Hi everyone, I'm Jose, a System Architect, and I recently developed a product to address an issue I encountered with my Airbnb, and I'm curious if any of you would find it useful.
TDLR: I built a solution to communicate with smart devices to make your property self check-in, and I wonder if it would be helpful to you as I consider making it public. Here is the system worflow/diagram https://ibb.co/HPmtvqN
From now on, you can continue reading to find out more about it, or jump to the end and take a look at the product's screenshots.
Problem Statement:
Managing key exchanges and collecting guest IDs for security purposes can be inconvenient for Airbnb hosts. This process typically requires physical presence and coordination, which is not always feasible.
Issues Addressed:
Key Delivery Hassles: Hosts do not need to meet guests in person to hand over keys.
ID Collection: Simplifies collecting guest IDs with building administrators.
Communication Overhead: Reduces the need for multiple messages and calls to manage check-ins and ID collection.
Proposed Solution:
A self check-in website that allows guests to input their government ID information and check themselves in. They are then redirected to a page containing check-in instructions and a button to remotely open the gate. In my case, a smart relay installed in the apartment's intercom to release the main building's gate.
Benefits for Hosts:
Efficiency: Eliminates the need for face-to-face key exchanges.
Security: Ensures proper identification and verification of guests through check-in.
Convenience: Reduces the amount of manual coordination required to collect data and deliver keys.
Improved Airbnb Ranking: Properties with self check-in options are often favored in Airbnb search results.
How It Works:
Guest Reservation: Guest makes a reservation.
Automated Message: Guest receives an automated message requesting them to check in on the website (e.g. airbnbuilding.com/reservation?code={RESERVATION_CODE}).
Guest Check-In: Guest completes the check-in process by submitting their government ID information.
Host Notification: Host receives a confirmation of the check-in along with the guest's ID.
Gate Access: Guest is provided with instructions and a button to open the gate remotely, using a smart relay installed in the property's (inexpensive device - around $10) intercom, gate, door, etc. This is customizable and can be integrated with many smart devices.
What this is NOT:
It's not a PMS - Property Management System. In fact, I still use my PMS for the management of properties, bookings, price, calendar, etc, and I use my own solution for smart device integrations and self check-in
Screenshots:
System diagram/workflow: https://ibb.co/HPmtvqN
Check-in page: https://ibb.co/QYr2tw9
Check-in instruction/open gate: https://ibb.co/P1dMZ7b
--
Would such a solution enable you to overcome the challenges of delivering keys, managing government IDs, and enabling self check-in for your property? Your feedback would be greatly appreciated as I consider making this solution public.

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Peace be to you all.
Let's proceed to refute the second part of his "rebuttal," providing a brief yet precise rebuttal that will further expose his ignorance in the Hebrew language, and his knowledge of the Bible as well.
He writes:

The prophecy so closely matches those events that even scecular scholars agree which is the primary reason secular scholars date Daniel to just after these events. Their idea is the book is actually recording history but pretending to present prophecy.

But it doesn’t. Not even close. The chapter is about a prophet/messenger of God who brought a Holy Covenant. His successors fell into dispute over who was the rightful heir to his kingdom. The rightful successors were supposed to be his descendants (his followers), but that turned out not to be the case according to what verse 4 states. This is strikingly similar to how Islamic history played out.
He writes:

I'm not sure where Exion found this translation.

I found it here: biblehub - Pulpit's commentary. Literally a direct copy and paste. Not sure how he missed it.
Regarding the "The prophecy describes a sequence of events" thing he pointed out, I had already revised each verse from part 1 in part 2, and it now makes perfect sense. He should read part 2.
He writes:

A few things here. The verb is עמדים. The same verb is used in verse 3 and again in verse 4. Both cases it's referring to a king rising to power rather than rising against someone/somthing else. That context suggests the same meaning for the kings in verse 2. We also see verse 2 describing a king being against a nation when it says "he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece." This is a different verb and preposition.

Yes, I agree. 'Umar was the first king to rise in Persia when he fought the Persians and won. 'Uthman and 'Ali were the second and third kings, and Mu'awiyah was the fourth, the wealthy king. I'm not sure what he thinks he is refuting here because I literally wrote:
"This 'rising' could either be in support of Persia or in opposition to it. Remarkably, this aligns perfectly with the historical narrative of Islam, and here's why:..."
In other words, both interpretations align perfectly with the historical narrative of Islam. I believe he misunderstood that part; regardless, let's move on.

The Hebrew word is גִּבּוֹר which means strong/mighty not righteous

You also missed the part where I said that this would be made clear later in the chapter, specifically here:
Daniel 11:30:

• "...and he will be crushed, and he will return and be wroth with the holy covenant, and he will succeed, and he will return and contemplate those who abandoned the holy covenant."

The Holy Covenant was brought by the mighty king, of course. However, he completely missed this point and is portraying the Bible as if it prophesies random historical secular events and secular kings, like a history book, rather than a Holy Book foretelling the era of a prophet and a king, much like King David. He claims that secular scholars date Daniel to just after these events and believe the book is recording history while pretending to present prophecy. What a silly assertion. Don’t you think people would generally reject such false "prophecy" and declare them deviant liars, especially if they depicted events that had recently happened and everyone knew about? Both you and these secular scholars need to rethink your position because it is very unlikely (almost impossible to be true) and rather ridiculous, if I'm being very frank.
The chapter is about a prophet who brought a Holy Covenant from God, which is why it is literally called "Holy."
Definition of "Holy":

holy / ˈhəʊli / adjective
1.dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred."the Holy Bible" Similar: sacred, consecrated, hallowed, sanctified, venerated, revered. (Source: Google)

The Bible is considered to be the Words of God (or inspired Words of God), and these Words literally call this Covenant "Holy." Meanwhile, you are deviating from this description by portraying an erroneous picture of a bunch of atheist ancient kings fighting each other over various kingdoms.
He writes:

The specific word is וּכְעָמְדוֹ. The וּ is the conjunctive. It's not a vav relative in this case since the verb tense isn't the perfect or imperfect The כְ is a Hebrew proposition added to the verb. The verb is עָמְד and the וֹ is a possesive suffix. The verb form is the infinitive construct. When that verb form is combined with the preposition כְ it indicates a temporal clause which is where the "as soon as" comes from. The possesive suffix indicates the subject of the verb which is where the "he" comes from. Combined with the verb we get as soon as he has risen. Exion's translation ignores the preposition and possesive suffix on the verb.

I will respond to each claim by giving it a short name and my rebuttal next to it:
Regarding: Conjunctive וּ: It is agreed that the וּ functions as a conjunctive "and" or "but," connecting phrases. This conjunction alone does not necessarily indicate a temporal clause.
Not a Vav Relative: Correct, this is not a vav relative case.
Preposition כְ: The preposition כְ does mean "like" or "as." While it can form a temporal clause in combination with an infinitive construct, this temporal interpretation must be contextually supported rather than assumed.
Verb עָמַד and Possessive Suffix וֹ: Correct, the verb עָמַד means "to stand" or "to arise," and the suffix וֹ indicates possession, translating to "his."
Infinitive Construct: Agreed, the form is an infinitive construct.
Temporal Clause Interpretation: While כְ combined with an infinitive construct can imply a temporal clause, translating it as "as soon as" is an interpretative choice. A more literal translation is "when he stood" or "as he stood," and any temporal implication would be derived from what you believe is the context.
Possessive Suffix: Agreed, the suffix וֹ indicates "he" or "his."
Your interpretation that it is saying "as soon as he has risen" adds a temporal nuance that is contextually based rather than explicitly stated in the preposition and verb form. My translation aims for a more direct rendering of "when he stood" or "as he stood," which also respects the grammatical structure without adding interpretative elements not present in the original text.
Let's move on.
He writes:

It can also refer to the 4 generals after Alexander the Great. He came after the Persian kings, conqured all of Greece, had a mighty dominion, shortly after he conqured Greece he died, and his kingdom was divided among his 4 generals none of which were his decendents.

No, it can't, because this is about a Holy Covenant. I genuinely hope you can understand this because I know you tend to repeat the same misunderstandings and rarely admit when you are wrong. However, this is explicitly clear:
The phrase is: "על־ברית־קודש"
Breakdown:

• Word: על־ (ʿal)
  
• Preposition
  
• Meaning: "upon," "on," "over," "concerning"
  
• Word: ברית־ (b'rith)
  
• Noun - feminine singular construct
  
• Meaning: "covenant," "treaty," "alliance"
  
• Word: קודש (qodesh)
  
• Noun - masculine singular
  
• Meaning: "holiness," "sanctity," "sacredness"
  

Literal Translation:

• "Upon the covenant of holiness"

Neither Alexander the Great nor anyone else you mention (or anyone related to Alexander) anything to do with a Holy Covenant. This is beyond ridiculous, and I couldn't believe your scholars were claiming this. I thought it was so absurd that it didn't even need refutation. Yet here I am, refuting you because you actually hold this view.
He writes:

That fits better than Exion's interpretation for a few reasons. First this king came after the 4 mentioned in verse 2. If those in verse 2 are the Caliphs this king can't be Mohammed who was before the Caliphs.

What makes you think that the mighty king came after the 4 kings? The 3rd verse only said:

"And a mighty king will arise and will rule a great dominion and do according to his will."

Are you claiming that this must be in chronological order just because the four kings were mentioned before the mighty king? If so, this is the first time I've heard such a claim. Please provide your proof for this supposed Biblical rule; I'd like to read it :). You won't provide any because none exist. But claiming that it does gives you something to "expose," so I understand your motive. However, in the real world, you're just making statements that aren't true.
The 4th verse says:
"...but not to his posterity, and not like the dominion that he ruled, for his kingdom will be uprooted and to others besides those."
The posterity refers to the Rashidun Caliphs, while "to others besides those" refers to Mu'awiyah and those who followed him. Do you know what "posterity" even means? Posterity literally means future followers or descendants. Lol. The mighty king is the one with the followers, which is why he is the one who brought the Holy Covenant from God, not the four other kings. Had you known what posterity means, you would never have written this in the first place, but we will look past this mistake. Now you know a new word and won't repeat this mistake again. Let's move on.
Regarding "The king of the south is prophet Muhammad" I had revisited this verse in part 2.
He writes:

This is false. The source Exion links doesn't give any English meaning. The BDB does give the English meaning. For the former it means sprout/branch, the latter means root.

Noun נֵצֶר (nétser) m (plural indefinite נְצָרִים, singular construct נֵצֶר־, plural construct נִצְרֵי־) [pattern: קֵטֶל]

1. stem, shoot
2. (literary, collectively) scion(s)

References:

• H5342 in Strong, James (1979)
• “נצר” in the Hebrew Terms Database of the Academy of Hebrew Language

The other word (i.e. שרש):

Root: שֹֽׁרֶשׁ (m.n.)

1. root.

2. source, origin.

1. bottom, lowest part.
   
2. root, stem (Heb. grammar).
   

Source: מקור: Klein Dictionary
I don't know if you know this, but stem and branch are synonymous words, they essentially mean the same thing. And lowest part, bottom could also mean stem. Dictionaries define both words similarly:

Word: שֹׁרֶשׁ, שׁוֹרֶשׁ (m.) (b. h.; apocope of שרשר
, v. שָׁרָר) [chain, knot,] root. — Pl. שֳׁרָשִׁים, שֳׁרָשִׁין; constr. שָׁרְשֵׁי, שׁוֹרְשֵׁי. B. Bath. V, 4 העולה … ומן הש׳ וכ׳ that which shoots forth out of the trunk, or out of the roots, belongs to the landowner (v. גֶּזַע), expl. ib. 82ᵃ כל שאינו … זהו מן הש׳ that which does not see the light of day (when it shoots forth) is out of the roots’. Y. Ab. Zar. III, 43ᵃ top; Y. Taan. I, 64ᵇ ש׳ חטה the roots of wheat; ש׳ תאנה of fig-trees. Tosef. Shebi. VII, 17; ‘Uktsin I, 4, v. קוֹלָס. Ab. III, 17 וְשֳׁרָשָׁיו מרובין whose roots are many; a. fr.

Source: מקור: Jastrow Dictionary
Either way, let's pretend you're right (even though you're not) it still doesn't matter because a branch out of her roots did sprout, which came to be a sect called Khawarij. This was explained in part two. The ones that assassinated 'Ali were initially Shiites that later turned against 'Ali and assassinated him. It's interesting how Pulpit commentary writes:

"The version of the LXX. is very different here also, "And a plant shall arise out of his root against himself,"

He writes:

Edit: I just noticed another problem with Exion’s interpretation. They take Ali as both the commander mentioned in verse 5 who is one of commanders of the king of the south, and also as the king of the north mentioned in verse 6. That can’t be since the commander isn’t also the king of the north.

Revised in part 2 already.
He writes:

They show rather than trying to first establish the historical facts and show it lines up with the prophecy they are willing to misrepresent the historical facts to fit their interpretation of the prophecy and as their interpretation of the prophecy changes their claims about the historical facts change to match their new interpretation.

