed my hand on hers, and the instant my palm came in contact with the inside of her hand, the rows of transparent blue bangles on her arm lit up, and she immediately let go of my hand and grabbed my forearm instead.
I looked up at her face in horror, but before I could utter a word of protest, the insides of her eyes grew brighter, and she lifted her arm up, flinging me over the fence sooner than my mind was able to comprehend what was happening.
I was airborne. For like 2 and a half seconds. But it felt like a lifetime. And while I was busy somersaulting over the fence, the world around me seemed to slow down, giving me plenty of time to catch an upside-down glimpse of the humongous forest creature now climbing its way into the compound from the other side of the fence.
If none of what I've said so far has remotely sounded crazy in the slightest, this is the part where shit should really start to hit the fan. Because climbing into the compound from the other side of the fence, in a downwards arc of its massive body, was the biggest forest crab I have ever seen.
The thing was huge. Like, really huge. It possessed a dirty brown colored appearance, with some parts of its shell-like armored plating covered in green splotches. Its legs were long and pincer like, and its two main frontal claws were massive, reinforced gauntlets ending in scissor like appendages. It had tiny, jagged needles coating almost every inch of its crustacean, with the most vicious looking ones located on its arms, its legs, and the sides of its shell. And other than the overall monstrous sea creature vibes the think presented, there was another disturbing aspect to the thing.
On its back. The topmost part of its shell. Sitting on what resembled a saddle and wielding a slag of rope that somehow connected to the giant crab's antenna, was a rider. Donning some kind of yellow, red ceremonial armor.
The mermaid had planned to catch me as she already had a hand stretched upwards, ready to somehow break my fall the second I cleared the compound and was falling on the outside part of the fence. But she might have thrown me further than she can catch me because our fingers barely even brushed the top of one another before a look of horror flashed across her face, and I mentally braced myself for the inevitable rough landing.
What followed was almost instantaneous.
The world around me sped up and I watched as a ground littered with sharp rocks and stones rushed towards my face. And the last thing I remember as I fell onto the ground was smashing the side of my head against something hard before going blank.
This next part might have Played out as if in a dream sequence, but it was just the symptoms of my brain going into shock.
I was sprawled on the floor. Unmoving. But I could still perceive most of my surroundings. The side of my face in the ground was warm, and I could make out the sound of something growling and bashing against a wall, and the voice of someone crying out over the noise in the distance.
"Hey! Are you okay? I'm sorry I did not catch you. Please. get up. Hey! Can you hear me? Please. Get up. Please!"
"Easy stone breaker. Easy." A second voice spoke out over the noise, and the bashing stopped. So did the growling.
"Look princess. What you've done."
The second voice belonged to a man. And if I were to guess, I would say it belonged to the same person I saw riding the giant crab.
"Please. Get up," the girl said.
“Disappointing,” the man said. ”You see princess, this is what happens whenever you do this. Death. Destruction. And innocent people suffer for it.”
There was a pause.
“I mean, I try my best to minimize the second one, but you can't seem to stop yourself from causing the first one," the man continued. “If you would just come with me back home princess. Watermeena misses you. Your parents miss you. And I’m sure you must be tired of all this constant running?”
I couldn't quite see what was happening mainly because I had fallen facing a patch of bushes, but the rock my head was now resting on beside a nearby tree, provided enough elevation for my peripheral vision to catch some of the action.
First was that the mermaid was still standing outside the wooden fence surrounding the farmhouse. However she was now in some kind of forward leaning stance, with her arms pushed out in front, holding steady a giant transparent blue dome that had seemingly appeared from nowhere and enveloped the compound. Trapping the giant crab and its rider inside.
Second was that she seemed to be getting tired. She had her head lowered, staring at the ground. Her arms were shaking. Her legs were quivering. And the bangles on her arms were starting to blink on and off, indicating that they were probably stressed and overheating, or were simply losing power. Either way, she looked like she was about to pass out and I felt like I needed to do something.
I slowly lifted my head up and was immediately rewarded with a sharp ache shooting through my skull. I lowered my head and winced in pain, before waiting a few seconds and trying again.
This time, I was able to lift my head up and also shuffle my first step forward. And my second. And my third. Other than what I was certain was a broken knee, twisted ankle, and a bruised rib, which were all yelling at my brain for my body to stop moving, I had no other injuries. At least, so I thought.
“Huh,” the voice of the man said. “It seems as though your pedestrian casualty survived after all.”
Still laying on the ground, I lifted my head up and turned in the direction of the farmhouse. The mermaid had also lifted her head up to stare back at me.
There were fresh tears running down the sides of her cheeks. But she now had a smile plastered across her face. A smile of relief. With a little worry sprinkled in.
“Well, isn't that just wonderful,” the man said. ”Now princess,” he continued, “the ball is in your court. You either bring him along and we all go in search of a healer to help dress his injuries, in which case we leave him there and continue onward to Watermeena. Or you leave the poor fellow here to bleed out, and instead do what you've always done. Run. With whatever charge still left in those rings of yours. Just know I cannot guarantee his safety if you do choose to run. Stonebreaker gets a bit agitated when he hasn't had his dinner. And guess who hasn't eaten all day because of you.”
The mermaid looked up at the rider on the crab, then look down back at me. The smile had disappeared from her face and was now replaced with the familiar flush of worry. I turned my attention away and continued to press forward on my elbows and remaining good knee. And after a little while, I was able to make it to the trunk of a tree and lifted myself up to rest my back on it.
Wait. Did he just threatened to feed me to the crab? And did he just say I was bleeding out?
I looked down and was mortified when I saw a trail of blood smeared along the ground from where I sat, all the way to a collection of rocks sticking out of the ground which must have been my point of impact. I lifted my hand and felt a deep gash on the side of my forehead, and a sticky warm liquid was now between my fingers and running along the side of my face. I was suddenly like headed, and unable to focus on anything around me but the voices speaking in the distance.
“Hey! No! Open your eyes! Stay with me!”
Wait. When did I close my eyes?
“He is going into shock. It's now or never princess. Make your choice.”
“No. Please. Wake up,“ I heard the voice of the girl ask, reminding me of that particular memory I really did not like. I opened my eyes to a blurred mess of the things around me, then turned my attention over to where the blurred figure of the mermaid still stood holding together the blurred dome wall.
“Time is running out princess. A few more minutes and he is going to lose consciousness. You should make your choice now.”
“Promise me you won't hurt him,” the girl said, her voice restrained. “And promise me your beast wouldn't lay a single claw on him either.”
“As the commander of the royal army, you have my word princess.”
There was another pause. And just as I began lowering my head and shutting my eyes closed, I made one last attempt in hopes of saving my ass and also preserving the mermaid's independence since it really seemed like she didn't want to go with him.
“Screech,” I said, mustering some of the remaining ounce of energy I could to say that one word.
“What? The mermaid replied,” sniffling.
“That thing you did earlier. Do it again,” I said. “Scream.”
“But that was an accident,” she replied, “and it can hurt you.”
“Just do it,” I said. “Please.”
"Don't bother princess," the man said. "Your disorientating song might have led us to you, but it is not going to drive us away.”
“Good,” I replied, lifting my head up to stare in their direction and blinking a few times to clear my vision. "There is someone I would like you guys to meet."
I turned so I was now facing the mermaid.
“Do it,” I said. “Now.” And with a reluctant nod of her head, she let out three consecutive wails that were not as vicious as the first one, but still packed enough punch to force My hands to cover my ears in response. Even stonebreaker seemed to stumble on his legs a little, before shaking his head to the sides and brushing off the noise. When she was finally done, she lifted her head to stare up at me, with the look in her eyes begging the question. What now?
Her answer came in form of The River beside us starting to bubble over, with a large dark humanoid shape slowly rising up from the deep.
She was awake.
Suddenly, the bangles on the mermaid's hands sparked a bright flash, forcing her to flinch in pain before releasing her grip on the blue dome and dropping to her knees. The bangles began dimming back into their original shade and the blue dome surrounding the compound evaporated.
The man did not cease the opportunity to steal the mermaid in that moment. Instead he was transfixed on the entity now emerging from the water.
The figure in the river continued to rise, until it was out of the water to its waste and was facing the direction of the farmhouse.
It was big. Very big. Its body was made entirely of dark brown roots and tree bark, and its eyes were hollow circuits of glowing lights. There was a greenish bluish swamp like slime covering its entire body, and the hair on its head was long, dark, drenched, and coated with seaweed. Its overall visage was akin to the top half of a woman, and when she spoke, it was with a thousand voices that came before her.
“I am Kiai Ohana. Mother of nature. Guardian, and protector of all living things in the forest. Crab fender.” The thing lifted her hand to point at the man sitting on the giant crab, which was now 10 times smaller in comparison. “You are currently violating the sanctity of this land with your presence and putting the life of yet another of my own at risk. As you and your men have done on multiple counts before,” she said, lowering her arm. “No longer should I allow such acts from you go unpunished. Leave now and consider this to be your final warning.”
Without saying another word, the crab fender pulled at the rains of his beast, steering his massive crustacean away from the mermaid and exiting the compound by crawling over the same fence he crawled in.
“You too little one,” the spirit said. Turning her attention over to the mermaid. “I must continue to recuperate. You must be on your way. Now.”
The mermaid got to her feet and rushed over to where I had my back against a tree.
“But can you please help him,” she said. “He is like this because of me.”
She tore a piece of her dress and pressed it against my forehead.
I want to say it hurt like hell, but I was already slipping back into unconsciousness, and everything was becoming numb. The girl kneeling in front of me was but a blur again at this point.
“I know,” the spirit replied. “I will see to it that he is treated. But you must go. Now. Like the crab fender, you have also caused a lot of trouble and are now trespassing on private land. And I cannot have that.”
“Okay,” the mermaid replied. “And I'm sorry for all I've caused. I really am. But thank you for accepting to help him. She said. Thank you."
“It's my duty little one,” the spirit said. “Don't thank me. Besides. I know this one. He is a sapling in training. Hopefully he is able to blossom before the start of the dark days, or a simple head injury would be the list of his problems. Now go little one. And don't come back.”
“Okay,” the mermaid replied.
Before leaving, the mermaid ended up wiping the blood from my face with the piece of fabric, then tor another piece from her dress and wrapped it around my head like a Makeshift Band-Aid. After that, she took my hand in hers and leaned in closer.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
And with that, she got to her feet and began bolting down towards the river, and just as she jumped into the water, I blinked a few times to clear my vision, and caught sight of her transformation as she dove into the water. Headfirst, tail last. Then, she was gone.
But the spirit was still there.
“Don't worry little sapling,” the spirit said, as my vision began to tunnel. “Help is on its way,” she added. “Save your strength and get well soon. The dark days are almost upon us. And I am going to need every man and woman of the runners, prepared to trade their lives for the forest. Including you.”
I could only mutter a silent "what?" Before I completely blacked out. And when I woke up a few hours later, the first thing to cross my mind was an echo of what the spirit had said.
"The dark days are almost upon us. And I am going to need every man and woman of the runners, prepared to trade their lives for the forest. Including you."
What the hell are the dark days?

It was my birthday. I was excited to get myself something nice. I spent about an hour in the sporting goods store before I made up my mind. There were a lot of good looking rod/ reel combos. I really liked the Abu Garcea combo, but I’m a family man. I figured, based on experience, an Ugly Stik/ Shakespeare combo would be just as good at a lower cost. So, that’s what i bought.
Ugly Stik is famous for a particular reason. You are supposed to be able to bend them tip to tip without them breaking. I even remember people doing it in the store years ago. Nobody cared because Ugly Stik guaranteed that it would endure. The company used to actually strap heavy weights on the tip and lift them up to prove how tough they were.
Anyhow, i drank a few beers and decided it would be cool to show my new rod off to my kids. I asked them if they thought it would hold up if i bent it tip to tip. They didn’t believe me when I assured them that it would be fine. And, much to my surprise, they were right. I didn’t even bend it a third of the way past, what I assumed was, it’s limit when it snapped in half. I was actually embarrassed.
I decided to look into it. Ugly Stik no longer makes those sorts of guarantees about their products. But I was angry. I decided to take it back to the store and exchange it. I lied and claimed that it had a hairline fracture in it when I bought it. I told them it snapped while I was spooling the reel. They wouldn’t have taken it back if they knew the truth. I got my money back and spent an extra $40 to upgrade to the Abu Garcea. I can’t bend an Abu Garcea in half without it breaking, but they never promised that I could in the first place.
I don’t know why I’m even admitting this. I don’t think I should feel guilty. But maybe some part of me does. Then again, maybe Ugly Stik should work harder on quality assurance. Maybe they should try making rods as tough as they used to be. Maybe it’s their fault.

