Busted newspaper mcallen

What if Moe won a PNC?

2023.06.06 20:56 InfernoPunch600 What if Moe won a PNC?

This is how I see Moe getting enlisted into Papa's ranks (the second worker will be known from now as X), in whatever gameria he's going to work at:
Newspaper cover shows him getting caught and brought to justice. At Papa's "suggestion", he's sentenced for community service and sent to work at Papa's latest restaurant to do his time.
Breaking News 1: There's a new unidentified criminal causing trouble at *insert flipverse city here*. Duke Gotcha tells the population to stay alert and report anything suspicious they may find.
Breaking News 2: The criminal causes even more unrest. People try to point the blame at Moe and X. In order to prove their innocence, they volunteer to help Hank and Ninjoy to solve the case and stop the menace.
Breaking News 3: Hank and Ninjoy confront the criminal but are defeated by them. As they make their escape, they drop a note that reveals their hideout.
Breaking News 4/Outro: Hank, Ninjoy, Moe and X bust the criminal, revealing them to be ?????. In the aftermath, Papa congratulates them for their heroism.
Who would the female worker be and what would she be sentenced for? That depends on who wins with Moe. For example, if it were Olivia (if she wasn't in Cluck), it could be that one of her parties went out of control and caused some damage.
As for custom workers, you'd choose what crime they'd be sentenced for (similar to Papa's Bakeria). Crimes would include things like robbery, vandalism, and other "family-friendly" crimes (so no murder or something of that capacity).
submitted by InfernoPunch600 to flipline [link] [comments]


2023.06.05 14:28 sonofabutch No game today, so let's remember a forgotten Yankee: Truck Hannah

The entirety of Harry "Truck" Hannah's major league career came with the New York Yankees -- all three years of it. But if you include his participation in the minors, he had a long career, beginning in 1909 with the Tacoma Tigers in the Northwestern League and ending in 1940 with the Memphis Chickasaws in the Southern Association. He is one of only a handful of players to have a hit in five different decades!
Of all the forgotten Yankee with memorable nicknames -- No Neck, Stanky the Yankee, Sailor Bob, Spud, Slow Joe, The Mummy, Birdie, Bump, and Grandma Johnny -- there's something to be said about the sublime elegance of a big, brawny catcher nicknamed Truck.
James Harrison Hannah Jr. was born 134 years ago today, on June 5, 1889, in what was then the Dakota Territory. (It would become the state of North Dakota about five months later.) By age 2, the family had moved to Seattle, Washington.
As a kid, he was called Harry, but by the time he was playing baseball, he was universally known as Truck. There are several stories as to how he got the nickname. Some said it had to do with his imposing size -- he stood 6'1" and weighed a solid 190 pounds -- and others because of the way he could block the plate as easily as a truck could block a street. Other sources say the nickname wasn't comparing him to a motor vehicle but to a horse, or rather a truck horse, as horses that pulled heavy wagons were called at the time. His daughter, Helen, said he got the nickname simply because he was "big and slow."
Another explanation, a little less colorful, was that Hannah paid the bills in the off-season by working as a truck driver!
Hall of Fame Umpire Billy Evans said Hannah was adept at the catcher's trick of distracting the batter with a steady stream of banter while behind the plate:
"Truck Hannah always has been an object of interest to me when catching. Aside from always doing a pretty good job receiving, he never failed to have a line of conversation that would make a bigger hit on the vaudeville circuit than some of the stuff used by some monologue artists. Hannah keeps up a continual chatter from the time the game starts. Of course, his conversation is largely directed at the batter, in the hope that his line of talk will take the mind of the batter from his work, the making of base hits. He seeks to keep the batter from concentrating, and from the many strikes slipped over by the New York pitchers, I would say there was merit in his system. Hannah's conversation is never objectionable. He usually has the batter laughing at some of his talk, rather than sore."
But Hannah used more than just banter to distract batters. As the pitch was being delivered, he would sometimes spit tobacco juice onto a player's shoes, toss pebbles onto the plate, or throw dirt at their hands on the bat!
Hannah got his start in professional baseball as a 20-year-old third baseman with the Tacoma Tigers in the Northwestern League. When the team needed an emergency catcher, Hannah was put behind the plate and stuck there for the rest of his career. Over the next five years he played for five different teams in four different leagues, until in 1914 finally catching on with the Sacramento Wolves in the Pacific Coast League. The PCL at the time was considered by some to be a third major league, or at least the minor league closest to major league competition, and Hannah was regarded as one of the best catchers in the league. He drew interest from several major league teams, including the Tigers, Phillies, and Browns. But it was the Yankees who finally acquired him, paying $4,000 to acquire his rights after he hit .292 in 569 at-bats in 1917.
Truck pulled into the Polo Grounds -- not Yankee Stadium, which wouldn't be built until 1923 -- as the foundation was being laid for a dynasty. Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast Huston purchased the Yankees in 1915 and immediately set about reversing the fortunes of what had been for years one of the worst-run teams in the American League. The Yankees, as they became known in 1913, had only winning season in the last 10 years.
The new owners set about making changes, acquiring a number of valuable players: Wally Pipp, Home Run Baker, Ping Bodie, Aaron Ward, Urban Shocker, and previously forgotten Yankee Bob Shawkey.
After the 1917 season they made the biggest change of all, firing well-liked manager Bill Donovan and replacing him with former St. Louis Cardinals manager Miller Huggins, who over the next 11 years would lead the Yankees to six pennants and three World Series.
Huggins made another move, acquiring from the St. Louis Browns future Hall of Fame pitcher "Gettysburg Eddie" Plank and veteran second baseman Del Pratt. The latter would be a good player for the Yankees, hitting .295/.348/.394 (106 OPS+) over the next three seasons, but the 42-year-old Plank refused to report and retired instead. In return, the Yankees shipped out five players... including starting catcher Les Nunamaker, who had been with the Yankees for four seasons.
And so, needing a catcher to replace Nunamaker, the Yankees paid the Salt Lake City Bees $4,000 for Hannah. He was expected to battle 22-year-old Muddy Ruel to be the backup to the 25-year-old Roxy Walters, who had been Nunamaker's understudy since September 1915, but Ruel would be drafted into the U.S. Army and Walters broke his finger in an exhibition game 10 days before Opening Day. By the time Walters was ready to play again, Hannah was hitting .288/.432/.356 and had thrown out 19 out of 34 basestealers; over the rest of the season, he would maintain that pace to lead the league in CS% (55%) as well as in double plays as a catcher (16). His batting average would fade dramatically, however, dropping all the way to .220 by the end of the season, but he was still contributing with a .361 OBP in 312 plate appearances. Walters's bat never got started at all, and hitting just .199/.239/.236 in 205 plate appearances.
Technically a major league rookie when he joined the team, the 29-year-old Hannah was treated like a veteran from his four seasons in the well-respected Pacific Coast League. In addition, he was -- literally as well as figuratively, at 6'1" -- one of the few players on the team who could see eye-to-eye with the 6'2" Babe Ruth when he was acquired prior to the 1920 season. When Ruth got into squabbles with diminutive manager Miller Huggins, it was often Hannah's duty to keep the peace.
Yankee shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh, the Yankee captain from 1914 to 1921, described one such incident to long-time Yankee PR man Marty Appel in 1974:
"Once we were leaving Boston after a tough loss, and Babe was drunk, and he said he was gonna throw Huggins off the train! He was heading for his drawing room. On the way he stopped in the men’s room and punched this huge mirror. It fell into a million pieces. Me and Ernie Shore and Truck Hannah pulled him down to the ground and sat on him until he passed out. Truck — a big guy — puts him over his shoulder and moves him to the next car."
At the end of the season, the Yankees were happy enough with Hannah that they traded Roxy Walters to the Red Sox. For the next two years, the catching duties were almost evenly split between Hannah and Ruel, who was back from the Army with the end of World War I.
The "Muddy-Truck" tandem was colorfully named but disappointing, with Ruel hitting .255/.325/.306 (71 OPS+) in 560 PA and Hannah .243/.313/.317 (70 OPS+) in 553 PA. Catcher in those days was very much a defense-first position, and both had good gloves, but the Yankees (even with the newly acquired Babe Ruth having an 11.7 bWAR season) finished three games out of 1st in 1920.
Ruppert and Huston asked Huggins what the team needed to win, and his answer: a catcher.
At the end of the season, the Yankees sent Hannah back to the Pacific Coast League, and traded Ruel to the Red Sox for previously forgotten Yankee Wally Schang, the first in the long line of great Yankee catchers. In his five years with the Yankees, the switch-hitting Schang hit .297/.390/.406 (105 OPS+), and in the 1923 World Series -- the first of 27 won by the Yankees -- Schang played every inning of every game, went 7-for-22 (.318) with a double and three runs scored, and allowed just one stolen base.
Hannah would stay in the Pacific Coast League for the next 22 years as a player, coach, and manager. He had a great year with the Vernon Tigers in 1923, hitting .346 with 23 doubles and 6 home runs in 370 plate appearances. His final plate appearance came on May 19, 1940, when he was managing the Memphis Chicks. Two weeks shy of his 51st birthday, with both his catchers injured, Hannah caught both ends of a doubleheader and went 1-for-6.
Hannah retired from baseball two years later after his St. Paul Saints lost 15 games in a row -- 11 of them by one run! He said he couldn't sleep anymore, replaying every loss in his head over and over, second-guessing every decision he made as manager.
He retired to his ranch in Southern California, but remained active enough in the regional baseball scene that when the Los Angeles Angels played their first major league game in 1961, Hannah was selected to catch the ceremonial first pitch.
Truck Hannah died on April 27, 1982, five weeks shy of his 93rd birthday. His wife, Helen, died in October, a month before what would have been their 70th wedding anniversary.
Keep On Truckin':
Near the end of his career, Truck Hannah was interviewed about the rigors of being a catcher. He said during his 30 years in baseball he'd broken every finger on his right hand at least twice. "What the hell, it's all part of the game," he said. "It sure was fun while it lasted. Even with busted hands and fingers and everything else, I wouldn't have missed it for the world."
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2023.06.05 10:50 pirivalfang One thing I see constantly posted about Noodler's inks. (No, not THAT.)

Yeah yeah, he's a loonie. W/E, I've decided not to buy anymore products of his/theirs, I'm just using what I have. I've got a 16oz bottle of Lexington Gray, it's going to take a feller a second.
Everybody always hates on Noodler's inks because they "dry slow" and smear even after they're dry.
Here's something important about 99% of Noodler's inks: They're meant to be used on extremely crap paper. That's why they smear and take a while to dry. IIRC the original black ink was made to resist feathering on newspaper, but still absorb and not bead off with water.
If you use an ink that's designed to absorb into paper on a paper that's not absorbent (IE: paper "we" consider "good") It's going to dry slow, and smear because it's highly pigmented, and it dried on top of the paper, rather than absorbing into it. Just like a ballpoint.
If you've got a pile of notebooks with trash paper, bust them out and use a Noodler's ink on them, 99% of the time it works like a charm.
Now there's obviously exceptions. I've got a bottle of Rome that feathers on even the nicest paper, but it's a very pretty flat gold color and I like how it changes to pink when it gets wet/tries to be removed, so I still use it, just not as much.
Thought I'd post this because it's often overlooked. There's a reason Noodler's Black and X-Feather are on "inks for bad paper" lists.
submitted by pirivalfang to fountainpens [link] [comments]


2023.06.04 04:02 aaaaa143222 The US overseas Chinese Democracy movement's scandals part 1

Note: and other people in the same category as them

Wang Dan accused of sexual harassment by two people

Lee Yuan-chun accuses Wang Dan of sexual harassmentAccording to Radio Free Asia, on June 2nd, 2023, a man named Lee Yuan-chun (李元钧), accused Wang Dan of sexual harassment on Facebook. According to Lee Yuan-chun, in 2014 in Flushing, Wang Dan kissed him, attempted to rape him, and later continued to say sexual things. On Facebook, Wang Dan wrote that this did not happen. Li Yuan-chun told Radio Free Asia that he has some evidence related to the allegation.Reports: China Times SanlihRadio France International reported about this, but the article was deleted.**Xu Haoqian accused Wang Dan of sexual harassment (note: this name was transliterated from Chinese to pinyin)**Later, according to multiple news media, a Master of Taiwan's Tsinghua University also accused Wang Dan of sexual harassment.Reports: Apple Daily China Press United Daily NewsFurther reports: HK01 CTS

Zeng Dajun was rumored to be a CCP agent

In 2011, the China Social Democracy Party had a lot of internal conflicts involving Liu Guokai, Lu Yi, Liu Yinquan, Xiaopingtou, and others. Some members of the China Social Democracy Party were accused of being agents or doing bad things.In 2016, Bowen Press reported that Zeng Dajun, the chairman of the China Social Democracy Party was a CCP agent who infiltrated the overseas Democracy Movement and who had caused the arrest of many people in China, such as the China Social Democracy Party member Wang Xiaoning (王小宁). Zeng Dajun joined the China Social Democracy Party in 2000 and was elected to be its chairman in 2013.https://bowenpress.com/news/bowen_54262.html

Guo Baosheng convicted of fraud and defamation

On December 23rd 2019, the jury verdict ordered that Guo Baosheng pays a total of $24,000 (in defamation and fraud charges). WENGUI GUO is the plaintiff and BAOSHENG GUO is the defendant. The court is the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.To verify this information, you can use the case number , which is 1:18-cv-01064-TSE-IDD.

