I’m trying to win 250000 air miles in a contest. This is legit. I need to go on my retirement vacation sooner than later. I’m totally exhausted from everything. I’m trying to go to Europe as I want to pay my respects at the many death camps and to see Jewish memorials to the murdered. I’m not sure how many more years I have on this planet.
​
Please help me win. Thank you!
​
MAGFAST.com/61055351

Has anybody been following the recent article (and FOX presentation) of the 5th plane that was supposed to be hijacked?
My coworker keeps talking about the special last night and how surprised she was at the details…. Personally, though, I’m taking this story with a grain of salt. Mostly because the only news media reporting it is TMZ (which is mostly a celebrity gossip media) and aired on FOX, which is sketchy at best…. No other news outlets are even touching this.
Also, details don’t make sense to me…. Why haven’t any of these details even been hinted in the past 20+ years? Also the Hamburg Cell (aka the terrorists) consisted of 20 members (1 of which was deported(?) so he didn’t even make the mission) so where did those other terrorist members come from?
I havent seen the TV special myself yet, but it all sort of comes off as a bunch of people using a national tragedy to make a intense tv special for ratings and get on TV….. ill be keeping an eye on Snopes or any other fact finder website to see if it gets brought up…
What does everyone else think?

Greetings, my dearest! 💘
Simply put: I'm absolutely fiending to provide You with pleasure, attention, and bliss til youve had Your fill.! ♥️
I lustfully await that piercing gaze that we share when you look down at me... Shakingly anticipating the feeling of my tongue finally making contact with You; My hands exploring and rubbing You from head to toe.
I want your toes to curl, your legs to tremble, your entire body and existence to quake; Awating my next decision on how to make You feel.
Seconds seamlessly transform into hours; Every winking moment melded together in a hazy bliss... I want our experience to affect your days, your routine. You sitting at your desk, out running errands, doing work. Laying in bed, scrolling on your phone....
I want you to feel your pulse down there. When your body tries to recall the feeling, the sensations that you felt during our encounter.
And, the same goes for me and the days of my own. Thinking about You, recalling our time together; I want to be a barely functional mess...!
I lean towards the Switch-y side... 💕 So, if You need me be more dominant 🔥 and pin Your wrists down to the bed, administer some spanks and gripping before/during/after I service You, etc...
Or, if You want to unleash some pent-up dom feels, yourself..! 🤐 I can also be more submissive, and be sooo good for You, while You use me. And my mouth, tongue; And sit and use my face until you've had your fill. 💝
Important Things! (Was a great show on Comedy Central! Also, lists are awesome!):
• This experience is all about You! I want to make You feel and know that You are the very center of the universe when you're spending time with me ❤️ I want to cater to every/any one of Your needs to the best of my abilities! 🙏💕
• Absolutely NO reciprocation needed and NO actual sex/PIV intercourse. (Upon request and conversation: perhaps 🤔) BUT: Strictly cute, intimate cuddles; and hand/mouth usage only!👄🖐 🥄 🥄
• I can host You in an upscale hotel/suite 🏨 You're my pillow princess!!! I truly want to pamper You in the heights of luxury and relaxation. Plus, air conditioning and random hotel TV shows/movies, amirite?! 💕 (Again, upscale locations only!)
• Before/During/After Care, Cute/spicy pillow talk, and Cuddles/Spooning, Massages and Rubs of all kinds will gladly (and enthusiastically!!!) be provided upon request! ❣️
• If no 'care' is desired, I also have no problem with making this a "cum-n-go" situation; Where You cum all the times You need before Your departure from me. 🤷🏽‍♂️
• Privacy and Discretion guaranteed ✅💯 I'm here for You and Your needs!!! And am not looking to interfere with any relationships/arrangements you have going on..! I am, however, more than open to meeting up with You again; If my services leave a nice impression...😌
• I absolutely ADORE feedback; Both verbal and non-verbal!!! So moaners, loud ones, body quakers, and (squirters) to the front! 🤷🏽‍♂️😅 Don't be shy!!! Let it ALL out when You're with me 😏
Whether it's a 'dead bedroom' situation... Or a case of the person in your life "just not doing it right"... To single ladies looking to break a dry spell... To ladies just looking for good ol' general indulgence!
I'm here for You🙏 Your bliss and delight are truly my own! Leading to this beautiful, endless, infinite cycle of giving and receiving 💕 Let's experience it, together!!! ✅♥️
I know what I'm doing; And I can't wait until You've finally tried the difference between someone who merely guesses and scoffs at your needs and pleasure........
And someone who is truly there for You and knows what they're doing. 💯🔥
The pillow princess experience You thought never existed, is out there..! You just haven't experienced me yet 🤤❣️Let's change that, ASAP!
Some random, quick stuff About Me:
• 29 M , South Bay based, Single 😛, DDF, Expert cuddler and cunnilinguist, Orally fixated..! Gives hella good rubs and massages; Great kisser 😘
• INFJ x Libra Sun (w/ lots of Scorpio ♏️ in my natal chart 🔥 ) for those who keep count of those...!
• 5'9" 185lbs athletic, broad shouldered, warm n' cuddly dad bod, with warm, skilled hands 🙌 420 and alchy friendly 💨 🌿 🍺
important geotags / locations:
South Bay preferred, but mobile all across The Bay for the right chemistry 🧪 !
San Jose (all areas), Santa Clara, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, SJSU, Stanford, Cupertino, Campbell, Los Gatos, SJC San Jose Airport, SFbayarea
Bay Area ladies, visitors: PM / Reddit Chat Me, and let's get started on what You're in need of the most ❤️
Definitely NOT my first rodeo here on Reddit (with numerous successes!!); So chatting, finding a mutual vibe will be of vital importance for both parties..!💯
SFW Pics / pic links, ready to send over!
Can't wait to hear from You! ❤️
-E

I first heard her voice when I was twelve. The blistering summer heat beat down relentlessly on my friend Amy and I. It was only a short walk from the park to Amy’s house, yet we panted and gasped with every step. It didn’t help that we had spent the last of our money not on drinks but on cloyingly sweet candy that popped in your brain and stuck your jaws together.
The woman who pulled up behind us in the silver car could not have been more of a welcome sight. As she spoke about the event currently happening at the youth centre, with drinks and chocolate and a DJ and boys, I was sceptical. Not of her motives, but of how hard she was trying to make it sound cool. It was probably full of losers. Or maybe there would be no boys there at all. But she was offering us a ride in an air-conditioned car, and, if nothing else, the youth centre was closer to Amy’s house.
Our mothers had lectured us on stranger danger countless times, but it never once occurred to us that this woman counted as a stranger. We had been warned of middle aged men with vans full of puppies. Not young, pretty youth workers with blonde highlights and a clutch bag.
To be honest, my hand was already on the car door handle when I heard it.
​
You can read the rest here.

I first heard her voice when I was twelve. The blistering summer heat beat down relentlessly on my friend Amy and I. It was only a short walk from the park to Amy’s house, yet we panted and gasped with every step. It didn’t help that we had spent the last of our money not on drinks but on cloyingly sweet candy that popped in your brain and stuck your jaws together.
The woman who pulled up behind us in the silver car could not have been more of a welcome sight. As she spoke about the event currently happening at the youth centre, with drinks and chocolate and a DJ and boys, I was sceptical. Not of her motives, but of how hard she was trying to make it sound cool. It was probably full of losers. Or maybe there would be no boys there at all. But she was offering us a ride in an air-conditioned car, and, if nothing else, the youth centre was closer to Amy’s house.
Our mothers had lectured us on stranger danger countless times, but it never once occurred to us that this woman counted as a stranger. We had been warned of middle aged men with vans full of puppies. Not young, pretty youth workers with blonde highlights and a clutch bag.
To be honest, my hand was already on the car door handle when I heard it.
“Walk away. Go home. Onto the main road. No shortcuts.” The voice was stern, like a parent, yet also sweet. Hearing it made the back of my neck tingle. I knew immediately the voice had come from inside my head, and I wasn’t afraid of it at all. I trusted it completely.
I tried to drag Amy away but she fought back against me. She said I was being “weird” and embarrassing her that I should just get in the car. I’d like to say I fought hard to get her to come with me, but I don’t think I really fought hard enough. I was angry that she called me weird when I was just trying to help. So off she went in the car with the woman and I soldiered on by foot.
Everyone said Amy was lucky; she was found three hours later, “physically unharmed”. When I told my parents about the guardian angel I heard in my head, they tried to tell me that it was my own brain, and congratulated themselves on raising a sensible daughter. They didn’t understand. There was nothing sensible about me at all. I’d been ready to go with the woman and there was not a doubt in my mind.
Amy didn’t want to be my friend anymore. She thought I had abandoned her. She wouldn’t tell me what happened in those few hours, but I knew that it was scary and that she thought she was going to die. I would never say this to her, but I felt such pity for her, because evidently, she didn’t have a guardian angel of her own.
*
My guardian angel popped up again every now and then through my life, more regularly during my young, wild days, and decreasingly so as I became a mature, boring, risk-averse adult.
There’s a saying - “it never rains but it pours”. And for me, it poured indeed. In the space of three months, my boring, adult life fell apart around me.
My husband’s affair blindsided me, and overnight, the man I had loved for all those years vanished. I had expected him to grovel and cry and ask for forgiveness and I considered that maybe, once he’s suffered enough, I’d grant it. But no. That never happened. His affair being exposed was a “weight off his shoulders” and now he realised what he really wanted; to pursue a new life with his mistress.
My daughter, who I’d always been exceptionally close with, blamed me for her dad leaving and took every opportunity to tell me how much she hated me, until eventually she decided to go and live with him instead.
I lost my job, my mother became very sick, and the roof started leaking during the wettest month of the year.
Yep. It was a bad three months.
I started drinking more than before, and somewhere along the way I stopped brushing my teeth and getting dressed every day. I started hearing my guardian angel more, and it was the only thing that kept me going. It was like a silver lining. To be truthful, I would sometimes behave recklessly in the hope of hearing her voice again. Knowing she was watching over me stopped me from feeling so lonely, and it began to occur to me that my guardian angel was now my only friend in the world.
Sometimes, when the drunken or emotional haze would descend, her voice would kind of fade into the background.
That’s what happened on the day I died.
I won’t go into details of what happened - only that I either couldn’t or wouldn’t listen to her quickly enough, and I ended up clinically dead for a minute and a half. There were no pearly gates. No fiery pits. No dreams. There was nothing. It was like I blinked and then when I opened my eyes again, I had been resuscitated. Brought back from the dead.
Since then, my guardian angel has changed.
Her warm, comforting voice is now cold and sharp. Instead of keeping me safe, she just screams and screams, as if she’s in pain. I have tried to speak with her, to find a way to help her, but I get nothing back. I have tried to ignore her, to push the voice away, but it just gets louder and louder.
There’s another thing too. I can see her now. I see her behind my reflection. At first glance, my reflection looks just like me, but as I look closely, I see these cold black eyes. And as she screams, this thick black ooze streams out of them. Her grey, leathery skin peels off in clumps and she claws at her own face with long, sharp talons, ripping the skin away.
I have tried to cover up all of the reflective surfaces in my house, but now I have started to see her whenever I close my eyes. I’ve been so scared to close my eyes that I haven’t been sleeping and I’m scared to even blink for a second too long.
I finally slept last night. I was too exhausted to keep it up any longer. When I woke up, my own skin was peeling off and thick black liquid was coming out of my eyes.
I can see her in the corner of my eye right now, and each time I look at her, she gets closer.
Please help. I think something is wrong with my guardian angel and I think there is something wrong with me.

