!zoomers !g*mers !effortposters How does a fanbase obsessed with detail take it when their precious character uses the wrong model? Not well.

NOTE: All thinks to the drama will be provided at the bottom of the page, which will include screenshots of what those people are made about, to make it more convenient to find whatever I cite or quote

Prologue

Red Dead Redemption II is the 2018 prequel to the 2010 cowboy game Red Dead Redemption. A famous element of the games is when you beat the main campaign your playable character is permanently killed off and you play the rest of the game as another, supporting character from the story. In Red Dead 1 your main character, John Marston, is replaced by his son Jack with a three year time skip. In RDR2 being a prequel your main character is replaced by John Marston in an eight year time skip

With an ambitious element such as this a lot of resources goes into providing a shocking twist to the player. New animations, models and voice lines have to be made with this in mind because it being an open world game there are side missions that still have to be playable once the game is complete, and in the case of RDR2 the playable epilogue is essentially its own eight hour campaign. The original game didnt have much it needed to replace in comparison, essentially just have Jack’s VA do some line reads, but the second game has thousands of hidden secrets as well as in depth character customization down to dynamic beard and hair growth that had to be remade or adjusted for this new character. However, the developer’s clever workarounds to give the player as much playable features in the transfer has led to the most obscure tantrums I’ve ever seen a pocket of a fanbase experience

Chapter 1 - rDead rDemption

So to understand the reactions I will show you first I will answer: what is wrong with John Marston in the second game? It depends on which version of the game you have, if you are playing on an unpatched physical copy you have the definitive version of Epilogue John Marston on consoles and the people who decry the problems with him dont have as much to say negative about him. Aside from three different elements:

• 1: John’s hair is a jet black recolor of Arthur Morgan’s, the playable protagonist for the first three quarters of the game. John’s hair in lore is a shaggier, messier do than Arthur’s and is more of a dark brown than a jet black

• 2: John’s facial structure is different from both his pre-Epilogue younger self and his RDR1 older self. I will provide some screenshots

• 3: His “Cowboy” outfit from RDR1, unlocked in the epilogue, has some inconsistencies with how it looks. Notably a white undershirt instead of a brown one

• There are also general criticisms people have of John being light on details that Arthur has: like for example, Arthur has a different set of animations for various inclines while walking and the only nuanced animations John does have are reused from Arthur. John also uses the same vomit sounds as Arthur, his own vomit sounds are in the files but go unused

I have presented these three criticisms as unbiasedly as possible, just to show you what these people think of the best possible version of the character without mods. We can dispute these if we want but the point isn’t their validity just yet

However, over time the game being a modern AAA release got patches to address issues with the game, provide QoL improvements and add new content to its Online multiplayer sidemode. The unfortunate result of this is in the process of addressing various clipping issues with John’s model the devs took shortcuts to ensure hair, clothes and other elements wouldn’t break visually whilst pulling the Epilogue John model away from his lore accurate appearance. Within these patches the various new problems include:

• 1: John’s model being resized and remade to be more of a copy of Arthur’s. John is meant to be a leaner man but in the newer versions his body is just Arthur’s with his face and textures pasted onto it

• 2: A now more inaccurate rendition of his “Cowboy” outfit from RDR1, which you unlock within the epilogue. Most notably he now wears giant gloves and wide pants because the model has been resized to fit a more of an Arthur mold

• 3: Changing his facial hair, notably lightening the mustache, and perhaps even giving John arthur’s cheekbones to prevent beard clipping

• 4: Despite these attempts at fixing the issues within the day one Epilogue, there are reports that this further broke John from his clothes textures not working, him either using Arthur’s lines and animations or being treated like Arthur by NPCs on accident and finally even him no longer having working facial animation during gameplay: instead sporting a thousand yard stare outside of cutscenes

• In addition to all of the problems mentioned in the pre-patch not being fixed

So all in all now that I’ve described these issues I will give my two cents: yea when you look at the vanilla version and the modded versions it does look better, I feel like in a game that let’s you play as two people there’s a novelty factor the player will want to experience with how the characters might be different in terms of gameplay and you will probably want them to look different when playing dress up. There’s also the lore argument, it does look a little weird to paste a skinny dude’s head on a buff guy’s body when the character never looked like the buff guy when he was an NPC. However, complaints like him having a jet black recolor of Arthur’s hair dont take into account that this was done so the player could customize John’s hair to the same degree as Arthur’s, and since John has darker hair than Arthur they simply recolored it to a full black as visual shorthand for “different hair”. The hair is fully customizable and while you cant get an exact match you can get close enough. There are also various other complaints where I honestly cant tell the difference, if you told me that vomit sound was Arthur’s I’d have to take your word for it. If you told me his eyes and cheeks were messed up on the unpatched version I’d have to squint really hard to notice. There’s also a case of when you remake a character for a new generation of graphics you tend to embellish or change details in order to make it look better, his cowboy outfit doesnt look exactly like his old PS3 look but it’s also an eight year gap in technology which means it would inevitably look different in some noticeable way. You can still tell it’s his one outfit the normies would know

Now if this was just the end of it, this wouldn’t be an rdrama post. Some fans have neurodivergentally nuanced gripes with a character model, so what you may say. We all have weird OCD, I get annoyed when Agent 47’s tie clips thru his jacket in Hitman. However, if the people who had these legitimate, albeit minor, gripes simply voiced them respectfully to whoever would listen and had some self awareness regarding it they’d remain unremarkable and obscure. Just a weird detail you read on a trivia site, “oh Epilogue John is inaccurate that’s kinda neat”

However, the Epilogue John critics are a very rare breed of autism…

These people go apeshit if you dont care!

Chapter 2 - Red Dead R-sluration

The Epilogue John community has their own website, Justice for John Marston. A bizarre name for a website considering the character’s fate involving him essentially committing suicide by cop, but this is deadass a whole butt website dedicated to some video game character’s hair and textures being wrong

There are videos which try to explain these situations too, but they also devolve into petty drama by doing respond videos to their own comments and multiple follow up videos discussing this incredibly simple-to-explain issue. At one point one of these guys says if you dont care or cant tell the difference youre not a real fan and are just excusing “laziness” on the dev’s parts

They have even spammed Rockstar’s twitter feeds in order to try to get Epilogue John fixed

There are multiple youtube channels and youtube hashtags that sprung up to support this gay movement, the channels go from general Red Dead vids to entice normies to then them alienating those normies by becoming dedicated to pooping on Rockstar and the game for not fixing Epilogue John, citing that not fixing him is due to corporate greed and there is only two avenues in business: fixing Epilogue John, or selling microtransactions. These two things cannot be done simultaneously, so therefore by ignoring this issue to these people the unpaid interns they are badgering on twitter and in the customer service tickets are planting the flag that they dont want to fix Epilogue John because that would lead to it being impossible to milk an online mode?

One channel even suggests that having John look different is false advertising and borderline criminal, even though playing as John was never a selling point

There are still, five years later, controversial reddit discussions on if Epilogue John matters or not to the point where the discourse shifts on the weekly from it being a big deal, to it being fine and then back again

And of course there are now mod projects to fix John Marston in the epilogue, which has done nothing to shut these people up. In fact, I will be a little contrarian and say the mods go too far and make him look too similar to his RDR1 or NPC self, depending on the mod. In the aim for nostalgic accuracy they end up making a character who should look significantly older/younger look way too similar to how he is pre-character development or how he is in a game with a completely different art style

Chapter 3 - Grand Theft Autism

Here's some choice quotes I've found when searching all this up

Man for a game that is touted for its detail in everything, the fact that horse balls got more attention than John Martston is really sad.

[I just can't understand why couldn't Rockstar, a multi-billionare triple A company with lots of studios, make something as simple as this ... the fact that you can't replicate one of your previous protagonist with better technology is outright insanity knowing what they're capable of.](

Sometimes I hate it when modders have to fix things that the community want the devs to fix it just shows that the community cares more about the game and the characters than the people who made the darn game but other than that it’s a really great mod

I can honestly see why most of John’s iconic outfit is different between RDR and RDR2, seeing that its a 4 year difference between the RDR2 Epilogue and the start of RDR, but did they really have to make the gloves the wrong size?

As much as I didn't mind John's appearance in the Epilogue (yes, call me a mad man), I think R* should take notes from this video. Not to fix John in RDR 2... no, they'll never do that, let's be honest with ourselves. But if the RDR 1 REMAKE TO RDR 2 ENGINE rumors are true... they can't frick this up. John NEEDS his OG look upscaled in today's graphics. Epilogue John won't be acceptable. Thank you for making this video and putting this lovely music in it as well ❤👍🏻

Uninstall and reinstall the game without updating and just play on 1.00. Johns shoulders look better his face looks better and his clothes look less like trash bags.

The devs are working on gta 6 rn so hopefully when its done they will continue working on rdr2

I don't wanna destroy your dreams or anything, but even if somehow for some reason they came back to RDR2, I don't really think they'd give a crap about fixing Michael Jackson, I MEAN! pretty boy John Morgan. Not only would they have to make a full-on accurate John face model, but they would also have to make a different hairstyle, different hair growth, body build structure, clothes refitting, etc. Plus, the people who care about this are such an obscure and mostly unknown part of the community I don't really think they'd spend time, money and effort just to satisfy what's essentially a minority.

lol

New Version suck: graphics, random events that got deleted, performance etc.

Don’t forget epilogue John looking exactly like Arthur

It's still annoying though that they didn't bother to fix John or add more content to RDR1's map through patches, like you said. They largely abandoned story mode after launch and only introduced more problems to it.

They kept patching fun glitches like the Bronte glitch (still works but they nerfed it massively) and completely abandoned some annoying ones like arthur's beard not connecting. Also they should have added some way to remove the NA sniper on your second playthrough or something after we complete epilogue 2 so that we get to experience the story the way they want us to and then do it however we like And I'm sure milking GTA online is more profitable but come on at least don't patch the good gitches 😂😂

They essentially abandoned this whole game after launch. This game got done dirty. If I had worked on this game for 10 years as a dev I’d be very upset right about now

he doesn't have his animations His volmiting sound is Arthur's He has no line for making the horse go faster His model is just Arthur 2.O His face His shoulders His body Arms Etc And his outfit is wrong

in not lying lol you just simply can't handle facts compare his epilouge body face hair etc to rdr1 and npc John

yes simpleton he doesn't look like the John from the first game neither does Abigail jack or uncle cry

Lmao rockstar should really just give us the facial expressions and stuff,even if they won’t give us the hair,what about the other stuff

Rockstar did this on purpose but not for story, they didn't do it so John can honor Arthur, they downgraded him with each update. And I don't think John's ears would lower, neck getting thicker, clothes looking goofy, broken animations, body looking like Arthur's, mustache getting bleached is not about honoring Arthur. They downgraded him in 1.00 too. You made a poor excuse to defend Rockstar.

Rockstar: you put like 8 years of effort on an amazing story and one of the best open worlds. Was it so hard to just put a little bit more effort on John? Seriously bro

Awesome video! One thing you forgot to mention is how on the recent version of the game John has Arthur's body and inflated gloves and pants cuffs. Never the less you earned a subscription

Why won't Rockstar let us play as the Chapter 1-6 John with his normal hair but instead we get John with Arthur's face model and Arthur's hair

The Epilogue would've benefitted from another delay to 2019 to finish up John's model, his unique side missions animations that were cut, removed cutscenes that made the editing feel abrupt and update RDR1's map to 1907. In the files, New Austin is marked 1899 as that's how it's supposed to look in the main story and why it's so different from the first game, they didn't have time to change it by the epilogue to look consistent with RDR1.

UGH this shows a clear lack of any desire to keep people who only play story mode happy. They are actively removing features and changing things to be worse than they were before. There are SOOOO many guns and clothes in online that should be in offline. I don't get it, they already made the models, right? The only reason to NOT add it into offline mode is so that you have to play online and probably buy gold bars in order to buy it online. Such a scummy company :( GTAV is the same. No single player DLC but hundreds of microtransactions and online only content. BOOOOO.

Am I the only one that really doesn't care about the hair?

maybe, idk, people want it because its iconic, its not just the hair people also want epilogue john to not look like arthur

Trust me, Red Dead redemption 1 is my favorite game of all time. And I still don't find the hair is being such a problem that mods are created to fix it

It’s not so much the hair it’s that epilogue John looks like Arthur, he literally uses Arthur’s body and head model that’s mainly what the mods fix, the hair and correct hair color are perks of the mod

They also decided that John should be a completely clueless dullard, who somehow lost his talents for Gunslinging, Brawling, heck, even social aptitude, and anything else of note that he possessed in RDR1. It's like he's a completely different person, instead of the steel-nerves, snappy wit and charm he displays in the first game. It's kind of disgusting what they did to a western icon. Thankfully, RDR2 is so inconsistent with the lore proceeding the events within, nothing from RDR can convince me it was ever canonical. That's their failing, not my own.

man discovers prequels include character development

Most of us did play the first game, That's why we can notice the major differences between John's RD1 game model and RD2 (epilogue) game model. During the first 5 chapters, John's design looks closer to RD1 than in the epilogue. the only difference is his youth. A lot of players noticed this and made mods on the PC to get a more RD1 accurate model by editing the younger John. Changes like darker brown hair, not the sludge grey of Rd2, and a slimmer jawline or smaller face and body frame like chapters 1 to 5 John. John in the epilogue is just a reskinned Arthur with a different face and hair colour But I assume that this was due to Rockstar not having enough time in development. They made a lot of cuts to the game in order to set an earlier release date. This would explain why John Morgan has the same body and skeletal structure as Arthur.. I hope I explained it well.

Arthur's broad shoulders, thick neck, overall more burly body - Arthur is a bigger dude than John. Also Arthur's hair and beard just recolored to black, even though they each have a completely different hair consistency. The differences are clear as day when you look at them side by side.

It's the most detailed game ever made, and they put a lot of effort into creating the most hidden details, and Rockstar didn't even work a little to make John Marston's original hair growable and put on his original body. His model is the same as Arthur's, with only John's face with Arthur's hair, and they didn't even make a vomit sound for John (when you make John throw up, you can hear Arthur's voice). That's why I don't like playing as John, I feel like playing a low-life version of Arthur Morgan instead of John Marston. Before the release of the game, I already knew that we would play John after the end of the game, but I wanted to see the same John Marston from the first game, but no... John Morgan.

Epilogue

Here's the links in question:

A comparison of John in the epilogue versus pre-Epilogue - https://old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/ozr2et/not_my_comparison_but_this_is_how_bad_epilogue/

Comparison of modded John vs vanilla I believe - https://media.groomercordapp.net/attachments/755543425473970216/846734312799076402/ezgif-4-ac5b84a0c04c.gif?width=1196&height=676

A comparison of how John's facial animations look in the 1.00 version versus the patches - https://old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/122onvx/i_still_wonder_why_rockstar_worsened_epilogue/

Multiple posts arguing about if Epilogue John looks bad - https://old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/13vndlq/maybe_im_blind_but_after_all_these_years_i_still/

https://old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/p508sm/anyone_else_notice_that_before_epilogue_john_was/h93jv40/

https://old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/12cxe5h/how_do_people_feel_about_epilogue_john_marston/

https://old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/pcgw6u/why_are_some_people_defending_epilogue_john/ - this one's my favorite thread it has it all

https://old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/sgw26i/did_rockstar_finally_fix_epilogue_john/

https://old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/d4vdcx/another_comparison_of_npc_john_and_epilogue_john/

justice for john marston website and youtube videos -https://justiceformarston.wixsite.com/website-3

• https://youtube.com/watch?v=OmTtngELSw0

The video made by the guy saying that Rockstar did false advertising -

the guy who made the video explaining the problems who then made a response to people saying it wasnt a big deal -

• https://youtube.com/watch?v=VHeSbcD-MFg&t=454s

memes about the situation -

misc. videos complaining about the epilogue -

An article by Polygon about the debacle - https://www.polygon.com/2020/6/4/21280437/red-dead-redemption-2-john-marston-changes-patches-update-rockstar

In conclusion, it’s been about two years since Red Dead’s last Story Mode patch and thus Rockstar have moved on to developing GTA VI and maybe even RDR3. However, these nerds show no sign of stopping. I’ve found new channels talking about this all the time and there are still videos as recent as a couple of months from these old channels which are still complaining about this. Godspeed to them, I see. Their autism is very entertaining

Greetings Dramatards

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/african-academics-challenge-homophobic-laws/

So in Africa, just like South Africa, sexual minorities like LGBT and gay rights have been pretty much non existent or overlooked, or even downright outlawed. RSA is probably the most tolerant nation on the continent for homosexuals, but even that says extremely little. You may be fooled into thinking that because South Africa obtained equal rights for sexual minorities way back in 1994 in its constitution during the 1994 Mandela Administration, that RSA is some kind of liberal utopia? Especially considering how liberal it is regarding things like woman's rights.

The reality of what is written in law, and what occurs in in everyday life, are very very different things. Homosexuals suffer tremendous discrimination. Most openly LGBT people congregate into the biggest cities like Pretoria and Cape Town, to become as anonemous as possible. The mentality towards gays differ tremendously between urban and rural people as well. Discrimination easily ranges from expulsion from families, excommunication from churches (which tend to form large groups of belonging for SA people, and thus can be devastating), to murder and r*pe and beatings, job security and job interview discriminations.

HIV had ravaged and is still ravaging southern africa, and Burgerland's world wide cultural influence, had meant that their views on Homosexuality and HIV being exclusively linked, had made many people whom were tested to be HIV positive, to then be treated as badly as homosexuals, which was pretty bad. Since HIV and homosexuality were being regarded as one and the same, as rural uneducated people in South Africa perceived that only gays could obtain this sexually transmitted disease. So the frequent horror would occur, when a young Township girl would not only realize she is HIV positive, but in the same day be kicked out of the family house as a degenerate the very same day.

https://www.twinkl.co.za/teaching-wiki/life-orientation

https://www.education.gov.za/Portals/0/CD/SUBSTATEMENTS/Life Orientation.pdf?ver=2006-08-31-121627-000

This happened with alarming frequency, so that the goverment literally had to step into school education, and mandate that all school children learn about adult subjects in a mandatory Subject called Life Orientation - which discussed important topics, like women's rights, s*x and s*x-protection, as well most most significantly the science behind the HIV virus, and how it actually spread. And that HIV infected people could not transmit HIV via physical contact like shaking hands, to prevent communities from literally treating HIV pos peeps like lepers, and have them be pariahs in their communities.

I mention this because foreigners have a very warped Idea of how liberal South Africa actually genuinely is. South Africa in all races is still very very religious, especially all non white people. Coloureds in cape town are 50% muslim, so they are even more conservative than their other 50% christian counterparts, which are in turn even more conservative yet than their white Bong and Afrikaner white christian countrymen. When I was at UCT, I found it to be the most liberal place in all of existence at that time. Gay and Lesbians could walk openly on plaza and residences, holding hands and in classes and be openly free, and suffer no discrimination, and in fact total tolerance. It was a mini utopia for many, however it was an oasis in a country still much much less liberal than the average UCT student, or the average South African.

I mention this, because many Americans and other euro foreigners whom were exchange students at UCT, got an extremely false impression as to the actual ground reality of gay tolerance in the rest of the Country outside of Cape Town, which is often nicknamed as the gay capital of the country. We often joked, that UCT was like a contour heat map, and that the lower you went away from the mountain (next to which the Campus of UCT was located), the significantly less tolerant and endearing the rest of RSA became.

Additionally, Cape Town is more liberal than average than the rest of the entire country (regarding traditional western progressive values like feminism and gay rights), and I've found even Capetonians have unwittingly obtained a false sense of the actual degree of gay acceptance which the rest of the country holds, even the western Cape, the province in which Cape Town is situated.

The reason is mostly because Bong whites tend to be more atheistic and liberal than average than their afrikaner/boer counterparts which tend to live deeper into the mainland, and congergated next to Pretoria and Gauteng, and of course all over the rural farms inland. Thus you'll find significantly more things like gay clubs and LGBT meetings and shit in Cape Town that Pretoria. You still find gay bars and clubs and LGBT parades and shit in Pretoria, but from my personal experience its much less of an open presence than their Western Cape peers.

And last of course, what nobody dares speak of is that the most conservative people in the country is overwhelmingly black peeps, especially Xhosas and Zulus, which together forms like 50% of the black population, and their societies and tribal customs are pretty hostile to anything LGBT related. Foreigners might get the very false impression that South africans and especially Black South Africans are a very liberal people overall, because of things like Black Economic Empowerment and racial quotas which require businesses to have previosuly disadvantaged demographics to have a stake in newly formed companies, or have a mandate that Municipal and government jobs have a minimal amount of black and coloured peeps hold positions of authority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_South_Africa

https://southafrica-info.com/people/south-africa-population/

But these measures came from the Mandela Administration, and they are only supported by the Black majority of the country (which is 79-80%), because they BENEFIT from it, not because they actually hold any worldviews actively in sync with what modern Western Liberals have at other nations. Very leftwing notions like monthly grants which the ANC promise to the poor, are only supported because poor rural people enjoy an income through poverty, and support their local and provincial leaders to continue this action, not because they espouse leftwing ideiology, but once again because they benefit or need from it.

I mention all of this, because almost all of the tremendous homophobic violence Saffers tend to read in their local newspapers, tend to come from black peeps in origin, whose discrimination against queers and gays are very harsh. Even the religious afrikaners tend to wane in comparison to the ultra conservative Zulus in my experience, and many boers here belong to NR churches and its that individual gay dude's random luck whether he's born into a very religious family or one which is at least tolerant of their gay son, and would support them, even if in secret.

Because of this, a lot of the government had attempted to stop homophobia related violence and dicrimination over the past 20 years, but pretty much failed overall. Discourse has been absolutely dominated by race relations, and for many LGBT, their anonymity was sort of blessing, as the national discourse flew over their heads. With majority of national drama revolving around black-white relations in the new modern South AFrica. It almost became a downside when gay rights became visible, and a more international talking point from 2010-2012 onward, especially when the leadup years to 2015 when gay rights became formally recognized (in marriage) in the cultural megaphone of Burgerland. Being in the open now became a double edged blade.

In south Africa woman's rights tended to be a weird issue, many women hold high positions in RSA gov, but the discrimination on local levels are still rife. Example: During the pandemic Lockdown, the amount of wifebeating became so fricking prevalent in black communities that President Ramaphosa had to officially address the nation after pressure

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/13/south-africas-ramaphosa-blasts-despicable-crime-wave-during-coronavirus-lockdown.html

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-06-18-gender-based-violence-is-south-africas-second-pandemic-says-ramaphosa/

Gender violence is also still a rife issue in South Africa.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10091185/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/24/south-africa-broken-promises-aid-gender-based-violence-survivors

South Africa has been mentioned to be one of the R*pe Capitals of the world, because of the staggering about of sexual violence taken place onto women in the country, and in which the vast majority of the cases left unresolved by our corrupt and incompetent police forces.

https://tears.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/presentation.pdf

https://www.news24.com/life/relationships/love/her_story/violence-against-women-is-staggeringly-high-in-south-africa-20221202

"There are many contested theories" Lmoa. You guys will notice that many many many of these articles which address the shocking and disproportionate r*pes and gender violence occurring in South Africa have all these whishy washy takes, and attempts to diagnose the root cause of RSA's uniquely high rate of s*x violence. And all of them. All of fricking them, always fail to put their finger on the pulse.

Here is a moronic libtard list from the above news24 article, going into high detail about underlying social and psycological causes for the r*pe epidemic in South Africa.

I'll tell you dramastrags the open secret: guess which demographic commits the overwhelming amount of these sexual violence in South Africa That's right.

The reality is that is that much of South Africa's Bantu culture is still very patriarch focused, and extremely tribal. When I had to study for my Land Surveying articles for example - some of my Acts which I had to memorize for the examinations were the following:

What act 28 of 1996 and Act 11 of 2004 basically says in Layman's terms is that many black communities like Zulus and Xhosas in their homelands, do not have to follow through with certain sets of RSA constitutional law if the said community decides that the RSA government infringes upon their autonomy. Meaning they don't always have to adhere to the government's resolutions. This was a highly desired act from the Mandela Administration in reaction to the Apartheid era laws, and there was good intention behind those Acts.

But what it practically means on the ground level is that many communities can tell authority to frick off, for better or worse, and don't have to adhere to legal rights from the rest of the nation. Tribal leaders, patriarchs and digaans get to decide whom owns what piece of land, whom lives in what stand, it's highly rigid.

You thus have this paradoxical parallel societies running adjacent while in the same country for many people, and even with all its supposed leftwing and liberal values, the ANC has never once dared touch these Acts as Xhosas and Zulus form their greatest and most potent voting bases.

An example to what it means for me as a Land surveyor when i worked in Limpopo province, was that even though the national Cadaster of recorded land in South Africa accurately recorded every stand and farm to their exact boundaries, we could not just go and measure any land close to homelands, and could not place any pegs of markers without agreement from the local chieftan or patriarch. What would often happen is that a Tswana farmer would sneakily take his cattle to graze over his neighbours' farm. When we were called in to demarcate and unambiguously show where exactly the boundaries lie for fencing, there would be a row, because suddenly the cattle herder's grazing potential area has been halved. And many of these guys preferred boundaries to remain as ambiguous as possible

So if ever we found that our modern GPS surveys disagreed with what boundaries they deemed were the reality, then if we did not reach an agreement with the patriarch, we could be in trouble. They could refer back to the 1996 Act 28 that their custom land was being repressed, and from that point any further operation would be in the gutter.

I go to lengths to talk about this to show how nebulous the enforcement of any actual police in cultural or communal land can be compared to the big cities, and why such degrees of legal grey areas foster actual illegal behaviour such as s*x violence. Combine that with a very rigid tribal set of customs, and hyper religious focus, and lastly many many communities living in abject poverty = you suddenly have large swaths of people to whom the notion of women's rights, let alone fricking gay rights are non-existent.

And because black peeps have never been called to improve upon their views and behaviours, specifically they had no reason to, and thus didn't. When prez Ramaphoza spoke to South Africans during covid lockdowns, as to implore his countrymen to overcome the sweeping wave of wifebeating which had increased to such shocking levels after months of confinement, we all know exactly who the majority perpetrators were. But since specific callouts to bad behaviour never happens, nothing ever changes, nothing ever gets addressed at the core, nothing improves, over and over and over.

It's not that there are no black liberals in any amount in South Africa, it's just a degree of averages. And since the majority of their efforts for the past few decades had been to adress the inequality based on race, especially the ever present disparity between blacks and whites, that it may seem that their platforms championed by the mainline ANC party and other black rights groups, that these black liberal views reflect that of the average black person in RSA.

But your misunderstanding would soon be rectified once these same black feminists and black gay rights activists turned their attention and activism inward. There are few things more nuclear than watching African people explode at the mention - the audacity to mention! - that they too can be bigoted towards other groups.