Chen Yangchao and Zeng Jieming had a conflict on a forum of the Democracy Movement

Chen Yangchao is the author of "On Privilege" and a participant of the "Democracy Wall" movement. Zeng Jieming is an exiled Chinese who participated in various dissident publications.In May, Chen Yangchao suggested that Zeng Jieming was a CCP spy on The Independent Review.Below is the continuation of the online conflict translated from Chinese to English.On May 18th, on the Independent Review forum of the Democracy Movement, Chen Yangchao wrote another post criticizing Zeng Jieming. In this post, Chen Yangchao called Zeng Jieming a "suspected communist agent", a "Little Pink", and a "gangster" ("共特嫌疑人小粉红混混"), and accused Zeng Jieming of supporting Russia against Ukraine.Zeng Jieming: "[...] What pro-democracy activist are you now? Since 2008, after you fought with Wu Fan to be the 'President of the Transitional Government of China', ended in failure and shame, except flattering the tyrannical dictators, writing letters to persuade Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping [note: Zeng Jieming used the nicknames 僵贼泯, 胡紧套 and 习正恩], proclaiming the emperor to 'create peace for all ages', what have you done? Is flattering and persuading tyrannical dictators the 'democracy movement' according to you? [...]"Chen Yangchao: "You immoral, corrupt thing that reverses black and white, didn't you see my series of long essays against the CCP? [...]" Chen Yangchao also attached a long article about the Christianity and Chinese politics.Zeng Jieming: "In October 2011, you and Liu Guokai (刘国凯) visited my residence by chance and were warmly received by my partner and me. Later, Liu Guokai reluctantly left first, but the next day, you left angrily. For a long time, I didn't know why and thought that my hospitality wasn't good. Later, I finally understood: when taking the group photo (my wife took the photo), I didn't let you 'saint' stand in the middle, but let Liu Guokai stand in the middle. [...]"Chen Yangchao: "In October 2011, to reconcile the conflict between Liu Guokai and Liu Yinquan (刘因全), before flying from Los Angeles to New York, I made an appointment with Liu Guokai to meet and exchange ideas at your home. I went to see your family who just immigrated to the United States.After that, you propose to take a group photo. Guokai was a person who personally experienced the Democracy Wall movement and the shocking influence of 'On Privilege' at that time. Therefore, he insisted that I stand between you and him. Because I thought that you just arrived in the United States and needed Liu Guokai's help, and should help strengthen your relationship with him, I insisted that he stand between me and you. So we pushed each other several times. You said: 'It's better to ask Chairman Liu to stand in the middle', and I also said: 'Guokai is welcome to be in the middle.' Only then did the mutual pushing between me and Guokai stop. After the group photo, I took a photo while holding your son who was born after I took a long-distance taxi in Bangkok to visit your family in Thailand. Where is that 'fact' that you fabricated?[...]Not to mention, Mr. Liu Guokai your wife are witnesses. If your wife is as heartless as you are, responding to kindness with hate, then the wrath and severe punishment of God will come upon your family![...]It's a pity that you didn't send me any of the photos you took this time. Otherwise, I can post it now to let everyone see if I am narrow-minded and "angry and resentful (yet)" as you said![...]At your house this time, you insisted that when I went to live with Liu Yinquan's family in Los Angeles, I was sick because Liu Yinquan drugged me; that the computer had problems because Liu Yinquan damaged it! You insisted that it was this scoundrel spy Liu Yinquan who did it! You asked me to publicly reveal this matter, and expose Liu Yinquan's true face! I have repeatedly told you that you can't do this arbitrarily. I have repeatedly advised you to improve your relationship with Liu Yinquan as much as possible... [...]"Zeng Jieming: "Only looking at your words 'he died well' when you heard the news of Peng Ming (彭明)'s death, Peng Ming's spirit in heaven will not forgive you! [...]"Chen Yangchao: "[...] I have some criticisms of Peng Ming's seriously anti-democratic dictatorial gangster tactics that are more vicious than those of the Communist dictators. [...]In the article '答友人谈彭明的典型意义和代表性兼及其它', I have already quoted a series of anti-democratic and anti-society words written by Peng Ming in his 'Democracy Project' and the 'legal clauses' tailor-made for Peng Ming from the '中国联邦临时政府约法(草案)' personally revised by Peng Ming, which solidly proves that Peng Ming — in essence, he is a typical evil breed hatched in China's century-old troubled times. [...]"Other commentsSome people commented on their conflict on The Independent Review."Guo Qinghai" (郭庆海): "I support old Chen to relentlessly pursue and fiercely attack, heheh""Leg pain" (小腿疼): "When mental illness occurs, you should increase your medication."

Shen Tong accused of adultery and beating his wife

Shen Tong was a leader of the '89 protest movement. In recent years, his level of participation in the overseas Democracy Movement diminished.In 2005, Shen Tong was accused of adultery in Taiwan with a woman surnamed Lai.TVBS: https://news.tvbs.com.tw/local/417997In 2017, Shen Tong was accused of beating his wife (Ms. Lai) in the U.S and was indicted on one count of second-degree assault.New York Post: https://nypost.com/2017/10/04/millionaire-anti-violence-activist-busted-for-beating-his-wife/

Wu'erkaixi's controversy in Taiwan

In June 2005, Wu'erkaixi was photographed "picking up girls" at a nightclub in Taipei.TVBS: https://news.tvbs.com.tw/life/440370In 2019, Wu'erkaixi was arrested in Taiwan for driving a motorcycle while drunk. The level of alcohol contained in his body surpassed the allowed limit.China Times: https://web.archive.org/web/20190515050022/https://www.chinatimes.com/amp/realtimenews/20190331001111-260402

Wang Dan allegedly received 400,000$ from the Taiwanese government

In April 2011, multiple news media reported that testified in court that he had received two grants from the Chen Shui-bian administration totaling 400 000 USD and that the source of the money was not clear.
China Times: https://www.chinatimes.com/amp/newspapers/20110416002085-260107
Liberty Times: https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/politics/pape484870
Wang Dan responded that the reports of him having received 400 000 USD are false.
North America Online/BBC: http://naol.ca/news/world/2011/04/16-1.htm
Later, Wang Dan said "The report [of the Central News Agency] is misleading. What we accepted is the Republic of China's government's funding of the overseas Democracy Movement. Well, if it is said to be Chen Shui-bian's personal support, then I think this is not in line with the facts. [...] What he represents is not himself, but the government of the Republic of China."Deutsche Welle: https://www.dw.com/zh/%E7%8E%8B%E4%B8%B9%E5%8F%B0%E6%B9%BE%E8%B5%84%E5%8A%A9%E5%B9%B6%E9%9D%9E%E9%99%88%E6%B0%B4%E6%89%81%E7%9A%84%E4%B8%AA%E4%BA%BA%E6%94%AF%E6%8C%81/a-14997215
Cao Changqing pointed out that Wang Dan's response to this allegation made no sense.ChinaAid: https://www.chinaaid.net/2014/09/blog-post_38.html

Chen Shui-bian disclosed in 2022 that he paid Wang Dan

Chen Shui-bian paid 6.6 million NTD to Wang DanIn April 2022, Chen Shui-bian revealed 21 cases of "Guowu Jiyao Fei", including two payments to Wang Dan, totaling 6.6 million NTD.China TimesMing PaoChen Shui-bian disclosed that Wang Dan was paid 200,000 USD after meeting himWang Dan came to the Presidential Palace to talk to Chen Shui-bian. Chen Shui-bian also allocated 200,000 US dollars to be paid in two years to Wang Dan. However, Chen Shui-bian said that U.S. law stipulates that it is not allowed to accept foreign government funding. In order to help Wang Dan, the government used many people. Wang Dan admitted it in a secret court.SanlihThe Storm Media

Wang Dan was accused of pretending to be ill to receive donations

In 2014, Wang Dan claimed to have a brain tumor and asked for donations. Feng Congde and Tang Baiqiao accused him of deceiving people.China Times Liberty Times

Innapropriate photos of Sheng Xue

Sheng Xue is the leader of the Federation for a Democratic China (FDC). Many other political dissidents, such as Fei Liangyong, accuse her of behaving badly.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/world/canada/china-dissident-harassment-sheng-xue.htmlThese are alleged nude and innapropriate photos of Sheng Xue. She denied it.https://web.archive.org/web/20230228122715/http://45.35.61.42/hero/201608/xiaopingtouyehua/2_1.shtmlhttps://web.archive.org/web/20230228122715/http://45.35.61.42/hero/201608/xiaopingtouyehua/2_1.shtmlhttps://web.archive.org/web/20230228123614/https://club.6parkbbs.com/bolun/index.php?app=forum&act=threadview&tid=15257084

A spy and an murder in Flushing

Wang Juntao is the leader of an organization of the "China Democracy Party" in Flushing. A Beijing petitioner named Zhang Xiaoning killed the lawyer Jim Li. Zhang Xiaoning was a participant of the protests of Wang Juntao's group. Wang Shujun, someone who was close to Wang Juntao, was found to be a spy of China.https://nymag.com/intelligencearticle/wang-juntao-exile-chinese-communist-party-nyc.html

Liu Gang's wife was accused of being a Chinese spy

Liu Gang is the former leader of the student self-government federation during the '89 protest movement. In 2011, he accused accused his wife of being a spy of China.

Guo Wengui

Guo Wengui is a rich businessman who escaped from China. In 2017, he was supported of many people such as the dissident former official Bao Tong and the soccer player Hao Haidong.In 2017, he was accused of sex assault.He got into conflict with many political dissidents, including Bob Fu, Tang Baiqiao and Guo Baosheng.

Chai Ling accused Yuan Zhiming of raping her

Chai Ling was an important person during the '89 protest movement. However, she is not very active now.In 2015, she accused the dissident pastor Yuan Zhiming of raping her in 1990. In 2016, the christian group "GRACE" published their final report on the allegations.

Peng Ming

In October 1998, Peng Ming's organizations, the China Development Union, was declared illegal by the government and closed.In 2005, Peng Ming was in China sentenced for terrorism.Peng Ming intended to use violent methods to overthrow the Chinese government, such as assassinations and poisoning the Miyun reservoir in Beijing.Radio Free Asia, Yi Gai Creaders (万维)

Wei Jingsheng was accused of rape

Wei Jingsheng is the "father of the Democracy Movement". He wrote "the fifth modernization", calling for democracy.In 2019, Liu Huaizhao filed a complaint alleging that Wei Jingsheng had a child with her after a sexual intercourse but did not give financial support as promised. Wei Jingsheng claimed that Liu Huaizhao was sent by the CCP to disrupt his work.

Ni Yuxian

Ni Yuxian is the founder of a "Party for Freedom and Democracy in China".
In 2006, because of a conflict with Xie Wanjun (leader of a China Democracy Party), Liu Dongxing invited Ni Yuxian to cooperate. Because of this, Ni Yuxian got into conflict with other political dissidents.
In 2007, after Liu Dongxing and Ni Yuxian expelled each other from an organization named "China Democracy Party", Ni Yuxian reported Liu Dongxing to the 109th branch of the municipal police in Flushing, accusing Liu Dongxing of embezzling party fees and other crimes. On October 27th, the police arrested Liu Dongxing at the "party central office".
According to Ni Yuxian, Liu Dongxing demanded that anyone who joins the China Democracy Party must pay 500 US dollars plus 10 US dollars each month and an activity fee for each activity. According to Ni Yuxian, Liu Dongxing often asked for donations without receipts, and forced people to buy "democracy stocks" that he printed himself and the "US Headquarters of the China Democracy Party" ("中国民主党美国总部") of Liu Dongxing participated in political asylum business.
Ming Pao
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2023.06.03 16:41 Proletlariet Bill & Ted Saved

"Be excellent to each other... and party on dudes!"

He is Bill S. Preston, Esq.! And he is Ted "Theodore" Logan! And together, they are Wyld Stallyns!
To everyone else in late-80s/early-90s San Dimas, California, Wyld Stallyns may look like the impossible dream of two slackers with no skill in anything else. But in truth, the music of Wyld Stallyns is so bodacious, so non-heinous, so excellent that it brings about an era of prosperity, both across the earth and to the stars beyond, and technological advancement so advanced that even time can be accessed as freely as a 10-digit phone number from the nearest payphone. Because of this, agents from the future utopia have sent back a time-travelling phone booth as well as information about the future to make sure that Bill and Ted are able to continue having most excellent adventures and fulfill the destiny of Wyld Stallyns.

Key

Movies:
EA = Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
BJ = Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
FtM - Bill & Ted Face the Music
Shows:
CSxEy = Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (DiC Animated Series); Season X Episode Y
LAEx = Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (Fox Live Action Series); Episode X
Comics:
M#X = Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book (Marvel Comics) Issue #X
BVx#y = Boom! Studios Comics; Volume X, Issue #Y
Vol. 1 = Bill & Ted's Triumphant Return
Vol. 2 = Bill & Ted Go To Hell
Vol. 3 = Bill & Ted Save the Universe
BV1#xS = Boom! Studios Comics; Side Story
DH#X = Dark Horse Comics (Face the Music Compliant) Issue #X
Games:
AL = Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Atari Lynx)
NES = Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure (NES)
WS = Wyld Stallyns (Mobile Game)
Live Show:
EHAyy = Bill & Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure; 19YY/20YY

Bill and Ted

Strength
Speed/Agility
Durability
Skill
Intelligence
Yes, really.
Rockitude
Skill
Power
Ghost Bill and Ted
Other

Bill

Strength
Speed/Agility
Durability
Skill
Other

Ted

Strength
Speed/Agility
Durability
Skill
Other

Good Robot Bill and Ted

Robots created by the most brilliant mind in the universe, Station, to combat the powerful Evil Robot Bill and Ted. BJ
Strength
Durability
They Run On Car Batteries
Other

Mecha Bill & Ted

Mobile Suit Bill & Giganto-Ted

The Time Booth

Time Travel
The Squint System
An upgraded directory that allows the booth to travel to fictional settings, including books, CDs, movies, and games. CS2E2
Durability
Landing Strength
Other
"Catch ya later Bill and Ted!"
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2023.06.03 14:49 chuckhustmyre [TH] Mirror Image

