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2023.06.05 17:57 bikingfencer Galatians, chapter 3 - equality in Jesus (https://esv.literalword.com/?q=Galatians+3)

GALATIANS Chapter Three

Instruction as opposed to [לעומת, Le`OoMahTh] belief
[verses 1-14]

-1. O [הוי, HOY] GahLahTeeM [Galatians] foolish [כסילים, KeÇeeYLeeYM]!
Who seized [אחז, ’eeHayZ] [את, ’ehTh] your eyes after that was made known to you in plain [בפרוש, BePhayROoSh] that YayShOo`ah ["Savior", Jesus] the Anointed was crucified?

“The missionaries of the cross of Christ had to compete with pagan priests who paraded the images and symbols of their savior-gods in spectacular processions. There was the cult of Cybele, ‘the Great Mother,’ whose consort Attis died by self-mutilation with the decline of each year’s vegetation. During his ‘passion week’ a pine tree swathed as a corpse was carried through the streets, and three days later his devotees joyfully celebrated his ‘resurrection’ as the guarantee of their own immortality. Another savior-god of Asia Minor was Sandan-Hercules. His symbol was a funeral pyre on which, according to the myth, he had immolated himself after performing the labors that were imposed on him. Still another was Mithra, the sun-god, who was portrayed in the act of slaying a bull, which represented the chaotic element in the universe, and which in dying was believed to give new life to the world.
In competition with these sensuous and often obscene observances, Paul’s portrayal of the crucified Jesus suffered a disadvantage.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X pp. 496-497)

...
-6. … ’ahBRahHahM [“Father Exalted”, Abraham] believed [האמין, Heh’ehMeeYN] in Gods, and it was thought [ונחשבה, VeNehHSheBaH] to him righteousness.

Yes, but Abraham, in addition to believing God, also accepted God’s ordinance of circumcision.
“Both sides could quote scripture, and each could explain the other’s ‘proof’ in the light of his own position. The Jews believed that the Torah existed from the beginning of creation; and that, although it had not yet been written in Abraham’s day, Abraham had obeyed it, being perfect in all his works and pleasing to God in righteousness all his days (Jubilees 23:10; II Baruch 57:2). To prove that Christians could not be saved without being circumcised and assuming the yoke of the Torah, the Judaizers quoted Gen. [Genesis] 17:14.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 502)

[Genesis 17:14 - “And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.”^iv ]

-7. Therefore [ובכן, OoBKhayN] know that [כי, KeeY] sons of the faith are they, sons of ’ahBRahHahM.

“The church began in the synagogue, the main difference being the Christian affirmation of the messiahship of Jesus. But as Greek-speaking Jews and Gentiles came in, this difference in the interpretation of prophecy was widened by laxness in observing the law of Moses. The synagogue expelled the Christians, leaving them without the legal protection which Judaism enjoyed under Romans law. … Not only freedom from the law of Moses but the question of Christian rights under Roman law was involved when Paul declared that the men of faith in Christ were the true sons of Abraham.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 503)

...
-9. From here [מכאן, MeeKah’N], that the seizers in belief are blessed [מבורכים, MeBORahKheeYM] together with ’ahBRahHahM the believer.

“Although faithful (KJV [King James Version]) means lit. [literally], ‘full of faith,’ its primary meaning today is ‘fidelity,’ ‘reliability,’ so that it does not express clearly Paul’s main point, which is Abraham’s response in believing God … Like the sun and the rain, God’s blessing on such a man knows no restrictions of race or nation.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 504)

-10. The reliers [הנשענים, HahNeeSh`ahNeeYM] upon realizing commandments [of] the Instruction are given under a curse [קללה, QLahLaH], that see, is written:
“Cursed [ארור, ’ahROoR] are all who that do not realize [את, ’ehTh (indicator of direct object; no English equivalent)] all the words the written in Account the Instruction, to do them.”

“The range of the curse of which Paul is speaking appears in Deut. [Deuteronomy] 27-30^iv … It is described in terms of the hideous torments which history inflicted upon the Hebrew people. The one word ‘fear’ tells the story – fear of famine, disease, and death; fear of war, torture, and slavery; fear of past, present, and future. All these were punishments on earth, and death ended them. But by the time of Paul they had been projected into the hereafter, where the law’s curse would pursue the soul through an eternity of torment in a hell which was conceived in the fiery imagery of Greek and Persian mythology. The dramatist of the dialogue of Ebal and Gerizim had left open one window of hope – repentance and return to God; but as for the future life, eschatology and apocalyptic had blacked out even this.
… rabbis reasoned that since the Scripture was God’s word, the curse which it pronounced upon the disobedient was God’s curse. He replied that the law was not God’s way of salvation, but only a codicil which angels added through Moses the intermediary (vs. [verse] 19). That was a complete break with the synagogue.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 505)
“It is worthy of remark, that no printed copy of the Hebrew Bible preserves the word כל col, ALL, in Deut. xxvii.26 which answers to the apostle’s word πασι [pasi], all here.” (Clarke, 1831, vol. II p. 382) ...

…………………………………………
The Instruction and the promise
[verses 15-20]

...
-16. And behold, the promises were said [λεγει legei, “says”] to ’ahBRahHahM and to his seed [ולזרעו, OoLeZahR`O, σπερμα sperma], not said “to your seeds”, like upon multitudes, rather “to your seed”, like upon an individual [יחיד, YahHeeYD], and he is the Anointed.

“This kind of ‘proof’ from scripture by reading ‘spiritual’ meanings into details of grammar and discovering ideas that were not within the purview of its writers was being employed more and more.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 513) ...

-19. If thus, for sake of [לשם, LeShehM] what was the Instruction?
She was added [נוספה, NOÇPhaH] because of the trespasses [הערבות, Hah`ahBahROTh],
until that [כי, KeeY] would come the seed that to him was intended [מכונת, MeKhooVehNehTh] the promise.
The Instruction was delivered [נמסרה, NeeMÇeRaH] in mediation [באמצעות, Be’ehMTsah`OoTh] [of] angels in hands of an intermediary [מתוך, MeThahVayKh].
The intermediary is not of one,
and Gods, he is one.

“Thus viewed, the purpose of the angels’ expedient was not to prevent sin – a thing which the weakness of human nature made law powerless to do – but to convince men that they were so bad that nothing could save them except God’s mercy through Christ. ...
This was a clean break from the Jewish conception which held that the law was the gift of God’s lovingkindness to overcome the evil impulse and prevent sin by guidance and discipline in good works. The orthodox maintained that Abraham’s faith was one of these law-works. The belief that angels were present at the giving of the law was widespread ... The presence of the angels, said the rabbis, was the measure of the law’s great glory. Paul said it was a fading glory from the very beginning ... Moreover, it was twice removed from God’s own immediate action, because it was ordained, or ‘enacted,’ ‘through the agency of’ angels, and even they did not communicate directly with the people, but gave the law ‘in the hand of a representative,’ i.e. [in other words], Moses.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 515) ...

…………………………………………
Slaves as opposed to sons
[verses 21 to end of chapter] ...

-28. There is no [אין, ’aYN] YeHOo-DeeY, even [אף, ’ahPh] no [לא, Lo’] nation;
there is no slave, even no son free [בן חורין, BehN HOReeYN];
no male, even no female,
because [משום, MeeShOoM] that all of you are one in Anointed YayShOo`ah.

“Paul’s concept of equality and unity in Christ was an incipient revolution, the consequences of which are only now beginning to be worked out. Wherever his gospel is preached, men become uncomfortable with the age-old equation, ‘foreigner equals inferior’; with the incongruity of man’s ancient thanksgiving that he had ‘not been born a woman’; and with the violation of democracy and brotherhood involved in Aristotle’s definition of a slave as ‘an animated implement’.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X pp. 519 & 520)
“Such unity in Christ does not imply political equality in church or society.” (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, 1990, TNJBC pp. 787)

...
END NOTES
^iv Deuteronomy (the curses, from chapters 27 and 28)
Chapter 27
...
-15. Cursed is the man who makes a graven or molten image (an abomination to YHVH), the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret. …
-16. Cursed is he who despises his father or his mother…
-17. Cursed is he who shifts his neighbor’s border...
-18. Cursed is he who misleads the blind to go astray in the way...
-19. Cursed is he who perverts the justice due to the stranger, orphaned, and widowed...
-20. Cursed is he who lies with his father's wife...
-21. Cursed is he who lies with any manner of beast …
-22. Cursed is he who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother …
-22. Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law …
-24. Cursed is he who strikes his neighbor in secret ….
-25. Cursed is he who takes a bribe to strike an innocent person …
-26. Cursed is he who does not fulfill the words of this law to do them …
Chapter 28
...
-15. … if you do not listen to the voice of YHVH your Gods, to ensure the performance of all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today … all these curses will come upon you, and overtake you.
-16. You are cursed in the city, and you are cursed in the field.
-17. Your basket and your kneading-trough are cursed.
-18. The fruit of your belly is cursed, as is the fruit of your land, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.
-19. You are cursed coming and you are cursed going.
-20. YHVH will send cursing, discomfort, and rebuke upon you and upon all that you put your hand to do, until your destruction and ...your quick death, ‘because of your evil transgressions of forsaking Me’.
-21. YHVH will make pestilence stick to you, until He has consumed you from off the land which you came to inherit.
-22. YHVH will strike you with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with drought, and with blasting, and with mildew; and these will persist until you perish.
-23. And the heaven that is over your head will be brass, and the earth that is under you will be iron.
-24. YHVH will turn the rain of your land into powder and dust; it will descend upon you from the skies until you are destroyed.
-25. YHVH will cause you to be stricken before your enemies; you will sally forth against them from one direction and flee away from them in seven … and you will be a horror to all the kingdoms of the land.
-26. And your carcasses will be food for every bird of the skies and beast of the land, and no one will scare them away.
-27. YHVH will strike you with Egyptian boils, and with hemorrhoids, and with scabs, and with incurable itching.
-28. YHVH will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.
-29. And you will grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness, and you will not make your way ... and you will always be only oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to save you.
-30. You will engage a wife and another man will lie with her; you will build a house and you will not dwell in it; you will plant a vineyard and not consume of it.
-31. Your ox will be sacrificed right before your eyes and you will not eat of it; you will be robbed of your donkey right in front of you and it will not returned to you; your flock will be given to your enemies; and you will have no one to save you.
-32. Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and you eyes will fail from looking for them all day; and you will be powerless …
-33. A people you did not know will consume the fruit of your land and labor, and you will be only oppressed and crushed all the days.
-34. And you will be crazed from the sights which your eyes will see.
-35. YHVH will strike you with an incurable sore boil in the knees and in the legs, from the sole of your foot to your forehead.
-36. YHVH will lead you and the king you set over yourself into a nation neither you nor your fathers knew; and you will worship other gods there – wood and rock.
-37. And you will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples into whom YHVH will drive you.
-38. Much seed will you carry out to the field and little you will gather; for the locust shall consume it.
-39. You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink nor gather; for the worm will eat them.
-40. You will have olives within all your borders, but you will not anoint with oil; for your olives will drop off.
-41. Sons and daughters will be born to you and will not be yours, for they will go into captivity.
-42. All your trees and fruit of your land will be inherited by the locust.
-43. The stranger who is among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will descend lower and lower;
-44. he will lend to you, you will not lend to him; he will be the head and you will be the tail.
-45. And all these curses will come upon you and will pursue you and overtake you until your destruction, because you did not listen to the voice of YHVH your Gods, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.
-46. And they will be on you as a sign and as an example, and on your seed for ever,
-47. because you did not serve YHVH your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things.
-48. And you will serve your enemies, whom YHVH will send against you, in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in want of everything; and he will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
-49. YHVH will send a nation against you from afar, from the end of the land, like a vulture swoops down, a nation whose tongue you have never heard,
-50. a nation of fierce aspect which will neither respect the elderly nor show mercy to the young.
-51. And he will eat the fruit of your cattle and the fruit of your land until you are destroyed, so that there will not remain corn, wine, or oil, the increase of your oxen, or the young of your flock, until he has caused you to perish.
-52. And he will besiege you in all your gates until the razing of your high and fortified walls in which you trusted throughout all your land … which YHVH your God gave you.
-53. And you will eat the fruit of your belly, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom YHVH your Gods gave you, in the siege and in the blockade by which your enemies starve you.
-54. The man who is tender among you and very delicate will [cast] the evil eye against his brother, and against the wife of his bosom, and against the remnant of his children, those remaining,
-55. so that he will not give any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he has nothing left him during the siege and in the blockade by which your enemy will starve you within all your gates.
-56. The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, will [cast] the evil eye against the husband of her bosom and against her son and against her daughter;
-57. and against her afterbirth that comes out from between her legs and against her children whom she bears, for she will eat them secretly from want of everything during the siege and the blockade by which your enemy will starve you within your gates
-58. if you do not observe the performance of all the words of the law that are written in this book, that you might fear this honored and awful Name, YHVH, your Gods.
-59. And YHVH will make your plagues awful, and the plagues of your seed, great, chronic, and sore …
-60. And He will return to you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were in dread, and they will cleave to you.
-61. Also YHVH will raise upon you every sickness and every plague that is not written in this book of the law until your destruction.
-62. And you will be left a small minority, having been as the stars of the skies for multitude, because you did not listen to the voice of YHVH your Gods.
-63. And it shall come to pass, that, just as YHVH rejoiced over your improvement and multiplication, so YHVH will rejoice over your perishing and destruction, and your plucking from off the land to which you had come to inherit.
-64. And YHVH will scatter you among all the peoples, from the end of the earth to the end of the earth, and there you will serve other gods, which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers: wood and stone.
-65. And in those nations you will not assimilate, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; and YHVH will give you there a trembling heart, and failing eyes, and languishing of soul.
-66. And your life will hang before you, and you will be afraid night and day, and you will have no faith in your life.
-67. In the morning you will say: 'Would it were evening!' and in the evening your will say: 'Would it were morning!' from the fear that your heart will fear, and from the sights your eyes will see.
-68. And YHVH will return you to Egypt in ships [instead of] by the way which I said you would never see again, and you will sell yourselves to your enemies for slaves and maids, and none will buy.
-69. These are the words of the covenant which YHVH commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which He made with them in Horeb. An Amateur's Journey Through the Bible

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2023.06.05 17:25 bikingfencer Galatians, chapter 3 - equality in Jesus

GALATIANS Chapter Three

Instruction as opposed to [לעומת, Le`OoMahTh] belief
[verses 1-14]

“The missionaries of the cross of Christ had to compete with pagan priests who paraded the images and symbols of their savior-gods in spectacular processions. There was the cult of Cybele, ‘the Great Mother,’ whose consort Attis died by self-mutilation with the decline of each year’s vegetation. During his ‘passion week’ a pine tree swathed as a corpse was carried through the streets, and three days later his devotees joyfully celebrated his ‘resurrection’ as the guarantee of their own immortality. Another savior-god of Asia Minor was Sandan-Hercules. His symbol was a funeral pyre on which, according to the myth, he had immolated himself after performing the labors that were imposed on him. Still another was Mithra, the sun-god, who was portrayed in the act of slaying a bull, which represented the chaotic element in the universe, and which in dying was believed to give new life to the world.
In competition with these sensuous and often obscene observances, Paul’s portrayal of the crucified Jesus suffered a disadvantage.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X pp. 496-497)

...
-6. … ’ahBRahHahM [“Father Exalted”, Abraham] believed [האמין, Heh’ehMeeYN] in Gods, and it was thought [ונחשבה, VeNehHSheBaH] to him righteousness.

Yes, but Abraham, in addition to believing God, also accepted God’s ordinance of circumcision.
“Both sides could quote scripture, and each could explain the other’s ‘proof’ in the light of his own position. The Jews believed that the Torah existed from the beginning of creation; and that, although it had not yet been written in Abraham’s day, Abraham had obeyed it, being perfect in all his works and pleasing to God in righteousness all his days (Jubilees 23:10; II Baruch 57:2). To prove that Christians could not be saved without being circumcised and assuming the yoke of the Torah, the Judaizers quoted Gen. [Genesis] 17:14.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 502)

[Genesis 17:14 - “And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.”^iv ]

-7. Therefore [ובכן, OoBKhayN] know that [כי, KeeY] sons of the faith are they, sons of ’ahBRahHahM.

“The church began in the synagogue, the main difference being the Christian affirmation of the messiahship of Jesus. But as Greek-speaking Jews and Gentiles came in, this difference in the interpretation of prophecy was widened by laxness in observing the law of Moses. The synagogue expelled the Christians, leaving them without the legal protection which Judaism enjoyed under Romans law. … Not only freedom from the law of Moses but the question of Christian rights under Roman law was involved when Paul declared that the men of faith in Christ were the true sons of Abraham.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 503)

...
-9. From here [מכאן, MeeKah’N], that the seizers in belief are blessed [מבורכים, MeBORahKheeYM] together with ’ahBRahHahM the believer.

“Although faithful (KJV [King James Version]) means lit. [literally], ‘full of faith,’ its primary meaning today is ‘fidelity,’ ‘reliability,’ so that it does not express clearly Paul’s main point, which is Abraham’s response in believing God … Like the sun and the rain, God’s blessing on such a man knows no restrictions of race or nation.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 504)

“The range of the curse of which Paul is speaking appears in Deut. [Deuteronomy] 27-30^iv … It is described in terms of the hideous torments which history inflicted upon the Hebrew people. The one word ‘fear’ tells the story – fear of famine, disease, and death; fear of war, torture, and slavery; fear of past, present, and future. All these were punishments on earth, and death ended them. But by the time of Paul they had been projected into the hereafter, where the law’s curse would pursue the soul through an eternity of torment in a hell which was conceived in the fiery imagery of Greek and Persian mythology. The dramatist of the dialogue of Ebal and Gerizim had left open one window of hope – repentance and return to God; but as for the future life, eschatology and apocalyptic had blacked out even this.
… rabbis reasoned that since the Scripture was God’s word, the curse which it pronounced upon the disobedient was God’s curse. He replied that the law was not God’s way of salvation, but only a codicil which angels added through Moses the intermediary (vs. [verse] 19). That was a complete break with the synagogue.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 505)
“It is worthy of remark, that no printed copy of the Hebrew Bible preserves the word כל col, ALL, in Deut. xxvii.26 which answers to the apostle’s word πασι [pasi], all here.” (Clarke, 1831, vol. II p. 382) ...

…………………………………………
The Instruction and the promise
[verses 15-20]

“This kind of ‘proof’ from scripture by reading ‘spiritual’ meanings into details of grammar and discovering ideas that were not within the purview of its writers was being employed more and more.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 513) ...

“Thus viewed, the purpose of the angels’ expedient was not to prevent sin – a thing which the weakness of human nature made law powerless to do – but to convince men that they were so bad that nothing could save them except God’s mercy through Christ. ...
This was a clean break from the Jewish conception which held that the law was the gift of God’s lovingkindness to overcome the evil impulse and prevent sin by guidance and discipline in good works. The orthodox maintained that Abraham’s faith was one of these law-works. The belief that angels were present at the giving of the law was widespread ... The presence of the angels, said the rabbis, was the measure of the law’s great glory. Paul said it was a fading glory from the very beginning ... Moreover, it was twice removed from God’s own immediate action, because it was ordained, or ‘enacted,’ ‘through the agency of’ angels, and even they did not communicate directly with the people, but gave the law ‘in the hand of a representative,’ i.e. [in other words], Moses.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X p. 515) ...

…………………………………………
Slaves as opposed to sons
[verses 21 to end of chapter] ...

“Paul’s concept of equality and unity in Christ was an incipient revolution, the consequences of which are only now beginning to be worked out. Wherever his gospel is preached, men become uncomfortable with the age-old equation, ‘foreigner equals inferior’; with the incongruity of man’s ancient thanksgiving that he had ‘not been born a woman’; and with the violation of democracy and brotherhood involved in Aristotle’s definition of a slave as ‘an animated implement’.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X pp. 519 & 520)
“Such unity in Christ does not imply political equality in church or society.” (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, 1990, TNJBC pp. 787)

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2023.06.05 00:44 Tall-Climate-9043 Who wants to join my mississippi state dynasty? I'm on a mission to win my 1st sec title on ncaa football 08.