Which brings us full circle back to the /r/Africa post from 4 months ago. Cuz its the perfect example about how these slapfights between black africans often go.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/102h2rq/homophobia_africas_moral_blind_spot/

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/6/homophobia-africas-moral-blind-spot

"Homophobia: Africa’s moral blind spot." Spicy! An article calling out homophobia, specifically the kind from black africans, by a black african. No western liberals trying to push their values onto other nations - this is written by an african liberal calling out the hypocracy of Africans not addressing their own bigotry against even lesser group powerless. I'm certain /r/African denizens will take this calmly

Exhibit A - It's always the colonial's fault

https://old.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/102h2rq/homophobia_africas_moral_blind_spot/j2tgcc1/

actual Nigerian in Nigeria counters

The thread then descends into /r/badhistory bullshit, and I'm not a historian so I can't comment on who here is the most full of shit

https://old.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/102h2rq/homophobia_africas_moral_blind_spot/j2t3zef/

"Coming from those filthy Arabs?!"

https://old.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/102h2rq/homophobia_africas_moral_blind_spot/j2tksrh/

Diaspora strags takes things personal as always

=======

Some bitching about who in Middle East of Africa gets more harshly critiqued for yeeting gays off of rooftops

https://old.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/102h2rq/homophobia_africas_moral_blind_spot/j2ub7g9/

=====

This moron doesn't realize the author is a black african

https://old.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/102h2rq/homophobia_africas_moral_blind_spot/j2tbgux/

========================

https://old.reddit.com/r/Africa/comments/102h2rq/homophobia_africas_moral_blind_spot/j2vwndl/

"You cannot be anti white supremacy and anti colonial and be homophobic at the same time." /r/Africa takes exception to that!

Anyways that's all i got, Good night!

CARP DIDN'T WANT THIS RELEASED BUT HE REFUSED TO RELEASE THE HOUSE EDGY BADGES SO HERE YOU GO!

>be Abhishek's Aunt Andromeda (hippie not [this story takes place in 1969 {her real name is Betsy}])

>be at Woodstock

>be really into this whole Eastern religion thing despite knowing nothing about it

>meet this wise young guru from Bombay named Yudhishthira Thibodeauxshura

>be Yudhishthira Thibodeaxshura

>be actually a Puerto Rican named Enrique Jurado but be able to do a very convincing Indian accent (for the time)

>be surprised this whole guru thing has succeeded at getting you attention from mayofoids

>formulate a schizoplan

>tell Andromeda that you can awaken her sacral chakra

>she enthusiastically asks how

>tell her that it's easy, just let you have unprotected intercourse with her

>itworks.png

>skip town the next morning

>go to Detroit and become a car airbag tester for Ford Motor Company

>be Andromeda a few weeks after Woodstock

>supposed to have period

>

>be Andromeda a month after that

>

>decide to keep the baby since surely Yudhishthira knew this would happen and come back for his family

>be Andromeda on May 17th, 1970

>give birth to a beautiful baby girl

>name her Radjeesh (Andromeda didn't know any real Indian names so she made one up) Thibodeauxshura in the hopes that if Yudhishthira ever hears her name he will know she is his daughter

>raise Radjeesh as a single mother

>be Radjeesh

>be somehow much smarter than both of your parents

>be just as crazy as both of them

>get into Brown University's gender studies program

>while in university get into Spiderman comics

>really like the villain Morbius, the Living Vampire

>ship him with Spiderman extensively

>unknowingly be one of the first fujoishis

>fetishize gay men constantly

>develop autoandrophilia

>learn about trans people from gender studies courses (one was a professor)

>

>go for gender studies PhD

>write thesis on how the Yugoslav Civil War was a case of misandry from the female Serbia (-a is a feminine suffix) against FtM Kosovo (-o is a masculine suffix)

>get PhD in 1996

>come out of the closet as a trans man

>legally change name to Michael Morbius so you can be Dr. Michael Morbius IRL

>suddenly long to meet the father you never had

>ask Betsy (she's done being a hippy by then) about Dad

>he was Indian but spoke fluent English

>start thinking

>the only non-ameriKKKans who speak fluent English are Europeans

>thus Yudhishthira must be Indian-European

>the Indians that live in Europe are the Romani

>decide to go to the Romani nation, Romania, to search for Dad

>spend 20+ years there

>never find Dad

>but it's not all bad, you fall in love with the natural beauty of the Carpathian Mountains

>run a flower shop to sustain yourself (it doesn't actually turn a profit, royalties from your gender studies textbooks that get sold at Brown are what fund your existence)

>eventually move back to US because you miss potable water

>get really into social media

>dedicate your existence to fighting chuds

>eventually find a chud Reddit offshoot called Ruqqus

>start fighting hate there relentlessly

>be Abhishek

>janny a fetch forum called /r/drama

>be Plebbit admiggers

>hate a fetch forum called /r/drama

>put unsneedful restrictions on it to try to kill it

>be Abhishek

>see admiggers trying to kill your forum

>move your forum to its own new website, rDrama.net, to keep it safe

>realize you need active users

>start looking on Reddit's biggest alternative, Ruqqus, for talent

>see one dude in every single fricking thread

>realize it's your long-lost cousin Michael

>offer him a janny position on rDrama

>be Michael on May 26th, 2021

>accept

>name account after real-life occupation, florist in the Carpathians

>start treating the website like your personal playground

>userbase lovehates it

>be me

>make rDrama account November 17th, 2021

>see this CarpathianFlorist poster everywhere

>learn he looks like this

>be weirded out

>be Michael on April 1st, 2022

>your favorite superhero and namesake, Dr. Michael Morbius, has a movie that just came out

>watch it at midnight

>be Morbius (2022)

>suck

>be Michael at 1:44 AM on April 1st, 2022

>realize the movie is going to be memed to heck and you will be mocked for it

>go to Goochland County, VA courthouse (the county's main office) as soon as it oppens

>ask clerk for an application to legally change your name

>be clerk

>ask for visitor's name

>be Michael

>say it's Dr. Michael Morbius

>be clerk

>realize it's April 1st

>crack up

>be Michael

>say you're serious

>be clerk

>tell Michael to frick off, the joke's run its course

>be Michael

>leave, realizing the mistake he made 26 years ago

>be clerk

>be me

>realize that Michael looked familiar

>

>holyshit.png

>use governmental powers to gather info on Michael and his history

>it takes a while

>share what I've learned so far here

True story.

!schizomaxxxers !schizos !chuds !nonchuds !nooticers !edgelords !illuminati !glowies discuss.

Greetings Dramatards!

So right now in Burgerland and Canada there is a very large series of forest fires ongoing, and reddit is plastered with posts related to it. In /r/southafrica I saw this post today and my terminal Loooongpost autism went into turbo overdrive as memorylane activated.

The dipshits in the /r/southafrica thread has a really REALLY rosy view back to when RSA sent in volunteer firefighters to Canada way back in 2016, when another ecological catastrophe was ongoing in Canada during their dry season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire

For those who don't remember, the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire was an above normal catastrophic fire ongoing in Canada at the time. At the time, in 2016, it wasn't the deadliest natural disaster, but it was the costliest. 88 000 Canadians were displaced, and about 2400 homes were scorched. The fire basically wiped out approximately 590,000 hectares of vegetation, and did about $9.9 billion in infrastructure damages overall. It was a pretty apocalyptic affair.

The situation became so extreme that the Governer of the province of Alberta declared a national state of emergency and pleaded to the Canadian Department of National Defense for urgent help.

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/fort-mcmurray-wildfire-pushed-back-even-as-temperatures-climb

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-government-responds-fort-mcmurray-wildfires-1.3565723

The Canadians went pretty hardcore at this disaster and sent in hardcore equipment, namely C-130 Hercules fricking Water-Bomb airplanes to fricking dive bomb the fires with lake waters! Like holy hells, for my 3rd world brain at the time seeing military aircraft unclease hundreds of swimming pools worth of rain over burning trees on TV was a truly astonishing sight! Yet even with these man made marvels, the scope and size of this fire was spiraling out of control and the largest fire evaquation in the province of Alberta's history was ordered.

Just like with the Turkish earthquake this year back in February, a bunch of allied nations offered rescue forces and firefighters to aid the Beleaguered Leaf firefighting efforts. Among them was fricking South Africa, and whooooo boi, was it gonna be a shitshow.

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2016-05-26-south-african-firefighters-prep-for-canada-in-their-biggest-international-deployment-yet/

Now because Canada has so many firefighters and experience with forest fires, they often train personnel from other nations, especially africa and other 3rd world nations with modern techniques and equipment. When the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire broke out, RSA had a "Working on Fire programme" in cooperation with Canada busy earlier that year. And what better way to reciprocate the Canadian kindness than by sending these very Safrican newly trainees.

It's important to note that by the time the South AFrican volunteer firefighters arrived in Canada, the worst of the dangers were already past, but many many residual fires still remained burning in Alberta and would require enormous manpower to finally completely extinguish.

The group of 301 RSA firefighters flew from Joburb, Gauteng, and was sent off by the minister of the Department of Environmental Affairs. In his own words it was " the biggest South African deployment ever [outside the army] to assist a foreign country". It was a really big deal for the ANC showmanship. “We are immensely proud of the fact that the international firefighting community has recognised the skills and expertise within Working on Fire to provide essential integrated fire management services at an international level.” Uhhhhhhh.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/300-south-african-firefighters-are-trained-and-headed-to-fort-mcmurray/article30197182/

The firefighters were trained during the month of April that year at a boot camp, in order how to learn to use special hoses instead of the leather-padded wooden sticks known as "firebeaters" they typically use in their home country due to a lack of water.

Also it's important to note that the only reason the ANC even considered sending their newly trained firefighters to Canada in June was because they had warmer relations with Canada, which had leadership that publically condemned Apartheid and the ANC wanted to capitalize on that renown, not because of any international empathy for the plight of their fellow man currently suffering, the same way the greeks sent all of their rescue workers to Turkey without hesitation despite the sour relations between the two countries.

Notice the following from the article; it's important to take notice of this, because this specific fricking article was written just before the dramastorm to follow:

THE DRAMA - SEFRICANS TOITOI

It's important to understand from the Canadian's viewpoint that they were doing the South Africans a favour. They were giving these previous Bootcamp trainees real world experience, in a live environment.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/notley-south-african-firefighters-wages/article30363833/

Yeah that's right straggots! After all that fanfare from Gauteng, and all of that ceremony, in less that a week, our fighfighters were already fricking striking! It was the subject of many jokes back in RSA when the news broke that saffer instinct just couldn't hold out even a fricking before striking in a foreign country.

The disagreement came when the Saffers realized they being paid only 15 Canadian dollars a day, instead of 15 Canadian dollars an hour like the locals - something which they had agreed to before they flew from Gauteng

All the boomer whites from RSA wanted to go full ostrich and put their heads in the sand: this was a national embarrasment!

The worst part was libtard Alberta premier at the time, Rachel Notley actually acquiesce to their bullshit, and went on a spiel about how the SA firefighters had to be paid the Canadian minimum wage.

Like can you guys imagine this:

RSA offers their firefighters as volunteers as recompense for their having been trained 3 months earlier, Canadian officials believed that they were doing RSA a fovour in the 1st place, by giving them live experience. Canada sends a plane to pick up these volunteers. Canada deems to pay these volunteers anyway, according to what they would make back home in their home country (what is often a standard for international disaster cooperation) as a sign of friendship. Canada pays for their stay, their food and acomodation. Our "volunteers" immediately isn't happy, and spits in the face of their canadian peers just 5 fricking days after they arrive in Leafland. While the province of Alberta is a fricking post war zone, with dead forestry, dead scorched animals, and 88 000 people displaced in this nightmare event, smoke still scarring the skies, these fools start toitoi'ing on the fricking ashes!

Can you imagine the sheer shamelessness!

It's important to note that even the 15C$ per day was much more than they would have earned back in RSA when converted, and Canada only even agreed to pay them out of good faith.

https://mg.co.za/article/2016-06-24-00-working-on-fire-burns-its-bridges/

The company facilitating cooperation between RSA and Canadian Firefighting forces were the ones getting lambasted by the liberal media too ironically enough, despite being RSA based, and not capable of paying in US/canadian levels anyways.

https://globalnews.ca/news/2764776/south-african-company-says-firefighters-who-helped-in-fort-mcmurray-paid-well/

https://www.news24.com/News24/canada-tells-singing-sa-firefighters-to-go-home-20160611

Soon after the Canadian authorities had enough of the SA fighter's bullshit, paid them for their two weeks, and said basically: "Your services are no longer required."

Lots of sneedfest at RSA about the underpayment, non of the frickers who sent the mission of 301 firefighters mentioned that it was supposed to 1) voluntary and 2) supposed to have been a diplomatic gesture between RSA and Canada! Wat de fok

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/sa-firefighters-canada-here-are-facts/

Here is an article which had sorted out the BS and drama and mistruths after the fact written about the confusion, nothing not already said, but the comments has some lovely sneed which was indicative of the drama back in SA

Translation: dear editor frick your facts! Also, the "Lower level of worldliness??" Lmoa, soft biggotry, low expectations ect ect.

more libs cryposting

The only sensible comment putting this dramastorm into perspective.

Chud gives his take

LOOK WHAT I FOUND - a post on /r/worldnews from 2016

https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4nl9kt/canada_tells_south_african_firefighters_to_leave/

Top comment is weirdly sensible and would probably be shitcanned in 2023 reddit.

But some immediate below

The terms of the contract is racist! Canada should sue the RSA company! Reeeeeeeeeeeeee

==============

Some Canadian Slavery

===================

Others notice the upheaval and drama is nonsense from the South Africans

"Is it normal for a country to pay wages to people coming in to help from another country? Wouldn't their home country cover their wages?" No fricking Shit. Canada was doing these morons a favor

Which makes us come full circle to the /r/southafrican post of today with all it's copefest glory!

https://www.foxnews.com/world/united-states-south-africa-send-300-firefighters-canada-wildfires

I was shocked that RSA sent firefighters again this year, or that Leafland accepted

racist

That's all I got

Do you want to run a Free Software operating system on your totally proprietary closed-spec laptop made by the world's richest computer company while somehow not getting the irony?

Asahi Linux is your only option because they have to reverse engineer all the user hating locked down hardware first, so you get a Lunix distro project led by an ex game console hacker Hector Martin (marcan). Orange Site users are fine with hardware that treats them as a threat as long as it's the newest shiny, but they won't stop trying to reverse engineer the identity of one of Asahi Linux's top contributors. The top three contributors listed on the official website are Marcan himself, an out and proud , and most interestingly a VTuber named after the distro (Asahi Lina).

Asahi Lina, our GPU kernel sourceress. Lina joined the team to reverse engineer the M1 GPU kernel interface, and found herself writing the world’s first Rust Linux GPU kernel driver. When she’s not working on the Asahi DRM kernel driver, she sometimes hacks on open source VTuber tooling and infrastructure.

Lina does hit a trifecta of reverse engineering + Rust + anime, but honestly FOSS is the one kind of doing it for free I can actually respect. You can't blame people for being curious though.

Back in March this Asahi blog post was discussed on HN and some commenters dared to raise the subject of Lina's identity, with some people pointing out how Marcan and Lina share a development machine (same hostname and in one stream Lina gets some file from marcan's homedir).

https://asahilinux.org/2023/03/road-to-vulkan/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35234480

In response Marcan has a huge public melty on Mastodon where he responds to generalized HN comments point by point on Lina's behalf: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110060225535294882

• I wonder if the driver could be ported to Mac OS? [Lina clearly said in the article that the UAPI is unstable, so no]
• So Vulkan is 4/3 better now, vulkan.kext wen? [WTF, Lina clearly said don't take the absolute numbers too seriously, also you clearly didn't read the article if you think vulkan would be a kext]
• Asahi Lina is truly an inspiration for open source reverse engineering.
• I wonder how long it's going to take for games to start generally supporting ARM. [Lina literally explained the games on ARM plan at the end of the article]
• [24 comments veering off into trying to doxx Lina and criticizing her]

Then he blocks HN from linking to the Asahi Linux official website by redirecting visitors to google: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/AsahiLinux.github.io/commit/a720f6ca68805f336e844523fe3f37f6827019c1

if (document.referrer.startsWith("https://news.ycombinator.com")) {
 console.log("Hacker News is becoming worse than 4chan. Do better.");
 document.location = "https://google.com";
}

DO BETTER

Some time between March and now, Orange Site admins notice this and alter HN to apply noreferrer to asahilinux.org links so people can continue to discuss the #1 vanity project for the #1 vanity hardware platform on the #1 vanity tech forum. Yesterday, the newest Asahi blog post makes its way to HN and somebody points it out:

https://asahilinux.org/2023/06/opengl-3-1-on-asahi-linux/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36226493

Why does this posting have a rel=noreferrer tag, when others don’t?

Marcan is immediately aware (I too spend time studying the markup of websites I claim to hate) and declares TOTAL JANNY WARFARE on Orange Site and everyone who has ever been there:

https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110503050993279759

https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110503331622393719

Good job, Dang. You decided to evade a benign redirect to google.com we added to protect our developers. Now everyone who has ever submitted to Hacker News gets to see this banner on our website until they clear their browser history and stop contributing to HN. Don't even think about adding a hash to the submit link. We'll just change the link to your front page then, and then *all* your visitors will get the message, not just submitters.

Marcan has mastered the performative newspeak here, he's just trying to protect Asahi developers from all you unreasonable jerks who want to know who to thank for their working GPU driver: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/AsahiLinux.github.io/commit/5175aff478a985e721bff53a2bec7578f06e0b85

The best part is when he suggests forcing his HN block on Asahi Linux users too by default

Eventually a meta thread is posted to Orange Site all about the drama but was jannied before I got to it () https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36230649

Maybe Lina is Marcan. If you wanna go full schizo, maybe Lina is Byuu . Honestly I don't really care either way because the important part is that it makes Marcan throw a huge tantrum to even speculate about this, which means it should be asked as innocently but as often as possible lol

Michael, 33, Richmond VA

Self-rated: 1/10

Career:

• Door to door solar salesman

  • Started working for them in February

  • Claims it's one of the best markets in the country for it

  • All commission, no base pay

  • Income so far this year, he brought a spreadsheet timestamp

    • Jan - $2163

    • Feb - $630 (Started Door to Door Solar here)

    • March - $3220

    • April - $3125

    • May - About $9000

  • Believes it will settle between 7'000 and 10'000

  • Payment model -

    • Paid 175 they see the presentation

    • $225 if they buy

    • 8-10 people -

    • Who in the world first answers their door to salesmen and two actually lets them do a presentation timestamp

      • "It happens, all the time"

      • Apparently old people are a tougher sell, usually younger demographic

    • Talks to about 20-30 people a day, thinks he should be doing more

      • Started out doing 4-6 hours a day, started working 10 hour days in May tripling his income

• Worked for a different Door to Door solar prior, made about 45'000, his first year doing it

  • Did it for 4 hours a day

Personal Life:

• Last year was a "little chaotic" timestamp

  • Started a business for online marketing

    • Wanted to fill the rest of the day since he was only putting in 4 hours a day at the prior solar company

  • Goes more into this "business" later on when explaining Debts

    • "So basically you get access to a platform, right? And you can uh you can start your business from there" timestamp

    • △

  • Also sold roofs in Florida for 3 months?

• "I've been in debt since I was probably... eighteen years old"

  • "About to completely run out of money" last Decemberish

  • Tries explaining how he got in this situation in broad terms timestamp

Debts/Expenses:

• "Special Financing Company LLC" $4'012 timestamp:

  • Down to about 3'000 now

  • Minimum payment $320

    • 240 to principal, 80 to finance charge?

  • Personal loan he took out to start the marketing business

  • Doesn't remember what the initial amount was

• Taxes due timestamp:

  • Has not paid the IRS jannies

  • filed extension so he has until September

• Interpersonal debts

  • Borrowed from them since he only made 600 in Feb?

  • Owes roommate about a $1'000

    • Paid off

  • Owes parents about $2'000

    • Not paid off

• Student Loans timestamp

  • $49'845

  • Got a biology degree from "Old Dominion University" (Not sure I heard the name right)

  • Thinks it's between 4% and 6%

  • Probably minimum payment of $500

• Another shot of The Spreadsheet, debts section this time timestamp

  • Verizon $1321

    • Financed an iPad and iPhone

  • Credit Card $6'628 timestamp

    • Cut it up sometime last month when he started making more money

    • Losing $100 in interest every month (18% in interest)

    • $164 minimum payment

    • Made $68 in purchases

Savings:

• Nothing set aside for taxes currently

• Nothing saved for Retirement

• $4000 in his checking

• Savings account 2100 ending balance timestamp

  • 3600 in 2000 out this month, might have gone to checking? Some Dave Ramsey thing about maintaining 1000 in savings

  • He starts going through all the debit transactions

    • Mysterious $148 charge from Alient timestamp

      • thinks he knows but doesnt want to say

      • When I google Alient I only see a ceramics company and something that seems to have been acquired by AT&T

    • Best Buy $742 timestamp

      • Doesn't remember what this was, seems genuine this time

Do you guys remember that world famous Thai cave rescue by uber experienced British Cave Divers? The one in 2018, when 13 schoolboys and a teacher had to be drugged, and then slowly unconsciesly transported underwater across like 2km of underwater passages? Rocket Daddy called one of them a libertarian man on twatter. One of the divers was known as Rick Stanton, a mega neurodivergent boomer bong loner, who had like 30 years of cave diving, and cave diving rescue experience.

Well our story takes place in 2004, about 15 years earlier in Mexico, when our boi Rick Stanton was called by the British military to help save some bongs who got caught trapped in Alpazat caves after a flash flood, very similar to the Thai cave rescue incident.

Well the way it works is that Rick isn't actually part of any actual institution or rescue organization. Not like Burgerland's coast guard. His dayjob is being a firefighter. But because diving underground and in caves is so astronomically dangerous, there's very few peeps on planet earth's Billions who actually has garnered the skillset and capability of being able to stay calm underground, underwater, andd with no capacity to even orientate yourself upwards or downwards. Dozens of cave divers end up dying each year, because even experienced open water divers continiously underestimate the dangers of underground diving.

So the way it has worked for the past 35 years was that Bong military would call Rick and any other of his fellow renowned Cave Diver rescuers, every 2 yearsr, to come and help whenever some british peeps got stick in watery caves; danger zones where the usual brit special forces or special rescue workers could not even dare for fear of getting stuck and drowning.

The point is that Rick and his fellow diving neurodivergents don't belong to any miltary arm, they are just experienced regular civilians whom are often deferred to by the british equivalent of seals and stormwater rescuers. They only belonged to the Cave Rescue Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Rescue_Organisation

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-mar-25-fg-cavers25-story.html

In 2004 6 British Navy and Air force guys, who were part of a british Caving Association, decided to goof off during their official work hours, and set their off time in an "official military expedition to support adventurous training." These cavers wanted to partake in the cave rich region in which they found themselves. Totally unoffical like

Unfortunately for these chodes, a flash flood occurred right as they were in the Alpazat cave, trapping them behind sumps of underground waters. This moment would result in frosty diplomatic tension between Britain and Mexico for the next decade.

Luckily for these dipshits, there was prefabricated emergency camps in a drier part of the cave, similar to mount Everest where they have several intermediary camps, as the Alpazat cave system was very large. So they were ok, and wouldn't immediately starve or drown like the Thai schoolboys, they were still stuck like plugs. They even had a radioset with them to communicate with the outside.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/mar/24/owenbowcott

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Fox

At this point in time Mexican President Vicente had a low approval rating from his constituents, and seized upon the moment when reports came that not just Brits, but British soldiers were trapped in Alpazat cave. He drummed up controvesy, in order to be seen as a strong and decisive leader who would take on foreign intermingling.

The 6 morons trapped in the Mexican cave were just fools goofing off, but now their presence in an awkward place was threatening British-Mexican diplomacy. If they were just civilians, it wouldn't have mattered, but because they were British armed forces personnel it looked dodgy as frick to the mexican press.

https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/why-were-soldiers-in-mexico-6981633.html

Basically the Mexican prez was all like WTF are ur soldiers doing in our natural environment!? The gossip and tall tales in the Mexican media made a rumor that British espionage forces have been secretly digging in Alpazat caves, looking for Uranian deposits to mine in secret, but the Flash flood made them be caught red handed!!

This event was fire onto oil, because prior to these 6 fools getting stuck, the very month prior to this, a secret report got leaked which proved that Britain had been spying on Mexico, so the mexicans were already fired up.

The british diplomatic arm, was all like: What the heck are you talking about?? But because the cavers had radioactive-detecting equipment with them when they were rescued, it all but confirmed the rumor in the mexican media at that moment. But these radioactive detection devices were more used to detect dangerous gasses in isolated caves, and were standard equipment - not something you can explain to angry mexican special forces barking in your face.

The biggest force for contention between the Bong and Mexican ambassadors was that the Bongs refused the mexican rescue forces. This enraged the mexicans who believed they didn't want to be rescued by mexican personnel so that they might have time to stash away incriminating evidence of their secret mining whatever. Meanwhile, the british military didn't trust the local mexican rescue operator's capabilities, and wanted their own men, including their cave diving specialists like Rick Stanton. They knew full well how dangerous under water cave rescue operations were, and weren't in the least bit diplomatic in their statements that they didn't trust mexico to safely rescue the 6 bongs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/03/26/british-cavers-rescued/bd70d309-67ba-4a39-89fc-a9751682470d/

When the Mexican general came to the Alpazat cave and demanded the British rescuers there to show him where the 6 other divers were stuck, because he didn't comprehend they were blocked off by vast underwater bodies, he was lead to the 1st sump under which the cave tunnels disappeared into the dark waters. Exiting meekly like an r-slur, he finally consented to the british cave diving specialists to get on with the rescue operation.

Cave divers Richard Stanton and Jason Mallinson assisted the soldiers one at a time to exit the caves, and the dive for each to 13 minutes - just so you guys can appreciate just how fricking deep these guys were stuck at. The dive was 300m long.

Hilariously, when Rick and Jason exited the caves towards the waiting press and cameras, the other mexican rescue workers, that did frickall during the operation, would exit with them shoulder to shoulder, as if they had a hand in the rescue to look good for the cameras.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trapped-for-five-days-in-caving-s-barrier-reef-six-britons-await-rescue-65788.html

Anyways after much Polandball tier diplomatic peepeewaving, the british military personnel was allowed to frick off back to Bongland.

Another amusing story before the rescue took place - When Rick and Jason, the two experienced cave divers, arrived in Tacoland, they were immediately shadowed (comically badly) by mexican espionage personnel. When they were met at the airport, a mexican woman with flawless english would ask them really weird questions, like: to which branch of the british military do you belong?

Rick and Jason would stare at each other dumbfounded, and be like: mate we're only civillians!

But no matter how much they tried to convince the mexican authorities that they were merely two nondescript civilians, the more the mexican spies attributed more outlandish identities to the divers, until the mexicans had convinced themselves that these two troublemakers were dodgier than pinballs. I mean what nation would just contract ordinary citizens to come to another country in a rescue operation!

That's all i got, GOOD NIGHT

It reminds me of Howard Stern’s question to me. ‘Tell me, governor, what happens to us when we die?’ I said, ‘Nothing. You’re 6 feet under. Anyone that tells you something else is a f—ing liar.’

I said, ‘We don’t know what happens with the soul and all this spiritual stuff that I’m not an expert in, but I know that the body as we see each other now, we will never see each other again like that.

*snip

The former California Gov. said he had lost about 15 friends from back in his bodybuilding days in the last two decades and the tragic reality of our finite time on earth forced him to shift his perspective on the possibility of an afterlife.

“When people talk about, ‘I will see them again in heaven,’ it sounds so good, but the reality is that we won’t see each other again after we’re gone. That’s the sad part. I know people feel comfortable with death, but I don’t,'” he said.

Do note that Arnie never said anything about Jesus or Christians, he just said he doesn't believe in heaven.

