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2024.05.19 16:47 -braminha- Seeking Advice: Overcoming Challenges as a New Product Manager in a Multinational Corporation
I am 25 years old and became a Product Manager (PM) one year ago. I work for a traditional multinational corporation that started its digitalization process late. I lead a squad that develops machine learning models to prioritize which SKUs we should promote in each point of sale (we have over 200 SKUs and around 1 million points of sale).
I am facing several challenges and would appreciate your advice on how to navigate them:
submitted by -braminha- to ProductManagement [link] [comments]
I am facing several challenges and would appreciate your advice on how to navigate them:
- Lack of Technical Background: I graduated in Business Administration and had no prior knowledge of machine learning, AI, or software products. I was placed in this position, thinking it would be good for my career. However, I struggle daily to learn everything I need while managing the squad's operations. I rely heavily on my development team and don't feel like I contribute meaningfully to discussions. I don't feel ownership over our products.
- Overwhelming Workload: I manage a team of seven developers and oversee seven major products. The constant context switching is overwhelming, and management continuously pushes for the development of new products. My team and I deliver results, but we work long hours and experience high stress levels.
2024.05.19 16:46 E_Latimer The old lady in the Bodega isn’t what she seems.
I think a lot about signals. Signals that show people what groups they belong to. Signals that hide the truth. Everybody uses signals to blend, entice, or trap.
Grandma Pearl died not long after her stroke, and I've been making bad decisions ever since. Maybe my expectations are too high, or I'm just an idiot. Either way, I ran away from the group home to be with people who called themselves my "family." They were the wrong people. They used the words family, brother, sister, and love like lock picks, stealing trust, and taking self-respect.
The only person I remember using the word family correctly was Grandma Pearl. She was a small woman who toured the US as an actress before settling with Granddad above their theatrical rentals shop. I was three when the car accident took Granddad and Mom, so I don't know if they used the word "family" correctly, but I hope they did.
I was never as outgoing as Grandma, but that didn't bother her; she taught me how to watch people. How to see their signals, and how to listen. When she died. I forgot a lot of those lessons for a while.
They called it a "family". The "family" moved product. That product could be goods, drugs, or people.
The uninitiated, like me, were distracted with food and a dry place to sleep, but it didn't take long to see behind the curtain. Things got too intense with the new "family" and I ran.
I ran back to my old neighborhood. The buildings were familiar even if my home was gone. The old theatrical shop had been turned into a microbrewery.
After an appropriate amount of self-pity, thirty minutes, I wandered the alleys, picking up cans or scavenging for bits and pieces that could be recycled, used, or bartered.
I recognized old faces, but I tried to stay out of sight. It was safer that way.
The only place I allowed myself to be seen was the old Lutheran church on the park's far side. Most people who might have known me had aged out of the congregation or died. It was worth the risk because St. Lazarus had a food pantry in the basement and gave out lunches most days, so I wasn't always hungry, which was nice.
I found a dry spot near the library to sleep, which seemed like a stroke of luck until it wasn't.
I had the contentment that came with being in a familiar place. Little bits of comfort let me believe, for a moment, that I wasn't a screw-up and hadn't trusted the wrong people. That moment scurried away when Stick found me.
Stick was a scary asshole. He technically wasn't in charge of the " family," but he made it work. He got things done. I have no idea how old he was. He was all corded muscle and could clock in between twenty and fifty. He looked half-starved and moved like a stalking predator, even with his limp.
His left leg was stiff. The knee didn't bend, and anytime he sat, his left leg would be splayed to the side like a kickstand on a bike. The leg was why he walked with a cane. The cane and how he used it was why we called him Stick.
I don't know why he took the time to track me down. It's not like I was wanted. Maybe it was that I had become property. Property shouldn't just wander off.
Sometimes, you feel a person before you see them. The air is different. When Stick was around, the air felt dead and motionless. I knew I was being watched before I opened my eyes.
Stick was sitting on a milk crate, his bad leg cocked to the side and his forehead resting on his cane. I pushed myself out from beneath the ductwork of the HVAC unit I had been sleeping under and slapped the dirt off my jeans.
"I thought that was you," Stick said as his sharp grin curved up to his unblinking dark eyes.
Stick wanted my discomfort. I'd seen him play the intimidation game too many times. He'd act too friendly, and then when you were good and worried, quick movements, a hand around the back of your neck, and violence would be next. Then he'd act like the whole mind fuck was a big joke, like you were friends, and isn't it great that you can joke around with someone who "really" cared.
It worked, too. If you were the unfortunate focus of Stick's attention, you would be grateful when he smiled and said, "Just a joke, kid. Don't be so sensitive." I'd seen the pattern enough times to know Stick trained people like dogs with his hot and cold game. I didn't like the game, or the fear, so I changed the pattern.
"Hey, Stick, did you come to help pick up cans?" I asked, making sure my smile reached my eyes. I was trying to be pleasant while ignoring the burning nervousness in my gut.
It was still dark out, but I could see Stick's expressions well enough.
Stick tapped his cane on the sidewalk and squinted at me skeptically before answering. "Just checking on my little brother."
We were not related.
Stick liked to call the uninitiated his little brothers or little sisters. He forced intimacy into his language. I didn't argue the point. Interactions went best with Stick when you agreed with everything he said.
"Thanks, man," I complimented, trying to sound genuine and ignorant as I stepped forward and offered him my hand.
Stick didn't move, but I could see that this conversation wasn't going as planned for him, and I forced myself not to react to his confusion. I couldn't break character, or he would know I was playing him.
Stick tapped his cane on the ground twice, grasped my hand, and stood. He watched me. I held his stare, but in an open, naive, guileless way that I had perfected in front of the mirror as grandma gave acting advice while she put her face on.
I once asked Grandma Perl why anyone would practice acting stupid. She pointed her mascara brush at me and, in her ditsiest Minnesota Nice character, said, "It's easier to be forgiven when people think you're a little dumb, don't ya know?" Like with most things, Grandma was right.
Before I understood what had happened, Stick pulled me into his side and slung an arm around my shoulder.
"You don't have a name yet. Everyone gets a name, but they don't get to pick it." He paused and gave me a Cheshire cat grin. "I have a name for you, little brother. You are going to be called Slide." Then he held my chin and forced eye contact." Your name will be Slide because I have never seen anyone slide out of shit faster than you. I can't tell if you do it on purpose or not, and I've been watching. I watch everybody. You do, too. Hell, this might be the first time I've ever heard you talk. So let's celebrate your name, Slide." Stick's smile slipped as he pulled me out of the alley. "We'll go do something special."
I stayed silent, knowing full well what was coming. Being named meant doing something you could never take back. It was public and would put you in prison if the police ever took the time to look for you. It meant severing yourself from your life before and relying entirely on the "family." I had been absent each time naming seemed to be in the cards, but I couldn't duck out this time.
There was only one place to go at this time of night that would have an impact, the Bodega.
The Bodega was a red hole in the wall with a glass door papered over with grocery ads years outdated. Canned salmon two for one seemed to be the dominant theme. Although there were two large windows, one on either side of the door, you could barely see in. The right window was a tapestry of cigarette promotions. The left window displayed the only swath of uncovered glass with a view of the interior. From the outside, the view was of tobacco, lottery scratchers, and Old Lady Imitari.
Old Lady Imitari owned the store. She was a short, dark-haired woman who always wore a long floral tank top. Grandma Pearl loved the old woman but said Imitari looked like an old man's thumb all the years she had known her, and Grandma moved to the neighborhood with Grandad thirty years ago. Imitari was a local legend even then because the Bodega was open twenty hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, and no one else worked in the store. Grandma used to make an extra strong coffee called Barako and chat with Imitari sometimes when work in the shop was slow.
I would sneak out at night and try to catch Imitari sleeping. No matter the time, I never caught her snoozing, and she always saw me peeking at her through the window. I know she saw me because she would uncross her arms and wave her flyswatter at me.
All these memories flicked through my mind as Stick smiled his too-wide smile and pushed me into the Bodega.
Imitari flicked her fly swatter at me in acknowledgment, and her attention returned to the small TV she had nestled beside the cash register, which seemed to be the old woman's only real tether to the world outside her shop.
The inside of the Bodega was just a long hallway with shelves of convenience foods, drinks, home supplies, candy, and cold meds covering every available surface from floor to ceiling. The only break in the tunnel of products was the glass counter at the back corner of the store; Imitari presided over her mini domain by casually ignoring her shoppers. I tried to make eye contact with the old woman again as Stick pushed me to the back of the shop, but after her initial acknowledgment of our entrance, Imitari's eyes stayed focused on her TV.
As casually confident as possible, I walked to the cooler and grabbed an iced tea. "Want a drink," I asked over my shoulder, my voice unusually steady, given the electric current of anxiety flowing through me.
Stick sneered and tapped his cane twice on the ground. His eyes found all the security cameras in the tiny store, a frown creasing his angular features.
I followed his line of sight and finally realized what had bothered him. The cameras were fake. They looked like security cameras, but they weren't. There were no wires or lenses, just rectangles and circles in a security camera shape.
Stick took a deep breath and tapped his cane on the ground again. " There… is … so… much… here… to… see… but… no… one… is… watching," he said with a singsong. Then his sneer turned into a cruel smile.
I knew Stick wanted an audience for what he would force me to do. The fact that the security cameras were fakes meant that whatever was going to happen would now have to be significant. An event that the neighborhood wouldn't be able to ignore. My stomach twisted with the thought.
Stick waggled his eyebrows at me. He had been watching. He had seen my thoughts, and we both knew he had something terrible in mind.
The cane twirled in Stick's hand and then tapped twice on the shop tile.
"I think I want a little bit of this," Stick said, gesturing wildly with his cane, sending a row of soup cans tumbling to the floor. "And a little bit of that," Stick added as another wild gesture sent cups of ramen spinning and knocking glass bottles of hot sauce to the floor.
I stood paralyzed, unable to run. I was trapped with nowhere to duck away to. I didn't want Stick to hurt Old Lady Imitari, and I didn't want Stick to hurt me, either. The truth was, he would hurt both of us no matter what I did. That was just the way Stick was. I'd seen him. I'd seen him show us who he was every day.
Then I realized Imitari hadn't moved. She was watching her TV and chuckling at the sitcom as if nothing had happened.
Stick glanced at me, confused. I almost felt sorry for the sociopath. His night was not going to plan.
Imitari chuckled at her TV again, and a crease formed in the middle of Stick's forehead, letting me know that he was beyond angry. He was calm, dangerous, and vicious. People had been left for dead when Stick got this way.
Stick raised his cane and flipped it so the handle jutted like a pickax. He was going to attack Imitari.
Somehow, I moved. I didn't do much, but when I slid forward and grabbed the back of Stick's shirt, the cane missed Imitari, and the sharp handle punctured the thick glass top of the counter just above a roll of Lotto scratchers.
Old lady Imitari slowly looked up into Stick's eyes and smiled. Her wide, gentle frown was replaced with a look of joy and something else, something primal, something hungry. Her pupils were blown, and I had the uneasy feeling that I was watching someone be served their absolute favorite meal.
Before Stick could pull his cane from the punctured glass, Imitari casually reached forward, grabbed the cane, and pulled the wirey man forward. Small, old, and wrinkled, Imitari stared into Stick's eyes and overpowered him.
Stick fell forward across the counter. He tried to push himself back, but Imitari's hand clamped down on his wrist like a vice.
Bones ground together as Imitari pulled Stick's hand to her mouth, and with a swift, subtle movement, she bit off the tips of Stick's pinky and ring finger like she was sampling a cookie.
I jumped back next to the cooler as a thin spray of blood arched toward me.
Stick screamed and thrashed, but Imitari's small form was static and immovable. Stick was a fly in a trap. No matter how much he struggled, punched, poked, or kicked, he could not break the old woman's hold. Then, slowly, she took another bite.
It was strangely fascinating watching the frail form of this old woman I had known for years take bite after bite out of Stick. This man, whom I thought of as a predator, a hunter, an enforcer, was crying and begging while an old woman, who looked like a wrinkled thumb in a floral top, quietly devoured him.
I was surprised by the lack of blood after the first spray. I'm sure it was Imitari's crushing grip that stanched the flow of blood. The flesh of Stick's arm looked white from the pressure.
Hand over hand, Imitari pulled Stick forward. Bones cracked as she gripped higher on Stick's arm, clamped down with her long leathery fingers, and fed the flesh and bone, one concise bite at a time, into her open smiling maw. It was rhythmical in its simplicity: chomp, crunch, chew, chew, swallow. Over and over, the pattern continued until the begging stopped.
Stick wasn't dead. He gave up. Not struggling, he laid over the glass counter like a rag doll. He watched me glassily as Imitari took bite after bite, and I knew he wasn't there anymore. Whatever made Stick Stick had either curled up and hidden in a dark corner of his mind or had been devoured with his arm.
The old woman seemed displeased that her meal had stopped struggling. She shook him, but he flopped, and his head lulled from side to side. Imitari frowned, let go of Stick's arm, and pushed down on the limp man's back. Blood gushed from the ragged stump, and Imitari lowered her mouth and drank from the wound like she was sipping from a garden hose.
Stick didn't move. He just grew pail, and eventually, his panicked, shallow breaths ended, and the blood stopped flowing.
Then Imitari stood. With a quick tug, she pulled Stick's body over the counter and let it flop to the floor at her feet. Her eyes closed. A contented smile bloomed on her face as the explosive sound of crunching and cracking bones echoed through the small shop.
The deafening sound of crunching stopped, and only the buzzing of the drinks cooler reverberated through the small space. Imitari opened her eyes and watched me, a broad smile still on her lips. At that moment, I realized I could hear the drinks cooler so well because I had crawled into it, wedged between the glass door and the shelves.
Imitari held me with her gaze as cords of pink flesh lowered from the ceiling and efficiently tidied up Stick's mess, lapping up blood and hot sauce, placing cans on shelves, and scooping up cups of ramen with whip-like tendrils. Then, the cords of flesh nudged me forward, and I stood before Old Lady Imitari.
The thing that I had always thought of as a stern old woman handed me Stick's cane. With the same benign smile I remembered from buying red hots from it as a ten-year-old, it waved me away with its flyswatter, and the cords of flesh pushed me out the door onto the sidewalk.
submitted by E_Latimer to nosleep [link] [comments]
Grandma Pearl died not long after her stroke, and I've been making bad decisions ever since. Maybe my expectations are too high, or I'm just an idiot. Either way, I ran away from the group home to be with people who called themselves my "family." They were the wrong people. They used the words family, brother, sister, and love like lock picks, stealing trust, and taking self-respect.
The only person I remember using the word family correctly was Grandma Pearl. She was a small woman who toured the US as an actress before settling with Granddad above their theatrical rentals shop. I was three when the car accident took Granddad and Mom, so I don't know if they used the word "family" correctly, but I hope they did.
I was never as outgoing as Grandma, but that didn't bother her; she taught me how to watch people. How to see their signals, and how to listen. When she died. I forgot a lot of those lessons for a while.
They called it a "family". The "family" moved product. That product could be goods, drugs, or people.
The uninitiated, like me, were distracted with food and a dry place to sleep, but it didn't take long to see behind the curtain. Things got too intense with the new "family" and I ran.
I ran back to my old neighborhood. The buildings were familiar even if my home was gone. The old theatrical shop had been turned into a microbrewery.
After an appropriate amount of self-pity, thirty minutes, I wandered the alleys, picking up cans or scavenging for bits and pieces that could be recycled, used, or bartered.
I recognized old faces, but I tried to stay out of sight. It was safer that way.
The only place I allowed myself to be seen was the old Lutheran church on the park's far side. Most people who might have known me had aged out of the congregation or died. It was worth the risk because St. Lazarus had a food pantry in the basement and gave out lunches most days, so I wasn't always hungry, which was nice.
I found a dry spot near the library to sleep, which seemed like a stroke of luck until it wasn't.
I had the contentment that came with being in a familiar place. Little bits of comfort let me believe, for a moment, that I wasn't a screw-up and hadn't trusted the wrong people. That moment scurried away when Stick found me.
Stick was a scary asshole. He technically wasn't in charge of the " family," but he made it work. He got things done. I have no idea how old he was. He was all corded muscle and could clock in between twenty and fifty. He looked half-starved and moved like a stalking predator, even with his limp.
His left leg was stiff. The knee didn't bend, and anytime he sat, his left leg would be splayed to the side like a kickstand on a bike. The leg was why he walked with a cane. The cane and how he used it was why we called him Stick.
I don't know why he took the time to track me down. It's not like I was wanted. Maybe it was that I had become property. Property shouldn't just wander off.
Sometimes, you feel a person before you see them. The air is different. When Stick was around, the air felt dead and motionless. I knew I was being watched before I opened my eyes.
Stick was sitting on a milk crate, his bad leg cocked to the side and his forehead resting on his cane. I pushed myself out from beneath the ductwork of the HVAC unit I had been sleeping under and slapped the dirt off my jeans.
"I thought that was you," Stick said as his sharp grin curved up to his unblinking dark eyes.
Stick wanted my discomfort. I'd seen him play the intimidation game too many times. He'd act too friendly, and then when you were good and worried, quick movements, a hand around the back of your neck, and violence would be next. Then he'd act like the whole mind fuck was a big joke, like you were friends, and isn't it great that you can joke around with someone who "really" cared.
It worked, too. If you were the unfortunate focus of Stick's attention, you would be grateful when he smiled and said, "Just a joke, kid. Don't be so sensitive." I'd seen the pattern enough times to know Stick trained people like dogs with his hot and cold game. I didn't like the game, or the fear, so I changed the pattern.
"Hey, Stick, did you come to help pick up cans?" I asked, making sure my smile reached my eyes. I was trying to be pleasant while ignoring the burning nervousness in my gut.
It was still dark out, but I could see Stick's expressions well enough.
Stick tapped his cane on the sidewalk and squinted at me skeptically before answering. "Just checking on my little brother."
We were not related.
Stick liked to call the uninitiated his little brothers or little sisters. He forced intimacy into his language. I didn't argue the point. Interactions went best with Stick when you agreed with everything he said.
"Thanks, man," I complimented, trying to sound genuine and ignorant as I stepped forward and offered him my hand.
Stick didn't move, but I could see that this conversation wasn't going as planned for him, and I forced myself not to react to his confusion. I couldn't break character, or he would know I was playing him.
Stick tapped his cane on the ground twice, grasped my hand, and stood. He watched me. I held his stare, but in an open, naive, guileless way that I had perfected in front of the mirror as grandma gave acting advice while she put her face on.
I once asked Grandma Perl why anyone would practice acting stupid. She pointed her mascara brush at me and, in her ditsiest Minnesota Nice character, said, "It's easier to be forgiven when people think you're a little dumb, don't ya know?" Like with most things, Grandma was right.
Before I understood what had happened, Stick pulled me into his side and slung an arm around my shoulder.
"You don't have a name yet. Everyone gets a name, but they don't get to pick it." He paused and gave me a Cheshire cat grin. "I have a name for you, little brother. You are going to be called Slide." Then he held my chin and forced eye contact." Your name will be Slide because I have never seen anyone slide out of shit faster than you. I can't tell if you do it on purpose or not, and I've been watching. I watch everybody. You do, too. Hell, this might be the first time I've ever heard you talk. So let's celebrate your name, Slide." Stick's smile slipped as he pulled me out of the alley. "We'll go do something special."
I stayed silent, knowing full well what was coming. Being named meant doing something you could never take back. It was public and would put you in prison if the police ever took the time to look for you. It meant severing yourself from your life before and relying entirely on the "family." I had been absent each time naming seemed to be in the cards, but I couldn't duck out this time.
There was only one place to go at this time of night that would have an impact, the Bodega.
The Bodega was a red hole in the wall with a glass door papered over with grocery ads years outdated. Canned salmon two for one seemed to be the dominant theme. Although there were two large windows, one on either side of the door, you could barely see in. The right window was a tapestry of cigarette promotions. The left window displayed the only swath of uncovered glass with a view of the interior. From the outside, the view was of tobacco, lottery scratchers, and Old Lady Imitari.
Old Lady Imitari owned the store. She was a short, dark-haired woman who always wore a long floral tank top. Grandma Pearl loved the old woman but said Imitari looked like an old man's thumb all the years she had known her, and Grandma moved to the neighborhood with Grandad thirty years ago. Imitari was a local legend even then because the Bodega was open twenty hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, and no one else worked in the store. Grandma used to make an extra strong coffee called Barako and chat with Imitari sometimes when work in the shop was slow.
I would sneak out at night and try to catch Imitari sleeping. No matter the time, I never caught her snoozing, and she always saw me peeking at her through the window. I know she saw me because she would uncross her arms and wave her flyswatter at me.
All these memories flicked through my mind as Stick smiled his too-wide smile and pushed me into the Bodega.
Imitari flicked her fly swatter at me in acknowledgment, and her attention returned to the small TV she had nestled beside the cash register, which seemed to be the old woman's only real tether to the world outside her shop.
The inside of the Bodega was just a long hallway with shelves of convenience foods, drinks, home supplies, candy, and cold meds covering every available surface from floor to ceiling. The only break in the tunnel of products was the glass counter at the back corner of the store; Imitari presided over her mini domain by casually ignoring her shoppers. I tried to make eye contact with the old woman again as Stick pushed me to the back of the shop, but after her initial acknowledgment of our entrance, Imitari's eyes stayed focused on her TV.
As casually confident as possible, I walked to the cooler and grabbed an iced tea. "Want a drink," I asked over my shoulder, my voice unusually steady, given the electric current of anxiety flowing through me.
Stick sneered and tapped his cane twice on the ground. His eyes found all the security cameras in the tiny store, a frown creasing his angular features.
I followed his line of sight and finally realized what had bothered him. The cameras were fake. They looked like security cameras, but they weren't. There were no wires or lenses, just rectangles and circles in a security camera shape.
Stick took a deep breath and tapped his cane on the ground again. " There… is … so… much… here… to… see… but… no… one… is… watching," he said with a singsong. Then his sneer turned into a cruel smile.
I knew Stick wanted an audience for what he would force me to do. The fact that the security cameras were fakes meant that whatever was going to happen would now have to be significant. An event that the neighborhood wouldn't be able to ignore. My stomach twisted with the thought.
Stick waggled his eyebrows at me. He had been watching. He had seen my thoughts, and we both knew he had something terrible in mind.
The cane twirled in Stick's hand and then tapped twice on the shop tile.
"I think I want a little bit of this," Stick said, gesturing wildly with his cane, sending a row of soup cans tumbling to the floor. "And a little bit of that," Stick added as another wild gesture sent cups of ramen spinning and knocking glass bottles of hot sauce to the floor.
I stood paralyzed, unable to run. I was trapped with nowhere to duck away to. I didn't want Stick to hurt Old Lady Imitari, and I didn't want Stick to hurt me, either. The truth was, he would hurt both of us no matter what I did. That was just the way Stick was. I'd seen him. I'd seen him show us who he was every day.
Then I realized Imitari hadn't moved. She was watching her TV and chuckling at the sitcom as if nothing had happened.
Stick glanced at me, confused. I almost felt sorry for the sociopath. His night was not going to plan.
Imitari chuckled at her TV again, and a crease formed in the middle of Stick's forehead, letting me know that he was beyond angry. He was calm, dangerous, and vicious. People had been left for dead when Stick got this way.
Stick raised his cane and flipped it so the handle jutted like a pickax. He was going to attack Imitari.
Somehow, I moved. I didn't do much, but when I slid forward and grabbed the back of Stick's shirt, the cane missed Imitari, and the sharp handle punctured the thick glass top of the counter just above a roll of Lotto scratchers.
Old lady Imitari slowly looked up into Stick's eyes and smiled. Her wide, gentle frown was replaced with a look of joy and something else, something primal, something hungry. Her pupils were blown, and I had the uneasy feeling that I was watching someone be served their absolute favorite meal.
Before Stick could pull his cane from the punctured glass, Imitari casually reached forward, grabbed the cane, and pulled the wirey man forward. Small, old, and wrinkled, Imitari stared into Stick's eyes and overpowered him.
Stick fell forward across the counter. He tried to push himself back, but Imitari's hand clamped down on his wrist like a vice.
Bones ground together as Imitari pulled Stick's hand to her mouth, and with a swift, subtle movement, she bit off the tips of Stick's pinky and ring finger like she was sampling a cookie.
I jumped back next to the cooler as a thin spray of blood arched toward me.
Stick screamed and thrashed, but Imitari's small form was static and immovable. Stick was a fly in a trap. No matter how much he struggled, punched, poked, or kicked, he could not break the old woman's hold. Then, slowly, she took another bite.
It was strangely fascinating watching the frail form of this old woman I had known for years take bite after bite out of Stick. This man, whom I thought of as a predator, a hunter, an enforcer, was crying and begging while an old woman, who looked like a wrinkled thumb in a floral top, quietly devoured him.
I was surprised by the lack of blood after the first spray. I'm sure it was Imitari's crushing grip that stanched the flow of blood. The flesh of Stick's arm looked white from the pressure.
Hand over hand, Imitari pulled Stick forward. Bones cracked as she gripped higher on Stick's arm, clamped down with her long leathery fingers, and fed the flesh and bone, one concise bite at a time, into her open smiling maw. It was rhythmical in its simplicity: chomp, crunch, chew, chew, swallow. Over and over, the pattern continued until the begging stopped.
Stick wasn't dead. He gave up. Not struggling, he laid over the glass counter like a rag doll. He watched me glassily as Imitari took bite after bite, and I knew he wasn't there anymore. Whatever made Stick Stick had either curled up and hidden in a dark corner of his mind or had been devoured with his arm.
The old woman seemed displeased that her meal had stopped struggling. She shook him, but he flopped, and his head lulled from side to side. Imitari frowned, let go of Stick's arm, and pushed down on the limp man's back. Blood gushed from the ragged stump, and Imitari lowered her mouth and drank from the wound like she was sipping from a garden hose.
Stick didn't move. He just grew pail, and eventually, his panicked, shallow breaths ended, and the blood stopped flowing.
Then Imitari stood. With a quick tug, she pulled Stick's body over the counter and let it flop to the floor at her feet. Her eyes closed. A contented smile bloomed on her face as the explosive sound of crunching and cracking bones echoed through the small shop.
The deafening sound of crunching stopped, and only the buzzing of the drinks cooler reverberated through the small space. Imitari opened her eyes and watched me, a broad smile still on her lips. At that moment, I realized I could hear the drinks cooler so well because I had crawled into it, wedged between the glass door and the shelves.
Imitari held me with her gaze as cords of pink flesh lowered from the ceiling and efficiently tidied up Stick's mess, lapping up blood and hot sauce, placing cans on shelves, and scooping up cups of ramen with whip-like tendrils. Then, the cords of flesh nudged me forward, and I stood before Old Lady Imitari.
The thing that I had always thought of as a stern old woman handed me Stick's cane. With the same benign smile I remembered from buying red hots from it as a ten-year-old, it waved me away with its flyswatter, and the cords of flesh pushed me out the door onto the sidewalk.
2024.05.19 16:43 ningliuliu EXPLAIN: Why FFIE has a potential high value
TL;DR.
As a Chinese, I will explain FFIE/FF and its creator Yueting Jia in Chinese view. Yueting Jia is a celebrity and the former richest man in China. Almost everyone in China knows him. Yes, almost everyone among the 1.4 billion people know him. Recently, he has been active on Chinese Tiktok to promote Faraday Future. He currently has 1.56 million fans in Chinese Tiktok. In 2014, Yueting Jia went to the US to found FF. Within the first few years of its establishment, he quickly finalized his high-end car models and started the mass production process. In 2021, FF cooperated with Foxconn (the manufacturer of Apple equipment) and Geely (the parent company of Volvo) for mass production. This is why the market value of FFIE was very high and hit the crazy highest point $4142 in the first years.