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2023.06.04 18:46 moishepesach [RO][HR] Sincerely

Sincerely
Ba-doh, ba-doh, ba-doh, ba-doh-ba
Sincerely, oh yes, sincerely
'Cause I love you so dearly, please say you'll be mine
-The Moonglows
Part I - The End
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. If I keep saying it maybe it will be true.
But it was happening. Tough times. Humpty Dumpty times. Out of gas in the desert with no bars times.
And, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse than a Tijuana root canal; she walked in. Out of the sweltering Mexican heat, into the dim bar, she came; the only thing standing between me and the blinding light. I heard a couple of gunshots somewhere in the distance.
I still remember how the sun illuminated my 2pm rise and shine, shit-faced full of no caffeine afternoon after, hair of the dog; tequila shot and beer. Like I said, tough times on the Ponderosa, Hoss.
Every time I think of that moment, I stand transfixed in time. Unable to move, frozen in-place tighter than a suckered kid’s tongue to a Chicago lamppost in a February ice storm. Maggie had long ago won my heart’s devotion only to betray both me, and it, in ways still inconceivable to my sauce pan of a brain.
So, a couple of months ago, my life in post-apocalyptic ruin, I did what any red-blooded American would do; I flew across the border to CDMX to drown my sorrows in tequila and cheap living. And now, incomprehensibly, here she was; back, again like the September monsoon. Had the bitch air tagged me?
It seemed with Maggie my heart’s devotion was not enough. Everything she wanted and received soon became a dull knife; just ain’t cutting. Mags had to have it all, all the time. And I thought she had gotten all of me and more. Who’d think she’d want to pick at the carcass? But inexplicably, there she was like my constant migraine, the one that never really left the base of my skull.
Without a word Mags swooped in close like she missed me and now hadda kiss me.
Then, quicker than lightning showing off, she plunged her delicate-boned hand deep into my chest. She then removed it with even greater alacrity holding it high above her jet-black mane. She waved it for all the bar to see, my still beating corazón in it, color-coordinating against it’s will with her manicure, making what looked like vague Italian gestures.
Nobody in the bar paid us any mind.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t help but avert my horrified gaze into my now exposed chest cavity, only to witness darkness within darkness gazing back at me.
“Heyyyyyy,” a voiceless voice greeted and saluted.
I looked up at Maggie. She took the seat opposite mine. Then reaching over with her free hand commandeered my tequila and knocked it back quick. Her encore was to grab my beer and drain it with all the mud she could muster into my eye. Then, with a satisfied look she dropped the now emptied bottle on the wooden table hard enough to make a thud.
Maggie then met my stare. My cardia beating peripatetically in her freshly manicured right-hand she made an elaborate shrug, her face smug as a tyrant’s fart.
I remembered wondering what the fuck was keeping my cardio so vascular. It sure as fuck wasn’t clean living. Then, that voiceless voice had yet more to say.
“Now what, Spenser?” it asked.
Now, it was now my turn to shrug. Surprisingly, despite being a now certifiably heartless son of a bitch, I, too, had something to say. So, I said it.
“You’re fucking diabolical, Maggie.”
My words of judgment echoed clear, permeating deep into the abyss, then back again at Maggie. She caught my words easier than a kitten catches smiles. She just shrugged again. It was starting to get annoying.
“You ruined me,” I added just to be doing something.
The shrug undulated down from her tan and toned shoulder through her arm, finally coming to a full stop at her finger’s tips.
Waving my heart at me with more vague Italian gestures Mags asked, “How can you be so sure, Spenser?”
Part II – The Middle
Sincerely, oh you know how I love you
I'll do anything for you, please say you'll be mine
...
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. My new mantra wasn’t working.
Six months ago, I thought Maggie was the answer to my dreams.
Swooping down like an angel to shower me with attention and affection. Dinners with wine. Hot sex. More hot sex. No strings attached. Getting to know you pillow talk.
Now, there’s one thing I need to add. I met her through a dating app but as it turned out we both worked for the same nonprofit. We didn’t know each other as it’s a fairly big company but it turned out I supported the code for both her projects. This turned out to be one of many coincidences.
We both hated our jobs. We both liked writing short stories but never could sell a thing despite writing dozens and dozens. We both could dance salsa, on 1 and 2 and loved to hablar en español que no era muy guapo.
We both wanted to run away to Mexico city and live the Bohemian life.
Coincidences like we both grew up in NYC and had issues with our respective families of origin. And while she was Chinese-American and I was Russian-American both our fathers were born in the same year and were obsessed with Woody Allen. We both had much younger siblings we didn’t speak to.
Yeah, we had both grown up with weak fathers and selfish narcissistic mothers in common. And worser still, we had both experienced unstable living situations in high school. In my case, I was kicked out of the house for smoking weed.
In Maggie’s case, I never really was sure what went down but the best I could get out of her was at 13 she got pissed at her mom for cheating on her dad and left the house with nowhere to go. She ended up with family friends or relatives but the details were always murky and I was not the nosey type.
Her words to me were, “My mother’s emotional IQ is low. I raised myself.”
Impressively, she had made it through the Ivy League and seemed to be someone down to earth I could spend time with. But truth be told from the minute I saw her profile picture I was hotter than a Texas chili sprout for her.
It was some kind of primal attraction I thought I was long past entertaining. It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t love. It was like the thought of coming home to a family I never knew I had or that even could exist.
This shit made old me feel like young me again. But, as oft is the case in life, there was a problem. I was old, broke and probably about to lose my job. I was in IT and I was having problems with my manager being a psychopath; for reals.
It wasn’t mere conjecture as he had a reputation of getting people fired, or worse, making their lives so miserable they would quit; even with no prospects. I had been the focus of his sabotaging efforts and it had been having a bad effect on my mental and physical well-being.
This had taken a turn for the worse and I was catching a lot of passive aggressive hostility on the project Maggie supported.
Anyway, she was the bright spot in my otherwise mostly solitary and emotionally bleak life. And she lived nearby. She had an ex and kids and shared custody but I never met them and she didn’t really talk much about it except to say once, “You should need a license to have kids.”
I never had quite known what to make of some of the things she said, but like I said, I was under her spell. And I liked it.
And the icing on top? I had a dominant kinky side and that was a fire Maggie poured gasoline on every chance she got. She was worse than an arsonist in Underoo Town.
One weird thing about Mags was her knitting habit. If we weren’t fucking or eating she was knitting. Even at restaurants and bars.
One day in November, with the sun golden in a sky so blue you thought you could touch it I asked, “What are you knitting?”
Maggie gave me a wry look. She got out of her chair and seemed to be examining my bald head which I had shaved just that morning.
“A hat,” she replied.
But as the holidays rolled around things started to change. One Sunday morning as we were having coffee Maggie looked around the crowded steamy café.
“Everybody’s hooking up for the holidays,” she remarked.
I didn’t really know what to do with that one so I let it be.
But as the days went on there was a change in the weather. Fewer texts. Less sex. Maggie going out of town to some vague destination. Sending me sexy pictures of herself in Santa outfits after I caught the flu during Christmas.
A few days after Christmas I got a text late one night.
“Is it okay if I come by?”
“Very okay,” was my reply.
Maggie showed up with chocolate, red wine and the hat she had been knitting. Orange Afghani wool softer than a golden retriever’s fur. She put the hat on my head and then removed all my clothes.
“Let’s celebrate Christmas, Spenser.”
And, we did.
When we were done and lying head-to-head, I said, “I love my hat.”
Maggie said, “I made it especially for you. No matter what, don’t lose it.”
It was another one of those weird Maggie things she said, like, “I used to shoplift,” and shit like that.
I nodded.
“Promise me you’ll hold on to your hat, Spenser.”
“I promise.”
Maggie observed my face, then nodded as if confirming something to herself.
“Okay.”
Then we did that thing again.
That was the pinnacle. Things quickly went downhill for no reason I could discern. Texts unanswered and when answered; kind of abrupt-like. Being unavailable. Stuff with her kids. Time away in Connecticut for some vague reason. After that I began feeling like the weakest card in a gambler’s hand.
But Maggie kept shoe horning me in at odd times, giving me just enough crumbs to keep me on the hook. And as we rode the roller coaster down everything always seemed to center around alcohol. And sex. More and more debauched sex. Finally, by New Year’s Eve things were getting straight-up weird no chaser.
“You know that thing we talked about?”
By her tone I knew what she meant. I nodded cautiously.
“You want to try it?”
Maggie dropped a smile on me that would have had the serpent in the garden applying for unemployment.
“Yes,” she said.
So, we did.
I thought I had been imagining things. I thought we were back at the pinnacle. I could feel the love drug course through my veins. Things couldn’t be better. Or, so I thought.
Oh Lord, won't you tell me why
I love that girlie so
The Following Monday
The next Monday I was called into what turned out to be the most fucking bizarre moment of my fifty-eight years on this planet; and I’ve had some bizarre fucking moments growing up in south Brooklyn in the 1970’s; believe you me.
The company’s CIO, compliance officer, head of legal, head of HR and my evil manager, Conte Rugen were all in attendance, cameras ROLLING.
It appears I was being dismissed after 8 years loyal service for sexual assault, extortion, harassment, hate speech, insults to farm animals and every fucking other offense against God and man one could commit in these holiest of holy United States of America.
And just who had I… who had I.. victimized? Who had I preyed upon? Harassed? Gone full nutso on?
Maggie.
They had the goods. Recordings. Video. Ropes. Whips. Chains. Bad Spanglish. Maggie screaming, “No, papi! No!!!!”
I believe I was, what is known in legal parlance as, summarily fucked.
Nobody wanted to hear my side. How things were taken out of context. Things we had mutually consented to out of exciting and bonding trust and exploration.
“Did I have consent agreement?” I parroted back in shock to the head of legal.
“Did you get one when you fucked your mother in the ass before she shat you out?” I added just to keep my mouth from puking.
I was in bombshell shock. Maggie was my angel. Our situationship was supposed to be fucking healing from our abused childhoods and here I am now some kind of Tarantinoesque, Mr. Fucking Rapist? And my fucking manager once bragging about throwing a cat out a window when he was a juvenile delinquent?!?
There would be charges pressed. I would need an attorney. I might be arrested.
And it all happened faster than you can say, “Blue Monday, How I hate Blue Monday”.
And then Maggie sued the company. Take no fucking prisoners, Maggie. Disco-fucking-inferno burn that mother down we don’t need no water let the motherfucker burn Maggie. I wondered if her ex had been left on food stamps after the divorce.
A few months and my life savings and retirement account after that the criminal case got pleaded down to misdemeanor assault and I was able to arbitrate with my employer and Maggie’s lawyer leaving me with some clothes, my passport and precisely enough plastic to fly into the sweltering Mexican heat. So, fly into it I did.
Part III – The Beginning
Sincerely, oh you know how I love you
I'll do anything for you, please say you'll be mine
Oh Lord, won't you tell me why
I love that girlie so
She doesn't want me
But I'll never never never never let her go
...
“I wish you’d stop waving that thing at me,” I said gesturing at my heart with my chin.
“You’re still upset,” Maggie said. It wasn’t a question.
“You fucking abused me. You fucking eviscerated me. Yeah, you could say I’m a little perturbed.”
“But you’re still wearing the hat,” she said smiling.
“It’s a bad ass hat,” I said. It was after all. Why cut off your nose to spite your face?
“I put a lot of time and thought into it,” she said. My heart continued to beat in her hand.
...
Oh Lord, won't you tell me why
I love that girlie so
She doesn't want me
But I'll never never never never let her go
...
“Look,” she said waving my heart at me.
“I really wish you wouldn’t wave that around like that.”
The voice in the abyss in my chest spoke. It said, “Wait for it.”
Maggie said, “Spenser, you poor fucking sap. You hate your fucking job. You try to do the right fucking thing and speak up and you get kicked around like a dog. You try to love hard and you get beat up and left in an alley. You try to write books and start businesses and you end up bankrupt or dead.
And now look at you! You don’t have a care in the fucking world. You don’t have a shitty job. You are in beautiful Mexico City with the girl of your dreams. You say your heart was hardened? Well, I say it feels pretty fucking soft and sweet to me. Like the hat I knitted you. With the pom pom. And you know what?”
“What?” I heard myself murmur?
The abyss in my chest said, “Yeah, what?”
“Well, one the fucking pom pom has a beacon so I knew where you were the whole fucking time you sap. So I can tell you this true. And I will. So here I am in fucking Mexico sweating my tits off. And I am telling you this," she said nodding at my cardio, "is a very good heart. And I am putting it back where it belongs.
There is nothing wrong with it and now nobody can hurt it again. And if you want to write a book now you have something, and someone,” she added with a wry smile, “to write about.”
Then lightning quick Maggie put it back in my chest and removing her hand made a quick flourish gesturing for the waitress.
“Botella de tequila, por favor!”
I looked down at my chest. Everything seemed to be the way it had been before she ripped out my heart. Only different.
I was about to speak. Maggie raised a hand.
The waitress appeared like a wraith and put down a bottle of Don Julio and two fresh shot glasses and two cold ones.
Maggie poured two shots and pushed one at me with the hand that had been holding my cardio captive. She then fished around in her pocket and found her phone.
“What the fuck, right," that's what your thinking, Spenser. Yeah, what the fuck is right. Look at this baby boy,” she said and then pushed her phone next to the shot glass.
I was looking at what appeared to be a bank balance that appeared ready, willing and able to face fuck an extraordinarily tall giraffe. I felt the migraine disappear like a bad dream.
Maggie gave me a wry smile.
She pushed the shot glass closer to me and picked hers up. I felt my elbow bending. It felt okay.
She tilted her shot at me and said, "Here's looking at you, kid," and took the shot. I drank mine.
We put our glasses down.
“You can negotiate anything," she said, then added, "sincerely.”
And then, then she kissed me.
Oh say you'll be mine
Oo-eee, oo-eee-oo, ooi-ooi-ooo
Sincerely

submitted by moishepesach to shortstories [link] [comments]

2023.06.03 23:18 fire-away-matey Tax Rate on Retirement Withdrawals

I know that figuring out tax strategies are ultra-complicated and advice is best given by professionals due to the differences in law tax from location to location, but also how it affects your eligibility of other benefits.
That said, I'd like to get a somewhat simple idea of what effective tax rate I should use when planning my FIRE journey (again, I know things are subject to change with time). Because pre-tax income isn't very helpful plotting out the path.
Again, not looking for something PERFECT, but something "close."
Let me know if the following makes sense. Maybe I'm completely missing something.
The things I'm taking into consideration for my own journey:

Types of retirement accounts
- Brokerage
- IRA (traditional or SEP)
- ROTH IRA
Federal tax implications of each (I'm married, filling joint)
- Brokerage - Being conservative and using LT cap gains tax on all withdrawals
  - 0% up to $89,250
  - 15% for anything more
- IRA
  - 10% up to $22k
  - 12% up $89,450
  - 22% up to $190,750
- ROTH IRA - no taxes
State tax
- Brokerage - 3.07% (PA's flat income/cap gains tax) - being conservative here and applying this to all withdrawals
- PA state tax laws have 0% tax on any retirement account withdrawal (as long as you meet the age thresholds)

Now, with these considerations, I've arrived to an effective tax rate for each of the account types and also weighted them against the account balances.
With all this, I came to the conclusion that if I want to have a pre-tax income of $140k in retirement, the following overall tax rate is a good estimate to use:

Balances/weights
- Brokerage - $1.12M - 74% weight
- SEP-IRA - $260k - 17% weight
- ROTH IRA - $134k - 9% weight
Weighted tax rate
- Brokerage - 6.29%
- SEP-IRA - 2.63%
- ROTH IRA - 0%
Overall effective tax rate - 8.92%
Add 3% buffer for conservatism
Overall effective tax rate to use in my calculations - 11.92%

Is my approach sound? Or am I blindly missing something important?
Thanks in advance. Any confirmation on this would help ease my anxious mind!
Visual representation of my work

submitted by fire-away-matey to financialindependence [link] [comments]

2023.06.03 22:33 eenvtr Another Pig Butcher Crypto Romance Scam

** I know about not falling for the recovery scams, I've been reading this reddit for the past few days coping. Will add a TLDR at the bottom, I just really want to let this out. Maybe my rambling might show patterns to people that they have seen, and they won't be subject to falling for the same thing and they may snap out of it.**
Hi all,
I already know I was stupid, I ignored many red flags blatantly. I was recently affected by a crypto romance scammer. Story as follows:
I have not dated in almost a decade, I closed my heart off to a lot of people and lost a lot of friends on the way. I have always been an introvert, but finally broke out of my depression somewhat a year and a half ago. I began self improvement, and feel a lot better now than I did 5 years ago. I live alone, I'm lonely, and just turned 27. I have my own apartment, and felt it was time to start working on different parts of life, instead of doing everything alone.
I decided to give online dating a try. I matched with a girl on Tinder, and I was the first to initiate. I messaged her, and she did not reply for a day. There were a couple sentences exchanged back and forth, and she asked for my phone number. I ended up providing it to her, since my friends always recommended to get someone off Tinder as soon as possible.
She messaged me on my phone, and we had a few back and forths on many different topics and ideas. It seemed surreal since it felt like I was clicking with her very well. This usually does not happen at all with people I meet in real life, and she was leading multiple parts of the conversations, which did not raise a flag to me. She mentioned that English was not her first language, I was ok with that because the English was written well, a few hic ups here and there in the conversation, but I chalked it up to a language barrier. It did not seem to be translated at all, she was even using well structured sentences with unique words that you do not hear day to day, which I assumed would not be translated in the normal sense (think obfuscate).
Some of the conversations we had was what we did for work, what our hobbies and goals are. Our taste in music, movies, recommendations. It seemed so normal first for a conversation. On the end of the second day, she wanted me to download telegram which was a possible red flag, I never trusted google hangouts, telegram, whatsapp due to scammers being known for using these applications. I was a bit hesitant but she wanted me to download it so she could talk to me while she was at work. I eventually agreed, we said our good nights and I went to sleep. I generally keep my guard up with people (why are they being so nice, what do they want from me?), but I ended up going with it since I was genuinely enjoying this person.
I added her on Telegram, and we were continuing our conversations from the day earlier. Said our good mornings, and talked more about goals and aspirations. She would talk to me about her childhood, and I would talk about mine. We eventually began exchanging pictures (nothing sexual), voice recordings, jokes. We talked for a week, and she began talking about how she uses AI for short term node investing to make money on the side while she was working and invested at times the AI told her to. I said cool, and continued with our normal conversations. Eventually I was beginning to get loved bombed and sweet talked to over the course of a couple weeks. I was feeling great about myself, and confident. I felt like I had a connection to them, I was mentioning her to friends and family about how awesome she was. About a week and a half in, she said she had to travel for a few weeks to a different part of the USA. Another red flag yay. Probably 5 so far?
I was super skeptical, but not enough. This girl intrigued me so much. I was sick for about a week, and she was constantly checking up on me and reminding me to eat, sleep, take my temperature, and to get up every few hours to stretch. None of my family or friends do this for me, which made me fall for her a bit more. She made me reconcile with my parents too, and my relationship with my parents is a lot better than before. She did mention before that she was very family oriented, and it opened my eyes that I should leave the past in the past, and embrace the future.
We had a heart to heart with one another one night, I don't want to go into details but she explained why she was single and why I was single, and this kind of sealed it for me I think. LOOOOTS of love bombing after this. One of the patterns I was noticing through the weeks is that she would always message me at 10 am, the good mornings and the like, and go to bed at 12 am (shift change anyone?). Never any messages before or after this time. She also facetimed me, had a quick conversation, but she claimed the connection was bad, so we ended it after a few minutes. I read this was a common thing after I got scammed. She was a real girl, I've heard her and seen her, but she is most likely just part of an operation. I even reverse image searched her on multiple different platforms, no results showed up. Insane.
She began talking talking about her crypto again, and wanted me to join her! I did not care about the money as much as I was caring about her. I wanted to start for her. She showed me how to to buy crypto, and how to put it in my wallet, and how to set up 2FA to transfer the crypto to said wallet. Seems normal so far, and we continued the next day. One of the things I noticed was that I was getting the drive to learn back, I dislike my current job. It's monotonous, boring, tedious, and this was something new! She got me back into reading, watching shows, improving on myself in different aspects of life.
The next day, she showed me how to use the browser in the wallet, to start staking crypto, and make passive income. I started with 200 USDT. I am kind of broke right now since everything costs so much and I make an OK wage. This could lead to financial freedom I thought. The website itself was fishy, poorly done, numbers had floats attached to them. Did not look professional, but I felt like I was in love and I could trust her. I know it's stupid loving someone you have not met.
After a few days of staking, I withdrew the money into my wallet. Looked legit! I made money. Not that much, but it was something. She mentioned to me how much money this makes compared to a 401k or roth IRA, seemed believable. She then showed me what app she uses for the short node investing. It was not on the app store, so I had to follow a link to download it (yay another red flag I saw and ignored on purpose). I set the app up and we said our good nights.
During the next day, she began walking me through how to use the app, how to input money from the wallet I have, including my staking if I wanted to. She sent me 20 dollars in ETH for the gas fees to send the USDT. Made me believe in her even more. I inputted about 250 USDT into the app, and we began short term node investing. I made about 100 dollars that day. Felt good. Yes I know it's fake.
The next day were serious red flags. She told me how her coworker withdrew his full 401k (40k USD) and put it into staking and short node investing, and has made a few hundred thousand dollars. I was intrigued, and she said I should do that too. I want to thank my job and bank for only letting me withdraw half, and loaning it against myself, and not letting me do a hardship withdrawal. I withdrew about 6000 USD from my 401k, sent it to my bank, and wired it to crypto. After waiting a few days for it to clear, I put it into my wallet, and into the fake exchange for short node investing.
I made about 44000 in fake money over the course of a couple days. She mentioned there's a new member reward, if I put in 10k USD in my account I get another 800 USDT free for being a new member. I mentioned that I can't, rent would be in a few days, and I needed the money for rent. She assured me that I should let my money work for me, and that I can withdraw it when I needed to for rent. Trusting this, I put my rent money into the fake exchange expecting to be able to withdraw it later since I was able to withdraw money before.
I got to about 8.5k USDT, 1.5k away for the free 800 USDT from the rewards program. She recommended me to apply for bank loans (another red flag LOL, but I was blinded). I never really built my credit at all before, only car loans and a credit card that I missed 2 20 dollar payments 4 years ago. My credit is low (640) so I could not loan out 50k from the bank like she wanted me to. The best I could do was 1.5k. I ended up getting my first credit card in a long time, it has a 500 dollar max currently and unsecured.
I did not end up taking out the loan (not yet), and I did not using any of the credit card to buy crypto with. This is when I began to believe something was wrong. There's no way I am getting scammed! She was messaging me and talking to me 15 hours a day, right? That's a lot of time investment.
Rent day was coming up, I went to withdraw my rent money from the fake exchange. I got an email stating I have to pay 5k in fees to withdraw the money because I won a lot of money.
I talked to her about it, inquiring why I could not just take out a portion of my principle I put in, without touching any of the winnings. She claimed it was for tax purposes and forgot to tell me. I half believed her. I talked to 2 friends seeing if I could loan out 5k from them. One said they will talk to their wife first, I respected their decision. They ended up saying no, I said thank you and I understood.
The other friend said sure, since I payed back a loan another friend gave me timely in the past. He tried to send it to me via cashapp, but was told to contact his bank first. I am very happy that happened. I said don't worry about it, I'll find out what to do. Didn't mention it the next day since I was still thinking.
Rent day came, and I took that 1500 loan to pay most of my rent. I still had a little extra money in my account to cover the full rent. Paying 500 dollars back a month on this loan to get it done asap, since my credit history isn't good, and I don't want to pay 30% interest. I'd rather loan from a bank if I can than mess up a friendship due to my stupidity.
I didn't talk to the girl for almost a full day, she kept trying to check up on me asking if I was ok and sending me voice messages. I went to a bar with friends and had a great time. I have 30 dollars in my bank account now, I get payed next week, I have a 1500 dollar loan with 30% interest I have to pay back, and 6000 dollars in a 401k I have to pay off that comes out of each paycheck. I stopped contributing to it so I don't feel as underwater.
I began responding to her, her messages weren't as lovable or frequent anymore (most likely because I mentioned that I am no longer interested in short node investing unless I get a portion of my principle back), maybe good morning and good night, and something short in the day. I used to reread our full conversations from the days when we began first talking, it just felt like bliss to me. Now I hardly want to talk to her, I downloaded and exported our conversation history from Telegram, but keeping her there just incase I can use something against it. Most likely won't be able to.
A friend mentioned to me he saw her account on another dating app, and they reported it. Different name, only a few miles away when she's supposed to be somewhere else. I told one friend about this story so far. They are very close to me and we had a heart to heart about it.
The most painful part about this is that I told my mom and sister about how I met someone new that really clicked with me, and I was finally happy. I struggled for so many years and they noticed my demeaner changed and were super joyous about it. Not only that, I don't miss the money I lost (~8.7k dollars), I miss the person that I thought I was building a relationship with that I would eventually meet and love. I was on Tinder for 3 months before I found her, every conversation was so dry and uninteresting to me until I met her. I only talked to her for about a month so maybe that is why I was able to break the spell early.
I feel free right now. I thought I would go back to being depressed, but I feel like I gained more than lost from this. I learned how to be a bit more sociable with people, what to look out for in scams (this one was way different than any I have ever experienced), to talk to people close to me about their thoughts of what's going on. I kept it all in. My relationship with my family is better because of her, but I will miss the person I thought that was for me. They really are intelligent in what they do, it's crazy. Maybe I found out that I am a hopeless romantic when my guard is not up. Which sucks, but it is what it is.
I will try to pay back all my loans asap, it's not too much money, but I will have to live more frugally at the moment. I'm not ready to let me mom or sister know, but I told one of my friends so far that won't joke about it. I am also happy I did not rope any friends into this. I needed time to clear my thoughts and do what I could to make this right.
Whenever I see her pictures online, I feel melancholic. I report her to the apps but it forces me to see what could have been if it was real. I have also submitted a case to the FBI, I don't know what else I should send to.
Thanks for reading if any of you did, I rambled a lot.

