No idea where to ask this! 1 month ago Theif stole stuff. you don't need whole story. I got back the most valuable item through a "reward, no questions asked" flier. Not from theif but "friend" who was p'd with them. Friend invented story to get it back from thief. Theif claimed to friend that all other stuff was "burned to hide the evidence". but now they tried to pass a check from my blocked checkbook. What do you think of my options below, or other suggestion;
Tell police, but case is open so if they trace the theif and ask about the big ticket item, the "friend" (who was super helpful) might get in trouble, or might say it was returned to me... which kinda gets me in trouble
call the "friend"; tell them to tell theif to knock it off
like 2 above, but add that I will pursue check matter fully with police unless they make me $$ whole for the rest of the stolen stuff. (needless to say, this is a dumb, broke, petty criminal, probably with a drug habit)
Not telling police doesn't feel good: feels like I'd be obstructing an investigation, and he's obviously a no-good criminal who should be caught for the good of the community.

My husband and I have been together for five years, married for one. His parents are divorced and he is an only child. MIL never lets him forget that he's "all she has." FIL remarried to a nice lady who has two adult daughters that we get along with. I actually met my husband through one of them.
MIL wants to make plans with us constantly. She tries to keep a full social calendar and gets butthurt if we have previous plans or just want to have a quiet night in. When we were younger she would pay for us all to do something we couldn't afford to do as students and take us out to lunch afterwards. It seemed like she was a nice and generous mom. I regret this now. My husband is good about telling her no, but we pay for it the next time we see her. She mopes and asks us how our quiet night in was in a sad voice. She also gets upset if we hang out with DH's father or stepsisters. We didn't know better when we were younger and both did the whole "it's easier to lie" thing. Now we've set a precedent of being way too careful around her feelings and letting her butt in to our plans. She is over at our house about four times a week. Usually she stops by to "drop something off" and it's always a bullshit reason. She's really lonely and she needs real friends.
Her lease will end soon at her apt and she plans to live on various cruise ships all summer before she signs a new lease. The plan seems sketchy to me. Every time she explains it she has a weird reason why she can't go on a cruise right away or stay in an AirBNB. She's taking the first cruise in May and then she'll come back in September to start a new job. The lease ends in TWO WEEKS and she just bothered to ask if she can stay with us a week ago. She's acting like this is an emergency situation and she might become homeless and die of the cold.
It might be paranoid, but I'm afraid that she'll move in and the cruise plans will magically fall apart. We'd have to evict her and she'd drag out the process. I don't know what to do. My husband says "it's just until May" but I just don't trust her. I have a bad feeling about this. Every time we ask her about the cruise stuff she acts shifty and tries to change the subject. My husband doesn't see it but I do.
If I was her I'd leave for the cruises now when they're probably less crowded, still do four months, come back in August instead of September to be able to get stuff in order for her new apartment and new job. Am I crazy? That's just makes more sense, right? The plan she has now will give her three days to get her things together before her new job starts. Maybe I'm missing crucial details. I don't know.
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Update to "help! My husband wants to let MIL move in with us!"
My MIL is the one who claimed she was going to live on cruise ships all summer.
The cruise story was fishy, so I started to poke her story with a stick. First I came up with a "brilliant idea" when she came over this afternoon. She came by to drop off a casserole dish that she "thought was ours" (she didn't really, it was an excuse.) Like usual, she came to "drop something off" but immediately sat down in my living room. I pulled out my laptop and asked her to tell us which cruises she is going on so that DH and I can think of joining her for a week!
Normal MIL would be so excited and jump at the opportunity. She acted awkward and said that she doesn't know which cruise she will be on yet.
I acted surprised and said that she probably won't be able to go now, because it's too late to make such a complicated and specific booking. She said that it's no trouble and I shouldn't worry about it.
She is certainly hiding something. My other thought is that it might be something she is embarrassed by. Maybe she'll be taking a singles cruise and doesn't want us to know?
I told DH that she can't move in or I will go bonkers. He said he doesn't want to deal with her crying and whining when we tell her. I volunteered to do it (because I don't trust him to give her a firm no!) and I also said "what would be worse, hearing her cry now, or having her cry later when we have to make her leave? If we have to make her go we won't be able to escape the crying. She'll be in our house. If you say no now, at least you can hang up the phone!" This is the argument that won him over. I can't believe my husband, a grown man, is so afraid of having to hear someone cry and whine.
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Easter dinner was a disaster (told MIL she can't live with us)
I hate holidays with MIL. She gets so upset if there are any other people there because she needs undivided attention from DH and I. We gave her Easter because it's a holiday that IDGAF about. I made a comically tiny roast for the THREE of us, and it was just as awkward as you would imagine. Most of it was fine. Not great, but fine. Once dessert started, it became un fracaso grande.
MIL said "This evening has been so nice with the three of us. Just think, we could be doing this every night soon!" She winked when she said this, which nearly triggered my gag reflex.
DH and I had mutually agreed to wait until after the holiday to say anything to MIL, and we were dumb and didn't have a plan for what to do if she brought it up first. I looked sideways at him to see if we could silently agree on something. All he could communicate to me with his facial expression was "I'm panicking! Mayday, mayday!" I just decided I may as well go for it.
"Actually MIL, since you brought it up... we have discussed it together a lot and we decided that we can't host you. We will help you find a place to stay and help you with moving, but that's all the help we can offer."
She looked like I slapped her, and asked me why with tears in her eyes.
I said that we had a bad experience with my family staying for only two weeks, and that 6 or more weeks was not a burden on my marriage that I was willing to undertake. I love and value my husband too much.
She started crying in earnest, mascara running down her face, the whole nine yards. She was soooo sad we didn't care about her awful situation and in between sobs acted very upset and blindsided that I could EVER think that SHE would be a burden on my marriage! (Notice that she directed it all at me, not DH. He was being silent as a mouse, damn him.) I couldn't help but feel angry at this. She was the entire reason that we eloped instead of having an actual wedding, and she crashed our honeymoon. She has been a burden from the beginning. By god, she actually interrupted us having sex a few days ago and it wasn't the first time! We both sat and watched her son and talk about how we have no regard for her feeeeelings.
I shouldn't have said it, but I said "to be honest MIL, you're already a burden on my marriage."
At this moment she started scream-crying. There is no other way to describe it. She was clutching her abdomen and just screaming directly into the table, followed by three heaving sobs, another long scream, three or four more heavy sobs. It was like she was trying to make as much noise as she possibly could.
It backfired. Instead of making us guilty, we looked at her like she's a crazy person. This is progress coming from DH.
I said "MIL, you seem to be determined to shut this conversation down by crying, as usual. It's hard to take your tears seriously when you use them to manipulate us so often."
She snapped out of it immediately. It was so fast, I got whiplash. She looked at me and said "I will go and cry at home then, where at least I won't have anyone telling me that I'm a bad person for being upset!" And she left. That was it.
All DH and I could talk about when she left was her immediate 180 sobbing like someone had died to immediately quieting down when I said that tears weren't working. It was creepy. Soooo creepy.
She sent a text an hour later to DH. It was basically asking him if he agreed with me (said in a way that implied that he couldn't possibly agree) and if not, what the hell he was going to do about it. Like she could snap her fingers and make him override his wife for her. He and I talked about it, and he ended up writing this response to her and sending it after I agreed it was a good one: "The decision was mutual. We can still help you find a new place and move your things." She texted back "don't bother."
The next morning I got this text from her: "I've had some time to think about the things you said last night, and you're right. The ten minutes I see you every week must be a terrible burden. Poor you. You won't have to put up with it anymore. I won't miss having to choke down your disgusting food. Do us all a favor and stop making that lemon cheesecake, everyone hates it." We had the lemon cheesecake for Easter dinner the night before. It's DH's favorite and he always opts for it instead of birthday cake, which she is salty about because she used to bake his cake for him every year. People request it from me all the time. She's full of shite.
Not that I need to defend myself to you all, but I'm a good cook. She is just a picky eater. She hates most spices, onions, all peppers, most beans, any meat with fat that she can see, tomatoes unless they're puréed, meat with bones, all seafood, mushrooms, any potatoes other than red potatoes, and most vegetables. It's hard to serve her food and I do my best, but seriously? This woman "hates" garlic bread. Who hates garlic bread???
That's the last we've heard from her. DH and I are going to see a couple's counselor because I insisted. Overall he has started to see my side, especially after that little show she put on for us on Sunday. He knows she's a total fucknut, but he still thinks he has obligations to her. I'm trying to show him that he doesn't, but it's a process.
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Update on MIL who claims she will live on cruise ships for 4 months
I really need a name for her that isn't "MIL who claims she will live on cruise ships for 4 months." I like some of the ones people came up with that reference her hatred of garlic bread. Lots of funny vampire names were suggested.
She went 9 whole days without texting us! Can you believe it? She finally texted DH the following: "This is ridiculous. I think I raised you better than this." She does this a lot. She sends a cryptic text that shows she's upset and doesn't say why. She wants people to ask her questions so that she can unload all of her feelings onto them. She won't do it unless you put up some pretense by asking her the questions she is fishing for. I find this so exhausting and I'm trying to get DH to recognize this pattern. He doesn't see it because he isn't fluent in passive aggressive. Somehow. Despite being raised by her.
He didn't take the bait! We discussed it and agreed that her text wasn't an effort to reach out like an adult. It came across as pissy and rude, and I'm sure that she is angling for an apology. Not going to happen.
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Cruise Control has broken her silence
She finally broke. Her silent treatment never lasts very long. Three weeks is actually pretty impressive coming from her.
She texted "I call a truce." Like we're at war? DH and I have been focusing on each other and couple's counseling, not planning a surprise attack.
She wants to meet and she has a few odd requests (some of which will NOT fly!)
I don't have the text, it's on DH's phone and I don't want to be a snoop so I'll ask him if he can forward it to me later. The one request that really stands out is that she wants to meet with us separately, because she doesn't want to be "outnumbered." She wants us to meet in a neutral location and one of us waits in the car while the other gets to be subjected to her tears. Nice try Cruise Control, but we happen to know what triangulation is.
She specifically asked that we don't meet anywhere that has food. She doesn't want to meet in a restaurant or a coffee house. That's fine, because it's impossible to find a restaurant that she can stomach with her long list of dietary dislikes.
DH hasn't responded, but he has read receipts turned on so she knows we got it.
We're going to think it over and talk about it in counseling, which will be on Tuesday. She's waited three weeks, she can wait a little longer. The one thing we immediately agreed on is that we're not doing the bullshit separate meetings thing. We're a couple, and we'll be treated as such. The end.
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Cruise Control is on a hunger strike, please help???
This isn't something that she's ever done before. First we got a message from a friend asking us if she's okay because he saw her at the store and she looked deathly ill. That was a week ago. We said she's probably depressed and quickly explained that she wanted to move in. We didn't think much of it.
Cruise Control usually texts or calls, so it was strange to us that she was trying to FaceTime with DH. She called on FaceTime several times and he didn't pick up.
Finally she just recorded a video of herself and texted it to him. She has lost a considerable amount of weight, her eyes look sunken. She really looks bad. In the video she tells DH that she hasn't been able to make herself eat because she's so sad that he won't talk to her.
It's been almost a month and she's lost a LOT of weight. She looks like a corpse. Do we treat this problem as an eating disorder and try to get her treatment for anorexia, or do we view this as a really insane manipulation tactic and refuse to give in? She's literally killing herself. She's obviously doing this at least partly to get our attention, otherwise she wouldn't have tried to have face-to-face meetings and video calls with us.
I am trying to find out if we can have her involuntarily committed to a facility that treats eating disorders, but usually it's parents sending their kids there, not the other way around. It's also too late in the day to make phone calls, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.
We've reached out to our couple's counselor, but this is really outside of his purview.
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Cruise Control is surprisingly good at fooling people.
I've made calls. I've begged and pleaded. They've seen the video she sent as well as photos comparing her weight one month ago to her weight now.
She has them convinced that I am a spiteful daughter in law who has it out for her. She even has them convinced that I'm jealous of her (dangerous!! terrifying!!) weight loss.
So we're wiping our hands of her. Either she's in danger, or she's fine and it's just a diet. You can't have it both ways Cruise Control. The narrative right now is that she's fine, so as far as we're concerned she's fine.
Therapy is good. We've gotten some great advice on how to handle the situation. DH is still worried sick, because the situation blows. He's let go of believing that the solution is in his hands though. He feels strongly that this is all on her. That's all I can ask for right now, that he won't beat himself up.
She texted me about how I'm bitch after she received a welfare check. As always, I am 100% to blame and DH must not know that I'm doing these things to her. 🙄
DH has gotten some texts. They're all unrelated to her hunger strike. She's trying to act like things are normal. She asked him to come to her apartment and do something to fix her computer (an old favorite bullshit invented errand of hers.) Well, now we know she's still in her apartment. I guess her landlord "changed his mind" about kicking her out.
So, that's that. She isn't being cared for by any professionals, she hasn't been sectioned. I wonder how bad she really is because she is still going to work, according to her texts. Maybe she tried to look especially bad in the video she sent us. For all we know she has faked the whole thing. We haven't seen her in person.
Until she deteriorates even more, there's not much we can do.
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Cruise Control has been hospitalized for dehydration
DH got the call from the hospital and then he called me. Cruise Control went to work this morning and then collapsed. She was taken to the hospital and she's being given fluids because she was so dehydrated. That's all we know.
The call wasn't from Cruise Control and it didn't come from her cell phone. The call was through work, and the call was forwarded to his desk. Assumedly, Cruise Control told a nurse DH's name and workplace and asked them to notify him. She knows we ignore calls from her number.
We're debating how to proceed. We're both still at work. DH thinks it would be good to give her healthcare providers some info (such as the video) but I told him that we don't know if she's really starving herself, we just know what she claims. If she's starving herself then doctors and nurses will be able to tell. Surely that would be one of the first things they'd notice?
I want to show her that we will not magically reappear the moment her ass hits a hospital bed. I keep telling him that I'm worried that she will learn that putting herself in the hospital is the best way to get our attention. If she does this over and over, she will destroy her kidneys.
Part of me wants to just call the hospital myself and then text DH that I've already handled it, but I'm trying to let him think his way through this stuff and coming to a good solution himself. The therapist warned me against infantilizing him because I've expressed frustration with him in a way that shows I don't think he's capable of making the smart choice. Since his mom already treats him like a child, I need to show him that I know and believe he is a capable adult. This will be my exercise in showing him I believe in him. I told him my thoughts and concerns. Now he needs to choose.
UPDATE: DH took his lunch break early to drive to the hospital. He called ahead and asked to talk to her docs in private. He's going to explain that our therapist has advised us not to see her in the hospital (we went over this scenario when we learned about the hunger strike) and he's going to show them the video and let them know that APS has already investigated. As long as he manages to do this without Cruise Control getting a visit from him, I'm happy.
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Went to therapy with Cruise Control and it was ehhh
This was a while ago but I waited to post it because it took DH and I a while to absorb it and talk it over.
Our own therapist that we've been seeing (who we really like!) gave us the advice that we should act businesslike and refuse to give hugs or make small talk. Not to be mean, but to make sure that therapy with Cruise Control doesn't become a way for her to sneak around LC and force interaction. We needed to set the tone for serious work to be done rather than rug sweeping.
So of course we show up and Cruise Control fucking leaps at us. DH and I dodged her and DH said "Mom, this is not the time nor the place. We all need to take this seriously." She said "not even a hug?" and he replied "Not even a hug." Go DH!
We had emailed the therapist beforehand but we also brought a hard copy of our list. Therapist asked us if we had anything to say before we got started. DH piped up and said "yes, I want to address what just happened outside of the office so that Cruise Control understands our reasoning." We spent a few minutes on that and Cruise Control said she understood.
The therapist said that she was going to focus on the bullet points on our list that involve the three of us rather than those that are observational about Cruise Control's behavior (understandable) and she went straight for the moving-in debacle. I was glad because we still don't understand what was going on and we can't be 100% sure that she wanted to live with us permanently.
When it was time for Cruise Control to start talking she was tearing up. She said that she hated her apartment and wanted to leave, it was too dark and it makes her depressed, and she had decided to live on cruise ships for half the summer. DH said "you told us you would be doing it for four months and now it's one month?" And she said that she had other plans for the middle of the summer that she couldn't tell us about because she felt that DH's feelings would be hurt.
We had no idea what she was talking about. I can't think of a vacation she'd be able to go on that would hurt our feelings, other than crashing our own....
The therapist said that if feelings are going to be hurt, therapy is a good place to process that. She sighed and said okay, and then she tells us her "real plans" that I still think are sketchy as fuck.
Now her story is "I felt that you would be lonely without me all summer so I wanted to stay with you for a while so you know I still care about you! I met a man online who lives in (vacation destination) and we were going to spend a month together. I was going to take a cruise before and after the trip to see this man so that I could say that I met him on the cruise by accident. I just didn't want you to feel abandoned."
We were just like WTF? Why would we care if you're dating? We'd both be ecstatic!
DH reminded her that he has a close relationship with his stepmom and dad.
I said that we'd be happy to see her find someone to spend time with because she seems lonely.
Cruise Control REFUSED to accept this. She believed we must be lying to her and that DH would have been distraught if she moved on from her divorce in the late Cretaceous era.
Therapist kept saying to Cruise Control that we seemed pretty genuine.
Now that we were on the subject, we spoke for a while about what a burden it is to be 100% of her social calendar and how we would love to see her find some friends or a hobby.
DH said that he was worried about the new job and whether it was real and hoped she was going to be okay, because we can't take her in if her employment doesn't work out.
When asked if the job is real, she just said "the job is there if I want it." She couldn't give us a yes or no. I am terrified that she's going to suddenly become desperate for a place to live and neeeed us to help her.
The last thing we did was state our boundaries. We said she cannot live with us EVER and that's a hard boundary. We said we'd do therapy with her no more than twice a month and that we would stop if we suspected she was lying to the therapist or using therapy as a way to get her DH fix instead of working on herself. We also said we were unwilling to let visits get to the point they were ever again. We understood that "weaning her off" might be good for her but it would be very very bad for us. We also shared a list of things we'd like to see from her, like an apology, genuine attempts to find new people to socialize with, honesty, and for her to get used to the fact that DH's stepfamily is a huge part of our lives.
We haven't agreed to go back and we haven't been asked. All we can hope for is that we gave the therapist some things to ask Cruise Control about. She needs a diagnosis like yesterday.
We haven't been seeing her in person. We have a policy she doesn't know about, which is that she can call all she wants but we will only pick up twice a week. If she calls more than once in a day she's on a secret time-out. She hasn't tried to "drop by" because she knows that means time out for a long time. We've been seeing my family and DH's dad/stepfamily a lot more, which has been wonderful.
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Cruise Control's mask slipped and she ruined July 4th.
The good news is that I am at ease about how sincere Cruise Control has been in her "recovery." Answer: not very.
The bad news is that she broke my nice mixing bowls and wasted a lot of booze.
DH and I aren't huge July 4th people or anything, but we decided to go ahead and invite some family and friends over. This was actually on Saturday, not the actual 4th, because of work. We did NOT invite Cruise Control. We invited FIL (so, her ex-husband) and stepmom/stepsisters in law and their SOs, as well as my parents and brothers and brother's girlfriend. We had some friends from college that brought their adorable baby. We also had some friends that live in the neighborhood come by as part of a party hopping thing that people in our neighborhood like to participate in. We stayed camped in the backyard with the grill going and the front and back doors open. Anyone who was invited knows to just let themselves in if we don't hear you.
I was fucking proud of the spread. I made easy oven ribs because we didn't have the grill space to do them right, but let's be honest-- even oven ribs are pretty good. I made homemade salsa. I sprung for the good tortilla chips. We had cucumber salad, corn on the cob, cherry pie, coleslaw, burgers, steak and pork kebabs in my special marinade, and watermelon salad. We had enough to feed an army too. I'm not a party planner by any means but it looked fucking nice! The food looked colorful and delicious and the smells from the grilling food were the first thing our guests commented on when they showed.
I'm setting up the whole scene to show you how fucking heartbreaking this was, obviously.
Party is in full swing. People are loading up their second and third plates by the time Cruise Control shows up. Our friends with the baby are saying their goodbyes because it's time to go home and put the kid to bed. They're a bit freaked out after the poor kid tried to grab a flaming sparkler.
We thought they'd left and the dad comes back into our backyard and says "uhhh your mom's here" to DH. These are good friends who know the situation.
We both go out front to see what's going on. Poor mom is holding her baby and clearly wants to go home but she's a good friend and is stalling Cruise Control for our benefit because she's wonderful.
DH: "Mom, what are you doing here?"
CC: "I was just driving by and I saw that you were having an open house, so I thought I'd stop in for a few minutes."
Me: "This isn't an open house."
CC: "Can i come in?"
DH: "Mom, you know that isn't a good idea. Dad and stepmom are here. No one here was expecting you to come either."
CC: "I'm sure they won't mind me!"
Me: "that's not what we're worried about. Are you really ready to face them?"
CC: "I'm sure it will be fine."
DH: "that might be true, but this wasn't planned. I don't want this party to be the guinea pig. Please leave, we'll arrange something in the future so no one is blindsided."
CC: "blindsided? Kind of like how I am right now? You didn't invite me to a party!"
Me: "Yeah, we didn't invite you. That's not new though. We have parties without you all the time because you don't like to attend them if FIL and SMIL are there. We've been doing this for years and you've always known about it."
(This is true. We either make a separate holiday for just her on the weekend or on the actual day and FIL and my family get to have whatever is available. It's fucking stupid and we didn't do t this time because we're not meeting with her right now.)
Cruise Control continued to try to talk her way into the party and DH and I JADE-ed way too hard, which we kicked ourselves for later. I finally went back inside because I had stuff in the oven to watch and left them to it.
Next thing I know Cruise Control has successfully talked her way into the house. Way to go, DH :(
I was taking a pie out of the oven when she walked into the kitchen and started lecturing me about how I'd put up photos in the living room just to hurt her. In a previous post I mentioned that she flips out if we put photos of DH's dad and stepfamily on the walls or fridge so we keep them upstairs where she won't see them. In a moment of righteous anger I rearranged our photo wall to be more balanced and show some treasured memories of DH's awesome family who has been put through so much by this woman. She's still on the wall so she can choke for all I care.
I told her so, in different, nicer words. She didn't respond, just flounced outside.
I didn't see what happened next, but I had it told to me many times. First she got really upset that we had alcohol (she is vaguely religious and super, super anti-alcohol. We hide our beer and wine when she comes over because she cries if she sees a beer in our fridge.) She asked DH if it was really necessary. My dad was a little tipsy and said something like "none of this is necessary, but it sure is nice!" She got upset and walked to te other side of the yard and glared. She spent some time looking around to see if anyone was watching her and she snuck over to the coolers, which were sitting on a table, and she pushed the one full of margarita over. She claimed that she lost her balance and it was an accident. She was seen plotting this for a while. Fucking asshole.
The cooler less than half full and everyone had pretty much had their full of margaritas at any rate-- but she FUCKING SLOSHED MARGARITAS INTO HALF OF THE FOOD!!! Soggy Tequila-flavored tortilla chips, anyone? Boozy coleslaw? How about some margarita burgers?
There was stuff inside the house and on the grill, but now the tables were sticky and all of my salsa was ruined. That salsa had been made the day before so that the flavors would marry and it was sooooo good, you guys. I'm so sad about that poor salsa. I was looking forward to my leftovers.
I walked up to her when I heard what happened and I said "Cruise Control, it seems like you're having a really bad time at this party. It's not really your scene. Maybe you should go home and let us call you when we're ready to arrange something more to your tastes, okay?" And I grabbed her elbow and guided her out of our backyard through the garden gate.
She claimed she left her purse in my kitchen (of course she did. Classic move!) and she "accidentally" threw my ceramic mixing bowl set on the floor. Yes, the whole set. They nest and were NOT sitting near the edge of the counter. She was all apologies and I looked at her and said "would you rather write me a check now or later?"
She said she had no checkbook on her person and she'd write me a check later. And she will, if she ever wants to see us again. That mixing bowl set was a wedding gift and it was NOT cheap. It's the kind that's so pretty that you display it. I've dropped pieces from it before and it didn't even chip, so I have to assume that she put some force into her "mistake."
The rest of the party was weird and awkward. Everyone silently ate until the ribs were gone and then someone finally kind of said "what the fuck was that about?" The party turned into people telling stories about other parties that were ruined by an intruder.
DH and I are talking a lot more seriously about the NC for one year idea. AFTER I get a check, if possible. I've also told him that next time the door is to be locked and the police are to be called if it comes to that. He agreed. He said he thought she'd just run away the moment she saw FIL. I pointed out that she practically did, she was there for maybe ten minutes. I said something like "she wasted $20 in tequila and I don't know how much in kitchenware in ten minutes, so ten minutes of her in our house is pretty expensive." We're going to keep reminding ourselves how much this cost.
She has texted us since then to say "so sorry again, let me know if I can do anything to repay you!" And DH texted back "you can do just that, repay us." No response to that. She seem to be implying she wants to do some favors for us and we'll call it even? Yeah, no.
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Cruise Control knows just the way to get us to regret going NC with her!
Cruise Control (my crazy MIL who we recently went NC with) has been a lot calmer than we expected. She blew up DH's phone before he blocked her, and she peered through our windows once. I scared her off. I expected world war 3 so this has been... pleasant?
The silence couldn't last, so here's the latest in the exciting world of nope.
Cruise Control came to the house when DH and I were both at work with a large manila envelope. She didn't take the steps up onto the porch-- she just tossed the envelope like a frisbee and hightailed it out of there. I guess she thinks she's invisible to our ring doorbell unless she steps onto the porch. She isn't.
I took one for the team and opened it when we both were home. It was large prints of photos of Cruise Control, and a note explaining that they're for our photo wall.
If you're lucky enough to be hearing about the lunacy of Cruise Control for the first time right now, I'll explain. She has a grudge against her ex-husband (FIL) and that extends to his lovely wife and his stepdaughters, who are both friends of mine. She would flip out and cry if we had photos of any of those family members within her sight. I got pissed one day and I updated the photo wall in our living room to include ALL of our family members. Cruise Control was still in it, for fucks sake. We believe that seeing those photos is what caused her tantrum that caused us to go NC with her.
It's insane to me that she hasn't heard from us in weeks and has spent all of this time frothing at the mouth about what our living room wall looks like!
I don't know what to do with the photos. I'm thinking of investing in a dartboard. Thoughts?

