Free copy of a centimeter ruler

Blachowicz here.
Kept yah’ waiting, huh? Heh, sorry about that one, but I can explain. As we all know… we lost a few good men the last few months.
That’s the brutal part of a hybrid war like ours: We’re fighting a foe unconventional, with half our arsenal tied down because those who grant us authorization are either in disbelief of the true facts, or scared… or already assimilated. That being said our momentum recently was a change not seen in years, and because of that… despite the losses we have garnered, we were close through a breakthrough. One last night Krol pulls myself and other two must trusted squad leads into the back of our COP. There is one of our equipment cages, surrounded by m-bitter radios, tripods, and several hundred thousand dollars of equipment he brought us around a simple worn table. Before us he laid a map of eastern poland… red markings indicating cells that seemed to dot the countryside like a pestilence, or used to… as deep gashes of advance from raids had trisected their lines, even if ones did pop up in the interior.
It was a back and forth; an outside virus infecting Polska at it’s heart, and we were the antibodies sent to drive them out. To which… Major Krol points to one of the largest symbol on the map: a dark red diamond, the NATO symbol for an enemy unit, deep inside of an untouched wooded area, adjacent to a mountain ridge. Several jagged lines indicated entrenchment, with red horizontal lines indicating possible enemy control… or our contested control, for over 20kms surrounding it. Letting us all look, the Major lit himself a cigarette.
“Sir, you sure it’s wise to smoke in here with the dive tanks just behind us” 1st Squad’s lead quipped. “Fuck off” Krol dryly said.
“Alright… this is it… this is the one we’ve been searching for for years, this is the nucleus my predecessor commander died trying to find” he says, pointing to it. Not far from Zamosc, it was almost touching the border with Belarus, the contested area indicating the Strigoi did operate over it… indicating one of the largest spill through points. “-It’s an old soviet bunker, made during their 1960s initiative it was designed to hold the munitions and manpower of several units in the event of a NATO first strike” Krol explained. “It’s gotta be massive then…” I said gazing at the map; “Didn’t the army demolish all of the old soviet hulks near Belarus to prevent any infiltrations?” 3rd Squad’s lead asked. “National Police took the effort over… and by extension, the Strigoi. It was halfway demo’ed before they burrowed into it and have been using it as a bridgehead ever since. This is it…” Krol said. He looked around at all of us, a sense of certainty I had never seen before as he blew smoke from his nostrils; “We’ve been fucking around in the dark for so long, it’s hard to believe we’ve made any progress, but this is it. With this gone, this will set them back over a decade and the momentum will finally shift into our favor… into Poland’s… -Europe’s”.
I swear there was almost a flash of joy, of pride in his eyes and a phantom of a smirk before reality set back in “That being said… we can’t leave this to chance, especially not something as important as this. We’re going to have to go there ourselves… clear through every inch of that place, and tear it all down, piece by piece. I will be straight with you all… when we go, there will be some of us that aren’t coming back. -but we are going… a whole generation is counting on us, and unborn billions rely on us to succeed”. We all nodded, a silent agreement washing over us as we took this upon ourselves. Echo-1 spoke up: “So… They’re authorizing a raid? How big?”. “We’re rolling in as a hard target, armor, explosives, and air support” Krol answered, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Aviation? How the hell did we get that approved, we’ve gotten attempts shot down four times due to those leeches” I said in disbelief. “There’s too much evidence here pointing to the human trafficking tied to their actions… We’ve finally got too much weight pinning them down, to keep the hammer from slamming into their necks” Krol chuckled. He looked around “Any questions?”. “When?” Echo-3 asked. “Three hours. We’re hitting them in the dead of night, only time we could get the birds authorized. Get your boys ready. We’re rolling out” Krol said, dying the cigarette bud out on the table. I can’t begin to tell you the euphoria we felt leaving that cage, as our men started arriving, they did so a lot quicker, and with their heads a lot higher than they had in weeks. As Second Squad’s lead we were going to be one of the main arms of attack into the bunker, thus I made sure we had a breacher loaded with enough thermite, charges, and tools to cut through anything. Our shield bearer we ready to go, as was our assaulters, grenadiers, and machine gunner. I double checked each and everyone of their weapons; ensuring the feeder paws of our squad’s belt fed were intact, making sure every breach charge we had was properly set and packed. There was going to be no mistakes, no slip ups. The margin of error needed to be the smallest it had ever been for us tonight if we were going to make the gore spilt worth it.
Finally… there on the outside of the building, the bright LED lights kept the darkness of the ensuing night at bay as the roar of our MRAPs could be heard. It was said once that war is 99% peace, and 1% chaos, they were right. The slow periods where the blood slowed and the doubt creeped in was the worst… yet we all kept it at bay. We needed to, there was going to be no backing down tonight. All three squads were up, all of us ready to go… we circled up… short stares and shaky nods telling us one things: We were in this together, till the end… the finish line so many before us had been searching for, we were being granted tonight.
A single set of footsteps could be heard as we turned, Major Krol stepping into the center. He took the last drag of a cigarette, throwing it down to the ground and stamping it out onto the damp concrete. He looked around… his chin strap blowing in the weak air as he met everyone of our gazes… then mine… then looked around. “I want you to remember every detail of tonight, as you have every other night… when you are situationally aware, scanning for the enemy, liberating the subjugated, I want you to remember the sting of anxiety, the shake of adrenaline, the chill of the bunker, the heat of your weapon as it cuts them down… because tonight we are going to write every fine detail of our victory, their defeat, in history…” Krol’s words echoed deep into our souls. He paused for a moment, staring around he looked down… a small pause before he said “When you are ruthless in combat, remember to be patient, and reserved in victory. This conflict is for our existence… a lot of innocents have bled due to the mistakes of those who failed to listen, a lot of our brothers are now laid under because we had to bridge the gap of uncertainty with their lives. We remember them now… but in an hour? We forget them… when we raise our barrels, when we cut into those foes, and we liberate Polska!! This does not end tonight, but history puts everything in it’s place, and patience is the companion of the victor… All of our hard work will be cemented, no matter the obstacles we face in that darkness… no matter the demons, the blood, no matter what incomprehensible horrors, we will make them comprehend that to invade our land, to bleed our people, the justice will be paid in full… Load up. It’s time*”*.
The purpose in our steps was heavy as we climbed the back ramps of the MRAPS; Four of the heavily armored vehicles, one for each squad with an additional for attached personnel including our JTAC, the term means Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. With air support requisitioned to us for this operations, there needs to be a definite liaison on the ground who can directly communicate to the birds, and coordinate their fire and progress. I’d worked with many of them in the past, resourceful guys, quick thinking though I guess that comes with the position they hold of needing to quickly figure out what bombs to drop, on which target, at what precise points, whilst taking contact. He loaded in the lead vehicle with Major Krol… and soon, our convoy kicked off.
The drive was several hours as myself and my squad sat in the back of that forty ton goliath, the rumbling of the engine keeping us awake as the crap heater fought to keep the cold from the outside frost from setting in. I looked around to each of them, some were catching some sleep because even with the circumstances… better to get all the energy you can, than to stay awake for nothing. Others were checking their weapons… My gunner locked eyes with me, the same one from the village extraction… many of these men I had trained with for a while now, fought with for months.
We may have met on unconventional circumstances but those in JW Grom thrive on austere chance and create opportunity from scratch. I was pulled from my thought by the sound of a transmission, my peltors were set up for dual comms so I could both receive information from the Major and other leads, whilst communicating with my team.
Krol himself sent out: [“Approximately 10 minutes from enemy AO…”]. As the rest of the squads acknowledged, I quickly sent out [“Echo-2 Copies”], before kicking the boots of any of them sleeping: “Look alive, we’re here”. Through the exterior net armor of the MRAPS, and the bars protecting the small reinforced windows, we could barely see jack shit. I reached up, turning off the overhead light as we all looked through our nods to scan the outside. A dark wall of dense trees was shown before us, making it difficult to see… in addition to night vision capabilities we had also requisitioned ourselves some thermals… when mounted onto rifles they were bulky, made it a pain to aim down quickly, but considering the supernatural capabilities of spotting our foes we needed every advantage necessary.
I flipped out one of my tubes… scanning the outside with my scope. I looked over to one of my assaulters who had been assigned to man the turret of the MRAP, seated near the view screen as he controlled the 50. Cal. Each of the vehicle turrets had been assigned a direction to cover… we took the 9 o’clock, the left flank. “See anything?” I asked. He shook his head; “Negative… wait… I’ve got two cold signatures, front left heading to our rear”.
I quickly scanned the far tree line, at approximately 60 meters off our left were two cold signatures… followed by a third heading to our front… then another. They were surrounding us, moving at speeds so fast I could barely keep my reticle on them. Is this what the National Police saw? What they faced at that lodge without the benefit of a foot of heavy armor protecting them on all sides. Then… suddenly. Something slammed into the side of our MRAP so hard, it caused it to shake. From over the leader comms, Echo-3 quickly shouted [“Contact right!! 4 hostiles!!”].
One of the Strigoi… so bold, had charged and slammed into the side of our MRAP. I quickly looked to see the figure, a dark blue mass of cold energy through my thermal, back away without so much as a stagger… as they tried to flee into the woods, the white hot justice of Echo-3’s gun fired at them, cutting them down. “Blachowicz I’ve got a few breaking for our vic” my man on the turret called out, I spun around, spotting out the window.
Just then, Major Krol announced [“weapons free, watch and shoot for targets of opportunity…”]. I turned to him… “take those fuckers out-”. Without hesitation my vic’s turret began to quickly target them, and through the darkness I saw a stream of outgoing fire bisect one of them, the ISR of the black blood freaking out the optic so badly it didn’t know what temperature to register it as… but it did register it. As another was cut down, one broke through the tree line and latched onto the side of our MRAP. The thing tore at one of the outer net armor panels, usually made to stop RPGs. It grabbed at the bars near the windows, tearing one off… I lowered my rifle as we locked eyes through the reinforced window.
The thing… the Strigoi looked at me, skin cracked as putrefied muscle fibers seemed to leak through dead flesh. It’s teeth were corroded and worn down to sharp fragments, alongside newly mutated fangs that messily protrude from the jaws. Even through the thick walls of the MRAP I could hear it’s roar, as it then tried to punch it’s way through… it cracked the outer coating of the vehicle… but it wasn’t getting anywhere near. My machine gunner, seated next to me, seemed to chuckle at the sight, quippily saying “Yeah… fuck you too”. It’s then our vehicle lurched upwards, as we began to climb the small incline of the bunker. I knew the layout, mapped it in our head, the main entrance was built into the rocky side of an old cliff meaning we could easily set up a defensive perimeter around it, a horseshoe. Krol’s vehicle was first, taking to the right as Echo-3’s MRAP followed. My vehicle, third, left the incline and took a left and… that’s where things got complicated.
We’re still trying to work out what happened but… from what Joakim says his drone captured. Right when the MRAP turned, several of the monsters quickly slammed into the side of the vehicle, as another more bulkier one, pushed at it’s undercarriage. The result.. Was the 40 ton armored vehicle tipped over. It wasn’t uncommon, hell in some cases a well placed IED, a good shot with a recoilless rifle, have been known to tip over Oshkoshs and Maxpros all the time. But this beast? Needless to say we barely had a second to comprehend it as it leaned to the left; “Grab on to something-” is all I had time to shout. A mess of gear and men spilled onto one side of the vehicle as it slammed into the old gravel and dirt.
Several of my assaulters, my grenadier planted right ontop of myself and the others as we came to a stop. Someone’s knee slammed directly into the side of my skull, causing me to dazily bob in and out of consciousness as my face was smushed against the glass of one of the windows.
Through my peltors, the other squads were erratic;
[“Echo-2’s vehicle is down!!”].
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2… Echo-3 to Echo-2…”].
Krol’s voice came through the comms;
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-2… Fuc-... Echo-1 secure Echo 2’s flank, Echo-3”].
[“Echo-3 to other units, they’re spilling through, I’ve got several enemy combatants converging on Echo-2’s vehicle”].
I pushed the legs of my grenadier off my head as I fought to my hands and knees, unfucking my nods as I looked around… “Fuck it… we’re going lights on, shield your eyes” I muttered as I reached for the overhead lights and flipped them on. The bright LEDs bathed the inside of the vehicle as we all gained our bearings, a mess of multicam, gear, and weapons as we quickly pushed each other off. My gunner caught as he fought to realign his promask, from what I gathered one of the assaulters had landed directly into his gun, pushing it directly into his jugular, as pulled back at the rubber and coughed, freeing up his esophagus. We didn’t have time to think however… the sound of bending metal caught our attention… as the back ramp door of the MRAP was ripped clean off. I could barely believe it but as the white light of the MRAP’s interior poured to the outside, a hulking mass leaned in, the dead flesh on it’s face nearly fallen off as the hideous Strigoi leaned inside.
Without hesitation I aimed took aim, yelling “Keep to the deck!!” to any of those inbetween myself and the invader as I opened fire. A burst of full auto fire tore through it’s collar and neck, my men quickly clung to either sides of the fallen MRAP as a few more fired out. As the thing backed up, a blast of .50 cal fire quickly tore it to shreds, along with several others as I realized they were fuckin swarming over the outside of our vehicle. Echo-3’s vehicle continued to carefully fire on the Strigoi on the outside, the sounds of .50 cal ricocheting off the outside of our armor was enough to make the pucker factor set in.
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2”].
[“This is Echo-2, we’re green on ammo, equipment, men”].
[“Roger, we’re shifting fire, exit the vehicle”].