TLDR:
- Haven't dated in years, met chick on dating app and I was first to initiate
- She asked for my number, I gave it to her
- Quickly moved onto Telegram
- Lovebombed for weeks
- Mentions she's an investor in crypto, and wanted me to join her
- Blinded by fake love, lose 8.7k USD to the scam, everything in my bank account + half my 401k
- Had to take a loan out from a bank to pay rent
- Will miss the person I thought was for me more than the money lost itself
- Learned more from this than lost in my opinion. Thank god I'm already poor. It could have been much worse if my credit was good. Now I am on the path to building my credit for the first time in years.
- I'm aware that I was most likely talking to different people over Telegram, and she would send the recordings herself or facetimes.

submitted by eenvtr to CryptoScams [link] [comments]

2023.06.03 21:49 DRAGON_LALALAND My 96th Academy Awards Winners & Nominees Predictions (June, Post Cannes)

Best Picture

Past Lives (Winner)
Killers of the Flower Moon
Dune: Part Two
Anatomy of a Fall
Rustin
Poor Things
The Killer
The Color Purple
Strangers
Oppenheimer

Alt: Air, Barbie, La Chimera, How Do You Live?, The Iron Claw, Maestro, The Zone of Interest

Best Director

Martin Scorsese - Killers of the Flower Moon (Winner)
Denis Villeneuve - Dune: Part Two
David Fincher - The Killer
Celine Song - Past Lives
Justine Trier - Anatomy of a Fall

Alt: Greta Gerwig - Barbie, Alice Rohrwacher - La Chimera, Miyazaki Hayao - How Do You Live?, Christopher Nolan - Oppenheimer, Jonathan Glazer - The Zone of Interest

Best Actress

Annette Bening - Nyad (Winner)
Fantasia - The Color Purple
Greta Lee - Past Lives
Emma Stone - Poor Things
Sandra Hüller - Anatomy of a Fall

Alt: Regina King - Shirley, Carey Mulligan - Maestro, Margot Robbie - Barbie, Natalie Portman - May December, Sandra Hüller - The Zone of Interest

Best Actor

Colman Domingo - Rustin (Winner)
Leonardo DiCaprio - Killers of the Flower Moon
Bradley Cooper - Maestro
Michael Fassbender - The Killer
Ben Whishaw - Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie (NGNG)

Alt: André Holland - The Actor, Barry Keoghan - Saltburn, Yakusho Kōji - Perfect Days, Cillian Murphy - Oppenheimer, Yoo Teo - Past Lives

Best Supporting Actress

Lilly Gladstone - Killers of the Flower Moon (Winner)
Audra McDonald - Rustin
Danielle Brooks - The Color Purple
Julianne Moore - May December
Maura Tierney - The Iron Claw

Alt: Tantoo Cardinal - Killers of the Flower Moon, Taraji P. Henson - The Color Purple, Kaimana - Next Goal Wins, Rosamund Pike - Saltburn, Tilda Swinton - The Killer

Best Supporting Actor

John Magaro - Past Lives (Winner)
Robert De Niro - Killers of the Flower Moon
Mark Ruffalo - Poor Things
Jesse Plemons - Killers of the Flower Moon
Jeremy Allen White - The Iron Claw

Alt: Willem Dafoe - Poor Things, Colman Domingo - The Color Purple, Ryan Gosling - Barbie, Charles Melton - May December, Paul Mescal - Strangers

Best Original Screenplay

Celine Song - Past Lives (Winner)
Dustin Lance Black and George C. Wolfe - Rustin
Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik - May December
Justine Trier - Anatomy of a Fall
Sean Durkin - The Iron Claw

Alt: Alex Convery - Air, Alice Rohrwacher - La Chimera, Pawel Pawlikowski, Ben Hopkins and Kirill Serebrennikov - Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie, Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer - Maestro, Emerald Fennell - Saltburn

Best Adapted Screenplay

Andrew Haigh - Strangers (Winner)
Tony McNamara - Poor Things
Eric Roth - Killers of the Flower Moon
Jonathan Grazer - The Zone of Interest
Kelly Fremon Craig - Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Alt: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig - Barbie, Jon Spaihts, and Denis Villeneuve - Dune: Part Two, Miyazaki Hayao - How Do You Live?, Taika Waititi and Iain Morris - Next Goal Wins, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and David Callaham - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Best International Feature

Anatomy of a Fall / Anatomie d'une chute (FRANCE, Justine Trier) (Winner)
The Zone of Interest / Strefa interesów (POLAND, Jonathan Glazer)
How Do You Live? / 君たちはどう生きるか (JAPAN, Miyazaki Hayao)
El Conde (CHILE, Pablo Larraín)
Next Sohee / 다음 소희 (SOUTH KOREA, Jung July)

Alt: About Dry Grasses / Kuru Otlar Üstüne (TURKEY, Nuri Bilge Ceylan), La Chimera (ITALY, Alice Rohrwacher), Dead Leaves / Kuolleet lehdet (FINLAND, Aki Kaurismäki), Housekeeping For Beginners / Домаќинство за почетници (NORTH MACEDONIA, Goran Stolevski), Monster / 怪物 (JAPAN, Koreeda Hirokazu)

Best Documentary Feature

Stamped from the Beginning (Winner)
Beyond Utopia
The Orwell
The Echo
The Stroll

Alt: Another Body, The Disappearance of Shere Hite, The Eternal Memory, Occepied City, 20 Days in Mariupol

Best Animated Feature

How Do You Live? (Winner)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Elemental
Wish
Nimona

Alt: Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, High in the Clouds, Spellbound, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Suzume

Best Cinematography

Rodrigo Prieto - Killers of the Flower Moon (Winner)
Hoyte van Hoytema - Oppenheimer
Erik Messerschmidt - The Killer
Łukasz Żal - The Zone of Interest
Jamie D. Ramsay - Strangers

Alt: Cevahir Sahin and Kürsat Üresin - About Dry Grasses, Graig Fraser - Dune: Part Two, Christopher Blauvelt - May December, Claudio Miranda - Nyad, Robbie Ryan - Poor Things

Best Original Score

Hans Zimmer - Dune: Part Two (Winner)
Ludwig Göransson - Oppenheimer
John Williams - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Killer
Mica Levi - The Zone of Interest

Alt: Alexandre Desplat - Barbie, Thomas Newman - Elemental, Hisaishi Joe - How Do You Live?, Robbie Robertson - Killers of the Flower Moon, Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen - Past Lives

Best Editing

Thelma Schoonmaker - Killers of the Flower Moon (Winner)
Joe Walker - Dune: Part Two
Keith Fraase - Past Lives
Kirk Baxter - The Killer
Matthew Hannam - The Iron Claw

Alt: Jon Poll - The Color Purple, Michelle Tosoro - Maestro, Tom Eagles, Yana Gorskaya, Nicholas Monsour and Nat Sanders - Next Goal Wins, Jannifer Lame - Oppenheimer, Paul Watts - The Zone of Interest

Best Costume Design

Jacqueline Durran - Barbie (Winner)
Holly Waddington - Poor Things
Jacqueline West - Dune: Part Two
Oliver Garcia - Chevalier
Francine Jamison-Tanchuck - The Color Purple

Alt: Jacqueline West - Killers of the Flower Moon, Colleen Atwood - The Little Mermaid, Mark Bridges - Maestro, Janty Yates - Napoleon, Lindy Hemming - Wonka

Best Production Design

Barbie (Winner)
Poor Things
Killers of the Flower Moon
Dune: Part Two
The Color Purple

Alt: Asteroid City, The Killer, Oppenheimer, Spaceman, The Zone of Interest

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Maestro (Winner)
Nyad
Poor Things
Dune: Part Two
Barbie

Alt: Chevalier, The Color Purple, Ferrari, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Shirley

Best Sound

Dune: Part Two (Winner)
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Killer
Ferrari

Alt: The Color Purple, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, John Wick: Chapter 4, Nyad, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Best Visual Effects

Dune: Part Two (Winner)
Oppenheimer
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
The Killer

Alt: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, John Wick: Chapter 4, The Little Mermaid, The Marvels, Spaceman

submitted by DRAGON_LALALAND to oscarrace [link] [comments]

2023.06.03 21:37 OPNurMND [FOR SALE] Weekend Sale 25+ records

All prices are G&S, add $5 for shipping. All records are sealed unless stated. Will do deals on multiple. If you want specific pressing description lmk.
ADTR- Homesick (purple) - $80
Knuckle Puck - Copacetic (double mint) - $30
Knuckle Puck - Shapeshifter (LE500) - $40
Fuel - Something Like Human (black splatter) - $60
Senses Fail - Let It Enfold You (blue marble) - $45
Senses Fail - Let It Enfold You (yellow 180g) - $40
Dashboard - The Places We’ve Come - $20
Third Eye Blind - Out Of The Vein (green) - $90
The Shins - Wincing The Night Away - $20
Dark Knight - $25 Dark Knight Rises (blue/red marble) - $35
Euphoria Season 1 Score (purple splatter) - $50
Euphoria Season 2 Soundtrack (orange) - $30
Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book - $50
Chance The Rapper - 10 Day - $30
Action Bronson - Only For Dolphins (light blue) - $25
Kid Ink - Up & Away - $20
Freddie Gibbs - Str8 Killa VMP - $25
Asher Roth - Asleep In The Bread Aisle (gold) - $25
Currensy & Harry Fraud - Directors Cut (heat seeker) - $30
Spilligion (splatter) - $50
Miley Cyrus - Plastic Hearts - $25
Tame Impala - The Slow Rush (green) - $30
Matchbox 20 - Yourself or Someone Like You (red) - $40
Tyler Childers - Purgatory (orange) - $40
Kikagaku Moyo - Masona Temples - $30
Lana Del Rey - NFR! - $30

submitted by OPNurMND to VinylCollectors [link] [comments]

