OBLIGATORY FILLER MATERIAL – Giving thanks edition: Kickin’ around Caracas, Pt. 5
Continuing… (It's Part 6 in the saga, I fucked up. Sorry.) So, after a few re-fueling and impromptu cigar-purchasing stops in South and Central America, we wheel up to the deserted jetway at LAX. “Thought we were going to Elmendorf?” I asked. “This isn’t it?” the pilot replied, feigning worry. “No.”, I replied, “Looks like California. Fruits and nuts. All around. What’s going on? One minute we’re off to Texas, then Cali, then Texas again, now we end up here at the California airport of the iconic tower.” “Yeah, it’s confusing enough haulin’ civilians around. But when we get a call from Virginia, we tend to comply without any questions,” the pilot explains. “Aw, shit!”, I sort of exclaim, “Rack and Ruin called?” “Yeah”, the pilot replies, “Figures you’d know these guys. They said they were closer to LAX rather than Texas and had us divert here. In fact, you look over there, see that dark blue Chevy? That’s them; and evidently, your ride.” I tipped the airman from earlier a couple of cigars as he helped me with my gear off the plane and into the trunk of Rack and Ruin’s plain-Jane blue late modeled Chevy. Had to move the Sidewinder Missiles off to one side, though. “Most honorable Agents Lack and Luin!” I quipped in my faux-racist greeting. “What the hell, guys? I’ve got to get to Japan and get some newly rigidified digits.” “Let’s see your hand”, Agent Rack asks. “Nasty.” “Yeah”, I sigh “And with the medicos in South America and their penchant for plaster, I don’t so much have a left hand as more of an ankylosaur tail.” “Or Thagomizer”, Agent Ruin tittered. “Anyone gives you grief, and one upside the head should set them right. Or dead.” “You’re a riot, Ruin.” I replied, “But not entirely incorrect.” We all agreed that I really didn’t need any extra accouterments to make myself look more dangerous. I mean with my severe haircut, stern beard clip, and perpetual ‘Go fuck yourself’ scowl. “Yeah”, I replied, stroking the aforementioned beard, “I just can’t get that. I’m such a people person.” After Agents Rack and Ruin finished drying their eyes from laughing what I thought was en extremis, we finally got down to business. “So, what’s the skinny, guys”, I asked. “New marching orders?” “No. Not as such”, Agent Ruin said, still sniggering over my ‘people person’ comment. I see we’re moving. Agent Rack is just driving casually, like Chewbacca when they were waiting to see if the Empire went for that expensive Bothan code. “Then, what?” I asked, getting a slight bit piqued. “Well”, Agent Ruin noted, “When you went to South America, you took some of your artillery collection with, correct?” “You know I did. You even made some snide comments about my personal choice of sidearms and their ‘excessive’ calibers, if memory serves”, I reiterated. “And if you are proceeding normally, as you always do, they’re all nestled in the trunk of this very car. All cleaned, quiet, unloaded, and smelling sweetly of Hoppe’s Number 9 and WD 40, correct?” Rack inquired. “Yes?” I cautiously venture. “Well, ya’ big dummy, do you think they’re going to let you saunter into Tokyo armed like the Third Fleet?” Agent Ruin chuckled. “Um…well…I do have a Diplomatic Passport.” I ventured. “That’s not going to work this time.”, Agent Ruin said, shaking his head. “They’re tighter than Dick’s Hatband about sidearms. Want to bring in your Rigby SXS .500 Nitro Express double rifle? Not a problem. Sidearms, especially in your alien hunting calibers, nope.” Well, that’s just….*dandy!”, I reply, semi-put out. “Now what the hell am I going to do?” “Ever think that’s why Ruin and I are here, now?”, Rack asks. “And here I thought it was just so you could bask in the warm glow of my fucking wonderful personality. Or that you actually cared about me as a real goddamn human”, I joshed. “Ummm…yeah”, Rack replies, “There’s no way we can answer that without going on some Deadpool list. “ I agreed. “OK, here’s the deal: you get your sidearms, ammunition, speed loaders, brass knuckles, Asp, laser range finders, Sap, Zeiss scopes, Kukri, Wisconsin Cheese Whittler, Buck folding skinner, Marine K-Bar, those two ultra-illegal Cheburkov Cobra titanium switchblades...” “Three. Olga the KGB lady sent me one for Geologist’s Day.” “Ahem. Those threeultra-illegal Cheburkov switchblades, that Wyoming Speedholer, your MASER Time-Distance Computer, garrote, pocket rail gun and whatever else lethal you carry and deposit it in the iron box in the trunk. We’ll ensure that it’s delivered to Esme post-haste. And by post-haste I mean one of our guys will deliver it personally.” “Well…I suppose”, I conceded, “But best send someone who’s been to the house recently. I don’t know how much bigger Khan has grown since I left on this little fantasy trip. Wouldn’t want a star on the wall in Langley for someone eaten by a mastiff. Want to see a picture….Oh, bother. That’s right. My phone’s at the bottom of fucking Lake Maracaibo.” “Good point”, Ruin interjects, “Guess we’ll do a little road trip and deliver it ourselves. Best call Esme and let her know what’s going on.” “I have no objections to your proposals. Please give Esme this when you see her. I had some luck in the Calaveras Casino and if I don’t send her some mad money. Ouch. She’ll never forgive me for not taking her along to Japan.” I asked. “But I thought Esme hated Japan? Too crowded and too ‘fussy’, I believe was her estimation.” Ruin asked. “Yes, but once she saw the Ginza, all bets were off. Shopping the likes of which even Allah himself hasn’t seen.” I replied, slowly shaking my head. “I see”, Ruin said, “Well, since you’re off to Sapporo, perhaps you can do a recon for Esme on the shopping there.” “Not bad. Not bad at all.”, I smiled, “Now I know why I let you guys hang around with me.” So, as advertised, I am now standing on the tarmac at LAX, basically feeling naked. “Can’t I keep just one switchblade?” I moaned to Agent Rack. “Go ahead, if you’re really keen on donating it to Japanese customs”, he replied. “Fuckbuckets.” I groused. “There, there now. That’s the usual Dr. Rocknocker of which we’re all so fond.” Agent Ruin chuckled. “Remember, you do have that wallet-sized credit card gizmo from the Company. So you’re not entirely ‘naked’. Think of it as an emergency breechcloth.” He smiled. “I’d like a larger model if you don’t mind. It’s chilly out here.” I joshed. After Agents Rack and Ruin stripped me metaphorically naked as they de-weaponized me, they handed me a Business Class ticket to Tokyo, and a pass to the Japan Airlines Hospitality Suite and Lounge. “So sorry you guys can’t hang around and have a few farewell snorts”, I chided, “But you’ve got a bit of a drive, so best be off before the weather turns to shit.” “Who says we’re driving?” Agent Rack asked as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the ready and waiting C-130 cargo plane currently taxiing slowly in our direction. “Well, in that case”, I smiled even more broadly, “Let’s invite the flight crew to join us. That’ll make the flight home all that much more interesting.” After near tear-jerking farewell sentimentalities, i.e., “Piss on you”, “Get stuffed” and “Take a fuckin’ hike”; Agents Rack and Ruin, my weapons and the Agency’s plain-Jane Blue Chevy were all nestled snugger than buggers in ruggers in the belly of the thundering C-130. Now truly on my own, I trudge the hundred thousand or so centisteps to my departure terminal, make a quick recon that my flight’s still slated to go in a generally westward direction, and hightail it to the nearest courtesy desk to ask for a motorized cart to take me and my remaining luggage to the JAL Hospitality Suite. Hey. I’m old, infirm, and currently among the walking wounded. Anyone that disagrees risks an Ankylosaur tail club swat or Thagomizer to the skull. Finally ensconced in the JAL Hospitality Suite, Polo Lounge of course; I was drinking Tokyo Teas (3 oz. vodka, 2 oz. gin, 2 oz. rum, 1 oz. triple sec, 1 oz. Midori, good splash of lime juice, a slight splash of 7-Up (diet, of course), over ice with a lime wheel) with Pabst Blue Ribbon Extra 1844 chasers and Hangar One’s “Fog Point” vodka on the side, hiding from the brutish realities of this foul year of two thousand and twenty-something, Common Era… I’ve already called Esme and we’ve had a good, long chat. She still managed to give me her shopping list for whenever I find myself bored on the Ginza. She’ll be shocked when she learns that I’m not going to be in Tokyo long, but have 1st class tickets on the Bullet Train to Sapporo. Still, I’ll probably find myself in Pole Town or the Stellar Place there, trading piles of US greenbacks for locally produced Japanese curios and clothing. I can hardly wait. I order another round of drinks, as the wonderful attendants in the Hospitality Suite were bored out of their skulls because of the COVID-induced drop-in customers flying anywhere that requires a hospitality room stay, and I was virtually the only one around. They tried their level best to outdo each other when it comes to Japanese efficiency and friendliness. After a couple of hours, they ask if I would like something from the grill, as the day chef had “the COVID” and the night chef just arrived. A quick perusal of the menu and I chose a 28-ounce dry-aged Porterhouse and another round of drinks. I usually don’t like to eat too much before I fly, but JAL tells me the flight is going to be virtually empty, something like <121 pax, all told, so restroom availability shouldn’t be too much of a concern. Plus, who am I to say no to a free, blue 28-ounce dry-aged Porterhouse? There was a bit of difficulty conveying to the chef through the intermediaries of the hospitality just how I wanted my steak. “Blue,” I said. “Brue?” was the reply. “Rare. Very, very rare.” I continued. Look of total bewilderment. I drag out my Personal Language Pro, speak “Steak, very, very rate” into the infernal gizmo, and hand the contraption to the attendant. “珍しい、非常に珍しいステーキ?”[ Mezurashī, hijō ni mezurashī sutēki?] “Raw! Nama!” I say, louder than need be. They toddle off to find the chef. “How is it sir, that you would like your steak cooked?” he asks. “Very rare. Just a minute or two per side. Inside still cold.” I instructed. All I got for the trouble was a puzzled smile. “Give me the language gizmo…” I type in a few words… “お尻を洗い、角をノックオフして、ここから出してください” [O shiri o arai,-kaku o nokkuofu shite, koko kara dashite kudasai.] “Wash its ass, knock its horns off, and walk it out here.” “OH!” as the lightbulb pops. “Rare. Got it! Excellent!” the chef laughs and zips back to the kitchen. Like I always say, I’m nothing if not the international ambassador of amity and goodwill. “Crack tubes!” Dinner was fantastic. I do wish I could have somehow mailed the Porterhouse bone back home for Khan. After that hambone incident, he might even taste it. Finally on the plane, in an almost empty Business Class, the flight captain informs us that we’re headed to Haneda Airport Tokyo and anyone not headed in that direction better ‘haul ass off’ the flight or forever hold their peace. Late-night international flights tend to be a bit more wooly than your average Chicago to Omaha gig. Especially when the flight’s damn near empty and we have the next 12 hours or so to be best friends. We taxi, turn and head into the wind. I’m doctoring up a couple of dossiers and keeping my personal cabin attendant, Luna since there were two of us in Business and two business flight attendants, busy with her trying to play ‘Stump the Geologist’. “I’ll bet you never had this before.” She beamed and handed me a tumbler of very dangerous-looking brown liquor. I cautiously sniff, take a modest gulp, swirl and glug the rest down. “Ohishi Single Sherry Cask”, I say with a muffled belch. “Light. Fruity. An Englishman’s drink.” “Oh. You knew. Let me try again.” She smiles beatifically. “I have no objections to your proposal.” I smile as nicely as this crotchety old Komodo Dragon could. She returns with another flagon of spirits; it smells of obsidian, leather, and earth. I just had some of this back in LAX. I take a snort, smile, and shotgun the rest. “Hibiki Japanese Harmony…lovely stuff.” I smile. “A little light for my jaded palate, but I’d never turn it down if it were free.” “Oh, you win again. Wait. One more.” She smiles and skitters off to the galley. She returns with another soupçon of some more dangerous brown liquor. “Here, try this. It will make you very popular at social gatherings”. She smiles. Sniff. “Splendid.” Snort. Swirl. Smile. Shotgun. “Kanosuke New Born, if I’m not mistaken.” I smile back. “Very nice. I really do like this one.” “You too good at this. One more!” she stands and stomps off defiantly. She returns in a trice and hands me the glass. “Hmm…brown. Light notes of earth, leather, dating your daughter, and Kentucky… “Beam Suntory, right?” “You know them all!” she says, feigning irritation. “And I thank you. Those were all excellent. Now, anything in the dangerous clear liquor category? I asked. Luna smiled as I palmed off a 20k yen tip. “Oh, no sir. Wait until we land.” She demurred, referring to the gratuity; which is know is not de rigueur in the Orient, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Just in case we never make it to Tokyo”, I laughed, unknowingly presciently. We both chuckled about that last line as she tried out various sakes and shōchūs and an actual Japanese ‘White Liquor’ (ホワイトリカー), which were all excellent as was the company. I tell her that I need to get some work done and could she bring me a tall Rocknocker. After explain the origins and construction of the eponymous drink, she brings me one that must tip the scales at 1 or so liters. She settles down to an empty seat and I get after the work that I need to finish before we land. I’m about ½ way through my drink when it felt as if the plane hit a brick wall. She quivered and quaked and clutched at herself while I made some comments about the pilot’s mental health. We dropped like a paralyzed falcon, then just as suddenly, felt like it was an express elevator to Angel’s 11. The plane bucked and shimmied, wickedly. Then we slam-danced right and fell a few more stories. It was like we were in a Mixmaster and the owner was trying out every speed. The emergency lights in the 777-300ER popped on, and the fasten seat belt sign barked loudly so even sleeping travelers could enjoy the show. Rinse. Spin. Shudder. Repeat. Finally, the ride smooths out and we hear the captain on the blower. “This is your captain speaking…ah, we seem to have hit some uncharted turbulence back there.” “Thanks, Captain Obvious”, I muttered. “Everything’s A-OK. “ he reports. “That’s good”, I note. “But…” “There’s always the but…” I groan. “…we have a couple of warning lights for which we can’t quite account. So to just be safe and certain, we’re going to divert to Hawaii, get a clean bill of health and resume this flight once we make sure everything here is hunky-dory.” There were scattered groans and applause. Add them together and divide by two and the average response on the flight was “Meh. Whatever.” Except for the other guy in Business, with whom I hadn’t shared two words. He began to absolutely lose his shit. “Oh, man! We’re so screwed! Mechanical malfunction? What does that mean?” he positively fizzed with fear. The flight attendants tried to calm him down, to no avail. They basically gave up and said they’d report his misgivings to the Captain. I motioned over to my personal flight attendant, Luna, and asked if I could be of service. “Oh, Doctor Rock”, she smiled at me, “If you could speak with him. You are so calm, and he is…” “Losing his bloody mind”, I chuckled as I finished her sentence for her. “Of course, I’ll take a stab at it.” So, I grab my drink and ease over to my Business Class partner and introduce myself. “Hey, pal. How’s it going? I’m Dr. Rock, gentleman, scholar, and connoisseur of cigars and things alcoholic. You doing OK?” He looks at me with an ashen face and his eyes the size of bloodshot dinner plates. “Yeah. I’m Todd Schotts. I’m flying to Japan for business.” He mumbles “No surprise there,” I reply calmly and take a slug of my drink. “But now we’re all going to die. The plane is busted and we’ll crash…” he started off again. “So, Todd is it? Good. You drink?” I asked. “Yeah?”, he stammered back. I asked Luna to make us a fresh batch of my eponymous cocktails. “OK, Todd, listen up”, I began after the drinks were served, “I have flown literally millions of miles over the last 4 decades. On Aeroflot when it was still the USSR. On TACA (Take A Chance Airways), on Chalk’s in the Caribbean, on Bob’s Verrifast Plane Company in Rhodesia, on regional carriers that don’t even exist anymore. All over the world. Had some bad experiences flying, and me ol’ mugger, this ain’t one of them. This is nothing more than the glitch for this mission.” I chuckled lightly and complimented Luna on a fantastic drink. “Yeah…yeah…yeah…but we have to land and check