This is a long, complicated situation, but I'll try to keep it short and concise. I'm writing this for insight on a rare situation, and out of concern for a friend's mental health.
​
This time last year I started seeing a woman, who I wasn't so sure of in the beginning, but over time my feelings for her grew stronger and stronger. We had a great first date, and started to hang out on a weekly basis since our first rendezvous, and we both enjoyed each other's company. Around the second date she started to allude to an ex she had that would seek out other girls, but I didn't put much thought into her telling me that since I was still debating on if I wanted to be serious with her or not. As time went on, she would expound on the guy more and more, and it was revealed that she was in an abusive relationship. Some guys might view that as a red flag, but I was understanding of it since I was in an abusive relationship prior to her as well, coincidentally both were on/off for 3 years. I since then went to therapy for mine (and still going), and my abusive ex eventually found a new man, had a baby, and got married. We would often tell stories about our past incidents, and wonder why we put up with the abuse that we did. Her abuse was more extreme than mine, but it's crazy how similar abusers are to one another, regardless of the gender.
The girl I was seeing on the other hand, didn't quite cut away from her situation, or was completely healed. She's a travel nurse, and she managed to skip town to get away from him, and attempted to move forward. We started dating, and she viewed me as a breath of fresh air, and she was the first real connection I had since my abusive ex, which was about 5 years ago. Things were going good between us, but I started to realize she was constantly blocking random numbers he would reach out to her from, and on social media. Things took a turn once she told me he found her address and showed up at her door one day, which I thought was crossing the line. I felt that was potentially dangerous, and could've easily gone awry, especially if I were there. We would clash because I felt she should take legal action but she felt that would give him what he wants, which is more of her time if it were to lead to a court case; and she thought "blocking him for the rest of her life" was the solution.
About 8 months into dating, shortly after becoming exclusive, we had a big falling out over something completely different, and she decided to end things. I was pretty disappointed since we had a connection (first one I had in a long time), and I felt our problems could be worked through with communication and forgiveness. I gave myself a month and a half to get back out there and date again, and even went on dates, but my heart was still elsewhere, and ultimately I just wasn't into it.
She randomly reached out to me one night when I was getting ready to go out with a new girl, and I was excited to talk to her. She took accountability for the falling out and was saying she was overreacting, and after talking about me to a friend she had realized I wasn't the bad guy she was making me out to be. We talked for a couple of days, and things felt like old times, until it took a turn.
I texted her one afternoon and she replied her ex was found dead that morning, and I was shocked. I called her immediately and really didn't know what to say; it was the last message I was expecting to receive from her. She then started to express guilt over their last phone call since she was rude and dismissive, and he was trying to tell her goodbye. Initially she was receptive to me consoling her and telling her it's not her fault, and the guilt is understandable, but she had no idea what was next. I'm sure if she did, she would take steps to avoid the pain she's feeling right now.
As time went on, her depression set in and her behavior has been concerning imo. Our texts went from daily to weekly, she started spending days in bed, not brushing her teeth or bathing, and latching on to his family, and clashing with her mother and sister. After his services, she flew back to her current location, and seems to have gotten worse. She's now been referring to him as "the love of her life", saying everyone she touches dies, and posting his videos, pics, and texts on her social media, as well as poems/memes about losing your partner. I don't want to be an asshole, but it paints a false picture that they were a healthy, happy couple, but the things she shared with me were chaotic and dysfunctional.
I've been doing nice gestures to help her, like talking to her about everything, and sending her flowers; I even sent her a gift card for her local masseuse to get a massage when she's ready. She felt I was trying to take advantage of her, which I explained she's a friend regardless and I'm supporting her through this rough patch. She then got upset when I was trying to talk to her about strong grief that I faced and how I got thru it, and other ways to heal. She felt that I was making her situation "about me", then lashed out and made a very disrespectful comment. I told her that I hope she finds the peace and healing she needs, but I'm not going to tolerate being treated like that. We then had a phone call and she just yelled at me about me being selfish and using her grief to talk about myself, before hanging up in my face, and proceeding to block me on all her social media. Knowing her I'm sure she will unblock me eventually, but it's unnecessary for her to do that in the first place.
At this point I'm just worried about her. Us dating isn't the concern at this point, I just feel like she's not in a good head space, and she's not being receptive to help. Has anyone gone through something like this? Maybe from their perspective or a friend's?

We are going to do a rules AMA at 6 PM EST. We want to communicate as effectively as possible regarding rules to help everyone understand how/why our sub runs the way it does. Please keep questions specific to our sub rules and not about airing grievances towards the sub or each other. Mods may jump in at different times but we will make our best effort at answering your questions. Times aren’t always perfect for all so we can always repin this as more add to it. Thanks!

Twenty years ago this week, the United States began its blatantly criminal invasion of an unthreatening sovereign state that inevitably turned into a hideous quagmire.
I had joined the United States Marine Corps in the summer of 2001. I was still in boot camp on 9/11, which made for an interesting couple of days. In early 2002 I obtained a two-year leave of absence to ‘serve’ a Mormon mission, and by March of 2003 I was more than a year into being a full-time religious propagandist in Mexico.
The war was big news in Mexico, with public opinion generally running pretty strong against it. Given my history of relentless indoctrination, and my current assignment of telling everyone I saw that they were immorally wrong about everything that mattered, and the fact that I wasn’t allowed to consume any kind of non-religious media material of any kind, I of course took the opposite position.
But I improved with time. I came home in early 2004, and quickly discovered that the war was, at best, very badly managed. But I was back into military service (as a reservist), so I fully expected to end up being deployed to Iraq at some point.
The miserable shitshow that played out across Iraq throughout 2005 and especially 2006 convinced me that the war wasn’t just badly executed but a hopelessly terrible idea from its very beginning, supported by blatant lies and unconscionable manipulation.
When my turn to deploy finally came, in 2009, I was rather conflicted. On the one hand, I clearly understood that the war was immoral and dangerous and I should avoid it at all cost. On the other hand, I was four years into attending college and making no discernible progress towards any of the goals I had set for myself: graduating, choosing a career, getting married, existing as a functional adult. So the choice (and it was a choice: contrary to the contract I thought I’d signed, I was set to be released from service in mid-2008, and so this deployment was entirely optional for me) was fraught. I didn’t want to kill or die for a mistake; but I also didn’t want to dodge what I was sure would be the challenge of a lifetime for a second time; and I also could not say with a straight face that I had anything better to do.
So I went. It didn’t go well , but it went at least as well as I had any right to expect. I never saw anything like combat (shooting flares at a few civilian vehicles was as close as I ever got), was never in danger, and so on. But it was no picnic, either: severe and extended boredom can be just as damaging as actual trauma, and the psychological abuse inherent in military life was constant. And things weren’t entirely safe: my unit had two suicides during the work-up, and given the state of my mental health, I was never all that unlikely to have joined them.
The whole experience did me no immediate good, but as an experience with disillusionment with and escaping from an all-consuming self-admiring institution, it was a pretty decent dry run for my exit from Mormonism a few years later. And, as I had expected, it got me a year’s salary (which was probably the majority of the money I’d made in my life up to that point), and a lifetime of monthly disability payments and free health insurance. So I really can’t say I completely regret it.
​
The movie I’ve chosen to commemorate this anniversary is Green Zone, because it came out shortly after I came back, and I’d always wanted to see it, and I’d heard that it took an interesting angle on the whole mess, and I’d heard that it was pretty good (which is a rare quality among Iraq War movies, which have, shall we say, a mixed record ). And it’s pretty good, though of course it has some issues.
​
The best thing about it is how it nails the look and feel of the military occupation. The movie abounds with details large and small that just look exactly right, from US troops driving green Humvees with no doors and unprotected gun turrets* to piles of Pizza-Hut-labeled shipping containers at the airport to one of them carrying around a bottle of chewing-tobacco spit to the use of the then-new Blue Force Tracker technology. Greg Kinnear as the villain of the piece looks exactly like he should, a completely nondescript bureaucrat that would never get a second look at any white-collar office in America, incongruously transplanted into a blood-soaked conflict in an environment where only fools and the extraordinarily pampered (he is both, of course) dress like that. And I didn’t know I needed to see exactly what the Google homepage looked like in 2003, but I did, and the movie delivered.
It’s also a very good look at the culture of the US military; the briefing with Colonel Bethel is pretty spot-on (except for the one guy interrupting to speak the truth; that pretty much never happens). It’s a bit optimistic to assume that a random US military unit would have even one Arabic speaker in it, but the movie makes up for it by having him only know a dialect that’s completely useless in Iraq. The soldier who argues with Damon and tells him that the reasons for going to war don’t matter to him struck me as a perfect distillation of the me-first attitude that the US military explicitly teaches its members: the “My only job is to get home safe” dogma was basically a part of the official training materials, very much to the detriment of accomplishing any particular mission beyond that (and of course no one ever wants to talk about how obviously cowardly and selfish such an attitude is).
The movie also does well with points of view from outside of the US military, namely the absolute terror of being an Iraqi unfortunate enough to fall into US hands during the occupation, and the possibly greater terror of being on the ground when the Americans started bombing or disbanded the Iraqi army and purged the civil service, which this movie treats as an irrefutable sign of the apocalypse. Not that any of that took any great insight to determine in 2010, years after it became clear what US detention was like and how foolish it was to send thousands of unhappy armed men out into the streets with nothing to do, but it’s still good to see it stated so plainly.
One aspect that does not look so good is the trademark Paul Greengrass shaky-cam technique; it’s tolerable in the actual action scenes, which are supposed to be stressful and chaotic, but in the opening scene, in which the ‘action’ mostly involves men walking quickly down crowded hallways,** it really doesn’t work. I do wonder how Greengrass does it; does he plan and rehearse the camera movements, or just have the actors do their thing while someone waves the camera around randomly? One analysis of one of Greengrass’s Bourne movies pointed out that it seems that the camera can’t predict the characters’ movements, which adds to the sense of uncertainty and danger; I wonder how closely Greengrass controls the camera’s ‘random’ movements, and what he thinks he’s saying with them.
There are other moments that fall short of the movie’s best moments of authenticity: Damon’s first scene, in which he explains (over the radio, no less!) where his team is going and what they’ll be doing there is pure Hollywood bullshit; any such explanation would be given (likely multiple times) well before the mission actually started, and the team will try to minimize radio use while out in the field. And that’s not the only moment of clumsy exposition; once that mission fails to find anything of use, Damon laments “That’s the third one in a row,” to a roomful of guys who’ve been on all the same missions and all presumably know exactly how many of them there have been. On that same mission, someone, for some reason, uses a Geiger counter to analyze a suspected chemical weapons site, which…what?
The movie’s second-strongest sympathetic character is a CIA ‘Middle-East expert’ that knows everything he needs to know and that no one listens to. While I don’t doubt that no one important listened to anyone who knew what was going on, the thing-knower being a CIA agent that the CIA chose to send to Baghdad seems unlikely; were there any such thing-knowers left in the CIA in 2003? If so, why would leadership (which was fully behind the WMD hoax) send such an ‘unreliable’ person to such a sensitive post? Surely they knew there was a risk of him doing exactly what he ended up doing, and would have kept him as far from the action as possible.***
And how and why does he have such detailed information at his fingertips about the movements of people that don’t officially concern him? That information would be a closely guarded secret that he has no plausible official need to know. And why the hell does he dare take a very important phone call, which concerns a blatantly illegal operation he’s running off the books, on speaker in a room that’s crowded with god knows who that he very obviously can’t necessarily trust?
Once he makes contact with Damon, he sets up a meeting in the most secure part of the infamous Green Zone, which Damon is somehow able to access with minimal trouble. That strikes me as outrageously implausible; the highest security I ever experienced in Iraq was about 37 levels lower than the Green Zone (where American civilians could expect to live and work in pretty much complete safety), and even there I had to show my dog tags and scan my ID to enter the gym or the chow hall. Green Zone security would emphatically not just wave through any random US military vehicle or personnel that showed up at the gate. Damon would have to show some kind of proof that he belongs there, and since he’s going to an unauthorized meeting with a civilian far outside his chain of command, he just wouldn’t have that, and the gate guards would turn him away.
At that meeting, the CIA guy instructs Damon to get out of uniform, which is wise, but we never find out where Damon gets the civilian clothes and the civilian body armor we see him wearing right after. (I doubt he would have brought civvies with him for his invasion deployment, and even military body armor was pretty hard to come by in Iraq in 2003.) But also I understand why the movie felt it didn’t have time for a deep dive into this question. What it leads to is egregious, though; in the movie’s climactic scene, Damon, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying a clearly non-American weapon he stole from a local, runs through a combat situation involving US troops who spot him from a helicopter…and they somehow assume that he’s an American who’s on their side. What makes them think that? Did all US troops in Iraq in 2003 have implanted RFID chips that all US night-vision scopes could pick out from a distance? (No. No they did not.) Nothing at all that they can see indicates that Damon is American, but even if they knew he was American, he’s actually working against those particular US troops (who are very explicitly there to kill the man that Damon is trying to contact and rescue), and so there’s still no reason to identify him as a ‘friendly.’ This is a most unfortunate misstep, because doing it more realistically (having the US troops not know who Damon is, assume he’s their enemy, and act accordingly) would actually better serve the movie’s general theme of disunity and confusion.
Those same US troops are first seen arriving in a helicopter that suddenly arrives from below the not-very-high high ground that Damon is standing on, which means they must have been flying very low indeed (like, below rooftop level) over a very urban area, which is ridiculous; and without anyone hearing them approach from miles away, which is even more ridiculous.**** But those same US troops also drive around in Humvees at night with their headlights blazing, which is just dumb enough to be real. But what’s way too smart to be real is the timing of that helicopter arrival; Damon apprehends an important individual, and those troops (who are also looking for that person for unrelated reasons) somehow know about that and are able to arrive instantly, which…rather stretches the bounds of plausibility.
There are also some timeline issues, which are bad to have in a movie that is so closely tied to historical events on very specific dates. The invasion began on March 19, as seen in the first scene. Then we skip forward to ‘four weeks later,’ around April 16. The rest of the movie seems to take place over only a few days, and yet prominent plot points include George W. Bush’s (spit) Mission Accomplished speech (which happened on May 1), and the CPA’s dissolution of the Iraqi state apparatus (which happened on May 23). In the movie, those 22 days seem to pass in a matter of hours.
Also, and this is unbelievably petty of me, somewhere in the Green Zone, sometime at least as late as April 16, we catch a glimpse of someone watching a college basketball game (UCLA vs. Oregon, if I’m not mistaken) on TV. The final game of the 2003 NCAA tournament was played on April 7, and didn’t involve either team: Oregon lost to Utah in the first round, and UCLA didn’t even make the tournament, so that game is misplaced in time by at least a month.
​
Around the time it came out, I heard that this movie was a kind of Inglourious Basterds treatment of the Iraq War. While it’s certainly not NOT that (in that it’s an optimistic fantasy that revises well-known historical events about which there is little cause for optimism), it’s also different in that it doesn’t depart from the historical events nearly as much. There really was a ‘Magellan’ figure in real life, but he was called ‘Curveball,’ and, despite being pretty different from the version in the movie, he had precisely the same effect of being cited in favor of the invasion. In the movie, Magellan is an Iraqi Army officer who secretly meets with Americans to tell them that Iraq has no WMD programs. The Americans then falsely report that he’s told them Iraq has WMDs, and the war machine’s gears start to turn and the Americans plot to kill Magellan so he won’t reveal what he actually told them. In reality, Curveball was an Iraqi exile who actually told the Germans (not the Americans) what the Americans wanted to hear, because he figured it would make his asylum application (he’d fled Iraq after embezzling money from his government employer) easier. I’m not sure why the movie felt the need to change these details; an Iraqi who lies for his own gain is at least as interesting a character as an Iraqi who tells a truth that certain people are determined to disbelieve, and what US intelligence did with Curveball’s obviously flawed reports was hardly any more honest than blatantly telling the world he’d said something he never said.
The movie isn’t really clear what it thinks Damon’s heroism amounts to. He leaks his final report to every news outlet he can think of. Perhaps one of them will publish, but perhaps not. News outlets strive to scoop each other, but sometimes, as the real-life Iraq War amply shows, they collude to cover things up, especially when it’s something as explosive and ‘unpatriotic’ as “The whole reason for this very popular war was a complete lie.” Furthermore, how credible is Damon’s information? It’s based entirely on conversations he says he had with an enemy general who is now dead. No one has any reason to believe these conversations took place, or if they did that the general said what Damon says he said, or if he did that he wasn’t mistaken or lying.
But even if someone does publish, it will make no difference. US troops are already in Baghdad, and the CPA has already taken the plunge that made civil war inevitable. A report (even one whose credibility is bulletproof, which this one very much is not) that the whole war was based on a lie will not change anything, any more than it did in real life when the lack of WMDs and the falsity of the pre-war intelligence became similarly clear on a similar timeline.
In any case, Damon’s Army career is over. He leaked a very sensitive internal document, using an email account under his own name. He might not be guaranteed to go to prison, but he has to be in a shitload of trouble. The Army quietly booting him out and never speaking of this again is the absolute best-case scenario for him.
The movie’s two main sympathetic characters take turns reminding each other to not be naïve, but the movie itself is pretty naïve if it thinks that what we see is a happy ending. Or maybe it’s not meant to be a happy ending, and I’m the one being naïve.
In any case, I was expecting the SF team led by Jason Isaacs to kill Damon and then, upon realizing who he was, hype him up as a hero who gave his life for his country, thus completely obscuring the very unpatriotic truth about what he died doing and why. You know, a slightly worse version of exactly what the real-life Army actually did with the actual case of Pat Tillman.
​
The movie also runs into trouble upon consideration of its moral perspective; movies love the idea of someone going rogue, breaking whatever rules get in the way of ‘doing the right thing,’ as Damon does throughout the movie. But that’s the whole problem with the Iraq War, isn’t it? Government officials decided that brutalizing Iraq was ‘the right thing,’ and they broke any number of rules of humanity and decency (not to mention actual laws) to make it happen. They went rogue exactly as Damon does, so who can really say that he’s right and they’re wrong?
His confrontation with Amy Ryan’s reporter character also struck me as backwards; the movie wants us to see it as Damon, the heroic teller of inconvenient truths, heroically confronting the corrupt and decadent and much more powerful peddler of lies. But it’s really not that at all; she got lied to just as hard as he did, and he’s a heavily armed agent of the state security apparatus upon which her life and safety directly depend. It’s pretty ridiculous to see him as any kind of underdog in that situation.
​
Some stray observations:
It’s pretty funny that the early scene at the airport shows the blown-up remains of a large cargo plane, given the famous fate of the An-225 in that other, more recent, blatantly criminal invasion of an unthreatening sovereign state that inevitably turns into a hideous quagmire.
I was surprised by how much of the spoken Arabic I understood; I ‘studied’ Arabic for two years in college, and didn’t really get anywhere with it, but there were multiple instances where seeing the English word in the subtitles brought to mind a particular Arabic word that the characters promptly said. (These include ‘ichwan’ for ‘brothers,’ ‘kul il balad’ for ‘the entire country,’ ‘bernamaj’ for ‘program,’ and some others.)
Ben Sliney is in the cast as a random bureaucrat in the background of one of the Green Zone scenes. This is the air-traffic-control official who gave the ground-all-flights order on 9/11, and then legendarily played himself in the movie United 93. This is his only other non-documentary film credit, so I hope he kept his day job.
​
​
*By the time I got to Iraq, the Humvees had all been painted desert-tan and heavily armored, but my understanding is that this change did not take hold until like 2007.
**In a manner unfortunately reminiscent of George Bluth Senior ‘running with great intensity.’ Yes, this is foreshadowing. It is inevitable, because despite its ambitions, this movie proves that the definitive Hollywood treatment of the Iraq War is still selected episodes of Arrested Development. (And Generation Kill, which I considered revisiting for this anniversary post.)
***I do enjoy how Kinnear frames the idea of people who know things: they’re ‘dinosaurs’ with heads full of ‘old ideas,’ which sounds like he’s being boldly innovative and courageously resisting hidebound bureaucracies that have outlived their usefulness. But of course the ‘old ideas’ are things like ‘Know what the hell is going on’ and ‘Don’t assume you can simply kill anyone you don’t like,’ and Kinnear’s ‘bold innovations’ are just clueless wishful thinking.
****Movies very often miss this detail, but helicopters are really loud. Almost as loud as gunfire, though of course movies also very often fail to convey how loud gunfire is. It is impossible for a low-flying helicopter to sneak up like that on anyone with functional ears. They’d be drowning out any attempt at conversation before they got within hundreds of yards.