“Hurry up let’s go!!” I barked to my men, leading the way as I staggered out. I turned on my peq, taking aim at silhouettes in the brush as I began to fire. The sounds of machine guns lighting up the brush, as a sea of growls, howls, and incomprehensible roars fired back at us was the ambient noise of the night. My men quickly exited, my gunner being the last as he and I pulled back to the rest of the defensive perimeter. I set in my men to take up the frontal security, as 3rd squad took the right flank, 1st squad to the left. Major Krol and the JTAC were bickering with each other; “How far out are the birds”. “They’re entering airspace now…” Joakim said, already scanning his smart book.
I asked “What’ve we got?”. He then flipped through… to the NATO combined arms segment, quippily saying; “Apaches…”. This caused me to pause as Echo-3 turned their head whilst directing their squad’s fire “The hell… where did we get apaches from?”. “The Americans… they volunteered” Krol said dismissively as he took aim at the darkness, firing off a controlled trio. “Volunteered? They’re aware of what’s going on?” I asked.
Krol seemed to stop, glancing back at me before returning his focus “There’s a lot more going on than you realize, Blachowicz… Prep the breach, you and 1st are going on”.
I quickly pulled my breacher off the line, securing some thermite as the reinforced bunker door wasn’t going to go as easily as a conventional door breach would. 1st Squad pulled back, stacking up and preparing themselves to be the first in. All the while… Joakim gave his firing solution; “Alpha Hotel Two Five Nine, This is Bravo-4…… Type 2….”.
I snapped to my right, watching as a Strigoi managed to dark across the clear gravel field, only to be cut down by my gunner, the peq’s laser marking the burst as it tore through the beasts’ hips, as it hit the ground and still continued to claw, another GROM operator took aim and fired into it’s skull. Joakim popped up to his feet…. “Marking laser, high power…”. He then pulled out a target marking laser… if you’ve watched night operations, you’ve probably seen them.
The green laser than as it says on the label, marks targets. The pattern of which can vary… if it’s a point target, it’ll usually lasso an area, or remain on target until the target is removed with extreme prejudice. If its close air support, then it’ll be a line of the general area… and Joakim damn near marked the entire perimeter around us. He quickly pocketed the tool, turning back to Krol; “Don’t go past 20 meters unless you want to be liquidated”.
With that… 2nd and 1st stacked up at the door as 3rd squad took up the perimeter security. As Major Krol went over to Echo-1… I saw them. A single blinking IR strobe from the beasts as they moved on the far off horizon, converging from several angles… and fired. The sound of the Apache’s main gun, the M230, truly sounds like the hammer of god… the 30mm cannon shot through the dark sky, lighting it up as we saw three incoming streams tear up the woods. Only then as the sound broke did we start to hear their rotors as they broke and began to circle, firing again… then… Joakim dipped his head and looked to Krol; [“Foxtrot Mike, hang onto your teeth…”]. One of the Apaches fired off a AGM-114… a Hellfire. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye as the Apache from our right flank fired off at a target approximately 200 meters off. A fireball lit up the forest as the horrendous roar echoed throughout… then went silent.
Echo-3 scanned the horizon carefully;
[“Echo-3 to Echo-Lead, enemy contact is starting to die down”].
[“Maintain perimeter, Close Air is to maintain fire mission until we are boots up, Break…”].
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-1, condition white has been met. Proceeds”]. I saw Echo-1 and his men quickly stack up close to the wall and gesture to me; Breaching. I quickly pulled my stack back against the wall as his and mine breacher quickly hit their actuators. Now under normal circumstances, it doesn’t take much for thermite to melt the locks off of a metal surface, in fact it’s a more precise took as alternative means get real medieval like saws, pry bars… we weren’t in the mood for precision, we need to breach their little lair, and drag them out. The sound of several pounds of hellfire burning through the metal could be heard around the corner as a sea of white and red sparks flew out… after several seconds, two of our men tossed a fragmentation grenade and a nine-bang through the opening… a series of concussive blasts and a large explosion rang out.
Echo-1 and his men maneuvered. 1st Squad quickly converged as we followed them in.
Stepping through the black wall of smoke, the dark abyss of the interior was illuminated in a white light as entered barrels raised. Shots rang out as several of the beasts near the entrance were cut down, though not immediately, rounds disconnected the shoulder of one of them, leading to their arm hanging limply by a single tendon as they roared… another series of rounds putting them down. What greeted us was a messy concrete hell of rust and debris, fecal matter, trash, and all kinds of obstacles laid in our way, our boots sticking to the floor. I thank every god we had promasks that night. I called my shield bearer up, 2nd squad leapfrogging ahead to take the next corridor as 1st squad checked their weapons.
One of my men mule kicked the metal door ahead, twice, finally the latch gave away as we tossed in a grenade. A horrifying roar was cut off as an M67 shook the walls of the ancient soviet mausoleum, frag and spall kicked off the walls as I moved in right behind my shield man. The cramped russian design meant there was barely enough space for three people, and that’s three normal people, not in 50kgs of kit, moving slowly and maneuvering against creatures of the dark. Still… we moved forward, my shield bearer and I pushing the pace as two stacked of either squad formed on either wall.
As we passed doorways they flowed in… “Door Left!!”, “Door Right!!”. “Move!!”.
Two men entered each side, no gunshots, we moved up, a roar came.
“Door left!!-”. A series of gunshots came out as we continued to push forward.
“Two down!!”. “Confirm them” Krol commanded, as a series of gunshots run out in response. From one of the doorways, a Strigoi emerged… a female… clumps of hair had been ripped from her decaying skull, as her blooded eyes locked on myself and my shieldman. The skin on her hands had been tore down to the point where barely her bones and tendons remain… looking like huge talons as she roared and lunged at us. He fired off his pistol, though the rounds did little to stop her as she pushed against our stack.
“Fuck!!” he muttered, somehow her strength caused him to stagnate, holding up the advance… fuck that. I shoved the muzzle of my MK18 into her ribcage, flipping the weapon to auto as I fired of round after round. The 5.56 salvo disconnecting her spinal column, causing her to fall as I continued to fire, along with a man to our right and left as the stacks reformed as we pushed to the end of the hall. I fell back, dropping the magazine and loading a fresh one, like clockwork a GROM Operator from 1st squad took my place. Krol was beside me as we approached the end of the hall.
[“-Prep an entry”] I radioed to my breacher, a comrade handed him one of the charges from his back panel as he took to the door, quickly securing it. We all moved as far back as we could, look away, exhale. The blast knocked metal and wood in all directions, scrapping against our uniforms and kit as we made our way in and what laid before us was… it used to be the center atrium of one of these bunkers. Soviet’s loved their grandiose designs, the complex was supposed to be a circular room around a central planning table… instead. It had been turned into some sort of church. Runes and old eastern Romuva pagan symbols written in black ink and blood across the walls, old rotten filing cabinets, long receipt terminals. In the center… several of the Strigoi were kneeling before the table where someone had been tied down, flayed, and… shared amongst the group. They rose to their feet, we aimed our barrels…
The ladder amongst turned to us… his skin wasn’t cracked, or flayed, it was smooth… it still looked dead as the body on the table but it seemed more… accustomed to it. I don’t know… evolved? Under the surface however I could see it’s darkened veins pumping whatever cursed blood ran through them as it locked two blood red eyes onto each of us. It’s nose had long since been turn off, exposing boney nostrils to the open air as it seemed to smirk. All across it’s body were the same symbols on the walls, in every cell… markings of death, of rebirth, of assimilation… From behind this seemingly Alpha emerges another figure I had never seemed before… dressed in a white cloak with a deer head.
"So they've followed the trail... they're too late" the Deer headed individual spoke, definitely not from here, a dialect similar to an Americans but... aristocratic? Each word was drawn out, assurance as if they had everything mapped down to our actions. They didn’t sound like they were from Poland or the east.
“Doesn’t matter…” the Alpha growled… and then, it lunged at us. Quickly breaking from their ground it slammed into my shield man knocking both him and myself at the ground as it displayed an intense feat of strength. Around us I could see several of the Strigoi leap at our comrades… though to no fruitful endeavor as I could see one GROM operator cut two down, as another got into a hand to hand confrontation… my breacher, crafty as they were, reached back and slammed one of the prybars of his kit into the skull of the beast.
The Alpha however was not content as it threw away the 90lb shield, sending it flying across the room as it grabbed my comrade by the skull. I quickly kicked up at it, firing my MK18 into it’s body as the rounds pierced it’s gray and rune covered flesh. The thing simply seemed to chuckle… that was until Major Krol blasted away at the side of it’s head, the alpha turned… and it’s smirk turned to a scowl when face to face with the major. A knowing pause almost like they had done this dance before…
The creature lunged, locking up with Major Krol as it swung and slammed railing. Krol didn’t back down however as he pushed against the creature, hiptossing it to the ground even as it tore at his armor and gear. But the beast pulled, both of them rolled and the Major was on his back as the thing reached for his neck. I fought to a kneel, firing into the creature messily with my MK18, trying not to hit my commander… then…
Click. A sound sends a chill up the spine of every warfighter during a firefight.
My gun ran dry. I dropped the magazine, looking to load another, but the thing came up and with one of it’s claws, sliced deep into my cheek, through the pro mask. I could feel my own blood go flying through the air as I landed hard on my back plate, spitting out red iron as I quickly tried to adjust my mask. Through my fogged up, blood covered lense… I saw my shield man raise his pistol, firing into the skull of the thing staggering it with a roar. Krol came from behind, drawing his knife he sunk it deep into the neck of it…. I reached for my rifle, forcing a new magazine in and damn near punching the bold release. ““Sir, down!!” I shouted, Krol rolled away, back to his own rifle as I fired. So did my comrade as he continued to fire his pistol… so did the Major as he fired his rifle. All of us chewing through that apex predator of darkness, that beast… the leader that had been preying on our people for so long. Layer by layer, muscle group by bone… eventually… the alpha landed on whatever was left of his back.
The silence of the fight died down as all of us checked our surroundings, GROM Operators putting controlled pairs in the heads and nerve stems of any Strigoi laying around… I flicked my weapon onto safe, letting it hang as I pulled off my mask. I dared not touch the wound on my face… the pain nearly crippling me if it wasn’t sheer will pushing me through, and adrenaline doing all it could to subdue it. The sound of the apaches continuing to lay hate drew us from our moment of contemplation as the Major went back to work; [“Confiscate any info, burn the rest…”]. He turned back to me as I shoved my damaged M50 mask back into it’s bag, chuckling as he looked at the sight; “You need a medevac, Blachowicz?” he quipped.
I shook my head, barely able to speak as I muttered; “Negative sir…”. The two of us scanned the room as my shield bearer went to collect his defense implement turned 90lb projectile, we scanned the center of the room, checking and confirming bodies, until we got to the last one alive. His white gown was soaked in red crimson and black ooze, as his dear head was mangled from bullet fire and impact from falling on it. I swear… the way his blood poured out of it though made me wonder if it was a mask. I gave it no second thoughts as he looked to Krol; “You… you can’t stop this, they’ve already-”.
The Major was in no mood for communication as his rifle snapped up and fired off three rounds to the body, four the head. The violent yet quick salvo ending the cultists life, I looked down at it, then to him as he remarked; “Have your squad drag him out to the front, burn the rest”. I stood alongside him, looking down as the sight of it’s deer head was both captivating and horrifying… the curiosity in me wanting to look closer at it fighting the primal instinct I had to burn the thing to ash. “-Haven’t seen one of those before…” I muttered, thinking the Major had an answer.
He didn’t. Krol saying “Neither have I…” shortly before he walked away, was what truly shook my soul about that entire night. Victory stood firm in our hearts that night as we stood outside of the bunker. The night sky burning with fire and white phosphorus as we watched the ruin burn from the inside from the other side of the lot. In the distance, the Apaches continued to scan and circle the forests, no longer firing…. Which meant they had driven any or turned to glass any enemy combatants within a four miles, probably both, more than likely the latter. Echo-1 patted me on the shoulder as we stood there, soaking it all in, though Krol looked none to pleased. “In the time it took us to take this one down, they’ll be trying to set up three more cells… that being established…” he said, looking to either of us, then to Echo-3. “-Hell of a thing we did tonight, been waiting for this one for a decade, cleanly, maybe more… but no time to rest on our laurels… we’ll have another task for us as soon as we’re boots down back home” he said, to which his eyes followed mine, the body of whatever cultist that was zipped up in a black body bag beside the wheel of one of the MRAPs. The fire from the bunker casting an orange hue over it’s shiny jet black outside, something didn’t sit right with me… “That wasn’t a Strigoi…” I said to Krol.
“That’s very clear…” the Major said, shoving his mask under his arm and lighting a cigarette. “So… someone’s helping them?” I asked. The meer notion of it shook me to my core, sickened me. This parasite was already badly infecting Europa, Polska… if it was spread like this throughout the world. Krol settled my nerves: “We’ll be ready… It’s not just us anymore”. As he said that, I realized what he meant… my eyes looking to the Apaches as they started to form up, leaving the areas as their thunderous propellers melted into the night’s calm, unnerving ambience.
It’s been a couple of weeks since then, Echo Detachment has been busy. We’ve gained good ground against the enemy and honestly I think in a few years, we might see a much larger change. For now… we must keep going, that being said the Strigoi aren’t the only ones we’ve been combating. Recently we’ve made contact with of some sort of extermination coalition, they’ve known about the Strigoi, and others plaguing the world, the level of corruption and corrosion on society goes deep. Regardless a lot of the units we’ve been working with are apart of NATO, such as this “4th Special Forces Group” of the American Military. I don’t know where the road from here leads, but we’ve gotten momentum on our side, finally. Just remember… these things are out there, in every town, every city, every nation… preying and waiting for you to be alone, vulnerable, so they can take you and replace you.
Watch your back, and stay safe.
For now, Blachowicz signing out. Until next time