However, the mass production of vehicles in the US has encountered difficulties in the past few years, which is why Faraday Future's stock price began to fall. At the end of 2021, FFIE began to be shorted by J Capital Research, and was quickly shorted by various institutions in Wall Steeet in the following period, making FF's mass production process more difficult. In recent times, the short-selling ratio of FFIE has reached 95% - 100%. Its share price also quickly fell below 0.05.
But things began to change. In the past two months, Jia Yueting became active on Chinese Tiktok, where he interacted with Chinese car manufacturing giants, tried to promote his company in China, and promoted some cooperation. Yueting Jia clearly stated on Chinese Tiktok, he will use his fame in China to promote cooperation and try to save his company. Some people may think that FF does encounter difficulties in mass production, but don't forget that FF is a company with complete automotive products and has produced high-end electric vehicles. Another important point is that, last weekend, Biden announced that Chinese car which exported to the US will be taxed by 100%. Interestingly, FF still hold 1 of 5 electric car production permition across the US. If Chinese car company want to prevent the US car tax, its best way is to invest FF. Recently, FF has frequently interacted with Chinese financial giants. Information shows that this weekend, FF's team in Dubai has traveled to Shenzhen, China to discuss the cooperation.
Fun fact, the company is created by using $4 billion in cash, but the market value is only around $0.05 billion now, it is still in extremely low position versus its real value.
This time FFIE has skyrocketed. In addition to the push from Americans, a large number of Chinese have begun to firmly hold this stock. If you are a meme stock player, please remember that this stock is not just to fight short sellers. Although Q1 sales of FF will most likely not meet expectations, it still has potentially huge value, even if you think investing money to buy shares will brings risks, market value of FF is still in low position. Simply hold on to the stock, holding this stock long-term can bring huge benefits.
For short: HOLD.
submitted by ningliuliu to FFIE [link] [comments]
As a Chinese, I will explain FFIE/FF and its creator Yueting Jia in Chinese view. Yueting Jia is a celebrity and the former richest man in China. Almost everyone in China knows him. Yes, almost everyone among the 1.4 billion people know him. Recently, he has been active on Chinese Tiktok to promote Faraday Future. He currently has 1.56 million fans in Chinese Tiktok. In 2014, Yueting Jia went to the US to found FF. Within the first few years of its establishment, he quickly finalized his high-end car models and started the mass production process. In 2021, FF cooperated with Foxconn (the manufacturer of Apple equipment) and Geely (the parent company of Volvo) for mass production. This is why the market value of FFIE was very high and hit the crazy highest point $4142 in the first years.
However, the mass production of vehicles in the US has encountered difficulties in the past few years, which is why Faraday Future's stock price began to fall. At the end of 2021, FFIE began to be shorted by J Capital Research, and was quickly shorted by various institutions in Wall Steeet in the following period, making FF's mass production process more difficult. In recent times, the short-selling ratio of FFIE has reached 95% - 100%. Its share price also quickly fell below 0.05.
But things began to change. In the past two months, Jia Yueting became active on Chinese Tiktok, where he interacted with Chinese car manufacturing giants, tried to promote his company in China, and promoted some cooperation. Yueting Jia clearly stated on Chinese Tiktok, he will use his fame in China to promote cooperation and try to save his company. Some people may think that FF does encounter difficulties in mass production, but don't forget that FF is a company with complete automotive products and has produced high-end electric vehicles. Another important point is that, last weekend, Biden announced that Chinese car which exported to the US will be taxed by 100%. Interestingly, FF still hold 1 of 5 electric car production permition across the US. If Chinese car company want to prevent the US car tax, its best way is to invest FF. Recently, FF has frequently interacted with Chinese financial giants. Information shows that this weekend, FF's team in Dubai has traveled to Shenzhen, China to discuss the cooperation.
Fun fact, the company is created by using $4 billion in cash, but the market value is only around $0.05 billion now, it is still in extremely low position versus its real value.
This time FFIE has skyrocketed. In addition to the push from Americans, a large number of Chinese have begun to firmly hold this stock. If you are a meme stock player, please remember that this stock is not just to fight short sellers. Although Q1 sales of FF will most likely not meet expectations, it still has potentially huge value, even if you think investing money to buy shares will brings risks, market value of FF is still in low position. Simply hold on to the stock, holding this stock long-term can bring huge benefits.
For short: HOLD.
2024.05.19 16:41 Okidoky123 Post boycott -> sales-only boycott
Perhaps this ought to start before the end of May.
An action on everyone's part to refuse making any Loblaws owned store a one-stop go-to for our grocery needs, but using it to target only sales. And not the "sales" that mark off something expensive, that's still expensive after the "sale", but the deep sales, that are designed to lure people in.
Point in case: butter at 4.99 and water melon at 2.99. Those sales are apparently happening right now. They're designed to get you to come with a shopping cart, and they're hoping that you might as well load up with various other items. A water melon in particular, is heavy, and most people will need a cart for that. Those guys know that possibly selling water melon at a loss, they will make up for it, by pushing other heavily marked up item to us suckers.
Resist!
Don't be tempted to buy other items. Just go in, and get only sales where you'd really say: that is a true sale. Resist any fake "sales", quote quote.
This accomplishes multiple goals:
1) We show that we continue to refuse to accept unreasonably marked up items.
2) We deprive them of profits through rip offs.
3) We benefit from deep sales, that are possibly sold at a loss.
4) They lose money when we stubbornly only get deep sales.
5) Other stores see that we're willing to shop around, enticing them to play nice so that they gain our business.
Will Loblaws smarten up?
Most probably not right away. Once a business becomes accustomed to certain profit levels, the have a responsibility to their investors to meet expectations. That, plus the greed of the ones running the show. They can probably cover up reduced sales by shoving things around, but they can't hide it forever. They need to be forced to alter their business model.
In the meantime, our job should be simple. Simply refuse to give in. Shop elsewhere. But go in to grab the deep sales. We need to talk about how we can keep up to date with those deep sales, and I'll guess we can call it that, and it might be dependent on location. Areas where there are enough people with high disposable income that don't care, might no see those deep sales. They'll just tease them with fake "sales". Areas where people have less alternatives will probably be disappointed also.
It's going to require a bit of effort. We need to resist saying to ourselves "oh, I have kids and don't have a the time to go to two stores". Make it work. Realize that when done efficiently, it will not take twice as long to shop. It's worth saving money. Plus it's the right thing to do, because you'd be part of a movement that can help everyone see competition restored. It's like fighting for and protecting democracy, in comparison. You might save a little for your particular pocket book, but there are those that benefit far more. It feels good to fight for us the people. Also resist other excuses and cop-outs. "Oh, but it takes gas". Calculate it. It might take you $2 more in gas to do two locations instead of one. $2 is easy to overcome. Don't be that automatic naysayer, that person that opposes automatically out of reaction. Be part of the solution!
Ok, so what flyers, what apps, what posts could we all look at, to help us all home in on those deep sales. And share how much you probably have saved by doing the Loblaws-for-a-quite-deep-sale-grabbing and then heading over to a proper grocery store. When you go into a Loblaws to grab what you need, while you walk to the target, you can see a few prices. Make mental note of that. Making up some numbers here: Bananas 89 cents, apples $5, etc etc. Then proper store, 69 cents, $3. Some might feel that, "meh, 2 bucks, 20 cents, who cars". But if every item is like that, it adds up. A $300 grocery bill becomes a $450 grocery bill. And that is what this entire thing is all about ! It takes work to make competition work. Without that work, they will exploit us, and they have!
submitted by Okidoky123 to loblawsisoutofcontrol [link] [comments]
An action on everyone's part to refuse making any Loblaws owned store a one-stop go-to for our grocery needs, but using it to target only sales. And not the "sales" that mark off something expensive, that's still expensive after the "sale", but the deep sales, that are designed to lure people in.
Point in case: butter at 4.99 and water melon at 2.99. Those sales are apparently happening right now. They're designed to get you to come with a shopping cart, and they're hoping that you might as well load up with various other items. A water melon in particular, is heavy, and most people will need a cart for that. Those guys know that possibly selling water melon at a loss, they will make up for it, by pushing other heavily marked up item to us suckers.
Resist!
Don't be tempted to buy other items. Just go in, and get only sales where you'd really say: that is a true sale. Resist any fake "sales", quote quote.
This accomplishes multiple goals:
1) We show that we continue to refuse to accept unreasonably marked up items.
2) We deprive them of profits through rip offs.
3) We benefit from deep sales, that are possibly sold at a loss.
4) They lose money when we stubbornly only get deep sales.
5) Other stores see that we're willing to shop around, enticing them to play nice so that they gain our business.
Will Loblaws smarten up?
Most probably not right away. Once a business becomes accustomed to certain profit levels, the have a responsibility to their investors to meet expectations. That, plus the greed of the ones running the show. They can probably cover up reduced sales by shoving things around, but they can't hide it forever. They need to be forced to alter their business model.
In the meantime, our job should be simple. Simply refuse to give in. Shop elsewhere. But go in to grab the deep sales. We need to talk about how we can keep up to date with those deep sales, and I'll guess we can call it that, and it might be dependent on location. Areas where there are enough people with high disposable income that don't care, might no see those deep sales. They'll just tease them with fake "sales". Areas where people have less alternatives will probably be disappointed also.
It's going to require a bit of effort. We need to resist saying to ourselves "oh, I have kids and don't have a the time to go to two stores". Make it work. Realize that when done efficiently, it will not take twice as long to shop. It's worth saving money. Plus it's the right thing to do, because you'd be part of a movement that can help everyone see competition restored. It's like fighting for and protecting democracy, in comparison. You might save a little for your particular pocket book, but there are those that benefit far more. It feels good to fight for us the people. Also resist other excuses and cop-outs. "Oh, but it takes gas". Calculate it. It might take you $2 more in gas to do two locations instead of one. $2 is easy to overcome. Don't be that automatic naysayer, that person that opposes automatically out of reaction. Be part of the solution!
Ok, so what flyers, what apps, what posts could we all look at, to help us all home in on those deep sales. And share how much you probably have saved by doing the Loblaws-for-a-quite-deep-sale-grabbing and then heading over to a proper grocery store. When you go into a Loblaws to grab what you need, while you walk to the target, you can see a few prices. Make mental note of that. Making up some numbers here: Bananas 89 cents, apples $5, etc etc. Then proper store, 69 cents, $3. Some might feel that, "meh, 2 bucks, 20 cents, who cars". But if every item is like that, it adds up. A $300 grocery bill becomes a $450 grocery bill. And that is what this entire thing is all about ! It takes work to make competition work. Without that work, they will exploit us, and they have!
2024.05.19 16:37 NativeMasshole Ascend management is as toxic as they come
Massgrow just signed a union contract a few months ago, and the top managers in the facility have come right out and said that they don't plan on honoring it. One of the big wins for us was that they were supposed to post jobs for 2 weeks for internal consideration of union members, give interviews to all those who apply, and work with them on what they need to achieve a promotion if they're denied.
Instead, every management position that has opened up since has either been filled with outside hires or the position has dissolved as soon as it's empty. They fold departments that have nothing to do with each other together just to avoid promoting into management.
The only way people get promoted into supervisory rolls is when the previous supervisor quits over their treatment or gets fired (often with no warning and little cause). Both my superiors recently quit, leaving me the only person in my department, yet I only made the lead position, and they told me they already had a non-union rehire in the works for supervisor before they even posted the job.
At this point, I don't even want to petition for the extra promotion. I watched my supervisor have management responsibilities, with little support from his mangers, yet full responsibilities. I've been through 3 different managers in my 6 months there, and not a single one of them could actually run the department. It's been 2 weeks since my superiors have given notice, yet I haven't been given any formal meeting at all regarding my new position. Not a word from management about money, responsibilities, or even an official start date.
Unfortunately, I'm a bit stuck. It does pay decent for the area, but I feel like I'm going to have to fight every step of the way just to maintain fair practices. Even if I did get another promotion, it would elevate me out of the union, which would take away my protection in those fights.
I heard the rumors before I started the job, but now I'm living them.
submitted by NativeMasshole to WorkingGrassMass [link] [comments]
Instead, every management position that has opened up since has either been filled with outside hires or the position has dissolved as soon as it's empty. They fold departments that have nothing to do with each other together just to avoid promoting into management.
The only way people get promoted into supervisory rolls is when the previous supervisor quits over their treatment or gets fired (often with no warning and little cause). Both my superiors recently quit, leaving me the only person in my department, yet I only made the lead position, and they told me they already had a non-union rehire in the works for supervisor before they even posted the job.
At this point, I don't even want to petition for the extra promotion. I watched my supervisor have management responsibilities, with little support from his mangers, yet full responsibilities. I've been through 3 different managers in my 6 months there, and not a single one of them could actually run the department. It's been 2 weeks since my superiors have given notice, yet I haven't been given any formal meeting at all regarding my new position. Not a word from management about money, responsibilities, or even an official start date.
Unfortunately, I'm a bit stuck. It does pay decent for the area, but I feel like I'm going to have to fight every step of the way just to maintain fair practices. Even if I did get another promotion, it would elevate me out of the union, which would take away my protection in those fights.
I heard the rumors before I started the job, but now I'm living them.
2024.05.19 16:35 RagnarokRosie CPP Help
Hello Everyone,
I work for a big payroll company (not going to name names because I have seen how some of you go in on it. 😅)
I have taken the CPP on 4.20 and unfortunately, I didn't pass. My company purchased Paytrain for the 23-24 season and of course, the limits changed. With self study I missed it by 34 points. Employer doesn't know if they are going to purchase the 24-25 version.
I am thinking I want to do the bootcamp because I need a classroom-esque setting and a teacher that will answer some of the calculation questions I have.
My question- could I apply for FAFSA and pay for the bootcamp? If not the bootcamp- what are other items that I can use?
I passed my FPC because my employer literally had a class and paytrain. The ability to ask questions and dive into deeper understanding was critical to me.
Thank you for your time!
submitted by RagnarokRosie to Payroll [link] [comments]
I work for a big payroll company (not going to name names because I have seen how some of you go in on it. 😅)
I have taken the CPP on 4.20 and unfortunately, I didn't pass. My company purchased Paytrain for the 23-24 season and of course, the limits changed. With self study I missed it by 34 points. Employer doesn't know if they are going to purchase the 24-25 version.
I am thinking I want to do the bootcamp because I need a classroom-esque setting and a teacher that will answer some of the calculation questions I have.
My question- could I apply for FAFSA and pay for the bootcamp? If not the bootcamp- what are other items that I can use?
I passed my FPC because my employer literally had a class and paytrain. The ability to ask questions and dive into deeper understanding was critical to me.
Thank you for your time!
2024.05.19 16:32 Jumbojimboy [Android] [2020ish] Puzzle with artwork-related storyline
Android point & click puzzle game I played perhaps in 2021. An artist has vanished, but something is off with the paintings in her gallery. I go into each one trying to bring her back to life or find her. Or I may have been returning missing colors to the world, but the mother was sick/stuck, regardless. I may have been doing nonogram-style puzzles between scenes as well.
There was a math puzzle in which I was in a rain (or rainbow?) factory in the clouds, trying to calculate how to get all of the colors to go in the right machines. There was a room in a high rise where I had to click to a screen with a window-washer's hoist and fix the electrical component. The art style really varied per screen. I recall solving a huge variety of puzzles across a variety of scenes, many which were paintings or artwork related; a quiet French café, for example. I think the first puzzle screen was a back porch with a tabby cat sleeping in the sun. In one puzzle, I was making soup or something with the correct combination of vegetables in a kitchen. I also recall sweet cartoon ghosts in a graveyard being delivered something from a cave or swamp.
Sorry for vague memories; I only remember certain playscreens.
submitted by Jumbojimboy to tipofmyjoystick [link] [comments]
There was a math puzzle in which I was in a rain (or rainbow?) factory in the clouds, trying to calculate how to get all of the colors to go in the right machines. There was a room in a high rise where I had to click to a screen with a window-washer's hoist and fix the electrical component. The art style really varied per screen. I recall solving a huge variety of puzzles across a variety of scenes, many which were paintings or artwork related; a quiet French café, for example. I think the first puzzle screen was a back porch with a tabby cat sleeping in the sun. In one puzzle, I was making soup or something with the correct combination of vegetables in a kitchen. I also recall sweet cartoon ghosts in a graveyard being delivered something from a cave or swamp.
Sorry for vague memories; I only remember certain playscreens.
2024.05.19 16:32 jeffdeleon Royal Galaxy and Starborn Royalty Mod List Updated for 1.11.36 (Really fun patch!)
 | Hey all, submitted by jeffdeleon to starfieldmods [link] [comments] This patch isn't as bad for mods as many feared. It's relatively easy to get the game up and running and to start enjoying the new features. The main essential mod not updated is StarUI. Mods with an ** are not yet up to date, but I expect them to be updated soon. Abandoned mods not updated for this update have been removed. If you run EXE, you need to delete lasercutter.nif. Mods tweaking female armor need to be updated, but won't break your save or anything. Starborn Royalty - A Starfield Mod ListOld logo from promoting my writing career :PI added a new plugins.txt file to help guide you with load order. Royal Galaxy is an All-In-One for my mods, so if you run that, you don't need the other ones. *Royal Galaxy Vortex Collection not updated as too many of the included mods are still pending an update. Royal Galaxy only received minor updates and improvements as it worked out of the box with the latest patch. The way I mod is very simple and safe. This update was not required for this patch. The other versions works fine with this patch. I just made some tweaks, forwarded SFCP changes, and did small improvements where I could. As Bethesda made the game more fun for me, I'll be playing. I hope to finally get into my revision of the player dialogue in the Crimson Fleet and Ryujin quest lines, which I haven't particularly wanted to play through again. Royal Galaxy 2.50 - Massively Enhanced By Bethesda's Difficulty Configurators =)R.G !I've noticed many people either confused about what is contained in Royal Galaxy, or afraid that it is a massive mod that won't work with other mods. That couldn't be further from the case. I am a very Vanilla+ guy and I value compatibility above all. Over the many months I've been posting mods, I have had very few issues and user reports. This is because my mods only tweak vanilla records. This means they should be compatible with everything. I know the Creation Kit isn't out, and I certainly don't want to spend my time creating mods that end up breaking on a patch. As a result, I have stuck to what seems to be the safest method of modding via xEdit. Early reports of incompatibilities were caused by people ignoring directions and loading mods like craftable quality BEFORE Royal Galaxy rather than after. This new document attempts to break down the contents of Royal Galaxy into bullet points. I'll continue to update this as I remember the changes I have made. Modding Starfield was pretty much my full-time hobby this past year so the amount of work that went into tweaking everything is enormous. I tweaked, by hand, the inventories of specific NPCs to enhance the story, lore, ability to pickpocket, and difficulty of specific story encounters. Since Royal Galaxy is an AIO, it includes all the tweaks from the included mods. This old document includes all the bundled mods. In short, when you open up Starfield in xEdit, almost everything in the game is presented as tweakable, much like a config file. I went through the whole game and tweaked most things to be more fun and enjoyable and removed what I considered to be pain points. A few things I modded were more elaborate, like rebalancing Terromorphs, weapons, and redoing boring/useless weapon enchantments, but for the most part Royal Galaxy, and all my mods, are simple and safe. My biggest issue with my own work was the lack of easily-tweakable difficulty as some players found Royal Galaxy too hard. Bethesda did a fantastic job improving Royal Galaxy in the latest patch. =) In early game, you probably want incoming damage low and outgoing damage high. As you acquire more power, turn the difficulty up as much as you can. I think where people get confused is that I have so many mods posted, but also Royal Galaxy. My intention is that people can customize their game as much as they'd like. I think Royal Aliens, for example, is the de facto best alien overhaul by a ton. It is included in Royal Galaxy, but also maintained standalone for people who only want the aliens and otherwise like the game as-is or other modded ecosystems. There are a few pieces of Royal Galaxy that haven't gone standalone yet because life got busy and maintaining separate pages is difficult. I need to release the bundled Medicine overhaul standalone as that goes particularly well with the new survival. Next up should be Royal Combat Overhaul, which will bundle ONLY the combat portions of Royal Galaxy separately. https://preview.redd.it/7p2uqtd57e1d1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4a1f1f4feac89617d2d9c52e05df65ae979a500 |
2024.05.19 16:25 GabutyraCarnival Cookie alliance
NEED HELLLPPPP
What rank after completed master mode?
Minimum points to reach grandmaster 3 and 2?
Since 30+ million and top 63 is grandmaster 1 for right now, so GM 2 at least need top 189, while GM 3 at least need top 315, i know the number rank by calculate with their percentage 1%, 3% and 5% respectively. But to calculate using points respect to percentage, it become ridiculous.
submitted by GabutyraCarnival to CookieRunKingdoms [link] [comments]
What rank after completed master mode?
Minimum points to reach grandmaster 3 and 2?
Since 30+ million and top 63 is grandmaster 1 for right now, so GM 2 at least need top 189, while GM 3 at least need top 315, i know the number rank by calculate with their percentage 1%, 3% and 5% respectively. But to calculate using points respect to percentage, it become ridiculous.
2024.05.19 16:07 aK1donn Must-Have Tips for Shoppers: Maximizing Your Shopping Experience
I’ve been honing my shopping skills and thought I'd share some tips to help you get the most out of your shopping experiences. Whether you're shopping online or in-store, these strategies can enhance your experience and ensure you get the best value for your money. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments!
Happy shopping! 🛍️
submitted by aK1donn to ShopSmartSavvy [link] [comments]
1. Stay Updated on Trends and Deals
- Follow Influencers and Brands: Follow your favorite brands and influencers on social media to stay updated on the latest trends and exclusive deals. Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are great platforms for this.
- Sign Up for Newsletters: Many retailers offer exclusive discounts and early access to sales if you subscribe to their newsletters. This is a great way to stay in the loop.
2. Utilize Shopping Apps
- ShopStyle: This app helps you find the best prices on fashion items across multiple retailers.
- Shoptagr (now Karma): This app lets you save items from any online store and notifies you when they go on sale.
- Poshmark and Depop: Great for buying and selling second-hand fashion. You can find unique pieces and often at a lower price.
3. In-Store Shopping Hacks
- Shop Mid-Week: Avoid weekend crowds and find better-stocked shelves by shopping mid-week. Sales associates may also have more time to assist you.
- Ask for Discounts: Don’t be afraid to ask if there are any available discounts or upcoming sales. Sometimes, sales associates have information about promotions that aren't advertised.
- Check the Clearance Section: Always make a stop at the clearance section. You can often find hidden gems at a fraction of the original price.
4. Online Shopping Strategies
- Read Reviews: Always check customer reviews before making a purchase. This can help you avoid low-quality products and make more informed decisions.
- Wishlist: Use the wishlist feature on shopping websites to keep track of items you want. This way, you can monitor price drops and avoid impulse buying.
- Abandoned Cart Discounts: Sometimes, leaving items in your online cart for a few days can trigger a discount email from the retailer.
5. Leverage Loyalty Programs
- Rewards Points: Sign up for loyalty programs at your favorite stores to earn points on every purchase. Redeem points for discounts or free items.
- Exclusive Member Perks: Loyalty programs often offer exclusive perks such as birthday discounts, members-only sales, and early access to new collections.
6. Shopping for Specific Items
- Clothing: Check the fabric and care instructions to ensure you're getting high-quality, durable items. Shop off-season for the best deals on clothing.
- Electronics: Research the specifications and compare models to find the best value. Look out for refurbished models to save money.
- Home Goods: Measure your space before buying furniture to ensure a perfect fit. Read product dimensions and reviews carefully.
7. Seasonal Sales and Events
- Black Friday/Cyber Monday: These are prime times for scoring big deals. Make a list of items you need and set a budget to avoid overspending.
- End-of-Season Sales: Stock up on seasonal items at the end of their respective seasons. For example, buy winter coats in February or swimsuits in September.
- Holiday Sales: Take advantage of sales during major holidays like Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Independence Day.
8. Sustainable Shopping
- Support Ethical Brands: Choose brands that prioritize sustainability and ethical practices. This can often lead to higher-quality products that last longer.
- Buy Second-Hand: Thrift stores, consignment shops, and online marketplaces like ThredUp and The RealReal are excellent for finding gently used items.
Happy shopping! 🛍️
2024.05.19 16:04 IndependenceKey7155 inferno machine
inferno machine
Machine d'enfer
La "Machine d'enfer" est un terme utilisé pour décrire un objet ou une situation qui est extrêmement puissant, intense ou effrayant. Cette expression est souvent associée à des machines ou des dispositifs qui opèrent à des niveaux extrêmes de vitesse, de température ou de pression, mettant en jeu des risques élevés.
Dans le domaine de la technologie, une Machine d'enfer peut faire référence à une machine ou un ordinateur superpuissant capable d'exécuter des calculs complexes à une vitesse fulgurante. Ces machines sont souvent utilisées pour des tâches intensives telles que le rendu d'images en 3D, la simulation de phénomènes complexes ou le traitement de données massives.
Dans le domaine des sports extrêmes, la Machine d'enfer peut désigner un équipement ou un véhicule qui permet d'atteindre des vitesses vertigineuses ou de réaliser des acrobaties spectaculaires. Les sports tels que le motocross, le ski freestyle ou le surf des neiges peuvent être associés à cette notion de Machine d'enfer en raison des risques élevés qu'ils comportent.
Enfin, dans le domaine de la fiction, la Machine d'enfer est souvent utilisée comme un élément de suspense ou d'action. Que ce soit dans un film, un roman ou un jeu vidéo, la notion de Machine d'enfer peut ajouter une dimension d'excitation et de danger à l'intrigue.
En somme, la "Machine d'enfer" symbolise la puissance, l'intensité et parfois même la peur, à travers divers domaines d'activités et de représentations. Cette expression témoigne de notre fascination pour le potentiel extrême et les limites de la technologie, du sport et de l'imagination humaine.
Appareil infernal
L'appareil infernal, également connu sous le nom de machine de torture, a une longue histoire dans le domaine de la justice et de la punition. Ces dispositifs, conçus pour infliger la souffrance physique la plus extrême, ont été utilisés à travers les âges dans de nombreuses cultures du monde entier.
L'un des exemples les plus célèbres d'un appareil infernal est la guillotine, qui a été largement utilisée en France pendant la Révolution française pour exécuter les condamnés à mort. Cet instrument brutal et efficace a été conçu pour décapiter rapidement les condamnés, provoquant une mort rapide et relativement indolore.
D'autres exemples d'appareils infernaux incluent la roue de la torture, la chaise électrique et le chevalet. Chacun de ces dispositifs était conçu pour infliger des souffrances spécifiques, allant de la décapitation à l'électrocution en passant par la dislocation des membres.
De nos jours, l'utilisation d'appareils infernaux est largement interdite en raison de leur cruauté et de leur inhumanité. Cependant, ces instruments sinistres continuent de susciter l'intérêt et la curiosité en tant que symboles sombres de la justice et de la punition.
En explorant l'histoire des appareils infernaux, on peut mieux comprendre l'évolution de la société et de ses valeurs en matière de châtiment et de traitement des criminels. Bien que ces dispositifs aient été relégués au passé, leur héritage demeure présent dans la conscience collective, rappelant les sombres aspects de la nature humaine.