Type 1 diabetic. 27 years old 190 pounds. Male. Have had diabetes for a while since 2003 always tried to take care of myself just never worked out. In November of 2022 I was stretching for pelvic floor therapy and started getting a weird sensation in perineum. Since then my life has been hell. With in a few days i had weakness in my legs and then started getting a little numbness on one toe. Things got a little worse but went to 5 neuros and everyone just says diabetes. But it happened suddenly and and spread rapidly. A1c is 9. I am telling this kind of out of order but as of last week I went on a pump. So everyone said it’s diabetic neuropathy personally I think that doesn’t all make sense but I am no doctor. I just guess it is manifesting weird. So I tried pt and accupuncture. Nothing helped. Eventually made my way to a chiropractor. This is when life started really turning to shit. He snapped my cervical and neck and didn’t ask. Since then I have been getting strange temperature sensations throughout body head arms legs etc. sometimes feel like a part of my lower half is kinked like a hose. A weird vibration symptom. Have even felt vibration in my tongue. Sometimes wetness sometimes just feels like someone is sprinkling cold water slightly on me. Especially if I move suddenly etc. even had MRIs done after and they see nothing on entire spine. 5 neuros said diabetic neuropathy. It just typically wouldn’t manifest like this. So sudden so gradual. And everywhere within a month or so it started while stretching and spinal manipulation made it 5x worse. I don’t doubt it’s diabetic neuropathy but is it possible that the Chiro did something they aren’t seeing on MRIs? They’ve already ruled out Ms etc. have done blood work. Even went to rheumatologist. So is there anything that may be causing this other than diabetes? Also is diabetic neuropathy reversible with tight control? Everywhere online says no but I have multiple doctors telling me yes. I hate life right now and just want to get better. Thank you

I started this project after seeing posts on the late Kaczynskism subreddit. I was irritated seeing all of the misunderstandings, it was clear that most of the people were either passionate but ignorant, or simply reactionaries. I have recently picked the project back up and I have been working on it for the past couple of days. Of course, this is still a work in progress so it is far from finished. Any criticisms or suggestions on what else to add are welcome.
​

1. Revolution first (NOT a political revolution)

“Two competing, entirely legal self-prop systems that have arisen in the U.S. during the last few decades are the politically correct left and the dogmatic right (not to be confused with the liberals and conservatives of earlier times in America). This book is not the place to speculate about the
outcome of the struggle between these two forces; suffice it to say that in the long run their bitter conflict may do more to prevent the establishment of a lastingly peaceful world order than all the bombs of Al Qeeda and all the murders of the Mexican drug gangs.” (Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, pg. 52-53)
This quote from Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How will serve as a sort of fundamental basis for this section. TK sees the problem of governments and authority with his sociological theory of self-prop systems. Because TK holds the view that self-prop systems will support themselves regardless of what happens outside of their scope, his fundamental position brings him to the conclusion that no political system is designed to help humanity; all self-prop systems only support themselves (i.e. all governments are self-prop systems).
Would TK be against mandatory vaccinations? Would he support mask mandates? Would he believe the vaccine itself is a creation by the government as a mass conspiracy to follow orders? No one knows what TK’s position would be in regards to these certain issues; however, it is very clear that TK believes having any opinion on these issues is a waste of time. This is quite apparent in his works and transparent evidence exists everywhere throughout his writings.
In regards to revolution Kaczynski dislikes leftism for a multitude of reasons. A gestalt of his criticisms against leftism can be seen in ISAIF paragraphs 6-32 and 213-230. Of course, Kaczynski expands his list of problems with the leftists in his later works, however, it is clear that his greatest concern with leftism is its lack of a revolutionary cause and its want to reform as well as its inability of upholding a non-corrupt revolution. Leftists say that they want a revolution, but in reality what they really want is power. ISAIF paragraph 217:
“In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most power-hungry type, repeatedly, have first cooperated with non-leftist revolutionaries, as well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination, and later have double-crossed them to seize power for themselves. Robespierre did this in the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did it in the Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in 1938 and Castro and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history of leftism, it would be utterly foolish for nonleftist revolutionaries today to collaborate with leftists”
It is clear that any “revolution” sparked by a leftist will not end the system, only propagate it. When leftists get a hold of revolutions they cooperate with other organizations (such as the Earth First! Movement. They unfortunately disregard the technological system issue and become part of the system itself after being invaded by leftists.):
‘The so-called "Green Revolution" of the latter part of the 20th century-the introduction of new farming technologies and of recently developed, highly productive varieties of grain-was supposed to alleviate hunger in the Third World by providing more abundant harvests. It did indeed provide more abundant harvests. But: "[A]lthough the 'Green Revolution' seems to have been a success as far as the national total cereal production figures are concerned, a look at it from the perspective of communities and individual humans indicates that the problems have far
outweighed the successes...."16 In some parts of the world the consequences of the Green Revolution have been nothing short of catastrophic. For example, in the Punjab (a region lying partly in India and partly in Pakistan), the Green Revolution has ruined "thousands of hectares of [formerly] productive land," and has led to severe lowering of the water table, contamination of the water with pesticides and fertilizers, numerous cases of cancer (probably due to the contaminated water), and many suicides.’
‘The green revolution has brought us only downfall,'' says Jarnail Singh....
'It ruined our soil, our environment, our water table. Used to be we had
fairs in villages where people would come together and have fun. Now we
gather in medical centers.’” (Anti-Tech revolution: why and how, P. 11)
In an unofficial conclusion of politics Kaczysnki writes:
“There are good reasons why humans' capacity to control the development of their societies has failed to progress. In order to control the development of a society you would have to be able to predict how the society would react to any given action you might take, and such predictions have generally proven to be highly unreliable. Human societies are complex systems-technologically advanced societies are most decidedly complex-and prediction of the behavior of complex systems presents difficulties that are not contingent on the present state of our knowledge or our level of technological development.” (Anti-tech Revolution: why and how, P. 13)
In other words, all of these ideologies have this unrealistic view of guessing where humanity will go after they try to “change” the system in the way they see fit. The minute you implement an ideology that focuses on the “betterment” of humanity you throw away any semblance of honesty as it is impossible to guess how the ideological implication will actually better humanity; all previous implementations have only helped the system. We can only be sure of one thing, Technological society has ruined the world and the only way to stop it is a revolution. TK believes we have substantial evidence against reformation; the evidence exists throughout all of industrial technologies history. He also believes that self-prop systems will only cause corruption (leftist revolutions). This is why after the revolution the organization that caused the revolution needs to disappear.
“Let's nevertheless make the improbable assumption that society had been transformed in the way advocated by Glendinning. Would the transformation be irreversible, as Rule (ii)* requires? That is, would society remain in its transformed condition without continuing effort by the neo-Iuddites? Not a chance! As discussed in Chapter Two, natural selection guarantees that conflict and competition for power would re-emerge after the neo-Iuddite utopia had been established. Even if one rejects the argument of Chapter Two, it is an observable fact that human affairs have usually if not always been characterized by conflict and competition, whether within
societies or between different societies. Glendinning does not explain what would prevent conflict and competition from reappearing and wrecking the neo-Iuddite utopia. In practice, the neo-Iuddite movement would be corrupted, just as every other radical movement that has become the dominant force in a society has been corrupted. Neo-Iuddite ideals would be
forgotten or would receive only lip-service, and the continued existence of modern technology (which Glendinning does not contemplate eliminating) would ensure society's inevitable return to its present destructive trajectory.” (Anti-tech revolution: why and how P. 133)
In response to conservatives TK writes his ever famous criticism:
“The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and
that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.” (ISAIF, P. 50)
Is this the extent to TK’s thoughts on conservatism? No, the very next paragraph is as follows:
“The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their communities. Beyond that, a technological society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern society an individual’s loyalty must be first to the system and only secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal loyalties of small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue
their own advantage at the expense of the system.” (ISAIF, P. 51)
It is apparent here, that conservatism (as well as leftism) is subservient to the system. There is no political ideology that will safely deviate from the system. You are either against the system's idea of a perfect civilization or you are not. No matter where you are on the political spectrum you must agree with the fall of technological society to agree with TK.

1. The utopia of the technophiles and why it is self-defeating

A lot of technophiles and scientists go on and on about the inevitable human/machine hybrid that will exist in the future, they see it is a type of progress that will eventually lead to immortality and the dissemination of disease, poverty, social standing etc. Along with this technophiles often like to discuss artificial birthing, genetic tampering, and superintelligent A.I. On the surface this sounds like a dream come true, but it will very easily lead to complete disaster.
TK believes that there is no mathematically possible way to have complete knowledge of the future. This lack of complete knowledge always leads to disaster.
“There are in fact certain paradoxes involved in the notion of a system that predicts its own behavior. These are reminiscent of Russell's Paradox in set theory38 and of the paradoxes that arise when one allows a statement to talk about itself (e.g., consider the statement, "This statement is false"). When a system makes a prediction about its own behavior, that prediction may itself change the behavior of the system, and the change in the behavior of the system may invalidate the prediction. Of course, not every statement that talks about itself is paradoxical. For example, the statement, "This statement is in the English language" makes perfectly good sense.
Similarly, many predictions that a system may make about itself will not be self-invalidating; they may even cause the system to behave in such a way as to fulfill the prediction.39 But it is too much to hope for that a society's predictions about itself will never be (unexpectedly) self-invalidating.” (Anti-tech revolution: why and how P. 16)
Another notable quote is from his barely known and hard to come by essay Progress versus Wilderness.
“The great depression of the thirties was not a result of any natural catastrophe; it was an outgrowth of human economic behavior. Nobody wanted it, but it happened anyway. The pollution and congestion problems of our own era were not planned or expected; nobody wanted them, they just happened. The point is that millions of people functioning together in a complex system can produce effects that are desired by none of the individuals concerned. Our society is a vast machine, we are the components of that machine, and our individual wills do not govern the behavior of the machine.” (Progress versus Wilderness pg. 6)
Ultimately, our technological “progress” has led to unintentional pain and ecological disaster. Nobody wanted this, it is just the result of being a part of an unpredictable system that we have seemingly little control over. Imagine the problems and unpredictability of today but multiply them ten fold. Complete disaster is what happens when you add gene manipulations and hyper-intelligent AI into the system.

1. It is impossible to remove yourself from the system

I often hear the neo-luddite community criticize TK and his followers for his views on revolution. “Why don’t you just work towards living alone in the forest away from technology.” This type of argument is also perpetuated by the critics of neo-luddism and anarcho-primitivism with a slightly different tone. “If you don’t like technology then why are you on the computer? Why do you have a car? That seems hypocritical” (This criticism is the one that I see most often on internet videos).
There are a couple of responses that TK has within his works. I often like to bring up this quote to combat the problem regarding “why don’t you just go live in a forest somewhere”
“The mountains of Western Montana offered me nearly everything I needed or wanted. If those mountains could have remained just as they were when I first moved to Montana in 1971, I would have been satisfied. The rest of the world could have had a herd mentality, or an individualistic mentality or whatever, and it would have been all the same to me. But, of course, under modern conditions there was no way the mountains could have remained isolated from the rest of the world. Civilization moved in and squeezed me,
So…..” (Technological Slavery: The Collected Writing of Ted Kaczysnki, pg.299)
There is also a response to civilization moving in by TK, it is probably my favorite quote from anything that TK has ever written (which is why I had to squeeze it in here).
“The next day I started for my home cabin. My route took me past a beautiful spot, a favorite place of mine where there was a spring of pure water that could safely be drunk without boiling. I stopped and said a kind of prayer to the spirit of the spring. It was a prayer in which I swore that I would take revenge for what was being done to the forest.” (Technological Slavery: The Collected Writing of Ted Kaczysnki, pg. 432)
We see here that TK was perfectly content with living the rest of his life in the mountains of Montana. The reason why he did what he did is because the technological society came after him. It has gotten much worse since TK wrote that letter, if you think anyone can just “escape the technological system” you are dead wrong. The only way to stop the madness is through complete revolution.
In response to “you are a hypocrite for using technology even though you are against technology” TK states this.
“On the other hand, if we can convince a person that a certain plan will be useful to society provided that a sufficient number of people follow the plan, this provides the person with at most a very weak motive to follow the plan, for he knows that it is very unlikely, or even impossible, that his own individual participation will by itself have any perceptible effect on society. For example: Many people know that it would be better for the world if everyone refused to use automobiles. Nevertheless, apart from rare exceptions, each one of these people has his automobile, because he says to himself that if he refuses to drive he will suffer great inconvenience without doing any perceptible good for the world; for the world will derive no
perceptible advantage unless many millions of people refuse to use automobiles.” (Technological Slavery: The Collected Writing of Ted Kaczysnki, pg. 413)
We can conclude from these excerpts that:

1. Living in the woods without the intervention of the technological system is impossible.
2. A single person choosing to not do something that A. Causes harm to the environment and B. causes a great inconvenience will most likely not create any great changes among the world.