2023.06.02 04:46 Gameran Dexter Flux Presents: Sound-Off! - Part Three

We return from the commercial, a five-minute video that was just a still image of Dexter Flux.
Babaganoush: The following contest is scheduled for -
Crowd: ONE FALL!
Javier smiles at this response, and he’s clearly got confidence that he’s shook the rust off.
Babaganoush: ...And it is for the WiR Tag! Team! Championship!
Crowd: YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Babaganoush: Introducing first, the challengers…
Shit, you judge me on my appearance… face value ennat…
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOO!
As “Inglorious” plays, King Mustafa exits from behind the curtain with Eddie Skelter following closely. Mustafa has a suit - a blindingly light-blue Christian Dior one - on over his gear and he curses at the crowd, but Eddie, dressed in red sweats, just mean-mugs and gets up in the faces of a few front row spectators.
Mann: Look, I - I know why people hate these lads. I really do! Not blessed with great social graces and they get off on getting ill-gotten cash and hurting people. But they make for a tremendous team, both covering each other’s flaws and fighting as more than the sum of their parts.
The two of them hop up on the ring apron and remove their outer gear - horrifyingly enough, they take off their pants to reveal their short tights - and point to their chests: Mustafa has a lion symbol on his blue gear, while Eddie has a rose symbol on his red gear.
Babaganoush: …From the United Kingdom, weighing in at a total of 445 pounds, they are King Mustafa and Eddie Skelter… TWO! SMOKING! BARRELS!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOO! / ENGLAND SUCKS! ENGLAND SUCKS! ENGLAND SUCKS!
Woodbridge: They’re right! They should say it! England DOES suck! That’s why guys like Brendan Byrne came here! He’s a good boy and he’s smart!
Mann: Moving on, and I’d like to apologize to our UK-based fans… as much respect as I have for 2SB, they’ve got their work cut out for them. Because here comes…
Babaganoush: And now, introducing the titleholders…
There is the completely incongruous sound of a blast on a Viking war horn before the jazz classic “Cantaloupe Island” begins to play and champions Jim Baker and Dexter Flux come from behind the curtain together, belts around their waists. Baker has on a chainmail shirt, while Dexter is in a huge fur cloak, which doesn’t even seem to be making them sweat. Their faces are painted with blue woad designs.
Crowd: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! HORDE! HORDE! HORDE!
Flux: OC BABY!
Crowd: YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! DEXTER! DEXTER! DEXTER!
Mann: The crowd in Dexter Flux’s home region are giving him love.
Woodbridge: They’re wearing the belts! As it should be! Too much of this damn “I’ll put it over my shoulder” nonsense in wrestling these days.
Mann: And the rejuvenated Horde seems to be taking their name very seriously, judging by those outfits!
Woodbridge: What? What’s that mean?
Mann: Because of the barbarian type clothes -
Woodbridge: I still dunno what you’re talking about.
Mann: sigh I finally am starting to empathize with Allen Paisner.
On their way to the ring, Baker and Flux hand out a bunch of fist bumps; they take a brisk walk up the stairs, get their entrance gear off and hand it to Maurice Chondon for safekeeping, and Baker steps on the middle rope to help Flux in - Dexter is apparently adamant about starting.
Babaganoush: …from Orange County, CA -
Crowd: YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Babaganoush: …and Cincinnati, OH, weighing in at a total of 425 pounds, they are the WiR Tag Team Champions - Jim Baker and Dexter Flux, THE HORDE!
Crowd: YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Mann: Dexter Flux clearly going to be in the match first, and it looks like out of 2SB, Eddie Skelter wants to start…
Referee Harry Undersach checks over the four competitors - everyone complies even though Mustafa calls him a “chi chi man” - and signals for the match to begin!
DING DING DING!
Skelter offers a lockup to Flux, which the champion accepts, doing his best to ignore King Mustafa pounding on the ringpost and goading him while making rude English gestures at Baker from across the ring. The two wrestlers in the ring grapple - Skelter puts a facelock on Flux, goes to lock his right arm as well, but Flux gracefully gets out and tries to get a headlock on Skelter. Skelter has none of this and pushes Flux off, but Flux gets him down with an arm drag!
Crowd: YAAAAAAAAAY!
Mann: Both of these men are accomplished technical wrestlers. Skelter is obviously more a traditional mat wrestler, Flux is well-known for his high flying, but they’re going to do more of feeling each other out like this, I think.
Skelter attempts to put a wrist hold on Flux while the two are both down, but Flux gets out of his grip and kips up, and Skelter gets into a crouch, rising slowly and deliberately with both his eyes fixed on Flux, who assumes a readied stance but doesn’t go to attack Skelter yet. They re-assume a lockup, seemingly out of mutual agreement - this time, Flux manages to snap off a headlock takeover, bringing Flux to the ground again! Instantly he tries for a jumping elbow drop but Skelter rolls out of the way, and Flux makes a smooth recovery, landing on both his hands and pushing back up.
Crowd: AWWWWWWWWW…
Woodbridge: Both guys still actin’ wary. For now. Even Flux didn’t commit too hard to that elbow drop. Woulda been cool to see him break Skelter’s nose like that, hah.
Mann: Be that as it may, I feel like this pace will pick up soon!
Mustafa shouts a little more while Baker looks on calmly but still at the ready. The two stare each other down, and Skelter decides to take the first swing, throwing a fast but vicious jab towards Flux’s face. Flux, however, is able to dodge backwards and follow through with a forward jumping elbow! It hits Skelter square in the chest and he winces but SLAPS Flux right across the right cheek!
Crowd: OHHHHHHHHHHHHH! / BOOOOOOOOOO!
Woodbridge: The level of disrespect!
Mann: It’s still a legal strike, Mark. And it’s a treasured part of Eddie Skelter’s arsenal.
Mustafa is obviously pleased at the pimp smack, while Jim Baker looks irate, and is about to gesture for Flux to come back to their corner and tag him in. But Baker thinks the better of it, letting Flux avenge the insult himself instead. This he does, with a nice uppercut to Skelter’s jaw, but even as the Brit reels, before Flux can hit a follow-up attack, Skelter ducks behind him and grabs at his arm, a hold which Flux spins out of. But Skelter isn’t unprepared for this and knees Flux in the gut! He brings a chop down towards Flux’s head as Flux doubles over, but Flux is able to block it - Skelter then locks Flux’s arm and attempts to drop Flux with a Russian legsweep - Flux dodges and goes behind but Skelter turns around in time and throws a hard left-handed punch which Flux counters with an elbow, and both men’s strikes connect! They both stagger!
Crowd: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Woodbridge: Both of ‘em have their fire up! Kill him, Flux!
Mann: No easy task! Now it’s going to be a question of which man is forced to tag out first!
It’s Skelter who gets his head clear first and dives in for a double-leg takedown, which Flux blocks by splitting his legs - Skelter goes under and uses the leverage to attempt to lift Flux onto his shoulders - but Flux is ready for it! He clamps his legs and THROWS skelter with a modified headscissor takedown!
Crowd: YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Woodbridge: That tijeras came straight from Guadalajara!
Mann: And now both competitors are on the mat!
Skelter sits up and winces and Flux scrambles to take advantage, but Skelter grabs his ankle and flips him to the mat with an ankle pick! Suddenly both men get about the same idea at the same time - Skelter takes further hold of Flux’s ankle but Flux tries to grapevine one of Skelter’s legs! They battle for a hold on the mat!
Crowd: LET’S GO DEXTER LET’S GO! clap clap LET’S GO DEXTER LET’S GO! clap clap
Meanwhile, dark gray clouds are gathering in the sky above the ring. The venue turns on some extra lights for better visibility.
Woodbridge: We’re onto Indian leg wrestling now!
Mann: That, and it looks like rain.
Woodbridge: You think the Tongva Indians ever used leg wrestling to do a rain dance?
Mann: …I do not think the one thing has to do with the other. Anyhow, the battle in the ring’s been VERY evenly matched so far.
Whilst Skelter goes for a modified figure-four leglock, Flux has something else in mind. He suddenly grips both of Skelter’s ankles, bridges onto his neck, and surprises Skelter by forcing him into a pin!
Woodbridge: DAMN!
Mann: Whoa, a flash pin attempt!
ONE!
TWO!
NO!
Crowd: AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW…
The pin catches Skelter off guard but it’s clearly not enough. Both men spring to their feet and Skelter tries another double leg takedown attempt which is fended off by a flurry of overhead elbows by Flux! Skelter holds his head and decides he’s had enough for now, backing into his corner and tagging in the furiously waving hand of King Mustafa.
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Mann: His partner Eddie Skelter may have started off, but the big man of Two Smoking Barrels has wanted in all match so far.
Mustafa leaps in the ring and curses at the crowd once more.
Woodbridge: Dexter Flux is standing firm!
Mann: He did well against Skelter, who was his equal in terms of physical strength, but I have a feeling King Mustafa’s going to absolutely overpower him now!
Mustafa steps right up to Flux and proceeds to slap him in the left cheek!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Mann: The cycle of disrespect is completed by Skelter’s teammate!
Flux backs off, before returning back in for a lockup with Mustafa, who uses his size advantage to throw Flux back into his corner, where he tags Skelter back in, and the two stomp Flux down into the corner. Skelter then immediately tags back out to King Mustafa.
Woodbridge: I can’t judge. Literally can’t. Used that tag team tactic there too many times to count.
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOO
King Mustafa once again overpowers Flux, using her superior size to launch him into the hard camera turnbuckle. He attempts to charge in, but Flux skitters out of the way! Flux tries to bring down King Mustafa with a kick to the knee, but he doesn’t budge. King Mustafa blocks an attempt at a strike, and throws Flux by the arm off the ropes! As Flux careens towards the opposite end, Baker sticks out his hand, and smacks Flux on the shoulder!
Woodbridge: That’s a legal tag!
Flux baseball slides underneath King Mustafa, who is unaware the tag has been made, while Baker comes in and pearl harbors him! Baker takes control with an overhand right, a blow to the chest, and a Russian leg sweep, before attempting a body slam, which King Mustafa is too large for. Mustafa offers Baker a test of strength, but before Baker can even accept, he kicks him in the gut.
Crowd: BOOOOOO
Mustafa scoops Baker up with ease, and delivers a gorilla press slam, taking a moment to flex for the unappreciative crowd before continuing his assault. Mustafa wrenches the arm of Baker, before tagging Skelter back in. Skelter climbs up to Bret’s Rope, and while Mustafa wrenches the arm, Skelter dives off, and delivers a double axe handle to the trapped arm!
Mann: Some solid teamwork here by The Barrels!
Skelter puts the larger Baker on the mat with a clubbing blow to the back, before delivering a fist drop to the skull. Skelter, relishing his small victory, backs off the ropes and prepares an elbow drop, but Baker rolls out of the way, and tags Flux back in! Flux charges in once again to meet Skelter… and is caught instantly with an arm drag. Skelter brings him down to the mat, and applies a sleeper hold…
Crowd: BOOOOO
But Baker charges back into the ring, and breaks it up! King Mustafa enters the ring to try and chase Baker off, drilling Flux with a shoulder tackle as soon as he lands on his feet with a kip-up, planting him back on the ground. Mustafa returns to his corner, while Skelter ascends a turnbuckle!
Mann: Not something we’re used to seeing! Skelter wants to beat Flux at his own game!
Skelter dives off the top, attempting a flying forearm… and falls short. As he tries to get back to his feet, Flux batters him with a closed fist, before whipping him off the far ropes, but Skelter is able to turn it around. Flux attempts a sunset flip to regain control, but Skelter simply pops down and pokes him in the eye.
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
While Skelter is told off by the official, King Mustafa sneaks into the ring to deliver a stomp to Flux, before skittering back to the apron. Skelter picks up Flux, to deliver a forearm, before walk-dragging Flux over to the corner by his hair, and tagging Mustafa back in. Skelter holds Flux by the hair, and Mustafa stomps his boot before delivering a knee to the stomach as Skelter heads back to the apron. Mustafa whips Flux, and as he returns, scoops him up for a powerslam, before rising to his feet, walking to the ropes, and preparing a knee drop, which Flux avoids! Flux crawls on his knees over to the corner before Mustafa can catch him, and tags Baker back in! Flux takes position on the apron, one foot on the second turnbuckle.
Finally, the sky has opened up! It begins to rain on the ring, the crowd, and even the announcers!
Mann: Didn’t I say it was going to rain?
Woodbridge: It’s not bothering anybody one bit!
Crowd: YEEEAAAHHHHHH
Baker charges in, delivering a pair of punches to try and slow down Mustafa, but they fail to knock him off his feet. Baker tries charging in for a clothesline, Mustafa ducks, but as Baker approaches, he attempts a sunset flip!
Crowd: A-LO-HA KING! A-LO-HA KING!
Mann: Uncharacteristic offense from Baker!
Woodbridge: I’ll say! Baker’s a great power guy, but I didn’t think he’d even ever seen one of those!
Mustafa refuses to go down, but as he struggles, Flux suddenly leaps from the apron to the top turnbuckle, before flying in with a dropkick! Mustafa stumbles, and Baker pulls him down for the rollup!
Woodbridge: Oh shit!
Mann: Huge missile dropkick, and the mat’s slick with rain now! Mustafa had to go down!
ONE
TWO
THR-
Skelter breaks up the pin! Skelter then grabs Flux by the hair again, and darts him shoulder-first into his own ringpost. He bends the aching Flux backwards and grabs his neck for a dragon sleeper…
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! / GO FLUX GO!
Mann: He won’t be able to submit Flux unless Mustafa gets tagged out!
Woodbridge: I don’t think he wants to! This is gonna be Lack of…
Skelter twists Flux around and fires off a fat open-palm thrust to Flux’s throat, making Flux sputter and drop to his knees!
Woodbridge: TRUST! Nasty!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Mustafa, who has recovered from the takedown, then proceeds to deliver an elbow to Flux’s crown! The two work over their opponents in the corners- Skelter attempting to ground Flux with kicks to the knee, Mustafa using his large arms to deliver repeated clotheslines, and with Flux and Baker tied up in opposite corners, Two Smoking Barrels attempt to whip their Horde counterparts into each other! As the two partners head on a collision course, Baker suddenly drops down, in back-body drop position to Flux, who lands on his feet!
Crowd: YEEAAAHHHH
Flux continues his momentum by delivering a running knee to King Mustafa, who is in his corner, before charging back a Baker, who offers a hand, and gives Flux a launching pad to deliver a flying forearm to Skelter! Skelter flops out of the corner, and out of the ring, and with the support of Knott’s Berry Farm behind him, Flux charges, and flies through the ropes with a dive that takes out both men!
A few members of the crowd begin to open up umbrellas, including the fan who got The Milkman’s earlier
Baker approaches Mustafa in the corner, and attempts to lift him to the second rope, but gets met with a boot for his troubles. Mustafa trades places with Baker, and pops him in the jaw, before delivering another one to the ribs, and a third to the temple. Baker blocks a fourth attempt, and turns it around on Mustafa! Baker unloads with a series of right hands of his own! Mustafa powers Baker out of the corner, and throws him to the opposite. Mustafa charges in, but as he tries to charge in, Baker moves out of the way, and attempts another rollup! This time he’s able to get Skelter off balance!
ONE
TWO
Kickout!
Flux ascends from the grass to the apron, and Baker tags him in! Baker attempts to lift Skelter once again, but struggles to, as he breaks free, but Flux delivers a dropkick, and Mustafa stumbles into Baker’s arms, who lifts him for a scoop slam!
Crowd: YEEEAAAHHHHH
Mann: He did it! He slammed him!
Woodbridge: This is where Baker shines! Not only displaying his power, but being great in the clutch!
Skelter tries to get in the ring again, but Flux meets him with a superkick! Skelter tries to keep his balance, but slips on the wet Apron and drops to the grass! Flux grabs the arm, and tags Baker back in, who delivers a clothesline to the trapped Mustafa, dropping him again. Flux gets the tag back in, and ascends the ropes…
And delivers Quantum Flux! He blasts down onto the King, into a puddle of rainwater forming in the center of the ring!
Woodbridge: QUANTUM FLUX! QUANTUM FLUX! DEXTER SEIZES THE MOMENT! MAN HAS FOLLOWTHROUGH!
Skelter tries to scramble back to the ring to make the save, Baker meets him, and holds him down! Flux scrambles into the cover!
ONE
TWO
THREE
DING DING DING
Crowd: YYEEEEAAAHHHHHH
Mann: And The Horde are victorious!
Woodbridge: And damn do they deserve it!
Babaganoush: Your winners and STILL WiR Tag Team Champions, at a time of twelve minutes and forty-three seconds, The Horde!
Flux and Baker hug it out in the ring, holding their tag belts high. Tony “The Milkman” Stevens emerges from the back, knee wrapped in medical tape and casts, limps to the ring, and raises the hands of his stablemates! Everyone is going crazy, especially because the hometown boy defended the stable’s belts by getting the pin!
Flux and Baker each get up on a turnbuckle, holding their tag belts up high, while in the ring, Stevens stands alone in the middle, one leg down, hair slicking back over his face from rain.
Mann: Fans at home, this has been Sound Off! The weather outside has turned frightful, but this show has been delightful! I have been Shay D. Mann filling in for Allen Paisner, alongside Mark Woodbridge. Take us home, Woodbridge!
Woodbridge: I finally feel confident in saying this - it has felt like a wonderful, shine-drunk dream so far - but folks, we are so fucking back. For all of the incredible fighters in WiR, for our whole staff and crew, and for my short-term broadcast partner Shay D. Mann, this has been Sound Off, and I have been Mark Woodbridge - gooooood night everybody!

submitted by Gameran to wrestlingisreddit [link] [comments]

2023.06.02 04:45 Gameran Dexter Flux Presents: Sound-Off! - Part One

Previously unannounced press conference, May 31, 2023.

Cameras are rolling as the owner of Mann Corporation, Shay D. Mann, hair in a perfectly put-together part, adorned in a navy suit and white tie, steps forward to a podium, in front of a WiR backdrop, microphone in hand.
Mann: My name is Shay Duncan Mann. And I am the new owner and proprietor of Wrestling is Reddit. I can assure you that your beloved Allen Paisner will be returning in the future, however, he could not make tonight's show due to some…
Mann smirks.
Mann: Legal complications. But fear not, I’ll be taking his place in the booth tonight.
The crowd erupts with applause and cheers, eager to witness the rebirth of their beloved wrestling promotion, even without Paisner for the evening.
Mann: Tonight, we embark on an exhilarating journey, as WiR takes a bold leap forward. I stand before you not just as the owner, but as a “fan”—a fan who understands the passion and dedication that this community shares for the world of wrestling.
Mann tries to hide a grimace as he proclaims his “fandom”. The crowd anticipates Mann’s next move
Mann: For too long, WiR has been dormant, unable to proceed, some of the talent trapped in Europe with no way home. But this, is no more! Today, we resurrect the spirit of WiR, bringing it back to life with a bang! And what better way to open things up by “Sounding Off"! Presented by the one and only, Dexter Flux
The crowd gives an actual cheer with genuine enthusiasm at the mention of Flux, their sort of god-king.
Mann: "Sound Off" isn't just a name; it's a rallying cry! It's a call for all of you, the WiR faithful, to voice your opinions, to express your passion, and to join us in this incredible journey. This event will be a celebration of everything that makes WiR special—the wrestling, the community, and the shared experiences that bring us all together.
The press conference crowd, whose papering becomes increasingly obvious the more Mann talks, is enthusiastic, as they eagerly hang onto Shay D. Mann's every word, perhaps a little too eagerly.
Mann: Tonight, in this very ring, our talented roster will ignite your imagination, deliver jaw-dropping performances, and create moments that will be etched in your memories forever. Sound Off! will leave you on the edge of your seats, craving for more.
The crowd roars with the excitement of a hair dryer pop.
Mann: But this is not just a show; it's a community. Together, we'll embrace the highs and lows, the victories and defeats. We'll share our opinions, engage in spirited debates, and build something truly remarkable. WiR is your platform—your voice will be heard!
The crowd erupts once again, their cheers echoing through the arena, showcasing their dedication to WiR, or getting paid to be there
Mann: So, my friends, get ready to immerse yourselves in the magic of WiR once again. Open your hearts, open your minds, and let the exhilaration of "Sound Off" wash over you! Tonight, we begin a new era—one that will redefine the landscape of this sport. Welcome back to WiR, my friends. Because Wrestling… is Revived.
With a sly smile, Shay D. Mann raises his microphone high, signaling the start of the show, as things fade to a video of Dexter Flux. His face is slightly out of frame as the camera points to his chest and chin.
Crowd: YEEEEAAAHHHHHH WE LOVE FLUX! WE LOVE FLUX!
Flux: Hey, it’s me, Dexter Flux. Welcome, uh, welcome you know, back to wrestl- Ugh, sorry, something was like, in my throat. Wrestling is Reddit. Welcome back to Wrestling is Reddit. This is House Party.

Knott's Berry Farm, June 1st, 2023.

