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A Roadmap for Current Content (v.2.6.100)

Contents:
Greetings from the Church of Isuka! It's feels like forever since I've put one of these out. Unfortunately I had to remove the TL;DR chart due to hitting the 40k character limit so I replaced it with a summary for recommended Green/Red key spending instead. Compared to the last version, I've also added in Lost Tome, Sword and Wings, Jade's 5 star quest, P5R2, "Tales of," and GoT Part 3. There's been a lot added and it's definitely possible I may have overlooked something so let me know if you notice anything incorrect/missing or if you feel some things should be moved around.
The Hopefully Most Efficient Method for "Finishing" the Game:
※ Important Note: Aside from the Two Knights and Azure Rebel side episodes, everything else that is not part of the Main Story is optional. This means that if you do not want to fish, mine, or do Otherlands, etc., you are free to ignore those parts of this roadmap.
  1. Start the game
    1. As soon as you have control, open up the Menu, go to Other, and Activate ID Transfer. Screenshot your Transfer ID and password and then e-mail the image to yourself. This way you can recover your account in case of catastrophic failure. The Transfer ID is permanent and reusable.
    2. For the tutorial summon, I recommended choosing Bivette as your character. Other popular options include Miyu and Ciel. All three have 5 star potential and can unlock bonus content specific to them, but Bivette has the most use in combat.
  2. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 2
    1. If you haven't created a Transfer ID yet, go do it NOW. Linking to Facebook doesn't count. Linking to Google Play doesn't count. You are still at risk of losing your account if you need to reinstall.
    2. Get your daily Chronos Stones. Remember to do these every day for a minimum of 50 extra Chronos Stones.
      1. Open up the Menu, go to Inbox, and grab your 20 Chronos Stones.
      2. Open up the Menu, click the '+' at the top of the screen next to your Chronos Stones and watch an advertisement for 10 Chronos Stones from the shop.
      3. The first time you log into the game after 1500 UTC, you will have the opportunity to watch a single ad for 20 Chronos Stones.
      4. Open up the Menu and click the icon at the top left for the opportunity to watch 5 more advertisements for additional rewards.
    3. Open up the Menu, go to Records, go to Symphony, and begin the prologue for the Persona 5 Royal (P5R) Collab: Bound Wills and the Hollow Puppeteer.
    4. Open up the Menu, go to Records, go to Symphony, and begin the prologue for the "Tales of" Series Collab, Tails of Time and the Brave Four: Tales of Chronographia (Cress Series).
  3. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 3. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Velvet Series).
  4. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 4 which should unlock the orange icon side quests. I recommend doing all the side quests in an area for the Chronos Stones before continuing on. In addition, finish any blue icon character quests available to get Chronos Stones (and later unlock more powerful abilities on the Skill Board).
  5. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 8. At this point you should have enough Chronos Stones for your first 10-pull. Pull on whichever banner you want. Your main goal is simply to get enough useful characters to form a 6-man team.
  6. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 9. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Milla Series).
  7. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 11 (characters should be around level 20)
    1. Upon finishing Chapter 10, you should have gotten a Holy Prayer Spirit. To spend it, go to Menu, go to Dreams, and go to the Regular tab. You will have a choice of four 4 star healers. I would rank them as Erina > Krervo = Prai > Pom. If you already have a 5 star healer, then this choice isn't a big deal.
    2. Go to Acteul near the Man-Eating Marsh. Begin the 1000 Year Ark to unlock fishing and begin to slowly fish pools at your level (If you're trying to fight a turtle, you've gone too far). Ponds refresh every half hour.
    3. Begin spending your Green Keys on Hard Another Dungeons in the Blue Door (H-AD).
      1. Doing main story dungeons (such as H-Moonlight Forest, H-Industrial Ruins, H-Nadara Volacano, etc.) will get you EXP, materials for equipment, tomes and scripts for upgrading certain characters from 3 stars to 4 stars, and a 10% chance at light/shadow in specific dungeons for specific story characters.
      2. Doing the H-Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space (commonly called the EXP dungeon, found by tapping the purple icon to the top right) gives you about 1 million EXP, EXP badges, and EXP scrolls. However, you will not get any materials, tomes, scripts, or light/shadow.
    4. If you get a White Key at the end of a dungeon, it unlocks the White Gate (Phantom Crystal Dimension). Go run it immediately because you can only have one White Key at a time. It will give you git and character upgrade materials as well as unlock the Paw Stamp Album. Once you have the Paw Stamp Album, make sure to talk to any cat you come across inside the PCD.
    5. Begin fighting Uquaji (found at the far left door next to the fishing spot in the Spacetime Rift). He comes back every 24 hours with a few more levels.
    6. Begin filling out your Cat Catalog (obtained after returning to the Moonlight Forest).
    7. Return to the Mayor's House in Baruoki to do his tutorial missions. Completing the tutorials will reward you with +EXP badges up to +30%.
  8. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 13 (characters should be around level 32)
    1. If you've completed the P5R prologue from Step 2, go to the Baruoki Tavern to start the P5R Collab event. Complete the entire Collab to get 5 star Joker and 5 star Morgana. Make sure to get all the badges from the dungeon (including a +20% EXP badge!) as well as their level 60 personal weapons.
    2. Go to Unigan near the gate to the Karek Swampland. Complete the Two Knights side episode until VH-Miglance Labyrinth (Unigan) is unlocked. Begin spending your Red Keys here to start getting the rewards. Completing this side episode is required to continue the main story past Chapter 26.
    3. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Yuri Series).
    4. If you've completed all the "Tales of" prologues, go to the front of the Unigan Tavern to start the "Tales of" Collab event. Complete the entire Collab to get 4 Cress, Velvet, Milla, and Yuri. You can get their personal weapons and 5 star tome by going to the Citadel of Time Ruins and selecting the respective trial (see here).
    5. If you have Miyu, begin Other Story: Little Princess' Little Big Adventure in Miglance Palace. Just go as far as you can and if you find yourself underleveled, put it on hold and come back later.