Given these two points it is obvious that the most pragmatic way of preserving our human nature as well as the life of the planet is to create a worldwide revolution and to use any means necessary to make that happen.

A slave-driving murderer had just publicly declared war on us. The cheering and applause of the people standing around us was an eerie and ominous accompaniment to the feeling of dread swelling in my chest and radiating down to my stomach. He'd captured all of them thus far. I swallowed and dropped my gaze down to the pavement as it dawned on me that all of those people had tasted freedom, and were then immediately and mercilessly hunted down and dragged back to hell.
But there was an interesting caveat there. He called us by the names O'Malley had erroneously wrote down in his ledger. The men that were chasing us that day had picked up our actual fake aliases, but then we'd killed them at the inn. It seemed that knowledge died with them– a drop of good luck in a raging downpour it seemed.
"William," I said just loud enough to catch his attention.
He turned and eyed me. "Huh? Were you talking to me?"
I lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah. Who else would I be calling William?"
He narrowed his eyes, "It's Tovin, you spaz."
I glanced around nervously. Nobody appeared to have been listening to us. I took him by the shoulder and led him away from the crowd gathered around the picture boxes. "What are you doing?" I hissed.
"What am I doing?" he scoffed. "What are you doing? You know my name. What, are you playing a game right now?"
"Our aliases," I said through my teeth. "We're using fake names, remember?"
His expression changed from annoyed and confused to forlorn and somber. He swallowed and looked away. "... I'm losing it again, aren't I?" he asked.
I remained silent. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want him to feel worse about it, but that would have been a dangerous slip-up in front of the wrong person. Before now, I was starting to think that Tovin back home had overblown how quickly the mental decline would be.
"Don't worry about it," I said finally, passing him on the sidewalk further into the city. "Come on. We need to find a way to make some money."
"And fast," he added, trailing behind me. "We need food, clothes, and a couple of beds. And more cigarettes, too. I've only got a few left and I'm trying to make them last."
We walked the mazelike streets of Bronzegirder looking for work. I wasn't used to Diesel society yet and often found myself hung up on storefront windows that marketed all kinds of gadgets and technology. I would do my best not to stare when people walked by wearing metallic pieces on their persons.
Some wore gadgets on their forearms, some on their wrists, and others in various other areas. I wondered what purpose they served, where they were sold, and how expensive they could be. And it wasn't just the gadgets. There were far more dark-skinned people here than we had in Galgia. It was something I had read about but never experienced. They ranged from light tan all the way to almost black, and it just added to the culture shock.
There appeared to be people living in the buildings above the storefronts. The tall towers we had seen in the far distance earlier served as housing as well as business space. Diesillians stood on their balconies, some hanging wet laundry, others leaning over their railing while they enjoyed a drink or a smoke. We passed so many things I would have wanted to stop and look at were we not being hunted. DuPonte seemed awfully sure of himself when he said he'd find us, but for the life of me, I couldn't imagine how one would find antything they were looking for in this city.
"I'm totally lost," I admitted. "We need a map or something."
He remained quiet. I turned to speak to him more directly only to find that he wasn't behind me anymore. My stomach dropped as I looked around at the sea of people.
"William?" I called out. "William!"
It was no good. I'd have to literally scream if I wanted to breach the drone of the crowd, and I couldn't afford to draw too much attention to myself. There was also the possibility that he'd forgotten his name again anyway. I adjusted the straps of my backpack and sighed deeply before doubling back. He couldn't have wandered too far away, and he'd be easy to spot against the horde of people in more modern clothing.
I kept close to the storefronts as I picked up my pace. I began to peer into each store as I passed them. The longer I searched, the more I worried. He wasn't in his right mind. He'd get himself noticed and captured if he let too much slip, or pulled down his hood. I came to the turn we had taken after we'd left the picture boxes. He was with me at this point, I was sure of it. I turned around and swallowed as I scanned the crowd.
This was really, really, bad.
"William?" I tried again. I decided to cross the street and nearly got run over by one of their vehicles. It screeched to a stop and when I lowered my arms, I found the front of the metallic machine inches from my face.
"Git the fuck oudda da road!" shouted the pilot, shaking his fist in the air. I quickly scurried onto the opposite sidewalk and made my way down the street with the flow of the crowd. I kept my eyes peeled as I walked. It was difficult to see over everyone's shoulders. Diesillians were a good deal taller than Galgians as a rule, and it made it a nightmare for an average-sized guy like myself. Just when I was about to start asking around, something caught my ear.
Something I never expected to hear– music.
I stopped in my tracks and the public parted around me like a river around a boulder. I turned toward the sound and followed my ears to a large silver pavilion nestled between two tall buildings. It looked like an empty lot that had been designed for another tall building but instead served as some sort of inner-city courtyard where live entertainment performed.
I slowly approached as a woman stood in front of a mic stand singing while a band performed with shining metallic instruments behind her. She had black hair styled in a way I'd never seen hair styled. It was pulled up and around under a hat and shined the same as her red lipstick did. But what awed me the most was that she was singing.
No danger; no combat; no sign of beasts being summoned forth. She sang beautifully, adding something to music that I had never in my life once considered because in Galgia, to sing was to slaughter. Music was a tool of war and forbidden entirely outside of such circumstances, for if one of us were even to hum, anything could come crawling out of the resulting portal.
But here she was, singing what I presumed were the words to a poem in perfect rhythm and harmony with the band that played behind her.
"You're my machine, my heart's ignition. The gears that keep my love in motion. You're the engine that never tires– the pistons set my soul on fire."
I was completely taken in. It was therefore no surprise to me that here in the crowd, I spotted Tovin watching her with equal admiration from the edge of the stage. I weaved through the crowd as politely as I was able and then stopped next to him. He glanced at me before quickly returning his eyes back to the stage. I didn't say anything to him; no words needed said so long as she was singing.
"You, my dear, a love machine, the one that keeps my bearings clean– I'm addicted to your engine's roar, your power's what I'm living for."
I wasn't a hundred percent sure what she was talking about, but it was clearly a love song written for one lucky guy. When the song was finished, she ever so slightly lifted her ruby-red dress from the sides and took a bow. The crowd clapped, a few whistles coming from somewhere behind us.
"Thank you," she said softly into the mic. "It's important to remember that love conquers all," she said, passing her deep black eyes over us. "Hatred fades over time, but love lasts; it endures. This next song is about a long lost love and reconnection."
We stayed and listened to a couple more songs before she left the stage, and the band with her. She disappeared on promises of returning tomorrow for a second show. Of all the things thus far I had seen in the land of our enemy, something so sweet as non-weaponized music ranked among the most surprising and awe-inspiring.
As the crowd began to disperse back onto the main street, I turned to Tovin. "Hey, do me a favor and don't disappear like that. I didn't know where you were and we've got to stick together."
"Can we come back here tomorrow?" he asked, completely ignoring what I'd said. He stared at me with hopeful eyes, a small smile on his face. It still felt strange of him to ask me permission for anything, but I couldn't deny that it was a pretty magical performance.
"Only if we live that long," I answered with a heaping helping of snark. "We need money so we can get off these streets tonight. Come on, we're losing daylight."
He looked past my shoulder and suddenly pointed. "What about that?"
I turned to see a bulletin board posted on the side of a building not far from us. On it were several posts, but one of them specifically read, "200 Octim Sign-On Bonus." The two of us walked up the board and looked over the job.
"There's a sign-on bonus," Tovin said as his eyes moved down the paper. "The Empress needs you. Galgian dogs sent monsters to run amok in our fair empire. Officials are spread thin amidst heightened tensions with Galgia's military. Find and kill monsters for bounties. Seek employment at the Hunters' Barracks at 443 Alloy Avenue on the north side of town. Look for the men in uniform."
"Monsters?" I asked. "There aren't any monsters in Galgia. None in all of Aurii if our textbooks are accurate."
"You want to at least check it out?" he asked.
"I think we'd be wasting our time," I said dismissively. "We hiked through a bunch of wilderness closer to the Galgian border and we didn't see anything all night."
He folded his arms. "Then let's get our sign-on bonus and leave."
That was such a fantastic point that I pushed my palm against my forehead and visibly cringed. "Oof. Why am I so dumb?" I whined.
"I don't think you're dumb," Tovin said as he moved down the bulletin board to look at other flyers. "I think you're just honest to a fault. It never would have occurred to you to do something so underhanded."
I would never get used to compliments from Tovin. It was like watching a different person wear his body and speak with his voice. Had life at ENU really been such a drag on him?
"None of these other jobs are offering money upfront," he added, turning to face me. "Let's head to the north side of town and see if we can find Alloy Avenue."
x - - x - - x - - ★ - - x - - x - - x
The walk was long and difficult– not because it was too far, but because we had to pass so much delicious-smelling food along the way. I hadn't been sure before if Tovin was as hungry as I was, but the north side of Bronzegirder was quiet enough to hear both of our stomachs growling in concert with one another. The buildings were made of brick in the district we wandered through, and the walkways were closer to cobblestone like the kind we had back home. The roads were three times as wide, there were benches along the walkways, and they had planted trees caged in black iron gates at the trunks. The few people that strolled the sidewalks on Alloy Avenue were well-to-do, dressed in expensive-looking suits and wearing high hats with wide brims.
"I like this side of town better," Tovin said as we looked for building addresses. "Though I have to say, I'm surprised to see trees in the collossity."
"Goes a little against what we were taught doesn't it?" I asked.
"I don't recall being taught anything," he grumbled. "It's just another thing I somehow know."
I cast him a sympathetic glance and he didn't seem to like it. He scowled at me, "Don't you pity me."
"I'm not," I rolled my eyes. "I'd never feel bad for you Tovin, not in a thousand years."
"Just shut up," he snapped. "We're here."
He stopped in front of a brick building with an impressive stone staircase that had bronze handrails running up the length of them. At the top were two men in uniform just as the flyer had indicated. He was the first to start up the steps and I quickly followed behind him. As we passed them I took a good look at their uniforms. I could have sworn that I'd seen them somewhere before. We walked up to the glass doors and pulled them open.
A blast of warm air blew over us as we entered the building and it was a welcome reprieve from the cold. Inside was smaller than I had anticipated. I was expecting high ceilings, murals, metal artwork, and all kinds of stuff from how nice the outside looked. Instead, we found ourselves standing in a dirty lobby about the size of a headmaster's office. There were several rows of chairs dotted with people filling out forms on clipboards. At the back of the lobby was a little window with a man sitting on the other side. He was dark-skinned, had a shaved head, and bore a grisly pink scar across his cheek. He waved us forward when he noticed us.
"Let me do the talking," I whispered to Tovin, taking the lead in front of him as we made our way over; he didn't protest.
"Afternoon, gentlemen," he spoke into a microphone that relayed his voice to us through a little black device on the window. "Thinking about joining up?"
Before I could even speak, Tovin leaned onto the counter. "So when you say monsters," he adopted a skeptical look. "You mean like the ones that don't exist?"
The man behind the counter rolled his eyes. "Oh, great, another conspiracy theorist."
"What did you call me?" Tovin shot back.
"Ahhh, ha ha," I called out loudly, pulling Tovin back by his shoulder. "My brother is better at fighting than talking," I covered quickly. "Just talk to me from here on in."
He cast me a disinterested glance before handing us both clipboards with forms attached. "Whatever. Just read the whole thing and sign the liability waiver at the bottom. He's free to deny their existence while they're chewing his face off, but the empire won't be responsible for it."
I took both of the clipboards and passed one to Tovin. The two of us sat down and began going through them– and immediately, we faced a problem. They wanted first and last names, home addresses, medical history, and something called landline numbers. Tovin and I exchanged glances; this wasn't going to work.
I stood up and slowly walked back up to the counter as I looked over the document. Every time I looked, it seemed more and more ridiculous. Blood type? Social security number? Insurance provider? I didn't know what any of this meant. It might as well have been in an entirely different language.
"Did you have a question?" asked the man behind the counter.
"Yeah, I don't have most of this information," I said, setting the clipboard down on the counter. "Sorry, but we're gonna have to just go."
"Well, hang on now," he said, reaching under the little pass-through window and retrieving the clipboard. "I take it you boys are homeless then?" he asked.
"Uhh... Yeah," I answered tentatively. Did they really have such a homeless problem that he was able to jump to that conclusion so quickly? "We don't know how to answer these questions, so thanks anyways."
"I said hang on, dammit," he called through the mic before swiveling around in his chair and pulling some kind of lever underneath it that caused it to sink lower to the floor. He opened a cabinet and began rifling through it. I peered through the window at his chair– it was on some kind of ball axis that allowed him to spin in it freely. I felt like every couple of minutes I was seeing something I'd never seen before. He swiveled back around and lifted his chair back up before he handing me a new form. It was more like a strip of paper with three questions on it.
Shirt size, shoe size, and pant size.
There was a second slip of paper underneath it. I looked back up at the window attendant as Tovin appeared next to me. I handed him the slip of paper and we exchanged glances.
"The empire isn't being picky right now," spoke the man through the speaker. "You'll be assigned a number, a gun, and a uniform. You won't be eligible for emergency care, and you can't be assigned to a party. It'll be just the two of you. If you're still interested, we need all the help we can get."
I shrugged at Tovin, and he got to work filling out the information. I leaned on the counter and jotted down my uniform size before signing the waiver and handing everything back. He took both of the documents and then nodded toward the door on his right. "Come on back."
He reached under the table and did something that caused the door to make a whirring sound. It popped open on its own, and he thumbed us over to it. "Close it on your way in. Walk straight down the hall and through the third door on your left. Your hunter number is 27B and his is 28B."