seeking assistance for a feature film project I am working on called ‘Kevin’s Last Halloween’. we need a good silicone Freddy Krueger mask to be used on the shoot, and it would be sent back once shooting is completed. this is an extremely low-budget film, so I would offer a special thanks credit, as well as a free poster and Blu-Ray Copy of this film once finished…
it would be an incredible help to me and my team on this project - here is our IndieGoGo Campaign if anyone is interested in seeing what we’re trying to accomplish with this…
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kevin-s-last-halloween-a-new-horror-comedy-movie
here is my IMDb and Vimeo as well if you want to see any of my previous film work
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm10656860/
Vimeo.com/RileyRayburn

I posted a while back about free traffic ticket help & someone asked for a write up of how the law changed. So, here you go — with some added tips on what to do if you want to negotiate a ticket down in Clark County.
Before the law change, traffic tickets were usually criminal misdemeanors — this includes the really common tickets like, for example, speeding 1 - 10 miles over the speed limit or failing to yield.
Because of this, failing to pay the ticket would ultimately turn into a bench warrant. So you could be picked up and taken into custody until you paid the fee.
Last year, the legislature voted to decriminalize most traffic violations in order to cut down on the number of people being held for traffic violations that only totally a couple hundred bucks. Now, most tickets are civil tickets only — so what happens if you don’t pay is that the state can pursue you like you owe them money (collection agencies, etc) but can’t hold you for non-payment.
Not ALL tickets are civil. Something like driving with an open container, endangerment of civilians, very high speeding — there are still criminal tickets. But your average speeding ticket is now civil only.
This means that the process for handling a ticket is different now, too, though.
IF YOU HAVE A CIVIL TICKET:

• Check the top of the ticket to see if it’s civil or criminal. It tells you in the top right corner.
  