I haven’t really seen discussion about it, but it seems highly unlikely that the Zeniths themselves could have built a functioning society from nothing and survived on Sirius as just themselves — a couple dozen overly self-centered billionaires with skillsets of dubious value. A far cry from the purpose-trained astronauts who were originally meant to staff the ship.
Where did the Zeniths’ technology come from? Some were captains of high-tech industry, but that says nothing about their own levels of technical prowess — they all had massive teams of engineers working for them on Earth before the Plague. Like Ted Faro or Elon Musk, they could well have simply been the checkbook behind the innovation without truly grasping it themselves. I don’t see people like Verbena “famous-because-I’m-famous” Sutter inventing anything.
Datapoints suggest AI in the 21st century was replacing more menial, repetitive office jobs (a concern even today with the rise of technologies like ChatGPT), but not necessarily being used to invent new technologies and discover new scientific concepts undergirding those technologies. At least until GAIA and her subfunctions — which were characterized as the greatest engineering challenge the human race had ever faced — but even at that, the only subfunction Far Zenith ever got their hands on was Apollo. No Hephaestus inventing new robots for them, no Demeter fiddling with plant genetics to make superberries that can cure a human of wounds that would take weeks of time in a hospital and months of physical therapy to recover from (hey, PBK said no eugenics for humans, Demeter had a different project head).
It’s made clear that the Zeniths themselves fell into centuries stagnating in VR sims… again, not exactly a functioning society, much less an innovative one. Which brings me to my main question:
Do we know for a fact that the Zeniths were the only humans to settle the Sirius star system?
The Odyssey was stocked with an undisclosed number of human and animal zygotes — Beta was gestated thanks to DNA samples surreptitious collected from Elizabet Sobeck. What I’m left wondering is if they dipped into that supply to birth an underclass of human laborers to build, populate, and operate the colony on Sirius, and invent their technologies; partaking of the Apollo archive to be educated into the roles of engineers, farmers, doctors etc. needed to keep a colony functioning. If there was a full-fledged human society at Sirius, mortals with the Zeniths acting as an immortal pantheon over them — and the Zeniths abandoned them when Nemesis attacked. Does anything we know discount that possibility? Seems like it’d be entirely in-character for them to want serfs to rule over, whom they’d have few qualms about leaving behind to die. Just about the only thing the Zeniths have in common is that they already did that once, on Earth.
This also leaves me wondering what could have been if it had been these more-or-less normal humans from Sirius who managed to board the ship back to Earth, instead of the worst that the 21st century had to offer. The extinction signal would still have been sent, so events on Earth up through the end of Zero Dawn would remain unchanged. There would have been enough time on the return trip for the Sirius survivors to consult Apollo again, to train in things like anthropology, to try and figure out how they’d go about making first contact with the humans GAIA reintroduced to their homeworld. A crew of perhaps-more-noble people than the Zenith “Primes,” alarmed to find human society on Earth in such a primitive state, wondering how to go about introducing new knowledge and technologies without giving one tribe the means to destroy another, while trying to figure out how to prepare them all for the return of Nemesis.
I don’t know, just seems like an interesting concept to chew over.

Table of Contents

1. Calalus colony
2. Brazilian anomaly
3. What about smallpox?
4. Romans in 800s AD!?
   1. Illuminati jargon
   2. Desperate diaspora
5. Transpacific crossing
   1. Secret circumnavigation
   2. Arizona's rivers
6. Coverup and Quarantine
7. Sitchin's hybrids
8. The Ship
9. Dead men tell no tales

Calalus colony

Over the last 17 years, anonymous posts on forums about the Superstition Mountains of Arizona have been hinting at the existence of a Roman colony: Calalus, the unknown land.
Wikipedia decries the Tucson Artifacts as a hoax; however they match other local archaeological evidence. The Tucson localwiki offers some of the inscription text, which matches the story told by the anonymous posters: That the Tucson Artifacts were cast in lead and inscribed as a memorial by those fleeing the downfall of Calalus. Those whose world is ending wish to remember, and to be remembered. This emotion is vividly present in the inscriptions, whose shape is a memorial of their faith and deeds.
​
Tucson Artifact lead crosses
The site is allegedly a gold mine that has been exploited by multiple civilizations, including Atlantis, the island that sunk in the middle of the Atlantic. You may recall Sitchin saying humans were genetically engineered to mine gold for the "sky gods". That's not exactly right, but there's a reason gold is always money. This explains why both the Atlanteans and the Roman Illuminati were willing to travel to the ends of the Earth for a useless soft metal. It can be traded for some very nice ET toys. Interstellar anthropologist Yajweh has details.
(Yes, gold is an excellent conductor. Which is why Romans were mining it despite having little use for it besides the money bubble, which is ultimately inflated by ET use for precisely that conductivity, among other properties. They also like copper.)
By 790 AD, the Romans established a colony in Arizona to mine gold deposits originally discovered by Atlanteans. An Atlantean complex under the Coronado mesa contains a library that will rewrite history, carved in copper and gold plates. The map room shows the poles free of ice. The missing sections of Plato's Critias describe this library and the route to it, which the Romans followed to rediscover it. The location was a state secret.
The colony only lasted about 110 years. Around 900 AD, an Indian slave revolt exterminated the Romans. The Romans scuttled their treasure ship in the Salt River at its intersection with Fish Creek, to deny the enemy powerful Atlantean artifacts in its hold.
Some of the artifacts on board can be misused as WMDs. This is a common issue with such artifacts; the real cause of the invasion of Iraq was to secure similarly-dangerous artifacts found at a dig in the city of Ur.
Such artifacts cannot be safely forgotten, so the Watchers have guarded the location of the ship ever since… until now. It is visible on ground-penetrating radar, buried in sedimentary rock 15 feet below the river bottom, and accessible via cave.
At extermination, Calalus casualties were quoted in the 1k range, race not specified. Enough to leave some traces if you know where to look, but nothing so obvious as aqueducts and amphitheaters.

Brazilian anomaly

Those who find it incredible that a Roman ship could navigate to Arizona should consider whether the discovery of a similar Roman ship in Brazil was suppressed:

• The Mysterious Ancient Underwater Roman Relics of Brazil Mysterious Universe
• The Mysterious Bay of Jars Explained Grunge

If the Brazilian government is telling the truth, why ban further underwater exploration of the bay? Why not have local government-approved salvage divers recover any gold aboard? If certain secretive Romans achieved transoceanic travel well before the Age of Discovery, would that suggest the existence of an esoteric group that retained knowledge older than the official history of human civilization? Why are there pyramids all around the world? How would a global prehistoric civilization maintain contact between its far-flung outposts? Using modern knowledge, it is possible to cross the Atlantic in a kayak.
Why he kayaked across the Atlantic at 70 (for the third time) NYT Mag
Objection: "Why wouldn't they just take the treasure and leave the ship in the Atlantic?"
Maybe the Brazilian Navy did exactly that. The question is, why secretly?
Perhaps there is a habit of covering up evidence of Atlantean megalithic civilization in South America, when it threatens to expose the politically-inconvenient color of their hair. Perhaps there are ethnically-similar Illuminati living there today underground, so to speak, who would prefer to remain preposterous. Some even speculate that Hitler settled in Argentina.

What about smallpox?

If the Romans came to Arizona in 790, why didn't they bring smallpox? Clearly the Indians had no immunity to it when the Conquistadors arrived in the 1500s.
Well, plagues likely did assist the initial Roman invasion around 790. By the time of Colombus in 1492, Europe would've evolved new variants of disease to devastate the Indians again. Eurasia evolves diseases faster than the Americas due to Eurasia having wide contiguous biomes at the same latitude and higher population density due to technology.
Some plagues, such as smallpox, would've died out on the Roman ships during the long journey around Africa and across the Pacific. Others germs might have found little purchase in Arizona due to sunshine and low population density.
The history of European plagues in the Americas demonstrates the importance of transporting an infected person close to the Indians to cause an epidemic. Despite the severity of regional epidemics, they burn themselves out instead of sweeping the continent. Take smallpox, for example:
The Story Of… Smallpox – and other Deadly Eurasian Germs Guns, Germs and Steel

Smallpox is believed to have arrived in the Americas in 1520 on a Spanish ship sailing from Cuba, carried by an infected African slave.

Smallpox epidemic ravages Native Americans on the northwest coast of North America in the 1770s. History Link
1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic Wikipedia

The 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic spanned 1836 through 1840, but reached its height after the spring of 1837 when an American Fur Company steamboat, the S.S. St. Peter, carried infected people and supplies into the Missouri Valley.

Smallpox was too devastating to spread continent-wide. It was a highly-visible and lethal infection. As a result, it burned itself out repeatedly.
Probably the major initial plague vector into North American Indian territory was malnourished white bondservants being shipped transatlantic as pathogen incubators and then worked to death on American soil. By contrast, the Romans used local slaves at Calalus.
Calalus had a small European population, so I doubt the colony could incubate plagues effectively. It would reach herd immunity too quickly.
I'm sure there was a plague effect from the Roman arrival, but nothing that would render impossible subsequent confirmed history. The Vikings also visited North America, yet did not inoculate the Americas to European plagues.
The Calalus colony only lasted about 110 years, from 790 to 900 AD. Perhaps that's how long it took for the local Indians to recover from the plague and mount a counter-attack.

Romans in 800s AD!?

Illuminati jargon

When Illuminati leakers say "Rome", they mean their understanding of Rome, not ours.
Illuminati leakers tend to speak publicly in an allusive, anonymous, ephemeral and cryptic manner. For example, Russia is often referred to as the "3rd Rome". It is annoying, but not as annoying as the consequences they face if they don't.
By Illuminati, I mean bloodlines with esoteric gnosis and psychic abilities: illumined ones. Rome certainly had them; that's why Rome ruled. Expressions such as "the Third Rome" emphasize their continuity of rule, albeit not by the same families. Illuminati is a category of person, not an organization.
The Sasquatch Message to Humanity by Sunbow gives the most complete account of the varied origins of the Illuminati or ruling hybrid bloodlines. The Farsight Institute remote viewing of the crucifixion corroborates that Pilate was psychic. Ibanian interstellar anthropologist Yajweh discusses the Roman Illuminati tangentially on Soundcloud.
Objection: "The Illuminati was founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt… there’s literally nothing in the historical record prior."
Perhaps the name was coined then. However, "Illuminati" is a category of person that long predates Weishaupt. The term is viewed as ironic by some in the greater galaxy, who consider our various bloodline elites the furthest thing from enlightened. Unfortunately, I do not know of a better term from our perspective.
Weishaupt was the Count of Saint-Germain and founder of the Bavarian Illuminati, thus "Illuminati" is a good modern name for the secret elite, Black Nobility, ruling bloodlines, etc. I like that the term includes those who work for them (with varying degrees of awareness). Membership is more of a gradient.
That there is some vast Illuminati conspiracy is a popular belief that makes the term easily understood by laymen. Therefore I have departed from my more exacting sources in employing the vernacular. None of them refer to the bloodline elites as "Illuminati", but the names they use are longer and too nuanced for this introductory essay. The terms tend to emphasize a galactic perspective involving ET hierarchies that is beyond the scope.

Desperate diaspora

The Roman colony of Calalus existed in Arizona by 790 to about 900 AD.
Due to Muslim expansion in the 600s AD, Byzantium lost her route to India via the Red Sea. In the 700s, Byzantium lost most of her territory in Italy, keeping only a foothold in the south.

• The History of Byzantium [395-1453] YouTube
• Byzantine Empire Wikipedia
• Indo-Roman trade relations Wikipedia

As the remnants of the Roman Empire were squeezed on land between stronger powers, she resorted to extreme long-distance colonization, a desperate gambit resembling the esoteric efforts of the doomed 3rd Reich.
Calalus was founded in the 700s, and the earliest date on the Tucson Artifacts is 790. Charlemagne crossed the Alps in 773, prompting Adelchis to flee to Constantinople and plead for assistance.
Perhaps Roman Illuminati bluebloods were driven by Charlemagne's conquests in Italy to escape to the New World. The date of the "collapse" of the Western Roman Empire is debatable and mostly academic. Those who rule behind the scenes may have remained in power. However, Charlemagne's alliance with the pope altered the balance of power between competing Illuminati bloodlines, making the Roman Illuminati desperate enough to try a longshot.
Thus the Calalus colonists were likely Roman refugees from Charlemagne and Jewish-Christian refugees from Muslim conquest, seeking the New World using Atlantean maps found in the library of Constantinople, outfitted by and allied with besieged Byzantium.

The Imperial Library of Constantinople, in the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, was the last of the great libraries of the ancient world. Long after the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria and the other ancient libraries, it preserved the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans for almost 1,000 years.[1] A series of unintentional fires over the years and wartime damage, including the raids of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, impacted the building itself and its contents. While there were many reports of texts surviving into the Ottoman era, no substantive portion of the library has ever been recovered. The library was founded by Constantius II (reigned 337–361 AD), who established a scriptorium so that the surviving works of Greek literature could be copied for preservation. The Emperor Valens in 372 employed four Greek and three Latin scribes. The majority of Greek classics known today are known through Byzantine copies originating from the Imperial Library of Constantinople.

Imperial Library of Constantinople Wikipedia
Shipping gold from Arizona to the Mediterranean is insane in 800 AD. But adopting a maritime existence with Arizona as the new base is relatively reasonable. The gold can be traded for manufactured goods from China or India to supply the colony.
More importantly, knowledge is power. The colonists were seeking the lost Atlantean library as much as the adjacent gold mine. Had they relied less on slave labor, a new Rome might've arisen in North America centuries before Columbus set sail, and ruled the world instead of the British Empire.

Transpacific crossing

Secret circumnavigation

From Find The Ship:

And how did the Romans get here? Their ships sailed from Rome east not west, around India and into the Pacific Ocean.

The colonists of Calalus went around Africa to reach Arizona, an incredible feat. Then again, they had maps whereas the later Age of Sail discoverers did not. The tricky part of deep-ocean sailing is not leaving land, but finding it again.
700 years later, Europeans would again circumnavigate the Cape of Good Hope in response to the Ottoman Empire cutting off trade through the Red Sea to India. Vasco de Gama officially established the sea route to India in 1498.
The compass was important to the 15th century Age of Discovery, and one suspects that the compass was one of the secret technologies by which the Roman Illuminati cemented their lengthy rule. Knowledge of the Earth's magnetic field sounds like something they would preserve in their esoteric traditions.
Europeans officially discovered the Americas by crossing the Atlantic, but the Pacific crossing is easier. There are multiple routes, depending on the season. Knowing the prevailing winds and general geography makes the vast emptiness of the Pacific much less forbidding.
- Expert advice: How to sail across the Pacific Ocean YachtingWorld

• Pacific Passage Planning Cruising World

Why not take the Atlantic route instead? Maybe they did that too. However, Cape Horn is much more dangerous than the Cape of Good Hope. The Atlantic ocean is generally more dangerous than the Pacific, despite being smaller.

• Sailing across the Atlantic - a classic blue water voyage CrewSeekers
• How to sail across the Atlantic and back Yachting Monthly
• Is the Atlantic or the Pacific More Dangerous? Catamaran Freedom

The colonists initially wished to reach Arizona. Thus the Pacific was the safest route, since they could use the Polynesians to launch themselves at the unmissable Americas. The return voyage to Europe is not as simple, but anonymous sources claim they did it, somehow

“The ship was constructed in Arizona, a standard vessel of the time, wooden with improvements inspired by discoveries made in the range, with Roman symbols that was capable of sailing around the world. And it did several times.” (Thedawnishere, July 2022)

The treasure ship was built with Atlantean improvements, possibly making it the equal of ships used during the Age of Discovery. The original Roman/Byzantine ships that the colonists arrived in were probably not capable of circumnavigating the globe.

Arizona's rivers

Those familiar with Arizona's rivers today find it incredible that Roman ships could navigate them. Much can change in 1,200 years. For example, Europe experienced a major climate shift recently:

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from c. 950 to c. 1250.[

Medieval Warm Period Wikipedia
From Find The Ship:

In ancient times Calalus was much wetter than it is today–ships could make their way from the Salt River to very near Oz (Eldorado, Dec 2007). The whole area served as a transportation hub for Calalus colonists in their extensive mining operations. Ships plied the Salt River a great deal further east and west from Calalus, even to the Pacific.

Before irrigation drained them, Arizona's rivers were considerably more navigable:
From Wikipedia:

The next contractors George Alonzo Johnson with his partner Benjamin M. Hartshorne, brought two barges and 250 tons of supplies arriving at the river's mouth in February 1852, on the United States transport schooner Sierra Nevada under Captain Wilcox. Poling the barges up the Colorado, the first barge sank with its cargo a total loss. The second was finally, after a long struggle poled up to Fort Yuma, but what little it carried was soon consumed by the garrison.

Colorado River Wikipedia

The Gila River and its main tributary, the Salt River, were both perennial streams carrying large volumes of water – the Gila was once navigable by large riverboats from its mouth to near Phoenix, and by smaller craft from Phoenix nearly to the Arizona-New Mexico border

Gila River Wikipedia
From AmericanRivers.org:

Few people realize that the Gila is one of the longest rivers in the West. That’s because it’s typically drained dry before getting halfway through its 500-mile voyage west to the Colorado River near Yuma, AZ. Once navigable by large riverboats from its mouth to Phoenix, the Gila below Phoenix today crosses the Gila River Indian Reservation as an intermittent trickle due to large irrigation diversions.

Coverup and Quarantine

The coverup of civilizations predating man's official history by institutions such as the Smithsonian and Harvard is an ongoing policy of large-skulled elite bloodlines who retained their culture from prior Ages of Man, using their gnosis to rule from the shadows. Remnants of their technology too large to hide, such as the Great Pyramids, we assume to be merely recent monuments to folly instead of powerful artifacts beyond our current comprehension.
Illuminati are characterized by psychic ability, esoteric secret knowledge, and Legally restricted ability to interfere with human free will. Asimov explores the idea of a psychic elite in the sci-fi novel the Second Foundation. Due to Illuminati influence, many "debunked hoaxes" are anything but. Anakim-sized giants with six fingers and double-rows of teeth are just one example. A number of supposedly-mythical races inhabit ancient lithosphere caverns which humans are forbidden to explore. Human exploration of Antarctica and the Moon are limited for similar reasons.
Earth has been Quarantined for most of humanity's written history, due to genetic engineering abuses culminating in a war between aliens involving WMDs that is documented in the Mahabharata. These Divinely-ordained Legal restrictions on direct external contact with humans force alien influence campaigns to go underground. One way of doing so is by superficially concealing them as hoaxes, for no apparent rational motive. The goal is to reach receptive people without forcing a revolution in humanity's beliefs. This sounds strange from our materialistic perspective, but aliens know that soul evolution is both the purpose of life and a great source source of practical power. The military applications of instantaneous telepathic communication are obvious, for example. Whereas we consider our ignorance a curse, it is actually a carefully-contrived blessing. Do you learn more by being told the answer, or by figuring it out for yourself? The Cosmos is constructed to minimize conflict and permit a diversity of paths to the Divine.
For example, a major part of someone's spiritual journey on Earth is deciding whether one believes in the supernatural. This is why paranormal topics are suppressed in the mainstream media. Paranormal events themselves are regulated, and ultimately this is due to the Divine Law of Free Will which attempts to preserve the freedom of belief of sapient beings. This Law applies to all beings, so always consider the character of any source of religious revelation.
Like the Roman ship off Brazil, Calalus has been warded, obfuscated and guarded until now, on the eve of WW3, the death of one America providing hope for another. Public proof of alien involvement on Earth opens the door to First Contact without violating the Prime Directive. This alien peacemaking priority has been evidenced by decades of reports of heavy UFO activity around reactors and nuclear weapons.
Medvedev made the announcement of alien presence on behalf of the Russian government. However, the US government does not want Disclosure, fearing collapse will ensue: religious, financial, and military morale.
We have laws protecting indigenous tribes from unwanted contact. So do aliens. If Americans want Open First Contact, they will have to dig up the ship themselves. The Atlantian artifacts therein are from a time when aliens and humans lived together.

nyckidd
The confluence of Pseudo-Christian mythology with occultism and UFO/Alien stuff always yields that strangest and most morbidly fascinating reading material. I do wish people would have a more skeptical mind though.

I do not recommend taking religious guidance from anonymous strangers involved in vast conspiracies. Consider that the sources may simply be forbidden to tell the Truth about such matters, and are forced to invent appealing fictions instead.

Sitchin's hybrids

As for Sitchin and the alien hybridization theory, if you think modern genetic science is good at detecting hybridization events, ask yourself whether you believe the official explanation of the duckbilled platypus. Eugene McCarthy's Hybrid Stabilization Theory corrects mainstream evolution by recognizing that ancestry is a web, not a tree. Animals have cross-species sex and occasionally the offspring are interfertile with one parent species.
Given modern science doesn't even correctly classify animal descent, it is certainly wrong about the origin of the elongated skulls of Paracas and Egypt (and elsewhere), with their superhuman brain volume, which cannot be induced by head binding. Institutional suppression of inconvenient narratives by large-skulled ultra-wealthy Illuminati bloodlines adequately explains the failure to account for facts.
According to Vox Day's calculations (link censored), humans have evolved much faster than comparable species. Our tremendous ethnic diversity is substantially due to hybridization programs by numerous alien races. Thus there is no chance of singling out any one group as having "alien DNA", unless it is a recent hybrid, in which case the person will probably look visibly non-human. For example, the Neanderthals were related to Sasquatch, an interdimensional "alien".
"Human" is a common galactic genus of which we are merely a recent offshoot, so there are aliens who look quite human to casual inspection while being genetically extra-terrestrial. In other words, Earth humans were originally hybridized from Earth hominids and ET humans. The term for this sort of galactic genus propagation is "starseeding". The term for Earth humans is "Jahku".
Some will try to demoralize Jahku with dark origin stories about how Jahku are nothing but cattle or an experiment by cruel masters. The truth is that we are the legitimate heirs of Earth, which is why we currently enjoy a Protected legal status. It is true we are a bit down on our luck and morally bankrupt at the moment, but we are born for greatness. If you ever feel depressed about human potential, just read The Sasquatch Message. They wouldn't be fighting over us so hard if we didn't matter.
One of the perks of being a child of Earth is admission to the local afterlife. Do you believe in Heaven? Seeing is believing. In the Spirit Spheres, what you believe determines what you see. There is an afterlife for every faith, created by faith. Sounds nice, right? Now you understand why aliens want to hybridize with us. Mother Earth is special.

The Ship

The world's greatest treasure ship sits in a sandbar under 1,000 years of silt, at the intersection of the Salt River and Fish Creek, where it was scuttled to deny victorious Indians access to its powerful Atlantean artifacts.
Some of its contents have already been looted, but they could not remove the wooden frame without risking public exposure. What remains is more than enough.
An underwater excavation would be difficult, and this find is time sensitive, what with NATO and Russia nearing direct warfare while China hovers over Taiwan and Iran eyes Israel. So Watchers have allegedly softened an easier excavation path to it from a cave directly beneath the river. Verifying the existence of this cave would be the logical first step. The ship's frame can also be detected via ground penetrating radar.

New-Tip4903
One problem: "Visible on Ground-penetrating radar". If this is true where are the pictures of the radar scans? Surely that would be enough to get funding for an expedition.
The ship is buried under silt that was once below water. Now it is about 15 feet down in a very public place on the River's edge. Some years ago a group from the University of Arizona found the ship electronically but did not know what it was and moved on (thecave, May 2022).

– Find. The. Ship. by AlbaAvis and Laweyre
Lots more info at the above link.
Maybe this is the aforementioned university team, or someone newer. I've never seen a Gab thread fail to display its comments like this. I was able to read the thread after commenting in it, but while logged off the thread's comments don't appear. There is one radar image in the thread, but I don't know how to read it.
​
sandbar radar
Would the University of Arizona have archived the radar images somewhere? Might be worth checking.

Dead men tell no tales

I live in China, so I did not expect this story to touch me personally, but it did. I mentioned Watchers once guarded the secrets of Calalus. After posting the above link to Reddit, I received a dream visit from a phantom nightmare. He was a prospector who stumbled on Calalus 100-200 years ago, I sensed. That is my first undeniably psychic experience. (Undeniable to me.) He's a friend now. I tell the full story here:
A phantom prospector guarding buried treasure gave me an Indiana Jones sleep paralysis nightmare. Koanic
I am the furthest thing from a prospector, preferring the great indoors, but I suspect this article is another clue:
Reading the Peralta Stone Maps DesertUSA
​
Peralta stone crosses and heart
I also found a list of prospectors who died searching for the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, one of whom could be Smokey Brown (my nickname for the anonymous phantom):
Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine Wikipedia

• Adolph Ruth, died 1931 at age 66. Body found after national publicity, likely exhumed to quell interest. Skull showed point-blank long-gun round to the skull. Skull distant from body. Peralta maps stolen. Checkbook claims he found it. AZ government whitewashed obvious murder.
• Mining electrician J.A. "Tex" Bradford, died 1933. Missing.
• James A Cravey, photographer, died 1947 at age 62. Presumed murdered. Skull missing.

