​
“Watch where you're going, doofus” Itachi snapped, pushing the person who had bumped into him just a few moments ago.
“Im....Sorry” Geiju bowed, his beret falling from his head like a cherry blossom petal.
That was his first impression of the stoic redhead, A clumsy, weak, and art-loving sissy that seemed to entrance the school the second He first walked in the gate, He was pathetic and gay, the type of man he hated. He couldn't understand how somebody could purposely make themselves appear so weak, so fragile... Just waiting for somebody to swoop them up in their arms and never let go.
Did he stupidly fall in love? Sadly yes.
He just couldn't help it, Geiju was possibly the most beautiful person he had ever laid eyes on, His soft silky red hair, His emerald orb-like eyes that glimmered in the light, his frail but long arms and legs, star-speckled freckles and a perfect voice. He was like an angel, a heavenly being created with love and care by the goddess Aphrodite. The mental image of Geiju on a comfy lace bed with pillows and ribbons, in soft baby-pink kitty lingerie, was enough to make his whole face burn red in lust, guilt, and shame. He would peek from behind the art club door, just to watch him paint. He would watch in awe as Geiju created life on a canvas, from mere color, curve, and line. He would silently watch, captivated by his talent.
He wanted to fuse with him, to fill all his senses with his scent, so Itachi would be the only thing geiju would think about. Oh, to rip all his clothes off his body and take him right there and then, In front of everybody. And do it again and again and again and agai-
“ITACHIIIIIIIIIIIIII-SENPAIIII!”
“WHAT!?”
Mantaro conked him in the head with his shampoo bottle, as Hojiro and Unagi both exploded into boisterous laughter.
“You're going to waste all the water” Iruka said, Slipping on his boxers. He was also very cute, With plump cheeks and short, curvy figure.
He got up and dried himself up, there were lots of boys in school that he liked, Otohiko, A boy that wore the female uniform, He had peach pink hair and pretty little amber eyes, He had decided that Otohiko was too sweet for his dirty hands. Iruka was also alluring, He was quiet but not in the same way as Geiju, he was more straightforward and preferred to talk only when it was necessary. He had swishy silver-grey hair and soft ruby-red eyes. But judging by the way Iruka’s eyes would stay glued to Asu’s chest and butt when she was in her swimsuit, it would be worthless to try anything. Besides Mantaro would kill him with his own hands if he even breathed the wrong way around him.
He finished buttoning up his uniform top, He got a text from his father, or as he liked to call the mouthpiece of shit, Limpdick. It wasn't anything, just telling him to come home or he’d “Beat his ass” He wanted to see him try, He was a lot stronger now, so he could beat his ass.
He stepped out of the locker room, The setting sun looking gorgeous as always. He sighed and tossed his backpack over his shoulders, he really wanted to try talking to Geiju, but he had absolutely no idea where to even start, besides why would geiju like him? He had been nothing but rude to him so what reason would he have?
He kept his head down as he walked out of the school gates; The warm and comforting environment of sunset made him feel a lot better. As he was walking home, he couldn't say he wasn't pondering over asking Geiju out. What if he said the wrong thing and messed it all up? What if they started dating and they weren't meant to be? After all, it was so rare to find such a gorgeous being, it was a miracle he actually managed to find such a person, but he was worried.
He got home and went straight to his room.
“If I start being nicer to people, would he like me?” He thought to himself as he undressed and slipped into his pajamas. He walked over to his mirror and took off his shirt.
As a child, he was a very scrawny and feminine build, something his father hated, so he would always belittle him. He thought that, maybe, if he got big and strong, he would feel confident in himself.
But unfortunately, that didn't happen, he was muscular and lean now but he still felt insecure and weak inside.
“Why?” Itachi frowned, touching his chest. “Why don’t I feel strong?” he asked himself. He was angry with himself; He would never grow a pair and just ask the boy he loved so much. He was afraid of doing anything that might make his dad angry at him again. And yet, he still wanted to talk to Geiju, to make him feel happy, to hold him in his arms and never let him go.
He sighed, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine Geiju's face, He imagined his snow-white skin, his delicate fingers, and his kissable lips. He imagined him wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight, He imagined him smiling and laughing, He pictured him painting the flowers Itachi worked so hard to grow.
He opened his eyes and saw tears leaving his eyes. “What is this? Why am I crying, I'm a man! I shouldn't cry for a boy that probably hates me” he complained to nobody.
Itachi wiped his tears away and stood there, He thought about all the things he wanted to say, the words he wanted to say and how they sounded in his mind. How they would sound in his heart.
“I want you to smile for me, I want you to laugh with me, I want you to be my Husband” Itachi whispered to himself, closing his eyes again.
“I need you, I can't live without you, please, just tell me your feelings” He sat on his bed, Clutching a pillow tightly. He knew that if he never tried, nothing would happen. If he never even tried to talk to him he would regret, it forever. He pulled up a dating strategy on his phone, to prepare
-
Geiju was so engrossed in painting that he did not notice the footsteps behind him until he was Kabedon wall slammed.
He gasped, flinching for a moment before looking up to see the very person he had been imagining.
Itachi could feel his heart tighten as he looked at Geiju’s little “o” face of surprise. He stood there, frozen, words failing to leave his mouth.
Geiju was completely red in the face, his lips quivering, his hands shaking. He stared at Itachi with wide eyes, as though he was seeing him for the first time, like a stranger. His heart was racing in his chest as the realization that his crush had just wall slammed him.
“Uhhhh......” Geiju stammered out, He was still staring at Itachi in shock.
“I....I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you" Itachi mumbled awkwardly, his heart beating loudly in his ears.
“No, no” Geiju shook his head. “It's ok” he felt himself hand flap, trying to calm down his racing heart. Geiju smiled nervously, He cleared his throat and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.
“Uhh....I just wanted to ask.......do you want to have lunch with me?” Itachi nervously stammered out.
Geiju blinked a few times, He was surprised but also happy. "Yes, I'd love to!" he replied immediately, making Itachi sigh with relief.
True to his word, Geiju had lunch with him that day, He learned that geiju adored anything with strawberries, especially strawberry shortcakes. So, every time they ate together, he would bring him strawberry shortcake for them both, and they would talk about everything under the sun, they talked about school and about their pasts, their hobbies, and their likes and dislikes, they shared many laughs and smiles and soon, their friendship grew and grew.
They became best friends; their relationship grew stronger and stronger. Itachi would do anything for Geiju, He would sacrifice himself for him and he would do it gladly. He was afraid that one day he would lose him, so he gave him his heart and soul.
He slowly started to see himself becoming kinder and gentler. He changed his hairstyle to a bob cut that swished around his head.
He got brave enough to get a therapist to talk about his issues. And he had to thank it all on geiju. His feelings for Geiju got stronger and stronger until he couldn't deny it anymore. He had to ask him out. He knew that he should've done it sooner, but he was scared, he was afraid that Geiju wouldn't accept him for who he truly was.
“Geiju, I know this might seem sudden, but would you like to go out with me?" He asked while they were walking home from school. Geiju blushed and nodded, making him hug him in joy.
The date was on Saturday, they would meet in front of the 7-11 at 2:45 precisely. There Itachi would take him to a restaurant and then a walk through the park.
The rest of the week was excessively boring and dull, the two tentatively waited for the school day to end to prepare for tomorrow’s date.
Geiju knew he wanted to cross-dress but wasn't sure exactly what to wear. Luckily, he had Otohiko, a fellow cross-dresser's advice.
“Something with his favorite colors, tell me his favorites” Otohiko said, he wore a pearl pink oversized sweater and pure white drawstring shorts. “Black, orange” Geiju replied, readjusting his skirt.
“Well, you can wear Black Mary Janes and some orange jewelry” Otohiko got up from his very soft bed and strutted over to his closet, pulling out a pair of lolita Style Mary Janes with sheer white bows decorating them.
“Maybe you can wear something tight... you know........to leave him with a veryy gooood memory” He teased, watching Geiju’s face light up.
Back in his house, Geiju chose a light pink sailor dress with a white petticoat, he replaced the dark red ribbon with a light orange ribbon, black pantyhose, and the Mary Janes that Otohiko let him borrow. Shouko had gifted him an orange-themed necklace a few years ago, so he fished it out of his trinket box.
-
Itachi leaned against the light pole, a bouquet of flowers in hand, a special handpicked bunch of bright red roses, Violets, and green carnations. He grew the flowers all by himself, so he really hoped that Geiju would like them.
“Ita-Kun” he turned to see Geiju, who was in a dress. He felt his entire face burn red as he looked Geiju up and down. He looked so Innocent and girly in that dress.
Geiju smiled softly and twirled around, “Like it?” he teased, making Itachi blush harder.
He pulled Geiju into a hug, his heart racing as he held Geiju close. Geiju smiled happily as he snuggled closer to Itachi, putting his arms around him.
He presented Geiju with the flowers and he put them into his bag, taking a green carnation and putting it in his hair.
They walked close together, Itachi with his arm around Geiju’s waist, They laughed and chatted about random things.
“Alright, were here” Itachi said, stopping in front of the café that he had chosen, Itachi looked up at the sign above the door.
It read 'Café Yume' in colorful letters.
Geiju looked up at the sign, smiling widely, He hugged Itachi close and whispered, "Thank you for going on this date with me!"
The two walked in, with a young woman in a maid dress greeting them.
“Welcome Master” She chirped; Itachi quickly realized why the café had such good reviews, he had chosen a fucking maid café, on his first date. Shit.
Geiju was surprised but went along with it. “Yeah, sorry....” “No, it's okay” Geiju reassured Itachi it was ok, the two chatted while waiting for their food.
Geiju ordered a Hamburg curry with orange juice and Itachi ordered an omurice. Itachi made the mental note to get better at cooking.
The food came out and it smelled absolutely delicious, Geiju's was even more delicious than it looked. The two savoured every bite of their meal,
“So, how’s your mom” Itachi asked. “She’s great, Shes going to have our little sister soon”
“Oh, Shes pregnant?’ “Yeah!” Geiju replied excitedly, giggling.
“Aww, I'm happy for her!” Itachi replied with a smile. “What about your mom Ita-kun?” Geiju asked innocently.
Itachi frowned, His mother had left when he was very young, she had packed up her bags and left. He had never seen her or even heard from her since.
“She’s........fine” he lied, not wanting to sour Geiju’s mood. “That’s good” geiju replied, picking the dessert menu, and ordering a Strawberry shortcake.
Itachi brought out his wallet and paid for their meal, making them both smile happily.
-
The blooming cherry blossoms were gorgeous, Geiju had told Itachi he loved flowers, so he brought him to a beautiful park where there were tons of cherry trees. The petals of the trees had fallen, they were all over the ground like snow and the air was filled with the sweet scent of the flowers.
The two lay down in the cool grass, watching the clouds pass overhead. They watched birds flutter around, laughing as Children chased each other.
“This is amazing, so peaceful” Geiju commented, gazing up at the sky. “Yeah, its nice” Itachi agreed.
Geiju put his arm around Itachi, the two nuzzled into each other.
“Geiju?” Itachi whispered. Geiju looked up at him and smiled. “Yes, Ita-Kun?” he whispered back. “I love you” Itachi confessed, making Geiju smile wider.
“I.....Love you too” Geiju murmured, cuddling up to Itachi. The two sat and stared up at the sky, watching the clouds float by. Itachi was content, he had finally told Geiju how he felt and he had been accepted.
They stayed like that for hours, Cuddling close together. “Um...” “Yeah?”
“Can we kiss?” Geiju asked shyly. Itachi blushed, embarrassed, but nodded. Geiju leaned in and kissed Itachi on the lips, his tongue gently caressing Itachi’s bottom lip. It was their first kiss, so it was sloppy and awkward, but still romantic.
Geiju broke off the kiss, looking up at Itachi. He smiled tenderly and Itachi smiled back, kissing Geiju on the cheek.
“Your........good....at this’ Geiju murmured, blushing. “No, you're good at this” Itachi teased, poking his belly.
“Do you want to do it again?” Geiju asked shyly, looking up at Itachi.
“Yeah!” Itachi replied, leaning down to kiss Geiju on the lips once more.
Itachi could feel his heart beating faster and he knew that he loved Geiju more than ever before.
At this point, the sun was starting to set, painting the sky in yellow, purple and red.
"Wow, it really does look like a painting..." Geiju murmured, staring up at the beautiful sky.
“Yeah... it's pretty amazing” Itachi agreed.
The two laid down on the grass in silence, just enjoying each others company.
“Hey, Ita-Kun?” Geiju asked timidly. “Yeah, what is it?” "Will.....you be my boyfriend?" He shyly asked, making Itachi smile. “Of course! Yes! I'll be your boyfriend forever!” Itachi exclaimed excitedly, hugging Geiju tightly.
Geiju smiled and hugged him back, the two held each other close for a long time.
"Ita.......I have to go home...." Geiju said, frowning. "Why?" Itachi asked worriedly.
"My family will be worried if I don't come home by sundown" Geiju explained.
“Oh” Itachi replied, thinking about it. . "Im sure your family will be worried for you too" Geiju said, Starting to get up. Itachi sighed, His father didnt give a shit about him, he knew if his son never came home, his father wouldn't think twice about it.
"Let's walk home together then" Geiju suggested.
Itachi nodded, relieved that Geiju wanted to stay with him. The two walked side by side, holding hands and talking about random stuff. Itachi was growing progresively more nervous, what would his father think of his son dating a man? Itachi wondered if his dad even thought of him.
"Im hungry......" Geiju muttered. "Again?" "Yeah..." Itachi really didn't want to go home now, so he asked Geiju if he could eat dinner at his house. "My dad's out most of the time, so I'm sure he wouldn't mind it" Itachi said, forcing a smile.
"Ok, I guess I can come over" Geiju said, sounding quite content. Mama would get to meet Him!
-
“Mama! Im back!” Geiju called out, taking off his shoes at the entrance.
"Mom at her obstetrician appointment! She and dad will come back soon!" Shouko called out from the kitchen, He noticed Itachi and Gave him his signature grin.
"Oh hey, Hi!" Shouko chirped and quickly went back to preparing dinner. "Uh, I didn't know that you and Shouko-san were brothers' Itachi said. "Stepbrothers" Geiju replied. “Mama and Shouko’s papa got married” Geiju continued.
“Yeah? I wanna meet them after dinner” Itachi said enthusiastically. “Sure” Geiju replied with a smile, going upstairs to change.
Geiju changed into pastel green drawstring shorts and a Cream Pj shirt with light green lines. He took off his jewelry and scurried back downstairs.
Itachi was with Shouko, Engaging in light small talk. "Im making hamburg curry with cardamom spice, I hope Geiju likes it," Shouko said excitedly.
Itachi grinned, "I'm sure he will". "Is it done yet?!” Geiju called out, coming back down the stairs.
“Almost” Shouko replied. “Zametora-kun, can you help set the table?” he asked, Itachi nodded and went over to help Geiju.
"Thanks, Ita-Kun!" Geiju said gratefully. Itachi and Geiju worked together to place the plates on the table. Geiju grabbed the cups and Itachi placed plates on the table.
"And done!" Shouko said, grinning. “Yay,” Geiju said, and Shouko pulled out a bottle of orange juice. Shouko then brought over the curry and Itachi poured the juice into the cups.
“Let's eat!” Shouko said, giving Itachi and Geiju a smile. "Thanks for having me here," Itachi said, grabbing a fork. Geiju nodded, smiling widely as he grabbed his own spoon.
Everyone dug in, and Itachi couldn't stop thinking about how cute Geiju was. Geiju was super polite, always saying please and thank you.
"Is good,” Geiju said, "Thank you, Im glad you like it!" Shouko replied. Itachi smiled, he felt odd being in the presence of family love, when he had dinner with his father, they never talked, sometimes His father would berate him, or he wasn't there at all. On those days he would just order a pizza or heat up leftovers. Shouko's food tasted really good, better than anything that he had ever eaten. Geiju was staring at Itachi, smiling happily at him.
“We should watch a movie after dinner” Shouko said, looking between Itachi and Geiju. “My neighbor Totoro” Geiju quickly said, making everyone laugh at how quickly he said it.
They all huddled up on the couch. Geiju cuddled up to Itachi, making him smile. Geiju had his head on Itachi's shoulder. He felt like he was part of the family now.
This. This is where he belonged.
Itachi was so happy; he hadn't felt this way since his mom left.
He had been abandoned by his mother and his father is abusive, but now he had found a family who loved him.
Finally.

Hey all,
Hope you’re having a great weekend so far!!!
What are you up to today?! Let me know, down below! :)
—-
I wanted to give a quick little review on the Level One - Board Game Meetings on Thursday’s @ 6 pm! (Im not sure if this is weekly, but I believe it is!)
$8 for entrance, + whatever for your food : drinks !
Maybe you’ve noticed the posts before, (example here - https://www.reddit.com/ottawa/comments/xkcn8f/weekly_board_game_meetup_at_level_one/ ) — I really am unsure how old that post is , I googled and pasted! …or saw someone mention it in their post / comment!
——-

Stars

As much as I enjoyed trying something new and different … at the end of it, I was pretty burnt out !! (and honestly had a rest day the next day - yesterday)
So here’s the stars!
Board games? - 5/5
Lots of board games to play!! I mean, its a board game pub! They got pretty much everything!
Staff - 5/5
The people workin away were friendly, and fast!
Layout - 2/5
I wish I could rank this higher. I just can’t! Even when there were ~30 people, its hard to hear!! (Maybe I’m just hard of hearing!?) but you either had to talk in the other persons ear or talk really loudly!!! Sometimes left me really confused as to what another person is saying — and felt really bad when that would happen!
… its just something about the layout that makes it off…
To improve this, I’d definitely make walls and separate sections for groups with doors on it. Would probably lower the noise level down a bit, hopefully!!
People - 5/5
I mean there’s a ton of people to talk to if a person wishes to, or sticks with their “group” and gets to know them better! Everyone seemed bubbly and happy to be there!! Wasn’t much of people lookin at their phones and actually connecting with the game / mingling away and enjoying the night… so it was really nice to see that!! (and get less screentime in, as well!)
—-
Overall Experience - 5/5
Yes, the layout is bad… but its really not something I think the people hosting the event can change?!
It was a fun experience, different something to do from what I normally get up to… helped me socialize and meet some people!! It really elevated my crummy mood !
-//-

Do I think you should go?