out some lights…” Todd squealed. “Well now, Todd. It would be rather difficult to do any external assessment while in flight, don’t you agree?” I asked. “But we’re diverting. We have to land and that adds more risk. We’re going to crash and die!” he was coming more and more unglued. “I will bet you every cent you have on your person and home bank accounts that that will not happen”, I chuckled. That took him by surprise. At least it shut him up for a while. “Look, Todd. This is Boeing’s latest model. They have the most incredible safety record. And if a little clear air turbulence were to be knocking planes out of the sky, don’t you think we’d hear about it as the press went berserk?” I asked. “But they don’t know what the lights mean! What if one of the engines’s out? How far can we fly on one engine?” Todd stuttered. Having my fill of a supposedly grown man with inane childlike fears, I calmly replied, “All the way to the crash site.” He went white. “...hope we hit something hard. I don’t want to limp away from this.” He went limp. Then I went to my seat and motioned for Luna to prepare a reload. Of course, 45 minutes later, we land without incident at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Honolulu Hawaii. We were told to just wait around until they figure out what the problem if any, was. They had officials waiting at the end of the jetway to check our COVID status and passports before they let us loose in the terminal. I asked Luna if she knew this airport. She noted that she did. “Is there a JAL hospitality room here at this airport? I asked. “Yes, Doctor. It’s the Sakura Lounge. It is located on the third level above The Local, Terminal 2.” She replied. “Please notify whoever needs to know that that’s where I’ll be for the duration”, I smiled and handed her my business card. “See you soon, I hope.” “Oh, Dr. Rock”, she replied, “I am sure it is nothing much. We’ll be back in the air within mere hours.” “Well then”, I smiled, “Guess I’d better get ready to hoof it to the lounge.” “Oh, Doctor Rock”, she smiled, “No rush. I will call for you a courtesy cart. You are injured, you are Business, you are priority.” “I love that Asian efficiency.” I smiled back and toddled down the jetway. At the terminus of the jetway, I show my COVID-clear papers, dates and times of my Anti-Virus vaccine administrations, the letter from Virginia clearing me of all detention, and my red Russian diplomatic passport. While in the cart, whizzing our way to the JAL lounge, the driver said “Man! You must be some kind of VIP. You were through that welcoming committee in less than two minutes!” “Me? Nah!”, I chuckled, “Just an old phart of a geologist that they didn’t want to mess with. Not on such a bright, sunny day as this.” “I see you’re not wearing a mask.” The driver quipped. “Very observant. There are reasons for that.” I replied. He careens around a corner and if this were a normal pre-Covid day, I’m certain we’d have killed hundreds. However, the airport, as I’ve come to grow accustomed to, was virtually deserted. “Yeah? Like what?” he asks. “Well, Scooter, 1. I have an active and hardworking immune system that I let off the chain every once in a while for exercise. Got to let it know what it’s up against, right? 2. I’ve had all my shots and some that were experimental. They seem to have worked. And 3. I find it difficult to drink and smoke cigars while wearing a mask. However, if you’d prefer, I will mask up. No problem, though it still is optional.” “Nah, man”, he said, “I was just wondering if you were one of those religious idiots or conspiracy nuts.” Nope”, I smiled back, “Just another geologist out in the world plying his trade for cash. Y’know, whorin’ around for money.” He laughs aloud as we skid to a stop right in front of Lounge. I slip the guy a $20 and ask if he’d listen for the JAL flight I was just on. If we’re going on ahead today, I’d need him to scoot by and putt-putt me back to the plane. He laughs and pockets the $20 as quick as a mink ruts. “No worries. I’ll just hang around this area. I hear anything about the flight, I’ll come and let you know.” He grins. “Good man”, I say, as I hand him my card. “I’m Dr. Rocknocker. Call me Rock”. “And I’m Kapula Mano, call me Kap” he replies. “Good man”, I say again, “Hope to see you in a while.” He grins, floors his electric cart, and peels out at speeds approaching 4.5 MPH. I wander into the lounge, show my credentials, and am escorted to a post up on Mahogany Ridge. The bar is very quiet. Besides the bartender, I can’t see anyone else in the darkened and Smooth Jazz-infused drinking emporium. I order a local drink, a Mai Tai, just for the experience and something a bit different. It’s served in a goldfish bowl on a stem, bedecked with a slice of lime, a sprig of mint, a stick of sugar cane, a polychromatic orchid, and the obligate paper umbrella. “Ah. Mai Tai. I will enjoy it.” I said to no one in particular. One was enough, and I decided to go back to the old standard. Once I explained to the bartender what that was, he made them heroic and enthusiastically. I’m reading up on a random dossier, making notes in a new file, and puffing away on a Fuentes Onyx double Maduro Churchill cigar. I hear a slight cough coming from my right, and this here lovely lady, she sat to my immediate starboard and looked at me semi-quizzically. Not in the mood for shenanigans of any stripe, I give her the obligate Baja Canada nod and tilt of the drink. I return to my dossiers and continue to read and take notes. “Excuse me!” I hear. Fearing the worst, either the woman is Karen-oid anti-smoking or a religious fruit-and-nutburger, I slowly turn to face her and reply, somewhat glacially, I have to admit. “What?” “That cigar…” “Here we go…” I mutter, eyes rolling northward. “Smells exquisite. Could you tell me the brand? My husband would enjoy some like that.” She notes. Instantly my demeanor switches 1800. “Yes, ma’am. It’s an Arturo Fuentes Onyx. Churchill size, or 60 ring x 7” length, double Maduro. Here, take one for your husband. I have an ample supply.” I smile. “Oh, no. I couldn’t. Could I?” she asks. “Please. I insist.” I smile the best I could given the circumstances. “Thank you. You’re too kind…umm…Mr….?” “Doctor. Doctor Rocknocker. World traveler, oilman, and international ambassador of amity, good drinks, and fine cigars. Call me Rock” I said. “Oh! A Doctor?” she brightens. “Yes, of Petroleum Geology and Engineering. Not medicine.” I chuckle. She chuckles back. “And I am Hella Aaberg”, as she offers her hand for a quick shake. “Interesting name, Hella. Scandinavian or Old German heritage?” I ask. “On my father’s side. He’s Finnish.” She replies. “But I’ll wager your mother is not Scandinavian, correct?” I ask. “She was from Truk, an island…” “In the South Pacific, Micronesia. Was she from Weno city?” I asked. “Why yes. How could you possibly know that?” she asked. “Oh, I’ve been there. Great diving amongst the WWII wrecks. I think it’s actually called ‘Chuuk Lagoon’ or something like that now.” I said. “That’s right! Amazing. Where else have you been?” she asked. “Anywhere there’s oil, strife, booze, cigars, heavy explosives and typically long distances from whatever most normal people call civilization,” I replied with a chuckle. Suddenly, I hear a voice booming out behind me. “Why don’t you save that rapier-like wit for those musky-fuckers back home, Rocko?” My expression changes. My eyes pop fully wide open. “Hella?” I asked. “Yes?” “May I ask you a favor?” “You can ask…” “Thank you. Now, looking over my shoulder, is there a hulking goon of a person, thin up top, paunchy halfway down with the most ridiculously tiny sized shoes you’ve ever seen for a so-called grown man?” I ask. “Yes. Yes, there is.” She replies. “I thought so. Many thanks.” I spin and launch off my barstool and grab Toivo by the hand. He hadn’t seen my left-hand Thagomizer yet. “Toivo! You old sumbitch. What the flying fennec fox fuck are you, of all people, doing in Hawaii?” I laughed. “Just keeping an eye on you, Rock!” he laughed equally as loud. “No, fucking-A, seriously. What the actual fuck? What are you doing in this actual nice place?” I asked. “Just headed to Tokyo to conduct a bit of service company business. I walked into the lounge and smelled a foul cigar. I figured it can’t be the venerable Dr. Rocknocker. He’s back at some school up north terrorizing geology and engineering grads and undergrads.” Toivo laughed. “But there I was. Surprise!”, I laughed and pumped his hand. “What the fuck, Rock. Now what did you do?” he asks, referring to my Ankylosaur tail club left hand. “Ah, fuck. Long story. Oh, pardon me. Toivo, this is Hella. We were just talking about the South Seas Islands.” I said. “Planning on running off together?” Toivo laughs, to the amusement of neither party. “Oh, and this idiot is Toivo, a man with a congenital foot-in-mouth disorder. He’s mostly harmless.” I noted to Hella. Greetings were shared all around. Hella made some small excuses and said she needed to depart. I gave her another cigar for her husband, shook her hand, and wished her well. “Here’s my business card. If your husband has any questions, have him drop me a line.” I noted. Hella smiled beautifully. She said she would. Then she thanked me shook our hands, and like that, there she was, gone. “Well Toivo, you old bastard. Don't just stand there in the doorway like some lonesome goddamn mouse shit sheepherder, get your ass over here and have a drink.” I motioned over to my perch on Mahogany Ridge. “Don’t mind if I do”, he says as he deftly winds his way to a seat to my left, snagging a cigar out of my pocket on the way over. “You might want these”, I say in an exasperated tone, and hand him my gold Dunhill Hobnail lighter and V-cutter gizmo. He cuts and fires up his heater. “What you drinkin’, Rock”, he asks. “Anything with alcohol, as usual. You know that Toiv.” I reply. “No. I mean right now.” He clarifies. “Well, I had a Mai Tai. Very nice if you like fruity, flowery drinks. It’s the locals’ favorite.” I reply. “Sounds good. I’ll have several. And you?” Toivo asks. “My usual. The bartender is already apprised of the situation.” I reply. Toivo smiles the smile of one knowing his sobriety is going to be taken out for a swim. Hell, taken out and tossed into the deep end. Toivo and I sit there, swapping lies, smoking cigars and sipping at our toddies. Hell, Toivo was slurping them like a sump-pump during an extra-wet summer. We chattered about family, work, whether or not Tokyo was going to host the Olympics or if the COVID-boogie man scared everyone off. Toivo, always one afflicted with TB (“Tiny Bladder”) got up to go to the loo for the third time that hour. He left his pocket organizer on the bar and I swear on a stack of Origins of Species, I didn’t touch it. I reached over to his vacated seat to retrieve my cigar lighter when I looked down and saw in his organizer a tab that reads “Rack & Ruin”. “Oh. No. Fucking. Way.” I recoiled as I’d just reached out and petted a 6-foot hungover scorpion. “One of my best friends? Secretly allied with the Agency? No. Not possible.” I drained my drink and called for another. “No. No. No. It can’t be. No. No fucking way…” as doubt began to dissolve when I thought back to all those times I had just ‘run into’ Toivo. “But he’s oil patch as well. That could be chalked up to coincidence.” I ruminated quizzically in my brain. I quickly reflected back on J.M. Darhower: “Yes, you see, there’s no such thing as coincidence. There are no accidents in life. Everything that happens is the result of a calculated move that leads us to where we are.” She may be the author of the execrable New Adult Sempre series, which Esme likes and I loathe, but she might just be right on this occasion. Toivo return, lighter in the bladder and good sense. He never even noticed he’d left his organizer out in broad bar light for all to see. “So, Toivo, when’s your flight?” I ask. “Oh, man. Was I lucky. The JAL flight to Tokyo from Los Angeles had mechanical trouble and had to divert here. I got a ticket on the plane for that flight, when it continues. “You mean ‘if it continues’,” I replied. “Yeah. Yeah. That’s what I meant. Hey! Was that your flight?” he asks innocently. He’s really innocent of fieldcraft. I decide to have some fun at my old friend’s expense. “Yep. Hit some CAT (Clear Air Turbulence) and the JAL pilots reported some lighting problem. No apparent ruin to any of the systems. They relay racked their brains to figure it out, but they couldn’t that’s why I here.” I said, waiting for the words to swim upstream in Toivo’s coconut and make some sort of connection. “Yeah. Double lucky. No problem with the plane and I get to go to Japan early.” Toivo crookedly grins. “So, no trouble with the plane? Then why haven’t I heard that the flight’s going to resume?” I asked as I pushed a fresh, seriously strong drink to Toivo. “Oh, must have heard it in the john.” Toivo countered and tried to cover his tracks by taking a huge gulp of his drink and damn near dying coughing. I pound on Toivo’s back. “Heimlich time?” I ask. Toivo signals ‘no’. “Jesus Christ, Rock. What was that?” he asks. “Just my usual”, I innocently replied. “Holy fuck. No wonder you have the reputation of…” Toivo realizes too late that he’s said too much. “Yeah. They can rack you out. Really ruin a person if they’re not careful.” I reply icily. “Why, Rock. Whatever do you mean?” Toivo slurred as he realized he’s been caught out. “The jig is up, you turncoat. You know Agents Rack and Ruin from the agency. Right? You keeping tabs on me for them? You Quisling! You Benedict Arnold!” I almost was on the verge of losing my cool. “It was nothing. They approached me years ago as I kept being mentioned in your reports. They asked me for some information. One thing leads to another…” Toivo was ready for an Ankylosaur tail club swat to the bean. “Oh, put your fucking hands down, you asshole.” I smiled and chuckled. “You’re not mad?” Toivo slurred badly. I had the bartender make him another special drink. “No, Toivo. Not mad. Just disappointed.” I said, smiling like a Komodo Dragon just finishing up a fortnight-old wildebeest. Toivo sat there and puzzled and puzzled until his puzzler was sore. “You’re not going to kill me or anything rude like that?” Toivo asked, half-assedly trying to inject humor into the proceedings. “Nah. The paperwork’s too ridiculous for me to do another liberation. But, Jesus Fucking Christwagons, Toivo; you could have mentioned it to me. Fuck, I thought we were friends to the end?” I said, dejectedly. I was really getting through to Toivo. I could tell he was loaded; feeling like shit and massively deplorable. Great fieldcraft, indeed. I told him things “are what they are” and that I won’t blow his cover nor his honorarium. He began to feel better. I often wonder if he was serious about the sanctioning thing. Then I delivered the strategic missile strike. “Just remember, Toivo. I wrote your dossier for the Company…” He swivels to look at me. “And one for the KGB. Olga says ‘howdy’.” I grin evilly. Toivo short-circuited at that. Russia is his company’s bread and butter. Now he has the KGB as well as his best buddy looking over his shoulder at every move. I bought him a few more drinks and continued to needle him about his ’leading a double life’. He was well and truly fuckered when the electric tap-tap driver from before came looking for me to whisk me back to the plane. Seems it was simply some knocked-out wires on the plane, or slammed bulbs that were generating a false positive, indicating something other than the system that alerts one to something haywire went haywire. Toivo was pretty much down for the count. I got him sober enough to hand them his ticket and ensure that he was really supposed to be on this flight. Thing was; h e was in Economy, and I was, as always, in Business. I spoke to Luna, and the plane was going to be even less crowded than previously because some folks could or wouldn’t wait, or didn’t want to go on with the rest of the trip on a ‘damaged’ aircraft, or were just stupid and superstitious. “Luna, could I pay for the difference between Business and Economy for my less than 100% conscious friend here? He’s had a rough day.” I asked. “Dr. Rock. Just put him into Business. No one will be the wiser. Luna says so.” As she gave us a grand smile. “Luna, I owe you. Thanks so much.” I said. “Now get on board. Your friend looks like he needs all the downtime he can get.” “Yes, ma’am!” I said and saluted here be best I could which dragging a schnozzled Toivo down the jetway. I dumped Toivo in a window seat well away from my seat. I know Toivo. He snores like a semi-load of live hogs rocketing downhill locking up the brakes at 88 MPH. Surprise! There was no one else in Business. Luna looked at me, at Toivo, and gave me a thumbs up. Whatever I can write to further her career at JAL, she’ll have it before I deplane. We finally get everyone settled, and with Captain Kangaroo at the helm, we bounced