[Chapter 1] ;[Previous Chapter] ; [Discord + Wiki] ; [Patreon]
​
Chapter 107 – A Patron Saint
​
“[…] with the leadership of many territories claiming that the muted response to the thread is once again a blatant showing of the Community-Leadership’s clear bias against Deathworld affairs. Loratexach Echtsesimm, the current leader of the united Lachaxet territories, even went so far as to call it, quote: “A kick to the face for all those of us seeking to live in a peaceful unity.” Meanwhile other deathworld groups, like the occupants of the only known Class V deathworld, the Ligormordillar, are trying to quell the conflict and urge their fellow deathworlders to make a measured response, pointing to the lack of any concrete evidence when it comes to the recent events, and asking to give authorities a bit more time to investigate things. However, the accusations of corruptions that emerged in the last quarter have many people questioning how much the current Acting Galactic Council can truly be trusted with the investigations, and calls for the addition of independent investigations are becoming louder,” an Urounaek news caster professionally read off the seemingly endless lines of texts on her teleprompter, while b-footage of recordings of the sitting governments of a diverse number of species played in the background. “Surprisingly, humanity, the largest accuser of corruption in the Galactic Council as well as a front runner in the proclaimed fight for the extended rights of people and especially deathworlders that feel ousted by the Community, and also one of the Myiat’s currently closest military allies, have so far made no official statements or press-releases about the incidents, apart from damming the attack as a violation of intragalactic law as well as the laws of war.”
James passively allowed himself to be doused by the white noise of the TV that Shida had basically been glued to for the last days while he checked through his messages and mails on his phone and laptop. Of course, any of his addresses and contacts that had at some point been public in some way had been absolutely bombarded with a torrent of spam, threats, offerings, accusations, and even more spam. It was a daunting task to sift through all of the messages in an attempt to pick out the few of them that could possibly be useful every day, especially since those were extremely few and far in between, however, he still did it. On the one hand, he did it because he felt that it was his duty to leave nothing untried, no stone unturned, and no resource unused in these dire times they found themselves in. On the other hand, it was a quite time- and labor-intensive yet still comparatively easy task that he could easily waste away hours with without feeling like he was being unproductive.
Of course, all the really important messages he received would be forwarded to him through his more secure contacts that just select people had access to, and therefore the things he did find in his private messages were usually rather menial in comparison, however it was still something.
His hopes of not feeling so left out and abandoned anymore now that shit had thoroughly hit the fan had sadly been short-lived, as it quickly became clear that any broadcasts and statements to the outside world when it come to the topic at hand would be made by actual diplomatic professionals and not by-circumstance Ambassadors that had basically stumbled into their role.
…Which was honestly fair enough, James had to admit. Certainly, people who did this for a living had a much lower chance of screwing everything up and making things even worse than they already were than he did.
However, that did little to quell the nervous and anxious energy within him that just begged to be released in some productive way.
“While official governmental replies are being released by the hundreds by individual species, many collaborative political groups have also proclaimed their intentions to react to the current tensions caused by the attack on Dunnima. For example, many order-collaborations have been sending out invitations for emergency-conferences to possibly discuss a united reaction and collaborative measures to help ease the Galactic Tensions between their members; among others, the collaborative councils of the Tetsudines, Psittacines, Corvids, Hymenoptera, Canines, Skitellifera, Estotsucuvae, and Primates will be gathering within the week to discuss possible measures. Additionally, for the first time in about 12 uniform years, a recently founded, provisional ‘council of deathworlders’ is also inviting possible participants to a first conference, after having reportedly struggled to find an adequate venue for such an event for a few uniform months. This council is the thought-child of representatives of the Lachaxet, Ligormordillar, Roosh’gaack, and Teracheponn territories, who are now trying to get representatives of as many deathworlds as possible to take part in it, claiming it as an important step towards future collaborations between the so-designated worlds and people.”
“I wonder who they’re going to invite,” Shida commented as she tensely leaned forwards and absorbed the news with great concentration, her ears opening widely to not miss a single detail. Inside, she was just as rearing to go as James was. But just like him, she was also bound to the orders they were being given.
So far, they had both not been called in to reinforce the fleets that were either stationed to more intensely control the borders of their own unified borders or sent out into the cosmos to reinforce the myiat’s defenses after the first attack. However, the military base in Lorraine that they had been staying at for a while now had certainly become a lot emptier ever since the attack, leaving basically only instructors, very fresh recruits and essential personnel behind. And themselves, of course.
The constant tramping of boots outside of their doors had been replaced by an eerie emptiness, and their regular trainings-sessions that they had along with other occupants had also run dry, as most of the people on a similar level to them had received orders to move. And working with actual trainees didn’t exactly have a lot of appeal to it either.
“They have plenty of options,” James mumbled while his eyes flew across rows and rows of recently received mails, going back hour by hour that he had slept while sifting through piles and piles of junk.
Finishing off with the mail-service he had used during his Uni-days without having found anything of note, he then switched over to the next tab, where he had opened his miraculously still not out of service work-mail that had been assigned to him during his in hindsight very brief time of working on the G.E.S.-32.
He had no idea why exactly it was still in service, but as long as he received messages to it, he was going to check them, even if so far, this had by far been the least useful of his addresses when it came to receiving any messages of actual note.
And indeed, it was once again basically all junk.
Spam, a death threat, a very angry email from a former coworker, spam, more threats, a clearly fake solicitation from some firm he had never heard of, some news-channel trying to get an interview with him, spam, another news channel, spam, even more threats, spa-
He paused for a moment as his cursor hovered over a mail he had apparently received about five hours ago, that had the very brief and uninformative title of
“You are invited.”
Usually, he would’ve almost instantly disregarded it as clearly some form of spam, however after what he had just heard on the news, it made him raise an eyebrow and quickly check the address it was sent from.
Lifting the eyebrow even further as he saw an actual, official government address, he clicked on the mail to open it up. Slowly, his eyes read over the neat lines of text that had been revealed to him, his eyes getting wider and expression becoming more confused and disgruntled by the moment.
Was this a joke?
“What’s up?” Shida asked, apparently having noticed his expression changing, and just as anxious to do something as he was, she immediately stood up and walked over to him to glance at his screen while her tail swiftly flailed through the air. “One of the threats getting too personal?”
James shifted his lips as he gathered his thoughts to reply.
“No, I was invited to one of those conferences,” he said, and his eyes quickly double-checked if this invitation was actually addressed towards him and hadn’t just accidentally landed with the wrong person by some sort of blunder.
Shida glanced at him in mild confusion, her yellow eyes scanning over his face while trying to read his thoughts from it.
“The Deathworld one? That’s not surprising, is it?” she commented with a flick of her ears, before pressing up to his side a bit closer so she could lower herself in a position that would allow her to more easily peek at his mails. “Not only are you a deathworlder, you’ve also been a pretty public figure when it comes to the public fight for more rights. Hell, you probably inspired them to found that whole thing in a way, so of course they want you along for the ride.”
James scoffed slightly and turned his screen so she could look at it.
“Well, if it was that, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said and waited a second for Shida to read, seeing her face also slowly turn into a more confused one as she realized what the invitation he had received was for, before he added, “But this is from the council of primates.”
Shida looked at the message for a little longer before turning only her eyes towards him.
“What the hell do they want?” she asked with clear distrust in her voice. James just shrugged.
“A trap? Appeasement? Publicity? Options are numerous,” he said with an exhausted exhale before switching the tab yet again to log into his ‘professional’ mail services, copy-pasting the text of the invitation before forwarding it to a pre-prepared list of people that should probably be informed about this.
Shida hissed through her teeth and stood up straight again.
“Are you going?” she asked, crossing her arms and glancing down at him.
“If I have a say in this? Absolutely,” James replied after hammering the ‘send’ button. Anything to get out of here and do something at this point. Besides, it would probably give him the opportunity to give some people some serious stern talkings to. “Buuuuut you know how this goes.”
“We should keep an eye open who else might get invited to something,” Shida commented after acknowledging his reply with a huff but not responding to it. James nodded. In his periphery, he noticed how Shida’s fingers were starting to dig into her arms as her grip likely inadvertently tightened, and he reached out to rub his hand against her side, wordlessly aiding her with relaxing.
“They have plenty of options,” he repeated his earlier statement as he opened the invitation one more time.
“You are invited.
James Aldwin, Ambassador of Earth by community tradition, you have been officially invited to the emergency conference of the council of primates. Given recent events, the council has decided it is imperative to coordinate a response among the members of our esteemed order.
As humanity has so far not had a representative in the council of primates, it has been decided to extend an invitation to you for this conference. This invitation officially grants you access to the venue on Nedstaniot-Station and makes you eligible for a support-fund covering the traveling costs for you and an accompanying group of up to ten (10) companions of your choosing.
Should you accept this invitation, please contact us under one of the council of primate’s official addresses to receive access data to the necessary accounts as well as a detailed plan of the venue and scheduled events.
Should you not accept this invitation, a message of your declining is not strictly necessary, but always welcome to aid in planning.
I hope this message finds you well and am looking forward to possibly meeting you at the venue.
Sincerely
Klanneifer FF of the Tiasonko.
Success to you!”
Well, if they weren’t going to regret that…
​
--
​
Alexander clutched the necklace around his neck tightly as he looked into the mirror, taking deep breaths to quell his nerves.
Yes, he was nervous. Extremely so in fact. He thought that he would be excited previously, but now that the time had come, he could feel only the nerves.
Well, maybe that was understandable. Something like this really didn’t happen every day, after all.
“God, give me strength,” he prayed silently with his hands clutching the symbol of his faith even tighter.
Then, he took a minute to, one last time, check if his hair was in place and his robes were immaculate. He couldn’t make a fool out of himself on an occasion like this, after all. His own blue eyes stared back at him from the mirror sternly. Scrutinizing. As if he was judging himself. And he should. After all it was a big day. Taking a moment to judge oneself was important in moments such as this, lest you get complacent and started to make the wrong choices.
Soon after, there was a knock at the door.
“Father Mokoena is beginning his sermon, Alexander,” a muffled voice said from the other side. “You should be ready for when you are called upon.”
Alexander exhaled deeply and took one last look at the mirror, his gaze wandering from his own eyes down to the pendant around his neck.
“I’m on my way,” he then assured the Brother waiting outside, before stepping away from the dresser with a flourishing movement of his robes.
As he stepped out of the cloakroom, brother Anders slightly bowed to him, before stretching out a robed arm to guide him in the right direction. The brother was of the older sort, yet he had held his body in a shape worthy of a temple. Thinning and greying rose-blond hair did little to distract from that, as his wide frame could easily be spotted even through the loosely fitting robes.
A man of devotion in more than one way.
Alexander moved in a slow and measured way, his head held high, as Brother Anders guided him through the branched and tight back hallways of the old theater that they were holding today’s sermon in. As they got closer to the stage, Alexander could already hear the booming voice of father Mokoena as he addressed the masses from his place on the stage. It was no microphone he heard there, no amplifiers or other speakers. Only the impeccable voice of a devoted preacher.
Despite his age, the man had pipes like the largest organ, and still he was speaking at a volume that Alexander wasn’t used to from him. Inhaling deeply, he swallowed for a moment. Hopefully the people would even be able to hear him when he spoke. He certainly couldn’t bellow like the father could. Then again, this was a theater. Maybe his voice would be carried further by the acoustics than he anticipated.
It was rare for him to speak in a place like this, after all.
For a moment, Alexander thought about houses of faith. All the temples, churches, mosques, synagogues and whatever else he had visited throughout his life. Their large, marbled halls. Their magnificent decorations. The instruments and loudspeakers and all the other tools they were equipped with for impressive…performances.
That is what he had always called them. Performances. All those people just playing at faith while all they truly worship was their own selfishness.
And yet here he stood in the backrooms of a theater, watching as a father Mokoena gave a sermon on a literal stage and waiting for his cue to join him in the spotlight. What ironic twists fate could take.
The theater had been the most sensible option of a place that was for rent for one night and also held enough seats for this many people to come together. Still, he wondered if maybe they should have swallowed the tougher pill and looked for something else. For his liking, this was a bit too close to making a mockery of the event. The ‘houses of God’ may have been a sinful sham, but was this really much better?
Still, what was done was done. And while reflecting on past mistakes was certainly a virtue, getting stuck on them was most decidedly not. They were here now, so they would use what they had.
He and Anders finally came to a halt right at the side of the stage, hidden behind the large, red curtain that could be used to cut the stage off from view. Of course, today, it would stay wide open for the entire time, allowing everyone to witness.
“Are you nervous?” Brother Anders quietly asked him, leaning in close to whisper so there was no chance of his voice leaking out and disturbing the Father’s sermon.
Alexander smirked in slight anxiousness.