We walked down the hallway and found the designated door already opened and with a sign on the inside that read, "Uniforms HERE" with an arrow pointing into the room. We were met by a portly woman with bouncy curls that hung down to her shoulders. She sat behind a desk absolutely surrounded by hanging uniforms, all kept in clear covering. She sized us up with a retractable ruler– the coolest ruler I had ever seen. After she took our measurements, she began sifting through uniforms.
"Why did they ask us for our sizes if they were going to measure us?" Tovin grumbled.
"I don't know," I whispered. "Just be quiet."
"Don't tell me to be quiet," he shot back, elbowing me in the ribs.
She turned around holding two suits by the hangers, one in each hand. "Your uniforms will come out of your first bounty collected," she announced. "No money needed upfront. Change into them and make sure they fit." We took them from her and she breezed past us. "Holler out here when you're changed." She closed the door behind her.
We turned away from one another and began getting dressed. I pulled back the crinkly clear material and looked down at the uniform. Now that I was seeing it closer, it was actually an extremely dark shade of blue, rather than black as I had thought prior. I looked down at the hat and held it in my hands. I had seen it before. Then, all at once, it came rushing back to me.
These were the uniforms of the men that had come to the mine. They had come carrying guns to inspect the worksite after what had happened to Hammer. Skully must have thought a monster had gotten to him based on the state of his body. I stared down at the uniform in disbelief. Could monsters really be running around in Diesel territory?
"You better not be looking over here," Tovin warned.
They had mistaken what Tovin had done for a monster attack. Skully's "fonekall" wasn't a pilgrimage. It was some form of long-distance communication. She reached out to the capital to request aid from someone, and they sent these guys. I began to wonder if I was making a mistake. If we could be dispatched like that, then we could feasibly be sent back to the camp.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. We were only in it for the sign-on bonus. Once we had that in our hands, we'd be outta here. We could even jump to the next town. They knew nothing about us other than our clothing size. We could be dust in the wind by tomorrow morning.
I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind and quickly got dressed. The uniform fit perfectly, it was comfortable, and best of all had been designed with a high collar. It covered our neck markings perfectly. I turned to see Tovin with the hat on already. He looked like a classic Diesel villain from a comic book I had read as a kid.
"It fits nice," he said, testing the range of motion he had in his arms. "I think this will work."
"Yeah," I nodded. "Let's get our money and get the hell out."
"Speaking my language," he smirked.
He moved for the door and leaned out, calling for the attendant. I looked at myself in the full-body mirror and did a quick turnaround. I had to admit, I looked pretty darn stylish. The white gloves, belt, and hat looked pretty good against the dark blue and gold buttons.
The woman returned and smiled at both of us, her curls bouncing as she tossed her gaze cartoonishly left and right between us. "You two look good!"
"Thanks," I smiled back. "When do we get our sign-on bonus?"
"Oh, don't worry about that just yet," she said, moving back to her desk. "Do you boys know how to shoot?" she asked as she sat down.
"Shoot?" Tovin asked.
"A gun," she clarified, her smile fading. "Have either of you shot a gun?"
"No, ma'am," I answered. "Our parents didn't let us near them growing up."
"That's no problem," she said, lifting her hands. "We're happy to teach you the basics. You'll just exit the room and go left down to the very end of the hallway. I'll buzz you through the double doors at the end, and Old Mitchell will take you from there."
Tovin audibly groaned, and I took him by the arm, leading him out of the room. We walked down the hallway as he bellyached about what a waste of time it was. It was unlike him to turn his nose up at the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of a new weapon. In fact, he'd been acting weirdly childish lately. I didn't like it. It beat dealing with Tovin-Classic, but it was still a hassle. As we neared the end of the hallway, we began hearing the sound of guns being fired one by one.
The doors buckled and hummed the same as the first door had, and we pushed them open. We passed into a large room with Diesillians shooting at targets a good distance away. This was why the building was so large and the lobby was so small. The brick walls were covered in informational and safety posters, as well as what appeared to be schematics for the weapons themselves.
I looked across the large room to see a man striding toward us. He was wearing shiny black boots that were laced tightly to his calves. His pants and jacket were hunter green, and he bore perhaps the silliest mustache I'd ever seen; It was long and curled at the tips. I had to be careful not to snicker– his eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, and I couldn't tell if he was watching me.
"New recruits?" he called out to us from entirely too far away.
"Yes sir," I called back. "My brother and I just signed up."
"Brothers!" he exclaimed. "I love it, dammit!" He stopped in front of us. He was chewing on something and was being as obnoxious as he possibly could about it. He was wearing perhaps the stupidest hat I had seen of the Diesel yet. It had no visible brim and was high on one side while sloping down toward the other. For the life of me, I couldn't discern the purpose of it.
"You boys know how to shoot?" he asked.
"No sir," I shook my head. "We're new at this."
"Good," he smiled widely. "That means you haven't formed any bad habits yet. I love newbies," he said before waving for us to follow him. "Come on, let's get you your rifles. I'm Mitch, but folks around here call me Old Mitchell."
"James," I said as I followed after him. "This is my brother William." It was difficult to talk over the noise of the weapons. I occasionally jumped when someone shot their gun nearby– a reflex I couldn't wait to be rid of. He led us to a small room; so small that it might as well have been a glorified safe. He disappeared inside and came back out holding two guns. The same long metal tubes Tovin and I had been attacked with at O'Malley's inn.
We each took one and promptly inspected it. Suddenly, Old Mitchell stepped forward and grabbed both of our guns by the barrel, lifting them so they were pointed at the ceiling.
"You boys ever even held one of these?" he barked. "Careful where you aim. Never point one of these at anything or anyone that you're not prepared to destroy."
"They sweep you, Mitch?" asked a man as he passed behind us.
"Pointed 'em right at me," he called back with a laugh. "We'll get 'em straightened out, don't you worry about that." He looked at us both, chewing aggressively. "Now I'm gonna let these rifles go. You keep 'em pointed up, you understand?"
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"Sure," Tovin said in a disinterested tone.
He let go of our rifles and we kept them pointed at the ceiling as we were told. I looked up and down the length of the tube before turning it over and inspecting the area under the barrel. It was split underneath with what looked like some kind of spring running along the length of the tube.
"They're not loaded," Mitch said, waving for us to follow him to the other side of the room. "But you will always treat them like they are. I'm going to show you how to load them over here. Set them down on the desk, I'm gonna stand between the two of you so I can watch you both."
I set my gun down in front of me and looked to my right. There was a box of what I presumed to be bullets. I expected them to be round pellet-like projectiles, but they were tubular with roughly textured heads on them.
"Turn your weapon over. You'll notice you can see a spring inside the bottom of the barrel. Close to the other end of your gun, you'll find a little round tab there. Take that tab and push it with your thumb all the way up toward the tip of the barrel. You'll then pop it out to the side there."
I did as he asked, and sure enough, the barrel popped out to the left at the tip of the weapon. I glanced over at Tovin who was struggling with the spring. Old Mitchell moved over and helped him with it. "Sometimes they get stuck," he muttered as he got Tovin to the same step I was at.
"Now," he shouted. "Take your ammunition right there in the box next to you, and begin placing the rounds into the underside of the barrel, flat side first. Then, you'll load more bullets into the gun overlapping one another. Be careful not to let the rounds collide with one another too heavily, or you could have a little accident."
I loaded the bullets carefully one after another until the barrel was about full. He checked on Tovin's rifle, and then inspected mine.
"Good. Now realign the barrel, there and come with me to the bay," he said, starting toward the practice range. I carefully lifted the weapon and rested it against my shoulder, turning with Tovin to follow him. When we stopped at the range, he motioned for Tovin first. "Come on, Will, we're gonna start with you."
"Pass," he said nonchalantly.
Old Mitchell blinked twice. "What?"
"I want to see Gill do it first," he said, stepping out of my way.
"It's a nickname," I said quickly, stepping up to the range. "Anyways, I'll go first, I don't mind, what do I do here?"
Mitch remained silent for a couple of seconds before clapping his hands once. "Okay! Well, go ahead and pull the hammer back."
I looked down at the weapon and then back up at him. Sensing my confusion, he carefully reached forward and pulled back a little tiny lever on the top of the rifle until it clicked. "That's called pulling the hammer back," he said. "Will, you watching this?"
He didn't wait for a response. "Next thing you're gonna do is pull that lever out underneath the gun. That's going to load the weapon with a fresh cartridge. You're gonna do that between every shot, now. Lift it up against your shoulder like this; get it snug in there." He pulled it against my shoulder. "Look down the iron sight there at the tip of the rifle and line it up against your target. Your weapon is primed and ready to fire. You're good for fifteen shots before you've got to reload. You can always flip it over to see how many bullets are left. Go ahead and aim carefully, and try and hit that target paper down there."
At the end of the range, there was a piece of paper with a silhouette of a human head, shoulders, and torso. I closed one eye for better aim and held the gun tightly as I lined up my shot.
"Don't pull the trigger," Mitch advised in my left ear. "Squeeze it. Squeeze the trigger until it doesn't move easily anymore. Then when you're sure about your aim, squeeze with just that little bit of extra strength you need."
I did as he said, and felt what he was referring to. With my target in sight, my hand steady, and my aim as true as I could hope for, I fired the weapon. The shot rang out right in my ear, but interestingly enough, it wasn't so bad when I was the one firing. I was ready for it, and expecting it.
"Holy smokes!" exclaimed Mitch. "You put one right between the eyes!"
"Beginners's luck," said a man from behind me. "I did the same thing first time I shot, and never did it again."
"Let's prove him wrong, James," Old Mitchell laughed. "Now use that lever under the gun to eject the casing and load a fresh bullet."
I pulled the lever and the shiny little bullet casing popped out the top and flew over my shoulder. It was a really satisfying feeling.
"Do I pull the hammer again? I asked.
"Nope, it'll pop back down. You'll only pull that hammer back the first time. Go ahead and fire again, only this time, aim for the neck."
"Alright," I said, closing my eye and tightening my focus. I squeezed the trigger just as I had the first time and shot a hole straight through the center of the target's neck. I lifted my head and smiled. "I hit it!"
"No way," said the man behind me. "Ain't never shot before, my ass. He's taking you for a ride, Mitch."
"You're sure you're new at this, son?" Old Mitchell asked, one eye half shut. "That's really impressive, kid. Seriously, if this is your first time holding a rifle, you might be cut out for the military. Had a staff sergeant with worse aim than you."
"Alright, alright," Tovin pushed me aside. "My turn. Let me show you something you'll never forget."
The two of us took turns shooting for hours. We hadn't even noticed the time going by. For once, it seemed Tovin had found something he wasn't naturally amazing at, and it was infuriating him to no end.
Conversely, I found something I was really, really good at. I hit my target almost every time, and to be honest, I couldn't figure out what was so difficult about it. A crowd had gathered to watch me shoot. I got really swift with the lever, and could shoot out both of a target's eyes, and put one in its forehead in a matter of seconds.
Tovin wasn't a bad shot, but I knew how he felt. If he wasn't first, he was last as far as he was concerned, and at one point he about threw his rifle. Old Mitchell had to talk to him about how some things come naturally to others, and how he shouldn't be discouraged from coming to the range and practicing.
It was rich hearing Tovin get that talk of all people. The natural genius that outshined everyone, struggling with something for the very first time. I almost couldn't believe I was better than him at something, and of course, it just had to be the thing that we'd never do again once we found our friends and went back home.
Our friends.
We were wasting time here. "Hey, Mitchel," I turned toward him. "When do we get our sign-on bonus? It was supposed to be something like 200 octims."
"You get your sign-on bonus when you bring back your first bounty," he responded quickly.
"What?" Tovin shouted. "That's not fair! We signed on, now where's our money?"
I was equally upset. We were lied to. But it made sense that they couldn't just hand us uniforms, cash, and a gun, and let us go. They wanted to make sure we at least killed a monster.
"It's fine," I said with a sigh. "Where can we find bounties?"
"It's not fine," Tovin protested.
I yanked him by the collar of his shirt and looked him in the eyes. "It's fine," I said slowly and firmly. "We'll run out, bag a monster, and be back before dark."
He held eye contact with me for several seconds before shrugging me off of him and walking away. He stormed across the bay and left through the double doors at the other end of the room.
"My brother was the same way," said Mitch. "Hard-headed. Stubborn as a mule. Loyal as anyone you'd ever meet though."
He had no idea. Tovin wasn't just difficult, but he was turning into a walking liability. I didn't know how much longer I could take him acting like this. Suddenly, Mitch extended his arm, pointing to a door adjacent to where he'd gotten our guns from.
"Bounty board is in there. Come on, I'll show you."
It was a medium-sized room with several corkboards wall to wall filled with bounties. Every monster was named and almost all of them were sketched to a professional degree. You could find how much money the monster was going for, which hunters it had killed, where it was last seen, as well as whether or not there were hunters currently after it.
They had a system where you would notate which monster you were going after, and if you didn't return, they'd add your name under the list of hunters that died searching for it. There were so many monsters I couldn't believe it, and according to Old Mitchell, these were only the monsters within a five-mile radius of Bronzegirder.
I learned the process of choosing a bounty and chose a smaller monster with no names under its fatality list. Mitch agreed it was a good monster for beginners, and offered a few pointers for tracking it. I submitted the bounty request and got it approved before leaving the bay and heading down the hall in search of Tovin. I entered the lobby and didn't see him. I left the building and found him at the top of the steps staring out into the street where a couple of vehicles were hauling something massive together under a tarp.
Several uniformed hunters were walking slowly next to the vehicles. Their uniforms were tattered and bloodstained, and a few of them walked with a limp. We watched as the exhausted men passed the building on their way down the road. Two of them were sobbing silently, but we could tell by their exposed teeth and wrinkled expressions that they'd lost someone.
From beneath the tarp, a scaly limb fell off the side of the vehicle and dangled lifelessly. It was a reptilian-looking arm with an open wound, and the shredded remnants of a uniform hanging from its claws.
"Gill," Tovin said quietly. "Is that..."
"Yeah," I answered.
"That's definitely a monster."
Writing Prompt Submitted by u/My-Last-Hope