With that rousing introduction, we now cut back to the day of, with a drone shot of the ring set up at Knott’s Berry Farm, fans on makeshift stands in the berry field, a parking lot and farmhouse off in the far distance, before [off brand royalty free music] begins to play!
Crowd: YEEEAAHHHH
Through the makeshift curtain, Tony “The Milkman” Stevens appears, wearing a pair of off-blue tights with cow white print, a single blue elbow pad on the left side, with a pair of gloved hands- in which, he holds a pristine white umbrella. The Milkman points his umbrella right down the lens of the camera…
Milkman: Good to be back, fellas, and good to see you, Mr. Cameraman! Been a while.
Mann: And here comes the Milkman, and a huge ovation from this crowd! But no Horde jacket with him!
Woodbridge: Or any jacket. But we’re in Anaheim, its hot out
Mann You’re right. But he did prepare for rain.
The Milkman hands off his umbrella to a fan at ringside, before sliding under the bottom rope, and ascending the left hard camera turnbuckle, firing up the crowd, before doing a backflip off the top rope, and into the ring!
Crowd: YEEAAAAHHHHHH
The Camera cuts back to the entranceway, as the music changes, to Skillet
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOO
Jericho Styles appears on the ramp, adorned in an Allen Iverson Nuggets Jersey. He blows off a fan’s high five attempt, before sliding into the ring and taking a position opposite of Stevens.
Babaganoush: WiR fans… welcome to Anaheim California, the beautiful Knotts Berry Farm! Welcome! To Sound Off! Presented by Dexter Flux.
Crowd: W-I-R! W-I-R! W-I-R! W-I-R!
Banaganoush: Our opening contest is scheduled for one fall to a finish. Introducing first, to my right… wrestling out San Jose California, weighing in at 217 pounds, Jericho… Styles!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOO
Babaganoush: And his opponent, to my left. Weighing in at 208 pounds…
Crowd begins to rise
Babaganoush: Wrestling out of… Brooklyn, New York! Tony… “The Milkmaaannnnnnn” Stevens!
Crowd erupts into indiscriminate cheers
DING DING DING
The Milkman and Styles circle each other as the bell rings, before Styles takes the initiative with a lock up attempt, which he quickly transitions to a rear waist lock. Milkman thinks on his feet, and grabs the arm of Styles lifting it above his head, and turning to break the lock, before using it to get behind Jericho, who uses his size advantage to overpower Stevens and apply a hammerlock, using the position to turn Stevens around, and take him down to the mat with an arm drag, maintaining control of the arm, which he quickly leverages into a pinfall…
ONE
Milkman gets his free shoulder up!
Crowd: Yay!
Woodbridge: JZ leveraging some technical skill here in the opening moments of this one, but can’t keep the Milkman down!
Mann: Only one count for Styles
Styles refuses to relinquish his grip on the arm, and as Stevens gets up, pushes him back into the corner before he can balance himself. Styles whips Stevens across the ring to the other corner, before charging in and being met with Milkman’s knee! Stevens capitalizes on his newly made opening by delivering a sharp kick to the chest of Styles, before whipping him against the ropes. Styles charges back, and tries to use his momentum to catch Stevens with a hip toss, but can only get Stevens a few inches of height off the ground before the Milkman lands on his feet, lifts and Styles up for an atomic drop, which forces him to let go of Stevens. With his arm now free, The Milkman plants himself, and delivers a [devastating lariat]. With what self-preservation he has left, Styles rolls to the outside, and onto the grass.
Woodbridge: And The Milkman just leveled Styles with that lariat!
Mann: Not something we’re quite used to seeing from Stevens, some hard strikes early in this one that really seemed to throw Styles off his game.
Styles pulls himself up by the barricade, to the direct ire of front-row fans who continue to heckle him. Back in the ring, Stevens throws himself off the far-end ropes, charges in for a dive… before Styles ducks down to avoid being hit. Stevens doesn’t change speed, and instead, throws himself between the ropes for a 6-1-9 that hits nothing but air, launching himself back into the ring, and landing on his feet. After this feat of dexterity, and with Styles on the ground outside, The Milkman takes a bow for his efforts.
Crowd: YEEEAAHHH!!
Four dues in front of the hard cam: WE LOVE MILK! WE LOVE MILK!
At a count of eight, Styles, returns to the ring, and the two wrestlers square off again. Styles gets the better of the two on the lockup, delivering a stomp to Stevens’ foot, before kneeling him in the stomach. Styles lifts Stevens up for a suplex, but Stevens shifts his weight and lands on his feet behind him! The Milkman attempts a German suplex, but Styles throws a firm elbow to the jaw and repositions behind Stevens for a German attempt of his own. Stevens gives Styles a receipt with a firm, calcium-hardened elbow of his own, before bounding over to the ropes, and attempting a lionsault to a standing Styles! Styles catches him, but Stevens slips free, pushes Styles into the corner, and he takes a chest-first bump. Stevens harnesses his agility once more to get into poison-rana position on the shoulders of Styles, but Styles uses one arm to flip Milkman off balance and send him tumbling to the ground. Quickly, Stevens attempts to transition to a sunset flip but has to abandon ship as Styles tries to poke him in the eyes, jamming his finger into the canvas as a result. Stevens uses the moment to leap up to Bret’s rope, turn around, and deliver a dropkick to Styles! Stevens then rolls to the apron, and pumps up the crowd with a wave of his hand…
Crowd: YEEEAAAHHH WOOO!!
Guy already 4 cheap beers in: I hate this Styles guy!
…and delivers another springboard dropkick, this one from the top rope! Stevens flexes for the crowd, before rolling into a cover…
ONE
TWO
Styles gets a shoulder up!
Mann: Does The Milkman seem a bit different to you, Woodbridge?
Woodbridge: Milkman definitely wants to show off early, he looks like he hasn’t lost a step!
Mann: Maybe even gained one, and it almost feels like he’s being a bit disrespectful of his opponent, don’t you think?
Woodbridge: And what are you insinuating?
Mann: Well, maybe performing in front of a WiR crowd again has him a little more amped than usual! Trying a lot of those high-risk maneuvers early- we’re only a few minutes into this one, folks!
After the Kickout, Stevens signals to the cheering crowd, runs off the ropes, and attempts a wheelbarrow bulldog, but as he pushes himself up, Styles swivels his hips, and Stevens face plants into the mat.
Mann: And Stevens’ showing off cost him there!
Styles knees Stevens in the stomach, before putting his head between the legs, and sets up for the Styles Clash! He can’t lock in Milkman’s arms, and Stevens uses them to push off the mat to sit up above Jericho! Stevens tries throwing a punch at Jericho’s head, but he pivots his plan, and adjusts to deliver a powerbomb! As he releases, Stevens adjusts his body and manages to mitigate some of the damage by landing awkwardly on the back foot, stumbling back into the ropes.
Mann: If Styles hit that, it could have spelled an early end for Stevens!
Stevens pulls himself back to his feet using the ropes and charges back in with a clothesline attempt, but Styles sees it coming, grabs the arm and uses it to shift the momentum, and lifts Stevens for a tilt-a-whirl Backbreaker!
Crowd: BOOOOOO
Mann: And Styles seems to be in control here.
Woodbridge: Stevens took some early momentum, but Styles has had a counter for everything Stevens has thrown at him.
Styles pulls Stevens up to his feet by the hair, before casually flipping one of Stevens’ arms over his shoulder for a uranage position before holding his arms out to the crowd!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOO
Styles smirks at the boos incoming, and throws Stevens with a t-bone suplex. Once Stevens is planted, Styles stomps the stomach to force him to sit up, before stretching the arms behind for a surfboard stretch!
Styles: I’m a technical wrestler now, assholes!
Mann: Styles slowing things down here, grounding the Milkman
Woodbridge: Not a bad strategy, we saw how The Milkman was in control with a faster pace!
One guy holding up a sign with Goku: WE-LOVE-GOKU! WE-LOVE-GOKU!
Everyone else in the crowd is deafeningly silent
Styles: AND WHAT WOULD GOKU DO HERE, STUPID IDIOT?
Styles breaks his hold and approaches the hard camera ropes to yell at the fan more
Styles: Dragon Ball is overrated trash!
Styles kicks Stevens back to the mat
Styles That one was for you, fucking weeb!
As Stevens once again rises to his feet, Styles punches him and he falls back to the mat, just for Styles to pick him back up, and line up against the ropes, for an irish whip. As Stevens returns to sender, Styles throws him straight up in the air… and football punts him in the chest on the way down!
Styles: Hey weeb guy! This one’s for you too! I saw a Japanese dude do it once!
Styles lifts Stevens up, sets him up with the arms behind the back… and delivers a slow, sloppy [tiger driver], before placing a single foot on the chest, and flexing
ONE
TWO
Kickout!
Crowd: YEEEAAAHHHH
Woodbridge: Well, he didn’t quite get all of it.
Styles takes time to put Stevens in a Camel Clutch.
Mann: And it seems Styles didn’t want to get left out of showing off!
Woodbridge: Well, he certainly nailed Milkman with that kick, but the Tiger Driver left a lot to be desired.
Mann: Styles seems to have control of this match when it’s slowed down, wearing Stevens with this technical wrestling prowess.
Woodbridge, reaching under the desk for a paper bag: Everyone wants to be a hero in front of the first crowd in two years
Styles releases Stevens from the hold by battering him in the back of the head with a forearm, picking him up by the scruff, and bouncing him off the ropes for an Irish whip and hitting him with the kitchen sink! But Stevens wastes no motion, and grabs the leg, turning Styles over for a rollup!
ONE
TWO
THR-
Kickout!
Crowd: BOOOOOO
Woodbridge: He almost got him with that rollup! From out of nowhere!
The Milkman tries to capitalize, but Styles returns the favor with a boot to the stomach.
Styles: I’ll show you to make a damn fool out of me!
Styles hoists Stevens up for a vertical suplex, before taking two steps and chucking him across the top rope! The Milkman bounces off the top rope, makes a deflating noise as the air is forced out of his lungs, and flops down to the floor outside!
Mann: Styles with some kind of inverted lawn-dart maneuver! Woodbridge, do you know what that’s called?
Woodbridge: Nope.
Crowd: BOOOOOO
Styles: Come on, milk boy, you have anything else for me?
Stevens crawls back into the ring, holding onto his ribs, before Styles once again kicks him in the stomach, and applies a chin lock in the ring.
Mann: Styles has found his target! If Stevens can’t breathe, he can’t fight!
Woodbridge: The young Styles showing some veteran instinct here, Mann, if Stevens has the wind knocked out of him, he can’t perform those high-flying moves he was nailing Styles with earlier!
Styles turns to the side, and locks Milkman in a body scissors, using his legs to apply pressure to the ribcage. Stevens tries to use his free legs to push both men closer to the ropes, but can only move them a few feet. Stevens smacks the mat with his free hand, and a guy in the crowd does it to the barricade. Stevens smacks the mat again, and a few more fans join in.
Crowd Smacking the barricade
Stevens pushes towards the ropes again, making more progress. Styles sees this, and releases the hold, grabbing Stevens by the hair with one hand, tights in the other, and pulling him up to his feet.
Styles: You want the ropes so bad, here, have them!
Styles runs over to the ropes with the Milkman, and hurls him between the middle and top rope, dumping him to the outside where he lands with a noticeable thud. Styles follows him to the outside, taking his time to savor the boos of the crowd, before delivering a knee to a rising Milkman, and lifting him for a vertical suplex on the grass! Styles rolls into the ring… and back out again to break the count. Despite the present beating, Stevens once again pulls himself to his feet.
Crowd: YEAAAH
And Styles knees him in the ribs.
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOO
Styles rolls Stevens back into the ring before taking a moment to confront the drunk fan who jeered him earlier. After his verbal exchange, Styles delivers a scoop slam to Stevens to keep him down, and the pressure on the body, before sliding into a cover.
ONE
TWO
Kickout!
Mann: Forcing Stevens to exert more energy there on the kick out, after continuing his assault on the ribs. A very solid strategy by Styles in this one.
Styles picks The Milkman up once more and prepares another vertical suplex, but the Milkman slips free! Stevens lands behind Styles, hooks his arms, and goes for a crucifix pin!
ONE
TWO
THRE-
Styles barely escapes! The Milkman wastes no motion as Styles rises back to his feet, bouncing off the hard camera ropes, and forcing Styles to drop back to the mat to avoid a strike. Stevens bounces off the opposite end, and Styles barely avoids him once more, this time with a slide-step that sees him almost lose his balance. Styles tries to save his momentum by charging at Stevens as he bounces off the ropes a third time, but Stevens pulls down the top rope, sending Styles to the apron! Stevens kicks Styles in the knee, before going through the middle rope to meet Styles on the apron. Styles tries to sweep out the leg of the Milkman, knocking himself down to one knee on the attempt, but Stevens jumps over it, and catches Styles with a Calcium Kiss Superkick that sends Styles to the grass below!
Crowd: YEAAAHH
With his foe grounded, Stevens looks to the crowd, positions himself in the middle of the ring, and before Styles can discover where he is, Stevens takes flight, springboarding off the middle rope with an Asai Milksault! On the landing, Stevens’ left knee awkwardly hits the uneven yard, and he visibly grimaces before falling backward.
Mann: And both men are down after that! Stevens with a ferocious comeback attempt, but he may have hurt himself!
Woodbridge: Someone hasn’t been taking care of their lawn.
Stevens hears the air exit the crowd, and pulls himself up, giving them a reassuring thumbs up, before using the leg he landed on to kick Styles in the back of his knee, before throwing him back into the ring. Stevens puts one leg into the ring through the middle rope, before looking into the crowd- and deciding to ascend the turnbuckles instead! The Milkman leaps, and delivers a diving hurricanrana! As Styles tries to roll to the ropes, Stevens uses their good leg to stomp on his chest, before pulling him back to the middle of the ring, and hitting a Standing Milksault! Stevens maintains the cover!
ONE
TWO
THR-
Styles gets a shoulder up!
Woodbridge: And Stevens throwing everything into this assault on Styles, but it still wasn’t enough to put him down!
Crowd: Let’s Go Milk-man! Let’s Go Milk-man!
Stevens picks Styles up, and lifts him onto his shoulders…
Woodbridge: He’s going for the Milky Way!
…But the injured knee can’t hold up the weight, and both men crash to the mat.
Entrance Music begins to play as a small, skinny wrestler in a leather jacket waltzes towards the two downed competitors
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mann: And that’s Raven Van Loupe! Van Loupe is here at Sound Off!
Woodbridge: These two formed an alliance last time we saw them! But will it hold after the time off?
Van Loupe enters the ring, despite the protests of WiR official Tai Ni Wong, and glances at the pair as both try to pull themselves up, Stevens using the ropes, Styles on his own. Van Loupe looks back and forth… before kicking Stevens in the injured knee!
DING DING DING
Babaganoush: And here is your winner…
Van Loupe helps Styles to his feet, and the pair begin to lay the boots on Stevens.
Babaganoush: By disqualification as a result of interference, and striking a WiR official…
Styles takes the knee of the downed Milkman, and lifts it above his head, before thrashing it against the canvas.
Babaganoush: At a time of…
Van Loupe has Styles lift Stevens by the hair once more, before she runs to the ropes, jumps off the second rope, and Styles pushes The Milkman into the cutter.
Babaganoush: Ten minutes and twenty-three seconds…
Styles and Van Loupe stand over Stevens, and Styles prepares to deliver the finishing blow as he signals to the crowd that he is looking for the Styles Clash!
Banaganoush: Tony “The Milkmannnnnn” Stevens!!!!!!
Van Loupe: Are you done?
Van Loupe gives Styles a thumbs up, but as he goes to finish off Stevens, a mighty howl plays over the speakers as a short, scruffy man runs to the ring.
Woodbridge: That’s The Werewolf!
Mann Johnny, A Werewolf, is here! And he’s rushing to the ring!
Styles lets Stevens flop back down to the mat, holding his knee, and turns to face the incoming Werewolf as he slides under the ropes and into the ring. Styles steps before Vna Loupe to intercept, but the fresh Werewolf knocks him off his feet with The Pounce. The Werewolf comes face to face with Van Loupe in the center of the ring!
Crowd: AWOOOOOO
Mann: Pandemonium has broken out in the first match of Sound Off! And the fans are loving it!
Crowd: WE LOVE WERE-WOLF! clap clap clap clap clap WE LOVE WERE-WOLF!
Woodbridge: The Pack Wolf and the Werewolf facing off in the center of the ring!
Mann: And these two have unfinished business! The Lifeblood exists because they took issue with being left behind for signings like Werewolf!
Johnny feints left, before throwing a right jab! The Werewolf unleashes Pack Tactics on Van Loupe! As he stops throwing punches, and signals for another pounce, Styles kips up, and levels the werewolf with a lariat!
Crowd: BOOOOO
Van Loupe and Styles begin to wear down the Werewolf, delivering blow after blow to Johnny as the boos rain from the crowd. Van Loupe delivers a stomp to the knee of The Milkman to keep him down before they and Jericho set up to finish off styles…
When an Italian Flag appears on the video screen, and an absolute guido of an Italian-American, hair dripping with greaseslowly walks out from behind the curtain, wearing a Shohei Ohtani jersey!
…A Shohei Ohtani… New York Mets jersey.
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mann: That’s The Apex! Arturo Stiglione! Stiglione is in the yard!
Stiglione slowly scopes out the scene on his way to the ring, seeing the downed Milkman on the left of the ring, the downed werewolf on the right, and the standing Lifeblood members in the middle. He slowly ascends the stairs and stands across from Van Loupe and Styles.
Wodbridge: And The Apex, not a fan of Johnny, a very terse relationship between these two.
Apex: Hell ova job ya done hea’
Van Loupe: If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stand aside, and maybe we won’t hurt you.
Apex: Dont’cha mind me, just monitoring the situation.
Styles pulls Van Loupe aside, and the two have an impromptu conference, before nodding along, and continuing their attack on Werewolf.
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
With The Lifeblood’s backs turned Styles looks down at his fist. He looks down at the blue and orange he’s adorned in, and loosens up his arm. He points to the back of Styles, who senses the crowd rising, and turns around… to be met with a spinning backfist!!
Crowd: YEEEAAAHHHH
Mann: Styles has made his choice! And he chooses to stand against The Lifeblood!
Van Loupe hears his body hit the canvas, and turns around, to be met with the sight of a downed Styles! The Apex takes off his Mets jersey… to reveal an Angels jersey! The Werewolf is back on his feet, and he and the Apex come face to face! Van Loupe rises back up at the wrong time, as the two share a nod, and deliver a double clothesline! Seeing the situation turn against him, Styles slinks to the outside, and grabs a chair from under the ring, before sneaking back in behind the Werewolf and Apex, who have turned to the hard camera. Styles raises the chair to strike…
...And gets blasted by a Calcium Kiss from The Milkman!
Crowd: WOOOOOO
The three faces are all back on their feet in the middle of the ring, standing tall! As the three begin to celebrate…
“It’s a Psychobilly Freakout!
Mann: That’s the music of Mason Saunders! But where is he?
Saunders’ music plays, but the entranceway remains empty.
Woodbridge: He’s behind us, Mann! He just jumped the barricade!
Mann: But he’s outnumbered, Woodbridge, both his allies are down!
Undeterred by the numbers disadvantage, Saunders slides behind the faces, and as they recognize the trap, Saunders is already in the ring! The Werewolf approaches first and throws a jab that almost seems to bounce off the chin of Saunders. Saunders simply stares, and when the Werewolf tries a second one, Saunders swipes it aside with a tree trunk arm, before launching into action and dropping the Werewolf with a right hook, which catches the Werewolf cleanly on the jaw, who slumps backward onto the canvas. The Milkman tries to charge to his aid, but Saunders delivers a pump kick to put him back on the canvas. The Apex tries to make a move while Saunders’ back is turned facing Stevens, but he fails to do any damage and is swiftly thrown aside. Saunders drops the Milkman again, before turning around to face Apex… who turns around, and flees the ring as fast as possible!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mann: And Stiglione, getting out of dodge as soon as he can!
Woodbridge: And turning tail and running, Stiglione is out of here!
As Stiglione flees up the entranceway, the rest of the Lifeblood begins to pick themselves up. Saunders puts the Werewolf pack down on the canvas with a scoop powerslam, and boots him out of the ring. The Lifeblood stand united, and face the hard camera, Stiglione and Werewolf removed, and the Milkman down on the opposite end of the ring. JZ ascends to the second rope of the left turnbuckle, Van Loupe to the right, and the three all pose for the hard camera!
Mann: And the Lifeblood, although not victorious in the match, is victorious here in the aftermath!
Woodbridge: But wait, The Milkman is trying to get back up!
Mann: Stevens of course, left for the picking, as other members of The Horde are all the way on the other side of the Farm preparing for their match later!
Stevens struggles to pull himself up to his feet, knee buckling under him. Saunders perks up, and stops his pose. Stevens staggers to his feet, and before he can get very far, Saunders turns, and with blinding speed nails Stevens with a disgusting lariat that nearly takes his head off!
Woodbridge: And the Milk has gone spoiled.
The Lifeblood circle the downed Milkman like vultures, and Van Loupe drops to one knee, and picks up the Milkman’s head by the hair! JZ gets down as well, and the two strike a pose, with Milkman’s body as the centerpiece!
Mann: A statement made, by the Lifeblood
Woodbridge: To me, Mann, it looks like the statement was made by Saunders, Van Loupe, and JZ just picked up the scraps!
Van Loupe, holding up Milkman to the Camera victoriously: Take a look, WiR, this is the future! We are the Lifeblood of this company, and don’t forget that!
The camera pans out to JZ and Van Loupe celebrating over Milkman’s body, while Saunders stares from behind, before fading out to a commercial break.
Javier: The following contest is scheduled for ONE FALL, with a 20 minute time limit. Your referee for this contest is Mia So Hung. Introducing first, from Montreal, Canada, weighing in at 119 pounds...... GIGI♥ V!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
A significantly smaller but incredibly loud section of the crowd: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Music begins to swell in the background, and the crowd continues their jeering (and occasional unbridled simping) until Gigi steps out, running her hands down her body to the lewd Ashnikko verse.
Mann: Gigi here, surrounded by her legion of fans, who are then surrounded by a legion of people who absolutely despise her. As it should be here in WiR.
Gigi saunters to the ring, taking vaguely suggestive selfies with her ravenous fans on the front row, and generally seeming uncaring about the forthcoming match.
Woodbridge: And given her successes recently, it’s gonna be easy to overlook a competitor like Li Xiao, which very easily could prove fatal.
Gigi steps into the ring, as Javier starts his announcing again.
Javier: And her opponent, from Hong Kong, weighing in at 105 pounds... LI XIAO!!!
A unfamiliar metal song blasts out from the speakers, and a rather familiar hyperactive martial artist bounces out from behind the curtain!
Crowd: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Xiao charges down the ramp with a head of steam, hyped and ready to fight.
Mann: Xiao has some of the most devastating offense in this company, and if she’s able to keep momentum, it could very well shatter Gigi’s plans of making a statement here!
Woodbridge: Yeah, sure, but Xiao’s a tag team specialist first and foremost. She comes in to deal damage and then gets out before she takes too much abuse.
Xiao hops into the ring, and the referee pats both competitors down, before gesturing for the bell.
DING DING DING
In an interesting turn of events, Gigi and Li Xiao start off with a collar-and-elbow tie up in the center of the ring. Gigi takes quick advantage of her height and weight advantage to gain leverage and force Li Xiao backwards into the ropes.
Mann: Gigi starting off with the basics here, knowing Li Xiao is nothing if not an incredibly explosive fighter.
Woodbridge: That’s right, Xiao wrestles like my grandpa used to make moonshine, god rest his soul!
Gigi sets herself, and when Xiao tries to push off the ropes and get Gigi off, Gigi directs the momentum into a modified biel, throwing Li Xiao across the ring! Gigi takes a moment to smirk and pose for the fans - a mistake, as Xiao rolls through the throw and hits the ropes on the opposite side of the ring!
Mann: Incredible strength from Gigi!
Gigi turns around into a sprinting palm strike from Xiao, staggering backwards into the ropes yet again, and Xiao follows up with a big kick to the gut! Gigi’s doubled over, and Xiao drops her with a DDT!
Woodbridge: Xiao’s fired up, and she’s quite possibly looking to end this match before it even gets started!
Xiao with the cover!
1!
2!
Gigi kicks out right at 2, and rolls up, obviously shocked and dazed. The crowd in attendance is split, with the wrestling fans excited to see Gigi on the ropes, and the Gigi fans absolutely in shambles. Xiao is up quickly, as Gigi staggers to her feet - Xiao hits the ropes, springboards, and catches Gigi with a beautiful headscissors!
Crowd: WOOOOOO!
Gigi rolls through, runs the ropes, and comes back with a head of steam! Xiao dodges a clothesline attempt, shoves Gigi to the other rope, and gets ready for the comeback - Gigi catches the ropes! Xiao charges in to press the advantage, and eats an officially branded Gigi♥ boot to the face! Xiao is absolutely rocked, staggering backwards, and this time Gigi takes the initiative and absolutely levels Xiao with a clothesline! Xiao spirals to the mat, and Gigi blows a kiss to the fans in attendance!
Gigi: I am your future champion, and this is the match I’m booked in?
Gigi catches Xiao with a boot to the back of the head! Xiao rolls over, and Gigi drops a knee onto her throat, before going for the cover!
1!
2!
Xiao muscles out of the pin, clutching her head!
Woodbridge: We got two high fliers here, these women make a livin’ out of dodging attacks. Anything that lands here is going to be devastating!
Mann: And right now, it looks like Xiao is barely conscious after those blows to the head!
Gigi gets up, and winks at her fans in attendance and watching live throughout the world.
Crowd: BOOOOOO!/YAAAAAAAAAAY!
Gigi saunters over to Xiao, and plays up the boot she’s about to give - SMALL PACKAGE! SMALL PACKAGE!
1!
2!
Gigi kicks out, and her mood instantly changes. Xiao is staggering to her feet, and takes a full on slap to the face!
Crowd: OOOOOOOOOH!
Mann: What a slap from Gigi, obviously assisted by her official Gigi♥ gloves, sponsored by Fairtex!
Woodbridge: Gigi’s pissed now, and you could hear that slap all the way in Los Angeles!
Xiao clutches her face, and Gigi follows up with a huge kick to the gut! Xiao falls to one knee, and Gigi finishes the trifecta with a roundhouse to the head!
Crowd: OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!
Xiao collapses to the mat!
Mann: And Xiao’s down! What a kick!
Woodbridge: That kick nearly took her head off, Shay! I don’t know if she’s even conscious down there!
Gigi’s prepared, and is looking to finish this, climbing to the top rope! Xiao is flat on her back on the mat, and Gigi takes the leap, flipping forwards with a swanton! Xiao is still conscious, though, and rolls away in the nick of time, leaving Gigi high and dry!
Crowd: YAAAAAAY! KUNG PAO! KUNG PAO! KUNG PAO!
Mann: I... feel like that’s problematic, somehow.
Woodbridge: Nah, ‘sfine, don’t worry about it.
Xiao grabs for the ropes, pulling herself to her feet, but is obviously still dazed from the kick!
Woodbridge: Xiao’s hurt!
Mann: You see this a lot in Li Xiao singles matches - she’s got an incredible offense, but she’s fragile at best in-ring!
Gigi is holding her back, and glares at Xiao in frustration!
Gigi: You were supposed to stay down! it was going on Tiktok!
Gigi charges forward, ready to avenge her mistake, but takes a knee to the gut! Gigi staggers for a second, only to get a chop to the neck! She’s reeling! Xiao with a forearm! Xiao with a elbow strike!
Crowd: OHHHHHHHHHH!
Xiao takes a step backwards, and lets out a KIAI, before charging forward with a roundhouse - NO! SCHOOLBOY FROM GIGI!
1!
2!
Xiao kicks out at 2.6, rolls to her feet, and is immediately back on the offensive, catching Gigi with a kick to the gut!
Mann: Xiao was going for her trademark flurry of blows, and that roundhouse could very well have ended this match!
Woodbridge: Sure, but it doesn’t look like Gigi’s in a better spot right now anyway!
Xiao measures, as Gigi slowly gets back to her feet, and steps through the ropes, stalking her opponent! Gigi’s up, and Xiao leaps onto the ropes, going for a springboard - GIGI HOOKS HER LEG!
Crowd: BOOOOO!
Xiao loses her footing, and falls neck-first onto the ropes, before collapsing to the outside of the ring!
Mann: Gigi with a lightning-quick reversal!
Woodbridge: Xiao might be seriously hurt down there!
Gigi regains some of her confidence, and gives the crowd an innocent smile, completely ignoring the competitor she might have seriously injured. As the count reaches six, Gigi finally springs into action, rolling out of the ring, and grabbing Xiao by the hair!
Gigi: That’s what you get for ruining my moment!
Gigi pulls Xiao up to her feet, and throws her into the ring. Gigi rolls in as Xiao fights to one knee, then to her feet! Gigi smirks, and stands in front of Xiao, posing for the crowd -
WHAM!
Xiao with a JKD backfist!
Woodbridge: River City Knockout! That’s Biff’s move! What a moment to strike!
Gigi is staggered - falls to one knee - then gets back up, just in time to eat THE CRANE KICK
Crowd: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Woodbridge: CRANE KICK! CRANE KICK!
Gigi is down! Xiao is staggering after landing the crane kick, and collapses to a knee herself! Xiao takes a moment to collect herself, then throws herself into the cover, hooking both legs!
1!
2!
3!
NO!
Mia hits the three count, and Xiao rolls off, sure she’s won the match, but Gigi’s right hand is on the ropes!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Mia explains to Xiao, who is obviously frustrated, but nods. She takes a moment to kick Gigi’s wrist, knocking her hand off the ropes, before climbing to the top rope! Xiao steels herself - leaps - corkscrews through the air!
Woodbridge: Xiao’s Wing!
Gigi gets her knees up! Xiao lands back-first onto Gigi’s knees! Xiao bounces halfway across the ring, clutching her back and neck, and lands on her chest!
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Mann: And Gigi has just enough in the tank to get that counter in!
Gigi, with what seems like massive effort, rolls over, before crawling towards Xiao, who seems to be completely out of it. She crawls over Xiao, with a knowing smirk, before hooking her legs around Xiao’s head!
Mann: Gigi looking for the Paywall, this modified figure four choke!
Woodbridge: And half the audience is looking at something else right now.
Gigi torques Xiao’s already injured neck back, cutting off all airflow! Xiao struggles for a moment, but is trapped in the center of the ring! She crawls forward, but Gigi leans back, torquing her neck even further! Xiao swings back with an elbow, then another, but her arm is caught by Gigi’s free hand! After a moment of struggling, Xiao finally relents, and taps in the center of the ring!
DING DING DING!
Javier: And your winner, at a time of 7:53.... GIGI!
Gigi rolls out of the ring, obviously the worse for wear, clutching her neck after the crane kick to the skull!
Mann: And Gigi with a hard-fought win after these two threw everything at each other in a absolutely brutal short match!
Woodbridge: Xiao’s not a singles competitor on her own, but she showed just how brutal her brand of offense is when it needs to be - if Biff has the same resilience he used to have the tag division might need to be on notice!