By Chuck Hustmyre
Sometimes when you look into the mirror, the mirror looks back.
William Bailey's forehead shattered the mirror like a sledgehammer. The last thing he remembered before he blacked out was the feeling that he was falling through the mirror. Sub-cranial hematoma, a concussion, maybe even a cracked skull--that had to be the reason for the strange feeling. The mirror was mounted on the wall just to the right of the bar, four feet tall by about three feet wide. As consciousness slipped away, common sense and his strong belief in the rational world told him that he couldn't fall through the mirror. He must have bounced his head off the wall and be falling toward the floor.
It seemed like just a second or two before William's eyes popped open. He lay on his back, on the hard wood floor of Fausto's, with Johnny Davis towering over him. Big Johnny probably wanted to finish him off, maybe kill him, and finally end their twenty-year-old feud. Either Big Johnny Davis and the ceiling lights above him were spinning, or William's head was spinning, but either way something wasn't right.
He raised his head and looked to his left, toward the bar. Except the bar wasn't there. Instead, he was staring at the bathrooms. That didn't make sense. It must be his brain that had gotten spun around. William turned his head and peered over his size-ten wingtips at the busted mirror. The wooden frame and most of the glass still clung to the wall, the rest sat broken on the ground. The bar had to be on his left. He looked again, and still saw the bathrooms. A brain bruise, maybe some fluid pressure building up might be the cause of it.
"Get up!" Big Johnny Davis said.
William looked up at him. Johnny stood behind him, just beyond his shoulders. Perfect place for him to stomp my head into the plank floor. Except Johnny Davis was holding out his hand.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here."
Davis looked scared. It was the first time William Bailey could ever remember Johnny Davis looking scared. William had always been scared of Big Johnny, but Big Johnny wasn't scared of anything or anyone.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Johnny glanced over his shoulder. William craned his neck to look where Johnny was looking, saw he was staring at the front door like a man terrified something bad was going to come through it. Big Johnny looked down at him again and pumped his hand. "Come on, get up. They'll be here any second."
"Who?" William asked. "Who'll be--" But before he finished, Big Johnny Davis reached down, grabbed him by both arms, and jerked him to his feet.
As he was dragged toward the door by the only man in town who truly hated him, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door. He had to have a concussion, probably severe; that had to be it, because the letters on the sign were backward. It said TUO.
As Johnny Davis pulled him out the door, William heard tires skid on the pavement.
"Where's your car?" Johnny asked.
William twisted away from the big man's grip, then turned to his left. "In the alley." He started to run, still not sure exactly what he was running from.
Behind him, Big John shouted, "The alley's over here."
William kept running but turned his head back toward Johnny. "I know where the alley--"
Something hit him across the midsection and toppled him to the ground. He got his hands up just in time to break his fall and managed to keep his head from slamming into the sidewalk. When he looked up he saw a shopping cart tumbled onto its side.
Once again, William found himself lying flat on his back, this time amid the spilled contents of the cart. It had been filled with junk: paper bags full of dirty clothes, canned food, bags of potato chips, a diamond shaped, orange road sign, and other trash that looked like it had been collected from back alley garbage bins.
The homeless man who'd been pushing the cart was scrawny, and wafer thin. His skin was the color of old shoe leather, and he wore a long gray beard, tangled and matted with food and bits of filth. He was sprawled on the ground next to his cart, half sitting up, staring at William with his bright blue eyes.
Car doors slammed, men shouted.
"You better get going," the homeless man said, as he cocked his head. "The police after you?"
Police!
Before William could assure the old man that the police weren't after him--he was a respected businessman and family man--someone behind him grabbed him under both arms and pulled him to his feet. William turned and found himself staring into the face of Johnny Davis. "The alley's that way," Johnny said, pointing to the other side of Fausto's. With one hand gripping William's jacket, Johnny dashed across the front of the bar toward the alley. The alley--right there, plain as day--on the other side of Fausto's, right where it shouldn't be, where it couldn't be. William had been here a thousand times. As you stepped out of the bar, the alley was on the left, Brockton's Ace Hardware on the right. Now everything was mixed up and in the wrong place.
Johnny Davis turned down the alley, dragging William behind him. After just a few steps, a spotlight flashed in front of them.
"Stop!" a voice commanded. "Get on the ground."
William couldn't see because Johnny was in his way. "Who's that yelling?" he asked.
Big Johnny stopped and William plowed into his back.
"Get on the ground," the voice boomed again.
William poked his head out from behind Johnny Davis's back. The blinding white light was in his face. He couldn't see a thing.
POP! POP! POP!
Gunshots.
Big Johnny sagged, then crashed to his knees. Instinctively, William bent forward and grabbed hold of Johnny. "What's the matter?"
More pops.
Johnny's big hand reached out and shoved William back toward the street. "Back door," he wheezed, then plunged forward onto his face.
William stood alone. Behind the white spotlight he saw blue police lights flashing. He was totally exposed.
POP! POP!
He saw flashes--little yellow spurts of flame--as something tugged at his jacket.
William had said "back door." What back door? Fausto's had a back door, but it didn't lead anywhere except to the open space behind the building used for trash and deliveries. Twenty feet of asphalt between the bar and the back of the building on the next block. William had parked his car at the end of the alley, but the police cars--or whatever they were--had the alley blocked off. The building behind Fausto's also had an alley that ran alongside it, but the owner had closed it off to keep the bums out. He'd put up a gate, padlocked it, and topped it with razor wire. It was a dead end.
Two more pops. Dead end or not it was better than standing here and getting shot. William turned and ran. He burst through the front door of Fausto's, dashed through the bar, past the shattered mirror, hit the back door at a dead run, and was outside behind the bar within seconds.
He could see the tail end of his car sticking out from the corner of the building, but with the cops blocking the alley, his car was useless to him. William glanced across the open space to the alley that ran next to the other building. The gate, the padlock, the razor wire--all still in place. To his right an overflowing garbage dumpster sat beside the back of Fausto's, jammed against the fire ladder.
The fire ladder.
An iron ladder bolted to the cinderblock wall.
William looked up. The top of the ladder was lost in shadow, but he knew it went up two stories to the roof. Last summer, when the toilet had stopped up, he'd come out back to take a leak and had stood behind the dumpster, peeing against the wall like a kid, one hand draped over the bottom rung of the ladder.
He slipped behind the dumpster. The smell made him gag. The bottom of the ladder was four feet from the ground. William reached up as high as he could, grabbed hold of the third rung, then hauled himself up.
Through the partially open back door came the sounds of heavy feet pounding on the hard wood floor of the bar.
Halfway up the ladder, he was exhausted--and scared. Shaking, he white-knuckled the ladder. Being more than ten feet off the ground terrified him. He needed a break, just a second or two to catch his breath. There was enough moonlight so he could see into one of the second story windows. Inside, junk was piled everywhere. Old barstools, a busted jukebox, furniture stacked almost to the ceiling. Years ago, old man Fausto lived on the second floor, but Jake, who'd bought the place from the old man and had decided to keep the name, used it for storage.
Below him, William heard the back door thrown open so hard it banged against the wall. He scrambled up until he reached the top of the ladder, then hoisted himself over the edge of the roof. Down on the ground a voice shouted, "There he is, up there."
Another gunshot. What the hell was going on?
The unmistakable sound of feet--fast feet, in shape feet, boot shod feet--scurrying up the ladder. Standing on the tar and pebble roof, William glanced around for something he could use as a weapon, shocked he was even thinking of such a thing. A five gallon plastic bucket was all there was. It stood upright, filled with rainwater. He picked it up and peered over the edge. A uniformed policeman was three quarters of the way up the ladder. Two more cops were right behind him.
William looked at the heavy bucket in his hands, thought about just dumping the water onto them but knew it wouldn't stop them. There was only one way to stop them, and that was to knock them off the ladder. He thought about warning them, maybe trying to scare them away. But they were cops. You couldn't scare them away.
So why had they shot Johnny Davis, and why were they shooting at him?
The first officer looked up and saw William staring down at him with the bucket in his hands. Their eyes locked for just a second and the cop stopped. In those eyes that stared back at him, William saw an almost maniacal determination that sent a shiver down his spine. The officer held his grip on the ladder with his right hand while his left dropped to the pistol resting in his gleaming leather holster. In one smooth motion he drew his gun and raised it toward William.
William Bailey tossed the bucket down the ladder. A shot rang out an instant before the heavy bucket thudded into the cop's head. Like a gruesome traffic accident happening before his eyes, William couldn't help but watch as the policeman fell, taking his two partners down with him. The last thing William saw before he turned away was a jumbled heap of black uniforms resting on the concrete below the ladder.
* * *
Hiding in the shadow of a telephone booth, thinking. Home. He had to get home. Had to get back to Marge and the kids. Maybe somehow he could explain what had happened. Vincent, his attorney, he would know what to do--maybe--but he was a civil lawyer not a criminal attorney. He wrote contracts and did personal injury on the side; he didn't get people out of jail who'd killed a cop by dropping a bucket of water on his head and knocking him and his buddies off the side of a building.
As the cab he'd been waiting for pulled up, William stepped out from the dark and climbed into the back seat.
The driver turned around. "Where to?"
William pulled the door shut. "Uptown. 1721 Audubon Court."
"Fare's gonna be about fifteen dollars. After dark, I gotta have the money up front."
"What?"
"Company policy." The cabbie shrugged. "A lot of drivers been getting stiffed."
William opened his wallet, pulled out a twenty and handed it across the seat. The driver took it and almost slipped it into his cash box, then took a second look at the bill. His face tightened. "What the hell is this?"
"Huh?"
With the bill stretched between his hands, the cabbie stared at it for a second then looked up at William. "You're either the dumbest counterfeiter who ever lived or you've been had."
"What you are talking about?"
The driver faced the bill toward William but didn't hand it back to him. "It's printed backwards."
William looked at the twenty-dollar bill in the man's hand. It looked like--it was--an almost brand new bill, nothing wrong with it as far as he could tell.
"Get out of my cab," the driver said.
William didn't know what the man was talking about but knew he didn't want to get out. This cab was his only way home. He reached for the twenty. "If you don't like that one I've got another--"
The driver pulled his hands away. "I ain't giving this back. I got to turn it in to the police." He dropped one hand behind his seat back, then came up clutching a pistol, an old German Luger by the looks of it, the muzzle aimed straight at William's face. "In fact, I bet they give me a reward if I bring you in with it."
William jerked the door handle and rolled out into the street. He sprang to his feet and ran, the driver's yells just background noise. Has everyone gone crazy or is it just me?
Home. He had to get home.
* * *
Rain. Driving, relentless rain. William was just two blocks from Fausto's. In two hours, that's as far as he'd gotten--one block an hour. Police cars prowled the neighborhood, shinning spotlights into every nook and cranny, lighting up every shadow. Everyone in Fausto's knew his name. He'd been going there three or four nights a week after work for years. The cabbie had his address. William had given it to him when he told the hack driver where to drop him.
Ten o'clock at night, with nowhere to go and no way to get there, William sat behind the closed Goodwill store, under an overhang that barely kept the rain off of him.
Huddled in the dark, head sunk between his knees, he hadn't heard anyone approach.
"You don't look so good."
Startled, William looked up, prepared to run again. It was the homeless man he'd knocked over outside the bar. The one with the shopping cart and the leathery skin. William relaxed a little. "Excuse me?"
The man pushed his cart closer. "You're not supposed to be here."
William looked around. "Why not?"
The old man grinned, half his teeth gone.
William found it nearly impossible to tell his age. The guy could be forty and maybe had lived a hard life, or perhaps he was a well-preserved seventy, pickled by a lifetime of booze. William waved him off, expecting a plea for money. "I can't help you."
The old man stopped just a few feet away. "Everything's out of place isn't it?" He had a strange lilting voice. Almost like an accent.
And he was right. Everything was out of place--from Johnny Davis to the cab driver--everything was wrong.
Strapped to the back of the old man's shopping cart was a plastic sign about the size of a loaf of bread. William recognized the sign, the words, the colors, the logo of a local supermarket chain, all were familiar to him, but the letters were backward, unreadable.
Rainwater ran down William's face. He pointed to the sign. "Why's it written like that?"
The old man looked at the sign then back at William. "Like what?" he said, then shuffled away behind his basket.
* * *
The rain came down even harder. William slouched in a darkened doorway across the street from Fausto's. Nothing made sense. Everything was messed up, backward, out of whack. Almost like this wasn't his home, like he was a stranger seeing it for the first time.
But that was crazy. He'd grown up here, gone to Brother Martin High School, dated Jenny Underhill who went to Cabrini, lost her to Johnny Davis, then got her back only to lose her again the first year of college to some kid who drove a Mustang. Two years later William married Marge at Saint Luke's. They had two kids.
This town was his home. He recognized it. He knew the people here, Big Johnny and Zeke, the bartender at Fausto's. But things were different, little things. John Davis for one. In trying to help him, the big man had gotten himself killed. That wasn't John Davis--at least not the one William Bailey had known since seventh grade. Everything looked the same but wasn't. Nothing was quite right.
But they knew him--or someone like him.
A strange sensation crept over him that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Maybe he didn't belong here. Maybe everything wasn't as it appeared. Maybe this wasn't his home. But if that were true, then whose home was it? Another thought, even scarier seeped through his brain. If he was here, who was there--at his home?
Crazy.
William dropped his head into his hands. Just considering such nonsense was a waste of time. Yet, here he was scanning the street, thinking of going back inside Fausto's, back to that mirror.
Not much time to think about it. The bar closed at three AM and it was already two-thirty. When he'd left--run for his life with Big Johnny--most of the mirror was still in the frame hanging on the wall.
Something about that damned mirror.
But Fausto's was dangerous, so a couple of hours ago William had found another mirror. In the men's room of a twenty-four hour gas station. The Chevron on North Rampart.
He had approached it cautiously, afraid he was going mad. As he peered over the sink into the mirror, he saw what he always saw, his own reflection. Holding up his left hand, he looked at the image in the mirror, at the watch strapped to his wrist. He noticed that the man in the mirror wore his watch on his right hand. Just the opposite.
William stood in the gas station bathroom for twenty minutes before he worked up his nerve. Finally, he took a deep breath, leaned back, then slammed his forehead into the dirt-streaked mirror. The glass shattered and cut his head. Blood dribbled off the tip of his nose into the sink. His reflection stared out at him from the other side of the mirror, blood running down his face, too.
I have gone crazy!
So the gas station hadn't worked out. Ducking police cruisers, William had wandered the streets, his head reeling. What was he doing?
On the sidewalk, he found a sopping wet magazine that the wind had blown up against the side of a newspaper machine. The cover caught his eye. He picked it up. It was printed backwards, the letters reversed, words running right to left. The spine was on the right. As he flipped through the pages, he couldn't read a thing. Then William had an idea.
In the bathroom of an all night restaurant he held the wet magazine up to the mirror. Perfect. The reflected image was normal, spine on the left, words running left to right, all the letters printed correctly. He could read it clearly. But what did it mean?
Then he drove his head into that mirror. The glass cracked. Someone walked in, a skinny waiter wearing an apron. He stood gawking as William leaned over the sink with tears of pain filling his eyes.
The waiter looked at the broken mirror, then jabbed a finger at William's bloody forehead. "What the hell are you doing?"
"An accident," he mumbled, pressing his fingers against the fresh cut.
The waiter turned. "I'm calling the cops."
William Bailey ran.
Now he was huddled in the rain staring at Fausto's across the street. Because he had nowhere else to go.
He stood and walked toward Fausto's. When he was halfway across the street, a police car glided around the corner, headlights reflecting off the wet pavement. The cops in no hurry, just cruising. William forced himself to keep walking, not to run. One foot in front of the other. In the downpour, odds were that the cops wouldn't even recognize him.
But they did recognize him.
The police car slid to a stop as its high beams clicked on and its blue strobe lights started popping. Both front doors flew open.
Like a sinner seeking the sanctuary of a church, William ran straight for Fausto's door. As he burst inside, Zeke looked up from behind the bar. "William! What the hell are you doing here?"
He ignored the bartender, running right past him, eyes focused on the broken mirror and its busted frame hanging on the wall.
Zeke again, "The cops been looking all over for you. Say you killed two officers and--"
Behind him the front door banged against the wall. "Police!" a voice behind him commanded. "Stop."
But William didn't stop. He kept running--running straight for the mirror. Reflected in its fragmented pieces he saw two uniformed police officers behind him, heard their boots pounding on the wooden floor. Just ten feet separated him from the mirror. At full speed he took two strides then dove. He stretched his arms out overhead and tucked his chin into his chest as his feet left the floor.
He felt one hand hit wall and the other strike broken glass. Then his head hit. More glass cracked, more skin split.
Darkness.
* * *
William's eyes popped open. He was staring at the ceiling. Rough voices, even rougher hands. They rolled him over onto his stomach and jerked his arms behind his back. He felt cold steel on his wrists and heard the metallic ratcheting as the handcuffs tightened and bit into his skin.
He tilted his head up and rested his chin against the floor. Blood poured down the side of his face; he watched it pool on the floor then seep between the wooden planks. By rolling his eyes up he could just see the empty spot on the wall where the mirror had hung. Lying on the floor, three feet from his head, was the broken frame and the rest of the glass.
The two cops grabbed his arms and yanked him to his feet, sending waves of pain through his shoulders and wrists. As they spun him toward the door, one of the officers said, "You're under arrest."
"Why?" William asked.
The officer pressed his face into William's. "Murdering your family for starters."
"My...my family." William felt his stomach cinch and his bowels turn to ice. A thought he'd had earlier in the night echoed inside his head. If he was here, who was there--at his home.
As the cops dragged him across the floor, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door.
OUT.
He was home.
THE END
submitted by chuckhustmyre to shortstories [link] [comments]