I believe Smokey Brown to be Adolph Ruth, based on his feeling of antiquity and the quiet pride I feel from him, that he found it. Ruth was a dedicated searcher for lost mines, which fits the Indiana Jones vibe I got from him. Bradford the electrician feels too modern, and Cravey the photographer feels too superficial.
Adolph Ruth was clearly murdered. The primary cover story of suicide is impossible. The secondary cover story is two anonymous greedy prospectors. The source of this cover story is the man who tried to dissuade him from the expedition, Tex Barkely. It is likely Tex knew about the Watchers who guarded the mine. His ranch was ideally positioned to monitor prospectors seeking the mine, and therefore he likely worked for the Watchers in some capacity.
Tex Barkely also led the first unsuccessful search for Ruth's body. I suspect Ruth was not killed where he was found. Otherwise the summer vultures would have made it easy to find Ruth's rotting body. Rather, Ruth was soul trapped and interred underground. Later, his remains were exhumed when national publicity threatened to bring hordes of searchers.
No future skulls were found, with or without bullet holes. I assume they were also shot in the head, but the skulls were interred to prevent everyone from concluding that Ruth was certainly murdered. I don't know how soul-trapping works, but I wouldn't be surprised if it involves decapitation of the corpse as a step in the process. The talking skull trope might have some basis in reality. The head and heart are presumably the body parts most closely connected to one's soul.
My Father's Search for the Lost Dutchman - By: Northcutt Ely DesertUSA Forums
Northcutt Ely was a lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court and served in the Hoover Administration. Ely's account confirms Ruth found the mine near Weaver's Needle and entered it. The Roman inscription "Veni Vidi Vici" seems to have been written 200 feet across from the mine, corroborating that the mine was Roman. It is an odd phrase for Ruth to use, but an absolutely appropriate one for the Roman founders of Calalus, who conquered the surrounding tribes.
Ely says the Superstition Mountains were named after an Indian legend that an evil spirit guarded its gold mine and killed men seeking it. He counts as fact 20 men who died seeking it.
The Wikipedia account diverges substantially from Ely's, in ways that make Ruth's death less suspicious. I don't know which is correct, so I used Wikipedia's version where they conflict.
Smokey Brown's phantom nightmares may have been a well-intentioned way of dissuading other prospectors from sharing his fate. It is not strange that he found me after I publicized the story on Reddit, since his original job may have been dissuading those attracted to the mine by publicity.
Objection: "Omitted is American greed, grit & hustle. Are we to believe that, during westward expansion, gold rushes & fights with protocorporations over mineral rights, easements & access to waterways throughout American history, that someone or group of people really knew about gold, hid it & never harvested it?"
Indeed. Northcutt Ely states as fact that 20 men died seeking the gold mine, presumably Americans. One suspects the reason the Illuminati ceased to exploit the gold mine after the Peraltas is that Americans could not be controlled sufficiently to mine it without revealing the neighboring Atlantean secrets.
Major mining operations may have continued, conducted by a subterranean workforce, but I doubt it. I believe humans own the surface mining rights. Otherwise the deposits would be long gone.
Perhaps the skeleton crew paid themselves in mining time when they weren't headshotting Apaches and senior citizens.

Script (this is now a fanfic I can’t present if I wanted this film made)
Zach-played by me
Phoebe-played by McKenna Grace
Podcast-played by Logan Kim
Trevor-played by Finn Wolfhard
Lucky-played by Celeste O’Connor
Sarah-played by Chloe Grace Moretz
Jess-played by Millie Bobby Brown
Jason-played by TampaJay
Emma-played by Elle King
Oscar-played by Will Deutschendorff
Peter-played by Bill Murray
Ray-played by Dan Aykroyd
Dana-played by Sigourney Weaver
Egon-played by Harold Ramis
Louis-played by Rick Moranis
Winston-played by Ernie Hudson
Mayor Jacob-played by Jonathan Margulies
Walter-played by William Atherton
Devil- played by Terrence Stemp
Sony
Columbia
Bron
Ghost Corps
Columbia Pictures Presents
A Jason Reitman Film
Ecto drives into the firehouse from the end of Afterlife
Trevor: Huh, this is the firehouse?
Phoebe: This building should be condemned.
Podcast: Woah! I gotta try this pole!
Runs to stairs and slides down the pole
Lucky: I’m going to check the basement!
Lucky runs down to the basement
Containment Unit with a blinking light is there
Lucky: Hey guys, come down here.
Everyone meets in the basement
Winston: Wait! The containment unit is on! Someone was down here!
Podcast: Well, what does it do?
Winston: When the light blinks red, there’s either an uncleaned trap in there, or someone shut down the containment unit!
Ghostbusters theme begins to play
Phoebe: I have a bad feeling about this.
Ghostbusters 4 Hell Is Among Us
Ray Parker Jr. sings Ghostbusters
Shot of Columbia University
Shot of Times Square
Shot of the World Trade Center
Street shot of the Firehouse
Phoebe: I think we should fix this place up, get some beds.
Trevor: A TV!
Lucky: An answerer!
Winston: Got ya covered!
Janine: Hi!
Podcast: Well, let’s get working!
2 WEEKS LATER
Trevor: We finally have a place to stay.
Podcast: Well, if we want to run a business, and a 24 hour one-
Lucky: I can’t be up almost the whole day being prepared for a call.
Podcast: How about a help wanted ad?
Lucky: Good idea!
Zach walks up to the firehouse
Zach: You’re here for the job too, huh?
Everyone: Yep!
Lucky: Hey! You’re all here for the job? Come in!
Phoebe: Alright, we got first names. Now, last names, for jumpsuits. Ok, Zach, we’ll start with you.
Zach: Oh! My last name? It’s Spengler!
Dead silence
Phoebe stares with jaw open
Phoebe: Spengler? That’s my last name. Mom, did you have another son?
Callie stands there, not saying a word
Zach: Wait!
Flashback
Hospital room
Zach is split from Phoebe, Callie, and Trevor Callie cries as her 2nd son is taken by her husband
Zach: I think, you’re my twin sister!
Phoebe puts her hand on Zach’s hand
Phoebe: I am so glad to see you again!
Phoebe gets emotional
Zach: In return, Phoebe!
Trevor: I remember you, barely! It’s Trevor! Zach greets in return
Phoebe: Ok, everyone else. (Tear still running down cheek)
Emma: Last name’s Hart.
Jacob: Lovell.
Sarah: Gilbert.
Jess: Carter.
Cuts to new scene
Phoebe: Ok, after we got names. I want you to test these cyclotrons. I don’t think that any have you have used one before. But does anyone know anything about it?
Sarah: I believe this is an unlicensed nuclear accelerator which allows the positive energy of protons to wrap around the negative energy of a ghost. This allows the positively charged trap to entrap and contain supernatural activity.
Phoebe: Ok, give it a shot!
Stream blasts
Sarah: Man, nuclear energy has never felt so amazing! Who’s next?
Gary and Callie are at Marcus’ house in Yonkers
Marcus: Callie?
Callie: Mark.
Marcus: I guess it’s been a while. Is this your new husband?
Gary: We’re just dating, I’m Gary Grooberson.
Callie: I met him when I moved down to Oklahoma with Trevor and Phoebe. 3 years ago.
Marcus: Ya know, let me have you come in. Just catch up.
Callie: Nice place.
Marcus: Thanks.
Callie: Now, is there any reason to why you took our son at birth? I know we were going our separate ways but-
Marcus: I wanted to have someone with me. You had a daughter, and Trevor would have know you for 3 years by then. T would’ve had a somewhat memory by then.
Gary: You mean you took your son, because you weren’t wanting to be lonely?
Marcus: That’s the long and short of it. But, I’m sorry.
Callie: It’s been 15 years. But, I forgive you.
A few hours later, Jess is checking out the car
Jess: I think I can upgrade it!
Zach: I got a logo made, this is the 4th time these guys are in business.
GB4 logo
Jacob: That looks good!
Jess: Ok, I can put the logo on, and more sirens on, we could also put a nuclear thing on it!
Zach: You mean a tank?
Jess: Yeah that.
Plays I’m not afraid by fall out boy
Paints the new logo
More on the roof rack
Jess: Ladies & Gentlemen, May I present, the new and improved, ECTO-1!
Car is revealed
Everyone is in awe
Zach: There’s a dish, I hope we can connect Xfinity on there.
Jess: It probably does.
Muncher floats by
Zach: No!
Muncher: Ok.
Zach: I can get you some pans to chew on later!
Muncher turns around, smiles
Knock on door
Emma: Hello?
Oscar: I’m here for the job!
Emma: I can get your last name and get you a jumpsuit!
Oscar: Full name is Oscar Barrett!
Emma: Ok! We got one for you!
Oscar: Winston?
Winston: Wait! Your tag says Barrett, wait, Oscar? Man, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you, now you’re grown up, going to Peters job!
Peter walks down
Peter: Oscar!
Ray: Hey Oscar!
Peter: How ya been man?
Oscar: Good. I heard about Egon.
Zach: Is that my grandfather?
Phoebe: Yep. He played chess with me after he died. He also helped trap Gozer.
Oscar: Well, that’s another demon down.
Peter: Seems Dana told you about how she turned into a dog.
Oscar: I did not know that.
Zach, Oscar & Phoebe are on a walk, they are by Central Park
Zach: I moved here once I was born. I guess you lived in Chicago.
Phoebe: Yeah. Then when I was 12, we got evicted, and moved to Summerville, Oklahoma. We discovered the old equipment. We stopped Gozer.
Phoebe points to 55 Central Park West
Phoebe: That’s where Peter, Winston, Ray, and our grandfather saved the world in ‘84.
Zach: How’d you know about this?
Phoebe: My teacher in Oklahoma taught me about our grandfathers legacy.
Oscar: That’s where my mom lived before she had me. I think there’s a friend of hers in there.
Knocking on door
Louis: Hello?
Oscar: Mr. Tully? You’re a friend of my mom’s, right?
Louis: Oscar? Huh. It’s good to finally see you after 3 and 1/2 decades. But, who are these 2?
Oscar: Phoebe Spengler & Zach Spengler.
Phoebe, Zach & Louis exchange
Oscar: Do you still have a proton pack? My mom was telling me that you had one.
Louis: Since 1989.
Phoebe & Zach are interested
Louis: I had it when I went to help your grandfather save the city.
Zach: That’s good to know, Mr. Tully!
Louis: Yep! Well, bye!
All: Bye!
Hell
Satan: The time has come.
Firehouse
Around the coffee table, watching baseball
Podcast: Ya know, I never got to ask. Why’d you all wanna join the team?
Sarah: I needed to use my parapsychology degree to use somehow. It just worked out, you know, that ghosts, catching? Yeah.
Jess: I just needed to pay off my student loans. This place has good pay.
Jacob: Physicist. That’s all you need to know.
Zach: I’ve always had a fascination with the paranormal. Everyone told me ghosts were fake and that bs, but, I knew I was right in ghosts existing.
Emma: I joined because, I wanted to connect to the afterlife. You see, 5 years ago, my parents got shot outside a restaurant, and, I’ve been trying to connect to them. I miss them. Begins crying I’m normally a tough street girl, but, when it comes to my parents, I break.
Zach: Emma, it’s ok. Just let the tears out.
Emma: Thanks.
Zach: Mhmm.
Meanwhile
Peter: You know Ray I never got to ask, how’s the bookstore going?
Ray: Winston’s still paying it.
Slimer comes in out of nowhere
Peter: Slimer?
Slimer nods
Peter: I haven’t seen you in 30 years.
Slimer: Yeah.
Peter: I know we’ve had our differences, but, I’m glad to see my little spud again.
Slimer hugs/slimes Peter, and Peter smiles
A few hours later
Dinner table
Zach: Everyone, I would like to make a toast, to the rebirth of the Ghostbusters!
Everyone: Here, here! Cheers!
Phoebe: Zach, we’ve been separate for so long, but, I’ve noticed you act pretty similar to me.
Zach: What do you mean? I’m like this because I’m on spectrum.
Phoebe: You too?
Podcast: You 2 got a lot more in common than just being twins.
Zach: I guess we do.
Cuts to downstairs
Phone rings
Janine: Hello, Ghostbusters! Yes we’re back. Oh really? Ok, Chrysler Building, top floor, thank you! We got one!
Slams alarm
5 people slide down
Cleanin’ up the town plays
5 people get suited up
Outside shot
ECTO-1 license plate shows
Sirens blare
Drives out of the Firehouse
Heads to Chrysler building, by turning on Varick Ave, then onto Franklin Street, then cuts to ECTO-1 swerving between cars on Second Ave
Parks out front of building
GB4 logo appears
Jess: Anyone call about a ghost?
People confused
Andrew: Yes that was me.
Phoebe: Can you describe the creature to us?
Andrew: Yes, it had 8 legs!
Jess: A spider?! You called the Ghostbusters about a spider?!
Andrew: No! This thing was huge! It’s the size of a cubica-
Zach: Ok, say no more.
Elevator
Jess: I seriously thought he called us over a spider.
Zach: He would have called the wrong professionals to this building if it was a spider!
Lucky: Yeah!
Elevator dings
Zach: Ok, I think we split up on the top 3 floors. Whoever’s coming with me, come with me.
All: Got it!
Jess, Podcast go to Floor 76
Lucky goes to Floor 75
Zach and Phoebe walk into the office area
Zach: You’ve got mail! From a internet service that’s outdated by 24 years.
Phoebe snickers
Zach: Let’s go find Spider-Man, as that guy says.
The 2 walk around for a few seconds and find the ghost
Phoebe: It appears to be a Class 7.
Zach blasts his stream
Ghost caught in stream
Zach: Phoebe, the trap!
Phoebe slides over trap
Slams trap
Ghost is sucked in
Phoebe: That may have been a Class 7, but it wasn’t a very intelligent Class 7.
Jess walks around the cubicals
Finds ectoplasm
Jess: Huh? (Tastes it) spits out Maybe I shouldn’t have tasted it! That’s disgusting!
She notices a ghost
Jess: Ok, don’t move, Jessica. If you don’t move, it won’t hu-
Ghost runs towards her
Jess: Oh alright, it’s running towards me! (Runs) Podcast! Podcast!
Podcast: Don’t worry, Jess! I’m coming!
Podcast runs and finds Jess on the ground
Jess: He slimed me!
Podcast: Hang on! (Grabs mic) How do you feel about being slimed?
Jess looks up
Jess: I’m going to hit you.
Podcast helps her up
Jess: Damn thing got away! Once I find that thing again I’m gonna zap that sucker!
Podcast: We’ll find it. Don’t worry.
Jess: I probably should take your advice, but, revenge is mine.
Floor 75
Lucky notices a ghost
Lucky: Hey bud!
Blasts stream
Slides trap
Slams trap
Ghost is sucked in
Lucky:(on walkie) I caught it guys. We are good!
Zach: (on walkie) But we caught it!
Podcast:(on walkie) Well, Jess got slimed by one.
Phoebe: This is definitely a large infestation of these ghouls.
Lucky:(on walkie) I say we meet on 76!
All: (on walkie) Agreed!
Meet on 76
Phoebe: Podcast, you weren’t lying when you said she was slimed. There’s ectoplasmic residue all over her!
Pke meter goes up
Zach: The PKE is detecting energy nearby.
Chairs thrown
Cubicals fall
All: Woah!
Sees ghost
Phoebe and Jess blast their streams
Ghost roars
Zach slides trap
Slams trap
Ghost is sucked in
Beeps
Jess: 3 in the box!
Phoebe: Ready to go!
Zach: We be fast!
All: And they be slow!
Goes down elevator
Andrew: Did you catch it?
Phoebe: We caught them!
Zach: 3 of them!
Phoebe: A Class 6, 7, and 8!
Andrew: Woah! What does that mean?
Zach: We caught 3 different classes of ghosts.
Lucky: Although you called, your manager will have to pay, Mr…
Andrew: Andrew. Speaking of my manager, here he comes right now!
Richard: Thank you! I’ve been hearing complaints about something up there. Workers are saying, “Oh, Richard! There’s a thing up there!” I didn’t believe it until I saw something and fell in the toilet!
The Ghostbusters look at each other.
Richard: So, how much?
Zach: 5K.
Richard: I will get my checkbook!
Ghostbusters theme plays (cover by Attaboy Skip)
Jess: Ok, please move everyone!
Juju: Good Morning America, I’m Juju Chang. That’s right, the Ghostbusters are back. They answered once more.
Tom: The Ghostbusters were gone for about 30 years and recently returned from a long break in Oklahoma, and are back to believe!
Montage
Shows Sarah, Jason, and Zach at Madison Square Garden
Shows ECTO-1 going thru Queens, sirens on
Shows Jess carrying a trap thru a crowd
Jess: Everyone move!
Jacob, Lucky, Podcast, & Trevor busting a caterpillar-like ghost
Peter, Ray, & Winston running thru a crowd, a nostalgic run
On TV Callie: Darnit! This thing’s back. I can’t do it!
Gary: Don’t worry babe! He’s leaving!
Callie: Who ya gonna call?
All The Ghostbusters: GHOSTBUSTERS!
Off TV
Sarah: 24/7!
Zach: No job is too big!
Jacob: No fee is too big!
Shows a horned demon being wrangled by a stream
Emma uses her PKE Meter, and it goes into taser mode
Montage ends
Oscar puts a trap in the Containment Unit, and notices a box, it’s labeled “Slime Blowers”
Oscar brings up the box to the living room
Oscar: Hey! Anybody know what these are?
Ray: Egon had the Slime Blowers, too?
Oscar: What did y’all use them for?
Peter: We hosed Johnny.
Oscar: Johnny?
Dana: Janosz Poha.
Oscar: When?
Winston: ‘89-90. We stopped you from getting possessed by Vigo. He would’ve used your body to become world ruler.
Ray: Then we attached the slime blowers on a Proton Pack, it stopped Shandor in 1991 from crushing our dimension and the ghost world.
Oscar: Oh. Glad you invented them then.
Phone rings
Zach and Phoebe slide down
Janine picks up the phone
Janine: Ghostbusters. Yeah, ok, near the World Trade Center. Ok.
Puts down phone
Janine: You heard me talking! You gotta go!
Phoebe: C’mon! We got a ghost to bust!
Zach: Let’s go!
Ghostbusters: Afterlife Theme Plays
Sirens blare
Drives to the location
Zach: I can drive! We’re going mobile!
Phoebe: Are you sure we should use the gunners’ seat? Last time we used it we ended up getti-
Zach: Phoebe, it’s fine.
Phoebe: Well, ok. (Nervously)
Phoebe goes into gunners’ seat
Phoebe pops button
Blasts stream
Ghost starts getting away
Phoebe: Go! Go! Go!
Blasts stream again
Zach: Let’s get this bastard!
Phoebe: I’m trying! This thing is quite fast!
Ghost gets caught in stream
Phoebe: Hell yeah!
Zach: I don’t know if you were told, but Sarah was able to add a self-driving mode to the RTV!
Phoebe: Well that could help in the long run!
Drives the RC trap to ghost
Sucked in
Zach & Phoebe celebrate
Go around a block when they hear sirens
Phoebe: Oh no! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!
Zach: Don’t fret Pheebs! I got this under control.
Shows Zach & Phoebe handcuffed in a prison cell
Phoebe: Man, this sucks!
Zach: Yeah. Well hey, at least it’s better with my sister.
Phoebe smiles
Jacob: They both should’ve been back by now.
Sarah: Being this long will mean it’s a real nasty thing.
Podcast: That, or they are in danger.
Oscar turns around
Oscar: I wouldn’t wanna say that.
Phoebe & Zach are talking
Zach: So you think the 1st location should be-
Cop: Yo, inmates, knock it off!
Zach: Hey, don’t we get a phone call?
Cop: Sure ya do. Who ya gonna call?
Phone rings at firehouse
Janine: Hello?
Zach: Yes, Mrs. Janine, can you hand the phone to Emma? She might understand our situation a bit better.
Janine: Sure. Emma, someone’s calling you!
Emma slides down
Emma: Hello?
Zach: Yeah, hey can you come pick us up?
Emma: Where are you?
Zach: Well, let’s just say I’m handcuffed.
Emma murmuring: Oh, son of a bitch.
Emma: Which station is it?
Zach: South.
Emma: Be right over.
Emma goes to station
Zach and Phoebe are uncuffed
Emma: Let’s just get in the car.
ECTO-1 drives away to the firehouse
Phoebe: Ok, that’s 2 offenses on my criminal record.
Zach: I hope dad understands.
Phoebe: He probably will, it would only be a 1 time thing.
Zach: Hopefully.
Firehouse
Podcast: Where were you guys?
Zach: South Side Station.
Podcast: Oh.
Oscar: While you were gone, we tested the slime more, and we kind of caused some green-horned devil thing to pop out.
Zach: Well, that’s definitely something I’d never thought I would hear.
Oscar: But, don’t worry. We caught it.
Phoebe: Good.
Phone rings
Sarah: Ok, hello? Times Square? Ok! Thank you. Phone put down
Sarah: Jess, Jacob, Lucky, and Oscar. You’re coming with me.
ECTO-1 drives out
Sirens blare
Times Square
Sarah: The caller said she was in the Nintendo store. Go to Nintendo store
Purple 6-legged creature in the store
Jess: Come to mama!
Blasts stream
Caught in stream
Blue human-like creature with arms where her eyes are meant to be, eyes on her hands, dripping blood and slime, enters the store
Jacob: Not now!
Blasts stream
Caught in it
Slides trap, traps both
Jess: That went, easier than expected.
Jacob: Yeah, perhaps too easy!
Cuts to ECTO-1 driving
View in car
Sarah: Wait! Think about it. We’ve been busy so much these past few weeks! The amount of psychokinetic energy is probably thru the roof. It’s going to be Judgement Day!
Jess: Ok, where’s Arnold?
Jacob: Not that Judgement Day. Like the biblical doomsday. Revelations 6:12. Hellfire and Brimstone.
Emma: Then we gotta go!
Firehouse
Everyone bursts in
Sarah: Guys! Guys! We have urgent news!
Sarah explains everything
Zach: Oh my god. This is bigger than anything we or the OGs have dealt with!
Oscar walks to a book
Oscar: Hey who’s book is this?
Phoebe: It’s mine! I found it in the basement lab when we lived at the Farmhouse.
Gary: This time it seems to be in English.
Everyone intrigued
Phoebe: It says, “The year 2024 A.D., will be the judgement year. The negative energy between New Yorkers, and fear of the return of the undead, will open the gates, more and more. Then, the end of the world will happen.”
Earthquake
Phoebe: Ok, we have to go to the mayor!
Everyone piled in
ECTO-1 leaves the firehouse
Sirens blare
Magic Plays
Shot of the Manhattan skyline, with green, blue, and pink streams, nostalgic shots
The headless horseman is riding in Times Square
The Dino from the Toys R Us building comes alive, and breaks the glass and treks thru the park
A 3-headed horned demon runs and attacks people
Blood begins to rise from the sewers
Green and red demons perch on skyscrapers
The Hudson is now boiling blood
ECTO-1 swerves thru traffic, and it nearly crashes into other cars
Gary: The city… it’s freaking out again.
Mayors’ office
ECTO-1 parks
Cop: Excuse me you can’t park that here!
Zach: Hang on team, this one’s personal!
Zach gets out of the car, and begins arguing
Zach: The heck we can’t, we’re the Ghostbusters!
Cop: Ghosts don’t exist! Y’all are frauds!
Zach: They don’t exist? Just-
Phoebe: -Look up at the sky!
Cop: That’s those nerve and sense gases you released into the air.
Emma: That’s not gases. That is a bunch of ghosts heading for 55 Central Park West!
Cop: Ok, to make you feel better, I will check to see if the mayor will allow you to speak with him.
Cop walks in
Cop: Mr. Mayor, there are frauds here to see you.
Walt: Frauds?
Cop: Yeah, those Ghostbusters.
Walt: They’re not frauds. I used to think they were frauds, then came the incidents in ‘84, ‘89 and was possessed in ‘91.
Cop: You’re wrong, those are nerve gases they’ve released into the a-
Walt: I thought that’s what happened when they first came around. These are real ghosts. Now, you get them in here, or you get out.
Jacob taps the wheel, waiting
Cop: He told you to go in.
Team smiles
On Our Own Plays
Team walks down the hallway
Walter: Welcome.
All: Hello Mr. Mayor.
Walter: I heard the news, the quakes, the other side is back.
Sarah: How do you know about that?
Walter: I saw the Crossrip Of ‘84, witnessed the slime in ‘89. As well as possessed by Shandor in ‘91.
Zach: That explains it.
Phoebe: Yep.
Walt: So what is the verdict this time?
Jacob: Let Pheebs explain.
Phoebe: That quake is opening of the true gates of Hell. The opening is powered by anger between our fellow New Yorkers, and fear from the ghosts let out around 3 years ago, as well as other ghosts coming from Summerville.
Walter: Alright, I understand. I can help you out with that.
Savin’ The Day plays
Caravan of military, cops, and the Ghostbusters
Zach: C’mon! Let’s run some red lights!
Sirens of police blare
ECTO-1 sirens blare
Shows the team drive to 55 Central Park West, a nostalgic shot
Zach steps out
Zach: Hello, New York!
Crowd cheers
Everyone steps out
Jess gets the packs
Fire bulges from Central Park
Podcast: We need to go, now!
The whole of Central Park opens to fiery landscapes, more demons and ghosts continue pouring out of the top of 55 Central Park West
Team runs in
Louis’ Room
Louis: I won’t have anything come in here!
Turns on pack
Shows outside view of a tornado-like vortex on top of the building
Manhattan is becoming Manhellton
Jason: Wait, what’s that down there?
Points to Central Park
Zach: It’s Hellfire.
Phoebe: It burns for eternity. Water turns into mist when it touches the fire.
Zach: I think the Hellfire will extinguish once Satan goes back to Hell.
Oscar: We have to tell ol’ Lucifer to go back home.
Jess: Ok, then go.
Oscar approaches the devil
Oscar: Hello, Satan, as a designated representative and resident of New York, I order you to return to hell!
Devil: As if you would be close to my power, Barrett. That goes for all of you. I am ultimate.
Fire lunges, lightning strikes
All: woah!
Zach: Alright, no one tries to kill my team!
In Liberty’s Shadow Plays
Turns on the packs
Zach: Now, let’s show this bitch how we do things downtown!
Devil gives a sinister smile
Zach: Fire!
Streams blast
Hits devil, nothing happens
Disappears
Devil: I am all evil! I am the king of darkness! Your worst nightmares have been realized! Nothing can stop me.
Thud
Screech
Wing horde sound
Phoebe: Look!
Zach: Oh shit!
Glimpse of Stay Puft and the dragon, and the swarm of demons
Phoebe: Oh my god.
Podcast: What the hell is that dragon-thing?
Sarah: I don’t know. Neither the large horde of demons. But I think we know that one.
Stares at each other
Zach: It’s the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
The streets are filled with ghosts, demons, and the dragon is flying high
Firehouse
News Feed shows the chaos
Ray: Once again, this wasn’t me.
Central Park West
Phoebe: Oh no.
All: What?
Phoebe: PKE says that this isn’t the Devil allowing Gozer to return, this one, is it’s own entity.
Emma: Well, let’s not stand here! Let’s blast this drunken sailor back to the depths of hell!
Streams blast
Phoebe: C’mon, keep firing!
Stay Puft becomes visually pissed
Fire launches up
Lucky: Get back!
Piece of a room collapses
Piece hits a police cruiser
Go to the stairs
Ghosts and more specters begin to surround the building
Sarah: We can’t get a break, can we?
Team shakes heads
Zach, Phoebe & Trevor blast green demons
Zach: Wrangle them up!
Trevor holds up a trap as Zach & Phoebe bring the demons and ghosts in
Emma, Jess, Jacob & Podcast blast the blue monster from the cartoon, the poltergeist from the montage from the 1984 film, and the pink ghost from the ghost montage of the 2nd film
Trevor throws the trap to them, and it allows the team to suck in the demons and ghosts
Devil: How can you expect to defeat me, when you are a man, and I am forever?
Team sees the crowd, but demons flying away from them
Higher And Higher is heard
Oscar: The positive energy.
Jess: It’s driving the demons away.
Zach turns his head towards the gates of Hell
Zach: We’re the Ghostbusters! That’s how!
Team goes back to the stairs
Jacob: So, since we may have an upper hand, what do we do?
Egon returns
Egon: We cross the streams!
Everyone is in awe
Jess: Ok then, let’s go!
Stay Puft climbs the building more and more
Emma notices 2 blue figures before she heads up, her parents, and she begins to cry tears of joy
Emma: I know what dad would say. “Go get ‘em tiger!”
Mom: Right!
Dad: Go get ‘em tiger!
Emma bravely smiles, and salutes
Emma walks up
Zach: Phoebe, I’m glad we got to meet each other again. If we die, we die brother and sister.
Phoebe smiles
Everyone blasts their streams
Satan appears back, ready to go hand to hand with the Ghostbusters, and absolutely shits himself with the amount of protonic energy
The gates of Hell explode
A mushroom cloud appears over the building 8 seconds go by, the explosion stops
Phoebe: Hey, is everyone here?
Lucky: Yeah!
Sarah, Jess, Emma: We’re alive!
Oscar: Yup!
Trevor: Yo!
Jacob: Hey!
Podcast: I’m covered in marshmallow again! But yes.
Phoebe: Zach? Zach? ZACH!
Phoebe runs to Zach’s body
Phoebe: Come on Zach! I lost you for 15 years, I can’t lose you again!
Phoebe continues crying
Podcast takes the goggles off to honor the fallen
Zach coughs up burnt marshmallows
Phoebe stares wide-eyed
Zach: Mmm, s’mores.
Licks lips
Phoebe is crying of joy
Phoebe: Oh Zach, I thought I lost you again.
Zach hugs her
Podcast: I thought you don’t express your emotions, Pheebs.
Phoebe: This is different.
Podcast: Well, that explains it.
Egon comforts Zach and Phoebe
Zach: I’m glad I got to meet you, grandfather.
Egon nods
Egon hugs Zach and Phoebe, goes back to heaven
Zach: You know something Phoebe, I love this town, I love our friends, I love our family, I love my grandfather, I love this job, but one thing is for sure, I love you.
FOR IVAN & HAROLD appears in stars
Ghostbusters theme plays
Directed by Jason Reitman
Based on the 1984 film “Ghostbusters” by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis Directed by Ivan Reitman
Finn Wolfhard
Logan Kim
McKenna Grace
Celeste O’Connor
Millie Bobby Brown
Chloe Grace Moretz
TampaJay
Zach “GDZ” Johnson
Will Deutschendorf
Elle King
With Special Appearances By
Bill Murray
Dan Aykroyd
Harold Ramis
Ernie Hudson
Rick Moranis
Annie Potts
Sigourney Weaver
With Muncher
And Slimer
Goes to full credits
On Our Own Plays
Ghostbusters Theme Plays (Cover By Walk The Moon)
After credits
Cuts to firehouse, no music
Ray: I can’t believe that you saved the world from the devil himself.
Winston: I can.
Dana: Thank you Oscar. (Arm on his shoulder, looking up)
Oscar: I knew that we could do it, mom.
Peter: So, you’re taking Uncle Pete’s job, huh? Savin the world?
Oscar: Possibly. (Grinning)
Zach & Phoebe in the doorway of the living room of the Firehouse
Zach: I think we should tell them.
Phoebe: We should.
Zach: Everyone, Phoebe & I have a surprise.
Everyone looks at them
Phoebe & Zach: We’re expanding nationally!
All: Yeah!
Cuts to black screen
FOR CHERIE
FOR DAVID
FOR WILHELM
FOR HANK
FOR IVAN
FOR HAROLD
Film ends