Choice comments:

FOOL!! You "seek the guidance of a higher power" BUT REFUSE to BELIEVE IN THE SCRIPTURES!!! WHO MADE the HUMAN BODY? You were an "accident"? The brain? All an accident? The eye?? All an accident? The right amount of oxygen for humans to breathe in the atmosphere? All an accident?? Earth rotates around sun at best distance from it. All an accident?? Where is the person with 3 eyes or 2 noses or ears in front, if evolution is random?????? Does not exist!!!!! GET YOUR HEAD ON STRAIGHT.

You're at Judgement Day and there's Pelosi, kneeling at the left-hand side of the Lorde, whispering in his ear.

You ok?

How is spending eternity with your relatives you couldn't stand to be around on Thanksgiving Heaven? rofl. Think about it. Or praising Jesus for a zillion years every day? yeah real fun.

you've never been truly loved, have you? but you can have that experience with your Creator. It is up to you though

Could you please work out your daddy issues in private, peepeey? Could you please stop taking out your hatred for him on God? Thanks.

If you bothered to read more, you'd know that is simply not a fact. Though believe what you want! :) The only people stopping you are the nutjob Lefties, Woketards, and Communists. (uh...btw...I'm a staunch Conservative...and I don't believe there is a god)

You may have some conservative views, but you are not a conservative. You just displayed the fact you have nothing to conserve, Cheung. And there are at LEAST twelve historical figures who wrote about Jesus' life and work. Were they ALL lying, and YOU are the one telling the truth? Not ONE honest historian still denies the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, knucklehead. There is simply too much evidence to deny that.

Also the Bible has predicted perfectly what has taken shape here in America and around the world on text that are over 2,000 years old.

It must have been such a miserable life for Arnold pretending to be a Republican while living like a Democrat. Democrats bring you misery.

While he lives there still remains hope for him.

Living a full life, experiences and faith have displayed to me there is a God, there is life after death and eternity in either Heaven or Heck. Choose wisely because there is no do-overs

Perhaps you should choose better. You follow a false god. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when you stand before the gods. Why take the chance? Because wow if you are wrong you will be tormented by the gods for all eternity.

>being a LARPagan

The closest I can come to believing in heck is listening to a democrat.

"There is no afterlife and “anyone that tells you something else is a f—ing liar.” You know who else said this? HITLER!

and billions of others with shedloads of common sense

So Hitler has common sense, just like you?

And now we see him for the proud elitist socialist he really is. They believe in nothing and neither should anyone else. Hope doesn't exist, now shut up and suffer, peasants.

New Snappy quote dropped.

The saddest words that will be heard (over and over again) on Judgement Day: “But Lord, I THOUGHT…” They “thought.” They “thought” God didn’t exist, nor Heaven, nor Heck. They “thought” that things that their conscience clearly told them were wrong, were right. They “thought” that science had all of the answers. They “thought” they could be their own god…

Next: Arnold declares himself to be God. Because, to be able to assert 100% certainty that there is no Heaven, no Heck, and no God, you would have to be, well… God. Think about it for a moment…

"Donald Trump on Wednesday proudly quoted a messenger who said he was “the second coming of God,” and he described himself as “the chosen one,” looking up at the sky."

Anything the WP says, I automatically take with a grain of salt, given their track record for CIA inspired BS. Anyway, IF he said it , he’s wrong too. The job of Supreme Deity is already filled, and He can’t be fired from the position…

There's a video of him saying it on that link I gave. Nice quote about the Deity!

He’s also known to say things like that to troll the media that he knows hates him. The same way rockstars say completely outlandish things sometimes, when they’re messing with or annoyed by an interviewer…

Drumpf is the AntiChrist.

i hope thats true, i can be happy never seeing or hearing from you forever. why cant you start now arnold and do us all a favor.

wow. you want this man to not exist because you disagree with him on some trivial issue? wow

Since when did Herr Muscle Brain fashion himself a philosopher and theologian?

and when he is in heck just 1 second begging for a drop of water it will be too late eternity is for ever.

Yes & AMEN

any proof of claim you idiot ?

TURN or BURN

I got a good chuckle out of that exchange

Funny though how they worship lucifer who was created by GOD! But there's nothing after

He is free to believe what he likes, he will get dose of reality when he dies, just like every other naysayer that has ever lived

Sorry, “belief” is not evidence.

talk to people that deal with the dying and the dead... they'll give you plenty of evidence.

No such evidence exists. Try again.

the fact you only choose to listen to those you already agree with is the height of ignorance. talking to someone who has experienced something so earth shattering as to change absolutely everything about themselves overnight is more than just evidence... it's proof, imo. takes months to years to brainwash someone into believing something... now explain how one experience can change a person instantly... I'll wait

Sorry, it’s your claim that evidence come from the “dead and dying” and “…he will get a dose of reality when he dies.” The burden of proof is on your shoulders to support your claim with verifiable, independent, objective evidence. Otherwise, you’re just deceived by your own confirmation bias. I can wait.

I see you're a typical lefty dingleberry that lies to make their case... care to not lie, and try again, becky?

needs to move to a deserted island with Greata A life ill spent, he is hoping for oblivion.

Imagine the conversations between those two. Makes my skin crawl. Arnie: I’m here to pump you up. Greta: How dare you?!?

Boomer humor

Arnold is a product of commie hollywood so no one would expect him to believe in The Lord, Jesus Christ, GOD. Arnold's actions during his life show that he is a dark path kind of guy.

He doesn't know but he knows? Arnold is confused, he might have the Biden Flu.

The bible is a fantasy book and certainly teaches you some positive emotions and thoughts but thats about it. Its like a bed time book story.

Boy are you going to be surprised. I applaud your bravery. God will not be mocked.

Arnold Schwarzenegger..........FAILED TO HIDE HIS NAZI OVERTONES!!!

He’s correct. Define death please. I’m waiting…

You define death since you believe there is no afterlife. I’m waiting…

Nobody knows with certainty and anybody claiming they know the truth is a fool. For all we know there can be some third option nobody ever mentioned that happens

World-renowned theologian Justin has spoken. And the kid has decided once and for all that we can't know. We should just give up. With that amount of certainty in his uncertainty, who are WE to disagree???

Oblivion awaits us all..Deal with it!

Only if your a democrat!

The rest of the comments are just fundie that boil down to "Say Christ is king right now!" or "If God isn't real then how come my church says otherwise?"

This is a continuation of this effort post here: https://rdrama.net/post/176154/effortpost-the-battlemarseytrain2-cries-out-in

You can read my previous reporting on Mechwarrior Online here: https://rdrama.net/post/114442/turns-out-bideo-game-marseyangryexosuitmarseyjanny-jannies

After another day of people seething and raging over this

and this

(yes these are real)

The community is still a little hot and bothered about it. Over on /tg/ one of the authors of the fanzine decides to stop by as they are also a channer. Remarkably, while people shit all over them they mostly just take the feedback and move on. Here are a few choice snippets:

Retvrn to Tradition

>My honest reaction to this anthology:

>You will never be a real Ghost Bear. You have no honor or prior knowledge of football. You are an honorless man twisted by furry porn...

https://voca.ro/1bEs7DPXgCzV

Turns out some of the gays hate the cliche gay storylines written by danger hairs. Speaking of dangerhairs I'm sure you want to follow them on twitter right? https://x.com/Detocroix/status/1664042859383644160

The author is about midway down the thread with the RDJ image (https://archived.moe/tg/thread/89112168). Like I mentioned earlier, most just took the criticism and not too much drama. But later another anon points me towards some Sarna drama. Sarna is really well maintained wiki for all things Battletech, so if you ever want to look up some random shit about a giant mech you can. The last time I played the game was with my father and brothers as a teenager so it was pretty nostalgic looking through it.

But I digress, Sarna also has an editorial column where they talk Battltech news, after many complaints the author decided to move CURRENT YEAR topics to a separate section instead of woven into the article. Here's the most recent:

Our inaugural editorial comes courtesy of esteemed novelist and BattleTech writer Michael A. Stackpole, who declared on Twitter that “BattleTech has always been woke” following a post from Catalyst outlining the success BattleTech has achieved in recent years which counters the right-wing battle cry of “go woke, go broke.”

But has BattleTech always been woke? A certain tank that will no longer be reprinted seems evidence to the contrary. And the fact that both House Kurita and House Liao are still largely ethnically and racially defined, would beg to differ. Things got a lot better with the introduction of the Clans, with its egalitarian society that cared little for race or gender, only whether you were born in a test tube with combat-capable genes.

I’m sorry, but the idea that ‘things got a lot better’ for the setting in terms of wokeness with the introduction of the Clans just makes me laugh. Have we forgotten that the Clans openly practice eugenics and chattel slavery? To what possible degree is the Clan scientist caste tolerant of disability or mental health in selecting the best warrior genes? In what way is a society wherein the strongest fighters rule ‘egalitarian’? As has been pointed out above, ‘woke’ no longer means ‘alert to racial prejudice and discrimination’ (if it ever did), but is now associated with a type of toxic individual who endlessly agitates for changes to established lore and setting until the correspond with that individual’s particular real-world political views. To say that ‘BattleTech has always been woke’ speaks to a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the term.

Human chattel is progressive now, just look at the Woman Queen: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_woman_king

Sean, in regards to the criticism of Battletech being “Woke”. Woke has become one of those words that has lost all meaning due to overuse and misuse. Woke no longer means “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination” because many individuals who claim to be “woke” are in fact quite bigoted, self absorbed and quite frankly, complete idiots. Calling yourself Woke is just asking to be compared to these people. Yes, Battletech has always been diverse in terms of race and sexuality, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it has never sought to hold that diversity up on a moral pedestal and screamed incomprehensibly at people who disagree with it.

Gay people EXISTING is not incompatible with battletech. This is like saying “its fine to have BLACK people but i don’ want to see them.” It’s nonsense. Get over yourself. Gay and trans people exist, and having them mentioned isn’t somehow an insult to you. There are straight s*x scenes in every other battletech novel but you’d lose your mind at two men kissing?

This argument, every single time.

Plenty of slapfights in the Sarna coments and on /tg/ enjoy

Trains colonizing another nerd hobby, must be a day that ends in Y (much like these women's chromosomes )

For a quick primer, Battletech is a nerd game from the 80s. The creators watched a bunch of bootleg anime VHS and talked to some toy company, bought a dubious set of rights and make their own tabletop giant robot game called Battletech, which many of you millenials will probably know as MechWarrior. Since the game is an autism simulator where you track where you guns and missiles strike the enemy robot and shade in areas where it takes damage it attracts a certain type of nerd that is vulnerable to nerd-cocaine, or HRT as it's known on the groomercord streets.

Interestingly the hobby has managed to stave off the Trans-Clan invasions for a decent amount of time, at one point they were banning people spamming "Trans Lives Matters" in the online game. But it would appear they have finally succumbed to the blue and pink menace. This is what tipped me off

It all began during pride month where someone took their gaysex novella and decided they could make some good money by putting a robot in it and marketing it to nerds. In short, a FAN MADE PRIDE EDITION BATTLETECH NOVEL YASSS KWEEEEEEEEEN.

(This is a real image)

Naturally this inspired a lot of alphabet folks to jump over to the /r/battletech sub. Below is a selection of their wonderful work

It may surprise you but the sub immediately went private, the head mod is not in the alphabet mafia and rumor is doesn't worship them either

https://old.reddit.com/r/wargaming/comments/13zsc0k/battletech_subredit_has_gone_private/

The evil bigots in charge of /r/battletech managed to hold the tide for like 24hrs. A handful of users will even try to push back before being downmarseyd to oblivion: https://old.reddit.com/r/OfficialBattleTech/comments/13zyg2u/comment/jmuke5f/?context=3

Then the owners of battletech, CatalystGameLabs swooped in to save the day and ensure that Battletech is for everyone, but some everyones are more important than other everyones.

https://old.reddit.com/r/OfficialBattleTech/comments/13zyg2u/a_message_from_catalyst/

And it worked wonderfully, the sole surviving members of battletech now kneel before the church of Trans

Hello /r/battletech community. I originally created /r/battletech 15 years ago because I wanted a place to talk about Battletech on Reddit. I have not been active as a moderator or contributor but I regularly read posts and comments. Yesterday was when I became aware of the removal of the Pride Anthology post and the rightfully deserved backlash. I have no moderation or community management experience but I'm trying my best to right any wrongs.

Effective immediately, Rule #1 of /r/battletech mirrors Rule #1 of /r/OfficialBattletech, 'BATTLETECH IS FOR EVERYBODY'. The previous rule, 'All posts must be Battletech related', and it's 1988 stipulation has been removed. The current moderation team has been removed.

Update from /u/RussellZee.

Posting as the lead over in the OfficialBattleTech side of things, we're aware of the action ddevil's taken to try and course correct, and we appreciate it (and his reaching out). Unfortunately things are a little up in the air at the moment for just how we're going to move forward. So we're going to be reaching out to whoever we can reach out to during a Monday meeting call, and get whatever guidance we can, for how TPTB would like us to move forward. In BattleTech terms, sometimes a junior officer in the field can make a quick call and take quick action, sometimes they've got to call high command and wait for the nobles to make their decisions.

This is such srsbsns

This is not a cult

https://old.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/140lt0k/battletech_is_for_everybody/

Counterculture is still alive and well on /tg/

REPORTMAXXING Opportunities

For anyone still confused, /r/battletech just got psyopped

https://old.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/140luyz/for_anyone_still_confused_rbattletech_just_got/

https://old.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/140g3gj/cool_battletech_shirt_i_own/

https://old.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/140dzeh/pride_anthology_a_battletech_fanzine_endorsed_by/

https://old.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/13zl169/meta_all_right_then_what_mech_paints_are/

ACAB

https://old.reddit.com/r/OfficialBattleTech/comments/140mjva/urbie_security_here_to_help/

/tg/ threads

https://archived.moe/tg/thread/89101073 (Straights have a slapfight with an AGP Kill all straights poster)

https://archived.moe/tg/thread/89090623 (pride lulz)

https://archived.moe/tg/thread/89077116 (Start of it all at the end)

I would like to welcome my new 50 thousand Twitter followers who have joined me in the past one day as attacks continue to come my way. With nearly 200 thousand followers, I can keep getting the facts and the truth out! I need 1 million followers first, not to get attention, but… pic.twitter.com/zjWKtEHvmE

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) March 22, 2023

>go to http://rdrama.net to write an effort post

>find out I've been forcibly logged out

>forgot my password, guess it's time to make an alt

@Aevann @carpathianflorist @jannies please do the needful and pin this effort

=======DUDE=======BUSSY=======LMAO========

I ran across this gentlemen sometime ago and have been meaning to cover him in some detail because he's a drama mine by the name of Simon Ateba. This all came up when he picked a fight with the utterly perfect and immune to criticism current and all time champion White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Piere.

White House correspondent Simon Ateba has accused Biden's press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre of "discriminating" against him after she left a briefing room without answering his question. Ateba, a Cameroonian journ*list who runs the online news outlet Today News Africa, has repeatedly clashed with former White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Jean-Pierre in the past two years, accusing them of ignoring reporters in the back of the briefing room.

I respect a man who doesn't want to be put in the back of the bus.

Ateba, who has long complained about the press secretary ignoring reporters at the back, is known to be one of the loudest journ*lists in the briefing room. In May, Psaki asked him to stop interrupting after he shouted questions at her during her final briefing. "Why don't you take questions from across the room? Because that's not what you've done for the past 15 months," Ateba asked, talking over another reporter, before Psaki told him: "Simon, if you can respect your colleagues and other media and reporters in here, that would be greatly appreciated."

> TAKE MY QUESTIONS

> PLEASE BE POLITE

The increasingly tense situation between the journ*list and Biden's press secretary escalated on Thursday. Jean-Pierre walked out of the White House briefing room in visible frustration as Ateba continued talking over her, asking questions about next week's U.S.-Africa summit, as she was attempting to reply to him. "I literally just tried to answer your question, and you shut me down," Jean-Pierre said, before deciding to end the press briefing prematurely and leave the room.

> ANSWER MY QUESTIONS

>: I LITERALLY JUST DID

> ANSWER MY QUESTIONS

>: flees

On Friday, Ateba made an appearance on Fox News's show Tucker Carlson Tonight, telling the TV host that it has been a "nightmare" to cover the White House while Jean-Pierre is press secretary.

That settles it, he's officially a rightoid now. Surrender the 500 marseybuxx @jannies

"It's been a disaster, a total catastrophe, a real nightmare covering the Biden White House. Right now, I'm the voice of Africa in the U.S.—but I can confirm that the level of discrimination against me and against African journ*lists in the White House is astounding, it's disgraceful," Ateba toldlson, adding that he didn't "have questions at the White House" for three months now. "Even as President Biden is about to receive 50 African heads of state in D.C. for the U.S.-African summit, she didn't give us even a single question. I've been trying for the past three months."

The journ*list went on to accuse Jean-Pierre of discriminating against him for his accent. "I sound different. I wasn't born here. I was born in Cameroon. I speak French. I speak different languages. I don't have the American accent. I've tried. I've failed and I've decided I'll stick with my accent," Ateba told Carlson. "I'm an immigrant, and she doesn't like that," he added.

This might be a good time to say the pot is calling the kettle black, but I don't know if my DEI chairperson would condone it.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Newsweek.

Whitehouse being again smhtbh

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/african-journ*list-accuses-press-secretary-jean-pierre-of-discrimination/ar-AA157MBN

But that's just the boring news article. Time for the drama, Simon Ateba is a drama king and with the limits reduced on twitter his WALL OF TEXT can crit you for 9999 damage.

I would like to welcome my new 50 thousand Twitter followers who have joined me in the past one day as attacks continue to come my way. With nearly 200 thousand followers, I can keep getting the facts and the truth out! I need 1 million followers first, not to get attention, but because I have something important to share and the word has to get out. You know, true journ*lism is compassionate. It does not connive with the powerful to oppress and manipulate the poor, it afflicts the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, it looks at the little guy in the room with no voice, the little school with no water, the people with no lawyers, no consultants or public relations firms to defend them. Often journ*lists become part of the elite. They wear nice suits, drive nice cars, fly nice planes and have no idea what the people are going through. In the briefing room, they measure people based on how much money their outlet has, how many readers came in yesterday, they look down on those who are not on their so-called level, and they become entitled and the real people turn their backs on them. When they tweet, no one respond, because the people see the arrogance, the entitlement, the lack of empathy and compassion.

That's what I am telling them in the @whitehouse briefing room. Don't fly to Africa when you disrespect and sideline the African in the room.

You in the wrong neighborhood @whitehouse

Open your eyes and minds, I'm right here with you, not miles away, and even though my questions may be uncomfortable, that's simply me doing my job and that's what the American people want and that's what the First Amendment protects. That's why this is the United States, the most advanced country in the world where you can ask questions without fear of retaliation!

With a based black man throwing down with the literally Perfect and immune from criticism White House Press Secretary, the rightoids have begun to circle the wagons and praise him endlessly because we all know you can't cancel a black man.

For the resident rightoids who care about Tucker Carlson here's the clip he was featured in: https://x.com/simonateba/status/1614187080648646656

Attacked by pirates on the Gulf of Guinea with an AK47 to my head, kidnapped in Nigeria, dumped in the woods & left for dead, arrested in Cameroon during investigation & kept in dark cell

Turns out there are still based journos still out in the world

only to be sidelined at the White House.

Queen shit

Since then Simon Ateba has been using his massive surge in twitter followers to shit talk the white house and other journscum. It's nice to see someone besides Glenpai bussyblasting other Journs. Here's one of my favorites:

This guy @justinbaragona from @thedailybeast is a disgrace to journ*lism. He's been writing nonsense about me for sometime now. When he tweets, 5 people comment because he does not know what he's doing.

>5 comments

Checked and wrecked

I wonder if this guy has had a gun pointed to his head by pirates as I have, or been kidnapped, dumped in the woods and left for dead but survived, or even been arrested and kept in a dark cell while doing an investigative report. Can this guy remain a journ*list if he's not paid for one year? How much do you know about real journ*lism? Can you be hungry and thirsty and still do the work? Keep writing nonsense about me. Years from now, you will be ashamed of yourself. Anyway, all the little things that you write about me, doing propaganda for the government, the press secretary and the WHCA don't mean anything to me. May God forgive you.

He then finishes with this flattering photo of the Journ*

https://x.com/simonateba/status/1642972841887793153

He does a little bit of trolling every now and then too: https://x.com/simonateba/status/1665376757657026565

Folks, you were not friendly to the First Lady @DrBiden . Most of the over 4,000 people who commented on my previous tweet below did not wish her a happy birthday yesterday.

https://x.com/simonateba/status/1664925541344919552

(This is a parody, this is a satire): @JoeBiden blames @realDonaldTrump and 'racist sandbag' for falling on stage in Colorado.

Subreddit link in case of drama

Jose, 29, Dallas TX

Self-rated 4/10 financially and slowly declining

Career/Business stuff:

• Personal Trainer

• Started a gym

  • Signed lease a year ago

  • Opened 6-9 months

  • "All of it's debt" (did not save up money before starting)

  • One of his clients loaned him money to help get gym started

• Has his business/personal life merged, difficulty separating the two

• Bringing in 10k a month

  • "Now after expenses what does that look like" "Gonna be honest I haven't done the math" timestamp

  • "I am uhh slightly in the red"

  • "I would say right now it costs about 2 grand roughly" a month to run the business

  • Rent is 1600 a month, going to go up in July to 4'600

    • Was on a 6 month "baiters" lease? I didn't hear this part clearly

• Only employee is his girlfriend, she keeps about 60% commission

  • brings in 4'500 for the business? Not sure

  • "A lot of our finances are also intertwined"

• 0 cost on equipment besides a loan on a body scanner?

  • $160 a month

• Bought cleaning supplies in bulk and hasn't needed to buy more since then

• Electricity - 150, 200 a month

• Water currently included with the lease?

• Internet about $80

• Pandora subscription $10

• Insurances

  • Doesn't have them

• Business credit card debt

  • "Under a special program that they have" reduced interest, reduced monthly payment

  • "About 370"

• Personal Loan from the client

  • Lent 50k

  • Paying him 1360 a month but through an exchange of services? Trains him/wife 3 times a week

• Personal Loan

  • 170 monthly payment

• Has an LLC set up

  • Not currently funneling money through this before it gets to him

• Setting money aside for taxes? (this wasn't mentioned)

• Should be around 3000 dollars of profit but he doesn't know where it goes

• Currently struggling to hire a trainer, has two-three leads per month he's able to handle?

• No base pay for the new hire, 40% commission only for anyone interested

• Had a friend he set up a deal with for training at the gym and the bridge got burned for various reasons

  • deets timestamp

• Had another guy who put his two weeks in 3 weeks ago they've been looking for someone since then

• Plans to start doing youtube content to help promote the gym

Debts:

• Blue Cash Preferred Amex (Card 1) $4898:

  • $86 minimum payment, made $55 in purchases on this card

  • Doesn't know what those purchases on there, thought he had already canceled everything on this card

  • $33 interest charged (409 total so far this year)

  • On this card with his gf

• Blue Business Amex (Card 2) 12'691:

  • Business card

  • 371 minimum payment

  • $40 new purchases, $81.47 in interest charged, $1112 interest total for this year

  • 691 above credit limit

  • Thought he had canceled everything on it

  • Purchases at two record stores and disney+

• Inbody scanning machine thing

  • 63 month term

  • 36'260 total financed, has paid maybe 5000?

  • $100 monthly payment since May of last year

  • No interest

• Upstart Loan

  • Took it out because the lease was about to start and he didn't have the money for first month's rent (had already signed the lease)

    • Story and reasoning timestamp

  • 30% interest loan

  • Minimum monthly payment (he doesn't remember it) timestamp

Savings/Expense:

• Business checking:

  • $30 -> $1239

  • Lot of zelles in (clients), some zelles from himself into the account

  • Lots of Amazon purchases (at least 15 separate purchases)

    • Gym equipment

    • Some of his other purchases here: timestamp

    • PSN payment is on the business account

  • G-suite

  • $34 overdraft fee

  • Zelle payments timestamp

• Does not have any savings?

• Pays a $30 subscription to another gym

• His personal rent is going to decrease he thinks? Will go down to $675 starting June

• Does not currently have health insurance

• Car insurance $200

• Parents currently cover his phone bill?

This post here convinced them to give me full access

Stay tuned for excitement! I'll wait until they actually get some stuff together to start dumping content en masse. Might just pull the whole server again. We'll see how hysterical they get.

update: I am not able to see some channels but it's okay I still have access to them and am making this known!!!

update: I have created cognitive dissonance by spreading "FUD"?? which google says means "fear, uncertainty, doubt"

update: I am testing the waters in another channel

update: The Jannie Letters are now being discussed

update: My main has now been banned for posting content it did not have access to, like that is going to do something, somehow? Leaks to follow once they get a game plan going. They're currently considering NSFWing all their subs because ads aren't served on NSFW subs which is actually a really good idea. Though they're afraid to do this because they might get demopped by Reddit.

Last words, as seen from yet another account. Fittingly it was a train who banned me.

https://discord . gg/mKudvApxD5 - invite link.

Get in fast, Wuz is going to link this thread there for the craic.

Remove the spaces around the .

They really did not like this thread and so they've revoked the general purpose invite link. New one to follow if they reissue a new one and don't smarten up. They're in a tizzy now combatting leaks that haven't even happened yet instead of doing their union larp.

I have made this thread public to be sporting. Meeting in a few, updates on hold UFN.

Final preview:

Imagine being a webdev and being reached out to by a volunteer internet janitor of some subforum on a gay orange messageboard lol

MEETING OVER, TIME FOR UPDATES

// MOST RECENT UPDATE BEGINS HERE

Multi-page discussion about the scaaaaary fish in one of their secret channels. I was banned and never had access to this but I can still see! Get it together @femilip!

"rdrama never changes" indeed @demmian

And now we discuss rDrama!

There is a 100% chance it will be leaked, @JayRy27. I told you all this when I first joined the server and was given limited access. Femilip decided to yall me instead of accepting generously given, excellent advice. And now we're doing this again. Are you happy?

Yeah, paywalling the API is super gay, but you know what else is super gay? You, @LunarOlympian

Why are you "ramp[ing] up the verification"? You guys were all just talking about how leaks aren't a problem because this is so popular!

Even when they're trying to be mean it just makes you want to take their lunch money and dunk their heads in the toilet even more. Also! Stop using the default Midnight theme here dummies, we have much more beautiful themes once you're logged in. Dramblr is amazing! So is Coffee! And Tron!

And here are their AI-generated "open letters" which they, somehow, couldn't write themselves and are forming committees to discuss how to improve them? N8 only proposed AI generating the letter as a joke but these tards ran with it lol.

The leaks will continue until my main is unbanned and given full access to all channels so that I may be a charitable voice of reason.

Newest as of 13:27 EST

NEW INVITE LINK -

https://discord . gg/34mHx6RZ

Remove the spaces.

minor update

@sir I tried to send you a message but it says I need to be groomcord e-friends with you before we can talk

and you're not accepting my add, so I guess I'll just respond here:

ONE: rDrama actually has an extremely robust slur and profanity filter, which users can toggle on and off. Both are on by default and on for logged out users. Like see here? BIPOC. That is THE N WORD. I typed the N word. But it will appear for you as "BIPOC" - there's a LOT of these, both for actual abusive language and for just cheeky things, like Discord being changed to groomcord and such.

TWO: We actually have native support for multiple communities! You can see this both here and on http://watchpeopledie.tv. Here they're called Holes and function much like subreddits, but with way more features. They're user-created and user-run. For example: /h/toomanyxchromosomes (women ☕) and /h/slackernews (tech stuff). On WPD, they function differently and they're just called Flairs and they're used for categorizing content for easy access and/or filtering. WPD's are admin-created and admin-run.