gracelessly off the tarmac, into the warm, tropical Hawaiian air, finally headed for the Land of the Rising Sun. Toivo was snoring like a chainsaw hitting rusty nails as I worked on the various letters, communiques, and dossiers which needed updating before we reached touchdown. I gave Luna a thick letter with instructions not to open it until we were on the ground and Toivo and I were well off and away into the terminal. We left Hawaii at 1300 hours, so we should arrive at Tokyo Nareda around 4:00 pm, the previous day. I was so bereft of time and time zones, I couldn’t figure out what time it really was, as judged by my biometric rhythms, so I asked Luna for a stiff drink as I was kicking off my boots and going to attempt to get some kip. She brought me another liter or so eponymous drink. I was sawing logs by the time I slurped the last swig of that nifty drink. Suddenly, or later, I have no idea really, some loudmouth drunk asshole from way-the-fuck-back in economy-land toward the ass end of the plane staggered into Business demanding free drinks. Luna was nothing but civil, and asked him to both shut up and return to his seat. His air cabin hostess, or whatever the fuck they’re calling them these days, will attend to his needs. “Naw they won’t! They want me to pay for more drinks! I’m broke but I demand more booze! You fucking owe me.” railed the asshole. “I sat at the bar in Hawaii for four hours. Them fuckers charged me an arm and a leg!” “No, they don’t owe you shit”, I said in a voice that unmistakably loud and clear. “Fuck you, old man! You stay the fuck out of this!” he bellowed. “Shut up or I’ll do ya’!” “’Old man’? ‘Do me’? Excuse me. Luna, may I have a word alone with this individual?” I asked sweetly. Luna shook her head in the affirmative, and I stood up to confront this flagrant asshole. “Now look, Scooter. You have gone way, way over the fucking line. You are loud. You are abusive. You are obnoxious. And you stink. Plus you insulted a person who is just barely containing his righteous wrath right now. So, I’m giving you one and one only chance to shut up, sit back down before your body spontaneously develops all sort of bruises, contusions, broken bones, and unconsciousness.” I said calmly, evenly, and threateningly. “What da’ fuck you think you’re going to do…old man?” he screeched, trying to inflate himself into full mammalian threat posture, all 5’ 9” of it. He didn’t notice Toivo walking up quietly behind him, as Toivo was returning from the head, quiet as a moose. “Well, Scooter, I am an Air Marshall. Duly appointed, fully trained, and properly pissed off. Right now, I can arrest you, physically detain you, turn this flight around and take you to the Hawaiian police, at your cost for the inconvenience of the entire flight. Or I could arrest you, physically detain you, and turn you over to the Japanese authorities when we land. It’s really your choice. Choose wisely.” To be continued…⇝
Stokes's Bristol Nightclub incident in detail (From: The Comeback Summer by Geoff Lemon)
IF YOU’RE LOOKING for a place where misadventure could begin, you can’t go past Mbargo. The nightclub’s streetfront is painted a purple so bright you’ll see it in your dreams. Strings of giant sequins shimmer in the breeze. Its phonically inventive name is spelt in silver letters that climb its three-storey terrace facade. Inside are strips of burning neon, a few booths, floorboards so marinated in drink that they have an ingredients list. Bristol is a student city on England’s south coast crowded with music and nightlife and street art. This is Banksy’s home town, and the tourism board suggests in rather strong terms that ‘you would be a fool not to see his amazing work firsthand’. The same organisation describes Mbargo as ‘intimate’, which is fair for a place where you can catch an STI standing up. Students cram into its modest dimensions while people with names like DJ Klaud battle for billing with £1.50 drink deals over seven sloppy nights a week. To get a sense of the story about to come, consider that it’s the kind of place open until two o’clock on a Monday morning, and that at two o’clock on a Monday morning, Ben Stokes still thought it had closed too early. The Ashes of 2017–18 had disciplinary bookends. It was after that series that Australia’s two leaders went off the rails in South Africa. It was a few weeks before that Ashes tour that England’s biggest star windmilled his way into his own disaster. In the early hours of 25 September 2017, Stokes and teammate Alex Hales were barred from re-entering Mbargo after a night out on the piss. A Sunday thrashing of an abject West Indies in an ignored series at the fag-end of the season apparently required ample celebration. After arguing with the bouncer and hanging about at the door for a while, they wandered off to find a casino in the hope of more drinking. They’d barely made it around the corner before getting in the middle of a conflict between four locals. As is said on the internet, it escalated quickly. The 26 September reporting was bloodless. Withholding names, police stated that a man ‘was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm’ while another went to hospital with facial injuries. England’s director of cricket Andrew Strauss separately confirmed that Stokes was the arrestee, adding that he had been released without charge and that Hales had gamely offered to ‘help police with their enquiries’. Administrators had a good chance of hiding behind that investigation, and the next day Stokes was named in the upcoming Ashes squad as expected. But that night the video emerged. Bristol student Max Wilson had shot it on his phone, then offered it to The Sun. What he thought was playing hardball was actually lowball: his opening price of £3000 was snapped up by a tabloid that would have paid ten times that. The Sun went on to make a mint by syndicating the rights worldwide. From a window above the fray, the vision showed six men on the street below performing the muddled choreography of a melee. One was right at the centre of it. One was waving a bottle, one dipped in and out, one tried to calm it. Two others floated around the edges. The central figure was unmistakable: red hair burning even in the streetlight as he launched into a series of blows against two of the men, falling to grapple with them on the ground, then following both across the street, swinging punches the whole way. Hales trailed behind, repeatedly and impotently shouting ‘Stokes! Stop! Stokes! Enough!’ The ECB could fudge issues that existed only in thickets of legalese, but not those captured in moving colour. Stokes was stood down from the next West Indies match, then suspended indefinitely. It emerged that he had broken his hand during the fight, something he’d done twice before while punching objects in dressing rooms. The response in Australia was fierce: Stokes was a thug, a lowlife, a selection that would disgrace England. It was not entirely coincidental that a ban for England’s best player would be handy for the Aussie team, but there was also a cultural split. In England, plenty of people still minimise pub fights as lads letting off steam. In Australia, heavy media coverage as a succession of young men were killed had inverted that tolerance. The discourse now saw any punch as potentially deadly and accordingly reckless. This was more poignant in a cricket context given that David Hookes, the dashing Test batsman and state coach, was killed in 2004 by a pub bouncer’s fist. The PR situation was bad for Stokes as details emerged of the injuries to the men he’d hit, and that one was a young war veteran and father. Stokes wasn’t officially removed from the Ashes squad through October but stayed behind when his teammates left, hoping for police to dismiss the matter in time for a late dash to Australia. His annual contract was renewed on the due date in case that came to pass. Then 29 October brought a twist in the tale. ‘Ben Stokes praised by gay couple after defending them from homophobic thugs,’ ran the headline. Kai Barry and Billy O’Connell had emerged. Not entirely out of nowhere: while Stokes had made no public comment, this story in his defence had initially been leaked to TV host Piers Morgan after the fight, as soon as the video appeared. Police body-camera footage played in court would later show that Stokes had given the same story to the arresting officer on the night. But no-one knew the identities of the fifth and sixth men in the video, and police appeals had turned up nothing. It was The Sun again with the breakthrough. Kai and Billy were perfect for a readership not keen on nuance. ‘We couldn’t believe it when we found out they were famous cricketers. I just thought Ben and Alex were quite hot, fit guys,’ said Kai, who was memorably described as a ‘former House of Fraser sales assistant’. The paper had the pair do a full photo shoot: layering the fake tan, showing off chest waxes, mixing Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton into a range of outfits. Their best shot had them standing back to back, heads turned to the camera, in a mirror-image Zoolander moment. Suddenly The Sun was the England team’s best friend. ‘Their claims could lead to the all-rounder being cleared over the punch-up and freed to play in the First Test in Australia next month,’ it gushed, then gave a tasting platter of quotes: ‘We were so grateful to Ben for stepping in to help. He was a real hero.’ ‘If Ben hadn’t intervened it could have been a lot worse for us.’ ‘We could’ve been in real trouble. Ben was a real gentleman.’ Would it be known forever as Kai and Billy’s Ashes? No. While the Bristol boys provided spin for Stokes’ reputation they didn’t influence the police. With charges still pending there was little choice – not given Strauss had previously sacked Kevin Pietersen for being annoying. Stokes remained suspended through the Ashes and a one-day series in Australia, and lost the vice-captaincy. It was January 2018 before the Crown Prosecution Service laid a charge. That charge surprisingly came in as affray, a crime that can carry prison time but is classified as ‘a breach of the peace as a result of disorderly conduct’. The men he had punched, Ryan Ali and Ryan Hale, faced the same count, charged as equal participants in a fight rather than Stokes being charged with assaulting them. Alex Hales was not charged, despite being seen in the video to aim several kicks when Ryan Ali was lying on the ground. Given the underwhelming standing of the offence, Stokes was cleared by the ECB to tour New Zealand, and kept playing until his trial in August 2018, which he missed a Test to attend. None of the three defendants would be convicted. The reasoning behind the charges was never released and was attributed vaguely to ‘CPS lawyers’. The service gave the case to Alison Morgan, a prosecutor of a class known as Treasury Counsel who usually handle serious criminal matters. Morgan had a scheduling clash and never ended up court for the case, but in 2018 and 2019 she would go on to win damages and admissions of libel from The Daily Mail, The Times and The Daily Telegraph variously for incorrectly reporting that she had been responsible for the inadequate and inconsistent charging decisions. Morgan’s successor on the case was Nicholas Corsellis QC, who on the first day of trial was permitted by the CPS to request two assault charges be added against Stokes. ‘Upon further review,’ claimed a CPS statement, ‘we considered that additional assault charges would also be appropriate.’ This was patent nonsense from the service that eight months earlier had chosen the lesser charge. Any lawyer knows that no judge will allow new charges once a trial has begun, because the defence hasn’t had time to prepare. But such a request could deflect criticism of the prosecution service by technically making the judge the one who disallows the charge. Working through the story from the trial and the tape is complicated. You had a Ryan and a Ryan, a Hale and a Hales, a Billy and a Barry and a Ben. You had several versions of events as to who knew whom, who was drinking with whom, who had insulted whom and who had merely engaged in ‘banter’, a word that in modern Britain has to do an unconscionable amount of lifting. The reporting had constantly mixed up the Ryans as to who had which injury, who was in hospital, who had played which part in the fight, and whose mum had which stern words to say about it. Let’s agree that from now Ryan Ali is Ryan One, the firefighter who ended up with a fractured eye socket and a cracked tooth. Ryan Two can be Ryan Hale, the soldier who scored concussion and facial lacerations. Mr Barry and Mr O’Connell are best known per The Sun as Kai and Billy. In scorecard parlance we’ll leave the cricketers as Stokes and Hales. Amid the confusion, Stokes and his lawyers built his case in a straightforward way. The UK legal definition of affray is ‘if a person threatens or uses unlawful violence or force towards another person, which causes another person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for their safety’. That means it doesn’t account for violence that harms a target, but violence that might frighten a theoretical bystander. The wiggle room for Stokes was with ‘unlawful’, because the charge excuses violence in defending oneself or others. This interpretation hinged on the beginning of the video, where Ryan One waves a beer bottle about and takes a swing at Kai. The version from Stokes was that he was minding his own business walking down the street when he heard homophobic abuse. He intervened verbally and was threatened verbally by Ryan One – something that Ryan One denied but that couldn’t be proved or disproved. In fear for his safety Stokes had to nullify that threat by bashing Ryan One before it went the other way. He registered Ryan Two in his peripheral vision as another possible threat, and again had only one recourse. Stokes also had to convince the jury to disregard testimony from Mbargo’s bouncer that he had been looking for a fight. A solid lump of a man, Andrew Cunningham had not enjoyed his patron’s attempts to get back into the club after the bouncer declined an offer of a bribe. ‘He got a bit verbally abusive towards myself. He mentioned my gold teeth and he said I looked like a cunt and I replied, “Thank you very much.” He just looked at me and told me my tattoos were shit and to look at my job.’ Cunningham described these words as coming in ‘a spiteful tone, quite an angry tone’, and said that Stokes still seemed angry as he walked away. These were details the doorman had nothing to gain by inventing, but each of them Stokes denied. By his own accounting he had drunk a beer at the game and three pints at his hotel, then ‘potentially had some Jägerbombs’ along with half a dozen vodkas at the club. He insisted that after all of this he was not drunk. If I may take a moment here to call upon the wisdom of experience – a person who cannot definitively say whether they have had any Jägerbombs has definitely had some Jägerbombs. A Jägerbomb is an experience that does not pass one by. Further to that, a person who says they have ‘potentially’ done something has definitely done that thing and doesn’t want to admit it. A person who has had between 15 and 24 standard drinks in one evening is shitfaced. A person who tries to bribe a bouncer £300 – three hundred quid! – to get into Mbargo – Mbargo! – is beyond shitfaced. If Stokes admitted that he was drunk then the prosecution could say he was out of control. He claimed clear recall of assessing a threat, feeling fear and deciding to protect himself with force. He confidently denied details from the bouncer’s testimony, like using the word ‘cunt’ or mentioning gold teeth. Yet on other details he claimed a ‘significant memory blackout’. He didn’t remember the punch that saw Ryan One taken away by ambulance. He didn’t remember what the Ryans had said to Kai and Billy, only that those words were homophobic. With no head injury, as one of the few people who hadn’t been hit, he had supposedly suffered this memory loss despite being sober. The version from Kai and Billy was compatible but vague: they had been walking along, they ‘heard … shouts’ of abuse from an unspecified source, then Stokes ‘stepped in’ and thus they avoided possible harm. They claimed to have been bought a drink by Stokes at Mbargo, although CCTV showed them meeting outside. The overall implication from both accounts was that the cricketers had been pals with Kai and Billy, while the Ryans as per The Sun’s headline were a roving band of thugs. The reality though is that the Ryans were the ones hanging out with Kai and Billy at Mbargo. Police discussed CCTV from inside the club in questioning and at trial. On that footage the four Bristolians bought drinks for one another, danced together, and Kai was noted to have variously touched Ryan Two’s crotch and Ryan One’s buttock. Ryan One told police that all of this was taken lightheartedly