    6. Keep fishing.
    7. Ignore the Lost Tome side episode for now.
  9. Continue the Main Story
    1. Once you hit level 40, go to Elzion Theta District. Complete IDA Part 1 until VH-Saki's Dream World is unlocked. Stop spending your Red Keys on Two Knights and begin spending your Red Keys here instead to start getting the rewards. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to IDA Part 1 (see here).
    2. Farm the two overworld Horrors in Miglance Labyrinth every 6 hours to finish off Two Knights and get all the rewards. They are located down the well next to the Unigan Tavern on floors 2 and 5.
    3. After completing IDA Part 1, complete the 1000 Year Ark until VH-Dragon Palace is unlocked. Begin spending your Red Keys here to start getting the rewards. Don't forget to check the sparkles hidden throughout the VH dungeon for black pearls. The number of stacked turtles at the start of the dungeon will let you know how many there are. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to the 1000 Year Ark (see here).
    4. Begin challenging Azami and Cerrine. They start at level 40 and respawn with 10 additional levels up to a maximum level of 80. Azami can be found in the Serena Coast. Cerrine can initally be found on the 2nd Floor of IDA School H Block after you complete IDA Part 1, but will move to the 3rd Floor Classroom for the 2nd-4th fights and the Sky Terrace for the 5th fight. Defeating them will recruit them to your roster.
    5. Did you remember to keep fishing?
  10. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 16. Begin challenging the Flame Eater (Gariyu). It starts at level 40 and respawns with 10 additional levels. It can initially be found in the Zol Planes but will move to a different location every time it respawns. You can find the locations here. Defeating it will allow you to fight Gariyu to recruit him to your roster.
  11. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 18. If you have Ciel, begin Other Story: Foreign Skies and the Ship to Freedom in Elzion Gamma District. Just go as far as you can and if you find yourself underleveled, put it on hold and come back later.
  12. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 21 (characters should be around level 45)
    1. Visit the various locations offered on the Riftbreaker's main deck to unlock access to Nilva and Rucyana Sands (which leads to Zarbo). In Zarbo, go into the rightmost house on the center lane and tap the straw dummy (it does not have an exclamation mark) to gain access to Sarupa and Charol Plains.
    2. Go inside the Mayor's House in Baruoki. Begin the P5R Part 2 Collab: Bound Wills and the Hollow Puppeteer: Promises, Vows, and Rings. Complete the entire Collab to get 5 star Violet.
    3. Begin the Time Mine side episode. You'll want to stop by here every half hour or so when the sparkles respawn.
    4. Go to Elzion Gamma District. Begin the Lost Tome side episode to unlock the Treasure Quests. Continue to work through this episode as your level allows.
    5. Go do the hidden quest chain for the Adamantine Weapon. You can get only get two weapons, one now and one later, and your decision is permanent so choose carefully. Commonly recommended options are Sword, Katana, and Lance.
    6. You may consider using your Green Keys in H-Tower of Stars to farm materials needed for level 52 and 60 equipment to complete your collection catalogue. Otherwise, use them to farm points for side episodes (other than the 1000 Year Ark) or to farm EXP in the Transitory Time Space.
    7. Are you still fishing?
  13. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 22
    1. Go to the Unigan inn. Begin the First Knight and the Holy Sword side episode (requires completion of Two Knights). Completing this side episode gets you a free 5 star character, Deirdre. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to the First Knight (see here) which can reward you with things like VC grasta, armor, and a second Adamantine Weapon.
  14. Finish the Main Story (characters should be around level 55)
    1. Go to Unigan near the gate to the Serena Coast and unlock the Royal Theater. You can cast your characters in different roles of a play and you are awarded chronos stones the first time you get a Disappointing, Excellent, or MAX review for each play.
    2. Go to Baruoki in the Mayor's House and do the two part quest chain beginning with To You of Days Long Past to get the ULTIMANIA Hammer. It can be upgraded through fighting specific enemies so keep an eye out for them as you continue to play.
    3. Go to Derismo Highroad just outside Palsifal Palace. Begin the Sword and Wing Mythos. Complete Chapter 2 to get 4 star Clarte. Complete Chapter 3 to craft Anti-lightning Armor which give +10 SPD.
    4. Go to Baruoki in the Mayor's House and do the quest for The Cat's Tale Beyond It's Territory. This will let you explore new locations as Varuo. You can get grasta and cat equipment this way.
    5. After doing Step 3 above, go start the Cat Battles. Your goal is to finish the quest "Dance the Paw-Rondo!" located in a hidden extended area east of Last Island. If you have Bivette, come back after finishing the quest to unlock a second quest and additional Cat Battles. Finishing the second quest will unlock Bivette's 5 star potential and leveling cat!Bivette to level 40 will give you enough Flame Witch Psalms to upgrade Bivette to 5 stars.
    6. If you have not gotten all the rewards from the Two Knights, IDA Part 1, P5R Part 2, or "Tales of" side episodes/collabs, use your Green Keys to finish collecting points.
    7. If you do not have any points to farm, use your Green Keys to farm H-Ruins of Rucyana for levels, EXP scrolls, git, and scripts.
    8. Begin spending your Red Keys to farm VH-Moonlight Forest, Industrial Ruins, and Nadara Volcano for levels, materials, tomes, scripts, and (if you're doing VH-Industrial Ruins) light for Amy. You also want to try and get the Sun Tome, Empress Tome, and Flame Lord Tome from these VH dungeons respectively.
    9. You will also unlock the VH-Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space and Ephemeral Time Space. Doing VH-Transitory Time Space gives you about 1.7 million EXP, EXP badges, EXP scrolls, and a chance at treatises. Doing VH-Ephemeral Time Space gives you about 800k git, Git Badges, Gold Lumps, and a chance at treatises (it is recommended to wait until after Chapter 51 when you gain access to Gold Weapons). However, neither of these dungeons will give you any materials, tomes, scripts, or light/shadow.