• If it’s criminal — don’t ignore it!
  
• If it’s civil, you can now negotiate tickets down yourself! In fact — as we have tried to help people with their tickets, we have learned that the Court requires the person who got the ticket to go there themselves in person to get a reduction. Here is how -
  

(This jnfo is for Las Vegas Justice Court only!)

• First, get a copy of your driver’s history for NV. Use the DMV website for free or you can pay for one at the courthouse.

If you have a traffic violation from the last three years, you probably can’t get a reduction. You should still try! But we have found that the court is not approving reductions if you have prior ones, sometimes even if it was reduced to a non-moving violation.

• Second, decide if you want to pay or reduce. If you just want to pay, you can do it online. You can’t apply for a reduction online.
  
• Third, go with your license, ticket, and driving history to the courthouse. Go to the Traffic Customer Service windows on the first floor.
  
• Fourth, request an application for a reduction from customer service. Fill it out and submit it.
  
• Fifth, if it is approved, you can choose between the following to avoid points: (1) 5 hour driving safety class or (2) a demerit reduction fee (that you pay along with the ticket fee).
  
• If it is not approved, plan to go to your hearing and ask the court for a reduction! Sometimes this works! No guarantees unfortunately — and you can ask an attorney to help with this part.
  

I hope this helps! A couple final points:

1. If you have an outstanding warrant from before when the law changed — it may still be valid. Don’t assume it’s not. You can check online!
   
2. This is just the process, it’s not legal advice. I can’t promise any outcome, can’t tell you for sure what will happen or that there aren’t other ways — I just think this info should be more accessible to people.
   
3. If you still have ticket questions, you can call Morales Injury Law and we can try to help. Usually we can for free and sometimes we can’t, depends on the ticket type. (If you have any other legal issues, we are here for those too. 702-781-4848)
   
4. For example, criminal tickets can be reduced, but I recommend speaking to an attorney because the process is different.
   
5. This is not how to contest a ticket! That is also a different process.
   

Good luck!