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiplFdbLbUs
​
Another Wrestlemania in Texas. These have kind of a history of being the best events of all time. Wrestlemania X-Seven needs no further description, Wrestlemania 25 and the first HBK/Undertaker showdown by itself makes the event a classic, Wrestlemania 32 had over 100k people in the building, and... uh*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*... well, it certainly was a LONG night...
So Jerryworld gets their two night PREMIUM LIVE EVENT *shudder* that thankfully shows Wrestlemania doesn't need to go on until midnight anymore. >knocking on wood intensifies<
"That's cool, but what are the matches?"
https://youtu.be/vDpb8Sas46Y?t=26 0:26 - 0:29
"Ohhhh, you'll see..."
​
*Pat McAfee vs Austin Theory\*
In 2017, Pat McAfee grew tired of the trainwreck that was the Indianapolis Colts, and left football entirely so he could join the comedy club of sports that is Barstool Sports. Little did everyone know that event would bring us to present day with WWE hiring the best color commentator in wrestling since Jerry the King. I mean, yes, Pat McAfee did have an interesting but brief stint in NXT and his underrated feud with Adam Cole was somehow gold, all things considered. But in the end, we've got this genuine saint at Smackdown's broadcast booth rejuvenating the horrible human being that is Michael Cole. What is it with this guy and creating good television with people named Cole?
On the other hand, Austin Theory. Once in a while, WWE chooses one guy, ties a rocket to their back, and hopes that somehow, they can breathe in space. Austin Theory is that guy. And he's been that guy since the day after Survivor Series, being brought into the WWE fold as Vince McMahon's personal protege. And what has it done for him since? Hmmm... Meh. He's done alright for himself. He's still swimming above water as a bratty millenial heel offering his downed opponents an unwilling selfie, so a Wrestlemania match would be the ideal way to stick the landing on establishing a new superstar.
However, Theory gets Pat McAfee. He gets to feud with the commentator, a rare dilemma that demonstrates WWE can, indeed, deliver a match where no one wins, because the end result of this match could possibly leave the audience at home with a significant amount of matches having no McAfee to call the action. I say that, but it really depends on how much heat WWE wants to give Theory with a win like this, since Theory could very much incapacitate McAfee for the sake of story. Not even getting into the match itself where McAfee has enough experience in the ring where he won't hurt himself, and Theory has just enough time on TV that he can deliver an above average WWE match. I question why this needs to be a match at all, but hey, it beats the original rumor that it was gonna be Pat McAfee vs Vince McMahon. Yes, really.
​
*Johnny Knoxville vs Sami Zayn\*
Ok guys, that's REAL funny. Now where's the real Sami Zayn match at Wrestlemania?
...I see.... So you're really going with this?
I'd like to know the circumstances of both parties agreeing to this encounter. Did Sami watch a lot of MTV when he was growing up? Did Johnny pick this up as a publicity stunt, thinking people would continue to care he's got a new Jackass movie in 2022? Ok, maybe the film did slightly better than expected, but Wrestlemania match? Really?
Even worse, the feud is being escalated by the worst means possible... social media. Mr. Knoxville has committed the most dastardly of crimes ever to be witnessed in professional wrestling- he leaked Sami Zayn's phone number on the internet! My god, that's inhuman!
*ahem* Ok guys, let's bring this hypothetical match back down to Earth, shall we? Johnny Knoxville, to paraphrase Ric Flair, is a glorified stuntman. Sami Zayn will be doing most of the work, helping everyone involved to survive this clown show. Sami's a great wrestler, a good entertainer, but even THIS is beneath him, and another waste of a Sami Zayn Wrestlemania moment. I have no hope this is going to advance Sami's position on the midcard, nor is it going to help him long term, especially if he loses.
I know, Wrestlemania loves to emphasize when celebrities outside of the wrestling bubble take part in the event. It's been a thing since Wrestlemania's inception. But I think that WWE looked at the positive feedback of Bad Bunny from last year, and took it the wrong way, deciding to double down on the celebrity influence. If only Sami DID talk about AEW, and not sign a 3-year contract extension with WWE just this year.
​
*Rey Mysterio/Dominik Mysterio vs The Miz/Logan Paul\*
Did I say double down? I meant triple down. WWE really wants Logan Paul in their fold. He made a brief appearance last year in the Kevin Owens/Sami Zayn blowoff, but now? Full on match in a tag team clash with Mysterio & Son. The scariest thing? This might not be the end of him. https://www.thesportster.com/logan-paul-wwe-2k22-wrestlemania-the-miz/ He's apparently been open to working WWE full time after Wrestlemania, and https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/logan-paul-praised-wwe-fans-performance-ahead-wrestlemania-38-1783593/ WWE really likes the cut of his jib. You wanna know what I see when I look at this match? I see a match that could have been Miz/Morrison vs the Mysterios assuming John Morrison's recent run wasn't a waste for everyone involved (you didn't even get Taya Valkyrie out of it). Yes, Miz is here too, and he's owning the moment like you expect even when this match isn't about him. It's about Logan Paul bringing whatever star power he has left to the Wrestlemania hoedown.
But let's take a deeper look at the other side of this coin. Rey Mysterio getting a Wrestlemania match with his son, Dominik, a child of the industry who went from becoming a win condition for a ladder match to potential WWE superstar. I say potential despite being tag team champion with his father. So far, he feels like a taller Rey sans the marketable mask to his name. He has impressed the populous, no doubt, but it's clear he's only seeing the success that he has and getting the push he's receiving because he has his father behind him. He's no doubt going to carry on the Mysterio name when his father eventually chooses to retire in the far future, and then we'll see if Dominik is a Randy Orton, or a David Flair. As a fan of Rey in his WCW days, I'm really pulling for the former.
Speaking of Rey, I have a suspicion he might have found the Fountain of Youth. Rey has been notable in the past for having knees made out of paper. The constant surgeries over the years, the return from injury, and the quick return to the bench... rinse, repeat. Heck, he's been left off Wrestlemania for the past 2 years. Either withdrawing from the event because of the pandemic, or being reduced to the Smackdown go-home show. And then there's Wrestlemania 35 where he wrestled Samoa Joe to a match where... Rey might as well have not shown up. But even with his body held together by recyclable material, he will not stay down. He's still going in 2022, and wrestling as if he was still in 2002. 47 years old, and he still wants to be there to watch his son grow into the industry. Admirable, and I'm sure he's giving it his all, but this match feels like it's not about him. It's about Dominik getting his first real Wrestlemania moment, and soaking that experience in, because Wrestlemania Backlash sure as hell doesn't count.
​
*The New Day vs Sheamus and Ridge Holland\*
I don't want to comment on this match. It just reminds me that the wrestling gods are more cruel than the fans in attendance https://www.cbssports.com/wwe/news/big-e-suffers-broken-neck-after-unintentional-fall-on-his-head-during-wwe-smackdown/ as Big E nearly got killed outside the ring by Ridge Holland, and was quite close to fatal damage. Big E just had his inaugural title run and his singles push snapped out of existence by Lesnar, and got dragged back into New Day, because heaven forbid Kofi Kingston have another singles opportunity. And now you have this, the end result of WWE pushing green guys above soil before they've even grown. This is just depressing. Don't even get me started on what they did to Pete Dunne, aka Butch. If Tommaso Ciampa ever reads this, I have one piece of advice for you; take your own advice. Retire after your NXT run ends. I would hate to see what the main roster morphs you into.
​
*Drew McIntyre vs Happy Corbin\*
I understand this is the blowoff for an established feud that's been going on since Day 1, but... could you not? Could you at least quarantine this to the Smackdown go-home show? This matchup is not Wrestlemania worthy, especially considering Corbin is bringing his worst gimmick yet to Wrestlemania. I've been singing Baron Corbin's praises for years. He's a solid athlete, a reliable hand, and an established heel... but Happy Corbin is crap. Like crap so vile, and disgusting, even city dumps gag at its smell. I swear, this re-invention reeks of Bruce Prichard's cartoonish mind. Fuck you, Prichard! This isn't the 90s, and you're not Brother Love anymore! When Corbin & Madcap Moss stink up the mic at Wrestlemania with their lame drivel and fans give them "go away" heat, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.
Drew, my dude, this isn't your fault. You've done absolutely nothing wrong. I mean, maybe we should have put the belt back on you last year, and not give that injury prone Lashley another run with the title https://fansided.com/2022/02/19/bobby-lashley-injury-wwe-champion-removed-elimination-chamber-concussion/ , but hey, we're here now. You're in Smackdown's personal limbo. A mortal before the realm of demigods that is WWE's main event scene. We established you as a main event force back in 2020, but ever since we brought fans back, we just can't shake the feeling that you're not as cool as the real cool guys. To prove this point, we're gonna have you beat up the comedian for 10 minutes at Wrestlemania. Sound good? Show us you can make lemonade out of sour lemons.
​
*Bobby Lashley vs Omos\*
Oh, Lashley, we were just talking about you. I thought you were gonna miss Wrestlemania this year, but then I remember you're a fast healer. You've had a pretty good year. You got to hold onto that title until WWE was ready to slingshot Big E into stardom shut up I don't want to talk about it. You finally settled your accounts with Goldberg, and that was cool. Hey, you even got to hold the WWE Championship again... for a few weeks. Nevermind the unfortunate trip to concussion protocol, because you were losing that title anyway. At least you got your 1v1 championship match with Lesnar... that was just used as a plot point to plan the real main event. You coming back as fast as you did demonstrates you wouldn't miss Wrestlemania for the world. Good thing, too, because we've got just the opponent.
His name is Omos. We're treating him like a bootleg Braun Strowmann, wrecking jobbers all the way, and running his mouth about how no one is ready for Omos in the most difficult to hide accent and dialect imaginable. His abilities in the ring are questionable, even for his size, but he's not downright awful. He's the middle man where Great Khali is your low mark for mobility, and Kane is your high mark. Not gonna hurt himself walking, but I'm worried more for his opponent. Lashley is fresh off a minor case of head trauma, and the last thing WWE should be doing is giving him a high maintenance oak tree. This is the match we're dealing with on 6 days notice. I have a feeling WWE looked at the blueprint of Omos vs Azeem and grew utterly mortified at the impending disaster, so they're trotting out Lashley with enough pain relievers to feel numbness in all his major appendages. Will it be a good match? Hell no! But it will be a test to see if Omos can put on a Wrestlemania-esque show when needed to. Good luck, Omos. You'll need it.
​
*Edge vs A.J. Styles\*
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfqYSEaYFn0
What is this, a legitimate, respectable match at Wrestlemania? We can't have this here! What are you people doing? There can't be a match here that wrestling fans are excited about!
...Fine then.
Edge has gone through so many unique reinventions over the years, he's reaching Chris Jericho numbers. But... we haven't been here. This is Edge fully succumbing to his evil, callous intentions. We saw bits and pieces of this during his Seth Rollins feud, but not a complete possession. Purple lights, new entrance, new Alter Bridge theme... even in his twilight years as a wrestler, Edge found a new way to stay both relevant and fresh. A heel turn that goes harder than ever before. That's not to say his character development has downplayed his abilities in the ring, which he has also time travelled back to the past to find a younger, more vibrant version of himself to be his stunt double in the ring. I'm serious. When he's had a legitimate opponent in front of him, magic happens. Again, his recent feud with Rollins backs up my claims. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; Edge is no part-timer. This is his last legit run in WWE, and he's damn sure making the most of it.
He's ready to wow us again by wrestling A.J. Styles at Wrestlemania. A.J. Styles is a born winner. Granted, in his early WWE career, the Wrestlemania matches that he had that you expected to be bangers turned out to be inferior versions of previous installments. Styles/Nakamura, which should have been a knockout blow at Wrestlemania, turned out to be a shot below the belt. Styles needed an opponent to give him that Wrestlemania snapshot. 2 years ago, he found The Undertaker. Despite looking more like a movie than a match, it was THE match of Wrestlemania. Like Edge, when A.J. Styles has the right opponent, magic happens. The problem is that A.J., as of recent, could not live up to his full potential. He's either been trapped in tag team purgatory fighting with or against Omos, or trying his damndest to make Grayson Waller not look like a waste of oxygen inside the ring. This is the one match where all bets are off. Edge wanted the bulldog, and he's getting a hellhound.
https://youtu.be/1zFsxSH8fUA?t=58 0:58-1:06
"What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose, and show you just how powerful I really am."
​
*Seth "Freakin'" Rollins vs To be "Freakin'" Announced\*
Do I really have to rundown a match with infinite possibilities? What do you even want from me? Seth Rollins gets more ridiculous by the day as far as his gimmick goes, but he reels himself back in to have good matches, and make you forget that he has the mouth that never, ever, closes. Now that he's gone straight to Mr. McMahon, we've got a Seth Rollins match at Wrestlemania. Against who? Who knows. The fans' expectations on this matchup are sky high. Common rumors include Cody Rhodes making his return to WWE and undoing 3 years of burning that personal bridge, and WWE is helping fan the flames, using the term "nightmare" to describe Seth Rollins failing to win his way into Wrestlemania. You could always debut Gable Steveson here. He just got the Dan Hodge Trophy twice in a row, and that sure is something special. I mean when he graduates in May, he'll be good to go full-time, but this isn't full-time. This is Wrestlemania. My mind tells me the mystery opponent is not clearcut. The storyline going into this is that Mr.McMahon is picking Seth Rollins' opponent, and Seth will know who that is when he's in the ring Saturday Night. Seth's been such an annoyance to everyone around him that he needs to be taught a Wrestlemania-sized lesson. I think Gable is the one because I believe WWE remembered how effective Tazz debuting at Royal Rumble 2000 was. Time to pull from the old playbook again! Or it can be Cody, and AEW's fans can either mald, or scoff sarcastically talking about how they didn't need Cody Rhodes in the first place. Or it could be Shane- FUCK, I said it! Apologies in advance for invoking the identity of the demon child.
​
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNd4hHoCo9Y
*The KO Show with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin\*
Speaking of the rumor mill, it started buzzing over the idea that Stone Cold would be wrestling a match in 2022. Suddenly, we all were teleported to the planet Mars. Because that would have been the only place such a thing made sense. Austin has been retired for 19 years, and his neck hasn't gotten much better in that timespan. You'd best believe his career in WWE would have lasted longer than it did if he was still healthy. But 19 years is a long time, and ignoring physical ailments and aches, the man is now 57 YEARS OLD. Of course this wasn't going to be a full-on match. Austin is not Goldberg. Austin has wiped away any possibility of "One More Match" over the years, relegated to "Arrive. Stunner. Leave" whenever he does show up to any WWE shows. Why would be put his body on the line now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j2uYJYrP_Q
Because Austin is getting paid the hardest cash WWE has offered him up to this point just to make an appearance for an interview sketch. And the person that Austin will meet at Wrestlemania is a person who has practically adopted his Stone Cold Stunner finishing move; Kevin Owens. Yes, Owens also re-signed for 3 years. So the tweet with Mount Rushmore's coordinates last July was a bluff? I don't know how to feel about that. But Owens has proven time and time again that he's a student of the game. Good matches, great heel mannerisms, he's changed very little from his NXT days when it comes to holding the crowd's attention. If anyone on the current roster can hold a candle to Austin's attitude, it could be Owens. Thus Kevin Owens revives his KO Show segment so Owens and Austin can cut Wrestlemania level promos on each other. It's a war of words, a task far more suited to both their strengths. Oh, and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, put your checkbook away. Don't do to Austin what you did to Undertaker, Goldberg, HHH, HBK, Kane, and whoever else you managed to reel all the way to your Crown Jewel events to embarrass themselves in the ring. At least show you have some control over your nostalgic urges.
(btw, this segment could be the main event of Night 1. Now all logic has been lost.)
​
NOW BRING ME YOUR MID TIER TITLE MATCHES! MORE MEDIOCRITY, I SAY! MOOOOOORE!
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDnoncxVJdE
*Fatal 4-Way for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship
Queen Zelina and Carmella (c) vs. Sasha Banks and Naomi vs. Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan vs. Natalya and Shayna Baszler\*
And thus it was written into WWE law that whenever the Women's Tag Team Championship titles were to be defended at Wrestlemania, multiple women would need to be involved. Liv Morgan, a woman who had a decent reaction from the crowd when she challenged for the RAW Women's Championship on the principle of "finally, someone fucking NEW!" will now team with Rhea Ripley, whose feud with NIkki A.S.H. is over, thus Rhea needs to spin her wheels in the tag division once again before she takes Liv's head off the night after Wrestlemania after they fail to capture the titles. Natalya & Shayna Baszler... two women who just ran into each other one day, and realized they could run roughshod over this division if they put their minds to it. Both women having experienced Tag Team gold in the past, they wish to climb the mountain again, and escape their fates of jobbing to the up and comers of the Smackdown roster. Sasha & Naomi... well, they were in Team B.A.D. together, so yeah there's that. Naomi's forever feud with management finally ended in Saudi Arabia, and Sasha Banks just doesn't slot into our main event feuds, so here's a way for you to kill time. If this were a normal 2v2 tag match between the champions and Sasha/Naomi, this would have been too predcitable. The tag match equivalent of Chyna vs Ivory. Thus WWE spicing up this pissbreak by throwing more trains into the trainwreck.
Ah yes, the champions. Queen Zelina finally got her push after being denied an appearance on the 9/11 Anniversary Smackdown. She went from having an epiphany that she gave up Twitch money and OnlyFans money for this, to holding her first title in WWE. Funny how the passage of 6 months' time works. Carmella... I don't understand you. Why are you on my television? Why are you wasting everyone's time and energy? She hasn't gotten any better, she hasn't gotten any less annoying, she's the stereotypical WWE Diva living in a 2022 world. The modern day Kelly Kelly, but with plastic surgery. What happened to the report that she was working through nagging injuries? People like that aren't given titles, and long term angles. They're treated like Shotzi with back pain, and used sparingly. I have a feeling that Carmella/Zelina are still winning this match. The underdogs usually shine brightest at Wrestlemania. Just please make this match a reasonable length. I'm begging you, WWE. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make a joke about calling your women's match a pissbreak. Please, WWE, I have a family! We all have an early bedtime Sunday Night! You understand... right?
​
*Smackdown Tag Team Championship
The Usos (c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs\*
The year is 2022. The Usos continue their eternal stranglehold on the Smackdown Tag Team division. Even so far as to decide not to work on the night of Elimination Chamber, and beat down The Viking Raiders so bad, that we are spared the sight of such a donnybrook. WWE needs a Mega Heel stable, so we've got The Bloodline, a little extra insurance that The Usos stay on top for at least another 5 years. Whoop-dee-doo. I don't have a major problem with The Usos, but there's just no... act to them anymore. We've seen their absolute best in the past in feuds with teams like New Day, but now? This is a team that is going through the motions. It feels like they exist in a group of significantly lesser tag teams. They have nothing unique to offer me anymore. Being in the WWE for more than a decade will do that to you more often than not.
Their opponents this time around are comprised of Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs. Nakamura is having himself a good time as he got his old theme back last year because WWE didn't want to pay Shadows of the Sun any more royalties. Nakamura is a decent wrestler in WWE. He has seen midcard success over the past year, capturing the Intercontinental Championship again recently. Most of this resurgence is due to his new frontman, Rick Boogs. Now Nakamura does the action, but not the talking. That is for Boogs and his mighty axe. But we hardly saw Boogs in the ring, The most noteworthy time came at Royal Rumble. Boogs got his big chance to wrestle then, amateur singlet and all. For that brief moment, he became a different person. Turns out he had a bit of a collegiate wrestling career behind him. And now Nakamura and Boogs are teaming together at Wrestlemania to try and earn Tag Team immortality. Would have thought this challenge would have come from The Viking Raiders. This was their make up test, but I forgot WWE still doesn't give enough of a shit about them. You're not as cool as Nakamura and Boogs, who are very cool, and do deserve a chance at championship gold. A good decision, assuming they actually win this match.
​
*Triple Threat for the RAW Tag Team Championship
RK-Bro (c) vs. The Street Profits vs. Alpha Academy\*
Really, RK-Bro and Alpha Academy have had a solid enough feud to sustain a Wrestlemania match, but ths is Wrestlemania, and we sure do love those Street Profits. Really, the Street Profits are there at this point. They went from being fucking annoying Weekend Update wannabes, to a slightly annoying successful team, to Montez Ford dragging some dead weight around. I think it's time for WWE to act on their urges. When Montez did a main event match with Roman Reigns on Smackdown several months ago, it was a test to see how he would do as a solo act. He apparently passed with flying colors, but WWE is stubborn, and tag teams sell more merch. Plus, I'm guessing WWE doesn't want to try to make solo acts out of their tag team specalists anymore. The Otis push went absolutely nowhere, and Big E as champion didn't work out that well SHUT UP I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. Speaking of which...
...Alpha Academy. Chad Gable continues to demonstrate how much of a literal Chad he is. Personally, I find his awesomeness in the ring to be neglected and underrated, but he's just never had that concrete, definitive character, until the Alpha Academy. With Otis on his side, the team is now legit, and has led to Chad Gable holding a tag team title once again. A dynamite duo that compliments one another. It also helps Otis is starting to come into his own, and that poor excuse for a Worm known as "The Caterpillar" is no more. Now he's a slab of meat, and a physical threat.
RK-Bro is the real surprise. Everyone expected a heel turn by now courtesy of Randy Orton. It's what he does. Betrayal is kind of in his playbook. He's still a viper after all. I speak for everyone when I say "thank god he hasn't". Riddle now has a respectable & noteworthy title run ahead of him because of it. Do you remember when he was United States champion last year? No, of course you don't. This was a role meant for another man, and then Sheamus sealed his short lived glory at last year's Wrestlemania. Now he's a top guy in RAW's tag team division, a place far more busy than Smackdown's is. Orton is just as vital to this team, and he's having himself a blast. Honestly, it's refreshing to see Orton smiling and playing up the straight man in the gag comic that is RK-Bro. No more sadistic heel "Randy Boreton" promos. It's the change of scenery that he needed more than Riddle did.
As for the match, I'm hoping for great things. i can see RK-Bro walking away with the titles, but destination is irrelevant. If everyone is on point in this match, it will be one hell of a journey.
​
---
And that just leaves us with the main events...
-wait a minute, no IC title match, no United States championship on the show? I... I'm free? This is amazing! There's less work for me to do. Thanks, WWE. Now we only have 14 matches on the card instead of 16. You're learning...
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuh6DYdjjDo
*RAW Women's Championship
Becky Lynch (c) vs. Bianca Belair\*
Let's take you back to last year's Wrestlemania. WWE finally adds another mainstay to their women's division. Bianca Belair. A high energy mistress of fitness fresh off the CrossFit scene. And she didn't just get a match in the middle of the show, and it wasn't just any match. It was a main event showcase with Sasha Banks. The first time that two women of color have main evented a Wrestlemania (it was Wrestlemania Saturday, but it still counts in their mind!). Bianca Belair sees a barrier in front of her and just walks right through it, the barrier collasping before her powerful aura. The match could have been whatever. Just crossing the finish line for these two would have been enough to make it to the history books. But it was a good match, a Wrestlemania worthy tussle. Bianca held that title with conviction ever since she won it at Wrestlemania. She had an ok feud with Bayley before the wrestling gods could stand no more, and decided to send Bayley off with a freak injury right before WWE returned to live crowds, thus Bayley would miss out on the rest of the year, and Wrestlemania, too. Bianca needed another opponent, so... *shrugs shoulders* fuck it, we're bankrupt. Here's Carmella. Try as Bianca might, the match quality fell down hard with no chance of recovery- Wait... is that Sasha? Holy shit, Bianca's push is saved!
Sasha: That's right, it's boss time!
WWE: So that means we can count on you to wrestle at Summerslam, right?
Sasha: .....
WWE: ...So that means we can count on you to wrestle at Summerslam, right?
>Summerslam 2021<
WWE: WHERE THE HELL IS SASHA!? We have a match between Bianca and Carmella going on now, and it's gonna stink up Summerslam.
Becky: No worries.
WWE: Wait, who was t-
Becky: This is The Man's world.
https://youtu.be/u5CYy_2Kmqw?t=297
Yes! Becky vs Bianca is reality. This will be a match for the ages. Strap in, everyone. They're about to-
https://youtu.be/u5CYy_2Kmqw?t=657
-lay the biggest egg since Kofi Kingston. So Bianca's main event push was nothing more than a stopgap. WWE wanted Becky's return to the ring to be special, and it came at the expense of squashing their newest and hottest star in the division, the backfire being made obvious days after.
WWE didn't want to rush straight to the rematch, so interference, triple threat, whatever we have to do to make sure that Becky vs Bianca doesn't have a decisive ending until Wrestlemania. With Bianca winning her way into the title opportunity, we have a match that's been over 7 months in the making. Bianca needs to win this. Becky has given herself a Big Time makeover that ensures that the more she appears on television, the worst her outfits get. Her crimes against fashion must be stopped! Bianca, you're our only hope!
Bianca's probably winning this match, but Becky's more than likely going to pull a victory out of her ass, and Bianca will never be seen in the main event picture again because life is simply unfair.
​
*Smackdown Women's Championship
Charlotte Flair (c) vs Ronda Rousey\*
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsZUldPrICI
It's funny how the passage of time works. Ronda Rousey after 2019 wanted nothing to do with WWE. She denied viciously any rumors that she'd be returning, and she practically slammed the door behind her when she spoke about the https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10009583-ronda-rousey-slams-wwe-fans-as-ungrateful-idiots-after-bray-wyatts-release ungrateful idiots known as the WWE Universe. She did good in the pro wrestling biz, and figured she'd get out while the getting is good, and hey, she can afford to burn a bridge. Maybe she'd try for a child, whatever, it's her body. Now that the money truck rolled up to her mansion, she's willing to forgive. To let go and move on. She had an "It's not you, it's them" talk with Vince, and now she's all smiles. Cue Royal Rumble 2022, where she walks into the Women's Royal Rumble, and walks out with a golden ticket. There are two options before her. Unsettled accounts with Becky Lynch, the woman that pinned her 3 years ago at Wrestlemania, or the top of the food chain in Charlotte Flair.
Charlotte Flair needs no further descriptors. She has surpassed everyone before her in accomplishments, and even killed the past by defeating Trish Stratus. She is a Flair that has lived up to the family name, and then some. So when Ronda Rousey was looking for a title to go after, why not the one she could never have? The Smackdown Women's Championship. It may seem like I can't really talk about this match for too long compared to Becky vs Bianca because it won't be as good, but it's to the contrary. When Ronda was here in WWE, and actually giving a shit about her training and in-ring performance, she took to it like ducks to water, and put down some better than average encounters. She's still not that good of an actress, but I suppose if there was a flaw for the killing machine that is Ronda Rousey, it would be communication and speech parameters. Charlotte at Wrestlemania... you would have a better chance of finding a needle in a haystack then finding a bad 1v1 Charlotte Flair match. Especially at Wrestlemania. Her match with Asuka was great and lived up to the hype, her match with Rhea Ripley was a worthy opener despite the less than desirable ending of Charlotte holding an NXT Championship in 2020. Charlotte missed out on last year's festivities, so she's got extra baggage of wanting to prove that the Queen still rules the Smackdown castle.
Who will win this? I feel like Charlotte gets another Wrestlemania win. To those who think Ronda has this in the bag, let me ask you a question; How long do you think that reign will last? 6 months? 3 months? 5 days? Ronda doesn't feel like a long term addition. I wouldn't be surprised if she bolts after Wrestlemania. Again. I hope to be proven wrong, but no deal has been made public, and no deal means no new champion. But WWE needs to please their FOX overlords somehow, and nothing says appeasing the gods of television like Ronda Rousey being their champion.
​
To be Continued in Post 2...