    10. You will begin earning Tsubura's Gems for completing VH dungeons. You might want to consider saving 400 of these in case you need to buy treatises for an Another Style sidegrade. Any extras are best used to buy Red Keys to run additional VH dungeons. On average, this is superior to buying Chant Scripts with them. It is NOT recommended to use these for buying psalms to upgrade your story characters. You can earn up to 120 Tsubura's Gems a week.
    11. Finish challenging Azami and upgrade her to 5 stars.
    12. Finish challenging Cerrine and upgrade her to 5 stars.
    13. Finish challenging Flame EateGariyu and then upgrade him to 5 stars.
    14. Begin to fight the original bonus bosses for the achievements/Chronos Stones (Goblin King, Red Dawn, True Chronos Menas, Imbrium Basin, Level 90 Flame Eater). Note that Red Dawn and Imbrium Basin are part of the ULTIMANIA Hammer upgrade quest so you might want to hold off on killing them until you reach that point.
    15. Once you reach around level 60, if you have any characters that are capable of getting a Manifestation Weapon, go do the initial battle in the Spacetime Rift located in the room furthest in the back. Once you get the weapon, keep it equipped on anyone in your currently active party so it gains EXP up to level 10. The fastest way to level them is through the Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space AD. The current list of characters able to get a Manifestation Weapon are: Anabel, Azami, Bertrand, Cerrine, Cetie, Claude, Deirdre, Dewey, Elga, Ewan, Felmina, Gariyu, Isuka, Laclair, Lokido, Mariel, Melina, Mighty, Mighty AS, Myrus, Nagi, Renri, Shanie, Shion, Shion AS, Suzette, Suzette AS, Toova, Tsukiha, and Yuna.
    16. The fish ponds miss you. T_T
  15. Begin Ogre Wars, Part 1 (requires completion of Two Knights) (characters should be level 60+)
    1. Once you get to Konium, talk to the trader in the tavern. Collect all the Cruel Angel's gear and begin upgrading the Staff and Necklace. You can find a map for all of the special materials here.
    2. Go to the Elzion Cargo Station. Complete IDA Part 2 (requires completion of IDA Part 1) until H-Mayu's Dream World is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. Make sure to do all the bonus activities related to IDA Part 2 (see here).
    3. Go to the Charol Plains towards the north end of the map. Complete the Celestial Tower until H-Dogma Tower is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. This side episode has extremely high requirements for the final rewards so feel free to take your time once you've finished the side episode.
    4. Finish off Other Story: Little Princess' Little Big Adventure. You can run VH-Forest of Forgetfulness (Miglance Palace) to farm Princess Psalms to upgrade Miyu to 5 stars but it is NOT recommended since she is underwhelming as a character.
    5. Finish off Other Story: Foreign Skies and the Ship to Freedom. You can run VH-Hanging Garden (Garden Island) to farm Melodist Psalms to upgrade Ciel to 5 stars but it is NOT recommended since he is underwhelming as a character.
    6. Finish the Lost Tome side episode if you have not done so already to get Sophia to 5 stars.
    7. You have new fishing pools in the Ancient Battlefield and Snake Neck Igoma so take advantage of them.
  16. Finish Ogre Wars, Part 1
    1. You may consider spending just enough Green and Red Keys to run H- and VH-Snake Liver Damaku in order to finish upgrading the Cruel Angel's Necklace to +10. Note that a fully upgraded necklace will grant +20 SPD while doing the Sword and Wing Mythos will allow you to craft a comparable +10 SPD necklace without needing to use Green and Red Keys.
    2. You should be able to start challenging the trials inside Mementos AD. Finish all 10 trials to get 5 star Skull. Finishing the trials will also give you Violet's and Skull's personal weapons and VC grasta.
    3. Work toward getting Aldo to 5 stars as you will be forced to use him in a later chapter.
    4. Just keep fishing.
  17. Begin Ogre Wars, Part 2
    1. Once you get to the Haunted Cheateau and Toto Dreamland, collect all the Toto's gear and begin upgrading the Ring. If you use Renri, upgrade the Ax. If you use a bow-based support (e.g. Ciel), upgrade the Bow. If you use a hammer-based healer, upgrade the Hammer. If you use a spear-based tank, upgrade the Spear. You can find a map for the locations of the Toto marks to get the weapons here. You can find a map for the locations of the armor here.
    2. Work toward getting Amy to 5 stars as you will be forced to use her in a later chapter.
    3. Just keep fishing.
  18. Finish Ogre Wars, Part 2
    1. Go to Ratle to unlock the jump rope minigame in Konium and Baruoki.
    2. Hopefully you've finished the Time Mine side episode and collected all the rewards. If not, keep working at it.
    3. Go to the Riftbreaker's main deck. Complete the Azure Rebel side episode until H-Former KMS HQ is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. Completing this side episode is required to continue the main story past Chapter 44.
    4. Go to IDA School H Block outside the IDEA Operations Room. Complete IDA Part 3 (requires completion of IDA Part 2). No keys are required. Finishing this episode rewards you with a an extremely powerful yet free level 60 5 star character, Mana. After finishing this side episode, take your time grinding out the rest of your friendship points in Lord of Mana to collect all the rewards.
    5. Go to Rinde and begin Devilishness Revived (requires completion of Celestial Tower). This event consists of a series of battles that spawn in a different location each time. Do this 5 times to unlock Cyrus's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    6. Begin Rebirth of the Beast King. This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 4 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 5th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Guildna's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    7. Begin IDA Part 2: After Incidents in the Elzion Cargo Station (requires completion of IDA Part 2). This event consists of a series of battles that spawn in a different location each time. Do this 5 times to get AS Saki. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    8. Begin One Other Ordeal in the Elzion Theta District (requires completion of the Azure Rebel). This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 3 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 4th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Riica's 5 star potential and personal weapon. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    9. Begin Jewel in Shade by the front desk of IDA School H Block (requires completion of IDA 2 and the Lost Tome side episodes). This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 3 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 4th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Jade's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult. After promoting him to 5 stars, make sure to go to the IDA School H Block - Sky Terrace to get his personal VC grasta as well.