In the ’80s, the spy agency investigated the "Gateway Experience" technique to alter consciousness and ultimately escape spacetime.
The intrigue revolves around a classified 1983 CIA report on a technique called the Gateway Experience, which is a training system designed to focus brainwave output to alter consciousness and ultimately escape the restrictions of time and space.
The CIA was interested in all sorts of psychic research at the time, including the theory of applications of remote viewing, which is when someone views real events with only the power of their mind. The documents have since been declassified and are available to view.
This is a comprehensive excavation of The Gateway Process report. The first section provides a timeline of the key historical developments that led to the CIA’s investigation and subsequent experimentations. The second section is a review of The Gateway Process report. It opens with a wall of theoretical context, on the other side of which lies enough understanding to begin to grasp the principles underlying the Gateway Experience training. The last section outlines the Gateway technique itself and the steps that go into achieving spacetime transcendence.
Let’s go.
THE TIMELINE
• 1950s - Robert Monroe, a radio broadcasting executive, begins producing evidence that specific sound patterns have identifiable effects on human capabilities. These include alertness, sleepiness, and expanded states of consciousness.
• 1956 - Monroe forms an R&D division inside his radio program production corporation RAM Enterprises. The goal is to study sound’s effect on human consciousness. He was obsessed with “Sleep-Learning," or hypnopedia, which exposes sleepers to sound recordings to boost memory of previously learned information.
• 1958 - While experimenting with Sleep-Learning, Monroe discovers an unusual phenomenon. He describes it as sensations of paralysis and vibration accompanied by bright light. It allegedly happens nine times over the proceeding six weeks, and culminates in an out-of-body experience (OBE).
• 1962 - RAM Enterprises moves to Virginia, and renames itself Monroe Industries. It becomes active in radio station ownership, cable television, and later in the production and sale of audio cassettes. These cassettes contain applied learnings from the corporate research program, which is renamed The Monroe Institute.
• 1971 - Monroe publishes Journeys Out of the Body, a book that is credited with popularizing the term “out-of-body experience.”
• 1972 - A classified report circulates in the U.S. military and intelligence communities. It claims that the Soviet Union is pouring money into research involving ESP and psychokinesis for espionage purposes.
• 1975 - Monroe registers the first of several patents concerning audio techniques designed to stimulate brain functions until the left and right hemispheres become synchronized. Monroe dubs the state "Hemi-Sync" (hemispheric synchronization), and claims it could be used to promote mental well-being or to trigger an altered state of consciousness.
• 1978 to 1984 - Army veteran Joseph McMoneagle contributes to 450 remote viewing missions under Project Stargate. He is known as “Remote View No. 1”.
• June 9th, 1983 - The CIA report "Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process" is produced. It provides a scientific framework for understanding and expanding human consciousness, out-of-body experiments, and other altered states of mind.
• 1989 - Remote viewer Angela Dellafiora Ford helps track down a former customs agent who has gone on the run. She pinpoints his location as “Lowell, Wyoming”. U.S. Customs apprehend him 100 miles west of a Wyoming town called Lovell.
• 2003 - The CIA approves declassification of the Gateway Process report.
• 2017 - The CIA declassifies 12 million pages of records revealing previously unknown details about the program, which would eventually become known as Project Stargate.
THE REPORT
Personnel
The author of The Gateway Process report is Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell, hereon referred to simply as Wayne. There isn’t a tremendous amount of information available on the man, nor any photographs. In 1983, Wayne was tasked by the Commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group with figuring out how The Gateway Experience, astral projection and out-of-body experiences work. Wayne partnered with a bunch of different folks to produce the report, most notably Itzhak Bentov, a very Googleable American-Israeli scientist who helped pioneer the biomedical engineering industry.
A scientific approach
From the outset of the report, Wayne states his intent to employ an objective scientific method in order to understand the Gateway process. The various scientific avenues he takes include:
• A biomedical inquiry to understand the physical aspects of the process.
• Information on quantum mechanics to describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness.
• Theoretical physics to explain the time-space dimension and means by which expanded human consciousness transcends it.
• Classical physics to bring the whole phenomenon of out-of-body states into the language of physical science (and remove the stigma of an occult connotation).
Methodological frames of reference
Before diving into the Gateway Experience, Wayne develops a frame of reference by dissecting three discrete consciousness-altering methodologies. He’s basically saying, there’s no way you’re going to get through The Gateway without a solid grounding in the brain-altering techniques that came before it.
1) He begins with hypnosis. The language is extremely dense, but the basic gist is as follows: the left side of the brain screens incoming stimuli, categorizing, assessing and assigning meaning to everything through self-cognitive, verbal, and linear reasoning. The left hemisphere then dishes the carefully prepared data to the non-critical, holistic, pattern-oriented right hemisphere, which accepts everything without question. Hypnosis works by putting the left side to sleep, or at least distracting it long enough to allow incoming data direct, unchallenged entry to the right hemisphere. There, stimuli can reach the sensor and motor cortices of the right brain, which corresponds to points in the body. Suggestions then can send electrical signals from the brain to certain parts of the body. Directing these signals appropriately, according to the report, can elicit reactions ranging from left leg numbness to feelings of happiness. Same goes for increased powers of concentration.
2) Wayne continues with a snapshot of transcendental meditation. He distinguishes it from hypnotism. Through concentration the subject draws energy up the spinal cord, resulting in acoustical waves that run through the cerebral ventricles, to the right hemisphere, where they stimulate the cerebral cortex, run along the homunculus and then to the body. The waves are the altered rhythm of heart sounds, which create sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the fluid-filled cavities of the brain’s ventricles. He observed that the symptoms begin in the left side of the body, confirming the right brain’s complicity. Bentov also states that the same effect might be achieved by prolonged exposure to 4 - 7 Hertz/second acoustical vibrations. He suggests standing by an air conditioning duct might also do the trick. (David’s Lynch and other celebrities are committed adherents to transcendental meditation today.)
3) Biofeedback, on the other hand, uses the left hemisphere to gain access to the right brain’s lower cerebral, motor, and sensory cortices. Whereas hypnosis suppresses one side of the brain, and TM bypasses that side altogether, biofeedback teaches the left hemisphere to visualize the desired result, recognize the feelings associated with right hemisphere access, and ultimately achieve the result again. With repetition, the left brain can reliably key into the right brain, and strengthen the pathways so that it can be accessed during a conscious demand mode. A digital thermometer is subsequently placed on a target part of the body. When its temperature increases, objective affirmation is recognized and the state is reinforced. Achieving biofeedback can block pain, enhance feeling, and even suppress tumors, according to the report.
The Gateway mechanics
With that, Wayne takes a first stab at the Gateway process. He classifies it as a “training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness.”
What distinguishes the Gateway process from hypnosis, TM, and biofeedback, is that it requires achieving a state of consciousness in which the electrical brain patterns of both hemispheres are equal in amplitude and frequency. This is called Hemi-Sync. Lamentably, and perhaps conveniently, we cannot as humans achieve this state on our own. The audio techniques developed by Bob Monroe and his Institute (which are comprised as a series of tapes). claim to induce and sustain Hemi-Sync.
Wayne employs the analogy of a lamp versus a laser. Left to its own devices the human mind expends energy like a lamp, in a chaotic and incoherent way, achieving lots of diffusion but relatively little depth. Under Hemi-Sync though, the mind produces a “disciplined stream of light.” So, once the frequency and amplitude of the brain are rendered coherent it can then synchronize with the rarified energy levels of the universe. With this connection intact, the brain begins to receive symbols and display astonishing flashes of holistic intuition.
The Hemi-Sync technique takes advantage of a Frequency Following Response (FFR). It works like this: an external frequency emulating a recognized one will cause the brain to mimic it. So if a subject hears a frequency at the Theta level, it will shift from its resting Beta level. To achieve these unnatural levels, Hemi-Sync puts a single frequency in the left ear and a contrasting frequency in the right. The brain then experiences the Delta frequency, also known as the beat frequency. It’s more familiarly referred to these days as binaural beats. With the FFR and beat frequency phenomena firmly in place, The Gateway Process introduces a series of frequencies at marginally audible, subliminal levels. With the left brain relaxed and the body in a virtual sleep state, the conditions are ideal to promote brainwave outputs of higher and higher amplitude and frequency. Alongside subliminal suggestions from Bob Monroe (naturally), the subject can then alter their consciousness.
The Gateway system only works when the audio, which is introduced through headphones, is accompanied by a physical quietude comparable to other forms of meditation. This increases the subject’s internal resonance to the body’s sound frequencies, for example the heart. This eliminates the “bifurcation echo”, in which the heartbeat moves up and down the body seven times a second. By placing the body in a sleep-like state, The Gateway CD’s, like meditation, lessen the force and frequency of the heartbeat pushing blood into the aorta. The result is a rhythmic sine wave that in turn amplifies the sound volume of the heart three times. This then amplifies the frequency of brainwave output. The film surrounding the brain—the dura—and fluid between that film and the skull, eventually begin to move up and down, by .0005 and .010 millimeters.
The body, based on its own micro-motions, then functions as a tuned vibrational system. The report claims that the entire body eventually transfers energy at between 6.8 and 7.5 Hertz, which matches Earth’s own energy (7 - 7.5 Hertz). The resulting wavelengths are long, about 40,000 kilometers, which also happens to be the perimeter of the planet. According to Bentov, the signal can move around the world’s electrostatic field in 1/7th of a second.
To recap, the Gateway Process goes like this:
• Induced state of calm
• Blood pressure lowers
• Circulatory system, skeleton and other organ systems begin to vibrate at 7 - 7.5 cycles per second
• Increased resonance is achieved
• The resulting sound waves matches the electrostatic field of the earth
• The body and earth and other similarly tuned minds become a single energy continuum.
We’ve gotten slightly ahead of ourselves here though. Back to the drawing board.
A psycho-quantum level deeper
Wayne then turns to the very nature of matter and energy. More materially (or less if you will), solid matter in the strict construction of the term, he explains, doesn’t exist. The atomic structure is composed of oscillating energy grids surrounded by other oscillating energy grids at tremendous speeds. These oscillation rates vary—the nucleus of an atom vibrates at 10 to the power of 22, a molecule vibrates at 10 to the power of 9, a human cell vibrates at 10 to the power of 3. The point is that the entire universe is one complex system of energy fields. States of matter in this conception then are merely variations in the state of energy.
The result of all these moving energies, bouncing off of energy at rest, projects a 3D mode, a pattern, called a hologram, A.K.A our reality as we experience it. It's best to think of it as a 3D photograph. There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down here. Suffice it to say, the hologram that is our experience is incredibly good at depicting and recording all the various energies bouncing around creating matter. So good, in fact, that we buy into it hook, line, and sinker, going so far as to call it our "life."
Consciousness then can be envisaged as a 3D grid system superimposed over all energy patterns, Wayne writes. Using mathematics, each plane of the grid system can then reduce the data to a 2D form. Our binary (go/no go) minds can then process the data and compare it to other historical data saved in our memory. Our reality is then formed by comparisons. The right hemisphere of the brain acts as the primary matrix or receptor for this holographic input. The left hemisphere then compares it to other data, reducing it to its 2D form.
In keeping with our species' commitment to exceptionalism, as far as we know humans are uniquely capable of achieving this level of consciousness. Simply, humans not only know, but we know that we know. This bestows upon us the ability to duplicate aspects of our own hologram, project them out, perceive that projection, run it through a comparison with our own memory of the hologram, measure the differences using 3D geometry, then run it through our binary system to yield verbal cognition of the self.
The click-out phase
Wayne then shows his cards as a true punisher, issuing, "Up to this point our discussion of the Gateway process has been relatively simple and easy to follow. Now the fun begins." Shots fired, Wayne. What he's preparing the commander reading this heady report for is the reveal—how we can use the Gateway to transcend the dimension of spacetime.
Time is a measurement of energy or force in motion; it is a measurement of change. This is really important. For energy to be classified as in motion, it must be confined within a vibratory pattern that can contain its motion, keeping it still. Energy not contained like this is boundary-less, and moves without limit or dimension, to infinity. This disqualifies boundary-less energy from the dimension of time because it has no rate of change. Energy in infinity, also called "the absolute state," is completely at rest because nothing is accelerating or decelerating it—again, no change. It therefore does not contribute to our hologram, our physical experience. We cannot perceive it.
Now back to frequencies. Wave oscillation occurs because a wave is bouncing between two rigid points of rest. It's like a game of electromagnetic hot potato (the potato being the wave and the participants' hands being the boundaries of the wave). Without these limits, there would be no oscillation. When a wave hits one of those points of rest, just for a very brief instant, it "clicks out" of spacetime and joins infinity. For this to occur, the speed of the oscillation has to drop below 10 the power of -33 centimeters per second. For a moment, the wave enters into a new world. The potato simply disappears into a dimension we cannot perceive.
Theoretically speaking, if the human consciousness wave pattern reaches a high enough frequency, the “click-outs” can reach continuity. Put another way, if the frequency of human consciousness can dip below 10 to the power of 33 centimeters per second but above a state of total rest, it can transcend spacetime. The Gateway experience and associated Hemi-Sync technique is designed for humans to achieve this state and establish a coherent pattern of perception in the newly realized dimensions.
Passport to the hologram
In theory, we can achieve the above at any time. The entire process though is helped along if we can separate the consciousness from our body. It’s like an existential running head start where the click-out of a consciousness already separated from its body starts much closer to, and has more time to dialogue with, other dimensions.
This is where things get a little slippery; hold on as best you can. The universe is in on the whole hologram thing, too, Wayne writes. This super hologram is called a "torus" because it takes the shape of a fuck-off massive self-contained spiral. Like this:
Give yourself a moment to let the above motion sink in...
This pattern of the universe conspicuously mirrors the patterns of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. Galaxies north of our own are moving away from us faster than the galaxies to the south; galaxies to the east and west of us are more distant. The energy that produced the matter that makes up the universe we presently enjoy, will turn back in on itself eventually. Its trajectory is ovoid, also known as the cosmic egg. As it curls back on itself it enters a black hole, goes through a densely packed energy nucleus then gets spat out the other side of a white hole and begins the process again. Springtime in the cosmos, baby!
And that is the context in which the Gateway Experience sits.
[Deep breaths.]
THE TECHNIQUE
The following is an outline of the key steps to reach focus levels necessary to defy the spacetime dimension. This is an involved and lengthy process best attempted in controlled settings. If you’re in a rush, you can apparently listen to enough Monroe Institute Gateway Tapes in 7 days to get there.
The Energy Conversion Box: The Gateway Process begins by teaching the subject to isolate any extraneous concerns using a visualization process called “the energy conversion box.”
Resonant Humming: The individual is introduced to resonant humming. Through the utterance of a protracted single tone, alongside a chorus on the tapes, the mind and body achieve a state of resonance.
The Gateway Affirmation: The participant is exposed to something close to a mantra called The Gateway Affirmation. They must repeat to themselves variations of, “I am merely a physical body and deeply desire to expand my consciousness.”
Hemi-Sync: The individual is finally exposed to the Hemi-Sync sound frequencies, and encouraged to develop a relationship with the feelings that emerge.
Additional Noise: Physical relaxation techniques are practiced while the Hemi-Sync frequencies are expanded to include “pink and white” noise. This puts the body in a state of virtual sleep, while calming the left hemisphere and raising the attentiveness of the right hemisphere.
The Energy Balloon: The individual is then encouraged to visualize the creation of an “energy balloon” beginning at the top of the head, extending down in all directions to the feet then back up again. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being that this balloon will provide protection against conscious entities possessing lower energy levels that he or she may encounter when in the out-of-body state.
Focus 12: The practitioner can consistently achieve sufficient expanded awareness to begin interacting with dimensions beyond their physical reality. To achieve this state requires conscious efforts and more “pink and white noise” from the sound stream.
Tools: Once Focus 12 is achieved, the subject can then employ a series of tools to obtain feedback from alternate dimensions.
Problem Solving: The individual identifies fundamental problems, fills their expanded awareness with them, and then projects them out into the universe. These can include personal difficulties, as well as technical or practical problems.
Patterning: Consciousness is used to achieve desired objectives in the physical, emotional, or intellectual sphere.
Color Breathing: A healing technique that revitalizes the body’s energy flows by imagining colors in a particularly vivid manner.
Energy Bar Tool: This technique involves imagining a small intensely pulsating dot of light that the participant charges up. He or she then uses the sparkling, vibrating cylinder of energy (formerly known as the dot) to channel forces from the universe to heal and revitalize the body.
Remote Viewing: A follow-on technique of the Energy Bar Tool where the dot is turned into a whirling vortex through which the individual sends their imagination in search of illuminating insights.
Living Body Map: A more organized use of the energy bar in which streams of different colors flow from the dot on to correspondingly-colored bodily systems.
Seven days of training have now occurred. Approximately 5 percent of participants get to this next level, according to the report.
Focus 15 - Travel Into the Past: Additional sound on the Hemi-Sync tapes includes more of the same, plus some subliminal suggestions to further expand the consciousness. The instructions are highly symbolic: time is a huge wheel, in which different spokes give access to the participant’s past.
Focus 21 - The Future: This is the last and most advanced state. Like Focus 15, this is a movement out of spacetime into the future.
Out-of-Body Movement: Only one tape of the many is devoted to out-of-body movement. This tape is devoted to facilitating an out-of-body state when the participant’s brain wave patterns and energy levels reach harmony with the surrounding electromagnetic environment. According to Bob Monroe, the participant has to be exposed to Beta signals of around 2877.3 cycles per second.
CONCLUSIONS
Wayne expresses concern about the fidelity of information brought back from out-of-body states using the Gateway technique. Practical applications are of particular concern because of the potential for “information distortion.”
The Monroe Institute also ran into a bunch of issues in which they had individuals travel from the West to the East Coast of the U.S. to read a series of numbers off of a computer screen. They never got them exactly right. Wayne chalks this up to the trouble of differentiating between physical entities and extra-time-space dimensions when in the out-of-body state.
Wayne swings back to support mode though, lending credence to the physics foundation of the report. He cites multiple belief systems that have established identical findings. These include the Tibetan Shoug, the Hindu heaven of Indra, the Hebrew mystical philosophy, and the Christian concept of the Trinity. Here he seems more interested in hammering home the theoretical underpinnings that make The Gateway Experience possible, rather than the practical possibilities promised by The Gateway Tapes.
Possibly with his CIA top brass audience in mind, Wayne then gives an A-type nod to The Gateway Experience for providing a faster, more efficient, less subservient, energy-saving route to expanded consciousness. This finishes with a series of recommendations to the CIA for how to exploit Gateway’s potential for national defense purposes.
The missing page
One curious feature of The Gateway Report is that it seems to be missing page 25. It’s a real cliffhanger too. The bottom of page 24 reads “And, the eternal thought or concept of self which results from this self-consciousness serves the,” The report picks back up on page 26 and 3 sections later as if Wayne hadn’t just revealed the very secret of existence.
The gap has not gone unnoticed. There's a Change.org petition requesting its release. Multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have demanded the same. In all cases, the CIA has said they never had the page to begin with. Here’s a 2019 response from Mark Lilly, the CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, to one Bailey Stoner regarding these records:
One theory goes that that rascal Wayne M.-fricking-McDonnell left the page out on purpose. The theory contends that it was a litmus test—if anyone truly defies time-space dimensions, they’ll certainly be able to locate page 25.
[Cosmic shrug.]
Writing Credit Vice
​
CIA Declassified Report– The Gateway Experience
Here is a copy of the Missing Page 25
There will be a Gateway Help Post following within the next couple days. Thought you might be interested in a little history in the meantime. Cheers!