This is just your faulty conclusion and presumption. I speculated that they might have lied about 'Aishah being his wife. However, I'm not satisfied with speculations, so I revised the entire post of part 1, and it turned out to be even more accurate.
This marks the end of his part 2 post.
Thanks for reading, /Your bro, Exion

The profusion of identical green tents at this spring’s anti-Israel protests struck many as odd. “Why is everybody’s tent the same?,” asked New York mayor Eric Adams. Like others, the mayor suspected “a well-concerted organizing effort” driving the protests. More recent reporting shows a concerted push behind the Gaza protest movement. But it is not as simple as a single organization secretly rallying protesters or buying tents. Instead, the movement’s most determined activists represent a network of loosely linked far-left groups. Some are openly affiliated with well-known progressive nonprofits; others work in the shadows.
The movement also draws on diverse but generous sources of financial backing. Those funding streams may soon be augmented by the federal government. As I chronicled last year in a Manhattan Institute report, “The Big Squeeze: How Biden’s Environmental Justice Agenda Hurts the Economy and the Environment,” the administration’s massive program of environmental justice grants seems designed to prioritize the funding of highly ideological local groups. The Inflation Reduction Act, for example, earmarks $3 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” intended for local nonprofits. Today, hundreds of far-left political groups include language about environmental issues and “climate justice” in their mission statements. If just a fraction of planned grants flows to such groups, the effect will be a gusher of new funding for radical causes.
As the Gaza protests spread across U.S. college campuses, many observers noted an eerie uniformity among them. From one campus to the next, protesters operated in disciplined cadres, keeping their faces covered and using identical rote phrases as they refused to talk with reporters. The Atlantic noted the strangeness of seeing elite college students “chanting like automatons.” Students held up keffiyeh scarves or umbrellas to block the view of prying cameras and linked arms to halt the movements of outsiders. At Columbia University and elsewhere, protesters formed “liberated zones,” from which “Zionists” were excluded. Around the edges of the encampments, the more militaristic activists donned helmets and goggles and carried crude weapons, apparently eager to mix it up with police or counter-protesters. We’ve seen these tactics before—notably during the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, when full-time agitators helped ignite riots, set up a police-free (and violence-plagued) zone in Seattle, and laid nightly siege to Portland, Oregon’s federal courthouse.
In a remarkable work of reporting, Park MacDougald recently traced the tangled roots of organizations backing pro-jihad protests, both on and off campuses. These include Antifa and other networks of anonymous anarchists, along with “various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition,” MacDougald writes. Higher up the food chain, we find groups openly supported by America’s growing class of super-rich tech execs or the anti-capitalist heirs of great fortunes. For example, retired tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, who is married to Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, funds The People’s Forum, a lavish Manhattan resource center for far-left groups. As the Columbia protests intensified, the center urged members to head uptown to “support our students.” Following the money trail of other protest groups, MacDougald finds connections to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and—surprising no one—the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation.
Of course, the current wave of anti-Israel protests also involves alliances with pro-Hamas organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine. Last November, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that SJP and similar groups have deep ties to global terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
For many keffiyeh-wearing protestors, however, a recently professed concern for Palestinians is just the latest in a long list of causes they believe justify taking over streets and college quads. In Unherd, Mary Harrington dubs this medley of political beliefs the “omnicause,” writing that “all contemporary radical causes seem somehow to have been absorbed into one.” Today’s leftist activists share an interlocking worldview that sees racism, income inequality, trans intolerance, climate change, alleged police violence, and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts all as products of capitalism and “colonialism.” Therefore, the stated rationale for any individual protest is a stand-in for the real battle: attacking Western society and its institutions.
In the U.S., this type of general-purpose uprising goes back at least to the riots at the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. In those protests, mainstream liberal factions—including labor unions and environmentalists—were joined by “black bloc” anarchists and other radicals eager to engage in “direct action” against police. That pattern—relatively moderate demonstrators providing a friendly envelope for hard-core disruptors—formed the template for many later protests: the Occupy Wall Street encampments in 2011, demonstrations following the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, 2016’s Standing Rock anti-pipeline movement, and of course, the calamitous summer of 2020.
These uprisings were not entirely spontaneous. In some cases, activists spend months planning mass actions—for example, against economic summits or political conventions—and can recruit street fighters from across the country. In others, an event, such as George Floyd’s death, sparks popular protests involving neophyte demonstrators. Those attract far-left activists, who swoop in to organize and expand the struggle, often tilting it toward more radical action.
That has certainly been the case at the college Gaza-paloozas. At Columbia, the New York Times spotted a woman old enough to be a student’s grandmother in the thick of the action as protesters barricaded that school’s Hamilton Hall. The woman was 63-year-old Lisa Fithian, a lifetime activist, who Portland’s alternative weekly Street Roots approvingly calls “a trainer of mass rebellion.” A counter-protester trying to block the pro-Hamas demonstrators told NBC News, “She was right in the middle of it, instructing them how to better set up the barriers.” Fithian told the Times she’d been invited to train students in protest safety and “general logistics.” She claims to have taken part in almost every major U.S. protest movement going back to the 1999 “Battle in Seattle.”
America’s radical network has plenty of Lisa Fithians, with the time and resources to travel the country educating newcomers about the “logistics” of disruptive protests. And these activists appear to have played key roles in the college occupations. The New York City Police Department says nearly half the demonstrators arrested on the Columbia and City University of New York (CUNY) campuses on April 30 were not affiliated with the schools. One hooded Hamilton Hall occupier—photographed scuffling with a Columbia custodian before getting arrested—turned out to be 40-year-old James Carlson, heir to a large advertising fortune. According to the New York Post, Carlson lives in a $2.3 million Park Slope townhouse and has a long rap sheet. For example, in 2005, he was arrested in San Francisco during the violent “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.” (Those charges were dropped.)
For a quarter-century now, Antifa and other anarchist networks have worked to refine tactics and share lessons following each major action. At Columbia, UCLA, and other schools, authorities found printouts of a “Do-It Yourself Occupation Guide” and similar documents. The young campus radicals are eager to learn from their more experienced elders. And, like the high-achieving students they are, they follow directions carefully. MacDougald asked Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, about the mystery of the identical tents. There was no need for a central group to distribute hundreds of tents, Shideler said. Instead, “the organizers told [students] to buy a tent, and sent around a Google Doc with a link to that specific tent on Amazon. So they all went out and bought the same tent.”
In other words, America’s radical class has gotten very skilled at recruiting and instructing new activists—even from among the ranks of elite college students with a good deal to lose. How much more could this movement accomplish with hundreds of millions in federal dollars flooding activist groups around the country?
From its first week in office, the Biden administration has trumpeted its goal to funnel more environmental spending toward “disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized,” partly by issuing grants to grassroots organizations. Previous environmental justice (EJ) grant programs were small in scope. But, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, a huge pool of grant money became available. EPA administrator Michael Regan told reporters, “We’re going from tens of thousands of dollars to developing and designing a program that will distribute billions.”
More than a year and a half later, it remains hard to nail down just where the Biden administration’s billions in EJ grants will wind up. Money is being distributed through a confusing variety of programs, and the process of identifying recipients is ongoing. To help outsource the job of sifting through proposals, the EPA last year designated 11 institutions as “Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmakers.” These groups are empowered to make subgrants directly to community organizations, under streamlined EPA oversight. In all, the Biden administration has entrusted these outfits with distributing a staggering $600 million in funding. The money is expected to start flowing this summer.
The EPA’s grantmakers include a number of educational institutions and left-leaning nonprofits. For example, the EPA chose Fordham University as its lead grantmaker in the New York region. Fordham, in turn, lists as partners two nonprofits that oppose immigration enforcement. (One, the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, states on its website: “NJAIJ believes in the human right to migrate, regardless of citizenship or political status.”) Neither group claims expertise in environmental issues. Given that the IRA’s eligibility requirements for EJ grants are extremely vague, however, perhaps that’s not a problem. Almost any activity that could help “spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities” (in the words of Biden’s EJ executive order) might qualify.
Perhaps the most prominent—and problematic—EPA grantmaker is the Berkeley, California-based Climate Justice Alliance. The CJA is a consortium of mostly far-left activist groups. It describes its mission as working for “regenerative economic solutions and ecological justice—under a framework that challenges capitalism and both white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy.” The group is a vigorous proponent of the omnicause, embracing almost every left-wing concern as a manifestation of climate change. For example, the CJA website proclaims: “The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” MacDougald notes that the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, one of CJA’s affiliated groups, “organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested.”
The CJA website also includes a section dedicated to the cause known as Stop Cop City. It refers to an effort to halt the construction of an 85-acre police and firefighter training center outside Atlanta. Rag-tag activists from around the country have gathered around the facility since 2021. They have repeatedly battled with police—sometimes with fireworks and Molotov cocktails—and used bolt cutters to enter the site and torch construction equipment. (CJA’s Stop Cop City page features a cartoon illustration of three childlike activists; one brandishes bolt cutters.) The group also backs a legal defense fund for activists arrested in attacks on the training center or in other protests. For those looking for more inspiration, CJA links to an interview with former Black Panther and self-described revolutionary Angela Davis.
The Alliance is not an ideological outlier in Biden’s EJ coalition. On the contrary, when the White House assembled its White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), a panel of outside experts meant to provide “horizon-expanding EJ advice and recommendations,” it chose CJA co-chair Elizabeth Yeampierre to help lead the committee. Like other members of the panel, she sees environmental issues through an ideological, not a scientific, lens. “Climate change is the result of a legacy of extraction, of colonialism, of slavery,” Yeampierre told Yale Environment 360. As a group, radical EJ activists tend not to focus on pragmatic ways to reduce pollution and carbon emissions; for them, the real goal is overturning what they see as an exploitative economic and political system. Since these are the voices the White House chose to help shape its EJ policies, we can assume this worldview will dominate grantmaking decisions.
In February 2023, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, along with fellow committee member Pat Fallon, wrote to EPA administrator Regan asking for more information on the EPA’s grant programs. They noted that the EPA’s own studies of EJ grants issued in previous years showed sloppy supervision. According to an EPA report, an earlier version of the program funded projects that did “not logically lead to the desired environmental and/or public health [result].” Without better oversight and more clearly defined goals, the congressmen wrote, the EPA’s EJ grant machine risks becoming simply a “slush fund for far-left organizations.”
Since then, the administration has done little to reassure skeptics. To the contrary, the EPA has put at least one far-left organization—CJA—in charge of distributing $50 million in grant money. No doubt, many of the EPA grants will go to worthwhile projects. But money is fungible. A group that gets a large grant to, say, clean up dirty parks or teach children about recycling will also be able to hire more staff and divert more resources to political action.
With graduation behind them, most of the anti-Israel college protesters have stowed away their keffiyehs and moved on to summer vacations or internships. But the peripatetic activists who helped guide and intensify those uprisings are doubtless already planning their next actions. After all, two political conventions are looming. This fall, the college protests will likely flare up again, though by then perhaps focused on a different facet of the omnicause. And, with hundreds of millions in fresh funding flowing through the activist ecosystem, the groups that quietly nurture extremists—like those who firebombed “Cop City,” or who chant “Intifada Revolution!,” or who block bridges in the name of “climate”—will be more emboldened than ever.
A Slush Fund for Radical Protesters? City Journal (city-journal.org)
​

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3. Quick and Easy Application Process: Time is money in business, and Solution4Finance understands that. Their streamlined application process ensures you get the funds you need without unnecessary delays.

Steps to Apply for a Business Loan

1. Assess Your Needs: Determine how much funding you need and for what purpose. Whether it’s for expansion, equipment purchase, or operational expenses, having a clear plan will help you choose the right loan product.
2. Gather Necessary Documents: Prepare the essential documents such as financial statements, business plans, tax returns, and identification. Having these ready can expedite the application process.
3. Visit Solution4Finance: Go to the Solution4Finance website and navigate to their business loan section. Here, you can explore different loan options and find the one that best suits your needs.
4. Fill Out the Application Form: Complete the online application form with accurate information about your business, financial status, and the loan amount you’re seeking. Make sure to double-check for any errors to avoid delays.
5. Submit Your Application: Once the form is complete, submit it along with the required documents. Solution4Finance’s team of experts will review your application and get back to you with a decision promptly.
6. Consult with Financial Advisors: Solution4Finance offers consultations with financial advisors who can help you understand the terms of your loan and ensure it aligns with your business goals.
7. Receive Your Funds: Upon approval, the funds will be disbursed to your business account. You can then use the capital as planned to drive growth and achieve your business objectives.

Benefits of Working with Solution4Finance

• Expert Guidance: Get professional advice tailored to your business needs.
• Competitive Rates: Enjoy competitive interest rates and favorable loan terms.
• Customer Support: Access to excellent customer support throughout the loan process.

Conclusion

Applying for a business loan with Solution4Finance is a strategic move to empower your business with the necessary financial backing. With their range of unsecured loans and working capital solutions, you can confidently pursue your growth ambitions without the stress of financial constraints. Start your application today and take the first step towards unlocking your business's full potential.
More info visit https://solution4finance.in/

In the realm of interior design, small spaces pose a unique challenge. How can you maximize style and functionality without sacrificing precious square footage? Fear not, for with the right approach and a touch of creativity, even the tiniest of abodes can exude charm and personality. In this guide, we'll explore innovative solutions for decorating compact homes that will leave you amazed at the transformation.
Optimize Vertical Space with Hanging Ceiling Lights
When floor space is limited, look up! Hanging ceiling lights are not only practical for illuminating a room but can also serve as striking design elements. Opt for sleek pendant lights or elegant chandeliers to draw the eye upward, creating the illusion of height and space. Consider clustering multiple pendant lights above a dining table or kitchen island to add visual interest without cluttering surfaces. With an array of styles and sizes available, there's a hanging ceiling light to suit every taste and space constraint.
Multifunctional Home Furniture: Form Meets Function
In a compact home, every piece of furniture must earn its keep. Embrace multifunctional pieces that serve more than one purpose, such as a storage ottoman that doubles as a coffee table or a sofa bed for accommodating overnight guests. Look for furniture with built-in storage compartments to stow away clutter and keep your space tidy. Additionally, consider investing in modular furniture that can be rearranged to adapt to different activities and layouts. By choosing pieces that are both stylish and practical, you can make the most of your limited floor space without compromising on comfort or aesthetics.
Elevate Your Space with Stylish Bar Chairs
Transform your kitchen counter or breakfast bar into a chic gathering spot with the addition of stylish bar chairs. Whether you prefer sleek modern designs or rustic farmhouse charm, the right bar chairs dubai can elevate your space and make a statement. In Dubai, where luxury meets innovation, explore a diverse range of bar chair designs to suit your personal taste and complement your home decor. From minimalist metal stools to plush upholstered seats, there's a bar chair to suit every style and space requirement.
Conclusion
Decorating a compact home doesn't have to mean sacrificing style or functionality. By embracing creative solutions and thinking outside the box, you can make the most of your small space and create a home that's both beautiful and practical. From utilizing hanging ceiling lights to investing in multifunctional furniture and stylish bar chairs, there are endless possibilities for maximizing style and comfort in compact homes. So go ahead, unleash your creativity and transform your small space into a stylish sanctuary that reflects your unique personality and lifestyle.