    10. Go do the hidden quest chain to upgrade your Adamantine Weapon. You can only get one type of upgrade and your decision is permanent so choose carefully.
    11. Go to Unigan and begin the AS Gariyu questline (requires completion of all three of his character quests as well). This event consists of a series of battles. Do this 5 times to get AS Gariyu. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    12. Just keep fishing, fishing, fishing...
  19. Begin Tales from the East: Return of the Goddess of Time, Part 1
    1. Go to the Izana Tavern and start investigating the rumors. It takes the guy 30 minutes to finish investigating each rumor.
    2. You will be able to begin farming grasta. For more information, check out this post. (Guide courtesy of u/Typical-Cookie)
    3. Go to Nagsham and participate in the minigames to farm Silver and Gold tokens. Silver Tokens can be traded for souvenirs. Collecting all the souvenirs will only reward 5 Chronos Stones so it's not quite worth the time investment. Gold Tokens can be traded for Gold Weapons that boost the amount of gold earned in battle. It's best to equip these weapons before entering the Ruins of Rucyana or the Ephemeral Time Space.
    4. What do we do? We fish, fish, fish... (There aren't any new fishing locations so just keep fishing the old ones).
  20. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 1
    1. Begin to equip your main units with Cherry Blossom weapons and Discipline/Tempered armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Staff, Sword, Bow, Fists, and Hammer are all worth upgrading. The armors increase max HP/MP. Note that there is only one Master of the Attic (Horror), which means you can only get 1 Steel Mouse Skin every 6 hours.
    2. Use your Green Keys to farm Present Garulea Continent AD (PGAD) for high level grasta. Even if your light/shadow level is low, you can still collect Junk/Paint Materials/Cat Emas inside the dungeon to trade for rewards. Make sure to bring Azami so she can gain light. Your goal is to collect all the T3 grasta from trading Junk at Nagsham and Cat Emas at the start. In addition, buy any Power of Nothingness grasta that you find at Nagsham.
    3. With Present Garulea Continent AD unlocked, you should also start buying Green Keys with Tsubura's Gems from the Nopaew Emporium.
    4. Farm any remaining Psalms needed to upgrade your story characters. This should be done together with VC grasta farming for your other characters. Aldo and Amy should be your priorities to upgrade to 5 stars. Guildna is also a very good option. Riica, Cyrus, and Helena are low priority.
    5. Oh ho ho! How I love to fish! (I'll stop the Finding Nemo reference now...)
  21. Begin Goddess of Time, Part 2
    1. Make sure to do all of the sidequests as you progress the story. One of them in Chapter 61 will give you a Jadeite of Attack plus a Power of Agony (Lance) grasta.
    2. After Chapter 55, you will gain the ability to create VC grasta from your unused 5 star upgrade tomes at the present time Cat Shrine.
    3. After Chapter 58, you will gain Strawboy. If you level him up to at least level 60, you can return to Zami to reincarnate him. Each reincarnation increases his starting level by 1 (up to a maximum of starting level of 60). Each reincarnation at level 80 will also increase his light value by 1.
    4. After Chapter 60, you will gain the ability to create True VC grasta at the future Cat Shrine. To unlock this ability, you will need to complete a short quest requiring the collection of 88 charms. A map of the charm locations can be found on the wiki here.
  22. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 2
    1. Once you finish collecting all the limited grasta from Present Garulea Continent AD, switch over to farming Antiquity Garulea Continent AD (AGAD) instead. Make sure to bring Gariyu (NS or AS) so he can gain shadow. Your goal is to collect all the T3 grasta from trading Femurs at Zami and Dogus at the start. In addition, buy any Power of Poison or Power of Pain grasta that you find at Zami.
    2. Begin to craft Dragon Bone weapons and Active/Silence armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Ax and Bow are worth upgrading. The armors increase HP/MP regen while in reserves and have the same stats as the Discipline/Tempered Armor.
  23. Begin Goddess of Time, Part 3
    1. After Chapter 70, you will gain the ability to upgrade your grasta at Nekomasa's House in Itoise.
    2. Continue to upgrade the Icicle Bow using Auretium. Upgrading the bow will allow you to break through additional seals scattered around Kunlun Mountains and Demon Sea Caverns.
  24. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 3
    1. Once you finish collecting all the limited grasta from Antiquity Garulea Continent AD, switch over to farming Future Garulea Continent AD (FGAD) instead. Make sure to bring Cerrine so she can gain light. Your goal is to collect all 3 unique armors from the vendor at Angal and all 4 unique (seafood) weapons from the vendor at Eeza. Then continue to farm for grasta upgrade materials.
    2. Finish collecting the other 4 seafood weapons scattered around the new areas.
    3. Begin to craft Crafted weapons and Might armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Fist is worth upgrading. The Lance is good for Tiramisu and the Staff is good for anyone in the same party as AS Rosetta. The armors increase damage by +15% when at Max HP.
  25. Endgame stuff (in no particular order)
    1. Use your Red Keys to finishing collecting all the rewards from the side episodes/collabs. Afterward, use your Red Keys to farm for story character light/shadow to reach the AD reward thresholds (Ruins of Rucyana: 96, VH-AD: 120, Otherlands: 180, Garulea AD: 240 and 360).
    2. While you can try to farm for VH-Otherlands weapons, farming the Garulea Continent ADs provide an easier and faster power boost for the same number of Green Keys. If you still want to farm VH-Otherlands, your choices are: Baruoki, Ratle, and Elzion. Which one you do depends on what weapons you want and what team composition you have. While difficulty is subjective, I'd rate them Baruoki > Elzion = Ratle (from hardest to easiest). Note that there are other weapons with similar (but slightly weaker) effects for far less grind.
    3. If you have finished leveling your Manifestation Weapons to level 10, go back and do the second fight to finish powering them up. This fight will be much more difficult!
    4. Go to Konium and talk to the elder to refight the armors from Rebirth of the Beast King to upgrade the Sword of Despair.