and wasn’t a problem. Indeed, when the Ryans called it a night the other two left with them. This much is clear from footage out the front of Mbargo, which shows Kai and Billy exit the club and start talking with a subdued Hales and a demonstrative Stokes, who are stuck outside. The vision was played in court to determine whether Stokes was antagonistic towards Kai and Billy, as he appears to impersonate them and to throw a lit cigarette their way. More interesting is that after a few minutes the Ryans emerge, and all six actors in the fight video briefly form a prequel in the one frame. Ryan Two pats Billy on the chest in friendly fashion with his right hand before clapping him on the back with his left. He moves past and does the same to Kai before leaving the shot. Ryan One stops to speak to Kai. They lean in for a moment, talking, then Kai turns and they walk out of frame together. Billy hangs around for a few seconds at the door and then looks after them and races to catch up. Stokes and Hales remain outside the club to remonstrate further with the bouncers. Whatever discord develops around the corner is between four men who left amicably together minutes earlier. There’s no way to know what caused that friction. If Ryan One did use homophobic slurs, he might have been drunkenly obnoxious for no reason. He might have had an insecure macho response to some extra flirtation. He might have thought unkindness was funny – ‘banter’ once again. Or he might have said something that was misunderstood, as both Ryans insisted in court that they had not used nor had the impulse to use any abusive language. What clearly didn’t happen was an attack by bigots on random passers-by. This kind of crime is regular enough that an audience understands the horror of it, and this is what was evoked by the public accounts of Stokes, Billy and Kai. All we know is that there was some verbal dispute among the Bristol locals, and that Stokes came along behind them and put himself in the middle of it. Ryan One responded to the interference aggressively and away they went. There are plenty of reasons to look sideways at the idea that Stokes was a saviour. Foremost, neither Kai nor Billy was called upon as witnesses in court. You’d think it would be ideal to have Stokes’ story backed up by those who benefited from his selflessness. But his defence team had developed the impression that the pair had shown a changeable recall of events amid a hard-partying lifestyle, and would be dismantled by the prosecution on the stand. That raises the question of whether The Sun coached their quotes for the 2017 interview. Despite missing court, Kai and Billy clearly enjoyed the attention. In 2018 after the trial they did a follow-up spread in the same paper about how poor Ben had been mistreated. They got a television spot on Good Morning Britain and glowed about his heroism. In 2019 The Sun wheeled them out once more to say that Stokes should get a knighthood. In 2017 they had ‘never watched cricket’ but by 2019 were supposedly volunteering sentences like, ‘He saved us, now he’s saved the Ashes.’ Whether they were paid for these appearances is not known, but the chance to be famous for a day can be lure enough. If you find this cynical, consider that on the night in question, the Bristol boys were so deeply moved and thankful for Ben’s intervention that they left him to be arrested and never attempted to find out who he was. Seconds after the video ended, an off-duty policeman reached the scene. You might think that someone grateful to a saviour would speak on his behalf. Instead, said Kai, ‘it all got a bit scary so we walked off. It was too much for me and we went to Quigley’s takeaway for chicken burgers and cheesy chips.’ They didn’t give their hero a thought for over a month while police issued multiple appeals for witnesses. As for Stokes, he told his arresting officer that ‘his friends’ had been attacked. After three minutes of chat outside a nightclub, these friends were so dear to him that he has never contacted them again: not after the newspaper piece, not after the verdict. He didn’t want to see how they were or thank them for their support. He didn’t mention them by name in his solicitor’s statement after the trial. The Stokes defence rested on Ryan One’s bottle, which he had carried out of Mbargo to finish a beer, not to use in a Sharks versus Jets amateur production. But once he turned it over to hold it by the neck it became a weapon. Intent and interpretation can change the material nature of things. Part of Stokes’ justification in court was that the bottle implied that the two Ryans might have ‘other weapons’ hidden away. You can understand how a jury could decide that created doubt. Not being convicted, though, doesn’t give the contents of the video a big green tick. It does not, as his lawyer claimed, vindicate Stokes. Looking in detail, Ryan One is belligerent but his movements telegraph a bluff. Hales is the person he’s gesturing at, but they’re several metres apart when Ryan One cocks his arm ostentatiously, showing off the bottle rather than bracing to swing. He skips forward but Hales skips back and Ryan One doesn’t follow. Kai stretches out an arm to impede Ryan One, who has a drunken stumble, nearly eats pavement, then staggers towards Kai and hits him in the back. That hand is still holding the bottle, but his strike is a side-arm cuff on a soft part of the body. It’s all pretty tame. This is where Stokes gets involved. Having moved across to protect Hales, he now takes three large steps to run around Kai and booms his first punch at Ryan One. They fall to the ground and the bottle clinks away. Stokes gets to his feet to punch down at the fallen man, while Hales arrives to kick him ineffectively then runs off across the street for some unknown reason. Ice-cream van? Stokes is soon back in the grapple having his shirt pulled up to show off his Durham tan. Ryan Two steps in for the first time to pull Stokes away, prompting a couple more random punches at this new target, then Stokes trips backwards over Ryan One and sprawls in the street. Hales chooses this moment to return and aim some solid kicks at the head of the man on the ground. Nothing so far is a triumph of moral philosophy or the pugilistic arts. But if it all stopped here, perhaps you could say it was somewhere approaching fair. Ryan One has behaved like a turnip and it’s not an entirely unjust world that would give him a whack across the chops. The antagonists have disentangled, Stokes has some distance, it’s time to dust off and go home. Ryan Two steps forward for this purpose with his palm raised in conciliatory style and says, ‘Settle down, stop.’ So Stokes punches him. It’s roughly his fifth punch overall, and he really winds up into this one. He misses so hard that he stumbles away into the shadows of the shop awnings along the road. Hales starts shouting for him to stop. Ryan Two backs into the street, still holding his palm up. Stokes closes on him from about five metres away, six large steps, to where Ryan Two is standing on his own. Stokes pushes him a couple of times, as Ryan Two keeps trying to placate him and saying ‘Stop.’ Stokes throws his sixth punch, largely missing as his target ducks. Ryan Two keeps pulling away and reversing, into the middle of the street now. Stokes follows him, grabbing his sleeve to drag him back. By this point Ryan One has found his feet and walked around behind his friend. Both of them are in the same line of sight for Stokes, and both are backing away. Stokes aims his seventh and his eighth punches, which Ryan Two tries to deflect, as Hales walks up behind Stokes to grab him. Stokes yanks away from his friend and switches to Ryan One instead, taking seven paces to grab him before throwing his ninth punch of the night. He grabs again; Ryan One blocks that arm and pushes himself back away from Stokes. Ryan Two again intercedes, putting himself between the two with his palms up and his arm extended. Stokes throws his tenth punch, a right-hander at the face of Ryan Two, then shoves him backwards. Ryan Two backs away once more, four paces. Stokes follows, steadies, lines up, then launches his strongest punch yet, his eleventh, a proper right hook from a solid base, one that cracks across the man’s head and gives him concussion. Ryan Two ends up flat on his back in the middle of the street, his hands still outstretched for a moment in useless protest until they twitch and drop to the blacktop. Stokes isn’t done. He once more shoves away the restraining Hales and follows Ryan One, who keeps backing away saying, ‘Alright, alright, alright.’ Five more paces from Stokes before another blow at the man’s head. Kai and Billy are now standing over the poleaxed Ryan Two. The video ends, but seconds later Stokes will punch Ryan One hard enough to knock him out too, before off-duty cop Andrew Spure arrives on the scene to bring down the curtain. When the body-camera footage kicks in some minutes later, Stokes is in handcuffs but Ryan One is still laid out in the street. Ryan Two has regained consciousness, folded his shirt under his friend’s head and is asking police for an ambulance. ‘At this point, I felt vulnerable and frightened. I was concerned for myself and others.’ This was how Stokes described that sequence to the court. An elite athlete with years of gym work and training to snap a bat through the line of a ball with astounding power and precision, swinging fists as hard as he can at men with none of those advantages. Punching so hard that he breaks his hand, and repeatedly shoving away a friend so he can punch some more. Frightened and threatened by two targets shouting ‘Get back!’ and ‘Stop!’ The off-duty officer testified that Stokes ‘seemed to be the main aggressor or was progressing forward trying to get to’ Ryan One, who was ‘trying to back away or get away from the situation’. The student who filmed the video can be heard on the tape at one stage exclaiming ‘Fuck!’ and testified that it was because ‘I felt a little bit sorry about the lad that had been punched and it looked like he had his hands up’. That tallied with the prosecutor’s depiction of ‘a sustained episode of significant violence that left onlookers shocked at what was taking place’. The defendant stuck to his strategy. ‘No, my sole focus was to protect myself.’ All up, in the 33 seconds of footage after he falls over, Stokes takes 35 steps forward to keep hitting two men who keep trying to get away. Not once is he hit back. After the verdict, Stokes’ solicitor positioned him as the victim. It had been ‘an eleven-month ordeal for Ben … The jury’s decision fairly reflects the truth of what happened that night … He was minding his own business … It was only when others came under threat that Ben became physically engaged. The steps that he took were solely aimed at ensuring the safety of himself and the others present …’ The statement was impossibly self-righteous and self-absorbed. If there was anyone to feel sorry for it was Ryan Hale, the second of our two Ryans. He’s the one who emerged from the club with a friendly arm around the shoulder for Kai and Billy. He’s the one who interposed himself to end the fight, then kept putting himself back in the firing line, trying to calm an intimidating stranger while dodging blows. For his show of restraint he got laid out regardless, concussed in the street, then was issued a criminal charge equal to that of the man who hit him, and described in national media as a violent bigot in an untested story to support that man’s defence. Lawyers for Ryan Two made a more convincing post-trial statement, noting that Kai and Billy, ‘neither of whom were relied upon by the prosecution or the defence team for Mr Stokes, have taken the opportunity to speak with various media outlets about the alleged homophobic abuse that they received in the early hours of September 25. Mr Hale has passionately denied this allegation throughout the course of this case,’ it continued. ‘It is upsetting to Mr Hale that although he was acquitted, the accusation that he was the author of such abuse remains. Both Mr Hale and Mr Ali were knocked unconscious by Mr Stokes, and although Mr Stokes has been acquitted of an affray, Mr Hale struggles with the reasons why the Crown Prosecution Service did not treat him as a victim of an unlawful assault.’Good question. Avon and Somerset police were the investigating force, and they were frustrated by the decision. Ryan Two was filmed clearly not hurting anyone, but police were instructed by the CPS to proceed with a charge. Hales (the cricketer) was filmed fighting but ‘a decision was made at a senior level of the CPS’ not to proceed. Police expected Stokes to be charged with assault but the CPS declined. It doesn’t take a wild cynic to think that placing the same lukewarm charge on three men for vastly divergent behaviour might ensure that none would be convicted, even as the trial would maintain the pretence that a defendant of influential standing had not been given a free pass. A couple of years down the line, the original interview with Kai and Billy has disappeared. All traces have been scrubbed from The Sun website, its social media history, and even from the Wayback Machine internet archive. Given its headline of ‘homophobic thugs’ and text that names Ryan Two but not Ryan One, the libel liability isn’t hard to spot. Later interviews with Kai and Billy take the passive voice – they ‘suffered homophobic slurs outside a Bristol nightclub’. The article that was once claimed to exonerate brave Ben Stokes now links only to a missing content page, with a picture of a dropped ice-cream cone and the phrase ‘legal removal’ inserted into the web URL. In terms of consequences, Stokes missed one tour. When he resumed his career in January 2018, the Australians hadn’t yet ruined theirs. Their year-long bans looked much more stringent. But the Stokes case dragged on in other ways. With no criminal liability, the Australians confessed promptly enough for the sporting world to give them the full length of the lash. Their situation was ugly but there was closure. Stokes got stuck in legal stasis, unable to be fully backed or condemned. Instead his issue was always present, a browser full of open tabs that the ECB swore they would read any day now. Through 2018 Stokes was back but he wasn’t back, in the sunglasses and finger-guns sense. In his return one-day series he nearly cost England a match with 39 from 73 balls in Wellington. His first Test hit was a duck as England got rolled in Auckland for 58. At Trent Bridge while Stokes was injured, England posted a world record 481 against Australia. With Stokes three weeks later at the same ground they made 268. He crawled to 50 from 103, the second-slowest any Englishman had reached that milestone in 20 years. That span covered Alastair Cook’s whole career. It was apologetic batting, acting out responsibility via the scorecard. Stokes was creeping back into the team like he’d been kicked out in a blazing row and was hoping to tip-toe to the sofa. It was December 2018 before the ECB disciplinary committee ruled on him and Hales. In a ‘remarkable coincidence’, wrote Simon Heffer in The Telegraph, ‘the punishment both players faced in terms of bans from playing at international level was covered by the amount of games they had already missed when dropped by England’s selectors, in the furore that followed the incident’. The verdict compounded the omissions around the case by not addressing the violence at its heart. Nor did Stokes, apologising only ‘to my team-mates, coaches and support staff’, and then ‘to England supporters and to the public for bringing the game into disrepute’. The implicit next step was to rebuild that reputation. It might have been easier had his court defence not meant that he wasn’t game to admit any fault at all. It might have been easier if he or his advisers had been willing to change tack once the trial was done. Imagine a world where Stokes had stood outside court and apologised for overreacting, for the injuries he’d caused, and for the time and energy he had sucked out of other people’s lives. That would have been a show of responsibility beyond a scorecard. When the time came around to assess forgiveness, it might have meant forgiveness was deserved.
[Let's Build] Attractions in a demon pleasure palace that aren't sexual
My players are going to be visiting the palace of a demon lord of pleasure who's more CN than CE. I want to show that despite his title, he represents all forms of pleasure and good feelings, not just sex. Also space in his realm doesn't work the same way as it does in the mortal plane. He essentially has an infinite amount of space to work with and can customize it as he pleases, so there are no size constraints.
A casino to feel the thrill of gambling.
A dining hall with an endless buffet that visitors are allowed to eat as much as they wish.
An idyllic beach with perfectly white sand to relax or play on.