“Of course, I am,” he confessed honestly. “It’s not every day you get to make proclamations this weighty…or enemies this powerful.”
“Are you afraid of them?” Anders then asked with an almost pitiful look at Alexander, who sighed deeply.
“Of course, I am,” he confessed yet again. “I’d be a fool not to be.”
The task before him was grand, and his foes, in a way, even grander. There was a reason that the realized that had plagued Earth once upon a time had taken the name of heaven’s general for itself. They were powerful. And they knew it.
And that was not even mentioning the force of Earth’s armies, that could turn against them on a whim of fate. Masters over the forces of nature. The undisputed leaders of destructive power. Those who had managed to best such a powerful being before.
Yes, he was afraid. But overcoming fear was a virtue as well.
Meanwhile, the sermon was starting to whip up into a louder cadence, as Father Mokoena seemingly began to introduce the important part of the evening.
“[…] Many years has he studied and prayed and silence, following the will of our Lord by standing by and reflecting. Keeping humble. Keeping modest. And he has developed into a fine man of faith. Eighteen years of serving and studying under our faith, hidden away in the dark and obscure, waiting for the event that would catalyze his becoming! Now it has finally come. And with it came the time for him to step out into the light! Please welcome with me, oh children of the Lord, our newest ‘Guide’! Guide Alexander Paige!” the Father loudly announced and lifted his arm in the direction of where Alexander still stood out of sight. The bald head of the dark-skinned man reflected the spotlights above while his modest robes swung around from the energetic movement.
Meanwhile, Alexander took a deep, calming breath.
“Best of luck, Guide Alexander,” he could hear Brother Anders next to him say, and he respectfully bowed to the man before advancing out of the shadows and into the light.
His eyes narrowed strongly, and he had to resist the urge to lift his hand in order to protect them from the blinding light that now blared down on him. Of course, he did his best to keep his respectful and reverent expression before the Father, however he wasn’t quite able to entirely resist the pain of the rays stinging into his sight. Still, he advanced with quick yet collected steps all the way up to the side of the Father.
“Don’t scream,” he told himself as he prepared his throat for how loud he would have to talk to be heard in a place such as this. The lights were so bright and the rest of the room so dark that he couldn’t see those listening to him, but he still knew they were there. Hundreds of them. Another failure of this chosen venue. He couldn’t even see the faces of those that would listen to his words. How could he claim to speak to them if he couldn’t even look them in the eyes?
Well, it was too late now.
“Thank you, Father,” Alexander loudly announced as he had finally reached the man, and he did his best to talk as loudly as possible without it escalating into shouts. It was hard to gauge how far his voice carried in this room, and he silently prayed that he would be understood.
The Father then reached out his arm, offering his old, worn hand to Alexander. Alexander reciprocated the gesture, taking the Father’s hand with his right, while positioning his left underneath, pressing its palm up against the father’s wrist. Meanwhile, the father lowered his left onto Alexander’s wrist from above, holding his hand as if he was blessing it.
“Alexander!” Father Mokoena loudly greeted him, and Alexander almost flinched at the intensity of his voice up close. If that was what it took to be heard around here, then his own words would merely come across as a whimper. He truly hoped that the old preacher was just overdoing it with his enthusiasm. “You have finally found your treacherous sea, it seems!”
“Indeed,” Alexander replied and really just couldn’t measure up to the Father’s incredible voice no matter how he tried. What an impressive organ. “And I am prepared to guide my fellow men through it, towards safer ventures.”
“And the Lord shall bless your path!” the Father proclaimed, before taking his hands off of Alexander’s again.
“May the Lord bless your path,” a gentle echo came from the unseen crowd.
“And yours as well,” Alexander replied quickly, having almost forgotten to do so given the stressful situation.
The Father nodded deeply, before stepping away from Alexander and in front of the crowd again for a second, as he raised his arms high and declared,
“Tell us about your treacherous path, Guide Alexander, so we veer from it with you!”
Then, with another flourishing movement of his robes, he stepped back and aside, leaving Alexander basically alone in front of the many unseen eyes watching him.
Even after years of waiting, he wasn’t truly prepared for this. For the briefest of moments, he imagined just walking off. But no. He had to do this. This is what he had lived for. His entire life up until now had led up to this moment.
“I am telling you all no secret when I say that the recent times have been turmoil filled ones,” he began to speak, getting right to the matter at hand without any greetings or big introductions. The air around him felt heavy, and the room was so quiet whenever he didn’t speak that he could hear the lights above softly buzzing with electricity. The old wood under his feet gently cracked whenever he shifted his weight, and he was sure that it could be heard all the way up in the top rows whenever it happened. “As all of you who have come together here know, we stand in front of a huge danger. You do not need a guide to tell you that treading in the domain of a realized leads to peril. Such an affront needs no explanation on my side.”
He swallowed heavily, truly hoping that they had not all come together to hear him proclaim that he would guide them against the A.I.
That was simply no task for a Guide. Yet hopefully the others understood this as well and did not think that he was avoiding the threat in order to pick an easier mission for himself. After all, he would still gain its ire with his words, he was sure, even if it was not his declared danger.
Swallowing again, he continued,
“No, I am here today to talk with you about something else. About someone else. Someone whose words have touched many; and influenced even more. A man who was thrust into conflict against his will. Hurtled into the chaos, he fought, and the galaxy shook before him. A man known to the entire Galaxy obviously needs no introduction, but I would still like to take a moment to list James Aldwin’s achievements to give you a better picture of what I am talking about. Before his life was thrust into conflict, he used to dedicate his time to the improvement of life. He took some of nature’s gifts, and he used them to make new things that would aide people in need. Medicine was his claimed goal, and although he never got to reach that state, he had the clear intention to make life easier for many with his inventions, caring little for where they came from. Then, after his life changed for the worse, his focus shifted. Instead of trying to safe the ill somewhere in the future, he instead dedicated himself to saving people right here and now.”
Talking himself up into a bit of a frenzy, Alexander began to walk back and forth on the stage without even fully realizing that he was doing it. The blinding spotlights were still turning everything that wasn’t the stage into a dark, blocked out void. Night had been separated from day, and he was standing in the sun.
“He turned his focus onto those he thought to be like him,” he explained, starting to make wide gestures with his arms that caused his robe to move in flowing downward waves, embellishing his movements even further. “Those whose lives had been thrown into chaos through no doing of their own. Those born into it. Those ousted. Those who felt ‘othered’ by the world. The pariahs. He promised them acceptance, with little care for who they were.”
He then stopped his pacing for a moment to fully face the crowd, his gaze turning upwards so they would all be able to see it.
“Even when faced with one of our world’s greatest calamities asking him to take it in, he did not cave,” Alexander proclaimed, and he could feel himself tapping into potential of his lungs that he didn’t know he had within him, as his voice boomed throughout the theater. “Despite knowing of the danger in his path, he walked it all the way. Truly, what kind of man is it that will turn no one away? What kind of man who puts himself on the wayside to help others? What kind of man that cares not for who or how?”
“A Saint!” a booming echo came back from the crowd, and Alexander could feel the vibrations of their roar beneath his feet as it rolled over him.
“Indeed,” he replied to the people. “After seeing the path he walked, I say that his actions are worthy of nothing less than sanctity!”
A sound came back from the crowd that was hard to describe. It was neither jeering nor cheering, but something entirely in between. A deep rumble that filled the air with almost nonsensical noise as it escaped the mouths of hundreds of people who reacted to his declaration.
Alexander now lifted his arms in a wide arch, as if he wanted to beckon the crowd into an embrace.
“By the Ministry of the Church of the Failed Savior, bestowed upon me as your new Guide, I hereby proclaim James Aldwin as the Patron of Realized Sapience!” he loudly declared, and the noise of the crowd picked up in intensity.
He took a deep breath while letting the sound slowly fade out, although he didn’t wait for the people to be completely quiet before he let his arms sink again and continued in a milder tone.
“Sanctity is a dangerous path,” he said as he began to slowly pace along the stage again, this time with collected, measured movements. “The Saints walk it, and they invite all who will to follow. They do not warn them of the danger. In fact, they encourage all to face it. Proclaiming their path as the right one, they tell all who follow to not stray from it, no matter the danger. It is a dangerous thing indeed, such a Saint.”
He stopped again, but this time, he didn’t face the crowd. Turned to the side, he stared straight ahead, his eyes fixating on a part of the folded, red curtains while his mind went to a different place.
“Saint Aldwin believes himself to walk the right path, and nothing is holy to him, neither on Earth nor in Heaven, man made or God given, but that which allows him to follow it,” he said, still loud, but a lot more restrained in emotion. “He believes himself to be a protector. A shepherd. A…savior.”
This time, the jeering of the crowd was palpable, as the ground once again shook with it. Any sense of good will had disappeared from the noise.
Now, Alexander waited for it to completely die down. Calm and quietly, he stood there without moving a muscle for minutes on end while the sound gradually faded out.
Only when he could have heard a pin drop in the enormous room did he speak up again.
“As your new Guide, I promise to show you the way to the safe road. I promise to disarm traps and sweep away obstacles in your way. I promise to keep my sight on the destination, and to always point you in the right direction should you stay. And…” he paused for a moment to take a deep breath, before he continued louder than before, lifting his head high as he did so. “And I promise to veer you off the paths of all the Saints and Doomed to Fail Saviors who would have you walk with them into hell!”
A cheering broke out in the crowd, going so far that some of the people began to drum their feet on the ground in a wild, rhythmless thunder.
Meanwhile Alexander turned around to face the man behind him.
Father Mokoena had a wide smile on his wrinkled face as he walked back up to him, his hand extended. As they repeated the same gesture they had given each other earlier, the Father loudly announced,
“God bless your path, Guide.”
“Thank you, Father,” Alexander replied with a deep nod. “I am going to need it.”
After a moment, they let go off each other’s hands again, and Alexander wordlessly walked back off the stage, while Father Mokoena already loudly addressed the crowd again.
Behind the curtain just off the stage, Brother Anders was still waiting for him.
“A captivating speech,” the muscular man complimented him with a brief faux applause he hinted at with his hands, not actually clapping so he wouldn’t disturb the sermon. “But was that a reference I spotted in the middle of it there?”
Alexander scoffed at the man.
“All speeches have references,” he said while he passed the Brother, folding his hands behind his back as he went.
Anders looked after him in mild confusion.
“Aren’t you going to stay and hear the sermon?” he asked as Alexander was already disappearing away from the stage again.
“My faith is between me and our Lord,” Alexander explained as he shook his head. “My prayer does not need an advocate.”
No, instead of wasting time listening to a sermon of prayers that he could speak himself, he decided to instead use it to look after those who were in need of his guidance.
Walking back to from whence he came, he passed his earlier cloakroom and traversed the hallways all the way to a larger, much more open changing room, that would usually most likely house droves of actors or other performers in marvelous costumes before they would go out on stage to dazzle the masses.
Today, however, it was home to a much sadder sight.
Laid out on two benches, surrounded by their peers, were two truly pitiful casualties of conflict. As he walked in, their ears twitched and they began to look up in erratic movements, their muscles twitching and shivering as if under immense stress from just the simple movements, and even after their head was lifted, it was stuck in a constant quiver.
Meanwhile, their far healthier compatriots also turned towards him, their gazes dark and eyes sharp, while their agitated tails whipped through the air like angry flails.
“How are you feeling?” Alexander asked the first of the two clearly ill myiat who met his gaze.
“According to the…circumstances,” the man replied, his voice about as jittery as his posture as he spoke. His name was Mirrakshra. A good man, suffering a bad fate.
Meanwhile, one of their healthy compatriots, a dark-skinned fellow with a scar from a cut right over his cheekbone that had accompanied Alexander since back on Dunnima, glared at Alexander with fiery eyes as he saw the kind of robe he wore.
“If you’re going to try some sort of faith-healing bullshit, then I swear to-“ he began, however Alexander cut him off harshly.
“You shouldn’t swear, Eskfotarra. Not on heaven or on Earth,” he reprimanded him with firm words. Then he smirked, “You may promise to harm me all you like, however. But no, that’s not why I’m here. I’m not a fool. I know I can’t work miracles. I simply worry about his wellbeing.”
“It’s al..alright,” Mirrakshra quelled the worries of his friend. “Y-y-you got news?”
Alexander exhaled disappointedly.
“Sadly, yes,” he said and looked away. “It seems that some of our allies have…how do you say…jumped the gun? They attempted to exterminate the affront prematurely, and in the process, have only made it all the more enduring, it seems.”
Eskfotarra scoffed and his ears twitched slightly as his tail slowed to a gradual sway.
“So, she’s out now?” he correctly assumed, and the smirk on his face told of him not finding those circumstances all too disagreeable. An unfortunate choice, but his to make.
“Indeed,” Alexander replied. “And at the scale we’re currently working at, I’m afraid it’s going to be hard to stamp it out.”
By now, the AI might have infected the entire Galaxy. There was no telling of the kind of hardships they would soon face because of it.
However, Eskfotarra just glanced down at his ill friends again as his grimace soured.
“And Aldwin?” he asked darkly.
Alexander lifted his arms with open palms and shrugged.
“Hidden away where we cannot reach him, at least for the moment,” he explained.
The myiat aggressively clicked his tongue and hissed through his teeth.
“Then when will we be able to reach him?” he asked, his claws unfurling on his arm, cutting into the sleeve of his shirt. “It’s high time that he answers for a lot of things.”
In a picture that should be grotesque but could only be described as empathetic, the quivering, injured feline laying before him looked up at his healthy friend with pity, while wrath seemingly consumed Eskfotarra.
Alexander nodded.
“I’m sure he would agree with you there,” he pointed out, seeing as Aldwin had never been shy to point out his own misdeeds. “That is why sooner or later, he is going to make it possible. The danger is the nature of a Saint.”