Honestly, why not try it? I mean, it may be out of your comfort zone, but when you push past that comfort zone — you’re actually connecting with your true self… and when that happens, you might find out if you truly enjoy being out and about… or alone… or maybe you like both! It’ll push you to possibly be more comfortable socializing away if you aren’t already !
It doesn’t hurt to try it out and enjoy the Board Game Meetups! Dont have to stay for long if you don’t want to!! Your call!! You do you!
…. Theres also a discord, if you use it!! (So if you didn’t talk to someone or wanted to talk more — always can on the discord if you didnt get their info beforehand!)
Maybe I’ll see you there next time! Who knows!! We shall see!
———-
Little bit more of a read, if you wanted to read more of my first time going!
///
It was my first time going to Level One in general, as well!! I was super unsure what to expect!! I was really, really, really anxious at the start of things… but honestly, I’m really unsure why!
I went at 6:30 and stayed til 9:30! Somehow I managed to stay out and mingle for 3 hours!
I didn’t try the food, but will definitely have to next time around… just wasn’t hungry as I ate previously!! (What’s everyone’s go-to at Level One?! Let me know, down below — I’ll have to try it at some point!)
The group that I met were all super friendly and welcoming!
As the night went on, the place got loud!! Tons of talking away, laughter, and people came in like flocks! It didn’t feel super overwhelming as I went when it was quieter - got comfortable - and was happy seeing everyone enjoy playin board games!
It started out with a decent amount of people ~30 … and probably had at most ~45? people… (I didn’t obviously count, but! There was a lot!! .. I learned from another person that it doesn’t get super busy like that)
———
Anywho,
Hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day!!
Take care,
Stay safe!
—-
— review —
(repost, because I don’t know why I thought the loft was also called level one, lol..big oops!)

So we close and three and consistently have people bouncing off the doors or pleading. I’m a hard no but we got a review the other day complaining that we wouldn’t let him in 4 minutes after close. What’s the point of having the hours if the customer excuses it away by saying they’re not spending any money? Seems like horrific bargaining posture

Ok, so I have a new 12wk old puppy, had him for about 3wks now. Ive noticed significant issues with him destroying his kennel while we’re away. When we come home his blanket is soaked with drool from panting (not urine, I smell it). Upon recommendation from our vet we’re trying a pheremone spray to help calm him but it doesnt help. Also he’s got 2 chew toys each time we put him in and we’re sure to praise him when he kennels. We’ve worked as hard as we can at kenneling and he’s fine going in but a flip switches once you close the door. We’ve recently video’d him at the request of our vet and after reviewing it, after 1hr and 45 min away, he MAYBE layed down for 15 minutes during the whole time. He’s never left alone longer than about 3hrs and we have neighbors/friends help check on him through the day. Any tips on how we can work with him? Personal experiences?