2023.06.01 03:56 nerdmost Story Time: WCW Thunder Dec 1999

Story Time: WCW Thunder Dec 1999
So reading some posts here made me think you guys might enjoy this. (TLDR: I snuck backstage at WCW Thunder in college)
I was in college in 1999 and a huge fan of WCW. The other guys were cool but I was a WCW guy. So Thunder was scheduled in Memphis at the Mid-South Coliseum and me and a couple friends are gonna go.
Well in the week leading up to the show I decide I’m going to meet some of the guys. Not sure how but I’m doing it.
I wore a blue Oxford shirt with a tie and had a pen and a tire gauge in my shirt pocket. Sounds dumb but it makes you look like you are working.
I made up some business cards from the college radio station and a newspaper that my friends and I wrote. Created a fake “tour” itinerary and had some bullshit papers on a clipboard. This I learned from the movie The Paper: “A clipboard and a confident wave will get you into any building in the world!” This is very very true.
I had my friend circle the building and drop me off around back. We were pretty early. There were two huge 18-wheelers backed up to the loading area and I walked between them.
When I came out, nobody was really watching and I just walked steady like I was headed somewhere and tried my best to be chill.
I walked by the dressing room and there was a huge dry erase board with all the matches for the show listed. Each match also had a time beside it so the guys knew how long they had and they would each check the board as they came out.
I knew that was where I wanted to be but there was a security guy in a folding chair right by the dressing room. So I kept walking and a couple hundred feet later I found a room with a bunch of phones and fax machines. This was when cell phones weren’t super common so I guess they needed a lot of landlines.
So at that point I walked to the security guy I had seen and in a very annoyed tone say to him:
“Where the hell are the fax machines?! I swear to God every time we come to this place they put them somewhere new!!”
“Um, sir, I’m not sure but maybe-“
I just held up my hand. “Nevermind, I will find them. I always do. But this is ridiculous” and I storm off back the way I came.
Went back to the fax room and cooled my heels for a minute. Tried to call a friend on the phones but I guess you needed a code for it to work.
But now that the security guy knew I was legit I could hang by the board, right?
I walk back down the hall and I spy Norman Smiley who was low key one of my favorite guys at that point. But I just made eye contact and nodded and he did the same. “Just act like you belong” I kept telling myself.
Then I see a guy in a headset…with a bunch of lanyards making a beeline right for me. Busted! It was fun while it lasted. He steps right up to me and says:
“Jimmy Hart left his phone in some lady’s car so it’s waiting for him at will-call, but I gotta go. Will you find him and tell him?”
“Absolutely! I will take care of it.” …and now I had a mission!
So I start wandering around asking after Jimmy Hart. Got to talk to DDP (really tall) and Chris Jericho. Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio (without his mask which was crazy to me at the time) were very cool. I asked my fav security guard and he told me to check in the dressing room. I strolled in and asked if they had seen Jimmy Hart and nobody had. But one of the guys told me to knock on “The War Room”.
At the front of the dressing room was a closed door with a sign on it that had “War Room” written in sharpie. I knocked on the door and a voice said “Yeah?”
I open the door and there are four guys in there. Some guy I didn’t recognize, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and ARN ANDERSON! I swear to you my knees got weak when I saw the Enforcer!
Somehow I spit out my bit about Jimmy Hart and a phone and they said no and I shut the door. I went back to the board and just chilled. I had to catch my breath. I started scribbling the names of all the wrestlers I saw and just laughed along as they all hung out by the board and shot the shit.
Eventually though I hear someone say “Hey, have you got a pass?” I look over and who do I see? Jimmy Hart!! I gave him a weak line about not being given one and he says “Nah, come on buddy.”
So he walks me over to Dillenger (head of security) but was super friendly and nice. I ask him if he got his phone, he did. I gave him one of my cards and then they escort me out. And I went to the gate with my ticket and then met up with my friends and enjoyed a great show!
They actually taped two episodes of Thunder that night, so I still got to watch a ton of wrestling and it was an awesome night that I will never forget!!
Jimmy Hart was cool as hell even when he kicked me out. And he was wearing a cool musical themed jacket and tie. Perfectly on point.
This could never happen now with all the security now but every bit of this is true! WCW always be my favorite.
submitted by nerdmost to Wrasslin [link] [comments]


2023.05.31 07:16 I_am_a_pan_fear_me Why I hate the fucking police

To give you context I live in some of the shittier parts of Georgia. And my family is full of addicts and ex addicts. I'm sure you already know how the police feel about addicts. But anyway, I've been through 2 police raids. 1 when I was about 4 or 5. That one was because someone had used my moms ip to upload cp, the cops had been watching us for a month. Nothing even remotely suspicious, then when they raided our house. They shattered the door and the door frame. They held guns to my naked mother who had just fallen asleep. They held a gun to my step-moms head while they tore their room apart. And they pretty much destroyed our house, they didn't find shit. Aside from the drugs my moms had in the house. Which the cops laid out on their bed. Because they couldn't arrest them for any of it.
Now the 2nd time was a case of police brutality, we were living with my grandmother because she was dealing with real bad depression. Well she pissed off the guy she paid to mow her lawn, by cussing him out for not mowing the lawn while the septic tank was leaking. Well he was also a cop, and was able to call in a few favors. And basically had us pinned as the "biggest drug den in Henry County" they get a warrent. And they pull up with an entire swat team. They three flashbangs into our backyard with a 9 ft tall privacy fence because our dogs were barking. They threw flashbangs into our neighbors yard, which honestly fuck him, he killed our cat.
They busted open the door, they threw my disabled grandmother to the ground. Kicked my 15 yr old aunts knees put from under her and caused her to hit her head on the corner of a desk. They zip tied all the kids, tore our house apart again. They found a vault my step-mom had of pills she was given to keep safe by my grandmother. There were also some pills my Nana had given her for tooth pains. All of those were felony charges, 7 to be exact. That was the only thing they found, when my mom and step-mom got home. The cops threw her into the side of the car hard enough to leave a bruise and dent in the car. I was 6 then, the cops weren't allowed to do any of that. The warrant they had only allowed them to search and ask questions.
Now that we've covered my past experiences with cops, let's get into the reason i hate those pieces of shit. Like i said before my family is full of ex-addicts. Well my dad, I never knew him and that was my choice. Because all I knew is that he was constantly in jail and on drugs. I will always regret the fact that I never gave him a chance. Because he was constantly trying to get clean. He was always going to rehab, constantly on detox all of that. His issue was the people he was around didn't want to quit and didn't want him to quit. So he was constantly relapsing. Well 3 years ago now, he was 3 months clean. He'd been getting clean with some girl I don't remember her name. But they were getting clean together, well one day some fuck ass pos picks this girl up. And he takes her back to his place, obviously the dude is a well known piece of shit, or as my mom would say, grade A fuck nigga. So when my dad found out, he starts walking to this dude's place to beat his ass. Well some dumbass kid ends up hitting him with his car. And I don't blame the kid for anything we all make mistakes.
But the kid doesn't call the cops immediately he calls his granddad. His grandad was the ex commissioner I think I don't remember I just know he used to be hot shit with the cops. Well his granddad tells the kid he'll handle it and to just drive off. Granddad calls the cops out there and when they find my dad's body, they mark it as being a fucking bumper. My dad's body wasn't officially found until hours after the cops had been called. They tried to cover up his death. Then in the county newspaper the editor his name is Will Davis if you want to look him up. Wrote about my dad, calling him a druggie and lying about how my dad got hit. That piece of shit said my dad was sitting in the middle of the street when he got hit. My mom was able to sue the police department for covering up my dad's death she won the case. But everytime I think about that shit it pisses me off. Because to give you an example of how good of a person my dad was. When he died he didn't have shoes because he'd given his only pair to someone who'd had theirs stolen. I never knew him but I do know he was a good person.
submitted by I_am_a_pan_fear_me to fuckthepolice [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 07:30 Proletlariet TMNT 03

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

♫ I love being a Turtle ♫
Mutated in the sewers of New York many years ago, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are the sons and students of Hamato Splinter, and act as a force of good in New York City, where they battle many evils, chief among them the threat of the evil Foot Clan and it's master, the Shredder.

Leonardo

Leonardo's always in control. The field leader of the turtles, Leo is the most responsible and focused of the team. Wielding twin katana and wearing blue, Leo's skill is unparalleled on the battlefield.
Full RT

Strength

Durability

Speed/Agility

Skill

Michelangelo

The wise guy is Michelangelo. The goofball of the group, Mikey is happy-go-lucky and a jokester, bringing a sense of levity to the fight. Wielding twin nunchucks and wearing orange, Mikey's attitude belies his adaptable fighting style, which he has made use of to win many important battles.
Full RT

Strength

Durability

Speed/Agility

Skill

Donatello

Donatello, he's the brains of the bunch. The resident genius of the team, Don's intellect and skill in all things machine is a boon for his team in their battle against evil. Wielding a bo staff and wearing purple, Don's wide berth of expertise and ability make him an integral part of all battle planning.
Full RT

Strength

Durability

Speed/Agility

Skill

Raphael

Count on Raphael to throw the first punch. The turtles' hothead, Raph is an angry and driven fighter in his family's battle against evil. Wielding twin sai and wearing red, Raph is a ferocious force on the battlefield.
Full RT

Strength

Durability

Speed/Agility

Skill

Shared Feats

Turtle Gear

Shared Gear

Battle Shell I

Physicals
Gadgets/Weapons

Misc Vehicles

submitted by Proletlariet to u/Proletlariet [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 07:29 Proletlariet Leo 03

Leonardo

"Leonardo's always in control"
Leonardo is one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, mutant turtles taught the way of the ninja by their rat sensei, Hamato Splinter. Leo is the most skilled and responsible of the turtles, acting as the team's field leader on missions against their enemies, most notably the ninja crime lord known as the Shredder.
Feats will be marked with the season and episode number (i.e. S3E5). Feats from Turtles Forever will be marked with F.

Physicals

Strength

Swords
Striking
Lifting/Throwing
Clashing
Other

Durability

Blunt
Piercing
Energy
Explosives
Other

Speed/Agility

Against Projectiles
Against Melee
Cutting
Movement/Agility

Skill

Vs Single Opponents
Vs Groups
Blindfighting
Cutting Precision
Accuracy
Stealth
Mechanical/Metalworking Skill
Precision Striking
General

Gear

Swords

Fast Forward

When the turtles and Splinter are brought into the year 2105, they are given special gear that provides them with a personal atmosphere, gravity regulators, and a universal translation device as well as futuristic versions of their traditional weapons

Cyberspace

When the turtles enter cyberspace, they use special armor and vehicles

Chi

After training under the Ninja Tribunal, the turtles gain the ability to tap into their chi to enhance themselves

Enhancing Physicality

Though Leonardo is never seen using his chi to enhance himself physically, he received the same training as the other turtles and by all accounts should be capable of replicating their feats

Dragon Form

By focusing his chi, Leonardo is able to manifest and embody his spirit animal, the dragon, on the physical plane
Fire Breath
Physicals
Misc

Gunshin

Gunshin is a mystical sword and is the weapon that Faraji received from the Dragon Forge. Faraji gifted Gunshin to Leonardo on his deathbed, claiming that the sword was always meant for him
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2023.05.29 00:34 snipecastically Nudes on ransom

Nudes on ransom
Hi guys, I was recently scammed by an instagram profile, who traded nudes with me and saved my pictures somehow even with the single send on WhatsApp, they are threatening to post it all over to my family and friends, but my face isn’t in any of the pictures so that’s a good thing, but my family will know it’s my room and the guys from work will be able to see it’s my hand, I whited out my face here on Reddit only, any advice on this?
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2023.05.28 17:34 Gargus-SCP Related Works - Wesley Dodds as The Sandman (Jan-Jul 1941): Troubled Sleep