Hi, I’m from Taiwan, grew up in Thailand, then studies uni in Japan (this info comes in play later on)
My situation:
I have started to notice slight dull ache and discomfort around 2020 when I started going to the gym. After multiple examines by doctors, thinking its some infection or hernia, it has been diagnosed as varicocele through ultrasound. Mine is a grade 2 on the left side, not sure if I have any on my right side but I can feel the thick vein under my scrotum (very bottom part of the sack) lead to the left side as well.
I’m from Taiwan and the doctors here mostly do micro for varicocele. I could rarely find any info for embo here so that I’m not too sure. I have visited 2 doctors and they both diagnosed me with varicocele. I also told them I sometimes have major discomfort where its so painful every step I walk that I have to take ibuprofen or some type of pain killers, but it isn’t daily, maybe once every 1-3 months (that’s back then).
Both doctors do not recommend surgery as they said the reoccurrence is high and that I should wait till I plan on having kids to think about doing it. They both prescribed me with muscle relaxers such as acetaminophen and diclofenac afterwards. Since then I have just been taking them whenever the ache gets unbearable for me. I have also realized my pain tolerance has been lower cause it’s annoying getting these slight aches (none major ones) and I just want to take the pills to feel normal.
Fast forward to recent months, I have always had the dull ache and pain from varicocele while being in Taiwan. Then covid borders finally opened so I returned to Japan for uni. My pain still shows up sometimes in Japan and I have accepted it, taking the pain killers and try to not stress and keep a positive mindset (I have noticed if I get stressed out or pissed, dull ache or pain will show up in a few hours or the very next day, migraine too…)
Then, there was one whole week for some reason, I had absolutely no urge or drive to think about any sexual stuff, zero sexual drive, sad and depressed, still get hard sometimes but don’t feel like jacking off. It was insane and I felt like I gotta do something about it for now. So I went to the pharmacy and got dhl maca capsules (I take their vitamin c capsules that’s why). (I was going to get sea moss cause Jack Harlow said his libido went crazy or smt but I couldn’t find it so I settled with maca).
For the last 2 weeks before the semester end I just has been taking the maca capsules and I noticed the occurrence of ache pain rarely shows up. Then break started, I flew back to Thailand for a month, constantly taking the maca capsules and the pain rarely ever showed up!
The whole month in Thailand has been one of the best months in a while, barely any pain or discomfort from varicocele, I consistently hit the gym and everything was great. I thought it was the maca capsules that did the trick until I went back to Taiwan. Then the discomfort literally came back the 2nd day I got back, and it has been slight discomfort for almost everyday. I don’t know if it’s cause I lowered my maca capsule intake or what, but it was very disheartening, I thought maybe I can settle with taking maca capsules for a while.
Cause of this I started researching more about treatments for varicocele and I found a clinic in Taiwan where they specialize in hernia treatments but also do varicocele surgery but in their own way, not like micro or embo, Mayne like the Istanbul way?
This is their website in English (For some reason their page on varicocele is only available in Chinese): https://joshuahernia.com/?lang=en
This is their YouTube page where they post a lot about their successful hernia repairs: https://www.youtube.com/@joshuahealthcare3516/videos
This is their varicocele surgery page, y’all can try to translate them: https://joshuahernia.com/varicocele/
Back to their varicocele page, I’ll try my best to translate then to English.
The name for their varicocele surgery is called “Minimal incision high position Varicocele Reflux Lockdown surgery “ also known as the “Joshua surgery”. Their method in short is that they’re gonna block off all of the veins (where the X is in the pic), and instead use the deep pelvic veins (left one) and the femoral veins (right one), a longer way of blood flow but doesn’t require the flawed veins? The pic: https://joshuahernia.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/09/stop-vein-1.jpg
They claimed that this has the lowest reoccurrence rate, less time for rest, etc. There are some more info buy y’all can translate them.
If I have time I will pay a visit and ask them about the amount of patients they have fixed for varicocele, success rate, anyone came back with side effects etc. I’m sure they know their stuff since they are filled with positive reviews about their hernia repairs, I guess just not much people in Taiwan or anywhere knows about their varicocele surgery.
Let me know if y’all need any other infos with this new way of surgery, sorry if I babble too much about my backstory.

Blue Reflection Sun was released one month ago and after playing religiously every day (this includes waking up in the middle of the night to consume stamina, something I'll get to later on in my review), here are my thoughts. First of all, this review will not touch on the controversy regarding including the first male character in a series that features only female characters. Just let me say that after playing through the story to the latest chapter, many of the interactions/scenarios between the girls and the protagonist completely excludes the protagonist from being female. So that possibility is off the books for foreign releases or future patches. Now that that's over with, I will be reviewing the game as a standard gacha game developed and published by large companies (Koei Tecmo and DMM Games).
As a disclaimer, I have been playing gacha games for over 10 years but rarely have I played in any language other than Japanese. So while I am translating to English to the best of my ability, some terms may be wrong, though hopefully decipherable.
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Gacha
I'll start off with the crux of gacha games: the gacha. There are essentially 2 types of gacha: character and fragcard gacha. Character is self-explanatory, but fragcard is the `card` system found in some gacha - each includes a skill, which can be upgraded, and stats, which can be levelled. Characters range from 1-3 stars (can be limit broken to a maximum of 5) and fragcards which go from R→SR→UR. Each gacha can drop the other type except for at the highest rank. In other words, the character gacha can drop R and SR cards but not UR, while the fragcard gacha can drop 1-2 star characters but not 3 star.
The rates in order of ascending rarity is 77%→20%→3%. The tenth pull is 97%→3%, so in other words, at the tenth pull you are guaranteed 2★/SR or higher. There is a pity system for each gacha that does not carry over, besides the standard gacha. 200 pulls for 200 tickets will let you exchange for the featured item - this number cannot be reached without major saving or else spending money. Each event period gives you an estimated 50 pulls (this is a very rough estimate since it's still service start).
Regarding the limited gacha, So far, characters and cards have been truly limited, in that there is no plan to add them to the standard pool after the run, though the fine print states that there may be reruns (par for the course). This is great as it makes things black and white: you either pull if you want it or save if you're waiting for something else. No grey area where you want the item but you might as well wait since it will be added to the pool later.
You'll also receive a plethora of gacha tickets, but unfortunately, these can only be used one at a time (probably in order to bypass the ten pull system). Combined with the slow loading screens, using 30 or so tickets took me almost an hour...
Finally, even 1 star characters can be easily limit broken to 5 stars, which makes it so that there are no useless characters. Of course, a 3→5★ will be stronger than a 1→5★, though at the very least this means that you'll still have viable characters even if you get horrible pulls.
All this to say that, the rates don't feel unfair, and even when you pull a card instead of a character, Kishida's art is so pretty that it doesn't even feel all that bad. Also, just as there are no useless characters, all cards can be sufficiently powerful once limit broken and levelled up.
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Cash Shop
There is no cheap monthly pass unfortunately. Only a simple money to gem system. The most expensive item is 10,000 yen for 16,000 gems which equates to 53 pulls. This goes down to the cheapest item, 160 yen for 160 gems, which is about half a pull. One pull is 300 gems.
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Mechanics
Standard turn-based rpg with no time-delay system found in the original series. 4 elements with none of that dark/light crap (sorry, I'm just not a fan of elements that do increased damage to one another) and in rare cases, non-elemental. Each character has her own powerful skill and 2 other skills that can be equipped and switched via fragcards. This means that a character of one element can equip skills of a completely different element.
Elements do increased damage and receive less damage to/from the element that they are good against. So much so that a party strong against an element can take down enemies of twice the power rating (in my case, my party of 60,000 could take down enemies of 120,000).
Standard attacks charge SP, which is counted separately for each skill. So you can freely use each skill as soon as it is charged, without worrying about saving the SP for another skill. This is where the auto battle fails. Auto makes the characters randomly choose attack or a skill, without prioritizing fully charged skills. So that means your character may use a standard attack even when you don't need the SP. Management has said that they are planning to improve the auto system in the near future, so this may be subject to change. On the plus side, characters will focus fire enemies from right to left in auto.
Finally, characters can be `borrowed` from friends/strangers, which lets you use her skill once per battle at any time, without losing your turn. This will not activate during auto. All in all, this is to say that if there is a powerful enemy that you cannot defeat in Auto, often Manual will often enable you do so.
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Stamina
At player level 1, you start off with 51 stamina (if I remember correctly), which recovers at a rate of once every 3 minutes. Doing the math, you can see that initially 2.5 hours will give you a full charge; hardly enough to let you rest during work (let alone sleep). You'll receive a ton of stamina refill items, which is in your best to use as soon as possible to level up and increase your maximum stamina. After a month of playing, I am currently at 100 stamina - the highest leveled players I've seen are 10 levels higher, i.e. 110 stamina, which equates to 5.5 hours for a full charge - still hardly enough for a full night's sleep.
All this to say, for those of us that are very stoic about consuming stamina to never let it go full, the stamina system in this game is the most stressful I have ever experienced. It seems as if not much thought was given into either lowering the recovery rate (along with the cost of stages) or else increasing the maximum increased per level.
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PVP
There is a ranked battle system, but it's almost impossible to lose. Firstly, while the enemy team will attack randomly, your team will focus fire. Secondly, each enemy has a break meter, which when full will make them lose one turn (normal enemies also have this). This, combined with weaknesses can easily let you win fights with differences in power levels of 20,000 (or potentially higher, though I don't want to try my luck).
There is a maximum of 3 battle points, which are not refreshed daily as in most games, but gradually (1 every few hours, I haven't bothered to time how many hours). Basically you can fight much more than thrice a day. There is also a consecutive win bonus, which keeps increasing to the point that the consecutive bonus is higher than the standard win bonus. At high ranks and high consecutive wins, you will receive way more points than you need for the limited items in the battle shop.
One month in, and I along with most player I imagine, have never lost a match.
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Story and Characters
The story is not Shakespeare, nor is it Twilight. The voice acting is excellent as usual, and the story is interesting enough to keep you immersed. Each character has her own personality, motivations, and desires, which are much more rounded than the standard flat female characters born of a male mind found in most fiction. While most works feature simple anime tropes that perpetuate sexist stereotypes, the characters of brs have a certain nuanced depth, i.e. they exist as entities independent of male characters (and not as mere supports to a well-rounded male). All this to say, while there are some cringey moments, most of the characters have a certain human charm separate from a mere sexualization of the character.
The main character is also not annoyingly smart/strong or dumb/weak, i.e. he has the same attractive qualities that the girls have as well. There is a good balance in terms of character relations, though I wish they reversed the females-dependent-on-male trope more (they almost did in the beginning, but then it swung to the standard MAN DO EVERYTHING AND WOMAN LIKE STRONG MAN caveman mindset...).
In terms of character design, Kishida's design is top notch as always, showing that not only is he talented in bishoujo design, but even his bishounen are pretty as hell. Personally, I cringe at the hairstyles/fashion/makeup/design of most anime because you can tell these were men creating women, 10 years behind the current fashion. Kishida, however, I always imagine him spending hours every day on Instagram absorbing all the latest trends. His characters' hairstyles and fashion really show this and adds a certain believability (most other works of fiction make me groan "no woman would be caught dead in such a mismatched setup" etc.).
The 3D models are also very similar to the 2D art, so thankfully there is no huge gap between the concept design and implementation. Also, most of the limited gacha outfits are so pretty, it never feels bad to pull.
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User Interface
There are certain aspects of UI that show of outdated design or a lack of knowledge of gacha design. For example, you cannot see details of a character's skill in the Training menu (where all of your owned characters are listed). Instead, you have to go to Formation, change character, and then view from there - very unintuitive, not to mention unecessary. Another is that upcoming maintenances are not announced in-game in an in-your-face sort of way. You have to check the once-a-day announcement or else follow their Twitter closely. Very frustrating, which I'll go into more detail in the next section.
Besides a few grave errors, most of the UI design is non-problematic, and likely to improve as hinted in an upcoming update. Much of the UI design (along with the sound and music) from the main series is brought over to the gacha game as well, which fans will enjoy.
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Management/Operations
This is the most frustrating thing about this game. Luckily, if there is an English release, you might not have to deal with this if you end up with a better English team. To sum up why, basically the 運営 (I think this translates to management or operations in English) of KT/DMM does not feel like part of a company with decades of experience; they feel like a small indie developeself-publisher that has no experience handling sudden errors.
In the first week especially, there were lots of server crashes and emergency maintenances to fix a lot of the problems. Server crashes are unexpected, but I have never seen a company handle maintenances so poorly. Apart from the lack of in-game announcement interface mentioned in the previous section, there were times when the Twitter announcement was only a few minutes in advance. Completely unacceptable in Japanese society, especially so in customer-service relations. To add to this, stamina fills up fast, which only adds to the frustration. Such that you have to constantly log in because you're never sure when the next maintenance will come.
As a side note, post-mortem of the server crashes found that they were due to high access traffic "overseas." Obviously we all knew this meant China bots once again ruining a party that they weren't invited to. Perhaps future games would do well to always cordon off a China server for the safety of Japan, but that's another story for another day.
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Final Thoughts
I am a big fan of DMM/Exnoa published games; they often publish many obscure developers, most of which are terrible, but every once in a while, there is a hidden gem. So it pains me to be so critical of their handling of this game, because I know they can do better. On the other hand, Koei Tecmo did an alright job of bringing a console/PC game to mobile, and if they are as willing to improve based on feedback as promised, then there may yet be hope for this game.
Regardless, after one month, I am still highly enjoying this game. The sounds, visuals, gameplay loop just hit all the right places for me, so I am looking forward to future updates and improvements. Those that have more free time than me may find that there is not enough to do in-game, but for relatively busy adults, this may just be the game for you.
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P.S. Thank you for making it to the end of this long review. If you wish to comment, please refrain from bashing the game, developers, publishers, etc. for introducing a male character. You can gripe about that in a different thread, but this is not the place for that. Productive comments regarding gameplay or similar are welcome.