666 AND BAR-CODES, MARK OF THE BEAST
(Hatonn here describes in 1991 how it will be. I suggest ghat it dexcribes today how it is. Everything is marked including us.)
I have been asked time and again about the connections and if, in fact, there are connections regarding the 666 symbol and bas-codes.
I can assure you of one thing, the number 666 does not randomly appear any more often than does 222, 444, or say, 333. Nevertheless, it is quite obvious that WHERE the numbers appear is very definitely of great importance. The numbers 666 are rapidly becoming man's favorite number and keep popping up in strange places--even though a recognized symbol of pure Satanic code--it is appearing more frequently than any other "number" in the so-called Christian and other religious placements. It is worthy of the time to speak of this matter for I think you must become aware that this code is being placed on all of you. I think it worth the time to give a listing of some instances of use of this number which none of you should miss in noting.
* World Bank code number is "666".
* New credit cards in the U. S. are now being assigned the prefix 666.
* Australia's NATIONAL bank cards have the code 666.
* Central computers for Sears, Belks, Pennys, and Montgomery Wards around the world have all their transactions prefixed with 666.
* Shoes made in European Common Market Countries have stamped on inside label 666.
* Computers made by Lear Siegler have a seal on the side on which is stamped the number 666.
* Internal Revenue Service instructions for NON-PROFIT Corporation Emoloyee 1979, W-2 Form requires the prefix 666.
* Internal Revenue Service began to require the prefix of 666 on some forms; for example, W-2P, disability is 666.3; death is 666.4, etc. as early as 1977.
* Tanks built by Chrysler Corporation...have on their sides 666.
* South Central Bell's new Telco Credit Union Cards require the prefix 666, then the person's Social Security number.
*. ID tags on 1979 GM cars produced in Flint, Michigan, contain the number 666.
*. United States Selective Service Cards have on them 666.
* Overseas telephone operator number from Israel is 666.
* Arab-owned vehicles IN JERUSALEM have license plates prefixed Wirth 666.
*. Record album released by the rock group, Black Sabbath is named 666.
*. The films, Omen I and II concern themselves with a world dictator and the number 666.
* Some IBM Supermarket equipment is prefixed with the number 3.666.
* JC Penney began prefixing account numbers in August, 1980, with 666.
* Master Card began using on their August, 1980, statements--66.
* Formula for NCR Model 304 Supermarket Computer System is 6 60 6,666.
* The United Nations resolution #666 came during the Iraq War.
Precious ones, there are contests even, called "666". What is happening by total intent is to condition the world to accept the coding of 666 without question or note. There is coming a day when a world governmental system will demand that everyone in the world take a mark and the number 666 in order to work, buy or sell. This fact is clearly set forth and being followed diligently. If you think you can avoid the mark of the beast--think again--YOU ALREADY BEAR THE MARK; DON'T BE STUPID AND SET YURSELF UP TO DENY SAME. YOU ARE ALREADY MARKED AND THE INSTRUCTIONS TO REFUSE THE MARK IS NOT OF GOD'S GIVING. YOU STEP FORTH AND REFUSE WHEN Y0U ARE ALREADY WITHIN THE SYSTEM AND YOU ARE DEAD OR INCARCERATED AND USELESS UNTO GOD'S WORK. IT IS A SEPARATION ENTRAPMENT SET FORTH BY THE BEAST TO CATCH THE LIGHTED PEOPLE. YOU CAN STAY OUT OF THE SYSTEM TO THE FULL LIMIT ALLOWED BY THE LAW BUT YOU DO NO ONE A FAVOR BY GETTING YOURSELF KILLED--IT NEANS ONE LESS WORKER FOR GOD.
THE NUMBER OF MAN
Let us look at that which is projected unto you and might be well worthy of note. Then number with which all the world will be commanded to work, buy and sell during the Great Tribulation is the number of man--and you find it on all bar-codes and Elite products. Number 6 as has been distorted for identification and easy reference has even taken as the number of imperfection; the human-given human number; the number of MAN as destitute of God--without God/Christ. At any rate, it is certain that man was created on the sixth day goes the accepted WORD, and thus he would be established under the number six--which would identify him and then, it goes on with several other non-coincidental accidents in numbering. For example, six days were appointed to man for his labor so it went, while one day is associated in sovereignty with the Lord God--as his day of rest. Then the infinite symbol of 8 represents infinity or immortality which is also of God. The serpent also, was created somehow on the sixth day, or so the Goods Book says--obviously God was most busy and yet totally restricted on the sixth day of His masterful creation. The sixth clause of the Lord's Prayer treats of sin. Six is the number stamped on all that is connected with human labor. You will see it stamped upon his measures which he uses in his labour and on the time during which he labors. And you see this from the very beginning.
Six, thew number of man, is one less than seven, the number which represents God and two less than the Creation. This indicates that man was created somehow in the likeness of God, but is not God, because God is perfect and sinless and one within and with Creation. The Sixth Commandment came as a result of Cain's sin of killing his brother, and the man who will ultimately claim the number 666 will be the greatest murderer the world has ever known. God put a mark upon Cain after the murder of Abel. Although Cain's mark was for the purpose of protecting him from those who would kill him, it also signified that before God, he was condemned. God forbade the children of Judea to mark their bodies--or did he? For the translation always read "Israel". The quoting then always continues with this looking forward to the time when the "Jews", as well as the rest of the world, would be called upon to take the mark of the Anti-Christ. Well, will the "Jews" take the mark? I guess so--they crested it!
But let us look a bit further into the book of Revelation. The Apocalypse: The 'mark' itself is at once a number and a name. The Apostle tells you what it is. As he gives it, it is made up of two Greek characters which stand for the name of Christ, with a third, the figure of a crooked serpent, put between them...Thjis horrid sign must everyone receive on one of the most conspicuous parts of the body, cut, stamped or branded in, there to abide indelibly. No one may either buy or sell without this mark, and all who do receive it take upon their bodies the token and seal of heir damnation!
Do you really.believe you have not already been branded? Let us consider that, for years--well over two decades--the laser beam has been branding steers and horses--and even salmon while they remain in the stream, swimming. It is instant and painless. The laser simply destroys skin pigment. In some thirty-BILLIONTHS of a second a technician can stitch a brand--or initials, or symbol. This type of branding of animals for ownership or research purposes has become common practice. Do you think it probable that everyone of you have been branded while standing, say, in a line to vote or register your car or, or, or--certainly if you have any kind of medical examination, dental care or hospitalization--especially immunizations.
TRANSACTION CARD/FINAL CARD
This is the final laugh at the world citizenry. This is one of the world's greatest conspiracies and it is being quietly conducted in.the most sacred halls of secular secrecy, brothers. While its thrust is Economic, its reach is without limit. No System will escape its mastery, be it in Politics or religions, Social or otherwise. I told you long ago, dear ones, that the SDI program was not f defense but rather to place into space satellites which unite the entire world banking system--the beast to all other parts in instant connection--with all citizens registered, identified and located. You are all simply within the system. The point is to protect yourself from the system as much as possible and the only way to do so is to utilize the laws and rules utilized by your adversary for as long as you can do so.
The Prime Mover here is the most powerful Consortium of financial institutions, capitalists, and scientists ever leagued together. Their common purpose is to bring every person, place and thing under their total control and it is all but in place and already operational.
The applied strategy is by way of instant IDENTIFICATION. This means of ixentoification is by way of assignment of MARKS (or bars) for NUJMBERS read by machines. (Numbers people can read, Marks they can't--the name of this game is SECRECY.)
Phase I began in 1970 with a ncnscientious effort to "IDENTIFY EVERY ITEM" at the manufacturers level with a NUMBER "MARKED" on it. A group of Numbers designated by Marks, lines or bars, is called a Bar Code, (Code 39, etc.), and giant computer manufacturers are central to the phase.
Phase II began in 1973 with an effort to IDENTIFY each PERSON with a Number. The Social Security Numbers when blended with the Universal Numbering System will be converted to "Bars". Initially, the NUMBER will be "marked" on a Card; (a World_Wide Money-ID-Card). Subsequently, according to the old Bible Prophecy written ands directed by the very ones who would put it into place, it will be stamped upon the person it identifies. As the MARK OF IDENTITY on an ITEM is a Bar Code, so the MARK OF IDENTIY on a Card and later on a person, will be a Bar Code facsimile. The Government, Banks, and Card Companies are central to this phase.
Phase III is an effort to identify everything in the world, whether mobile or stationary; if mobile, then how to instantaneously locate it, as a piece of luggage, an expensive race horse, a family car, or a pet or person. Central to this is the Federal Government which has spent ten years In research on "Electronic Identification" at Los Alamos, the Airlines, and private inventors.
The symbol of 666 is absolutely instrumental to the Bar Code system. You are already in it, so let us be most careful how you handle it. Your best defense against it is to know truth about it--stop deluding yourself that you can somehow avoid the mark lest you get s special mark which sets you apart as a troublemaker and you will be among the first incarcerated or removed by other means.

Welcome to the Mikazuki Villa Lounge!

The purpose of this megathread is to allow everyone an easily accessible place to:

• Ask any questions related to game mechanics (team building, which Memoria to use, etc.) or technical issues.
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• Supports can be posted here, but we recommend using the current "Look for supports" Megathread instead (refer to the Megathread Index below).

As for what you CAN'T post here:

• Rolls should be posted within the roll megathread, located in the 2nd sticky and the Index below.
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Do note that using this megathread for questions and discussions is NOT mandatory.

Index of megathreads and useful links

Installation guide

• JP server installation guide (Mirror link)

Game Megathreads

• Help, Discussion & Megathread Index - You are here.
• Rolls, questions about them, achievements and goals

Other Megathreads

• English server End of Service - Community reactions, statements and resources
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Community guides

• General tips for EN players migrating to the Japanese server by u/kite21
• JP server keyword translations by u/Watermelon_01
• Rerolling on the Japanese server by u/cyanidebird
• Hitting level 100 with a Mahou Shoujo in JP as fast as possible by u/AnOrdinaryFox
• Taking a look at Spirit Enhancement (Compendium) by u/ReesePeanut

Lesson Plan: Exploring Hyperbole
Objective:
Students will understand the concept of hyperbole, recognize its use in literature and everyday language, and demonstrate their ability to create and identify hyperbolic expressions.
Materials:

1. Whiteboard and markers
   
2. Handouts with examples of hyperbole
   
3. Texts or excerpts from literature containing hyperbole
   
4. Paper and writing utensils for students
   

Introduction (15 minutes):

1. Begin with a discussion on exaggeration. Ask students if they've ever heard someone exaggerate or if they've done it themselves. Write down their responses on the board.
   
2. Define hyperbole as a form of exaggeration used for emphasis or effect. Provide examples, both humorous and serious, to illustrate the concept.
   

Activity 1: Identifying Hyperbole (20 minutes):

1. Distribute handouts with examples of hyperbole. Ask students to underline or highlight the hyperbolic expressions.
   
2. Discuss the examples as a class. What makes these statements hyperbolic? How does hyperbole impact the meaning of the statement?
   

Activity 2: Hyperbole in Literature (20 minutes):

1. Provide students with excerpts from literature that contain hyperbole. Discuss how authors use hyperbole to create vivid images or convey strong emotions.
   
2. Have students identify and discuss the purpose of hyperbole in the given literary excerpts. Encourage them to explore how hyperbole contributes to the overall tone and meaning of the text.
   

Activity 3: Creating Hyperbole (25 minutes):

1. In small groups, ask students to brainstorm situations where hyperbole might be used effectively. Have each group create a list of hyperbolic expressions related to their chosen situation.
   
2. Each group presents their list to the class, explaining why they chose specific hyperboles and how they contribute to exaggeration.
   

Closure (10 minutes):

1. Review key points about hyperbole: its definition, examples, and how it's used in literature and everyday language.
   
2. Assign a short homework task where students find examples of hyperbole in their reading or daily life and come prepared to share them in the next class.
   

Assessment:
Evaluate students based on their participation in discussions, ability to identify hyperbole, and the creativity and effectiveness of their hyperbolic expressions during the group activity.

May 31st, 2024
I have had the most surreal, intense dream I have ever experienced in my entire life. I know that I will never be able to do this dream justice by simply writing words down on paper, but to try and ignore or "forget" something so impactful feels like an incredible disservice to my psyche.
The start of my dream seems to involve a fellow musician I've met. He was a piano player. We were outside at night, in some parking lot. I will continue to refer to the pianist as "Phil".
Phil had introduced me to a congregation of other musicians. I don't remember what any of them played, or how many there were. I was offered an invitation to join them; all I had to do was learn and perform a piece of sheet music they had provided to me by next week.
From there, I had somehow transitioned to riding around at night in some criminal's car. I didn't get the feeling I was kidnapped - rather, I was there by choice (?) I confided in the criminal how much I loathe having to go to work every week; how it must be nice to just steal everything I could ever want or need.
Then, much like Phil, the criminal seemed to offer me an "in" on the criminal lifestyle. I immediately declined, knowing what I would have had to prove.
Up until this point, I would say this dream has been relatively "normal", at least by dream standards. But things are just getting started.
Still at night, I was in a dark building; I thought I was alone. I walked through the door in front of me, leading down a small set of steps into further blackness. It was here that I felt the presence of others with me. I believe these were the same group of musicians that Phil had introduced me to. I felt some of my clothes being stripped from my body. Again, I willingly let this happen. I was placed into a robe and a hat of some kind. I was given a series of cryptic tests and riddles, which I seemed to be able to solve intuitively and almost instantly.
As these tests carried on, they seemed to go faster and faster. At this point, within the dream itself, it's as though my mind's eye was wide open. There were many images and symbols that passed by quickly, yet each one was so dense with meaning and purpose. All the symbols seemed to have a heavy religious and/or hermetic context to them. Various themes and emotions come to my mind when I try to recall these images: -Love -Sacrifice -Deceit -Illusions -Murder -Trust -Devotion -Mysticism/Magicks
I'm sure there are many more ideas I could recall from these images, but I would be here far too long to list them all off.
The biggest crime of this journal entry is that I lack the ability to convey through illustration or descriptive words what exactly I saw (not a single thing!)
At some point within this bizarre and cryptic initiation ritual, there was some sort of statement made regarding how it was "evil", immoral, even, to have a partner that is too physically short. My thoughts immediately went to my girlfriend. I heard someone exclaim: " 4"11' is too short to be loved!"
Now that I am awake (at the time of writing), I remembered my girlfriend is about 5"4'. While still in this bizarre dream, I had no way to quantify or rationalize that at all. My natural response then, was to disagree and fight against that statement, because I was unwilling to give her up for whatever wizard cult B.S. I had gotten myself into.
Perhaps, this was an intentional part of the test. A trap that was set to catch me. While still seeing all of these visions, I could feel my physical body being dragged out of the ceremony room. I could hear Phil in the background, pleading to give me another chance. It would seem that his plea fell upon deaf ears. I felt myself being stabbed. Although the pain was excruciating, I could not tell if it was my physical body being stabbed, or my soul. I was stabbed multiple times, each time seemed to further sever my psychic connection more and more from the ritual.
After that, I found myself banished into some sort of hell or purgatory. It was somewhat gloomy, kind of reminding me of Dark Souls 1. I saw my best friend here, but he did not acknowledge or reply to me.
From this point in the dream, I was BEYOND horrified. Fortunately, it was at this point as well that I was able to "will" my actual eyes open, and finally end the dream.

Known for its low-cost ammo formerly manufactured in Russia, Wolf's best-selling calibers are steel-cased 7.62x39mm and .223 Wolf. Wolf is an importer of ammunition that is manufacturer agnostic, as well as brass and steel agnostic. When you see “Wolf Gold,” all that means is that these are brass cartridges.