A mostly-comprehensive list of rDrama's features can be found here: https://rdrama.net/post/151246/rdrama-featureset

It's very impressive! And completely free and open source! We're banned from GitHub because of course we are, but you can find it all on Gitea here - https://fsdfsd.net/rDrama/rDrama. Feel free to fork! We'll even build new features and stuff for you if you'd like. Maybe even for free. Our only requirement is that you don't remove Marsey, the cat mascot. You can definitely use different Marseys though; we've got over 2500 already and are always adding more user-created ones. But at least one must be present.

14:00 EST UPDATE

Here is their tentative tl;dr rant:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/

And here is the autojanny macro for it to annoy people with as it links them to a novel that none of them will read because holy shit

https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xod4y/a_modmail_macro_you_can_use_in_your_subreddit/

Hello @BuckRowdy! Dedicating several paragraphs pleading with the porn addicts to rally to the cause so they don't have to use the official Reddit app to jerk off (most already do anyway??) is a bold move. Let's see how that goes.

14:04 small update

Arkontas! I have more accounts verified in there than I even remember now! But I have a helpful textfile with a list of credentials for them so it's not really an issue. Please accept my add so we can chat!

update: He has accepted my chat and we are having a nice discussion though I am in another meeting now. Groomcord handle removed at his request.

I don't even need to be signed into any of these at this point. I am getting inundated with screenshots from other people lol

how do you do fellow hatecircle members?

14:15 EST - rDrama isn't a problem but also we need to keep this hidden from rDrama

They keep going on endlessly about how it's not a secret and rDrama isn't a problem but they also keep revoking the invite link so no one can see it.

Will post new update link when available.

I already did that dummy! I'll repost here at the current end:

Here is their tentative tl;dr rant:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/

And here is the autojanny macro for it to annoy people with as it links them to a novel that none of them will read because holy shit

https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xod4y/a_modmail_macro_you_can_use_in_your_subreddit/

Hello @BuckRowdy! Dedicating several paragraphs pleading with the porn addicts to rally to the cause so they don't have to use the official Reddit app to jerk off (most already do anyway??) is a bold move. Let's see how that goes.

14:42 EST - THE APEX OF DELUSION

Also old but hi again @BuckRowdy!!!

As requested, you are in the screenshot @I_POGCHAMP_INFANTS. I remember you from the NNN leaks! Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Super minor

Not even updating the timestamp in the flair over it, but posting the invite link here and showing them this thread functioned exactly as intended and they are now having to deal with constant requests to generate unique invites (for free!) to bring their jannie friends, since the general purpose invitation concept has been removed:

15:05 EST - They got our boy greg @hoodatninja

They're also BRIGADING. Moderators! Brigading!!!

@SkorpioSound is the only one with a conscience smdh

STOP TALKING ABOUT RDRAMA PLEASE STOP

15:50 EST - @LunarOlympian is going bigbrain mode

@TheSpookiestUser who has provided several new sidebar images is getting ready to quit over all the leaks

15:56 EST OH SHIT THEY NOTICED THIS

Demoralization sets in

16:00 EST - rDrama is now a no-no word

16:06 EST The abyss stares back

Watching @TheSpookiestUser's slow descent into madness has been a real treat:

Annnnd @LunarOlympian who said he was going to infiltrate rDrama but gave up without making an account is assuring the other jannies that the verification is working just fine

16:57 They've just been wordswordswords posting for awhile now but /u/nerdshark is extremely unhappy with something that I'm not reading lol

/u/nerdshark's most recent comment on Reddit is...

and then he jannied the very popular thread, locking AND deleting it lest people stop spending all day on the subreddit for an imaginary disorder

Anyway here's the current level of discussion:

Incredibly boring.

Forbes started covering it this morning though, unrelated to Reddit's volunteer janitors:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2023/06/01/death-by-api-reddit-joins-twitter-in-pricing-out-apps/

Retards.

u/nerdshark just posted this while I was making this update. What's he got in his closet? Is he a pedophile? Crypto nazi? Did he once call something gay? Let's find out!

Hilariously, digging through your post history would be a million times easier if you got your way and pushshift came back. If you do win this, I am excited to see what we find!

17:07 /u/nerdshark has some weirdly specific fears about porn and children

17:08 OH NO NO NO BOMBSHELL HE WAS CALLING OUT SOME REAL PEDO LOL GO OFF KING

@Xyreo what's going on big guy?

Infant puncher guy why are you defending pedos? AGAIN??

Sharky appears to have jannie clout that infant rapist guy does not. This is getting ACTUALLY DRAMATIC now.

17:14 The pedo saga concludes with "ummm guys we have a confirmed pedo who sends porn to and hits on kids here but that's not really relevant, can we please stay on topic?"

17:16 lol oops sharky confused "xyreon" with "blocks" who he confused with "cocacola"

and it keeps getting better as /u/MotleyBlondie comes out swinging with the boy was 16 so it's not pedophilia

But let's get back on topic

It all falls apart...

CONTEXT

https://africantravelcanvas.com/news/national-heritage-day-in-south-africa-what-is-heritage-day-and-why-do-we-celebrate-it/

During Apartheid, the whites, and especially the Afrikaners, reigned supreme. Both in power, but aslo in cultural influence. Only Afrikaans and English were recognized formal languages for the state, and blacks whom wanted to become educated had to do so in Afr and Eng - the white men's language.

Additionally, holidays, events and national celebrations were all geared towards what Afrikaners and Bonglishmen in the Western Cape found to be important to them, but not the dozen black ethnicities in RSA. Thus after 1994, and the Nelson Mandela's election, the new Democratic government decided they had enough of mere mayoshit holidays and declared that there should be a National Heritage Day, which celebartes the large cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity which constituted the new country of RSA.

In 1996, the Mandela Admin came together and argued which day of the year should specifically be the big important day. I'm told by my father whom was my age at this point in time, that it was a weird collosal drama in the ANC at the time, and a relatively scandalous. This was before the corruption would set in as we know in modern RSA, so the scandal of the choosing of which date of the year would become National Heritage Day, is almost cute and quaint, compared to much more devastating and serious issue in RSA today 27 years later, where we cant even keep the fricking lights on with laodshedding.

https://southafrica-info.com/people/south-africa-population/

The drama was this: Zulus in RSA is by far the most populous, and also the most influencial voting bloc in the country, amongst all of the black groups in RSA. They had particular influence in the ANC, and many of the key members of the Mandela cabinet were zulus, thus the choosing of the specific date of Narional Heritage day in 24 September, was controversial. It wasn't fairly decided, but whatever small stuff.

The real drama came later when the reason for 24 September was announced, as it was the date that marks ‘Shaka Day’, when Zulus celebrate the infamous Shaka warlord. I trust I don't have to explain who Shaka is, is its likely one of the only 2 people that Burgers can name besides Mandela, prior to the arrival of Musk. Shaka had bucketloads of charisma and united a shitload of tiny tribes into a large warengine. If the British/Dutch had not arrived in South Africa during the same time period of Shaka's and the Zulu's rise to prominence, then it's 100% agreed by RSA historians, that the entire South Africa would have been named Zululand.

They absolutely teared through all other Black tribes, and even wiped out many black tribes, whom we can't even name today, because they kept no records, and the dutch arrived after the conquest was done, so there's nothing to record of these nameless peoples, except their stonewalls, stone igloos and long lost skeletons. But unfortunately for the Zulus, they had the bad luck of not having researched their Tech Tree in Age of Empire, and could not hold their match against the devastatingly lobsided edge gunpower weaponry gave the Bongs. Not even Shaka's leadership and tactics would ultimately help.

Like Ghenghis Khan for the Mongols, Shaka is a legendary figure and is immortalized by the Zulus. Shaka Day commemorates the legendary king, who united the zulus into one great powerful people and nation.

But of course the other non-zulu black peeps, especially the Xhosa are not equally enthused, and consider Shaka and the Zulus during the height of their power to have caused great suffering and genocide amongst the tribes which they conquered or wiped out. The timeframe in which the Zulus had their conquest of Eastern RSA, is known by many as the "Crushening", or "Mfecane". A zulu and xhosa word. Sothos, whom lived and lives in the middle portion of RSA, calls the series of events the "Difaqane"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mfecane

The Crushening or Skattering, is known as the obliteration and crushing of tribes, and refers to a period from the 1810s to the 1840s, when the zulus were at the height of their conquest. There is no way to estimate how many non-zulus were killed, and the numbers have been controversial ever since. Way too many peeps have something to gain by scewing numbers in their favour, and additionally there was no capacity to record in hindsight. Estimates were mainly made by the usual population density when euros came across different tribes as they slowly moved inland towards the provinces of what is today known as Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. Some historians venture to estimate as many as 1 million to 2 million non-zulus were killed in the Crushening. Which are pretty stark numbers pre-ww2. Of course this is debated, and many believe much of non-zulus were instead of being genocided, forcefully integrated. Some tribes joined willingly, adopting the Zulu culture, uniforms, and language. Others were viciously forcefully intergated by killing all the men and taking only the women and children of the tribe to supplement the next generation of soldiers. I have no way of confirming this, but urban legend says that Zulus would force young men to walk past their famous Impi Shields or Assegai short spears, and those taller than these weapons were immediately culled. The reason being small young boys can still be indoctrinated and converted into your tribal culture, whereas too old boys/young men bear resentment. I believe Ghengis Khan's armies did the same with Wagon Wheels.

Regardless of the actual reality, a large depopulation and dispersal of all the tribes from eastern RSA ocurred from 1810 to 1840, and most of them were basically slowly fleeing as word of the zulu conquest would reach tribes not as militarily inclined. Dramatards need to understand that Africa and RSA are very large, the entire Germany could fit into Mpumalanga & Kwazulu-Natal. These were men who travelled on foot, they didn't have the european advantage of horses.

So these were truly massive regions conquered in a short time.

Back to 1996 in modernity, a lot of intergenerational trauma and resentment still brooded between Zulus and the non-zulu tribes, especially between the Xhosa who was the largest surviving groups, to have been vanqueshed all the way back in the 19th century by the zulus. Just like the Balkan Serbs resented living under the influence of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, so too did the non Zulus have resentment against them from their former enemies. If Apartheid and the euro man's colonization of Southern Africa didn't dominate so in modern RSA discourse, then there would have been balkanlike resentment between Zulus and their non-zulu peers. Of course nothing unites foes like an even bigger douchebag, so Aprtheid had kept the frustration between black south africans to a minimum.

I went on this looong boring screed so that you guys may understand the context in the 1996 choosing of RSA's new National Heritage Day was full of drama and sneed. The non Zulus both in the government and civil population weren't too keen on having their conqueror as the inspiration for the new cultural holiday! Can u guys imagine if a chinese guy would suddenly declare National Ghengis Khan day in Manchuria lol.

After lots of squabbles, 24 September, was deemed to be more than just Shaka day, and would the nation's commemoration of all indigenous groups' cultures in RSA, not just that of the Zulus. The documents and red tape wen throught, and ever since 1996 we had our Heritage Day.

Now a lot of black south africans still harboured incredible resentment against their afrikaner previous overlords, and felt easily snubbed whenever whites did even the most inconsequential actions which they felt reduced them. For many RSA blacks the Heritage day was a reverse snub against Boers/Bongs whom had culturally dominated them in the National Party years, and that whites had no true heritage or historical culture worth celebrating other than colonization. It was usually a very turbo black liberal who held these angsts. Most whites didn't give a shit, National Heritage day was just a free holiday in the calender. And while the ANC gov would make a big show african unity to celebrate specifically the value of black culture in 24 September, most whites would remain impassive for the next 10 years.

In 2005 a TV personality known as Jan Scannell, or "Jan Braai", would immortalize 24 September forever, as it was previously a non excitable holiday which even most blacks didn't give a shit about. Just to be clear for Americans, braai just means barbecue, which many americans like Texans are familiar with. Jan Scannel used his moniker "Jan Braai" as an entertainment gimmick. He would make an afrikaans show where he would travel all along the most exiting and beautiful regions of Southern African tourist spots, and braai at the most outrageous places, be it isolated deserts, high mountains, or just remote 4x4 routes. It was one of the most watched shows by anyone who spoke afrikaans, be it boer or coloured.

In 2005's National Heritage Day, Jan Braai would use a gimmick to unofficially call 24 September National Braai day, so that the one true cultural combination of south africa, could be distilled into this everloved RSA pastime. This popularity spread like wildfire, and although not everyone was onboard, a lot of afrikaans speakers would jokingly refer to National Heritage ay as braai day in their everyday speak.

When 2006 arrived, Jan Braai would repeat his gimmick, and several million boers and coloureds whom had followed in his steps would imitate him, and thus National Braai day became a meme and nation which reached all of the non-afrikaans speakers of the country.

You know the saying: empty cans make the most noise. When the National Braai Day even reached the ears the most loud turbo liberal black peeps, they exploded in rage and a lot of nothing was made about the insult in which afrikaners and boers had towards the National holiday which specifically existed to celebrate the often overlooked black culture. These liberal black peeps misunderstood the action of Jan Braai and the afrikaners who imitated him. They weren't doing braai day to insult of belittle black culture, there was no malice in their intentions, but from these peeps minds, it was as if white south afircans has so little respect toward blacks they just reduce them to a pastime activity.

https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-21-00-how-our-heritage-is-reduced-to-ash/

Here's a few sneedfest articles written by shitlibs about how evil Braai Day is. It holds the same overblown hysteria as s saying they are being genocided.

Here's a more level headed and neutral article.

https://www.enca.com/south-africa/heritage-daynational-braai-day-debates-rages

But instead of being insulted, a lot of black south africans started to imitate their white peers, by joining braai day and liking the linking of south african heritage to braai groups brining diverse people together. By 2005 a black middle class was also forming and had established a market. Traditional afrikaans food like BIiltong, which they had adopted from the Hottentots way back the 18th century, was becoming incredibly popular to black peeps who could now afford it. Red meat is more expensive than chicken for example, but now blacks could indulge in this delicacy where they would previously be economically blocked off.

Point is by 2005 many blacks had long since already adopted boer food and habits, and it took very little to unite different races over a braai feast. Many liberal blacks had also had a positive view of Braai Day, and even cosidered it a uniting force for the rainbow nation.

By 2007, Braai day had become infamous, and white slapfight debates continued, some prominent South african figures praised Braai Day. Many foreigners wont know who Desmond Tutu is, but to Saffers he had been an everpresent figure for the fight against apartheid, and just as famous as Mandela. He won a Nobel peace prize and was incredibly well respected; his words carried great weight.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6981326.stm

"We've shown the world a few things. Let's show them that ordinary activities like eating can unite people of different races, religions, sexes... short people, tall people, fat people, lean people," he added.

Point is many black peeps, even prominent ones had a much more positive view on the Braai Day sensation.

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/xnhu35/south_africans_who_call_heritage_day_braai_day_why/

So we all come back to this /r/suthafrica post 8 months ago. OP is one of those self-cucking black libtards who see evil in every action, and makes mountains out of molehills.

The question of the post: "Why do you obvious subhuman racists call our glorious Heritage Dag, Braai Day. You are reducing black culture!! This is holiday colonialization!!!!!!!!!!! Reeeee!" The typical smarmy arrogance of a turbo wokescold. This reddit post perfectly encapsulates that needlessly bitter attitude that many black peeps have towards innocuous shit which mayos do.

In this thread OP is being dunked on for being a douchebag.

A lot of Saffers just wanna

Of course there's always the sour fricks

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/xnhu35/south_africans_who_call_heritage_day_braai_day_why/ipxw7uv/

"White peeps have no culture! They feel awkward cuz when SA Blacks show our swag traditional outfits, they just jelly!"

Anyways that's all I have

Good Night!

@tempest1247 here is longpost

Jessilyn, 21

Brandon, 32

Springfield MO

There's a pretty good chance I've gotten some of this wrong, there were a lot of numbers getting thrown around.

Husband self-rates: 2-3/10

Wife self-rates: 3/10

!straggots This is our fate

!incels How are you even real

!biofoids

Career:

Jessilyn: Stay-at-home mom

• Doordash and uber as side-hustles (about 400 a week after gas)

  • Only done these for 2 months so far, started because slow season for car sales right before taxes were due (end of Feb)

• "We're financially illiterate. I'd say I'm financially inexperienced, almost too"

Brandon: Car Salesman

• All commission based, 49'918 ytd (did 117k pre-tax last year)

  • Minimum wage or commission based whichever is greater? 277 hours a month?

  • About 30% for taxes

  • Only brought home 4'200 pre-tax in March?

    • Best months were Jan/Feb, all downhill from here?

• End of 2022 "economy just kinda shit the bed" so sales are down

Personal Life:

• "We met selling cars and then I got pregnant then we started dating"

  • Stopped selling cars in the summer because she didn't want to deal with the heat on car lot both fat and pregnant?

  • "Kind of a dumb decision looking back because they had 6 weeks of maternity leave and they offered to move me to a different position that was hourly based inside"

  • "From my understanding they will not hire her back because we're married"

• started dating last Spring

• moved into apartment last May

• "over the last month and a half we've moved out of our apartment so we're kinda like in a position too where there's not a whole lot of space to be able to keep stuff"

• Jessilyn is still on the mother's insurance

• Building a new house that was supposed to be ready middle of May?

  • It sounds like they're renting it?

Saving/Debt/Expenses:

• "I got denied for Paypal crediting like where they finance your things"

• Got most of these cards in June? Not sure I heard that right

• "Yeah, the ones I sent you were all the really bad ones"

  • not sure what she means by that?

• Got a car in April "probably spent way too much money"

  • "60'000 dollar car"

    • Still owe 57'891

    • Might be worth upper 40s, low 50s?

  • 2022 Grand Cherokee

  • Got some percentage off since he's an employee

  • 4.24%, was offered 3.29% but took that to go out an extra year in term to get the payment below $1000 a month

  • 920 minimum payment

  • He tries to convince them to sell this one timestamp

• Husband's car:

  • 2018 Kia Stinger

  • $26'850 owed, 11.51% interest

  • 525 minimum payment

• $330 for car insurance that covers both

• Loan to pay off delivery

  • 30k bill on the delivery, still owe 1668? Another 1800 sitting off loan because insurance may/may not cover it?

    • Projected 150 minimum payment, less if it's only the 1668

• Card 1:

  • 2917.43

    • 29 minimum payment (they made $43 in purchases on this card this month )

    • Interest free until December

    • Lots of recurring subscriptions through apple, they've since canceled them?

• Chase (Card 2):

  • "The baby one:

  • 455/500 balance -> made 0 payments -> 523.60

  • $80 minimum payment

• Citi (Card 3):

  • 4752 -> no payment and $258 purchases -> $5039

  • Had paid 300 off of it to get it down to 4752 prior "And that's so sad" timestamp

  • She put multiple Afterpays on here

    • One was lunch. She afterpaid her lunch

  • $29 late fee

    • "The way I see it is it's not all the way 30 days past due because my breaking point is if it hits my credit you kn-" timestamp

• Bluecash Everyday Amex (Card 4):

  • 826 -> -$60 payment, +$192 new transactions -> $961.36/$1000

  • Minimum $40, interest free

  • "We actually had that paid off the beginning of February" -

  • At 857 because she made just a payment on it

• "I actually got one [credit card] sent to me in the mail the other day and I was like I don't need another one" timestamp

• "My thought process, hear me out, was that my utilization right now is probably like 94, 96 percent and that's godawful don't get me wrong but if I open another credit card technically it would exp-"

  • "I don't give a shit"

• Discover (Card 5):

  • $3453 -> -$94 payment, +$155 new transactions, +$83 interest, +$30 fees -> $3627

  • $134 minimum payment

• [indecipherable] Bank (Card 6):

  • "Furniture loan"

  • $2534, 0% interest for another year or two?

  • Minimum payment $150

• Apple (Card 7):

  • $7'988/$8000

  • 255 minimum payment, 29.4% interest ($171 interest)

• "I have 3 Affirm loans"

  • "Big one that we've had since September of last year"

    • $400 minimum payment, almost paid off, $671 remaining

    • Financed their wedding rings

    • "Only reason we did it was it was 0%"

  • "Two amazon purchases"

    • "Both like a hundred dollars so they're each like-"

    • $53 left on one

    • $120 on the other

• Self-told history of her financial life

• Phones are financed

• iPad is financed (they bought an iPad for the baby?)

• Her apple watch is financed

• Child support

  • "That comes out of his paychecks out of the gross percentage"

• Brandon 17000 in retirement

• Jessilyn "I don't have a retirement"

  • "I also have like a cash value life insurance policy my mom's been paying in since I was a baby. It's cash value is only 1700 dollars though"

• $50 in their savings 2000 -> 50?

  • Getting ready to move into a new place, most of that went to deposit

• $300 in checking?

  • Lots of paypals/venmo for eating out timestamp for her being told she cant eat out any more

  • Lots of Klarnas that are all paid off now

• She is one of the only people on earth still subscribed to SiriusXM

  • 110 yearly

Superhero Archeology: and introduction

One of the most defining features (or criticisms) of American Superhero comics is that they never end. Superman has basically been continuously published monthly since 1938 which is a lot of issues and a lot of story to cover. Despite this there are plenty of superhero universe which are intended to be ongoing (ideally forever like DC or Marvel) which end up going belly up. Its this pile of lost dreams, tattered capes, controversial story decisions, and interpersonal drama which has come to interest me lately so I thought I'd follow up on my dream of doing a comics drama series by doing a drama write up + review on these strange comics.

Just a few ground rules and terminology before we start:

Superhero universe: a total collection of separate titles which all tell stories that occupy the same continuity. These stories can be tightly connected or just share a loss background continuity.

Imprint: an imprint is a subcompany within another publisher. They can either be a newly formed entity with a specific niche (think of how penguin classics publishes classics for the penguin random house brand) or a publisher gets bought out by another. An imprint maintains a deal of autonomy and often has its own staff and HQ but is ultimately under the thumb of the parent company. The most famous comic imprint is likely Vertigo an imprint of DC comics which focused on self contained, mature comics with less of a focus on superheroes and more on fantasy, sci fi, and horror. This imprint produced popular comics like Sandman, Preacher, and Hellblazer (starring john constantine). Imprints are often used to start new universes within a company separate from the main brand or is the fate of comic publishers which get bought out.

1. Dead Universes can come in many forms on the end of most dead you can have a superhero universe whose parent company utterly goes bankrupt or gets bought out leaving the all the comics cancelled and the characters to never see publication again, like defiant comics. You can have a company who gets bought out by another and has their universe shut down and the most popular characters folded into the new owners universe, like what DC did to Wildstorm. A comic publisher can go fully out of business and have a clean break in continuity only for the universe to be fully rebooted by a new owner, like with Valiant Comics. A dead universe can also be an imprint/separate universe of a major comic company which gets shuttered and its characters reduced to cameo appearances, like Marvel's Ultimate Universe and New Universe.

2. Things like one shot elseworlds or what ifs? or mini series or long running monthly comics with little to no spin offs do not count.

3. There needs to be some evidence that the universe was intended to go on for a long time or was prematurely shuttered so stand alone mini series or series with a definite planned end point do not count

Now with this groundwork laid out lets get on with the show.

An Elf, Aardvark, and Some Teenage Turtles Walk into a Bar

In late 1977 a Canadian cartoonist named Dave Sim would spin his failed fanzine Cerberus, accidentally misspelled as Cerebus at the prints, into a black and white self published Conan Parody called Cerebus the Aardvark. Eventually this book became very successful for a time (enough so that people actually bootlegged copies of the first issue which had become a collectors item) which inspired another Canadian couple, Wendy and Richard Pini, to publish their own black and white comic called Elfquest a few months later and this was also a moderate success. The self publishing success of Dave Sim would lead two more Canadians, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, would create the ultimate comic book parody Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984 which combined elements from all the most popular books at the time. Teenage from the New Teen Titans, mutant from the Uncanny X-men, and Ninjas from Daredevil. The turtle part would be a callback to funny animal comics that inspired them like Cerebus the Aardvark and Howard the Duck.

TMNT was a huge success with its first issue selling 3,000 issues in a few weeks. Sales would only climb and the pair would use merchandising to further expand the reach of the brand. A Playmate toys toy line was a huge success with kids leading to a Saturday morning cartoon to be commissioned which simply furthered the reach of the turtles among kids. Not only was this a success for the creators, but also one for the comic stores that were early adopters. Back issues of the Turtles were quickly becoming collector's items so anyone (or store) who had over ordered the earlier issues now had a fat stack of leftovers they could sell for a profit. This lead to a mass speculation bubble in the mid to late 80s (preceding the massive total industry bubble in the mid 90s). A rapid number of publishers were debuting at a rate that hadn't been seen since the original superhero bubble of the 1940s with many pumping out action/ninja parody titles along with standard fantasy/sci-fi/superhero comics. For example:

Amateur creators were being picked up by these new companies who were publishing upwards of 19 series a month on the hope that at least one would be a TMNT style hit. Comic stores overbought comics in the range of 10s and 100s of thousands in hope that one would become a collectors item. On top of that many of these indie comics (despite being on low quality paper, in black and white, and being made by sub-par talent) sold at a premium of over a $1.50 (sometimes even $2) per comic. For context your average full color newsprint comic from DC or Marvel was 75 cents at this time and books in higher quality formats could go for a $1.25, and annuals or prestige series with higher page counts could go for more. Here is a sample of some average art from this era:

This one below was a $1.75

Oh yeah and this era saw the start of furries

Young Ex-Mutant Samurai Humans and Eternity Comics

In 1986 a small black and white comics publisher Eternity was formed by Brian Marshall and Tony Eng after an infusion of capital and with Sunrise Distributions set to distribute the comics. At the same time a freelance comic writer and editor David Campiti formed a comics packing company (basically a talent agency for comics which outsources the creation of a comic think of how newspapers buy strips from a syndicate vs having a dedicated on the payroll cartoonist like the new yorker had) called Campiti and Associates which focused on selling comics to newly formed publishers. Campiti, burgeoning comics writer David Lawrence, and burgeoning artist Ron Lim came up with a concept to parody the trend of TMNT clones called the Young Ex-Mutant Samurai Humans. It would be about a future where nuclear war has mutated humanity into gross mutants with a group of normal humans being the "weird ones" in this society. The title was then changed to just Ex-Mutants and sold to Eternity comics as their first published comic and was a hit. The book easily grossed more then its meager 400$ advertising budget and printing costs. Its not hard to see why since the concept is novel and Ron Lim could actually draw in a professional comics style.

As a modern read its not particularly great. For one the issue has way too much going on we are first introduced to the world of Ex-Mutants and see some mutants looking sad and wishing they were human. Then we get an exposition dump about the nuclear war.

Then we see a scientist, called The Doctor or Doc, who finds a fully functional solar battery just lying in the rubble that he takes and uses to activate his science machine that turns five mutants back into humans (4 women and 1 man, steamy!).

He then trains them in life skills and shows them to the rest of the mutants which causes a race war

We then see a spooky masked evil mutant called Fred (totally not shredder) who wants to kill the ex-mutants and sends his gang after them.

The ex-mutants then leave in a car to explore the world but the crash it. With some shadowy figures watching them.

As you can see there is a lot of stuff happening here with nothing but the most thin character traits propping everyone up (and even then I cant tell any of the ex-mutants apart), also despite being formed as a parody there is basically no parody elements here as its a pretty straight foreword action book with banter.