Engin infernal
L'engin infernal, également connu sous le nom de machine infernale, est un dispositif de torture et d'exécution utilisé au Moyen Âge. Ce sinistre instrument était souvent utilisé pour punir les criminels et les ennemis de l'État. Il se composait généralement d'une structure métallique dotée de pointes, de lames tranchantes ou d'autres éléments destinés à infliger des blessures graves.
L'objectif principal de l'engin infernal était de causer une douleur extrême à la victime, qui pouvait parfois entraîner la mort. Les bourreaux utilisaient cet instrument pour obtenir des aveux ou pour dissuader les autres de commettre des crimes. La brutalité de l'engin infernal en faisait l'une des formes les plus terrifiantes de châtiment de l'époque médiévale.
Bien que l'engin infernal ait été largement utilisé dans le passé, il est aujourd'hui largement considéré comme une pratique barbare et inhumaine. Les sociétés modernes ont adopté des méthodes plus humaines et respectueuses des droits de l'homme pour punir les criminels et maintenir l'ordre public.
En résumé, l'engin infernal est un symbole sombre de l'histoire de la justice et de la punition. Son utilisation brutale et cruelle témoigne des pratiques inhumaines qui ont caractérisé certaines périodes de l'histoire. Aujourd'hui, il est important de se rappeler les erreurs du passé pour garantir un avenir plus juste et respectueux de la dignité de chaque individu.
Mécanisme de l'enfer
Le mécanisme de l'enfer est un concept souvent utilisé dans la littérature et la philosophie pour désigner un processus ou un système qui mène à des conséquences négatives ou destructrices. L'enfer, symbolisant la souffrance et la douleur, est ainsi représenté comme étant enclenché par un mécanisme qui s'auto-alimente pour perpétuer cette souffrance.
Ce concept peut être interprété de différentes manières selon le contexte dans lequel il est évoqué. Il peut symboliser les cercles vicieux dans lesquels les individus peuvent se retrouver piégés, incapables de s'en échapper en raison de la nature même du mécanisme en place. Il peut également renvoyer à des systèmes sociaux ou politiques qui, une fois enclenchés, entraînent des conséquences désastreuses pour les individus qui y sont soumis.
Dans une perspective plus personnelle, le mécanisme de l'enfer peut être vu comme les schémas de pensée ou de comportement qui nous entraînent dans des spirales négatives, amplifiant nos souffrances intérieures et nous éloignant du bonheur et de l'épanouissement. Prendre conscience de ces mécanismes et chercher à les briser peut être le premier pas vers une vie plus équilibrée et plus harmonieuse.
En somme, le mécanisme de l'enfer est un concept puissant qui souligne la nécessité de prendre du recul sur nos actions et nos choix, afin d'éviter de nous laisser entraîner dans des spirales négatives aux conséquences potentiellement dévastatrices.
Dispositif infernal
Le dispositif infernal est un concept qui fait référence à un système ou à un mécanisme complexe qui a des conséquences néfastes ou destructrices. Cette expression est souvent utilisée pour décrire une situation où plusieurs éléments se combinent de manière fatale ou dangereuse.
Dans de nombreux contextes, le dispositif infernal peut être associé à des événements tragiques ou à des catastrophes. Il évoque l'idée d'une spirale infernale où chaque action entraîne des réactions en chaîne incontrôlables et destructrices.
Le terme "dispositif infernal" peut également être utilisé dans un sens plus symbolique pour décrire une situation ou un environnement qui paraît extrêmement dangereux, menaçant ou incontrôlable.
En littérature et au cinéma, le dispositif infernal est souvent un élément central des intrigues, créant un suspense intense et captivant. Il peut s'agir d'une machine diabolique, d'une série d'événements inquiétants ou d'une conspiration mortelle.
Dans la vie réelle, le concept de dispositif infernal peut nous rappeler la fragilité de l'équilibre entre les forces et les éléments qui nous entourent. Il souligne l'importance de la vigilance et de la prévention pour éviter les situations potentiellement catastrophiques.
En fin de compte, le dispositif infernal symbolise la complexité et les dangers du monde dans lequel nous vivons, nous invitant à réfléchir aux conséquences de nos actions et à rester toujours sur nos gardes face aux menaces potentielles qui pourraient survenir.
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Machine d'enfer
La "Machine d'enfer" est un terme utilisé pour décrire un objet ou une situation qui est extrêmement puissant, intense ou effrayant. Cette expression est souvent associée à des machines ou des dispositifs qui opèrent à des niveaux extrêmes de vitesse, de température ou de pression, mettant en jeu des risques élevés.
Dans le domaine de la technologie, une Machine d'enfer peut faire référence à une machine ou un ordinateur superpuissant capable d'exécuter des calculs complexes à une vitesse fulgurante. Ces machines sont souvent utilisées pour des tâches intensives telles que le rendu d'images en 3D, la simulation de phénomènes complexes ou le traitement de données massives.
Dans le domaine des sports extrêmes, la Machine d'enfer peut désigner un équipement ou un véhicule qui permet d'atteindre des vitesses vertigineuses ou de réaliser des acrobaties spectaculaires. Les sports tels que le motocross, le ski freestyle ou le surf des neiges peuvent être associés à cette notion de Machine d'enfer en raison des risques élevés qu'ils comportent.
Enfin, dans le domaine de la fiction, la Machine d'enfer est souvent utilisée comme un élément de suspense ou d'action. Que ce soit dans un film, un roman ou un jeu vidéo, la notion de Machine d'enfer peut ajouter une dimension d'excitation et de danger à l'intrigue.
En somme, la "Machine d'enfer" symbolise la puissance, l'intensité et parfois même la peur, à travers divers domaines d'activités et de représentations. Cette expression témoigne de notre fascination pour le potentiel extrême et les limites de la technologie, du sport et de l'imagination humaine.
Appareil infernal
L'appareil infernal, également connu sous le nom de machine de torture, a une longue histoire dans le domaine de la justice et de la punition. Ces dispositifs, conçus pour infliger la souffrance physique la plus extrême, ont été utilisés à travers les âges dans de nombreuses cultures du monde entier.
L'un des exemples les plus célèbres d'un appareil infernal est la guillotine, qui a été largement utilisée en France pendant la Révolution française pour exécuter les condamnés à mort. Cet instrument brutal et efficace a été conçu pour décapiter rapidement les condamnés, provoquant une mort rapide et relativement indolore.
D'autres exemples d'appareils infernaux incluent la roue de la torture, la chaise électrique et le chevalet. Chacun de ces dispositifs était conçu pour infliger des souffrances spécifiques, allant de la décapitation à l'électrocution en passant par la dislocation des membres.
De nos jours, l'utilisation d'appareils infernaux est largement interdite en raison de leur cruauté et de leur inhumanité. Cependant, ces instruments sinistres continuent de susciter l'intérêt et la curiosité en tant que symboles sombres de la justice et de la punition.
En explorant l'histoire des appareils infernaux, on peut mieux comprendre l'évolution de la société et de ses valeurs en matière de châtiment et de traitement des criminels. Bien que ces dispositifs aient été relégués au passé, leur héritage demeure présent dans la conscience collective, rappelant les sombres aspects de la nature humaine.
Engin infernal
L'engin infernal, également connu sous le nom de machine infernale, est un dispositif de torture et d'exécution utilisé au Moyen Âge. Ce sinistre instrument était souvent utilisé pour punir les criminels et les ennemis de l'État. Il se composait généralement d'une structure métallique dotée de pointes, de lames tranchantes ou d'autres éléments destinés à infliger des blessures graves.
L'objectif principal de l'engin infernal était de causer une douleur extrême à la victime, qui pouvait parfois entraîner la mort. Les bourreaux utilisaient cet instrument pour obtenir des aveux ou pour dissuader les autres de commettre des crimes. La brutalité de l'engin infernal en faisait l'une des formes les plus terrifiantes de châtiment de l'époque médiévale.
Bien que l'engin infernal ait été largement utilisé dans le passé, il est aujourd'hui largement considéré comme une pratique barbare et inhumaine. Les sociétés modernes ont adopté des méthodes plus humaines et respectueuses des droits de l'homme pour punir les criminels et maintenir l'ordre public.
En résumé, l'engin infernal est un symbole sombre de l'histoire de la justice et de la punition. Son utilisation brutale et cruelle témoigne des pratiques inhumaines qui ont caractérisé certaines périodes de l'histoire. Aujourd'hui, il est important de se rappeler les erreurs du passé pour garantir un avenir plus juste et respectueux de la dignité de chaque individu.
Mécanisme de l'enfer
Le mécanisme de l'enfer est un concept souvent utilisé dans la littérature et la philosophie pour désigner un processus ou un système qui mène à des conséquences négatives ou destructrices. L'enfer, symbolisant la souffrance et la douleur, est ainsi représenté comme étant enclenché par un mécanisme qui s'auto-alimente pour perpétuer cette souffrance.
Ce concept peut être interprété de différentes manières selon le contexte dans lequel il est évoqué. Il peut symboliser les cercles vicieux dans lesquels les individus peuvent se retrouver piégés, incapables de s'en échapper en raison de la nature même du mécanisme en place. Il peut également renvoyer à des systèmes sociaux ou politiques qui, une fois enclenchés, entraînent des conséquences désastreuses pour les individus qui y sont soumis.
Dans une perspective plus personnelle, le mécanisme de l'enfer peut être vu comme les schémas de pensée ou de comportement qui nous entraînent dans des spirales négatives, amplifiant nos souffrances intérieures et nous éloignant du bonheur et de l'épanouissement. Prendre conscience de ces mécanismes et chercher à les briser peut être le premier pas vers une vie plus équilibrée et plus harmonieuse.
En somme, le mécanisme de l'enfer est un concept puissant qui souligne la nécessité de prendre du recul sur nos actions et nos choix, afin d'éviter de nous laisser entraîner dans des spirales négatives aux conséquences potentiellement dévastatrices.
Dispositif infernal
Le dispositif infernal est un concept qui fait référence à un système ou à un mécanisme complexe qui a des conséquences néfastes ou destructrices. Cette expression est souvent utilisée pour décrire une situation où plusieurs éléments se combinent de manière fatale ou dangereuse.
Dans de nombreux contextes, le dispositif infernal peut être associé à des événements tragiques ou à des catastrophes. Il évoque l'idée d'une spirale infernale où chaque action entraîne des réactions en chaîne incontrôlables et destructrices.
Le terme "dispositif infernal" peut également être utilisé dans un sens plus symbolique pour décrire une situation ou un environnement qui paraît extrêmement dangereux, menaçant ou incontrôlable.
En littérature et au cinéma, le dispositif infernal est souvent un élément central des intrigues, créant un suspense intense et captivant. Il peut s'agir d'une machine diabolique, d'une série d'événements inquiétants ou d'une conspiration mortelle.
Dans la vie réelle, le concept de dispositif infernal peut nous rappeler la fragilité de l'équilibre entre les forces et les éléments qui nous entourent. Il souligne l'importance de la vigilance et de la prévention pour éviter les situations potentiellement catastrophiques.
En fin de compte, le dispositif infernal symbolise la complexité et les dangers du monde dans lequel nous vivons, nous invitant à réfléchir aux conséquences de nos actions et à rester toujours sur nos gardes face aux menaces potentielles qui pourraient survenir.
2024.05.19 16:00 BrodogIsMyName Frontier Fantasy - Chap 39
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Edited by WaveOfWire
- - - - -
Two days… It had been two days that Tracy had gone to sleep while Harrison was working, only to come back in the morning to see him still in the workshop. She knew he was damn productive, sure, but that really couldn’t be healthy. Apparently, it had something to do with the weird bowl of orange… soup… that Cera gave him. No way was it just caffeine; any amount of the stuff would have been filtered out of his system by now. He mentioned a tingling feeling too…
Damn, she did not know enough about drugs to even start assuming what that massive alien had Harrison fucked up on. At least the scanner said he was ‘fine’—if you ignore the other glaring issues the machine brought up. Plus, he said he didn’t mind it. Either way, he managed to complete the weaving component and a few other electrical backbones of the fabricator last night, so the project was practically done, and after seeing the engineer work himself half to death, she was dead-set on finishing it.
She was currently tits-deep into the upper manufacturing portion of the towering machine. It took a tall step-stool—on top of the nearby desk—for her to push her small shoulders through the even smaller access panels high on the everything-printer. It was difficult to fit her torso in, but she managed, holding a flashlight between her teeth as she fiddled with a stubborn series of mechanical ‘hands.’ Nothing new. The situation reminded her of the ‘shop back on Mars; it had the same ever-present scent of copper and industrial sealant. All that was missing was her dad’s ancient tunes blasting through some shitty speakers… Hold on…
The modular component in her grip was successfully attached with a resonating thock. Tracy squirmed out of the dim wire-filled crevice, trying her best to not rip her only tank-top on any bolts or corners, and getting a face-full of the bright flood-lights illuminating the workshop. She scowled and blocked out the searing light with a hand, but she was a bit too late to avoid going half-blind.
“Are the mechanical manipulators in?” Harrison grunted, poking his head out underneath the printer’s floor-adjacent maintenance hatch. She looked down at him as she tried to blink off the spots in her vision. His hair was messy, barely kept in line by his habit of combing through it with his fingers. The areas around his eyes were dark and sunken… Guess that’s what two all-nighters did to a man. He’d be seeing the hat man or start hallucinating if he didn’t get any sleep soon… but then again, the two of them were so close to finishing the fabricator…
“You bet.” She gave him a thumbs up, slamming the panel cover closed. “Feel free to test it.”
He nodded and slid back underneath the machine. “Gotcha”
She gently stepped off the stool and slid off the side of the desk, stretching herself out. If her piss-poor sitting posture or her tank-top puppies hadn’t already fucked her spine up, bending over backward to build this fabricator sure as hell would. She sat down next to the panel where Harrison resided, resting her back against the fabrication tower. Her excited voice broke the muffled noises of the engineer’s work. “So… Harrison?”
“Hmm—”
“—Mind if I play some music?”
The sounds from the hatch stopped, followed by his muffled, shocked tone echoing from beneath the fabricator. “You have music!?”
She smirked at seeing the expression on his face when his head popped out again. “I sure do… Did you seriously not download any to your data pad?”
He slipped out from beneath the fabricator fully, huffing as he took a knee beside her. The scent of melded rubber, wire, and his liquid labor reached her nose not-so-unpleasantly. “You would not believe how much of a pain it is to repair an entire barracks without it… So, yeah, I didn’t.”
“Sooooooooo, whatcha wanna listen to? I’ve got almost everything on here—besides the super niche, of course.” She pulled her data pad out, swiping to the massive music folder
“You wouldn’t like the kinda music I listen to; It’s ancient.”
She gave him a lighthearted, annoyed glare. “Welcome to the club… Now what’ll it be?”
“It’s Old Earth kind of ancient… but alright” He looked up at the ceiling in thought, lips pursed. “Do you have anything from Styx or Sweet?”
She stared at him incredulously, her smirk turning into a fully-fledged smile. “Oh my God. You are an absolute dork! You actually listen to Golden Age music?”
His brows raised, accusatory. “And you somehow know exactly who those bands were and what age of Old Earth music they came from?”
She smugly leaned in closer. “That’s because I’m just as much of a nerd with that kinda music as you apparently are.” She quickly looked upward, addressing the workshop AI. “Sebas, connect nearby speakers to my data pad’s audio.” Tracy elbowed the engineer lightly as the PA system chirped its affirmation. “Now, Mr. Golden Age music, which albums do ya want me to queue up?”
- - - - -
The two of them listened to music for hours, tossing on songs they liked as they came to mind while they worked. Harrison had a ton of recommendations that spanned all over the Golden Ages and some twenty-first century classics. She didn’t even know half of them, but she was vibing either way, adding on her own taste by intermingling some older rock tracks and newer electronic beats. The playlist was steadily built up as the day went on. Thank God her dad showed her a vast array of tunes; she might not have been able to keep up with the engineer if her old man hadn't.
It made the work go by so fast, their conversations blurring as they jumped from topic to topic. They discussed whatever came to mind—old hobbies, old jobs, and old interests. A lot was left behind in Sol… At least she knew that the only other human on the planet was more interesting than a soulless workaholic. It turned out that he was a pretty big history buff, and he apparently read a lot about the colonization of the Sol system and the various wars of independence thereafter. Curious, she asked where the interest stemmed from, and he explained that his grandfather was an admiral in the Slavic-Europan deep-ice submarine fleet, which explained how Harrison’s mother was able to afford to immigrate to Mars from Europa.
He could also play an acoustic guitar, and, unfortunately for Tracy, he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in printing one out, citing that it was a waste of time and material that would be better used elsewhere. That didn’t stop her from writing a note on her data pad to do so later, though. She hadn’t seen someone play one of those in years—the last time was probably in some old music video from the early twenty-second century. What a shame. She would have liked to hear some of the Europan songs his grandmother taught him.
On the bright side, the man seemed to take an interest in her odd hobbies. He brought up the folder of 3D models that she accidentally uploaded to the inter-module system and asked where she got the inspiration for what was in it. Boy, was he not ready for her ‘WarHalberd40k’ lore dump. Props to the guy for not standing up and leaving the workshop throughout her rambling. He even asked questions about the different factions and their weapons, which she was more than happy to talk about.
She also ended up going over the other franchises and hobbies she was interested in, such as robotics and the like. The only interruptions to their chat were the occasional Akula or Craftsman asking for insight regarding the various tasks he had allotted to them, or Shar coming in to check up on Harrison between guard shifts.
The new dynamic of the group was pretty interesting, to say the least. Tracy hadn’t been out to interact with the whole lot of Malkrin, but she definitely noticed how they treated the engineer. They’d started to look up to him in a way ever since he started showing off technology. In a little over two days, the man had shown them that he could provide the materials for a brick house, fine clothing—especially by the alien’s standards—armor, and delicious food. That wasn’t even mentioning the other benefits the technician heard a few of the ‘banished’ talking about over their meals: heating, electric lights, and other assorted machines.
She’d be feeling pretty happy about herself if she was in his position, having so many look up to him and be grateful at the same time. He seemed to view it a lot more robotically, however, only striving to get the basics done. Luckily for him, his basics were their luxury.
That wasn’t all there was to the topic; the engineer lamented about how the colony was going through food just as quickly as materials. The meals weren’t the direct issue he had, more that he had to start focusing on long-term resource harvesting rather than directly preparing for a literal horde of monsters—which wasn’t exactly ideal. It was a good thing that they just so happened to take on an influx of Malkrin then…
Either way, they finally finished the ‘totally legal modification’ for the fabricator, meaning they could at least partially address the latter half of his worries. The whole process of ripping out an old printer and replacing the parts for a new one felt a lot easier than she imagined… even if it took her at least forty-eight hours to complete it… with help from Harrison. Maybe that was why it felt so easy… She supposed the colony overseers didn’t choose the man for no reason, so his skills made sense.
“So… what do we want to print out first?” Tracy questioned, having finished testing the last major component.
The engineer stretched his arms up into the air and rotated his shoulders, then pulled back the desk’s chair and took a seat. “I’ve had just one thing in mind since the start of this whole project.”
Her brows raised in a mix of excitement and curiosity. She leaned forward, looking at the computer monitor from over his shoulder. “Oh? What’s that, then?”
A smirk formed along his cheek, the computer mouse rapidly clicking through the blueprint folder. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what kind of firearm we need since I started dabbling in belt-fed weapon systems.” He opened one final file, a short loading bar preceding the exploded assembly view of… “An M2 Browning machine gun. It’s more than powerful enough to kill in one shot, while also being capable of fully-automatic fire, with a capacity of however many rounds we want in a belt-box.”
“Uh…huh…” She gave a skeptical nod and took a step back, not exactly sold on the idea. “It looks ancient. It’s kinetic, right? Why aren’t we using energy-based weapons? Don’t we have a gunpowder shortage coming up?”
He moved his chair off to the side to look back at her. “We just can’t; Simple as. We’ll need who knows how many more AI cores before we can get started on that level of equipment, Trace,” he huffed, returning his gaze to the specifications of the firearm. “This isn’t the most ‘modern’ weapon we can make, but its twenty-first century counterpart helps with an improved design… somewhat. And, as I said before, it should be more than capable of killing a bug in one shot, so Shar can just tap-fire it to save ammunition.”
Her head tilted quizzically. “Shar?”
“Yup,” he returned confidently. “It’s the perfect weapon for her.”
She raised a brow. “How so?”
He held his hand up, counting his reasons on his fingers. “She’s always on the front line with a shield, she can absolutely handle the weight and recoil, her four arms make reloading it simple, plus she’ll need something with range and power that isn’t a spear. So, why not? And, if for some reason, she doesn’t want to use it, we can just convert it into a turret—which is something I was planning on doing anyways with however more M2s we print out later.”
“I doubt she’ll say no to any gun you give her,” Tracy chuckled while shaking her head, inadvertently causing her bangs to cover her eyes.
“Fair enough,” he conceded with a bob of his head. “What do you think, then? What kinda weapons do you have in mind?”
She reapplied her goggles into an impromptu hairband, feeling a smirk cross her face. “Thought you’d never ask. What purpose do we need these guns to fulfill? Hordes I’m guessing?”
“That’s the idea, yeah. That doesn’t mean they all need to be machine guns, though.” He tapped the belt-fed shotgun beside him.
“Well, lemme see what we’re working with first.” She suddenly stepped forward, leaning over Harrison’s seat to access the keyboard and mouse. Her arms briefly rubbed against him, forcing him to roll his chair backward. She suppressed a giggle at seeing his incredulous frown.
Her eyes quickly traced the hundreds of individual files, clicking through all sorts of folders, each arranged from pre-twenty-first century ‘antiques,’ to more modern iterations of kinetics and particle weaponry. There was… a lot on there—almost too much to reasonably comb through. Why? Did the colony overseers just say ‘fuck it’ and put whatever they could find on here? Were they expecting the pioneers to make a museum of everything?
She sighed, standing up straight and facing Harrison. “Y’know, I’m actually impressed you managed to find that M2-whatever in there…”
He shifted in his seat, resting an elbow on the desk. “Yup, there’s a lot. I’m almost tempted to just make several of those machine guns and just call it a day, but I feel like that’d be too much of a strain on resources, no?”
“I don’t really know enough about how you fight those spider-crab things, or how to get more gunpowder, so… maybe?” She shrugged, biting her cheek in contemplation. “You might just wanna make a few smaller caliber weapons… like, uh… those old kinetic service rifles. If your pump-action shotgun works fine, I’m sure some normal guns would work just fine for now, right?”
He hardily gripped his firearm, hauling it up to his lap. “Depends on what you mean by ‘smaller caliber.’ The whole reason why the KS-23 here works—” he pulled out a massive shell from the ammo belt, displaying it on his palm. “—is because the twenty-three-millimeter round has enough energy transfer to mess up any bug's shell and insides. I’d say the smallest rounds we could use would be point-two-forty-three caliber to get any similar results.”
Brief flickers of grungy orange shells and gnashing teeth marred Tracy’s sight. She forcibly suppressed them, distracting herself with dry humor and a strained laugh. “Guess those fuckers can really take a punch, huh?”
He shook his head somberly. “I couldn’t imagine going up against them without a gun… Anyway, I like your idea of a standard rifle for now. Then, when we have some product lines up, we can go a little more in depth into personal weapons.”
“So are you gonna take one?” She hopped up on the desk, letting her legs swing off the side.
“Don’t think so, no. I’ll stick with my shotty.” The internals of the heavily modified weapon rattled as he held it up and inspected it. “Doesn’t mean I’ll keep it as is. I’m thinking of printing a laser aiming module so I can point-fire it accurately, and maybe a melee-oriented muzzle brake or a lighter chassis to reduce weight… Not sure though.”
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, her cheeks in her palms. “Melee-oriented? Oooooh, like a chain-sword or something?”
His short chuckle coerced a smirk to her face. “No, not like that. More something to use as a bludgeoning tool. Right before the blood-moon, I ended up getting just as much use out of this shotgun as a hammer than as a… well, a shotgun.”
“That’s pretty fuckin’ metal. So are you just gonna make the barrel into a giant bayonet?”
He nodded. “Not exactly a bayonet, but something more like a door-breaching break.”
A short silence settled on their conversation, the faint sounds of the fabricator’s hum and distant woodwork coming to light. Right, there was an outside world… She’d been too caught up talking to Harrison for however many hours it had been. She wondered how successful the fisherwomen were in collecting, and how things had been for the others working on the wood storage shack. Maybe it was already completed? The sun peered through the cargo bay door, proving that it was only about midday. What else would they work on today?
“Hey,” she ventured.
“Hm?” the engineer hummed, his eyes focused on the monitor beside the technician.
She scooted closer to his keyboard. “What’re we doing after this?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned backward, propping herself up on two hands. “Project wise; what’s the next big thing?”
“Uhmmm…” he muttered, interacting with the computer for a few more seconds before finally meeting her gaze. “Well, I’ve just allocated the fabricator to print out the M2, three FALs—wood furniture, of course—then there’s the magazines and ammunition, so we’ve got a lot of time to kill. The next big thing is definitely going to be metal procurement, and— Oh, right!” Harrison stopped mid-sentence, reaching into his backpack and pulling out several finger-sized metallic cubes, a sudden fire in his eyes. “Okay, so a while ago, during an encounter with three colossi, Shar and Akula found a cave with some ‘surface’ metal deposits. I took a piece off to analyze, but never got the chance to until last night. Anyway, we don’t have any machines to examine the ore, so I made use of the recycler and broke it down to its baser components.”
She nodded along, seeing where he was going with his explanation. “I’m guessing those shiny cubes are the metals from the ore?”
“Sure is. So, as it turns out, we have a pretty damn close supply of not only iron, but also, zinc, sulfur, and a small amount of cadmium. I talked with Sebas about it and did a little research. We believe it’s something akin to sphalerite, given its composition and looks, which implies it’s a sedimentary exhalative deposit. That means there must have been some volcanic…”
Harrison continued talking about underwater deposits and ancient rock formations, bringing up some theories brought forward by the now 4-AI-core-powered Sebas, delving into the current land mass’ history and possible ore output. A lot of it went over the tradewoman’s head, but she still listened intently… Honestly, she could have listened to the man talk about finding metals for hours. It was sort of like the podcasts she used to listen to while completing colonist training, but even more personal and somehow easier to get lost in…
“…find some other minerals further down like silver, but it also might be an active lava zone. Again, these are all theories and this world could just throw the fundamentals of geology away as it does for physics. Anyway, sorry for going on for so long about that, just thought it’d be important for getting some metals in the future.”
“No, no,” Tracy assured, alleviating him of concern with a wave of her hand. “If there’s anything the colony overseers emphasized, it was farming and mineral acquisition. Don’t worry.” She smiled, pointing a thumb to herself. “I just wanna know how I can help.”
“Actually, I’ve a few things only you can do. I’d like to make use of your impressive drone-making expertise for a few applications, if you don’t mind.”
The task of keeping eye contact slipped into an impossible feat in the span of a singular second, planting a pang of embarrassment on her reddened face, forcing her to inspect her fidgeting hands. “I-I wouldn’t say ‘impressive’… b-but what do you have in mind?”
She could see him raise a brow out of the corner of her vision. “Well, after what you’ve shown me with the reconnaissance flyers, I’d like your help in setting up a more permanent ‘net’ of them to scour the meadow and parts of the nearby forest to look out for any approaching hordes. I don’t want to be snuck up on… again…”
‘Again.’