Not that you need find anything wrong with them. But after 2 races and seeing drivers finish in order of their teams in Jeddah, people are beginning to whisper. Myself included. The dirty air phenomenon is creeping up as per Sainz and Russell which is making following harder.
How would you improve the regulations? Increase the cost cap? Do away with it entirely? Active suspensions?

Alright as we get further from the present this gets less and less likely but I'm gonna try my best to compile everything I know about the future plot of Chainsaw Man as of right now.
So we start off with the end of the Cooking Devil mini arc that started in 122. Of course as you all know 124 left off on a cliffhanger and Denji met a mysterious stranger while in hell with Ass and Yoru. It turns out at the beginning of chapter 125 that this was in fact the reincarnated blood devil. Chapters 125-129 are focused on Denji and Ass trying to avoid various hijinks while Denji tries to convine the blood Devil to help them escape hell. Due to the contract he had with Power Denji ends up succeeding since the contract legally had to be resolved. The 3 characters then escape hell by Ass realising that she can turn the body of a devil she killed into a "plot resolution sword".
Once out of hell it is revealed that the cooking devil floaty thing is a planet wide epidemic. Although she is suprised they escaped hell, she still nearly kills all of them in a short fight since all primordial devils are super powerful just like darkness devil. She is then impaled from behind by a figure who is revealed the next chapter to be none other than Kobeni, who went sleeper agent mode the second the falling devil stuff started. It is revealed she didn't start floating because her John Wick mode prevented her from remembering her trauma.
This victory is short lived, however, as Cooking Devil begins laughing maniacally and alludes to the end of worlds coming sooner than they would ever be prepared for. The earth begins to crumble around them and the darkness and death devils come straight out of hell to end our main cast once and for all. They stand no chance as Denji dies immediately, Ass is knocked 5 blockz down the road, and Kobeni is left completely fine. At this point Nayuta shows up and one-shots the darkness devil just for shits and giggles and then proceeds to do the default dance from fortnite on its corpse. This angers the death devil so it tries to kill Nayuta but it comically slips on a banana peel that Kobeni dropped earlier in the manga and gets impaled. With its dying breath it tells the group that they are still doomed.
We go back to day by day regular life stuff for a few chapters. Ass being a femcel, Denji pulling no hoes, and Fami eating an entire continents worth of food every time she's on screen.
Chapter 180, Yoshida finally makes another appearance after being noticably absent for so long. He busts down the door to Dennis's room and urgently tells him that the most evil devil of all has finally reared its head about 3 miles North of them.
All of the main group gathers up. This being Denji, Ass, Yoshida, new Power, Kobeni, Fami, and Nayuta and they all go to fight the new threat. Upon arriving, they find the city in complete ruin. Not a single building is left standing and a sulfuric smell fills the air. In the midst of it all stands a lone devil. The Sex Devil
It immediately notices them and charges foward, everyone preparing for a fight. Yoshida tells them to run but nobody listens because they all think he's a gay twink (he is) and they begin fighting anyway. Without even making a move the sex devil explodes Dennis's balls. It tries the same on Yoshida but nothing happens. It then explaims that Yoshida "is peculiar" in the fact that he has no balls. Kobeni then goes into John Wick mode again and charges the Sex Devil. It summons a sex sword to attack and Kobeni expertly dodges multiple times in a row. In silhouette, it is implied that Kobeni killed the Sex Devil, however, at the beginning of the next chapter what really happened is shown.
Kobeni slips on a comically placed banana peel that someone (Power) left on the ground. She catches her balance and then takes two steps foward and slips on another one. She slips, falls, and is instantly killed by the impact of hitting the ground. Seeing this, Fami doesn't care at all. She immediately does absolutely nothing but the Sex Devil stops her in her tracks and makes a simple statement. "It's so sad that Steve Jobs died of ligma" it says. Fami does not reply, looking rather annoyed. The Sex Devil then says "ligma balls" and Fami evaporates. The final death of the battle comes when Kishibe shows up 30 minutes late to the fight and is immediately killed by the Sex Devil upon stepping out of his car. His final words are "Well uhh that just happened"
The rest of the team retreats. They take shelter behind what is left of a gas station. There they find that one girl who sat on Denji that one time (I do not know her name). She says that she is a secret devil hunter with the same abilities as Kobeni and she thinks she can help them defeat the Sex Devil. She begins to lay out her play for defeating the Sex Devil while Yoshida tries to help Denji recover from his ball lackage. Just as she is about so reveal her master plan she is shot 7 times in the back. It turns out Power found a glock somewhere and thought it would be funny to do a little trolling. Yoshida says that it doesn't matter since he knows what her plan was anyway.
Ass then tries to give a motivational speech before they head off but she fails because she has no social skills. They then head off to defeat the Sex Devil.
Upon arriving at the Sex Devil's location Yohsida uses his squid devil thingimabob to contrain the Sex Devil. Then Nayuta begins trying to control it. While it is distracted by this Ass is told by Yoru to turn it into a weapon. She runs up and tries to touch it. Before she can though Yoshida accidentally lets go of the Sex Devil and says "whoopsie dasis". It immediately knocks everyone back and goes straight for power, who has not been helping this whole time. On a cliffhanger, we are left to believe it is about to kill Power, again.
In the next chapter the full panel is shown though and it is revealed that Ass actually did something for once in her life and had already touched that Sex Devil. She yells out "Sex Devil sword" and the Sex Devil is turned into a sword. Suprised she asks Yoru how she knew that would work. Yoru says that as the biggest femcel on the entire planet, Ass owned sex itself so she was able to turn the sex devil into a sword. Once again it is a short lived victory as Power was not actually saved. She had already been sliced by the Sex Devil's sword of sex and had died of sex.
Everyone is distraught and they have one of those big sad scenes where everyone is sad about sad things happening. Then, Kobeni's body rises from the ground possessed by Power. Powbeni then reveals that this was all a grand plot to get rid of the Sex Devil so that she could achieve her dream and becomes ruler of the world. Powbeni then puts on a black military general's cap and declares herself Hitlerbeni. She gets into Yoshida's car and drives into the distance, not to be seen again for awhile.
This begins part 3 of the manga. The early chapters are dedicated to locating Hitlerbeni and once again the femcel life of Ass and Yoru. Around chapter 210 Hitlerbeni is finally located in America. She has formed a cult and convinced the people of a small village in Wyoming to build her a cardboard fort around their town and declare her chancellor. Although she has no real ill motives since she's just Power and can't do much, the main cast still has no choice but to head to Wyoming to try to peacefully convince Hitlbeni to return to Japan. This is as far as I can predict.
So whaddya think?

My husband and I have a beach vacation planned in April. The drive is about 3.5 hrs away and I’m kinda worried because my baby has recently started to HATE the car seat. She screams her head off and turns bright red. The kind of cry where you worry they aren’t getting enough air - it’s terrible and gives my husband and I so much anxiety. Even with me sitting the the back seat with her, singing to her, showing her new toys, I even pulled up a miss Rachel YouTube video but she would not stop until we got out of the car. Then the poor thing was so exhausted from crying when we got home and I felt terrible. I’ve checked that the straps aren’t pinching her, the seat is in the proper reclined position and removed the infant insert so she has more room. Nothing has helped and I think this is just a phase and I know it will eventually pass. My question is - has anyone with a baby that hates the car seat taken a roadtrip? How did it turn out? Did baby scream the whole way? Did anything help you? We are planing to leave right before her longest nap of the day so that she’s tired and will hopefully sleep for at least a little while. Let me know you tips/experiences!