An arena where gladiators brawl it out against each other. The point of it isn't to kill each other as much as make the battles look stunning to the audience.
A hotel with the most comfortable beds possible. Here anyone with enough money can enjoy a good rest after all the excitement.
A beautiful and well tended garden filled with aromatic flowers and sweet fruits.
A vineyard where exquisitely-aged wine can be produced just by pressing the grapes. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
A petting zoo full of the babies of dangerous creatures. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
An opulent concert hall where the best musicians of the realms perform (u/_SovietMudkip_)
A small, cozy looking wooden library, with a cushioned bay window where rain gently scatters against the glass and a cup of some hot liquid gently rising with steam. (u/QuietOracle)
An owl-bear hugging zoo. Go to sleep in the embrace of their soft down. (u/QuietOracle)
The room of sensory experiences. The room itself is fairly plain, with the main feature being long tables running the length of the room. On closer inspection there are fist-sized carved holes, each one holding a small round crystal... (u/QuietOracle)
A room with dozens of sacks filled with beans, lentils and grains where visitors can put their hands in and let the contents run through their fingers. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
A hag (or any other long nailed creature) giving visitors a scalp massage. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
A museum of little-known or long-forgotten art pieces, sculptures, and history. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A festival full of colors, music, and drinks. Everyone seems to love you, and you can’t stop laughing. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A hallway of endless doors. In each room is someone you know, complimenting you endlessly, sharing every positive, even begrudgingly jealous thought they ever had about you. (u/MoonlightMancer)
A hot spring/spa, with fluffy towels, those showers that are like rain with perfect water pressure, mud baths, and refreshing food and drink. (u/lionesslindsey)
A room full of people that constantly give you validation and laugh at all your jokes. (u/CountryJeff)
Never-ending line of gold chalices, crystal vases, silver artwork, and other valuables. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
People who are “better” than you are marched in a stripped of their superior qualities. Beautiful people are disfigured and turned ugly. Wealthy powerful people are ruined and made to beg you for pennies. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
Mass groups of people enter the room and tell you how they admire you and how wonderful you are. They stroke your ego and inflate your pride. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
Servants do everything for you. Feed you, give you drinks, wash you, wipe your arse, etc. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
You are given a wickedly barbed leather whip. A slave creature is bound to a post and you can whip this creature to inflict your wrath upon them as much as you desire. If the poor soul dies, another is brought in to replace them. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
'Knight for a day'. The full experience; lance, shiny outfit, a squire, a trusty stead, a dragon and a princess/prince to rescue. (u/mr_earthman)
The magical equivalent of a holo deck (u/cyber-viper)
Wide, flat plain with the fastest vehicles in the multiverse (a good place to use the Avernus vehicles) (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A selection of cities and villages for you to destroy with war machines or your own magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A collection of wand that allow you to test out powerful magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A magical version of a movie theatre, allowing you to watch all manner of stories, true and legendary. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
A moderately large pool where small battleships with tiny animated crewmen can be deployed in teams to shell and board each other for the audience's amusement. Honored guests can put their strategic abilities to a test against other players by directly giving orders to their ships, and in certain hours guests may even swim in the pool to live out the power fantasy of being a sea monster. (u/VIixIXine)
A colorizer-device that transforms any clothes/armoweapons/other gear to any desired hue you wish (as long as it doesn’t affect the workings of the gear) (u/PaigeOrion)
A grand screen, showing a nearly infinite number of (screen)plays from all space and time, including the show with the disgraced human paladin delivering a green baby gnome back to his home land through incredible odds. (u/PaigeOrion)
A tiara that allows you to experience the sensory experience of a black cat as long as you wear it and close your eyes. (u/PaigeOrion)
A plethora of small, multicolored blocks that will magically interlock with one another to render almost any architectural structure imaginable. (But don’t step on them barefoot!) (u/PaigeOrion)
A band of musicians who are the perfect musical backup for any performances. Alone, they are more low key, but no less skilled, playing haunting melodies of unknown origin. (u/PaigeOrion)
A massive walk-in closet where you can try in any clothes in any fashion you like. (u/Tezla44)
A "schadenfreude" theatre, with shows that rely on slapstick and cringe comedy. (u/Martinus_XIV)
A room designed to give you closure. When you enter this room, someone you loved and lost is there, sitting in a couch. The room feels vaguely familiar, but you can't place why. If Detect Magic is used, the room is full of magic (divination, transmutation, illusion) but the person seems like a normal person. You can chat with them for as long as you like. They behave just as you remember them, with the good and the bad. (u/ohsurenerd)
A theatre performing the most magnificent tragedies. When you watch the performance, you find yourself completely enraptured: you cheer when things go right, scream when something terrifying happens, and moan and weep at the inevitable horrible ending. When you leave, it feels like removing a backpack full of lead that you'd been carrying for so long you'd forgotten it was there. (u/ohsurenerd)
A room where there's a button, there's someone outside and it explains that if you enter there's a 50/50 chance of you dying or not, the room won't actually kill you and it's there just to make you feel the pleasure of near death experience. (u/SupremeGodDictator)
A massage parlor with the universes best staff pampering your every need as you receive the most relaxing massage of your life whether it be scalp, back, foot, full body, etc. Has the worlds fluffiest towels and robes to luxuriate in while you wait or if you simply want to sit in a comfy chair and enjoy your ache free muscles. (u/Blue_Mando)
An arena where you and your opponents heal near instantly, and you can fight endlessly (u/ellen-the-educator)
A reenactment of your greatest failures in life, but this time they turn into your greatest achievements. (u/CountryJeff)
A room with the world's finest works of art.... and a myriad of implements you can use to destroy them. (u/redrosebeetle)
A torture chamber with mages on hand to create illusions of the people you wish to torture. Or increasingly realistic versions of them, depending on the level of magic you wish to implement. (u/redrosebeetle)
A room full of gold and jewels you can roll around in, ala Scrooge McDuck. But woe betide anyone who tries to take a souvenir.... (u/redrosebeetle)
As you're walking through the gardens, a person comes up to you. They introduce themselves as an adventurer who's also here on a quest. They seem to be the same class as you, and they're incredibly attractive-- almost exactly your type. You immediately click and end up spending the day together, talking about everything and anything. You tell them things you've never told anyone else before. They understand everything you tell them, almost innately, but they're still impressed by your feats and your stories. The two of you find an empty bedroom and close the door behind you. It's perfect in its imperfections. In the morning they're gone. No matter where you look, you can't find them. (u/ohsurenerd)
A room lined with shelves and shelves of bottles and vials containing a crimson liquid flowing slowly (like a syrup), all with small labels on them. As you inspect the labels, you realize they've all got names on them: famous adventurers, kings and queens, great sages. If you drink one, you experience a selection of their memories as they experienced them: battles won, discoveries made, historical alliances and friendships being forged or broken... (u/ohsurenerd)
A room that turns anyone that enters it into a child. It is full of every toy imaginable (u/arual_x)
A tour of a chocolate factory. Kobolds work there, and the owner, who gives the tour, is a Metallic Dragon in Humanoid form. (u/arual_x)
A fortune teller who has a Deck of Many Things with only the good cards. If you in any way offend them, they will sleight of hand vs perception check slip you a bad card instead. (u/arual_x)
An island theme park of reanimated dinosaurs. The owner is a level 20 Necromancer called Hamm Johnand. (u/arual_x)
A Virtual Reality style game that allows you to battle horrible monsters over and over again without risk of injury physical. But still allows you to gain XP... (u/arual_x)
A perfect expanse of thick snowy ground. There is constantly a snowball fight going on. (u/arual_x)
A giant room full of mattresses where everyone immediately gets a wonderful massage. (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A room full of gold and exquisite things, from beautiful furniture to magic weapons (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
A seemingly endless room where adventurers can drink a potion to grow wings and flit about to their hearts' delight (u/iriedashur)
An ordinary classroom containing the adventurer's childhood friends, enemies, and their most hated teacher. Upon entering the room, the adventurer discovers that they are invisible, and free to pull pranks as they wish (u/iriedashur)
A brightly colored room piled high with wrapped gifts, large and small, for the adventurers to open endlessly (u/iriedashur)
A purple and black dragon named Ace who cooks you garlic bread and cake. (u/sanorace)
A magic pair of goggles/glasses that simulate any “What if” question you pose to them. (u/lewiscann)
A magical weather room where you can ask for any weather for your pleasure (I love listening to rain) (u/lewiscann)
A room full of lounges with a floating slow burning piece of wood that warms the whole area, the piece of wood is so large you can see the flame spread through this piece of wood forever (u/lewiscann)
A room where you can bite your fingernails and they grow back instantly ( so you can bite them some more )(u/razenastie)
A room with incredibly weakened versions of powerful monsters. (u/Your_InsideMan)
A vast room on wooden sculptures, oil, and torches. (u/Your_InsideMan)
A booth that will remake your face whilst in the palace (ostensibly to make you more beautiful but it could be used for anything) (u/Paralytica)
A magic chair that gives really good back massages (u/TenNinetythree)
A playground where the slides and carousels are for adults (u/TenNinetythree)
A room where you become a giant and can destroy cities and fortresses kaiju style. (u/Paralytica)
Drug Olympics. A room with every drug imaginable to try. Leaving the room cleanses you of their effects. (u/Skitsafrit)
No Pauses. A room that has the effect of making all conversations flow perfectly. No silence stretches too long, no one mishears you, and every topic segways perfectly into the next. (u/Skitsafrit)
Deprivation Room. The room is so absolutely featureless and quiet, that you can meditate magnitudes better here than anywhere else. (u/Skitsafrit)
A games room where you play against your perfect match (u/Nesurame)
Similar to the previous, a games room where you're matched against nothing but weaker opponents (u/Nesurame)
A heist simulator where you always get away with the big diamond, chest, etc (thrill of theft) (u/reallyenjoyscarbs)
A sauna room with a central pillar. Inside the pillar is a chamber containing a magic stone which can detect the exact temperature preferences of those inside, and making each person feel said preference. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
An oval-shaped room with countless glass lotion bottles, with each smelling better than the last. If you look for a specific scent (no matter how rare), you'll certainly find it with the help of a goblin near the back of the room. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
A room that consists of A bunch of mortals so utterly jaded from years of plesure seeking that they need the hardest of drugs and the wildest of sensations to feel anything,with lesser demons feeding on their pursuit of euphoria. Think the emperors children from warhammer 40k. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
A buffet of the lids of yogurt/pudding cups to lick. (u/Hunter37594)
An olfactory room that reads your memories and replicates smells that remind you of your most joyous moments. (u/lecorbusianus)
A wildlife reserve for Druids to find new and exotic wild shapes. (u/lecorbusianus)
A room with musical instruments that you're able to master immediately. (u/lecorbusianus)
A cooking class taught by a master chef that always seems to have enough time to guide you one-on-one. (u/lecorbusianus)
An enchanter who allows you to relieve the best moments of your life over and over again. (u/lecorbusianus)
An illusionary room that brings up past experiences and let’s you make different choices to fix mistakes or win arguments. (u/The_Rhibo)
A murder simulator to allow an individual to live out the fantasy of killing that special someone. (u/Brann_The_Kid)
A library full of blackmail and secret knowledge regarding historical and political figures. A conniving, plotting character’s dream! (u/MoonlightMancer)
A room with a creature in a dark robe sitting at a table covered in maps and dice. He helps you play a strange game where you and your party make up characters that go on adventures while the robed creature acts as all of the other characters and determines new events. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
Amidst the sea of concrete snow that the stage had become, egged on by Agnes’ unusual encore request that Metra had agreed to, the killing intent of the self-styled villain and master mixologist had won out against the comparable brutality of the affable mercenary who had tried to take his life with just as much brutality. The crowd, though annoyed by being utterly doused in carbonated everything, literally tossed around, literally watching their fellow partygoers exsanguinated and turned into meat puppets, did not allow it to ruin their fun, cheering on for Metra and her eclectic song choices. Agnes hopped off the makeshift surfboard he’d constructed, his opponent cut to pieces and speared and speared to hell, and it a testament to the sheer resilience of Guy-Manuel Mota that, even in such a gored, pulverized state, his opponent wondered if he was actually dead. Regardless, he wasn’t getting back up, or reassembling, or pulling any more surprises or attempts to play possum. Realizing that it was over, Agnes was shaking. Breathing heavily. Hints of tears started to form in his eyes… but before he had a chance to cry, he arched back, laughing into a sea of concrete snow. He’d won again. “There you go, Metra, your show is saved or whatever,” he said with a mocking flippancy as she left the crowd to meet him backstage, “and I didn’t even kill any of these guys who paid to see you… They’ll just have to deal with sticky-wet clothes and some broken limbs.” “Can’t believe this happened again… And I just had no choice but to keep singing and dancing.” Metra rubbed her hands on her arms, shaking her head. “I’m sick of this shit… I thought it was all almost over, but it’s just going to be forever in this city, huh?” “Probably,” Agnes said, still half-laughing through a strained face, “just a constant, encroaching wave of ‘despair’ every waking moment… Way I see it, either you ride that shit as far as you can, or you let yourself drown. Doesn’t make a difference to me which you do.” He glanced up at the ceiling then, cupping his hands. “Hey, fuckers! I won now! I beat the guy you sent! Get on the biggering or I’ll burn your casino down again!” The game had, in fact, been won, and Agnes and Metra were the first to start to be free of its grasp, along with the spiked and bloodied separated bits of Guy, still pulsating ambiguously. “He’s out for blood.” Tigran declared, warning the others Entertainment District highrollers observing, as he produced a deck of cards. “My Stand can’t hold him at that size much longer… But this whole place is about to be flooded with people, too. Duck into somewhere, and get away in the confusion.” He spoke authoritatively, and even his sole superior, Fox, complied with his wishes after an urgent glance. “I… I’ll come for you! I promise I will!” Tigran didn’t hear much more of that, then, beyond the sounds of Pork Soda’s Stand cry amplified by sonic boosts courtesy of Metra Doria. He fought impressively with little more than a deck of cards, but even then, could only buy his friends the seconds they needed to get away, live to gamble another day. Tigran “Golden” Sins, User of ‘The Grid Retired! Face broken in nearly a dozen places by Agnes and TD/MD, the 48 year-old owner of Heartache Casino would be very quickly interned at Red Clay penitentiary, Metra insisting that her ally not kill him. As thousands of confused concertgoers suddenly grew to full size and began to flood the halls of the Alexander Dickinson Amphitheater, the rest of his accomplices were able to escape the authorities yet again. Despite his extremely infamous protectiveness towards his face, he almost seemed to wear the damage with pride, knowing that this time, it represented having allowed the only man he considered greater than himself to run free yet again. Red Clay Penitentiary - Industrial District “Well, well, well, isn’t