submitted by Gameran to wrestlingisreddit [link] [comments]

2023.06.01 20:48 VGA_Analytics Is Roth IRA worth it anymore?

Hi all. Looking for some guidance to my financial situation. TLDR is I am looking to weigh the pros / cons of taking out my Roth IRA amount to fund down payment on a house. My reasoning is that the money I have in that account would be better served as equity in a home that will appreciate at the same or higher rate of return that an IRA would and theoretically in 30 years would be a place I can a) live in and/or b) sell for retirement funding boosts. Out of all my securities, I've identified it as the most fungible for this cause. Just want to get a gut check from others. I understand every situation is different & the most accurate answer is very detail-dependent. Just wanted to get a gut check & see what my blind spots are. Thanks!

About me:
-Veteran (access to VA loan - $0 down)
- 29 yo
- Single
- Six figure salary
- Healthy 401k & otherwise savings

EDIT: Thank you all for the comments. This is exactly why I wanted to pulse check myself before making potentially life changing financial decisions. I will keep the Roth IRA and will either eat the higher mortgage with no down payment or use other funds for it.

submitted by VGA_Analytics to personalfinance [link] [comments]

2023.06.01 09:00 Robocentric Research lab animals use in medical biotech development (Robocentric biotech development plan)

https://reddit.com/link/13xamgt/video/ga4wy15bnc3b1/player

Animal testing is absolutely necessary for advancing biotech, I've concluded. When the right time, right circumstance, and right money come, I will do laboratory animal testing for advancing medical biotech, human longevity biotech, human genetic engineering biotech, human body manufacturing and replacement biotech, human fertility duration lengthening biotech, and other types of biotechnologies. I've a multidecadal commitment to advancing biotech for enabling long-lasting human life and youth, longer human fertility duration, and better human health for everyone.

Doing laboratory animal testing in the U.S. requires adhering to the U.S. federal, state, and local regulations. Boston in Massachusettes, and San Franciso in California, in particular, perform the most numbers of animal tests in the U.S., for advancing biomedicine and biotech.
The Animal Welfare Act is the U.S. federal law that regulates testing on certain types of animals.
According to my calculation, maintaining an Animal Welfare Act compliant animal testing facility in the U.S. requires at least a multiple six-figure U.S. dollars annual overhead or biotech research expense, and most likely over one-million U.S. dollars annual biotech research overhead; as such, it is not cheap.
Because my aim is building a variety of biotech businesses at Robocentric, with multiple biotech product lines, I don't have to have an Animal Welfare Act compliant animal testing facility in the U.S. to launch the first Robocentric biotech products. As such, I'll first establish and operate an animal testing facility in the U.S. that isn't applicable to the Animal Welfare Act, a non-Animal Welfare Act applicable animal testing facility in the U.S., which will be much cheaper than operating an Animal Welfare Act compliant animal testing facility in the U.S., and have very low overhead.
Robocentric will get into a variety of biotech businesses—namely research and medical biotech devices development and manufacturing, medicinal biotech, cosmetic biotech, supplement biotech, and industrial and consumer biomatter design and manufacturing biotech.
For a lot of the biotech products that Robocentric will develop and market, an Animal Welfare Act compliant animal testing facility won't be absolutely required, and a non-Animal Welfare Act applicable animal testing facility will do, although eventually Robocentric will need one or more Animal Welfare Act compliant animal testing facilities—perhaps in Boston, San Francisco, or both and maybe in other locations—for pushing biotech development and commercialization to the uttermost extremes.
Robocentric will do nonhuman animals genetic engineering experiments, documentation, and publication for advancing medical biotech for curing human genetic diseases by replacing disease-causing human genes with healthy human genes.
Robocentric will do fully robotized genetically engineered nonhuman animal care in confinement for the experiments, 3D scanning, and results publication.
Robocentric will write and publish "Robocentric biotech development plan for nonhuman animals genetic engineering experiments, documentation, and publication for advancing medical biotech for curing human genetic diseases by replacing disease-causing human genes with healthy genes".
Robocentric will do genetic engineering experiments especially on nonhuman primates, for creating improved nonhuman primates with faster reproduction cycles, and for creating human genetic disease cures.
Robocentric will write and publish "Robocentric biotech development protocols and processes for breeding and performing experiments on nonhuman primates for developing medical biotech with regulations to abide by".
Robocentric will do age acceleration and deceleration, anti-aging, and deaging biotech development experiments on nonhuman primates such as on chimps for medical research including cancer cure research, human longevity biotech development, and nonhuman-animal and human aging control biotech development.
Robocentric biotech research nonhuman animal breeding and nursery facility in the U.S. will have maximum robotization with less than US$250,000 per year upkeep cost, with all animals in triple confinement (three layers of walls and doors), in comfortably large spaces, with robot-only access in animal confinements for cleaning, feeding, and animal wastes removal.
Robocentric will develop and commercialize chimpanzee genetic engineering biotech, growth hormone biotech, and neurotech—for enabling chimpanzee growth accelerator (for enabling reaching sexual maturity in less than a year), and breeding accelerator (for enabling reproducing every year or less), for much faster biomedical research.
Robocentric will build and maintain its biotech research nonhuman animal breeding and nursery facility or facilities in the U.S., starting at the most appropriate time.
Robocentric will do human fertility duration lengthening biotech R&D (especially for women), which will require nonhuman animal testing, on both non-primates and primates.
Robocentric will do human blindness and deafness cure research, including medical human genetic engineering biotech research. More than 350 eye diseases are attributed to hereditary factors.
Robocentric will do animal testing because research lab animals will provide valuable biological insights for curing the human body diseases, disabilities, damages, and conditions.
At Robocentric Biotech, we'll treat our research lab animals with dignity, respect, and humane care.
Robocentric will specify in writing and publish how and why research lab animals are used at Robocentric Biotech research facility—for curing human body diseases and disabilities and damages, for developing human longevity biotech, for developing human fertility duration lengthening biotech, for curing human-food animal diseases, for biotech research data measurement, documentation, and publication.
The types of research lab animals used at Robocentric Biotech research facility will be rodents, farm animals, nonhuman primates including chimps, and more.
For developing and commercializing aging control and human fertility duration lengthening biotechnologies, Robocentric will research creating genetically engineered chimpanzees and bonobos with fast growth and sexual maturity, and shorter reproduction cycle.
I will author and publish "Robocentric biotech development sequence and research lab animals breeding, nurturing, and usage plan", which will include the following.
First, rodent, human-food animal, and nonhuman primates whole-body microscopic 3D scanning, recording, and publication. Second, rodent, human-food animal, and nonhuman primates whole-body biochemical composition analysis and determination, recording, and publication. Third, rodent, human-food animal, and nonhuman primates cancer cure biotech, neurological diseases cure biotech, infectious diseases cure biotech, anti-aging and deaging biotech, genetic engineering biotech, and neurotech development, result recording and publication.
The Robocentric biotech development lab will have enough space for breeding and nurturing all the lab animals–rodents, human-food animals, nonhuman primates, and many more.
At Robocentric, GE-NHP means Genetically Engineered NonHuman Primate. Robocentric will do GE-NHP biomolecule, cell component, cell, tissue, organ, limb, and whole-body manufacturing and replacement experiments for developing human body manufacturing and replacement biotech.
My view is avoiding live animal testing to the maximum extent possible, especially nonhuman primate testing, opting to use manufactured human and nonhuman biomolecules, cell components, cells, tissues, organs, and limbs instead.
Performing tests on live research-lab animals is something I would love to avoid in developing medical biotech, human longevity biotech, and human fertility duration lengthening biotech, because I prefer to avoid harming animals, but for now I think some degree of live research-lab animal testing will probably have to be done to some extent in developing medical biotech, human longevity biotech, and human fertility duration lengthening biotech. I want to avoid doing experiments on nonhuman primates, so I'll avoid it to the maximum extent possible.
But I'm aware that some difficult choices will have to be made in performing tests on live research-lab animals, especially nonhuman primates. For example, when developing a human genetic engineering biotech for curing a genetically caused human blindness, blindness cure genetic engineering tests must be performed on nonhuman primates, such as monkeys, chimpanzees, and other apes—before human clinical trials—and the test-subject nonhuman primates will have to euthanized and dissected, and their body parts will have to be photographed, microscoped, spectroscoped, biochemically analyzed, recorded, and published for advancing bioscience and biotechnology.
Sacrificing nonhuman animal lives to protect and save human lives is a difficult choice to make; but I'm aware that it's a difficult decision that must be made, and a difficult act that must be performed, because that is the only way to develop human disease cures and protect and safeguard human lives. So, when the time comes, I'll plan, direct, coordinate, fund, and publicly communicate performing tests on live research-lab animals, for developing medical biotech, human longevity biotech, and human fertility duration lengthening biotech.
At Robocentric Biotech, first and foremost, biotech development experiments will be done on the animals excluded from the Animal Welfare Act—namely, "birds (such as turkey and chicken), rats of the genus Rattus, and mice of the genus Mus, bred for use in research, and cold-blooded animals, insects, and invertebrates".
Biotech development experiments on the species of animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act will be done according to the regulation.
Starting with microscopic 3D biomatter scanning, biomatter biochemical analysis and determination, genetic engineering, biomatter manufacturing and replacement testing, neurotech testing on lab-research birds, rats, mice, cold-blooded animals, insects, and invertebrates—then expanding to the species of animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act according to the regulation.
Robocentric will do research on developing nonhuman-primate artificial wombs, for developing human fertility disease and disability cures, and lengthening human fertility periods.
Robocentric will design and publish triple-walled lab animal enclosures—initially for birds, rats, mice, cold-blooded animals, insects, and invertebrates—with security and survelliance cameras, then eventually for the animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) for expanding biotech development experiments with a licensing by and registration with USDA under the AWA or Animal Welfare Act.
Before each lab-animal surgery for biotech development and testing, Robocentric will notify the relevant federal, state, and local government agencies and relevant institutions (such as National Institutes of Health) in writing.
Robocentric will constantly report to the relevant federal, state, and local government agencies, and related organizations and institutions, when doing live animal testing for biotech development, with citing their laws, their promotions, their policies, and their recommended practices—as a part of Robocentric biotech development and commercialization process constellation.
In doing animal testing for biotech development and commercialization, Robocentric will work with the applicable U.S. federal government agencies (namely, FDA, USDA, and DEA if using controlled substances in animal testing), state government agencies (namely state board of pharmacy and state board of veterinary medical examiners), and local government agencies. Robocentric will also work with relevant institutions and organizations such as National Institutes of Health, and American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).

You can invest in my startup company with as little as US$100, for supporting advancing AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion powered outer space tech. Visit https://Robocentric.com/Investors to invest in my startup.
My books on advancing AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion powered outer space tech are available at https://Robocentric.com/Checkout/, Amazon, Apple Books, Spotify, and other audiobook outlets.
Allen Young's books on AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion tech
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Future: How artificial intelligence, robotics, human body biotech, and mass-scale outer space tech will alter the human reality (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1XD1DJJ)
The Integrated Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Human Body Biotech, and Mass-Scale Outer Space Tech Promotion, Research, Development, and Commercialization (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2QH1PHR)
Transhumanistic Solar System (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQZHSZKJ)
Defining Intelligence: What Artificial Intelligence Should Be (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRDK3F3H)
Human Creativity Analysis: For Advancing Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRTKWNBV)
Human Psychology and Language Analysis: For Advancing Linguistic Artificial Intelligence (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSG3CG84)
America Robotization Plan: Plan for Doubling the American National GDP by Adding AI and Robots to the American National Economy (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXTRK45Y)

My contact info is at https://Robocentric.com/Contact. Contact me if you want to discuss investing in Robocentric.

submitted by Robocentric to AllenYoung [link] [comments]

2023.05.31 17:17 Dry-Significance-515 38-0 -- Vote in California's state Senate on Right to Repair

submitted by Dry-Significance-515 to righttorepair [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 08:07 Robocentric Animal testing on nonhuman primates for advancing medical biotech

https://reddit.com/link/13vi6b3/video/fjs4nzcdsw2b1/player

I came to the realization that Robocentric, my high-tech company, will have to perform experiments on research-lab nonhuman animals including primates, as soon as circumstances permit and we're ready, for advancing human longevity biotech, and other medical biotechnologies such as cancer cure, Alzheimer's disease cure, Parkinson's diesease cure, blindness and deafness cure, and genetic disease cures.

Undoubtedly and unfortunately, we'll have to perform some medically harmful experiments on research-lab nonhuman animals including primates for developing cures for human-body dieseases, disabilities, damages, and conditions.
A quick advertisement before I continue on this topic. You can invest in my startup company with as little as US$100, for supporting advancing AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion powered outer space tech. Visit Robocentric.com/Investors to invest in my startup.
I've a multidecadal commitment to advancing AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion powered outer space tech. To learn more about my cause, check out my books, which are available at Robocentric.com/Checkout, Amazon, Apple Books, Spotify, and other online audiobook retailers. Now, back to the main content.
We'll have to perform medical surgeries on research-lab nonhuman animals including primates for biotech research. We'll have to induce diseases such as cancer on research-lab nonhuman animals including primates for biotech research. We'll have to euthanize research-lab nonhuman animals including primates, and photograph, microscope, record, and publish their body parts for biotech research. All for developing cures for human-body diseases, disabilities, damages, and conditions.
I'm aware that nonhuman animals especially primates are intelligent and emotional animals, much like humans.
I ask myself this question: "Should the lives of some nonhuman animals including primates be sacrified in order to protect and save the human lives?"
It's not a black-and-white question. It's a question of whose lives matter more, and whose lives must be chosen over other lives when such a choice must be made.
When I must make a decision, I cannot help but choose protecting and saving human lives.
Biomedicine cannot advance without live animal tests, including nonhuman primate tests.
It's a difficult choice to sacrifice the lives of some nonhuman primates to save the lives of millions of humans. But I must choose protecting and saving human lives over any other lives.
I know what my priorities are. At the top of my priority list is humanity's survival, prosperity, and longevity.
I know I'm selfish in the humanly way in that I'll always choose human lives over any other lives when a choice must be made.
I'll always choose protecting and saving human lives, because human lives matter the most to me. When I must make a difficult choice to sacrifice and use the lives of nonhuman animals to protect and save human lives, I'll always choose human lives, anytime and every time.

You can invest in my startup company with as little as US$100, for supporting advancing AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion powered outer space tech. Visit https://Robocentric.com/Investors to invest in my startup.
My books on advancing AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion powered outer space tech are available at https://Robocentric.com/Checkout/, Amazon, Apple Books, Spotify, and other audiobook outlets.
Allen Young's books on AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion tech
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Future: How artificial intelligence, robotics, human body biotech, and mass-scale outer space tech will alter the human reality (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1XD1DJJ)
The Integrated Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Human Body Biotech, and Mass-Scale Outer Space Tech Promotion, Research, Development, and Commercialization (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2QH1PHR)
Transhumanistic Solar System (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQZHSZKJ)
Defining Intelligence: What Artificial Intelligence Should Be (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRDK3F3H)
Human Creativity Analysis: For Advancing Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRTKWNBV)
Human Psychology and Language Analysis: For Advancing Linguistic Artificial Intelligence (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSG3CG84)
America Robotization Plan: Plan for Doubling the American National GDP by Adding AI and Robots to the American National Economy (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXTRK45Y)

My contact info is at https://Robocentric.com/Contact. Contact me if you want to discuss investing in Robocentric.

submitted by Robocentric to AllenYoung [link] [comments]

2023.05.30 03:22 Muted_Brief_6808 My Flash Seasons Rewrite Concept

Hello FlashTV, this is my concept for alternate takes on the Flash show and its Seasons. This may be a long read so I appreciate anyone who takes time to read this, perhaps save it and read it later if you don't. To get a few things out the way, I am not ranting about the show, nor am I arguing that this should be how the show should’ve gone, I’m also not a writer, just a fan sharing ideas. I’m keeping the main outline of the Seasons, I’m not creating my own Season storyline mostly, just changing things up while keeping a good chunk the same.
To start off, Seasons 1 and 2 will remain pretty much the same.
Season 3:

Have Flashpoint last more episodes, maybe making it a 3-Part event.

The 1st part would start off with our Barry returning to the future and locking up Eobard. Most of Part-1 is him living his new life and seeing all the changes. He’d see the new lives of his friends like Cisco, Caitlin, and Iris. Iris is married to Eddie and has a child. Barry will also get his first memory headache. The first Part would end with Barry finding Wally as “The Flash” being beaten by the Rival.
Part-2 would be Barry learning about Wally being The Flash and trying to explain how he’s the Flash. Only Joe, Iris, and Eddie know about Wally's identity. Barry would also go to Starling City to see Oliver for some guidance, but he finds that Oliver died on the ship and that his dad became the Arrow. Barry experiences more memory headaches in this Part and he sees Eobard again to learn the new Timeline is setting in. Part-2 ends with The Rival killing Joe.
Part-3 starts with Wally being angry and blaming Joe's death on Barry. Barry gets Caitlin and Cisco to help defeat The Rival. Barry does his best to calm Wally down until him and Wally face off against The Rival with Wally getting nearly killed, which urges Barry to fix things. Barry visits Eobard once again, and Eobard tells him to stop himself from saving his mom. Barry runs back in time again and stops Season 2 Barry from saving his mom. Barry arrives back in the “normal” time and tells his team about what happened, Caitlin still gets ice powers this time.

Remove the Duet episode.
The Gorilla storyline is different.