Ok so the idea is, right now Nanite ascension is in a weird place, at first glance it doesn't look to strong due to the lack of buffs and the not too useful new buildings and decisions (they are still useful, just not really compared to the other ascensions). But thanks to the lack of upkeep and free ships that come with the civic its value is much more apparent.
Unfortunately its not just free ships that arrive, but also free lag. The Nanite swarmer ship is incredibly weak encouraging "swarm" behavior that happily kills your game performance. Given the swarmer is already a reused asset from the Grey Tempest, the obvious solution would just be to copy the grey-tempest titan and allow Nantite swarms to trade masses of swarmers for megaships. Maybe as a soft-lock, only allowing them to do it after they fight the tempest/research the L-cluster.
However, what about driven assimilators? The position as a Nanite entity never really fit their aesthetic of becoming one with organics, but now that were looking at creating megaships from Nanite swarms. It's not too hard to imagine driven assimilators wouldn't want to do the same instead using organics to make them. So, to make this work a new "Evolve" purge type could be unlocked (with a description roughly along the lines of "They will be a part of something greater, every part of them"). These new ships would be expensive, costing Swarmers and purged pops to build, but in return have improved behavior modules (all those organics have to be worth something) and can invade planets directly with (as long as it has Nanite repair tech) Invulnerability.
Would this destroy fortress worlds? No! As long as a fortress world has a planetary shield generator, the Reaper Assimilator Titan will have to bombard the planet until the shield is disabled and it can land its massive frame.
What do you all think?

Lord Yoshii Toranaga is a central character in the novel “Shōgun” by James Clavell. The story is set in 17th-century feudal Japan during the Edo period. Toranaga is based on the historical figure Tokugawa Ieyasu, who played a crucial role in unifying Japan after centuries of civil war. Here are some key points about Lord Yoshii Toranaga:
Inspiration: James Clavell drew inspiration from Tokugawa Ieyasu to create the fictional character of Toranaga. Tokugawa Ieyasu was the third of Japan’s “great unifiers” and eventually became the first shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate. Role in the Novel: In “Shōgun,” Toranaga is portrayed as a powerful daimyō (feudal lord) in the Kanto region. He aspires to become the ultimate ruler (征夷大将軍) and aims to secure his position through strategic maneuvering and political intrigue. Interaction with John Blackthorne: The novel’s main protagonist, John Blackthorne (based on the real-life English sailor William Adams), witnesses Toranaga’s rise to power. Blackthorne, who washes ashore in Japan, becomes embroiled in the complex web of Japanese politics and cultural norms. Setting and Events: The story unfolds against the backdrop of 17th-century Japan, with locations such as Mishima, Osaka, Edo (Tokyo), and Yokohama featuring prominently. “Shōgun” was published in 1975 and became a bestseller, selling over 15 million copies worldwide by 1990. The Japanese translation, done by Ichiro Miyagawa, was released in 1980. It’s important to note that the term “Shōgun” in the context of the novel refers to the position of 征夷大将軍 (sei’i taishōgun), meaning “Great General for the Pacification of the Barbarians,” rather than a generic military commander#shorts #FeudalJapan#HistoricalFiction#EpicSaga#FeudalIntrigue#Daimyo#SengokuPeriod#JapaneseCulture#BushidoCode #JohnBlackthorne#Anjin#EnglishShipPilot#YoshiiToranaga#Mariko#Buntaro#JapaneseCulture#17thCenturyJapan#drama #shogun

Feel free to read below for context. Otherwise my question more generally is how do you navigate friendships and social cues when it comes to working together with your friends? I don’t want to hog my best friend’s attention but I also don’t know how to tell when they need alone time without explicitly asking if they need alone time every time.
Context: I have a really close friend at work. I’d consider us work best friends for sure and we’re almost always together. We’ve had plenty deep conversations so this is a genuine friendship rather than a coworker friendship. Earlier this year he said he considers me one of his closest friends outside work.
We’re both teachers, so it’s mentally exhausting. He’ll often just retreat on his phone and doom scroll. He’s neurotypical but is definitely inattentive/gets distracted. I also have ADHD so I recharge through socializing (I experience verbal hyperactivity and then crash and withdraw at home).
It’s really frustrating because he’ll seem attentive, talk to me, show me memes, etc and then all of a sudden I try to show him one and he doesn’t even see me. I literally had to wave my phone in front of him after holding it out for 30 seconds in front of his face. Or he’ll start talking to everyone else around me and I feel invisible. I just can’t tell when he needs space or if I’m misreading when he needs space. We’ve spent a lot of time literally socializing together for hours at work so I tend to assume this is always what we’ll do? It’s hard to guess when he needs to doomscroll instead.
Today I barely saw him for 10 minutes before he had to do something. He was engaged, attentive, all was great. Then later he kept talking to everyone around me when I tried to talk to him or else just went on his phone. I told him I was going to our spot to work (we will often chat and parallel play lol and it’s really nice and intimate) and he just said “okie.” He never followed and every time I had to go back to that room to make copies, etc, he didn’t even look up from doomscrolling. I found him later and made a joke and he didn’t even look up and seemed to be busy on his computer even though he wasn’t doing work. He responded literally to the joke so it obviously didn’t land. I guess I just feel stupid because I don’t want to seem possessive of his time but I also can’t read when he needs alone time.