this a small world now? Tigran Sins, now in my care… Certainly less of a looker than I’d heard.” A dark-wavy-haired twenty-something sat snickering in the warden’s big swivel-chair, clad in a sleeveless velvet minidress, what of her flesh was exposed covered in flickering tattoos resembling closed eyes, flanked by uncanny-looking guards. “You don’t know me, but I’ve certainly heard of you… Of how you treated someone I hold dear very cruelly. Don’t you understand we’re all Stand Users trying to live our best life, Mr. Golden? I’m not the one who hurt you and threw you in here, and you’re not the one who said that I needed to be kept half-starved at all times so I couldn’t create anything.” “Wh… Wait. Who the hell’re you?” “Did my sweetheart never mention me, or do you just not pay attention to anyone but you and yours?” She leaned forward, bridging her fingers together. “I’m Palmer. I was a drama teacher at a small-town high school, but they kept overfunding football, one thing led to another, and now… I’ve got some serious vision.” Tigran would be the last inmate admitted to Red Clay before a coup months in the making finally came to fruition. Hey, yeah, Palmer! Remember that fun NPC? She was dating Mr. Jones and killed four people for him! Anyway, yeah, adjacent to him, an all-out meanspirited brawl in a sewer is taking place, feat. two chaotic clowns and two very frustrated young women. What rotten luck this had been. That leak, now of all days, when Being So Normal, Cairo Satori’s pet project that they had been slaving away at ever since setting foot in this series, had the deals with the devil that it had been built upon from the very beginning exposed for the world to see, and the city, which had loved every second of it before, had now been divided sharply between the loyal fans remaining and those protesting the entire thing, demanding the resignation of their producer, the cancellation of a show which had been picked up by so many streaming platforms, had already begun to make so much for the people who had made a livelihood of it all. With the connection to Andrew Tiffany’s demise, even the oh-so-loyal Purple Flying Man resigned with only a short argument, and even the damage control removal of Caroline Jeffords, responsible for the worst of it, did little to contain the fact that Cairo knew about this, and Cairo allowed this to proceed nonetheless. What, were they going to just throw it all away at the last minute? Ruin lives, tank companies, get how many people laid off? All over the failures of those close to them? Of course not. “Cairo, dear,” the voice of that ever-troublesome producer, Million Dollars, muttered into a cell phone for them, “I’m going to need to go under the radar for awhile… People are beginning to look into my own affairs as well. But know that, as always, no matter what, you have my support. This show isn’t just a cash cow, Cairo… It’s an example. An example for the world to look to, and something for Stand Users to aspire to be better. I know you’re probably mad at us as well, but… You know that, don’t you?” “Dollars… You’ve got a lot of nerve, trying to plead with me right now,” Cairo answered, tense in what had been their green room, sitting in the mall their producer had owned, “we definitely need to talk about our future… But we need to have one, too. Of course the show must go on… Nothing’s gonna jeopardize that!” Free Viper Strip Mall, Suburban District In recent times, the atmosphere at Free Viper was… somewhat dire. In fact, it had been on a rapid decline since that fateful day a couple months ago when Bert hijacked a ritual meant to challenge fate and did so, while murdering tens of thousands of people and injuring far more than that at the same time. Actually, Black Knight Penitentiary Album’s death and the realization that Remix was a serial killer came before that and weren’t very uplifting either, but what Bert did was somewhat hard to top. Either way, the realization that he found one of the most morally bankrupt groups of people to team up with in Los Fortuna was one that Arthur Lifeson had reached not too long ago, and though it was somewhat of a painful thing to come to terms with, he had no choice but to do so and simply carry on. Bert had died, and the least Arthur could do from here on out would be to do his best to assist the city of Los Fortuna and bring justice to those who deserved it. The city certainly needed it, given all that was occurring right now. For all the time Arthur spent in the city, he hadn’t gotten enough of note done yet… but that was soon to change. He had a plan in mind, one that would help keep the city and the world of stand users as a whole from devolving into further chaos. Before he could put it in place, however, he’d have to get some help. Los Fortuna Shopping District, Sweet FA Mall - The Next Day Nix Ripa had been in this city for months now, and in that time, all he had done was tear down walls, break buildings, break people who had dared to step all over the safety of others, of those too weak to bend fate to their whims. It was despicable to him, and the icy Stand User was seething with hot rage. Those without the power to change the world themselves were pitiable, in their ways, yet at once, he knew they were not above help… That they needed to be driven higher, reach for the stars rather than wave to the heroes they saw in them! When Arthur Lifeson discovered and contacted him, he did not hesitate to make his way to the megamall in which this was all set to culminate. Rather than in the comfortable solitude of the Black Hill Estate, where he could train without disruption, he’d even spent the night in an alley nearby, wanting to be able to spring out first thing in the morning! When he did, then, as if on schedule, the older bearded man who had requested his help stood at the foot of Sweet FA, looking himself quite regal with that increasingly modified Medieval Times getup. “Sir Ripa… It is an honor to meet in person, with yet another warrior of great acclaim.” “Heh… I’ve seen you around,” Nix answered, stretching off the sleeping-on-a-dumpster aches and forcing out his hand, which Arthur, in turn, grabbed firmly, the pair locking fingers tightly and staring one another down intensely. “Did a damn fine number on those guys at this very mall awhile back… And it takes some guts to drive out into the Middle Finger for any reason! The mountains are where I do my most intense training of all!” “Aye, I regrettably was fooled into following the glorious allure of Being So Normal… I lack even your good reason, of how you and your fallen brother-in-arms, Sir Rains, apprehended a true villain in the process of this fight, and even a black knight who would have put a past companion of mine to shame with her depravity.” He looked towards the space and shuddered. “The show, it refused to show the truth, but the wounds from that grueling battle, the burns… They were excruciating. That witch Jeffords, nothing she’s touched can be trusted as a truth to show the world.” “So we’re in agreement then!” Nix said, finally letting the handshake go as Arthur’s hand began to grow numb, rolling his arms around and turning to face Sweet FA. “I looked into this place, their mission statement, their show, their producer… Set a good example my ass! They just want the whole damn world to think there’s nothing better than being a Stand User! That the ground we walk on should be kissed just for what we’ve got! Well… I’m no goddamn celebrity!” “Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Arthur agreed, “and this mockery… It will not do good for the world to learn of us this way. A knight’s honor is not something we seek for glory, for congratulation, but because there is no greater purpose than to slay evil, to protect those who cannot for themselves!” “Heh… I like you. After this, we’re sparring ‘til one of us can’t move!” Nix led the way in there, then, Arthur feeling pause for a moment at the sheer intensity of his companion. This was not of fear, however, or of a sudden feeling of inadequacy at someone so much younger, yet so much more driven than him. Nay, he had been filled with more righteous determination than ever, and with a battle cry that led to a family with two kids in a stroller staring his way, he ran in after him! … … As soon as they reached the main foyer of the mall, both of them realized, in tandem, and Nix spoke first, “…this place is huge as hell! Where do we even go to smash shit up?” “I… That. That is a good point! Perhaps we should conduct a map kiosk, one which says ‘you are here!’ Ugh, those are always a pain to read…” “I’ll help you.” Both turned, then, to see a very fashionable teenager, clad in a purple aviator cap and goggles, slim and bearing a dour expression on his face. All who had hung around Cairo would recognize the Purple Flying Man from someplace or another, as well as all the extremely online and influencer-following of Los Fortuna. “This show… They’ve done so much to capitalize on my uncle’s death. They’ve actively stopped the truth of whatever might have happened to him from being investigated with their frameup… And this conflict, I have lost two of my brothers to it all over again.” He paused, then, and the two men seemed to trust him. “You won’t be able to erase the show completely… It’s already had a limited run in this city. But masters, extra footage, content they were going to actually send out… There’s a storage space nearby… Most of the show’s data is backed up, of course, but that’s where everything is being saved. If your wish is to sabotage Being So Normal, to ruin its international release before it can cause any more harm to the outside world, that is where you go.” “So you’ve had a change of heart yourself… I am thankful to hear that, Purple One…” Arthur snapped his fingers, then, as if remembering his name. “Right, now I remember! ‘Afton,’ wasn’t it?” Purple’s face faulted. “Erm… N-no, eheh. It, uh… It wasn’t that. I haven’t been anything but ‘Purple’ for a very long time.” “No matter what you’re called, an enemy of this show’s from within is just what we need to make this a little less of a pain in the ass!” Nix declared. “Lead the way!” A Series of Backstage Halls Deep Within Sweet FA Acrobatic and stealthy as he was, after leading the way in for those who had sought out this quest to begin with, Purple hurried along deeper inward, well aware that it was likely this place would not be unguarded, and meaning to scout ahead, maybe even fight a bit if he absolutely needed to. He really, really did not want to, and so far, it wasn’t reassuring to him that nobody had interrupted them. No show staff, no Stand Users, not even some rent-a-cop had yet gotten into the way of this. As he made his way to a security room, quietly bemoaning the fact that he would never live down infiltrating a security room with that damned nickname Bad Apples had given him, his worst fears were confirmed. His friend, his confidante, Cairo Satori was sitting in a swivel chair, watching screens displaying the entire mall and idly leaning their head into a metal baseball bat. “Purp…” They spoke up without even turning to face him. “Wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon! I mean, with everywhere you’ve blocked me, privated your accounts… I was under the impression you needed some time away from the show.” Purple hopped down, then, walking closer towards the chair, clearing his throat and pondering his words clearly. “The show needs time away from the show, Cairo… You know damn well why I brought myself back. Come on. You know this isn’t right… It doesn’t have to be this, and even just delaying could save-” “Delay, huh?” They stood, twirling that bat they’d always carried around. It didn’t worry Purple. He’d never seen them actually using it. “C’mon… You know it’s not that simple, buddy. I’m just trying to make sure everyone has a good time… Already, I’m cutting toxic people out of the show! Even when they’ll make it harder to make anything going forward, Caroline is gone! I’ll keep that producer on a really short leash! I am doing everything in my power to make sure that this goes well… C’mon, can’t you look on the bright side?” “You… You already know my answer to that. You’ve betrayed my trust, Cairo. The trust of my uncle, of everyone you’ve worked with… Of this whole city!” He shifted in place, then, becoming a much more avian humanoid figure with its pose. “I am its lavender courage, and I am your friend! And as both, I cannot abide by-” Cairo swang their bat, and as they did, the arms of a Stand emerged from their own hand and struck it as well, multiple times in quick succession. By the time the bat impacted Purple, it was with enough force for the deeply resilient eternally-young ghost to be sent hurtling towards a wall, literally impacting it hard enough to leave an impression in its form, embedded and unconscious in a single swing. He was alive, and would walk this off, but he wouldn’t be getting back up today. “Sorry ‘bout that,” they said, standing with the bat over their shoulder, ‘Peach Pit’ manifesting more fully by their side (drawn by the artist Boy George, as usual), “but I can tell we don’t have time to chat… I’ll send you a gift basket from the launch party, yeah?” Then, their attention turned towards the others on the security room screens, addressing their Stand in the meantime, “uh, hey, Peach…” “I’m on it,” the Stand answered, “Arthur Lifeson and Nix Ripa… I’m excited for this, honestly.” “And you don’t need to know that I am to, honestly…” Cairo moved to press the intercom button. “I heard violence!” Nix called out, balling his fists. “Purple found someone!” He began to rush forward, then, Arthur preparing to make a blade, only to be stopped by the crackling of an intercom button. “Hello again! Wow, it really isn’t all that often that Being So Normal has repeat appearances, but that’s, what, twice in this promotional cycle alone?” Cairo’s voice rang through, then, and they continued, “I figured we’d see some trouble here, so I gave most of staff the day off… I knew it’d be types like you two who showed up, and honestly, I gotta say, despite the circumstances, I’m a bit psyched!” “Cairo Satori!” Arthur spoke up then, waving his hands. “Put this madness to a close, before I have to put you to my blade! You need not fall victim to this any longer… To fight us is a waste of time!” “Well, I’ve got time to kill, and nobody to talk to, now that my friend’s taking a bit of a nap. And besides, you think I’m gonna just let you destroy everything we’ve been working to build up because you don’t like a couple of the crew members? C’mon, have a reality check here! No way I’m gonna allow that… Especially not right now! Look, why not come talk to me after I’ve completely closed this Netflix deal?” There was silence, then, and then they spoke up again. “Oh, who am I kidding? We both know that this is only gonna end one way! If you wanna stop me from sending this show out for the whole world to know and love, and not just be another little piece of Los Fortuna’s super storied, super amazing history, then STOP me! I’m already sending Peach your way, and there’s no way the two of us will just get walked all over!” Arthur shut his eyes in frustration, but Nix shook his shoulder. “We knew from the start it’d come to this. C’mon… Any more talking this through will be a waste of all our breaths.” “Yeah! This pre-battle stuff goes on way too long, I swear! So much to cut down in post without missing the meat of it… But enough talking shop, yeah? Let’s get to what we’re here for… You wanna say it with me? …no? Okay, suit yourself!” “OPEN THE GAME!” Location: A hallway to several storage rooms in Sweet FA Mall. The area here is 40 by 80 meters with each tile being 2.5 by 2.5 meters. The white tiles are completely out of bounds for this match. The light magenta tiles are the main hallway, the purple tiles are side hallways, and the red tiles are the rooms. Each room has a number associated with it for convenience, as shown by the purple numbers. The ceiling is 8 meters tall. The doorways are denoted by the dotted lines between the rooms and hallways. The players start at the left end of the hallway and Cairo starts in the security room (room 5) to the right of the bottom center. Cairo’s Stand starts in the middle of the main hallway. The grey X marked circles are security cameras on the ceiling that connect to the monitors that are represented by the yellow notched rectangles in room 5. The light blue rectangles in the main hallway are 4 meter tall metal shelves that house stage set up equipment such as stepladders, light fixtures, microphones, extension cables, construction tools, and anything else needed to set up or tear down a stage. All shelves are bolted to the ground. The yellow stars are disks, tapes, harddrives and other recordings of the footage shot by Cairo’s show. The walls are drywall while the floor is ceramic tiled. Now onto the different rooms:
Room 1: Contains racks and cardboard bins of merchandise. The brown rectangles are cardboard bins of plushies and hats. The red circles are racks of clothing merchandise.
Room 2: Contains a mountain of chairs and other furniture within a 5 meter tall metal storage fence as represented by the light blue rectangle and the junk inside it. Each side of the fence has a chain locked door.
Room 3: Contains various cooking appliances and peripherals. The white rectangles are 4 meter tall metal storage shelves and the magenta rectangles are 5 meter tall metal storage containers. Basically any appliance that doesn’t fit on a shelf is put into one of the three containers.
Room 4: Contains two long tables as represented by the grey L-shaped rectangles. On these tables are neatly laid out items that were used in Round 2 Match 4, this means Riot Shields, Fireworks Cannons, Magnetic Ray Guns, Grappling Hook Guns, smoke bombs, Tar filled paintball guns, mannequins, body armor, skateboards, net launchers, fire extinguishers, step ladders, marbles, bowling balls, trampolines, shovels, steel chairs, and blankets. Only the crystal ball is missing. The blue circle is a barrel of fencing foils and the yellow rectangle is a banged up motorcycle that while not completely totaled is in pretty bad shape.
Room 5: The security room. It is rather bare, only housing the monitors set-ups to the security cameras and three swivel chairs to go with them.