Amazing Comics

For unspecified reasons Marshall and Campiti feuded so with a fresh capitol influx Campiti founded Amazing Comics to publish black and white comics and Wonder Comics to publish color comics. With his own money Campiti founded Pied Piper Comics to publish special products like posters, art books, or graphic novels. During one of these arguments Lawrence and Lim sided with Campiti and moved the Ex-Mutants to Amazing Comics; reprinting the eternity issue with added bonus pages as a special edition. These bonus pages included a steamy s*x scene which, judging by letters, seemed to be somewhat controversial. Shield your eyes kids!

In issue 2 we learn that the shadowy figures were actually a group of benevolent, agrarian bikers called the wild knights and the ex-mutants agree to repair their bikes. Fred's gang attacks the encampment and the ex-mutants fight them off.

In a B plot a mysterious baby shows up at the doctor's door which he begins taking care of but as a last minute stinger the baby's hand grows super large and smashes the floor. We are also introduced to a stupid henchman of Fred's named Douglass who looks like a cartoon character.

In issue 3 the baby monster continues to attack Doc until he runs outside and is captured by Fred; who reveals that the baby is his son and that mutants are born normal babies but become giant monsters after a set time.

At the time the Ex-Mutants party, drink, and eat with the wild knights and Douglass who is now a good guy. Suddenly the Ex-Mutants collapse and its revealed they are dying from radiation poisoning. They decide to head back to the city and visit Doc so he can cure them. At the same time a computer in a bunker many miles beneath the earth suddenly springs to life.

In issue 4 the Ex-Mutants show back up in the city and realize that Fred is going to execute Doc. A large group of the mutants then turn on Fred and side with the New Mutants. The baby then sides with Doc because Doc was nice to him and both the Baby and Fred kill each other. After this Doc and Ex-Mutants are declared heroes and become the leaders of the city. Doc then puts the Ex-Mutants into pods to cure them of their radiation poisoning. I'll admit that killing off what appears to be the main villain so soon is pretty bold and according to Lawrence the series was originally going to be a 4 issue mini series with the Ex-mutants dying shortly after Fred. The issue is also a tribute to Lawrence's recently deceased cat who has a few cameo appearances in the issue.

Issue 5 is entirely a stealth pilot for a spin off centered on a new group of characters, The New Humans. The humans were test subjects for an experimental stasis system for long distance space travel. They would be frozen for 90 minutes as a test of the technology except the nuclear war happens during this experiment so all the scientists are killed and the test subjects stay in stasis until the battery lets out and they are left the last normal humans in this world. They also find a nuclear powered aircraft with unlimited fuel they use to fly around. The New Humans fly into NYC (where Doc and the EM live) and run into Doc. We learn one member of the New Humans is actually Doc's mom (this was foreshadowed in the expanded version of issue 1). Doc then demand the New Humans hand over their nuclear reactor as he can use it to start purifying the land and water and the New Humans instead want to keep flying around looking for places untouched by radiation for some reason. Doc pulls a gun on them and Douglass (that weird cartoon guy) distracts Doc for long enough for Doug and the New Humans to escape. In terms of drama it seems like originally issue 5 and issue 1 of the coming new humans spin off would be drawn by a new artist to give Ron Lim a break except this unnamed guy never turned in work so the issue had to be cobbled together by a variety of artists which probably explains why this issue features a massive drop in art quality. With less backgrounds, simpler designs, and everything being hard to tell apart.

Pied Piper Comics and The Secret of Eternity Comics

In the letters page of issue 3 Lawrence hints that issue 5 of the Ex-Mutants would spin off into a new title. This would be presumably a New Humans series except such a series no Ex-Mutants issue 6 ever released at Amazing comics. We learn that man who financed eternity was named Scott Rosenberg, the same man who owned Sunrise Distribution and he weirdly demanded a lot of secrecy. Eternity and Amazing were locked in a race to the bottom to try and crowd the other out of the market by pumping out more and more titles. Anyway eventually the checks dried up for everyone at Amazing Comics and the mysterious board of directors was silent on the matter. Campiti then moved the Amazing comics talent, including the Ex-Mutants team, over to his own company Pied Piper comics to publish while the payment situation at Amazing could be sorted out. This was summarized in the editorial page for New Humans #1 (Ill note Pied Piper comics soon began to also mass announce issues many of which were never made.

At the same time in July 1987 The Comics journal (or maybe Rosenberg himself in a press release I honestly can't tell) dropped a further bombshell: Rosenberg had secretly financed not just Eternity comics, but also four other comic publishers: Amazing, Wonder, Imperial, and Malibu comics. This was done in secret for seeming a few reasons: one is that he wanted to force a TMNT style hit by placing a bunch of publishers in contest with each other where no matter who won Rosenberg would win in the end and second is that Imperial and Malibu comics were both founded after the other 3 and after the payment issues described at Amazing and Wonder. Meaning Rosenberg was likely funneling profits he should have been paying to others back into entirely new comic companies. Tom Mason, Cartoonist and co founder of Malibu, described Rosenberg's strange scheme as this:

https://scoop.previewsworld.com/Home/4/1/73/1017?articleID=195091

He secretly financed four (yes, that’s right) comic book companies with the idea that they would publish comics, he’d push them through his existing distribution channel at Sunrise, then sell individual copies by mail order through yet another company of his called Direct Comics. Having a distribution company that distributes books from multiple publishers, then expands to publishing its own books while also running a mail order division isn’t a bad way to create a vertically-integrated company without many assets. Unfortunately, he did it in secret, and had been trying to manipulate the market to create “hot” comics that could be sold at higher prices post-publication, and it all went bad when the bubble of inflated high-priced “hot” comics burst. Sunrise was bankrupt and shut down leaving behind a trail of bad debt that hurt a lot of small publishers at the same time Malibu was launching.

With the market bottoming out and the gig being up Rosenberg would use his majority share in all companies to suddenly take control of them. Folding all of the brands into Malibu comics and shuttering all of the brands except for the most profitable one, Eternity, which was turned into an imprint of Malibu. It seemed that Lawrence, Lim, and Campiti had smelled a rat in Rosenberg and has avoided a disaster.

Back to pied piper comics with the Ex-Mutants issue 6. The ex-mutants wake up from their healing pods and discover that Doc has deified them as gods in order to keep all of the mutants under his thumb. The ex-mutants are uncomfortable with this new status and are attacked by a mutant loyal to Fred. Doc intervenes and kills the attacker which enrages the Ex-Mutants who now have a no-kill code despite killing in issues 1-4. The Ex-Mutants then leave NYC disgusted by Doc's actions. In a backup story we see that Doc has made a new Ex-mutant called norma jean to serve as his wife and is in the process of making a new batch of Ex-Mutants he can hold up to his rule. With this story there seems to be an attempt to move the Ex-Mutants in a more serious and introspective direction but it doesn't fit at all with the character's previous actions.

The New Humans spin off ran 3 issues at pied piper and since they have slightly more personality then the Ex-Mutants I will list them off. Duke Goldberg: An all American military man who hates commies and rowdies and race mixing

Kelly Brock: Doc's mom

Roger Brunner: a nerd who wants to bang kelly

Calvin Gordon: a black guy who wants to bang kelly and only exists so Duke can cry about race mixing

Issue 1 is just a slightly expanded version of their origin from issue 5 of the ex-mutants not at all interesting. In issues 2 and 3 the new humans land in England which is full of mutants, lead by a delusional figurehead king, and actually led by Fred (so basically indistinguishable from real England). The new humans conclude that the mutants were not in fact caused by radiation but genetic warfare waged at the same time as the bombs, and wait didn't Fred die? Well it turns out fred is like a rank or a persona different people put on or maybe hes cloned either way there is multiple freds which lead gang branches in different cities. This Fred really has it out for Duke and tries to attack him while Roger and Calvin try to have a threesome with Kelly. Also Fred has a Cartoon face like Douglass and issue 3's cover is colored in with marker.

Now back to the Ex-Mutants. In issue 7 the ex mutants find two laurel and hardy looking goons (they have appeared periodically since the special edition of issue 1 but haven't been important until now) wandering around the smoldering ruins of the Wild Knights HQ. One of the women tries to kill them believing them to behind the attack but the others stop her until more evidence can be gathered. Back with Doc he laments how much the Ex-Mutants have grown from wise cracking action heroes to somber travelers with everything seeming more gritty and serious now (lamp shading the change in tone). The two goons call over a tank which the Ex-mutants can't fight and they are sent to a prison camp run by a mutant gang called the frogs. The next issue is called "A day at the race war"

In issue 8 we start with the Ex-Mutants and Wild Knights sitting in the Frog's prison only for the issue to immediately jump to Doc and his backstory. You see Doc's parents were both big groucho marx and classic comedy fans and ofc his mom left to be a part of the experiment that made the new humans. He and his dad survived the nuclear war, mutated, and lived together until his dad died of cancer and doc was left alone. Doc then started his experiments with remaking humanity via genetically creating clones of classic Hollywood characters. Like Norma Jean who is a clone of Marylin Monroe or the laurel and hardy goons. He also made clones of cartoon characters which I guess explains all the weird looking cartoon guys. Now Doc hates his creations and kills Norma Jean, gets a sci fi gun thing, rescues the ex-mutants and wild knights off screen, takes the Ex-Mutants back to the lab, turns them into Mutants making them the ex-ex-mutants, and activates a Russian nuclear warhead in the heart of NYC. If it wasn't clear Pied Piper was dying due to the black and white small publisher market collapse, the same thing that killed Rosenberg's plan. Ex-Mutants issue 8 seemed to have dropped in late 1987 with Pied Piper officially going bust in early 1988. This decline can easily be seen in this issue which has four writers, two pencillers, and two inkers. They couldn't even afford a letterer so all of the lettering is very cheap type set stuff. On top of that the story is super rushed side stepping the presumed action of fighting the frogs for an exposition dump of Doc which has very simply art with little to no background. Then it all ends in a random anti climatic death of everything ending that comes out of no where.

One more issue of Ex-Mutants would be produced by Pied Piper, Lawrence & Lim's Ex-Mutants Microseries: Erin #1. In this comic Erin is peeped on by Douglass's weird redditor manlet incel brother and they set off to look for Douglass. Scott acts like a redditor the whole time and tries to show off how smart he is by name dropping Shakespeare, philosophers, and sherlock Holmes which doesn't appease based r-slur Erin who doesn't know how to read. Eventually they find find a giant rabbit baby because apparently cartoon mutants like Douglass start off as giant cartoon bunnies for two years before becoming cartoon people. They drop the baby off with Doc and Norma Jean and then Erin gets exposed to some horny plant that makes her wanna frick scott. Scott being a trucel refuses and simply talks her ear off about nerd shit. The exact continuity of this issue is unclear. Erin references being attacked by the frogs which happens in issue 7 and 8. This cannot be after issue 8 as issue 8 has Doc kill Norma and also nuke NYC. This cant be after issue 7 as Erin is captured by the frogs and locked in their prison in issue 7 and broken out by Doc at the end of issue 8.

From here to Eternity

After the demise of Piper most of the talent moved with Campiti to his new company Innovation Publishing which was pretty successful, however two creators were unable to join. You see Rosenberg was in a conundrum, while he had salvaged together Malibu and Eternity was moderately profitable he didn't have that TMNT level hit he wanted and it seemed the closest he had gotten was with that first issue of Ex-mutants at eternity. He then had eternity launch a very strange lawsuit against Lawrence and Lim which is not fully understood. With a lot of those Rosenberg gate stuff there isn't many clear sources avaible now with even the different Wikipedia pages contradicting each other and the timeline being very vague. Frankly Rosenberg-gate is a massive untapped drama well that someone smarter and more connected then me should write a book about because its crazy. An article from the Capital City Distribution’s Comic Dealer Newsletter says this:

The complexity of this situation can be illustrated by looking at Ex-Mutants, one of the most successful of the properties in dispute. In the past, it had been produced by Lawrence and Lim, in association with Campiti and Associates for TriCorp Enterprises, Inc., of Brooklyn, owned by Brian Marshall and Tony Eng. Orders for the book were solicited on behalf of Eternity Publishing by Mark Hamlin of Pied Piper Press. When the book was shipped, it was invoiced by Guaranteed Services on behalf of Eternity. Campiti then broke first with TriCorp and later with Eternity. If the question of ownership of this property goes to court, just deciding which court has jurisdiction is going to require a large amount of legal work and a major court ruling, since Campiti and Associates is a West Virginia company, TriCorp is a New York corporation, Pied Piper is a Michigan company, Guaranteed Services is a California company and Eternity Publishing is based in Boulder, Colorado.

With all of these packagers, publishers, and distributors being interconnected it turned out the rights were a legal nightmare with Eternity claiming they infact owned the Ex-mutants brand and all of the books associated. It would be impossible tell who is in the right without access to the contracts between Campiti and Lawerence/Lim and the one between Campiti and Eternity, and as far as I can tell Campiti has not commented on this case. Eventually for unknown reasons were able to convince Lawernce/Lim they owned the rights for the characters in exchange for megar royalties. Lawrence had this to say on the case http://www.silbermedia.com/qrd/archives/28davidlawrence.html

QRD - Do you know who owns the rights to the Ex-Mutants & the rest of the Shattered Earth cast? Do you see yourself ever buying them?

David - It would take an infinite number of lawyers with an infinite number of typewriters, and eventually they'd produce a complete episode of Gilligan's Island, but probably never this question. I think Marvel eventually bought Mailibu, so they would claim to have whatever rights Malibu laid claim to. Eternity/Malibu conceded that Ron and I owned all the characters we created and the stories we'd done; they just sort of claimed they owned the right to do their own version. It was unfortunate. I think that it would have been best for everyone if we'd just sat down and talked. Everybody lost as things turned out.

So it seems Eternity claimed while Lawrence and Lim owned all characters and stories but that eternity owned the trademark and right to make new stories, which is a total crock of shit as Eternity picked up the Ex-mutants storyline exactly where it left off with the same characters and without any input from Lawrence and Lim. Lawrence and Lim don't even seem to own the original comics as eternity reprinted issues 1-7 of the Ex-Mutants and issues 1-3 of the new humans without any license from Lawrence and Lim minus royalties. I am assuming Lawrence and Lim got royalties for all ex-mutant content not just reprints as Lawrence mentions getting royalties for an ex mutants video game that came out based on a total reboot Malibu did late. From what I can tell Lawrence and Lim were both likely tired from all the legal shit they dealt with only for eternity to swoop in with a lawsuit and a bunch of fancy legalese which strong armed Lawrence and Lim into signing away all of the ex-mutants rights in exchange for royalties to avoid a costly and confusing lawsuit. Again its hard to tell as there is so little on this case other then the fact that Eternity got the rights to the ex-mutants in a law suit and Lawrence and Lim got royalties. I'm not even sure of the timeline here I cant tell if Eternity stole the rights before or after Pied Piper went bust. In Ex-Mutants issue 8 the editors page lists a bunch of new comics with no indication that Pied Piper would die in a few months, but it lists issue 8 as the last issue of the Ex-Mutants. The last page of issue 8 would tell readers to see next issue if the Ex-Mutants survived with the tagline "from here to eternity". Its not clear if this is telling readers to see the next issue at Eternity comics or if its just an unfortunate tag line.

After this Lawrence's name would never grace an Ex-Mutant comic - minus a single Eternity published annual-(despite it getting title billing as Lawrence and Lim's Ex-Mutants at piper comics) and they would go their separate ways. Lim would be reduced to doing a few covers for Eternity. Lawrence would write a few more comics like Lunatic Fringe and Hero Alliance, but would leave comics to serve as the managing editor at Dabel Brothers Publishing. A company whose website went offline last year and according to facebook comments on their page have constantly funded comics that never came out. Dabel Brothers Publishing's bread and butter seemed to be comic adaptations of the Wheel of Time which they feuded with Dynamite comics over with Dynamite comics now owning the rights as Dabel is defunct. The last scripting work he did was on a comics adaption of Patricia Briggs' Alpha & Omega: Cry Wolf. Ron Lim would be discovered by Marvel and end up drawing some of their most high profile 90s comics like the infinity trilogy(gauntlet, war, and crusade). He would also work at Archie on the Sonic comic. He would continue doing one shots and variant covers for marvel since 2016.

The Shattered Earth Chronicles

Eternity would in theory pick up exactly where Lawrence and Lim left off with New Humans continuing with issue 4 and the Ex-Mutants getting a new #1 in a new series called Ex-Mutants The Shattered Earth Chronicles with both books getting entirely new creative teams. While this is true the series would take a much darker tone and a new status quo that featured heavy retcons. The universe would also be expanded into more spin offs and one shot specials.

One of the first comic's published was Solo Ex-Mutants #2 which involves Vikki of the Ex-Mutants telling some kids a story about her and Douglass being pirates and fighting Popeye at a nebulous point in cannon. It may be in concept, part, or fully an unpublished Pied Piper Comic Lawrence & Lim's Ex-Mutants Microseries: Vikki #1, but no one knows how far along microseries Vikki was maybe the basic concept was turned into solo #2 or maybe it was finished and just printed as solo #2. of note in the back matter is that the coming new Ex-Mutants Shattered earth series is hyped up as being part of one of the most sucessful black and white franchises, so comic stores should over order to prepare for the massive sales.

In the New Humans #4 the change in direction is quiet visible. The comic stops where #3 left off only with strange scientists watching the ordeal. Douglass suddenly sees himself as a bunch of code, and Roger is sent to the cuck shed as kelly only wants dat BBC . While fighting DUke Fred begins to go crazy with his body and face rapidly changing. Eventually all the new humans are captured and realize they have been spied on by these mysterious scientists. Roger finds out fred and all the cartoon people are actually shape shifting androids the scientists made in order to understand old human media by selling how old cartoon characters interacted with the new humans. This completely retcons the doctors back story and the explanation given in Ex-Mutants issue 8. The central machine is destroyed in a fight and fred and douglass and all the cartoon people die. So in one issue a major plot point has been retconned and the most silly aspects of the old series have been totally removed in preparation for the ex mutants relaunch.

The next spin-off would be a Wild Knights themed one where the Wild Knights travel in a truck-motorcycle caravan now that their base is destroyed and solve various problems for people. In their first issue they discover a weird religious cult that wants to kill everyone so they can all go to heaven.

The new Ex-mutants series is mostly just a summary of the past few issues but adds one major retcon: the bomb used by Doc was actually a teleportation bomb that sent the ex-mutants to another dimension. One stayed behind to be tutored by these beings and the rest came back to NYC only to see that the bomb has caused extra dimensional monsters to attack. Now the plot revolves around an alternate dimension royal family with one of the ex-mutants being trained in a phoenix force (the whole thing is just a rip off of the X-men Dark phoenix saga which is funny because Lawrence took pains to stress the Ex-Mutants were not derivative of the X-Men) . The art is also super amateur looking it has some charm but man is it rough.

The final Ex-Mutants comic by Lawrence would be Ex-Mutants annual 1 a strange story which takes place during the time when Doc was training the ex mutants, so notWalt Disney is in cryogenic stasis over notDisneyland and the life support system is powered by people believing in the notDisney magic. However since everyone is nuked no one has time for woke propaganda anymore. Doc plays a notdisney movie for the ex-mutants which the computer senses and teleports the ex-mutants to notDisney land. The computer then makes notDisney movie themed traps to kill them to save notWalt. NotWalt wakes up and tells the computer he would rather die then kill the ex-mutants. NotMickey hugs notWalt and the ex-mutants teleport home. A very werid story and very melodramatic in how sad it is over no one watching Disney Movies.

The titles would continue for roughly a year with increasingly strange and disconnected plots. The solo Ex-mutants series would be replaced with another anthology title, simply called Shattered Earth, that would focus on random tales of the universe. The New Humans would focus a sentient alien computer virus which infects a soviet space station and needs the humans help to fight against evil aliens. Then there is a woman and her robot dog which contains the consciousness of her dead husband and this is related to the aliens. The Wild Knights is just them going from city to city and finding some trouble sometimes related the red kross. The solo ex mutants mostly just focuses on random stories, but does give an origin for Fred. in Solo Ex Mutants #4 we see Doc's first mutant to human transformation was a man named fred who he leaves for dead following a battle. I assume you can put two and two together. The shattered earth series would have 3 random stories often times just generic twist ones (woah the monster chasing the man turned out to actually be nice) or ones on new characters that went nowhere. The Ex-Mutants shattered earth chronicles series had the Ex-Mutants wonder around blabbing about the phoenix and how they will teach everyone reality warping powers to save earth while going through episodic adventures. Doc and the New Ex-Mutants (remember those guys from issue 6?) were sent to a weird heck dimension and become demons and want to kill the Ex-Mutants. Beyond the general shared setting these books had no relation to each other.

There is some interesting lost media here. For one in Solo Ex Mutants issue 5 an ad is seen for a new Shattered Earth earth book called Desert Fox to drop in Winter 1988. In winter 1988 Shattered Earth #1 and #2 would release. In Shattered Earth #1 Desert Fox is stated to be a miniseries and issue 2 has a story called Desert Fox that is stated to lead into the coming miniseries. It involves an aussie foid who flies fighter planes for some org and shes human and she fights an evil mutant cult. Nothing is explained and this miniseries never released. Shattered Earth #1 said it would feature a story in issue 5 drawn by Ron Lim (the original artist who Eternity booted off the series), but such a story never arrived presumably due to Ron Lim now working at Marvel.

Due to space constraints I can't really do justice to how weird this gets. Like issue 2 of Ex Mutants the shattered earth chronicles is about a baseball themed government operating out of yankee stadium and its done like a Frank Miller Daredevil comic but everyone is talking about the scaredness of fricking baseball. Or this werid horny superhero called the Gnat whose just a tiny guy and wants to crawl in the foid's kitties.

By August 1989 most of the books would be cancelled with only the main Ex Mutants book going into early 1990 meaning this universe only lasted a year. The Shattered Earth anthology had a bunch of new characters, some even more interesting then those in the main books, but many ended cliff hangers which were never resolved. The Wild Knights ended on an arc where the leader of the red cross dreams up the location for the last nukes and sets out to launch them so everyone can die and go to heaven. Wild Knights ended at issue 10 in the middle of this arc on a cliff hanger that will never be resolved. The New Humans shook up the book even more with Calvin being thrown out of the ship in space and Duke dying and being revived as a mind controlled cyborg. The rest of the team + dog fricking woman would fly into the hollow earth and see Atlantis where saucer men (guys with hats that are UFOS) would kidnap them. One of these saucer men is Calvin who they remove the ufo from his head and he goes crazy and nuke Atlantis. Then its revealed the world has been controlled by a secret society of rich people who bath in the fountain of youth for a few centuries. Except the leader is tried of ruling a ruined earth so he quits and the new humans get used as pawns in a war between these members who each wanna be ruler. They then travel tp HQ of the secret society leader man who was just pretending to quit so he could watch his flunkies fight. All of the secret society members die and the new humans bathe in the fountains of youth and return to how they were at the start of the book.

The Ex Mutants the Shattered Earth chronicles continued with the Ex-Mutants traveling to a kingdom and getting arrested by a king for murder. An evil wizard locked in a tower from the magic dimension uses his powers to summon monsters and unlease Doc and his minions from the heck dimension. The Ex-Mutants kill this evil wizard and doc and the king dies and their alien wizard companion dies. After that there is a summary issue where the ghost of the wizard alien tells the kings wizard how the Ex-Mutants have all become flanderized dipshits and how they wont be able to save the world. In the next issue the Ex-Mutant who stayed in the other dimension undergoes a mental trial and uncovers her true power. The last issue is fricking insane. So it has the Gnat superhero on an alien planet writing an alien sitcom that's preformed live where the audience periodically votes from a selection of options what will happen next. He narrates how the Ex-Mutants just did nothing and sat around while the king's kingdom fell into a slum because they suck and then the super magical Ex-Mutant shows up and remakes the world as a capitalist consumerist utopia where her and her friends live happily forever like its some Japanese CGDCT series. Its weird and seems like some meta commentary on how the Ex-Mutants brand became increasingly reliant on insane plot twists and commercialized. Remember this book started as a TMNT parody.

Why was the Ex-Mutants Cancelled?

I honestly don't know. None of the Shattered Earth Eternity issues had a letters column or editorial pages so I have no idea what happened behind the scenes or if audiences liked it. I assume the black and white market was in a downfall and the Ex-Mutants was likely hit by it (doesnt help the series had radically changed from what made it popular). I also think the original series owed a large amount of its success to Ron Lim's consistent and professional quality art which made it stand out in the indie market. Frankly the eternity issues were constantly switching artists and most were passable at best. However the same writer stayed on the whole time. The best art was on the shattered earth anthology and Wild Knights 8 had really good art by Bryan Carson:

but this was the exception as he only drew one issue. I'll also note that Malibu was now publishing 4 lines of comics at this point: Malibu color superhero stuff, Aircel Canadian comics and adult comics, Adventure comics for modern licensed stuff, and Eternity for black and white anime adaptations, amerimanga stuff, and classics adaptations. The Ex-Mutants really didn't fit in any of these categories as the edgy non-superhero niche of Eternity was gradually faded out with the fall of the black and white market. As a universe the Shattered Earth was mostly low quality and weird and also wasn't really a universe. The books never crossed over nor had any impact over each other (the only reference being in New Humans where a secret society member mentions the ongoing fight with the evil wizard). If you want to read the series in the exact order I did I've uploaded the whole series, in order [here](https://archive.org/details/ex-mutants-shattered-earth-universe/01 Ex-Mutants v1 01 Special Edition (Amazing comics) [TheRant]/page/n15/mode/2up). I doubt this will ever be reprinted for reasons that will be clear in part 3 so eat up.

This ended up being a lot longer then I expected so this will be split into 3 parts rather then just 2. So join me next time as we explore the rise of Malibu's color line of superhero comics.

Summary

How dead is the universe? /5

This continuity of the Ex-mutants will never be referenced, reprinted, or appear ever again.

Did it get a proper send off?

It ended with a joker side character on a random alien planet summarizing decades of off screen events so you tell me.

Why is it dead?

Unknown. Possibly low sales

Will it ever return?

Unlikely for reasons that will become clearer in part 3.

QRD - Do you know who owns the rights to the Ex-Mutants & the rest of the Shattered Earth cast? Do you see yourself ever buying them?

David - It would take an infinite number of lawyers with an infinite number of typewriters, and eventually they'd produce a complete episode of Gilligan's Island, but probably never this question. I think Marvel eventually bought Mailibu, so they would claim to have whatever rights Malibu laid claim to. Eternity/Malibu conceded that Ron and I owned all the characters we created and the stories we'd done; they just sort of claimed they owned the right to do their own version. It was unfortunate. I think that it would have been best for everyone if we'd just sat down and talked. Everybody lost as things turned out.