After a 1940 defined by gathering strengths and refinement across the feature, the early months of 1941 bring a few troubling portents behind-the-scenes for Fox's affectionately termed Grainy Gladiator. Nothing ruinous in itself, but signs of an upcoming radical shift away from what the character represented to start.
For one, the April issue of Adventure Comics (#61) brings with it a new cover feature, Ted Knight AKA Starman, courtesy writer-artist Jack Burnley. Already the second lengthiest entry in the book at nine pages, Starman quickly managed what neither Sandman nor Hourman could during their respective years as star attractions and upgraded to a full thirteen pages by his third appearance in #63. For context, Sandman only went from six pages to ten with its upgrade, while Hourman has remained rockstaedy at eight pages, and neither took down another non-superhero supporting feature to justify the page increase like Starman did Barry O'Neil and Mark Lansing. Moreover, from Starman's second appearance on, he is only drawn by Burnley; writing duties now belong to the Sandman's own Gardner Fox.
Which loops in with two other issues at play over Wesley's tossing, turning figure. Starting with issue #61, available online sources no longer fully agree who wrote what for the Sandman feature. You must understand, outside superstar figures with major pull like the creators of Superman or Batman, very few creative teams are properly credited in these Golden Age comics - my credits the last few posts have all been crossreferenced across numerous wikis and databases who owe their credits to investigative work by fans like Jerry Bails back in the 1960s. Such work was sadly not exhaustive, and while a few places (like DC Continuity Project and Wikipedia) state or else imply Fox stayed on as writer for the next few issues, from June to November there is no consensus as to who penned the stories.
I shouldn't be surprised if Fox's involvement terminated with the March issue, for April also saw All-Star Comics shift its format slightly, with Fox writing all nine interior stories for the 64 page mag in addition to his duties on the longer Starman feature. Man would have to work double time to keep pace, even if Sandman didn't drop to eight pages with #62 in May. Either way, Fox is certainly gone following #64 in July, as that issue features the final story drawn by regular artist and co-creator Creig Flessel, who departs to work on Shining Knight later in the year. As I say, things are changing fast for Sandman, and not all changes seem necessarily for the better. Best, however, to take the stories on their own level before drawing any final conclusions!
Coverage note: This entry goes to July rather than June for the sake of my sanity. If I stopped midway through the year, I'd only need cover seven features here, but the back half of '41 would require coverage of eleven. A nine-nine split feels much more feasible.
Orchids of Doom - Gardner Fox, Creig Flessel, Chad Grothkopf
Once again, a socialite friend to Wes and Dian is at the center of a minor mystery with big implications - namely, how can Pedro Nogades, father to Carla, rightly claim he breeds otherwise purely wild orchids in captivity? Investigating as the Sandman, Wes and Dian find a dead man in the Nogades greenhouse with his head stripped to the bone, and in following another fellow who sniffed an orchid before promising a shipment of such to some ruffians on the bad side of town, see his own face dissolve to bare skull. A visit to the police chemist reveals the orchids on the dead men's persons were laced to release a deadly flesh-eating gas on exposure to natural air, which is enough probably cause for Wesley to enlist Carla's boyfriend Bill in staging a raid on the Nogades manor. Some close shaves and fisticuffs end with the group discovering a diorama of the local coast, laid out to assist enemy agents in an invasion. Pedro is put away and the orchids revealed as concealing microfilm copies of the coastal plans, but how do we square the mystery that started it all? Simple: Nogades was no botanist, and called the flower by the wrong name when concocting his cover story!
An alright yarn to kick of the calendar year. As per usual when Fox tries for a somewhat complicated mystery, he's no adequate means of tying off loose ends other than large blocks of text, but it's lively and keeps the situation evolving with decent justifications for mid-story action and dragging Bill along for further fisticuffs. Hooking the entire mystery on, "Oh, the bad guy misspoke," is a tad lame, if understandable in the context of Fox's passion for slipping general knowledge flexes into his stories. Flessel and Grothkopf get some good mileage out've the skull imagery that crops up whenever the flower kills, and I rather like the brief bout of fisticuffs towards the end. The minor social awkwardness when Bill gets in the car with Wes and Dian is pretty good too, and I'm sorry to report I can't add this story to the "Wesley getting shot" count, as the bad guy only plugs his hat. Kinda funny having a Golden Age Sandman story involving orchids given Neil's own pre-Sandman work with Black Orchid, innit?
The Story of the Flaming Ruby - Fox, Flessel, Grothkopf
There exists a ruby of blazing red, which has driven men to rage and madness wherever it appears, and today it sits in the hand of a young man in the local jeweler's shop, who flashes it cross Dian's vision. Later in the evening, she wakes in a trance consumed with the urge to kill her father, stopped only by Sandman as he rushes in from investigating a similarly queer case. A bank teller friend from his private life has found himself driven to steal from the vault and deliver it to some crooks on a lonely road every night, all after one of those men flashed him the ruby. Wes and Dian are unable to stop this night's transaction (on account of the ruby briefly turning Dian against Sandman), but seeing the gem in action gives Wes an idea on how to counteract its effects, and go into battle during the next drop armed with blue cobalt glasses. A brawl puts down all the blackmailers except one, but Wes opts instead to go after the head of the operation, knocking him out and lurking in the dark to catch the last as he reports in, revealing the bank teller! Turns out the ruby DOES have hypnotic properties and was used to assist their robberies, but the teller - hoping by playing at the victim to lure Sandman into his cohorts' midst and rub him out - spoke as if he remembered the whole experience, where Dian forgot herself on every exposure. Oops!
Same basic mystery structure and resolution type here as last month, complete with overly-wordy explanation, although I find the hook of pitting Dian and Wesley against one another gives it a minor leg up, as does the relatively straightforward nature of the criminal operation compared to planting microfilm in deadly flowers. There's a more even balance between the rush in bust 'em up style of crime-fighting the feature has developed and the stealthy skullduggery I think suits the character best, with nice action art to match each. Dian has some silly faces whenever she wakes from her hypnosis, and the four panel sequence of Wes halting her murder attempt works pretty well. This is, unfortunately, the final pencil-inking collaboration between Flessel and Grothkopf, and much as I've kvetched over the second man's solo work, I'm sorry to see the back of him in this capacity. When the two were in proper tune, they were the best artistic team Sandman enjoyed yet.
(Stop dodging bullets, I want to see you gunshot.)
Mystery at Malay Mac's - Fox, Grothkopf
Hey, a rare post-Hourman, pre-redesign cover appearance! That's always nice. "Hello, officer? Yeah, coupla chucklefucks right here, the alley off Fourth, can't miss 'em."
What's this? Dian breaking into a notorious criminal slumlord's safe in the bad part of town? A safe, as Wes discovers after he scares the lady off, filled to the brim with poison gas! Evidently not, as Dian is sound asleep when Wes arrives at Belmont manor to investigate, and a subsequent visit to Mister Mac reveals the only person who'd know the safe was booby-trapped is a local kidnapping organizer. Some blind, flailing fists turns up the girl, Dian's perfect duplicate, snatched from out of state to replace Dian and gain leverage over the cops. Too bad the kidnapper's made of strong stuff, knocking out Sandman and taking both woman for a ride to get back at Mac. Fortunately, Dian leaves Wes a trail of jewelry out the window, enabling him to follow and take down all the crooks with one throw of his gas pistol, revealing in the process 'twas Mac himself who tipped Dian's duplicate to his safe, in hopes of spoiling his rival's big plot.
Art-wise, this is probably Grothkopf's best work for Sandman to date. His tendency to exaggerate is translated into some properly goonish faces for the villains and really, really strong action poses, with some properly atmospheric shots sprinkled in for good measure. He cannot draw the gasmask for piss, but there's such an improvement I almost thought this was a Flessel joint before checking the wiki credits. Makes me wish we could see what he'd do if he kept on as a solo artist - free from the impulse to treat the feature as a cartoon, he produces damn fine work. As a story, this makes good time to mention my misgivings with Wesley's tendency to burst through windows and start swinging long before he thinks to use his sleeping gas. While it's great fun to describe and hype up as the mark of a madman who's even cooler as the badass normal than Batman, it also encourages a faster degradation in the character's identity. I'm sure you'll notice it's been yonks since lurking in the shadows and thinning the ranks by knocking them out in advance has factored into the stories. That Wes handles the bad guy by literally clonking him over the head with the gas gun rather than pulling the trigger speaks to the influence other, punchier superhero features have exerted over the strip.
The Menace of the Metal Gun - Fox?, Flessel
From aboard a mysterious aircraft, a madman fires upon the city with a metal-melting ray that dissolves the skyscrapers into slag! Alerted to Doctor Borloff's activities, Wesley meets with swift defeat when the rogue scientist melts his gas gun and escapes in his cylindercraft to terrorize afresh. There IS a bright side, as seeing the ray firsthand gives Wesley some idea how to counteract its effects, and he sends Dian and her father warning for the local airforce to coat their planes in sand as a silicate buffer against the ray. Alas, only one officer heeds his message, leaving Sandman alone to get aboard the machine via his new wirepoon gun and defeat Borloff from within. For his brawling process, a good midflight fight is nothing if the hero gets tossed out an open door, but fortunately he can grapple onto the lone surviving plane, recover his bearings, zip back up, and put a stop to Borloff's dreams of world conquest once and for all!
Action is the name of the game here, and even without Grothkopf's inking enhancements, I think Flessel does a fine job on his own. I'm wary of the wirepoon in the future, as by year's end it will completely replace the gas gun as Sandman's sidearm of choice in further drift from the original Christman concept, but taken as a neutral in its debut, giving Sandman greater aerial mobility does lead to some cool shots and enhance the sense Wes goes stark bananas in the mask by pulling some stunts that would almost certainly pull his arms from their sockets in real life. There are, however, some particularly stiff action shots, and in one panel Flessel cocks up the design on the mask worse than Grothkopf last ish. Based on the opening vignette, Borloff decimated millions of innocent lives in addition to all the planes he melted out of the sky, making him easily the deadliest foe Wes has faced to date, and in turn making the "We did it, gang, everything is bright and peachy again!" ending sorta offputting. They'll have to organize mass funerals tomorrow, Wes. Show a little respect.
For America and Democracy: The Grey Shirts - Fox, Grothkopf
In the top-level story, the JSA learn of their mission for the FBI: a group of Nazi insurgents known as the Grey Shirts are plotting subversive and destructive activities all across America, and are now posed to badly destabilize the nation in a series of disruptive attacks. Each is assigned a mission at critical points cross the nation, though given the widely-ranging disparity in their powers, their usefulness to the cause varies equally wildly. The Atom humiliates some goons spreading Nazi ideology at a single college, Hawkman barely prevents the destruction of an aviation plant in California, and Hourman's defense of an Oklahoma oil field ends with him toppling one of the oil towers to stop his quarry. Meanwhile, Green Lantern detonates a zeppelin secretly jamming radio transmissions nationwide, the Spectre casually annihilates some otherworldly vampiric globes sympathetic to Hitler's cause, and Doctor Fate uses his magic to out every single spy on the eastern seaboard. Uneven efforts or not, the group converge on the Grey Shirts' ringleader, and with a little help from Johnny Thunder, turn him over to good ol' J. Edgar Hoover's custody. Alas, Wesley does not get the blood he's thirsting after.
(Also Doctor Fate alerts Wesley to the identity and location of the ringleader before his mission starts rather than letting him figure it out on his own like everyone else. Prick.)
For his six-page leg of the assignment, the Sandman is off to El Paso, Texas to assist a local newspaper under threat from the Grey Shirts for printing pro-democracy and anti-Hitler editorials. Of course, this being Wesley Dodds on the job, he gets this information by roughing his way into the newspaper offices, then acts on it by beating on the guard at the Grey Shirts' camp and pounding down a band of brainwashed young men to prove he's a better American than them. After sending the wannabe Nazis for a whirl by running their bomb shipment off the road, Wesley doubles back to completely break the recruits' spirits, daring them to prove their hard enough by shooting an unarmed man in Hitler's name, chiefly himself. When none can cut the mustard, he marches them back into town with collars strapped to his car, and inspires the lot to join the Army to a few shirtless bars of "God Bless America."
Cripes but jingoism produces some heady results, doesn't it? I'm not sure I can rightly condone the ridiculous levels of patriotism on display here, even against such classically anti-American enemies as Nazis, yet at the same time, look at this and tell me it isn't the hardest shit you'll see all week. Again, though I've my misgivings about Wes as a brawler no matter how entertaining the results prove, there's something endearing about him being so raring for a fight his first move is to altercate the receptionist at the place he's assigned to defend. On the whole, Grothkopf's final Sandman contribution also shows refinement from his earlier works, the broader, thicker elements of his linework now tempers on a somewhat more grounded approach. Certainly the Sandman himself keeps a consistent look better than he does in any other issue published thus far this year. I DO notice he reused Flessel's design for the District Attorney wholesale on the newspaper publisher. Since he's going and heading out on a job well done, let's not hold it against him, eh?
The Purple Death Ray - Fox?, Flessel
At the nightly planetarium show, a member of the audience screams and falls down dead, stricken by a litany of strange symptoms with no obvious cause. Wesley, believing the man was killed by a death ray, examines the auditorium's projector, only to find no obvious alterations or fault. Undeterred, he purchases himself a seat next to the murdered man's for the next show, which is now occupied by another fellow who received a last-second courtesy invitation. Acting quickly, the Sandman reexamines the projector from the shadows and finds a replacement bulb screwed into the socket pointed directly at the man's chair. With assistance from his wirepoon, Sandman swings down and wrenches the man from his seat just as the show starts, the bulb bathing his seat in deadly radiation. On learning the man is a former judge and the deceased a former DA, it's not long before Wes ferrets out the killer; it's the cashier, a former scientist sent to jail for misappropriating university funds years ago, out for revenge and now stopped cold.
See, while I'm skeptical about the growing presence of science-fiction elements in the series, they make fine fodder when they play to Sandman's strengths. Lurking high above a crowd of people seeking the answer to some deadly mystery is exactly Wes' bag, and plus or minus some strange mask drawings, Flessel captures that thrill of closely examining a big deadly machine in secret before it fires. I'd submit the page where Sandman saves the judge from the beam as an easy contender for best of the year thus far, and the shot where Wes pushes Dian away from the killer's bullet is another fine piece of work. My memories of this one before sitting down to reread and write were a lot chillier, probably because I wish the series remained in crime pulp rather than raygun pulp, but a good outcome is a good outcome. Seriously, though, why is the mask going so bobble-eyed of late?
The Voodoo Sorcerer - ???, Flessel
As Dian and Wesley tiff over his interest in an exotic dancer they know through a mutual friend, the woman's tail-lashing dance is interrupted when she sees a great glowing triangle materialize before her eyes. With the shock straining her bad heart, the Sandman brings her to boyfriend's house, where he reveals the triangle is a voodoo witch doctor's means of accusing someone of murder - just as news comes over the wire that the man the woman lashed with her costume tail has died! Smelling a rat, Wes rushes to the scene of the crime to find the taile barbed with poison quills, only for the titular sorcerer to bumrush him out the window. It's a big misunderstanding, thankfully: he's as shocked by the murder as Sandman, and only summoned the triangle on suggestion from an acquaintance, forgetting the dancer would know its significance through her partner. By happiest coincidence, this provides Wesley the solution to the mystery right quick, for only his friend's chauffeur would have motive, opportunity, and knowledge to frame his employers and their associates for the murder of a stock broker who owed them money.
Hmm, ah, see, on the one hand, it IS nice that the voodoo guy is innocent of everything except a lapse in judgement and the real twist is an unassuming little man exploiting the mystery and fears around the craft to cast suspicion off his person. On the other hand, eek, yike, zoinks! None good. Bad, even. Outside unfortunate depictions of non-white persons from the 1940s, the story's pretty weak for a murder mystery, as numerous elements are evidently known to the characters well in advance, yet only made clear to the reader right before they become relevant, like the exact identity of the murdered man. It's only eight pages, so there's little opportunity to piece information together on your own time, and as such it is heavily reliant on narrative cheats to generate cheap surprise. About the best thing here is the big page-dominating panel of Wesley swinging through the city on his wirepoon, unconscious woman tucked under arm. Kinda hard to convincingly raise my dander about what it means for the character and his feature when it's successfully operating on the long-standing principle of "masked mystery men swinging on a wire through skyscrapers looks really cool." S'like a solid fifth of the formula behind why Spider-Man is so enduringly popular.
(Also not a big fan of how Wes dismisses Dian from participating in the case without any adequate reason why. She calls him out over it, even, and nothing in the story justifies his decision to fly solo on this one.)
The Unseen Man - ???, Flessel
Dian's purchase of paints from a local hobby shop includes quite the unusual accidental item: a paint that turns anything and everything invisible on contact. Determined to solve this mystery on her own, Dian investigates the shop with the dealer's cooperation, only for the dread Unseen Man to get the drop on her. Fortunately, Sandman is there to save her because he won't let Dian do anything on her own; unfortunately, Dian doesn't know Wes can see her attacker through his blue cobalt lenses and pulls him away, thinking him mad and letting the Unseen Man go free. As reward for her screw up, she's targeted in her home the next night, only for Wes to barge in again, having anticipated the only possible secret identity for the crook would make him likely to strike back at Dian. It is, unsurprisingly, the hobby shop owner, who Wes turns over to the police before heading out to patent his invisibility paint with the United States Army.
Alright, it's definitely not Gardner Fox writing anymore, because I cannot imagine Fox treating Dian so poorly. I gave her some dignity in summary, but this story is plain dumping all over her as a fussy, incompetent tryhard who fails at investigating on her own on account her womanly ways. Just look at the sheer antagonism between her and Wes; you two are partners, she's saved Sandman's skin like a dozen times, worn his costume and wielded his gas gun to do it once, even! Don't try to BS me into thinking Wes would run this paternalist "let me handle it, Dian, I wear the pants in this relationship" crap on her. You're only alive because she's worn your fucking pants. Otherwise, 'nother instance where the story and art alike don't give me much of note. I reckon Flessel was about done with the series with Fox gone and sorta phoned in his last few assignments. They're nowhere near the standard of his early solo artistic duties on the title. There IS another good wirepoon swinging shot, if one counterbalanced by a crummier instance with yet another weirdly-proportioned mask.
The Mysterious Mr. X: The Kidnapper's Union - Fox, Cliff Young
The Justice Society are bored. Bored, bored, bored. Why are they bored? There is no crime. Not a single ruffian or scoundrel or roughneck lawbreaker anywhere in the city! Where did crime go? Crime has taken an enforced vacation, courtesy the plans of big crime boss Mister X (hats off), as prelude to his scheme for taking out the JSA and putting all his criminal enterprises back on easy street. It's quite the collection of rackets out against the superheroes - an arsonist ring for Flash, a jewel snatching gang for Hawkman, leader of the phony fortune teller underworld against Doctor Fate, even hard-pressing gym membership shakedowns for the Atom! Naturally our heroes triumph, though every one also encounters a strange little man idly strolling through their battlegrounds. He's so omnipresent despite his mousiness, he's even there when they convene at the police station to organize Mister X's (hats off) arrest. Except this unassuming slip of a man? He IS Mister X (hats off), and with the Justice Society having taken all the fun out've crime, he's turning himself in to live comfortably on the state's dollar in jail. WHOOPSY-DOODLE!
For his six-page part in the game, Sandman must contend against the kidnapper's union, who naturally enough have abducted Dian to get his attention. Not only have these lowlives taken Dian hostage (though she doesn't particularly mind), they've taken out phony accident insurance claims against themselves should the hero injure any of them en route to his untimely death! Nobody quite expects Wes to avoid the sniper-guarded roads to their remote hilltop hideout, though, and a quick wirepoon swing over the canyon (complete with Mister X - hats off - sighting) puts him right in the criminal den. From there, it's a simple biff wham boom to take down the punks and disarm their supporting fire. Alas, Sandman is once again only in the loop on the true nature of the threat against the JSA because someone notifies him from their own investigation, this time Flash via telegram. Let him do his own detective work, you pricks!
Right. You see these panels? You see Dian being calm and collected in the midst of a kidnapping operation? You see Wes trusting her with a submachine gun to keep watch on the fools who mean them harm? Yeah, THAT'S Fox writing Dian. Whoever's writing the Adventure feature at this time ought've taken notes. Artistically, Young makes a fine replacement for Grothkopf and Flessel in Adventure - he can match the first for goons, the second for action, manages a nice turnaround effect before Wes swings on his wirepoon, and even gives us a by-now all-too-rare heavy shadow shot on Wes and Dian. I'm a big fan of the lead kidnapper who calls the JSA the "Justiss Sassiety," and find this instance of Mister X (hats off) the second best in the book, behind only his appearance in the Hourman story, which I think speaks for itself. Probably the only time I'll express preference for something Hourman related over Sandman.
The loss of all three major contributors to the Sandman feature across early 1941 and the crunch down to eight pages has certainly made the Adventure Comics side of the Sandman line a rockier experience. It's still possible to derive enjoyment from the wonky mysteries and higher-concept criminals, but one must accept atmosphere and and particularity have been near-entirely sacrificed for generalized bombast and louder appeal. Don't misunderstand, I've become a fan of Wesley Dodds, Fist-Swinging Bullet Sponge, and my past praises for him aren't diminished by the realization of what this has done to his integrity as a character circa today's stopping point. The trouble is, while I enjoy this half-mad, impossibly reckless read on the character, it simply no longer bears any resemblance to the early days' lurking and creeping through the seedier parts of town. There's a great series of justifications running through the Sandman concept - he's no powers, so he uses the gas gun, so he needs the gas mask, which hides his identity so perfectly it frees him to wear the ordinary business suit, which highlights his vulnerability. Fling him around like a ragdoll who knows no fear of injury or death, although I'll clap for the bravado of it all, I must object if it means any notion he should be sneaky or cautious degrades.
Especially if it means the gas gun vanishes from the character. It hasn't met its final end just yet, but for this seven month block it's proven a very perfunctory aspect of the strip, hung by his side and occasionally brandished without acting as an integral part of the action or storytelling. The wirepoon has subsumed its function as the sidearm, and while I must stress there are plenty aces shots of Wes swinging that fully justify its prominence, taking precedence over the thing that makes him the Sandman, Crimefighter What Fights Crime By Putting The Criminals To Sleep plain rubs me the wrong way. Be awful nice i we could have both without the new toy putting the old out to pasture, y'know? It's not led to anything I'd full-throatedly object over just yet, but... ach, you'll see next time. Speaking of...
Next time! 1941 comes to a close as Wesley picks up another feature to his name, and also a stupid, ugly new costume!
(Previous write-ups: 1939, 1940 pt 1, 1940 pt 2)
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2023.05.27 07:10 Proletlariet Baymax Saved