It is Wednesday my dudes, and it's u/burneryolo69420 here with an early spring cleaning sale! Thank you to everyone who bought things from my previous listing. I was able to afford a nice bottle of Drakkar Noir and a new plaid button-up, so I was looking and smelling suave for mine and Sharon's coffee date. We both met in the break room at work and shared a lingering 1.2 second glance. She even let me pump her coffee out of the carafe and she asked me when I would have the monthly sales figures to her -- so you could say oh yeah, it's all coming together! With this listing, I have my eyes on a new Mongoose BMX bike so I can learn some tricks and maybe bust em out in the parking lot as she's leaving work -- The women in the accounting department probably like bad boys, so I'm gonna wear a black button up for sure next week. I'll keep my Farmer's Credit Union checkbook open in the shirt pocket to show I know how to balance a checking account. Oh yeah, anyway:
RANDOM STUFF
Ping! Remote IP power controller $100? (This lets you turn power off and on remotely)
HyperX Cloud Alpha Pro Gaming Headset - best one IMO - barely used - $65
Intel 10th/11th gen Gigabyte Aorus Mobo - new in box - was $350 now $150
Dragon Touch Android tablet. Also from a promo. $50 obo. Was $150 new.
STORAGE
10TB externals - 2 left $160
6TB 7200RPM externals - awesome game drives, very fast - 5 left $100
5TB portable externals $70, 4TB $60
5TB internals - about 5y/o but work fine $50
512GB NVME in USBC housing $70
3x 4tb WD Black drives. All are dead and head crashing. Give me like 5 bucks for beer and pay shipping and they're yours.
RAM
48GB 16gbx3 dual rank HP OEM DDR4 - 2666 because OEM but really does 3200 $140
8GB laptop ddr4 2666 $20
8GB 10600R server RAM $20
8GB 14900 $20
8GB HP ddr4 2400 $20
2GB DDR3 sticks - free with order
GPUs!
EVGA 3060TI just bought from EVGA for $600 after waiting a year, want $700
3080FE - pad modded and dropped temps -20C $1400
"Gee that's a lot of shit, I bet it's all been through a house fire, three hurricanes, and was around when Al Gore invented the internet?" Nah :) - everything is in "I would sell it to my best friend or my grandma" condition. All drives are GTG and low hours / not thrashed on / kept a fan on them and monitored temps. Used for Chia farming which is the easiest thing a drive can do other than cold storage. Feel free to send offers! Please don't play 20 questions and then ghost - don't be that guy. I'm happy to ship!
Timestamps: https://imgur.com/a/R0FIVgn?s=fbmAdditional timestamps: https://imgur.com/a/2farqJK
SOLD list: 64TB 8 bay Mediasonic DAS w. 8x barely used drives $1400 - SOLD, 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SATA ssd $85 - SOLD 8GB Alienware 3200 ddr4 $25 - SOLD, 14TB external $225 - SOLD, 6x 8TB externals SOLD, 8TB internal - 1 left $120 SOLD, Media players SOLD, Alexa SOLD. Wireless HDMI-$80-SOLD. 8TB externals - all 10 SOLD $120. Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR $110 - SOLD. 2070 Super $550 SOLD Camera drone $125 SOLD.

My (18m) girlfriend’s (18f) sister (14f) is a female Kevin. Me and my girlfriend have been dating since 7th grade, we are currently in college together a few hundred miles few away from where we are from. Because we have been together so long, we are very close to each other’s families. I have 3 siblings (21m, 20f, 16m), she has 5 siblings (20m, 16f, 14f, 13m and 12m). We are from very affluent families in a very affluent suburb in the US, the schools in our area are amazing and we all had private tutoring and many other opportunities available to us as kids. My girlfriend’s 14 y/o sister is a stereotype of a privileged blonde white girl, but way stupider. Here are some things about her:
edit: continued post here: https://www.reddit.com/StoriesAboutKevin/comments/t3qq2i/continued_my_girlfriends_sister_is_a_female_kevin/
​

1. A bit more then a month ago, when me and my girlfriend were over for winter break, her brother (13) came out of his room balling, his sister had accidentally texted him saying “that little [f slur] needs to shut the fuck up”, she meant to text it to a group chat of her friends, the text was about a classmate she found annoying (and we later found out, she was teasing), the 13 y/o brother is openly gay. Their parents had a LONG talk with her and took her phone away to see what she was texting, and found offensive messages on there, they have made her write an apology to the boy, her brother, and have made her learn about LGBT history. Obviously what she did was horrible, but out of all people to accidentally text, she texted her openly gay brother.
2. A few months ago, her boyfriend asked her if she wanted to go to Paris with them (in front of my gf’s parents), she asked him what state that was in. He told her it was in France, not the US. She then asked how long the drive was. He had to explain to her that they were flying, because there was an ocean between the US and France.
3. When they got to France, a few hours later, she had Facetimed my girlfriend, she asked why certain places had “weird words” on their signs, my girlfriend was confused and asked her to show what she meant, the ”weird words” were French. My girlfriend explained that to her but then she asked “but people speak English here”, she had an incredibly tough time understanding the concept of bilingualism.
4. Her boyfriend is much smarter then her, he is currently taking French, he is also very into politics, he is actually very left wing (and was upset to hear about his gf’s bigotry), he had bought some Maoist pamphlets in France (which his parents were not thrilled about) and on another Facetime call she said, “Cayden got books with a weird symbol on it”, we asked her to show the book to me and I explained to her it was a hammer and sickle, symbol of communism and socialist countries, she then asked “like Japan?”
5. In 7th grade, she had her phone taken away after getting in trouble for bullying a boy in her class, she had also had her allowance taken away for a month, she decided to steal her parents checkbook and try to buy something at the mall for $200, she used the wrong spelling of two and wrote “too hundred dollars”. When an employee told her to leave, she tried convincing her she was an adult who “had height problems”. Security had to get her to leave, and her parents picked her up extremely upset.
6. About a year ago when I was over at their house, the parents found a vape, they gathered all the kids together in their library and asked whose it was, she said it was her 12 y/o brothers, he vehemently denied it. They have security cameras in every room of their house with the exception of the kids bedrooms, all of the kids know this, the camera showed her with the vape going into their library, she later defended it being a good hiding spot because “no one would expect it’s me” because she doesn’t like to read.
7. She decided to put a spoon and fork in the microwave to see what would happen, luckily her younger brother was there to see her and stopped her, this was two months ago, she’s a freshman in high school
8. Speaking of school, since middle school she has failed multiple classes a year, including core classes like math and science. She says school isn’t important because “I can just start a business”.
9. I was on vacation with them to the UK right before the pandemic hit, the night after we got there we were in the hotel and she asked “why do all of the people here speak weird”, we had to spend multiple hours explaining the concept of accents to her.
10. Remember the tide pod challenge? Well back in 2018 (so she was 10 at the time), she decided to participate in it and post it on Instagram.
11. She also decided to participate in the “devious licks” trend last year, she stole a hand sanitizer dispenser and when it fell out of her backpacks in one of her classes, she tried to blame it on a boy in her class, despite the teacher seeing it fall out of her bag, she claimed he planted it in there, he’s a good boy so the teacher said she would check the cameras to see who stole it, she told her teacher “go ahead”, and of course, the footage showed her taking the dispenser, she then said the video was deepfaked.
12. I was once talking to her about Elon Musk’s space travel, talking about how humans want to reach Mars eventually, she then asked “what about the sun”, I was confused and tried explaining to her that the sun would literally melt them if they got remotely close to it, she said “but the sun is only 90 degrees today”, she thought the temperature of the sun = the temperature of the Earth.
13. She doesn’t believe in sunscreen or sunglasses and refuses to wear them, despite getting sunburn frequently in the summer.
14. I was watching a Jimmy Kimmel skit where he asked Americans if they could identify an outline of the US as the US when flipped upside down, I printed out a picture of the us, flipped it upside down and asked her what country it was, she guessed Rome. I told her to try again, she guessed California. When I told her it was upside down, she turned it to it’s right side up and then guessed Canada. I was speechless. I told her it was the US and she looked genuinely surprised.
15. She is an anti-masker and has refused to wear a mask throughout the pandemic saying “it makes you breath toxic chemicals from your body”, she also refuses to get vaccinated like the rest of her family is.
16. She has forgotten her birthday on multiple years, acting surprised when people wished her a happy birthday and asking “it’s my birthday?”
17. She, up until a few months ago, believed that everything in the 50s and before were black and white because TV shows, movies, and photographs from that era were black and white.
18. She doesn’t believe Hellen Keller existed
19. A few years ago, one day she thought it would be a good idea to do a backflip on the top of the stairs, she fell down and broke her leg.
20. When she got her first detention (when she was in 6th grade, for cursing out another student), she thought it would be a good idea to eat the detention slip so she wouldn’t have to go. When she didn’t show up, the next day, she told the teacher she never got detention, the only reason we found out was one of her friends admitted she did it because he couldn’t stop laughing at what she did, she then got a day of OSS, and her parents had to pick her up from the school.
21. She burns herself when cooking constantly, never wears oven mitts when cooking. She’s only allowed to cook when a parent is home because she almost started a fire by leaving a plastic tray on a hot stove.
22. She once tried killing a spider by hitting it with a glass cup and the glass shattered.
23. In 7th grade, she tried cheating on a test by writing the answers on her arm, she was wearing a t-shirt (so her arms were showing) that day, the answers were wrong anyways, she asked a boy who she had called gay for telling his best friend he loved him (in a platonic way) for answers, he gave her answers that were very incorrect to anyone with common sense, her teacher noticed the writing right away and gave her a 0, she said she trusted the boy since she knew him from detention (good kid who’s just a bit of a troublemaker, and he is really intelligent), but he was known to pull pranks and jokes all the time.
24. She tried auditioning for her schools play, she was allowed to have her sheet music, but messed up because she couldn’t pronounce the words of the song, she thought it was a good idea to only play with the karaoke, she had been mispronouncing the words the whole time.
25. She was talking to one of her boyfriend‘s lacrosse teammates, he was drinking water and she asked him if he knew who invented water, he was confuse, trying to explain to her about H20 and the big bang, she was not getting it and asked “who put the hydrogen and oxygen together?”.
26. She, on more then one occasion, has confused Barack Obama with Osama Bin Laden
27. When she was in 8th, she tried forging her mom’s signature for a field trip, she misspelt her mom’s name, the parents were not opposed to her going, she just forgot to ask her parents to sign the form
28. When she was 11, she thought it would be a good idea to throw a rock at a bee’s nest, me and my gf were with her, it’s a miracle none of us got stung but we had to run away fast
29. They went on vacation to Vermont in December of 2021, she only packed t-shirts and shorts and when they got to Vermont, they needed to buy pants and long sleeve shirts because “she didn’t know it’d be so cold“
30. When she was in theatre in middle school, she was messing around and fell off the stage a few times, once she did it twice in the same day

That’s not even all of it, I just wanted to post some of the highlights. I don’t know how she’s made it this long or how she will function as an adult, she has been tested for disabilities by numerous psychologists, yet she never meets the criteria for any diagnosis. She is just plain stupid. I hope the business idea works out and that she finds someone to manage her finances, because I doubt she has the math skills to run a buisness.

I'm seeing a lot of the same complaints on posts on here, let me drop some

truth bombs

As a resident expert on getting screwed and quitting jobs, here is what I've learned.

1. You work the hours and get the benefits YOU want, not what the company wants. I worked at Wal*Mart in college, and only had time for about 15 hours a week. They kept jacking it up and it topped out at 25 and they asked for more. Poor training, bad managers, snotty customers, long hours. Don't accept it, BE FIRM and reject them over and over.
2. You don't need to give 2 week's notice unless you are counting on a good recommendation. There is no law that says you MUST give 2 weeks as forced labor is illegal. Walk right up to your boss and say, "I'm leaving now, this WAS my last day, I'll be back to pick up my paycheck later." Most jobs are "at will" employment, and they don't offer 2 week's notice before they fire someone. If you need to give written notice, write your name, last day of work, sign it, and nothing else.
3. Don't sign written reprimands. There is no law stating you have to sign anything other than a contract. What you are doing is agreeing with their opinion. If you want to be really snotty, delay the meeting, come back with your own reprimand for all their screw ups and make them sign that one too. Or write "I totally disagree" on the reprimand so that if you file a legal complaint, your note will be on it.
4. Record everything on your phone. There are no "off the record" conversations. People lie, then they forget they lied. No matter what happens, put you phone on the table, cover closed, microphone facing them and have the app record everything that is said.
5. Never admit fault. Make them prove you are at fault, never make it easy for them to get you to incriminate yourself. You are your own best lawyer. Spin it to make yourself look good, why not? It's your story against theirs, never give-in just to resolve it while you are under pressure. Stick to your guns, you did nothing wrong and they can't prove anything.
6. Anonymous complaints. Either name-names of who said negative things about you, or it didn't happen. I'm in education, and every time I hear, "There was a student complaint about you." My response is, "What's the charge, and who is the name of the student who is complaining?" If they don't name the person so I can cross-examine them, I essentially call them liars and get up and walk out. Usually it's the boss inventing a complaint and saying it came from an anonymous source. I don't think so, name them!
7. You are owed 100% of your salary. If you are lazy, stupid or incompetent, the law says you are still owed 100% of your salary. I've had 4 employers jerk me around and extort other work from me while threatening to hold on to my last paycheck. They have all paid. It either took complaints to the Dept. of Labor, or threatening to, and suddenly they found their checkbook. It's salary theft and totally illegal. They can't make arbitrary deductions nor keep it no matter how small it is. Courts decided reimbursements, not revengeful employers.
8. Keep a log from day 1. You'll know a job is toxic in the first 2 weeks for sure. Usually a lot less than that. People often take extra liberties to insult greenhorns which shows their true character, the opportunity to abuse a vulnerable new person without repercussion. Keep a log of every slight, lie, abusive behavior, when it happened, you'll be glad you did in the event there is a reprimand meeting, you can print out all the shitty things they did and said and make them admit to it and sign it.
9. Avoid conflict at work, and don't quit and storm off in anger. Avoid the gossip cliques as this is not jr. high school anymore. Try to stay on everyone's good side. Don't argue with your boss, just say you disagree. Give notice and walk away from a job that's not right for you. The hardest part is the pressure meetings that accuse you of wrong-doing. I take the gloves off for those. They are aggressively trying to tarnish my reputation and honor, I always put them on the hot-seat and realize that the well has been poisoned and it's time to go, but before I do, they are going to be well aware of their faults while I still have the chance to do so. You can do this calmly, bring in your recordings and other evidence. (some areas don't allow 1 party consent of recording, so be knowledgeable about the law), then when they are sick of hearing about how they screwed up everything, they'll want to conclude the meeting as soon as possible. Good. Make sure you say your peace before the relationship ends.
10. Don't take abuse. You can be assertive without being aggressive. People are always seeing what they can slip past you, either a divisive comment, shouting, abusive criticism. You have to develop the skill regarding what is worth fighting over. Many times it probably isn't, but when you do stand up for yourself, just remember, that manager is going to remember it and the relationship will struggle. Maybe that job is worth losing. A lot of times, you can stare at the offending person, then repeat back to them what they just said. A lot of people hear their own words and know immediately they don't like getting what they give. That may be enough to let them know that was inappropriate. Takes skill and practice. (Hands on hips) 'What did you just say to me? "Get your ass over here?" Is that how you talk to people?'
11. Work on a new skill while you are working. Many times people go home and watch TV for 5 hours and drag themselves back to a crummy job. There are all sorts of certificates you can earn, many of them online. Being Microsoft Office certified is the easiest one. It can slowly build up your resume and open up doors even though it might not seem like much at the time. Getting level-1 certified on a foreigner language exam is another. Be productive in your off time.
12. Look for another job while you still have one. Even though it sucks, money coming in never sucks. Use a sick day for an interview, never disclose the name of your current employer or put it on your resume. Say or print, "Currently employed." Most people realize you can't disclose or have anyone call your current employer.
13. Not all low-level jobs suck. My friend's mom worked at a gas station chain as an assistant manager and made really good money. She worked her way up from associate, and was trying to get a store manager position with benefits and was a really good job for someone with only a high school diploma.
14. Military. A dangerous job, don't kid yourself. But you can escape a boring town with go-nowhere employment by joining. The "safest" route for those who really don't want to join is going into the reserves, national guard, Coast Guard....in that order. You'll do 2 months of basic training, then to tech school which can be another 2 months ~ 1 year depending upon how much training is involved. Then you come home and are on stand-by. Sign up for college benefits. The regular services: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, full-time Coast Guard, are 24 hour jobs. You could be sent to a hotspot in the world at any time.
15. Nothing wrong with living with mom & dad. Ok, so you're too old to be living at home. Not so. If you can be helpful and be a good roommate, most parents like their kids and want them around. Save money, that's the most important thing. Your parents won't live forever, leave a legacy of honoring them. Do things as if it's the last time you'll ever do that task, because it just might be. When people get old, they can go down fast. Everyone has regrets after a parent passes on, do your best for them, save up your money, look for a new job, then leave the nest when you are ready again.
16. You can move to an area with better jobs. You can be poor anywhere, why stay in your bubble and lament how the crummy town doesn't have opportunities. Go where the jobs are. Find rent that's month-to-month or rent a room from someone in the event the job is terrible, you are not stuck with a 1 year lease. Try the job out, it's not permanent, you can leave any time. My friend got a job at a huge factory the next county over and everyone acted like he moved to Russia and we'd never see him again. That's small-town thinking. Marry the local girl, work somewhere, never leave the area, die at 80. It's Ok, to move around and leave your surroundings, it's a big world out there.

Practice your skills. Stick up for yourself when you need to, and do it in a way that the other person should realize was wrong. If you need to quit a job, then do so and move on. The universe will give you so much resistance, you know you need to flow in another direction.
​
~

I admire your luck, Mr...?
Bond. James Bond.

Special Agent 007, James Bond is the star agent of MI6. Always cool under pressure and licensed to kill, James is sent to infiltrate enemy organizations and destroy them from the inside. Over the decades, James Bond has gone from serious to campy and back again, but always manages to get the job done through wit, physical ability and superior equipment.
Bond generally wields a sidearm with lethal efficiency, along with a number of incredible gadgets developed by the geniuses at Q Branch. With his remarkable physical ability and ever-changing bag of tools, there isn't an international crime organization that Bond has failed to take down. The only thing that could possible distract Bond are his own vices: women or booze, both of which have gotten one over on him in the past.
James Bond Respect Threads by Actor
Sean Connery- 1962 to 1967, once more in 1971. Physically strong, numerous gadgets disguised as everyday items. Adept in traditional spy skills, like infiltration and observation.
George Lazenby- Once in 1969. Very similar to Connery in his craftiness, skilled specifically in winter sports.
Roger Moore- 1973 to 1985. Downright campy, making use of almost cartoonish skills that actually work in-universe. Skilled driver and pilot with a variety of gadgets.
Timothy Dalton- 1987 to 1989. Colder and more quick to become violent than the others. Usually carries a firearm and a lethal gadget to kill enemies.
Pierce Brosnan- 1995 to 2002. Best variety of gadgets of any Bond. Great feats of endurance and athletic ability.
Daniel Craig- 2006 to 2021. The most realistic Bond, yet has some of the most impressive physical abilities in any of the movies. Low variety of gadgets, but excels in gunfights.
Hover over a feat to see the film it’s from. Additionally, the name of any gif on Gfycat contains the last name of the actor that accomplished it.

Physicals

You have a nasty habit of surviving.
Well, you know what they say about the fittest.