She noted his small frown and sunken eyes, both a little more exaggerated than they already were. It wasn’t like she’d deny his request, but the pangs of empathy over their shared situation all but solidified her resolve. It was the least she could do. She could help him. She would help him.
The technician exhaled slowly, taking on a more serious and understanding tone than before. “I… can do that. For sure. What else?”
“I appreciate it.” He gave a wane smile. “I’ll help you with whatever you need for the project. For the other drones, I’m thinking about a small exploration vehicle to map out caves around us and mark any minerals, as well as a submersible to look for potassium deposits in the ocean.”
“So… search bots?” She crossed her arms, confidence growing; those were her specialty. “Depending on how long the fabricators take and what kind of base drones are in the blueprint folders, I should be able to get those done in no time. All I need to know are the search cues for potassium and how many drones you want.”
He quickly shuffled a few folders on the computer, turning the monitor for her to see some scientific documents with various images and walls upon walls of text. “There’re plenty of resources for that on here for what to look for, and there’s always Sebas, so feel free to ask him since he can just sort through the data for you anyway. If you can, I’d like it if you could focus on the submersible after the reconnaissance drones.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be right on it, then.” She gave him a thumbs up, slipping off his desk and toward her own.
“I’ll bring you lunch in a bit. Imma go check on the others,” he called.
Her stomach grumbled at the mention, her head turning to give him an appreciative smile. “Oh! Thanks!”
\= = = = =
Avian creatures chirped from their perches in the trees nearby. The wind softly rustled red leaves as grass gently gave way to calculated footfalls. A warm sun laid its light on Shar’khee’s neck. It was surprisingly pleasant, were one to take the time to notice. The mainland was a confusing place for the paladin, with its disparate representations of nature contrasting so heavily. Some days were filled with blood and ravenous beasts, while others were left within the domain of simplicity and beauty. She was content to have the latter, yet it felt like a facade veiling the former—a soft exterior covering the maliciously spiked interior. Never could she leave herself to carelessness, no matter how welcoming it might be.
Hence why she worked to ensure the safety of the star-sent’s castles and their inhabitants, her days largely spent patrolling for any roaming swarms that may wish to cause them harm. She typically used the routine to think, but today offered little in the way of solitude. This time, she was accompanied by the previously banished guardswoman, and was tasked with instructing the new one, though the specifics of what such lessons should entail were vague. Still, Shar’khee did all that she could so as not to disappoint Harrison, so she could only attempt to meet his expectations of her.
She told the yellow-skinned female of the threats that the settlement faced, how one was to defeat them, and what to expect from the beasts. The guardswoman was directed to practice her form with the spear in both thrusts and throwing for some time afterward, proving herself to be well-built. Such was expected of her profession after all.
It was pleasing to have another capable of patrolling the settlement’s outskirts for swarms, as it would greatly impact how effectively the colony could react to such a threat. If her routine was to suffer for the colony’s well-being, she was happy to show the new one her patrol route and note what to look out for.
The guardswoman was not a perfect student, however. Shar’khee never addressed it directly, but the yellow-skinned female obviously discredited the danger posed by the abhorrent, not-so-subtly shrugging off any warnings.
…That was until they stumbled upon the ‘hyena-boars,’ as Harrison called them.
The beasts resided in a clearing not too far from the castles, carelessly meandering across the sea of tall grass. Shar’khee quickly crouched, dragging the guardswoman down with her. Once she assessed that the creatures were not an imminent danger, she decided it would be an excellent opportunity to show the new one how to properly engage a threat. She was about to propose the idea, yet her speech was silenced just as swiftly.
Orange flashes darted through the trees around the glade. Taloned feet and gnashing teeth tore across the ground toward the unsuspecting beasts at the center. It was much too late for them. They were slow. Surrounded. Unaware. It was as quick as it was vicious, the forest’s reds turning a deeper crimson hue in a moment's notice underneath the abhorrent’s brutality.
Gangly monstrosities gnawed and ripped at the dead creatures, brief glimpses of raw flesh and white bone protruding from the small spaces between the clumped-up beasts. Repulsive wet splatters of blood and gore overlapped the calm noises of the forest, the grisly scene serenaded by the softest of nature’s symphonies. It was a sickening juxtaposition.
Shar’khee bit back the unease and steeled herself. They were within twenty paces—close enough to smell the abhorrent’s vile stench of rot and bile, yet far enough so as not to be noticed. She briefly considered backing away and retreating, her focus bouncing between the different avenues of escape, or how to cover her footst—
Crack.
Several sets of feral, eyeless maws snapped in their direction, the blood dripping off freshly dampened teeth. The guardswoman gasped, Shar’khee’s gaze following to see the mistake: a singular broken branch crinkled as a yellow-colored foot raised off the splintering twig.
The paladin exhaled sharply and smoothly stood up, brandishing two spears and her shield. Her glare settled on the still crouching guardswoman. “You are to stay behind my shield and let them appr—ch. Rem—ber what I have told you. Aim for their maws when you thrust y—r lance.”
The other female nodded, shakily pulling out her own weapons with unsteady placement hampering her grip. There was an obvious nervousness to her gaze. Hesitance. That would not do.
Shar’khee faced the prowling abhorrent her knuckles shifting hue as she prepared for their advance, for there was no chance that they wouldn’t. True to her experience, the stalking turned to a gallop with several clicks of grotesque tongues, the swarm bolting toward her as one. She snarled and slammed her bulwark into the ground, letting the approaching beasts skewer themselves amongst its spikes.
There were only ten—a paltry amount. She had defended against magnitudes more, and yet she still stood. What is more, they were mindless. Uncoordinated. They would be but stains in the cloth she used to clean her armor. Perhaps, if they were fortunate, they might leave a furrow in her shield to remember them by. Her arms tensed as the first leapt.
One by one, the abhorrent fell, their repulsive green blood splattering under her thrusts. Each awaiting corpse tore across the grove’s grass, lunging to their deaths with gaping maws and unfeeling hunger, yet she did not yield. Their shells were crushed by her shield and impaled by her Goddess-blessed spears, becoming but one more smear across their surface. Ten motionless lumps lay before her, seeping their ichor into the soil, none having passed the barrier she became. Dead, just as the Creator intended. She remained vigilant for a few moments longer, watching for any more of the disgusting creatures.
None showed themselves, finally allowing blood to flow to her fingers once again. The shield’s heavy presence weighed down her back, the blood flicked off of her spears before she returned them to their place.
“Are y–u well?” Shar’khee addressed the frozen Malkrin, wiping away the splatter on her bracers. The guardswoman stared at the small pile of deceased creatures, her heavy breaths and widened eyes moving from the spear from her singular kill. The paladin huffed. “We are fort—ate that there were so few.”
“F-Few? God help us…” Her horrified, stunned gaze slowly met the paladin’s. “Y-You said there were hundreds on the crimson nights? H-How do you… They were s-so fast.”*
”As I h–ve warned,” Shar’khee affirmed.
“You are a paladin! You all exaggerate your feats… I thought it was just a facade!”
“I have no r—son to lie,” she returned tersely, shrugging off the insult to her station and shaking her head. “The mainl—d is far more dangerous than ten gnash—g beasts; more so than that of your island hamlet. Pick yourself up. We m—t inform the others of this incursion.”
The yellow-skinned female snarled, furrowing her brows at the ground in frustration. At whom…? Shar’khee? Herself? Regardless, the female promptly gathered her composure, pushing air through clenched jaws. A step forward had her feet splash in the small pool of blood, the Malkrin nodding toward the paladin to continue back to the castles.
“…for the village.”
Shar’khee paused in her stride and faced her, frowning at the determination and anger leaking through the intent. “W—t was that?”
Her question was returned with honesty, a huffed voice marred by vexation. “Paladin, how am I to defend my village-mates as I am now?”
“‘As you are now?’ What do you m—n?”
The guardswoman stared down at her spear, wood creaking under her grip. “I have faltered before what you deem a paltry threat, and the thought of an even greater one sows dread deep within my bones. I wish… I wish to be better prepared to defend those of my village. I cannot help but see their faces on those of the furred creature in the clearing, and yet, even if I am so close, I am just as unable to protect them.”
Shar’khee stared down the yellow female, a long gaze taking in a rare showing of sincerity. “Y—r fears are one we all share, new one. Do not be ashamed of them. All t—t matters is that you do not let them rem—n mere fear, but make them your strength. So tell me, do you wish to impr—e? To ensure they do not fall while you are support—g them?”
The yellow-skinned female released a shuddering breath that bled off the worst of her indecision, a newly invoked flame flaring within her visage. “I do, paladin. I seek to protect and to be of use.”
“Then, if you wish to make y—rself resilient in the face of all that opposes us, it would be my undertak—g to forge you anew. Fortunately, Harrison has ordered such already, and his guidance shall prove ever useful, should you pursue it.”
The guardswoman shuffled in place at the star-sent’s mention, her eyes slipping downwards. “He is of a great many resources, but I would rather receive your teachings than those of a craftsman… or that of a male, deity-sent he might be.”
She placed a palm on the female’s shoulder. “He is far more than you might ever k—w. Regardless of if you ac—pt his guidance, I commend your conviction. However—” Her hand gripped tighter, though not enough to instill hostility. “—understand that you are protecting more than just your vi—age-mates.”
The new one nodded, staring up at the paladin with stallwart resolve. “Of course. I shall be in your tutelage, then.”
Shar’khee smiled. “T—n let us begin.”
\= = = = =
Akula was becoming increasingly certain that she knew how her parents once felt. The green-skinned fisherwoman was currently rotating between the many tasks placed upon her, guiding the newcomers through the minutia of their tasks so they might live up to the potential Harrison saw within them. She was gratified to have her own talents recognized by the Creator, but it also placed a great many responsibilities in her talons. Of course, she handled each new addition with finesse befitting her heritage, never once balking from the increasing demands. If anything, she felt validated; it was required of her as a female anyway, was it not? The more feminine-appropriate labor and management one undertakes, the higher authority they were granted.
It began with a simple assignment to oversee the chef’s introduction to the star-sent’s provided cooking appliances. As fascinating and convenient as utilities were, she held no interest in preparing any more food than she already had, but teaching another to operate the machines would alleviate such requirements of her. She reluctantly accepted the task when it was proposed, especially considering the fact that Harrison was much too busy with his other projects to bother with something as benign as cooking. His work was more valuable elsewhere.
The task itself went well, and the pink-skinned chef was quick to pick up on the use of the various kitchen devices, as well as the smoker. A grin had grown when she considered the possibility of all males understanding such domestic things readily, yet her mirth at removing the masculine job required of her was short-lived. Despite the newly initiated Malkrin’s success, Harrison had Akula frequently return to oversee the numerous cooking operations being conducted. That was in tandem with the back-to-back fishing trips made by both herself and the newly acquired females.
…Which was something else the green-skinned cycle-worshipper was ordered to oversee.
She had left the chef to his devices after producing another batch of partially seasoned meals, returning to the Creator with hopes of a break. He applauded her efforts with a nod and tersely spoken appreciation, then quickly pushed two spearguns into her hand and directed her to the ocean, where the twins were ‘working with jack shit,’ as the busy male said. She was to give the fisherwomen the tools and make sure they were used properly, and offer additional assistance in acquiring ‘enough fish to have us fed for a little bit.’
So, she left to complete the given task, feeling somewhat appreciative that her speargun was of superior quality to those she would be delivering—the newcomers were only afforded the lesser, roped-bolt version. It was only natural that she was in possession of their greatest assets, of course; the star-sent saw her as the only one capable of wielding such fantastic ammunition, showing trust that was rightfully placed in her. That did not mean the gray-skinned females were unsatisfied with their own gifts, however. The twins were swiftly caught up on the ‘manual of arms’ and sent to work, somehow managing to keep up with Akula in spite of their land-based origins. The two were fast enough to outpace the cycle-worshipper in sheer speed, but their lack of numerous winters spent traversing deeper waters meant they required frequent rests, breaking the ocean’s surface after every third captured fish or so.
Still, she had to appreciate their dedication to their task. They never complained about Akula pushing them further to reach the star-sent’s vague objective. Such a task was entrusted to her—and by proxy, the other two—and thus it would be completed, no matter how much her comfortable bed… couch called her tiring muscles.
The group of three hauled net after full net of fresh meat to the chef—and sewist, who later joined him—forcing him to relegate much of the catch to long-term storage as the kitchen simply could not deal with the surplus. At least three-quarters of the fish were put to slow cook in the now Malkrin-sized smoker. The craftsman had upgraded it with a kit provided by Harrison, who had recycled much of the dining room and workshop furniture to accommodate it. The Creator’s showcased urgency to gather materials was clearly not unfounded… It was admirable how he used what little he had left to ensure food would not be scarce. Additionally, the apparatus exuded an excellent scent for all the survivors to enjoy, the earthy aroma drawing in some of the other Malkrin for their breaks or meals.
Those were not the end of the cycle-worshiper’s tasks, however. She was also required to report on Shar’khee’s progress in training the guardswoman—helping to recycle the small swarm of abhorrent they cleared earlier—as well as the wood storage building’s progress. Indeed, she was advising and assisting however and wherever applicable. To say she was seen all around the settlement would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, she was appreciative to see her efforts bearing fruit by sundown. The processing of their meals from sea to plate was quite efficient, and those that Akula taught were now well-practiced in their duties. The twin fisherwomen dove from wave to wave, bringing fish back to the barracks, where the cook and sewist swiftly worked to transfer the meat to pans and smoker hooks alike. Then, the remnants of the Sea Goddess’ aquatic gifts would be subsequently recycled and given purpose anew as biofuel or perhaps future fertilizer.
The endless onslaught of duties and responsibilities had enlightened her, in a way. She could see where Harrison came from now; having a working project go from one point to another without input nor difficulty was a sight to behold, and it made her swell with pride. It was a surmountable feat to teach the barbaric ground-worshippers to do something properly.
…Well, they were not horrible Malkrin, so perhaps simply calling them ‘uninitiated’ was a more apt descriptor…
No matter the tribulations faced, and no matter how draining her new authority might be, her rest at the end of the day would be one that was well-earned, and it would be had with a sense of satisfaction. She deserved it, and perhaps that extended to the rest of the settlement as well.
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Mine! Mine! Mine!
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Edited by WaveOfWire
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Two days… It had been two days that Tracy had gone to sleep while Harrison was working, only to come back in the morning to see him still in the workshop. She knew he was damn productive, sure, but that really couldn’t be healthy. Apparently, it had something to do with the weird bowl of orange… soup… that Cera gave him. No way was it just caffeine; any amount of the stuff would have been filtered out of his system by now. He mentioned a tingling feeling too…
Damn, she did not know enough about drugs to even start assuming what that massive alien had Harrison fucked up on. At least the scanner said he was ‘fine’—if you ignore the other glaring issues the machine brought up. Plus, he said he didn’t mind it. Either way, he managed to complete the weaving component and a few other electrical backbones of the fabricator last night, so the project was practically done, and after seeing the engineer work himself half to death, she was dead-set on finishing it.
She was currently tits-deep into the upper manufacturing portion of the towering machine. It took a tall step-stool—on top of the nearby desk—for her to push her small shoulders through the even smaller access panels high on the everything-printer. It was difficult to fit her torso in, but she managed, holding a flashlight between her teeth as she fiddled with a stubborn series of mechanical ‘hands.’ Nothing new. The situation reminded her of the ‘shop back on Mars; it had the same ever-present scent of copper and industrial sealant. All that was missing was her dad’s ancient tunes blasting through some shitty speakers… Hold on…
The modular component in her grip was successfully attached with a resonating thock. Tracy squirmed out of the dim wire-filled crevice, trying her best to not rip her only tank-top on any bolts or corners, and getting a face-full of the bright flood-lights illuminating the workshop. She scowled and blocked out the searing light with a hand, but she was a bit too late to avoid going half-blind.
“Are the mechanical manipulators in?” Harrison grunted, poking his head out underneath the printer’s floor-adjacent maintenance hatch. She looked down at him as she tried to blink off the spots in her vision. His hair was messy, barely kept in line by his habit of combing through it with his fingers. The areas around his eyes were dark and sunken… Guess that’s what two all-nighters did to a man. He’d be seeing the hat man or start hallucinating if he didn’t get any sleep soon… but then again, the two of them were so close to finishing the fabricator…
“You bet.” She gave him a thumbs up, slamming the panel cover closed. “Feel free to test it.”
He nodded and slid back underneath the machine. “Gotcha”
She gently stepped off the stool and slid off the side of the desk, stretching herself out. If her piss-poor sitting posture or her tank-top puppies hadn’t already fucked her spine up, bending over backward to build this fabricator sure as hell would. She sat down next to the panel where Harrison resided, resting her back against the fabrication tower. Her excited voice broke the muffled noises of the engineer’s work. “So… Harrison?”
“Hmm—”
“—Mind if I play some music?”
The sounds from the hatch stopped, followed by his muffled, shocked tone echoing from beneath the fabricator. “You have music!?”
She smirked at seeing the expression on his face when his head popped out again. “I sure do… Did you seriously not download any to your data pad?”
He slipped out from beneath the fabricator fully, huffing as he took a knee beside her. The scent of melded rubber, wire, and his liquid labor reached her nose not-so-unpleasantly. “You would not believe how much of a pain it is to repair an entire barracks without it… So, yeah, I didn’t.”
“Sooooooooo, whatcha wanna listen to? I’ve got almost everything on here—besides the super niche, of course.” She pulled her data pad out, swiping to the massive music folder
“You wouldn’t like the kinda music I listen to; It’s ancient.”
She gave him a lighthearted, annoyed glare. “Welcome to the club… Now what’ll it be?”
“It’s Old Earth kind of ancient… but alright” He looked up at the ceiling in thought, lips pursed. “Do you have anything from Styx or Sweet?”
She stared at him incredulously, her smirk turning into a fully-fledged smile. “Oh my God. You are an absolute dork! You actually listen to Golden Age music?”
His brows raised, accusatory. “And you somehow know exactly who those bands were and what age of Old Earth music they came from?”
She smugly leaned in closer. “That’s because I’m just as much of a nerd with that kinda music as you apparently are.” She quickly looked upward, addressing the workshop AI. “Sebas, connect nearby speakers to my data pad’s audio.” Tracy elbowed the engineer lightly as the PA system chirped its affirmation. “Now, Mr. Golden Age music, which albums do ya want me to queue up?”
- - - - -
The two of them listened to music for hours, tossing on songs they liked as they came to mind while they worked. Harrison had a ton of recommendations that spanned all over the Golden Ages and some twenty-first century classics. She didn’t even know half of them, but she was vibing either way, adding on her own taste by intermingling some older rock tracks and newer electronic beats. The playlist was steadily built up as the day went on. Thank God her dad showed her a vast array of tunes; she might not have been able to keep up with the engineer if her old man hadn't.
It made the work go by so fast, their conversations blurring as they jumped from topic to topic. They discussed whatever came to mind—old hobbies, old jobs, and old interests. A lot was left behind in Sol… At least she knew that the only other human on the planet was more interesting than a soulless workaholic. It turned out that he was a pretty big history buff, and he apparently read a lot about the colonization of the Sol system and the various wars of independence thereafter. Curious, she asked where the interest stemmed from, and he explained that his grandfather was an admiral in the Slavic-Europan deep-ice submarine fleet, which explained how Harrison’s mother was able to afford to immigrate to Mars from Europa.
He could also play an acoustic guitar, and, unfortunately for Tracy, he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in printing one out, citing that it was a waste of time and material that would be better used elsewhere. That didn’t stop her from writing a note on her data pad to do so later, though. She hadn’t seen someone play one of those in years—the last time was probably in some old music video from the early twenty-second century. What a shame. She would have liked to hear some of the Europan songs his grandmother taught him.
On the bright side, the man seemed to take an interest in her odd hobbies. He brought up the folder of 3D models that she accidentally uploaded to the inter-module system and asked where she got the inspiration for what was in it. Boy, was he not ready for her ‘WarHalberd40k’ lore dump. Props to the guy for not standing up and leaving the workshop throughout her rambling. He even asked questions about the different factions and their weapons, which she was more than happy to talk about.
She also ended up going over the other franchises and hobbies she was interested in, such as robotics and the like. The only interruptions to their chat were the occasional Akula or Craftsman asking for insight regarding the various tasks he had allotted to them, or Shar coming in to check up on Harrison between guard shifts.
The new dynamic of the group was pretty interesting, to say the least. Tracy hadn’t been out to interact with the whole lot of Malkrin, but she definitely noticed how they treated the engineer. They’d started to look up to him in a way ever since he started showing off technology. In a little over two days, the man had shown them that he could provide the materials for a brick house, fine clothing—especially by the alien’s standards—armor, and delicious food. That wasn’t even mentioning the other benefits the technician heard a few of the ‘banished’ talking about over their meals: heating, electric lights, and other assorted machines.
She’d be feeling pretty happy about herself if she was in his position, having so many look up to him and be grateful at the same time. He seemed to view it a lot more robotically, however, only striving to get the basics done. Luckily for him, his basics were their luxury.
That wasn’t all there was to the topic; the engineer lamented about how the colony was going through food just as quickly as materials. The meals weren’t the direct issue he had, more that he had to start focusing on long-term resource harvesting rather than directly preparing for a literal horde of monsters—which wasn’t exactly ideal. It was a good thing that they just so happened to take on an influx of Malkrin then…
Either way, they finally finished the ‘totally legal modification’ for the fabricator, meaning they could at least partially address the latter half of his worries. The whole process of ripping out an old printer and replacing the parts for a new one felt a lot easier than she imagined… even if it took her at least forty-eight hours to complete it… with help from Harrison. Maybe that was why it felt so easy… She supposed the colony overseers didn’t choose the man for no reason, so his skills made sense.
“So… what do we want to print out first?” Tracy questioned, having finished testing the last major component.
The engineer stretched his arms up into the air and rotated his shoulders, then pulled back the desk’s chair and took a seat. “I’ve had just one thing in mind since the start of this whole project.”
Her brows raised in a mix of excitement and curiosity. She leaned forward, looking at the computer monitor from over his shoulder. “Oh? What’s that, then?”
A smirk formed along his cheek, the computer mouse rapidly clicking through the blueprint folder. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what kind of firearm we need since I started dabbling in belt-fed weapon systems.” He opened one final file, a short loading bar preceding the exploded assembly view of… “An M2 Browning machine gun. It’s more than powerful enough to kill in one shot, while also being capable of fully-automatic fire, with a capacity of however many rounds we want in a belt-box.”
“Uh…huh…” She gave a skeptical nod and took a step back, not exactly sold on the idea. “It looks ancient. It’s kinetic, right? Why aren’t we using energy-based weapons? Don’t we have a gunpowder shortage coming up?”
He moved his chair off to the side to look back at her. “We just can’t; Simple as. We’ll need who knows how many more AI cores before we can get started on that level of equipment, Trace,” he huffed, returning his gaze to the specifications of the firearm. “This isn’t the most ‘modern’ weapon we can make, but its twenty-first century counterpart helps with an improved design… somewhat. And, as I said before, it should be more than capable of killing a bug in one shot, so Shar can just tap-fire it to save ammunition.”
Her head tilted quizzically. “Shar?”
“Yup,” he returned confidently. “It’s the perfect weapon for her.”
She raised a brow. “How so?”
He held his hand up, counting his reasons on his fingers. “She’s always on the front line with a shield, she can absolutely handle the weight and recoil, her four arms make reloading it simple, plus she’ll need something with range and power that isn’t a spear. So, why not? And, if for some reason, she doesn’t want to use it, we can just convert it into a turret—which is something I was planning on doing anyways with however more M2s we print out later.”
“I doubt she’ll say no to any gun you give her,” Tracy chuckled while shaking her head, inadvertently causing her bangs to cover her eyes.
“Fair enough,” he conceded with a bob of his head. “What do you think, then? What kinda weapons do you have in mind?”
She reapplied her goggles into an impromptu hairband, feeling a smirk cross her face. “Thought you’d never ask. What purpose do we need these guns to fulfill? Hordes I’m guessing?”
“That’s the idea, yeah. That doesn’t mean they all need to be machine guns, though.” He tapped the belt-fed shotgun beside him.
“Well, lemme see what we’re working with first.” She suddenly stepped forward, leaning over Harrison’s seat to access the keyboard and mouse. Her arms briefly rubbed against him, forcing him to roll his chair backward. She suppressed a giggle at seeing his incredulous frown.
Her eyes quickly traced the hundreds of individual files, clicking through all sorts of folders, each arranged from pre-twenty-first century ‘antiques,’ to more modern iterations of kinetics and particle weaponry. There was… a lot on there—almost too much to reasonably comb through. Why? Did the colony overseers just say ‘fuck it’ and put whatever they could find on here? Were they expecting the pioneers to make a museum of everything?
She sighed, standing up straight and facing Harrison. “Y’know, I’m actually impressed you managed to find that M2-whatever in there…”
He shifted in his seat, resting an elbow on the desk. “Yup, there’s a lot. I’m almost tempted to just make several of those machine guns and just call it a day, but I feel like that’d be too much of a strain on resources, no?”
“I don’t really know enough about how you fight those spider-crab things, or how to get more gunpowder, so… maybe?” She shrugged, biting her cheek in contemplation. “You might just wanna make a few smaller caliber weapons… like, uh… those old kinetic service rifles. If your pump-action shotgun works fine, I’m sure some normal guns would work just fine for now, right?”
He hardily gripped his firearm, hauling it up to his lap. “Depends on what you mean by ‘smaller caliber.’ The whole reason why the KS-23 here works—” he pulled out a massive shell from the ammo belt, displaying it on his palm. “—is because the twenty-three-millimeter round has enough energy transfer to mess up any bug's shell and insides. I’d say the smallest rounds we could use would be point-two-forty-three caliber to get any similar results.”
Brief flickers of grungy orange shells and gnashing teeth marred Tracy’s sight. She forcibly suppressed them, distracting herself with dry humor and a strained laugh. “Guess those fuckers can really take a punch, huh?”
He shook his head somberly. “I couldn’t imagine going up against them without a gun… Anyway, I like your idea of a standard rifle for now. Then, when we have some product lines up, we can go a little more in depth into personal weapons.”
“So are you gonna take one?” She hopped up on the desk, letting her legs swing off the side.
“Don’t think so, no. I’ll stick with my shotty.” The internals of the heavily modified weapon rattled as he held it up and inspected it. “Doesn’t mean I’ll keep it as is. I’m thinking of printing a laser aiming module so I can point-fire it accurately, and maybe a melee-oriented muzzle brake or a lighter chassis to reduce weight… Not sure though.”
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, her cheeks in her palms. “Melee-oriented? Oooooh, like a chain-sword or something?”
His short chuckle coerced a smirk to her face. “No, not like that. More something to use as a bludgeoning tool. Right before the blood-moon, I ended up getting just as much use out of this shotgun as a hammer than as a… well, a shotgun.”
“That’s pretty fuckin’ metal. So are you just gonna make the barrel into a giant bayonet?”
He nodded. “Not exactly a bayonet, but something more like a door-breaching break.”
A short silence settled on their conversation, the faint sounds of the fabricator’s hum and distant woodwork coming to light. Right, there was an outside world… She’d been too caught up talking to Harrison for however many hours it had been. She wondered how successful the fisherwomen were in collecting, and how things had been for the others working on the wood storage shack. Maybe it was already completed? The sun peered through the cargo bay door, proving that it was only about midday. What else would they work on today?
“Hey,” she ventured.
“Hm?” the engineer hummed, his eyes focused on the monitor beside the technician.