Goal: RETIRE your opponents! Additional Information: As a reminder, White Tile areas are out-of-bounds for this match. If you willingly traverse through them you will be retired by a pair of mall cops. Here is a shortened version of Cairo’s character sheet with all relevant information, the full sheet is linked below Name: Cairo Satori Age: 21 Gender: None, whose business is that anyways? Species: Human Occupation: Beloved Media Icon Equipment: The newest smartphone, two sets of wireless earbuds for communicating directly with [Peach Pit] quietly, a bag of weed mints, and a baseball bat. User Stats: Strength: 3 (Too much effort to get properly strong- Cairo can throw as much effort into a hit as they need to in order to finish someone off after being brought to near-retirement by [Peach Pit], and that’s about the maximum they need.) Agility: 2 (Never had to run after or from anything.) Endurance: 2 (Not one to hold up under sustained pressure for very long, hoping to duck back from any conflicts except where absolutely necessary.) Conduction: 2 (Able to personally carry their Stand’s damaging energy through them, and has a general knowledge of how to apply it.) Vibing: 3 (It's for vibe checks- the necessity of finishing an opponent off personally, in a fast and hard strike. The full force of their strength, loaded into one moment rather than a series of fests. Also, they do have good vibes.) Stand Name: [Peach Pit] Stand Appearance: On the bulkier side of stand builds, Peach Pit has some resemblance to a knight in plate armor- big, dark metallic pauldrons, a chestplate, an assortment of straps and buckles, etc. The surface of the stand looks very much like a sunset with its colors flipped around. Its face is smooth except for a simple minimalist icon of the sun, and the rest of the head is mostly covered by a knight's helmet as well. A gradient of sorts goes from the head of the stand down to its armored feet, starting with an orange-red and ending in black with white specks like stars in the night sky. About/Oddities: The stand is dangerous, outright. The manifestation of an incredible will for a very specific life gave it incredibly high offensive might, and although Cairo has depleted its very low ‘potential,’ nothing else has decreased in the slightest. Additionally, [Peach Pit] is sentient, and thinks of itself as a close friend and bodyguard to Cairo. Despite being able to dish out high damage, it is very much a friendly, calm and collected individual, having respect even for those it has to fight. As such, [Peach Pit] leaves RETIRING opponents up to its user completely. An enemy can be beaten down, but will still be able to pull together and carry on albeit impeded until Cairo personally finishes them off. This isn't simply a choice- if instructed to keep pressure on an opponent who's down but not out, its strikes can indefinitely inflict serious pain and yet never be quite enough to injure a foe to the point where they're considered RETIRED. Due to the bold weakness in this, for how combat inefficient and easily hurt its user is, Peach doesn't have full damage transference. Instead, it can be destroyed repeatedly- Cairo takes one instance of C power damage upon its destruction, and it can be resummoned from Cairo's position after ten seconds. Peach's presenting identity has been influenced by Cairo's insistence against defining things that way, to the point of being comfortably seen subjectively as anything. Peach will respond to any pronouns without questioning it. Stand Stats: Power: A(The stand can exert a great amount of power in its attacks) Speed: A (Its movements are very fast and its attacks can travel just as quickly) Range: B (50 meters) Durability: E (Subpar durability, however when destroyed the user takes C power damage and the stand can be summoned back to Cairo’s side after 10 seconds.) Precision: C (Generally decent in its movements, but its projectile attacks only move in a straight line once fired and can only be stored within conductive materials. In non-conductive materials it would keep traveling) Ability: Peach Pit lacks a complex ability, as far as one would expect. Rather than intricate effects, its hits themselves can simply be conducted through material similarly the way that electricity does, with distinct variation based on the conductivity of the material. Within conductive material, damage is stored up much like a battery - the moment someone touches the "battery", the damage transfers directly to it on the point of contact. This means that if Peach were to punch a metal rod and someone were to touch it, they would feel the full brunt of Peach's attack the moment they do so. A battery remains charged for up to fifteen seconds, and at any point if it hasn’t been touched and discharged already, Cairo can pick any direction from where the battery is in contact with non-conductive materials to activate the next type of attack. Within non-conductive material, either deployed through battery or direct strike, damage "travels", moving forwards in a straight line at A speed in the same direction it came from. This wave of damage can be seen as it travels, with slight shimmers of light and a crackling sound emanating from where it's currently positioned. Damage cannot travel further than B range from Cairo.
“The thing in Hayato's hand was definitely a handy cam. It doesn't seem to be in this room right now...” This show is a sweet-sounding idea, but it’s so corrupt to its core that you can’t allow it to spread any further than it has. Destroy as many physical backings of the recordings Cairo has made for their show as you can over the course of your strat!
“I even took a video of the cat-like plant you've got in the attic!” This show… You know it’s been an unsavory road, one you wish you could have managed differently, but the good it can do, the way the world might finally begin to understand the ugly and wonderful truths of Stand Users and appreciate them more as a part of their lives… You will celebrate that. Take creative inspiration from actions that took place in matches related officially to ‘Being So Normal!’ That is to say, these 5 matches, R1M5,R1M23,R1M29,R2M4, and R3M8!
Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet Link to Match Schedule As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!
My opinion is that buying 10 shares at a time is better than buying in bulk, prove me wrong.
Hey guys, this post is not intended to tell you what to do. I'm not a financial advisor. This isn't my day job. I am not even a day trader. I learned the difference between call and put options like 3 months ago. I don't trade options. I don't even know how yet, to be frank. I recently got an RH account to try to learn how and then this shit blew up. This post is viewable to the general public and is not "insider knowledge". Everything I am about to say, I have gleaned from PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE DATA. That Hedge funds and other people in the media, the government, and in the general public ALL have access to. This is MORE VISIBLE than even Facebook. Let alone a country club or private "dinner party". Just saying. I am a real person. I am not a bot. I am not trying to screw anyone over. I like the stock I am choosing to gamble my disposable income on and think it will be a good investment regardless of the action over the next few weeks. 💎🙌 I CAN earn it back if I have to. I didn't stake my entire savings. I don't advise people to gamble with money they don't have. Not for financial reasons, solely, but more for mental health reasons. Bias disclosure: I currently have 1882 shares of AMC at an average price of 9.27$ and I occupied Wall Street for a bit after the financial crisis, mostly on reddit as I was in medical school at the time, and supported occupy the SEC. Please see my post history. It's all there in the top posts. I have nothing to hide as I know I am a valued member of our society, I pay my taxes, I treat mental illness, I follow the law, and I don't normally gamble. This is not about the money for me personally, it's about principle. It's my token of rememberance for the failed actions of our government to hold these types of people accountable for the great recession and the subprime mortgage crisis. Also, WSB just happened to stumble upon these criminal vulture firms, in the act of active company rape and decided to give them a licking. If you were interested in GME and were one of the people on the other side [IE at one of these firms] reading the discussion over at WSB should have been your job as a form of market research. If you missed the warning, it's not Reddit's fault. If you suck at your job, it's not Reddit's fault. I don't see how pinning them in that position was illegal. It wasn't planned, it wasn't private. It developed organically like a movement. It continues to grow. Silencing us will only make it louder. You need to level the playing field and regulate the markets. What they did to defend themselves was illegal. The manipulation of the market and the media was illegal. The restriction of buying was illegal. The algorithmic ladder attacks were illegal. Thus I will hold the line, as I HAVE been since Tuesday. It's been a wild ride and I'm tired of this shitshow. I want to get back to normal investing after this fiasco. It's much better for my sleep. *So here goes my theoretical question. AGAIN, I AM NOT saying you SHOULD do this. What you do is your call. I am asking if this has been done before or if it even can be done. I'm a n00b. Educate me. I'm trying to learn how the arena works. Like how it really works. If short ladders by algorithms are being used to artificially deflate the stock price. IE: tanking the price of AMC with low trade volumes that they simply pass amongst themselves. I think yesterday it was 5% buy and hold and 95% sell for AMC but each time with low volumes in a very predictable pattern. (Trey from the link below explained it very well several times better than me.)... What prevents retail traders from spacing out their purchase orders to 1-10 shares at a time and holding. Wouldn't that be better than just impulse buying 100 shares because you want in and you like the stock? Would it do the same thing as short laddering but in converse? Just curious. Would like to hear your opinions. I've been watching this channel to learn about AMC action and markets in general and it has been super educational. *I am not investing in AMC to make a quick buck. I am not a day trader or a pump and dumper. I am doing this because I think AMC will not die from the pandemic, was artificially deflated by vulture hedge funds, almost to the point of bankruptcy, and will NOW be able to pivot into a better business model with fresher screens, Hollywood exclusive releases, fancier theaters, pent up demand, etc., with the new capital and public interest. People LIKE the MOVIES. I grew up in NJ and movie theaters were a HUGE part of my life and many of my most memorable moments occurred at the movies. They make me warm and fuzzy. They have a certain nostalgia for me personally and I like supporting local business when I can. [I know AMC was bought by China, but the staff are all local]. In my opinion GME has an antiquated business model bc I buy games on STEAM and online. AMC was only struggling because of COVID and I don't think that otherwise people would completely stop going to the movies. We Americans LOVE going to the movies. I love going to the movies. That's just my opinion. Don't hate on me for it. I think that the "real value" of AMC is AT LEAST about 10-20$ which is what they were at before 2020 and it wasn't even their peak value. Even if the real value is closer to 5$, according to the arguments of experts, that's just their fucking opinion. It's a different situation now and I don't agree. Is that my right to disagree with them and pick my own stocks? Or can I only bet on what Fox Business tells me to. Or Jim Cramer. As an individual investor, am I free in this country to spend my money how I want on the stock market, or am I not? Am I free to make my own choices about whether to buy a stock or not? At least I think I should be. If I am not, it will solidify my opinion [and the watching world's opinion] that "free market" capitalism is indeed a farce. It will highly depreciate the value of the American dream and my respect for our current government. Which I was Ecstatic about during Election Day. [Disclosure, Bernie/Liz Bro, who voted for Biden and abstained from voting in 2016 due to bitterness about the primaries. Damn you DWS, you know what you did.] We all know the hedge funds sure are free to buy as much stock as they want to. Apparently even to buy stock that doesn't exist. WTF is that? Glad I found out now. Even if I lost 8k by betting it will be 10$ in 2022 rather than 5$ isn't it my CHOICE when to sell? Am I not free to HOLD the damn stock if in my opinion, I'm willing to consider it a tax on sending a giant reddit shaped middle finger into space to these people that rape companies regardless of the consequences to local staff? These parasites who prefer profit to morality and decency? Who sold their souls in the search of...what?...private islands and yachts? Let THIS MOMENT be your Memento Mori, you soulless motherfuckers. If you have any of it left, now is your time to search for it. Your actions will leave behind a husk of an economy and earth if left unchecked. We the Reddit "Retards" stumbled upon our teeth. For the first time the MARKET BITES BACK AND WE ARE NOT LETTING GO. WE ARE MAKING A STAND. FUCK YOU. We all know that the American Citizens will end up footing the bill anyway in taxes when all those people start relying on the government for survival after you motherfuckers artificially drive their employer into bankrupcy. FUCK YOU. You're already taking my money and you know it. I pay 47% in taxes due to my income and living in NYC. FUCK YOU for evading them with offshore accounts you GREEDY FUCKS. I am willing to lose 8k to do that (send you a message) and to rapidly learn about what is going on to manipulate markets. It's also partially the cost of education in my calculus. I have learned more in one week riding this wave, than in 4 years of getting my Economics degree. Either way, my current buy in as at 9.27 so I will hold at least until I make my initial investment back. I am also disclosing that if the stock goes up to 30$ I will likely SELL enough shares to cover half of my position because I am not a degenerate gambler and have been holding the line since Tuesday and it has taken a toll on my sleep and my sanity. I know I might lose some money and this is a crazy roller coaster. I want to get out most of my investment ASAP and then ride the wave to then END with you all. IF it happens. I know it may not. I don't care. The message seems to have been sent. Seems like they received it. But we don't know who will be regulated and how yet. I am tired of this fight. I don't like it. I don't want to do it anymore. But I stayed in for the principle not the principal, and for the people just finding out about this now to still be able to make a choice about what to do before we release them from the HOLD. This is a constantly evolving situation. Will they censor the media from talking about stocks? Why target Reddit? Reddit is LIKE the media. It's not a private chat room. THESE WORDS CAN BE READ BY ANYONE WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION AND WE ARE AWARE OF THIS. If it falls, and I lose my money, I don't think the government will come in and save me. I don't expect them to. I EXPECT them to let this play out and not SIDE with these assholes. It upsets me that they seem to have decided to save Vulture capitalists. Anyway, despite my fear of posting this question and the associated rant, I really want to know the answer. Has it been done before by Algorithms pushing stocks higher? Is it possible to make a crowdsourced one? Is it legal? If this gets removed or censored in some way. You have your answer I guess. facta non verba. Thanks. ****IMPORTANT ADDENDUM****: I want to add that I was quite revved up when I wrote this and have had some time to reflect. I want to stress that it is not my intention to lay blame or judge any individual person or organization for the current situation [Of stacked odds in the retail investor vs hedge fund battle]. Emotions run high in the stock market. I know this through experience now. I was angry when I wrote this post. [I am leaving it unedited for posterity and since whoever needed to see it already saw it so removing it would be pointless] This should not become a witch hunt or be personal. These guys and girls are people too. They work for a corporation. They earn a paycheck. They have friends, partners, and families too. I am a person. You, reader, are a person. Don't make this personal. They didn't invent algorithms and weren't the ones that necessarily wanted to take these short positions. The market calculus at the time, dictated that this was a good call for them, it wasn't. We accidentally stumbled upon it on WSB and shit-posted about it until it blew up and they were really in a bind. I understand their calculus to a degree, but I am a "smooth brained" "retard" when it comes to these things. I am learning fast though. I understand that certain companies are likely to fail and it is possible to make a profit off that. My moral views about it are irrelevant as the situation they're in dictates their actions, not my personal views about that. I understand that they're getting screwed at the moment and I'm sorry. I truly hope most of them do not get too damaged by this and have had time to change their positions. But I also believe in the American dream, and think that the people that were able to find a good position in the stock market [the retail investors] should be rewarded. I sincerely hope this doesn't trigger a massive systemic issue and we don't accidentally BREAK the stock market with this action on those stocks. It doesn't seem like that would happen, but again smooth brain here. WE NEED THE MARKET TO STAY ALIVE to have peace and stability in this country. Reddit crew, I beseech you, please understand that the individuals involved are also playing by the rules given to them by the market. The problem I personally have is that the rules are different for the retail investors vs. the big institutions. I don't have a problem with them as people. I don't want to destroy anything or any institutions. That was never my goal as an activist nor as an investor-activist and I can only speak about myself. I just hope they could find it in their hearts to try to understand our outrage and consider playing by the rules or at least letting us play by the same rules. We are attacking them and they don't like it. I get it. In either case, please understand that I am not vested too strongly in either outcome anymore. I am tired and want to return to my regular life and will not be on reddit for a while, nor will I be investing any more money into the stock market for a while... The whole thing has taken it's toll on me and I am going back to my regular life. This is not my war. On the government's side, I also understand that their goal is to enforce the rules. I hope I'm not breaking any here and will remove my posts if I am. I am not trying to cause a revolution. This country has been through too much and we finally have a shot at beating COVID and have a competent administration that can guide us back on the right track. I truly believe that the people in charge now are decent people and will do good for this country. If Biden says no more diamond hands, I will listen to Biden. What I do further with my shares shall remain my business otherwise. I will no longer tell anyone what I am doing with my shares. I realize now that this is not always a good idea and should be done with tact and experience. I am not a financial advisor. But also, financial advice and being one is not a joke. I realize this now. MEMEing about stocks is like MEMEing about drinking bleach. People might listen to you and sacrifice their lives on a losing battle. Not everyone knows the stakes and not everyone knows what they're doing. Now that this is blowing up, people can get really hurt financially. Reddit, we could be putting people in danger. I see this now. So you all, too, reading this, PLEASE be careful. About investing and about what you say on social media. INVEST but INVEST RESPONSIBLY and not with money you can not bear to lose. I pledge that I will personally no longer post any inflammatory shit on Reddit. Because now I'm afraid that WE are suddenly some form of weird market makers and I don't have as many lawyers as the hedge funds. I am tapping out from posting any more about the current battle. I wish you all luck on both sides, truly. In the next round tomorrow. Dear Government: If you want this to end, don't you have the power to delist these "Meme" companies and distribute the shares somehow? If not, the the system is truly stronger than our institutions. If you do this, please make sure people don't lose their life savings somehow. That would be nice. Then, please try to make sure this won't happen again and that the SEC actually regulates and prosecutes people so their calculus isn't that the fines are too low to justify following the rules. [Just my humble opinion as a smooth brain with limited experience of markets. Do what you think is best and I will obey the laws as an individual]. Sorry you might disagree hedge fund guys and girls, but I am entitle to my opinion in a free country. This is my platform. You can have CNN and Fox News. Sorry for saying something. I promise this is the end of it. But also, a lot of market makers on TV seem to assert that the market will self correct and I don't see how this should be a large risk for overall wealth. Who knows, none of us can predict the future. But I think if a bunch of Reddit "retards" get a couple hundred thousand bucks, it won't change the overall situation or necessarily be a net negative; and may in fact trigger a renaissance in this country. You'll still be the biggest fish, just in a more biodiverse pond. It may just create a new class of petite bourgeoise in this country. But it is not likely that if they win, it will cause something like the French Revolution. There will be losers and winners, but in the end, it will be a good story for Hollywood. [Hopefully played on an AMC screen in a post covid world] But what do I know, I'm a just another "retard" on reddit. I hope that after this, you are all decent humans at the end and don't break any law on all sides. [Reddit, Retail investors, Government, Hedge fund investors, etc] I hope we don't break the market over this. If that is a true risk we need to make the market unbreakable or this WILL keep happening. If anyone is resentful about losing future gains on a good position so the government can fix the market, don't be a fucking greedy idiot and look at what we've achieved so far. This is already a big win for the small guy. And if our markets are vulnerable, the next winners will not be idiots on reddit. But will likely be our enemies from abroad. Not to name names. We will ALL benefit more from long term stability than short term gains. We MUST come together as a country so we can spend that money in the future for things. If we break the stock market, we will not be able to buy things with all that worthless money. But if the system isn't at risk, I don't understand what all the hullabaloo is about. There have been countless bubbles before. Why weren't those regulated as much. Maybe they were and I'm an ignorant smooth brain. In any case, I hope that we can stop fighting over carcasses for greed. This was always about making the rules of the casino fair for me, personally. It's not life or death. I'm not an extremist or an ideologue. It's not about burning down the casino. I hope that the government will intervene if they think it is going to short circuit the whole thing and that people reading this gamble responsibly. This will be my last post about this as I have a life to live. -Tememachine OUT. EDIT 2: Now they're making fun of the movement. Fuck Wall Street. I hope they get what's coming to them one day. [In terms of regulation and prison sentences] I'm still out of this war. But seriously. Fuck them.