Baymax

"Hello, I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion"
Baymax is a healthcare robot created by Tadashi Hamada, a student at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. After Tadashi’s death, Baymax took Hiro, Tadashi’s younger brother, as his primary patient. When Hiro decided to build gear to become a superhero and bring the man who caused Tadashi’s death to justice, Baymax joined him, along with Tadashi’s former classmates, to become Big Hero 6, San Fransokyo’s premier superhero team.
According to side material, Baymax is 6’ 2" normally and 6’ 5" in the armor, though he sometimes seems to be larger than that.
Hover over the feat for the source. This is the list I’m using for the episodes.

Physicals

Strength

Striking
Lifting/Throwing
Pushing/Pulling
Rocket Fist
Clashing
Other

Durability

Blunt
Heat/Energy
Electricity
Other

Speed/Agility

Reaction/Dodging
Movement
Agility
Flight

Skill/Misc

Accuracy
Misc

Ultra Armor

General

Strength

Striking
Lifting/Throwing
Rocket Fist
Clashing

Durability

Blunt
Other

Speed/Agility

Gadgets

Scanner

General
Medical Usage
Identifying
Locating
Range

Medical Tools

Knowledge Database

Misc Functions

Overdrive Mode

General

Sword

Physicals

"I cannot deactivate until you say you are satisfied with your care"
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2023.05.27 04:41 lost_library_book The Cuckoo's Calling Re-read: Part 2, Chapter 11

Happy Friday, everyone! With this installment, we finally get to the interview with Tansy and also conclude Part 2.
I'm headed down to Universal Orlando for the holiday weekend, so no updates during that time, but I will be reading any comments you dear readers might provide. I'll also see if I can pitch my banger of an idea for an annex to Wizarding World that's a walkthrough Denmark Street Office attraction and Tottenham Pub restaurant. I mean, who wouldn't want that?
If you're looking for the previous installment of this re-read, here ya go.
Chapter 2.11 - Rich Girl Thin
What happens:
The next morning, Robin informs a besuited Strike that Duffield is flatly refusing to meet or give any interview about Landry and Guy Some has similarly rebuffed her attempts. Rummaging through the pile of boxes that, like any other element of his living at the office, she is studiously ignoring, Robin finds his appearance like that of “a rugby player en route to an international.” He finally emerges in triumph with the invitation to Jack’s birthday only to realize that he cannot remember how old he is. [It’s ok Strike, we’ve all been there.]
Robin presents an appreciative Strike with an article about Freddie Bestigui that she has copied from the previous day’s paper, commenting, mildly, that he is “not lucky in love.” When Strike responds that this goes along with the impression that Wardle had given, Robin’s curiosity gets the better of her and she asks how he has police contacts. This leads Strike to tell her for the first time about his prior service in the Military Police and his departure after an unspecified injury. She is intrigued by this background which certainly goes a way to refute Matthew’s poor opinion of Strike.
On his way to the meeting with Tansy and Bristow, Strike peruses the article on the former’s husband. Born into wealth, Freddie parlayed his inheritance into a highly successful career as producer of popular films. His pending divorce turns out to not be Freddie’s only legal entanglement, as he is currently fighting it out in court with two newspapers which had reported on numerous allegations of sexual harassment and bullying of his female staff. Freddie clearly has more than enough reasons to avoid any more publicity.
Arriving at the upscale Cipriani restaurant, Strike is mildly surprised to see not just the lawyer and Tansy, but another woman, who turns out to be Ursula May, Tansy’s sister. May is married to Cyprian [a name that’s likely illegal to have unless you come From Money], a senior partner at Bristow’s firm, which is also representing Tansy in the divorce. This means that they had a tangential pre-existing connection to Landry, but this apparently never came up before her death.
Strike’s famous father notwithstanding, the sisters automatically place him as a class beneath and treat him dismissively as such. Nonetheless, Tansy wants to make one last try at getting someone to believe her story about the overheard fight, although adamant that she won’t go public again. Ursula, on the other hand, is against the whole thing, believing it could stir up trouble in the divorce.
Beginning the interview proper, Strikes pulls out his notebook, prompting a panicked Tansy to say she wants nothing in writing. Strike agrees to this, deftly setting his cell phone to record while putting his notebook away.
Lula had moved into the building only three months prior to her death and during that time, she remained basically a stranger to Tansy. Freddie likewise hardly knew here; however, not for lack of trying. He had made several invitations and followed her once to a party. Tansy supposes this was partly sexual interest, but mostly a desire to get her to play a role in one of his films. Freddie was obsessed with getting headline catching celebrities into his movies, to the consternation of the directors who have to shoe-horn them in. The business with the white roses was likely a similar ploy to strike up a relationship with Deeby Macc for the same purpose, but, to Tansy’s knowledge, the two never ended up meeting.
It looks like Lula never signed any sort of agreement to pursue a picture with Freddie; however, Bristow does reveal that a couple of weeks ago Freddie had approached his mother about making a biographical film on her life. Yvette turned him down and Tony later chewed him out, closing down the prospect of further contact. Bristow regrets this somewhat as he wonders if Freddie had dug up any useful information on Lula’s early life.
Moving to the events of the night of Lula’s death, Tansy’s account is broadly what we’ve heard before, with some alterations and additional details. She says that she had got up to get a glass of water from the bathroom, and, while on her way back to the bedroom, heard the shouted words that Wardle repeated to Strike on the previous day. Then she saw Lula fall, something she mimes while Bristow seems to react with nausea.
Tansy then screamed and ran out of their apartment, past Freddie, to get the security guard. She is still frustrated that Wilson first went out to check on Landry instead of going directly to her flat, which Tansy thinks could have let the murderer get away. When Wilson returned from the street, he told them to call the police, which they did, but not until Freddie dragged her back up to their flat.
At this point, the interview is paused as Bristow excuses himself to take a call from Alison, his secretary and girlfriend. While the lawyer is out of earshot, the sisters take the opportunity to share that Alison is infatuated with Tony and only with Bristow as a sort of consolation. They clearly take cruel delight in the gossip about Alison’s unrequited affection. Ursula, loquacious after the glasses of wine that she has been downing at an impressive rate, speculates to Strike that the call must be about the late financier Conway Oates’s executors, who are furious about the handling of his affairs. Tony and Cyprian are having John handle the shit work of trying to get things quieted and Ursula’s tone implies that Bristow doesn’t exactly enjoy much status at the firm.
Bristow returns and Strike continues the interview, this time pushing on the issues the police had with her account. Tansy claims that she had opened a window on the way from the bedroom to the bathroom as it was “stuffy”. When pressed, she admits to having used cocaine earlier in the evening, during the dinner they hosted. Tansy believes that the police have been deliberately trying to discredit her to cover up for their incompetence and inability to arrive quickly enough to catch the murderer.
Strike steers back to the line of questioning, clarifying that Freddie had been asleep and in bed, then woken when Tansy screamed. Tansy confirms this, leading Strike to point out an inconsistency: she had said that she ran past Freddie when going down to the lobby, but, if he had only just woken up when she screamed, how could he have made it to the room with Tansy so quickly? She is caught off-guard by this, then says she must have frozen from shock for a moment between screaming and running downstairs. [I don’t wanna be a cynic folks, but I’m starting to wonder if this lady is 100% trustworthy]
Tansy quickly moves to the subject of her speculation on how the killer got in. She’s decided that he must have followed Lula in and was missed by Wilson while he was in the back, her having already expressed her low opinion of the security guard. She doesn’t know how they would have had the security code, though.
When Strike asks if she could recognize the voice of the man if she heard it again, Tansy is doubtful. [Given present company, I’m gonna rate that a solid “no”] This leads to her speculation as to whether it may have been Duffield. Like everyone else so far, she has a low opinion of the heroin-chic rocker, and recounts how he previously had to be thrown out of the building by Wilson as he was shouting and trying to bust down Lula’s door. She knows his alibi seems airtight, though.
After a digression on how little the sisters think of Lula’s friends and some casual racism, the interview and meal begin to wrap up, Tansy reiterating that she wants everything she has said to be off-the-record. As they prepare to leave, they are shocked by the sight of a tall, smartly-dressed man near 60 entering the restaurant and striding directly to their table. This is Cyprian, who was definitely not told that any such meeting might be happening by his wife. After he escorts the sisters out, Bristow confesses that his senior partner will definitely be displeased that Tansy has spoken to Strike and speculates that Alison had ratted them out. Strike notices Bristow’s hands apparently trembling at the prospect of what might be in store when Cyprian inevitably tells Tony about what happened.
Making his way back from the restaurant, our detective is deep in thought until he is jolted back to the present when he almost catches a ride in the worst way possible while crossing the street. Finding a safer spot outside the way of both automobile and human traffic, Cormoran pulls out his phone to go over the recording of Tansy’s interview. [He’s also smoking, but he’s outdoors and standing still, so I think we can call that a given.] Strike listens to her account of the argument specifically twice, then begins to make notes.
Strike knows all about liars and how to spot them, and Tansy had just done quite a bit of that. Yet, that specific account of the argument, he was sure that at least Tansy believed she was telling the truth on that, however many other lies about that night's events she wrapped it in.
Commentary:
Ok, we’ve now got another crucial clue revealed in Tansy’s contradictory statements about where Freddie was. Have you put it together? Ready to find the murderer? Well, I wasn’t either, at this point: I had absolutely no idea where it was going.
I think there’s definitely good bits to this chapter. I would especially highlight the Sisters Sophisticate in their description, attitudes, and dialogue. Like:
They were both as pristine and polished as life-size dolls recently removed from their cellophane boxes; rich-girl thin, almost hipless in their tight jeans, with tanned faces that had a waxy sheen especially noticeable on their foreheads, gleaming dark manes with center partings, the ends trimmed with spirit-level exactitude.
and:
The unbuttoned neck of her thin silk shirt revealed an expanse of butterscotch skin stretched over her bony sternum, giving an unattractively knobbly effect; yet two full, firm breasts jutted from her narrow ribcage, as though they had been borrowed for the day from a fuller-figured friend.
Ok, that last one made me laugh. And I don’t want JKR to ever write a mockery of my appearance. We see that they are crafting a particular image to show the world which is as much intended to project a message of how they want to be perceived as a teenager’s choice of edgy t-shirt from Hot Topic.
Following that description, we get this exchange which says so much:
‘We could have met somewhere more discreet,’ commented Strike.
‘No, it’s fine, because nobody here will know who you are. You don’t look anything like your father, do you? I met him at Elton’s last summer. Freddie knows him. D’you see much of Jonny?’
‘I’ve met him twice,’ said Strike.
Oh,’ said Tansy.
The monosyllable contained equal parts of surprise and disdain.
Yet, at this point we’re going through our third account of the same night in the span of just a few chapters and, while there are details and clues to be found in each one, it’s getting a bit wearying. I think this is one of the things that makes Cuckoo’s Calling feel longer than something like Career of Evil or even Lethal White. It’s also something JKR avoids in the rest of the books. Growing pains, it’s understandable.
Alright, on to miscellaneous
Bristow’s apparently nauseated reaction to Tansy specifically talking about, and miming, Lula’s plunge. I’m not sure what this is. I don’t think he feels any remorse, but maybe he is still off put at the memory? He doesn’t seem like a person made of stern stuff. Or maybe it is just acting? Thoughts?
Although:
And Tansy made a tiny jerky movement with her hands that Strike understood to indicate flailing.
The image of this in my mind is actually funny and it’s possibly because I’m a terrible person.
We have Strike finally tell Robin that he was in the military and he was injured, even if he avoids specifics not wanting to see a “shocked expression.” I think it is a little bit of a deserved flex to just drop that he was SIB (yes, I know that SIB is a higher grade than just MP, work with me), kinda like casually mentioning an engineering degree from Stanford.
I’ll finish with this paragraph that I just really enjoyed:
Her [Ursula] antipathy towards Strike seemed to have evaporated. He was not surprised; he had met the phenomenon many times. People liked to talk; there were very few exceptions; the question was how you made them do it. Some, and Ursula was evidently one of them, were amenable to alcohol; others like a spotlight; and then there were those who merely needed proximity to another conscious human being. A subsection of humanity would become loquacious only on one favorite subject: it might be their own innocence, or somebody else’s guilt; it might be their collection of pre-war biscuit tins; or it might, as in the case of Ursula May, be the hopeless passion of a plain secretary.
submitted by lost_library_book to cormoran_strike [link] [comments]