Hey folks, selling a few records, shipping is $5. If you're buying more than 1 deals can easily be made I'm pretty flexible, ships from Texas. Grade: (record/ sleeve).
Sam Cooke- Live at the Harlem Square Club. VG+/VG. Original release. Record plays great, very few faint scuffs. Jacket in great shape with light wear. Great copy of one the greatest live albums of all time. $36
Prince- Controversy. VG/VG. Original '81 pressing. The wax is really clean with a few light marks. There's a small pen mark scribble on side 1 label which is the main reason a graded vg. Jacket has some wear to the spine. This is a nice copy. $19
Eugene Record- The Eugene Record. VG+/VG. Record is super clean, jacket in great shape, legible spine and no tears. Great copy of a nice soul album I don't see a lot. $18
The Modulations- It's Rough out here. VG+/VG-. Original press, the vinyl is clean, light hairline towards the end of very last track that causes a few ticks. Cover has wear on edges, light ring wear and 2" splitting top right corner at opening. Super hard to find soul record that is pretty clean. $28
Grace Jones- Nightclubbing. VG+/VG+. Original press on blue island label. Super clean wax. Bottom of front jacket has light ring wear. Such a well produced, fun album and man does it sound amazing on wax. Excellent copy. $18
Mutiny- Funk Plus the One. VG+/VG+. Original white label promo. Clean vinyl free of scratches, nice jacket. $15
Eddie Kendricks- Boogie Down. VG+/VG. Clean vinyl, jacket has edge wear. $3
Sounds of blackness- evolution of gospel. VG/VG+. Original us press. There's groove wear 30 seconds into the intro song" chains" that causes a a very quick jump. Rest of the album plays fantastic. Hype sticker on cover. I currently don't see any copies of this in the states for a reasonable price. $21
Anderson.Paak- Malibu. Mint/sealed. This is the original 2016 Europe 180 gram press with turquoise hype sticker. "SW234223" on the spine. My personal copy of this sounds great. Jacket has light corner creasing the top left corner. Note: my personal copy also initially had a corner crease and I imagine most will, two heavy 180 housed in a single pocket jacket will do that. There should be a poster in there when you open the shrink. I will bubble wrap this so the mailer is tight and the record is not moving around. $24
Donny Hathaway- The Best of Donny Hathaway. VG+/VG+. $12
Common- Be. VG+/VG+. Original 2005 pressing with STERLING in the dead wax. This is not the 2023 reissue from Canada. Both discs are in fantastic shape, jacket in great shape. $60
Clarence Smith- Whatever Happened to Love.VG+/VG. Original promo. Vinyl is clean, jacket has edge wear no seanl splits. For as long as Ive known this record it ha always been hard to find. Really nice funk, soul, gospel album. $30
Charles Lloyd- Moonman. VG+/VG+. This is the 1970 repress that came out the same year as original release with the red kapp label. Plays nicely. This is just a different album but different in a good way in my opinion. Just check it out, if you like buy it lol. 7 bucks.
Robert palmer- Pressure Drop. VG/VG. $5
Pat Lundy- Loving You-The funkiest feeling. VG+/G+. Record is clean. Jacket has splitting at the top and slight ring wear. This one is kinda rare. $8
James Brown- Live at home with his bad self. VG+/VG+. I played this one once. $15
Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack. VG+/VG. Discs are a Vg+ cover is a strong VG. $7
David T Walker- On Love. VG+/VG+. Original Us press. $26
Harvey Mason- Funk in the Mason Jar. VG+/VG. Original white label promo, vinyl iscl super clean. Play tested and sounds fantastic. The jacket has a promo cut top right corner. Just a real nice jazz funk album man. 7$
Houston person- Harmony VG+/VG. Record is pristine, jacket has very light staining due to age. $5
Thanks a bunch!

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(I'm Copy and pasting this, so if it doens't format correctly Please let me know)
Hey everyone, working on some homebrew for a game I’m currently in, and I wanted to adapt Movement of the Mind into V5. Trying to keep it balanced and make it feel unique, and like it belongs in V5. This is the first draft of that homebrew, I would love some constructive criticism on how I could improve it, as well as any potential problems you see in its language. As when making homebrew, I know how I intend the ability to work, but as soon as other players get ahold of it I find that I have many errors and confusing language.
Here it is:
Level 3
Movement Of The Mind
Amalgam: Auspex 2
The kindred is able to draw on their blood sorcery and move or crush targets through sheer force of will. Those targeted with this power would see nothing physically grabbing them, except for the occasional ripple in the air caused by the force of the power.
Cost: One Rouse Check
Dice Pools: Resolve + Blood Sorcery vs Strength +Athletics
System: The user chooses their target within a number of meters equal to 3 times the user's Blood Sorcery rating. The user then makes their rouse check (Note: Moving an object under 10 pounds requires no rouse check) and rolls their dice pool against a difficulty set by the ST. The difficulty of an average weight, non-resisting person would be 2. You can then immediately move the target a number of meters equal to your margin of success in any direction. Performing complicated actions once the target is under your control, such as stealing the keys off of someone's belt or typing on a keyboard, may require a Wits + Blood Sorcery check at the STs discretion. Using weapons this way requires the user to roll their Blood Sorcery + the appropriate weapons skill at a -2 to their dice pool.
Using this against a resisting target instead requires the user to roll their Resolve + Blood Sorcery vs the target's Strength +Athletics per turn. On a success the user can move the target as normal and they are treated as being grappled, allowing the user to damage them using Resolve + Blood Sorcery vs the target's Strength +Athletics dealing damage with each margin of success.
Moving multiple targets requires the user to split their dice pools as per normal.
Finally, the user may forgo this option and elect to instead send a blast of pure force at a target. The user makes their rouse check and picks their target, rolling Resolve + Blood Sorcery vs the targets Dexterity + Athletics. The user inflicts one point of superficial damage per margin of success with a +2 modifier and sends the target one meter back per margin. The target gains the stunned condition if mortal, and both mortals and kindred have to spend a 2 dice action getting up.
Duration: One scene per target, if the target breaks free or the user lets it lapse, the power ends and another rouse check is required to activate it.
Here’s a quick Q/A for questions I know I’ll be asked so I figured I’d get them out of the way:
Isn’t this a lot like Far Reach/Arms of Ahriman?
Yes, I used both of those powers as a guideline to get a feel of the balance and limits. In my opinion while it is similar to those two, it’s different enough to stand on its own. Though I am more than willing to hear your thoughts on ways I could make it feel more unique.
Why not just make it a ritual?
Because that's not as cool /s. But in actuality it's because as a ritual it loses a lot of its “On the spot functionality.” Rituals have to be prepared beforehand, and are generally one use, this allows the user to use it on a whim so to speak which just makes it feel more interesting in my opinion. Additionally, making it a ritual adds to the problem of it feeling like a reskinned Far Reach knock off to new players.
Why is it an auspex amalgam?
To make it feel like it’s something that's generally only had by Tremere as, to my knowledge, they created the power. Additionally, it's a little more powerful than many level 3 powers. Making it an amalgam artificially increases its xp cost. Because as an amalgam, you have to purchase two dots in auspex beforehand, which makes it more expensive without raising its level.
Why make it a level 3?
For a couple reasons, number one I wanted there to be another option for level 3 powers as the current ones don’t fit every character. Blood of potency is very situational and can sometimes be detrimental depending on your current BP. Scorpions touch requires an investment into strength and melee, which some players don’t want to do. This adds more options and an alternative path for those who want to be a mostly mental focused character, that gives you a lot of options and becomes more powerful the more creative you get with it. Though I do agree it might be too strong for level 3, I might bump it up to level 4 but I don’t quite feel it's strong enough for level 5.
Don't take this Q/A as a sign you shouldn’t ask these questions, please do if you feel like I’m missing something, I want to improve this and make it so that other people can use it at their own tables and have fun with it.
The only thing I ask is that you keep your criticism constructive, as I’ve had some very nasty people respond to previous homebrew I’ve made in other communities.

Your tolkienfans post (=analysis/exploration of Tolkien works and concepts) spiraled into 50+ pages or more, at which point you figured out it's just better to make it even more organized, with all the relevant quotations and annotations. Stuff like History of Middle Earth, Tolkien's letters etc. Or at the very least just as annotations, without direct quotations. And then release as a book. Not just a free ebook for everyone to grab but a paid copy so at least you got something for your time and extra detail put into it - like, these are hard times after all, especially in some parts of the world
Plus, maybe you've drawn your own art inspired by Middle-earth and want to make use of it, or... maybe you've done nice AI renders (yeah, I know it's controversial, but it's novel toolset and probably to become common amongst those who don't have a starting capital). In any case, a book with some images invoking imagination surely feels better, no?
Btw, I've never published an analysis type of book in my life, so yeah, I have no idea about the process.
But this conception just hit me and I've started to wonder... is that even possible with Tolkien works? Without connections, good lawyers and such? I assume one would need to request for copyright permission for every single thing they would like to mention/quote? And how likely is it that some rando from a reddit sub would be allowed to get it? (I suspect not likely, so basically welcome in this delightful, tightly copyrighted, capitalistic society?? )
PS: And yet there is stuff out there like David Day, which I think messed me up badly back in the day, so idk - does this guy need any permissions?

I think I figured something out. It's a little complicated legally, but it's clever as fuck if I'm right.
First, I presume everyone is on the same page that this guy standing backwards is RC in the same black hoodie from the Gamestop store pictures, attached.
And now the @PleasrDAO is edging everyone hard with posts about the album (which I am *dying* to hear) but the legal agreement says they can't sell or commercialize the album for 88 more years.
Fuck me, I'm 56. Not gonna hear it, right?
Let's look at the agreement, because the language matters:
"Only one single copy of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin was ever to be made. This has been the case since the very first announcement. A commercial release was never planned. The right to commercialize it, meaning the right to sell it en mass to the public in any form is not allowed until 88 years from now. If the public rights were handed over now, then this would be a record deal like any other. Not the sale of a single copy. It can be exhibited publically and it can be given away for free. But it cannot be commercialized as a conventional album release until 2103. Even then, it will be the owner's decision to release it or keep it as a single unit, not the Wu-Tang."
Here is the magic phrase: "It can be exhibited publically and it can be given away for free"
Want to know how to create a business virus that destroys all shorts and even blows up the mechanics of shorting at the core principle of fungible securities?
A free NFT of the album to shareholders, distributed to shareholders in a digital wallet with a smart contract on it.
So what, we knew that, that's been around for some time. What's new?
The free bit combined with "it can't be sold", It's an NFT you cannot buy, it can only be attached to the stock share and transmitted as a free asset with the paid asset.
You can't buy them and attach them to fake shares. They are tied to real shares only. And there are limited number of them.
I expect it comes with a contract model that validates the share transfer at a digital registrar, which implies the entire asset is digital and non-fungible.
#DividendViralPayload #NonRehypotheticable

Pretty much Day 3 of this, and so far its been pretty neat, though I should stop making these so late haha, but I've liked it and might just make it a series.
The following part is copy/paste:
I like to think the best way to really chat with someone, even if its for just like 20 minutes, is just to break the ice with something interesting about yourself or that you've done, however funny, exciting to you or just plain awesome.
Really just looking for a short chat but if we click well in conversation, always down to possibly chat more with you.
So if you're interested feel free to shoot me a chat message.