I did a quick search of metallurgy, and I saw that you occasionally get questions about weird alloys like Ashtadhatu and other similar alloys, and you've received questions about electrum (itself a mixture of gold + silver). Similar to those, I am curious about an alchemical variation on the alloy electrum known as 'electrum magicum' (EM) and how one might go about producing[1] it safely at home. In books on alchemy and magic, EM is alloy of metal which represents the seven planets of classical antiquity: it consists of

• gold (for the sun),
• silver (for the moon),
• iron (for mars),
• tin (for jupiter),
• copper (for venus),
• lead (for saturn), and
• mercury (for mercury),

In varying proportions depending on the recipe I found. Each metal is added to the composite during favourable astrological times for that specific addition (so they can't all be added at once, and the interim alloys must be reheated, I imagine). If you ignore the astrology, I am still curious about how the reheating/cooling at each step and associated waiting period for each astrological event might affect the end result.
It is used in things like magical mirrors and bells, as suggested in Book 4, Part II (Aleister Crowley, ca. early 20th century):

The Bell itself is made of electrum magicum, [...] The sound of this Bell is indescribably commanding, solemn, and majestic. Without even the minutest jar, its single notes tinkle fainter and fainter into silence. At the sound of this Bell the Universe ceases for an indivisible moment of time, and attends to the Will of the Magician. Let him not interrupt the sound of this Bell. Let this be that which is written, Liber VII, v, 31: "There is a solemnity of the silence. There is no more voice at all."

A.C. gave an outline of the process, though it doesn't seem he ever did it himself that I know of:

First the gold is melted up with the silver during a favourable aspect of the sun and moon; these are then fused with tin when Jupiter is well dignified. Lead is added under an auspicious Saturn; and so for the quicksilver, copper, and iron, when Mercury, Venus, and Mars are of good augury.

Paracelsus (ca. 16th century) wrote of the process:

Take ten parts of pure gold, ten of silver, five of copper, two of tin, two of lead, one part of powdered iron, and five of mercury. All these metals must be pure. Now wait for the hour when the planets Saturn and Mercury come into conjunction, and have all your preparations ready for that occasion; have the fire, the crucible, the mercury, and the lead ready, so that there will be no delay when the time of the conjunction arrives, for the work must be done during the moments of the conjunction. As soon as this takes place melt the lead and add the mercury, and let it cool. After this has been done, wait for a conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn and Mercury, melt the compound of lead and mercury in a crucible, and in another crucible the tin, and pour the two metals together at the moment of such conjunction. You must now wait until a conjunction of the sun with either one or both of the above- named planets takes place, and then add the gold to the compound after melting it previously. At a time of a conjunction of the moon with the sun, Saturn, or Mercury, the silver is added likewise, and at a time of a conjunction of Venus with one of the above-named planets the copper is added. Finally, at a time of such a conjunction with Mars, the whole is completed by the addition of the powdered iron. Stir the fluid mass with a dry rod of witch-hazel, and let it cool.

(From Paracelsus, 'Sixth Book, or The Composition of Metals'; translation by Franz Hartmann in the 19th century, in The life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, known by the name of Paracelsus.)
A modern guide I found online of someone who claimed to make a magic mirror from it suggests:

• Reviewing Paracelsus' comments on EM
• Modifying the EM recipe to also include bismuth (?)
  1. Can this be done without modifying the recipe?
  2. As metallurgists, can you comment on how this might change the alloy?
• First stage:
  • Melt & mix lead and tin
  • Lower the temperature of the mixture to below mercury's boiling point, but above the lead/tin mixture's melting point
  • Then add the mercury
• It notes at this point that you should avoid adding this tin/lead/mercury solid to molten metal (e.g. in the second stage) as it will explode
• Second stage:
  • Melt the bismuth
  • Melt the lead/tin/mercury mixture separately
  • Add the lead/tin/mercury mixture to the liquid bismuth
  • Melt the gold/silvecopper
  • Start cooling the lead/tin/mercury/bismuth mixture then add the gold/silvecopper mixture
  • Sprinkle in the iron powder

(I don't feel the guide took into account astrology though: I think there will likely be more stages than two here.)
So my questions to metallurgy are... what are your thoughts on EM and the above instructions? Is it possible someone could create an alloy using the above? Is there any way to determine its physical properties ahead of time? How can I determine how different ratios of metals might modify the properties of the resulting alloy? What about the properties of intermediate steps? Is it necessary to melt the lead to add mercury to it or is it one of those metals mercury just absorbs into like gold? Is it possible to create an alloy of those seven metals following Paracelsus' instructions or the ones I found online? What would you keep in mind or modify using the lens of modern metallurgical knowledge?
If you can point me to a book or two I can use to make sense of it, that would also be welcome. I've taken some courses in chemistry and physics at the university level (though I went into computer science instead), so I may be able to make sense of books that assume basic knowledge of those, and gain the knowledge to understand more difficult books if you point me in the right direction.
[1] There is some argument to be made that alchemical ideas like this are purely metaphorical. E.g. '10 parts gold' might refer to the amount of 'sun'-like influence you should try to engender in your life: ego, self-expression, pride, leadership, creativity, health, vitality. This is a very 'psychological' view of alchemy and alchemic writings. I'm ignoring that for this post and assuming EM is a real material I could physically create bells and mirrors and pantacles out of.

So last week i sold my death father’s house to his brother, aka my uncle, the house was in a poor state cause the tenant who was rented disappeared without telling me and due to the laws in my country I had to go through a legal process so I could go inside the house again.
So, my uncle wanted to buy this house cause is adjacent to his and it’s pretty convenient for him, i told him several times the state of the house and told him that if he wanted to take a look he would be more than welcome, he said no bc he didn’t want to see how it was, I offered to take picture to show it how the house was, but he also refused. I ask him if he was going to want any of the furniture that was in the house and he told me no, and he told me that if I wanted something I could, and i told him that there was a wardrobe I had brought for the son of my tenant that it was okay, I ask him if he wanted that furniture cause it was the only thing that was acceptable, but he told me no, that I could get it. I also told him that I was going to look for a cleaning service to clean the house.
The next day my uncle called me to tell me that the had to pay a tax for buying the house which was more expressive than we both thought it was going to be, so I lower the prize for him with no problem, no big deal.
Okay, fast forward to last week, we made the deal, sold the house and yesterday his wife, aka my aunt, who in no moment took part on this called me, which was weird but okay, to ask me if I knew when the cleaning service was going to go clean the house i told him that the leafy was going to call me in this week and whenever I know something i would tell them.
So this morning I called the cleaning service and we book an appt so I called my aunt to tell her and then she told me that due to the house’s state that they want to keep the wardrobe but that my uncle was going to call me about it. That pissed me off.
So my uncle called me but I hadn’t the phone with me so my mom answer, and he was a dick about it, like he started listing all the flaws that the house had, and blah blah blah, in a tone that my mom described as guilt tripping, so she told him that she was going to talk to me when I came home. And she did and I was shocked but not surprised bc he had this type of behavior all his life and had problem with his siblings about it, so I was kinda low-key waiting for him to do this.
So, now my mom doesn’t want the wardrobe an her sister, my other aunt, is telling me to cancel the cleaning appointment bc of how they handle this freaking situation and I do not owe them nothing.
Side note: i was going to put the house on a real state agency so i was looking for the cleaning service for it, but then when my uncle ask me to but it i was kinda like doing it as a present of cleaning for them, i mean, it was no problem and it what I thought it was the correct thing to do.
So…. What should i do, of they want the wardrobe they can have it, but regarding the cleaning service, should i cancel it or no?