Strength
Striking

• Breaks a wooden board with a downward strike
• Tackles a man through two bathroom stalls
• Barrels through a temporary construction wall
• Punches through drywall and wood to access a hidden room

Lifting/Throwing

• Picks up and throws a chair at a man, knocking him out
• Fights off an attacker with a couch
• Picks up and slides a man across a table
• Tosses a chain onto a low-flying helicopter to cause it to crash
• Holds a man above a ledge by the hair

Grip

• When he’s held underwater by two women, Bond surfaces and holds both of them underwater with one hand each
• Holds onto a small plane while the pilot tries to shake him off
• Catches a rope on a blimp and holds on even after it rises high into the air
• Holds onto the top of a speeding car, even when the driver attempts to shake him off
• Avoids falling out of a plane’s airlock by grabbing onto some netting
• Holds onto the outside of a moving seaplane, even after the pilot attempts to shake him off
• Holds onto the bottom of an elevator car as it rises up a skyscraper

Pushing

• With one other guy, Bond rolls this large concrete column
• Knocks over a large bookshelf

Other

• After being buried in snow by an avalanche, Bond climbs out and is relatively okay about a minute later
• Wrestles with a large constricting snake before killing it with a poison injector

Endurance
Blunt Force

• Keeps fighting after getting a wooden chair broken over his back
• Stays conscious after strikes from Oddjob
  • Oddjob RT
• Fights on through hits with a fireplace poker
• Jumps from a bridge to a passing boat, falling through the roof and onto a wedding cake
• While hanging onto a blimp, he’s smacked into the Golden Gate Bridge and quickly starts climbing up
• He’s knocked down a ladder, but recovers by the time he gets to the bottom rung
• Continues fighting Stamper after a number of blows to the face
• Falls from a low hot air balloon onto a domed structure, and he recovers by grabbing some nearby cables
  • Bond suffered a dislocated collarbone after this fall, however
• When jumping off a low crane, Bond stumbles, falling into a metal air vent. He’s up and running moments later.
• Recieves cock and ball torture by Le Chiffre’s rope, at first barely responding, then laughing in his torturer’s face
• Falls one or two stories onto the top of a bus, but gets up quickly
• Fights on after being hit across the back with a metal pipe four times
• Keeps fighting through repeated strikes from Hinx, like getting thrown into walls or getting thrown through thin walls
  • Mr. Hinx Respect Thread found here
• [Limit] Has a recurring weakness to blunt force trauma to the back of the head

Piercing/Cutting

• Keeps running despite being shot in the calf
  • He’s later seen patching up his calf in the bathroom, so he was definitely hit by a bullet
• Keeps fighting after being cut across the chest and being shot up by a nail gun
• Gets shot in the shoulder by a handgun, but operates mostly unimpeded

Other

• Resists being garroted long enough to grab a knife, stabbing his attacker and turning the garrote wire back on him
• Takes over 12 Gs of force before destroying the machine with an armor-piercing dart
  • Real-life astronauts are typically trained to withstand up to 9 Gs of force.
• Gets electrocuted with a gauntlet that can output 100,000 volts, which leaves him writhing in pain but conscious
  • Scene describing the electrical weapon, where the 100,000 volt figure is from
• Bond is shot by a sniper rifle and falls off a high bridge into water. After three months, Bond is mostly physically able again, although his aim is more noticeably affected.
• Endures having a small surgical drill bore into the back of his skull and into the part of the brain that deals with recognition, seemingly to no negative neurological effect

Agility
Movement

• Chases down an assassin, tackling him
• Takes a running jump up to a rising platform
• Catches up to an aircraft taking off on the runway
• Runs and jumps into a closing metal door
• Catches up to an airplane during takeoff, jumping into the plane through the landing gear
• Catches up to a fleeing truck on a runway, although it obviously hasn’t accelerated to full speed
• Escapes a CIA squad with just a moment's warning
• Runs away from a fireball caused by a house-sized explosion

Reflexes

• While on the ground, he dodges katana swings
• Dodges a thrown knife, then pulls it out of the wood behind him to kill the assassin
• Dodges a dune buggy at close range
• Evades shotgun fire from a pursuer
• Evades rifle fire, then shoots the enemy gunman
• Evades handgun fire with a roll, then avoids some distant machine gun fire
• Dodges a harpoon underwater
• When a man attempts to shoot Bond’s knees from nearly point blank range, Bond moves his legs to avoid the shots
• Uses an enemy to block gunfire
• While sitting in the passenger seat, Bond grabs the driver’s arm before they can shoot him
• Rolls away from an incendiary grenade’s detonation moments after noticing it

Combat Skill

Problem solver?
More of a problem eliminator.

Unarmed Combat
Quick Knock Outs

• Judo flips an attacker, then punches him
• Dispatches a guard with a neck strike
• Silently KOs a man, then steals his equipment to blend in with a scuba crew
• KOs a guard with a judo chop
• Stealthily KOs a guard from behind cover
• Knocks a man out with one kick to the head
• Ends an attempted fistfight with an elbow and then slamming the man on a table
• Knocks out a man by slamming him into the walls of an elevator twice
• Punches a guy out in two strikes
• Consistently one-punches goons
• From a sprint, Bond jumps and kicks a man in the face to knock him out

Against Individuals

• Breaks a hold from behind by a man who wrestles alligators
• Fights evenly with Grant in a train car, with both men getting in hits before Grant begins garroting Bond with a concealed wire
  • Grant is a trained Russian assassin who no-sells strikes to the stomach with brass knuckles
• Sweeps Pussy Galore to the floor, then reverses her judo throw attempt
• Wrestles with Hans before flipping him into a piranha pond
• Flips a man with judo throws twice
• Defeats a strong, tough guy in the hotel
• Has an awesome fistfight with a heavyset henchman, ending with Bond punching him off a rooftop
• Fights an assassin while dangling outside of a moving plane
• Has an extended fistfight with Alec Trevylyn, former agent 006, ending with Alec grabbing a handgun to hold Bond at gunpoint
• During a fight, he breaks a man’s arm, then punches him off a ledge
• Brawls with a martial artist on the outside of a crane

Against Multiple Attackers

• Knocks out six men when fleeing on a rooftop
• Starts thrashing technicians until one pulls a gun
• Defeats four guards in hand-to-hand combat
• Knocks out two attackers who ambushed him
• Drops about four men in a bar fight
• While handcuffed, Bond knocks out four surrounding MI6 agents in an elevator
• Drops two guards with one strike each

Against Armed Attackers

• Kicks away a gunman's gun, then beats him up in the ocean
• Disarms an armed woman with one hand
• While unarmed, Bond fights with a knife-wielding villain, with Bond disarming him and tackling him into water
• Disarms a woman and puts her in a painful armhold
• Disarms a gunman and knocks him down some stairs
• Has an extended fight with a man with a machete while in a confined space. Bond himself was unarmed, although he did ball up his jacket to block some strikes.
• Takes out a CIA riot officer with an elbow to the face
• While completely unarmed, defeats a man wielding an axe, even tricking him into slicing his own foot
• Brawls with an assassin armed with a sniper rifle before dropping him out of a skyscraper
• Intentionally breaks the ice on a frozen lake to bring a gunman down into the water, then Bond chokes him to death with his leg

With Weapons
Blades

• Kills a man with his own knife in one maneuver
• In just a few moves, Bond defeats a henchman in a machete fight, throwing him into a container full of snakes
• Steals a man’s knife, then pins his tie to a nearby counter
• Swordfights with a trained fencer, eventually switching to broadswords, where Bond draws first blood from the torso
• While being held at knifepoint, Bond turns and kills the man with his own knife after a struggle

Blunt Objects

• Breaks a man’s neck with a fireplace poker
• Disarms a diver, then uses the harpoon gun to shatter their goggles
• Using an oar, Bond fights off a man with a large hook
• Uses a ski to knock a man off of a cliff, then kills another man after a struggle
• While unarmed, Bond is attacked by an assassin with a knife, but manages to kill the assassin with a pair of scissors
• Spots an attacker in the reflection of a bronze decoration, then uses the decoration to bludgeon them
• Fights off four men who were beating him with a bat moments before, making heavy use of furniture and blunt items

Unorthodox Items

• Defeats three men in the confined space of a cockpit
• Throws flammable alcohol onto an assassin, igniting him
• Beats down a guard with a door, then five strikes
• Takes out two motorcycle-riding assassins with a long plank of wood
• Uses a ski pole to set a trap for a motorbike-riding assassin
• Knocks out a prison guard while handcuffed, at one point using the cuffs on the man's face
• Defeats two men in a crumbling building, using exposed wiring and a nail gun to dispatch them

Environment Focused

• Brawls with an assassin in a hotel room before throwing him into a bathtub and knocking a fan into the water, electrocuting him
• Kills Oddjob by using exposed electrical wiring on a metal cage that Oddjob was touching
• Tricks Jaws into hitting a wood column, knocking a wooden structure over himself
• Brawls with Jaws atop a cable car
• Fights off three hockey player assassins in a hockey rink, taking one out with the zamboni
• Judo throws a goon onto a bed of spikes
• While pinned to a wooden door by knives, he opens the door and kills an assassin with one of the knives
• Smacks a henchman with a plane’s antenna, throwing him off the plane
• Tosses maggots at a gunman, then knocks him out and judo throws him into the maggots
• Bond drags a guard into water and drowns him
• Bond ties a rope around Mr. Hinx’s neck and attaches it to a weight, then kicks that weight off the train to pull Hinx away

Accuracy

You wouldn’t kill me. You’d miss me.
I never miss.

Pistols

• Grabs Goldfinger’s gun and fires on an airplane window, sucking the villain out of the plane
• Shoots a gunman despite their being behind a column for cover
• Right after waking up, he shoots a ninja in the dark
• Poses as a wax figure and shoots Scaramanga
• Shoots three soldiers with his Walther P5, two of them being headshots
• Accurately hits a gunman from a moving speedboat
• Shoots a gunman through a wooden floor
• Uses a human shield to block bullets, then returns fire, killing a gunman
• Turns and fires on a man before he can fire
• Shoots a man while hanging upside-down by the leg
• Disarms and shoots two policemen
• Disarms the man holding him at gunpoint, then kills four other armed men in seconds
• Shoots two fire extinguishers to obscure the room and allow hostages to safely escape
• While handcuffed and at gunpoint, Bond steals the gun to shoot his captors

Against Vehicles

• Uses the Walther PPK to shoot out a dune buggy’s front tire
• Fires a Taurus PT92 into the engine of an oncoming Jeep, disabling it
• From a speedboat, Bond accurately hits a helicopter’s engine enough with a handgun to cause it to crash

Rifles/Submachine Guns

• Using a sniper rifle, Bond shoots a man in a helicopter, causing him to drop his grenade inside
• Fires a rifle, killing three goons, while sliding down a bannister
• Kills at least 8 men with a submachine gun in a short timeframe
• Turns around and shoots a gunman before he can kill his hostage. Note that Bond turns and fires right after the gunman receives orders to kill the hostage.
• Spots a sneaking soldier dressed in black and kills him with a rifle
• Fires on a guard before the guard can fire his weapon
• From a speeding hovercraft, Bond hits small land mines to detonate them on his pursuers
• Uses a Sa vz. 58 Compact to escape Blofeld’s facility, killing nearly a dozen guards, even at extreme range

Other Firearms

• Turns and immediately shoots a harpoon gun, killing a stealthy assassin
• Takes out a distant sniper by firing a shotgun
• Accurately shoots a sniper’s rifle with his own, rather than kill her
• Escapes a crowd of divers by stealing a harpoon gun and firing it into a nearby seaplane, pulling himself away

Non-Firearm Accuracy

• Throws three scalpels into a man’s arm and chest
• Throws a knife into a specific date on a calendar from across a room
• When the auto-targeting system fails, Bond manually shoots down a capsule full of viruses with a laser cannon
• Kills a man with a climbing spike

Other Skills

I always enjoyed learning a new tongue.
You always were a cunning linguist, James.

Athletics

• Dives off an oil rig into the ocean below
• Avoids machine gun fire while skiing
• Continues skiing after losing a ski
• While skiing, Bond jumps and twists to smack two gunmen with his skis
• Goes rock climbing on a nearly vertical rock wall
• Temporarily outswims the pull of an industrial fan before destroying it with his air tank
• Performs a HALO jump into water, then immediately begins scuba diving
• Swims outside of a submarine, scaling the surface until he can re-enter the vessel on the other side. He had to hold his breath for almost two minutes while scaling the outside of the submarine.
• Infiltrates North Korea by simply surfing onto the coast of the country
• Parasurfs off a collapsing iceberg
• Leaps from a crashing plane, catching up to his partner and using her parachute to save them both

Driving/Piloting
Driving

• Weaves around a parking lot, causing a dozen cop cars to crash into themselves, walls or parked cars
• Briefly drives on two wheels to slip through a narrow alley
• Drifts a double decker bus, causing a couple cops to crash their motorcycles
• Jumps over a river in a car using a broken bridge as a ramp
• While driving, he knocks over barrels onto enemies, then drives on two wheels to block bullets
• Drives a car over a ramp, onto a bus, then back to ground level

Piloting Aircraft

• Picks up a villain's wheelchair with a helicopter, then drops him into a smokestack
• Avoids a heat-seeking missile while piloting a small plane, redirecting it into an enemy hangar
• Dodges a stinger missile by driving a semi-truck on only the left hand wheels
• Starts a helicopter in midair and lands safely
• While flying a much less maneuverable plane, Bond tricks a fighter jet into crashing into a mountainside by producing smoke from a damaged engine
• Ejects a pilot from a helicopter, then pulls the helicopter out of freefall

Other

• Jumps a speedboat over a small patch of land
• Drifts a tank, then drives through a building to cause untold property damage

Traversal

• Performs a front flip off a ledge
• Traverses a ski lift wire with nothing more than a pair of mittens
• Traverses the underside of an oil rig by swinging on a rope, then walking a tightrope
• Jumps on the back of a couple alligators to escape a swamp
• Swings on vines like Tarzan to escape pursuers
• Traverses the side of a moving train
• Uses a long pole to safely travel down a building, then releases the pole to smack a pursuing officer
• Performs a combat roll down stairs to avoid handgun fire
• Runs up a crane to reach the top of a building under construction
• Climbs up a vertical I-beam
• From the top of a moving truck, Bond runs and flips through the open windshield
• Jumps down a story onto stone, rolling to avoid impact damage

Stealth

• Uses a hollow reed to hide underwater from guards and dogs
• Hides in plain sight by pretending to be making out, but it’s actually just his own arms wrapped around himself
• Evades a crowd of police
• Lowers his heart rate to trick medical staff and an EKG, then dispatches the staff and escapes the hospital
• Broke into M’s house to use her computer

Other

• [Observation] Notices an attacker in the reflection of a woman’s eye, then uses her as a human shield to block a strike
• [Foreign Language] Learned several Asian languages at Cambridge
• [Alcoholism] Can tell the temperature of alcohol after one sip
• [Deception] Poses as a genealogist under the pseudonym Sir Hillary Bray. After a few days, Blofeld sees through the ruse and has Bond captured.
• [Underwater] Ties a boat to a large rock with the rope he’s bound in, causing the boat to break the rope, freeing Bond
• [Sleight of Hand] Switches out a priceless Faberge egg for a fake copy
• [Animal Commanding] Commands a wild tiger to sit, and it actually listens
• [Gambling] Wins a quarter of a million dollars at a high stakes gambling table
• [Invention] Descends a tall building with some rope and an unconscious body
• [Seduction] Seduces a married woman to learn more about her husband’s criminal activity
• [Preparation] Puts shotgun shells under the floorboards in order to fire on intruders when they step on them
• [Observation] Identifies a hidden door based on a tiny sliver of light through the crack

Equipment

Right, now pay attention 007. I want you to take great care of this equipment. There are one or two rather special accessories.
Q, have I ever let you down?
Frequently.

Weapons
Firearms

• Carries a Walther PPK, a discreet pistol with excellent stopping power
• A collapsible Armalite AR-7 sniper rifle with an infrared sight, allowing for use in the dark
• Bond carries a S&W model 29 revolver in early Moore films, then later switches to his iconic Walther PPK, then, finally, uses the Walther P5
• Carries a very small firearm, the Beretta 950 Jetfire
• Has a firearm disguised as a camera. Additionally, the device is programmed to Bond’s own palm signature, meaning only he can fire the weapon.
  • The camera gun can be outfitted with a scope and tripod for long range fire
• A suppressed UMP-9, used to fire on Mr. White’s leg at range
• A Walther PPK with a palm-print sensor coded to Bond’s hand, meaning only he can fire it
  • Sure enough, when someone else tries to use it, it just doesn’t fire
• A heavily modified Glock 17, with laser sight and microphone attachment

Other

• A combat knife
• A projectile launcher disguised as a cigarette, gifted to Bond by a ninja master
• A grenade disguised as a ballpoint pen
  • By tossing the grenade pen into a pool of fuel, an explosion and destructive fire is formed
• A grenade disguised as a lighter
• A flashbang explosive disguised as a handgun, used to stun three gunmen, allowing Bond to dispatch them

Gadgets
Mobility

• A grappling gun and cord that attaches to his pants, allowing him to scale the outside of a skyscraper
  • Can be outfitted with metal projectiles and used as a firearm instead
• Briefly wore a ninja outfit with suction cups on the palms and knees, used to scale down metal walls
• Flies away from a fight with a jetpack
• A belt with a hidden high-tensile cord, enough to support Bond’s own weight
  • Using the belt cord, Bond swings Spider-Man-style across a room and out a window

Reconnaissance/Infiltration

• A small explosive, used to blow a lock off a cell door
• Has a small safe-cracking device disguised as a cigarette case
• Special glasses to see through tinted glass
• Photocopier disguised as a checkbook
• A digital skeleton key disguised as a gift card
• Binoculars built into a pair of glasses
• Sunglasses with built in X-ray vision, allowing Bond to detect concealed weapons and see through women’s clothing
• A powerful camera, used to identify the faces of high profile criminals with just a few pixels
• A cell phone that acts as a fingerprint scanner, a powerful taser and as a remote control for a BMW

Continued in Comments

I admire your luck, Mr...?
Bond. James Bond.

Special Agent 007, James Bond is the star agent of MI6. Always cool under pressure and licensed to kill, James is sent to infiltrate enemy organizations and destroy them from the inside. Over the decades, James Bond has gone from serious to campy and back again, but always manages to get the job done through wit, physical ability and superior equipment.
Bond generally wields a sidearm with lethal efficiency, along with a number of incredible gadgets developed by the geniuses at Q Branch. With his remarkable physical ability and ever-changing bag of tools, there isn't an international crime organization that Bond has failed to take down. The only thing that could possible distract Bond are his own vices: women or booze, both of which have gotten one over on him in the past.
James Bond Respect Threads by Actor
Sean Connery- 1962 to 1967, once more in 1971. Physically strong, numerous gadgets disguised as everyday items. Adept in traditional spy skills, like infiltration and observation.
George Lazenby- Once in 1969. Very similar to Connery in his craftiness, skilled specifically in winter sports.
Roger Moore- 1973 to 1985. Downright campy, making use of almost cartoonish skills that actually work in-universe. Skilled driver and pilot with a variety of gadgets.
Timothy Dalton- 1987 to 1989. Colder and more quick to become violent than the others. Usually carries a firearm and a lethal gadget to kill enemies.
Pierce Brosnan- 1995 to 2002. Best variety of gadgets of any Bond. Great feats of endurance and athletic ability.
Daniel Craig- 2006 to 2021. The most realistic Bond, yet has some of the most impressive physical abilities in any of the movies. Low variety of gadgets, but excels in gunfights.
Hover over a feat to see the film it’s from. Additionally, the name of any gif on Gfycat contains the last name of the actor that accomplished it.

Physicals

You have a nasty habit of surviving.
Well, you know what they say about the fittest.

Strength
Striking

• Breaks a wooden board with a downward strike
• Tackles a man through two bathroom stalls
• Barrels through a temporary construction wall
• Punches through drywall and wood to access a hidden room

Lifting/Throwing

• Picks up and throws a chair at a man, knocking him out
• Fights off an attacker with a damn couch
• Picks up and slides a man across a table
• Tosses a chain onto a low-flying helicopter to cause it to crash
• Holds a man above a ledge by the hair

Grip

• When he’s held underwater by two women, Bond surfaces and holds both of them underwater with one hand each
• Holds onto a small plane while the pilot tries to shake him off
• Catches a rope on a blimp and holds on even after it rises high into the air
• Holds onto the top of a speeding car, even when the driver attempts to shake him off
• Avoids falling out of a plane’s airlock by grabbing onto some netting
• Holds onto the outside of a moving seaplane, even after the pilot attempts to shake him off
• Holds onto the bottom of an elevator car as it rises up a skyscraper

Pushing

• With one other guy, Bond rolls this large concrete column
• Knocks over a large bookshelf

Other

• After being buried in snow by an avalanche, Bond climbs out and is relatively okay about a minute later
• Wrestles with a large constricting snake before killing it with a poison injector

Endurance
Blunt Force

• Keeps fighting after getting a wooden chair broken over his back
• Stays conscious after strikes from Oddjob
  • Oddjob RT
• Fights on through hits with a fireplace poker
• Jumps from a bridge to a passing boat, falling through the roof and onto a wedding cake
• While hanging onto a blimp, he’s smacked into the Golden Gate Bridge and quickly starts climbing up
• He’s knocked down a ladder, but recovers by the time he gets to the bottom rung
• Continues fighting Stamper after a number of blows to the face
• Falls from a low hot air balloon onto a domed structure, and he recovers by grabbing some nearby cables
  • Bond suffered a dislocated collarbone after this fall, however
• When jumping off a low crane, Bond stumbles, falling into a metal air vent. He’s up and running moments later.
• Recieves cock and ball torture by Le Chiffre’s rope, at first barely responding, then laughing in his torturer’s face
• Falls one or two stories onto the top of a bus, but gets up quickly
• Fights on after being hit across the back with a metal pipe four times
• Keeps fighting through repeated strikes from Hinx, like getting thrown into walls or getting thrown through thin walls
  • Mr. Hinx Respect Thread found here
• [Limit] Has a recurring weakness to blunt force trauma to the back of the head

Piercing/Cutting

• Keeps running despite being shot in the calf
  • He’s later seen patching up his calf in the bathroom, so he was definitely hit by a bullet
• Keeps fighting after being cut across the chest and being shot up by a nail gun
• Gets shot in the shoulder by a handgun, but operates mostly unimpeded

Other

• Resists being garroted long enough to grab a knife, stabbing his attacker and turning the garrote wire back on him
• Takes over 12 Gs of force before destroying the machine with an armor-piercing dart
  • Real-life astronauts are typically trained to withstand up to 9 Gs of force.
• Gets electrocuted with a gauntlet that can output 100,000 volts, which leaves him writhing in pain but conscious
  • Scene describing the electrical weapon, where the 100,000 volt figure is from
• Bond is shot by a sniper rifle and falls off a high bridge into water. After three months, Bond is mostly physically able again, although his aim is more noticeably affected.
• Endures having a small surgical drill bore into the back of his skull and into the part of the brain that deals with recognition, seemingly to no negative neurological effect

Agility
Movement

• Chases down an assassin, tackling him
• Takes a running jump up to a rising platform
• Catches up to an aircraft taking off on the runway
• Runs and jumps into a closing metal door
• Catches up to an airplane during takeoff, jumping into the plane through the landing gear
• Catches up to a fleeing truck on a runway, although it obviously hasn’t accelerated to full speed
• Escapes a CIA squad with just a moment's warning
• Runs away from a fireball caused by a house-sized explosion

Reflexes

• While on the ground, he dodges katana swings
• Dodges a thrown knife, then pulls it out of the wood behind him to kill the assassin
• Dodges a dune buggy at close range
• Evades shotgun fire from a pursuer
• Evades rifle fire, then shoots the enemy gunman
• Evades handgun fire with a roll, then avoids some distant machine gun fire
• Dodges a harpoon underwater
• When a man attempts to shoot Bond’s knees from nearly point blank range, Bond moves his legs to avoid the shots
• Uses an enemy to block gunfire
• While sitting in the passenger seat, Bond grabs the driver’s arm before they can shoot him
• Rolls away from an incendiary grenade’s detonation moments after noticing it

Combat Skill

Problem solver?
More of a problem eliminator.

Unarmed Combat
Quick Knock Outs

• Judo flips an attacker, then punches him
• Dispatches a guard with a neck strike
• Silently KOs a man, then steals his equipment to blend in with a scuba crew
• KOs a guard with a judo chop
• Stealthily KOs a guard from behind cover
• Knocks a man out with one kick to the head
• Ends an attempted fistfight with an elbow and then slamming the man on a table
• Knocks out a man by slamming him into the walls of an elevator twice
• Punches a guy out in two strikes
• Consistently one-punches goons
• From a sprint, Bond jumps and kicks a man in the face to knock him out

Against Individuals

• Breaks a hold from behind by a man who wrestles alligators
• Fights evenly with Grant in a train car, with both men getting in hits before Grant begins garroting Bond with a concealed wire
  • Grant is a trained Russian assassin who no-sells strikes to the stomach with brass knuckles
• Sweeps Pussy Galore to the floor, then reverses her judo throw attempt
• Wrestles with Hans before flipping him into a piranha pond
• Flips a man with judo throws twice
• Defeats a strong, tough guy in the hotel
• Has an awesome fistfight with a heavyset henchman, ending with Bond punching him off a rooftop
• Fights an assassin while dangling outside of a moving plane
• Has an extended fistfight with Alec Trevylyn, former agent 006, ending with Alec grabbing a handgun to hold Bond at gunpoint
• During a fight, he breaks a man’s arm, then punches him off a ledge
• Brawls with a martial artist on the outside of a crane

Against Multiple Attackers

• Knocks out six men when fleeing on a rooftop
• Starts thrashing technicians until one pulls a gun
• Defeats four guards in hand-to-hand combat
• Knocks out two attackers who ambushed him
• Drops about four men in a bar fight
• While handcuffed, Bond knocks out four surrounding MI6 agents in an elevator
• Drops two guards with one strike each

Against Armed Attackers

• Kicks away a gunman's gun, then beats him up in the ocean
• Disarms an armed woman with one hand
• While unarmed, Bond fights with a knife-wielding villain, with Bond disarming him and tackling him into water
• Disarms a woman and puts her in a painful armhold
• Disarms a gunman and knocks him down some stairs
• Has an extended fight with a man with a machete while in a confined space. Bond himself was unarmed, although he did ball up his jacket to block some strikes.
• Takes out a CIA riot officer with an elbow to the face
• While completely unarmed, defeats a man wielding an axe, even tricking him into slicing his own foot
• Brawls with an assassin armed with a sniper rifle before dropping him out of a skyscraper
• Intentionally breaks the ice on a frozen lake to bring a gunman down into the water, then Bond chokes him to death with his leg

With Weapons
Blades

• Kills a man with his own knife in one maneuver
• In just a few moves, Bond defeats a henchman in a machete fight, throwing him into a container full of snakes
• Steals a man’s knife, then pins his tie to a nearby counter
• Swordfights with a trained fencer, eventually switching to broadswords, where Bond draws first blood from the torso
• While being held at knifepoint, Bond turns and kills the man with his own knife after a struggle

Blunt Objects

• Breaks a man’s neck with a fireplace poker
• Disarms a diver, then uses the harpoon gun to shatter their goggles
• Using an oar, Bond fights off a man with a large hook
• Uses a ski to knock a man off of a cliff, then kills another man after a struggle
• While unarmed, Bond is attacked by an assassin with a knife, but manages to kill the assassin with a pair of scissors
• Spots an attacker in the reflection of a bronze decoration, then uses the decoration to bludgeon them
• Fights off four men who were beating him with a bat moments before, making heavy use of furniture and blunt items

Unorthodox Items

• Defeats three men in the confined space of a cockpit
• Throws flammable alcohol onto an assassin, igniting him
• Beats down a guard with a door, then five strikes
• Takes out two motorcycle-riding assassins with a long plank of wood
• Uses a ski pole to set a trap for a motorbike-riding assassin
• Knocks out a prison guard while handcuffed, at one point using the cuffs on the man's face
• Defeats two men in a crumbling building, using exposed wiring and a nail gun to dispatch them

Environment Focused

• Brawls with an assassin in a hotel room before throwing him into a bathtub and knocking a fan into the water, electrocuting him
• Kills Oddjob by using exposed electrical wiring on a metal cage that Oddjob was touching
• Tricks Jaws into hitting a wood column, knocking a wooden structure over himself
• Brawls with Jaws atop a cable car
• Fights off three hockey player assassins in a hockey rink, taking one out with the zamboni
• Judo throws a goon onto a bed of spikes
• While pinned to a wooden door by knives, he opens the door and kills an assassin with one of the knives
• Smacks a henchman with a plane’s antenna, throwing him off the plane
• Tosses maggots at a gunman, then knocks him out and judo throws him into the maggots
• Bond drags a guard into water and drowns him
• Bond ties a rope around Mr. Hinx’s neck and attaches it to a weight, then kicks that weight off the train to pull Hinx away

Accuracy

You wouldn’t kill me. You’d miss me.
I never miss.