Other KatserKitty comic posts:

Dead Universes

The Rise of dramatic Malibu Comics part 1

Mansplaining Capeshit Drama

DC comics strikes out with dark crisis

Misc

Malibu comics video

90s Dc publishes a chud detrans comic

!effortposters I spent over two weeks writing this and its super long

!chuds a (((berg))) does some mischief

!edgelords there is some edgy 80s comic shit here

There's still hope for @Zenzic @COMMUNISTHOMOGROYPER @RACISTFEMBOYGROYPERV3 @MarseyIsMyWaifu (or carp pls pin) and the manlet haters !chuds !besties !groyperethnostate !incels

Let's start with the fact that he has his own https://groomercord.gg/PAXaSfs32b and a manifesto after a short comparison to @Shreddedmanlet

https://redd.it/os3imf6azsza1.jpg

My prerfences for obese woman developed when I was a kid watching 600 pound life, after witnessing and seeing countless obese woman and shower scenes, one day a particular woman on the show was giving a monolgue, and I remember getting an erection while seeing her. Little later on it developed to googling obese woman fetish videos on YouTube and watching it, and enjoying it without knowing why. Then I started to understand I was attracted to it, and I fully realized I was attracted to big woman. I never even maturbated until was nearly a senior in high school, and by then was already attracted to obese woman Weird thing is while I'm sexually attracted to obese woman, I'm romantically attracted to any woman regardless of size (as long as they aren't black). My reason for not being attracted to black woman romantically is cause I was raised and born in a white area with mostly white people, so my mind is basically a white guy with preferences a white person would have, which means attraction to white woman. However even though I'm only romantically attracted to white woman, I'm sexually attracted to any race a woman is as long as she is obese.

So let's see how his night out with a redditor went

I thought you were talking to a new girl? Like you said in your previous post? So why are you going bar hopping, and expecting makeouts? Asking for genuine curiosity

Nah she's just a friend I barhopped with last night

Friend". Bro she straight up said you were kind of a peepee on Groomercord. She said you were awkward and yelled thug max. You also took her drinks.

I joked about thugmaxxing when I first met she said rest of the night I was normal. And I asked for permission, and the final drink of the night I paid for

can't be all bad if he's chivalrous. The redditor in question self doxed and posted in the thread as /u/cold-salamander5798 with gems such as

https://tinder.com/@deena22 I don’t have trouble getting matches just would like some constructive feedback :) for reference I am a woman who swipes on women! Thanks! My bio says “masters student pursuing AT super easygoing and down for anything. Ask me why I’m deathly scared of bees”.

Which led to the interesting insight that /u/p_yth has been using AI to change his hairstyle and as many filters as a mid foid on TikTok.

They’re fake. He photoshopped all those hairstyles.

He's also not above wearing sexy high heels to overcome @Shreddedmanlet s limitations

I lookmaxed and even put on shoe lifts that make me 5'7 to 6'2. And while it midly gave me some success, it's not enough to make the claim that woman are picky over dudes that are under 6 foot. Honesty if a woman vibes with a dude and/or finds him attractive, he's not gonna care if he's short unless he's literally 5'2 lol

Let's take one last look at him, surely he's an ogre, and it's not just his personality/needing a shower and some weights, right?

Got rejected by a bunch of woman I've seen on Tinder last night at a bar side party, its crazy how many women in a row reject me, you couldn't do this on purpose, and I'm confident as heck with woman. Eventually, I gave up and wandered into this PC gaming center where I guess society wants me to be](https://old.reddit.com/r/Tinder/comments/13hczf3/got_rejected_by_a_bunch_of_woman_ive_seen_on)

Assorted gems to scroll through for the interested reader

r/AskReddit - What religion are women most likely to be interested in dating you, or are more obligated to not care about looks?

r/Tinder - Just applied my tattoo, gonna go clubbing again for the first time in two weeks

How I lost my virginity two years ago

Back in January 2021 I was pissed about being a virgin, so I mass messaged a bunch of woman on a fat fetish dating app until one responded. The reason why I use the term "casual encounter" is cause that's she had on her profile in her "preferences" section. It was some chick in her early 30s, i was 21, and she apparently had been through a bad breakup and was really hurting inside looking for some quick s*x. She lived alone with a couple cats as well, really chill chick but she ghosted me after the s*x. It was a good experience tho, I stuffed her with food and a 2 liter of soda during the experience as well. But honestly my favorite part was after the s*x when i was just cuddling with her on the couch watching tv. I thought it was going to be a relationship afterwards and I was living on cloud 9 for a couple days after that, but sadly it turned out she had no interest in seeing me afterwards. I'm happy tho I can't call myself a virgin anymore cause I remember for the longest time being depressed I was still a virgin. Since then I've had s*x once more, and I hope to be able to increase that to once a week once i master thugmaxxing in the club, cause right now I'm able to consistently make out and dance with random woman at the club, but not actually able to take them home with me and have s*x

In finale, we all stan for a truecel

How do you come up with ideas for these posts please teach me because this is some quality trolling

It's because it's geniune and I'm not trolling. You could fill a yellowbook with the amount of woman who rejected me. If I got a dollar for every time I got rejected I'd be a millionare. Everyone's said to me if I put the work I do into getting a gf into something productive I could probably cure diseases or solve world hunger

Happy Memorial Day weekend dramatards! I recently stumbled upon some drama happenings within a few aviation related subreddits that has been going on for the past few days. To start off with, I'll list some aviation acronyms/terms that are going to be used in here that some of you may not be familiar with.

• CFI - Certified Flight Instructor. A pilot that can train other pilots

• LRU - Line Replaceable Unit. A box that interfaces with modern avionics systems and provides info. Can be stuff like speeds, altitudes, GPS, sensor information, etc.

• TSO - Technical Standard Order. Minimum performance standards required for parts, required by the Federal Aviation Administration in the US. Usually required for aircraft instruments and avionics.

• GA - General Aviation. In reference to small airplanes typically flown by private pilots (not airlines)

• DO-### - Documents provided by certifying agencies on how to certify certain components/systems

• PFD/MFD - Primary Flight and Multi-function Displays. The screens pilots look at in flight

• AHRS - Attitude and Heading Reference System. Describes the airplane's orientation in 3D space

• IFR - Instrument Flight Rules. Rules regarding flying through clouds

• CFR - Code of Federal Regulations

Our story here starts off with /u/Due_Ad_6457, a CFI who has made a post on /r/avionics 2 days ago about how he wants to learn and design his own avionics systems:

https://old.reddit.com/r/avionics/comments/13r0qkj/i_want_to_learn_how_to_design_and_build_avionics/

Basically asking where should i start (and dont say avionics technician school please). I can research on my own but was hoping any friendly community members had some advice. Fwiw I’m also interested in building it in rust and dont know much about fpga’s and asics, is an avionics system a type of asic?

I am not a true codecel but isn't Rust somewhat seen as a meme language? Anyways, some commenters begin asking questions or providing insight into the process. For simplicity, I have colored /u/Due_Ad_6457's comments as red.

So you want to design and build from the ground up avionics and autopilot computers and systems? From board level to programming? Is this for a hobby or a business, and what aviation experience do you have? There are a thousand and one things you'll need to know, and if you even want a little help you're gonna have to give a little more backstory. An autopilot is one of the most integrated and connected system in an aircrafts avionics system. I am intrigued about why you're asking, and what you currently know.

Certified flight instructor for 6 years and a self taught developer familiar with rust and low level programming, have never designed circuit boards but yes i would like to start from the ground up and am fascinated with building the next generation of GA avionics (integrate AI, possibly zkp’s as well to prove flight data with something like Cairo-lang), but i know systems programming goes even lower than i’m familiar with. I’d imagine its the same thing as building an ASIC from the ground up. Just a hobby… for now…

I'll be honest I see no purpose for the AI, but you do you. I'm glad you at least know your way around the cockpit, and as for making your own chips you really don't need to get that detailed. With your programming background a much easier thing to do would (and what all of the OEMs are doing) is basically a software driven autopilot. A Raspberry pi could easily handle the data IO for an autopilot and flight director. The hardest part would be interfacing to other systems.

In olden days an autopilot system consisted of an autopilot and flight director as two separate pieces of hardware. The flight director moved the command bars and told the autopilot where to go. The autopilot wnet where it was told and keept the aircraft from falling out of the sky.

Now everything is virtually one box. Take a look at the S-Tex 3100 system or the Garmin GFC. Both are one box systems that do it all. I can almost guarantee that there is a mini computer in there running a version of Linux (or similar) flying the aircraft.

I hope this helps give you an idea on where you could start designing your system. Remember at it's simplist an autopilot takes attitude, altitude, and heading data to keep the aircraft level, and then uses navigation data such as course, heading, and altitude deviation to guide the aircraft where you want it to go.

No purpose for the AI/AGI?! Lol in all seriousness I really appreciate your thought out responses. Very familiar with raspberry pi’s got a 3b+ at home probably a good place to start tinkering Something competitive to Garmin glass cockpits is what im envisioning, basically want to reverse engineer it and add the features i want

He wants to use AI? He thinks he's going to be competitive with Garmin, who are currently the kings of small airplane avionics? I get that it's a new and exciting technology but it still needs a lot of work before it's cut out for true engineering.

I know you said Rust, but… PX4 and PixHawk is an open source project for hardware and software for UAV autopilots, mostly written in c++. Depending on how comfortable you are with large software projects, and what your end goal is, it could be a way to start poking at the various parts of an autopilot system. At a high level, it’s quite different than manned aviation, but the underlying controls work is relatable. And, you can fly things, crash them, and not die, so that’s nice.

I’m team rewrite everything in rust, more secure, ergonomic, and programming languages have evolved from the 90’s so why not take what we’ve learned and use a better language? not super familiar with c++ but definitely sounds like a great OS project so i’ll take a look, appreciate the response sir

Rust will be difficult to safety certify. C and C++ are the staples for safety critical avionics applications.

I understand they’re the staple but rust as a language is more secure and doesnt let you shoot yourself in the foot like c++. It is clearly the new better way of doing embedded programming it just hasn’t caught on industry wide yet

This guy thinks he's going to join the industry with no degree and manage to convince them to change everything to Rust? So this finally gives us our true insight into him: he's . Some users are helpful to our mentally stunted pilot:

avionics technician school teaches you how to install and maintain. If you want to design and build, that would be engineering school. But that isn't the only path.

I would probably start with drones. I think there is plenty DIY in that realm

great point thank you sir

There are certainly a lot of good books on the topic of autopilots and their operation theory (some of which are textbooks for avionics courses) but really the theory isn't too exotic. You can consider an autopilot as a fancied up combination of if/then statements... IF the aircraft pitches up without input, THEN pitch the nose down until the previous static position is met. It does this with the use of sensors (gyros in older aircraft, AHRS units in newer ones) that measure motion and acceleration. IF it senses motion, THEN it sends either digital or analog signals to one or more servos to correct the position. Complex modes like NAV, APPR, IAS etc only act as a modified set of constants that are being provided to the autopilot computer.

If it were me, I'd start with one servo and one (either mechanical or digital) gyro and experiment. When the gyro gimbal tilts up in relation to the spinning rotor, then drive the servo in a set direction. Vice versa if the gyro moves in another direction. That's the basic theory behind it all, then you can start to construct layers of deeper theory and logic into the operation.

Good luck!!

I dont mind reading textbooks, I just don’t have any desire to pay someone to tell me to open a textbook and quiz me on it

I’m only focusing on AHRS, gyros are deprecated but if you think gyros are the best way to get started i’d consider.

Are you familiar with FFT fastest fourier transform and FFTW im guessing it uses something like this to optimize adjustments or am i talking nonsense?

Great response btw, really appreciate it

I think AHRS are certainly the best way to do things. Sorry for the miscommunication, I simply meant gyro as a general orientation device, not a full on physical air driven tool, those are ancient and probably hard to find!

I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with FFT or FFTW, but bear in mind that I'm a line and install technician, and when it starts getting to software I only load and understand, I don't build.

However, controversy arises when when people recommend degrees or think that what he wants to do seems crazy.

Aerospace engineering with computer science.

Sorry no, i’m a certified flight instructor thats also a self taught developer, i’ll pass on the degree but appreciate the reply

Well even if you manage to get the information needed for such a task without a degree, you'll never be able to certify or even manufacture anything without it.

Plus universities exist because they teach the high level stuff necessary for tasks like these in a robust and systematic way, creating professional experts. So not getting a degree is a sure way of remaining a hobbyist indefinitely.

Now if you just want to do it as a hobby, I'd start with demo programs within my capability and expand from there to progressively as I'd learn more things.

I can't stress enough that you need a degree in at least aeronautics, even though electrical engineering is more appropriate, if you have even the slightest thought of making something commercially viable.

I actually don’t think this is accurate, “without a degree, you’ll never be able to certify or even manufacture anything”, but feel free to prove me wrong with a source. there are regulations and a path for custom built avionics to get certified in aircrafts and it doesnt matter whether you have a degree or not, However I’d underestand if an FAA cert was required that i dont know about.

Imo a degree gives you a good foundation with outdated information, good enough to get your foot in the door working for someone else, but anyone engineering there own box needs focused attention and discipline to get it done, not necessarily a degree.

SOURCE? SOURCE? DO YOU HAVE A SOURCE?

He continues some more arguing in that thread, stating the following:

I gathered from this post that The majority of users in this subreddit are non programmers, either management guys or avionics technicians (and no uploading a program to a unit is not “programming”), nothing wrong with that but I’m looking for the actual builders and software engineers in this subreddit focused on avionics/Flight systems design who know how to code/engineer these systems and who know what Open Source Software is

This becomes a common defense of his later on, that none of the people he's arguing with are engineers and they don't know any better than him and if he just talked to an engineer they would know what he's talking about

First things first - an autopilot is a flight critical system. That means it will have to go through the highest absolute highest level of testing and approval. You're not building a USB charger or a map light.

You should start by piling up hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe a few million.

After that, you can contract an engineering company with experience and certifications to bring your napkin idea to a fully tested and TSO'd product. Then you can find someone dumb enough to have their aircraft ripped apart, get your box installed, wired up, tested and approved for installation in a single, specific model of aircraft (if you want more model approvals get your wallet out again to install your stuff in every model you want approved, plus testing, plus FAA approvals, labour, parts.)

I hope you realize the time it takes from idea to prototype to testing and certification takes years, thousands of hours of human time and more money then you'll ever earn in a lifetime to go to market. Garmin has deep pockets, thousands of engineers and enough feet in the door at the FAA to get their products approved.

Doing this on your own, with your attitude towards other people here in this thread, won't get anywhere except further in debt.

Who's going to buy your product over the other proven and approved products? I've seen countless products come to market and fail.

Good luck, or whatever. Your attitude stinks. Stay in the cockpit and let the real, certified engineers do the designing.

TL:DR - you don't have enough money to do this on your own. Someone with 18 years experience

I take it you’re not a certified engineer so you’re not really the kinda person im looking for advice from. You’re telling me I can “contact an engineering company”, i want to be the engineering company. “I can get someone stupid enough to rip apart there aircraft”? I’ve got 1 lined up already in the family hangar. I’m well aware that a box needs to get certified in every new plane added, would only like to certify it in a few, the most popular, which i’m quite familiar with as an instructor. Even with your backward way of saying things it was a pretty decent response for a boomer, but most of it was irrelevant and your advice is superficial. Edit: Lol sure as heck not taking your advice on designing critical flight systems seriously after seeing those dope weed posts on your profile 🍁😂

Dude is exactly on point, actually.

Go up a read my last response to my other coment. Easily 5 man years of experienced software development time (that's at least $1.5 million), $100,000+ environmental testing, and we haven't even accounted yet for hardware development, prototypes, test equipment, and other expenses.

Also 18 years experience in avionics software development.

And yes, your attitude sucks towards any comment that is trying to open your eyes to the reality of the situation.

You both sound like you’re in management roles tbh, not actual engineers but pls correct me if im wrong. You guys might know the steps in the certification process having “worked in the industry for 18 years” but I believe neither of you have actually engineered your own box, you just work for someone else who did. Plus software engineering & electrical engineering have come a long way in that time, change your attitudes and consider the fact that you might not know everything there is, share the info you feel like you have to offer and leave the petty insults out when you read a reply that you disagree with. l’ll take the information you shared in the other comment and leave you to your scrolling

Change your attitude and consider the fact that you know nothing about avionics development, and stop trying to insult everyone that actually does know something about it.

keyword something could’ve found out all that with an hour of research, don’t pretend like your advice is invaluable, its superficial. Thanks anyways

You're so petulant, it funny.

Let me know when you get that approval letter from the FAA.

l might no nothing about avionics development but i do know something about software development, which is what we’re talking about here. You realize you wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for us. I also know a thing or 2 about flying and the FAA. Don’t be offended when i say your management experience isnt the same and that i’m taking your advice with a grain of salt.

Enter /u/drake_chance (yellow). He becomes the first of our CFI's biggest enemies.

"pass on the degree" this guy is a troll.

degree gives you nothing more than a good foundation with outdated information for 80-100grand of student loans lmao, i’ll stay discipled and do my own research thank you very much

Stay humble King

you’re the one calling me a troll from behind a screen lmao

[HIS ACTUAL NAME] - Owner of Avionics Works. I am not hiding, you are being un realistic asking for advice and then pooping on people who offer it.

Wasnt pooping on anybody, simply responding honestly. Got plenty of good advice from good samaritans, ignoring the trolls. Never heard of you or your startup so unless you work at garmin humble yourself anon and keep working on your startup in silence

The next day, our hero posts once again on /r/avionics with a new question:

https://old.reddit.com/r/avionics/comments/13sqhyc/can_you_build_on_top_certified_lrus/

The G1000 acts as a brain and pulls data from the LRU’s (line replaceable units) like your AHRS and ADS to name a few. Theres obviously some way these LRU’s communicate with the EFD and I’m curious if that API is available. Are these LRU’s black boxes or does anyone know if you can build on top of them?

Again, a few people give reasonable responses to OP:

Avionics LRUs don't really use APIs. They use standards/data protocols via buses i.e. ARINC 429, 1553, RS-232, RS-422, IEEE 488. I doubt you'll be able to find what software Garmin builds their equipment with unless you work for them. Though you'll be able to find some info on the standards/buy it. You definitely could build LRUs that integrate with the same protocols but, imo, it would not be worth the time or money to do so. Everything's basically been "figured out ", all MFDs/PFDs, HUDs/PDUs, flight control computers, radios, amplifiers, etc. despite having different manufacturers and slightly different operation and execution methods (different internals, procedures, etc.) all work pretty much the fricking same, pardon my language, in their respective categories. Cheers and good luck, curious to see other perspectives.

Great reply, I dont want to build the LRU’s i want to build the brain 🧠(EFD/MFD/PFD)it’d be easier if i could use LRU’s for data, because like you said, I’m sure they’ve been figured out/standardized by now and that they’re all basically the same.

I figure theres probably a license to access it. Not familiar with any of those lower level systems data protocols so I’ll do my dd thank you. Would you say these 5 protocols are the standard way the majority of LRU buses are built to communicate with the head. Do you think its possible to build your own bus using these data protocols to decode the relevant data? Would be cool to hack something together that does just that

EFDs/MFDs/PFDs, etc. are LRUs themselves. There are some open source systems out there iirc from companies like L3 & Top Aces but despite being open source, they seem to be quite tight-lipped (for obvious reasons imo). There could be some licenses or certs being offered but you'd probably have to contact the standard maker/owner itself. Sorry can't provide more info, not really on the dev or integration side of things, cheers & good luck!

EDIT: Didn't read everything. I mean, in theory, you could build your own bus if you had all of the wiring, couplers, tech data, etc., I do know there is some sort of converter out there, think its called MACC II. If I'm not mistaken, ARINC 429 & RS-232 are some of the most common, I just listed some of the ones I'm familiar with/of the top of my head. It really depends on the individual aircraft & equipment, but most of them are similar (work on hexadecimals/bits/words, etc.), I'm most familiar with 1553 as that's the main one in the test equipment, avionics, & aircraft that I work on.

God i hope all that changes in the next 5-10 years with Zero Knowledge proofs and blockchains. From what i’ve seen and know is coming, Software Engineers will be able to prove software in a way that allows for royalties to be paid by anyone building/iterating on top of the underlying system. Maybe this breaks at hardware components but who knows. Would love to see the rate of iteration increase across the industries.

Its sad to see the Aviation industry lag so far behind. Who the hells running that ship.

Our OP continues some discussion in that thread about the blockchain and Open Source and corporate greed and intellectual property and blah blah blah. He's clearly the hero that is going to fix software in the aviation industry.

Darn sounds like all this shit needs to be made open source from the ground up, where do i sign up.

FAA should inevitably be replaced by a DAO or at least something more decentralized in 10 years along with every other overpaid, underperforming, government agency in America. Provable permissionless, distributed democratic systems, with open data availability, are the future. fwiw.

what the frick does any of this mean

Anyways, our first villain returns in this post

I don't know the answer to this, but if it were possible, it would likely void the TSO/STC/certification, and therefor your C of A would no longer be in force.

that males perfect sense but im curious if you could build on top of these units. It’d be a cool idea to make these certified hardware interfaces open source and composable for faster iterations. it seems like its all a black box and everyone whos interested needs to start from scratch or maybe you need a license to access it? Appreciate the reply

Short answer, on a part 23 or car 3 certified airplane, not easily. On an experimental home built cert, knock yourself out.

Try not to die.

I’m aware of the regs

Certified flight instructor 6 years, you do realize planes don’t fall out of the sky without avionics right? You probably think they power the spark plugs too.

If you are a CFI, you probably should have the skillset to look up this information. Also, as a CFI, you should understand the danger of inducing spatial D from partial panel, especially if it isn't an immediately recognized failure mode.

But, my last line, wasn't meant as some kind of attack, Im just saying that there are dangers to what you are proposing. There are lots of good reasons for the TSOs and DOs to be as onerous as they are. I would be very interested in an open architecture for more things in aviation, but every company seems to think the only way to make money is to do everything the same way the last 10 companies that went bankrupt did.

Seriously, good luck, try not to die, this is an unforgiving business.

Yes and i also know you can’t fly IFR with an experimental aircraft in the first place so partial panel flying is irrelevant in the scenario. Also thats what backup gyros are for. I teach safe flying in light aircraft for a living and tinker in software engineering for fun and as a hobby. Appreciate the response.

Obviously i can look up the information on my own, wanted to ask the good citizens of reddit what they know first. Nothing wrong with that

Try reading the regs for required equipment (91.205) and show me where it says you can't fly IFR in an experimental. You are always asking stupid fricking questions here and then being aggressively peepeeish to the people that respond using the fact that you are supposedly a CFI as your justification.

Ok NAME, “Owner of Aircraft Avionics Work”, can’t even find your startups website online. Just your dumb face on Linkedin. You’re clearly not familiar with the regs like i am, your aircraft has to be certified ifr to fly in the clouds but i get u wouldnt know that with your skillset. Anyways, use common sense, who in there right mind would fly an experimental avionics unit in the clouds (if it were even allowed) without backup gyros, a safety pilot, and obviously it should be tested in vfr conditions under the hood first, your point is irrelevant, go troll someone else

Love pooping on guys like you in this subreddit who think they know better than the software and systems engineers or even pilots. this subreddit needs a cleans 🧼 go join technicians subreddit or the paper pushers subreddit, you’re clearly not an engineer/pilot you bum so stay in the shadows.

EDIT: down vote me all you want doesnt mean a thing unless you prove me wrong.

Fun fact: our CFI, clearly the most intelligent software engineer out there, is also the most intelligent CFI out there, as experimental aircraft can fly IFR provided they have the appropriate equipment!

At some point, someone who has been reading this makes a joke post mocking our dear CFI in /r/shittyaskflying, a shitposting subreddit for pilots and where I first stumble upon this goldmine of drama:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Shittyaskflying/comments/13sxiub/ill_make_my_own_lrus/

Don't even respond unless your a REAL engineer

Background: 25M bored with my 69th year as CFI, so I just taught myself electrical and computer engineering during my student's ground school.

I want to design my own LRU from the ground up. Problem is, I'm too smart to do the work myself. So....I'll just copy off of Garmin. I'll let ChatGPT sort out all of the legal details when I add a new blockchain, 5G, water-cooled EFD. That'll make all of you BOOMERS cry :,,,(

Mr. CFI is clearly pissed and responds to this post, and along enters our CFI's second villain, user /u/Mech_145 (green)

I see you pulled out the backup account for this post NAME loser cant stop thinking about me since i shit on him in /r/avionics and realizes he can’t prove any of my points wrong, dudes a fricking bum mad his startup is failing https://old.reddit.com/r/avionics/comments/13sqhyc/can_you_build_on_top_certified_lrus/

Man I read some of your comments on that post, you’re just as dense as the guy asking to get rid of pitot/static systems

Ok npc, lmk what you do for a living before you try to advise me or give me your opinion.

There’s a reason homeboy has been a CFI for 69 years

Theres a reason homeboy still works for someone maintaining legacy code XD

Edit: nvm homeboy just a mechanic.

You do realize that chatGPT and AI are just spitting out stuff that’s already been created/written just in different ways, so in a round about way it would still be legacy code

you realize you’re a mechanic that doesnt know shit about engineering? Go tighten a bolt or something and get out of my replies. Pretend like you know something about AI/AGI somewhere else

And a CFI doesn’t know shit about designing avionics systems, so lick my sweaty taint bud.

The ppl that actually use avionics in flight don’t know anything about designing avionics?? ever heard the saying know your customer? You look braindead.

I’m more of an engineer than you are you fat old man. You’re expendable.

So are you. And the end user is often very unaware of how things work, they know speed tape go up/down. Lights blink on/off, buttons click/click

I’m done talking to a mechanic pretending to be an engineer, be better.

I never pretended to be an engineer you dumbc*nt

clearly stated i didnt want to hear from your loser butt then.

Well it’s the internet and this isn’t your post so go back to your moms basement

This moron really fricking thinks because he uses avionics that he clearly knows everything about them

/u/Mech_145 and a few other users enter OP's original post and make fun of him there:

I would bet on it that actual engineers (esp those at Garmin/King/Avidyne/Honeywell) that see this will start inside jokes about this thread.

Sorry your life as a mechanic sucks “mech_145” and you feel the need to project your issues onto others. I’m looking for the engineers, just scroll past next time.

I have no issues, you just sound like a middle schooler.

25m, You have nothing to add to this post, channel this energy into turning your career around bum. Your kids wont ever have shit cuz daddy couldnt make something out of his life.

Says the kid still stuck as a CFI, what are your kids going to say when they find out daddy blew his chances to be a big bad airline captain and spent all their college funds on “developing” avionics

Lol i’ll go do that whenever i want, actually want to do more with my life than be a glorified bus driver or a mechanic like your loser butt

Those that cant build. Fix or Maintain. and thats why you get paid shit, literally a kid could do your job and you know it

This has now died down for the most part but CFI is still occassionally arguing with people throughout posts as of today. There are a few threads I did not include because it just would get too long. To finish this post off, every person arguing with him is correct on the difficulties and complexities of modern avionics systems. /u/Due_Ad_6457 is either an incredible troll or one of the most r-slurred pilots I have ever seen. I'm 99% confident it's the second option.

Stephani, 35, Austin TX

Self-rated: 2/10

!straggots

Personal Life:

• "Been in debt since before she hit 18"

• "So I also have uhh CPTSD? So I also decided that I wasn't going to have emotions until this year too" timestamp !biofoids please translate this aside into scrotespeak

  • "Found out" February of last year? She doesn't say the word diagnosed

• "Somebody got me sent to the hospital for saying I was doing something I wasn't exactly doing" timestamp

  • "They said I was trying to commit suicide? Yeah, I kinda got like attacked, by the cops, and drugged by the EMS"

    • "Who said this?"

      • "This girl I've been trying to avoid for like a year or so...used to be a friend but you know sometimes people have to leave your life because they remind you of other people that make things wild"

Career:

• Nurse

  • "Lower paid nurse" - $32.54 hourly

    • Works a desk job now so averages 40 hours with a little overtime instead of the 60-80 she'd get otherwise

    • mostly remote

• Tries to do sidehustles

  • used to bartend for events

  • Writing jobs, currently freelancing writing curriculum for some company or school in Oregon?