    5. Go to Purgatory and refight the Elementals 3 times each to upgrade the elemental weapons.
    6. Finish fishing by catching all the Lake Horrors and then go fight Leviathan.
    7. Finish 1000 Another Dungeons to fight the Nameless Girl.
    8. You didn't forget about Uquaji, did you?
    9. Fight the Present Garulea Eight Demons from the rumors to get their weapons. (Guide courtesy of u/Living_Green)
    10. Fight the Antiquity Garulea Eight Demons after solving their riddles to get their weapons. (Guide courtesy of u/EdenBoy03)
    11. Fight the Velvet Twins, Justine and Caroline, in Lucniva. For every 25% of their HP you take off for the first time, you will get rewards. For example, the first time you bring them down to 75% HP you will get Joker's and Morgana's personal VC grasta.
    12. Fight each of the True Spirits individually (Rogi, Fornjot, Aegir, and Kari). Each spirit you defeat will give you the personal VC grasta for the respective "Tales of" character (Cress, Velvet, Milla, and Yuri).
    13. Fight the remaining superbosses: Insula Ventorum, Mimi, Rotte Rivel, Zennon Shadow, Melvillithan, Regenwurm, Terra Nivium, Ice Jailer, Kudang, and the Baruoki Mayor. Note that Insula Ventorum is part of the ULTIMANIA Hammer upgrade quest so you might want to hold off on killing it until you reach that point. Farming Rotte Rivel and Regenwurm is the most efficient way to get everything from the Cat Road vendors in Moonlight Forest and Sarupa respectively.
    14. Finish all your collection achievements (including the armors from H-Otherlands).
    15. Finish leveling and upgrading all your characters.
    16. Find all 108 cats and level them all to level 50 through cat battles. Don't forget to go back to the Spurr-ace Colony to fight the Four Heavenly Kitties.
    17. Reincarnate your Strawboy all the way to 255 light.
    18. Buy out the entire Auction House including all 3 of Sophia's VC grasta.
    19. Go back and finish getting max friend points for every companion in Lord of Mana, even if you've already gotten the final chant script, for bragging rights.
    20. Fully upgrade your fishing gear and catch 150 of every single fish including the Lake Lords and Rinde Sunfish.
  26. Mourn the loss of your social life as you wait for the next patch to drop.
  27. Go get yourself a VTuber avatar and stream yourself replaying the game from the beginning with story characters only
※ Important Note: Aside from the Two Knights and Azure Rebel side episodes, everything else that is not part of the Main Story is optional. This means that if you do not want to fish, mine, or do Otherlands, etc., you are free to ignore those parts of this roadmap.
Recommended Key Spending
  • Finish Chapter 11
    • Use green keys on storyline ADs or the EXP AD
    • No place to spend red keys
  • Finish Chapter 13
    • Use green keys on storyline H-ADs, the EXP H-AD, or side episode/collab H-ADs (except for 1000 Year Ark and First Knight)
    • Use red keys on side episode VH-ADs (especially 1000 Year Ark and First Knight)
  • Finish Chapter 25
    • Use green keys on side episode/collab H-ADs or Ruins of Rucyana
    • Use red keys on storyline VH-ADs
  • Finish Chapter 55
    • Use green keys on PGAD
    • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs
  • Finish Chapter 66
    • Use green keys on AGAD (if PGAD is fully cleared)
    • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs
  • Finish Chapter 74
    • Use green keys on FGAD (if AGAD is fully cleared)
    • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs
List of Bonus Bosses:
  • 1.0 Bosses
    • Goblin King (Moonlight Forest, deepest area, requires Goblin Loincloth)
    • Red Dawn (Zol Plains, northeast corner)
    • Imbrium Basin (Last Island, northwest corner)
    • True Chronos Menas (Records Room Chronos Umbra, Elzion Pathway boss room)
    • Flame Eater (Corinda Plains, up the southwest vine, requires recruitment of Gariyu)
    • Leviathan (Ocean Palace, requires completion of Ocean Palace and victory over all Lake Lords)
    • Nameless Girl (Spacetime Rift, requires completion of 1000 Another Dungeons)
    • Uquaji (Spacetime Rift, westernmost door)
  • 1.5 Bosses
    • Insula Ventorum (Hidden passage behind Macminal Museum, requires key from final room in the museum)
    • Mimi (Toto Dreamland)
    • Zennon Shadow (Records Room Ogres Spike, boss room)
    • Melvillithan (Ogres Spike, east of Dominion Spire, requires Resonance Box)
    • The full power 4 Elementals in Purgatory without using the items (there are no actual rewards but they're still a fun challenge)
  • 2.0 Bosses
    • Rotte Rivel (Moonlight Forest, extended area east of the healing point, requires travelling there first as Varuo)
    • Regenwurm (Cat Road, extended area in the northeast corner of Sarupa, requires travelling there first as Varuo)
    • 8 Demons (Present Garulea, all over the place, requires talking to rumor monger at Izana tavern first)
    • 8 Demons (Antiquity Garulea, all over the place, requires talking to man in Gadaro first)
    • Terra Nivium (Sky Fortress Eeza down the elevator, requires code from KMS)
    • Baruoki Mayor (Baruoki, complete all the tutorial missions given by the mayor and find the cane in Moonlight Forest)
    • Celestial Mushroom (Rippling Forest, hidden area immediately east of the exit of the northern most map)
    • Berserk Tempered Hound (Parallel Unigan Underground Path)
  • 2.5 Bosses
    • Justine and Caroline (Lucniva, glowing flowers at the very top)
    • True Spirits (Citadel of Time Ruins, basement after finishing all 4 trials)
    • Ice Jailer (Kunlun Mountains, unlocked with a level 5 Icicle Bow)
    • Kudang (Land of Ro: Dungeon Ruins, in the back of Level 5)
F2P Summoning Guides:
Miscellaneous Notes:
  • Go set up your Transfer ID right now if you haven't already. You have been warned!
  • Use your food! You can always get new food by resting at an inn.