2023.05.26 06:52 ShittyStockPicker America is on the Verge of the Biggest GDP and QQQ Bull Run in Human History

America is on the Verge of the Biggest GDP and QQQ Bull Run in Human History
If you want the easiest way to make money off of what I'm saying, I made it as simple as possible for stupid fucking Apes.
https://preview.redd.it/s5wraobz452b1.jpg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8bd68af35fed78631315df81b9212de3fdec8afa
QQQ will hit a new all time high before the end of 2023. That's it. That's all you need, one giant picture and a stock recommendation. But if you want a little bit more here ya go.
Haha, dum bers
You fucking monkeys don't know shit. You're all too scared of your god damned shadows because this world has eaten you up and spit you out. You got one fucking win on Shitadel two years ago and you've been mowed down trying to relive that glory. You all remind me of those fucking apes in 2001 too afraid to step forward and transcend by touching the monolith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWs3c3YNs4 . But this ape, ShittyStockPicker ain't afraid to take a fucking risk.
I’ve been hearing about the impending recession since covid started, I’ve been hearing about the collapse of the dollar since 1990. The internet is full of bears who want to see America punished for its imagined sins: greed, debt, laziness. Why, if you listened to those fucking bears who hate this country and want to see it fail you'd think America was two Oompa Loompas away from being sung a demeaning song about why it fucked up and dragged off the world stage. But I'm not one of those America haters. I'm like Warren Buffet, I never fucking bet against America. Ever.
The hard pill for America haters to swallow is that we are the best god damned system on the planet bar none. The culture we have built worships talent and those stupid enough to risk everything for a dream. And we don't give a flying fuck if you're a queer dragon-kintyped non-binary star planet. If you're stupid enough to try the impossible, we're going to fucking cheer you on. And when you achieve the impossible, we're going to fucking reward you with it by both worshiping you as a fucking god and more wealth than you know what to do with.
It's not that way in any other system. You won't find that in Europe, you're not going to find it in India. Don't even think about trying to find that in China. If you have a fucking crazy, insane longshot idea that just might fucking work the only people stupid enough to try live here. And its because if you're not descended from people who were told by their countrymen, "Hey, Gus, just shut the fuck up about going to the moon already and eat your fucking gruel." You said, "fuck it, I'm going to America and studying engineering until I can build the biggest ass ladder I can possibly build!" And that's still the America I believe in. And I believe that's the America /WallStreetBets believes in. So is it any fucking surprise then, that once again the United States is at the forefront of yet another technological revolution that is going to profoundly transform global society, rearrange international power structures, and change everything?
I've been struggling to explain what AI means to people. But here's my best shot, dumb fucks probably want to skip to the end for the TLDR: The Information Technology boom introduced sharing of information at 0 marginal cost. The AI boom is different from the Information Technology boom because it is the beginning of the generation of new information at 0 marginal cost. Information Age: Sharing information at 0 marginal cost
AI Age: Generation of new information at 0 marginal cost
Let that fucking sink in. Generation of information at 0 marginal cost from newspapers to rocket designs.
I don't know if you had the chance to listen to the $NVDA conference call, but holy shit I fucking creamed myself rubbing my dick to it. There's nothing that gets me off harder than Capitalism Erotica.
What the $NVDA call revealed is that corporate America is scrambling to build systems that utilize AI to keep their businesses competitive. There is no reluctance to adopt AI the same way there was reluctance to adopt IT technology 20 years ago. That's going to make adoption of AI happen fucking fast!
Many current CEO's remember companies going bust, or losing market share to a rival who was faster to adopt groundbreaking technology. The lesson they learned was that it is deadly to shrug off changes in technology.
The first wave of the AI boom is in stocks like $NVDA. Demand for their chips is going to be insane. The next wave, we'll see this show up in six to twelve months or so, is going to be the companies who adopted AI early and found obvious and unexpected ways to take advantage of 0 marginal cost information generation. The moment a company who adopted AI reports that an AI technology led to a blowout quarter we're going to see an explosion in stock prices and unimaginable GDP growth.
We’re not going into recession, we’re on the brink of pushing the world into an unprecedented era of GDP growth and exponential growth in the rate of improvement of living standards.
We’re months away from new all time highs on the Nasdaq. The American economy is about to rip the world’s face off with a GDP rally the likes of which the world had never seen.
TLDR: HAHAHAHAHA BERSSSSS R FUKKKKKKKK

https://preview.redd.it/vpfnurg9e52b1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=90447a765ddf78c897d748c7b3ff6ed07778b1e7
submitted by ShittyStockPicker to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]


2023.05.26 06:42 ThrowAwaytheCJ Something devoured our neighbours. I don't think anyone will believe what I saw.

I stepped onto the front porch holding out the hope that there’d be a basket of pastries and cookies; There was nothing there. It had been two weeks since the Gibsons had popped by. The Gibsons, our neighbors from the farm next to us, sported several more acres of land than our family and with how amazing the early elderly couple were, they deserved it.
Melvin and Maya baked together, even as Melvin’s mind slipped it was one of the only things he could remember from his 37 years of marriage with Maya. They always brought us lots of their baking, and in turn we all would help them out with things around their farm. Maya’s mind was sharp, even if both of their bodies were giving out. It was the least we could do for such lovely neighbors.
So when more than a week had passed with no calls or basket drop-offs, I knew something was wrong.
“Where are you going? Sun’s almost down,” mom asked me as I threw on some boots.
“Checkin’ on the neighbors,” I replied, stone faced.
“Oh I’m sure they’re just fine, their son and his wife were supposed to be visiting, right?”
I didn’t have a real response to that. Something felt wrong, but maybe I was expecting far too much from them. If they had family over I shouldn’t be so bent out of shape.
“Maybe you’re right,” I relented. “Perhaps it’s just that-”
Sirens rushing down the road cut me off. They were headed west. Towards the Gibson’s farm.
“When was the last time you heard those around here, ma?” I asked.
“Five months,” I got back. The reality did hit me. We were roughly twenty minutes south of Albany, and I probably haven't been to Atlanta in maybe three months. I was grateful for my online friends, let alone having the internet in the first place.Which is why I’m writing what I’m writing.
“Jonah, where are ya going?” I heard my dad call out to me as I hurried into the truck. He’d been watering the tomato plants outside.
“Checkin the Gibsons!” I called back.
“Dammit, you’re gonna look silly when you crash their family bbq cause you was worried!”
“Explain the cops then!” I retorted before slamming the truck door and speeding west.
Melvin and Maya’s place was ten minutes away by vehicle. I had the windows down, and around the halfway mark I heard gunshots. I picked up speed, thrashing the poor truck on the dirt road.
I didn’t wanna be right, but sure as shit there were two cops and an ambulance parked outside of their place. I got out of the truck and rushed over. The law enforcement and paramedics were a little jumpy, and very pale.
“What’s going on..?” I asked much slower than I normally would. The sheriff looked back at the house, and that’s when I noticed the window had been smashed. The frame of the window was torn right off the house, too.
“An attack of some kind,” The sheriff told me. “It’s a gnarly scene there, kid. We suspect a-”
“Don’t bullshit him you saw it, too!” a much younger deputy called out. “That thing’s a monster!”
The sheriff sighed, giving this visibly shaken deputy a pat on the back. “We’ll see to it that someone destroys it.”
“A monster!?” I spat. “Y’all can’t be using that word lightly!”
“A big one, too,” the deputy rambled. “Damn thing took six of my bullets before it charged into the woods! I didn’t wanna believe it! Bigger than any bear I’d ever seen, and I damn well know it ain’t one!”
“Who are you anyways, kid?” the sheriff asked. “You shouldn’t be here, it’s dangerous.”
“The neighbor,” I said, pointing back down the road towards my house. I gestured to look around back, and I followed the sheriff and his deputy closely.
The Gibson’s crops were torn up in some spots, uprooted to be specific. There was a trail of blood smeared across a section of the field that led to a busted portion of their fence, trailing towards the woods and swamp. I wanted to check for tracks, but I was no detective nor would the police let me get close.
“I…did they make it?” I asked nervously. The sheriff shook his head, looking down at his badge shamefully.
“I don’t believe so, son. Couldn't find a body to tell ya.”
I bit my lip, trying my hardest not to cry. I walked back to the truck and drove off. I couldn’t hold anything back and cried for most of my drive back to my place. I grew up with them always down the road, and they were kind and gentle souls. It was the type of loving marriage I envisioned myself having later in life.
My parents had finished eating dinner by the time I had gotten back. I quietly scarfed down some food on my own before telling my parents what I had seen. They were upset, for sure.
“They couldn’t find a body?” My dad asked. “That means that there’s a chance they might be alive.”
“I want to believe that, I do…but the amount of blood that was there…” I said. “I don’t think anyone could’ve survived that.”
“What are you going to do about it, son? You can’t go and fight this ‘monster’ or whatever that they said they saw.”
“They were good people. I can’t do nothing about it, pops.”
“Live a good life, for them at least. They’d definitely want that for you."
A couple days went by, and I saw some vehicles pass our place to their property a few times. It was pretty quiet. I worked around our smaller farm, and helped my parents bring food to the nearby markets. Eventually their obituaries presented themselves in the newspaper.It was cited that Melvin, Maya, and their son and their daughter in-law all died from a bear attack. This ignited a fire of conviction in me. I wasn’t a sheriff or deputy or whatnot, but a “bear attack” was bullshit. I had to get to the bottom of it.I cared about the Gibsons. I wasn’t going to give up until I found out what really attacked them.
I drove to their property, much to my parents dismay, and saw nobody was there. Someone had boarded up the broken window, and I saw a toolbox laying about on the front porch. I hopped the fence behind the house and saw the smeared trail was drying up. Something was off, more of their crops were uprooted. There was also a vile smell in the air.
Whatever the thing was, it was here recently. I was also able to find some tracks.
Hooves. Larger ones at that.
“Couldn’t be a killer deer,” I chuckled to myself.
I circled back around the house and noticed something shocking on the side I hadn’t seen yet.There was a fresh trail of blood smeared towards the woods. Who was here recently that this thing killed?
I took a look and saw a small broken window that was halfway through being boarded up. Looking down at the trail, there were once again hoof tracks leading away from the house. I saw some torn denim, soaked in blood on the ground, as well as a screwdriver.
This thing killed whoever was patching the place up. I was too scared to follow the trail, I was unarmed.I checked the nearby barn that held their sheep and goats. They were massacred, dried blood everywhere. The only remains of any animal was in the form of a rotting goat carcass that was missing its backside.
In my disgust I thought of an effective but risky plan. I took the carcass back to my truck and drove back to the house.
Mom and Dad always were in bed early, and they were deep sleepers by 8:00pm. I did make an effort to be quiet with my sneaking, as I looted our compost, and added in some of the fresh tomatoes to my bucket of slop. I unlocked the gun safe, got the highest caliber hunting rifle, and loaded myself up with a handful of bullets. I grabbed a high powered flashlight for good measure, too.
The sun was still in the sky when I got back to the Gibson’s place. I took the carcass to the back of the house, dropping it on the blood trail. I dumped the compost slob on top, as well as the fresh tomatoes for extra measure. By the looks of it, the bait may not have been necessary but I wanted to speed things along.I managed to navigate the intact wooden railings on the back porch and climbed on top of the roof.
I got a view of most of their field, which was almost completely ransacked. I took out the gun and waited.
Nothing came for two hours. The moon was full with a clear sky; I didn’t even need the flashlight I brought. Disrespectful as it was, I also peed off the house towards the carcass. That was not part of the plan, but a part of me was glad I did.
About twenty or so minutes later I heard something from the woods. I quietly got the gun ready. It was a bear, and a pretty big one at that. No bear could’ve done this, right? It began sniffing where I had peed, as well as the bait I had laid out. I wanted to fire off a warning shot to scare it off. It was interfering with the “monster!”
As I prepared to fire off the gun, I heard a low grunt and snort from the woods. It was loud. Sounded like a wild boar, but not quite. I heard the sound of something slowly dragging through the underbrush. The bear noticed it, too, and ran away. A bear was running from something like a boar? What the hell?
It emerged from the woods and I understood why.
It was a massive boar, I’d argue it was taller and heavier than the bear. It didn’t have the thick hair your average feral pig had. No, it had a bristly mane but almost no hair on the sides. It looked like it had been stabbed or shot, its hide had dark, exposed holes. I could see from the moonlight that its tusks were stained with what I could make out was blood.
Its bloated gut dragged on the ground, and the thing wheezed each step it took. It reached the bait. Did it notice me? I took aim.
The thing began to heave and hack. First, a slew of blood and bile came from its mouth. It looked like it was struggling. Then something else came out of its mouth that will no doubt be burned into my brain for the rest of my life
.A set of flailing human arms.
They swayed as this creature heaved some more. More blood came out. The arms were hung up in its mouth, and tapped desperately on the snout. Oh god, the person it ate is still alive!?
I took aim and fired into its side. It gurgled and shrieked. It spat out more content that made me lose hope.
It opened its mouth wider and a slimy, half digested torso dropped onto the ground. It wasn’t done yet. It shook its head and the arms that were stuck in its teeth flung away.
It kept puking. A hammer, a half-melted hardhat, and two severed human legs came out of its mouth. It went back to the pile and began to gorge. This thing was simply making room.
No doubt, this was the monster.
Furious, I took another shot at it. I got it right in the ear. It squealed, and turned its gaze upward. Its cold, beady eyes locked onto me. I slowly began to back up, reloading another bolt into the rifle. It snorted and roared. It reared up at me, its oversized gut weighing it down. It began pacing from side to side, before charging towards the house.
It pressed its massive body against the house, and I could’ve sworn I heard some creaking from the wall. I took another shot at the top of its head, it drew blood, but I doubt it went close to the brain.It looked up at me, opening its massive, disgusting mouth. I instinctively gasped when I saw what was inside:
It was glinting in the moonlight, the gem on Maya’s wedding ring. My body must’ve moved on its own, because I don’t remember putting the flashlight in my hand, but before I knew it I turned it on and I couldn’t believe what I saw in the light.
The ring was attached to a slimy, mangled arm resting at the back of this thing’s throat. This monster pig ate her!
I screamed in terror and in rage and fired a shot into this thing’s mouth. It stumbled backwards, squealing and rolling. Its insides were still vulnerable. As I shakily went to reload, I realized I had ran out of bullets! Shit!
The giant pig squealed and roared. It took a few steps and began to retch once again. It vomited up Maya’s body, in pieces, before retreating into the woods. I could hear its gut dragging along the ground.
I was distraught, I could tell through the disgusting, slimy and bloody body that this was indeed one of my neighbors. It was far more gone than what I can only imagine was the gentleman who was patching the windows up.
I made it home, and my mind is still a bit hazy. I don’t think anyone is going to believe me when I tell them what killed our neighbors. I want to call the sheriff, hell even the military over. I cared so much about our neighbors in life, I want them to rest easy in death.
My parents didn't even come out to scold me, they must have really been sound asleep. I wonder if anyone else heard the gunshots. Our other neighbours are fairly far out. My ears are ringing, my heart won't stop beating, and my mind is racing far too quickly to fall asleep.
I knew it wasn't a bear that devoured our neighbours. I wish it were so simple, but I wish nobody had to die in the first place.
If there's more of those things out there, then I'm worried for us. When will that thing turn its attention towards our farm?I’ve been staring at my phone for about an hour now, ready to make a call.
I’ll be able to help them out just a little bit-By guiding them to the newest trail of blood, going into the woods.
submitted by ThrowAwaytheCJ to nosleep [link] [comments]