Part-1 has Grodd asking Barry for help because he believes Solavar will lead Gorilla city to ruin and knows Barry has potential to beat him. Grodd goes through his regular Season 6 redemption in these Episodes. Solavar learns of Grodd's plan and forces him and Barry to fight in the ring, threatening a Team Flash member's life if Barry doesn't comply. Barry fights Grodd but doesn't kill him. Barry and the team escape back to their Earth.
Part-2 has Solavar control Gypsy to take his Gorilla army to Barry's Earth and attack in revenge. Solavar begins his attack with Barry defending Central City. Vibe gets Grodd to help fight. Grodd and Barry take on Solavar win and are on good terms. Grodd and the gorillas return to their Earth.

Make Julian less of a jerk after a while.
Reveal Savitar a bit earlier.
Savitar's death is about the same, except him and Barry are wrestling when Iris shoots him, his anger blinded him from noticing the bullet. Savitar gets last words in, maybe something heartfelt.

Seasons 4 and 5 are a bit different. Just like how Seasons 1, 2, and 3 challenged Barry’s Speed, Seasons 4 and 5 challenge his intellect as a person and as a CSI.
Season 4:

An episode for each bus meta. Team Flash doesn't realize there's a connection to the bus until they meet Ralph. Some metas are safely taken to STAR labs, others are killed by The Thinker.
The Thinker only absorbs the bus meta's life force to extend his decaying body. It only works for a while.
Barry is set up and goes to prison again. No bus metas are at the prison, so Barry never "leaves" with them. Barry is released the same way.
Wally leaves Central City after Barry is released.
The Thinker breaches STAR labs and kills the rest of the metas, taking Ralph's body last.
It seems the Thinker has succeeded and finished his plan, but after some time he believes the world needs to reach his level of intellect. He begins his quest for The Enlightenment.
Cecille doesn't get meta powers. Grodd helps Barry enter the Thinkers mind in the end instead of Cecile.

Season 5:

Cicada is a serial killer. The more metas he kills, the stronger he gets. He uses the energy gathered from kills with the dagger to keep Gracie alive.
Team Flash doesn't face Cicada until a few episodes in.
Barry and Sherloque investigate Cicada's murders.
Cicada gets captured, gets put in the pipeline, but is so powerful that he breaks out.
Cicada starts killing metas for himself rather than for Gracie.
Future Gracie doesn't become Cicada.
Matt Letscher is Reverse Flash from now on. Reverse Flash portion of the finale plays out about the same, Nora still gets erased.
Cisco never took the meta human cure.
The Crisis date on the newspaper doesn't change because the newspaper isn't referring to Infinite Earths.
Joe and Cecile get engaged.

Season 6:

Episode opens with Joe and Cecile's wedding until Barry has to take down a meta.
Bloodwork arc is slightly extended. Temptation episodes are after Crisis on Infinite Earths, Ramsey remembers his life before Crisis. He tempts Barry with not just being able to save Nora, but Oliver too. Speed Force is shown to be weaker.
Jay Garrick and his wife are not on Earth-1.
Iris escapes the mirror dimension earlier.
Allegra isn't introduced until the Mirror Monarch arc. She uses her powers to help Team Flash defeat Mirror Monarch, then she leaves the show.
Barry uses the last of his decaying speed to defeat Mirror Monarch and lock her up.
Caitlyn and Frost split into two still. Caitlyn leaves but Frost stays.
Ralph leaves with Sue.
Team Flash creates the artificial Speed Force. When Nash becomes the organic battery, Wells is now the “spokesperson” of the Speed Force, the Artificial Speed force is created, the Speed Force now exists again and doesn’t need the machine, perhaps love powers it like anger powers the negative Speed Force. Or the Artificial Speed Force machine just rebirths the regular Speed Force without all the extra stuff. No more Speed Force Nora.
Season ends with a foreshadow to the Speed Force Storm.

Season 7:
Speed Force Storm and Godspeed is the First arc of the Season.

Speed Force Storm is created because of the Artificial Speed Force, giving Speed to civilians of Central City.
Team Flash uses STAR Labs as a training ground for the new Speedsters. Fast Track and August Hart are among the trainees.
Wally returns to help teach Speedsters.
Godspeed arrives, terrorizing the city, and killing new Speedsters and draining them of their speed.
Barry gets closer to Fast Track and August, teaching them how to use their speed.
It's revealed August Hart is Godspeed. Godspeed merges with his other self, the August that acted friendly, and kills Fast Track and absorbs her speed. Godspeed radiates with electricity, giving him the glowing yellow eyes.
Barry defeats Godspeed and locks him up in a meta human prison.
Wally leaves again.

The Forces storyline is the Second Arc of the Season.

In an attempt to Stabilize the Speed Force, the Sage Force, Still Force, and Strength Force are born.
Grodd returns, being enhanced by the Sage Force making him more powerful.
An episode to familiarize each Force and its main user.
Cisco leaves.
Season finale has a good user for each Force against a bad user for each Force. Godspeed is broken out of prison to face off against The Flash.

Season 8:
Season 8 is the beginning of the end. Season opens with a Flashback of the Season 1 Singularity.
Death Storm is the First Arc of the Season.

Caitlin returns.
Death Storm is after Caitlin.
Death Storm kills Frost. Caitlin grieves but comes to terms with her death. Kione is never created. Chill Blaine leaves the show after Frost's funeral.
Death Storm's defeat brings Ronnie back.
Barry becomes Director of CSI.

The Second Arc sets up the Final Season.

Barry, Caitlin, and Chester are all transported to a new universe. Team Flash learns the Multiverse exists. One episode has Jay Garrick return, one has Jesse Quick, another has Abra Kadabra. Chester unlocks his abilities and creates a small black hole to return to Earth-Prime.
Barry is sent 170 years into the future. We get to see Eobard Thawne's backstory. Barry saves the crowd. Barry creates Gideon to help him get back home, he succeeded, but Eobard finds traces of Gideon.
Chester learns the energy used to transport them had similar readings as the Singularity.
Season ends with the flashback of the Singularity again, but it follows Eddie inside, and he wakes up.

Season 9:
Here we go. The Flash Season 9 is the final season of the long running show, and for the Arrowverse, it should be treated as such.

To begin, Red Death is changed. Just like Batman is the face of DC and became Red Death, so does the face of the Arrowverse. Oliver Queen from another Earth is Red Death, with a similar backstory as the one from the comics. He’ll have a red arrowhead on his chest rather than the bat, he’ll have a sleeker suit like the old flash suits, and he’ll be very threatening. Red Death will be like Zoom, but worse, he’ll kill many civilians.
Specter returns as Green Arrow to help Barry defeat Red Death. Red Death Arc ends with Barry and Oliver at the bar.
No Rogue War.
4-Part Cobalt Blue Arc

Part-1 is similar to the Part-1 we already got. Eddie is thrown out of a breach onto another Earth with no memory. There's no Allegra portion, perhaps it's instead Caitlin and Ronnie finally enjoying a bit of their life together. Episode ends with Eddie entering that Earth's version of Barry's apartment since it's abandoned, and the Negative Speed Force strikes him.
Part-2 begins with Iris informing Team Flash about Barry's disappearance. Chester begins to investigate the energy left behind from Barry disappearance so he calls in some help from Argus, Cisco! Eddie begins to remember his life and everything that he's lost, and a voice encourages him to take it back. Eddie opens a breach, and becomes Cobalt Blue. A montage plays that shows Cobalt Blue was behind Death Storm so Barry could lose a close friend, the events of Season 8 to make him meet his arch-nemesis, even Red Death to make him fight a close friend, and now sending him to the worst night of his life. Back at STAR Labs, Cisco and Chester are able to bring back Barry, but before he gets comfortable, Gideon warns that Cobalt traces have been detected in 2049.
Part-3 begins with Barry arriving in 2049. He runs to STAR Labs and sees XS again and meets Impulse for the first time, both safe and sound for now. XS and Impulse are twins now. The Team Flash of 2049 consists of XS, Impulse, Cisco's kid, and the child of Ronnie and Caitlin. When a meta attacks Central City, they all go to take care of it, until XS finds the crystal. XS knocks Impulse out, and her and Barry race around Central City having a duel. Back in the present, Cobalt Blue arrives to talk to Iris, first as Eddie wanting to talk with her. They catch up, and Eddie slowly starts to allude to her having a life with him. In 2049, Barry tries to get Nora to reject the crystal which succeeds for a little, until Barry throws lightning and knocks the Crystal off of her. Barry heads back to present. Iris rejects Cobalt Blue, so he attacks STAR labs and Barry when he arrives. Eddie threatens Barry and disappears. Iris' water breaks and she goes to the hospital.
Part-4 is a 2-Hour finale. Cobalt Blue summons Reverse-Flash, Zoom, Savitar, and Godspeed. Zoom arrives first, then Godspeed, which causes Zoom to want his speed until Eobard breaks up the fight. Eobard mentions that he was plotting to take out Barry Allen, when they all agree he's the common enemy. Savitar shows up without his, which leads to Zoom and Godspeed thinking it's the real Barry Allen. Savitar threatens them all, Godspeed attacks Savitar but gets thrown to the side, Savitar runs up to Zoom about to kill him until Cobalt Blue enters the room. Savitar mentions how neither of them get to have Iris. Cobalt Blue orders them to take out the Flash, because the Negative Speed Force is manipulating Eddie. The villain speedsters aren't enhanced by the Negative Speed Force, Zoom sparkles and has blue lightning, Savitar and Godspeed have white, and Cobalt Blue has a light blue. The speedsters arrive in Central City causing chaos, the Flash arrives and tries to fight them off. Zoom meets the cops and they tell him to put his hands in the air, he complies but when the cops come up to him he says "you can't lock up the darkness," and kills all the cops, pins Singh to the wall, but before he kills him, the Flash stops him, but the villain speedsters all gang up on Barry giving him a hard time, except Eobard is nowhere to be found. Eddie stops the speedsters to give Barry one last chance to surrender. Things look one sided until Jay Garrick, XS, Impulse, and Wally show up to help Barry. Jay takes on Zoom, Wally takes on Savitar, XS and Impulse take on Godspeed, and Barry goes after Eddie. Reverse Flash meets Chester at STAR Labs, he is about to use his vibrating hand to kill him until Cisco breaches him somewhere far away. Jay defeats Zoom, maybe using the helmet since it was Hunter's dad's, or by giving him some Karma and stealing his speed and knocking him out. Wally uses his strong connection to the Speed Force to take down Savitar. XS and Impulse can do sibling combo moves on Godspeed. Barry tries to talk down Eddie, he convinced him that Eddie saved Team Flash the day of his sacrifice and he has a second chance at being a hero. Barry connects with the Speed Force to drown out the Negative Speed Force from Eddie. The Negative Speed Force uses Eddie's old energy to power up Eobard. Barry and Eddie team up to fight Eobard, Eddie gets knocked out. Reverse Flash attempts to fight Barry, but Barry is supercharged and he's too fast for him(similar moment to the Season 7 finale we got.) Barry electrocutes Eobard and erases the Negative Speed Force from his system. Eddie is okay and destroys the Cobalt Crystal, erasing the villains except for Eobard. Barry takes Eobard to a secure prison and goes to the hospital. The main characters are in the waiting room, Cisco, Caitlin, Ronnie, Chester, Joe, Cecile, Wally and Eddie also arrives and hugs Joe. They reminisce about times in the older Seasons. Nora is born. They have the baby shower, the same people show up, but throw in Kara, Ralph and Diggle too. Barry reads Nora The Little Dinosaur (or whatever book his mom read to him.) The final scene is Barry running through Central City saying his old intro, "My name is Barry Allen and I'm the fastest man alive... etc"

That's it. I hope whoever read this enjoyed, lets me know what you liked the most or what changes you would've made.

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2023.05.30 02:36 Fairytickles9 Please help me, help my fiancé lol

I truly hope this is the right place, I’m sorry if I’ve gotten lost !
My fiancé and his father just completely remodeled our bathroom and it looks absolutely phenomenal! Here’s the problem though, the new shower is completely tile and he installed the shower curtain rod about six inches too high. What the heck can I suggest we do? We have extra tile and they are great at tile work so I’m sure they could do it but I know it would be a pain so I’m hoping there may be an easier option I’m not aware of.
The picture is of the tile we used, although I think ours is a bit lighter.
I appreciate any suggestions or shoulders to cry on, this was the final touch on the remodel

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2023.05.29 23:57 hodbay Help reassembling sink faucet head

Had to take off faucet head on an Allen+Roth sink to attach fish tank cleaning hose. Done this many times with no problem. Today we noticed an o-ring had fallen off the faucet head (3rd picture) and don't know where it goes to reattach faucet head to sink hose. Also found a bigger rubber washer (also 3rd picture) but that may be a park to the fish tank cleaning hose. When we try and put the o-ring on the faucet head where it seems like it should go, water just sprays out where the head connects to the sink hose. Thanks in advance for your help!

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2023.05.29 21:46 Massares Bronze Dragonflight inspired evoker set

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2023.05.27 13:04 Livid_Ad_8635 12 team Superflex ppr dynasty league

I got 2nd last year and should contend again, but I am weak at RB. We have $1,000 blind bid dollars for the year.
We start 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 2 flex, 1 Superflex. My team:
QB: Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Sam Darnold
RB: Travis Etienne, Ezekiel Elliot, Tyler Allgeier, Leonard Fournette, AJ Dillon
WR: DK Metcalf, Chris Godwin, Jaylen Waddle, Michael Thomas, DJ Moore, Allen Lazard, Kadarius Toney, Marquise Brown
TE: David Njoku, Evan Engram, Mo-Ali Cox, Jelani Woods, Juwan Johnson
View Poll

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2023.05.27 09:46 AJPXIV Colour Week 2: Orange (feat some “on second thought, that’s probably actually red” entries)

Also not sure my logic of “peach is basically just a very light orange” really works for the Three Days Grace album.

submitted by AJPXIV to lastfm [link] [comments]

2023.05.27 03:40 ScurvyTurtle Trying to identify a bathroom sink quick connector for lines that pop off

After being installed several months ago, my bathroom sink lines popped out of this connector today. After pushing the lines back in, when I turned on the faucet I could see the pressure starting to push them out before they finally pushed out. I don't see anything wrong with the line ends or this connector but I'm thinking this is the culprit. After looking online, I'm not seeing a similar connector. Can anyone point me to where I could find a replacement or a comparable connector? Sink model is an Allen+Roth Harlow but I can't find a parts list.

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2023.05.27 01:06 KillerOrangeCat Three True Never Told Scary Stories VOL 1

Three True Never Told Scary Stories VOL 1

Number One: The Backyard

This happened to me when I was a pre teenagers ( I would say tween, but I kinda hate that word). I was still very interested in things like scouting and camping and getting all muddy with by friends. I hadn’t quite gotten to girls yet but I that a coming along pretty soon.

But at the time, I loved any kind of camping. And although this wasn’t an official scouting get together, I wanted to do a camping out in my parents’ backyard.

Now, I wouldn’t say we lived out in the country, because we really didn’t. But we had an enormous backyard. Hell, with all of the places I have lived since, I am still in awe of how big that yard was. It was great for playing with the dogs, playing baseball with my buddies. It was just great altogether.

So this was in mid summer when we were beginning to get somewhat bored of the time off from school. The days were long and monotonous. So I asked my parents if we could have the campout in the backyard. We were all scouts and had done this before and my parents had no problem with it.

Now, one thing we did was that everyone had their own tent. I sort of preferred sleeping alone in mine anyway. But anyway, this is pretty important to tell the story.

We did all the usual camping things. We indeed had a small fire, as we had little stoned off area that my family used to make fires. We had smores. That is really what made me decide to tell this story, seeing someone buying things to make them in the store today. And, then eventually, after talking about all of the things that 12 year boys find important, we went to bed.

I didn’t know what time it was. I read a little bit my flashlight before finally going to sleep. And I fell asleep pretty easily. The fire had been small and we put it out before getting into our tents, so there wasn’t light to keep me awake.

I am not sure what woke me up at the time, although nowadays I think it was the sound of the zipper on my tent being lowered. My head was foggy and I couldn’t see much of anything. But I noticed that there was a figure at the entryway to my tent. I immediately guessed that it was either one of the other boys, or maybe my dad had come outside for some reason. So I immediately grabbed my flashlight in flashed it over at them to see who it was. I was good enough with the light to shine under their head so the light wouldn’t completely blind them in the darkness.

It took me less of than a second to realize that the man who was coming into my tent was absolutely not my dad and way too old to be any of my scout mates. He was, up to that point, the scariest looking person I had ever seen in my life. He had long hair, the most insane eyes I had ever seen and a look on his face that I can simply describe as crazy.

The man was on his hands and knees and he took one crawl toward me. He then put one of his fingers up to his lips, as if to indicate to me to not talk or make any noise. For nearly a moment, I didn’t. But it had everything to do with fear, not that I was listening to his advice.

He made another crawl toward me and that was all that it took. I began yelling and screaming bloody murder like you couldn’t imagine. I faced the other wall and of the tent and did everything I could to get out of there.

But of course I wasn’t going to get out of there and I didn’t see any lights in the house go on right away. Fortunately, however, my scout mates all woke up right away. I began screaming at them, “There’s someone in my tent! There’s someone in my tent!”

Now, I didn’t know exactly what had happened right away. I could see light through the tent but it was too opaque for me to make out exactly what was going on outside. But one of my friends went running to the house to get my parents.

But what I quickly became aware of were the other kids who quickly came to my rescue. They all attacked the guy who was trying to get to me in the tent and who had actually gotten to my foot. However, he quickly let go of that when the kids attacked him.

I couldn’t tell if the kids pulled him out of the tent, or he tried to force himself out of there despite what they were doing. But the only thing I was happy about was the fact that he was out of my tent.

Next thing, I heard a gunshot though. And there was a lot of commotion and even some yelling from some of the other boys. I still didn’t come out of the tent though, until it was my older brother coming in to get me. He rushed me and the other boys back to the house while my dad held the guy to the ground with his rifle.

The police came and arrested the guy. He was found guilty of attempted kidnapping before being extradited to another state where he was put on trial for a completed kidnapping. I don’t know what happened to him, but if he died in prison, I wouldn’t mind so much.

I didn’t go camping ever again. I just can’t be in a tent after that.

Number Two: Sleepover

I had a really frightening experience with a friend of mine when I was really young. I recall being around him a lot younger when he had an imaginary friend that he used to get teased about by other boys. They saw having an imaginary friend as something that only little girls did or really young boys. So at even a very young age for a boy to give up an imaginary friend, he took quite a bit of torment about it from the other boys.

I kept being his friend because I liked him. I never had an imaginary friend of my own. I never held it against him though. In fact, I sometimes wished I had the imagination to have had one at any time during my life. We liked a lot of the same toys as each other and things like that, so we got along fine.

But during the whole period of teasing, I do remember it getting a little bit too much for him, I suppose. And it was then that he quit talking about his imaginary friend. I got to mention earlier that my friend’s name was Brian and his imaginary friend was named Billy.

So, I guess we were maybe seven years old when Brian just stopped talking about Billy. And after that, I stopped thinking about it. That is, until around the time that we were 11 years old.

I remember playing over and Brian’s house that day and he seemed a little upset about something. I never thought to ask him what was wrong. I don’t recall really doing that back when I was that young. But we were playing with his Nintendo and he kept dying really easily when it was his turn to play. That was just really unusual for him. But I don’t remember mentioning it.

Brian, on the other hand, asked me if I wanted to spend the night over at his place that night. This was something I was always up for, actually. I liked his house a lot more than mine and my own parents would never allow anything like a sleepover. So I readily accepted.

The evening went pretty well. I always enjoyed Brian’s family. Plus his video games were in his bedroom, so we could play them as much as they want to. He seemed to be a whole lot in a better mood than he had been before.

When bedtime came around, we got ready for bed. Brian had twin beds in his bedroom. I never quite understood why, unless it was for sleepovers. He never had another brother and I know that none of his sisters slept in hs room. They both had their own rooms.

So while we were talking, I was surprised that Brian if I remembered Billy. Although I had not thought about him in a long time, I immediately knew who Brian was talking about. I knew he meant the imaginary friend and not anyone we actually knew.

I let him know that I did. But I didn’t say much more about him.

Then Brian told me, “He started visiting me again.”

I think I was quiet for a few moments before I uttered out an “Oh?”

“Yeah, but he’s not like how I remembered him,” Brian explained. “Before, he was nice. He played with me a whole lot and he was pretty cool.”

Brian was quiet for a few moments. I have to admit to being a little afraid for the few moments of quiet. But I didn’t let on that I was scared at all.

“Now, he just hangs out under the bed at night,” Brian said, sending a chill down my spine. “He keeps telling me that he’s going to grab me and pull me under the bed when I fall asleep.”

I paused again before asking the question that frightened me most. “Under your bed or mine?”

“Mine,” Brian responded.

I thought I would feel relieved that it wasn’t mine. I didn’t. I was simply terrified. So I responded, “Why don’t we both sleep in this bed then?”

I barely had the word out of my mouth before my friend had jumped over to the bed I was in. It was just a twin, but we were small and scared so it worked.

We didn’t get a whole lot of sleep that night. We talked through our fear until we fell asleep.