Appearance: A silver compass shaped fruit with a needle-like stem. The fruit has swirls all over it resembling mini compasses.
The Compass Compass Fruit is a paramecia type devil fruit that allows the user to create and control compasses at will making them a Compass Human.

In-Depth

The main ability of this fruit is to create compasses that can be used in many different ways. They can shoot compass needles that follow the target no matter what. They can create shields that disperse attacks. They can even use the compasses as a weapon to strike enemies. The fruit is very strong if used correctly leading to some people calling it the ultimate trump card.

Awakening

Once awakened the user can create hundreds of compasses out of thin air. They can use these compasses to control the direction of anything they’re near.

Techniques:

Inescapable Destiny: The user fires multiple compass needles that chase down their target until they are destroyed. It doesn’t matter how far away you run or where you hide. The needles will always find you.
Direction Reversal: The user creates large compasses to shield them. Once an attack hits the compass it will deflect and go in the direction the compass needle faces.
Compass Mace: The user creates a giant compass with a needle as a handle using it as a weapon.

Weaknesses:

The user must be very smart to fight using this devil fruit. The user suffers the standard devil fruit weaknesses.

Started a new job this week after 5 years of working from home (both for a different company and then as an independent contractor). Got this new job as it gives my family options, like a more consistent income.
HOWEVER - I’m already regretting it.
Their ‘mUsT wOrK iN tHe’ office mentality is so outdated. Their reasoning is, quote, ‘because we can’t track worker productivity when people WFH’ is pure bs.
The office conditions by the way are horrendous. I’m talking no windows, no natural light, no air, fluorescent lights, and threadbare carpets.
My job is creative - how do workers feel inspired in an office like this???
I’m salaried management, yet I’m tracked for every minute. I use a finger print to sign in and out, but this also includes my lunch break, and any time I go offsite for meetings??!
I feel like a child being monitored. Untrusted. It’s wild.
Am I being entitled?? Please tell me if so.

ChocoPro 301: New Season, New Era We’re beyond the Episode 300 Two Day Special, Back from Break, and diving into Season 18 of ChocoPro! Return to Ichigaya with a healthy breakfast of Prowrestling: Tomorrow’s Special Start Time episode features GPD teaming up to battle some monsters, Chie facing SAKI solo for the first time, and a main event with last season’s MVP and the new Super Asia Champ teaming up! Let’s Go, ChocoPro!
🍫 CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK! Guruguru Punch Drunkers (Masa Takanashi & Kaori Yoneyama) VS Sayaka Obihiro & KOJIO, Chie Koishikawa VS SAKI, Mei Suruga & Hagane Shinno VS Choun Shiryu & Shin Suzuki! It airs TOMORROW at 6 am EDT / 3 am PDT / 10 am GMT / 7 pm JST). Live and Free on YouTube!
This link will be updated with a direct one when available

Don't forget to Adjust Your Volume, Wrestling is Loud!

Change the stage, escape the normal! ChocoPro is built different. Find out why wrestlers like it so much: Find a new home on the bleeding edge. (This is not your regular wrestling show.) Join us for this episode, or check out the back catalog of 17 wonderful Seasons on the Gatoh Move ChocoPro YouTube channel...260+ episodes with stories and pro-wrestling like you've never seen. New to the promotion? It features a roster of skilled veterans, rising stars, and wonderful guests fighting in the ChocoPro Arena: Ichigaya Chocolate Square. Subscribe for more content than just the live matches! (AEW Watch Alongs, Discussions, Interviews, Food Challenges, etc) Even if you can't catch it live, don't sweat it! It will still be available on the channel.

Guruguru Punch Drunkers (Masa Takanashi 🍶 & Kaori Yoneyama 🍚)

VS

Sayaka Obihiro 💙 & KOJIO 💀

KOJIO Returns

Kaori Yoneyama's usually known for her shenanigans (whether or not she is dressed like a surly clown), but pairing her up with the scoundrel Masa Takanashi means that there will be plenty of bonkers team attacks and even more ridiculous counters. (Definitely check out her promotion, YMZ, if you are looking for even more fun!) Both of these veterans have more than proved themselves in the ring...and both are former Asia Dream Tag Champions with Emi Sakura. While they may or may not be named “Guruguru Punch Drunkers” (according to Kaori), this team is a great one! Yoneyama brings some of the best Sentons out there, a love of slapstick violence, and a level of unpredictability that even surpasses Antonio Honda. Masa brings wonderful chain wrestling, a growing collection of championships, shockingly great timing, and a silky smooth quickness that cannot be overstated. Will Kaori steal the camera for some PoV beatings? Will Masa reverse signature moves into fluid pinning techniques (or simply do some nose based offense? Between the two of them, they actually have a chance to defeat the scary foes they’re facing! Be careful, Punch Drunkers: here there be monsters!
Sayaka Obihiro is a joy to watch due to her deep sense of humor and lightning quick striking & pinning techniques...but she is a bit...different...when she teams with Monsters. After a bizarre series of events, Obi has aligned with what she fought against (for ten years)! Normally, when Obi isn't chopping the life out of someone so hard that it sounds like a car door slamming (ask Tae Honma), she is pulling off some of the best feats of nimbleness you've ever seen. The charismatic full time chef has got a great set of flame gear and an intense style. Even if she’s gone feral, you'll find yourself enchanted by her brash nature and wild antics! Strange and occult happenings are somewhat common in Ichigaya, and the mysterious organization known as UMA features many monsters that just so happen to wrestle. Monsters from across the world are attracted to ChocoPro due to their influence...(You should see what is happening over at SETUP!) Speaking of which, a cold wind brings a shadow over Ichigaya once again! Hailing from Parts Unknown and trained at the Nightmare Factory (which makes even more sense given that sinister look!), kojio’s frightening presence made him fit right in with the other Monsters of UMA. With brawling brutality, vicious submissions, and an absolutely wicked set of gear that makes him look like a character straight from a graphic novel, kojio scares his opponents and impresses the audience with his relentless nature and bone chilling aura. He was nearly invincible in his last appearance! What sort of destruction will this crimson and black clad visitor unleash this time? He has awakened. Welcome to kojio’s World!

Chie Koishikawa 🏵️

VS

SAKI 🦁

Wild Energy

Say “Hellooooooo!” “Too Much Energy” Chie Koishikawa is an incredibly fierce competitor with a burning ambition. She is basically the fabric of ChocoPro itself: Clever, Cheerful, and completely Chaotic! The future of Gatoh Move is bright and Chie is the one carrying the torch to lead the way. She is out to prove that the wrestling world isn't ready for her brand of extreme speed! Expect a lot of backhanded fencing chops and crisp, creative technique. The Standard-bearer of the Fourth Generation wears orange, tends to cry easily, and impresses even more. Fresh off facing the ERUPTION Unit at DDT (due to her Janken based grudge toward Yukio Sakaguchi), Chie looks to pick a fight with the COLOR’S Unit figurehead. Can her endless energy overcome SAKI’s primal power?
Kawaild & Powerful SAKI is an amazing technician, she adapts to any match style with ease. While she now represents the Freelance Unit COLOR’S, the chaotic energy of Gatoh Move still runs wild in her blood. With a swagger of pride, a constantly changing killer set of gear, and her own animal magnetism that can't be put into words, SAKI tends to easily captivate new fans. She is an incredibly ferocious fighter anywhere...especially inside Ichigaya! Her intensity is usually off the charts, but in the Square she is almost unstoppable. Don't try to beat her in a strength contest! If you do, you'll find yourself swinging in a Campana or Vader bombed into oblivion. While SAKI has a long standing rivalry with Mei Suruga, this will be the first time she faces Chie Koishikawa in singles. What sort of lesson will the vibrant & vicious SAKI give the Frantic Fencer? Buckle up for Speed VS Power!

Mei Suruga 🍎 & Hagane Shinno ⚔️

VS

Choun Shiryu 🐉 & Shin Suzuki 🍙

New Season, New Era

Wait...Apple Tarts is back!? While EGG TART (Chie Koishikawa & Hagane Shinno) are one of the most popular teams in the promotion, Apple Prodigy & Season 17 MVP Mei Suruga tends to usually be Shinno’s gobliny antagonist. Hagane is the Cold Killer, a brutal heavy striker and fierce technician (he innovated the Ranhei, which is used by a ton of people now!) that will certainly make the opposing veterans fear the winter. Very few have brought Hagane down in ChocoPro (he is undefeated in Singles...and now the Super Asia Champion!), and his intense aura will be on full display in this bout...also those low kicks, which Mei absolutely hates! It will be interesting to see how the Handsome Devil works with the other Devil of Ichigaya: Known goblin, Pin Specialist, and Submission wizard Mei Suruga! (Mei tends to team with Super Asia Champs!) She will be giving him a run for his money in the cruelty department. The whiny tiny Red Devil is super talented beyond her years and will show the world her potential in this one...just like all the others! Expect the Ace of Gatoh Move to be very extra in this one, to the point she might give her partner hell (especially since he has that Big Blue Belt!). Can the two rivals work together against the utility pairing? Will Hagane kick is own partner into oblivion?
“So what!?” Choun Shiryu is here! The Dragon of ChocoPro is a Wuxia hero (having done some of the most spectacular acts in Ichigaya) with his own fantastic flair! He is one of the most legitimate forces in the promotion. This Kung Fu master boasts a truly unique fighting style, pulling off action movie stunts you’ll not find elsewhere. While his usual partner is taking some time away from wrestling, (though Ninja Sayuri is still behind the scenes, as is tradition!) this time his partner is fellow utility player Shin Suzuki! Shin is always ready to go! His warm personality and intense athleticism fit well with the general vibe of Ichigaya...and honestly, his knack for dealing with kids (as a proud father) comes in handy in this den of goblins and monsters! Shin & Choun both mesh well with just about any pairing, so expect these two to sync together with machine precision once again. Both are no stranger to the Super Asia Title scene, so they’ll probably be gunning for the Cold Killer Champion. Prepare for a cold day in Ichigaya with some hot action!
Congratulations to Emi Sakura’s student & former ChocoPro guest, Mizuki, on winning TJPW’s PoP Championship!
Come and see the wild creativity that produced Two of the Seven AEW Women's World Champions! (Both of which have appeared on ChocoPro!) You'll be wondering if you're seeing future champs, as well. ChocoPro is the Frontier of Pro Wrestling! Match after match of hard hitting, chaotic, fun bouts with a friendly online audience. We're quickly growing, and you're welcome to come along!
Here are some Frequently Asked Questions:

“What is this?”

ChocoPro is a free online promotion run by AEW's Emi Sakura, that takes place in the legendary Ichigaya Chocolate Square! It features a steady pace of live Episode releases, fan interaction, season long story arcs, and much more! A place where the turnbuckles are replaced with 14th floor windows, the ropes are often replaced with fans, unforgiving walls provide creative avenues for skills otherwise unthinkable, and you can take solace in knowing that the referees usually do nothing. While it might be a shocking change at first, the intensity and storytelling will leave you wanting more.

“Why are they fighting in ____?”

Short answer is that it is a cost effective, unique venue with a better availability schedule and allows the roster access for training. Emi Sakura has been using this place for a long time, and you might be surprised at some of the names that have used it (even outside of ChocoPro!). There are a few in-ring Episodes and Gatoh Move has in ring shows with crowds on the YouTube channel. Think of it like the Hart Dungeon but as a promotion, if that helps!

”What are the rules?”

While special match stipulations will usually be explained before the respective matches, the general rules of ChocoPro are simple. Pins only count on the Chocolate Mat and are not broken by the edge or Wall. Submissions usually only count on the Chocolate Mat, and ARE broken by reaching the edge or wall (sometimes ceiling...). Double pins and Double submissions are legal (and encouraged) in ChocoPro Tag matches, meaning cohesive teams will always have the advantage! Count Outs only exist if specified, since many matches stray from the comfort of the Chocolate Square into the streets (and the rest of the building itself!) There is a Time Limit for each bout (based on card placement and importance) and the Referee has discretion (even if they tend to do nothing most of the time!). Every Ref is different, some have different levels of bias and speed.

“How can I support them?”

Watch the show! Even if you can't see it live, the views matter! Like & Subscribe! You can join the Channel's membership for different tiers of perks...but also, you can buy single episode Sponsorship, Digital autographed photos, and more on their shop site as well as purchase shirts from PWTees (which features some great options!) If you'd like to donate or purchase a main wall sponsorship, you can via Paypal or Patreon...and don't forget to cheer for your favorites! (especially if you want to do a superchat!)

”How come there aren’t a lot of comments on the threads?”

ChocoPro is a YouTube show, meaning the discourse happens live...in the chat! Those that comment in the threads on here tend to do so in order to help new viewers that might be intimidated by the fast moving chat. Don’t be afraid to just dive in though, the community is friendly.

“Why are you posting this here? / Are you paid for this?”