2023.05.22 17:40 burrito-d20 Request for input on my Impossible Landscapes campaign planning.

I'm planning on running Impossible Landscapes in 2024 for our group, the campaign will be the groups first Delta Green game, (Thought group played a 3-part, pulpy CoC game 2 or 3 years ago). I've got some plans and alterations I'm wanting to put in place for chapter 1, as well as questions about complimentary scenarios for which I'm looking to hit specific tones and themes.
Goals:
DG Intro I want to start off the campaign with a modified Reverberations, that is to be the original 90's incident (Pre-verberations?), exposing the Agents to mind altering hallucinogens and raising the chances of a disorder during the scenario causing drug dependency, which could sully the credibility of an agent. But generally the exposure to, and knowledge Liao is enough to set up what will take place in The Night Floors modification.
The Night Floors
Mod #1 Rather than having to contrive, force or bore the players to give up on Abigail and exit the Night Floors, some event (TBD) results in all but one or two of the Agents starting to move with mechanical jerks, their jaws fall slack revealing mouths full of cogs, their eyes collapse, fold and flick back like delicate and ornately lacquered tin leafs that hide a black void from which faint music emanates.... The treacherous marionettes bring their guns to bare on the other agents and then BANG!... The door to the roof slams shut!
Those agents playing the part of the marionettes in the previous scene arrive on the rooftop of the Macallistar building to find the remaining agents catatonic and playing with what looks like a large pigeon loft that has been converted into a huge (shit encrusted) dolls house, the bottom floors of which are a replica of the Macallistar building along with many other floors on top of them that don't exist. (Recalling how many floors the doll house has will differ from agent to agent, based on corruption, and any cataloguing of it as evidence will result in a report of it having yet another number of floors).
The agents playing with the dolls house should be the ones that used or are still using Liao (from the previous operation) and/or the ones with the highest corruption.
Regardless of if anyone was using Liao, DG demands drugs tests, and finds it in the blood of the agents that where catatonic. The team are lambasted, and the agents failing the drugs test are threatened with being "this close to being the 'next mission'"... It is hinted at that those agents may also be in league with the with regards their access to Liao.
This is just a ruse to shuffle these agents off the case and sow distrust to deter them from collaborating on following any of this up in their own time.
Over the following 8-10 years the disgraced agents spend a lot of time looking over their shoulder as they fear DG is tailing them for the accusations during the debriefing. While the other agents are tasked with 2 or 3 operations (not played out, just the overview narrated as I explain the passage of the decade) that are many layers removed from any actual otherworldly encounter and are mostly logistical or bureaucratic but give them a very brief glimpse into some things I think those particular players will find interesting from DG lore.
The next decade sees DG reach out and tentatively reactivate the group (The Program? The Outlaws? agents of the King?)
Request 1 What I need here are 2 or 3 sessions of operations that don't end with a bang... Operations where the agents are left questioning if anything actually happened (or the culprit is human religious nuts who may or may not be worshiping something actually dangerous) .
Evidence is lacking/stolen/damaged and witnesses are untrustworthy, dead, missing, seeking fame by fabricating evidence, etc. Not operations doomed to fail, but completed and wrapped up, it's just there's no tangible proof that anything really is "out there". The goal here isn't for me to serve up a bunch of unsatisfying missions for a cell who got busted down to "traffic duty", but as a canvas to layout the other part of my modification...
Mod #2
I'm planning to break out small stand-alone scenes/rooms/etc from The Night Floors to be time-shifted. e.g:
The agents decide to enter a room. But I narrate them leaving the room with a sense of confused panic, and a short exchange of words between them that I will slur or muffle. If asked to clarify I will tell the player their agent agrees that it was "kzery ubsnurfrbluk", and they should probably not hang around outside this room, etc, etc.
The way these scenes play out will depend heavily on the instance at hand, context, etc. If no parts can stand alone like this I'll make some that can be tied in.
During the operations (Request 1), prior to A Volume of Secret Faces, when any agent that was cast as a marionette in the Night Floors epilogue sleeps or looses consciousness after taking sanity loss (or gaining corruption), all the agents will be taken to one of these "skipped" scenes to actually play it out... Except they can use knowledge from the present, and they stand a chance of also having items on them they had the day prior to being unconscious. They will awake with revelations of their fellow agents from operation ALICE being "right all along!". With any wounds sustained during the dream present in the waking world.
Any agent who dies or is lost during these re-visits to the night floors will go missing in the waking world. Cogs or intricate clockwork parts can be found with a thorough search of where the agent went missing and a photograph in the room/apartment/etc will have been replaced with a postcard sized print of a strange painting. The artist's signature matches Abigail's, and the print matches a private commission she's made. If the agents try and track down the painting, they find it's title has some twist on "until we meet again" with the agent who found its name or handle cleverly worked into the wording. There's no record of this print being made.
Agents vanishing in this manner are replaced with new ones who everyone but the original agents from operation ALICE treat as having been in the cell since the lost agent went missing in the 90s. This causes corruption, but over the course of the next few days the surviving agents have fully adopted a second set of confusing and conflicting memories corroborating these claims.
(Maybe there's some bonus background information to be found if the agents can correctly recall or deduce the chronological order of the time shifted events ... or maybe knowing this helps them work out if an agent who should be dead or lost in this flashback is a traitorous marionette doppelgänger, TBD)
Agents will have also received strange/anonymous communications, phone calls, useless leads (or leads they just ignored) on the Abigail case in the years that have passed. Odd echo's of the events and personalities from operation ALICE will popup during the short missions leading up to A Volume of Secret Faces .
Any agents lost to the night floors will somehow appear in photos, or their names in newspaper clippings (and other operation clues), be glimpsed in reflections or out of the corner of a tired agents eyes.
Request 2
Examples of operations (or scenario's from other games) and how they do this kind of time-split mechanic.
Request 3
I want some tonal grounding in the real world in what leads up to chapter 2... Through some boring admin and comically jobs-worth / nit-picky npcs to talk the agents though processes like submitting expenses, firearms training (for those not in law enforcement or military roles), identifying cult brainwashing techniques and those effected by them etc, etc. So could use some sources of inspiration for this (e.g: NPC's or admin-orientated-scenarios from other DG content).
submitted by burrito-d20 to DeltaGreenRPG [link] [comments]


2023.05.19 01:35 AhavaKhatool Sam Zell, 81, Tycoon Whose Big Newspaper Venture Went Bust, Dies BD”E ✡️

Sam Zell, 81, Tycoon Whose Big Newspaper Venture Went Bust, Dies BD”E ✡️ submitted by AhavaKhatool to NotableObits [link] [comments]


2023.05.18 21:02 END146 Concerned for Elderly Friend

Sorry this is long I like having all details included but TLDR at bottom
Some backstory: since I was a child I have fished in a certain spot on the river that this woman ownes. My father had gotten permission when i was a child and when I was a teen I got permission from her myself since I was going without him now. She has always been a bit of a hermit but other than the occasional yell from her porch verifying who I was, we never spoke.
Last year my partner asked me to start hunting again. He had never hunted before and I hadn't since I was in middle school. Since neither of us had any recent experience we also didn't have anywhere to go. So I decided to call up the woman and asked if she'd grant us permission. She said yes in exchange for helping her with small chores such as taking off her trash. When we'd go to hunt we'd always stop and talk to her on our way out so there was a bond being grown.
The issue is that since befriending her she has called me multiple times to help out with various things around her house far outside my scope of knowledge (plumbing, home repairs, etc). We have attempted to help here and there. So we actually got to see her house up close.... It is a death trap. I've come to realize she is a horder and her house is literally falling apart. There's rats, mold, leaks, cat urine and feces...everywhere. I was physically ill after being in her house for 30 minutes. She didn't have water for almost 2 months during winter because she had a line bust and wanted us to fix it or find someone to fix it cheap. She also loses phone service often (land line) so I feel like I have to go over if I havent heard from her in awhile to check on her.
She lives in her living room and cannot access the rest of her house. The floors are covered in newspaper and there's a trail to her kitchen and bathroom (I have not seen these rooms so I can only imagine how bad they are). At first I thought she could not afford to fix things but she infact is very wealthy since she's never married or had children she saved most of her income until she retired. Her property alone is worth millions if she wanted to sell. She also has massive amounts of (what I would call) junk that she's accumulated over the years and actually owns an old building in town that is also packed full of junk. These items could be sold as well.
She has taken to us a lot and I enjoy chatting with her but now I feel this emense weight of burden to be the one to help her. She has literally no one else. Most people hate her because she was always the type to make a fuss and try to sue people back in the day (small town "karen"). I can see how they can see her in this light bc she is grouchy but loves me and my partner so we've always been treated well. She has no family around and I cannot take responsibility of her. I have my own life to live (mid 20s) and do not have time or energy to make sure she isn't dead in her house. I went to help her move stuff into storage the other day and had to brush a mat out of her hair so I dont think shes been bathing. She is very old and has health problems so it scares me.
I have tried to talk her into selling everything and setting herself up in a safe home to live out her days. She says she's been talking to realtors but im not sure she will do it. I also have told her that the stress she has put on me is too much so she did lay off on calling us to fix things all the time. I do not know what to do at this point. I have been so stressed about it that it has made me sick. Her house would 100% be condemned if inspectors knew about it. I thought about contacting adult social services but she is so stubborn she would probably chew them out and then chew me out. I also feel like if I don't do anything then I'll be the one to have to find her dead. What the heck should I do reddit?
TLDR: Befriended an older woman who I've come to find out lives in horrendous conditions. She has no family or friends and now I feel responsible for her. Don't have time or energy to take care of her since I'm mid 20s and she's 70s. She can easily afford to take care of her situation but doesnt (mental and physical health problems). What should I do?
submitted by END146 to Advice [link] [comments]


2023.05.18 19:07 AutoNewspaperAdmin [Business] - Sam Zell, 81, Tycoon Whose Big Newspaper Venture Went Bust, Dies NY Times

[Business] - Sam Zell, 81, Tycoon Whose Big Newspaper Venture Went Bust, Dies NY Times submitted by AutoNewspaperAdmin to AutoNewspaper [link] [comments]


2023.05.18 19:05 AutoNewsAdmin [Business] - Sam Zell, 81, Tycoon Whose Big Newspaper Venture Went Bust, Dies

[Business] - Sam Zell, 81, Tycoon Whose Big Newspaper Venture Went Bust, Dies submitted by AutoNewsAdmin to NYTauto [link] [comments]


2023.05.17 16:55 Embarrassed-Shake-78 Went to the store this morning & saw my son sheff on the newspaper smh 🤦🏾‍♂️

Went to the store this morning & saw my son sheff on the newspaper smh 🤦🏾‍♂️ submitted by Embarrassed-Shake-78 to NYStateOfMind [link] [comments]