She scooted closer to his keyboard. “What’re we doing after this?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned backward, propping herself up on two hands. “Project wise; what’s the next big thing?”
“Uhmmm…” he muttered, interacting with the computer for a few more seconds before finally meeting her gaze. “Well, I’ve just allocated the fabricator to print out the M2, three FALs—wood furniture, of course—then there’s the magazines and ammunition, so we’ve got a lot of time to kill. The next big thing is definitely going to be metal procurement, and— Oh, right!” Harrison stopped mid-sentence, reaching into his backpack and pulling out several finger-sized metallic cubes, a sudden fire in his eyes. “Okay, so a while ago, during an encounter with three colossi, Shar and Akula found a cave with some ‘surface’ metal deposits. I took a piece off to analyze, but never got the chance to until last night. Anyway, we don’t have any machines to examine the ore, so I made use of the recycler and broke it down to its baser components.”
She nodded along, seeing where he was going with his explanation. “I’m guessing those shiny cubes are the metals from the ore?”
“Sure is. So, as it turns out, we have a pretty damn close supply of not only iron, but also, zinc, sulfur, and a small amount of cadmium. I talked with Sebas about it and did a little research. We believe it’s something akin to sphalerite, given its composition and looks, which implies it’s a sedimentary exhalative deposit. That means there must have been some volcanic…”
Harrison continued talking about underwater deposits and ancient rock formations, bringing up some theories brought forward by the now 4-AI-core-powered Sebas, delving into the current land mass’ history and possible ore output. A lot of it went over the tradewoman’s head, but she still listened intently… Honestly, she could have listened to the man talk about finding metals for hours. It was sort of like the podcasts she used to listen to while completing colonist training, but even more personal and somehow easier to get lost in…
“…find some other minerals further down like silver, but it also might be an active lava zone. Again, these are all theories and this world could just throw the fundamentals of geology away as it does for physics. Anyway, sorry for going on for so long about that, just thought it’d be important for getting some metals in the future.”
“No, no,” Tracy assured, alleviating him of concern with a wave of her hand. “If there’s anything the colony overseers emphasized, it was farming and mineral acquisition. Don’t worry.” She smiled, pointing a thumb to herself. “I just wanna know how I can help.”
“Actually, I’ve a few things only you can do. I’d like to make use of your impressive drone-making expertise for a few applications, if you don’t mind.”
The task of keeping eye contact slipped into an impossible feat in the span of a singular second, planting a pang of embarrassment on her reddened face, forcing her to inspect her fidgeting hands. “I-I wouldn’t say ‘impressive’… b-but what do you have in mind?”
She could see him raise a brow out of the corner of her vision. “Well, after what you’ve shown me with the reconnaissance flyers, I’d like your help in setting up a more permanent ‘net’ of them to scour the meadow and parts of the nearby forest to look out for any approaching hordes. I don’t want to be snuck up on… again…”
‘Again.’
She noted his small frown and sunken eyes, both a little more exaggerated than they already were. It wasn’t like she’d deny his request, but the pangs of empathy over their shared situation all but solidified her resolve. It was the least she could do. She could help him. She would help him.
The technician exhaled slowly, taking on a more serious and understanding tone than before. “I… can do that. For sure. What else?”
“I appreciate it.” He gave a wane smile. “I’ll help you with whatever you need for the project. For the other drones, I’m thinking about a small exploration vehicle to map out caves around us and mark any minerals, as well as a submersible to look for potassium deposits in the ocean.”
“So… search bots?” She crossed her arms, confidence growing; those were her specialty. “Depending on how long the fabricators take and what kind of base drones are in the blueprint folders, I should be able to get those done in no time. All I need to know are the search cues for potassium and how many drones you want.”
He quickly shuffled a few folders on the computer, turning the monitor for her to see some scientific documents with various images and walls upon walls of text. “There’re plenty of resources for that on here for what to look for, and there’s always Sebas, so feel free to ask him since he can just sort through the data for you anyway. If you can, I’d like it if you could focus on the submersible after the reconnaissance drones.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be right on it, then.” She gave him a thumbs up, slipping off his desk and toward her own.
“I’ll bring you lunch in a bit. Imma go check on the others,” he called.
Her stomach grumbled at the mention, her head turning to give him an appreciative smile. “Oh! Thanks!”
\= = = = =
Avian creatures chirped from their perches in the trees nearby. The wind softly rustled red leaves as grass gently gave way to calculated footfalls. A warm sun laid its light on Shar’khee’s neck. It was surprisingly pleasant, were one to take the time to notice. The mainland was a confusing place for the paladin, with its disparate representations of nature contrasting so heavily. Some days were filled with blood and ravenous beasts, while others were left within the domain of simplicity and beauty. She was content to have the latter, yet it felt like a facade veiling the former—a soft exterior covering the maliciously spiked interior. Never could she leave herself to carelessness, no matter how welcoming it might be.
Hence why she worked to ensure the safety of the star-sent’s castles and their inhabitants, her days largely spent patrolling for any roaming swarms that may wish to cause them harm. She typically used the routine to think, but today offered little in the way of solitude. This time, she was accompanied by the previously banished guardswoman, and was tasked with instructing the new one, though the specifics of what such lessons should entail were vague. Still, Shar’khee did all that she could so as not to disappoint Harrison, so she could only attempt to meet his expectations of her.
She told the yellow-skinned female of the threats that the settlement faced, how one was to defeat them, and what to expect from the beasts. The guardswoman was directed to practice her form with the spear in both thrusts and throwing for some time afterward, proving herself to be well-built. Such was expected of her profession after all.
It was pleasing to have another capable of patrolling the settlement’s outskirts for swarms, as it would greatly impact how effectively the colony could react to such a threat. If her routine was to suffer for the colony’s well-being, she was happy to show the new one her patrol route and note what to look out for.
The guardswoman was not a perfect student, however. Shar’khee never addressed it directly, but the yellow-skinned female obviously discredited the danger posed by the abhorrent, not-so-subtly shrugging off any warnings.
…That was until they stumbled upon the ‘hyena-boars,’ as Harrison called them.
The beasts resided in a clearing not too far from the castles, carelessly meandering across the sea of tall grass. Shar’khee quickly crouched, dragging the guardswoman down with her. Once she assessed that the creatures were not an imminent danger, she decided it would be an excellent opportunity to show the new one how to properly engage a threat. She was about to propose the idea, yet her speech was silenced just as swiftly.
Orange flashes darted through the trees around the glade. Taloned feet and gnashing teeth tore across the ground toward the unsuspecting beasts at the center. It was much too late for them. They were slow. Surrounded. Unaware. It was as quick as it was vicious, the forest’s reds turning a deeper crimson hue in a moment's notice underneath the abhorrent’s brutality.
Gangly monstrosities gnawed and ripped at the dead creatures, brief glimpses of raw flesh and white bone protruding from the small spaces between the clumped-up beasts. Repulsive wet splatters of blood and gore overlapped the calm noises of the forest, the grisly scene serenaded by the softest of nature’s symphonies. It was a sickening juxtaposition.
Shar’khee bit back the unease and steeled herself. They were within twenty paces—close enough to smell the abhorrent’s vile stench of rot and bile, yet far enough so as not to be noticed. She briefly considered backing away and retreating, her focus bouncing between the different avenues of escape, or how to cover her footst—
Crack.
Several sets of feral, eyeless maws snapped in their direction, the blood dripping off freshly dampened teeth. The guardswoman gasped, Shar’khee’s gaze following to see the mistake: a singular broken branch crinkled as a yellow-colored foot raised off the splintering twig.
The paladin exhaled sharply and smoothly stood up, brandishing two spears and her shield. Her glare settled on the still crouching guardswoman. “You are to stay behind my shield and let them appr—ch. Rem—ber what I have told you. Aim for their maws when you thrust y—r lance.”
The other female nodded, shakily pulling out her own weapons with unsteady placement hampering her grip. There was an obvious nervousness to her gaze. Hesitance. That would not do.
Shar’khee faced the prowling abhorrent her knuckles shifting hue as she prepared for their advance, for there was no chance that they wouldn’t. True to her experience, the stalking turned to a gallop with several clicks of grotesque tongues, the swarm bolting toward her as one. She snarled and slammed her bulwark into the ground, letting the approaching beasts skewer themselves amongst its spikes.
There were only ten—a paltry amount. She had defended against magnitudes more, and yet she still stood. What is more, they were mindless. Uncoordinated. They would be but stains in the cloth she used to clean her armor. Perhaps, if they were fortunate, they might leave a furrow in her shield to remember them by. Her arms tensed as the first leapt.
One by one, the abhorrent fell, their repulsive green blood splattering under her thrusts. Each awaiting corpse tore across the grove’s grass, lunging to their deaths with gaping maws and unfeeling hunger, yet she did not yield. Their shells were crushed by her shield and impaled by her Goddess-blessed spears, becoming but one more smear across their surface. Ten motionless lumps lay before her, seeping their ichor into the soil, none having passed the barrier she became. Dead, just as the Creator intended. She remained vigilant for a few moments longer, watching for any more of the disgusting creatures.
None showed themselves, finally allowing blood to flow to her fingers once again. The shield’s heavy presence weighed down her back, the blood flicked off of her spears before she returned them to their place.
“Are y–u well?” Shar’khee addressed the frozen Malkrin, wiping away the splatter on her bracers. The guardswoman stared at the small pile of deceased creatures, her heavy breaths and widened eyes moving from the spear from her singular kill. The paladin huffed. “We are fort—ate that there were so few.”
“F-Few? God help us…” Her horrified, stunned gaze slowly met the paladin’s. “Y-You said there were hundreds on the crimson nights? H-How do you… They were s-so fast.”*
”As I h–ve warned,” Shar’khee affirmed.
“You are a paladin! You all exaggerate your feats… I thought it was just a facade!”
“I have no r—son to lie,” she returned tersely, shrugging off the insult to her station and shaking her head. “The mainl—d is far more dangerous than ten gnash—g beasts; more so than that of your island hamlet. Pick yourself up. We m—t inform the others of this incursion.”
The yellow-skinned female snarled, furrowing her brows at the ground in frustration. At whom…? Shar’khee? Herself? Regardless, the female promptly gathered her composure, pushing air through clenched jaws. A step forward had her feet splash in the small pool of blood, the Malkrin nodding toward the paladin to continue back to the castles.
“…for the village.”
Shar’khee paused in her stride and faced her, frowning at the determination and anger leaking through the intent. “W—t was that?”
Her question was returned with honesty, a huffed voice marred by vexation. “Paladin, how am I to defend my village-mates as I am now?”
“‘As you are now?’ What do you m—n?”
The guardswoman stared down at her spear, wood creaking under her grip. “I have faltered before what you deem a paltry threat, and the thought of an even greater one sows dread deep within my bones. I wish… I wish to be better prepared to defend those of my village. I cannot help but see their faces on those of the furred creature in the clearing, and yet, even if I am so close, I am just as unable to protect them.”
Shar’khee stared down the yellow female, a long gaze taking in a rare showing of sincerity. “Y—r fears are one we all share, new one. Do not be ashamed of them. All t—t matters is that you do not let them rem—n mere fear, but make them your strength. So tell me, do you wish to impr—e? To ensure they do not fall while you are support—g them?”
The yellow-skinned female released a shuddering breath that bled off the worst of her indecision, a newly invoked flame flaring within her visage. “I do, paladin. I seek to protect and to be of use.”
“Then, if you wish to make y—rself resilient in the face of all that opposes us, it would be my undertak—g to forge you anew. Fortunately, Harrison has ordered such already, and his guidance shall prove ever useful, should you pursue it.”
The guardswoman shuffled in place at the star-sent’s mention, her eyes slipping downwards. “He is of a great many resources, but I would rather receive your teachings than those of a craftsman… or that of a male, deity-sent he might be.”
She placed a palm on the female’s shoulder. “He is far more than you might ever k—w. Regardless of if you ac—pt his guidance, I commend your conviction. However—” Her hand gripped tighter, though not enough to instill hostility. “—understand that you are protecting more than just your vi—age-mates.”
The new one nodded, staring up at the paladin with stallwart resolve. “Of course. I shall be in your tutelage, then.”
Shar’khee smiled. “T—n let us begin.”
\= = = = =
Akula was becoming increasingly certain that she knew how her parents once felt. The green-skinned fisherwoman was currently rotating between the many tasks placed upon her, guiding the newcomers through the minutia of their tasks so they might live up to the potential Harrison saw within them. She was gratified to have her own talents recognized by the Creator, but it also placed a great many responsibilities in her talons. Of course, she handled each new addition with finesse befitting her heritage, never once balking from the increasing demands. If anything, she felt validated; it was required of her as a female anyway, was it not? The more feminine-appropriate labor and management one undertakes, the higher authority they were granted.
It began with a simple assignment to oversee the chef’s introduction to the star-sent’s provided cooking appliances. As fascinating and convenient as utilities were, she held no interest in preparing any more food than she already had, but teaching another to operate the machines would alleviate such requirements of her. She reluctantly accepted the task when it was proposed, especially considering the fact that Harrison was much too busy with his other projects to bother with something as benign as cooking. His work was more valuable elsewhere.
The task itself went well, and the pink-skinned chef was quick to pick up on the use of the various kitchen devices, as well as the smoker. A grin had grown when she considered the possibility of all males understanding such domestic things readily, yet her mirth at removing the masculine job required of her was short-lived. Despite the newly initiated Malkrin’s success, Harrison had Akula frequently return to oversee the numerous cooking operations being conducted. That was in tandem with the back-to-back fishing trips made by both herself and the newly acquired females.
…Which was something else the green-skinned cycle-worshipper was ordered to oversee.
She had left the chef to his devices after producing another batch of partially seasoned meals, returning to the Creator with hopes of a break. He applauded her efforts with a nod and tersely spoken appreciation, then quickly pushed two spearguns into her hand and directed her to the ocean, where the twins were ‘working with jack shit,’ as the busy male said. She was to give the fisherwomen the tools and make sure they were used properly, and offer additional assistance in acquiring ‘enough fish to have us fed for a little bit.’
So, she left to complete the given task, feeling somewhat appreciative that her speargun was of superior quality to those she would be delivering—the newcomers were only afforded the lesser, roped-bolt version. It was only natural that she was in possession of their greatest assets, of course; the star-sent saw her as the only one capable of wielding such fantastic ammunition, showing trust that was rightfully placed in her. That did not mean the gray-skinned females were unsatisfied with their own gifts, however. The twins were swiftly caught up on the ‘manual of arms’ and sent to work, somehow managing to keep up with Akula in spite of their land-based origins. The two were fast enough to outpace the cycle-worshipper in sheer speed, but their lack of numerous winters spent traversing deeper waters meant they required frequent rests, breaking the ocean’s surface after every third captured fish or so.
Still, she had to appreciate their dedication to their task. They never complained about Akula pushing them further to reach the star-sent’s vague objective. Such a task was entrusted to her—and by proxy, the other two—and thus it would be completed, no matter how much her comfortable bed… couch called her tiring muscles.
The group of three hauled net after full net of fresh meat to the chef—and sewist, who later joined him—forcing him to relegate much of the catch to long-term storage as the kitchen simply could not deal with the surplus. At least three-quarters of the fish were put to slow cook in the now Malkrin-sized smoker. The craftsman had upgraded it with a kit provided by Harrison, who had recycled much of the dining room and workshop furniture to accommodate it. The Creator’s showcased urgency to gather materials was clearly not unfounded… It was admirable how he used what little he had left to ensure food would not be scarce. Additionally, the apparatus exuded an excellent scent for all the survivors to enjoy, the earthy aroma drawing in some of the other Malkrin for their breaks or meals.
Those were not the end of the cycle-worshiper’s tasks, however. She was also required to report on Shar’khee’s progress in training the guardswoman—helping to recycle the small swarm of abhorrent they cleared earlier—as well as the wood storage building’s progress. Indeed, she was advising and assisting however and wherever applicable. To say she was seen all around the settlement would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, she was appreciative to see her efforts bearing fruit by sundown. The processing of their meals from sea to plate was quite efficient, and those that Akula taught were now well-practiced in their duties. The twin fisherwomen dove from wave to wave, bringing fish back to the barracks, where the cook and sewist swiftly worked to transfer the meat to pans and smoker hooks alike. Then, the remnants of the Sea Goddess’ aquatic gifts would be subsequently recycled and given purpose anew as biofuel or perhaps future fertilizer.
The endless onslaught of duties and responsibilities had enlightened her, in a way. She could see where Harrison came from now; having a working project go from one point to another without input nor difficulty was a sight to behold, and it made her swell with pride. It was a surmountable feat to teach the barbaric ground-worshippers to do something properly.
…Well, they were not horrible Malkrin, so perhaps simply calling them ‘uninitiated’ was a more apt descriptor…
No matter the tribulations faced, and no matter how draining her new authority might be, her rest at the end of the day would be one that was well-earned, and it would be had with a sense of satisfaction. She deserved it, and perhaps that extended to the rest of the settlement as well.
- - - - -
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Mine! Mine! Mine!
2024.05.19 15:50 xX_Disaster-Kit_Xx ADVICE NEEDED
I’m not sure if this can go in this community, I’ve never used it but Reddit asked me to pick one to post in, so hopefully this works out.
TLDR at the bottom
Hello, I don’t ever really post here, I mainly use it to read stories or cheer myself up a bit after a hard day. But, today is different. We live in NY, that may be important later on.
So, the other day, my boyfriend and I went out with some friends. We ate and I ended up getting food poisoning, I was supposed to go in at 11am today but unfortunately couldn’t due to my current illness that will pass. My boyfriend texted me this morning, his message stated that our boss cut back our hours from 5 days a week to 2 days (for me) and 3 days (for him). Please keep in mind that our boss is the same woman who will praise us to our faces then turn around and attempt to pin all of our co-workers against us. This is also the same woman who attempted to frame me of stealing money, which I didn’t do and she fired the one who did it, but she still insists that I cannot be trusted and that I am “lazy” and “incapable of hard work”. I work in a gas station deli, by no means is that “hard work”. I worked in two different restaurants, both were quite popular where I used to live.
Not only has my boss consistently degraded myself, my boyfriend, and the only diligent works; but she also consistently claims that she does everything. This woman comes in for 3 1/2 hours, makes some weird looking/smelling food that only two people get, makes a mess out of the entire deli and hot food sections, refuses to do her dishes, acts as though every one else is in the wrong for coming to work. She is also now attempting to get me in trouble for my physical issues (that have gone undiagnosed due to medical professional ignorance and parental neglect (father’s side)), acting as if they’re not real and treating me like I’m making it up “just so I don’t have to work”. If that was the case, I wouldn’t work there.
I started working there in late January, early February and this woman has nonstop proven that she should not be in charge. She promoted myself and my boyfriend to supervisors and gave us a raise, we haven’t gotten our raise and she likes to tell us we have no authority and that we can’t do anything. At this point, I am genuinely lost with what to do. My boyfriend and I are looking for good jobs that pay us way more, we only make minimum wage and in the economy, we can’t afford ANYTHING. I can’t even get insurance or start working towards my financial goals because of this woman.
I do not feel as though it is legal to almost completely knock someone’s schedule because they missed one day. My boyfriend hasn’t missed any days recently so his schedule being docked hours makes no sense. If mine was knocked a day or two, that would make sense to me. But taking more than half of my work week away because you have a silly vendetta that YOU concocted, that doesn’t make any sense to me. I have over 50 files collected of all that has been said and does as well as witnesses if I need them, but any regulatory advice would be HIGHLY appreciated.
TLDR: My boss is on a power trip at our convenience store and is cutting my hours because I got sick, as well as creating many issues between myself and other co-workers. What do I do?
Edit: this is the same woman who will get very angry with me or any of our co-workers for asking a question or trying to explain ourselves, she won’t even let us get a word in and just berates us for USUALLY no reason.
Edit two: I was recently informed that she (my boss) was fired from another location for doing the same thing she’s doing at our current place of work. I also got a comment about Walmart manager training, she worked at Walmart so that explains a bit for me.
submitted by xX_Disaster-Kit_Xx to Advice [link] [comments]
TLDR at the bottom
Hello, I don’t ever really post here, I mainly use it to read stories or cheer myself up a bit after a hard day. But, today is different. We live in NY, that may be important later on.
So, the other day, my boyfriend and I went out with some friends. We ate and I ended up getting food poisoning, I was supposed to go in at 11am today but unfortunately couldn’t due to my current illness that will pass. My boyfriend texted me this morning, his message stated that our boss cut back our hours from 5 days a week to 2 days (for me) and 3 days (for him). Please keep in mind that our boss is the same woman who will praise us to our faces then turn around and attempt to pin all of our co-workers against us. This is also the same woman who attempted to frame me of stealing money, which I didn’t do and she fired the one who did it, but she still insists that I cannot be trusted and that I am “lazy” and “incapable of hard work”. I work in a gas station deli, by no means is that “hard work”. I worked in two different restaurants, both were quite popular where I used to live.
Not only has my boss consistently degraded myself, my boyfriend, and the only diligent works; but she also consistently claims that she does everything. This woman comes in for 3 1/2 hours, makes some weird looking/smelling food that only two people get, makes a mess out of the entire deli and hot food sections, refuses to do her dishes, acts as though every one else is in the wrong for coming to work. She is also now attempting to get me in trouble for my physical issues (that have gone undiagnosed due to medical professional ignorance and parental neglect (father’s side)), acting as if they’re not real and treating me like I’m making it up “just so I don’t have to work”. If that was the case, I wouldn’t work there.
I started working there in late January, early February and this woman has nonstop proven that she should not be in charge. She promoted myself and my boyfriend to supervisors and gave us a raise, we haven’t gotten our raise and she likes to tell us we have no authority and that we can’t do anything. At this point, I am genuinely lost with what to do. My boyfriend and I are looking for good jobs that pay us way more, we only make minimum wage and in the economy, we can’t afford ANYTHING. I can’t even get insurance or start working towards my financial goals because of this woman.
I do not feel as though it is legal to almost completely knock someone’s schedule because they missed one day. My boyfriend hasn’t missed any days recently so his schedule being docked hours makes no sense. If mine was knocked a day or two, that would make sense to me. But taking more than half of my work week away because you have a silly vendetta that YOU concocted, that doesn’t make any sense to me. I have over 50 files collected of all that has been said and does as well as witnesses if I need them, but any regulatory advice would be HIGHLY appreciated.
TLDR: My boss is on a power trip at our convenience store and is cutting my hours because I got sick, as well as creating many issues between myself and other co-workers. What do I do?
Edit: this is the same woman who will get very angry with me or any of our co-workers for asking a question or trying to explain ourselves, she won’t even let us get a word in and just berates us for USUALLY no reason.
Edit two: I was recently informed that she (my boss) was fired from another location for doing the same thing she’s doing at our current place of work. I also got a comment about Walmart manager training, she worked at Walmart so that explains a bit for me.
2024.05.19 15:47 LuckyIori Is this normal or am I just stupid
 | Hey everyone, submitted by LuckyIori to gshock [link] [comments] New to the world of G-Shock and yesterday got my hands on the GW-M5610U as it ticks all the boxes and was wondering if this crease I've highlighted in the image is normal? I have this on mine that I bought yesterday which came in a cardboard box thing (all youtube reviews I've seen came in a tin) and its been bugging me to the point where I might just return and buy another I havent really ever worn a watch apart from when my dad bought me a Casio CalculatoTV remote control watch when I was like 10 years old so not sure what to expect with straps and things I'm probably just stupid |
2024.05.19 15:28 smalltoolbigheart Rant about representation of Indian/people of color in Hollywood/west
Just a post about how Hollywood or white people represent India or any other culture.
I have recently seen posts about Romeo and Juliet casting, which is, I think, Tom Holland and some black girl. I was disappointed, not because they cast a black girl, but because of how white people or Hollywood sees everyone who is not white.
I often see that when they represent India, they find the darkest and ugliest-looking person and promote them in the name of inclusion, whereas the reality is far from it. I believe we have beautiful people here, and even if they have to pick a person with a dark complexion to represent the Indian/black community, I believe we have the most talented and beautiful people, but they will select someone who would look horrible—case in point, the last Bridgerton series on Netflix.
It always upsets me to see when they choose the ugliest-looking person to represent India while their white actors are all bright and shiny. If they just see talent, why don't they pick real, ordinary-looking white people (who look just as average as any Indian or black people)?
submitted by smalltoolbigheart to BollyBlindsNGossip [link] [comments]
I have recently seen posts about Romeo and Juliet casting, which is, I think, Tom Holland and some black girl. I was disappointed, not because they cast a black girl, but because of how white people or Hollywood sees everyone who is not white.
I often see that when they represent India, they find the darkest and ugliest-looking person and promote them in the name of inclusion, whereas the reality is far from it. I believe we have beautiful people here, and even if they have to pick a person with a dark complexion to represent the Indian/black community, I believe we have the most talented and beautiful people, but they will select someone who would look horrible—case in point, the last Bridgerton series on Netflix.
It always upsets me to see when they choose the ugliest-looking person to represent India while their white actors are all bright and shiny. If they just see talent, why don't they pick real, ordinary-looking white people (who look just as average as any Indian or black people)?
2024.05.19 15:25 Shreson Wanna seek suggestions about this guy from my safe comfort space i.e. fellow women
Sorry if my post is long....Its my first time taking advise from anyone regarding such things.🙈
I have mostly studied in institutes only for girls. As I grew, talking to guys became difficult for me. Also, I was very naive always. I am the " good fun intelligent girl " as per others & "unlike other girls". Due to my family problems & fights, which promotes inferiority complex, I am not someone who considers herself beautiful all the time... to the point that once i didn't want to attend my institute's freshers party but just went there because 2 classmates called me beautiful so I thought i won't look bad maybe ( i am not much of a makeup person) & ended up being the winner ( it included looks, quizzes, debate & games ) So i found out i look pretty if I give few minutes to get ready & take care of myself a bit. I always saw myself as someone a guy won't like but after attending birthday parties etc, girls used to say their boyfriends were talking about me in a very good way later and praising me a lot. They used to feel jealous but not insecure as they saw me as a girl not interesting in dating. I never had a boyfriend. For a long time, I didn't care. Now for past 1 year, I too feel like having someone. Most of the friends who knew me ever use words like " pure " & " decent " for me though I know these things don't define purity or goodness. Have you seen " beautiful people " song video by Edsheeran? I am somewhere between those " beautiful people " & that couple. I don't know if its normal but when guys approach me through insta & start showing romantic interest just in single day, i dislike it.. like you don't even know me dude. I have a big thing for decency & friendship first. & I always have my guards up. It's self destructive maybe.
I have evolved now but since despite being a bright person, I gave up on many good opportunities so currently I don't like the current version of myself much & I feel like i should work on myself & be with others ( even friends ) when i would be a better version of me. This year is crucial for me.