My name is Thomas Saul, I am a member of the Skatin Nations tribe in British Columbia, Canada. I am of Salish, and European descent. I began this project around May 2021 when news broke about the Kamloops residential school where the remains of 215 children were allegedly found. As a teenager I briefly Attended Norkam secondary in Kamloops, and have friends and family who still live in Kamloops, so this hit close to home. Upon my research into The origin of this residential school I found that Israel wood Powell, a Freemason, was the Indian Superintendent at the time it was built. Four generations of my family attended residential schools, some in Port Alberni and some Mission City, so naturally I wanted to know more. I have come to the conclusion that Colonisation, Freemasonry, and residential schools go hand in hand. Its a Fact, both the United States and Canada would not exist without Freemasonry, Therefore many Freemasons played a leading role in the genocide of Indigenous Americans. “Freemasonry, as it exists in various forms all over the world, has a membership estimated at around 6 million worldwide.”
Genocide: The UN definition, which is used in international law, states that genocide is: "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group," as such:(a) "Killing members of the group;"(b) "Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;"(c) "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;"(d) "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;"(e) "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
The supreme governor of the Church of England is the head of the Church of England, a position which is vested in the British monarch. The father of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 King George III was not a Freemason, George III had announced that the colonies would no longer seize Native lands or purchase them without treaties. Starting in 1763, no English settlers could legally travel through or acquire land west of the Appalachian Mountains. The proclamation specifically stated that Native Americans had been subject to “great Frauds and Abuses” and that their sovereignty should be protected. Freemason Thomas Jefferson in his list of 27 grievances accused the king saying “He has excited domestic Insurrections among us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions.’’ Thomas Jefferson did this to build support for the revolutionary act that the Declaration of Independence would represent. It was suspected that the Freemasons were behind the Boston Tea Party, the American War of Independence, the french revolution, and Napoleonic France triggering British prime minister William Pitt’s, the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799 where he aimed to see Freemasonry abolished. Some Freemasons addressed Pitt explaining how vast their membership is and its connection to Royalty and As a result, Freemasons were excluded from the Act, but lodges were obliged to return a list of members to the local Clerk of the Peace every year, which are recorded in the Quarter Sessions.1. King George IV reigned from the death of George III until 1830, he was the first of many British Freemason kings and was the head of the Anglican church. William IV, Edward VII, Edward VIII, George VI were also masons. In the 209 years since the Union of the Premier and Ancient Grand Lodges to form the United Grand Lodge of England, a member of the Royal Family has been its Grand Master for more than 150.
A Freemason warrant of constitution is the Document which authorizes or gives a Warrant to certain persons therein named to organize and constitute a Lodge, Chapter, or other Masonic Body. The first Warrant for a military Lodge was issued by the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1732 to the First British Foot Regiment. Within a few years the Grand Lodge of Scotland and both the Grand Lodge of England, Modern and Ancient were issuing Warrants to military Lodges. In 1733, 18 men gathered at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern on King Street in Boston and organized the first Masonic Lodge in North America. The first record of a military Lodge Warrant being issued in the new world happened during the French and Indian Wars. It was issued by the then Provincial Grand Master at Boston to the 28th British Foot in an expedition against the French at Crown Point. Edward Cornwallis became founder in December 1748, of a military Lodge in his regiment, the 20th. Foot, No. 63, on the registry of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The warrant was issued to Lord George Sackville, Lieut. Col. The Hon. Edward Cornwallis and Captain Milburne. When in 1759 this famous regiment gained new honors at the battle of Minden, that name was immediately adopted as the name of the lodge. Cornwallis’ second lodge was founded in Halifax early in 1750 or possibly earlier, under a “deputation” or dispensation from Major Erasmus James Philipps of the 40th. Regiment at Annapolis Royal, Provincial Grand Master for Nova Scotia under Henry Price of Boston. Of this lodge, known as the First Lodge, Cornwallis was the first Master. Cornwallis In October 1749, issued an order that came to be known as the Scalping Proclamation. His government would pay a bounty to anyone who killed a Mi’kmaq adult or child in a bid to drive them off mainland Nova Scotia.
Sir William Johnson, an agent for the British Indian Department met Joseph Brant, a 9-year-old Mohawk boy while doing a land deal with Joseph's father King Hendrick. Sir William eventually started a common-law relationship with Joseph's sister Molly giving him incredible power over her tribe. Johnson groomed young Joseph Brant to become a loyal warrior and eventually leader of the six nations tribe. At 13 years old Joseph accompanied Johnson on his first tour with the military. Missionary Samuel Occham, a student of Eleazar Wheelock (father of The Great Awakening) procured a 19-year-old Joseph Brant to attend Moore's Indian charity school in Lebanon Connecticut with the blessings and charity of William Johnson. Freemasons Benjamin Franklin and Benedict Arnold had also donated money to Wheelock’s cause. William was the British Crown's first superintendent of Indian Affairs for the colony in 1756 and Joseph Brant was appointed as a captain in the Indian Department. Many Freemason colonists were high-ranking military who waged many wars on the Indigenous American population, scientists say so many Indigenous people were killed as a result of colonization it caused a mini ice age. After the North American wars, many Freemasons took positions as Indian agents helping to remove and segregate the native population. Anyone who wanted access to the six nations had to go through Indian agent Sir William Johnson and his family which includes the Brant family and the Kerr family through various marriages. At one point Johnson proposed that the moor's Indian Charity School move from Lebanon, Connecticut, to Johnstown but it never happened. Eventually, Johnson withdrew the support for Wheelock. In a letter Wheelock had suggested to Lord Dartmouth "The Nations will not make war with us while their Children, and especially the Children of their chiefs are with us” Dartmouth college claims that In 1766, Johnson was invited to join the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), the largest and most influential Anglican missionary society in the 18th-century British-Atlantic world. He began working to place Anglican missionaries like Freemason and bishop Charles Inglis, rather than Congregationalist and Presbyterian ones, among the Six Nations. I believe Moore's dubbed “the great design” was the original model for the Mohawk Institute and the Canadian residential school system.
On April 10, 1766 Sir William Johnson was raised to the position of Master Mason of St Patrick's Lodge No. 4 where many Freemason Indian agents like John Butler, Guy Johnson, Sir John Johnson, William Johnson Kerr, Christian Daniel Claus, Gilbert Tice, George Croghan and A protégé of Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, Rev. Samuel Kirkland attended. In 1770 Johnson's fellow St Patrick's lodge Freemason Rev. Samuel Kirkland coincidentally parted ways with Wheelock and Moors charity school. Eventually Kirkland founded the Hamilton-Oneida Academy as a boys' school in central New York. In 1776 Joseph Brant was initiated into the Freemason fraternity in London England where it is rumoured a benefactor of Moors charity school king George III gave Brant his masonic apron. When Brant returned to Canada he became affiliated with Lodge No. 11 at the Mohawk village on the Grand River, of which he was the first Worshipful Master, and later affiliated with Barton Lodge No. 10. Joseph Brant invited fellow Freemason and grandson of Eleazar Wheelock to be a minister to the Mohawk. To Joseph It was imperative that Freemason Rev. Davenport Phelps was made minister of the Mohawks, so he reminded the Bishop, through Sir John, of the pledge which the Archbishop of Canterbury had made to him in the presence of the King, that whenever the Indians, by the erection of a church, should be ready for religious instruction, he would do all in his power to supply their wants. A Freemason named Rev. Robert Addison helped make this happen. Mr Addison, a relative of William Johnson, had been minister to the Six Nations and Joseph Brant and Freemason John Norton were his translators. Freemason Reverend Davenport Phelps and Jarvis Wheelock, the brother of Eleazar, were invited to Canada and granted land by Freemason and founder of the family compact John Graves Simcoe, the man behind the Simcoe patent. Mrs Simcoe in her Diary says, “In April of the following year Mary Brant (sister of Freemason Joseph Brant and common-law wife of Freemason Indian agent Sir William Johnson) successfully prescribed a favourite Indian remedy, the root of sweet flag (acorus calamus), for Governor Simcoe, who had been extremely ill with a persistent cough. The medicine relieved his malady “in a very short time. This brought the Brant family and Simcoe family close together. Davenport Phelps became the Worshipful Master of The Barton Lodge under Freemason William Jarvis and he was the first chaplain at the Mohawk Chapel. Davenport was the leader of many Indian agents who were members of The Barton Lodge. I suspect Davenport's mission was to help with the so-called Indian problem.
Chief Joseph Brant has been accused on many occasions of selling off land for his own enrichment and in a lot of cases he sold land to Freemasons. He granted 999-year leases to many families, the Nelles, the Young’s, the families of Adam Young UE, his three sons, Lieutenant John Young (Indian department) UE, Sergeant Daniel Young UE, and Private Henry Young UE, along with Captain Henry William Nelles UE and his families (Rev. Abraham Nelles). Many of these Indian agents were members of The Barton Lodge. Both Captain Henry William Nelles UE and Adam Young UE, fourth great-grandfather of Robert Collins McBride UE, were also the first Freemasons to settle in Haldimand County. Freemasons Robert Kerr and Rev. Robert Addison, William Kennedy Smith, also had land there. "There were very few outright legal sales of our land; 90 per cent of the leased land has never been paid for or paid to Six Nations," according to a research document prepared by Six Nations. Many Freemasons were involved with the Simcoe patent and the Haldimand Proclamation. Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe stated that the Indians could not lease their land since British subjects could lease land only from British subjects. Freemason William Jarvis signed the Haldimand proclamation, Freemason Thomas Ridout surveyor-general was behind the Ridout survey, Freemason Sir Peregrine Maitland lieutenant governor informed them that they had no title to the northern part of the grant, Freemason John Butler acted as an agent of purchase on behalf of the government, Freemason chief John Brant) and Freemason Robert Johnson Kerr finally went to England to lobby on behalf of the Six Nations.
Freemasons King George IV, and King William IV, reigned from January 29 1820 to June 20 1837. The idea of residential school was brought forward by the Freemason Governor of Upper Canada, Sir Peregrine Maitland, within the context of a proposal he made in 1820 to the Colonial Office "for ameliorating the condition of the Indians in the neighbourhood of our settlements." Maitland's proposal contained most of the civilising concepts and techniques that would be adopted in the next three decades. The American Freemason, President Andrew Jackson succeeded in pushing the Indian Removal Act through the United States Congress in 1828 leading to the trail of tears. John Brant solicited help from the New England company to build the Mohawk institute, the first residential school in Canada. The mohawk institute operated from 1831 to June 27, 1970. John Brant appointed Rev. Abraham Nelles son of Freemason Robert Nelles as principal of the Mohawk Institute. Abraham after over 30 years was succeeded by Freemason Robert Ashton. Oronhyatekha aka Peter Martin was also a Freemason and played an important role in the development of the Mohawk Institute. The Arthur of the Historical sketch of the Barton Lodge, No. 6, G.R.C., A.F. and A.M., says “the name of Brother John Brant is connected with important events in the history of Canadian Masonry.” John Brant is responsible for the formation of at least 12 residential schools in Ontario, while Freemason Israel Powell the superintendent of Indian affairs in British Columbia Powell “was able to boast that the government had established seventeen Indian schools, one for each year in office.”. Powell sought to establish several boarding schools across the province and particularly pushed for creating a school in Kamloops to address communities in the province’s interior.The school opened in Kamloops in 1890 and became one of the largest residential schools operated by Indian Affairs. The Freemason Organisation is vicariously liable for all abuses in those residential schools.
In 1837 a Rebellion in Upper Canada was led by William Lyon Mackenzie, who was a fierce critic of Simcoe’s Family Compact, an elite clique of businessmen and many Freemasons. Mackenzie opposed a system of land grants that favored settlers from Britain. Many Freemasons such as William Botsford Jarvis and Sir Allen Napier Macnab who was Joint premier of the Province of Canada helped stop this rebellion. Sir Allen Macnab was succeeded by Freemason Sir John A. Macdonald as Joint Premier. This Rebellion of 1837, this triggered the 6th generation Freemason Lord Durham to write The Durham Report, he was appointed governor in chief of British North America. In his 1839 Report on the Affairs of British North America, he recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be united under a single Parliament, with responsible government. In 1863 a steamboat named the Brother Johnathan) carried smallpox from San Francisco to British Columbia killing 1/3rd of the Native population. Many Freemasons like Thomas Harris the first mayor of Victoria, Israel Wood Powell who served in the Victoria Rifle Volunteer Corps which was established to protect the colony from the indigenous population, Amor De Cosmos who was the extremely racist editor of The Daily British Colonist, and Ronald J. NcDonell clerk for magistrate Pemberton who forced The Nuu-chah-nulth to leave their camp, escorted by two gunboats. There are many many more who may have purposefully mishandled the smallpox epidemic of 1863. British freemason Edward Jenner created the life-saving smallpox vaccine but on the other hand Freemasons Jeffrey Amherst and Col Henry Bouquet have been accused of distributing smallpox contaminated blankets to their enemies.
As early as 1866 Israel W. Powell, with his colleague Amor De Cosmos, had proposed confederation with the Canadian colonies. Israel Wood Powell, Superintendent of Indian affairs also outlawed potlatching an indigenous ceremony In British Columbia. Following the Lord Durham’s report, Freemason Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon proposed The British North America Act, 1867 Under section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867, the federal government has exclusive legislative authority for "Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians." Of the 36 Fathers of the Canadian confederation, 11 were Freemasons. One being Freemason Sir John A. Macdonald, He was named by the United Grand Lodge of England as their Grand Representative near to the Grand Lodge of Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald took a page from American Freemason Andrew Jackson's book by removing the Indigenous people from their land. He was proud that he was able to subdue the Indigenous people with less blood shed than his American brethren. One Of Macdonald's Legacies is the Canadian Pacific Railway which displaced many tribes across Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald's campaign promise in the 1870s was that he would have a railway built that would link the country from coast to coast. Freemasons Richard Marpole, Sir Sandford Fleming, Sir George J.A. Bury And the Chinese Freemasons of Vancouver and Alberta made Macdonald’s promise come true. As quickly as the railroad was laid Freemason lodges were erected. Louis Riel a Métis hero, led two resistance movements against the Government of Canada and its Freemason Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald. Riel sought to defend Métis rights and identity. The Wolseley expedition was a military force authorized by Sir John A. Macdonald to confront Louis Riel and had been dispatched to Red River under Freemason Colonel Garnet Joseph Wolseley. Another of Mcdonald's legacies is the North West Mounted Police. Macdonald established the N.W.M.P in 1873 which boasted 750 Freemason members in its time. He claimed that “it was intended to have a body of mounted rifles to protect the people from the chance of an Indian war.’’ Meanwhile, The Pacific Scandal, the first major post-Confederation political scandal in Canada, Sir John Macdonald and senior members of his Conservative Cabinet were accused of accepting election funds for the contract to build the C.P rail.
The near completion of the railway allowed troops from eastern Canada to quickly arrive in the territory causing Riel to surrender to Canadian forces. The NWMP barracks was where Louis Riel was detained after his arrest in 1885 for leading the North-West Rebellion. Many Freemasons were involved in the defeat of Louis Riel. The RCMP museum had a display of the noose which hung Riel. Macdonald said this about Riel "He shall die though every dog in Quebec barks in his favor." John A. Macdonald is also one of the fathers of the Canadian Indian act First passed in 1876. In 1879 Freemason Nicholas Flood Davin wrote the Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds, otherwise known as The Davin Report. An amendment to the Indian Act in 1894 under Freemason Prime Minister Sir Mackenzie Bowell, made attendance at day schools, industrial schools, or residential schools compulsory for First Nations children, resulting in over 100000 Indigenous children being forcefully removed from their families by Indian agents and the RCMP. From 1740 to 1896 The Mexican government's response to the various uprisings of the Yaqui tribe have been likened to genocide particularly under Freemason Porfirio Diaz. Due to slavery and massacre, the population of the Yaqui tribe in Mexico was reduced from 30,000 to 7,000 under Diaz's rule. One source estimates at least 20,000 out of these Yaquis were victims of state murders in Sonora. It was during this period of the conflict that the United States Army fought the last battle of the American Indian Wars, the final battle being the Wounded Knee Massacre December 29, 1890, and in the subsequent Drexel Mission Fight the next day. In recent history the statues of Freemason John A. Macdonald, Freemason Edward Cornwallis, Freemason George Washington, Freemason Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Freemason Robert E. Lee and Andrew Jackson have all been vandalized but no mention of their affiliation to the Freemasons in the news. We can't point fingers at the church or government without first confirming whether or not the accused are Freemasons. The Order of the Eastern Star, Job's Daughters, and Rainbow Girls are masonic fraternities for women such as the daughter, widow, wife, sister, or mother of a Master Mason. All masons will cry out that Freemasonry has nothing to do with what an individual member has done, yet they all praise these men and prop them up as heroes. Freemasons claim to have superior morality compared to the average person, that they are the most honorable men on the planet, yet they refuse to acknowledge their members role in the genocide of the Indigenous Americans.
You may believe Freemasons are irrelevant nowadays but that is far from true. Winston Churchill is regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century. Churchill was initiated into Studholme Lodge No. 1591 on 24 May 1901. He said of the Pashtun people “all who resist will be killed without quarter,” Pashtun territory was occupied by the British in 1848 and divided into two areas. Winston Churchill's policies caused a famine that claimed more than 3 million Indian lives during the The Bengal famine of 1943. President Harry Truman, known as one of the most dedicated men to have joined Masonry on the morning of August 6, 1945, ordered an American B-29 bomber to drop two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. John Edgar Hoover, more commonly referred to as J. Edgar Hoover, was an American attorney and director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Hoover was raised on November 9th 1920 in Federal Lodge No. 1 in Washington D.C. In 1919 Hoover became the head of the Bureau of Investigation's (predecessor of the FBI) new General Intelligence Division. The division was also called the Radical Division because it was the task of the division to find radical elements in American society to monitor and disrupt their activities. The Duke of Kent was initiated as a Freemason in Royal Alpha Lodge No. 16 in London on 16 December 1963. The Duke of Kent, is now UGLE’s longest-serving Grand Master. The Duke’s brother, Prince Michael of Kent, is also a Freemason and is Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons, and Provincial Grand Master of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Middlesex. On 6 March 1953, HRH Prince Philip progressed to the Second Degree of Freemasonry, before advancing to the Third Degree on 4 May 1953.
I encourage those who have been affected by the actions of Freemasons to begin a class action lawsuit against this organization in what ever country, state or province you live in and hold Freemasonry accountable for genocide. The first thing a Freemason will say when presented with this evidence is you don't know how masonry operates, that the lodge is not responsible for individual members actions. That is exactly what the Catholic church said before the Canadian Court of Appeal on July 28, 2020 had found the Archdiocese vicariously liable for abuses committed by a civilian employee. I witnessed countless people stand up against the Catholic Church for what they have done and the Pope came to Canada and apologized. Now it's time to turn your sight toward Freemasonry. You must understand that all Freemasons on the American contenent have greatly benefited from the genocide of Indigenous Americans.
“ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's acceptance of an inquiry's finding that Canada committed genocide against Indigenous people could have tremendous legal impact if a court ever weighs Ottawa's responsibility for crimes against humanity, experts say.”
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/trudeau-s-acknowledgment-of-indigenous-genocide-could-have-legal-impacts-experts-1.5457668
"I didn't use the word genocide because it didn't come to mind but I described genocide," Pope Francis told reporters on the papal flight from Iqaluit to Rome on Friday.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/pope-francis-residential-schools-genocide-1.6537203
“The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.”
― President John F. Kennedy
“President Kennedy issued an Executive Order prohibiting use of facilities on military bases by groups not integrated. The result was to bar Masonic lodges from using the bases.” Masonic Parallels with History - A Chronology of General and Masonic History by Alphonse Cerza. themasonictrowel
THE MILITARY AND FREEMASONRY
Freemasonry in Nova Scotia
Freemasonry at the Two Sieges of Louisbourg 1745 and 1758
Freemasonry in Quebec
Sir William Johnson, the Brant family, the Kerr family and the British Indian Department
MOOR’S INDIAN CHARITY SCHOOL
Mohawk Institute (Mush Hole)
The rebellion of 1837
Manitoba Freemasons
Saskatchewan Freemasons
North-West Rebellion
Provincial Premiers Alberta masons
The Canadian Pacific Railway
Smallpox epidemic of 1862
British Columbia Freemasons
Freemason Prime Ministers
American Freemasons and the genocide of the
Indigenous peoples.
Spanish Freemasons
Royal Freemasons
300 Years of Freemasonry Celebrated at Royal Albert Hall Global Event
Freemasonry according to Masons.
The Fourth Council of Toledo Canon 60 and Indian Residential Schools
Sources
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ4QiANX3BnEdEwD94FXfh1Nkg_RJ-XN5UhN0_gLX10isR2i08xUziA9ZX7sErUMdp4PTKKPhP0P7F2/pub#h.fpjzhjnusgk1