Virgil Smith, Jacquelin Fazzio, Andrew Cash, Robert Sagan, Lee Cooper, Richard Celli, Casey Hallinan, Michael King, Mark Azzouni, Mark Essick, Sharon Loughner, Sonoma County, The State of California, Juan Campa, The United States, the FBI, the DOJ, David Kahl, Jill Ravitch, Lupe Zinzin, Janell Crane, Lynda Hopkins, Robert Pittman, Joshua Myers, David Ratner, Carla Rodriguez, the Brady List, Melissa Wiekel, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, Donna M. Ryu, Melissa Parmenter, Rafael Garcia, Azuzena Alvarez, Sergio/Sergey Rudin, Tamar M. Burke, The Federal Pro Bono Project / the Justice & Diversity Center, Abby Herzberg, RoseMarie Maliekel, Gloria Chun, Antonia More,
I just want people to know that the Sonoma County government is corrupt. They spent 186 million dollars on a "new courthouse" that is 163k square feet, which works out to $1,100 per square foot, which is over double the second most expensive building I could find was, and over four times the average price per square foot of palaces and museums. And it's just going to look like a giant portable. This is to house some of the most corrupt people in this County, who all make $200-350+k per year (I am including their benefits in that, but not their pension). The entire DA's Office has a vendetta against Civil Rights in general, and will literally knowingly commit criminal violations of laws for the purpose of covering up serious criminal misconduct on the part of Sonoma County employees.
Lynda Hopkins took money from the law enforcement unions, and turns a willfully blind eye to it.
The County Office of Legal Counsel is literally a crime syndicate.
In 2015, the Sheriff's Office had a veritable torture ring in the jail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izcHIv5Y4z8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYrGChrW5HM&list=TLPQMzAwMzIwMjMv0QAOPDy1Lw&index=2
This is just the tip of the iceberg. They lied about the existence of these videos, and "lost" the one where they gave one of the inmates internal bleeding, with a knee to their back.
There was a lawsuit about it. It was called the "Yard Counseling Case". There are news articles about it.
There was an official, written policy, called "Yard Counseling", later its name was changed to "Behavior Counseling" which dictated that for arbitrary punitive measures, Sheriff's Office personnel should extract inmates from their cells individually (which meant slamming their heads onto the door frames on the way out and other abuse), and isolate them, and putting them into "pain compliance" techniques (literally, by definition, torture) for extended periods of time while "counseling" them, which meant wearing no name tags, ski masks and riot gear, carrying a shotgun with them, and insulting them in explicit language for over 20 minutes.
This official written policy was acknowledged by Rob Giordano in a video, where he lies that no inmates where injured, uploaded to YouTube in 2018, when they finally addressed this official written policy, and the practice of torturing inmates without reasonable cause (leading exercise routines, for example).
In 2021, they saw one of the victims of this torture ring, who had sued them and had won, at a peaceful protest, and shot him with a grenade launcher while hiding on a rooftop in the face with a crowd control grenade, which exploded on impact and caused horrific injury that I don't care to describe.
In 2017, I was almost killed by application of a "carotid hold" / lateral vascular neck restraint, by a sheriff's deputy, for literally no reason. A knee was placed on my lower back while I was on the ground on my stomach as well, which caused a serious injury to my kidney, which was the worst injury of my life. I have also been diagnosed with an organic brain injury and cognitive impairment. I was tested for the same type of cognitive impairment before the incident and there is a marked difference, and I have about 30 pages describing the differences I've noticed / troubles I've had in my cognitive functioning. There was no probable cause to arrest me, and I was polite and compliant with all the instructions given to me, and this was confirmed by witnesses. I was punished for invoking my right to remain silent, then my arm was grabbed and yanked up behind me, and then a carotid hold was applied because my body pivoted after the deputy grabbed and yanked my arm.
This occurred UNDER A CAMERA and IN FRONT OF WITNESSES. I called the Sheriff's Office the next day said I want to "make an official complaint in writing". I was transferred to Captain of Internal Affairs, Captain Mark Essick. I repeated my request, verbatim. He responded, verbatim: "We don't do that. Why don't you tell me what happened." I did. I told him it happened right under a camera. He said "The camera can't record." I asked for confirmation. He said the cameras "Don't have recording technology installed."
I asked the County for a claim form. They ignored my request, and instructed me to report the incident to IOLERO. IOLERO requested I meet with Internal Affairs, and I said fine.
Sgt. Andy Cash called me and scheduled me for a meeting at the Sheriff's den. I was made to walk first and guided upstairs to a meeting room, and then patted down for weapons, and the interview was recorded. For 75 minutes I was deposed about happened. He asked me repeatedly about my mental state after the incident. I admitted that I was upset after the incident, and he acted like that justified the whole incident. He explicitly promised to interview the 4 deputies who witnessed the event in addition to the 2 deputies who participated, as well as the arresting officer (who I told him would confirm that I was polite and cooperative), which he agreed "would confirm [my] demeanor", and a bystander witness I told him about.
I complained to IOLERO director Jerry Threet. Mr. Threet agreed that that was inappropriate, then resigned without reviewing the investigation.
For about 4 years review of the investigation was put on hold because IOLERO staff quit, and when more staff was hired, they complained of being understaffed. They had a budget of over a million dollars but only had 2 employees. They only reviewed one case per four months. And they put off "backlogged" cases and focused on new cases. My complaint was finally reviewed by Interim Director Garrick Byers who clearly stated that the investigation was not conducted appropriately. I have the letter from him. That still has never been made public.
After the interview with Internal Affairs, I corresponded with Lynda Hopkins, and she refused to give her opinion on the matter. I specifically complained that the carotid hold was being used recklessly, and it is a dangerous technique. This was in 2018. She forwarded me to Janell Crane, who then had me meet with Kristi Schultz.
I contacted the DA's Office and spoke to Richard Celli (who made $346k in 2017, and has gunned down two unarmed people, and was convicted by a jury in one of the civil cases brought against him by one of the victim's family, but the sentence was overturned by a judge, while working for the SRPD). The first time I spoke to Mr. Celli, he told me that another law enforcement agency should take my case. After that first time, him and the rest of the DA's Office openly refused to comply with the Victims' Rights Laws (CA Con Art. 1 S. 28), and the "policies" (which are legally binding under CA Con Art 5 S. 13) of the Attorney General stating clearly that they are to take complaints from victims if it can't be resolved with the department.
After the first talk with Mr. Celli, I called Rohnert Park Police as I was instructed, and they 3-way called the Sheriff's office and then transferred me. I spent about 30 minutes reporting the incident to a deputy, and he asked me questions in a fair manner. The incident report from the 30 minute phone call was "directed" to Andrew Cash, and was then destroyed, which is literally a state and federal crime. I called RPPD back and talked to the arresting officer and he positively clearly confirmed that I was "polite, calm, compliant, and cooperative" (or something nearly verbatim, I can't remember exactly any more).
Andrew Cash called me the next day, at precisely 7:00 AM. He told me he was driving. He was extremely confrontational with me. He said "There were 6 deputies [referring to the two who used excessive force on me, and 4 witness deputies]. You were combative." This was false. He had only interviewed one of the 4 witness deputies, and the other 3 had provided written statements. They said that they had witnessed force being used, that they had not participated in the use of force to the best of their memory, and that I "did not appear to be resisting". But again, he had promised explicitly to interview the 4 deputy witnesses, and the arresting officer, and the other witnesses (such as the bystander witness who saw the whole incident, the nurse, etc.).
Internal Affairs exonerated the officers. The letter was signed by Eddie Engram, captain of Internal Affairs at that time. I called Mr. Engram, and had an hour long conversation with him, and he told me to contact Sgt. Cash after April 1st.
I filed a federal claim on the last day that it was due.
Mr. Cash referred me to Legal Counselor, Kara Abelson.
Ms. Abelson spent a year and a half refusing to comply with the Public Records Act, the Rules of Procedure, and the Rules of Professional Conduct. She refused to provide me documents that I was entitled to under law, including the incident report written by Deputies Jacquelin Fazzio and Virgil Smith, and the recorded interviews that he promised he would conduct, and stated pretty clearly that he had conducted.
Kara Abelson spent a year and a half trying to claim that my federal complaint was time barred by 1 day when it wasn't. The judge (Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers) entertained this and forced me to respond SEVEN TIMES, before she finally admitted that the "law wouldn't allow [her] to dismiss [my] complaint".
After a year and a half, Kara Abelson finally withdrew from the case after I started citing the Rules of Professional Conduct to her that require her to resign or withdraw from the case rather than defend a civil case where defense isn't warranted. Nobody had disputed any of the allegations I had made. In fact, Eddie Engram had confirmed that what I said happened was not disputed by the evidence.
At some point around this time, either before or after Ms. Abelson withdrew, the 2 incident reports written by the two deputies, the written statements by 3 of the 4 witness deputies, and the recorded interviews with me, the 2 deputies who assaulted me, and 1 of the eye witness deputies, were provided, along with various other records from the facility. In the recorded interview, and the incident report, the deputies admitted that Virgil Smith had applied the carotid hold.
I had also reported the incident to the State Attorney General Public Inquiry Unite (Lupe Zinzin). She had told me, over and over and over, that the local DA's are required to take complaints from civilians in these situations. She refused to call the DA's Office, though. The DA's Office (Richard Celli, Mark Azzouni, David Kahl, and the anonymous receptionists who all refused to provide their names) refused to take a complaint from me. They (including the receptionists) hung up on me every time I called after no more than 2 minutes, for no reason, transferred me to dead lines, never returned any voicemails I managed to leave, told me explicitly that if I send a complaint, they will throw it away, and didn't care, at all, what the laws were. The receptionists also refuse to provide their names. The Attorney General's Office told me to send them a complaint, so I did. The DA's Office acknowledged receiving the complaint. But later said that they did not have a record of it, meaning they threw it away.
The Attorney General's Office finally agreed to take a complaint from me. It sat on their desk for a year. I finally called them, concerned that evidence was being destroyed, and left a voicemail for Casey Hallinan requesting that they request copies of the physical evidence from the Sheriff's Office. Literally 2 days after that voicemail, a letter was sent to me signed by Sharon Loughner with Casey Hallinan CC'ed on the letter, stating that they would "take no action", and blamed the incident on me. I had not received the letter though, and called and spoke to Ms. Hallinan, who was extremely rude. After that, the Attorney General's Office hang up on me as soon as they find out it's me, for no reason. There has since been a bystander witness who saw the whole thing, and it has come to light that the cameras did record, that no upgrades were ever performed like Ms. Abelson alleged, the cameras do continuously record (as of 2019), and they just lied through their teeth about the camera for 4 straight years. The Attorney General's Office does not care. They violate the laws, and do not care what the laws are.
Sonoma County Office of Legal Counsel attorney Michael King took over after Ms. Abelson withdrew. Right off the bat, Mr. King told me that my motions were deficient - a contention he has repeated frequently, since then. I asked him how. He changed the subject, and to this day has NEVER given any explanation as to how any of my motions are deficient.
He continued to claim that my claim was time barred, filing frivolous motions, in blatant violation of the rules of professional conduct, after I cited the rules to him, constituting explicit legal misconduct.
As I said, the judge finally agreed to open Discovery after a year and a half of full time work trying to fight for my right to not be nearly murdered for no reason.
Lawyers do not take these cases unless there is undeniable proof of blatant guilt, along with undeniable proof of catastrophic injury. Multiple law firms have confirmed that it takes over a million dollars worth of legal work to get these cases to trial.
The judge also promised me a pro bono attorney "if you make it past summary judgment".
The judge scheduled us for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) hearing with a magistrate judge. Mr. King elicited an offer from me, which I spent about 2 weeks working on, trying to make it as agreeable as possible. But then for the hearing, his written offer was to waive charging me his attorneys fees. The ADR magistrate confirmed that there was no legal basis for him to do that - it would be illegal. He had been ordered to participate in this hearing, and there was a legal obligation under the Rules of Procedure to try in good faith to settle the case. He violated the order and the rule of procedure (26 (f)).
All of my motions were completely ignored for no reason.
Mr. King / Defendant Virgil Smith lied about the cameras. They said "Denies the existence of cameras capable of recording in the vicinity", in writing, under oath. They never disputed that he put his knee on top of my back with all his weight on it.
Mr. King refused to comply with his Discovery obligations. I had to file about 4 different motions pertaining to their refusal to comply with the laws regarding disclosure of evidence.
Upon receiving an official Discovery request for records of camera equipment, I received a letter signed under oath by Mr. King (nearly 4 years after the incident) stating that the cameras CAN RECORD. But stating "tasks must be performed" to start the recording function, and stating that all records pertaining to the equipment that was installed at the time HAD BEEN DESTROYED (literally a federal and state crime, a civil tort violation, and a sanctionable act of legal misconduct).
Mr. King refused to schedule any of the witnesses for deposition, demanded MY deposition BEFORE he would even schedule the two deputies who assaulted me, even though I had been requesting depositions with other witnesses for over a month, and refused to schedule anyone else, he refused to answer interrogatories, he refused to provide copies of the policies from the time of the incident. He tried to pass off a weird spreadsheet with the word camera on it as proof that upgrades had been done to the cameras. He refused to provide complete training records for the deputies. He refused to provide details about the training. He refused to provide blueprints of the facility, refused to provide photos of the cameras at the location, refused to provide still images showing which direction the cameras were pointing, was caught lying under oath (and "penalty of perjury") multiple times, refused to provide photos of the deputies so I could schedule depositions efficiently.
The judge erroneously dismissed my Equal Protection claims, construing them as Due Process and Employment Discrimination claims, which are different types of claims than Equal Protection claims against a government actor. The government cannot arbitrarily treat anyone disparately. The Court also dismissed my "Monell" claim against the municipality for their "policies, customs, or practices", but left me leave to amend that claim. And she waited until Discovery opened over 1.5 years into litigation, to do this, forcing me to amend the complaint DURING DISCOVERY which was only open for a limited amount of time, instead of any point in the 1.5 years prior to that.
In the recorded interview with Andrew Cash and one of the witness deputies, she spontaneously states that Mr. Cash instructed her to review the written statements made by the two deputies who assaulted me prior to the interview. Another deputy witness confirmed that Mr. Cash had instructed her to review the written reports by the two deputies who assaulted me prior to her providing Mr. Cash with a written statement as well.
The judge finally retaliated against me, without rational basis, for filing motions, which I had filed because I was being illegally obstructed from preserving evidence, by withdrawing leave to amend regarding the "Monell" claim (I had stated a clear Monell claim to begin with, but the judge literally has an aversion to reading, and relies on guessing, and is biased against pro se litigants; I am summarizing well over 100 pages, if not well over double that, of motions, objections, and replies and the judge's responsive orders).
She did however, finally schedule a hearing with a Discovery referee magistrate. All my motions (and the months of work I was required to do dictated by the various rules) was completely disregarded, and both me and Mr. King were given 2 pages each (double spaced) to go over discovery issues, even though I had filed about 4 different motions about various issues, and he hadn't filed ANY, about Discovery issues, and never did.
During conference I was required to do in accordance with the Rules, Mr. King repeatedly tried to establish that I had committed crimes during the course of conferring which was my legal obligation, without having any rational basis to believe what he was trying to establish. He demanded evidence that would exist, and he kept repeating every lie he could come up with to the judge. The judge would either get annoyed at me if I addressed any of Mr. King's baseless accusations, or take his statements at face value for being 100% true.
Mr. King finally "compromised" and agreed to schedule depositions with me (as long as Mr. King wanted to) and the two deputies who had assaulted me (for 25 minutes each or something) all simultaneously, but refused to schedule anyone else, even though this was grossly advantageous to him, and in blatant violation of Rule 26 of Civil Procedure. One of the eye witness deputies later confirmed that he had "consulted" her over 4 times prior to the trial. During this deposition, Mr. King asked me where a family member of mine works. He had spent about 30-40 minutes trying to convince me that I can tell him anything, that the entire record was designated confidential, that I had nothing to worry about - and at a deposition, you are obligated to answer the questions unless they are harassing. Mr. King also requested contact information for counselors from over 10 years ago, and that was the only question I didn't answer - I told him to provide the request in writing. At some point after that, I told Mr. King to not contact my family member at her workplace, and Mr. King responded "unless you fully and completely cooperate" with his request for contact information for counselors from 10 years+ ago, he would do exactly that - harass my family member with subpoenas sent to her workplace, as I had requested he not do, without EVER REQUESTING A DEPOSITION WITH HER, just using it as leverage.
At the hearing, the Discovery Magistrate (Donna M. Ryu) discussed matters only with Mr. King, without including me. He told her that the 4 eye witness deputies "saw nothing" and "weren't there" (verbatim) trying to get her to deny me my request to take their deposition. She asked him if he would get them to sign fresh "sworn declarations", "under oath" (Judge Ryu's words, verbatim) stating this. Mr. King said yes, absolutely, he would. Judge Ryu asked me "Would that be okay?" I said "No." She started laughing, and asked me why, and I explained that I had explicitly described various interactions with them that had taken place while the carotid hold was still being applied to me, and that they had stated in their written statements that they had witnessed force being used, and that I was "not resisting". She confirmed that this was all true with Mr. King and that he already knew all of this, and ordered him to cooperate with scheduling them for deposition. Mr. King then repeated the same phrases "saw nothing", "weren't there" to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers prior to the trial.
After that, they went back to discussing matters only with eachother, and I was excluded from discussion. This was an hour long hearing, and at about the 45 minute mark, Mr. King was again lying to the magistrate judge, and when he had finished, I interjected, "That's not true". Judge Ryu shouted "Stop! Stop stop stop stop stop!" And then very assertively explained to me the importance of not interrupting people for the convenience of the court reporter / transcriber. I was excluded from the rest of the hearing.
At some point at either this hearing or the next one, I cited the legal requirement for the parties to disclose contact information for witnesses. I cited the rule of procedure. Judge Ryu responded, "Mr. King is a lawyer!" as if that alone justified his refusal to provide me contact information for EYE witnesses who saw the event. Mr. King and Ms. Abelson had also claimed that they did not have the contact information for the bystander witness (which was a lie), and refused to provide the contact information for the nurse. And when Magistrate Ryu ordered them to provide that, they only gave me the company name he used to work for.
Mr. King refused to provide both fresh written statements from the eye witness deputies as he had promised the magistrate, and to schedule them for deposition, and stated that if he provided written statements, they would be copied and pasted versions of the same statements previously provided, signed under oath (nowhere saying that they "saw nothing" or "weren't there").
Mr. King kept threatening to go to my family member's workplace unless I provided him contact information for counselors from 10+ years ago, DURING a DEPOSITION, without him providing any written request for the information.
He also interfered with scheduling the witnesses for deposition, with the Court reporter that I had hired, disregarded the schedule that I had set, and set them according to his own schedule, which raised the cost of deposition from an estimated about $700 to about $4,000, and said this was my one and only chance.
The Federal Pro Bono Project / the Justice & Diversity Center is an organization that receives seven million dollars a year in public funding and is under contract with the Federal District Court to work with the Court to provide legal consultation to pro se litigants. I had about 19 appointments with them, about 18 with Abby Herzberg, and 1 with Rosemarie Maliekel. Ms. Herzberg was precisely 15 minutes late to every single appointment, repeatedly gave me horrible advice ("just wait", do nothing, "don't file this", despite admitting that the entire motion was valid, directly causing excessive delay and the spoliation of crucial evidence). She also yelled at me aggressively on two occasions because I had brought up state laws, which were being currently violated against me, because the Court had dismissed my "state claims" because Sonoma County refused to supply with a state tort claim form when I first asked, reasoning that was not relevant to the state laws being currently violated against me. After Ms. Herzberg yelled at me the second time, I requested an appointment with Rosemarie Maliekel. Ms. Maliekel spent the entire appointment ranting at me about irrelevant issues, and kept talking over me and interrupting me. I was polite but eventually asked "can I finish what I was saying?" She responded "No!" and kept ranting at me.
I had repeatedly asked about how to properly get medical evidence, and about expert witnesses. Ms. Herzberg ignored my questions and spent nearly the entirety of almost every single appointment reading (or pretending to) through the rules, without letting me speak at all, even to summarize the relevant sections of the rules that I had read.
On a video on their webpage (on the Court's website, because they are a "partner project" with the Court), Abby Herzberg explicitly demonstrates a clear understanding of the fact that the Court provides funding for expert witnesses, despite ignoring my questions about that and spending nearly the entirety of almost every single appointment either reading rules or pretending to.
Discovery was closed.
Mr. King rehashed the legally baseless and frivolous "time barred" claim in a Motion for Summary Judgment. I was required to respond to it twice, and it was obvious Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wanted to dismiss my claim, and I was required to disprove their baseless legal claims with several tens of pages of case laws. I was required to answer all his "undisputed material facts" under threat of terminating my entire case, but he refused to answer mine. He lied over and over to the judges. As I said, the judge ruled that the laws "wouldn't allow [her] to" dismiss my entire case and rejected his Motion for Summary Judgement.
The Court ordered the Federal Pro Bono Project (FPBP) to put me on a list for attorneys seeking clients. Ms. Herzberg told me that if I filed any motions, that the FPBP would not cooperate with the Court's order, until 1 month before my trial, instead of 6 months before. She also said that a law firm had reached out to them about my case over a month prior to that, and that the staff at the FPBP had not followed up. My filing privileges were then revoked by the Court.
An attorney, David Ratner, reached out to me, and scheduled an initial consultation, over Zoom, at which he stated he "hates cops", and gave a showing of being enthusiastic. I explicitly told him that I wanted to make sure we were on the same page as far as what to "aim for". I told him that I had been working for FIVE YEARS, that I had almost died, that I had suffered two different extremely serious injuries (though I was up front about the injuries being surreptitious and that there had been major delays and flaws with medical evaluation, due to the hospitals not taking my insurance at the time, and ongoing delays because of Covid, and other reasons). I told him that what I asked for was consistent with the most similar case (the Esa Wroth case of 2013) that I knew of (an ask of three million dollars). This was coincidental. I was not aware of the Esa Wroth case when I came up with that number. I agonized over the number to ask for, and had tried SEVERAL times to resolve the case for a tiny fraction of that amount, with Kristi Shultz, with Janell Crane, with Lynda Hopkins, several times with Ms. Abelson who refused to even hear me out, and SEVERAL TIMES with Mr. King, and spent a lot of time trying to come up with a amount that would be MUTUALLY AGREEABLE, EACH TIME and described the methods I used to come up with that number in detail in court documents. Mr. Ratner explicitly agreed to aim for that at the trial. During the Zoom conference, his partner Shelley Mollineaux, showed up about 15 minutes late, stayed for about 3 minutes without saying anything, Mr. Ratner made an awkwardly flirtatious remark to her, and she left without saying anything at all.
Mr. Ratner, and Ms. Mollineaux, who was set to represent me at trial under Mr. Ratner's supervision, then both went dark for over a month. They ignored my emails, voicemails, and messages that I left with their receptionists. There was a hearing, and then Mr. Ratner emailed me demanding "all the documents" that I had. I had over 50 gb of files across thousands of files, and spent about a month working with his paralegals sending them batches of files, and providing all the information they asked me for. Mr. Ratner forwarded me an email from Mr. King where King accused me of violating a court order regarding providing medical providers and the physical addresses of my entire family and my friends, which was false -- the Court had ordered me to provide him CONTACT information, at a second hearing, which wasn't significant, and I had fully and completely complied in good faith with all the Court's orders. Mr. Ratner accused me of not sending him "anything", after I had spent at least several weeks with his paralegals sending them batches of files and information, and he simultaneously threatened to ask the judge for leave to withdraw.
There had been major delays with medical evaluation due in large part to Covid, as well as delayed discovery of brain injury, which is very common, and other factors.
With trial set, Mr. Ratner forwarded me an offer from Defendants for $5,000. Upon discussion (which was 100% in email because he refused to talk over the phone and Ms. Mollineaux completely ignored me), he accused me of not doing Discovery right. I pointed him to the video I referred to earlier, which I had found since Mr. Ratner took my case, but wasn't aware of when I was interacting with the FPBP, where the FPBP (Abby Herzberg), and various District Judges from the Court I was litigating in, state that it is general policy (and it is official policy under the Court's General Order 25) to REOPEN DISCOVERY when a pro bono attorney comes onto the case, and to FUND DEPOSITION AND EXPERT WITNESS FEES.
Mr. Ratner stated he "won't file any motions" and ultimately elected to withdraw from the case over fulfill his legal obligations under the Rules of Professional Conduct. Judge Gonzalez Rogers IGNORED MY REQUEST FOR A HEARING, and in her order granting him leave to withdraw about 2 months before my trial, thanked him. I had spent a ton of time trying to find private attorneys and trying to talk to the FPBP, telling them very clearly that I expected to be put back on the list.After Mr. Ratner withdrew, the FPBP refused to put me back on the list. I was forced into trial BY MYSELF, at 1-2 months prior to trial, after 3 months of my time being completely wasted by Mr. Ratner and his law firm.
I went through the appropriate legal process to submit an expert witness. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, as usual, completely ignored my motions, but allowed me to use him after I went through the entire legal process, and paid him thousands of dollars without knowing if I would be granted permission or not, and provided the Court a report stating that the carotid hold was ILLEGAL unless the subject exhibited "assaultive behavior" and that Defendants had never alleged any behavior of mine that constituted "assaultive behavior" (under POST Basic, during 2017). The expert was a Master level instructor at a police academy and former SWAT.
Mr. King provided his pre-trial disclosures, and it contained a document from Rohnert Park police department which had been extensively redacted on the copy that they had provided to me. The new copy contained the contact information for the bystander witness. I called him, and he confirmed that he saw the entire thing, that I had never yelled at the deputies before the first deputy grabbed my arm, and that I was not resisting at any point in time. I told the judge this. She had me call him at a hearing, and both me and Mr. King were allowed a couple of minutes to ask him questions, where he refused to admit that I was even "wiggling" when Mr. King badgered him.
RPPD later sent me the email correspondence between them and Mr. King and Mr. King clearly stated that he had that copy in his records without them sending it, but wanted them to send it to appear official, meaning they had the contact information for the bystander witness the entire time, when they repeatedly lied that they didn't have it.
The judge then refused to allow him to appear at the trial over Zoom (during the height of Covid, even though she let one of the deputies), and refused to summon him to the trial.
Just prior to the trial, the Judge accused me falsely of firing my attorney, and explicitly prohibited me from telling the jury about ANY of the Defendants previous statements about the camera's ability to record (that they had lied about it for 4 years). She explicitly prohibited me from submitting scientific evidence about the carotid hold. She allowed Mr. King to make extremely defamatory false remarks about me and my past which had a huge impact on the jury's perception of things. At a pretrial hearing, we had gone over about 110 documents that I wanted to present at the trial. She vetted about 40 as admissible at the hearing, but at the trial she only let me submit about 4. Defendants were allowed to submit a SECOND expert witness, both of whom worked for the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. The first was Andrew Cash. The second was James Naugle who had been disclosed literally a week before trial, without a report, and without allowing me to take his deposition. She refused to allow me to ask Mr. Naugle about case laws, or about information pertaining to the carotid hold. The Court refused to summon any of my treating physicians, whom I had provided the names and contact information for in my disclosures at the end of Discovery and some in my initial disclosures, and I had complied with Mr. King's written requests for information or objected within the boundaries of the laws (which I quoted and cited), in good faith, and complied with the Court's orders, in good faith.
I had informed the Court that I was scheduled for medical evaluations for brain injury AFTER THE TRIAL. The Court completely ignored this.
So it was my word against theirs. 5 years, at the time of the mistrial, to get a mockery of a trial, and have the jurors' time completely wasted. The jury wrote me a letter thanking me or something, but awarded me nothing.
I was diagnosed with organic brain injury after the trial. I had a similar test prior to the incident and had absolutely no problems and answered every question with no trouble. I now score in the FOURTH PERCENTILE on those areas.
Despite its length, this has been a short summary of all the events over the past 6 years. Much has been summarized, and much has been left out. I tried my best to balance completeness with leaving out irrelevant details.
There is no record of any misconduct on the part of anyone involved in this that is available to any law enforcement agencies or to the public. Nobody has been disciplined. No investigation was ever conducted. I was almost killed and was seriously injured, under a camera, and in front of witnesses, and spent 6 years working with the government. The government has done precisely NOTHING.
The County now routinely retaliates against me whenever we interact, in blatant violation of various laws.

Genre: Post Metal/Folk Metal
Release Date: 13th August 2002
Streaming:

• Spotify
• Apple Music
• Soundcloud
• Youtube

Description:
(Sputnikmusic - Sowing)
Review Summary: The Mantle is everything that you just can’t find the words to describe, and that is what makes it one of the most intriguing albums of the past decade.
I have heard many music critics lament the difficulties of reviewing Agalloch’s The Mantle. Their complaints are not unwarranted, as the album combines elements of black metal, acoustic folk, and atmospheric rock unlike anything I have ever heard. The Mantle itself seems to personify that indescribable nature, with its overall mood hovering somewhere between the despair in each of John Haughm’s growls and the harmonic, beautifully sung verses that blend in with the record’s spectacular guitar work. There is a mysterious nature that accompanies Agalloch’s sophomore album, and it possesses the uncanny ability to stump even the most verbally adept writers. It is albums like this that make music worth reviewing, worth sharing, and ultimately, worth giving credit to as a benchmark of twentieth century folk and metal music.
One of the things that lends The Mantle its element of mystique is its atmosphere. Not how they use synthesizers and ambience to produce an atmosphere, not how they shamelessly plug in a derivative concept to tie the songs together…no, Agalloch does not stoop that low. They do it the old-fashioned way: by utilizing each instrument to reflect their emotions. Throughout The Mantle, the band creates something so unique yet so tangible that you have no choice but to sink into this thing, whatever it is that they have crafted. At times you will be frightened by the sense that you are alone, wandering through desolate, snowy woodlands like the elk on the front cover…while other times, you will be rendered speechless by the waves and waves of stunningly gorgeous soundscapes that grace your ears. The Mantle is all about the experience, and just like a journey through the wilderness, it is best to start from the beginning and see it through to the end.
Agalloch kicks things off with a flourishing acoustic instrumental, “A Celebration for the Death of Man”, which also features some imposing and slightly unnerving poundings of the drum. The resulting thunderous echoes announce that despite the song’s inviting nature, danger may be afoot. While the opening track isn’t a major highlight of the album, it certainly plays an integral role in The Mantle’s atmospheric development. The serene-sounding guitars and crystal clear production coexist with the hint of a darker edge, much like the album’s whole. “In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion” is where Agalloch’s true genius begins to reveal itself, as the guitars transition from acoustic to electric, and the music gradually blends metal influences with the folk/indie elements that “A Celebration for the Death of Man” exuded with such great abundance. The first appearance of lead vocalist John Haughm doesn’t occur until just under five minutes into the album, and his growls are haunting and demonic sounding, but not overpowering. This blends in quite well with the meticulously crafted instrumental surroundings, allowing the vocals to serve as yet another contributor to the dense but surprisingly listenable atmosphere. Alternating between light screams, whispers, growls, and clean vocals, Haughm adds a whole new dimension to The Mantle, including tragically poetic lyrics that seem to depict a loss of innocence: “Like every hope I've ever had, like every dream I've ever known. . .It washed away in a tide of longing, a longing for a better world.”
The Mantle actually progresses in a similar, almost cyclical, fashion as the first two songs, as the entire album alternates between instrumental and vocal tracks. The instrumentals make up almost half of the album, which proves to be one of The Mantle’s few potential downfalls: the recurring, continual nature of the music is only appealing for the album’s sixty-eight minute duration if you are astute enough to pick out the subtle differences and minor progressions made between each song. A casual listener may deem the record’s instrumental-vocal-instrumental-vocal tracklisting to be redundant, which it can certainly be in the grand scheme of things and over its incredibly vast scope. However, the way that Agalloch refuses to abandon either style in pursuit of a singularly “heavy” or “soft” sound remains one of the most admirable traits of The Mantle.
The alternation of song-styles actually works quite well for the most part. “Odal” possesses a post-rock sound that drops into a few slower, elegant valleys before climbing to a magnificent crescendo; and then like one collective exhale, the song unwinds to dazzling acoustic guitars and the sound of a bone-chilling wind. “I Am The Wooden Doors”, easily the heaviest song on The Mantle, then quickly picks up the pace with fast, unrelenting drumming and some of Haughm’s most aggressive sounding growls and screams. The album’s defining moment, though, would have to be “You Were But a Ghost In My Arms”, which is ridiculously catchy and accessible in comparison to its bleak surroundings. The song features just about every style encompassed by The Mantle, thus serving as something of a sampler plate of vocal and instrumental techniques utilized over the course of the album’s runtime. “A Desolation Song” eventually closes out the entire experience with what can best be described as an Irish folk tune featuring spoken, whispered vocals.
The Mantle is a masterful combination of several different musical ideas and genres. The way that Agalloch ties them all together is nothing short of jaw-dropping, as they fuse everything into one melting pot type of atmosphere. At times, the album is reminiscent of Opeth’s Damnation, with an acoustic driven atmosphere that is dreary but tremendously addicting. Other times, it treads the line between the bombast of a post rock record and the reserved, quaint nature of indie-folk. The lack of one album-defining genre lends The Mantle an air of mystique, which serves to draw in fans of an entire wealth of musical styles. Here, Agalloch illustrates the difference between a musician and an artist. The Mantle captivates us and keeps us spellbound in so many different ways, and that is what makes it so difficult for listeners to describe. But one thing is for sure….this is more than just music. This is art.
Discussion Ideas:

• Praise?
• Criticisms?
• Personal experiences
• Best/Worst tracks?
• Has the album impacted the Metal scene?
• How has the artist evolved and was/is it a good direction?
• General thoughts?

I am so disgusted with DoorDash. I enjoy my work and make decent money, but management is a joke.
I got texts alerting me to Challenges near my area, in the next state over. “Earn an extra $300 for completing 15 deliveries in Savannah by 3/23/23” and another one “by 3/30/23.” I completed both and am able to prove it.
The first support agent I spoke with said I would receive the money in 24 hours. The second support agent I spoke with said upon reviewing my info, I qualified for completing the challenge and would receive the money within 5 business days. Guess what? It’s been more than 5 business days, still no money.
I reached out to support again, and the agent said this issue would be sent to the Escalation team. In two emails, I was asked to provide info to confirm my account and to provide all relevant information to help them resolve the issue faster. I did that, I sent them all requested info and all screenshots of the texts I received alerting me to the challenges, and all screenshots of the conversations I had with those 2 support agents (I don’t ever fuck around anymore, I screenshot all my chats with support because they’ve lied to me too many times).
And what happened then? I got an email from them saying my info I provided to verify my account is incorrect and they can’t help me until I provide correct info. That is BULLSHIT! I triple checked the info and it’s 100% correct. I emailed back and said it’s correct, please make sure it’s entered correctly on their end. To be continued…
It feels like they’re trying to fuck me out of the $600 I’m owed. But I won’t give up.
Anyone else experience something like this? If they continue bullshiting me and say they won’t pay me what I’m owed, then I would love to unite with other DoorDash drivers who have been fucked over like this by them and start a class action lawsuit, they shouldn’t be able to just get away with fucking their drivers with false promises.

England
So background timeline
Guy comes and prices up our windows and doors We agree price and timeline Immediately after paying deposit he delays timeline by 2 months ( immediately as in half an hour after receiving bank transfer clearly knew he couldn't do job in time) We cancel immediately He refuses to repay deposit We take him to court and win He still refuses to pay We escalate to sherrifs court claim (can't remember name) Bailiffs go round He has 2 laptops and 2 desks all of which he proved he paid on his credit card Bailiff has no choice but to leave We then receive barrage of texts mocking our attempts at getting money back.
As he is ltd company his assets don't count.
This was £4,500 deposit and left us in a mess with regard to this was savings and we can now no longer afford to get the windows we need
I can't allow him to get away with this and trust pilot reviews clearly show he is also doing it to other people
Legally where can we go with this we already have ccj against company - can we force winding up the company? Change to his name?
Thought about reporting him to police for fraud as he clearly was not going to do the work but honestly feel they won't take it seriously?
Please help me not allow him to get away with our money?

Throwaway account because I don't want to be doxed.
Would appreciate ideas on activities or other things that would help me connect with students outside of class. I could just be paranoid, but I feel as if one person in my department really doesn't like me and is going out of their way to limit my exposure to students via traditional means. But first, a little background.
When I started in my department two years ago, I taught the large intro classes for our major. Students loved it, my reviews were excellent, and I always had students waiting to talk to me in my office. I received several student mentions in an annual survey the university conducts and I was honored at an award ceremony (not just me, but everyone in the university who was identified by students.)
My schedule was suddenly changed over winter break so that instead of the large classes, I was suddenly teaching very small classes on a different topic, and a different faculty member was teaching one of the small classes. The faculty member I am suspicious of, whose office is three doors down from mine, was suddenly teaching one of those classes.
I was surprised by the sudden change and asked my chair about it, and the chair said he realized I probably needed some breathing room to publish. This didn't make sense since I've had the highest number of publications in the department each year since I've been here, and I have two manuscripts out for review right now. I am balancing everything just fine. As an untenured faculty member I wasn't going to question the chair further so I just said okay, but that I am happy to teach those classes.
Then, I was the official faculty sponsor for our student organization, but suddenly a policy went into place where we have to rotate this role every two years, so I was suddenly out and that same prof is leading the organization now. I would not be that suspicious except this organization sat dormant for years, even before Covid, because no one wanted to bother. I picked it up and ran with it, and then it was taken away.
This other faculty member has tenure. I could just be paranoid, but it seems as if everything I do that is student-centered and connects me to students is suddenly taken from me. We have modest advising duties, with more emphasis on career counseling because scheduling at this university is centralized. I enjoyed this also, always had students hanging out long past their appointments, and suddenly I lost the campus students and am now advising the online students. When asked, the department chair said the personnel committee (of which that same faculty member is the chair) decided we need to lighten the load of untenured faculty when it came to advising. This didn't really make sense because we still meet with online students on Zoom when they want to talk to us. I know these students need career help, too, but doing all of it via Zoom has been deflating.
Anyway, this particular faculty member has a lot of influence on the chair. Regardless of the reasons for this, I don't feel comfortable raising my suspicions that this person is undermining me.
I am a new Ph.D. and single and this is the point in my life when I actually have the ability to invest this much extra time in students. I love teaching and gave up an offer at a Research I to come to this Research II because I actually wanted the student interaction. Now, I teach small, low-impact classes, do not lead any student organization, and I advise online. I'm very sad, to be honest.
I miss having students lined out the door talk to me. I am still young(ish) and can connect with them in a way I doubt I will be able to when I'm gray, married, and rushing out the door because I have to make it to my kid's soccer game (if I'm lucky enough to have that life some day.) But for today, I want my students.
I am asking for ideas on things that I can do to engage with students that can't be taken away from me. It's going to be hard, anyway, because I don't have those large intro classes any more. My discipline is in social science. Can anyone help me with ideas to engage with students that aren't from classes, our student org, or advising, because those avenues have all been closed to me?
And yes, I do plan on going on the market if things continue in this manner, but in the meantime, I'm open to advice on how to get connected with students.

I’m from a very small town. One that any minor event gets gossiped to death about. It felt like everyone lived in glass houses at times. If I skipped school the entire neighborhood would know before my last class ended. I wanted to move out of this town as soon as possible. After what happened, I got stuck here for a little while longer.
At the edge of town was a bus stop I’d never seen used by anyone. When a man started to appear waiting at night, rumors started within the day. I ignored such a minor event, but my best friend Duncan refused to drop it. After three days Duncan showed up at my place at dusk. That wasn’t unusual. We often walked down to the corner store for before-bed snacks. My mother called me down and I grabbed some change on reflex. I greeted him and told my mother we would be back shortly.
Duncan talked about the day on the walk. For some reason, he kept going by the store and towards his house.
“Dude, what’s up?” I asked him, my head nodding to the small plaza.
“You left your bike at my place yesterday. Let’s go get it and see the bus stop.” He said with no room for disagreements.
I still spoke up after a long groan. I knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to see that random guy that showed up at night. From what I’ve heard the dude was crazy and the kids at school called him a really stupid name.
“We’re not going to see the stupid Bologna Man. Like, who even calls themselves that?” I said with another groan.
“It’ll be cool. I want to record it and put it on my channel. I’ll hit a ton of subs for sure!” Duncan said, eyes bright.
He'd recently gotten into making videos about cryptids and urban legends. Our local legend was a guy standing at a bus stop dressed in clothing from the wrong time period. I doubted this would get him any kind of views. If I refused to go, Duncan would go on his own. That was dangerous. I didn’t want him to get into trouble. For his safety, I relented. Duncan wasn’t overly bright. I didn’t really like him at times, but I really lack choices when it came to friends. Looking back on it now, I wished I let him go alone. It wouldn’t have changed what happened to him.
I sent my mother a text saying I was going to hang out at Duncan’s place for a bit. It was a weekend, so she wasn’t worried. I then turned off my phone because it was low battery-wise. I only charged it when I went to bed at night. If I kept it on, it would have died before we reached the bus stop.
We took our bikes to ride down to the edge of town. It wasn’t very far. The streetlights guided us to our destination, and it felt like the warm late spring breeze on our backs pushed us forward. The ride was nice despite what we were heading off to do.
Duncan got to the bus stop first. It was just a bench on the side of the road with a faded sign. A trail led off into the forest which I’d never taken, and I didn’t know where it led. A man sat in the dark. A streetlight on the other side of the road is the only source of light. He didn’t look over toward us. Duncan jumped off his bike, letting it fall to the side. I treated mine better and leaned it on the kickstand. I stopped behind Duncan hoping he got the shots he wanted so we could leave.
“Hey! Bologna Man!” Duncan said in an abrasive tone making me flinch.
The man slowly turned his head towards us. We made eye contact, and I felt my heart skip a few beats. He was the strangest person I’ve ever seen. He wore a very large-brimmed black hat. The brim was a perfect circle around his head. Wavy light grey hair spilled out from under the hat. He wore a dark wool coat even though it was pretty warm out. When Duncan called out again, the man stood to address us. He moved his coat aside to place a hand in a vest pocket. His pinstripe pants were well-pressed and matched his waistcoat. I realized he looked much like a wealthy man in the westerns my father liked forcing us to watch on Sundays. Aside from his outdated outfit, his eyes freaked me out. They looked far too light as if he was wearing light silver contacts.
“Now, what are you two boys doing out so late at night?” The stranger asked in a cool voice.
He had a hint of a Southern drawl. I half expected him to pull out a pocket watch to check the time and tell us to ‘hurry along now.’ Instead, he just gave a smile that didn’t appear as comforting as he thought.
“We wanted to see the new weirdo that rolled into town. You know you dress like a dork, right?” Duncan mocked.
I raised my eyebrow at him. A dork? Why was I friends with this guy? He had his phone out to record the entire interaction. I doubted he would get any good footage due to the low light. The man narrowed his eyes at the both of us. He didn’t move other than that, but he suddenly felt extremely threatening.
“I think your mothers should review how they raised the pair of you.” He commented in a low voice.
“And I think your mother should be locked up for giving you such a dumb name. I mean, Bologna? What’s that all about?” Duncan pushed.
“Hey, dude this isn't right. We should go.” I said but lacked any confidence in my statement.
I reached to take a hold of my friend’s arm, but he shrugged me off. The man’s face twitched for a second. I really thought he was going to pull out a weapon. Instead, he let out a long sigh to relax. With an over-exaggerated shrug, he slightly turned away from us.
“I have never had such a thing. Might have been nice to be in the company of a mother. But no such luck on my end. That silly little nickname is something you humans have given me. I do wish it lost favor. However, it doesn’t matter. It's just a name.” He said clearly trying to stay calm.
This guy was crazy. The outfit should have been a dead giveaway. I wanted to leave but a small part of myself actually wanted Duncan to get the video he wanted. I could see the comments this conversation would get. The idea of the online mockery got the better of me for a second.
“Do you think he’s one of those people who pretends to be a vampire or something like that?” I half whispered to Duncan.
We both let out a few giggles at the idea. We loved watching those cringy videos of people who thought they were wolves in a human body. Duncan was pretty mean-spirited toward the idea. I honestly thought they could believe whatever made them happy, but wished they acted a bit more normal over the idea. Then again. How normal can you act if you think you’re a wolf?
I looked up to catch the stranger’s gaze and any kind of humor quickly died. His silver eyes flashed, and I swear they glowed for a second. I shook my head thinking I was just seeing things. Fear spiked through my body, and I was way done with all of this. We had our fun and we bothered a poor guy that wasn’t entirely with it.
I pulled on Duncan’s arm wanting to leave. He pulled back not at all ready to be done.
“You kids should head home before the train arrives.” The stranger said and it almost sounded like a threat.
“Train? I think your head is full of bologna. This is a bus stop. A dead bus stop. Nothing comes here. You’ll be waiting all night for nothing.” Duncan said with a smirk on his face.
I tugged at his arm again. Stress pooling in my stomach. He refused to stop or leave. To him, things were just getting good.
“I think you’ll get hungry staying up all night for a bus that isn’t going to show up. I brought you a snack, but it might be cannibalism.”
I watched in horror as Duncan pulled out a Ziplock bag from his pocket with two slices of warm lunch meat. This was taking it too far. And he took it even further. With grace I didn’t know he had, he pulled the slices from the bag and tossed them like a frisbee with one hand. He recorded the round slices flying and landing on the brim of the man’s hat.
He didn’t even move. His expression never changed from the narrowed eyed unimpressed look. I couldn’t help but let out a single snicker at the entire thing. Shame and guilt flooded my stomach. Laughing was just a response to an uncomfortable situation.
“You did bring me a nice late-night snack. I thank both of you.” The man said in an oddly kind voice.
He reached up and took the lunch meat between two fingers and lifted his head slightly. He never broke eye contact with us as his mouth suddenly looked far too wide as the meat slid right between his teeth. He didn’t even chew it as he swallowed down the slices. The scene made my skin crawl. Duncan finally looked a bit nervous. And that was the last expression he ever made.
The man slightly raised his right hand and pointed a finger at my friend. He then pointed downwards on the ground. A terrible sound along with a strong breeze followed. It happened so fast that I didn’t even realize Duncan was no longer standing in front of me.
My eyes slowly went to the ground to something I couldn’t understand for a long while. The entire street was soundless besides a single cricket chirping. A scream started in my throat that never came.
I stared at what had been my best friend. A stupid friend that didn’t deserve this. His body was pressed into the ground completely flat. I wasn’t able to fully process what happened when the man raised a single finger again.
He lowered it and I fell to the ground, my left arm in agony. I screamed at the sudden pain. Rolling off to the side, I screamed again when my left arm just simply wasn’t there. Frantic I looked trying to figure out what the hell happened. My shoulder throbbing with pain and so damn hot. A smell came that nearly made me sick when I finally understood what happened.
The man took a few careful steps towards me making me skitter backward holding my empty shoulder. Somehow, he was able to force gravity to push down into a certain spot crushing things as flat as pancakes. But the flesh also got cooked as well as crushed. I sat breathing so hard I thought I might die. My arm pressed into the ground and the same color as the lunch meat Duncan had thrown at the man.
I suddenly realized where this monster got his stupid nickname. He got down low and sat on his heels. A wide smile on his face as he looked over at me. His teeth were sharp and inhuman.
With two fingers he picked up what had been my arm off the ground. With a few mocking wiggles, he let out a small laugh at my expression.
“I don’t really mind my nickname. After all, we are all just the same. All just meat. Don’t you agree?”
Without breaking eye contact, he leaned back his head and lifted the flat cook hunk of flesh over his ever-expanding mouth. Without chewing, he let the entire thing slide between his smiling teeth. A sound started that I didn’t realize was myself screaming.
Suddenly a blinding white light covered the area. Another loud sound came, and it took me a few seconds to adjust to the light. My mind didn’t want to believe anything I was seeing. The train this man claimed to be arriving on stopped in front of the bus stop. An old-fashioned steam engine sat in the road as if this was normal.
“Right on time. I think I’ll share my snack with my friends on the train. Don’t worry, I won’t let them touch you. I think you learned a valuable lesson tonight.” The man spoke as he stood up.
After he finished talking, the doors started to open on the carriages of the train. I did not stick around to see what got off that train. Adrenaline fueled my escape. I ran until I simply could not run anymore. Aside from the pain, my missing arm wasn’t that much of a problem. The wound had been burned shut, so I didn’t lose any blood. I was lucky I only lost an arm that night.
I was found and sent to the hospital. No one could explain what happened to my arm or why Duncan disappeared. There was simply not a single trace of him besides his bike at the old bus stop. I refused to tell anyone what really happened because who would ever believe me? For a town that talked about everyone's business, they all let this odd event drop. The entire town was too scared to talk about what might have happened to two dumb kids that one fateful night.
I wanted to forget as well. But recently I’ve been hearing whispers of that man going around again. I wonder if people gave him such a non-threatening name, or if he picked one that made it easier for people to approach and mock him.
I decided to tell what happened on the off chance someone hears a silly rumor of a Bologna Man coming to town. I know it’s tempting to not take him seriously with a name like this. But please, promise me one thing. Stay away from him. No matter what happens, it’s not worth investigating such a simple rumor. I just hope this story reaches the right people and that man goes hungry.