  • Only use your chronos stones on pulls! If you die in battle, you can force close the game and reload before the battle as long as you don't go past the defeat screen.
  • Gear isn't an exceptionally big deal before endgame. Just wear what you can get. If you're running Another Dungeons, you should be getting a decent amount of materials. Also, look into getting the treasure chests hidden behind Horrors to lessen the amount of materials you need to grind. Once you get past Chapter 26, the Cruel Angel's and Toto's gear should last you until the Eastern continent.
  • These are the best dungeons for battle EXP aside from the EXP dungeon:
Dungeon Total EXP EXP w/o Horrors
VH-Snake Liver Damaku 662094 558318
VH-Riftbreaker 641835 540567
VH-Toto Dreamland 634225.5 525421.5
VH-Beast King's Castle 611173.5 507397.5
VH-Miglance Castle 609550 513310
Additional useful links if you need more details on anything mentioned above:
Changelog:
  • Added Lost Tome side episode
  • Added Sword and Wings Mythos
  • Added Jewel in Shade
  • Added Persona 5 Royal Part 2
  • Added "Tales of" Collab
  • Added Goddess of Time Part 3
  • Rearranged some stuff
  • Removed TL;DR chart due to character limit
  • Changed History to Previous Version due to character limit
Previous Version:
Edit: Added additional info as suggested by u/Typical-Cookie and u/Oldnoob36
submitted by xPalox to AnotherEdenGlobal [link] [comments]

A week in the life of your favorite firearm merchant! 2/10/2021

Things have been busy so, I apologize for the delay. I know lots of you love these stories.
Last Friday night...Yeah, I think we broke the law...Always say we're gonna stop, whoa
Friday, or in the alternative: What part of call me was not clear?
I get to my desk at the usual time and deal with the usual bullshit. I got a SCAR 16s here on consignment because a customer of mine bought them from dealers that were less than reputable and lied about the condition of/country of origin of their merchandise. And they swapped sku's and other bullshit gun dealer things.
Trying to be a nice guy, I can charge the guy to box and ship everything back or roll them at top dollar and give him a big stack of blue stripe benjamins. I tell him I'll try and sell them for him and take my cut off the top so we're both making money. He thinks this is a great idea and manages to line up a buyer on his own. I just need to do the 4473 and cut him a check. No big deal, I don't have a problem doing a little extra work for him versus the standard dealer to customer transfer. The guy he sold it to is a semi regular customer of mine and he comes in, bangs out the 4473 and it's about a 90 minute wait on transaction time.
No big deal. Instead of packing up for the gun show, I'm selling other peoples guns. I'll pack up for the gun show tonight and get everything ready when I get home. I need to be up super early and on the road.
I get everything squared off, customer comes in to get his money and drops off ANOTHER SCAR 16s to sell because the dealer pulled a con job. Okay, I can haul it to the show in the AM. I have a SCAR 16s in FDE from him. I have a 5.7 in FDE on the arm from a buddy of mine and a 509 FDE. I'll make a package deal, FDE FN Friday all FN time. Things are looking up!
I clear off all the 4473's for the week and do an audit and I'm down about 75% inventory wise from last year. Things are tight but stuff is trickling in in drips and drabs. Hit the chickfila on my way home for a sandwich and milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard. I'm done eating and getting ready to leave when I get the call.
ring ring
FC: go for FC
1: Mr Hayden sir, can I ask a favor of you?
FC: What up?
1: Got a guy who wants my scar 16 lined up but he has to pay on a credit card. Can you run it for me? You can take a card and cut me a check?
(It's 7PM on a friday night. I still need to pack for the show. By the time I get back it will be 9PM and I still need to shower and get a decent nights sleep. I'm a glutton for punishment)
FC: If you want to get it done tonight, have the guy call me. I'm eating dinner now and I'll head back if he calls me.
1: roger that, I'll pass along your info right now and let him know.
I do a few more emails from the laptop and say hi to the chickfila owner who was friends with my dad and buys guns from me. We chat for a bit and my phone does not ring. Now, gentle readers - I offered to head back at 730PM on a friday to get something done for someone as a favor to them. That should be worthy of "holy shit you are the man for coming back on your own time!" but this was not the case. No phone call means I didn't head back.
I head home, no phone call. Phone about to die. Plug it in and go into my garage and get all my gun show stuff sorted and loaded and organized. My normal display is 3 tables of merchandise stacked and racked on 2 tables. This show it's 1.5 tables of merchandise stretched out on 2 tables. Not good. My back is killing me. I get some ibuprofen and take a hot shower. Grab my phone off the charger. Bunch of missed calls, one email one VM. I return the VM.
1: Hey you must be having a good dinner at chickfila, we've been waiting here in the parking lot for the last hour!
FC: You have? Well, I didn't get a phone call. I'm home and in pajamas.
1: What? He didn't call you?
FC: Nope
1: HEY! YOU DIDN'T CALL HIM? Oh he says he just figured......
FC: No phone call means no turning around to go back to work. We'll deal with it next week.
1: Okay I'll tell him.
I'm a pretty easy to get along with guy. If you ask me a favor, I'll likely do it if it does not interfere with my life too badly. But if you ask me for a favor and you can't follow simple instructions, well then you're wasting your own time. That's no skin off my hide. Failure to follow simple directions on your part does not warrant my bad back bending over backwards to make it right. I climb into bed, I have to be up at 5AM to tank up at the truck stop, grab breakfast on the run and get to this show on the road.
Saturday, in the park. I think it was the fourth of july. People dancing, people laughing. A man selling ice cream. Singing Italian songs....
Showtime Saturday.
My back is stiffer than I'd like. I get down to the show and get loaded in and everything is set up looking spiffy. Not in my normal spot right by the loading dock, much to my chagrin. There's a line that's 1/4 mile long to get into the building. This shit is looking crazy.
Here's the deal, folks. The 4473 isn't hard. It does require attention to detail. Being in therapy with Dr Kaplan, I've learned a few things.