Savings/Expenses:

• Checking $4'631 -> $5'639, currently $7400

• Savings $725?

• Retirement

  • Rollover IRA 2'189, currently just sitting not invested?

  • United Health Group 401k $9'515

  • Had thought she would get married and just have someone else deal with these issues for her

• A few $40 coffee trips?

• got scammed

• 55% of regular goes to rent (includes utilities), used to be on a COVID unit grift so her income was way higher when she got it

• Phone is $99 but she's supposed to get some credits for being a nurse from them?

Debt:

• I didn't catch the monthlies for a lot of these

• Lots in collections

• Mother had put some bills in her name before high school graduation

  • 

• A ton of stuff in collections

  • "I've restarted my life a few times and some of the stuff that's in collections I'm like writing letters to them because I've either never been to some of the places that are charging me or they were like my ex or other things"

  • Some of the companies are trying for debts that should have already expired or w/e

• "Portfolio recovery"

  • $100 a month, bought a laptop for a sales job?

  • "An Ashely's account" to buy furniture when she moved 5 years ago?

    • $645 left, was just a couch?

• IC Systems

  • Anesthesiology bill, currently owned by a debt buyer who's willing to give her at least half off

• Elevator Recovery $2039

  • broke her leg in 2020 and let the medical bills from that go to collections

• Credit Card:

  • Had to replace a battery around $160 but it's totally paid off now

• $30'556 in student loans

  • Around a $400 minimum payment, thinks she might be on an income based repayment? She's not certain

  • Some of these loans were for nursing school, some were from an abusive ex-boyfriend who used them to buy "race cars"

• Car debt: 9'000, 6 years and 25%?! not sure I heard that interest rate right

  • "So you what people do when girls go to car lot and try to get cars, they said like- they didn't even show me the original car that I went there for but they just told me the bank wouldn't loan me any money because the bank can recoup its losses easier on a new car than a used car if I were to not pay my car loans but I've never not paid my car loans so-"

  • $350 insurance payment

• Large number of hospital bills coming up

  • $4-5'000 "of the current ones"

    • Might get helped out by insurance but she's not counting on it

    • was thinking of payment planning it

I just found this subreddit and I DO NOT remember how.

It's pretty cool, there's some sneeding about late stage capitalism which is , I've heard that before but the rest of /r/therapyabuse reinforces my hatred of the entire field of mental health!

Sample bangers from this subreddit:

Just muted /r/CPTSD because the constant chant of "go to therapy" is triggering my CPTSD

https://old.reddit.com/r/therapyabuse/comments/12wlkye/just_muted_rcptsd_because_the_constant_chant_of/

If anyone is looking for practical advice for recovering from this, muting, blocking, and otherwise not allowing therapy shills into your life is a big one. There is nothing wrong with guarding yourself or only allowing those into your life which have ideas worth sharing. In my experience therapy shills are not worth my time, energy, or effort.

\

How to deal with the increasing therapisation of the world?

https://old.reddit.com/r/therapyabuse/comments/11836tp/how_to_deal_with_the_increasing_therapisation_of/

So, I’m technically an elderly gen z or maybe a baby millennial, and I’ve noticed that people in my generation are incredibly therapised to a scary extent.

For example, I was going through some issues and texted my friend that I needed to talk. I’d known this girl for years and emotionally supported her many times before (which I’m not complaining about, that’s what friends are for). Anyway, she literally text me back saying “I can’t help you, I think you need to see a therapist” and cut me off there and then.

Just the other day I arranged a meet up with a potential new friend and she gave me a “list of her boundaries” beforehand, she informed me she couldn’t talk about trauma at all. I asked her to be more specific and she sent me a voice note saying the conversation was “overwhelming her nervous system and making her feel unsafe”. She cut me off too (lol). In a previous conversation with her I’d briefly mentioned I was feeling a bit down since she asked how I was- she then freaked out and said “omg I wish I could support but it opens a caretaker wound for me”…

I feel like I can’t escape this insanity! It feels like people will be sending invoices to their friends in the future for emotional support or having difficult conversations. Even just listening to a ptsd podcast earlier someone had written a letter about a guy who was suicidal and going through a court case to prosecute his abusers, she asked how to support. The host literally told her to “distance herself until she’s out of his life”. Basically telling her to abandon a suicidal person.

It seems that people cannot deal with basic life issues anymore, and they see friends as purely entertainment… as soon as an issue comes up and you need support they’ll discard you. It’s honestly scary. Caring and empathy seems to have been relegated to a professional service and if you can’t afford it then you’re on you’re own I guess?

What really grinds my gears is that the people spewing this nonsense don’t seem to understand they’re spewing propaganda. They think it’s neutral life advice, but it’s rooted and wrapped up in capitalism and so many other social issues (sanism, racism, classism etc).

Sorry for the length of this post- the topic just really angers me!

New Vocabulary Aquired! SANISM

Therapist said all my issues are because I’m not practicing the Law of AttractionTherapy Abuse

https://old.reddit.com/r/therapyabuse/comments/uth8xd/therapist_said_all_my_issues_are_because_im_not/

Told my therapist today that I’m frustrated because it seems like I can’t catch a break in life, one bad thing after another keeps happening (lost my dad suddenly, I developed chronic pain, I’m being harassed at work). Her response was to tell me I’m not practicing the Law of Attraction and because I feel depressed and frustrated at life, negative things will keep happening to me.

Some people really need to be banned from this profession.

MANIFEST UR REALITY AND U WON'T BE SAD 💅

lol he found this b-word on betterhelp

Is there some database where patients can review individual practitioners?

That would be nice. This therapist is from BetterHelp. BetterHelp let’s you rate the counselors but I think they purposely don’t show the negative reviews. I would also not recommend BetterHelp overall as many mental health professional on there are sus as heck. The first therapist that was assigned to me actually told me that I should try to call the suicide hotline at least once in my life because “the people there are so nice and it’s fun”. She had told me she called once pretending to be suicidal just to see how it’s like.

what

here's another comment from another post that is funni

I had a therapist tell me I was an old soul who chose to be abused (in my soul contract) in order to help rid the world of darkness 😒. When I told her I didn’t believe that, she rolled her eyes and shouted (in her Brooklyn accent), “Well what DO you believe then????” as if my rejection of a specific New Age belief was just the most unreasonable thing anyone had ever done. (link)

I'm trying to imagine how being abused rids the world of darkness.

Supposedly my abuse taught me a high level of empathy that I can use to heal the world or something I don’t know I didn’t book a second appointment lol.

\

Therapy is the secular version of religious confessionals

https://old.reddit.com/r/therapyabuse/comments/zzcm9n/therapy_is_the_secular_version_of_religious/

That’s it. It all makes sense. The 1:1 private rant where you search your own flaws, the distance and pity from the therapist, the blaming of the client, the stigmatizing and shameful nature of it all, its strong associations with morality, the promise of a more purified/fixed state afterwards, the taboo of questioning authority… The analogy is not 100%, but as somebody who’s been to both, it’s all weirdly familiar. (Except, of course, a priest will do it for free.)

\

I refused to answer the "Do you feel like hurting yourself or others?" question.

https://old.reddit.com/r/therapyabuse/comments/xvxseo/i_refused_to_answer_the_do_you_feel_like_hurting/

I thought her head was going to explode! I could hear the cranks and pullies in her mind struggling to process this information.

She was clearly disappointed that I would not give her the opportunity to decide if I should be imprisoned that day! What a major bummer for her!

She ended up threatening me one day, and I grinned and told her that I'll tell her anything she wants to hear... she turned red. I didn't say the "magic words."

Long story short, I haven't gone back, but probably have a new "Oppositional Defiant Dissorder" diagnosis. Lol

At the end of the day, I don't HAVE to answer shit! Also, I don't consider you an "authority figure." That is a construct that is only in your own mind.

/rant

I just lie and say no. I would literally rather die than be committed.

(OP) The cops at least read you your rights, which are that you can remain silent, and can have an attorney. Also, they let you know right away that what you say will be used against you.

Why don't I have at least those rights, before I've even commited a crime?

Clearly, I have 72 hours of my life to spare...

Some of them are so out of touch with reality it’s unbelievable. Not all of us have a 9-5 job with benefits and plenty of PTO, actually.

Me: I literally cannot take 3 straight days off of work to go inpatient. I don’t get any PTO because I can’t work full time, and I can’t afford 3 days without a paycheck even without covering the cost of hospitalization.

Thera-shit: You need to prioritize your mental health. It’s okay to take a break!

Overthrow capitalism and I’ll “take a break for my mental health,” you dumb c*nt.

(OP) I actually DO have 72 hours to spare, so they dont exactly have me over a barrel.

new slur for therapists unlocked: Thera-shit

and now for some blog posting:

therapy FRICKED up some of my friends fr like seriously darn near killed them

I felt like I had to talk them back together when they got out because the therapist, because that shit CLEARLY made it worse

for one friend the therapists (like every other one they saw 🤨) liked saying fricked up things to them for no reason like "oh, is X problem SEXUAL in nature? Are you sure you aren't feeling like this is SEXUAL? Does this remind you of the time you were r*ped? Huh? Does it? Think back REALLY hard" when it's something I know is mundane they just REALLY like talking about r*pe if they know it's there, like they can't resist digging through the trash to feel important, even if it's not neccessary.

There was only one guy I know who liked therapy

He loved to go see the emotional prostitutes (I was already using this slur for therapists but I found this subreddit and they use it too! ) and sit in their office. He became an egomaniac... but not a fun or funny kind, just an "im better than u and therapy is GREAT and everyone is a narcisist gaslamping emotional dysregultion codependent toxic person unless they validate me and respect my ✨boundaries✨, I HIGHLY recommend therapy btw"

turned the man into a walking self help book

ok im wrapping this up, this is LONG but I don't feel like pinging effortposters because didn't get into the drama between reddit therapists and their hangout subreddits and /r/therapyabuse I think that needs further investigation.

that's it, bye

Colton Rock Springs Texas, 26

Self-rated: 5/10

Employment: Christian Adventure Camp

• Was a summer job, decided to to do full time to avoid living with parents after academic suspension

  • Govt wouldn't give veteran living stipend if not doing education

  • Plans to go back to school within next few years

  • Might stick with this because a director position (30'000) might open up in a few years

• Retreat coordinator or host "ministry work"

  • "Talk with mens' groups or with churches and things we have them come out, specifically I'm in charge of mens' groups and [indecipherable] groups"

• $18'900 takehome

  • Laterally transferring to another job at same camp will be paid 19'000 flat

  • Doesn't need to pay rent, food, or utilities

  • 80 hours a week

• about $3000 total monthly counting disability

• Most of income from disability pay

  • got 42k when he left the military, half to help move half for savings

  • was paratrooper in 82nd airborne

  • "Double parachute malfunction ended up falling from around 1800 feet and I shattered my left femur, 26 different bone fragments"

  • $1'663 a month

  • Talking with VA about getting disability upped, would be pulling around 90k from that

• Retirement plan from the military gets a plan from the camp when he hits a year, plans to roll it in, camp offers 4% match?

Education:

• was free, still has GI Bill and Texas Hazelwood Act (latter will pay for another 150 credit hours)

• Academically suspended because grades

• Something about maritime? Looking at a 6 figure salary with it? I didn't fully catch this part

• He thinks he can get his Bachelors within a year

Savings/Expenses:

• $15'000 in an investment account

  • Wells Fargo Hedge Fund?

• $5000 emergency fund

• $10'000 in an IRA

• Looks like about a 2x coffee a day habit ($2 each) timestamp

• Basically all expenses are subscriptions or mobile games

  • Low-level whale paypig to one of the supercell games

    • lot of transactions for it, probably close to a thousand dollars

  • http://tcgplayer.com/ - trading card game marketplace (physical), doesn't specify which

    • Pretty big purchases on here, one of them was $77

  • http://cardkingdom.com - Magic the Gathering site

    • Paid 570 in one purchase on there

  • Rents movies on Youtube

  • Paypigs Blizzard, maybe Diablo Immortal or Hearthstone? Not sure what blizzard does these days

  • $77.78 on Dr Squatch organic soap timestamp

    • Looks like a monthly cost?

  • $148 at "Bass Pro Shop" timestamp

• Learning piano, pays for "Flow Key" (?) ($120 a year)

Debt:

• Tried debt consolidation but canceled that when they told him not to talk to creditors and realize it was hitting his credit score. He's on a payment plan with Capital one instead

• In therapy

• Credit Card 1: $3965 -> $6'817 -> $6633

  • Put a vacation on it (around 1000), going scuba with some old friends from the military

  • $116 interest accrued, then $169

• Credit Card 2: $4571 -> $3885 -> $3385

  • $113 interest

  • 152 minimum payment

  • Opened it when he got out of the military, went NEET mode for a year (2021)

• Car is a 2004 F-150 (paid off), had it a decade, 130'000 miles on it, thinks it will last another 6 or more

  • $90 a month

• Losing $283 interest a month total

tldr infinite money glitch happens, gets fixed the same day, g*mers mad. Skip the next if you dont care about context

For the context, the free to play game this drama centers around is legends of idleon, or just Idleon, a mix of resource gathering rpg and your typical "idle" mobile app. If you dont even know what cookie clicker is, idle games gameplay loop consists of micromanaging your stuff so you can get more resources, which in turn lets you upgrade your stuff and reach higher and higher goals. To be quite honest Idleon at least contains actual gameplay where you do control characters but at the end of the day, they are just extensions of resource gathering and who cares, im not here to sell you on the game.

In this game there are 3 skills per world you unlock, and the latest world contains the skill of sailing. It consists of buying boats and captains to make trips to islands and retrieve loot uniquely used in sailing.

Like a good neurodivergent micromanaging game there are like 7 different multipliers, modifiers and mechanics that are not worth to explain the drama. We just need to be aware of 1 specific mechanic that lets you trade loot you found on islands for gold bars, a general type of currency that lets you buy more boats/upgrade them. You can only trade 1 type of item, and it cycles a couple times a day. But what if, for whatever reason, the game decided to offer gold bars for more gold bars?

(ACTUAL INGAME INTERFACE)

The solo dev Lavaflame2, who I will now call Lava from now on, stated that this was the result of a float being something like 0.00000000000000 instead of 0.00000000000001, so it was extremely unlikely to happen, but it did. What this did was essentially offer you 0.3% of your total gold in exchange for 0.1% of your total gold or something like that. The game is made in a pseudocode program called Stencyl because the dev refuses to learn to program in an actual language lmao so I can see how this mightve happened. I swear he explained it in a groomercord message but the fricker already deleted every early messaged he made today. i never saved that

This is obviously gamebreaking. As there is a certain bonus that scales from the amount of gold bars you possess, letting you have infinite amounts of damage to the point of overflow. According to some that did this, this actually fricked you over because the game would register as negative damage. G*mers who did this had to have an autoclicker on because to overflow at that point you need to have been exchanging quadrillions of gold for hours on end to reach that high. And this was up for more than 6 hours, the hotfix patch only releasing around 3:30pm

Bonus context: the latest update contained a very anticipated feature and made the game peak in active players

So its safe to assume the time was right for the most amount of people to notice the exploit in the entirety of the game's lifespan until now.

CONTEXT OVER

People started asking if this was intentional, since the game sense of humor is sometimes reddit wacko tier (some bonuses are intentionally useless, for example), AND the next update is confirmed to contain an event, so some people legit thought there was a gold rush event of some sorts.

But no, Lava repeatedly stated that this was in fact an exploit.

It was 5 AM for me when this happened, of course nothing happened for a few hours.

And yes, accounts that exploited will be severely reset, it's quite literally "exploiting" the game even though it was a bug.

Whats that? Consequences for your actions? thats not something good. And so the cope and seethe started to pour in.

No Lava, it was not an "obvious exploit" and the Gold Rush Event shows perfectly why you need to be more consistent with your communication and lay off of the "trolling"

Wtf why are they so serious over correcting an exploit in an idle game? First of all, come on, its g*mers were talking about what did you expect, regular human behavior?

Second, to understand the root of the drama, understand that this game has been out since 2020, with major updates every now and then. This kind of game rewards people who have been playing the longest. Naturally, to reach todays 'endgame' one must have been playing for years, and the type of people who do also are keen on ultra efficiency maxxing. Even though Idleon markets itself as an MMO, you do 90% of everything alone, there is no competition other than guilds. And being higher level and stuff has virtually no impact in how well you perform in your guild, just how neurodivergent you are to complete every daily task every day. But I guess if you give a bunch of neurodivergents something that can be optimized and reward a bigger number, they WILL find a way to cry if the number they worked so hard to get is now gone. Which brings me to the cows where this dramamilk came from: Endg*mers

'endg*mers' HATE Lava. And I hate them. Ive personally seen them time and time again complain about how new content never appeals to them and how unbalanced/p2w it is. The fact that Lava is the only developer is perfect to scapegoat any issues onto 1 person. I wont pretend lava is the greatest dev ever, but its so funny watching endg*mers act miserable because of his badly coded game and half baked ideas fricking them over.

This is the part where I clown on the endg*mers because holy fricking shit I cannot stand reading anything they puke out. These bitches have been in a state of perma "finishing" what the game has to offer, instantly consuming every new content that is released and speedrunning features that for anyone else would take some months to complete. I have to assume Lava balances the game by making shit up as he goes. Every update makes it easier to climb up for the people who havent unlocked everything, or in other words, anyone who started playing after the game fully released constantly has new things to progress. But endg*mers have to live through months of the only progress being "whos got the best number in the newest feature" (that will be completely broken when the next mechanic is added) and ridiculing others for having less numbers than them.

I guess they also dont like that their singleplayer game is pay to win, because theres a LOT of microtransactions that make progress faster. Tbh I dont really see it, its a solo dev game, so taking advantage of whales is always a win. Get that bag king

Lost way more than I gained today. I'm not mad, I'm sad.

So yeah, people who abused this didnt just lose today's progress, they lost stuff they gained months ago

Don't throw away loyal g*mers

They are not criminals. They are not hackers. They are loyal old players, they just log on as usual, click a few times, then they feel it's weird, but they can't be sure, so they keep clicking, and by the time it feels obvious, they've already been branded as abusers.

Reminder that the "few clicks" must have been in the millions for you to get tagged as an abuser

since the accounts will be reset, which game we gonn go next?

These people that "quit" will be back by next week. Or maybe not, now that i think about it they are the type to play 10 games of this type at the same time.

good guy lava "putting everyone in their place" when there is strong precedent of 0 punishment...

This guy is lying, the game has one of the funniest anti cheat punishments ive seen btw. If you hack resources in, you cannot possibly level up in time before the anti cheat gets you, and the anti cheat is teleporting you to a map in a world you dont have enough damage or defense to kill the mobs standing between you and the exit before they one shot you. The only thing to do is wait to respawn in the same map, leaving your characters effectively useless.

BUT they have a point, where in the past there have been multiple times where a feature released with unintended consequences, like a multiplier being multiplicative instead of the intended additive effect (50 times more instead of 50% more) and never has there been a "reset" of sorts to those who 'abused' it.

STEAM REVIEW CORNER

1K+ HOURS PLAYED NOT RECOMENDED

:

Although, to be fair, most of those hours they spent afk. The most efficient way to progress (what an endg*mer neurodivergent will do 100%) involves leaving the game running in the background.

Legit they made troll reviews but in every single one they admit to using an exploit llololololollolol what do they think they will accomplish. There are so many, just go to the most recent reviews page, its all from players with up to 10k hours played.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1476970/reviews/

There are others creating more drama by making fun of those punished and arguing with them (based, i will always be happy when endg*mers suffer)

I don't care if I get hate for this but if you abused the exploit for gold bars you deserve to get your account reset. [0 points (36% upmarseyd)

The comments there are lots of malding about how justified they are exploiting an ingame bug like its their right lmao

Where's my refund for ACTUAL MONEY that I spent on sailing potions and chests?

In Lavas bank account - think of it as a fee for making him fix the spaghetti code.

Random groomercord seethe i found.

Believe me, there is way more. It all boiled down to: "I was able to exploit in the past and didnt get punished. Why do you punish now?"

At the end of the day, this was Lava's final response:

I actually managed to abuse it to buy the last 2 ships I needed to max out and didnt get reset, even got the gems lol. I only did it to get from 200m to 10billion.

And that part about resetting prints also annoyed the heck out of minmaxxing neurodivergents, as its a pain in the butt to setup your character to get the most efficient prints and then get it back to a regular preset.

Kinda passionate about this hobby of mine so hope you enjoyed this

About two weeks ago a massive drama shitstorm erupted in both /r/southafrica and South Africa IRL when Burger Ambassador accused ANC of sending arms to Ukraine conflict.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/11/south-africa-investigating-us-charge-of-supplying-arms-to-russia

=========Earlier, the US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, told local journ*lists in a briefing that Washington was confident a Russian vessel had uploaded weapons and ammunition from South Africa in December.

“Amongst the things we noted were the docking of the Russian cargo ship Lady R in Simon’s Town between December 6 and December 8, 2022, which we are confident uploaded weapons, ammunitions … as it made its way back to Russia,” Brigety said in a briefing to local journ*lists, as cited by the Reuters news agency.

“Arming of Russia by South Africa with the vessel … is fundamentally unacceptable,” Brigety said, adding that senior US officials had “profound concerns” about South Africa not respecting its professed policy of non-alignment and neutrality with regard to Russia’s war.

This “does not suggest to us the actions of a non-aligned country”, he said.

Washington has repeatedly warned countries against providing material support to Russia, cautioning that those who do may be denied access to the world’s most important markets.=====(from article)

It's important to note that most RSA liberals are very pro Ukraine, but this depends on race as well. CoLoureds are all over the place, ANC wingcucks and leftwingers in general tends to suck russian peepee because of the Cold War allegiances, regardless of whether Russia is actually still communist or not.

A lot of the infighting between people in /r/SouthAfrica is pretty r-slurred. Most white liberals support Ukraine and considers the conflict to be Imperial aggession on Russia's part. Many black liberals are in conflict with their black left winger counterparts, because of wingcuckery. Black liberals consider this a moment to call out russia's assault on Ukraine, as staying silent or neutral makes them just as impassive to worldly evil happening across the globe, as they have accused europeans to have been silent on the Apartheid regime for decades.

Thus this is a watershed moment for many black and white liberals, as they realize their wingcuck black leftwing friends are pro russia simply to spite the Western powers like UK, USA or Western Europe, or because they are wingcucked into being pro Russia, and literally demonize Ukraine - a country which has never harmed or colonized Africa. This creates bitter ideological spats between peeps both IRL and on /r/Southafrica.

Point is it's infighting galore. Yet regardless of how pees feel, the ANC government has always been pretty ultra pro Russia, and has overlooked Soviet warcrimes and conquest of nations while highlighting American and Western global crimes like toppling Leftwing govs in South America by CIA operatives.

Point is ANC is now in a bind, they clearly desperately wanna suck off Russia, but America an europe make out the vast majority of RSA's exports. Thus openly supporting Russia would make South Africa a pariah, and doom the economy if America applies sanctions.

Can't find the original post, but drama started here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13elvv6/us_ambassador_says_south_africa_gave_weapons/

https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/government/breaking-us-ambassador-says-south-africa-gave-weapons-to-russia-for-ukraine-war-20230511

=========

Lot's teeth gnashing and sneeed followed this revelation. It was unbelievable! RSA economy worst in like 15 years, COVID had ravished the economy, and now the ANC wants to pull this stunt?

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13elvv6/us_ambassador_says_south_africa_gave_weapons/jjuebk4/

"I mean for the last 20 years or so the ANC has been on a "become like the NP" speedrun." (The NP is the National Party, the group ruling during Aprtheid)

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13elvv6/us_ambassador_says_south_africa_gave_weapons/jjrfqui/

"This does make me scared of potential sanctions. I hope nothing major like that comes true but at this point man. Why this country is supporting one of their lower trading partners instead of ACTUALLY staying neutral is beyond me."

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13elvv6/us_ambassador_says_south_africa_gave_weapons/jjqf3hc/

"Can this please be the final straw that breaks the ANCamel’s back."

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13elvv6/us_ambassador_says_south_africa_gave_weapons/jjr03p0/

I wonder what would happen if South Africa’s major trading partners decide to sanction the country for the country’s “neutrality”

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13elvv6/us_ambassador_says_south_africa_gave_weapons/jjqhbq9/

"Hey ANC, what happened to the last SA government that managed to get sanctioned by the west?"

Very soon after the struggling Rand immediately tanked

https://www.news24.com/fin24/markets/breaking-rand-breaches-r19-20230511

Some other South africans were Memeing with some pretty funny posts, mocking the accused weapons send to Russia, and joking that primitive traditional South African weapons like Assegai spears or Kipi shields were to be send via ship to the Russian forces!

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13g9nlk/the_evidence_of_south_africa_sending_weapons_to/

More joke post about the Russian ships which suspiciously docked at RSA ports in "broad daylight" while Ukraine conflict rages. This one jokes about common RSA foods

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13fhvn9/photographic_evidence_of_sa_shipping_arms_to/

Some more sneeding as Rand continues to crater. Here's a random crypto r-slur

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/13eexiv/rand_drops_to_a_3_year_low/jjq4f6u/

Duncan 26, San Antonio TX

$57'303 total debt

$880 minimum monthly payments, 41% of his current income

At least $400 interest accruing each month ignoring student loans and stuff in collections

First truly mentally ill person on the show, he weirds me out a little but I might be just paranoid. I don't trust people who cry on camera. I've timestamped some of the oddness, not in chronological order

Self-rated 3/10 financially

Has been watching Caleb for "a couple months" hasn't started budgeting

• cries from stress of his situation? Tries to explain his failures in past attempts to budget timestamp

Diagnosed with "Bipolar II Disorder" plus some backstory, only recently got meds

• timestamp

Career:

• Delivery for Tiff's Treats and somtimes on-duty manager on weekends, does Grubhub/Doordash on the side

• "I got deactivated from Grubhub for some reason" timestamp

• Drives company car so his gas payments aren't bad

• Currently making $23 an hour and $18 as the stand-in manager

• hours cut, losing insurance in July (sales down year after year)

• nervous laughter here timestamp

• financially struggling

• only 6 stores in his district

Personal Life:

• Lost his last credt for film grad because Covid and classes/grades fell apart afterwards near beginning of covid?

• timestamp

• Was taking classes last semester? timestamp

• Not this semester though so Student Loans are active now

• Sudden jump from verge of tears to recitation of the canned youtube comment line about finance needing to be taught in high school timestamp

• "I think that's a big detriment to the American education system, nobody gets taught finances, ever"

• Wants to go back to school for a business degree but can't because of his current situation

Savings/Expenses:

• Nothing in retirement

• USAA checking

• Monthly balance $225 -> 281

• Spent money on Uber Eats, overly self-deprecating statement to dodge timestamp

• Same dodge trips to coffee shop/donuts/general eating out timestamp

• Shared checking with him and his girlfriend

• Pays to do gig work? Not sure if I understood that right

• $766 last month just on fast food/eating out (36% of income)

• Swipe savings

• $7 -> $161.85

• $224 car insurance payment since he got into an accident uninsured

Debt:

• Says he has a terrible credit score (551)

• Was at 630 3 months ago

• Found a credit repair company he's been thinking of reaching out to

• Student loans (paying interest only) Variable Interest Rates

• $13'316 14% interest

• 10% interest

• 10% interest

• Car Max Loan

• $16'584 remaining, 421 minimum monthly payment (he's got another 400 past due with a 21 late fee)

• 10.45 interest rate

• "All three of the credit cards I emailed you are in collections" timestamp

• USAA credit card

• Some old Visa

• Coles Card

• Owes $63.23 on "Afterpay"

• Also on Paypal, Affirm and Klarna "I made a series of really really bad decisions"

  • Affirm is 1k

• "And it's just this stupid stupid anxiety of not knowing what I'm gonna have left" timestamp

• Personal Loan

• took it out a year ago because he was "freaking out about money" at the time

• 1'400 balance

• Personal Loan

• $986 "one of those finance app where you pay a certain amount and you get the rest of the loan back"

• Not paying this one?