Where Is Wolf Ammo Made?

Contrary to popular belief, Wolf Ammunition is not a Russian company. They sell ammunition once manufactured in the famous and historic Tula Cartridge Plant in Russia’s Tula District. This plant is owned by High Precision Systems, which is a part of the Rostec Group of companies, with a majority ownership in the hands of a holding company owned by the Russian Federation. TulAmmo is likewise manufactured at this facility. The plant is not to be confused with the Tula Arms Plant, which is a separate entity owned by the same holding company in the same region of the Russian Federation.
Another place Wolf manufactured ammunition was at Lugansk. However, this factory was destroyed in the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. Some of the steel-cased ammunition is made in Russia these days, but none of it is made in Tula. Wolf also imports brass-cased ammo from Taiwan, such as their Wolf Gold .223, as well as importing ammo from the same factory manufacturing Prvi Partizan.
Rostec, High Precision Systems and the role of Tula in manufacturing ammunition for the United States market and the Soviet war effort has quite a detailed history. Like all ammunition manufactured by Rostec, the emphasis is on the high-performance, tactical ammo capable of reliable use in combat situations.
The American company is affiliated with Sporting Supplies International. Wolf Performance Ammunition was founded in 2005, making it a baby in the world of American ammunition manufacturers. They also partner with SK Jagd und Sportmunitions Gmbh (also known as SK Hunting- and Sporting-Ammunition) to manufacture some of their .22-calibre rimfire ammunition.

Tula vs. Wolf

Wolf is no longer manufactured in Tula, and hasn’t been for some time. In 2009, Wolf brand ammo ended their relationship with Ulyanovsk Machinery Plant and Tula Cartridge Plant due to legal disputes between the parties. Wolf now uses suppliers from the European Union to meet their needs. The Wolf ammo website and TulAmmo both issued emails in 2009 that did little to clarify the situation beyond the fact that TulAmmo is not Wolf and Wolf is not TulAmmo.
Part of the confusion stems from what precisely Wolf and TulAmmo are. Both were manufactured at the same plant and made to the same specifications. Upon importation, they were put into different boxes with different logos and different brands. However, on the inside, they were more or less the same ammunition. While in some cases they might have been exactly the same ammunition, they ceased to be functionally identical when Wolf ended their relationship with the Russian manufacturer. Hence the statements from both organizations as to their difference.

Wolf Ammunition vs. The Taliban

The history of Wolf Performance Ammunition (also known as WPA) is tied very closely to the ammunition shortages of the 2000s. This is particularly true of the 7.62x39mm ammo, which sometimes doubled in price and in other cases, vanished from American shelves entirely. The shortage was a result of the Venezuelan military adopting the AK-103 as its standard issue rifle. They placed a massive order, as did the United States military in an attempt to supply the newly formed Afghan Army with the ammunition it needed to secure the countryside.
Make sure your favorite 7.62x39 rifle never runs dry and get some bulk 7.62x39 to keep stored up for a rainy day!
Between 2003 and 2005, the Taliban experienced a resurgence in Afghanistan, requiring a response from both United States troops and the Afghan Army they support. The insurgency was easily crushed, however, the large ammunition order stood. What’s more, the United States and Afghan forces were constantly engaged in mop-up operations against the failed Taliban insurgency.
In January 2006, the United States military began sharing its role in Afghanistan with a multinational NATO force. This prompted another Taliban insurgency requiring, once again, more ammunition supplied by Wolf and other ammunition manufacturers. The fight against this insurgency was far less clear cut and one sided, but the NATO forces obtained many tactical victories and was able to deny the Taliban territory.
Later in 2007 and 2008, Wolf’s steel-cased .308 rounds disappeared from shelves across America. 7.62x51mm NATO rounds were likewise disappearing, pushing .308 Winchester rounds to the highest prices they’d ever seen. The Afghan Army order once again played a key role in driving up prices.
2007 was indeed a rough slog for coalition forces in Afghanistan, largely the British Royal Marines. It was estimated that the Taliban was 10,000 fighters strong at this point, with between 2,000 and 3,000 of these being dedicated, full-time insurgents. Again, tactical victories were the order of the day, but the Taliban always seemed to bounce back. 2007 was also the high water mark for foreign insurgents in Afghanistan. The next year was likewise described as “precarious and urgent” by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown increased the number of troops in the country.
While many stateside have forgotten about the War in Afghanistan, it is directly responsible for a shortage of ammunition and the attendant rise in prices.

Wolf Brand Ammo

Wolf sells centerfire ammunition for rifles in more than a dozen different calibers and in three different lines of product. Popular lines Wolf Polyformance and Military Classic Rifle Ammunition are for sale in the calibers most commonly associated with the military – including Wolf 5.56x45 ammo, .223 ammo, .308 Winchester, 7.62x39mm, 6.5mm Grendel and others. They sell bullets that are bimetal or copper jacketed and configured as full metal jacket, hollow point or soft point. The cases are steel with a polymer coating, and can be found with both Berdan and Boxer primers.
Ammo for the Wolf Gold Centerfire Rifle line is distinct from other lines they sell, as the cartridges have brass casings and Boxer primers. The same style of bullets are sold in this line, but they also include options for match hollow points and multi-purpose tactical bullets.
Wolf also sells centerfire pistol ammo in all of the most common calibers – including Wolf 9mm ammo, .40 S&W, .45 ACP and the increasingly favored .380 Auto. These cartridges come in the steel-case lines of Military Classic and Polyformance, and the calibers can also be found in the Wolf Gold line, .32 Auto, .357 Mag., .44 Mag., and 7.62 Tokarev.
Wolf Ammunition also carries .22 Rimfire ammo. You can find .22 Long Rifle Wolf Ammo with 40 grain bullets, offering three types of bullets for the .22 LR: round nose bullets, flat nose bullets, and hollow point bullets. The ammunition itself is available in many different types including Standard Plus, Match, Rifle Match, Pistol Match, High Velocity and Subsonic.

Wolf Brand Ammunition and Lacquer Coating

It is a misconception that Wolf Ammunition uses or has used lacquer coating on its rounds, in particular on the cartridge casing. This is not true. Wolf instead uses an acrylic-polymer coating, transitioning from a clear coating to a frosted style coating several years ago. Some people thought this was lacquer and that it melted while firing, despite the fact that it was neither lacquer nor even a substance that would melt when a blowtorch was taken to it. All Wolf Ammunition is in complete compliance with SAAMI standards, meaning that it is completely safe for all purposes – from plinking in the backyard to competition shooting to hunting.
With Wolf's extensive variety of ammunition, they will likely remain a popular choice among shooters looking for low-cost, quality ammo. This is particularly true of people looking for Wolf bulk ammo – a common choice for preppers, plinkers and competition shooters alike.

FAQ

Where is Wolf ammo made?

Although Wolf ammo is an American company, its ammo is manufactured all around the world. For a period it was made in Tula, Russia at the Tula Cartridge Plant, the same place that makes TulAmmo. Wolf gets some brass from Taiwan and imports cartridges from the same Serbian factory that makes Prvi Partizan. Currently, most of the supplies for Wolf ammo comes from the European Union.

Who makes Wolf ammunition?

Wolf ammo is owned by Sporting Supplies International, an American company located in Anaheim, California.

Is Wolf and TulAmmo the same?

Wolf and TulAmmo are not the same. But from 2005 through 2009, Wolf was manufactured at the Tula Cartridge Plant in Tula, Russia, the same plant where TulAmmo is made. Wolf ammo and TulAmmo ammo shared the same configurations and were made the same way. Since Wolf has left the Tula plant, these ammunitions are no longer comparable.

Is Wolf ammo corrosive?

Like other modern commercial ammo, Wolf ammo is non-corrosive. That being said, it is “dirtier” than traditional brass-cased ammos and if your firearm is not properly cleaned after use, it can cause a buildup inside the barrel that may lead to corrosion.

Can Wolf ammo damage guns?

Wolf ammo features steel casings and steel is much harder than brass. This means, over time, it may cause more wear on your barrel than brass casings. In modern firearms, this is most likely minimal. Another reported problem with Wolf ammo, and steel casings in general, is that they tend to be “dirtier” than brass-cased rounds. When this crud is left in the gun, it can lead to corrosion. If you clean your firearm after shooting, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Why do shooting ranges ban Wolf ammo?

Wolf ammo comes in a steel case. Like most steel-cased rounds, it also features a steel jacketed bullet. This makes the bullets extremely hard, much more so than lead and copper, and can damage the backstop in many ranges. If you want to stick with steel casings, opt for Winchester’s Forged ammo, which feature steel casings with brass jacketed bullets.
History of Wolf 6.5 Grendel Ammo originally appeared on Ammo.com

Good afternoon, I want to share with you a very interesting theory that a Japanese man made in a video and I made a translation of it so I could share it with you.

1. About Olga Marie

From the materials of Lord el melloi case files it is known that the full name of our director is Olga Marie Earthmirate animusphere, where Earthmirate is a word meaning "assimilated to the earth" while Animusphere is a word meaning "heavenly soul".
And what does Olga Marie mean?
Olga Marie can be translated as the perfect and immaculate mother. In other words, the name Olga Marie means assimilation with the soul of the celestial body.
In other words, it is possible that "Olga Marie Earthmirate Animusphere" has the meaning of "a perfect virgin who assimilates the souls of the heavenly bodies".

1. Cagliostro and the animusphere theory

Let's remember that in order call 2 we had the revelation of the last apostle of the alien world called Count Cagliostro who was involved in awakening the fragments of the false Alien god (U Olga Marie), now let's remember some of his dialogues in this chapter of the story:
"There was no other way to steal the attention of that huge mechanism." "In that case, it would be nice if you could show your determination in front of that giant mechanism!"
Cagliostro, the last alien apostle to appear in Order call II, often used the term "that giant mech" in the story, now I don't know what Cagliostro refers to as the "giant mech" but I believe it is "Chaldeas", the celestial human security sphere of Animusphere.

According to the Chaldea chronology of the "MOONLIGHT/LOSTROOM material", the first prototype of the Chaldeas global environment model was completed in 1990, where in fact "1990" It is a period that has great significance besides the completion of Chaldeas as there was the Seraphix oil platform, this is a marine oil field owned by the Animusphere family and this facility was built in the North Sea in 1990.
This base is one of the sources of funding that determines Chaldea's operating budget and at the same time is treated as an independent department, so all personnel belong to Chaldea, where the entire facility is a semi-submersible mobile platform, managed and operated by more than 100 people working day and night shifts, apparently the base was intended to extract oil, but in reality it was not only used to search for spiritual lines.
It was a facility created to conduct a certain experiment based on Animusphere's philosophy of "continuous humanity", the development of a large cooling system was the raison d'être and ultimate goal of Seraphix, Apart from that, there is a hidden side inside the underwater facility that protects against magical attacks, only Seraphix are allowed to use that hidden side, in other words, only those under direct control of Animusphere are allowed.
This was to keep the Animusphere's plans secret from other Lords and also because the conditions necessary for the experiment were only available at the bottom of the ocean, this is also because the only condition necessary for the experiment was the review. First of all, the human safety of the Animusphere requires that the test of the preservation of the hypothesis be established immediately.
First, the human security of Animusphere required that these three principles, "hypothesis", "preservation" and "test" be met at the same time, Once completed, it was said that it would provide the complete human security that Marisbilly desired and in 1990 an offshore oil base was built.
With the start of the Seraphix operation, experiments began for communication between the earth and the "soul".

What is a spirit line?
A spirit line is a carefully selected magical power that flows through various parts of the earth and people with certain talents. The Seraphix people search for spirit lines under the guise of drilling for oil, but why did Seraphix have a secret facility where they searched for spirit lines under the guise of drilling for oil?

In the early stages of their experiment, they tried to use the spiritual connections between Earth and humans to understand each other's minds and become "friends" with the planet. In constructing the pseudo-spiritual space, the researchers placed subjects in a spiritual chamber.
It is mentioned that many of the people who were used were Master Candidates sent from Chaldea and although Animusphere had prepared to select the Masters in due time, it was a difficult choice as research was a prerequisite for the continuation of humanity, Thus by sacrificing a large number of Master Candidates, the experiment began with a "dialogue" between Earth and humans.
However it was difficult to have a conversation with the experimental team so these Masters were consumed where they continued to store their potential as masters in coffins with the facility to throw their lives away, for the sole purpose of securing humanity. However it is recorded that they requested specimens with a higher aptitude than Team B... and that they were quite unreasonable during development.
As a result of repeated experiments so inhumane, the research was completed in only five years.

"All preparations have been completed. The purpose of the Seraphix facility is to develop a super-large concept that will serve as the gold standard for human safety for Animusphere."

It is estimated that more than 100 qualified people were sacrificed for Reyshift, but first, this idea made Animusphere's complete human assurance a reality.
Secondly, the three principles of human security, "hypothesis", "preservation" and "proof", coincide with the characteristics of the "lostbelt" of which Ophelia spoke.
From the above factors, it was necessary to communicate and dialogue with the Earth in order to develop this great idea where we can speculate that the idea developed in Seraphix is Chaldeas, which is a model of global environment and a celestial sphere of human security.

1. Chaldeas

So far, in various materials The "Chaldean Global Environmental Model" has been explained as follows: A magical celestial body that copied the soul of the Earth, Planets were supposed to have souls too, and by copying that soul it was possible to create a world 100 years in the future.
However it is impossible to create something exactly like earth from scratch but I thought it would be possible to copy that soul in its entirety and put it into practice, well according to the Seraphix manga they were actually witnessing and communicating with Earth's soul, in other words, Chaldeas, which is truly a pseudo celestial body of Earth, is believed to have the same mechanism (system) as Earth.

1. Olga Marie quest 2 revelations

If I had to express it, it would mean that Chaldeas also needs a system to control and eliminate all "evil", An answer to this speculation was revealed in the recently released "Olga Marie Quest 2.

Da Vinci: We thought that the "alien god" was an intelligent life form from another dimension that had come from space. But now it is different, we know that the "alien planet" is Chaldeas.
Da Vinci: This blank Earth is not our Earth it belongs to Chaldeas, an "alien planet" but we still don't know the purpose of why they were replaced, or rather why they were replaced, but there are some things that are clear, When you appeared on Olympus you said: "The ruler who manages humanity". Da Vinci: You also said "I heard the cries of my brothers". In your words and actions, you had a firm mission to "rule this planet."
Da Vinci: The "alien god" is the system that controls Chaldeas, Olga Marie animusphere you are not an "unfortunate earthling" who was accidentally chosen as a catalyst by an "alien god" Without you, the "alien god" could not function, You were part of Chaldeas from the beginning.
Da Vinci: You are indeed a system that came from a "different planet" called Chaldeas, but you are also a human being from Earth itself, you are definitely not an extraterrestrial, it's just some kind of mistake, isn't that what they make you believe?
E Olga: Well, that is correct. I admit that I am Chaldeas main system but that's 30 points, I can't give you a medal.