Old FC: Here's the clipboard, call me when you're done.
New FC: Here's the form, I'm guessing you haven't filled this out before. Start on line 9, read this carefully, 18A and 18B are two separate questions that both require answers, 21 L 2 is tricky, you need to read it ALL THE WAY TO THE END before you answer. Sign on 22, today's date on 23. STOP THERE.
With the new spiel, of the 7 forms I was handed on Saturday before noon - guess how many were filled out correctly? I'll make a break here to talk about the bullshit I had to do.
Show Hustler #1: I had a consignment mossberg built in new haven pre 1968. A guy wants to buy it and he's friends with Ray Dalio. Yes, the Ray Dalio. He tries getting me to knock $100 off but I tell him he's nuts. If he's FRIENDS WITH A BILLIONAIRE and lives in GREENWICH fucking Connecticut, you can pay my very fair asking price of about $350 on it. He relents and I give him a small discount and I give him the clipboard.
Show Hustler #2: I got a guy wanting to trade me a 44 Mag Black Desert Eagle for a Colt 1911 I have on the table. Prices are about the same. I tell him I'm not doing the work of selling two guns for the profit of one gun. He tells me I'm not selling two guns, I'm trading one and selling one. That's selling one gun! I explain two entries in my A/D book means I sell two guns, and it's easier for me to sell a NIB Colt than it is for me to sell a used Desert Eagle. Well the DE isn't used! It's unfired! It's brand new! If I didn't get it from a wholesaler, it's used. He says for me to think about it and he'll be at the show. I tell him I thought about it. He says yeah, ready to do an even trade? I say no, now I want your gun plus $1000. He calls me a clown and walks away.
Show Hustler #3: Over the road truck driver wants the FN 5.7 in FDE I have on consignment. Asks for a truck driver discount. He wants it for $1200. I've got it tagged at $1350. I tell him if he can fill out the form straight, no errors I write it at 1200. If there's an error, I write it for $1350. He says he just bought a brand new freightliner cascadia and money is tight. I tell him well we got a bet or what? He nods, I book the action.
Show Hustler #4: Guy wants my 509C. He wants to trade me for a NIB glock even up. I tell him there's no money to be made and selling a used glock gets me less money. BUT ITS NOT USED! ITS BRAND NEW! We go back and forth 9 times about how new does not mean what he thinks it means. I offer him $350 on his trade as credit knowing that $650 on a used glock in 45ACP is all the money right now. He calls me a cocksucker and walks away.
Okay, so 7 form 4473's with an explanation as to all the problem areas before noon on Saturday.....how many were filled out correctly?
If you answered zero, you are right! That means I won the 4473 bet. The 5.7 goes out at top dollar. Winner winner chicken dinner!
I head home and count my money. I need 9 more shows like this and I might finally be able to retire. On the way home I check web orders. Three guys in arkansas have ordered $900 22LR off my website at $150 a brick. I joke about my stash of 22LR being a brand new F350 platinum but at $150/brick that's rapidly becoming a reality.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday is day 2 of the show. I stop at a local diner and grab corned beef hash and a short stack of pancakes for breakfast. Want to know how good a diner is? If there's real butter with the pancakes and not that bullshit country crock/margarine spread, you know things will be good.
There's butter. It's good.
A very nice Sig 229 in stainless in 9mm comes by from a guy who did business with me years ago. He traded me a Wilson CQB pistol for a Sig 226 and a Springfield Range Officer even up. I had maybe $1600 into that Wilson, I sold it for $2500 a few months later and tucked the money away. When my brother got married, our fucking gigantic family got together the night before the wedding and had dinner. I told him I'd cover it and he's like "are you sure?" and I said, how bad could it be? Not realizing his wife's family is a bunch of hungry alcoholics from cape cod who have never seen an open bar before and are total gluttons when someone else is buying. As it turns out, $2500 covered about half of the F&B, but he seemed appreciative.
Anyhow.
I sell nothing at the show all day and talk with the other dealers and swap stupid customer stories. I pack and head home and I've sold a good bit of stuff of mine and consignments. As I'm making my way out of the building, the wheel comes off the wagon.
This is not a euphemism. https://imgur.com/a/KY5vLCl
I pay off all my friends for their sales, and in the zelle memo field, I break down the transactions as such:
$69.69 - Anal Hook
$350 - Loch Ness Monster Poster
(whatever the balance was after bullshit, I can't remember) - this is from your real dad
I have lots of fun at this job sometimes.
It's just another manic Monday. I wish it was Sunday. 'Cause that's my fun day.
Monday morning I get an email from the fellow who spent his friday night in the parking lot waiting for me. His email address leads me to believe he spent some time at Parris Island or San Diego, because who else uses semper fi in an email address name? He says he can be in after work at 1645 hours sharp and is just down the road. I tell him I'll get everything squared away for him, and I prep the 4473's on a clipboard and get everything set up.
Cleaning up files from the show, closing out 4473's. Down to 249 items in stock. 150 of them are lowers. This is not good. Must strike while irons are hot though. Gotta shear all the sheep while the wool is ready to harvest and prices are high. I have a bunch of personal ammo that will hit the market one POTUS says something stupid. That's not an if, that's a when.
Bunch of phone calls from people seeking 380 and cheap 9mm. I do my best charles bronson impression. "No dice." The emails accusing me of price gouging are fantastic. There's some other idiocy too. I won't post the whole ones but here's a few snippets from the butthurt and the unprepared as well as the idiotic.
I’m just looking for fmj for target practice. Nothing fancy. If you could do them for $400 a case of 1000 I can talk.
FC: I can get you $400/case on 1000 but it'll be foreign made non brass 9mm ammo.
Pretty much what your saying is no matter how much money I try to spend, you’re continuing your get rich quick prices. People like you are direct part of the problem. It’s one thing to make money and it’s another to try to high way rob people. Hope you’re proud of yourself.
FC: I can assure you that this isn't a get rich quick situation. I spent plenty of money investing in half a million rounds of ammo about FOUR years ago during the Trump slump and I'm just getting around to realizing profits now. I am not getting rich, nor am I doing it quickly. I hardly think that any investment that takes 4 years to realize a gain is quick.