This is a wrestling forum, and I'm trying to broaden the horizons of others! There is a lot of good wrestling out there...Plus growing the fan base means more people for me to joke around with! I honestly do believe this is what a lot of fans are looking for, even if it is too different for some! But different tastes are good. Variety is the spice of life. This is a labor of love (it really doesn't take that long) considering how much work they do to put on so many shows...for free!
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me on here or on Twitter, where I’m surprised the season changed too! ChocoPro is Seasonal!
Season Tracker: We're 1/18 into Season 18! (Each Season is usually around 18 episodes)

TCG’s Realism Division consists of two units from Army Special Operations:
Our primary force, the 75th Ranger Regiment, consists of 1 Platoon. Men enlisted with the 75th can expect to experience a direct combat role by attacking objectives and securing landing zones.
Our detachment force, 160th SOAR, consists of rotary-wing pilots. Men commissioned with SOAR will be aiding the 75th by providing transportation, close air support, and logistical support.
We offer:
- Our dedicated server box and TeamSpeak run 24/7, allowing you to connect and play at any time with outstanding performance.
- Alpha Company(75th Rangers) operations are at 8:00 PM EST on Sundays.
- Handmade missions, a custom mod pack, and a healthy administration to support our gameplay.
- A fully functioning forum site hosting information about what’s coming up in the unit.
- A place to hang out to enjoy multiple games alongside the usual operations.
- A flexible community that listens to input.
I’m sold. How do I join?
Register on our website and then click on “Enlist!” on the navigation bar!
Media (More on the TCG YouTube Channel):
TCG 75th Ranger Reg - Operation Iraqi Freedom
TCG Promo Video
Unit Documentation:
Company Roster
FAQ:
What is the minimum age requirement? Applicants must be the age 16 at a minimum to join Alpha Company
Do you run mods? Yes, everything, including the entry request forum, can be found on our website here
Exactly where do I apply? Register on the website, then click on the Task Force Legion section and fill out our quick application. A recruiter will get in touch with you soon after you have applied.
Website? http://tcgaming.net/
Discord? https://discord.gg/TCxfNn72x9
Youtube? https://www.youtube.com/c/Tacticalcombatgaming
Instagram? https://www.instagram.com/tacticalcombatgaming/
Teamspeak? https://ts3.tcgaming.org/

What’s your biggest fear?
I always struggle to answer this question. Many things frighten me. Generally, my answer would be "the future", but that's vague. What exactly scares me about the future? The following: not having enough money, getting worse mentally instead of better, being completely alone and alienated from society, developing Alzheimer's, dying painfully. Also, I have a fear of commitment.
What’s your biggest desire?
I want to live without limitations. I hate feeling constricted. This is why I resent my parents the most. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to experience things, to do what other kids my age did, but my parents rarely let me. Parties are off-limits, unless I succeed in reassuring them that there is absolutely no risk of me dying or getting raped. It also took a year of convincing to have them let me go on a one-day trip with a friend in a city near ours. To sum up, I want to move out and do whatever, whenever.
What are you ‘’the best’’ at?
Nothing, really. I've never been determined enough to master anything. I'm the best in my class at English though and I draw from time to time, which I'd say I'm pretty good at. If this helps, I'm good at learning languages. I make connections easily.
How do you see yourself right now?
I'm feeling too good to introspect at the moment but here's a summary: bland and socially inept.
How do you see yourself 5 years from now?
Maybe not bland and not socially inept?
How do you express yourself?
I don't. I've tried art, but I can't seem to be able to express myself in any way. I've written two poems that I tried to make as personal as possible, though now when I reread them I cringe hard. I struggle with taking pride in what I create, it's never good enough in my eyes.
How do you feel about those near you (family, friends)?
In order to answer this properly I'd have to write about each person in my life individually. Instead, I'll choose 3 people that impact me the most. Mom, sister, one friend.
I already wrote about my parents being overprotective. This especially applies to my mom. She is afraid of everything and her fear impedes my growth. She claims to understand me, but she really doesn't. In fact, she strongly believes that she is a good "psychologist" yet she doesn't understand humans at all. Something else that bothers me about her is her refusal to acknowledge her mistakes. We often get into arguments regarding the way she's raised me and my sister. I can't help but see flaws in everything that she does.
On the other hand, we usually get along really well. We have a similar sense of humor and tend to get into long discussions about all kinds of things.
My sister is the devil incarnate and the rest of my family agrees. She is only 8, yet she is the worst human being I've ever met. Ever since she started thinking she has been immensely selfish. She gets pleasure out of other people's pain. Everything she does it's as if aimed at hurting us or making us uncomfortable. She think she is entitled to everything and my mom enables this behavior so that "she leaves her alone". This angers me a lot. I can only imagine what she's going to be like as an adult if from an age this young she's taught to be center of the universe. She has no awareness of others' feelings or needs. It's her and only her. The rest come second (or not at all). I thought that I was unable to hate anyone due to having a fairly open mind, but I hate her. Her words and actions disgust me. She embodies everything that I can't stand: self-centeredness, a lack of self-awareness and empathy, hypocrisy.
Now the friend. A breath of fresh air. What I like most about our relationship is the fact that we agree on absolutely everything. Nothing is off-limits with her. She's the only person with whom I can truly be myself. I tend to adapt to the people I'm with, but she's me, so there's nothing to hide or modify regarding my behaviour. I love spending time with her, I never laugh as much as I do with her.
How do you view change/uncertainty?
Now, change and uncertainty are entirely different things so I'll talk about them separately.
I crave short-term change but long-term/permanent change terrifies me. I try to avoid situations that I am not prepared for, although I feel like I'd be happier if I didn't. I have a very hard time accepting changes in my life, even good ones. I ran away from a potential relationship because it implied changing my daily life and putting effort into another person. I avoid commitment and changes in my life like the plague.
I'm rarely certain of anything, hence why I'm doing this questionnaire. I hate uncertainty/vagueness. I tend to plan out every one of my actions and words. It's actually exhausting, I wish I could go with the flow more often and not have to over analyse every single thing I do.
How do you make decisions?
It depends on how important of a decision it is. For example, when I'm doing groceries I don't pay much attention to what i buy. I just buy whatever I find/remember having bought before. But if I care about the stuff I'm buying, then I'll research every little thing about it. Actually, this can be applied to other kind of decisions too. Even in social situations I tend to analyse that is at stake and choose the path that seems the most "perfect" to me. The problem is, I usually find flaws in everything, so essentially I avoid making decisions at all.
How do you solve logical problems?
I try to see the why behind the problem. I need to know where the issue is coming from in order to solve it. I'm not sure what they mean by "logical" problems though. What other problems are there? Aren't all problems supposed to approached logically? Isn't that how humans work? Whatever makes sense to us is the answer to any and all problems. But if they mean math problems, then I approach them with a calculator.
How do you deal with your emotions?
They're all over the place. I've tried dealing with them efficiently in the past, like talking to people and stuff, but I gave up since if I feel like it's too much trouble. If it's negative emotions, I either ignore them or wallow in them until they go away on their own. If it's positive emotions, I try to keep a forced positive mindset in order to lengthen the feel-good emotions. Usually I don't feel things very strongly. I wish I did.
What drives you in life? What do you look for?
I'm still trying to figure this out. I have no idea what drives or what I look for. I'd say comfort? But at the same time I crave new experiences. I genuinely don't know. I kinda want love, but it terrifies me.
What do you hope to accomplish in your life?
Again, I don't know. I guess I want a lot of money that I can spend on whatever I feel like and travel.
What do you hope to avoid doing or being? What values are important to you?
All the things that I have described my sister as (hypocrite, self-centereded, lacking in empathy and self-awareness). But besides that, I really hope I won't become one of those bitter old people who don't let anyone live.
Now onto the values. For a while I thought that I had none, but at some point I realised that I did. And I forgot what they were. On a whim I'd say I value freedom?
How do you want others to see you? How do you see yourself?
I want to be liked, but I'm not obsessed with it. As I mentioned above, I tend to adapt myself to the poeple I'm with. I do that in order to appear "normal". I don't know why but, subconsciously, I seem to think that I'm not human enough.
Describe how you experience each of: a) Anger; b) Shame; c) Anxiety
Oh god, extensive topic.
a) I express my anger, as well as most of my emotions, passively. So, whenever I'm angry I become passive-aggressive and highly unreasonable. I don't scream, throw things or attack people physically. I just sit there, seeping with anger while making insensitive remarks about everyone and everything. When I get extremely angry at someone, my main and only goal at that moment is to hurt that person verbally as much as possible. I sometimes feel guilty afterwards, if I think that I had gone too far.
b) I try to avoid any situation that might make me feel ashamed or embarrassed in the quest of presenting myself as human. But when I do something that I seriously feel ashamed about, I'll generally laugh it off while internally wishing that I had never been born.
c) Anxiety makes up my whole being. As mentioned above, I over analyse every single one of my actions/words/thoughts. It's because I'm anxious and worried about anything slightly bad/inconvenient happening. I get very anxious in social situations or when I have to speak in front of a larde crowd. My mind simply blocks completely and I am left wordless and sweatful. A feeling of unease lives in my chest almost 24/7.

"Behold, maggots!" Miu announced as she strode into the living room later that afternoon. "I got a date tonight!" She showed everyone the note she found in her locker earlier that day.

"With who, Miu?" Tsumugi asked.
​
"Ha! That's the best part!" Miu said. "I got a secret admirer!"
​
"Ooo! Ooo! A secret admirer?" Angie asked. "What a miraculous mystery!"
​
"Yeah...sounds pretty exciting," Rantaro agreed.
​
"Well, duh-doi! Why wouldn't I have a secret admirer? Who wouldn't admire a busty, blonde hottie like me?" Miu bragged.
​
"Nee-heehee...they're your secret admirer for a reason," Kokichi snickered. "Because they're too embarrassed to admit that they like you."
​
"SHUT THE HELL UP, YA SHIT-STAINED BUTTCRACK!!" Miu demanded. "Anyway, I'm going to meet my secret admirer at Chez La Vie tonight at 7:00."
​
"Shouldn't you be getting ready, then?" Ryoma pointed out.
​
"Yeah, Miu, what are you going to wear?" Kaede asked. "Do you even have a dress?"
​
"Hopefully one that covers that baboon butt?" Kokichi added with an impish grin.
​
"What?! I don't have a baboon butt!" Miu spat, and turned her butt to Kokichi. "I got a nice ass, for your information!"
​
"Nee-heehee...I was talking about your face!" Kokichi laughed. Miu glared at Kokichi.
​
"You'll see, Ko-coochie! I'll find a dress so frikkin' amazing that it'll knock you off your dick!" Miu spat. She then tromped out of the living room and headed to her room. An hour later, Miu strode back into the living room with a tight-fitting, strapless, bubblegum pink dress with frills at both the top and bottom of it. Her hair was tied up into a ponytail. On her feet were pumps with a slightly darker shade of pink.
​
"Wooow, Miu! That dress is perfect for you!" Kokichi marveled.
​
"R-Really? You really think so?" Miu asked in surprise.

"Yeeaahh..." Kokichi said. "...it's garbage!"
​
"URGH!! Why, you little..." Miu growled.
​
"You look just fine, Miu," Kaede said. "Here, let me help you zip your dress up." Kaede helped Miu zip up her dress.
​
"Thanks, Lackluster Rack!" Miu said. "Now, this golden-brained girl genius is off to her first-...er, I mean...100th date, or something! I dunno...I've lost count after dating so many guys and having to break their hearts afterwards."
​
"Just go, already," Kiyo said. "That garish dress is hurting my eyes."
​
"Eeeeee...d-don't I look nice, though?" Miu whimpered.
​
"Gonta think you look beautiful, Miu!" Gonta said with a cheerful smile.
​
"Yeah! No need to worry, Miu!" Kaito said. "I'm sure your date will be outta this world! Hopefully not before me, though! Haha!"
​
"You had better hurry, Miu," Kirumi advised. "It would be a shame if you missed your date because you did not show up on time."
​
"Right! Um...Kaito, don't just sit there! Drive me!" Miu spat.
​
"Whoa! Would it kill you to say please?! Jeez!" Kaito said.
​
"Fine! Fine! Take me to the restaurant, now, please! " Miu demanded. Kaito sighed, and stood up from his seat. He led Miu out the front door to his car. Kokichi leaned over to whisper to Himiko.

"Think we can get there using your broom?" he asked her. Himiko nodded silently with excitement. Kokichi smiled, and took her hand as he silently snuck away with her from the others. Ever so quietly, they opened the back door in the dining hall and headed outside.

"I'll be back. I'll go get it," Himiko whispered to Kokichi, and went to her secret, magic room under the gazebo. A few seconds later, she returned already flying on her broom. "Nyeh...hop on, Freakshow!" she said to Kokichi. Grinning enthusiastically, Kokichi jumped onto the broom behind Himiko, and they took off into the sky. They followed Kaito's car to Chez La Vie, where they saw Miu exit his car to stand in front of the restaurant. "Hey, Kokichi? Where do I land? There are people walking around everywhere."

"Hmmm..." Kokichi mumbled in thought. "Wait, you can teleport using your magic, right?"