I’m trying to find a way to get a sliding divider wall or something to make a room where I drew the line in the picture where it says dining area. I’m going to the to just put a bed in that area. I need a thin wall or something since it’s already a tight squeeze. Also, I don’t know if I would be allowed to drill holes into the wall/floor since it’s an apartment. I’d really wish I could somehow put a glass patio sliding door right there. Is there anything I could do that looks somewhat normal to make it look like a small room with a entrance or something. Thank you.

Virgil Smith, Jacquelin Fazzio, Andrew Cash, Robert Sagan, Lee Cooper, Richard Celli, Casey Hallinan, Michael King, Mark Azzouni, Mark Essick, Sharon Loughner, Sonoma County, The State of California, Juan Campa, The United States, the FBI, the DOJ, David Kahl, Jill Ravitch, Lupe Zinzin, Janell Crane, Lynda Hopkins, Robert Pittman, Joshua Myers, David Ratner, Carla Rodriguez, the Brady List, Melissa Wiekel, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, Donna M. Ryu, Melissa Parmenter, Rafael Garcia, Azuzena Alvarez, Sergio/Sergey Rudin, Tamar M. Burke, The Federal Pro Bono Project / the Justice & Diversity Center, Abby Herzberg, RoseMarie Maliekel, Gloria Chun, Antonia More,
I just want people to know that the Sonoma County government is corrupt. They spent 186 million dollars on a "new courthouse" that is 163k square feet, which works out to $1,100 per square foot, which is over double the second most expensive building I could find was, and over four times the average price per square foot of palaces and museums. And it's just going to look like a giant portable. This is to house some of the most corrupt people in this County, who all make $200-350+k per year (I am including their benefits in that, but not their pension). The entire DA's Office has a vendetta against Civil Rights in general, and will literally knowingly commit criminal violations of laws for the purpose of covering up serious criminal misconduct on the part of Sonoma County employees.
Lynda Hopkins took money from the law enforcement unions, and turns a willfully blind eye to it.
The County Office of Legal Counsel is literally a crime syndicate.
In 2015, the Sheriff's Office had a veritable torture ring in the jail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izcHIv5Y4z8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYrGChrW5HM&list=TLPQMzAwMzIwMjMv0QAOPDy1Lw&index=2
This is just the tip of the iceberg. They lied about the existence of these videos, and "lost" the one where they gave one of the inmates internal bleeding, with a knee to their back.
There was a lawsuit about it. It was called the "Yard Counseling Case". There are news articles about it.
There was an official, written policy, called "Yard Counseling", later its name was changed to "Behavior Counseling" which dictated that for arbitrary punitive measures, Sheriff's Office personnel should extract inmates from their cells individually (which meant slamming their heads onto the door frames on the way out and other abuse), and isolate them, and putting them into "pain compliance" techniques (literally, by definition, torture) for extended periods of time while "counseling" them, which meant wearing no name tags, ski masks and riot gear, carrying a shotgun with them, and insulting them in explicit language for over 20 minutes.
This official written policy was acknowledged by Rob Giordano in a video, where he lies that no inmates where injured, uploaded to YouTube in 2018, when they finally addressed this official written policy, and the practice of torturing inmates without reasonable cause (leading exercise routines, for example).
In 2021, they saw one of the victims of this torture ring, who had sued them and had won, at a peaceful protest, and shot him with a grenade launcher while hiding on a rooftop in the face with a crowd control grenade, which exploded on impact and caused horrific injury that I don't care to describe.
In 2017, I was almost killed by application of a "carotid hold" / lateral vascular neck restraint, by a sheriff's deputy, for literally no reason. A knee was placed on my lower back while I was on the ground on my stomach as well, which caused a serious injury to my kidney, which was the worst injury of my life. I have also been diagnosed with an organic brain injury and cognitive impairment. I was tested for the same type of cognitive impairment before the incident and there is a marked difference, and I have about 30 pages describing the differences I've noticed / troubles I've had in my cognitive functioning. There was no probable cause to arrest me, and I was polite and compliant with all the instructions given to me, and this was confirmed by witnesses. I was punished for invoking my right to remain silent, then my arm was grabbed and yanked up behind me, and then a carotid hold was applied because my body pivoted after the deputy grabbed and yanked my arm.
This occurred UNDER A CAMERA and IN FRONT OF WITNESSES. I called the Sheriff's Office the next day said I want to "make an official complaint in writing". I was transferred to Captain of Internal Affairs, Captain Mark Essick. I repeated my request, verbatim. He responded, verbatim: "We don't do that. Why don't you tell me what happened." I did. I told him it happened right under a camera. He said "The camera can't record." I asked for confirmation. He said the cameras "Don't have recording technology installed."
I asked the County for a claim form. They ignored my request, and instructed me to report the incident to IOLERO. IOLERO requested I meet with Internal Affairs, and I said fine.
Sgt. Andy Cash called me and scheduled me for a meeting at the Sheriff's big station. I was made to walk first and guided upstairs to a meeting room, and then patted down for weapons, and the interview was recorded. For 75 minutes I was deposed about happened. He asked me repeatedly about my mental state after the incident. I admitted that I was upset after the incident, and he acted like that justified the whole incident. He explicitly promised to interview the 4 deputies who witnessed the event in addition to the 2 deputies who participated, as well as the arresting officer (who I told him would confirm that I was polite and cooperative), which he agreed "would confirm [my] demeanor", and a bystander witness I told him about.
I complained to IOLERO director Jerry Threet. Mr. Threet agreed that that was inappropriate, then resigned without reviewing the investigation.
For about 4 years review of the investigation was put on hold because IOLERO staff quit, and when more staff was hired, they complained of being understaffed. They had a budget of over a million dollars but only had 2 employees. They only reviewed one case per four months. And they put off "backlogged" cases and focused on new cases. My complaint was finally reviewed by Interim Director Garrick Byers who clearly stated that the investigation was not conducted appropriately. I have the letter from him. That still has never been made public.
After the interview with Internal Affairs, I corresponded with Lynda Hopkins, and she refused to give her opinion on the matter. I specifically complained that the carotid hold was being used recklessly, and it is a dangerous technique. This was in 2018. She forwarded me to Janell Crane, who then had me meet with Kristi Schultz.
I contacted the DA's Office and spoke to Richard Celli (who made $346k in 2017, and has gunned down two unarmed people, and was convicted by a jury in one of the civil cases brought against him by one of the victim's family, but the sentence was overturned by a judge, while working for the SRPD). The first time I spoke to Mr. Celli, he told me that another law enforcement agency should take my case. After that first time, him and the rest of the DA's Office openly refused to comply with the Victims' Rights Laws (CA Con Art. 1 S. 28), and the "policies" (which are legally binding under CA Con Art 5 S. 13) of the Attorney General stating clearly that they are to take complaints from victims if it can't be resolved with the department.
After the first talk with Mr. Celli, I called Rohnert Park Police as I was instructed, and they 3-way called the Sheriff's office and then transferred me. I spent about 30 minutes reporting the incident to a deputy, and he asked me questions in a fair manner. The incident report from the 30 minute phone call was "directed" to Andrew Cash, and was then destroyed, which is literally a state and federal crime. I called RPPD back and talked to the arresting officer and he positively clearly confirmed that I was "polite, calm, compliant, and cooperative" (or something nearly verbatim, I can't remember exactly any more).
Andrew Cash called me the next day, at precisely 7:00 AM. He told me he was driving. He was extremely confrontational with me. He said "There were 6 deputies [referring to the two who used excessive force on me, and 4 witness deputies]. You were combative." This was false. He had only interviewed one of the 4 witness deputies, and the other 3 had provided written statements. They said that they had witnessed force being used, that they had not participated in the use of force to the best of their memory, and that I "did not appear to be resisting". But again, he had promised explicitly to interview the 4 deputy witnesses, and the arresting officer, and the other witnesses (such as the bystander witness who saw the whole incident, the nurse, etc.).
Internal Affairs exonerated the officers. The letter was signed by Eddie Engram, captain of Internal Affairs at that time. I called Mr. Engram, and had an hour long conversation with him, and he told me to contact Sgt. Cash after April 1st.
I filed a federal claim on the last day that it was due.
Mr. Cash referred me to Legal Counselor, Kara Abelson.
Ms. Abelson spent a year and a half refusing to comply with the Public Records Act, the Rules of Procedure, and the Rules of Professional Conduct. She refused to provide me documents that I was entitled to under law, including the incident report written by Deputies Jacquelin Fazzio and Virgil Smith, and the recorded interviews that he promised he would conduct, and stated pretty clearly that he had conducted.
Kara Abelson spent a year and a half trying to claim that my federal complaint was time barred by 1 day when it wasn't. The judge (Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers) entertained this and forced me to respond SEVEN TIMES, before she finally admitted that the "law wouldn't allow [her] to dismiss [my] complaint".
After a year and a half, Kara Abelson finally withdrew from the case after I started citing the Rules of Professional Conduct to her that require her to resign or withdraw from the case rather than defend a civil case where defense isn't warranted. Nobody had disputed any of the allegations I had made. In fact, Eddie Engram had confirmed that what I said happened was not disputed by the evidence.
At some point around this time, either before or after Ms. Abelson withdrew, the 2 incident reports written by the two deputies, the written statements by 3 of the 4 witness deputies, and the recorded interviews with me, the 2 deputies who assaulted me, and 1 of the eye witness deputies, were provided, along with various other records from the facility. In the recorded interview, and the incident report, the deputies admitted that Virgil Smith had applied the carotid hold.
I had also reported the incident to the State Attorney General Public Inquiry Unite (Lupe Zinzin). She had told me, over and over and over, that the local DA's are required to take complaints from civilians in these situations. She refused to call the DA's Office, though. The DA's Office (Richard Celli, Mark Azzouni, David Kahl, and the anonymous receptionists who all refused to provide their names) refused to take a complaint from me. They (including the receptionists) hung up on me every time I called after no more than 2 minutes, for no reason, transferred me to dead lines, never returned any voicemails I managed to leave, told me explicitly that if I send a complaint, they will throw it away, and didn't care, at all, what the laws were. The receptionists also refuse to provide their names. The Attorney General's Office told me to send them a complaint, so I did. The DA's Office acknowledged receiving the complaint. But later said that they did not have a record of it, meaning they threw it away.
The Attorney General's Office finally agreed to take a complaint from me. It sat on their desk for a year. I finally called them, concerned that evidence was being destroyed, and left a voicemail for Casey Hallinan requesting that they request copies of the physical evidence from the Sheriff's Office. Literally 2 days after that voicemail, a letter was sent to me signed by Sharon Loughner with Casey Hallinan CC'ed on the letter, stating that they would "take no action", and blamed the incident on me. I had not received the letter though, and called and spoke to Ms. Hallinan, who was extremely rude. After that, the Attorney General's Office hang up on me as soon as they find out it's me, for no reason. There has since been a bystander witness who saw the whole thing, and it has come to light that the cameras did record, that no upgrades were ever performed like Ms. Abelson alleged, the cameras do continuously record (as of 2019), and they just lied through their teeth about the camera for 4 straight years. The Attorney General's Office does not care. They violate the laws, and do not care what the laws are.
Sonoma County Office of Legal Counsel attorney Michael King took over after Ms. Abelson withdrew. Right off the bat, Mr. King told me that my motions were deficient - a contention he has repeated frequently, since then. I asked him how. He changed the subject, and to this day has NEVER given any explanation as to how any of my motions are deficient.
He continued to claim that my claim was time barred, filing frivolous motions, in blatant violation of the rules of professional conduct, after I cited the rules to him, constituting explicit legal misconduct.
As I said, the judge finally agreed to open Discovery after a year and a half of full time work trying to fight for my right to not be nearly murdered for no reason.
Lawyers do not take these cases unless there is undeniable proof of blatant guilt, along with undeniable proof of catastrophic injury. Multiple law firms have confirmed that it takes over a million dollars worth of legal work to get these cases to trial.
The judge also promised me a pro bono attorney "if you make it past summary judgment".
The judge scheduled us for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) hearing with a magistrate judge. Mr. King elicited an offer from me, which I spent about 2 weeks working on, trying to make it as agreeable as possible. But then for the hearing, his written offer was to waive charging me his attorneys fees. The ADR magistrate confirmed that there was no legal basis for him to do that - it would be illegal. He had been ordered to participate in this hearing, and there was a legal obligation under the Rules of Procedure to try in good faith to settle the case. He violated the order and the rule of procedure (26 (f)).
All of my motions were completely ignored for no reason.
Mr. King / Defendant Virgil Smith lied about the cameras. They said "Denies the existence of cameras capable of recording in the vicinity", in writing, under oath. They never disputed that he put his knee on top of my back with all his weight on it.
Mr. King refused to comply with his Discovery obligations. I had to file about 4 different motions pertaining to their refusal to comply with the laws regarding disclosure of evidence.
Upon receiving an official Discovery request for records of camera equipment, I received a letter signed under oath by Mr. King (nearly 4 years after the incident) stating that the cameras CAN RECORD. But stating "tasks must be performed" to start the recording function, and stating that all records pertaining to the equipment that was installed at the time HAD BEEN DESTROYED (literally a federal and state crime, a civil tort violation, and a sanctionable act of legal misconduct).
Mr. King refused to schedule any of the witnesses for deposition, demanded MY deposition BEFORE he would even schedule the two deputies who assaulted me, even though I had been requesting depositions with other witnesses for over a month, and refused to schedule anyone else, he refused to answer interrogatories, he refused to provide copies of the policies from the time of the incident. He tried to pass off a weird spreadsheet with the word camera on it as proof that upgrades had been done to the cameras. He refused to provide complete training records for the deputies. He refused to provide details about the training. He refused to provide blueprints of the facility, refused to provide photos of the cameras at the location, refused to provide still images showing which direction the cameras were pointing, was caught lying under oath (and "penalty of perjury") multiple times, refused to provide photos of the deputies so I could schedule depositions efficiently.
The judge erroneously dismissed my Equal Protection claims, construing them as Due Process and Employment Discrimination claims, which are different types of claims than Equal Protection claims against a government actor. The government cannot arbitrarily treat anyone disparately. The Court also dismissed my "Monell" claim against the municipality for their "policies, customs, or practices", but left me leave to amend that claim. And she waited until Discovery opened over 1.5 years into litigation, to do this, forcing me to amend the complaint DURING DISCOVERY which was only open for a limited amount of time, instead of any point in the 1.5 years prior to that.
In the recorded interview with Andrew Cash and one of the witness deputies, she spontaneously states that Mr. Cash instructed her to review the written statements made by the two deputies who assaulted me prior to the interview. Another deputy witness confirmed that Mr. Cash had instructed her to review the written reports by the two deputies who assaulted me prior to her providing Mr. Cash with a written statement as well.
The judge finally retaliated against me, without rational basis, for filing motions, which I had filed because I was being illegally obstructed from preserving evidence, by withdrawing leave to amend regarding the "Monell" claim (I had stated a clear Monell claim to begin with, but the judge literally has an aversion to reading, and relies on guessing, and is biased against pro se litigants; I am summarizing well over 100 pages, if not well over double that, of motions, objections, and replies and the judge's responsive orders).
She did however, finally schedule a hearing with a Discovery referee magistrate. All my motions (and the months of work I was required to do dictated by the various rules) was completely disregarded, and both me and Mr. King were given 2 pages each (double spaced) to go over discovery issues, even though I had filed about 4 different motions about various issues, and he hadn't filed ANY, about Discovery issues, and never did.
During conference I was required to do in accordance with the Rules, Mr. King repeatedly tried to establish that I had committed crimes during the course of conferring which was my legal obligation, without having any rational basis to believe what he was trying to establish. He demanded evidence that would exist, and he kept repeating every lie he could come up with to the judge. The judge would either get annoyed at me if I addressed any of Mr. King's baseless accusations, or take his statements at face value for being 100% true.
Mr. King finally "compromised" and agreed to schedule depositions with me (as long as Mr. King wanted to) and the two deputies who had assaulted me (for 25 minutes each or something) all simultaneously, but refused to schedule anyone else, even though this was grossly advantageous to him, and in blatant violation of Rule 26 of Civil Procedure. One of the eye witness deputies later confirmed that he had "consulted" her over 4 times prior to the trial. During this deposition, Mr. King asked me where a family member of mine works. He had spent about 30-40 minutes trying to convince me that I can tell him anything, that the entire record was designated confidential, that I had nothing to worry about - and at a deposition, you are obligated to answer the questions unless they are harassing. Mr. King also requested contact information for counselors from over 10 years ago, and that was the only question I didn't answer - I told him to provide the request in writing. At some point after that, I told Mr. King to not contact my family member at her workplace, and Mr. King responded "unless you fully and completely cooperate" with his request for contact information for counselors from 10 years+ ago, he would do exactly that - harass my family member with subpoenas sent to her workplace, as I had requested he not do, without EVER REQUESTING A DEPOSITION WITH HER, just using it as leverage.
At the hearing, the Discovery Magistrate (Donna M. Ryu) discussed matters only with Mr. King, without including me. He told her that the 4 eye witness deputies "saw nothing" and "weren't there" (verbatim) trying to get her to deny me my request to take their deposition. She asked him if he would get them to sign fresh "sworn declarations", "under oath" (Judge Ryu's words, verbatim) stating this. Mr. King said yes, absolutely, he would. Judge Ryu asked me "Would that be okay?" I said "No." She started laughing, and asked me why, and I explained that I had explicitly described various interactions with them that had taken place while the carotid hold was still being applied to me, and that they had stated in their written statements that they had witnessed force being used, and that I was "not resisting". She confirmed that this was all true with Mr. King and that he already knew all of this, and ordered him to cooperate with scheduling them for deposition. Mr. King then repeated the same phrases "saw nothing", "weren't there" to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers prior to the trial.
After that, they went back to discussing matters only with eachother, and I was excluded from discussion. This was an hour long hearing, and at about the 45 minute mark, Mr. King was again lying to the magistrate judge, and when he had finished, I interjected, "That's not true". Judge Ryu shouted "Stop! Stop stop stop stop stop!" And then very assertively explained to me the importance of not interrupting people for the convenience of the court reporter / transcriber. I was excluded from the rest of the hearing.
At some point at either this hearing or the next one, I cited the legal requirement for the parties to disclose contact information for witnesses. I cited the rule of procedure. Judge Ryu responded, "Mr. King is a lawyer!" as if that alone justified his refusal to provide me contact information for EYE witnesses who saw the event. Mr. King and Ms. Abelson had also claimed that they did not have the contact information for the bystander witness (which was a lie), and refused to provide the contact information for the nurse. And when Magistrate Ryu ordered them to provide that, they only gave me the company name he used to work for.
Mr. King refused to provide both fresh written statements from the eye witness deputies as he had promised the magistrate, and to schedule them for deposition, and stated that if he provided written statements, they would be copied and pasted versions of the same statements previously provided, signed under oath (nowhere saying that they "saw nothing" or "weren't there").
Mr. King kept threatening to go to my family member's workplace unless I provided him contact information for counselors from 10+ years ago, DURING a DEPOSITION, without him providing any written request for the information.
He also interfered with scheduling the witnesses for deposition, with the Court reporter that I had hired, disregarded the schedule that I had set, and set them according to his own schedule, which raised the cost of deposition from an estimated about $700 to about $4,000, and said this was my one and only chance.
The Federal Pro Bono Project / the Justice & Diversity Center is an organization that receives seven million dollars a year in public funding and is under contract with the Federal District Court to work with the Court to provide legal consultation to pro se litigants. I had about 19 appointments with them, about 18 with Abby Herzberg, and 1 with Rosemarie Maliekel. Ms. Herzberg was precisely 15 minutes late to every single appointment, repeatedly gave me horrible advice ("just wait", do nothing, "don't file this", despite admitting that the entire motion was valid, directly causing excessive delay and the spoliation of crucial evidence). She also yelled at me aggressively on two occasions because I had brought up state laws, which were being currently violated against me, because the Court had dismissed my "state claims" because Sonoma County refused to supply with a state tort claim form when I first asked, reasoning that was not relevant to the state laws being currently violated against me. After Ms. Herzberg yelled at me the second time, I requested an appointment with Rosemarie Maliekel. Ms. Maliekel spent the entire appointment ranting at me about irrelevant issues, and kept talking over me and interrupting me. I was polite but eventually asked "can I finish what I was saying?" She responded "No!" and kept ranting at me.
I had repeatedly asked about how to properly get medical evidence, and about expert witnesses. Ms. Herzberg ignored my questions and spent nearly the entirety of almost every single appointment reading (or pretending to) through the rules, without letting me speak at all, even to summarize the relevant sections of the rules that I had read.
On a video on their webpage (on the Court's website, because they are a "partner project" with the Court), Abby Herzberg explicitly demonstrates a clear understanding of the fact that the Court provides funding for expert witnesses, despite ignoring my questions about that and spending nearly the entirety of almost every single appointment either reading rules or pretending to.
Discovery was closed.
Mr. King rehashed the legally baseless and frivolous "time barred" claim in a Motion for Summary Judgment. I was required to respond to it twice, and it was obvious Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wanted to dismiss my claim, and I was required to disprove their baseless legal claims with several tens of pages of case laws. I was required to answer all his "undisputed material facts" under threat of terminating my entire case, but he refused to answer mine. He lied over and over to the judges. As I said, the judge ruled that the laws "wouldn't allow [her] to" dismiss my entire case and rejected his Motion for Summary Judgement.
The Court ordered the Federal Pro Bono Project (FPBP) to put me on a list for attorneys seeking clients. Ms. Herzberg told me that if I filed any motions, that the FPBP would not cooperate with the Court's order, until 1 month before my trial, instead of 6 months before. She also said that a law firm had reached out to them about my case over a month prior to that, and that the staff at the FPBP had not followed up. My filing privileges were then revoked by the Court.
An attorney, David Ratner, reached out to me, and scheduled an initial consultation, over Zoom, at which he stated he "hates cops", and gave a showing of being enthusiastic. I explicitly told him that I wanted to make sure we were on the same page as far as what to "aim for". I told him that I had been working for FIVE YEARS, that I had almost died, that I had suffered two different extremely serious injuries (though I was up front about the injuries being surreptitious and that there had been major delays and flaws with medical evaluation, due to the hospitals not taking my insurance at the time, and ongoing delays because of Covid, and other reasons). I told him that what I asked for was consistent with the most similar case (the Esa Wroth case of 2013) that I knew of (an ask of three million dollars). This was coincidental. I was not aware of the Esa Wroth case when I came up with that number. I agonized over the number to ask for, and had tried SEVERAL times to resolve the case for a tiny fraction of that amount, with Kristi Shultz, with Janell Crane, with Lynda Hopkins, several times with Ms. Abelson who refused to even hear me out, and SEVERAL TIMES with Mr. King, and spent a lot of time trying to come up with a amount that would be MUTUALLY AGREEABLE, EACH TIME and described the methods I used to come up with that number in detail in court documents. Mr. Ratner explicitly agreed to aim for that at the trial. During the Zoom conference, his partner Shelley Mollineaux, showed up about 15 minutes late, stayed for about 3 minutes without saying anything, Mr. Ratner made an awkwardly flirtatious remark to her, and she left without saying anything at all.
Mr. Ratner, and Ms. Mollineaux, who was set to represent me at trial under Mr. Ratner's supervision, then both went dark for over a month. They ignored my emails, voicemails, and messages that I left with their receptionists. There was a hearing, and then Mr. Ratner emailed me demanding "all the documents" that I had. I had over 50 gb of files across thousands of files, and spent about a month working with his paralegals sending them batches of files, and providing all the information they asked me for. Mr. Ratner forwarded me an email from Mr. King where King accused me of violating a court order regarding providing medical providers and the physical addresses of my entire family and my friends, which was false -- the Court had ordered me to provide him CONTACT information, at a second hearing, which wasn't significant, and I had fully and completely complied in good faith with all the Court's orders. Mr. Ratner accused me of not sending him "anything", after I had spent at least several weeks with his paralegals sending them batches of files and information, and he simultaneously threatened to ask the judge for leave to withdraw.
There had been major delays with medical evaluation due in large part to Covid, as well as delayed discovery of brain injury, which is very common, and other factors.
With trial set, Mr. Ratner forwarded me an offer from Defendants for $5,000. Upon discussion (which was 100% in email because he refused to talk over the phone and Ms. Mollineaux completely ignored me), he accused me of not doing Discovery right. I pointed him to the video I referred to earlier, which I had found since Mr. Ratner took my case, but wasn't aware of when I was interacting with the FPBP, where the FPBP (Abby Herzberg), and various District Judges from the Court I was litigating in, state that it is general policy (and it is official policy under the Court's General Order 25) to REOPEN DISCOVERY when a pro bono attorney comes onto the case, and to FUND DEPOSITION AND EXPERT WITNESS FEES.
Mr. Ratner stated he "won't file any motions" and ultimately elected to withdraw from the case over fulfill his legal obligations under the Rules of Professional Conduct. Judge Gonzalez Rogers IGNORED MY REQUEST FOR A HEARING, and in her order granting him leave to withdraw about 2 months before my trial, thanked him. I had spent a ton of time trying to find private attorneys and trying to talk to the FPBP, telling them very clearly that I expected to be put back on the list.After Mr. Ratner withdrew, the FPBP refused to put me back on the list. I was forced into trial BY MYSELF, at 1-2 months prior to trial, after 3 months of my time being completely wasted by Mr. Ratner and his law firm.
I went through the appropriate legal process to submit an expert witness. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, as usual, completely ignored my motions, but allowed me to use him after I went through the entire legal process, and paid him thousands of dollars without knowing if I would be granted permission or not, and provided the Court a report stating that the carotid hold was ILLEGAL unless the subject exhibited "assaultive behavior" and that Defendants had never alleged any behavior of mine that constituted "assaultive behavior" (under POST Basic, during 2017). The expert was a Master level instructor at a police academy and former SWAT.
Mr. King provided his pre-trial disclosures, and it contained a document from Rohnert Park police department which had been extensively redacted on the copy that they had provided to me. The new copy contained the contact information for the bystander witness. I called him, and he confirmed that he saw the entire thing, that I had never yelled at the deputies before the first deputy grabbed my arm, and that I was not resisting at any point in time. I told the judge this. She had me call him at a hearing, and both me and Mr. King were allowed a couple of minutes to ask him questions, where he refused to admit that I was even "wiggling" when Mr. King badgered him.
RPPD later sent me the email correspondence between them and Mr. King and Mr. King clearly stated that he had that copy in his records without them sending it, but wanted them to send it to appear official, meaning they had the contact information for the bystander witness the entire time, when they repeatedly lied that they didn't have it.
The judge then refused to allow him to appear at the trial over Zoom (during the height of Covid, even though she let one of the deputies), and refused to summon him to the trial.
Just prior to the trial, the Judge accused me falsely of firing my attorney, and explicitly prohibited me from telling the jury about ANY of the Defendants previous statements about the camera's ability to record (that they had lied about it for 4 years). She explicitly prohibited me from submitting scientific evidence about the carotid hold. She allowed Mr. King to make extremely defamatory false remarks about me and my past which had a huge impact on the jury's perception of things. At a pretrial hearing, we had gone over about 110 documents that I wanted to present at the trial. She vetted about 40 as admissible at the hearing, but at the trial she only let me submit about 4. Defendants were allowed to submit a SECOND expert witness, both of whom worked for the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. The first was Andrew Cash. The second was James Naugle who had been disclosed literally a week before trial, without a report, and without allowing me to take his deposition. She refused to allow me to ask Mr. Naugle about case laws, or about information pertaining to the carotid hold. The Court refused to summon any of my treating physicians, whom I had provided the names and contact information for in my disclosures at the end of Discovery and some in my initial disclosures, and I had complied with Mr. King's written requests for information or objected within the boundaries of the laws (which I quoted and cited), in good faith, and complied with the Court's orders, in good faith.
I had informed the Court that I was scheduled for medical evaluations for brain injury AFTER THE TRIAL. The Court completely ignored this.
So it was my word against theirs. 5 years, at the time of the mistrial, to get a mockery of a trial, and have the jurors' time completely wasted. The jury wrote me a letter thanking me or something, but awarded me nothing.
I was diagnosed with organic brain injury after the trial. I had a similar test prior to the incident and had absolutely no problems and answered every question with no trouble. I now score in the FOURTH PERCENTILE on those areas.
Despite its length, this has been a short summary of all the events over the past 6 years. Much has been summarized, and much has been left out. I tried my best to balance completeness with leaving out irrelevant details.
There is no record of any misconduct on the part of anyone involved in this that is available to any law enforcement agencies or to the public. Nobody has been disciplined. No investigation was ever conducted. I was almost killed and was seriously injured, under a camera, and in front of witnesses, and spent 6 years working with the government. The government has done precisely NOTHING.
The County now routinely retaliates against me whenever we interact, in blatant violation of various laws.