With this new fact, it has been confirmed that the alien god is the main system of Chaldeas therefore due to this new fact, the results presented in previous works related to Fate can be found in "The Four Mysteries of Olga Marie".

1. The four mysteries of Olga Marie

Olga Marie's birthday was written as unknown. In the past material books, even homunculi, which are artificial life forms, have birthdays which makes this mystery more disturbing.
Servants are the only ones whose birthdays are marked as unknown on their birthdays in the material ones. For this reason, Olga Marie may not know her birthday because she is not the biological daughter of marisbury, or maybe her birthday doesn't even exist in the first place.
The second point is that the quantity of Orga Marie's magic circuits is different between the "Fate stay night" and "FGO world", In the FGO world, in the sixth section of singularity F cassniki praised her saying that "the quantity and quality of magic circuits are top-notch" but in the case files material, which is the same world as "Fate/stay night", it is said that the quantity of Olga Marie's magic circuits is "E-".
Unlike magic seals, which are passed down from generation to generation of magicians, the number of magic circuits is fixed at birth and it is difficult to multiply them favorably, in other words, it is absolutely impossible for the amount of magic circuits to increase with growth, For the amount of Orga Marie's magic circuit, "E-" in the SN world is the original value and in the FGO world, it is believed to have been adjusted for some reason.
Related to this, in the Case Files world it is said that Olga Marie was abandoned by Marisbury and in the Stay Night world, the big difference between the SN world and the FGO world is the question of whether the Holy Grail of Fuyuki is contaminated or not. Going further, in the SN world, Chaldeas could not be activated, but in the FGO world, due to the huge amount of wealth obtained, Chaldeas was successfully activated.
In other words, since Chaldeas could not be activated in the SN world, the alien's main system, Orga Marie, was also not needed. On the other hand, in the FGO world, since Chaldeas was successfully activated, Orga Marie was needed as the planet's control device therefore, the amount of magic circuits in the FGO world's Orga Marie must have been adjusted to one of the first level.
And the fourth and final mystery was the case that Olga Marie's Rayshift aptitude was "0%".

Lev lainur: Look, you didn't have Rayshifting aptitude when you were alive, right? You can't transfer while the body is still present.
Considering Professor Lev's statement in singularity F, Rayshift aptitude seems to be a value that depends on the individual's physical body, the fact that she has no Rayshift aptitude may also mean that Olga Marie's body is not normal.
After a while, it became clear that the reason for this was that Olga Marie was part of the Alien god system. In other words, she was part of Chaldeas' brain group from the beginning.
I mean, from the beginning she was expected to play the role of Chaldeas' "brain body".

1. Archetype

there are two beings that have played the role of "brain body" one of them is Arcueid, she is a being called the True Ancestor.
And what is her true nature?
It is the touch of an independent star that benefits humans rather than Earth, so it is backed by stars.
What are the limits of his activities?
In other words, it is said to be the limit of the natural world itself. Furthermore, if we consider the earth as a living organism, the element is the immune function of the earth itself.
If we think of the earth as a single living organism, the True Ancestor is the immune function of the earth itself, and we see it as a factor that should exterminate humans who take advantage of nature.
The privilege granted only to the True Ancestor, which is the tactile sense of the earth, is the ability called "event storage".
The storage of events is an ability granted only to the True Ancestor, which is the tactile sense of the stars. It stores conceptually and physically everything that grows on the surface of the planet. That is, all creations and textures generated on the surface of the planet will be confiscated.
This is a function that the planet has, and it is mentioned in the Tsukihime material that it is closer to a system than an ability, so it is probably that of Earth. It is likely that the "alien planets" that are copies of Earth also have similar systems.
Regarding this speculation, In an interview with Weekly Famitsu, Kinoko Nasu said: The "storage of events'' performed by the Arcueid light body and the "bleaching of Earth" carried out by an alien planet were "the same thing".
In other words, it turns out that the "alien planet" has the same "event storage" system as Earth, and that the bleaching of Earth was caused by this system.
And the brain body of another star is Princess Karuko, who appeared in a play called tsuki no sango.
"This is the Earth, which has celebrated 3,000 years since its birth. In this world, Earth has achieved advanced civilization growth, but humans have lost the desire to reproduce and is facing a crisis for survival."
In the midst of this, some people who felt a sense of crisis at the possibility of human extinction established an organization called the "Human Reconstruction Committee" and began research on baby design. On the other hand, due to the development of science and the saturation of the terrestrial population, there were also humans who took off from the mother planet and migrated to the moon. However, when the Earthlings began to decline, communication between Earth and the Moon ceased, and a few decades later, the same humans who had migrated to the Moon disappeared.
However, even after humans disappeared from the moon, there was one person who continued to live on the surface of the moon, Her name is the moon girl. A manifestation of the will of the Moon created by the human race to ensure the existence of the Moon and produce the necessary resources. In general, she is the "will" and "mind" of the Moon itself.
In short, she was expected to serve as the "brain and body of the moon" where she not only provided elements to adjust the moon's environment, but also freely modified the star's landmarks, such as creating a forest.

1. Final

On their "stellar brain bodies" The second part of Chapter 7 of Part 2 provides the following explanation.
Da Vinci: Ah, the inner sea of a star is the "place of the heart" which is said to always exist when a planet is treated as a living organism. On the other hand, there is a spirit that says, "This is the only thing that can be born in the inner sea of a star." It is a special spirit called ''brain body of a star. ''
Da Vinci: In the world of magic this is called archetype.
So if Arcueid is the archetype of the earth, the moon girl is the archetype of the moon then U Olga is the archetype of chaldeas. Arcueid can store events on Earth, and the alien planet has a similar system and they have managed to turn the Earth white and the moon girl is like them as she is freely rewriting the laws of physics established on the surface of the moon according to her own will.
From this arises the archetype each of them has the authority to freely operate the planet to which they belong. In other words, would it not be possible for an "alien star" to not only "bleach the surface of the Earth" but also "rewrite the laws of physics" on the Earth.
This is probably the reason why the Earth and the surface of Chaldeas were exchanged when the Earth became white, The "alien god" can only interfere with the surface of Chaldeas; it cannot interfere with the matter and laws of the earth, That is why the "Alien god " first erased the Earth of Chaldeas and replaced it with the texture of the Earth, as a result, the texture of the earth is currently "in Chaldeas" The "alien god" will be able to compile the human principles at will.
That is why Marisbilly considers an "alien" system as it sought Orga Marie as an "alien brain body" to "compile humanity," In other words, Olga Marie is just like the moon girl She was created as an input device to efficiently operate the planet Chaldeas.
Video link: https://youtu.be/Ez-_RJzsuS4?feature=shared