"Nyeh...I prefer the term 'apparate,'" Himiko said.
​
"Pfft...tomato, tomahto," Kokichi replied. Then, he pointed to a couple of bushes in front of a bank that was closed. "Anyway, how about we apparate into those bushes across the street from the restaurant?"
​
"Mmm...okie-dokie! Hang on," Himiko replied before snapping her fingers. When she did, Kokichi and Himiko ended up behind the pair of bushes in a blink of an eye. Across the street, they saw Miu still standing outside the restaurant, waiting for her secret admirer.

"What's taking him so long?" Kokichi muttered, and turned behind him to see a clock tower next to the bank. "It's 6:50."

"What happens if he doesn't show up?" Himiko asked.
​
"Oh, he'll show up," Kokichi said. "He thinks that Sonia's integrity is on the line, and he'll show up for her sake."
​
"Nyeh? What do you mean by that?" Himiko asked.
​
"I told Kazuichi that if he doesn't go out with Miu tonight, I'll take Sonia away from him by convincing her to join the dark side that is my organization," Kokichi replied.

"I see!" Himiko exclaimed. "That's pretty clever, Kokichi!"

"Why, thank you, Himiko!" Kokichi replied, kissing the back of her hand. They turned their attention back across the street, where they saw Miu checking her watch over and over as the minutes went by. Just when it looked like she was about to give up and leave, Kazuichi exited a bus in a neon yellow-green tux and walked up to Miu.
​
"There he is!" Kokichi and Himiko exclaimed in hushed unison. Himiko uttered a spell so that she and Kokichi could hear what Miu and Kazuichi were saying.
​
"Kazuichi?! What're you doin' here?!" Miu asked.
​
"Wh-Whoa! What's with the hostility?" Kazuichi replied. "I thought you were expecting me!"
​
"Why the hell would you think th-" Miu began. Then, she paused and stared at him. "Are you...my secret admirer, then?"
​
"Y-Yeah...um...I guess so?" Kazuichi replied, not knowing what she meant by "secret admirer." But he figured that Kokichi must have had something to do with it. "Er...I mean, yeah...yeah, I am!" Miu looked as if she didn't know whether to be flattered or disgusted.
​
"Well...I guess it could be worse," she muttered.
​
"Could be worse?!" Kazuichi exclaimed. "Hey, the least you could do is be glad that you have a secret admirer at all! If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be out on this date!"

"Eeee...well, you don't have to yell at me!" Miu whimpered.
​
"I'm sorry, Miu, but, if you toned your ego down a bit, I wouldn't have to yell," Kazuichi apologized.
​
"It's hard n-not to have a big ego when you're a girl genius with a golden brain and a busty body," Miu said. "I'm basically the whole package!"
​
"See?! It's that type of attitude that makes other people not wanna be your friend!" Kazuichi said.
​
"Th-That's fine! I don't need friends, or anything like that!" Miu said. "Why have friends when I have a golden brain?"
​
"If you didn't think you needed friends, or anything like that, why were you excited to go on this date?" Kazuichi pointed out. Miu opened and closed her mouth as if searching for an answer.
​
"Who said I was excited for it?" she asked defiantly.
​
"Well, you look like that," Kazuichi replied, gesturing to her outfit. "You got yourself all glammed-up just for this date, right?" Miu looked down at her outfit, and blushed.
​
"D-Do you think it looks n-nice?" she asked in a timid voice.

"Yeah, I really do," Kazuichi replied. "I haven't been able to keep my eyes off of you ever since I came here. Er...not to sound creepy, or anything."

"Well, what are you w-waiting for, th-then?!" Miu asked. "If I look this hot, take me inside, already! I'm starving, and I didn't dress up like this just to stand here and air my dirty laundry in front of everyone!"
​
"Why not? She literally does that at home," Kokichi muttered to Himiko, who giggled.
​
"Jeez, you don't have to be so rude about it," Kazuichi said. "But yeah, you're right. Let's go inside." Kazuichi opened the door for Miu, and the two walked inside the restaurant. Kokichi and Himiko looked at each other with excitement.

"Nyeh...it's working!" Himiko exclaimed.
​
"Yeah! Let's follow them in, shall we?" Kokichi replied. He took Himiko's hand in his, and led her across the street, and into the restaurant.

A year ago, I took a black & white photography class as an elective. In this class we used old cameras to shoot black and white photos, then developed the film with water and chemicals in a special room called the dark room.
It was actually a pretty cool class. I felt like I did decent.
Now, the reason I bring this up is because I found something. While cleaning out a deceased hoarder's possessions, I stumbled across some rolls of film. See, my close friend Felix bought a house recently and asked me to help clean it up. He explained that this house belonged to a 91-year-old man who kept mountains of garbage and stuff in his house. Now that he passed away, his daughter put the house on the market and left the cleanup to the next idiot that wanted to buy the house.
That idiot was my friend Felix.
Felix asked me if I could help him clean and throw all this guy's sh*t away. Payment included of course. I said yes since I've been low on cash and needed anything to keep me afloat, including emptying a house of its earlier residents' garbage.
Felix and I were discussing the situation and I thought, "well, who knows? Maybe we'll find a box of gold. Or some authentic jewelry. Or a never before opened Nintendo game. First edition Pokémon cards?" Only one way to find out, I guess.
So, there I was, in the basement, sorting through the boxes and choosing what's trash and what's treasure. By that point, we have already cleared the living room and bedroom upstairs. Unfortunately for us, there wasn't much treasure.
The guy was a massive hoarder. He kept some of the weirdest things for whatever reason. Stacks of newspapers from 2002, old broken toys, board games from the 80's with missing pieces and cards, old dirty cassettes and records from the 70's and so much more. I've even seen some real nasty stuff like old diapers and dirty napkins. Felix nearly threw up.
Not gonna lie, even though clearing the house of the stuff was a huge pain in the ass, I found some of it oddly fascinating. There's something about going through old stuff that isn't yours that's so intriguing. It's like a time machine especially when the stuff dates back to before you were born.
Felix wasn't as interested as I was. Taking out all the stuff in bulk was heavy work. He just wanted the job to be done so he could move in, but occasionally, if he found something strange or cool, he'd hand it to me.
We made it to the boiler room of the basement which had stuff in there too. Felix sighed, "is there a single room in this house that DOESN'T have sh*t in it?" In the boiler room, there was this rack full of boxes nearest to the door and we began there.
I pulled a box from the top rack. There was so much dust on the lid, and it blew into the air as I removed it. At the top of the box there was an old disposable camera. After I had examined it and set it aside, I dug deeper. Past all the papers and junk, I found two tiny yellow canisters. Film. "Woah", I thought, "I haven't seen one of these in a while".
I rotated each film roll in amazement. Then, I shook one roll and heard a rattle. Then I shook the other and heard it again. I thought, "wow, they haven't been developed yet". I looked over at the disposable camera sitting only a foot away from me. Looks like the old man did some photography.
"What pictures are on these film rolls?"
Suddenly, I hear, "the trash containers' almost full can you believe that?" Felix walks in as I'm holding the film. "What's that?"
I look at him and say, "these are rolls of film. Found them in this box". I held the camera up to him, "Here's the old camera the guy probably used. This is really cool! Like, what could these pictures be of?"
Felix's reaction was kind of the opposite of mine, "I mean, they're just pictures, man. Everybody takes pictures. But I guess if you want to keep it then that's fine". He turned and walked out to continue throwing more stuff out.
I guess I'm not too surprised at his reaction. Taking that photography class taught me to appreciate how people used cameras before smart phones existed. If I hadn't taken that class, I would've thrown the camera and rolls into the garbage bag.
I'm just so curious. I want to know what these pictures are of. It reminds me of this guy named John Maloof who became a millionaire after finding photos taken by Vivian Maier. Vivian had died in 2009 and her stuff was being sold at an auction. Fortunately, John Maloof bought her photos and negatives and showed the world some of the best photographs we've ever seen.
...
Later that night when I came home, I took the film rolls out of my pocket and just looked at them. I knew what I had to do. I had to go back to my university and use their dark room just one more time. I decided to do it the day after, right before work.
Developing film can be quite a long process, especially if you haven't done it in over a year like I had. I had to look over my old notes to get a refresher on it.
...
As soon as I walked into the dark room, I searched for the light switch using my phone's flash as a light source. It's incredibly hard to see in there even with a light.
See, the purpose of a dark room is to develop film in complete darkness. Film cannot be exposed to any light whatsoever when being developed. If even a tiny bit of light exposes the film, then the entire roll could be ruined. Phones and smart watches should be set aside in case it lights up from a call or notification.
I flipped the lights on and began setting up at once. At my station, I had everything that I needed for the first step, which was to unroll the films and put them into these special canisters to be developed.
The thing is, I had to do the first step in complete darkness.
I always hated this step because it gets so dark that you can't even see your hand in front of your face. So, imagine trying to grab stuff and put it in places while you can't see.
I was hesitant to turn the lights off again. I got the chills whenever it got completely dark. It’s not so bad when there’s someone else with you, but this time I was all alone.
Then I figured, "let's just get this over with" and then turned off the lights. In the dark, I walked over to my station while feeling around for stuff to not bump into. Once I knew I was at my station, I quickly found the film rolls and then got to work.
So far, it was going smoothly, and I was starting to calm down. Until it happened.
I was just about to finish. I had the canister with the film inside in my left hand, and my other hand was feeling around for the lid. I swear, as soon as I touched and grabbed onto the lid, I had the most unnerving sensation on my skin.
Something cold was making contact on my neck and I winced. I slapped my neck where I felt it and yet nothing was there. My hair stood on ends, and I had no idea what was happening. I was almost too afraid to move and continue, but I was so close. I didn't want to turn the light on yet because the film would get exposed.
Then, a few seconds later, I heard a *HUFF* and felt a huge gust of air hit the back of my head. It sounded like a horse when it blows air out of its nostrils. The wind blow was so strong it pushed me forward and I dropped my canister and film on the floor.
I quickly dropped to the floor to try to grab the film and canister but then another gust hit me from above.
*HUFF*
Now I was motionless in a fetal position unable to see what the f*ck was happening. But then, I heard something rolling on the floor and then felt it hit my elbow. I waved my hands along the floor and grasped the object with my left hand. It was the canister with the film still inside. Thank God. I just need to put the lid on and then I can turn on the lights. I got up slowly.
As I was pulling myself up, I bumped my shoulder on the counter and then it happened once more. *HUFF*. I instantly dropped back down. And then again. *HUFF*. Then again and again. *HUFF *HUFF* *HUFF* *HUFF* *HUFF*.
It was happening even faster and just wouldn't stop. I didn’t know what to do. I was sitting on the floor holding onto myself and just waiting for something to happen. If I was going to be attacked, I just wanted it to happen already.
After about a minute of me just sitting there, I felt the floor shake in a rhythm with a boom. Each time the floor shook, it was less intense and quieter than the last. The rhythm got faint until I couldn’t feel it anymore. It was as if the beast thing walked away from me on two legs.
It took me about a minute to regain my composure and I didn’t want to sit there for a minute longer. At that point, I didn’t care about the film, I just needed to turn those lights on and get out of there. Whatever that thing was, I did not want it to come back.
“Where’s my phone? I need my flashlight”, I thought, but I remembered that it was still on the counter. I had to get up.
I started with positioning my legs forward. My palms were on the floor as I pushed myself up while making no noise whatsoever. When I was half way up I placed my hand on the counter for balance. Then I placed the other but felt something round. The lid.
“There you are”, I thought. I now had the lid, but not the canister. It was still on the floor but at least I knew where it was. I reached down and picked it up. I thought, “Finally. I have them both”. Unfortunately, when I tried to put the lid on, I did not account for the noise it would make.
*POP*
Not even a second after, I felt something under my feet. Vibrations. It started off faint but got more noticeable as it started to make the floor shake. It got so violent I felt like it was going to knock me off my balance.
I walked towards where I thought the light switch was but as soon as I heard those huffs, my walk turned into a full on leap. As I leaped, my hand was stretched in front of me, hoping to find that damn light switch. My hand collided with the cold flat wall and nothing else.
I started to panic and frantically glided my hand against the wall for the switch. Right as I could feel the wind of the *HUFF* right on me, my ring finger caught a bump on the wall, and I violently pushed against it.
*CLICK*
*Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*
My eyes were closed but I saw the light piercing through my eyelids. I heard the buzz of the fluorescent lights. I opened my eyes slowly. I was sitting on the floor with my arm raised above my head and my other arm gripping the canister against my chest.
I looked around the room. It looked the same as before I turned the lights off the first time. What the hell happened?? I swear I wasn’t the only one in this room when the lights were off. Who or what was with me in the dark?
The film is ready to be developed. I still don’t know what’s inside and I don’t know if I’m supposed to. Should I continue?

We were renting out our old house short-term while we moved. The tenants were only there about two months but they used some AWFUL detergent and EVERYTHING smells so terrible and toxic. I couldn’t even stand to be in there. I think I might have to burn my husband’s clothes that he wears when goes over there (he’s getting it ready for sale.)
The last time he left his clothes in the garage here to air out and then did a load of laundry with just those items. Everything else I put through our laundry now smells! Ugh!
We moved a bed from that house to the new house, again, aired the mattress out in the garage for a good two weeks, that was two months ago and it STILL reeks.
Is everything ruined? What is the half-life of this poison and how has it not killed everyone that marinates in it all day long?