​
The Limitation Act, 1963 is the Act governed a time period in which a person can file a suit to sue another to get justice. If the suit is filed after the expiration of time period as specified in this limitation act, thus, it will be bared or cannot be maintained in a court. It also includes provisions for condonation, delay etc. The Limitation Law was firstly established in 1859 which came into exist in 1862. The law of limitation developed in stages and finally comes in the form of Limitation Act in 1963. It was enacted on 5th October, 1953 and came into force from 1st January, 1964.
Why should we adopt the Limitation Act?
The main objective of the Limitation Act, 1963 is to provide a specific time frame in which a person can file a suit in a court. If such law came not in exist then it will lead to never ending litigation as the person can file a suit for the cause of action which was done many years back. It prevents disturbance in society by suppressing fraud and perjury. In other words the law of limitation aims to protect the lengthy process of penalizing a person indirectly without an offence. In Balakrishnan v. M.A. Krishnamurthy, AIR 1988 SC 3222 it was held by the Supreme Court that the Limitation Act is based upon a public policy which is used for fixing a life span of a legal remedy or unnecessary delay for the purpose of general welfare.
Legal Principles are everywhere!
Article 137 of the limitation Act state will apply to any petition or application of any act filled civil court but it is not limited to the Code of Civil Procedure of which time frame is not mention in Limitation Act.
Section 3 of the act time limits of filling suit /Appeal/Application or other proceedings would be barred. This section equally lies on general public and also government through special time period prescribe for the state in section 25 of article 112 of limitation act. The construction of this section in which a suit, appeal or application is dismissed if it barred by the time period prescribed by legislature. Limitation is not pleaded in defense except when such limitation is extended by the provisions of section 4 to 24 (inclusive) applicable of such suit, Appeal or application. However, It does not attracted to ever case. Section 3(1) extends to suit as well as appeals and application.
Section 4 of the act provides that such prescribed time of suit appeal or application expires on a date when the courts are closed. The proceeding may be held when the court re opens.
Section 5 of the act provides an appeal or application other than mention in Order XXI of the code of civil procedure, may be admitted after the prescribed period in this act as per the discretion of the court if the party satisfied the court by the sufficient cause of delay for not making such application within time frame. It is also noted that this section is applied only on the appeals and applications or not to the suits.
Sufficient cause for Condonation of Delay
What constitutes sufficient cause has not specifically as hard and fast rule. The court is required to look into all the facts of the case. The question has to be decided on the facts and circumstances existing in particular case. No doubt it is a discretionary power of the court but such discretion will be exercised on sound judicial principle or not mere fancy or whims of the court. No court shall exercise its power in arbitrary manner not can act in vague manner. Sufficient cause may be determined by reference to the circumstances of the case such as:
(I) whether the cause which withheld him for filling the appeal within the time was beyond the control of the party;
(ii) Whether the party exercised sufficient care and diligence in filling the appeal;
(iii) Whether his intention was bonafide.
Following are some examples of “sufficient cause”

1. Mistake of counsel: A legal adviser’s mistake is a bona fide is a sufficient cause.
   
2. Mistake of Clerk of an advocate: if the clerk of an advocate commits a mistake, it may be condoned if it bona fide on the technical ground.
   
3. Illness: A mere plea on illness itself, unless the effect of itself was such that in circumstances it would afford reasonable excuse for the delay in the presenting in appeal, such illness must be in serious in nature.
   
4. Imprisonment: imprisonment in a criminal jail is may be considered as sufficient cause and the time spent in jail may be condoned.
   
5. Mistake or ignorance of law: ignorance of the law is not a sufficient cause. But it cannot be laid down as general position that ignorance of law cannot be regarded as sufficient cause. It may be laid down when such mistake is bona fide one, it can be considered as sufficient cause in this section ex. A wrong advice given by legal advisor.
   
6. Minority: if it is a factor to be taken into account when considering circumstances which justify the application for the extension of time should be more liberally constructed in favor of minors other than litigants. When the guardian’s failure to appeal was due to his strong personal motive for not appealing which was opposed to the interest of the minor. It was held that it was a sufficient cause for extending time.
   
7. Other grounds: Although government as such is not entitled to any special consideration under section 5; the time taken by the state government to communicate with the legal advisor of the central government may, in certain circumstances will be excused.
   