Here is the weird thing, he never ever mentioned Billy again. It was somehow like that one night exorcised the entire fear from him.
The House on Chicot Road (Final)
Pronounced: Chee-Ko Road
Cat B
April 11, 2023
For all our differences, my elder sister and I were very adventurous. Anything out of the ordinary called to our souls. We were both into horror and scary stories. We'd read Edgar Allen Poe, Ambrose Bierce, HP Lovecraft, Alfred Hitchcock, Algernon Blackwood, Daphne Du Maurier, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle among others. At the time of our adventure, I was all of 13 and my sister (whom I'll henceforth refer to as "J") was 16.
That day, our mother had gone out, with a gay friend, and the warm spring afternoon soon allowed us to delve into a mischievous and somewhat dangerous excursion into the home of a recently deceased widow. Her husband had died some years earlier and any children she'd had lived out of state. She died alone.
I was close to my elder sister in those early years so when she asked:
"Hey cat, let's go check out that empty house," I was all for it. We presumed the house was empty of at least any living occupants. Long before the demise of the widow, the house had a reputation for being haunted by the widow's deceased husband.
Still, any chance to get out and go exploring was something we could not pass up. Besides, the widow was also known to have never locked her front doors, so it was a perfect invitation to get in without having to break in which we were loath to do.
Whenever I looked deeply into my sister's baby doll blue eyes, I saw her usual undying mischievousness shine through. This time, she was serious and so was I.
"Okay. I said. Let's go."
And without another word, we headed out the front door and into the woods of the 60 acres my uncle owned in Little Rock, AR. Just before we let out, "J" grabbed my wrist and said grinning:
"Wait a minute stupid, we need a flashlight."
"Oh yeah," I mouthed absent-mindedly. In my haste, I'd nearly forgotten. But then, she was older so she was supposed to have remembered anyway.
When my mind began to work instead of being on autopilot, I realized that "J" was right, there would be no electricity. Her family we'd learned from our aunt, would only see her on occasion, so we knew they would probably not show up anyway if they showed up at all.
As we walked the mile and a half to the house, we first had to traverse a long dirt road that would take us further away from the paved road but get us to the old house sooner.
We heard birds of all sorts: Mockingbirds, Blue Jays, Scarlet Tanagers, and Ravens. In the ditch along the way, we saw a family of Kildeer, both mother and father with chicks running along beside with their quick steps and thin legs that carried them from one end of a culvert to the other, their nest somewhere along the ground. I smiled at their inventiveness, the father acting like he was wounded, hopping along with a feigned broken wing, to distract and draw us away from the nest area. "J" didn't appreciate nature the way I did.
Following along, I already missed my Shilo; a chocolate cream tortoiseshell cat. She was asleep now but would be awaiting me on velvet paws upon my return. That cat owned me. Everything was about her until that is, my sister "J" said those magic words that would take me from her for at least a few hours.
After our little adventure, we planned on rewarding ourselves by walking another half mile or so to the little run-down mom-and-pop store (MacMillans) for a cold soda. We always called them cold drinks no matter what the drink was. And no matter what kind of cola, we always called them "Coke." That was just what we Southerners called it back then. I never liked Coke so I always got something else.
The warmth of the sun shone down on us as we made our way off the dirt road which in a few years would have a few horrors of its own for Shilo and me, but that's another story.
"J" drew me away from my thoughts of "Shilo" which they were never far from when she said:
"Gotta' go this way." She turned to the left onto the narrow treelined Chicot Road. Dense woods lined the concrete paved two-lane road leading to the widow's house. A scattering of homes littered the landscape along the way as we moved enjoying the blooming bushes, wildflowers, and trees.
Breathing deep the richness of early summer, lost in my thoughts of what we might find, and taking in the shapes of the clouds that blended with a robin's egg blue sky, I barely noticed when the wind picked up; a portent of a storm later in the day.
Marching along, flashlight in hand, "J" told me and herself, she too was lost in thought, that we would be going into a dark house and some dark places and thus, the reason for the flashlight. She was more scared than I thought.
It seemed like it took forever when I finally recognized the slight turn that preceded the front of the house. Before we rounded the corner, I asked "J" if we should take the woods to cut across the yard instead of walking in front of the house. She paused and thought about that for a moment and then finally made up her mind with:
"No cat." She said. "It's all right. No one knows we are here anyway. No one ever comes here." Immediately, I looked into her eyes. They appeared a little clouded indicating she was afraid.
"It's just cause you're scared of the woods," I teased.
"Just shut up and come on." I dismissed that as, big sister syndrome. Then, I smiled adding:
"Okay dummy!" a face-saving jab at her earlier calling me "stupid." She just glared.
We moved on almost directly in front of the huge two-story house.
Finally, we stepped off the road, thankful for the cool of the grass. It was pretty warm. In those days, that far out in the country, there were few sidewalks and little to no shoulders on Chicot Road.
A second later, a car swerved a bit too close reminding us that if we didn't pay more attention we could become permanent residents of the house on Chicot Road too. I saw an image of both of us face-planted in the road.
As we moved swiftly onto the property, we looked at one another with nervous laughs. We stood for a moment to take in the excitingly ominous sight of the house. It looked like something out of a horror movie.
Gnarled, grotesque, and twisted shapes that would haunt your nightmares, moved with a sudden wind. It was as if they moved of their own accord, sometimes taking the shape of creepy dark human figures. The sounds they made were just as strange as if they were inhabited by the spirits of the dead. Their eerie and sad howlings rose and fell as they were stretched and bent by the wind into long drawn-out moans. Suddenly, it dawned on me where the musical category "woodwinds" probably came from. I always loved the sound made by Pan's reed flute. Pan was a Satyr in Greek Mythology.
As we moved carefully across the huge unkempt yard, twigs and sticks of old fallen branches snapped and popped under our feet, hidden by the long grass, giving us away to anything that lurked there. If the spirits were uncertain about our presence before, they were certain of it now.
"J" shivered. I sure as hell know I did. Of course, I didn't say the word "hell" out loud, just in my head. Cursing was strictly forbidden. But of course, "J" did. Following her lead, I echoed the forbidden word out loud as well. I felt a bit nervous yet liberated doing it.
The house stood completely alone surrounded by woods. Interestingly, only around the house were all the trees dead. Further back, it was lush and green. Upon closer inspection, we had only ever seen it from the road and realized that it was more run down, and dilapidated, than we'd thought.
Grabbing my shoulder again, "J" startled me with a perfunctory:
"Come on! Let's go!" Her left hand was firmly on my shoulder almost pushing me ahead of her. Naturally, I resisted and she quipped that she was sorry and loosened her grip. I don't think I had ever seen her this nervous.
The house seemed to yawn at our presence as a sudden gust of warm air came seemingly from within the house. It gave our young faces a fresh scare as our excited fright whisked our blonde hair high into the air with unseen fingers while another wind seemed to gently usher us to the stairs that led up onto the porch.
Stopping momentarily, we gazed out across the tree-strewn ravine and lake, when another sudden gust of wind blew across us and seemingly through us accompanied by a sudden noise behind. The sound caught us both completely off guard, unnerving and hastening us onto the porch. It seem the spirits were impatient at our hesitance, we'd come this far...
Carefully, we moved up the creaking stairs; the old wood too, moaning an invitation as we mounted the porch. An old porch swing hanging from one anchor still affixed to the ceiling squeaked out a half-tempting 'SIT, IF YOU DARE!' Our heads jerked at the sudden sound and then back to the door.
"J" moved ahead of me letting go of my shoulder just long enough to grasp the knob and slowly turn. More groans of creaking wood amid disquieting squeaks and desperate scratchings entered our young fertile imaginations and settled there as a strong musty smell of old furniture, clothes, and dust invaded our nostrils.
Still, it must have been a quite lovely house, I thought. Even at my age, I could appreciate the once-fine architecture of this old house. It certainly must have been grand, in its day. Glancing around the huge living area, I could see even in the gloom the still solidly built floor that rose on one side to a low mezzanine upon which sat a small table and 4 chairs in the corner of which sat a white baby grand piano covered in thin dust.
The aged ivory keys were partially exposed, turning them a lighter shade of grey. I was then and now a music lover. The thought of the elephants it took to make them turned my stomach. Before my sister punched me softly on my arm, I too spied the stairs on my left that led to a second story and from there a third, or so we were told.
"C'mon, let's go." Cautiously, I agreed.
Tiptoeing across the broad hardwood floor, Black Oak, I assumed, we again heard the squeaks and saw a few fearless mice run across the floor, somehow knowing they were safe in our presence. One came so close that its twitching nose sniffed the toe of my shoe while in mid-stride. Slowly, I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out a treat I had intended on giving to Shilo but had forgotten in my rush to get there.
The little grey mouse knew my intentions and took it eagerly from my thumb and forefinger and ran halfway across the floor and then, as if to say thank you, stopped and turned to look at me, its little black eyes glistening. It winked in approval. I smiled as it squeaked and ran hurriedly with its prize to its lair under the musty dust-covered couch.
I reflected that it was probably a good thing that my cat Shilo wasn't with me after all because she would have had all the mice presented to me as gifts in a matter of just a few days depending on how many there were. And hearing quite a few squeaks and seeing quite a few tiny fuzzy gray bodies scatter as we entered the house, she would have certainly had her paws full. There was no way I would ever bring her here just to kill mice, even if she was the best mouser ever known to Catdom.
Before I knew it, "J" was already at the piano. She just had to touch everything, she simply could not resist doing so. I shook my head:
"Oh come on "J" really?" She stopped just for an instant and looked at me with that huge mischievous smile of hers. Tucking the faded white key cover further back into the piano exposing the dust-free keys, I joined her just as the felt hammer struck a single string and rang out an off-key tang into the quiet solitude of the room. She giggled softly and then moved towards the single door in the middle of the far wall that we thought was another room. It turned out to be the balcony. She opened it slowly.
As soon as we retreated outside, we heard footsteps moving down what sounded like the stairs. The dark gloom of the house suddenly seemed to close in tighter around us. I now held the flashlight as instructed by "J" whipping it in the direction of the sound. First, up and then down and then widely about the room itself as if expecting to catch a glimpse of... something.
Instead, the light caught "J's" widened and very frightened eyes, her pupils shrinking to tiny pinpoints. Quickly, her hand came up grabbing the flashlight whispering harshly:
"Get it out of my eyes dumbell!" And with that, wrenched it out of my hands turning it off at the same time. Then, the door to the balcony slammed shut. Standing perfectly still, I looked toward "J" and she back at me, our eyes wide trying to figure out how? The wind couldn't have done that, could it?
They say there is a fine line between a genius and an idiot. My sister "J" was brilliant at times but I quickly deduced that her decision to hang out on the balcony with only one exit clearly put her on the complete and absolute idiot side of the equation. Of course, there was still the bedroom window, except it would be quite a drop should we need to escape that way.
My mind told me it couldn't have been a ghost. But I was the first to move to the door because we, in our suddenly clouded state of mind, were decidedly screwed in this situation should it be anything worse. We could not drop from the balcony, the incline of the hill it was built on proved to be too steep and the small black water lake was a little too close for comfort. Taking the lead I whispered:
"C'mon "J" There's nowhere else to go." Meekly, she nodded.
Slowly, I twisted the knob, and suddenly "J" was right next to me as if in a protective state. Or she just wanted to get back into the room first. She stood at the opened end of the door. It creaked slightly. We expected it to do as it had done when "J" opened the door before. But this time, instead of drawing it out long and slow, she swung it open so quickly, it hit the side of the wall with a slight thud.
After quickly surveying the threshold and the surrounding area, we both sighed in relief. There was nothing there. Emboldened, "J" grabbed my left wrist, and with her right, pulled the door completely closed. She always had to do everything first. We were back inside again. Some moments later, our eyes having accustomed to the dark, she again got up the nerve to move at first towards the stairs and then towards another door on the far end of the mezzanine.
"C'mon", she ordered. Rolling my eyes in vague protest as if: make up your mind I nonetheless followed.
Taking a sharp left, we marched right up to the door closed firmly against our entrance. Hurriedly, yet stealthily, she opened the massive oak door and then entered the room. It seemed darker and more ominous than the living room outside. It was the Master Bedroom. We both almost lost our nerve and backed out, as the gloom seemed to envelop us in a strangely thick murk. It was suddenly harder to breathe as if something or someone had painted the walls with mildew that tainted the air.
Directly to the left was the walk-in closet our aunt told "J" about. It housed hundreds of very old dolls. It was the real reason my sister wanted to come here in the first place and was determined to stay, despite the growing warnings to get out. "J" however, was still not so easily convinced.
Entering the closet while holding the flashlight, "J" turned it back on again and started scanning past the old hung clothes and onto the dolls above that were in a jumble on the shelves stacked to the ceiling. Our aunt had been there previously and had gone through them. It was then that we heard something in the direction of the stairs again. "J" turned off the flashlight waiting.
After some moments of hearing nothing further, she shoved the flashlight into my hands and instructed me to shine the light on the dolls so she could go through them. The moment the flashlight was in my hand, we heard a sudden thud somewhere in front of us. Turning the light back on, swinging it wildly in search of the source of the noise, and seeing nothing, "J" said matter of factly:
"It was the wind."
I swear, she must have thought I was the most brainless younger sister on the freaking planet to have tried to convince me and herself that the wind had suddenly materialized in the closet and caused the noise. What she didn't know, was that I had seen a doll earlier when she was scanning the closet, that had been hanging from the shelf and was now lying on the floor. It had been hanging by a thread of its hair and had decided at the most inopportune moment to fall. Either that or... Why it, or whatever it was, chose for it to fall at exactly that moment was anyone's guess. When I told her 'whatever', she just glared.
After all, being the older sister, she was supposed to be the one to make that discovery, not me. But then, I was the one that read a lot of Sherlock Holmes so I fancied myself to be the detective who would notice those finer things during an adventure and she, like the pompous Inspector Lestrade, would usually characteristically miss them.
Satisfied at the cause, I slowly scanned the vast collection of dolls with their many shades of colored glass eyes staring eerily back at us. One, in particular with a single sapphire blue eye, caught my attention. Long auburn hair covered it, making it seem almost alive. Some of the older dolls were known to have actual human hair. I wondered if any had actual human skin. I would have sworn it blinked at me.
Holding the flashlight while keeping an eye out "J" used the single-step step ladder and began searching the collection of dolls. Hearing the noise, I shook my head, my eyes blinking incredulously in disbelief because here we were again, blocked from escape; one way in, one way out. Again, I was distracted by the growing apprehension I felt standing in this claustrophobic place while seriously trying to decide if I was going to stay with her or run like hell out of there. The answer would have come swiftly enough if "J" hadn't grabbed my arm again.
At the same time, she grabbed me, she grabbed the doll that she'd all along come to get. I suspected then that I was just someone she needed for backup. That was when we both again heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs moving up to where we were. Slow and methodical, stopping on each riser as if whoever or whatever was intently listening between the steps.
We made not a sound, we were frozen in fear. I silently shut off the flashlight. The small amount of light that spilled in through the open door was coming through the waning sunlight of the window. What little light that could seep through, afforded us just enough to look out through the open door.
"J" and I suddenly got the same idea at the same moment. Moving swiftly, yet silently, she reached out with trembling outstretched fingers and closed the closet door. Both now of the same volition and in perfect unison moved back deeper into the inkiness of the walk-in closet until our backs touched the wall.
All the dolls in there with us made it even spookier. I felt like a cat, in the position of knowing there was only one way out. "J" took my right hand in hers and held it tightly as if holding on for dear life. Either that or she knew that if anything happened to me, Mother would probably kill her. I could feel the already almost unendurable tension building. The waiting turned out to be both terrifying and exhilarating.
The footsteps moved from the stairs to the floor and were now moving slowly in our direction, still stopping occasionally as if listening for the slightest sound. The only other sound I heard was my own ragged breathing. Reflexively, I put my hand across my mouth and breathed through my nose. After a few moments, I noticed that it helped to calm me down.
"J" took notice and did the same thing. Still, my heart thundered in my chest. I could feel each beat move my body. We were rooted to the spot but mostly hidden in the darkness at the very back of the closet as the steps moved closer nearly unhinging our minds in terror and anticipation.
Barely resisting the fight or flight reflex, we knew we must remain still and quiet, becoming like the dolls themselves. Time disappeared completely as our breathing slowed and our thoughts languished in an almost torpid state of indifference and fear until we both heard the doorknob of the closet starting to turn.
Involuntarily I gasped, and it was then that the door was flung open so violently, it banged against the opposite wall and very nearly closed in on itself. Then it was suddenly and even more violently flung open again.
A scream caught in my throat leaving me speechless. "J" threw up her hands to cover her eyes and stifle her own but it was clear, that whatever it was, knew we were in the closet and was only yet, toying with us. We stood there in near complete darkness, frozen in place, and hypnotically watched the door after it banged off the wall for the second time, almost close, and then slowly open again to reveal... nothing. There was nothing there. No gut-wrenching, mind-numbing horror. No bowel loosening half decomposed papa zombie freshly arisen from the grave coughing out a: "Honey, I'm home." Not even some urban legend cryptid proving once and for all that they really do exist just before they eviscerate and then decapitate you. Nothing.
"J" her prize doll in hand, (she got what she came for) decided that it was time to finally get herself the "hell" out of there. She bolted. At first, I was still cautious expecting at any minute that we would come face to face with some other-worldly terror, like in the movies, but there was, thank God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Muhammad, Buddha, Yahweh or any other God, Godesses or Gods you can think of, or if you're an atheist: the void, nothing there.
Feeling emboldened, and now free from "J"s vice-like grip on my wrist, her hand drenched in sweat, we ran for the steps. I, however, being much more agile, chose a shorter route. I turned a sharp left and leaped from the mezzanine, just missing an overstuffed chair, and landed with a solid thud, on the hardwood floor like a thoroughbred finishing first place at the breeder's cup steeple chase tournament in Foxfield, MD.
Not only had I the nerve to take the shorter way, but I was much faster than "J" ever was. I grabbed the doorknob, turned it and swung the door open in one smooth movement and hit the ground running before even hearing "J" behind me running down the steps yelling:
"Cat, slow down!" Yeah right, I told myself, as I sped across the yard jumping over and zig-zagging around fallen branches, dead Privett Hedges, and broken picket fencing. Hell, I'd already reached the road and was doing my victory lap when "J" was just exiting the front porch steps.
As I was bent over catching my breath, she finally arrived bitching about how I'd abandoned her when she knew she was the one that left me. Projecting again. It was then that the front door to the house suddenly slammed violently shut with a bang like a rifle shot as though saying:
"And stay out!"
"J" finally shutting the hell up, turned and ran as I'd never seen her run before, (and yeah, I did say the word "hell" out loud) not even looking back as we peeled up the road to home. I easily kept pace loping along like a strong steady quarter horse and she, like some deranged lunatic having escaped with her doll, the local sanitarium. No offense to any of the insane that happen to be on the loose out there in the world.
It was almost dark when we got out of there. We both knew we had tarried too long but the flashlight gave us some comfort and helped to calm our frazzled nerves. Once we'd calmed down, we discussed seriously what had happened and I found myself shivering more than once, even though the heat from the day was still emanating off the concrete on Chicot Road.
A black friend came along in a pickup, with his dad, listening to Al Green on an 8-track. I sang along while they gave us a ride the rest of the way. We were pretty close friends. Elijah jumped in the back with us and we told him all about our adventure in the House on Chico Road. He ended up staying the night on the living room couch, and we, in our beds at the back of the trailer.
"J" didn't seem to be as scared now that she had her prize doll. I, on the other hand, had my Shilo who was, my best friend, there to meet me. As we talked, we came to the same conclusion that whatever was in the house was of the paranormal kind; our not having seen anyone, save the mice when we entered. And as far as I knew at my young age, mice didn't turn doorknobs or slam doors with the strength of a Sasquatch.
Could it have been the husband who'd died before that still haunted the old house? And was the invitation we received to enter the house and then enter the closet and the falling doll, the widow who also, after death, took residence there? It took some time for me to reason that out before the sound of that last slam finally stopped echoing in my skull.
Still, I could not understand how "J" could have selfishly bolted for the door leaving me there alone, although, in hindsight, I was glad she had. I guess it was the only thing she could do when overcome with blind fear, calculating that at least one of us (her, she hoped) might get out of there alive. I guess our mother threatening to kill her if anything happened to me, was a risk she was willing to take. Fortunately for both of us, (I never told) there wasn't more to it than that. Later on, warm and cozy in bed, my Shilo curled up in the crux of my arm, it revealed something to me (and probably to her as well) that when it came right down to it, it wasn't the "we" that mattered to her nearly as much as the "me." We weren't nearly as close after that.
I prayed to Christ and thanked him for helping me and "J" get out of there in our time of need and for Elijah and his father being there to help get us home before the storm hit.
Shilo purred as I prayed to never be tempted to go into that house ever again for any reason, especially if it was just for some silly adventure or because "J" wanted an old doll and was willing to sacrifice one of us to get it. If the risk of life and limb somehow wasn't enough to keep us out, I thought, then an overly protective fucking house ghost sure as hell ought to be.

submitted by KillerOrangeCat to killerorangecat [link] [comments]