For anyone who wants to see how things began.
https://www.reddit.com/HFY/s/S97b2fqIjx
“In what universe would I ever do you a favor? “ I say, sweeping the floor of the reinforced barn.
“It’s not a favor, it’s a trade, bud.
What do you want in return? “ Trenchcoat asks from within the coffin-like cage.
“To be back home, 8 months ago. “ I reply.
Over the past few weeks I’ve managed to integrate myself into the day to day life on the farm. Things are still a grim, horrifying slog, but with every day it gets a bit easier to deal with.
“Give me something I can do. “ The creature pleads.
“Why, so I can wind up on the end of another ‘ Gotcha’ moment? I’m good. “ is my answer.
A few minutes of silence go by, Augustus breaks it.
“I don’t know many secrets of the universe. Facts, not really my bag. But I know a couple.
How about I share one with you?
No one, not the pope, not my brother, not the shit-bird perched on the highest branch of my twisted family tree, knows what happens when you die.
Some of us never will, of course. Others have ways of avoiding it, but at the end of the day, when the lights truly go out, we know next to nothing.
We do know one thing though. There is judgement, by who? Who knows? Why? Not important.
But at the end of the day, if your battery can’t be recharged, you really want to be thinking about how many marks are on each side of the ledger. “
I don’t reply, and for the next hour or so I ignore the pleading and hinting Trenchcoat does.
But that night, as I sip acidic tea, and try to get a handle on how in the fuck old televisions function, his offer is at the forefront of my mind.
He wants to kill, specifically 6 teenagers who, according to him, have been murdering classmates yearly in a twisted ritual.
He wants me to think this is some kind of noble act, he frames it as almost superheroic. The evil prick knows how I feel, knows that I see the blood on my hands every day, and would kill ( possibly literally) for some way to atone.
Is it a play? I honestly don’t think so, something about how eager the twisted thing is, about how he’s treating the situation as a buyer’s market makes me think something about this makes it important to him.
He offers me everything besides safety and protection. I’m desperate for help, but I have no way to hold him to any agreement.
So the thought rolls around in my mind, staving off the few hours of sleep I get.
“Okay, so, I have it on good authority that tea is supposed to taste better over here. What the hell is wrong with this? “ I say, sitting around an outside table with Sylvia, Dafydd and Colin.
Sylvia smiles, “ Barium, calcium, and a touch of castor oil. “
I look at the brew, then at her.
“If I had told you when you got here you need to drink that to mitigate the effects of working with void touched objects and creatures, you’d have assumed the worst, and found a way to avoid drinking it.
Good to see you becoming more perceptive though. “ Sylvia explains.
“That’s called paranoia, Syl. “ I reply.
She laughs, lighting a cigarette.
“Do you know why I’ve let you figure things out on your own? “ The ancient woman asks.
“Accepted? Yes. Understood, not in the slightest. “ I answer, wondering what sadist invented the scone.
“It’s because I need a leader. Someone who can understand, not a boy who puts his head down and listens to orders.
Someone who can make their own decisions when the time comes.
And I think that time is coming soon. “ Her statement feels like a question.
“If I chose to be here I’d be honored.” I counter.
“That attitude on the other hand… needs work.
Nikolas, today, we talk about what’s really going on.
We play a role in a much larger organization, us, and other families like us, are the ‘boots on the ground’ so to speak.
Our job is not to capture creatures, or horde esoteric goods. We do not foil the schemes of demons, nor blind those who look too deeply into the abyss.
We’re given information about events that could steer the path of humanity into a brick wall. And our job is to make sure they don’t happen. “ Sylvia reveals.
“Something is happening with these fights? “ I ask.
“As I said, perceptive.
Yes, it could be next week, it could be in a decade or two. Right now, we know very little about it, other than when it happens, it would be in our best interests to be of a high standing in the pits. “ She replies.
I absorb the information, and t drug laced tea in equal measure. As I do, I feel something, I feel I’m a part of what’s going on.
This is going to sound dumb as hell, but up until this point I hadn’t been taking things seriously. Don’t get me wrong, death is on the table, and I was trying to avoid that. But I was just treading water, hoping something or someone came by and to get me out of this situation.
But as Syl lays things out, I start to think of my place here, what I can be doing to better my state.
“Here is the part where you avoid telling me why you couldn’t have used anyone around here. “ I prod.
I keep her gaze, Colin and Dafydd shift uncomfortably.
“Augustus, he’s a tricky one. But a very lucky find for us.
I’ve tried 2 others. A boy and a girl, both I practically raised.
Marco, he was a warrior. But the demon got in his head. There was nothing that could be done beyond end his suffering.
Zelma, I won’t talk about.
That thing, it has a way of turning someone’s best traits against them. You, are a blank slate, but you’re family. You’re my best guess as to how we can use him to our advantage.
And this is why I need you, not to listen, but to understand. To see what’s happening, and make your own decisions. If I were to give you my knowledge, if I were to arm you with the best weapons, and the most powerful esoteric objects I know. He’d just have more to turn against you. “ Sylvia’s revelation scares me and puts a massive weight on my shoulders all at the same time.
Confidence and fear are both dangerous emotions. The two of them are almost like drugs in a way.
After eight months of mainlining fear, the tiny line of confidence Sylvia gave me, went straight to my head.
Trenchcoat told me where to find a video file. And after a couple of weeks of running it through every possible test I could, to check for any kind of manipulation, supernatural or otherwise, I watched it.
I was confident that the world would be much better off without the people committing the vicious acts contained in those twenty minutes of footage.
A teenage view of morality, I admit. But what do you want, I’m a teenager.
We watch the abandoned house from across the street. It’s a dingy, urban blight affected suburb, that being said, how no one seems to notice the seven foot freak with me, I have no idea.
The kid inside smoking stolen cigarettes and illegally supplied booze is a husky young guy of about 14. The half dozen kids that show up a couple hours later look closer to my age, last couple of years of high school I’m guessing.
The way they get into the house tells me they’ve done this before. The backpacks they all carry tell me they’re there for a purpose.
“How fucking funny would it be if I just killed you here and took off? “ Trenchcoat says, looming behind me.
I tense.
“It’s a joke. Out of my whole rotten family, Art and I, are close. I’m not going anywhere.
Unfortunately for you. “ Trenchcoat shoves me to the ground as he walks toward the house.
We get in through a basement window, I fit easily, Trenchcoat contorts his body to fit through the thin opening, somehow doing so silently.
I keep hearing Sylvia in my head. Telling me how she needs someone that can make his own decisions.
As I stand in the litter strewn basement, beside a creature with child murder on it’s mind I question the decision that I made.
At first the illumination is dim, nothing more than scraps of moonlight filtered through splintered wood. But with an industrial click, suddenly a half dozen lightbulbs bathe the basement in harsh, yellowish light.
Harsh, but not harsh enough to cause the reaction I see from Trenchcoat.
He squints and tries, unsuccessfully to turn away from the lights. Something about them is causing him discomfort. I get my hopes up for a moment he’s going to burst into flame or turn into dust or something, but no dice.
The sight of the walking nightmare looking pained and confused makes me panic. But before I can think of how I fucked up, I hear a voice.
The room, by the sounds of it, the entire house, has been rigged with speakers. Cleverly recessed in sconces and corners.
“Augi, long time no see. And I see you brought a little Renfield fella with you. “ The voice is modulated, Trenchcoat looks curious for a moment.
“Who, is this? You that clown that’s been fucking with Art?” He guesses.
The voice laughs, “Nope.
Who I am, is a guy who managed to find a few boxes of lightbulbs from ’93.
Then again, with eBay, that could make me just about anyone. “
Trenchcoat turns and looks toward the window we came in. He reaches a hand toward it, stopping a few inches away.
“That’s fucking interesting. “ He says, eyes darting around the room.
“Isn’t it though? “ The voice replies, clearly hearing the creature’s whisper, “ Tonight you get the pay for centuries of the worst shit committed by man or beast. I’ve made sure of that. No one in this house is going anywhere for the next 8 hours.
I’m sure the rest of the houseguests are pretty confused as to what’s going on. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so let me give you the Cliff’s notes.
You kids have been killing a monster a year for half a decade. You were the perfect bait, and I have faith you’ll be able to outwit Augi long enough to make it out of here.
If not, you’ll still have helped kill one of the worst things to walk the face of the earth. “
“What the hell is he talking about? “ I ask, a sinking feeling in my gut.
“That’s what you’re worried about right now?
Yeah, these kids are more Scooby gang than Manson family. Don’t blame me for the fact it only took an out of context exorcism video and some promises of making things right with the universe to get you on board with killing them. “ Trenchcoat spits.
I feel afraid, stupid and small. Which is to say, lately, business as usual.
I begin to break lightbulbs, I notice no runes, or anything else that would indicate they have any kind of supernatural origin.
As the basement dims, Trenchcoat starts to breathe easier.
“What’s going on, what stopped you from leaving? “ I ask.
“This little shit is playing The Game. “ Trenchcoat says to himself as much as to me. He looks deep in thought, inspecting the glass from the bulbs.
“What are you talking about? “ I say, my voice cracking slightly.
I hear noises upstairs, frantic foot falls. Indecipherable shouting.
Trenchcoat turns to me, exasperated and filled with anger.
“You’ve heard of ‘Rules’ right? All that ‘Don’t turn left on East street at 3:24 am kind of shit? “ The creature starts, “More and more of them popping up lately. Can’t miss the things.
Well, your kind seems great at finding them, but fucking awful at figuring out what they are. It’s not someone’s new job, or creepy school. The answer is so damned simple, but all of you’ve missed it.
It's a game. It’s, The Game.
It’s ran by the thickest branches of my family tree, and the stakes are high enough even I don’t really understand.
And whoever has us here, he’s weaponized it. The crazy fuck. “
“Call on your family for help then. “ I say, starting to deal with the fear and confusion.
“You first. “ Is Trenchcoat’s reply.
I get his point, and for a twisted, shitty moment, I find myself relating to the murderous thing I’ve been saddled with.
“So what’s the plan? “ I ask.
“Get my hands on whoever’s been stalking me. Between A and B, probably kill those little do-gooders upstairs out of spite.
I need you to circumvent rules we come across. Humans need to agree to follow the rules, it’s why people encounter them in jobs and schools so much. I’m not human, if you haven’t noticed. I don’t get a choice. “ I’m shaking my head as Augustus relates his plan.
“We’re not hurting those kids. “ I say defiantly.
“I’m sure you’ll have no problem with that.
But I’m a God damned child killing monster, bud! How long is that going to take to sink the fuck in?
Me not doing what I do, isn’t like giving up smokes. Think of it like not having a slash for months on end. Sooner or later, like it or not, I’m either finding a bathroom or pissing my pants. “ the rant scares me, but it makes me think.
Something about Augustus, it seems very, 90’s. Whoever was on the speakers was talking about the lightbulbs being from ’93. I’m picking up on a very distinct pattern.
I file that information with the rest of the disconnected lore I’ve managed to find on Trenchcoat as I follow him up the steep, narrow set of stairs.
He whips the thin wood door open, taking an aggressive, lurching step into the livingroom beyond. Surely ready to dispense too far quips and limitless violence, as per usual.
But that doesn’t happen, his rage filled scowl turns into a look of resignation, “Fuck”, is the monster’s last word before he disappears.
I cautiously walk up the loose splinter ridden stairs, expecting Augustus to be waiting around the corner, or engaged in combat with some other horror.
But once I get to the top, there’s nothing more sinister than a livingroom covered in dust and graffiti strewn with old bottles and new stains.
I know my chance when I see it. The particle board sealing the bay window is rotten, the glass long since broken.
No monster, no crazy family, I’ll take my chances with the streets of the U. K.
I tap the crumbling wood with a foot, it rattles, it won’t take much to make a hole.
I line up a kick, freedom no more than a quarter inch of rotten wood away.
“I wouldn’t do that. “ Says a voice behind me, male, around my age I’d guess, but with a confidence that makes me listen, “ Rigged with a load of C4 in the window frame.
Don’t take my word for it, guy wasn’t very subtle. ”
Sure enough, I see small wires running along the edges of the frame and embedded in the particle board.
I turn around, the six people standing in front of me have a vibe I can only describe as severe.
“Are we going to have issues? “ a slight, dark skinned guy asks.
“You making threats? “ I reply.
“No, he isn’t. “ it’s the same voice that warned me about the explosives. It belongs to a squared jawed kid with short black hair, he’s wearing a grey hoodie, and separates himself from the group. “ Call me Kent, and I’m in charge of making threats.
Sid, he’s our people person, he’s just trying to see if you’re someone we need to worry about. “
“We don’t have time to figure this kid out, leave him. “ a short, ginger girl says.
“Ami, why don’t I stay out of equipment, and you and Kent let me figure this kid out?” Sid says.
“I’m Nik. “ I volunteer.
“Good to meet you Nik. “ Sid says, walking around Kent, “Didn’t mean to start things off on the wrong foot.
We’ve just gotten used to doing these kinds of things in our own way over the past bit. We get a little… weird around this time of year if I’m being honest. “
I nod, apprehensive at giving any kind of detailed response.
“Derik” says a tall, pale guy, “ Research. “
“Liam. “ a tanned boy in a flannel shirt and deep blue jeans tells me, “ Oxford doesn’t talk, accident a couple of years back. I’m logistics, he figures spooky shit out. “
Oxford is thin and bald, his face looks much older than it should. Like he’s the victim of some kind of wasting disease.
Telling these kids the truth would be, complicated. And something about their war vet demeanor, makes me want to keep things simple.
So I give them a version of the truth. One where I was plucked from my room by Trenchcoat, and brought here for a slow death.
They buy it. I think.
“Well, I don’t know what this Jigsaw wannabe has planned, but trust me when I say, it can’t be much worse than the things we’ve went through. “ Kent says, trying to be reassuring.
“Just, one more thing. “ Sid begins, “ Why all the scars? “
I know I’ve won most of the group over, but I don’t like the look Sid is giving me.
“Work on a farm, on top of that, the family owns an auction. Lots of bent steel and splinters, what can I say? “ I say, trying to sound casual.
“Fair enough, that accent though. “ Sid’s look becomes almost predatory as he talks.
“Immigration my guy. What’s with the third degree? “ I reply.
“We’ve just met and I’ve only asked three questions.
Humor me here though.
You get taken in the night by that thing that winked out of existence.
Seems pretty nice of him to let you put on shoes. “ Sid lets his statement hang.
Kent turns, I don’t like where this is going. Panic and fear start to well up.
“What’re you thinking Sid? “ Kent asks.
“Kid’s lying. But he’s good at it. “ Sid answers.
“You saying this has turned into a, me, situation? “ Kent’s question starts a deep pit in my stomach.
“I don’t know if we need to go that far. But I don’t like the idea of him having seen our faces. I think this is a Liam situation. “ As Sid says this I look to Liam, who already seems deep in thought.
“Local cops will back our story, but he could go beyond them.
We tie him up until all of this is done, and we get some video of him putting a blade into the body upstairs. He goes telling any stories, it’s us and the locals versus some Yank on video stabbing the kid. “ Liam suggests.
I tried to fight, it went, embarrassingly. Kent had me on the ground in some kind of arm lock in about a second.
I’m bound to an old wooden chair with electrical cords, dragged into a room on the second floor where the chubby kid from before lays face down in a coagulated pool of his own blood. Surrounded by the trappings of misspent youth.
The door locks, and I stare at the corpse, wondering what in the hell went on up here, and in what universe are these psychopaths anything other than what they seemed on screen.
Time becomes almost malleable. I’m terrified to the point where every moment seems to stretch out forever.
Then, I hear it. A wet, organic noise. It starts below the body, and slowly starts to spread.
After a minute or two, the body starts to jerk and twitch. The room is dim as hell, but some kind of ropey, flesh-like substance, is sealing off the door.
I watch as the corpse clumsily gets to it’s feet. It’s skin pale, it’s throat slit to the point of near decapitation.
The head falls backward, obscenely with a small spurt of thick blood.
I scream, I thought I’d been getting used to being face to face with monsters. But fully bound, inches away from a kid that seems to be filled with a twisting mass of barbed, writhing, intestine like tentacles, I realize I’m not used to shit.
The ropey mass forms the barest suggestion of features, a shifting, lumpen mass of ever moving tendrils coming from what used to be the kid’s neck.
The sound spreads more, cracks in the floorboards and walls begin to show hints of the tendrils filling them in like spray foam.
No one is hearing my screams, or if they are, they have no interest in helping.
Ever wonder how you’d handle torture? I think if you’re the kind of person to be reading this, it’s likely you have.
I started by pissing myself.
The second the thin tendril touches my hand, I feel a blinding, flensing pain. I can do nothing but watch, as thousands of nearly hair thin spines tear and consume my flesh. As it slowly, almost, curiously makes it’s way up my arm, it leaves a bloodless, scarred furrow about an eighth of an inch deep.
My second reaction was to lose any pretense at defiance or dignity. I thrash and scream, beg and offer. All of this turning into choked sobs as the thing starts to do much of the same with another tendril.
It felt like I was in hell, every inch of me nothing more than a canvas for this artist of misery.
But pain, it can only go so far. Whether we’re talking about my tolerance, or this thing’s interest.
Mutilation, the brutal wedding of pain and loss. That was it’s next step.
A thick, almost centipede like tendril sits on my pinky like a hot iron. I can only watch in horror as I see fat, then muscle, then bone, then, nothing.
My voice shreds, I tear my wrists and ankles trying desperately to break the expertly tied wires.
My mind is at the breaking point, the creature in front of my makes a terrible, high pitched keening I assume is laughter.
My body is a roadmap of scarred pits and lines. My hand sports a cleanly severed finger. Fuck me, I wish things ended there.
Of all the important parts of the human body, the eye, tends to feel the least pain. Which isn’t to say, as I watched the greedy, grasping claws slowly take pieces of one of mine, it didn’t hurt, but the worst part, was knowing what was happening.
The vision in my left eye begins to distort at first, the edges getting blurry, then going dark. Bit by bit, chunk by irreplaceable chunk, the creature takes half my vision.
I can feel the shifting air on the bare socket, to call what I’m doing screaming, would be understating things to the point of absurdity.
My brain reels at what has just happened. I can feel my grip on reality begin to loosen, pain, worse than can bare, loss of half my sight, it’s too much.
My brain feels filled with static, for a few brief moments I swear, I can hear someone, a voice, trying to tell me something.
But then, a smell hits me. Something so foul, so alien, it yanks me back from the brink of disassociation. I gag and choke, as the air becomes thick with the rotten, chemical reek.
Then, I see it, I see, him.
As randomly as he disappeared, in an instant Trenchcoat is in the room.
He’s torn apart, wounds so deep and ragged, I can see the door on the other side of the room through the worst of them.
One arm is a twisted, broken mess, the flesh jacket torn to shreds of necrotic tissue.
The look on his face is panic, paranoia. A rictus grin of someone that has been kept on his toes for entirely too long.
He trembles and heaves, looking like he could fall over at any second.
He points his good arm at the tendril creature, who I notice has a too familiar eye suspended in it’s shifting features.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the motherfucker who just made me kill my favorite cousin, would you? “ Trenchcoat asks, his voice cracked, and strained.
He gets a confused keening in response.
“Bad day for you then. “ Augustus says.
There is no style to his violence, Trenchcoat grabs the shifting mass, his wicked, claw tipped fingers angling themselves in tendrils. As he lifts the thing, floorboards break, and it’s torn free from the root-like system it was creating in the room.
Three brutal slams cover me in ichor and pieces of creature. Trenchcoat tosses the mewling, twitching pile in a corner and looks at me with disgust.
“You let that thing do this to you? Fuckin’ pathetic, bud.
And who tied you up? “ The nightmare I’ve been cursed with chides me.
“The kids downstairs. “ I say only now realizing I’ve still been sobbing.
One handed, Trenchcoat snaps the wires, then stumbles backward, slowly sliding down the wall.
He coughs, grey, bloody phlegm hitting the ground.
“So, what’s the play here? If this shit broke you, I could use the spare parts, if not, well, you know what the Bible says.
An eye for an eye. “ Trenchcoat grins as he talks, nearly on the brink of death.
And that’s where I think I’m going to leave things. Because, honestly I don’t know what I’m choosing.
I’m mutilated, half blind, using too much of my energy typing to strangers online about things because, I’m so fucking alone here.
If you hear from me again, I hope I made the right move. If not, take this as a lesson on what happens when you screw around with the occult.