Pistols

• Grabs Goldfinger’s gun and fires on an airplane window, sucking the villain out of the plane
• Shoots a gunman despite their being behind a column for cover
• Right after waking up, he shoots a ninja in the dark
• Poses as a wax figure and shoots Scaramanga
• Shoots three soldiers with his Walther P5, two of them being headshots
• Accurately hits a gunman from a moving speedboat
• Shoots a gunman through a wooden floor
• Uses a human shield to block bullets, then returns fire, killing a gunman
• Turns and fires on a man before he can fire
• Shoots a man while hanging upside-down by the leg
• Disarms and shoots two policemen
• Disarms the man holding him at gunpoint, then kills four other armed men in seconds
• Shoots two fire extinguishers to obscure the room and allow hostages to safely escape
• While handcuffed and at gunpoint, Bond steals the gun to shoot his captors

Against Vehicles

• Uses the Walther PPK to shoot out a dune buggy’s front tire
• Fires a Taurus PT92 into the engine of an oncoming Jeep, disabling it
• From a speedboat, Bond accurately hits a helicopter’s engine enough with a handgun to cause it to crash

Rifles/Submachine Guns

• Using a sniper rifle, Bond shoots a man in a helicopter, causing him to drop his grenade inside
• Fires a rifle, killing three goons, while sliding down a bannister
• Kills at least 8 men with a submachine gun in a short timeframe
• Turns around and shoots a gunman before he can kill his hostage. Note that Bond turns and fires right after the gunman receives orders to kill the hostage.
• Spots a sneaking soldier dressed in black and kills him with a rifle
• Fires on a guard before the guard can fire his weapon
• From a speeding hovercraft, Bond hits small land mines to detonate them on his pursuers
• Uses a Sa vz. 58 Compact to escape Blofeld’s facility, killing nearly a dozen guards, even at extreme range

Other Firearms

• Turns and immediately shoots a harpoon gun, killing a stealthy assassin
• Takes out a distant sniper by firing a shotgun
• Accurately shoots a sniper’s rifle with his own, rather than kill her
• Escapes a crowd of divers by stealing a harpoon gun and firing it into a nearby seaplane, pulling himself away

Non-Firearm Accuracy

• Throws three scalpels into a man’s arm and chest
• Throws a knife into a specific date on a calendar from across a room
• When the auto-targeting system fails, Bond manually shoots down a capsule full of viruses with a laser cannon
• Kills a man with a climbing spike

Other Skills

I always enjoyed learning a new tongue. You always were a cunning linguist, James.

Athletics

• Dives off an oil rig into the ocean below
• Avoids machine gun fire while skiing
• Continues skiing after losing a ski
• While skiing, Bond jumps and twists to smack two gunmen with his skis
• Goes rock climbing on a nearly vertical rock wall
• Temporarily outswims the pull of an industrial fan before destroying it with his air tank
• Performs a HALO jump into water, then immediately begins scuba diving
• Swims outside of a submarine, scaling the surface until he can re-enter the vessel on the other side. He had to hold his breath for almost two minutes while scaling the outside of the submarine.
• Infiltrates North Korea by simply surfing onto the coast of the country
• Parasurfs off a collapsing iceberg
• Leaps from a crashing plane, catching up to his partner and using her parachute to save them both

Driving/Piloting
Driving

• Weaves around a parking lot, causing a dozen cop cars to crash into themselves, walls or parked cars
• Briefly drives on two wheels to slip through a narrow alley
• Drifts a double decker bus, causing a couple cops to crash their motorcycles
• Jumps over a river in a car using a broken bridge as a ramp
• While driving, he knocks over barrels onto enemies, then drives on two wheels to block bullets
• Drives a car over a ramp, onto a bus, then back to ground level

Piloting Aircraft

• Picks up a villain's wheelchair with a helicopter, then drops him into a smokestack
• Avoids a heat-seeking missile while piloting a small plane, redirecting it into an enemy hangar
• Dodges a stinger missile by driving a semi-truck on only the left hand wheels
• Starts a helicopter in midair and lands safely
• While flying a much less maneuverable plane, Bond tricks a fighter jet into crashing into a mountainside by producing smoke from a damaged engine
• Ejects a pilot from a helicopter, then pulls the helicopter out of freefall

Other

• Jumps a speedboat over a small patch of land
• Drifts a tank, then drives through a building to cause untold property damage

Traversal

• Performs a front flip off a ledge
• Traverses a ski lift wire with nothing more than a pair of mittens
• Traverses the underside of an oil rig by swinging on a rope, then walking a tightrope
• Jumps on the back of a couple alligators to escape a swamp
• Swings on vines like Tarzan to escape pursuers
• Traverses the side of a moving train
• Uses a long pole to safely travel down a building, then releases the pole to smack a pursuing officer
• Performs a combat roll down stairs to avoid handgun fire
• Runs up a crane to reach the top of a building under construction
• Climbs up a vertical I-beam
• From the top of a moving truck, Bond runs and flips through the open windshield
• Jumps down a story onto stone, rolling to avoid impact damage

Stealth

• Uses a hollow reed to hide underwater from guards and dogs
• Hides in plain sight by pretending to be making out, but it’s actually just his own arms wrapped around himself
• Evades a crowd of police
• Lowers his heart rate to trick medical staff and an EKG, then dispatches the staff and escapes the hospital
• Broke into M’s house to use her computer

Other

• [Observation] Notices an attacker in the reflection of a woman’s eye, then uses her as a human shield to block a strike
• [Foreign Language] Learned several Asian languages at Cambridge
• [Alcoholism] Can tell the temperature of alcohol after one sip
• [Deception] Poses as a genealogist under the pseudonym Sir Hillary Bray. After a few days, Blofeld sees through the ruse and has Bond captured.
• [Underwater] Ties a boat to a large rock with the rope he’s bound in, causing the boat to break the rope, freeing Bond
• [Sleight of Hand] Switches out a priceless Faberge egg for a fake copy
• [Animal Commanding] Commands a wild tiger to sit, and it actually listens
• [Gambling] Wins a quarter of a million dollars at a high stakes gambling table
• [Invention] Descends a tall building with some rope and an unconscious body
• [Seduction] Seduces a married woman to learn more about her husband’s criminal activity
• [Preparation] Puts shotgun shells under the floorboards in order to fire on intruders when they step on them
• [Observation] Identifies a hidden door based on a tiny sliver of light through the crack

Equipment

Right, now pay attention 007. I want you to take great care of this equipment. There are one or two rather special accessories.
Q, have I ever let you down?
Frequently.

Weapons
Firearms

• Carries a Walther PPK, a discreet pistol with excellent stopping power
• A collapsible Armalite AR-7 sniper rifle with an infrared sight, allowing for use in the dark
• Bond carries a S&W model 29 revolver in early Moore films, then later switches to his iconic Walther PPK, then, finally, uses the Walther P5
• Carries a very small firearm, the Beretta 950 Jetfire
• Has a firearm disguised as a camera. Additionally, the device is programmed to Bond’s own palm signature, meaning only he can fire the weapon.
• The camera gun can be outfitted with a scope and tripod for long range fire
• A suppressed UMP-9, used to fire on Mr. White’s leg at range
• A Walther PPK with a palm-print sensor coded to Bond’s hand, meaning only he can fire it
  • Sure enough, when someone else tries to use it, it just doesn’t fire
• A heavily modified Glock 17, with laser sight and microphone attachment

Other

• A combat knife
• A projectile launcher disguised as a cigarette, gifted to Bond by a ninja master
• A grenade disguised as a ballpoint pen
  • By tossing the grenade pen into a pool of fuel, an explosion and destructive fire is formed
• A grenade disguised as a lighter
• A flashbang explosive disguised as a handgun, used to stun three gunmen, allowing Bond to dispatch them

Gadgets
Mobility

• A grappling gun and cord that attaches to his pants, allowing him to scale the outside of a skyscraper
  • Can be outfitted with metal projectiles and used as a firearm instead
• Briefly wore a ninja outfit with suction cups on the palms and knees, used to scale down metal walls
• Flies away from a fight with a jetpack
• A belt with a hidden high-tensile cord, enough to support Bond’s own weight
  • Using the belt cord, Bond swings Spider-Man-style across a room and out a window

Reconnaissance/Infiltration

• A small explosive, used to blow a lock off a cell door
• Has a small safe-cracking device disguised as a cigarette case
• Special glasses to see through tinted glass
• Photocopier disguised as a checkbook
• A digital skeleton key disguised as a gift card
• Binoculars built into a pair of glasses
• Sunglasses with built in X-ray vision, allowing Bond to detect concealed weapons and see through women’s clothing
• A powerful camera, used to identify the faces of high profile criminals with just a few pixels
• A cell phone that acts as a fingerprint scanner, a powerful taser and as a remote control for a BMW

Continued in Comments

All the trouble I’ve caused, the pain, the death… It all started with a breakthrough.
I’m an artist and painter by trade, but also an inventor. I like to spend some of my spare time experimenting by creating new colours. It's a hobby but I also make some money on the side, primarily through a shade of purple I made that is marginally popular as well as an ultra dark shade of black. That one is fun because it looks really weird in everyday life to see a coffee mug or a t-shirt that is unnaturally colourless. Like a black hole or something.
But this new one is different. I call it grurple.
The name is dumb, I know. But it’s got my last name buried in it, and it’s a combination of the words green and purple. That makes sense because that’s what the colour is…
Except that doesn't describe it well enough. Because people have combined those two colours before and it just turns into an ugly brownish black barf sort of hue that nobody would want to use for anything.
But this is different. It retains the essence of purple and green and makes something never before seen and amazing with them in the process. It's like looking at a rainbow for the first time – startling and otherworldly.
But since I created it, I've been seeing things. And they're all the same colour: grurple.
My laptop, for instance. I turned it off because the colours had begun to look strange, and the problem had proved to be uncorrectable. That was when I saw movement in the corner of the blank screen, the reflection of something sliding just out of view at the edge. I looked over my shoulder and saw there was nothing there.
I left my room and went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. The computer could be fixed, I thought to myself. I'd just take it over to my friend Dave's place, since he always knew what to do with computer problems.
In the reflection of the bathroom mirror I saw the tub was no longer the old-fashioned shade of horrible out-of-fashion pink that it had been before, the one it had always been since I moved in. It was now grurple.
It was as if someone had come into my home and replaced my bathtub with someone else’s. But of course that was impossible. My hands started to tremble, my heartbeat quickening as it felt like the world began to turn sideways on its axis.
I tried to calm myself down, focusing on my breathing, focusing on anything that wasn’t the bathtub.
The bathroom mirror was dirty so I decided to quickly clean it to distract myself. As I finished wiping it off, I saw something in the corner of the glass surface, slipping out of view just as my eye noticed it, just like earlier in the computer monitor’s reflection. The slender, pointed tail of a lizard? That was how it looked anyways.
I went out into the hallway to check if a stray Komodo dragon had snuck into my house somehow, but again there was nothing. I couldn't help but think that the colour of whatever it was looked familiar, though – whatever it was, it was coloured grurple.
I got the impression of something looming and large, crafty and elusive, its skin rough and thick like that of a dinosaur.
Suddenly it was there again, at the periphery of my vision, but upon inspection I saw only empty space. Nearby I could sense something enormous and awful, like a storm head rolling in.
Deciding to get out of the house, I left with my laptop to walk over to Dave’s place. He was only a few blocks over.
It was a sunny day outside, humid and clear. I immediately wished I had brought my sunglasses but decided not to go back for them. It was a short walk.
As I ambled down the street, lugging my heavy old laptop, I started to have more and more trouble seeing. The sun was so bright I found myself blinking repeatedly, then having more and more difficulty opening my eyes each time. My vision became reduced to momentary glimpses between each blink until my eyes simply forced themselves closed and I couldn’t see at all anymore. The only thing I could see was the new colour I had created, it filled my vision instead of the usual darkness when I blinked.
I didn’t know where I was, only that I had been walking on the sidewalk a moment before. There was no shade nearby and I was stranded, completely blind in the middle of my walk. Unfortunately for me I had unwittingly crossed into the roadway and was no longer on the sidewalk but standing in the middle of a busy intersection.
Suddenly someone tackled me, landing on me and sending me flying. I heard a car’s tires squealing and smelled burnt brake pads, a loud bang and the crunching of metal and breaking of glass.
Then people were yelling at me.
“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING STANDING IN THE ROAD LIKE THAT!? YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!” came the chorus from the people all around.
I was in the ditch and my vision came back suddenly and I had no trouble seeing as fear and adrenaline took over my body.
Two cars were mangled and wrapped up together in the roadway where they had crashed into each other. The drivers were both bloodied and unconscious in their seats and people were pulling them out as a fire started to spread from the engine of one vehicle.
“I couldn’t see! I couldn’t see!” I screamed, but nobody listened.
The police came and took a statement from me, then gave me a tongue-lashing I would never forget. I told them it was sun-blindness (which was true, I suppose) and they let me off without a charge of public endangerment causing bodily harm.
Thankfully everyone survived and nobody had any lasting effects from the accident. If it hadn’t been for the stranger who pushed me out of the way I would have been dead. But he wasn’t too impressed with my behaviour, either.
My laptop was a write-off and I limped home with a quickly-swelling twisted ankle.
When I got back there I could sense it waiting for me. It was like I could hear its breathing. The creature I had brought forth with my invention.
Terrified, I decided I needed to destroy it. There was something wrong with that colour. It wasn't meant for this world - I could tell that already.
The experimental batches of grurple were in my studio, in the basement, and I rushed down there.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I felt the thing following behind me. I was too afraid to look back.
As I raced down the stairs I nearly tripped, my bad ankle giving out on me as I hobbled down the wooden steps. My studio was just ahead and I raced inside and went to my locked cabinet where I stored all my experimental work.
The paintings I had done in the new colour were there, as well as the jars containing the hue itself. It was a shame to destroy it, but it had to be done. It wasn’t supposed to be here. I should never have brought it into existence.
Pouring paint down the drain is a really bad idea but I was desperate so I went over to the sink with the small test batch and opened it, tilting the container to dump it out. But then something, a voice, stopped me and my skin went ice cold, goosebumps spreading across it.
“How did you divine my colours?” hissed the thing from behind me. From the shadows.
It wasn’t real. The monster wasn’t real. I just had to pour out the paint.
But something was stopping me.
My eyes were drawn to the test paintings I had done. One of them stood out among the rest and I found myself setting down the jar of paint and looking at it.
I couldn’t remember painting it.
The image showed a beast coloured vividly in grurple. It shone and reflected the light back at me, making me think of things. Awful things. Beautiful things. I couldn’t tell the difference between them after a while as they flashed before my eyes.
A dead girl at the bottom of a well
Roses in bloom
Roadkill with maggots
Bloated corpse coming in with the tide
Rotten skin being peeled from a hand like a banana
Lemon meringue pie
A sunset over the ocean
Broken fingernails on the inside of a coffin lid
“How did you manage to paint me? Did you see me in a vision? For when you made this I had not yet been to see you. You summoned me, in a way. With this.”
A long talon on an even longer finger reached out and pointed at the image I had made. The one I had forgotten making.
I could feel the thing behind me, its breathing hot on my neck.
“Over the years I have been named many things. They have called me Charon, Azrael, Shiva, and Anubis. I have NEVER seen a depiction as striking as this, though. You perfectly captured my… essence.”
“Thank you,” I croaked.
“Why don’t you do more of these? It would be a shame to waste such a precious talent as yours.”
My hand hesitated and I found myself not wanting to destroy the paint after all. I wanted to use it. There was an image I had always wanted to depict and the paint would be perfect for it, I just knew it.
I set up my easel and began to draw, then prime, and then laid down the big blocks of colour for what would be my greatest work to date.
The piece consumed my life for three days. For 72 hours I did nothing but paint.
Once it was complete, I knew it was the best thing I had ever made.
The image depicted Charon, the ferryman from Greek mythology. He was taking someone across the river Styx from our world into the underworld, the afterlife. The Ferryman himself was richly painted in my new colour.
“You should share it with the world,” said the voice again.
And I found myself wanting to do as he suggested. So I did.
I took it to galleries and the first few people who saw it didn’t really like it as much as I did. Despite an excellent composition the consensus among them was that the colour of Charon was off – that the colour of him just looked like a brownish-black barf sort of hue. They didn’t see the new colour for some reason.
So I brought it to more galleries, circling out further and further from my home, until one owner I showed it to saw it and I knew he REALLY saw it.
The well-dressed man immediately exclaimed in delight and took it from my hands, holding the piece up to inspect it. Fawning over it, he told me how much he loved the painting and insisted on buying it for himself. He looked mesmerized and couldn’t take his eyes from the piece.
“I’ll pay any price,” he said, reaching for his checkbook.
I wanted to work with him more so I gave him a reasonable price and told him I would be back. I would have plenty more paintings to share with him. All with similar subject matter.
The thought had occurred to me that I needed to do a series of paintings focusing on Charon. But that would require a lot more paint.
A couple more gallons would suffice, I told myself. So I ordered my supplies and within a week I had another large batch of grurple made up.
My next paintings were similar to the first. I rarely slept or ate anymore, I just worked in my studio non-stop. The pounds were shedding from me and I needed to make new notches on my belt pretty soon just to keep my pants up.
The only thing that seemed important was painting.
Until I called the gallery and heard the news.
It turned out the owner of the place who had bought my painting of Charon was dead. He had committed suicide. He had stopped leaving his house, becoming more and more isolated and catatonic, doing nothing but staring at the painting. Until one day he had slit his wrists in front of it. He positioned furniture to lean against so that he could die while sitting up, admiring it.
Green and purple, purple and green. Life and death, death and life.
I thought about this more and more after that. It’s hard to want to paint when you know that your work will kill someone. Maybe not everyone, but those who can truly see what lies beneath the colours, what glimmers back in the reflections.
I'm afraid of what this has caused, what my work has brought about. Terrified of what will come of it. But part of me still seems intent on showing it to others.
Do you want to see a sample of my work?
TCC

There's 2 types of malfeasance going on:

1. Directly illegal actions - like spoofing & insider trading.
2. Technically legal actions that are still part of a larger fraudulent system, that implicitly encourage #1

News flash - our entire system is built on corruption & theft, and so fighting illegal actions will not have a longstanding impact. It's not just the US, but the entire civilized world. Silver may reach true price discovery before a system collapse, but it's important to understand why its price is in the current situation, and how that is tied into the larger context.
An example of 1) would be J.P. Morgan settles spoofing lawsuit alleging fraud in metals trades (cnbc.com) . The article plainly states that the accused says his supervisors understood & consented to his actions. Someone like Jeff Christian I suppose would argue that this kind of behavior isn't widespread enough to suppress the overall price of silver for a long period of time. I think that is naïve - but part of the reason people like him can't see systemic abuse is because they refuse to accept 2) or are part of that very system themselves.
In short, for 2) the entire system is fraudulent because all over the place you have overly complex, non-transparent monetary systems controlled by a very few who are in league with government (fascism), and who utilize tools of fake IOU value to enrich themselves.
This sounds conspiratorial, but it's really quite simple:

• It all starts at the top. The Fed allows govt to spend more than they have - thereby stealing value from the public & distributing it to whom the govt sees fit (same applies for any other central bank). To do this, they use papedigital money with no value. They also interfere in private markets - thereby bestowing favor on their chosen and screwing over everyone else. The Fed is like the bad parent that can't hold their kids accountable because they are just as guilty of the same bad behavior.
• Banks lend more than they have, so they can get rich off interest fast. As a consequence what the unsuspecting public sees as monetary units in their bank account, are really just IOUs from that bank to the person
• It's even in stocks! People are all the time issued fake IOU stocks because the broker doesn't actually have the stocks. The public has no idea or way of knowing. They're supposed to replace these within days, but often don't and it becomes an FTD. (3) Failure To Deliver (FTD) - Where are the stocks? - YouTube Institutions with power to control this process can theoretically flood the system with FTDs, pumping the supply with fake units so much that the price crashes ...and in the process kill companies.
• With all that in mind, it is not surprising that bullion banks might fudge their numbers, or that the COMEX and LBMA sell more paper silver contracts than what they have in physical inventory. People like Jeff Christian are not scandalized by this because to them that's just the way the system works - it's all part of the plan.

The plan theoretically helps the public in the following ways:

• Fed allows govt to spend on "important" programs and "unavoidable" wars & conflict.
• By using bank accounts & checkbooks, large transactions are made easy and your money is kept "safe". Loaning more than they have also supercharges economic growth (at what cost???)
• So many transactions occur on the stock exchange it's impossible to fulfill them all at once - IOUs allow exchanges to happen fluidly with a "short" delay at fulfillment (btw this is now a completely invalid use case with the internet)
• Paper silver allows orders to be placed for the future, even if inventory not available yet, and allows investment to be placed early with supply ramping up to meet it over time.

The problem is a small lie begets a big lie - especially when those with power don't have to be transparent, and have the force of government to back them up. All the above reasons naturally devolve into malicious manipulation. The whole system must fall apart.
This is why physical silver is important in the larger scheme of things - it is the people's money. Used correctly as money, it serves the public - those who earned it - and no one else.
This is not just a problem in the US - it's every nation with a Central bank. The US is perhaps more guilty in some ways than others - only because we have wielded so much world power since the close of WWII. Luckily the US does have the advantage of the Constitution - the supreme law of the land -which already makes a lot of this activity illegal when interpreted correctly. So for us the path is returning to our foundations rather than inventing something new.