In Ram Nath Sao v. Gobardhan Sao, AIR 2002 SC 1201 it was held by the Supreme Court that the expression “sufficient cause” within the meaning of section 5 should receive a liberal construction so as to the advance substantial justice when no negligence or gross negligence or lack of bona Fidel is imputable as a party. What is “sufficient cause” is depends on the facts or circumstances of each case. There cannot be straightjacket formula for accepting or rejecting explanation furnished for the delay.
In the case of State of Jammu and Kashmir v/s Ghulam Rasool Rather The expression "sufficient cause" in section 5 of the Limitation Act should receive a liberal construction so on advance substantial justice. Rules of limitation aren't meant to destroy the rights of the parties. They are meant to ascertain that parties don't resort to deliberate tactics, but seek their remedy promptly. While considering a case for condonation of delay, the court should remember that in every case of delay there are often some lapses on the part of the litigant concerned. That alone isn't sufficient to show down his plea and shut the door against him. If the reason doesn't smack of mala fides or it's not put-forth as a part of a dilatory strategy the court must show utmost consideration to the suitor. But when there's reasonable ground to think that the delay was occasioned by the party deliberately to realize time, then the court should lean on acceptance of the reason. The discretion exercised within the matter of condonation of delay should be proper and judicious.
The law of Limitation and Condonation of Delay are two effective implementations within the quick disposal of cases and effective litigation. On the one hand if the law of limitation keeps a check on the pulling of cases and prescribes a period of time within which the suit are usually filed in time available within which the person can get the remedy conveniently. The law of Condonation of Delay keeps the principle of natural justice alive and also states the very fact that different people may need different problems and therefore the same sentence or a singular rule might not apply to all or any of them within the same way. Thus it's essential to listen to them and choose accordingly whether or not they slot in the standards of the judgement or whether or not they deserve a second chance.
Computation of the period of Limitation
Part III of the Limitation Act, 1963 deals with the computation of the period of the limitation. The rules of computation a period of limitation are not intended by the legislature to apply only to period of limitation prescribed by the schedule but apply also to periods of limitation provided for by other enactments; Durag v. Pancham, AIR 1969 AII 403 (FB). The computation periods exclude the day on which such period is to be reckoned. In case any appeal or application for review or revision has been filed on the day in which the judgment is pronounced shall be excluded from the computation period and also the time period taken to get copy of the judgment or order shall also be excluded. Thus time period starts from the day in which the order of the judgment is received. The limitation of filling of an appeal before the court commences from the date of judgment and not the date of decree is signed: Basavarajappa v. M.S. Channabasappa (1991) 2 CCC 20 (Karn).
Conclusion The principal of Limitation Act,1963 is based on the maxim interest republic ut sitis finis litium; which means the interest of the state should requires that there should be end of litigation to stop what may have acquired in equality and justice by long enjoyment or what may are lost by the party’s own inaction or negligence. The rule of limitation does not mean to destroy the rights of the public. It only purpose is the plaintiff does not delay unnecessarily or seeks remedy within the time frame stipulated by legislature. The right of the person continues to exist even after the remedy barred by legislature. A debtor may pay a debt even after a time barred debt and does not claim back on the limitation barred plea.

The crash of breaking glass cracks the silence of your apartment. Crippled with fear, you're unable to pry yourself off the couch to investigate, as a man in a ski mask walks in to your living room and unceremoniously places the business end of a gun to your forehead.
"Any last words?"
"Sardines are a healthy addition to any diet," you say, reflexively. Years spent running a sardine review website had rotted your brain. Even when you didn't have a gun to your head, you would try to steer every conversation into sardine territory. Your acquaintances all knew you as "the sardine guy." and now here you were, wasting your last moments on earth shilling for a small oily fish.
"What? What the hell are you talking about?"
"It's true. Sardines are an excellent source of protein with an ideal amino acid profile. They're able to be sustainably fished while also being low in mercury. They support healthy brain func—"
"Shut up," your speech is cut short by your would-be executioner, "are you talking about those little cans?"
"Yes, sardines are usually found in the canned goods aisle next to other seafood, like tuna and clams. Another great thing about them is their affordability; sardines are not only healthy, but widely available and frequently for just a few dollars per can."
"I hate the smell," his eyes narrow, and his finger tightens on the trigger. It appears that talking about sardines may not be the right approach. You can either beg for your life or double down on the sardines.
"Not all sardines smell. Boneless and skinless varieties are especially mild..."
You remember those Snickers commercials: "You're not you when you're hungry." Maybe the man with the gun pointed at your head is just hungry. Maybe he'd also like to subscribe to be notified of new sardine reviews straight to his inbox? One step at a time.
"Would you like to try some?"
"You're just trying to get me to not kill you."
"No, I just want to spread the love of sardines."
Truth be told, life would be a lot easier if you were dead, but you promptly soiled your pants when you realized there was an intruder in your apartment. The indignity of being found with both a bullet in your head and dookie in your shorts was reason enough to put up a fight.
He lowers the gun from your forehead to rest at his side.
"You're messed up."
"Aren't we all? Let's head to my pantry, I have a tin that I'm sure you'll like."
Now that his guard was down, you could easily grab a tin of sardines and bash him over the head with it. You could even say something witty as you swung the can, like "Eat fish and die!", but your drive to spread the love of sardines overpowers your greater sense of reason, again.
You open the door to your pantry and visually scan the tins row by row. You're usually really good at picking the perfect tin for every occasion, but your experience with choosing the best tin of sardines for a mid-murder snack is admittedly lacking.
"Ah, King Oscar skinless and boneless. Manufactured by special royal permission of the Norwegian King Oscar II, a mighty tin indeed," you say, playing it up.
"A king huh?"
Your hooks are in him now. You've appealed to his baser instincts—killers have a thirst for power. Yes, a King signed off on these 'deens, wouldn't you like to be a king?? The plan is in motion.
"That's right. Now, a lot of people eat these straight from the tin, but for a first timer like you I think it would be best to eat them with something else, like a salad. Do you like salad?"
"I guess."
You walk to your fridge and pull out the ingredients to make a basic salad: a bag of greens, cherry tomatoes, diced onions, and some home-fermented carrot and raisin slaw, chef's kiss.
Throwing some greens in the bowl, you toss them with the rest of the pre-sliced fixins before cracking open the tin of King Oscar. Being a natural product, sardines are a bit of a crapshoot sometimes, but you're glad that these are nearly odorless, an especially good thing when it could mean the difference between life and death.
You grab a fork from the top drawer and scoop the filets onto the salad before finishing it all off with a bit of the oil from the can. Your mouth is watering just looking at this thing, how could he not like it?
"Here you go, give this a try," you say, backing away from the counter and sliding the bowl and fork towards him.
Cautiously, he approaches the bowl, places his pistol down on the counter, and grasps the fork in his fist.
He pierces a chunk of fish and manages to arrange a surprisingly respectable stack of ingredients given his otherwise atrocious fork handling technique.
He leans over to take a bite.
"Here goes nothin..."
Your heart races. You want so badly to bring another sardine fan into this world that you almost forget that you were about to be murdered.
Almost.
His eyes widen, "Wow, these are pretty good. They're salty, and a lot like tuna actually. Where did you say you could buy these?"
You press the pistol to the back of his head.
Perhaps the years of running a sardine review website had not rotted your brain as much as you thought—a true testament to the brain health benefits of sardines.
"Any last words?"

Growing up I was a small kid living in a run down neighborhood. It was My Father, Brother and I living in the same house my Dad was 46, my brother was 20 and I was 7. Growing up I had this bully who I went to school with. He constantly beat on me because I was smaller than him and I didn’t know how to fight, the bullying also happened when I was outside playing. He would throw rocks at me and always left bruises. One time I decided to play in my back yard instead of my driveway, I was sitting by the fire pit playing with my toys when I heard my fence gate open, I thought it was my dad so I thought nothing. Seconds later I’m hit in the back of the head with a plastic baseball hat and my head gets slammed into the rock-made fire pit. My dog ran after the kid and chomped down on his arm and pulled him to the ground, my nose was covered in blood and I was dizzy from the impact. My dog continued to bite the kid and left him with bite marks all over his legs, arm and torso. The kid is screaming and crying as he runs out the yard with my dog chasing him, she comes back over to me and licks my face. I get up and run inside with my dog to tell my brother. My brother comes outside with my dog and I’m watching through the patio window. My brother was in the army for a short while and he knew how to fight. The boy comes back with his dad, who’s carrying a wood chopping axe and begins yelling at my brother, my brother tried to deescalate the situation but gets jabbed in the stomach with the handle of the axe. My brother catches it after he was hit and headbutt the man in the nose before kicking his kid against the concrete patio. The dad gets back up and tries to hit my brother again, my dog gets behind him and bites him on the ass, he screams and falls, dropping the axe. My brother calls my dog off and begins punching the dad. I was still watching from the house when the dad gets my brother off of him and grabs the axe again. He hits my dog in the head and she yelps, he kept hitting the dog until she was dead. I ran out the door crying and grabbed a rock from the patio and threw it at the dad’ head screaming. He gets pissed and starts walking towards me, my brother grabs a rock from the fireplace and hits him in the spine. The man fell and my brother continued to beat him, I ran inside after that and now all I can tell you is what he told me. Apparently the dad had become paralyzed while my brother was beating him, the neighbors saw what happened and called the police, the kid who had hit me tried to fight my brother and my brother threw the same rock at the kid and it broke one of his ribs. The police arrived later and tased my brother, I was also arrested and they took us to the police station where we were both interrogated in separate rooms. That’s all I can remember, my brother got sentenced to 17 Years in prison.

So I finally finished reading this omnibus a couple if weeks ago and just hadn't gotten around to posting a review.
This is my first omnibus where it didn't collect one singular cohesive story/runs of a singular character. I ended up liking this omnibus a lot. There were some stories that I loved, some stories that I liked, and some I could've left at the door. Overall if you're a not only a big fan of Black Panther but also the lore behind the character and the surrounding characters, I would definitely recommend you get this omnibus. You just get a lot of bang for your buck. Below will be reviews of my favorites series collected in this omnibus in no particular order.
RISE OF THE BLACK PANTHER #1-6 This was a great story just about the overall history of Wakanda/Black Panther. I loved it because we get to see the relationship between T'Chaka and T'Challa's birth mother and how her death affected him.
BLACK PANTHER & THE CREW #1-6 I loved the Blaxploitation feel of this series. The art was amazing and it really felt like this is what would've went down in the 50s and 60s had superpowers been real and available to Black activists.
BLACK PANTHER ANNUAL (2018) #1 Just a dope story of an Old T'Challa looking back on his life and having regrets.
BLACK PANTHER VS. DEADPOOL #1-5 I did not think I was going to like this story at all but it surprised me with how well written it was. Because it's Deadpool the plot is thin but heartfelt.
SHURI #1-10 This was just really fun. I wish the art had been consistent but the overall story was cool. Especially when taking into the context of Coates' BP run.
KILLMONGER #1-5 Bryan Edward Hill did his thing with this mini series. Killmonger was just so ruthless and enjoyable. They probably should've have mapped this before Rise of the Black Panther though because it leads straight into it.
BLACK PANTHER AND THE AGENTS OF WAKANDA #1-8 Once again another fun mini that pulls together a band of characters that usually would have zero business being around T'Challa or Wakanda but to my surprise, it worked really well.
Overall I give this omnibus a 7/10.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) review
I have seen most of the films in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, including all of the sequels in the 21st century without ever having seen the original. This made it a unique experience to watch the beginning of a franchise after seeing all of its sequels first. This did not make for a better viewing experience but I can understand why this film was so depraved and unsettling at the time of its release. Even nearly 50 years later, the film is disturbing without being ultra-violent.
My first takeaway is that the film gets going pretty quickly and in classic 70’s fashion, doesn’t get bogged down with a lot of backstory or character building. The intro reel does the explaining and the creepiness of it still stands today. This film is definitely plot focused and even the villains aren’t fleshed out. The purpose of this film is to scare, disturb, and gross you out; everything else is largely irrelevant. It’s interesting because like Halloween, the mythos of the villain is more fleshed out over its many sequels. Not much backstory is given in either franchise original. I’m curious on if either creator envisioned a franchise being spawned or if these were meant to be lone entries.
Even in 2023 there aren’t many depictions of special-needs individuals. 1985’s Silver Bullet is one movie off the top of my head featuring another person in a wheelchair. 2016’s Don’t Breathe featured a blind villain & 2015’s Hush had a deaf lead. The later two films, however, were plot-dependent on their main characters having their disability. That was less about diversity and more about the plot and story being focused on their impairments. Regardless of the reasoning, this is still great to have this type of diversity. The original TCM, however, stands out as the plot is not dependent on Franklin being confined to a wheelchair.
Speaking on Franklin – this is an extraordinarily annoying character. He’s very whiny and seems a bit dense on social cues. He makes everyone uncomfortable early on in the film with his soliloquy on how cattle are slaughtered and can’t seem to grasp that he should change the subject because he’s grossing the group out. I think this is representative of pre-21st century films failing to depict disabled individuals as socially and intellectually well-rounded characters. Franklin is depicted as if he is on the spectrum which is an unfair assertion of disabled people but which is consistent with how they likely were viewed in the 70s.
The car ride after the group picks up the hitchhiker is more bizarre than scary. I think the remake does a better job of creating a haunting encounter. This dude was just a weirdo who should have gotten kicked out much sooner than what he did. This was an odd encounter but doesn’t serve as the bad omen like the remake reimagined it as. The original does gross me out, though, and establishes the family as physically disgusting people.
This car ride would have been an excellent opportunity to learn about the leads or to get insight on their personality but neither happens. All that is established is the motivation for the trip: the Hardesty siblings are checking on their grandfather’s grave after robbers have stolen and desecrated multiple corpses, an act described in the introduction to the film. The siblings are making this trip to ensure that their grandfather’s isn’t one of them.
Sally Hardesty has a long-lasting legacy as one of the very first Final Girls in slasher horror films but we don’t learn much about her. I think her influence is less about the character herself and more about what she represents. Sally is arguably the first Final Girl of a slasher, kickstarting a legendary trend but she doesn’t say or do a lot in the actual film.
Even in her escape, she does so more out of negligence on the Sawyer’s part than any heroics on her own. One thing that stood out to me is that she did A LOT of screaming. It was incessant. Sally isn’t particularly heroic per se, especially in comparison to the prominent ladies who came after her such as Laurie Strode, Ellen Ripley and Sidney Prescott. Even if Sally isn’t heroic, she does lay the groundwork for her aforementioned predecessors so the icon status is warranted.
Back to the film itself – the introduction reel is spooky but outside of that, I wouldn’t consider the film scary but there are some highly tense moments. The two scenes in particular are when Sally is first kidnapped and then when she is bound and held captive. Both of these scenes are anxiety-inducing. This worked very well as it created a sense of dread and doom on how, and when, Sally would escape. This is the climax of the film and subsequently its strongest moment.
The violence of TCM is consistent with the time-period. More blood doesn’t equate to a better film, so I’m cool with it being prude by today’s standards. TCM alongside with Black Christmas are the parents of modern slasher films. TCM gave us a Final Girl, two great chase scenes and introduced pure evil for one of the first times onto the screen.
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre deserves its longstanding accolades. I do believe that the original is superior, though, which is probably controversial but I think it nails the premise better and is much scarier. This doesn’t negate the original’s extraordinary and long-lasting influence. TCM lays the groundwork for Halloween, which opened the door for Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, and later Scream. TCM is a depraved film which influenced other filmmakers to delve into depravity too. Both Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left and TCM deserve credit for their immense influence on horror slashers that depict evil and immense depravity.
I really enjoyed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This film re-affirms my belief that horror films were better made in the 70s than they were in the 80s. I believe that directors approached this as art and it was the 80s in which this approach was deviated from. I can definitely see how filmmakers were not only afraid watching this film but disturbed, which can have a longer lasting effect. This is a gross movie that makes you want to clean your home and take a shower. It also makes you never want to pull over to a house in the middle of nowhere in Texas, which is what horror is all about – to make you look twice over your shoulder even when you’re long gone from the theatre.
- 8.3/10