Stand musical Reference: “Mio Mao La La La La La” by Francesco Mosseri & Piero Barbetti(it has no meaning literally at all.)
Stand Typing: Bound, uh… you’ll just need to read it for yourself.
User Name: Johannes Swan
User References: Johannes for the creator of the Printing Press and Swan from Joseph Swan, who was involved in the creation of the electric lightbulb.
Stats
Power: N/A
Speed: N/A
Range: ? (Hard to tell.)
Durability: D
Potential:A
Stand Ability:『Mio Mao』is unique in that it began powerless, and it even currently has no entirely battle centered abilities, but it makes up for such by having a very large plethora of possible abilities, currently depending mostly on passerby and other civilians to fight. The abilities will be split into “Mio” and “Mao”, as I use their meanings to create the abilities. Let’s start with Mao. The Mao section of abilities is called “The Coarse”. The Coarse has the abilities of “quality stealing”, manipulation of people without strong minds(passerby’s for standoffs sake), to revert a “finished” object back to an unfinished state, increased impact of the users words on people under the age of 19, and creation of monoamine oxidase. The Mio section of abilities is called “The Treasury” . The Treasury the abilities of “declaring ownership” of something, to “deposit” or “withdraw” one million, instantaneous Cherry Blossum Growth(only one every 15 minutes by default), and,when the user found out about Mio(the water-enhancer company) gave the user a power within the company equal to a Co-owner.
Mao further explanations: The “quality stealing” ability is only usable non-living man-made objects. Objects with their quality stolen will become less well constructed, such as a house having a worse foundation or a plane having a faulty landing mechanism, or a bridge being more likely to collapse. The manipulation of weak minded individuals is limited to either quickly rallying a mob or calming a mod down, and the opponent will never be included in any fighting scenarios. The reverting of finished things to an unfinished form can also only be done to non living man-made things, and things it can do include but are not limited to: removing a houses wall paint, removing one of the pillars of a building, and removing the concrete of a road. Due to the extra impact of the words of Johannes on younger people, he can influence them into helping him in fights or schemes quite easily. And finally, monoamine oxidase is, by definition, an enzyme that deaminates monoamines: it destroys excessive amounts of many biologically active monoamines, as serotonin, epinephrine, or histamine. Or condensed, it causes depression. Johannes can manifest this within a person’s brain through physical contact, but it’s not as if it would do much other than lowering the opponents moral.
Mio further explanations: Declaring ownership of something is more or less to make it so that any 5 by 5 feet square of land that Johannes is standing on, when somebody other than him stands or otherwise on it, can trigger the police to arrive, as it’s “Private Property” owned by Johannes. I the time the police arrive are dependent on the arrival times of the police in the specified area. “Withdrawing” or “depositing” one million works as it allows for Johannes to “deposit” a million yen into allowing him to use his instant Cherry Blossom growth skill, which he will get by “withdrawing” one million yen(which comes from money and coins lost in peoples couches or like 2-3 dollars from rich people from all over the world, instantly Converting to yen. His instant Cherry Blossom growth allows him to, you guessed it, instantly grow a 40-50 feet tall Cherry Blossum tree from anywhere within 10 meters of him, letting him climb to roofs or lift the opponent or other shenanigans. Finally, the Mio water-enhancer company is basically a mini-speedwagon foundation for Johannes; but only the money or specific requested items part.
『Mio Mao』has an “A” in potential as Johannes can expand his abilities even further by discovering new meanings of “Mio” or “Mao”. This includes slang and possibly false, even if it was created as a joke, all that matters is if the user believes it to be a real application. Let me explain where each ability came from: in Chinese, Mao man’s a lot of things. It means: hair, feather, down, wool, mildew, mold, coarse or semi finished, young, raw, careless, unthinking, nervous, scared, (of currency) to devalue or depreciate. I’m sure you can find find where each power comes from. Secondly, MAO also stands for Monoamine Oxidase, which is one of the depression chemicals. Mio means “Mine” or “My Own” in both Spanish and old Italian. Mio is also used as an abbreviation of of “Million” sometimes as well. Somehow, Mio is also from words regarding Cherry Blossoms. Finally, Mio is also a water-enhancer company.
Appearance:『Mio Mao』is a stand composed of two objects, one representing The Treasury and the other The Coarse. The Coarse is a small white marble with a small section of it being an orange color, that feels surprisingly fluffy, like a feather. The Treasury is a small unpure brass ring, with the words “Live, Love, and” with the third word being unreadable, created as part of the ring. Johannes has to be wearing The Treasury on one of his fingers to use it’s abilities, and he must have The Course on his person somewhere to use it.
User lore: Johannes is currently 23, and has had a rather complicated upbringing. He’s born in the slums of Chicago, having an Indian-Mexican Heritage. He gets abandoned, as you do, and lives simply by getting lucky. Whenever he passes out from wounds or hunger or thirst, he wakes up having been saved by a person who puts him back on the street as soon as possible. He’s been in a rather brutal gang before, leaving after a few months, setting the base on fire before he runs away. He went on the move at age 15 for better places, and hasn’t stopped yet, though he had finally summoned his stand when he got caught in a rather unfortunate 5-on-one fight he definitely couldn’t win. Suddenly a ring appeared on his finger and a bead in his clenched fist. He had heard the word “Mio” used as an acronym for one million, being the cost for them to let him go. He used the ring, and withdrew that sweet sweet 1 million yen, before hightailing it out of there. He has just been doing research on the words “Mio” and “Mao” as well as money-making schemes to get by since. Along with that he, of course, took online language classes and expanded his vocabulary. He is fluent in Italian, Spanish, French, and Arabic. He’s haunted for sure, but you won’t see him not cracking a joke at every opportunity. He doesn’t really have a fighting style, as he would be improvising, but using the passerby or police through bribing or his heightened manipulation is what he relies on.
User Appearance: Johannes clocks out at the height of 5’4 with a pretty ok build, nothing special. He usually wears clothes that make it easier for him to hide in crowds, such as a blue shirt without printing and khakis in slums, but it can vary depending on where he currently is. What doesn’t change is that he wears three additional rings, one on the hand with The Treasury, and the other two on the other hand. His shoes also don’t change, wearing brown bowler shoes, with a small skull at the back of the heels.