Took a while to make this. No scares, just a fun headcanon-filled Wikipedia article I made. Can you find all the easter eggs?
William Charles Afton (Born December 19th, 1944 - disappeared August 3rd, 1996, declared dead September 15th, 1999) was an England-born inventor, engineer, businessman, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the robotics field and the children’s entertainment industry, Afton contributed heavily to the advancement of animatronic design and the founding of Fazbear Entertainment, a corporation (and later media conglomerate) specializing in children’s entertainment and animatronics. Afton also founded the titular company Afton Robotics, an animatronic manufacturer well known for producing and supplying animatronic characters for restaurants like Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza before filing for bankruptcy in 2005.
Born in Manchester, England, Afton studied robotics engineering for most of the 1960s, receiving a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 1974. After his emigration to the United States of America in 1978, Afton established Fredbear’s Family Diner with business partner and personal friend Henry Emily, working directly with Emily as owner of the establishment until stepping down in 1981, citing creative differences over Emily’s founding of Fazbear Entertainment, and founding Afton Robotics.
Afton received heavy publicity in 1983 when he was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder in June, after becoming a prime suspect of the investigation following the disappearance of 4 (possibly 5) children inside Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in Hurricane, Utah. A criminal trial followed soon after, but Afton was acquitted of all charges in July. Afton became the subject of more scrutiny in September 1984, when Afton Robotics’ highly-anticipated entertainment venue, Circus Baby’s Pizza World, was permanently shut down days before its grand opening; Afton Robotics issued an official statement citing gas leaks and dissatisfaction with its animatronic characters.
William Afton remained CEO of Afton Robotics until he was reported to have gone missing on August 3rd, 1996. Multiple suspects were questioned, including former business partner Henry Emily and Afton’s oldest son Michael, but the investigation was considered a dead end by the end of 1996, and Afton was declared dead on September 15th, 1999. Afton Robotics suffered a heavy loss in stocks following Afton’s disappearance, and later filed for bankruptcy in 2005.
Early life
William Afton was born in 1944 to Samantha and Kane Afton (a wealthy local judge) in West Manchester General Hospital in the city of the same name. William attended Wool Bonne Preparatory School - teachers described Afton as “pleasant” and “remarkable” - in an interview with local New Harmony news station Flash 58, Afton described his childhood in length.
“I wasn’t the nicest kid around. Bit of a spoiled brat, actually. I had friends… but it was always my studies I was concerned about. I think I was a bit of a prick when I was a kid. I remember chasing around some of the other kids, the younger ones, and I’d poke them and tease them and- well, kid things. I’d apologize to them now, but - heh, I don’t even remember their names.” -William Afton, August 10th, 1988, Flash 58 interviews Afton Robotics CEO.
Afton lived in Manchester until he moved to Liverpool in 1967. By 1974, Afton received a master’s degree from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
In 1967, Afton married local actress Jacqueline Hart. Together, they had three children: Michael Joseph Afton (1969-2024), Elizabeth Samantha Afton (1973-1984), and Cassidy Kane Afton (1977-1983). From 1974 to 1978, Afton worked at a local telecommunications company. According to Afton himself in an interview with HUTV News, he spent a substantial amount of this time attempting to finance his Springlock Mascot Suit Endo-00 design:
“Ah yes, the suits. I’ve always regretted those damned things [...] after I received my degree and I settled down with my wife in Liverpool, I’d finalized the design, or so I thought at the time, but I needed money. And times weren’t the best back then [...] no one was interested in it, for one. Said the animatronic stuff was a fad… plus they were just too dangerous. I’d never actually gotten to build the design until I collaborated with Henry, and I hadn’t noticed how dangerous they were until I saw them in person… even after that though, I suppose it wasn’t enough.” -William Afton, March 5th, 1988, HUTV News: Interview with Afton Robotics CEO: Circus Baby's Comeback.
Afton made plans to emigrate to the United States of America with his family after these attempts were rendered unsuccessful, though Afton never made a statement as to why. On February 7th, 1978, Afton’s wife Jacqueline was reported dead. Coroners ruled the cause of death as a pulmonary embolism. Later that year in April, William and his three children emigrated to the USA, moving to New Harmony, Utah.
Career with Fazbear Entertainment
Not much is known about Afton’s life in America before founding Fredbear’s Family Diner with fellow entrepreneur Henry Emily in New Harmony, Utah. An excerpt from the diner’s “Welcome board” reads as follows:
“MEET FREDBEAR AND SPRINGBONNIE’S GREATEST FRIENDS! Henry Emily and William Afton have worked hard to bring the greatest in entertainment right to the doorstep of New Harmony. It was not so long ago when Henry and his friend Fredbear were looking for fellow band members - what a surprise it was for them when William Afton and great friend Springbonnie, also looking for work and companionship, met them and devised the unforgettable and affordable experience you’re in RIGHT NOW! You can always catch Henry Emily introducing the bear-and-bunny duo on Saturday nights, and William Afton is always hard at work sending out letters for any furry friends who wish to join them on their adventure.” -Welcome board for Fredbear’s Family Diner, New Harmony, Utah, observed in 1979.
Afton was historically outspoken as to the mutual understanding of his partnership with Emily, stating in a press release in 1981 that Emily “took [his] fantasies and allowed [him] to make them reality.” The official design for Afton’s Springlock Mascot Suit Endo-01 was filed and patented in June 1978, with two versions being manufactured by Afton and Emily themselves; the RXP-001 and RXQ-001 models, to be used as bases for characters later officially named Fredbear and Springbonnie. (See list of Fazbear Entertainment mascots and characters for more info.) Fredbear’s Family Diner officially opened to the public on August 13th, 1978, immediately becoming a local sensation in New Harmony.
At the time, the Springlock Mascot Suit Endo-01 design was considered revolutionary in the field of robotics, and paved the way for animatronic design in the future. The original Endo-00 design was meant to serve the dual purpose of a mascot suit to be worn by a human operator that could also be shifted into an "animatronic mode" - blueprint designs of the Endo-00 design released by Afton Robotics in 1985 noted how iron springlocks lined around the inside of the suit could be manually adjusted to allow for the pieces of the animatronic endoskeleton to detach and compress into the lining of the outer casing to allow for use as a suit. The Endo-00 design was never properly manufactured; when the Endo-01 design was finalized and the RXP-001 and RXQ-001 models were built by Emily and Afton, the transition process from "suit" to "animatronic" mode was simplified by allowing the operator to use a metal crank (inserted into various slots of the suit) to adjust the springlocks without needing to open the suit. In "animatronic" mode, the Endo-01 design was capable of fully simulated head, torso, and arm movement. The two Springlock Mascot Suit -01 models were regularly used by Fredbear's Family Diner for several years until 1983.
Establishing Afton Robotics
In January 1981, Fazbear Entertainment was established by Emily and plans to expand the Fazbear franchise surfaced - by 1982, Fredbear's Family Diner regularly advertised and promoted Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a new restaurant set for opening in 1983 in the neighboring city of Hurricane, Utah. Afton Robotics was founded later in February, and William Afton stepped down from management of Fredbear's Family Diner. In an issue of The Daily Duck, New Harmony's local newspaper, Fazbear Entertainment issued a public statement:
"Don't worry, folks! Here at Fazbear Entertainment we pride ourselves on transparency and familiarity. We have good news and bad news. The bad news is: our dear friend William Afton will be officially leaving the Fredbear family as of February 14th. The good news is: Afton's dear work has paid off, and we will still be in contact with him! After over a year of searching, thanks to Afton's help, we have found a merry band of four furry friends looking for the perfect stage to test their skills… and entertain some kids along the way! William and his new friends over at Afton Robotics are working very hard to bring these new friends to you, so please be patient. If you have any questions, be sure to contact our customer support number - or, if you're already here, why not ask Fredbear himself at Fredbear's Family Diner?" -Fazbear Entertainment Public Statement, The Daily Duck, February 7th 1981 issue.
In March 1981, a patent was filed by Afton Robotics for the Mascot Endo-X, a modification of the Springlock Mascot Suit Endo-01 design that removed "suit mode" features and expanded on motion capabilities and durability. Experts were initially sceptical of the Mascot Endo-X design, labelling the added motion capabilities (such as walking and crouching) to be "ludicrous" and "far-fetched" - in response to this criticism, Afton held a short presentation in Salt Lake City, showcasing a prototype base Endo-X model, featuring precision joints in hands for advanced finger movement, installable balance actuators for torso and limbs, magnetic on/off panels on bottoms of feet to ground endoskeleton, and other features not seen in marketed robotics at the time. Also presented were five additional Endo-X designs with individual features:
FF-1: Advanced speakers placed inside the torso to simulate speaking and singing; music box synthesizer module inside chest.
BB-1: Authentic guitar with simulated song speaker; simulated LED eye color capable of cycling through multiple colors.
CC-1: Intended to hold a smaller mechanical object capable of blinking and "laughing", held snug onto hand via magnets.
FP-1: Individually moving eyepatch; advanced arm and leg movement to enable "peeking".
SP-1: Frequency inspection system; sound familiarity and recognition; capable of sounding alarms and alerting staff via sound plugin connected to mainframe.
Few information was given on the characters the models would be used for until 1982 when Fazbear Entertainment held its own press conference revealing its partnership with Afton Robotics and identifying the characters as Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie the Bunny, Chica Chicken, and Foxy the Pirate, to be used in the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant. Of particular interest to shareholders and news reporters during the Afton Robotics presentation was the SP-1 model, later officially named Marionette by Fazbear Entertainment; Afton himself coined it to be a "security guard", capable of identifying objects and persons using security tags embedded in bracelets.
This presentation was a turning point for Afton's career and the future of Afton Robotics. Quarterly stocks raised exponentially; various children's entertainment venues such as Melody Way Inc. reportedly underwent production contracts with Afton Robotics. However, at this point in time, Afton was adamant to press that his highest priority was the company's contract with Fazbear Entertainment. While the company produced several animatronic characters for various venues (see list of Afton Robotics contracts and publishers for more info), Afton Robotics gained the majority of its fortune and reputation through its dealings with Fazbear Entertainment.
In April 1981, Afton Robotics bought a large automobile factory in New Harmony, Utah, at the time owned by automaker company Hadcappe. This factory would become the main headquarters of Afton Robotics over time, and one of three Afton Robotics factories in the Midwest dedicated to animatronic development and production. The New Harmony facility was unique from its sister locations in how Afton Robotics excavated underground to increase storage size and plans - it would later be officially named Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental after Afton Robotics’ fallout with Fazbear Entertainment in 1988.
Safety inspections and controversy
The first of many controversies to plague William Afton struck in February 1983 following the death of Charlotte Lorraine Emily, the seven-year old daughter of Henry Emily, who was found dead in an alley behind Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Eyewitness reports were few and far between - parents claimed that Emily’s daughter had been playing with several other children in the Marionette character's “play zone” when she was reportedly locked outside, then found dead in the alley by her father upon closing.
Several shareholders of Afton Robotics criticized the SP-001 (“Marionette”) model for its inability to prevent Charlotte Emily’s death - members of the press questioned Afton as to possible exaggeration of the SP-001 model’s abilities. Camera footage showed that the Marionette animatronic was inside its “home box” when Emily was locked outside, and failed to follow her until she had already died, decommissioning itself in the process due to the heavy rain. This behavior was not indicative of the behavior Afton had previously promised of the SP-001 model, and market interest in the model fell dramatically until Afton Robotics finally stopped selling the animatronic model later that year. Fazbear Entertainment’s CEO Henry Emily also stepped down less than a week after the incident occurred.
Following the opening of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in January 1983, additional RXP-001 and RXQ-001 Springlock Mascot Suit Endo-01 models were built as backup mascots for the location - Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza was well known for hosting “guest parties” for special occasions featuring the Fredbear and Springbonnie characters using these suits. Following Henry Emily’s official stepping down from CEO of Fazbear Entertainment in February 1983, the company began plans to expand with more Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza locations across America, particularly focusing on the Midwest.
Afton himself also worked directly with the management of the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in Hurricane, Utah on occasion, working as a technician and training employees on proper usage of the suits. Afton recounted his experience in an issue of People Magazine released on November 25th, 1987:
“Well, Henry was gone by that point, yes, but I felt a responsibility to keep his legacy safe, and those suits weren’t safe if they weren’t handled properly… as you can tell. Henry had hired people who were damn good at entertaining children and upholding a safe environment, yes, but when it came to experience with the animatronics and the suits, they were lacking. Really, I was only there to educate them on the suits and keep them aware of the risks and how to mitigate them… Luckily Franklin followed my advice and hired Jonathan, and soon my help wasn’t needed.” -William Afton, November 25th, 1987, Afton Robotics CEO addresses controversy. * Franklin Scott was the CEO of Fazbear Entertainment following Emily’s leave. **Jonathan Sordic was an Afton Robotics specialist hired by Fazbear Entertainment in late February 1983 to train fellow staff on usage of the Endo-01 suits, later promoted to management in 1985.
Afton’s Endo-01 design was officially recalled in March 1983 after Fazbear Entertainment staff member Craig Morgan died of exsanguination while wearing the RXP-001 (“Fredbear”) mascot suit at Fredbear’s Family Diner - witness reports and coroner records detailed that the suit suffered a critical springlock failure when Morgan bumped into a table, tripped, and fell onto the floor - multiple children in the diner witnessed a piece of the endoskeleton spine snap into place, eviscerating Morgan’s back. Staff carried Morgan into the building’s “safe room” (see List of Fazbear Entertainment controversies and allegations for more info) where additional springlocks in the leg, arm, and facial regions suffered critical failure as well, resulting in Morgan’s death.
Both Afton Robotics and Fazbear Entertainment received heavy backlash and controversy for this event. Fredbear’s Family Diner’s popularity dwindled (though it still remained open until August 1983), and Afton Robotics stock suffered dramatically as buyers and entertainment venues began to lose faith in the safety of Afton Robotics brand machines. Afton Robotics began plans to manufacture a Springlock Mascot Suit Endo-02 model shortly after this, and it was successfully released in July 1983, though Fazbear Entertainment is the only known company to purchase these models.
Criminal investigation
On June 26th, 1983, two children were observed at the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in Hurricane, Utah to have walked into the building’s Parts and Service room near the end of the day, and did not return; one of these children was unable to be identified, but the other was successfully identified as Fritz Lawrence, a seven year old boy. Fazbear Entertainment officials collaborated with Hurricane law enforcement (leading detective Grant Ross) and found that three more children had been reported missing: Susanne Reynolds, Jeremy Davidson, and Gabriel West. Fritz’s father Jack Lawrence testified that he had noticed one of the mascots, Fredbear, standing inside the Parts and Service room, making strange gestures towards some of the children.
William Afton was arrested in his home the following morning and charged with four counts of first-degree murder; det. Grant Ross noted Afton as one of the only staff at the time not attending a performance being given in the main showroom at the time, as well as his familiarity with the Endo-01 models, which had been decommissioned in preparation for their recall and replacement with the Endo-02 models.
A lengthy court process ensued, lasting roughly a month until July 28th when Afton was acquitted of all charges by jurisdiction, citing lack of evidence - prosecution failed to provide evidence of Afton’s involvement in the disappearance of the 5 missing children, as well as any DNA evidence. Afton Robotics representative Markus Flechman issued a public statement on August 1st:
“These harrowing allegations have shocked the Afton Robotics family to its core. Our fundamental existence as a corporate entity is to enrich the lives of children all around the world - never could we have imagined that William could be accused of such a thing, and we’re glad to finally see the end of this awful process. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims of this terrible crime. We hope you find justice someday.” -Markus Flechman, August 1st, Afton Robotics Public Statement.
Over the course of the next decade, Afton Robotics made several hefty donations (some as high as $500,000; see Afton Robotics page for more info) to various children’s centers, homeless shelters, and mental wellness centers in Utah and its surrounding counties and states.
Circus Baby announcement and cancellation
Soon after his son Cassidy’s death (see Fredbear’s Family Diner page for more info) and the subsequent closing of Fredbear’s Family Diner in August 1983, Afton held another presentation in Salt Lake City to discuss the future of Afton Robotics and its relationship with Fazbear Entertainment.
“[...] While the nature of our relationship may change over the course of the next decade, Afton Robotics will continue to fulfill its manufacturing partnership with Fazbear Entertainment. However, we have some new plans in store, as we’ll be showing you today. [...] I’ve come a long way since ‘79 when I first came here to America. I’ve gained much... I’ve lost even more. Today I am here to show you the future of children’s entertainment - what my son would’ve wanted.” -William Afton, August 31st, 1983, Future of Entertainment Presentation.
This presentation was yet another turning point for Afton Robotics. Members of the press were amazed by the newest creation of Afton's at the time - the Mascot Superior Endo-Z, or as Afton coined it, the Funtime Friend. Unlike Afton's Mascot Endo-X presentation which was remarkably secretive as to the nature of the presented characters, Afton gave names and backstory on the two models that were showcased on August 31st:
CB-423-01-P: Came with several tools installed into the endoskeleton for use in performance. Capable of inflating balloons manually through built-in helium tanks, housed an ice-cream receptacle in its stomach, which could be dispensed through the front; simulated voice capable of playing back thousands of pre-determined words as chosen by the operator during initial setup. Resembled a large female clown; officially named “Circus Baby”.
BA-424-01-P: Highly advanced balance actuators built into the legs, torso and arms. Model was capable of synchronized, determined movement, performing a spin and bow on-stage. Included music box synthesizer allowing the operator to import pre-determined songs. Model was compared heavily to FF-01 and FP-01 models of the Endo-X. Resembled an adult ballerina; officially named “Ballora”.
This presentation made way for the announcement of Afton Robotics' intended landmark location, Circus Baby’s Pizza World. During the presentation, particularly answering one newscaster’s question as to if Circus Baby’s Pizza World was intended to be a competitor to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and other children's entertainment venue and restaurants, Afton stressed that the Circus Baby venue was intended to be something else entirely:
"Yes, go ahead. [...] No, actually. Circus Baby's Pizza World is far different from Fazbear Entertainment's venues. For one - and this may be a disappointment for some of you - only one Circus Baby location is planned, here in Salt Lake City. I would advise you and your children not to think of Circus Baby's Pizza World as a restaurant chain - think of it more as… almost like a theme park, in a way. Plenty of activities are planned, far beyond something a normal restaurant could provide - dance lessons from our friend Ballora here, play performances, games like hide and seek with some future models we can't show just yet. Costs for consumers will be higher, but I can assure you, this venture of Afton Robotics is more than just a 'pizza place'." -William Afton, August 31st, 1983, Future of Entertainment Presentation.
Circus Baby’s Pizza World was advertised soon after this presentation with a grand opening release date of September 11th, 1984. Starting in March 1984, two additional characters were advertised alongside Circus Baby and Ballora; “Funtime Freddy” and “Funtime Foxy”, similar models to the Freddy Fazbear and Foxy the Pirate characters. Fazbear Entertainment made no statement as to the similarity between the two Funtime characters and their own.
However, Circus Baby’s Pizza World was shut down days before its expected grand opening. On September 8th 1984, Afton Robotics held a limited “test run”, inviting 10 select families from Salt Lake City and surrounding counties to attend the venue and partake in activities with the four animatronic characters - this event lasted approximately three hours before the building was evacuated by Afton Robotics employees. Witnesses surrounding the property reported that large vans stopped at the location, and various staff packed nearly everything in the building overnight. Afton Robotics later held a meeting with press, where William Afton explained that the grand opening had been cancelled due to reported gas leaks in the building, as well as “results from the test run showed [us] that [we] have a lot to improve before we can introduce Circus Baby and her friends to the world.” On September 10th, Afton's daughter Elizabeth was reported dead by drowning in an apparent freak accident in their family pool; it is unknown if this event contributed to Afton's unwillingness to open Circus Baby's Pizza World.
The cancelling of Circus Baby’s Pizza World remained a controversial topic in select communities for years. Financial records released after Afton Robotics' bankruptcy in 2005 revealed that in 1985 plans for a buyout by Fazbear Entertainment were formulated, but fell through before any substantial progress was made. Numerous conspiracy theories resulted from Circus Baby's Pizza World's closure, including the theory that Fazbear Entertainment blackmailed Afton to force its closure; Markus Flechman commented on theories such as this in a November issue of Afton Robotics newsletter Screws, Bolts, and Hairpins:
"I don't blame them for trying to rationalize it. We're distraught by this development as well. I can't tell you how excited my children were to meet Circus Baby and her friends. That being said, take my word for it: there is no secret reason for the cancellation. No one forced our hand, least of all Fazbear Entertainment. The cancellation of Circus Baby's Pizza World was an unfortunate result of gas leaks and subpar quality of the location and attractions." -Markus Flechman, November 2nd, 1984, Screws, Bolts, and Hairpins Issue #78.
Before and after the cancellation of Circus Baby’s Pizza World, Afton Robotics remained on pleasant terms with Fazbear Entertainment, producing several animatronic models and characters for various locations, including spinoff locations such as the short-lived “Bonnie’s Arcade Bash” based in Destin, Florida, or “Chica’s Party World” based in Branson, Missouri. Fazbear Entertainment’s dwindling stock numbers at the time (partially due to backlash from their handling of Hurricane’s 1983 “missing children incident”) negatively affected Afton Robotics as well - in March 1985 Afton Robotics began development of devices aside from animatronics, including intercom systems, CCTV systems, and home computers.
Endo-X2 recall and fallout with Fazbear Entertainment
William Afton became reclusive after the cancellation of Circus Baby’s Pizza World. He was notably absent from most Afton Robotics press releases, shareholder meetings, and news interviews from 1985-1988, opting instead for representatives to attend public meetings in his place. Little information on Afton’s personal life from 1985-1996 is available - eldest son Michael Afton testified during the investigation of Afton’s disappearance that his father spent most of his time “holed up” inside the New Harmony Afton Robotics facility.
In response to decreasing profits and consumer interest, Fazbear Entertainment announced a “new and improved” Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza based in Hurricane, Utah in September 1986. Coinciding with this was another patent filed by Afton Robotics: the Mascot Endo-X2, a modified version of the Mascot Endo-X model that sported the ability to connect to wireless networks; this was done via a prototype version of Afton Robotics’ AltoNET, a short-lived wireless network product family that would later be edged out by standard Wi-Fi products. These models would later be revealed to be the bases for the “new generation” of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza’s animatronic characters - A total of five Mascot Endo-X2 models were used in Hurricane’s 1987 Freddy Fazbear’s, being the four core Fazbear characters and a new character named “Balloon Boy”. Endo-X2s were also shortly used in other locations, including Chica’s Party World.
Fazbear Entertainment’s marketing campaign for this location placed substantial focus on Afton Robotics’ involvement with the new animatronic characters, as well as the apparent safety of the new animatronic models. Fazbear Entertainment claimed that the Endo-X2 models used in this location utilized AltoNET and facial recognition software to recognize criminals, namely murderers, abusers, and sex offenders - however, the Endo-X2 models used in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza were decommissioned before these claims could be verified. On October 24th, 1987, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza opened in Hurricane, Utah with these new animatronic models, and Afton Robotics gave its regards in an issue of Screws, Bolts, and Hairpins:
“We give our wholehearted congratulations to our friends at Fazbear Entertainment for what looks to be an amazing chapter in the story of childhood fun. Any fans of our unreleased Funtime animatronics will be delighted to see what Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza has in store for the residents of Hurricane - our new Toy line of Fazbear animatronics will surely make any engineering aficionado gasp and cry for more.” -Excerpt from “Mascot Endo-X spotlight”, October 25th, 1987, Screws, Bolts, and Hairpins Issue
Afton Robotics fell under heavy backlash once again after Fazbear Entertainment staff member Jeremy Fitzgerald was gravely injured by a malfunctioning Endo-X2 model animatronic on November 14th 1987 during the venue's final private birthday party. (The location was planned to be shut down later that day; see 1987 Night Guard murders page for more info.) The animatronic in question, FF-02, officially named “Funtime Foxy” (not to be confused with Circus Baby’s Pizza World model FF-426-01-P, also named “Funtime Foxy”) had reportedly lunged at Fitzgerald, pushing him down and biting into his forehead. The following lawsuit (see Fitzgerald Family v. Fazbear Entertainment page for more info) cost Fazbear Entertainment roughly $2,000,000 in settlement charges, and Afton Robotics was forced to recall the Mascot Endo-X2 from all locations.
This financial blow - combined with the recent murder of five teenagers inside Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza earlier that week - crippled Fazbear Entertainment’s reputation within Hurricane and the wider children’s entertainment industry, a setback they would not fully recover from until the late 2010s. Former Fazbear Entertainment insiders interviewed in the 2012 documentary The Death of Innocence testified that this is when tensions began to flare between Fazbear Entertainment and Afton Robotics:
“It was- it was ugly, to say the least. Jonathan - God rest his soul - was heartbroken. Said he’d really liked Jeremy, called him a good friend [...] Upper management was fuming. N-no, not at us... at the manufacturers. I was there for some of the meetings. Franklin Scott practically had smoke coming out his ears. He’d practically scream at the AR representatives, tell them he wants to see their boss, and every time they’d give him the same answer: ‘We’re sorry, but William Afton is not available at the moment.’” -Anonymous former FE staff, 2012 documentary The Death of Innocence. *Note: Jonathan Sordic was a member of management at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza at the time; employed with Fazbear Entertainment until reported missing in 1993.
By December 1987, Fazbear Entertainment publicly announced that it would be cutting ties with Afton Robotics and manufacture its own animatronics, citing dissatisfaction with the safety protocols of the Afton Robotics brand.
Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental
After the announcement of a "repurposed" Freddy Fazbear's Pizza location in late January 1988, again in Hurricane, Utah, Afton revealed a "surprise" presentation on February 8th 1988, inviting members of the media and select families in Utah on a tour of their main headquarters in New Harmony, Utah. Afton Robotics heavily advertised this presentation in Screws, Bolts, and Hairpins, claiming that "this presentation [would] be everything a fan of robotics could possibly want, and more".
This tour was held on February 15th 1988 and televised across multiple news stations, both in Utah and across America - Afton Robotics Exclusive Tour and Announcement remained the highest watched news story in Utah in 1988, according to local Utah television networks. This tour served as the announcement for Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, a self-proclaimed "rental service and party center" featuring the previously unreleased Funtime Friend animatronics. Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental was primarily hosted and managed in a newly-excavated basement level under the factory. Afton explained the services of the newly announced venue at the midway point of the tour:
"Behind me you can see the main stage of the Funtime Auditorium. I wanted to show you all this room in particular, because I feel it perfectly encapsulates what Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental is all about. Rather than force costly ventures on our consumers, we have decided: why not bring Circus Baby and her friends to you? These state-of-the-art Funtime models, revamped and improved for the age of tomorrow, can be rented out for whatever events you choose. Birthday parties, weddings, graduation ceremonies... we can even host your events right here in the Funtime Auditorium, or next door’s Ballora Gallery. We weren’t quite ready to introduce these animatronics nearly four years ago - but right now they’re ready to sing, dance, teach, and act for your children. Are there any questions? Yes, you. [...] Yes, you’ve heard me correctly. Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental is open right now, or to be more precise, starting midnight tonight. Be ready to get out those checkbooks, friends - you’ll need them." -William Afton, February 15th 1988, Afton Robotics Exclusive Tour and Announcement.
Afton Robotics profits rose exponentially after this presentation and throughout 1988. After Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental's official opening on February 16th, the Mascot Superior Endo-Z models hosted by the venue were purportedly rented out over 3000 times between 1988-1991 (accounting for individual rentals).
Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental briefly became the subject of an OSHA investigation after Afton Robotics employee Brendon Wu purportedly suffocated inside one of the ventilation chambers inside the facility - the investigation began late November 1999, but ultimately went nowhere as the venue permanently shut down before the investigation could be finalized.
Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental would remain open until October 2nd 1999, when executive director Bradley Cox reported that nearly every Mascot Superior Endo-Z model on the premises had disappeared overnight, along with junior technicians Jim Bristol and Alex Barnes. Multiple suspects were questioned, including William Afton's eldest son Michael, who had recently been hired as a junior technician and finished his first work week the night before Cox reported the technicians and machinery missing. Investigations reached a dead end and no one was charged. Bristol and Barnes were declared dead later that month on the 29th, and no trace of the Endo-Z models were found until more than two decades later - after the suspected arson attack on Freddy Fazbear's Deluxe Pizzeria on March 7th 2024 (see Freddy Fazbear’s Deluxe Pizzeria fire page for more info) various animatronic parts were found in the aftermath that matched Afton Robotics blueprints for CB-423-01-P ("Circus Baby"). Fazbear Entertainment gave no statement on this development.
Disappearance
On August 3rd 1996, William Afton was declared missing by Afton Robotics representative Devon Leighton, who had arrived at Afton's home - Leighton testified that Afton had not shown up at the Afton Robotics headquarters in New Harmony for a week. Investigators initially surmised that Afton could have fled the state for an unknown reason, but this hypothesis was never verified. Multiple individuals were contacted and interviewed to ascertain a lead as to Afton’s whereabouts, including Franklin Scott, Henry Emily, and Michael Afton. Michael Afton was initially considered as a prime suspect for William’s disappearance, but interviews with Michael and other individuals close to William Afton yielded no leads or results.
On September 15th 1999, Afton was declared dead and the investigation into his disappearance was closed. Afton Robotics suffered heavily after Afton disappeared; In January 1997 Benjamin Ashford replaced Afton as CEO of Afton Robotics. After Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental’s closure in October 1999, Afton Robotics stock and profit took a substantial hit. By the early 2000s, Afton Robotics’ grip over the animatronic industry was far lessened as companies like Smiles and Servos began to thrive. By 2005, Afton Robotics filed for bankruptcy; its facilities in Fort Worth, TX, Winona, MN, and New Harmony, UT were all rendered condemned until Fazbear Entertainment acquired all Afton Robotics assets in 2021.
Legacy
Afton’s legacy remained apparent in the robotics field and wider children’s entertainment industry for years. In New Harmony, UT, a memorial for Afton was built in 2002 - a plaque adorned with the following quote:
“There is nothing more beautiful than the laugh of a child.” -William Afton Memorial Plaque, New Harmony, Utah, observed in 2003.
Afton’s inventions and models built under Afton Robotics, while obsolete as of 2006, featured design philosophies and architectures still adopted today by robotics companies and manufacturers. After Fazbear Entertainment’s absorption of all Afton Robotics assets in 2021 and their subsequent rise in popularity in 2025, their website (fazbearentertainment.org) was updated to include a section dedicated to William Afton’s contributions to the children’s entertainment industry and “how his designs have influenced the upcoming Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience.”