For anyone who wants to see how I got into this situation.
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/s/R0DAycoVIm
“In what universe would I ever do you a favor? “ I say, sweeping the floor of the reinforced barn.
“It’s not a favor, it’s a trade, bud.
What do you want in return? “ Trenchcoat asks from within the coffin-like cage.
“To be back home, 8 months ago. “ I reply.
Over the past few weeks I’ve managed to integrate myself into the day to day life on the farm. Things are still a grim, horrifying slog, but with every day it gets a bit easier to deal with.
“Give me something I can do. “ The creature pleads.
“Why, so I can wind up on the end of another ‘ Gotcha’ moment? I’m good. “ is my answer.
A few minutes of silence go by, Augustus breaks it.
“I don’t know many secrets of the universe. Facts, not really my bag. But I know a couple.
How about I share one with you?
No one, not the pope, not my brother, not the shit-bird perched on the highest branch of my twisted family tree, knows what happens when you die.
Some of us never will, of course. Others have ways of avoiding it, but at the end of the day, when the lights truly go out, we know next to nothing.
We do know one thing though. There is judgement, by who? Who knows? Why? Not important.
But at the end of the day, if your battery can’t be recharged, you really want to be thinking about how many marks are on each side of the ledger. “
I don’t reply, and for the next hour or so I ignore the pleading and hinting Trenchcoat does.
But that night, as I sip acidic tea, and try to get a handle on how in the fuck old televisions function, his offer is at the forefront of my mind.
He wants to kill, specifically 6 teenagers who, according to him, have been murdering classmates yearly in a twisted ritual.
He wants me to think this is some kind of noble act, he frames it as almost superheroic. The evil prick knows how I feel, knows that I see the blood on my hands every day, and would kill ( possibly literally) for some way to atone.
Is it a play? I honestly don’t think so, something about how eager the twisted thing is, about how he’s treating the situation as a buyer’s market makes me think something about this makes it important to him.
He offers me everything besides safety and protection. I’m desperate for help, but I have no way to hold him to any agreement.
So the thought rolls around in my mind, staving off the few hours of sleep I get.
“Okay, so, I have it on good authority that tea is supposed to taste better over here. What the hell is wrong with this? “ I say, sitting around an outside table with Sylvia, Dafydd and Colin.
Sylvia smiles, “ Barium, calcium, and a touch of castor oil. “
I look at the brew, then at her.
“If I had told you when you got here you need to drink that to mitigate the effects of working with void touched objects and creatures, you’d have assumed the worst, and found a way to avoid drinking it.
Good to see you becoming more perceptive though. “ Sylvia explains.
“That’s called paranoia, Syl. “ I reply.
She laughs, lighting a cigarette.
“Do you know why I’ve let you figure things out on your own? “ The ancient woman asks.
“Accepted? Yes. Understood, not in the slightest. “ I answer, wondering what sadist invented the scone.
“It’s because I need a leader. Someone who can understand, not a boy who puts his head down and listens to orders.
Someone who can make their own decisions when the time comes.
And I think that time is coming soon. “ Her statement feels like a question.
“If I chose to be here I’d be honored.” I counter.
“That attitude on the other hand… needs work.
Nikolas, today, we talk about what’s really going on.
We play a role in a much larger organization, us, and other families like us, are the ‘boots on the ground’ so to speak.
Our job is not to capture creatures, or horde esoteric goods. We do not foil the schemes of demons, nor blind those who look too deeply into the abyss.
We’re given information about events that could steer the path of humanity into a brick wall. And our job is to make sure they don’t happen. “ Sylvia reveals.
“Something is happening with these fights? “ I ask.
“As I said, perceptive.
Yes, it could be next week, it could be in a decade or two. Right now, we know very little about it, other than when it happens, it would be in our best interests to be of a high standing in the pits. “ She replies.
I absorb the information, and t drug laced tea in equal measure. As I do, I feel something, I feel I’m a part of what’s going on.
This is going to sound dumb as hell, but up until this point I hadn’t been taking things seriously. Don’t get me wrong, death is on the table, and I was trying to avoid that. But I was just treading water, hoping something or someone came by and to get me out of this situation.
But as Syl lays things out, I start to think of my place here, what I can be doing to better my state.
“Here is the part where you avoid telling me why you couldn’t have used anyone around here. “ I prod.
I keep her gaze, Colin and Dafydd shift uncomfortably.
“Augustus, he’s a tricky one. But a very lucky find for us.
I’ve tried 2 others. A boy and a girl, both I practically raised.
Marco, he was a warrior. But the demon got in his head. There was nothing that could be done beyond end his suffering.
Zelma, I won’t talk about.
That thing, it has a way of turning someone’s best traits against them. You, are a blank slate, but you’re family. You’re my best guess as to how we can use him to our advantage.
And this is why I need you, not to listen, but to understand. To see what’s happening, and make your own decisions. If I were to give you my knowledge, if I were to arm you with the best weapons, and the most powerful esoteric objects I know. He’d just have more to turn against you. “ Sylvia’s revelation scares me and puts a massive weight on my shoulders all at the same time.
Confidence and fear are both dangerous emotions. The two of them are almost like drugs in a way.
After eight months of mainlining fear, the tiny line of confidence Sylvia gave me, went straight to my head.
Trenchcoat told me where to find a video file. And after a couple of weeks of running it through every possible test I could, to check for any kind of manipulation, supernatural or otherwise, I watched it.
I was confident that the world would be much better off without the people committing the vicious acts contained in those twenty minutes of footage.
A teenage view of morality, I admit. But what do you want, I’m a teenager.
We watch the abandoned house from across the street. It’s a dingy, urban blight affected suburb, that being said, how no one seems to notice the seven foot freak with me, I have no idea.
The kid inside smoking stolen cigarettes and illegally supplied booze is a husky young guy of about 14. The half dozen kids that show up a couple hours later look closer to my age, last couple of years of high school I’m guessing.
The way they get into the house tells me they’ve done this before. The backpacks they all carry tell me they’re there for a purpose.
“How fucking funny would it be if I just killed you here and took off? “ Trenchcoat says, looming behind me.
I tense.
“It’s a joke. Out of my whole rotten family, Art and I, are close. I’m not going anywhere.
Unfortunately for you. “ Trenchcoat shoves me to the ground as he walks toward the house.
We get in through a basement window, I fit easily, Trenchcoat contorts his body to fit through the thin opening, somehow doing so silently.
I keep hearing Sylvia in my head. Telling me how she needs someone that can make his own decisions.
As I stand in the litter strewn basement, beside a creature with child murder on it’s mind I question the decision that I made.
At first the illumination is dim, nothing more than scraps of moonlight filtered through splintered wood. But with an industrial click, suddenly a half dozen lightbulbs bathe the basement in harsh, yellowish light.
Harsh, but not harsh enough to cause the reaction I see from Trenchcoat.
He squints and tries, unsuccessfully to turn away from the lights. Something about them is causing him discomfort. I get my hopes up for a moment he’s going to burst into flame or turn into dust or something, but no dice.
The sight of the walking nightmare looking pained and confused makes me panic. But before I can think of how I fucked up, I hear a voice.
The room, by the sounds of it, the entire house, has been rigged with speakers. Cleverly recessed in sconces and corners.
“Augi, long time no see. And I see you brought a little Renfield fella with you. “ The voice is modulated, Trenchcoat looks curious for a moment.
“Who, is this? You that clown that’s been fucking with Art?” He guesses.
The voice laughs, “Nope.
Who I am, is a guy who managed to find a few boxes of lightbulbs from ’93.
Then again, with eBay, that could make me just about anyone. “
Trenchcoat turns and looks toward the window we came in. He reaches a hand toward it, stopping a few inches away.
“That’s fucking interesting. “ He says, eyes darting around the room.
“Isn’t it though? “ The voice replies, clearly hearing the creature’s whisper, “ Tonight you get the pay for centuries of the worst shit committed by man or beast. I’ve made sure of that. No one in this house is going anywhere for the next 8 hours.
I’m sure the rest of the houseguests are pretty confused as to what’s going on. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so let me give you the Cliff’s notes.
You kids have been killing a monster a year for half a decade. You were the perfect bait, and I have faith you’ll be able to outwit Augi long enough to make it out of here.
If not, you’ll still have helped kill one of the worst things to walk the face of the earth. “
“What the hell is he talking about? “ I ask, a sinking feeling in my gut.
“That’s what you’re worried about right now?
Yeah, these kids are more Scooby gang than Manson family. Don’t blame me for the fact it only took an out of context exorcism video and some promises of making things right with the universe to get you on board with killing them. “ Trenchcoat spits.
I feel afraid, stupid and small. Which is to say, lately, business as usual.
I begin to break lightbulbs, I notice no runes, or anything else that would indicate they have any kind of supernatural origin.
As the basement dims, Trenchcoat starts to breathe easier.
“What’s going on, what stopped you from leaving? “ I ask.
“This little shit is playing The Game. “ Trenchcoat says to himself as much as to me. He looks deep in thought, inspecting the glass from the bulbs.
“What are you talking about? “ I say, my voice cracking slightly.
I hear noises upstairs, frantic foot falls. Indecipherable shouting.
Trenchcoat turns to me, exasperated and filled with anger.
“You’ve heard of ‘Rules’ right? All that ‘Don’t turn left on East street at 3:24 am kind of shit? “ The creature starts, “More and more of them popping up lately. Can’t miss the things.
Well, your kind seems great at finding them, but fucking awful at figuring out what they are. It’s not someone’s new job, or creepy school. The answer is so damned simple, but all of you’ve missed it.
It's a game. It’s, The Game.
It’s ran by the thickest branches of my family tree, and the stakes are high enough even I don’t really understand.
And whoever has us here, he’s weaponized it. The crazy fuck. “
“Call on your family for help then. “ I say, starting to deal with the fear and confusion.
“You first. “ Is Trenchcoat’s reply.
I get his point, and for a twisted, shitty moment, I find myself relating to the murderous thing I’ve been saddled with.
“So what’s the plan? “ I ask.
“Get my hands on whoever’s been stalking me. Between A and B, probably kill those little do-gooders upstairs out of spite.
I need you to circumvent rules we come across. Humans need to agree to follow the rules, it’s why people encounter them in jobs and schools so much. I’m not human, if you haven’t noticed. I don’t get a choice. “ I’m shaking my head as Augustus relates his plan.
“We’re not hurting those kids. “ I say defiantly.
“I’m sure you’ll have no problem with that.
But I’m a God damned child killing monster, bud! How long is that going to take to sink the fuck in?
Me not doing what I do, isn’t like giving up smokes. Think of it like not having a slash for months on end. Sooner or later, like it or not, I’m either finding a bathroom or pissing my pants. “ the rant scares me, but it makes me think.
Something about Augustus, it seems very, 90’s. Whoever was on the speakers was talking about the lightbulbs being from ’93. I’m picking up on a very distinct pattern.
I file that information with the rest of the disconnected lore I’ve managed to find on Trenchcoat as I follow him up the steep, narrow set of stairs.
He whips the thin wood door open, taking an aggressive, lurching step into the livingroom beyond. Surely ready to dispense too far quips and limitless violence, as per usual.
But that doesn’t happen, his rage filled scowl turns into a look of resignation, “Fuck”, is the monster’s last word before he disappears.
I cautiously walk up the loose splinter ridden stairs, expecting Augustus to be waiting around the corner, or engaged in combat with some other horror.
But once I get to the top, there’s nothing more sinister than a livingroom covered in dust and graffiti strewn with old bottles and new stains.
I know my chance when I see it. The particle board sealing the bay window is rotten, the glass long since broken.
No monster, no crazy family, I’ll take my chances with the streets of the U. K.
I tap the crumbling wood with a foot, it rattles, it won’t take much to make a hole.
I line up a kick, freedom no more than a quarter inch of rotten wood away.
“I wouldn’t do that. “ Says a voice behind me, male, around my age I’d guess, but with a confidence that makes me listen, “ Rigged with a load of C4 in the window frame.
Don’t take my word for it, guy wasn’t very subtle. ”
Sure enough, I see small wires running along the edges of the frame and embedded in the particle board.
I turn around, the six people standing in front of me have a vibe I can only describe as severe.
“Are we going to have issues? “ a slight, dark skinned guy asks.
“You making threats? “ I reply.
“No, he isn’t. “ it’s the same voice that warned me about the explosives. It belongs to a squared jawed kid with short black hair, he’s wearing a grey hoodie, and separates himself from the group. “ Call me Kent, and I’m in charge of making threats.
Sid, he’s our people person, he’s just trying to see if you’re someone we need to worry about. “
“We don’t have time to figure this kid out, leave him. “ a short, ginger girl says.
“Ami, why don’t I stay out of equipment, and you and Kent let me figure this kid out?” Sid says.
“I’m Nik. “ I volunteer.
“Good to meet you Nik. “ Sid says, walking around Kent, “Didn’t mean to start things off on the wrong foot.
We’ve just gotten used to doing these kinds of things in our own way over the past bit. We get a little… weird around this time of year if I’m being honest. “
I nod, apprehensive at giving any kind of detailed response.
“Derik” says a tall, pale guy, “ Research. “
“Liam. “ a tanned boy in a flannel shirt and deep blue jeans tells me, “ Oxford doesn’t talk, accident a couple of years back. I’m logistics, he figures spooky shit out. “
Oxford is thin and bald, his face looks much older than it should. Like he’s the victim of some kind of wasting disease.
Telling these kids the truth would be, complicated. And something about their war vet demeanor, makes me want to keep things simple.
So I give them a version of the truth. One where I was plucked from my room by Trenchcoat, and brought here for a slow death.
They buy it. I think.
“Well, I don’t know what this Jigsaw wannabe has planned, but trust me when I say, it can’t be much worse than the things we’ve went through. “ Kent says, trying to be reassuring.
“Just, one more thing. “ Sid begins, “ Why all the scars? “
I know I’ve won most of the group over, but I don’t like the look Sid is giving me.
“Work on a farm, on top of that, the family owns an auction. Lots of bent steel and splinters, what can I say? “ I say, trying to sound casual.
“Fair enough, that accent though. “ Sid’s look becomes almost predatory as he talks.
“Immigration my guy. What’s with the third degree? “ I reply.
“We’ve just met and I’ve only asked three questions.
Humor me here though.
You get taken in the night by that thing that winked out of existence.
Seems pretty nice of him to let you put on shoes. “ Sid lets his statement hang.
Kent turns, I don’t like where this is going. Panic and fear start to well up.
“What’re you thinking Sid? “ Kent asks.
“Kid’s lying. But he’s good at it. “ Sid answers.
“You saying this has turned into a, me, situation? “ Kent’s question starts a deep pit in my stomach.
“I don’t know if we need to go that far. But I don’t like the idea of him having seen our faces. I think this is a Liam situation. “ As Sid says this I look to Liam, who already seems deep in thought.
“Local cops will back our story, but he could go beyond them.
We tie him up until all of this is done, and we get some video of him putting a blade into the body upstairs. He goes telling any stories, it’s us and the locals versus some Yank on video stabbing the kid. “ Liam suggests.
I tried to fight, it went, embarrassingly. Kent had me on the ground in some kind of arm lock in about a second.
I’m bound to an old wooden chair with electrical cords, dragged into a room on the second floor where the chubby kid from before lays face down in a coagulated pool of his own blood. Surrounded by the trappings of misspent youth.
The door locks, and I stare at the corpse, wondering what in the hell went on up here, and in what universe are these psychopaths anything other than what they seemed on screen.
Time becomes almost malleable. I’m terrified to the point where every moment seems to stretch out forever.
Then, I hear it. A wet, organic noise. It starts below the body, and slowly starts to spread.
After a minute or two, the body starts to jerk and twitch. The room is dim as hell, but some kind of ropey, flesh-like substance, is sealing off the door.
I watch as the corpse clumsily gets to it’s feet. It’s skin pale, it’s throat slit to the point of near decapitation.
The head falls backward, obscenely with a small spurt of thick blood.
I scream, I thought I’d been getting used to being face to face with monsters. But fully bound, inches away from a kid that seems to be filled with a twisting mass of barbed, writhing, intestine like tentacles, I realize I’m not used to shit.
The ropey mass forms the barest suggestion of features, a shifting, lumpen mass of ever moving tendrils coming from what used to be the kid’s neck.
The sound spreads more, cracks in the floorboards and walls begin to show hints of the tendrils filling them in like spray foam.
No one is hearing my screams, or if they are, they have no interest in helping.
Ever wonder how you’d handle torture? I think if you’re the kind of person to be reading this, it’s likely you have.
I started by pissing myself.
The second the thin tendril touches my hand, I feel a blinding, flensing pain. I can do nothing but watch, as thousands of nearly hair thin spines tear and consume my flesh. As it slowly, almost, curiously makes it’s way up my arm, it leaves a bloodless, scarred furrow about an eighth of an inch deep.
My second reaction was to lose any pretense at defiance or dignity. I thrash and scream, beg and offer. All of this turning into choked sobs as the thing starts to do much of the same with another tendril.
It felt like I was in hell, every inch of me nothing more than a canvas for this artist of misery.
But pain, it can only go so far. Whether we’re talking about my tolerance, or this thing’s interest.
Mutilation, the brutal wedding of pain and loss. That was it’s next step.
A thick, almost centipede like tendril sits on my pinky like a hot iron. I can only watch in horror as I see fat, then muscle, then bone, then, nothing.
My voice shreds, I tear my wrists and ankles trying desperately to break the expertly tied wires.
My mind is at the breaking point, the creature in front of my makes a terrible, high pitched keening I assume is laughter.
My body is a roadmap of scarred pits and lines. My hand sports a cleanly severed finger. Fuck me, I wish things ended there.
Of all the important parts of the human body, the eye, tends to feel the least pain. Which isn’t to say, as I watched the greedy, grasping claws slowly take pieces of one of mine, it didn’t hurt, but the worst part, was knowing what was happening.
The vision in my left eye begins to distort at first, the edges getting blurry, then going dark. Bit by bit, chunk by irreplaceable chunk, the creature takes half my vision.
I can feel the shifting air on the bare socket, to call what I’m doing screaming, would be understating things to the point of absurdity.
My brain reels at what has just happened. I can feel my grip on reality begin to loosen, pain, worse than can bare, loss of half my sight, it’s too much.
My brain feels filled with static, for a few brief moments I swear, I can hear someone, a voice, trying to tell me something.
But then, a smell hits me. Something so foul, so alien, it yanks me back from the brink of disassociation. I gag and choke, as the air becomes thick with the rotten, chemical reek.
Then, I see it, I see, him.
As randomly as he disappeared, in an instant Trenchcoat is in the room.
He’s torn apart, wounds so deep and ragged, I can see the door on the other side of the room through the worst of them.
One arm is a twisted, broken mess, the flesh jacket torn to shreds of necrotic tissue.
The look on his face is panic, paranoia. A rictus grin of someone that has been kept on his toes for entirely too long.
He trembles and heaves, looking like he could fall over at any second.
He points his good arm at the tendril creature, who I notice has a too familiar eye suspended in it’s shifting features.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the motherfucker who just made me kill my favorite cousin, would you? “ Trenchcoat asks, his voice cracked, and strained.
He gets a confused keening in response.
“Bad day for you then. “ Augustus says.
There is no style to his violence, Trenchcoat grabs the shifting mass, his wicked, claw tipped fingers angling themselves in tendrils. As he lifts the thing, floorboards break, and it’s torn free from the root-like system it was creating in the room.
Three brutal slams cover me in ichor and pieces of creature. Trenchcoat tosses the mewling, twitching pile in a corner and looks at me with disgust.
“You let that thing do this to you? Fuckin’ pathetic, bud.
And who tied you up? “ The nightmare I’ve been cursed with chides me.
“The kids downstairs. “ I say only now realizing I’ve still been sobbing.
One handed, Trenchcoat snaps the wires, then stumbles backward, slowly sliding down the wall.
He coughs, grey, bloody phlegm hitting the ground.
“So, what’s the play here? If this shit broke you, I could use the spare parts, if not, well, you know what the Bible says.
An eye for an eye. “ Trenchcoat grins as he talks, nearly on the brink of death.
And that’s where I think I’m going to leave things. Because, honestly I don’t know what I’m choosing.
I’m mutilated, half blind, using too much of my energy typing to strangers online about things because, I’m so fucking alone here.
If you hear from me again, I hope I made the right move. If not, take this as a lesson on what happens when you screw around with the occult.