Now, THE MAIN PART - Now... I have an extra anonymous type instagram account. I rarely scroll it but one day, i saw a viral reel of a girl with normal number of followers with her foreigner boyfriend. There were other reels too showing their first meeting in LDR after meeting on a dating app. At first it made me happy & smiling but I remembered something & guess what? I knew about that girl's very very bad intentions ( specially about her plan about how she would manipulate her would be boyfriend & eventually cut him off from his family)..don't ask me what & how but if i tell you.. you would ask to let the innocent man know anyhow. Well.. I dm'd that guy but only hinted indirectly for the sole purpose of humanity ( that anonymous account doesn't indicate my gender or picture ). I also wrote that it was not my main account to signify that i was not a fake troll. To my surprise, he understood the hint & even elaborated a bit & replied that such things may already be happening & he won't fell into such traps. He thanked me & said I could also come from my main account. I didn't think much & followed him from main account. He followed very very very few people but followed me back too. I decided not to talk further on this issue as he had already understood more than i hinted. But he himself thanked me again & said bad things are happening from her side & they are fighting too & he may even break up if it goes on like this. My intention was just to make him aware & at the end of the day, he is in relationship with that girl so I just replied with formal answers. I also became scared later that what if its a trap & they make me viral later picturing me as a villain. I told him this directly but he said i could trust him & he knows the situation himself & understands that I worried genuinely for him. I replied that I did this because every human is precious to their parents. Later i deleted my such texts. He said he wants to learn a language & if I could help him. I said yes. We have talked a bit since then. He seems a nice, well mannered, hardworking guy. Once my closest friend asked me to describe a guy very particularly i would like to go on few dates with just once. So I told her that all nice guys but if you ask me very specifically then a fine guy with this one particular characteristic & of this particular country. & He fulfils both. I have started to like him. It's not a dreamy crush. Believe me. I know what that is. It's more like I would like to get to know him & go on coffee date sometime. But obviously I won't take any step because - i can't even take first step in befriending someone & no matter what, there is a girl in his life. But I think if it would be good or bad if i totally give up on texting him. I can't carry on with short talks.. i am not that of a conversation expert. There is a bit of language barrier too. He likes my stories..only the ones in which i am present. But currently I am focused on important things so I don't even have much to post. He rarely posts his pictures...just work sort of stuff.
Please don't think me as a *%## waiting for breakup. It's never my intention ever for anyone. I annoyed you by telling about the way i am to show that i just don't wanna regret anything from now on because of introvertedness or naivety or whatever & I am afraid that I might mess it up even if something happens further. I have lost precious friends in the past due to this self inferiority complex & not being able to keep on the conversation & understanding their references later on. Since, I know i have to be better.. should i just keep working on my life & myself till I make myself deserving?
What should I do? Should I just keep liking his posts and be silent... or... I can think of no other option. That's why I am here.
submitted by Shreson to women [link] [comments]
I have mostly studied in institutes only for girls. As I grew, talking to guys became difficult for me. Also, I was very naive always. I am the " good fun intelligent girl " as per others & "unlike other girls". Due to my family problems & fights, which promotes inferiority complex, I am not someone who considers herself beautiful all the time... to the point that once i didn't want to attend my institute's freshers party but just went there because 2 classmates called me beautiful so I thought i won't look bad maybe ( i am not much of a makeup person) & ended up being the winner ( it included looks, quizzes, debate & games ) So i found out i look pretty if I give few minutes to get ready & take care of myself a bit. I always saw myself as someone a guy won't like but after attending birthday parties etc, girls used to say their boyfriends were talking about me in a very good way later and praising me a lot. They used to feel jealous but not insecure as they saw me as a girl not interesting in dating. I never had a boyfriend. For a long time, I didn't care. Now for past 1 year, I too feel like having someone. Most of the friends who knew me ever use words like " pure " & " decent " for me though I know these things don't define purity or goodness. Have you seen " beautiful people " song video by Edsheeran? I am somewhere between those " beautiful people " & that couple. I don't know if its normal but when guys approach me through insta & start showing romantic interest just in single day, i dislike it.. like you don't even know me dude. I have a big thing for decency & friendship first. & I always have my guards up. It's self destructive maybe.
I have evolved now but since despite being a bright person, I gave up on many good opportunities so currently I don't like the current version of myself much & I feel like i should work on myself & be with others ( even friends ) when i would be a better version of me. This year is crucial for me.
Now, THE MAIN PART - Now... I have an extra anonymous type instagram account. I rarely scroll it but one day, i saw a viral reel of a girl with normal number of followers with her foreigner boyfriend. There were other reels too showing their first meeting in LDR after meeting on a dating app. At first it made me happy & smiling but I remembered something & guess what? I knew about that girl's very very bad intentions ( specially about her plan about how she would manipulate her would be boyfriend & eventually cut him off from his family)..don't ask me what & how but if i tell you.. you would ask to let the innocent man know anyhow. Well.. I dm'd that guy but only hinted indirectly for the sole purpose of humanity ( that anonymous account doesn't indicate my gender or picture ). I also wrote that it was not my main account to signify that i was not a fake troll. To my surprise, he understood the hint & even elaborated a bit & replied that such things may already be happening & he won't fell into such traps. He thanked me & said I could also come from my main account. I didn't think much & followed him from main account. He followed very very very few people but followed me back too. I decided not to talk further on this issue as he had already understood more than i hinted. But he himself thanked me again & said bad things are happening from her side & they are fighting too & he may even break up if it goes on like this. My intention was just to make him aware & at the end of the day, he is in relationship with that girl so I just replied with formal answers. I also became scared later that what if its a trap & they make me viral later picturing me as a villain. I told him this directly but he said i could trust him & he knows the situation himself & understands that I worried genuinely for him. I replied that I did this because every human is precious to their parents. Later i deleted my such texts. He said he wants to learn a language & if I could help him. I said yes. We have talked a bit since then. He seems a nice, well mannered, hardworking guy. Once my closest friend asked me to describe a guy very particularly i would like to go on few dates with just once. So I told her that all nice guys but if you ask me very specifically then a fine guy with this one particular characteristic & of this particular country. & He fulfils both. I have started to like him. It's not a dreamy crush. Believe me. I know what that is. It's more like I would like to get to know him & go on coffee date sometime. But obviously I won't take any step because - i can't even take first step in befriending someone & no matter what, there is a girl in his life. But I think if it would be good or bad if i totally give up on texting him. I can't carry on with short talks.. i am not that of a conversation expert. There is a bit of language barrier too. He likes my stories..only the ones in which i am present. But currently I am focused on important things so I don't even have much to post. He rarely posts his pictures...just work sort of stuff.
Please don't think me as a *%## waiting for breakup. It's never my intention ever for anyone. I annoyed you by telling about the way i am to show that i just don't wanna regret anything from now on because of introvertedness or naivety or whatever & I am afraid that I might mess it up even if something happens further. I have lost precious friends in the past due to this self inferiority complex & not being able to keep on the conversation & understanding their references later on. Since, I know i have to be better.. should i just keep working on my life & myself till I make myself deserving?
What should I do? Should I just keep liking his posts and be silent... or... I can think of no other option. That's why I am here.
2024.05.19 15:25 TheGangstaGandalf Discussion of the Diamond Handbook (Part 1)
Hey everyone, this will be my first attempt at a serious post on this sub. I’m not exactly practiced in articulating my thoughts (I’m more of a fiction writer) so please bear bull with any mistakes and please correct me if I’m wrong. The last thing I want to do is spread misinformation, I’m not an expert (or a financial advisor) on any of this. I'm here to learn, not to teach.
This post will be the first in a series of me reading through the entire Diamond Handbook (2nd) and just commentating on points I find interesting or discussion worthy. I will be asking questions as well as giving my own personal thoughts based on my understanding of the events that have transpired. I became an ape right after the sneeze, and followed a lot of the discussions back then, but have been zen for a while so I haven't fully kept up with a lot of the new developments.
I haven't actually sat down and read DD in a long time, so I decided to give myself a refresher and actually look at the Diamond Handbook (2nd) for the first time. I had read a lot of these posts as they had come out, so I had never felt the need to look at the full PDF before. For the apes that haven’t read it either, I recommend giving it a read. You can find the full DD library in the pinned post of this sub, and the Diamond Handbook is the first one there.
As I have been reading it, I’ve quickly realized that some of the stuff is a little outdated. That can’t really be helped since so much DD has been done between then and now, but this brings me to the two reasons for this post. The Diamond Handbook is likely the first piece of DD a new ape will be recommended; I want to spark discussion to clear up some things that are misguided or outdated in this handbook. The second reason is more of a personal challenge. Whenever someone denies the legitimacy of the DD, an ape usually responds by saying something like “Well, read the DD and prove it wrong”. The average MOASS denier won’t do this though, in my experience they just think it’s ridiculous on a conceptual level, and won’t take the time to actually look through all the DD available and construct a proper debate. I can’t really blame them for this though, spending so much time on something you have no interest in doesn’t sound like a fun time.
But I have a lot of interest in this, and I am an aspiring author who writes 400K word fanfictions for fun. I’ve got the time and the writing willpower. I am very big into trying to understand how a reader will interpret a piece of my writing, so I’ll be looking through that lens and will be writing this with the assumption that you have already read the Diamond Handbook (2nd). Please take the time to respond/correct what I say here, I want to learn.
With all that out of the way, let’s get started.
The Mother of All Short Squeezes (MOASS) Thesis, Published on May 26, 2021, by u(slash)HCMF_MACEFACE
Before we even get into the meat of this section I already see a bit of an issue. A lot of the language implies that MOASS is imminent, take this section for example:
Just because the sneeze happened in a week doesn’t mean MOASS will, in theory it should be a very long event as both the shorts and longs have a test of wills to see who caves first. However, the sneeze was the ‘beginning’ because it was exposed a lot of the fuckery that is going on in the market right now, I think that is the message that should be taken from this section.
The two big concepts I see missing are Options and Wash Sales/Stop-Losses.
Options are interesting because they create a different type of buying/selling pressure compared to just buying/selling stocks regularly. There are concepts like gamma ramps and stuff that can be relevant when discussing catalysts for price movement. However, options are pretty scary for most investors, I’ve only ever bought one, and forgot about it so it auto-exercised for me (lol), so it’s not a concept I would call essential. I just think it’s better to be educated than not.
The much more egregious omission is that of Wash Sales and Stop-Losses. Wash Sales are extremely dangerous to new investors who still make decisions based on emotions and are not used to the volatility that comes with GME.
If you are unfamiliar, a Wash Sale is when a person sells a stock at a loss, then buys the stock again within a short period of time. As an example, let’s say you bought a stock at $50, then the stock goes down to $40.00 and you no longer feel comfortable with your investment. You sell the stock at a loss. You lost $10.00 on this transaction, but it’s not all bad. When you go to do your taxes, you can report this $10.00 loss to the IRS. This is good because if you make a $10.00 profit off another trade, you now don’t have to take taxes out of that profit, since the IRS will see this as you breaking even in the grand scheme of your portfolio. You didn’t actually make any money, so they aren’t going to tax you for it.
A Wash Sale is triggered when you buy back the stock you sold in a short period of time, this can even apply if you buy a stock in the same sector. So if you buy a stock at $50.00, sell it at $40.00 then buy it again. That $10.00 loss you took can no longer be reported to the IRS as an actual loss. So when you make $10.00 on some other trade, the IRS won’t see you as breaking even, they will tax you on that $10.00.
For a stock as volatile as GME this can be very dangerous, I know people who brought in the peak, then as the price went back down they triggered a Stop-Loss (auto-sale you can program to trigger when a price falls), only to then buy back in when the stock dropped even lower, creating a wash sale that fucked their taxes.
We say “Buy and HODL” a lot, but I think the ‘why’ of it has been lost in the meme. I personally buy and HODL because averaging down is a lot better for me than accidently triggering a Wash Sale. I fucking hate the IRS and don’t want any of that smoke.
This next part I’m a little shaky on, I’m probably getting some things wrong here:
Ok, well how are they going to get margin called? The problem I see is that these Short Hedge Funds (SHF) are making a lot of money by selling naked shorts. It’s really hard to get margin called when they are literally printing money, and since they don’t have to report these their books just look to be filled with an infinite amount of cash.
So, there are a couple solutions to this:
1, Government regulation. If the SEC puts a stop to naked shorting, these SHF can’t print money anymore. Eventually the interest from their positions will eat them alive, and they will get margin called. Unfortunately, MOASS has the potential to destroy the economy like in 2008, so they probably aren’t too keen on just doing this without creating some kind of safety net. So I can’t really count on them to help, because the government has a vested interest in keeping MOASS from happening. It’s just not something I believe will be the catalyst. Although they might just do it on purpose given the right reason, like pinning the economic collapse on a scapegoat, or by GameStop forcing their hand by exposing the fraud somehow. I’ve seen a lot of apes hoping for one of these reasons to come to pass, but for me, I don’t see enough motivation from the participating parties.
2, A price run-up. If the price of the stock can unbalance the books of the SHF enough then they could also get margin called. I’m not counting on this either, since the price is manipulated by the process of naked shorting. Sure, they are digging a bigger grave when they suppress the price like this, but it can also help smaller SHFs with exiting their positions with OTC stuff. Over-The-Counter trades are trades made off the lit exchanges, historically it was intended to kind of simulate a transaction between two individuals, like buying a video game from a buddy off the books, no taxes, no regulation. Unfortunately, this is abused by institutions and can’t even be used by individuals, making dark pools of trades full of fraud and undermines the free market. Smaller SHFs that are more at risk of getting Margin Called due to their lack of collateral, can make OTC trades with the big naked-shorting market makers to ‘close’ their positions using fake shares. Of course, this only passes the buck so to speak, but it’s a viable strategy for them since the big SHFs that take on these ‘bucks’ are less likely to get margin called. A lot of historic short squeezes happen because a small SHF gets margin called, then drives the price up and causes a bigger SHF to get called, and so on until they’re all in the grave. This is why I don’t really give a shit if the price goes up to $80 in a week, it’s not enough, the buck has been passed. (To be clear, I don’t have proof that this is the reason for the uptick in OTC transactions, it’s just a theory. If a smarter ape than I can get on this that would be great.) But, even if a price run-up itself doesn’t cause MOASS, it may give motivation for the true trigger:
3, Interest Rates. Here is the big one that I look at, that I believe will be the true cause of MOASS. Now please, correct me if I’m wrong again, I am just an ape who dropped out of college. So, from what I understand a Short institution has to pay a certain amount of interest to the people they borrow the stocks from. This is the cost of borrowing and is how these Lenders make money. For a long time, the interest rate was at like 1%, this means that selling one naked short could cover the cost of the interest 100 times over. However, let’s say that the interest rate becomes 110%, sounds crazy, but this would mean that borrowing the share would cost more than the share. This would destroy the balances of the SHFs and ensure they get margin called. Why would this ever happen though? Because these lenders want to make money. These lenders are the real winners of MOASS, and they aren’t talked about enough in my opinion. Lenders can’t sell the shares they’ve lent out, their income is in the interest rates, there has to be a balance here between it being more profitable to lend the shares or to sell them. If Lenders start to think that lending their shares aren’t making them more money than the alternative, they will raise interest rates to make these profits until SHFs can’t pay them, then the SHFs have to return the shares, causing MOASS with the massive buyback, then lenders can just sell the shares on the way down. Lenders have a monetary business interest in causing MOASS, so they are the most likely cause of it in my opinion.
FAQ, Published April 12, 2021, by u(slash)BYE_TRIANGLE
Now, on the flip side, I know people on the old sub to buy and sell with these fluctuations, they did it during the sneeze and I’ve seen comments claiming to do it last week. I think this is why Roaring Kitty really had to speak to congress about this, because a legitimate-seeming argument could be made that retail was buying and selling at high volumes. The loss and gain porn on the old sub could be presented as evidence. Here though, apes hold, we glaze purple doughnuts.
So when MOASS does happen, the massive price increase will be only due to buying pressure from SHFs, so they are the only ones that can take the blame for what happens next.
Keep in mind that even though ‘buying pressure’ moves the price up, someone has to be willing to sell in order for someone to buy. So as the price creeps up from $100 to $1000 to $100000 to $8675309 someone will be selling on the way up to get there.
However, if you go into the comments of these posts, there are apes investigating the profile history to determine if posters are bots, regardless of the pushed narrative. If you look past the upvote counter, apes are very skeptical of any post that isn’t based in fact or harmless memes. The comments rule the post, and I have to say I’ve very proud of this sub for staying vigilant in the wake of Reddit restricting moderation tools.
I don’t really like the language being used here, stuff like ‘clearly believes’ ‘seen as incredibly bullish’ are all pretty emotive and doesn’t actually explain why these are positive growth signs for the company, they are just saying it is ‘bullish’, the average new investor isn’t even going to know what that really means. Even though GME is extremely manipulated, causing Technical Analysis to become increasingly difficult to depend on, the investment is still rooted in fundamentals of deep value.
-Gamma Squeeze
-Gamestop’s Q1 Earnings Call
-Some speculate Gary Gensler (Newly appointed head of the SEC), may make some move that sets things in motion
-DTCC rule changes taking effect
-Appointment of a new CEO”
Yeah… this feels bad man. I’ve talked about this already, but we can rapid fire down this list.
The stock split didn’t work out, since those in charge of distributing the splits did it fraudulently. Gamma Squeeze is the kind of thing that could trigger a smaller hedge fund to get margin called and cause a domino effect, but I’ve shared my theory of the OTC action. Earnings are nice, but public sentiment has always been more tied to the media manipulation than actual facts. Fucking Gary.
On the subject of bringing in new talent, I do feel like a big move will happen soon. We’ve already seen a lot of job offerings from the Corporate side of GameStop so this could be the next phase of the plan. I really think that RC has spent these last few years taking precautions to make sure the company can’t go bankrupt, the last thing he wants is to turn out like Toys-R-Us. A lot of downsizing happened, so now he can start thinking about upsizing again.
I’m not necessarily saying that these things can’t trigger the squeeze, but I am saying that depending on something to start it is just inviting disappointment. I think the ‘no dates’ rule has been sorely forgotten lately with all the hype and speculation around Roaring Kitty’s tweets and stuff. I am a zen ape, it happens when it happens.
I glaze those purple doughnuts, yum.
Citadel Has No Clothes, Published March 14, 2021, by u(slash)ATOBITT
Ohhhh, this one is special to me, I read it when it first came out, first time I was there on release night. Let’s see how it hodls up.
In order to calculate that we gotta do one of those double equation variable bullshit things we all hated in school, I forgot what they were called but I remember how to do them.
So, we have a few variables:
C = Citadel’s Portfolio = $384,926,232,238
S = Shorted Shares = 696,000,000
I = Intrest = 0.30
X = Price Per Share
Y = Citadel’s new portfolio amount after paying interest
So, X and Y are undetermined, but we have two equations to work with
C – I(X*S) = Y
This one calculates how much money is going to be in citadels new portfolio after paying interest, we calculate the interest by multiplying the cost per share, by the amount of shorted shares, and multiplying that by the interest rate, then subtracting it from their total portfolio.
Y * 1.25 = X * S
This one calculates the total amount those shorted shares have to be in order for Citadel to get margin called, by multiplying their new portfolio by 5/4 and calculating the total cost of the shares.
X * S has a direct value; we can plug the left side of the second equation into the first to get
C – I(Y*1.25) = Y
Now we just gotta isolate Y on one side of the equation.
C = Y + 0.3(Y*1.25)
C = 1.3Y * 0.375
C= 0.4875Y
C * 0.4875 = Y
Y = $187,651,538,216.03
Now we gotta find X, we can just plug in the other stuff.
(Y* 1.25)/ 696,000,000 = X
X = $337.02 per share for shitadel to get margin called on 30% interest.
Holy shit, now that’s what I call reasonable. See how much interest can completely fuck a portfolio? They lost almost half of their portfolio value to a 30% interest to this. This is why the whole market will bleed red on the run up to MOASS, they will have to sell half of their portfolio just to pay the interest.
Citadel is probably not a good example of this, since they print the naked shorts themselves... so they would be paying interest to... themselves... when they borrow them? Citadel is so fucked up, I don't have enough wrinkles for this.
But hey, I think the concept of what I said is fine. High interest rates can reduce collateral and cause margin calls. Hey, just out of curiosity, how much is the borrowing interest rate looking now?
16.5%
SHF are fucked.
Anyway, I’m writing this on a Wordpad document so I’m not sure if I’ve come up on the character limit, but I think I’m getting close so I’ll end this part here. Please let me know what I’ve got wrong or any insights you want to share, I’ll be sure to talk about any interesting comments when I do a part 2!
TLDR: I am reviewing the Diamond Handbook (2nd) and seeing what has changed in the three years since it’s been compiled. I have a bias in thinking that high borrowing interest rates are what will cause MOASS, and that is shown here. This is not meant to be an impartial analysis, just my thoughts. Not financial advice.
submitted by TheGangstaGandalf to Superstonk [link] [comments]
This post will be the first in a series of me reading through the entire Diamond Handbook (2nd) and just commentating on points I find interesting or discussion worthy. I will be asking questions as well as giving my own personal thoughts based on my understanding of the events that have transpired. I became an ape right after the sneeze, and followed a lot of the discussions back then, but have been zen for a while so I haven't fully kept up with a lot of the new developments.
I haven't actually sat down and read DD in a long time, so I decided to give myself a refresher and actually look at the Diamond Handbook (2nd) for the first time. I had read a lot of these posts as they had come out, so I had never felt the need to look at the full PDF before. For the apes that haven’t read it either, I recommend giving it a read. You can find the full DD library in the pinned post of this sub, and the Diamond Handbook is the first one there.
As I have been reading it, I’ve quickly realized that some of the stuff is a little outdated. That can’t really be helped since so much DD has been done between then and now, but this brings me to the two reasons for this post. The Diamond Handbook is likely the first piece of DD a new ape will be recommended; I want to spark discussion to clear up some things that are misguided or outdated in this handbook. The second reason is more of a personal challenge. Whenever someone denies the legitimacy of the DD, an ape usually responds by saying something like “Well, read the DD and prove it wrong”. The average MOASS denier won’t do this though, in my experience they just think it’s ridiculous on a conceptual level, and won’t take the time to actually look through all the DD available and construct a proper debate. I can’t really blame them for this though, spending so much time on something you have no interest in doesn’t sound like a fun time.
But I have a lot of interest in this, and I am an aspiring author who writes 400K word fanfictions for fun. I’ve got the time and the writing willpower. I am very big into trying to understand how a reader will interpret a piece of my writing, so I’ll be looking through that lens and will be writing this with the assumption that you have already read the Diamond Handbook (2nd). Please take the time to respond/correct what I say here, I want to learn.
With all that out of the way, let’s get started.
The Mother of All Short Squeezes (MOASS) Thesis, Published on May 26, 2021, by u(slash)HCMF_MACEFACE
Before we even get into the meat of this section I already see a bit of an issue. A lot of the language implies that MOASS is imminent, take this section for example:
*“If you don't believe me, just look at the chart of GME which our DD (Due Diligence/research/analysis) has been forecasting for a while now. The below pattern has only preceded massive spikes in price, but this time, those on the other side of the trade are going to have a much harder time suppressing the price like they did in January and March. Thanks to the activity on 5/25, we have entered the end-game. The MOASS is beginning.”*I think most new apes will look at this, then look at the date of posting (three years ago), and think this is delusional thinking. They will say that MOASS did not ‘begin’ because it hasn’t happened yet. This would be pretty short sighted though, GME has always been a Deep Value investment, long positions are called long for a reason. ‘Buy and HODL’ is such a repeated mantra because that is the investment strategy most apes employ. Like most investments, it takes a long time to realize gains. Your retirement account will be growing for 40+ years before you cash that thing out, GME is my retirement plan so I don’t expect it to be much different.
Just because the sneeze happened in a week doesn’t mean MOASS will, in theory it should be a very long event as both the shorts and longs have a test of wills to see who caves first. However, the sneeze was the ‘beginning’ because it was exposed a lot of the fuckery that is going on in the market right now, I think that is the message that should be taken from this section.
*“These terms are key to understanding the theory and speculated value of a GME investment. Hyperlinks to Investopedia, "the world's leading source of financial content on the web", have been included for most market terms and concepts and it is recommended to check them out if they are not clear. We will be breaking down some of the more complex terms and concepts within the post and framing them within the context of GME.”*After the introduction, this post does a great job of explaining all the concepts of the stock market that are relevant to the MOASS thesis. However, I do wish it mentioned some other stock terms for the sake of new investors. Since none of the DD is supposed to be financial advice, I can’t really blame them for these omissions, but at the beginning the OP does say they wanted the post to be good for newer investors, so I think some more pointing in the right direction should’ve been provided. I do appreciate the link to Investopedia, but this DD is already a novel, and the average reader might forget about that link by the time they finish it. So an additional link should’ve been provided at the end.
The two big concepts I see missing are Options and Wash Sales/Stop-Losses.
Options are interesting because they create a different type of buying/selling pressure compared to just buying/selling stocks regularly. There are concepts like gamma ramps and stuff that can be relevant when discussing catalysts for price movement. However, options are pretty scary for most investors, I’ve only ever bought one, and forgot about it so it auto-exercised for me (lol), so it’s not a concept I would call essential. I just think it’s better to be educated than not.
The much more egregious omission is that of Wash Sales and Stop-Losses. Wash Sales are extremely dangerous to new investors who still make decisions based on emotions and are not used to the volatility that comes with GME.
If you are unfamiliar, a Wash Sale is when a person sells a stock at a loss, then buys the stock again within a short period of time. As an example, let’s say you bought a stock at $50, then the stock goes down to $40.00 and you no longer feel comfortable with your investment. You sell the stock at a loss. You lost $10.00 on this transaction, but it’s not all bad. When you go to do your taxes, you can report this $10.00 loss to the IRS. This is good because if you make a $10.00 profit off another trade, you now don’t have to take taxes out of that profit, since the IRS will see this as you breaking even in the grand scheme of your portfolio. You didn’t actually make any money, so they aren’t going to tax you for it.
A Wash Sale is triggered when you buy back the stock you sold in a short period of time, this can even apply if you buy a stock in the same sector. So if you buy a stock at $50.00, sell it at $40.00 then buy it again. That $10.00 loss you took can no longer be reported to the IRS as an actual loss. So when you make $10.00 on some other trade, the IRS won’t see you as breaking even, they will tax you on that $10.00.
For a stock as volatile as GME this can be very dangerous, I know people who brought in the peak, then as the price went back down they triggered a Stop-Loss (auto-sale you can program to trigger when a price falls), only to then buy back in when the stock dropped even lower, creating a wash sale that fucked their taxes.
We say “Buy and HODL” a lot, but I think the ‘why’ of it has been lost in the meme. I personally buy and HODL because averaging down is a lot better for me than accidently triggering a Wash Sale. I fucking hate the IRS and don’t want any of that smoke.
*“SPOILER: GME and \[Popcorn\] have tons of FTDs reported.”*I just kinda don’t like the mention of the Popcorn stock here, it has never been a deep value investment. If you are unfamiliar with the Deep Value investment strategy, please take a look at the old Roaring Kitty livestreams. In summary, Deep Value investing is defined by looking for stocks that are extremely undervalued and unpopular due to no fault of the company. These external factors that are making the stock undervalued can be anything, shorting, COVID, stuff like that. But what makes it a Deep Value investment is always strong management within the company. If the company is not mismanaged in any way, then it is very unlikely to go bankrupt, and will have opportunities to make a comeback. GME has Ryan Cohen leading, a proven successful businessman that has already taken precautions to ensure GameStop never goes bankrupt. Popcorn just doesn’t have that. It is very short-squeezable, but it’s not deep fucking value.
*“Short sellers must eventually close, or cover, their short position.”*Ok, but why ‘must’ they? This is another point I think has been lost in the memes. There are two problems with just saying ‘shorts must close’ without providing context. The first is the simple fact that there isn’t a due date. Unlike a common car loan or mortgage, a short position doesn’t operate on a time table. They can wait forever to close, unless they get margin called.
This next part I’m a little shaky on, I’m probably getting some things wrong here:
Ok, well how are they going to get margin called? The problem I see is that these Short Hedge Funds (SHF) are making a lot of money by selling naked shorts. It’s really hard to get margin called when they are literally printing money, and since they don’t have to report these their books just look to be filled with an infinite amount of cash.