Buckle up, this one's long.
My hair has always grown pretty fast/average. For example, in 2020 I cut it around armpit length and ~10 months later it was almost to my belly button. I cut it the same way, armpit length, in April 2023 and added some layers. In July 2023, I switched from Pantene (which I used forever) to Olaplex No 3, 4, and 5 used exactly as directed. Nothing else changed. Except my hair has not grown a single centimeter in over a year!!! I'm not saying my hair was perfect before; I have struggled with breakage, but I do things to help it. Here is a list of things I have been doing for years to keep my hair healthy:
Minimal heat styling, loose braid at night, silk pillowcase, home oil masque as needed, thoroughly washing scalp, no high stress styles, only use soft scrunchies and claw clips, washing in lukewarm/cool water, brushing/combing gently, only using a wide tooth comb when wet, microfiber hair towel, scalp massages, regular trims, lightweight leave-in conditioner, taking a biotin/B-complex supplement.
I recently got a full medical workup, all my labs were stellar including hormones, thyroid, metabolic, nutrients, etc. I eat a balanced diet with lots of fish, nuts, vegetables, etc and don't heavily restrict myself. I drink 60-80oz of water every day. I do low-intensity exercise almost every day (walking, gardening, etc). I am a happy person, have a lot of energy, and haven't had any recent trauma, extreme stress, life changes, or mental struggles. I am not on any drugs, medicines, or supplements besides the B-complex which I've taken on and off for 7+ years (same brand). I don't even drink caffeine. I am cis, AFAB, in my 20s and haven't seen any other changes to my body; my skin and nails are very healthy as they've always been.
All of that being said, this change in my hair directly coincided with starting Olaplex. Has anyone else had this experience? How do I recover from this? I have since switched back to my beloved sulfate/silicone-free Pantene.
TLDR: Started using Olaplex and my hair stopped growing for a year. I'm otherwise healthy and take care of my hair with all the traditional advice. What do I do??

(Cross-posted)
TL;DR: Ideas to help a baby bunny feel secure and cope with any grief when moving from a long term foster home to a forever home?
Tomorrow, I’m officially adopting a 7 month old, but he won’t be coming home with me until Monday and will remain with his foster mother until then. This baby has been with his foster mother since he was 1 week old (as his pregnant mother was found abandoned and brought into the rescue).
He does not have a bondmate because both of his littermates died and the bonding sessions he’s been on since he was neutered 2 months ago haven’t been a great fit so far. I will find him a bondmate once he is settled into our home :).
My concern is how to help him adjust to no longer living with his foster mother. He is extremely bonded to her (lies on her chest and purrs), but she is unable to keep/ adopt him (as she is an incredible person saving the lives of so many medically complex rabbits and cats at once right now, and he had always been in the home as a foster baby).
She’s going to be sending home his favorite straw playhouse, and since she said it’s falling apart a little, I also ordered him a second copy of the first one so that I can set up both his old and new one side by side. I asked about having her sending something like a blanket that smells like her home with him, and she thought that was a good idea and would help him. I can also bring a blanket for him that smells like me and drop it off tomorrow.
We’ve coordinated around hay and pellets in terms of making sure any changes are gradual and that we work together to help him adjust or that I get the same types she is using now. I am using a very different litter than she is, but she says he has never peed outside the litter box and is very unlikely to have an issue with any type of rabbit—appropriate litter (she’s using pine pellets, I’m using Carefresh). I bought all the things she said are his favorite snacks (Science Selective Naturals Loops and Oxbow Simple Rewards in two specific flavors) and made a list of the greens/ herbs he likes best.
I let his foster Mom know she could come to visit sometimes if she wanted to, and she expressed interested in doing that once he’s settled in. In the meantime, I can send lots of photo and video updates. Can anyone think of anything else (other than a bondmate, which I can’t conjure up in the next few days, unfortunately), that might help make this transition a little easier for him? I’ll be with him for probably about 22-23 hours a day (as I work from home as a PhD student, and his X-Pen is directly next to my bed), and he’ll have free roam time with me probably about 14 hours per day (and the rest of the time in the 4x4x4 X-Pen in my bedroom).
Anything else that might help? I’m so, so excited to bring him home and also so heartbroken for both him and his foster mother, who is incredible, and I just want to make sure this is the best transition possible for everyone involved.

I have 3 daughters, 15, 5 and 1.5.. the 5 and 1.5 year old are with my husband of 9 years. The 15 year old is from a previous, toxic and abusive relationship. We have had many issues with my ex and she lives with us and does not see her father. So my mother in law has never truly treated my 15 year old as a granddaughter, which was fine but when the other 2 were born it only got worse. My sister in law just had a daughter too. My mother in law had "grandma's garden" made with the 5 and 1.5 year old and my new nieces name on it and their birth flower.. my 15 year old was not on it. My mil was very excited to show me but obviously I noticed my oldest wasn't on it and since she watches the little one I didn't want to make a scene and left immediately. Fast forward to today, we were busy and did not see her for mothers day. I gave her some flowers and a card and she said she had something homemade for me. When I opened the bag, it was my 2 little ones names framed. Apparently the first copy of "grandma's garden" was bent and she got a 2nd copy for free and wanted to make me something so she cut out and frame 2 of my 3 kids names for me for mothers day. I said I had a meeting and left. Now my sister in law is getting married next month and my 5 year old is the flower girl. My mil wants to take the 5 year old to get her nails done but didn't ask if me or the 15 year old wanted to go.. obviously the nail thing is whatever. I'm just looking for different ways to approach my mil, while not starting shit since the wedding is so close and she watches my little one most of the week.. I'm thinking about asking her where she ordered the garden from so I can order one with my oldest daughters names.. if my oldest sees this garden in her house, it's going to make her upset and reenforce the fact she sees how my mil treats her vs the rest or the girls.

TL;DR: Ideas to help a baby bunny feel secure and cope with any grief when moving from a long term foster home to a forever home?
Tomorrow, I’m officially adopting a 7 month old, but he won’t be coming home with me until Monday and will remain with his foster mother until then.
This baby has been with his foster mother since he was 1 week old (as his pregnant mother was found abandoned and brought into the rescue). He does not have a bondmate because both of his littermates died and the bonding sessions he’s been on since he was neutered 2 months ago haven’t been a great fit so far. I will find him a bondmate once he is settled into our home :).
My concern is how to help him adjust to no longer living with his foster mother. He is extremely bonded to her (lies on her chest and purrs), but she is unable to keep/ adopt him (as she is an incredible person saving the lives of so many medically complex rabbits and cats at once right now, and he had always been in the home as a foster baby). She’s going to be sending home his favorite straw playhouse, and since she said it’s falling apart a little, I also ordered him a second copy of the first one so that I can set up both his old and new one side by side. I asked about having her sending something like a blanket that smells like her home with him, and she thought that was a good idea and would help him. I can also bring a blanket for him that smells like me and drop it off tomorrow.
We’ve coordinated around hay and pellets in terms of making sure any changes are gradual and that we work together to help him adjust or that I get the same types she is using now. I am using a very different litter than she is, but she says he has never peed outside the litter box and is very unlikely to have an issue with any type of rabbit—appropriate litter (she’s using pine pellets, I’m using Carefresh).
I bought all the things she said are his favorite snacks (Science Selective Naturals Loops and Oxbow Simple Rewards in two specific flavors) and made a list of the greens/ herbs he likes best.
I let his foster Mom know she could come to visit sometimes if she wanted to, and she expressed interested in doing that once he’s settled in. In the meantime, I can send lots of photo and video updates.
Can anyone think of anything else (other than a bondmate, which I can’t conjure up in the next few days, unfortunately), that might help make this transition a little easier for him? I’ll be with him for probably about 22-23 hours a day (as I work from home as a PhD student, and his X-Pen is directly next to my bed), and he’ll have free roam time with me probably about 14 hours per day (and the rest of the time in the 4x4x4 X-Pen in my bedroom).
Anything else that might help? I’m so, so excited to bring him home and also so heartbroken for both him and his foster mother, who is incredible, and I just want to make sure this is the best transition possible for everyone involved.

There was recently a post about Flan_dad with lots of drama. I investigated this, painstakingly read the messages myself. Timeline was as follows, you can make up your own mind, but customer was also warned here and did some odd behaviors. No names are given of the customer.

1. The customer asked if his used watches could be plated
2. Flandad said no used watches, and it's EU
3. Customer insisted and accepted the risk. Watches were plated, QC sent to customer. https://imgur.com/a/xKzcVz8
4. One month after receiving with accepting feedback, he took it to a 'goldsmith' for a mass spectrometer gold test. They "were not plated and had no gold" when the test results came back, and expected a full refund, all in one message.
5. When asked for a copy of the test results, he did not furnish them (which is odd, mass spectrometers have readouts as it’s the only way to assess a result) and said it was done 'off the books'.
6. Continued to insist on a refund stating that the work was not done. Based on the videos provided, the work looks to be done.
7. Continued to insist and insult in PMs and that's when both parties got defensive and screenshots were posted on RepTime. I believe most TDs have been guilty of insults from time to time as well.
8. Note that there are other details in the interactions but are removed to isolate some of the main points that are odd to me.

My honest opinion is that shouldn't be allowed here: to make Reptime the drama board for disputes, but that's just me. Customer insisted there was no gold due to a test from an 'off the books test' and didn't furnish the results when asked, and continued to double down when demanding a refund. I've seen people try to scam TDs with more effort, but finding the truth is near impossible without proper proof, especially to the one making the claim. As it is I would consider this still an open dispute.
​
At a broader level, supporting vendor discussion is no longer supported here due to the customer support model at forums. Trusted Vendors' discussion are always supported.
​
Please upvote for visibility. Feel free to discuss, but keep comments civil. This is stretching my limits of what I enjoy being a volunteer mod here.