Let's play a game, you and I.
Find a mirror and stand in front of it; naked, if it's all the same to you. Before you protest, humor me a little. Look at your body - examine it, really get in there with those beady little eyes of yours - and then, when you've gotten past the absurdity of staring at your nude reflection, count all the bones you think you can see.
If you reached the high double-digits, congratulations! You should probably eat more. A lack of food is unhealthy.
But, let's say you're on a diet. I was, once. Before everything went to shit, I was a fat fuck stowed away in the back of someone else's house, glued to their computer, scouring social media and getting angry over the pruned, fabricated, perfect lives everyone else seemed to have. I was angry - so angry that I decided that I wanted to do something about it, so - maybe like you - I went on a diet. My goal? Get thin, get control of my life, wrest it away from the clutches of impending doom, make something of my time on this planet, maybe find a purpose.
Life, however, is funny - or cruel, depending on how full your glass is. Whenever I tried dieting, something always happened to get in the way. My favorite haunt started having trivia nights - unlimited nachos. Jake, a good friend of mine, had a punch card for discounts on sub sandwiches. I once got a piece of mail that told me I won a lifetime supply of corn chips (a scam, thankfully). I started to think that life had it out for me.
Little did I know, life had it out for everyone.
We lost electricity first. As the heat waves picked up, our access to cool air was cut short. Humankind started dropping like flies, by the thousands and even more in the deserts. Some of us were able to adapt before things got too bad, but when the water started to disappear, sweating was akin to suffering.
When we reached a fever pitch in our panic, we got creative. We started breaching bunkers, ripping the rich out of their hovels and taking everything they had. Some were so desperate that they took the slogan "eat the rich" to where you're probably thinking they did. Magic trick time. Were you thinking cannibalism? What a freak.
Not you; them. They did take it literally.
Food got scarce. Starvation and dehydration set in. We lost communication with people in distant places and it felt like everything was truly coming to an end.
Do you like anecdotes?
One time, I was on scavenging duty with a friend of mine. Not Jake, unfortunately - he died two days into the apocalypse after getting hit by a bus - but this guy? He was alright. Anyway, we found a small mom-and-pop shop on a street corner. The face of the shop was dusty and beige, couldn't see through the windows but, somehow, it was untouched, or so we thought. When we broke the windows and slipped inside, the shelves were almost all empty.
My friend found a wrapped Twinkie and showed it to me. "Hey, look," he said, "found you a little treat, skinny."
When I tell you this Twinkie looked like a piece of shit only the Toxic Avenger would push out of his ass, I mean it. Heavily discolored, easily broken apart, and the only thing separating me from an impossibly complex stench of decay was this razor-thin wrapper. It must've sat in the heat for ages, horrendously warping from one of America's most beloved snack cakes into a gangrenous mockery of what could pass as food.
"Nah," I said, putting on a fake smile, "I'm on a diet."
It was a joke. It was supposed to be a joke, but like I said - life is funny.
Our heads both turned when we heard a loud thud across the room. Of course, we were shaken, didn't know what to expect, so we approached it cautiously, guns drawn, and when we had sight of the cause, we were stunned. Sitting on the floor on its side was a massive can of ranch beans. It must've weighed close to five or six pounds. Even crazier and more confusing? It was room temp, like it just appeared out of thin air, untouched by the heat.
I tested something a few days later. We were running out of bottled water. Somebody made a joke about drinking piss - not to me, just to another person, but I responded that I was on a diet. Fifteen minutes later, we had a group come back from scavenging with the widest smiles, dragging a full pallet of water bottles stacked six feet high on a pallet jack.
I started doing it more surreptitiously, any time that we needed to eat or drink something, and I learned that there were rules. For example, saying it multiple times in a row didn't do anything, the gift was singular. The number of people around me or the loudness of the statement didn't matter - the gifts were random in quantity. Abuse it, and the gift would come rotten or with some other risk.
Once I had a grasp on it, we lived well, at least for a time. When the radiation storms started to sweep through, a lot of people started getting sick, including me, and there was no gift for saying I was feeling ill. It was all so sudden and severe, and it took me before almost anyone else. Real bummer, if you ask me, because I never got to learn what happened to the rest of my group. Part of me hopes they made it out of that place and found a way to survive. If you happen to find them, tell them I said hello.
57, by the way. I counted 57 bones when I looked. Just thought you should know.
Original prompt by u/MaliciousOnions. You can (probably) find this and more on StoriesInTheStatic.

I'm not an expert but am knowledgeable enough to know periods/commas matter. I'm being told that this statement below is specifying only privacy fences are allowed around patios but, the way I believe it's truly interpreting is, you can't have chainlink/similar fencing and if you want privacy fencing it's only allowed around patios. Otherwise, any other fencing is fine. They say it's because they love the "Greenspace communal feel" but some members yell at you if your dog/kids walk in their yard. Before hiring real legal help, am I crazy??
" All fences shall be subject to prior approval by the board and by any committee created by the board to approve such matters. No chain link or similar fencing shall be constructed or erected anywhere on the property. All other fencing shall be approved by the board. Wood stockade-type fencing may, if approved by the board, be erected abutting the rear of a dwelling unit for the purpose of enclosing a storage area or around the side or rear yard patio area abutting a dwelling for privacy purposes. "
Edit: we'd be wanting to erect Kentucky board style fencing whether it's wood or vinyl. Possibly the standard black metal bar fencing.

I 24(f) was sexually assaulted by my 18yo (at the time of the assualt) cousin when I was 4 years old. I have done a lot of healing since then, but I feel like I have hit rocked bottom and started again when I lost my baby in December.
This man prayed on 5 of my cousins, my brother, my twin sister, and me. He did some horrible stuff. 2 of our older cousins (ours was horrible, but theirs was a lot worse). He has soul custody of one of his children, and the other isn't allowed to see him. This started when I found out i lost my baby in December. Why does a monster like him get a healthy, beautiful boy that he can torment and I don't get my baby? So, I started looking into taking him to court. We made police reports in 2005, but we never made it into court due to no one allowing their children to testify on the stand and the lack of evidence to convict without the testifying witnesses. I put up an anonymous post a few days ago on Facebook looking where to get started with taking him back to court. I got a few suggestions and got in contact with a detective. The thing I didn't realise was that the group admin took me off anonymous, so my dad got a screenshot of my post from a friend. Yes, I put everything in it like siblings' names (again fully under the impression I was anonymous). I even have a screenshot of it saying anonymous on my end. I deleted the post immediately and apologised. He drove into my house to tell me. I didn't talk long. I was pretty emotional. I felt shut down again and made me feel ashamed about what had happened to me.
I texted my dad when he left as I pretty much politely shut the door in his face. He knew I was upset and crying, and I just said I couldn't. In his defence, he did try and comfort me, and I just couldn't. He has never spoken to us about it, and we had to deal with some over protectiveness, aggression, and other issues as kids with him feeling guilty. He then has the nerve to tell me to get more professional help..... I have gone through every councillor in my rural town, and none of them have helped. I've been told things like "that never happened, I don't believe you, why would you be the only one seeking help, ect".
I do agree with keeping my siblings out of it as much as possible. The issue is that our evidence is all joint together. I did say to my dad that I will not purposely leak their information and that it is their story, not mine. But I can't help that our evidence is literally tied together. For example, our video statements when we were 4 were done in the same room together. I also said, but if it EVEN makes it back to court, I will be proceeding, and I can't 100% guarantee they people won't find out. I did say I purposely won't let them be in the middle, but I can't dictate the courts. He said I would have a choice to bring them in or not. I don't think I will, but I said we will see. He told me I'm not thinking of them. (I have for years and even have trauma of not being able to talk to a single soul without being berated from them). I'm being inconsiderate and selfish. Ect. I don't want my family to hate me, but I have struggled for years and finally have the courage to do something, and I feel like I'm being shut down yet again. My family has been pretty quiet about it from day dot. We all have our issues. My siblings resent me for remembering and them blocking it out. The funny thing is that dad said, "Everyone deals with things their own way, and you have to respect that." Where was my respect? I got tormented for remembering. I was told to just move on... I am again now being told to just get councilling, become a councillor, etc. Why do I need to just suck it up and move on? Especially if I get the chance to do something. This isn't even set in concrete. This is me just enquiring if it's even possible to take him back to court. I'm so confused about how to feel. I'm so mad at everyone.
AITAH

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Having an expert crafted paper as a guide also allows you to develop supporting points, possible rebuttals to include, closing statements, as well as acting as inspiration to build off the content that's already presented.

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Please remember discussion or implying academic dishonesty in your post is against Reddit and Essay_Writing_service policies!

A few years ago my 501c research company went bankrupt (FL). Since I bring my work home, I inadvertently quit with copies of non-export controlled, non-confidential, privately & publicly contracted data. I'm now seeing that data published in journals by my old peers. Problem is it doesn't match the original records. I would like to distribute the original raw data for the purpose of at least showing it to peers and entities with a need to know, but- can I?
So as a researcher I'm looking through the company's policy to see if I have a right to have the data. One boilerplate policy generally says 'all documents and data are assets ... and they may not be redistributed for profit'. Another generally says 'all documents and data are assets ... all assets are property of the company'. Finally see below there are 3 additional sections of policy meant to ensure the 501c-ness of our mission statement which I find contradictory to the prior:

• The company shall only enter into a research contract or other binding commitment to perform work that can reasonably be expected to be publishable, provide educational opportunities, and/or be in the public interest.
• The faculty shall not undertake research in which the sponsor prohibits the faculty member from disclosing the existence of the agreement or restricts the faculty member’s public disclosure of information developed by that faculty member.
• The company shall enter into contracts or other binding commitments to conduct research and training only if they permit the disclosure and publication of research. Delays in publication up to 180 days may be agreed to in order to permit time for filing of patent applications.

First question: does this company policy allow me to disclose my copies of our research?
Next, my employer and supervisor gave me a copy our lab's main drive and told me to copy it to my personal computer, just in case, and take both with me to our new lab in another state. But he and the supervisor acted kind of shady about it in a way that in retrospect I'm sure he was asking me to do something unethical. I've since learned that this guy was profoundly unethical.
Second question: does my old employer having physically given me a copy of our data have any benefit to me regarding my right to possess and/or redistribute it now?
As I mentioned earlier, some of the research was publicly funded, which changes the calculus a bit. Which brings me to my last question:
Third question: Does the legitimacy of my having copies of data increase exposure to myself specifically for the purpose of reporting this to the government? To third parties with a need to know? To the public?