Intro
We're working on a new MUD called Song of Avaria, using Evennia as a base code. Hopefully, the game will be opening for a public alpha nine months from now: January 2024. This is the fourth in a series of showcases to display the features of our game. In order to properly exhibit the purpose of Song of Avaria, which doesn't quite fit into the existing molds, we're going to demonstrate gameplay by focusing on the story of a character: Emmaline.
Chapter 1: CHARACTER GENERATION
Chapter 2: ARRIVAL
Chapter 3: STORY
​
Chapter 4: THE POETS' GUILD
In the last chapter, we set up a story arc for Emmaline and developed it alongside ongoing roleplay, illustrating how experience is gained in Song of Avaria, and how character progression occurs. Emmaline heard about the Poets' Guild and now plans to join them, but she anticipates that they are a haughty bunch. We want to clarify here that the game is not centered around the Poets' Guild; they are simply one organization of many. A character might prefer to join the Custom Inspectors or the Lion Guard or a merchant's organization or crafter's chapter or even start their own guild with friends. That's not even to mention that the game is entirely playable as a rogue or lone wolf. The focus of the game is for your character to live their own life, and that can take a vast range of forms.
Anyway -- Emmaline may be hopeful and naive, but she is cautious as well. She has roughly a month until her lack of funds leave her out on the street. Living on the street is something that may suit some characters, and Emmaline has certainly had to rough it during more difficult periods of her life, but she'd prefer to avoid that. Here, Emmaline is thinking that she should have a serious plan to make a good first impression on the Poets' Guild. Thoughts serve as a vehicle to display the inner life of a character: their motivations and hidden agendas as well as more benign and whimsical workings of their mind.
A view of Emmaline's inventory, showing her rather ragged clothing, and how she thinks that she needs to invest in more dignified clothes in order to make a good impression on the Poets' Guild
Emmaline goes to the bazaar to find some local garments. The Bazaar of the Nine Winds is located above the river that separates the East and West districts of the city, very close to the caravanserai. It doesn't take much exploring to find a tailor's shop, but it was raining in Omrazir the previous night, and now there are puddles in the street.
Once she gets to the tailor's shop in the bazaar, however, Emmaline has no idea what to wear. NPC tailor shops have a design book where a customer can look through the designs and available fabrics, as well as trim such as buttons and embroidery and ribbons. But the styles and garments advertised by this shop are foreign to Emmaline. She really wants to make a good impression, but doesn't understand how to spend her money. Some things, after all, are more expensive than others -- and there's no way that she can currently afford the most extravagant options...
An image showing the possible options at a tailor: different materials, patterns, and colors that one can choose for a bespoke garment. You can touch the swatches of material to see how they individually feel. Emmaline is confused about her choices, and has the idea of asking Iziro for help.
Maybe it's better not to get a bespoke garment after all. That cashmere feels awfully luxurious! Since Emmaline doesn't know that much about the local customs, she looks around for a courier outpost in order to ask her new friend Iziro's advice. In this case, there's a courier booth set up at the main gates of the bazaar.
The courier booth is painted green, with a golden kestrel that symbolizes official Omrazi messengers. Using HIRE COURIER as a command opens a dialogue to find out what sort of message you wish to send.
To hire a courier, you can use a single-line command with all the information, such as: COURIER SAY HI TO IZIRO FROM EMMALINE... or, you can just input HIRE COURIER and it will bring up a few questions leading you through a menu of dialogue that will help you to send the courier off on an errand. Surely Iziro will have an idea of the most affordable garments she can buy to make a good impression!
Completing the dialogue causes the courier to emerge from the booth, take payment, and depart with the spoke message asking Iziro about cost-effective yet decently-impressive clothing items.
You can send any item, including a letter or a package, with a courier -- as long as it is not too heavy for that courier to carry, of course. You can also send a short verbal message. At this point, Emmaline is sending Iziro a quick question, because she doesn't feel as though she has the time to write him a letter.
When you send a verbal message through a courier, if the intended recipient is not online or is in a private location, the courier will eventually return and tell you they couldn't find the person you sent them to. If you quit during that time, the courier will instead go to the local post office and have a note written to send to the recipient through the IC mail system (which we will showcase another time).
For now, though, we can see that Iziro is around by checking WHERE. Using the WHO command would also work, but it is more of a global command whereas WHERE will show only people in your locale. Emmaline's locale is Omrazir, where Iziro also can be found. Regardless, it takes a short while for a courier to make their way through the city. The delay on sending messages is roughly three minutes, so the minimum that Emmaline will need to wait for a reply is six minutes.
The output of the WHERE command can be considered information that is accessible in-character, because it will not show people who are in private locations. Anyone seen by the WHERE command could be witnessed by VNPCs. If you're with another person, however, you shouldn't roleplay by saying, "I checked WHERE and Iziro is at the Plaza of the People" -- because that is an out-of-character mechanic. You can, however, roleplay something like asking a passing merchant if they've seen any street poet with sorrel hair, and learning that someone like that was seen heading towards the Plaza of the People. Obviously, you can integrate this knowledge into your roleplay however you please, so long as your method is reasonable and immersive.
The image shows the output of the WHERE command, showing other characters at specific public locations in Omrazir. The courier returns with a spoken message from Iziro, saying that Emmaline could get a cotton or linen abaya or sirwaal and a kaftan. Emmaline replies to the courier with polite gratitude for the service and moves on.
The courier returned to Emmaline with a reply from Iziro! That's very helpful. Now Emmaline will return to buy a garment for herself. If couriers were free, she might send back her thanks to Iziro immediately -- but as it is, they cost a small amount, so she'll talk to him about it later instead, face-to-face. The courier is of course an NPC and will not typically respond to roleplay, but it's nice to emote a bit all the same: after all, the courier might end up getting animated by an admin to respond, and update their affection towards you, and then you'd get a discount! Also, it makes your roleplay log look like a nicer story. Acting immersively is always a plus.
Emmaline checks the rack of already-sewn garments at the tailor's store. This image shows the use of appraise and restock command, as well as looking at the item in the rack. In the end, Emmaline purchases a kaftan and sirwaal.
At stores, items for sale tend to be on shelves, tables, display cases, racks, and so on. In order to get more information about an item for sale, you can look at it and also use the APPRAISE command. If you don't like what's in stock currently, you can ask the shopkeep to RESTOCK, in order to check if there's anything in the shop storage that could be cycled out for you.
Other commands that might be useful in a shop are LIST or WARES, which will give you an abstract summary of everything for sale. In order to quickly look at how much money you have, you can check WEALTH -- and earlier, Emmaline withdrew all her coins from the bank so that she would have enough for this fashionable endeavor. She's wearing some rather old-looking sandals, and wonders if she has enough money to buy new slippers, too... but alas, she does not.
The image shows using LIST and WEALTH commands, as well as how the bazaar building's construction is incorporated in the weather message.
All right, now we have the clothes. And we can see that it's started to rain a little... a warm rain, typical of early springtime in Omrazir. Unbothered, Emmaline goes back to the Night Winds Caravanserai to change. Removing and wearing clothes is pretty simple -- clothes cover body parts, along with any wounds or scars on those parts. You can rearrange clothes to cover or to reveal other clothes or parts, and there are some clothing items that are automatically covered by others. We hope to have made this relatively intuitive and simple, while maintaining a wide range of realistic possibilities in terms of garment use. You can also signify how you want to wear an item when putting it on -- for example WEAR HAT TILTED AT A JAUNTY ANGLE, or WEAR SHIRT WITH ITS SLEEVES ROLLED UP. This will then show up just as you typed it when people look at you.
Note that we have designed the game with various holding locations on your person -- hands, teeth, etc. -- such that you do not have a free-floating inventory. But moving and managing your items is made easier by the fact that you can hold multiple objects in one hand, as long as they do not exceed ten pounds all together. While removing her old clothes, Emmaline ends up holding them all over an arm.
Emmaliine takes off her old clothes and puts on new ones.
When finished getting dressed, Emmaline puts her old clothes on the bed. Unfortunately, when she steps back out the door from her room, she sees that the warm rain has abruptly turned into a pouring gale! She ducks back in to grab her cloak.
This image shows how the RAISE HOOD command can be used.
While raising the hood of her cloak will protect Emmaline from the rain, it will also conceal her identity: she will now appear to others as a slight figure wearing a tawny wolf pelt cloak. But that's all right. In a characteristically hopeful manner, Emmaline hopes the storm will stop. Battling through difficult weather takes more endurance, but unless someone is carrying a heavy load and moving quickly, the effects of endurance are fairly negligible. We made this design choice in order to facilitate movement of characters in the world, for the sake of pursuing roleplay. While often the realism of carrying a load and needing to rest can generate spontaneous roleplay on its own, in normal cases it should be rather easy to move around.
Since Emmaline has her waterproof cloak, she's able to keep both her new clothes and herself from getting too wet in the storm. An umbrella would also do the job, but she doesn't have one. She's determined to get to the Poets' Guild, though! Full disclosure: this storm was unplanned on our part for the showcase. However, weather is an important part of Avaria, and it was apparently just as determined as Emmaline to show its face here.
Emmaline's movement messages are now preceded by \"battling through the shrieking gale\"! We can see by looking at her garments that her cloak is getting wet, but her new kaftan is staying dry. The downpour lessens as she walks on her way, remembering where Iziro told her that the Poets' Guild is located.
Thankfully, the storm has lessened a bit already. REMEMBER is a command that works just like THINK and FEEL. Iziro told Emmaline where the Poets' Guild building was located before, and she remembers. The Via Magna and Via Maris cross each other in the center of Omrazir, so these large streets are great landmarks to reference. Other streets and neighborhoods intertwine chaotically through the city's terraces, making an enchanting, mysterious, as well as potentially-frustrating (and dangerous in some neighborhoods) place to get lost. There are many small interactive touches in the world, along with unique atmosphere echoes and hidden passages that may be discovered. We want to make a game that rewards exploration and immersion, where you can step into your imagination and simply exist as a character for a while. Many things in the environment are dependent on time, and also on the weather, as can be seen in this sensory description that happens only during the rain.
A sensory description on the street is related to the current weather.
Eventually, Emmaline arrives at Poets' Place: a distinguished plaza in front of the Poets' Guild. When she tries to enter the building itself, she finds her way barred by an organizational guard. These are NPCS who will block non-members of an organization, or members of too low a rank, from passing through certain entrances. She waits around, a little despondent, hoping to see someone of note. You can change the way you appear in the room with the POSE command, and here we will pose Emmaline waiting. This seems like typical behavior at this location, judging by the room description. As a side note: using thinks and feels can often alert staff storytellers to the fact that a PC is waiting somewhere, unable to continue their story easily without some help.
An image showing Emmaline's arrival at the Poets' Place, and what she does and sees there. A kingfisher sighting seems to be a cause for joy among a crowd of revelers.
April 1st in the game world is Pavana 1st, the Avarian New Year. Eventually, we want to have scheduled events for lore holidays, but for now some staff members send a few special echoes to Emmaline's location, depicting the celebrations of surrounding VNPCS. And then, a resplendently-dressed poet walks out! This is an animated NPC. In the beginning, when the game first opens, it is likely that all high-ranking members of various organizations will be NPCs. They will always be accessible in game, and roaming around their turf with their specific set routine, until a staff member animates them. These NPCs are intended to facilitate stories for players, and eventually player characters will take more high-ranking roles. The presence of organizational NPCs, however, should hopefully alleviate the stress of in-game player leadership and give PC leaders a staff-based support structure to lean on if they wish.
(Here is a text version of the roleplay log for anyone who finds the images difficult to read, or who wants to see the full version that doesn't show in just image snips.)
The poet who has emerged from the edifice is Arezou Rufsahni, and seems to be a famous and celebrated figure. Emmaline catches his attention, and he asks her to walk with him. She falls in, looking at him with a grateful nod.
As it happens, this poet appears to be one of the most famous figures in the Poets' Guild. He is on his way to somewhere, and invites Emmaline to join him so that they can speak. She follows, and they walk through the city while conversing. Adding parentheses when you look at someone will produce an emote, while otherwise there is no notification to anyone else that you used the LOOK command. Sometimes, after all, you may be checking what someone looks like for OOC reasons.
Following works in a fairly simple manner. You FOLLOW someone and then whenever they move, you move as well (if you are able to). It is possible to follow in tandem, so that if either person moves, the other moves with them -- but if you get separated, all following ends. If you FOLLOW someone, then it will be easy for them to lose you, but if you CHASE someone, it's more difficult for them to lose you and it requires a skill check. You can stop following by using FOLLOW ME or FOLLOW STOP.
Some exits have delayed traversal times, due to either the method used to move (such as climbing or crawling) or to the nature of the specific location, such as moving along a winding alleyway. To show some subtleties of Emmaline's unfamiliarity with the area, we will use the HMOTE ("hidden" emote) command to show her looking around the markets. This is akin to a whisper in that some people may notice it, if they are close enough or sufficiently observant, but it is likely to go completely unseen. It is a good way to add nuance to a character without being dramatically obvious, and if another person is specifically WATCHing you, they will almost certainly see any hidden emotes.
Despite Emmaline being overwhelmed by an unfamiliar part of the city, Arezou Rufsahni's destination isn't far. The Thieves' Treasure is a rebelliously-artsy drinking establishment on the western side of the city (and not actually a hangout for thieves). Here, it appears that Arezou is meeting a fellow poet. Emmaline introduces herself. Here, you can see the use of INTRODUCE, which is most often used to get local NPCs to recognize you, but also displays an emote that can be useful for players as well.
Emmaline meets Djafira, a prickly protege of Arezou Rufsahni. This image shows the use of HMOTE in terms of giving subtler emotes, as well as the INTRODUCE command that presents a quick and basic method of introducing yourself accurately.
Emmaline reveals her intention to join the Poets' Guild. Djafira is scornful, and barely tries to hide it, but Arezou continues to be intrigued by Emmaline and suggests that she return in one month and audition with a performance in flawless Sirdabi. This is obviously a big challenge for Emmaline, but she accepts.
Emmaline accepts the opportunity from Arezou Rufsahni, and establishes the beginning of a relationship with both Djafira and the elderly poet.
Back at the caravanserai, Emmaline starts to plan a performance. Different professions have their own mechanics; Avaria is not just a game for bards, of course. There are some mechanics that we are unable to explore with Emmaline, such as hunting, sailing, tinkering, mining, animal husbandry, and so on. The game world is vast enough in both lore and mechanics that one character's niche, while perhaps at times overlapping with another's, cannot realistically encompass everything. One professional mechanic that we can demonstrate through Emmaline's story, however, is performance.
There are many performing-type skills (such as acrobatics, dissembling, singing, dance, and the playing of various instruments) that will grant performance abilities. These abilities will allow you to review your repertoire of performances and plan new ones, and then to rehearse, perform, and publicize your performances.
When we check Emmaline's repertoire, using the REPERTOIRE command, we can see that she has no specifically planned and rehearsed performances. Of course, that doesn't mean that she hasn't been performing all this time. Free-form performing through emotes alone is encouraged and welcome, so we'll just say that Emmaline has been winging it.
The snip shows checking one's repertoire, and beginning to plan a new performance with the PLAN PERFORMANCE command.
Now, however, she wants to plan a performance. She decides to compose a song in honor of Mira, her guardian and mentor back in Merouen, because while in Ruvera she tried to avoid singing directly about the hedge witch for safety's sake, she feels more secure doing so in Omrazir where such things seem to be more acceptable. Planning a performance entails assigning the main skill that would be used (in this case "vocals"), as well as categorizing the performance with a genre (in this case, we will leave it as "drama"), naming the performance (we named it simply "Mira"), and lining up a series of actions that would be taken in order to perform.
Emmaline plans a few actions of her performance and wraps up the planning, adding the draft to her repertoire in order to try rehearsing what she has so far.
Now we're lining up actions. These are in the forms of commands, so if we want to make sure we're speaking a certain language, we'll put that in there. Using the SING or RECITE commands will allow you to insert forward slashes in order to separate lines in a stanza. These commands will be issued automatically at an evenly-paced rhythm when we start performing (until the performance is finished, or we stop, or are otherwise interrupted). So, we shouldn't make any of these emotes overly long, and if we want a thoughtful pause, we can insert one on its own. Once we're done planning, we can complete the performance, and it now becomes a part of Emmaline's repertoire.
The number of times a performance has been practiced will add to its final score up to a limited bonus, which will determine the reactions of vNPCs in the area. So, when planning a very important performance, it's a good idea to rehearse. After planning some of her performance, Emmaline starts to do just that...
Using the STOP command will stop a performance anytime.
Whoops, there's a knock on the door! At any time when performing or rehearsing, you can stop with the STOP command. This command works for anything that has a delayed outcome or is ongoing. Most doors have peepholes that you can look out through, so Emmaline does that now, using the PEER command. She sees Iziro outside, and then shortly hears him calling.
Emmaline converses with Iziro through the door, adding a new impression to their relationship that shows she is beginning to consider him to be a true friend.
Using shouting commands such as scream/shout/bellow/et cetera will echo your noise through the surrounding rooms, so if you don't want to do that, you can simply address a direction. Here, Emmaline will say something to the door. If someone is not positioned at that direction, they will only be able to hear a vague murmur, but since Emmaline and Iziro are standing directly on opposite sides of the door, they can hear each other easily. Further, since they have already established a relationship, new impressions can be made at any time and there is no need for the direct presence of the other.
We'll leave Emmaline to tell Iziro about her exciting news, and close this chapter in Emmaline's story. Of course, when we get a chance, we'll go ahead and develop her story arc further -- thus earning more experience, which this time we'll probably want to invest in furthering her singing skills. During this next month, Emmaline will be rigorously practicing her Sirdabi, and she will also enlist Iziro's help in learning the language through conversation. She will add more lines to her song -- planning a performance with the same name will override the old one in her repertoire. And she will adjust and rehearse her performance multiple times, growing more and more comfortable with it, until the fated moment where she will audition before the crowd at the vaunted Poets' Guild.
When the next month rolls around, we'll see Emmaline's performance and whether she will be accepted or not. Until then!

So I am looking into purchasing my first home and one of the things I really wanted to have was a wellness area with a home gym, sauna, and ice bath. In this property I think I may have a nice space to do it but I have a few questions. Here is the layout for the lower level which is where I would place it.
You can see there is an optional bathroom which I would not get installed, and then I can turn this space into a sauna. I currently don't know the exact dimensions (I'll go measure in person in the future), but it is round-about 95x75 inches according to the design tool. Sounds a little big but not sure.
The house has a neighboring house on the left side by the staircase, but on the right wall is the outside since this is an end unit. The home gym would be in the Flex Room and the ice bath would either be in the room as well or outside on the concrete patio out that door.
So the questions

1. If I installed a sauna here would I be able to do traditional or would I need IR? I read that having a traditional sauna here could be difficult for ventilation reasons.
   
2. Is it going to be annoying that this opens directly into the gym and not into a bath room? Ideally I would have that bath and make the mechanical closet a sauna but I don't think that's feasible :(
   
3. I read that pre-built kits are bad. How do I go about getting a custom sauna built for this space? I'm handy but I don't want to build this myself, I'd rather have a service do it right.
   
4. With an traditional sauna would I have to plan sauna use ahead constantly and wait 30+ minutes for it to heat up? That's one thing I am particularly worried about with traditional saunas vs IR which is why I was considering getting a combination unit with both.
   
5. What should I expect to budget for this?
   

Also any other random tips would be appreciated!
Thank You!
EDIT: For reference I probably would want something similar to this or something similar to this