• Owes Grandpa $4'500

• "terrible situation"

• First car he bought died, grandpa co-signed for a new car

  • got t-boned and did not have insurance

• Has had 2 cars get totaled while on job?

• $10 monthly payments, it's informal

INTRODUCTION TO DAKAR:

Greetings Dramatards!

Since 1978, there had been an annual grand offroad 4x4 racing rally held from Dakar (a city in the african country of Senegal), to the city of Paris. Called from its inception as the Dakar-Paris Rally, and then later through the years just morphed into the DAKAR, this spectacle had been a favorite of racing fans whom thought F1 was for wimps, and enjoyed the rugged show of pickup-trucks, motorbikes and lorries rolling down the sanddunes in the often dangerous and difficult terrain provided by the routes running through the Sahara.

The Dakar has been an especially fan favorite of the French, but many other Nations have joined since its inception. It's open to professionals and amateurs, and people who represent countries or ride under no flag. Basically it's a yearly spectacle for anyone even remotely interested in dirtroad racing, or offroad 4x4 racing nuts. The rally consists of several stages, the number depending on that year's route, as chosen by the Rally Organizers. The distances which each stage coveres vary from up to 800–900 kilometres. Every year there's at least one serious accident with serious injury due to the deliberately chosen rough and rugged terrain. The Rally stages typically start from Paris, and then the vehicles are transported on ships to North Africa towards the next stage, where they the travel vast distances across Africa, to inevitably end at Senegal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Dakar_Rally

In the very 1st Dakar rally, a total of 182 vehicles participated, yet only 74 of the bastards would be able to finish the 10 000km long endurance race from Paris to the Senegalese capital of Dakar. I mention this to demonstrate how truly difficult the Dakar Rally can be. Of course just like the famous shitshow of the very 1st modern shitshow olympic games back in 1896, many participants and organizers were unprepared. And teams would learn from this by building better vehicles specifically designed to overcome sand dunes, and having better pit stop repair teams, navigation expertize, ect. Todays rallies every single Dakar racer finishes unless their vehicle crashes or break downs.

http://automobilisimo.weebly.com/-rally-paris-dakar-1981.html

TERRORIST ATTACKS IN AFRICA:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritania-france-shooting-idUSL2468313620071224

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_killing_of_French_tourists_in_Mauritania

Then everything changed when Islamic terrorists attacked French tourists in Mauritania and made racing through North Africa risk, which the Rally organizers could not safely prevent.

SHORT HISTORY OF MAURITANIA:

The North African country of Mauritania is mostly arabic and Islamic. The theocracy is named after the famous ancient Berbers which dominated North Africa and Southern Spain in the middle ages. Mauritania is culturally and politically part of the Arab world; it is a member of the Arab League and Arabic is the sole official language.

They basically stayed this way until Europe became progressively more and more powerful Naval colonial superpowers. In the 19th century Frogland would begin to rapidly colonize large swaths of North and Western Africa, including Mauritania. Just like the sickly Ottoman Empire, the Mauritanians were a declining Berber-arab empire, and could not compete militarily with gunpower weaponry. In the Franco-Trarzan War of 1825, the French finally crushed the descendants of the once proud Berber-Arab empire, and obtained complete control of the area north above the Senegal River, which would consist of modern day Mauritania.

Ii 1899 to 1901, the French under (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_Coppolani), Xavier was the French colonial military leader and would lead the french colonial forces to crush the Moorish-Berbers descendants, whom were mostly nomadic tribes and resisting French rule from inland. These Arabian Moorish-Berber tribes were disunited and constantly infighting. Like Afghanistan they had no notion of Nation State and had loyalty to tribe, plus their nomadic nature meant they had no loyalty to land, and were moving peoples. This was a problem for the french as these nomads would not be content with things like administative districts. While the French controlled coastal harbours, inland Africa was completely hostile to the frogs. As is usual with colonial occupiers, violence broke between these mix of Arab/Moor/Berber peoples, and Xavier was sent to crush this uprising.

But the French army, while well trained, battle hardened and armed with powerful modern weaponry, was still vastly outnumbered by the locals of Mauritania, as is usual for European colonial forces, and previosuly they stuck to the coasts. Instead, the savvy Xavier would force alliances with the local tribal leaders of the Moorish-Berber tribes against their enemies - similar to that of the Spanish conquistadors uniting tribes against the dominant Aztecs, or the British splitting up the Indian raja factions. Alliances were drawn up with the local willing Marabouts (religious muslim leaders) of armies, and promised them dominant roles in the new French colonial administration. Very complicated, but all you dramatards need to know is that this made Islam the dominant religion against the will of the non muslim Moors-Berber people, and the colony of Mauritania would remain unstable and rebelious for its entire existence.

Ironically, French rule brought legal prohibitions against slavery and an end to interclan warfare. Nomadic tribes which had been defeated and expelled by dominant tribes of Mauritania, would steadily migrate back to the colony of Mauritania (there were no fences or walls from these imaginary colonial borders). Most of these included darker skinned sub-Saharan african tribes. I'm not gonna mention them, cuz they are sooooo many, but it's a pretty ethically diverse group of peeps and languages.

By 1960, just like all the other European Colonial superpowers, Frogland was steadily giving away more and more autonomy to restless colonies that they could no longer control. Mauritania was one of these autonomous states which eventually was granted independence without conflict in November 28, 1960. However the creation of this new entity of a nation state over previously disunited diverse tribal nomadic peoples was a shitshow of the Afghanistan kind. The molding of a new national state political entity was a challenge in a country in which the gradual breakdown of a well-entrenched tribal hierarchy and its authority was still under way. Mauritania's predominantly nomadic society did not lend itself to the establishment of administrative agencies; consequently, numerous political parties formed around those leaders who already exercised tribal authority.

The previously dominant Islamic Berber arabs, as upheld since the days of Xavier the french colonial overlord, mean that the Arabs of Mauritania would dominate political discourse and policies, usually against the will and consent of the sub-saharan black peeps. The Islamic Republic of Mauritania was established as a one party theocracy.

The imposition of single-party rule over a highly diverse population caused underlying tensions to emerge, especially among the southern black population, who feared Arab domination. Their fears were exacerbated by the 1966 decision to make the study of Hassaniya Arabic compulsory in secondary schools and the decision in 1968 to make Hassaniya Arabic, as well as French, an official language. Differences over linguistic and racial issues subsequently caused strikes and demonstrations by students and trade unionists in 1968, 1969, and 1971; all demonstrations were harshly repressed by the government, which in 1966 had banned discussion of racial problems. Other tensions existed among black Maures, who were still considered members of a slave class even though slavery had been outlawed under the French and by the Mauritanian Constitution. Many of the black tribes were not Islamic and instead pagan towards their local african gods.

Anyways looong story shorter, the regime lasted from 1960 to 1978, and was just as unstable and rebelious as the French colony preceding it, as the central authority of a nation state didn't go over well with tribal caste mentalities, and the racism and discrimination which arabs displayed against blacks and black tribes exacerbated tensions throughout the regimes lifespan. From here on out, you guys know the generic african story: invisible imaginary lines, grouping together diverse peoples in post colonial countries led to ethnic conflict in the african country, and instability in its independence. From 1978 to 2008, there were 3 fricking coups between various groups, and im sure as heck not gonna mention al of them. The summary is that Mauritania would remain perpetually unstable and economically a black hole of stagnant poverty, and ancient caste based mentality would hobble any of it's capacity to become a great modern nation state.

But in 2007, there was a shining light of hope at the end of the tunnel!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6440597.stm

(from the article)====== Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, whose military council took power in August 2005, said he had a great sense of pride because it was the first time that Mauritanians were choosing their leaders in a free and fair way. "We came to power for a specific purpose. We declared we would do specific things. We stayed only so long as it took to accomplish or goals," said Col Vall, who has barred himself and other members of the junta from running for office. Keeping the military out of power is seen as a key issue for a country which has seen numerous coups and attempted coups since independence from France.

Mauritania seems to have gone further politically in the last two years than it has in the rest of its history, reports the BBC's Richard Hamilton from the capital, Nouakchott. Col Vall has changed the constitution so that a president can only run for two terms, has improved human rights and brought democracy to this desert country, our correspondent says. Before the most recent coup, Mauritania spent 21 years under the iron grip of former President Ahmed Taya and elections in those days were regarded as a sham, he reports.

Mauritania is home to a number of different racial groups and many people were expected to vote along ethnic lines. Candidates include former ministers but no members of the outgoing military government. Another key issue is how to unite an ethnically diverse population, which includes Arabs, Berbers and sub-Saharan Africans. While many presidential hopefuls come from the ruling Arab elite, one candidate represents descendants of slaves. Despite a ban on slavery in 1980, human rights groups say the phenomenon still exists in the country. Other major campaign issues have been how to manage the country's new oil reserves and the Islamic republic's decision to recognise Israel.

In February last year, Mauritania started pumping millions of barrels of oil from offshore reserves, though people have still to see any benefits.===========(from the article)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Mauritania

"Despite being rich in natural resources, Mauritania has a low GDP. A majority of the population still depends on agriculture and livestock for a livelihood, even though most of the nomads and many subsistence farmers were forced into the cities by recurrent droughts in the 1970s and 1980s. Mauritania has extensive deposits of iron ore, which account for almost 50% of total exports. Gold and copper mining companies are opening mines in the interior."

Mauritania is poor as dirt, and many of its people still live as they had a thousand years ago, just with cellphones and cars. Modern Mauritania is almost 100% Muslim, with extreme restrictions on freedom of religion and belief; it is one of thirteen countries in the world that punish atheism by death. The Theocracy also passed a law in 27 April 2018, that makes the death penalty mandatory for anyone convicted of "blasphemous speech" and acts deemed "sacrilegious" So you can see that all non muslims have been converted or eliminated from the country since its independence from 1960. It's a pretty hardcore nation.

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/mauritania/

https://www.patheos.com/nonreligious-questions/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-atheists-idUSBRE8B900520121210

Another fun piece of knowledge is that slavery persists in Mauritania, despite it being outlawed since the French having tried to outlaw it since 1905. Like India, it is the result of a historical caste system, resulting in descent-based slavery (North-Korea style). Those enslaved are usually darker-skinned Haratin sub-saharans, with their owners being lighter-skinned Moors-Berbers.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180825205205/https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/08/the-unspeakable-truth-about-slavery-in-mauritania

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritania-slavery-un/activists-warn-over-slavery-as-mauritania-joins-u-n-human-rights-council-idUSKCN20K2GS

If you hear that statistic that modern day slavery still exists, with numbers supposedly more in magnitude than had existed with the much smaller world populations way back in the 17th century slave trades, then its because poor Mauritania is one of the main culprits.

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/world/mauritania.slaverys.last.stronghold/index.html

====== "Even knowing those facts before we departed, what we found on the ground in West Africa astonished us. Mauritania feels stuck in time in ways both quaint and sinister. It’s a place where camels and goats roam the streets alongside dented French sedans; where silky sand dunes give the land the look of a meringue pie topping; where desert winds play with the cloaks of nomadic herdsmen, making their silhouettes look like dancing flames on the horizon; and where, incredibly, the nuances of a person’s skin color and family history determine whether he or she will be free or enslaved.

That reality permeates every aspect of Mauritanian life — from the dark-skinned boys who serve mint-flavored tea at restaurants to the clothes people wear. A man wearing a powder-blue garment that billows at the arms and has fancy gold embroidery on the chest is almost certainly free and comes from the traditional slave-owning class of White Moors, who are lighter-skinned Arabs. A woman in a loud tie-dye print that covers her hair, but not her arms, is likely a slave. Her arms are exposed, against custom, so she can work." ========(from article)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6938032.stm

Reasons as to how slavery still exists, and how it can be maintained, is that Mauritania is a massive dessert country which is sparsely populated. Tribes are located in isolated regions with little administration or oversight. Nobody can police such a vast place, even if they wanted to. And the Arabs and Moors-Berbers of Mauritania don't care to, they still see it as a practice of 500 years ago, still upheld and justified by their leaders and religion. It's culturally deeply entrenched; what is legally written in their laws, and what is practically practiced in their rural regions, and the vast open desert is different things altogether.

Additionally Mauritania is dogshit poor with very little literacy amongst its populations. There are virtually no economic opportunities, or places to escape tp. If you are a black girl from a family enslaved to a rural Arab-Moor from 300 years ago, then this is all you've ever known, life as an indentured servant. There's nowhere to flee in the hostile desert, and no work or living opportunities outside the indentured servitude from the tribe you are connected with. Mauritania is stuck in time.

I had to go through all of this history to make you dramatards understand the setup for 2008's violence.

2008 MAURITANIAN COUP (the darkness at the end of the light :)

https://web.archive.org/web/20080811172145/http://www.france24.com/en/20080806-president-prime-minister-arrested-apparent-mauritania-coup-soldiers&navi=MONDE

On 6 August 2008 President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was arrested by renegade senior army officers, unknown troops, and a group of generals, and were held under house arrest at the presidential palace in Nouakchott. It's exceedingly complicated to try and understand this shitshow, so I'll try to make it simple. Basically Mauritania has had a long history of dictatorial rule, and way back in 2005, a military coup toppled the dictator Mouaya Ould Sidi Ahmed Ould Taya (long butt arba names are common) and promised to usher in a new era of democratic rule. The military leaders actually had benevolent intentions, and actually delivered their promise of democratic reform, so that in 2007 an actual democtratic vote was had, and Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was voted into presidency. But on August 6 2008, the same military crop of generals stormed the palace, arrested the president and his prime minister and again took matters into their own hands, again.

President Abdallahi was a mediocre president and had failed to unite all the different tribes. He tried to lay blame of his mediocrity on the military. "Abdallahi soon angered General Aziz and his supporters, however, by reaching out to Islamic hardliners, by freeing several suspected terrorists, and by using state funds to build a mosque on the grounds of the presidential palace." Ironically enough, the coup leaders were the reason that Mauritania didn't become even more hardline Islamic and religiously extreme with President Abdallahi trying a last bid to cater to religious fundamentalists. President Abdallahi had done this in a last bid to try and quell country wide protests at the bad poverty stricken conditions in which inhabitants were living.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2008/8/21/mauritanias-coup-in-the-making

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/06/1

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL6280718

This coup caused even further instability as violence broke out between Islamic fundamentalists and the Mauritania military, as they believed that their Islamic values were being undermined. This catalyst would spread throughout the country, and ethnic tensions and factions would flare up nationwide. Instability and violence followed. This inter tribal violence would also spread to otherneighbouring nations which consisted of sister tribes and ethnicities whom were part of the same groups in violence over the imaginary colonial borders. It's a very complicated story.

I mention all of this so that you guys may understand what happened, and why the sudden killing of French tourists had such an effect on the Dakar Rally organizers.

FROG TOURISTS KILLED:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-12-25/4-french-tourists-killed-in-mauritania/996228

====Police and officials in the north African country of Mauritania say gunmen armed with assault rifles have shot dead four French tourists from the same family and seriously injured a fifth. The tourists were attacked in their car on a road in a popular sightseeing area about 250 kilometres south-east of the capital, Nouakchott (of Mauritania). The fifth tourist, the father of the family, was injured in the leg and taken to hospital, and was in a serious condition. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has confirmed the deaths, but says details of the incident are still unclear and an investigation is under way. There is no immediate indication whether the attack was politically motivated or a case of robbery.===========(from article)

https://web.archive.org/web/20110520115301/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hVaUEdvQQVR7qkFLWW9vvJ9UJVvA

https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2007-12-25-voa24/331617.html

The French government would issue a warning to all tourism in the country, and warned of terrorist activity having resurged in Mauritania, and surrounding countries. There was basically no true reliable government in Mauritania to communicate or organize with, and the rest of North Africa had started a series of Islamic Terror at the same time. The inflamation between Islamic Groups and western nations like America and Western Europe had made muslim consensus against previous colonial nations even bleaker than before. The Dakar Rally organizers had legitimate fears that french drivers and other european spectators was under the risk of kidnapping or terrorist attacks, as a proxy target for Jihadists.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/modern.html

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/698048/EPRS_BRI(2021)698048_EN.pdf

THE 2008 DAKAR RALLY IS CANCELLED:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/05/france.sport

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/2008_Dakar_Rally_cancelled_over_terrorist_threat

https://www.drive.com.au/news/2008-paris-dakar-rally-canceled-due-to-terrorist-threats/

https://mg.co.za/article/2008-01-04-dakar-rally-cancelled-over-security-fears/

======"The annual Dakar rally, arguably the most dangerous endurance event in world sport, was cancelled yesterday on the eve of the race when the organisers said they could not guarantee the competitors' safety due to the threat of terrorism.It is the first time in the 30-year history of the race, in which cars, motorbikes and trucks battle their way across the Sahara desert, that it has been cancelled. The organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), said the threat of an attack, and the murder last December of a French family on holiday in Mauritania that has been blamed on al-Qaida-linked terrorists, meant they could not run the risk."======(from articles)

At last the Dakar Rally organizers chose to cancel the 2008 Dakar Rally in North Africa. The 2008 event, due to start in Lisbon, was cancelled on 4 January 2008 amid fears of attacks in Mauritania following the 2007 killing of four French tourists. Chile and Argentina offered to host subsequent events, which were later accepted by the Dakar Rally Organizers for the 2009 event. And so came the morbidly funny moment where the Dakar rally so named after the Capital of Senegal, and the famed yearly racing endpoint for the grand offroad race for 28 years, would no longer actually take place in Dakar

People would still call the Rally the Dakar however.

SNEED FROM AFRICAN SHITHOLES:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-31249820080104

=====However, most African officials criticized the decision, fearing the move will tarnish even more the image of the world’s poorest continent and deprive it of much-needed foreign investment from the passage of hundreds of racing vehicles.

“The cancellation of the rally is not only a great loss for Senegal, but for all the countries crossed by the race,” said Mamadou Dia, a spokesman for Senegal’s Sports Ministry.

“There is an enormous loss of hundreds of millions of francs CFA,” said Moustapha Kane, permanent secretary of the hoteliers association of Senegal. “With regard to the promotion of the image of the destination, it is deplorable that the organising committee has taken this decision.”

Organisers cancelled two stages in Mali last year after French security services said participants risked being kidnapped or ambushed by Algerian rebels. =====(from article)

The Dakar was a yearly event which brought in tons of much needed tourism and foreign money for countries like Senegal and Mauritania. And this loss of foreign revenue was devastating to these dirtpoor countries. They were also angry at the french for giving them a bad name by not putting their people at risk of literal terrorist attacks, but their sneeding fell on death ears, and the Frogs fricked off to find other more stable 3rd world countries in which to host their carmageddon role play fantasy in.

https://www.visordown.com/features/general/death-dakar

=====“The decision to cancel the Dakar was much too hasty,” says Hassan Ould Sidi Ahmed, a journ*list based in Mauritania, the vast tranche of north-western Africa through which the rally passes en route to the Senegalese capital of Dakar. “Was the threat as serious as they claim it was? No, we certainly think it was not.” That threat centres around statements issued by a supposed terrorist cell operating under the wing of the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, formerly known as the GSPC. Their stated intentions of targeting the rally were taken seriously after Mauritania hit the headlines in December when four French tourists were shot and killed while taking a roadside picnic on Christmas eve. The victims had nothing to do with Dakar – they were simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” as British terrorism expert Neil Doyle tells us. “Mauritania is very much a new country on the radar,” says Doyle, who wrote the books Terror Tracker and Terror Base UK. “Incidents like this are sparse there.” ====(from article)

This article is amazing sneedfest!

https://www.news24.com/wheels/its-time-the-dakar-rally-returned-to-africa-20180109

======Between 1979 and 2007 the Dakar Rally took place in Europe and Africa, most regularly between Paris and Dakar (in Senegal). However, since the cancellation of the 2008 event, the Dakar has been held in South America.

Now, after a decade of success in South America, one has to ask whether the Dakar Rally will ever return to Africa – the legendary continent that stirred the imagination of the world for almost 30 years and gave ‘the Dakar’ its venerable reputation.

The holding of the Dakar Rally in Africa was never without controversy. It was often criticised for bringing little or no benefit to Africa and its inhabitants. A French newspaper called it a ‘vulgar display of power and wealth in places where men continue to die from hunger and thirst’; while others referred to it as ‘colonialism that needs to be eradicated’.

Regrettably, this sounded the death knell for the entire African continent’s hosting of the Dakar Rally, rather than West Africa alone. During 2008, a decision was taken to relocate the Dakar Rally to South America for safety and security reasons … and it has remained there ever since.======(from article)

Dakar was very vugar! But later in the article, it's all like plz come back

=====Although South America has proven itself a worthy destination for the Dakar Rally, the time has surely come for the event to return to Africa. There’s just something not right about the ‘Dakar’ Rally being held anywhere other than on African soil.

The reality is that Africa has many regions that are both ideal and safe to host the Dakar Rally – Southern Africa being one of them in particular. Not only this, the event would take place in a similar time zone to Europe, boosting follower convenience and viewership.

So, what is the real reason behind the organisers’ decision not to bring the Dakar Rally back to Africa? To me, the continued hosting of the rally in South America constitutes a blatant ‘vote of no-confidence’ in Africa’s ability to host the event.

Afro-pessimism aside, we have to ask ourselves whether Southern African nations would even be interested in hosting the rally? Yes, there are environmental concerns related to carbon footprint and dust, but wouldn’t the unparalleled marketing of Africa’s natural wonders be a boon for the tourism sector and revenue for the host nations?=====(from article)

"Afro-pessimism"

Point is many educated and liberal North and Western Africans are still salty about the move of the Dakar away from the african continent, especially since the Frogs kept the name of the rally as Dakar. They feel it as an unsaid snub of africa, and an unstated view that North africa is too much of an unstable dangerous hellscape to even hold a dirtroad race. Which umm, it kind of is.

THE DAKAR MOVES TO SOUTH AMERICA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Dakar_Rally

In 2009 the Dakar rally would take place across Argentina and Chile. The 1st time to take place outside of Europe or Africa. The rally organizers assured everyone that the new race would still contain the same level of difficult terrain as the previous races had held through the indomitable Sahara. Fans were fearful that this new route and unknown terrain would be mediocre and a discount knockoff of the previously exciting Sahara sand dunes and craggy rock desserts. However, in spite of all the pesimism, the new South American Dakar was a stunning success! Fans and racers enjoyed the chance of scenery and new beautiful countrisides of Chile and Argentina. The desserts from these routes were more than adequately rugged and challenging for the experienced 4x4 professional racers, and it cemented South America as the Dakar host continent for the next decade.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090120210942/http://www.clutchandchrome.com/News/0901/News0901005.htm

The Dakar Rally kicked off from the Argentine capital Buenos Aires. There were 177 cars, 217 motorcycles, 81 trucks and 25 quad bikes with drivers from 49 countries spread over 530 competitors. It was pretty intense.

FAMOUS SOUTH AFRICAN DAKAR RACER:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giniel_de_Villiers

Now the reason why I'm even aware of the Dakar, is one, because I'm the nephew of an uncle whom was a rabid fan of offroading vehicles, and whose entire family participated in 4x4 quadbike rallies since highschool. His son even won national junior championships, and both of them broke their arms falling off a rolling accident at some point during their career. For them, the Dakar was the highlight of their year, and they would have their eyes glued to the television following every step and stage of the Rally, and destroy the TV screen through sheer eyeball pressure.

The second reason is because South Africa has had a champion representing us since 1997 in National and international offroad racing, and having debut since 2003 in the Dakar Rally, in the form of the infamous Giniel de Villiers. With his co-driver/navigator Dennis Murphy, de Villiers has been a prominent participant in the Dakar throughout the 2000s, and had won several stages, keeping RSA in the minds of all the dominant French drivers. Finally in 2009 he would win the overall Dakar Car Category Championship, coincidentally the same year the Dakar had moved over to South America.

SA Fans believed this change in scenery and terrain put virtually all the drivers in discombobulation and discomfort at being in a new previously unknown circumstances, thus everyone was at an even playing field. Where as previously the French has absolutely dominated the Sahara sand dunes, as many of their drivers had much greater experiences with Saharan Post French colonies african countries through which the Dakar routes went. Many of the French drivers were sometimes even descendants of the colonial white french settlers whom had lived in these post-colonial nations or even grew up in places like Senegal, or even still lived in these nations. Thus they had literal everday experience with 4x4 challenges as navigating sand dunes, whereas non-french participants would have acclimatization challenges. In South America, the different terrain evened the playing field, and de Villiers and other foreigners could have a momentary equal attempt at victory.

RANDOM CONTROVESIES OF DAKAR:

Because Dakar is essentially an activity which only rich and upper class people participate in, like Formula 1 type racing, it's been the target of sneed and criticism. Way back from 1980 to 2007, many liberals criticised it as a form of neo-colonialism. Because they believed that the Rally Organizers and racing participants took advantage of the local populations. Some African residents along the race's course in previous years have said they saw limited benefits from the race; that race participants spent little money on the goods and services local residents can offer. The racers produced substantial amounts of dust along the course, and were blamed for hitting and killing livestock, in addition to every year injuring or killing people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dakar_Rally_fatal_accidents

The Dakar race has been pretty hardcore and dangerous. And almost at least one person has died from it every year since it's inception, be it racer, or onlooker or random unfortunate African. "Since 1979, 78 people are known to have died as a result of the Dakar rally. Among the 32 competitor fatalities, 23 were motorcycle related, 6 car related, 1 truck related, and 2 competitors died as a result of local rebel conflict. Up to 1992, collision was the most common cause of death among competitors. Among the 46 non-competitor fatalities are 14 news journ*lists and support crew, 23 spectators, and 4 children.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/rallying/4209700/Dakar-Rallys-dance-with-death-provides-biggest-thrill-of-all.html

DAKAR ALMOST STARTS A WAR IN WESTERN SAHARA IN 2001:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200101094933/https://www.news24.com/xArchive/Archive/Paris-Dakar-rally-defies-war-threats-in-Sahara-20010107

Other drama involving Dakar is that the race nearly caused a fricking war way back in 2001! When they drove routes over western Sahara (a constantly disputed territory like Taiwan or Tibet), they had done so without permission from the locals! Morocco which "controls" one part of Western Sahara, gave their blessings to the organizers, but the other beligirents of Western Sahara fumed at this, and stated that the Polisario Front (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polisario_Front), an ultra-nationalist group which represents a separate ethnic group and tribe within Western Sahara, and had been in conflict with Morocco since forever about sovereignity (Kosovo style), and was nearly into armed conflict at this breach of their land without permission!

http://www.afrol.com/articles/15144

Luckily our idiot friends of the Dakar Organizers learned their lesson and asked the Polisario formal permission to cross their land, and after reparations and rent were paid by the Dakar Organization, the Polisario cooled down and was only too glad to allow Frogmobiles through their land, as long as the French adknowledged them.

Anyways that's all I got, GOOD DAY