So, there are a couple solutions to this:
1, Government regulation. If the SEC puts a stop to naked shorting, these SHF can’t print money anymore. Eventually the interest from their positions will eat them alive, and they will get margin called. Unfortunately, MOASS has the potential to destroy the economy like in 2008, so they probably aren’t too keen on just doing this without creating some kind of safety net. So I can’t really count on them to help, because the government has a vested interest in keeping MOASS from happening. It’s just not something I believe will be the catalyst. Although they might just do it on purpose given the right reason, like pinning the economic collapse on a scapegoat, or by GameStop forcing their hand by exposing the fraud somehow. I’ve seen a lot of apes hoping for one of these reasons to come to pass, but for me, I don’t see enough motivation from the participating parties.
2, A price run-up. If the price of the stock can unbalance the books of the SHF enough then they could also get margin called. I’m not counting on this either, since the price is manipulated by the process of naked shorting. Sure, they are digging a bigger grave when they suppress the price like this, but it can also help smaller SHFs with exiting their positions with OTC stuff. Over-The-Counter trades are trades made off the lit exchanges, historically it was intended to kind of simulate a transaction between two individuals, like buying a video game from a buddy off the books, no taxes, no regulation. Unfortunately, this is abused by institutions and can’t even be used by individuals, making dark pools of trades full of fraud and undermines the free market. Smaller SHFs that are more at risk of getting Margin Called due to their lack of collateral, can make OTC trades with the big naked-shorting market makers to ‘close’ their positions using fake shares. Of course, this only passes the buck so to speak, but it’s a viable strategy for them since the big SHFs that take on these ‘bucks’ are less likely to get margin called. A lot of historic short squeezes happen because a small SHF gets margin called, then drives the price up and causes a bigger SHF to get called, and so on until they’re all in the grave. This is why I don’t really give a shit if the price goes up to $80 in a week, it’s not enough, the buck has been passed. (To be clear, I don’t have proof that this is the reason for the uptick in OTC transactions, it’s just a theory. If a smarter ape than I can get on this that would be great.) But, even if a price run-up itself doesn’t cause MOASS, it may give motivation for the true trigger:
3, Interest Rates. Here is the big one that I look at, that I believe will be the true cause of MOASS. Now please, correct me if I’m wrong again, I am just an ape who dropped out of college. So, from what I understand a Short institution has to pay a certain amount of interest to the people they borrow the stocks from. This is the cost of borrowing and is how these Lenders make money. For a long time, the interest rate was at like 1%, this means that selling one naked short could cover the cost of the interest 100 times over. However, let’s say that the interest rate becomes 110%, sounds crazy, but this would mean that borrowing the share would cost more than the share. This would destroy the balances of the SHFs and ensure they get margin called. Why would this ever happen though? Because these lenders want to make money. These lenders are the real winners of MOASS, and they aren’t talked about enough in my opinion. Lenders can’t sell the shares they’ve lent out, their income is in the interest rates, there has to be a balance here between it being more profitable to lend the shares or to sell them. If Lenders start to think that lending their shares aren’t making them more money than the alternative, they will raise interest rates to make these profits until SHFs can’t pay them, then the SHFs have to return the shares, causing MOASS with the massive buyback, then lenders can just sell the shares on the way down. Lenders have a monetary business interest in causing MOASS, so they are the most likely cause of it in my opinion.
*“This is the GME MOASS thesis. GME is a stock that stands to hit an unprecedented price point due to the fact that manipulators of the market have failed to bankrupt GameStop thanks in huge part to the Legendary Keith Gill AKA* u(slash)DeepFuckingValue*, Ryan Cohen, and all of the GME investors who took part in this saga. It may not be today, this week, or even this month, but one day soon, these toxic participants have no choice but to buy the stock to close out their short positions.”*I don’t think this is necessarily inaccurate, but I think it’s misguided, and the language here is a bit to emotive for my taste. I think the reason the company didn’t go bankrupt is because of the strategic share offering made by Ryan Cohen to build up more cash than the company’s valuation (at the time). All the other stuff was just dressing, DFV and retail did not make RC do this, this move by RC is what ensured the company literally can’t go bankrupt, until then (and at the time this was posted) it was still a risk in my opinion. So this huge thanks feels kinda like a pre-cum celebration, and I've never really liked putting Keith on a pedestal, he's just an individual investor, just like the rest of us.
FAQ, Published April 12, 2021, by u(slash)BYE_TRIANGLE
*“Why does Holding do anything?”* *“They need your shares to cover their short positions! They got greedy. Thinking GameStop would fail, the short sellers started Naked Shorting the stock. Long story short they created synthetic stocks with their special privileges as Market Makers. But they can’t cover a short with a synthetic share. So because of the Naked Shorting, the Short Sellers, multiple large greedy money managers, and Hedge Funds need a total number of shares greater than the number available to purchase. THEY NEED EVERY SHARE, EVEN YOURS CONAN!”* *“aRe YoU GuYs MaNipuLatIng THe MaRKeT?!”*Holding does something else that I think is really important. It proves that retail is not responsible for the manipulation of the price. You see it in the mainstream media every time the price fluctuates, they say that retail and Roaring Kitty is driving the price up for the memes, and that the ‘meme stock craze is dead’ whenever the price falls, claiming that retail is selling. However, it quickly becomes clear to anyone with the willingness to research that retail holds. Holding doesn’t move the price at all, so they literally can’t blame this sub for the fuckery that happens.
Now, on the flip side, I know people on the old sub to buy and sell with these fluctuations, they did it during the sneeze and I’ve seen comments claiming to do it last week. I think this is why Roaring Kitty really had to speak to congress about this, because a legitimate-seeming argument could be made that retail was buying and selling at high volumes. The loss and gain porn on the old sub could be presented as evidence. Here though, apes hold, we glaze purple doughnuts.
So when MOASS does happen, the massive price increase will be only due to buying pressure from SHFs, so they are the only ones that can take the blame for what happens next.
*“No one knows how high the squeeze could take the stock price. The best rational reasoning says that these numbers \[500k per share\] are possible through the laws of supply and demand. Furthermore, it is likely that the Short Percentage is a lot higher than reported, with many suggesting that the short-sellers, cumulatively, need more than 100% of the float to cover.”*A lot of naysayers will claim people are insane for thinking that phone number prices are possible. They will cite that it would make the company’s valuation higher than the amount of money in the world, which is true. However, with the nature of fraudulent naked shorts being fake, the price is fake too, and the valuation of the company doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole float will be sold at those prices. Yes, it shouldn’t be possible, by all accounts it wouldn’t make sense, but it is possible due to the naked shorting. Also, institutions that own shares likely won’t HODL out for the phone number prices, they will sell when they think it’s safe, and when they won’t get in trouble with the SEC for destroying the economy. The infinity pool (the shares that will be sold at these prices) will be a small fraction of the total amount even among retail investors. So the argument that I see against the possibility of this doesn’t hold a lot of weight.
Keep in mind that even though ‘buying pressure’ moves the price up, someone has to be willing to sell in order for someone to buy. So as the price creeps up from $100 to $1000 to $100000 to $8675309 someone will be selling on the way up to get there.
*“Synthetic long positions could be used to disguise their short positions as well, the mechanisms behind this practice utilize the options markets and could explain some of the crazy options activity that we have seen in GameStop the last few months.”*So uhm… I don’t understand ‘Synthetic Longs’ at all. Could an ape with more wrinkles elaborate on this? From what I can extrapolate, this may refer to an institution purchasing a naked shorted share from someone else?
*“While at the same time they employed the use of social engineering to slowly depress the positive sentiment for the stock on Reddit and elsewhere.”* *“You may have been called a Shill for one of a number of reasons. This community is very inclusive and open to everyone, but because of the blatant attacks this forum has suffered a lot of people are understandably paranoid. (Myself included). Please, unless you really are a shill, don’t take it personally.”*I want to address this, because there is a lot of misconception about SuperStonk. A lot of people will claim that this sub is just an echo chamber cult that can’t handle anyone questioning the narrative. This may seem true on the surface, but I think the reality is just that we’ve become hyper sensitive to the social engineering the old sub fell victim to, and I remember this sub being attacked with that as well. So whenever we see a post that has extremely emotive language, we become skeptical and down vote it. Emotions have no place in investing, that is a common rule touted in even the oldest investing books, so posts that try to incite an emotional response are shot down. Apes aren’t about to be manipulated again. That being said there are emotive posts that still get upvoted, ones with positive hype-filled narratives. Since these get upvoted and the negative ones don’t that sometimes gives the impression of an echo chamber. This is because the facts do support the MOASS thesis, so a hype title and opening paragraph is just more agreeable with the facts-based narrative. Some people are just scrolling on their phone and don’t have time to read the whole post.
However, if you go into the comments of these posts, there are apes investigating the profile history to determine if posters are bots, regardless of the pushed narrative. If you look past the upvote counter, apes are very skeptical of any post that isn’t based in fact or harmless memes. The comments rule the post, and I have to say I’ve very proud of this sub for staying vigilant in the wake of Reddit restricting moderation tools.
*“Ryan Cohen clearly believes in Gamestop, to the point of announcing that he will be taking equity as compensation. In fact, as of writing this all of the new Gamestop board members are going to be taking equity as compensation. This is seen as an incredibly bullish sign of the company's future success.”*This is one of the principles of Deep Value investing, I wish this was elaborated on more of why this is bullish. This means that the board, and more importantly Ryan Cohen, is tying their individual self-worth to the company. Due to this tie, they will essentially ‘go down with the ship’ if the company goes down. This means that the board and Ryan actually have an interest in the company doing well, instead of having an interest in making money off the company. You may think this sounds like the same thing, but it’s not. If RC cared more about money than the company, then he could destroy the company to make money (this is what’s happening to popcorn), but by tying his worth to the shares, the only way for him to become richer is for the company to flourish.
I don’t really like the language being used here, stuff like ‘clearly believes’ ‘seen as incredibly bullish’ are all pretty emotive and doesn’t actually explain why these are positive growth signs for the company, they are just saying it is ‘bullish’, the average new investor isn’t even going to know what that really means. Even though GME is extremely manipulated, causing Technical Analysis to become increasingly difficult to depend on, the investment is still rooted in fundamentals of deep value.
*“Below is a shortlist of some of the potential catalysts people are speculating about:*-A Stock Split, or some similar move from Gamestop that recalls shares
-Gamma Squeeze
-Gamestop’s Q1 Earnings Call
-Some speculate Gary Gensler (Newly appointed head of the SEC), may make some move that sets things in motion
-DTCC rule changes taking effect
-Appointment of a new CEO”
Yeah… this feels bad man. I’ve talked about this already, but we can rapid fire down this list.
The stock split didn’t work out, since those in charge of distributing the splits did it fraudulently. Gamma Squeeze is the kind of thing that could trigger a smaller hedge fund to get margin called and cause a domino effect, but I’ve shared my theory of the OTC action. Earnings are nice, but public sentiment has always been more tied to the media manipulation than actual facts. Fucking Gary.
On the subject of bringing in new talent, I do feel like a big move will happen soon. We’ve already seen a lot of job offerings from the Corporate side of GameStop so this could be the next phase of the plan. I really think that RC has spent these last few years taking precautions to make sure the company can’t go bankrupt, the last thing he wants is to turn out like Toys-R-Us. A lot of downsizing happened, so now he can start thinking about upsizing again.
I’m not necessarily saying that these things can’t trigger the squeeze, but I am saying that depending on something to start it is just inviting disappointment. I think the ‘no dates’ rule has been sorely forgotten lately with all the hype and speculation around Roaring Kitty’s tweets and stuff. I am a zen ape, it happens when it happens.
*“First of all, it is incredibly important to note your potential biases when determining if someone is just a shill trying to spread FUD. Not all FUD is invalid, someone may bring up a solid point against an otherwise great DD, and that could scare you. Remember that just because you do not like what someone is saying, doesn’t make it invalid. It is important users here work with constructive criticism to refine their theories.”*Damn, wasn’t I just talking about this? This critique isn’t going to just be wagging fingers, this is really good stuff that still applies today, and from what I’ve seen apes are doing a great job of distinguishing between FUD and legitimate criticism. I also want to take a second to thank the mod team, especially after their tools were restricted, they’ve been a great help.
*“…but since then retail investors have been buying on every single dip in the price… That's more than two whole months of buying-the-dip. Now, I will not speculate on numbers here, if you want to know more you will have to read the DDs on that.”*This is pretty outdated now. Apes have been buying for three years now, and with the advent of Direct Registering we have a much better idea of how much apes hold. I can say with confidence now that retail owns a floats worth of shares. Since there is so much naked shorting, a lot of institutions probably own their own floats too.
I glaze those purple doughnuts, yum.
Citadel Has No Clothes, Published March 14, 2021, by u(slash)ATOBITT
Ohhhh, this one is special to me, I read it when it first came out, first time I was there on release night. Let’s see how it hodls up.
*“TL;DR - Citadel Securities has been fined 58 times for violating FINRA, REGSHO & SEC regulations. Several instances are documented as 'willful' naked shorting. In Dec 2020 they reported an increase in their short position of 127.57% YOY, and I'm calling bullsh\*t on their shenanigans.”*58 times. I don’t actually know how much that number has gone up, but I’m sure it has. I am reminded of an old saying, that if the punishment for a crime is a fine, then it only a crime for the poor. The crime being done to GME is class warfare, it’s nothing less.
*“$295,347,948,000 of that is split into options (calls & puts), while $78,979,887,238 (20.52%) is allocated to actual, physical, shares (or so they say). The rest is convertible debt securities.”*This is why I’m skeptical that it’s even possible for Citadel to get margin called by a normal price run-up. Let’s do some math here. GME’s float is at 232 million-ish shares, let’s say they shorted 300% of that, just to be conservative (lmao), so that’s 696 million. To take what the first post said, Margins don’t get called unless an entities’ collateral becomes less than 80% of what they’ve borrowed. If they use their entire $384,926,232,238 portfolio as collateral, then GME would have to soar to a price of… divide by 4, multiply by 5… $691.32 per share. That may sound relatively reasonable, but I don’t think a normal catalyst would be enough for that. I really think interest rates are the key, think about it, if they have to pay like 30% interest on all of those shares, their portfolio will be reduced by that much (kinda) and we can find a much more reasonable midpoint. Now brace yourselves, I’m about to spend an unreasonable amount of effort on something that is probably wrong because I don’t know shit about fuck about margins or getting called (I have a cash account and I lack rizz).
In order to calculate that we gotta do one of those double equation variable bullshit things we all hated in school, I forgot what they were called but I remember how to do them.
So, we have a few variables:
C = Citadel’s Portfolio = $384,926,232,238
S = Shorted Shares = 696,000,000
I = Intrest = 0.30
X = Price Per Share
Y = Citadel’s new portfolio amount after paying interest
So, X and Y are undetermined, but we have two equations to work with
C – I(X*S) = Y
This one calculates how much money is going to be in citadels new portfolio after paying interest, we calculate the interest by multiplying the cost per share, by the amount of shorted shares, and multiplying that by the interest rate, then subtracting it from their total portfolio.
Y * 1.25 = X * S
This one calculates the total amount those shorted shares have to be in order for Citadel to get margin called, by multiplying their new portfolio by 5/4 and calculating the total cost of the shares.
X * S has a direct value; we can plug the left side of the second equation into the first to get
C – I(Y*1.25) = Y
Now we just gotta isolate Y on one side of the equation.
C = Y + 0.3(Y*1.25)
C = 1.3Y * 0.375
C= 0.4875Y
C * 0.4875 = Y
Y = $187,651,538,216.03
Now we gotta find X, we can just plug in the other stuff.
(Y* 1.25)/ 696,000,000 = X
X = $337.02 per share for shitadel to get margin called on 30% interest.
Holy shit, now that’s what I call reasonable. See how much interest can completely fuck a portfolio? They lost almost half of their portfolio value to a 30% interest to this. This is why the whole market will bleed red on the run up to MOASS, they will have to sell half of their portfolio just to pay the interest.
Citadel is probably not a good example of this, since they print the naked shorts themselves... so they would be paying interest to... themselves... when they borrow them? Citadel is so fucked up, I don't have enough wrinkles for this.
But hey, I think the concept of what I said is fine. High interest rates can reduce collateral and cause margin calls. Hey, just out of curiosity, how much is the borrowing interest rate looking now?
16.5%
SHF are fucked.
Anyway, I’m writing this on a Wordpad document so I’m not sure if I’ve come up on the character limit, but I think I’m getting close so I’ll end this part here. Please let me know what I’ve got wrong or any insights you want to share, I’ll be sure to talk about any interesting comments when I do a part 2!
TLDR: I am reviewing the Diamond Handbook (2nd) and seeing what has changed in the three years since it’s been compiled. I have a bias in thinking that high borrowing interest rates are what will cause MOASS, and that is shown here. This is not meant to be an impartial analysis, just my thoughts. Not financial advice.
2024.05.19 15:24 Morty_77 Load estamation
Hi everyone,
I'm working on electrical design and need some help understanding how to apply diversity factor and grouping factor in load estimations. I've read the regulations from IEC, IEEE, and NEC, but I'm looking for practical examples of how to calculate these factors for different applications like a mall, hospital, or school.
Could anyone provide detailed examples or point me to resources that explain these calculations in a practical context?
Thanks in advance for your help!
submitted by Morty_77 to ElectricalEngineering [link] [comments]
I'm working on electrical design and need some help understanding how to apply diversity factor and grouping factor in load estimations. I've read the regulations from IEC, IEEE, and NEC, but I'm looking for practical examples of how to calculate these factors for different applications like a mall, hospital, or school.
Could anyone provide detailed examples or point me to resources that explain these calculations in a practical context?
Thanks in advance for your help!
2024.05.19 15:21 Adept-Fig-7642 [CONTROVERSIAL + PERSONAL OPINION + IDEA OF A NEW GAME] Nadeo needs to release a new game with actual marketing and promotion instead of updating TM2020
This is about how I wanted TrackMania to become more popular and mainstream
I'm not speaking for everyone here, but I wanted Nadeo to focus on launching a new game with a strong marketing strategy rather than focusing to continuing updating TrackMania 2020.I'm not hating on TM2020, in fact I'm happy that TM2020 still has a dedicated fan base and continues to receive updates and support from its developers. But did you know TM2020 used to lack popularity when it was first announced?
Why TM2020 is not popular in the first place?
When TM2020 first announced, only most TM community knew about it, barely anyone outside heard of this game (The views in the trailer of TM2020 speaks for itself), this means the game barely had any marketing or promotion at all. Not to mention it adds controversies among players in the TM community. Though ofc there are some excitements, but we will discuss what had happened to TM2020 when its first announced:
The Subscription model controversy
The biggest talking point surrounding the release was NADEO decision to adopt a subscription-based model, which required players to pay a 10$/year to access new content and features. I Myself have no problem with the subscription due to how ridiculously low the prices are, but the thing is that if people found out that the game use Subscription-based model, they will blindly hate the game and won't looking to deep further which means even if how low the prices are they are not going to care about it because at its core it's still a Subscription game.
TM2020 got popular thanks to YouTube and Twitch, I see no problem here
Of course, they helped the game to increase awareness and generate excitement around TM2020 the most. Most new players know about this game thanks to Youtubers like Wirtual, Scrapie, Spammiej,... But did you notice that TM2020 only gets most amount of attention from old TM YTbers and not those popular YTbers like PewDiePie, Jacksepticeye, VanossGaming,... Then what if I say that people who watch those TM YTbers often stayed for their content and not play the game for themselves (Yes they said they don't like racing games and stayed for the content but still majority of them didn't bother playing TM2020 which is of course the Subscription model). That said it did give TMNF more attention and alot of people who were introduced to TM usually play TMNF first.
What was your idea for a new TM game?
TrackMania 2 (2026)
- Free-to-Play Model. Before any of you ignorant straight up threaten me without reading the text below, please LISTEN FIRST. This actually brings more Accessibility and larger player base because its free, and also this is the one that gives the company the most profit so they could sustain ongoing development and updates through microtransactions, this ensures the game remains fresh and engaging over time. Free-to-play games are more likely to be shared and recommended by players to their friends and social networks due to their accessibility and low barrier to entry so they can contribute to TM2's popularity and growth over time. And I know that you are concern about Pay-to-win mechanics but judging how NADEO lower their prices for their subscription model. I can safely say that NADEO would most likely carefully making a balance between monetization and player experience so they can create a positive and sustainable free-to-play game.
- Featured all of 4 environments and vehicles from old TM2. but with redesign to match with modern look of TM2020. Even though TM2 cars are pretty drivable, they need to be revamped because of the *features* in transitions between terrains. TM2 cars (excluding stadium) have a problem with entering other surfaces that if you try to steer while you are on between the 2 surfaces, your car will snap and lose control of your car immediately, especially going from drift to grip.
- Integrate ManiaExchange to TrackMania 2. This is fairly simple yet effective idea which is to make it easier and faster for players to find a new or good map right inside the game without having to open a browser or through ManiaExchange Plugin.
- Customize your car like NFS or Forza. If NADEO wanted to ban custom 3d cars, then they need to add car customization parts to their car like adding different types of body kits, spoiler and hood without affecting the gameplay too much.
- Add ShootMania as a separate gamemode. I know this sound funny, but I think it's a pretty cool idea to add SM to TM2 so to add more variety and probably gain some attention from FPS gamers.
- A proper tutorial for beginners. The Tutorial Campaign in TM2020 was mostly just bare bones of what the game has to offer without teaching the mechanics of the Stadium Car and what do those surfaces do, you have to figured it all by yourself or from a YTber.
- Cross-platform availability. Consider making the game available on multiple platforms (PS5, XBOX, PC) at launch with build-in Openplanet on consoles as to provide a consistent experience for players regardless of their preferred platform.
- Improve marketing and promotion. Invest in targeted marketing campaigns across various channels, including social media, gaming websites, and streaming platforms. Highlight the unique features of TrackMania 2, such as its amazing track editor, competitive gameplay, and vibrant community.
2024.05.19 15:01 ibid-11962 Writing and Publishing Eragon [Post Murtagh Christopher Paolini Q&A Wrap Up #6]
As discussed in the first post, this is my ongoing compilation of the remaining questions Christopher has answered online between August 1st 2023 and April 30th 2024 which I've not already covered in other compilations.
As always, questions are sorted by topic, and each Q&A is annotated with a bracketed source number. Links to every source used and to the other parts of this compilation will be provided in a comment below.
The previous post focused on details about the writing of Murtagh. This installment will focus on The Writing and Publication of Eragon, including the early abandoned starts and drafts the preceded the self-published version and Christopher's journey towards getting traditionally published. In this post the topics are arranged in almost a chronological order. The next post will focus on the writing of the Fractalverse, and so will be posted on /Fractalverse.
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As always, questions are sorted by topic, and each Q&A is annotated with a bracketed source number. Links to every source used and to the other parts of this compilation will be provided in a comment below.
The previous post focused on details about the writing of Murtagh. This installment will focus on The Writing and Publication of Eragon, including the early abandoned starts and drafts the preceded the self-published version and Christopher's journey towards getting traditionally published. In this post the topics are arranged in almost a chronological order. The next post will focus on the writing of the Fractalverse, and so will be posted on /Fractalverse.