Need advice/ help possible demonic presence at my boyfriends house?
Will try to keep this short but who knows. I semi sometimes live with my boyfriend and his family as my own home life isn't the greatest. We've been dating for about 6 years I'm a 22F and he 22M. He has told me that all his life he has experienced strange things from time to time examples include having horrible dreams about hell fire and skeletons, seeing full bodied apparitions as a child, and also shadows always lurking in the corner of his bedroom. I could honestly create a whole very long post about everything he's experienced but I'd rather ask about what has been happening more recently. I noticed that about 2 years after me and him had been dating, according to him, the activity had been ramping up and becoming more common than before when he was younger. I noticed that sometimes his house gives off a creepy vibe but this was hard to detect because honestly the place is decorated and arranged very pleasantly and it's located in a beautiful part of where we live which is somewhere in the PNW. Well, especially in his bedroom is where I noticed the creepiness coming from which we think is also the center of all the activity. Actually, so, the house was built in the 60's (it's a double wide with an extended room built in after if that helps) and there used to be an older couple that lived in his bedroom and one day the wife died from natural causes in his bedroom. For awhile me and my boyfriend had the theory that the activity was being caused by the spirit of this woman who wasn't happy that a teenage/ young adult boy had been living in her room for years, oh yes by the way he has lived in this house all his life. Buuuttt that theory got debunked when his mom brought in a Catholic medium/ psychic over to the house. She said she detected a presence that was actually male, and she didn't want to say if she felt the spirit was human or.. something else, which I find odd, honestly though this women wasn't very helpful. However I do think she's right, whatever it is it has a "male" presence. I know this because one of really the only times it's ever messed with me personally was about 2 years ago. It was the morning, I didn't have anything going on that particular day so I stayed in my boyfriends bed to sleep in while he got up for work. Eventually him and his dad (the only other 2 people there that morning) went outside to get things ready for their job, they work together doing construction. So to set the scene, I'm laying in his bed somewhere between sleep and awake while him and his dad are outside, in the bedroom there is a window to the outside where they get things ready, it was closed but it allows me to hear them chatting outside sometimes. It's really, really important to note that when they were talking to each other outside their voices sound muffled and distant. Ok so, all of a sudden I hear a voice, INSIDE the room with me it's a deep male voice, and he goes "I used to be great" I kind of starting to get up and look around while still laying in bed. Now I have to say this isn't usually like me, I do kind of get scared easily but, I think because it was the morning and not night time I felt braver, and another weird thing was that.. I didn't even care which is very very strange of me, because I'm always fascinated by evidence of ghosts existing maybe it's because I was so tired on top of it, I'm not sure. Anyways, I don't think it liked that I was ignoring it for one bit because then, I feel as though something has just rushed up to my face like.. whatever this thing was got up in my face while I was laying in bed and said... something else, unfortunately I can't remember :/ but it was still in this guttural scary, deep male voice and they sounded angry and I could even feel cold air being blown into my face like as if you felt the breath of someone on your face if they/re talking really close to your face. So.. once again this is so strange of me, what did I do? I just rolled over and tried to get more sleep.. completely just trying to ignore what was going on, I guess maybe at the time I felt that was my only option. I eventually did fall asleep after a couple of minutes and when I did, I had the first and hopefully only sleep paralysis dream I've ever had. It was a typical SP set up I wake up to find that the surroundings looked just like the room I'm sleeping in except I can't move. The only different thing was that .. there was a cat on my chest, a calico cat to be specific I only stayed like this for a couple seconds because in my head I was just like fuck this and started to try to sit up and then when I did, my perception of reality started to shake and rattle like, if you were looking at things through the view finder of a camera and then you start shaking the camera .. kind of hard to explain :/ but it just looked like all of my surroundings were starting to fall apart and then the cat on my chest starting to hiss and meow and it swiped at me in the face and then I woke up laying on my back in my boyfriends room, totally normal. So yeah, other strange things happen like, for a long stretch of months in the summer to be specific, we would hear scratching everywhere in the walls, wasn't always dedicated to one particular wall or room or anything just randomly, whatever room you were in (this especially happened to me in particular) you would just hear scratching, right wherever you were like as if it was trying to be as close to you as possible. I know know, could be just animals living in the walls buuttt in the summer that makes no sense as it can get so incredibly hot in my opinion no animal would want to be living in those walls in the summer, and it would happen at all different times of the day. Another thing is that my boyfriend has 2 dogs and every so often they both freak out and bark at nothing, it also gets particularly scary when I notice that their eyes seem to be looking around at something we can't see. For example once my boyfriends vizsla was coming over to give me some love, I was sitting in the middle of the floor beckoning her to come over to me, she was exiting out of my boyfriend's parents bedroom and she had to pass by my boyfriends bedroom in order to come over to where I was. His bedroom door was open and as she passed by she looked inside, she had a stuffed animal in her mouth and when she looked over into his room she dropped it and just started starring, she became visibly more agitated and as soon as I said "Sami, what do you see in there?" she started barking like mad like, so aggressive and not like her at all as she's very gentle but protective. Her gaze starts to shift forward, now looking ahead as if whatever she was looking at in the room came up right over to the front of her face she then starts attacking the stuffed animal she dropped on the ground as if it was alive biting at it viciously and snarling at it. Her eyes are crossed in front of her like she's looking directly in front of her face and I could see this look in her eyes like she was starting to get really scared and shakes the stuffed animal around in her mouth violently and then suddenly throws it really far up in the air and against a wall almost hitting the ceiling. I know that dogs throw things around with their mouths sometimes but she had never done anything like that before, and then she came over to me with her head down looking for comfort, it was so strange. There's three more big things I need to bring up and then I can get into my theories and questions. 1.st about two months ago, and very important to note when I wasn't there, my boyfriend said that he felt something grab his ankle while he was sleeping, this is big because this is the first instance of whatever this is physically touching him. 2nd. about a week ago I had his house all to myself as him and his family went on a little get away at a casino and I stayed at their house to watch their dogs. That night I wasn't in a good mindset at all but was trying to have a good time by myself. I was hearing the scratching again and frankly just being annoyed by it, it was coming from the large pantry in his kitchen and the scratching would get louder every time I would get closer and examine the inside of the pantry. I just tried to get my mind off of it so I brought out my tarot cards ( I know probably wasn't a good idea if I'm trying to avoid activity) but the tarot cards keep my mind busy, it's a hobby I've been working on and developing my skills on for the past 7 months. I started out by arranging them in an arch shape on the table like as if you took the deck and just spread the cards out in a smooth arch all face down. Now, to be honest I partake in the devils lettuce from time to time and this night was no exception as I was not in good spirits so to sum it up it was making my awfully sleepy and it was late and I had to go to work the next day anyway so I just left my tarot cards out like that, no intention behind it whatsoever other than laziness. The next day I come to the table to find that... somehow... a card had been pulled from the arch right into the middle of it. Now you need to listen to me when I say that I DID NOT DO THIS it wasn't a situation where I figured.. well maybe I did pull a card and I forgot or something, NO, I remember being immediately freaked out but also.. excited. I figured, what's next to do other than flip the card over and see what it is. The card was.. the 5 of cups which, if you do tarot you would know that is probably in the top 5 most negative cards you can get. It is a card that signifies grief, loss and despair and abandonment, typically people get this card when they've experienced a death of a loved one or an intense break up or some other traumatic event. And the thing is that I have experienced all of those things recently. Soo if this situation wasn't coming off as too complicated, let me add that both me and my bf are actually polyamorous so I had been in a relationship while also being with him, and that person dumped me and the situation was frankly awful and I was lied to and I had felt abandoned. On top of that, this summer I experienced the loss of another guy I used to date, he died of an overdose and I'm still grieving him even though we weren't together anymore when he died I still considered him a friend. So about this card, it's strange because when I told people in my life about this they all asked me, did you feel threatened by this card being somehow magically pulled from the deck? And honestly, I didn't because I felt whatever it was was just telling me.. this is you. Now see if it was the death card, then yes I would feel threatened but this felt different like you could say the 5 of cups already represented me, so seeing that wasn't new information. I wondered if possibly the idk.. spirit or whatever of my dead ex had been the one who pulled it but, I don't know the more I think about it the more I feel like a crazy person. Lastly, this only happened about 2 days ago and is the reason I've come to the internet for some advice. I was out late but planning to arrive back to sleep at my bf house. I noticed he messaged me "where are you??" at about 11:30pm which I thought was odd because he's not very clingy and just in general lets me be me so this made me worry. I wasn't able to get back until 1 am unfortunately. When I come home I find him sleeping in the guest bedroom, he says I'm not sleeping in my bedroom tonight and when I ask why he proceeds to tell me that earlier while he was laying in his bedroom he was watching something on his phone and he was noticing shadows out of the corner of his eye but he tried to ignore it. He then felt like something was on the bed and when he lowered his phone down he full on sees a completely dark figure so like an outline of a large figure that was all black with no details standing on it's knees(?) at the end of his bed looking at him with it's arms outstretched. Lets just say, this really really bothered me because in my mind this thing is getting braver and bolder and it's behavior is escalating and me and my boyfriend don't want to wait around until.. one of us gets possessed or something!! So let me get into some leads, well just one lead: So.. the area where both me and my boyfriend live in my opinion is like the skinwalker ranch of the PNW I mean the town we live in inspired the show Twin Peaks and some of the first and much of the third season of that show was filmed here (another hint at where we live). So on top of all of this activity something else I've been noticing is that my boyfriend has a neighbor who very late into the night is always shining really really really bright lights, in fact so bright that people up to 10 miles away can see them, that's how through small town networking I had met a man who also was seeing these strange lights. He's actually like the towns little paranormal investigator and he invited me to do an interview for him to tell him what I saw. This man is older and has been around and knows a lot of history about our town and the area and he's worked very very closely with the native tribe in our town as if you live in the PNW you are almost guaranteed to be living on native land. He had told me during that interview that where my boyfriend lives is said to be an ancient burial ground for noble native people as it's located on the side of a large mountain which they thought of as sacred. He said he's heard of many strange things happened where my boyfriend lives but didn't explicitly say that it could explain what we experience within his home. This got me to thinking that perhaps this spirit is of a long dead noble indigenous man of high honor, could that explain why he told me "I used to be great." Some people I tell this story to don't think that as they don't think a native spirit wouldn't be malevolent but I'm inclined to think white people who stole your land and now live on top of your grave would maybe make someone like that pretty angry. And, frankly that's all I have for an explanation. Some questions I have would be, could this possibly be a actual demon? Or a malevolent spirit? Another thing I wonder is that, my boyfriend is always the one mainly seeing and experiencing the activity while sometimes it messes with me in really weird ways, he seems to not like me and stay away from me, why could this be? Because if demons/ bad spirits are attracted to people with trauma and baggage and depression then I should be the target as I have those in spades, while my boyfriend is a relatively happy guy all the time. Sorry this was actually really really long but please, anyone have any advice at all? And please please don't suggest saging while I have done saging rituals of my own many times I think it's too far gone in this situation and yes we have saged this house about twice now.
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