Writing and Publishing Eragon
The Original Idea[When I start to write a new book] I have an image. There’s always a strong emotional component to the image, and it’s that emotion that I want to convey to readers. Everything I do after that, all of the worldbuilding, plotting, characterization, writing, and editing—all of it—is done with the goal of evoking the desired reaction from readers. In the case of the Inheritance Cycle, the image was that of a young man finding a dragon egg (and later having the dragon as a friend). [10]
Who's your favorite character to write? Well, for me, it's the dragon Saphira. She's the reason I got into writing a dragon. She came first? She came before Eragon? Like she was the catalyst? The relationship came first, her and Eragon. [33]
I was specifically inspired by a YA book called Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville, which is a delightful book. I just loved that idea so much of finding a dragon egg, I was like, "Well, what sort of a world would a dragon come from?" And I knew I wanted the sort of bond between rider and dragon that Anne McCaffrey had, but I wanted the intelligence of the dragons that you find elsewhere, and the language and the magic. And I wanted sparkly scales because it just seemed like dragons are fabulous creatures and they ought to have sparkly scales. That's the fun thing about writing your own books. You can make them exactly the way you want to make them, and hopefully then that appeals to the audience as well. [30]
All of that kind of was swirling around in my head, and I wanted to write about dragons in a way that kind of combined a lot of elements in a way that, "I like this", and "I like this piece", and "I like this piece", but I kind of wanted to have all these different pieces in one type of dragon, and no one had quite done it exactly the way I wanted. [30]
I live in Montana, and our library is an old Carnegie or Rockefeller library, and especially back in the 90s, it didn't have that many books. So once I read all the fantasy in the library, I thought I had read all the fantasy there was to read. Because I was not the smartest kid in the world sometimes. And I kind of thought, "Well, it's the library. They have all the books that exist, right? All the books that matter are in the library." And I really had no idea what to read after that. So I decided to start writing myself and to try and write the sort of story that I would enjoy reading. And of course, what I enjoyed reading was books about flying on dragons and fighting monsters and having adventures. [35]
Reading and literature was always important in our family. My father's mother was a professor of comparative literature and wrote books on Dante and all sorts of stuff like that. Was the myths and folklore part of your life at this time? Yes, but I should clarify that it wasn't formally introduced to me. It was in the house. People weren't wandering around talking about. It was just like the Aeneid is sitting on the shelf. I would go read things. I have a great uncle. He's 90 now, my mother's uncle. Guy is still sharp as a tack. It's amazing. But he gave me a set of cassette tapes of Joseph Campbell, who did Hero of a Thousand Faces. So that was my exposure to his theories of the monomyth and the eternal hero and all sorts of things like that. That got me very much interested in and thinking about the origins of the fantasy that I was reading because I was reading Tolkien and David Eddings and Anne McCaffrey and Raymond Feist and Jane Yolan and Andre Norton and Brian Jaques, and all of these you know authors who were popular at the time. I was very curious where does this come from. Tolkien, of course, felt like sort of the origin in a lot of cases but then I was discovering that, there are earlier stories that even Tolkien was drawing from. That was really a revelation to me. I really sort of got enamored with it. A lot of fantasy is nostalgic and that appealed to me because I was homeschooled and my family didn't really have a lot of relatives in the area, so I felt very unmoored from the rest of society. I think I was looking for a sense of tradition or continuity with the past and fantasy helped provide that. That's an incredibly articulate thought for a 15-year-old author. Or has that come with age? No, it was something I was feeling at the time. You were conscious of it at the time? Well, listening to the Joseph Campbell stuff, I was looking: Where are our coming of age traditions? Where is the great quest to go on to prove yourself as a young adult, as a man? Where's the great adventure? What do I do in life? Those are all things that are part of the adolescent experience and always have been which is why so many mythic stories about coming of age deal with those questions. I think it's a universal thing. That's why Harry Potter, Eragon, Twilight, all of these have appealed so much because they deal with adolescence. They deal with finding your place in the world as an adult when you're starting as a young adult or a child. [28]
What games have taught you to be a better writer either in creating characters or worldbuilding or plotting even? All of my gaming experience was computer games, video games. One that had a huge influence on me was the old Myst series. Personally I love solving puzzles, so that's the first thing. And also the concept of the series, especially with the second game, Riven, it's all based around people writing books that create new worlds. And you get to go in them and solve puzzles and understand how that world works. And that just tickled every single part of my brain back in the day. Now, I'm going to be slightly unkind here, and I apologize if the author [David Wingrove] is listening to this, but there were a couple of novels based off of Myst. And I was such a fan of the series that I got the books, and I started reading them. And my first thought was, "I could do better than this." And so I decided to rewrite the first Myst novel. And I created a document in MS Word, and I got exactly three sentences into my rewrite. And I thought to myself, "okay, I think I can do this, but I could never sell it. So I better go write something of my own." And the next thing I did was Eragon. So video games kind of had a direct influence on me writing. But actually reading something that I felt was not particularly successful was such an inspiration. Because it was like, "this got published, I know I can at least get to this level." And it was published. And then maybe I can shoot for a little bit higher. [pause] I think some people have had that experience with Eragon. [26]
Early Abandoned Starts
I had the original idea, the concept of boy finding dragon egg, and I tried writing a couple of very short versions of Eragon when I was fourteen, and none of them panned out so I stopped writing for a while. [28]Real World Version
What do you remember about the early days of writing “Eragon?” Originally, Eragon was named Kevin and the story was set in the real world. But I only finished around 10 pages. [16]Arya Opening Fantasy Version
I wrote three versions of Eragon before I wrote the version that had the unicorn, which was the first major draft. The first version was set in the real world, and that's why he's named Kevin. And the reason it was set in the real world is I was inspired by Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher, which is set in the real world. [32]
I was specifically inspired by a book called Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville. By the way, Bruce knows this. If you haven't read it, it's a great book about this young man in the real world who, spoiler, goes into an antique shop and buys a stone that ends up turning out to be a dragon egg. And I really loved that idea of a stone that was actually a dragon egg and the young man becoming joined with the dragon. And so I tried writing the story. And I got exactly five pages or six pages into it and I ran into a brick wall, because a boy finding a dragon egg is a good event, but it is not a good story. And I needed to figure out what was going to happen after that. I didn't know that at first. [36]
But then I was going down the rabbit hole of, "Well, if there's a dragon, where did the dragon come from? What if it were an actual fantasy world where the dragons were native?" And then that led me to then write a second beginning--I didn't get very far with this--that was more of a traditional fantasy story, and it opened with Arya and a couple other elves escaping a dungeon with a big battle, and at the very end of the battle, they send the dragon egg away, and Kevin finds it. But I didn't have the rest of the story, so I stopped writing it in that format. [32]Research Break
So I tried writing a second version of the story. So the first version of that story I wrote was set in the real world. Second version was more of like a fantasy world. [36]
I had the original idea when I was fourteen. I even wrote an early version of the story where it was set in the real world. But I soon realized that it was a lot more interesting to have a dragon in a fantastical setting. [8]
I tried writing before and I always failed because I would only get like four to six pages into a story and then I didn't know what to do next. And that was because I didn't actually have my story. All I really had were the inciting incidents, like a boy finds a dragon egg in the middle of a forest. Great. But that's not a story, that's just one event. What happens as a result? So before starting Eragon, I was very methodical about this. I read a whole bunch of books on how to write, how to plot stories. [35]Unused Arya Outline
I realized I wasn't getting anywhere. And I didn't know how to do what I was trying to do. Now, fortunately for me, my parents had noticed that I was getting interested in writing. And all of a sudden, books appeared in the house. There was no comment, no one forced it, these just magically appeared, and I read them. Some of the books that were incredibly helpful to me were these books that were called The Writer's Handbook, which was a collection of essays published each year by The Writer's Digest magazine. I had one from 1998, and I had one from, I think, 1993, or something like that. And there were essays from Stephen King and John Grisham and I think Ursula Le Guin and all sorts of other authors about what it was like to be an author both professionally and creatively. And that was incredibly helpful to me because again, the internet was not a resource. But the book that really made the difference for me was a book called Story by Robert McKee. It's a book for screenwriters and it's all about the structure of story. And up until that moment, I had never really consciously thought about the fact that stories have structure and that you can control that structure for the effect on the readers. So I devoured that book and I said, okay, I'm going to try this again. [36]
Did you very much sit down and study structure and character development and etc? I did. It wasn't a formal course or anything, it's just that my parents started buying these books and they started showing up. In fact, I still have them here on my shelf. This bookcase to my right is full of research books, technical books, language books. I read a book called Story by Robert McKee, which is a screenwriting book, that was and often has been very popular in Hollywood. It's a fairly technical look at story structure. I would never say do everything he says because of course you shouldn't necessarily follow any one formula, but that book really got me thinking about the fact that stories do have structure, which I hadn't really thought about before that. And that one can control that structure, and that this gives you something to work with. Before Eragon, I tried writing a number of stories and I never got past the first four to six pages, ten pages, because I never had the plot. All I would ever have was the inciting incident which, in the case of Eragon, is a young man finds a dragon egg. Ok, fine, but that's not a story. So when I read that book, then I was like wow, so I can control the structure of this. [28]
The problem with all of my early writing was that I’d get an idea and just start — I didn’t actually have a plot. But I was a pretty methodical kid, so I started reading about how to write. Fortunately, my parents are observant, and these kinds of books magically began appearing in the house. And I read all of them. [16]
So at this point, I was 15, that's when I graduated from high school and I was very methodical about it because I hate failing. So I said, okay, I'm going to create a fantasy world. And I did that. And then I said, I'm gonna plot out an entire book in this fantasy world. And I did that too. And then I said, but I'm not gonna write this. This is just a thought exercise. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna stick it in a drawer. And I still have that to this day, that world and that story, I still have it sitting in a drawer somewhere. [36]
Then I spent some time and I created an entire fantasy world and I plotted out an entire fantasy novel in that world and I did not write it. I just stuck it in a drawer and that's where it's been sitting for 25 years now. And then I just did that to prove to myself that I could plot out an entire book. [35]
Before writing Eragon, again I was very methodical even as a teenager, I created an entire fantasy world. Wrote pages and pages about the worldbuilding, and then I plotted out an entire story in that world just to prove to myself that I could plot a story, create a world, and then I didn't write it. I put it aside. I still have it all saved. Put it in a drawer. [28]
Kevin
Writing The First Full DraftAnd then I decided okay now I'm going to plot out a trilogy, because all great fantasy stories are trilogies. I'm going to do it as the heroic monomyth, because that is, at least my understanding back then, is this is one of the oldest forms of stories. I know it works on a general sense. It's going to give me a safety net, and then I'm going to write the first book as a practice book just to see if I'm capable of producing something that's three, four, five hundred pages long. And that's what I did. That was about two and a half months of worldbuilding, plotting, creating this. Then I wrote the first book and that was Eragon. That was my practice book. I never actually planned on publishing Eragon. It was only after I'd put so much work into it and my parents read it that then we proceeded with it. I was aware of story structure. I continue to read lots of books on it. [28]The First Draft
And then version three is the version that everyone generally knows. And that's where I spent the time to plot out the whole series before writing, because having a idea of where you're going seems to help with the writing, at least for me. Usually. [32]
I originally saw Eragon as a practice novel, which is part of why it’s a very typical hero’s story. I knew that structure worked and it gave me the safety net I needed. [16]
The first draft went super fast. It went really fast because I had no idea what I was doing. And I just wrote that sucker. I wrote the first 60 pages by hand with ballpoint pen, cause I didn't know how to type on a computer. And then by the time I typed all that into the computer, I knew how to type. I did the rest in the computer. But this was back in the day when computers were fairly new. We had a Mac classic, which only had two megabytes of RAM. And the problem is that the operating system chewed up some of that memory. And my book file was around two megabytes large. So I actually had to split the book into two because I couldn't open the whole file on the computer or the computer would crash. So I had to open half the book and then close that and then open the other half. [35]
Once I finished the first draft, I was super excited and I thought, "well all of these things on how to write say that you should read your own book and see if there's any tweaks you wanna make." But I was really excited because I was getting to read my own book for the first time, and I thought this is gonna be awesome. And it didn't take very long while reading it to realize that it was awful. It was horrible. And just to give you an idea of just how bad that first draft was, in the very first draft of Eragon, Eragon wasn't named Eragon, Eragon was named Kevin. And there was also a unicorn in that first draft at one point, so you know it wasn't very good. [35]Releasing the Kevin Cut
If I heard correctly as I was reading, Eragon wasn't originally called Eragon? No, in the first draft of the book he was called Kevin. There's a reason! Look I have an explanation for it, okay. The explanation is that my original inspiration was Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher which is set in the real world. The original version of Eragon that I was developing was set in the real world and when I decided that it would make more sense to have a world where the dragons were native to and switched it over to this fantasy world and began to develop that, I just kept the name that I'd been working with, which was Kevin. Naming a main character is hard, especially when you get used to a certain name. I don't want to say I was lazy. I want to focus on the world building and writing the first draft and I'll worry about the name later. [28]
There is an early version of Eragon that no one's seen, that even my editor at Random House never saw. And that was my first draft. And in that first draft, Eragon encountered a unicorn in the Beor Mountains on the way to the Varden. And the unicorn touches him and essentially affects the transformation that he goes under during the blood oath ceremony with the elves in the second book, in Eldest. And his whole storyline with the Varden once he gets to Farthen Dûr is completely different because now he has these abilities and he and a team of people ends up getting sent on a scouting mission in the dwarven tunnels to go find the Urgal army and then they have to flee back through the tunnels to warn everyone of this huge army and I had a underground cave full of lava, and multiple shades, and a huge Urgal army. There was there was a lot of dramatic stuff. Finding the Ra'zac in Dras-Leona was completely different. This is the draft where Eragon was named Kevin. [32]
I haven't thought about that version in ages. I think Arya was awake all the way from Gil'ead to Farthen Dûr in that version. That's right, I had to completely rewrite that. It's an unpleasant ride for her. No, no, no, she was awake and healed. She was awake. That's right, God, I had to rewrite most of the last chunk of the book now that I think back, it's been a long time. [32]
The worst thing is, I think Kevin would actually take a larger budget [to adapt to film]. No, stop. Why would Kevin take a larger budget? Because the battles were bigger, there was more stuff going on. Seriously, there were more creatures, more travel. Yeah, I think Kevin would actually take more money than Eragon. [32]
You said that Eragon's name was originally Kevin. Was Eragon's name originally Kevin? It was. And I really regret I didn't stick with it because I think that as many books as I've sold, the series would have been at least twice as successful if it had been about the adventures of the great dragon writer Kevin. Especially just seeing Kevin on the front cover. Imagine the appeal to the modern youth. Kevin the dragon writer. I mean Eragon, it's confusing with Aragorn. Oregano. Oregon. But Kevin, Kevin stands out, Kevin's original. That's why I had to move away from it. [31]
So do you wanna share some of those drafts with us, Christopher? Just kidding. Well, I actually had a fan reach out to me. He's one of the big members of the online fan community on Reddit and elsewhere. And he's kind of interested in some of these early versions from almost an archivist point of view, a scholarly point of view. Which is certainly an interesting idea. I mean, there is an early version of Eragon that no one's seen, that even my editor at Random House never saw. ... I cannot describe how much the Internet absolutely needs for you to put out an edition of Eragon that just says Kevin. Should this be like Mistborn or Way of Kings Prime? This is the Kevin edition of Eragon. The Kevin cut. Oh my god. It's "Eragon: Kevin's Version". ... We absolutely need Kevin's Version of Eragon. That's something we need. It's bad. It's bad. Look, there are certainly people who can look at Eragon, the version we have now, and say, "we can tell this was a younger writer." I look at it and I can tell. I could do so much more now with the material than I could then. But if you think that about the published version of Eragon, man, if you saw the unpublished version, the early version, it really is the raw writing of a homeschooled 15-year-old, who wrote a 500 page book about Kevin. I don't know, the internet is very unhinged these days. They would love this. It needs to exist somewhere on the internet. [32]
Publishing
EditingSo I wrote Eragon, and then I read the first draft and it wasn't particularly good, so I spent a good chunk of a year rewriting it as best as I could. I didn't know what I was doing but I was trying. I've heard it said that being displeased with your own work is actually a good thing because it means you know what is good work, and if you're not happy with your work because it's not good, it means you could at least have a goal to shoot for. If you read your work and you're like this is the best thing that's ever been written, you're never going to get any better. [28]Self-publishing
But I could see that the book needed work, so I decided to try to fix it as best I could, and I spent the better part of that year revising, rewriting, changing Kevin to Eragon. And then I gave the book to my parents and fortunately for me, they actually enjoyed what I had done. And they said, we think you have something, let's try to take it out into the world and see if anyone else wants to read it. [35]
[We] decided to self-publish the book as a joint venture since we didn't know anyone in the publishing world. That was again a good chunk of a year where we were editing the book as best the three of us could. Preparing it for publication, formatting, I drew the cover. [28]Promotion
Now you have to understand, my parents were always self-employed, have always been self-employed and we were always looking for things we could work on together as a family business. And Eragon was like the perfect opportunity for that. They'd had some experience self-publishing a couple of small educational books my mom had worked on. Because she was a trained Montessori teacher, and so she was trying to use that expertise to write some material herself. But I don't even think we sold 100 copies of those. So we spent another good chunk of a year preparing the book for publication with doing more editing, doing the layout, designing the cover. [35]
The first set of 50 books showed up while we were watching Roman Polanski's Macbeth, which seemed fitting because those first 50 books were all miscut from the printer. And as a result, we had to rip the covers off, send them back for credit from the printer, and then burn the insides of the books. So we had a proper book burning in our yard, and I actually saved some of those burnt pages just as a memory of that event. [35]
Self publishing wasn’t as viable then as a pathway to a career as an author as it is today. Why did it work for you? Everything completely changed because of e-readers. If you wanted to read an e-book, you had to have a PDF on your computer. There were no distribution systems like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Back then, the lowest amount you could print and not have the book be too expensive was probably about 10,000 copies. But we were fortunate because print-on-demand had just become a thing, so books were just printed as needed. Self publishing is a lot easier these days. Of course, today’s marketplace is a lot more crowded as a result. [16]
My family and I were going around the western half of the United States with the self-published edition of Eragon. I was cold calling schools, libraries, and bookstores to set up events. I was doing two to three one-hour long presentations every single day for months on end at various times. You have to understand that because my parents were self-employed, the time they took to help prepare Eragon for publication was time they weren't working on other freelance projects that would have been bringing in money. So by the time we actually had Eragon printed and in hand, if it had taken another two to three months to start turning a profit, we were going to have to sell our house, move to a city, and get any jobs we could. Because of that financial pressure I was willing to do things I probably would have been too uncomfortable to do otherwise. Like doing all those presentations. [28]Getting traditionally published
We were doing a lot of self-promotion. I was cold calling schools and libraries and talking them into letting me do presentations. And that worked pretty well because the librarians could take pre-orders for us. If we went into a bookstore, by hand selling, I could maybe sell anywhere between 13 to 40 books in a day. 42 was like the best I ever did, but usually it was around 15 or so books, which just didn't cover printing costs and travel and food and all of that. But going into the schools, we were doing about 300 books a day, which was excellent. [34]
Can you tell me a little bit about how you and your family self-published the first Eragon book and what marketing strategies you did? Oh, it was all nepotism, you know. I wouldn't have gotten published without my parents. There's nothing as powerful as a publishing company that's four people sitting around a kitchen table in the middle of rural Montana. So yeah, without Nepotism, I wouldn't have gotten published. You have to embrace something like Nepotism if you really wanna succeed in today's world. In fact, people don't realize that you actually get a Nepotism card. There's a secret club. You go to New York and there's huge network opportunities. There's branches of the club everywhere, especially strong in Hollywood, of course, in music. Taylor Swift is an example. So if you can get into the nepotism club, I won't say you're guaranteed success, but you got about 80% chance of actually making it that you wouldn't have otherwise. Do you think your mom and dad would be willing to be my mom and dad? No, absolutely not. No, no. You don't have brown hair, so it doesn't work. You have to have brown hair to be a Paolini. Okay, I'll try to find a different way in, I guess. [31]
So you were very much looking for that partnership? Well we were wary. But the thing is is we were selling enough copies of Eragon that to scale it up we were going to have to start duplicating all the things that a regular publisher does. We were actually looking at partnering with a book packager or a book distributor just to get more copies out. To do everything a traditional publisher could do for me was a huge amount of work so it made sense to pair with Random House or someone else at that point. But it was still nerve-wracking because the book was being a success and then handing it off to another company, we didn't know if it was just going to end up in the remainder bin two weeks after it came out. [28]Gaining Confidence
People in the book world were starting to take notice because of course, if you've been to public school, you may remember the Scholastic Book Fairs and all of the Scholastic reps in the different schools were seeing me come to the schools and selling these books and hearing the kids talk about it. And it was getting attention. So we would have gotten a publisher, I would have gotten a publisher eventually. [34]
The book sold enough copies and bounced around enough that we'd heard that Scholastic—because Scholastic does all the Book Fairs in schools in the US—was interested and that we might get an offer from them. Before that happened though... [34]
Eventually another author by the name of Carl Hiaasen ended up buying a copy of the self-published edition of Eragon in a local bookstore. Which now that I'm older, I'm rather shocked at because it takes a lot to get me to buy a self-published book. It's got to look really good. [35]
Carl Hiaasen wrote the young adult book Hoot as well as many adult books. He comes up to Montana, I think he's got a vacation home here in the valley, but he was up here fly fishing and he bought a copy of Eragon for his then 12 year old son, Ryan. And fortunately for me, Ryan liked the book and Carl recommended it to Random House and it sort of bounced around among the editors for a couple of months before my editor-to-be grabbed it and said, "Yes, we will. I want to take a chance on this teenage author and we're going to offer him money for a trilogy that only exists in his head and see what happens." [34]
How did you find an agent? We had the offer from Random House, and like two days later, we had the offer from Scholastic. And so we knew we didn't know what we didn't know. My dad participated in some online self-publishing forum sort of thing. So he posted up a question and said, look, this is the situation we're in. Does anyone have any advice? And another one of the members said, "well, I was just at this publishing writing conference and there was this young agent there and I was really impressed with his presentation, or him talking about the industry." So my dad got his information online and did what you're never supposed to do, which is he called the agent directly and left this long rambling voicemail message because it was lunchtime in New York and you take your lunch breaks in New York. And only at the end of the message did he say, "oh, yes, and by the way, we have two competing offers from two publishing houses." And when I asked him, I said, "why did you do that?" He said, "well, because if he's any good as an agent, he's going to listen to the whole message before he deletes it." And we found out later that he nearly deleted the message. Because my dad started off like, "I got this teenage son, and he's written this book", and yeah, that, OK. So it was like two hours later we got a call from Simon. And Simon said overnight me a copy of Eragon and if I like it I'll represent you. And Simon has been my agent for 21 years now. [34]
It was a big risk for Random House. And it was a big risk for me because the book was successful, self-published, and we knew that giving it to a publisher, you lose the rights to a degree, and most books don't turn a profit, and it could have just ended up in the remainder bin. So what really worked in my favor is that Random House, and specifically Random House Children's Books, and specifically the imprint of Knopf, which is where I'm at were looking for their own Harry Potter, essentially. Scholastic was publishing Harry Potter. And Scholastic also gave me an offer for Eragon, but I could tell that Random House was the one that really loved the book and Scholastic was doing it because they thought it was a good business opportunity. Scholastic actually offered more money than Random House. But I went with Random House and it was the right choice. And I found out after the fact that Chip Gibson who was the head of the children's department at the time basically chose to use Eragon as sort of something to rally the troops and put the entire children's division behind it, and I was the very fortunate recipient of that love and attention. Which of course would only get you so far if people didn't enjoy reading the book. But fortunately for me, they did a great job marketing it and then people actually enjoyed the book. Which is why when people ask me how to get published, it's like, what am I supposed to say? The answer ultimately is you write a book that people want to read, and that's a facile answer, but it is true. If people want to read it, it makes everything else easier. The agent wants you, the publishers want you, and ultimately the public wants you. [34]
And I didn't realize how much was behind that email, because large publishers do not just casually say, "hey, we want to publish your book". There was a whole plan there, and they had a plan. And so they did. Eragon came out and then I had to figure out how to write a book with everyone expecting the sequel. [36]
So you kind of went and peddled your books at schools, as I understand, right? It seems to have paid off though, because it eventually landed in the hands of bestselling author Carl Hiaasen, but not right away. First, your book got in the hands of his stepson, and the kid liked it so much that he told Hiaasen about it, who then got Eragon fast-tracked with Penguin Random House. I really admire the way that you went for the weakest links, manipulating the minds of our youth and using them to shill your book for you. It's a tried and true marketing strategy from Girl Scout Cookies to coupon books, and I applaud you for your ingenuity. My biggest question here is, do you pay Carl Hiaasen's stepson the agent royalties he so rightfully deserves? He tried to collect one time, but I had to hire a couple of guys to drive him off. But, no, you always go for the weakest link. Back when I was self-published and all that I even tried to get Eragon reviewed by Entertainment Weekly, so I called up the subscription number on the back of the magazine and told them I'd made a mistake and asked them to transfer me over to corporate, and managed to get right to their book reviewer and tried to talk him into reviewing Eragon. So you always go for, as you said, the weakest link. Which is corporate. Ryan, Carl's son, though, yeah, I probably owe him a ridiculous amount of royalties. I'd say so. He made you. Oh, he did, absolutely. Without him, I'd be nothing. I guess the lesson here for aspiring authors is that it's not really about finding your target audience, necessarily. You just have to find your target prolific author's stepson and let the kid take it from there. Yeah, absolutely. As I said, that's part of the nepotism package. The sort of networking inside the industry. This is the stuff that you can never access otherwise, and you'll never get published otherwise. So it's not like you can just grow up in the middle of nowhere in Montana, self-publish a book, and then just become a success, by promoting it. You have to have connections. That's genius. I think you could have had an incredible career in designing loot boxes for mobile games based on how good you are at manipulating the world. Absolutely, microtransactions are God's work. [31]
Was anxiety something you felt moving to this deal with Random House? Was that quite pressuring? Yes, it was a big change to go from writing for yourself as a teenager, homeschooled, living in the middle of nowhere, to knowing that there was a large audience for your next book and that they had expectations. I got criticized quite a bit, critiqued quite a bit when Eragon came out for, shall we say, my lack of experience on the technical side of things with the writing. I'd say some of those were certainly fair critiques. The great advantage of youth is that you don't know how difficult things are and you have a lot of energy. The great disadvantage of youth is you don't have experience, and there's no fixing that aside from time and effort. All of that was definitely in my head when I really started work on Eldest and it was pretty nerve-wracking quite honestly. [28]
When you finished the book, I mean your parents believed in it obviously. Did you too? Or were you like, "You know what, maybe the second book, maybe go all in on the second one?" I didn't feel like I was actually an author until my third book was published. Because the first one, well, that could be a fluke. Well, the second one, yeah, but you know. But once the third book came out, then I was like, okay, maybe I'm actually a writer. But even then, even after I finished the series, I still felt like, okay, now I have to write something that's not Eragon, just to prove that I can. So every book has been its own challenge and has been a way for me to keep feeling like I'm growing as an artist and learning to become a better and better writer. [2]
It took me, I wanna say almost 10 years to feel like I wasn't an imposter and that it wasn't just gonna get yanked away. You know what my dream was when Eragon was was going to get published by Random House? Like this was my pie in the sky because I didn't think it was going to happen. But this was my dream. I did all the math and I was like, man, if I could somehow someday sell 100,000 books, which is impossible. But man, if I could sell 100,000 books, that's a darn good living. Man, I could really make a living off that. I could support a family and 100,000 books. Man, that'd be amazing. And then it kind of took off from there. [33]
2024.05.19 14:55 HaradaIto this is the ideal discussion thread. you may not like it, but this is what peak discussion looks like
 | churning just peaked, the only acceptable comments are 2 fuckin bots. good thing that no idiot even tried a dumb ‘D4Q’ and ruined this masterpiece submitted by HaradaIto to churningcirclejerk [link] [comments] |
2024.05.19 14:53 kayakero What are support and resistance in trading?
 | What are supports and resistances in trading?Supports and resistances are an extremely important factor in the world of trading, which is why they are established as an essential factor in technical analysis.At the support and resistance levels, the price will take on another trend (the opposite of what it has been doing) , due to the competition between supply and demand.
This is a psychological factor, since it is the traders who operate at these levels and help to intensify the support and resistance levels. It is worth remembering that the difference between support and resistance is virtual : Both are the same thing, except that the supports are below the current price and the resistances are above. Needless to say, once a resistance is overcome, it becomes support , as it becomes below the price. The same thing happens the other way around . If support is pierced, it will become resistance since it is now above the last price. What is the purpose of identifying supports and resistances?1.- To guess the direction the price will takeThe price will tend to move without hesitation between support and resistance, slow down when approaching one of these and, sometimes, bounce when it reaches it and is not able to cross the barrier. This alone is a key consideration to take into account when considering operations. 2.- To determine where to place your safety stop If we know that the safety stop has to be placed where we do not expect the price to reach, it makes all the sense in the world that we hide it behind a support or resistance. For example, if we open long, we will place a safety stop somewhere below the current price. If we place our stop just below the nearest support, we will be placing it in an area where it will be reached with a very low probability. That is, only when we have made a mistake with the direction of the price in such a way that it has been able to pierce the support, will our stop loss be triggered. 3.- To know how far we have to wait before entering a position You may want to buy Exxon Mobil stock as a long-term investment. However, it is always advisable to wait for the price to approach its local minimum. Sooner or later the price will approach significant support and there you will have your opportunity to buy cheap. 4.- To recognize channel breakouts and be prepared for any price explosion It is common for the price to shoot out after the breakout of a channel. If you have marked your supports and resistances well, you will know exactly when the price leaves the channel and you will be able to anticipate by placing conditional entry orders just outside the channel. How to calculate supports and resistances?Now we will focus on how to look at the chart to locate the supports and resistances that the price has found, and is likely to find.To detect supports and resistances on a chart we must take into account the following aspects: In general, supports and resistances are nothing more than "hard" levels in which the price chart advances with greater difficulty and in which, due to this, the price sometimes bounces and changes its course. Knowing this, the easiest way to locate support/resistance is to look for the levels at which the price slows down or rebounds . Supports and resistances are not always determined by a very defined price. Sometimes, they are more like price ranges. Regarding the relevance of supports and resistances, this increases the more price rebounds they have and the longer the time frame to which they belong. That is, support is more relevant if it is seen on a weekly chart than if it is only found on a 10-minute chart. What's more, any support or resistance seen in a higher time frame also affects any of its lower ones. Since at Novatos Trading Club we have the daily charts as a reference for trading, we first look for the supports and resistances in the weekly charts , thus we locate the most relevant ones and, later, we can look at those visible only in the daily or lower frame. If you trade on another time frame, say, 5 minutes, then move up to the 30-minute time frame to locate the most relevant supports and resistances. Find support and resistance step by stepIn summary, to locate support and resistance, we will start by looking , on the chart with a longer time frame than usual, for those points where the price clearly slows down and/or rebounds. I recommend you mark them with a horizontal line, since the relevant supports and resistances last over time: Additionally, there are also less visible (and usually less relevant ) supports/resistances that you can also easily locate:https://preview.redd.it/5js9u11ood1d1.png?width=630&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6e58b4c01408792ea3aff3467224a1d39cc58c7
Locating the supports and resistances of a value is basic and should always be your first step when analyzing a chart. BONKbot Telegram User Guide: Sniping 1000x Memecoins Unibot User Guide Top 7 Telegram Bots Get a $100 bonus trading with Binance |