(No response back)
Subject: Used Ruger 10/22
Message: I’ll give you 175 for it.
FC: Deal. Can you come by today?
(new message, no subject)
Message: I can come by Tomorrow or Thursday.
(I try calling him. VM box is full)
FC: Great! Lets get it done. Your VM box is full. Tomorrow is better.
(new message, no subject)
Message: I can come tomorrow but I only have 150 I can spend at the moment so I’ll probably wait a few days.
FC: What happened to " I’ll give you 175 for it." a few hours ago?
(new message, no subject)
Message: My bad dude. I have a kid I don’t know what to tell you. And I’m pretty sure I said Wednesday or Thursday. If you really want it gone that bad I don’t see what the big deal is.
FC: I was just expecting you to have $175 ready if you said you wanted to deal......So, will Wednesday or Thursday work this week? Bring me cash and your concealed.
(new message, no subject)
Message: No cwl. But you don’t need one for a private sale. I can have your cash.
FC: No CWL no sale.
(new message, no subject)
Message: Yeah I’ll pass. Good luck. You totally should have mentioned that at the start of negotiations.
FC: What part of my ad that said cash and concealed required was unclear?
Yeah. Fucking mondays.
1630 rolls around and our scar loving jarhead walks in. With his wife. And his children. Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR little munchkins. All without an ipad and disney + streaming to keep them occupied. They're not bad kids, just curious at all the little things I have lying around like lower parts kits, magazines, AAC 51T mounts, stuff like that.
He hands over his ID. I look at the address. It's a city two and a half hours away.
FC: Uh, you're a long way from home.
USMC: Yeah I just moved. I'm putting my new address on this form if that's okay.
FC: You have anything with your new address on it? I can't do anything with ID that's not current.
USMC: It's not expired, it's current.
FC: Where do you live?
USMC: (names address locally)
FC: Then this is no longer current. I need something with your new local address on it.
USMC: Oh then I'll just use the old address on this form then.
FC: That's not acceptable. I need a current government document with your new address.
USMC: Here, I have activation orders and training orders from the army.
FC: That won't work. Government document with your new address.
USMC: Here's my W2 from the DOD.
FC: That's not a government document.
USMC: But the DOD gave it to me! It's FROM the department of defense, which is the government!
(Editors note: Did I mention that I hate mondays?)
sigh
FC: I can call ATF and ask......
USMC: Please do!
(I phone the ATF area supervisor on his cellular device)
ATF: Mr Hayden, how can I help you today?
FC: Barry, I got a funny one. Guy wants to use his DOD W2/activation orders to get his gun since that has his current address.
ATF: Why? Is there a reason he's unable to get an updated drivers license?
FC: That's a good question Barry, let me find out.
(FC puts ATF on speakerphone)
FC: Hey private first class, ATF wants to know why you didn't update your license
USMC: Uh because I've been busy
ATF: Sir, that's not an answer. I was in the military too and I had to change ID's just like you. If I can had to do it you have to do it.
(Barry was a very long time ago a RIO on the F4 Phantom)
USMC: But I have activation orders! and training orders! and a W2!
ATF: Get your license changed over or produce another document for the licensee to process your transaction.
FC: Thanks barry!
I hang up and tell him that's the area supervisor and I'm playing this one the way he tells me. He needs to produce a document compliant with ATF regulations for me to release this firearm.
USMC: Oh by the way there's a guy with my same name that robbed a bank in Detroit last year, I always get delayed anyways.
(sigh)
I type his stuff into the computer and I get a thumbs up from the computer instantly much to his amazement. I fire off a quick email to the guy who owns the scar
Subject: No current ID
Message: your jarhead friend who wants the scar does not have current ID
No deal? Or what's the plan?
My reply is interrupted. Their oldest child admires the batman dollar on my safe. The youngest child is incessantly clicking a spare pilot G2 pen I had on my desk.
Mother: If you click that pen ONE MORE TIME, you are WALKING HOME.
(kid puts the pen down)
Me, whispering to the kid: It's not that far.
(kid picks the pen back up)
Mother scowls at both of us.
I giggle.
I get back to email.
FC: Lets put it this way. You're gonna owe me for this one. Big time.
His wife starts pulling out auto registrations, USAA insurance cards, cable bills, etc with their new address - NONE of which are useful because none of them are government issued. She updates his and her drivers licenses online at the state website and gives me a voter registration printout confirming the update, but that's not a workable document since it's an informational update and not an actual registration.
Customer that owns the scar walks in and witnesses the flurry of kids playing with gun stuff and two grown ass adults trying to make it all work.
It's been 45 minutes of this.
The guy finally gives up and goes on the state website and gets a fishing license and emails it to me. Stacks a big stack of SCAR magazines that NOBODY has in stock to the order and I charge it onto his USAA mastercard. Had I returned to work on a Friday after hours to get an ID that wasn't current, I would have been apoplectic. Now, I'm just mildly annoyed. I can assure you that anyone who has walked through the hallowed halls of MCRD Parris Island should know to have their shit together. This just seemed like some hybrid of cluelessness more than it was an issue of stolen valor. Gun and mags go out the door.
My customer sits down and starts laughing. I look at him totally nonplussed.
1: That was easy, right?
(FC looks nonplussed)
1: An hour worth of work, for $50! That's good! you should do a few of those a day!
(FC looks nonplussed)
1: Really?
FC: You owe me.
I cut him his check and I'm done for the night. I head home.
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too....
Tuesday
Another day, another box of 9mm at $75 each heading out the door.....I'm down to my last 15,000 rds of 9mm. I sold my entire personal stash of Remington UMC at $67 a box. Now that we're into the Federal American Eagle, it's up to $75. People are thanking me for having it available because they've called everywhere.
This morning's "no I don't have it" calls: 380ACP, 30-40 Krag, 6.5 CM, Grendel and Swede, 2.5" .410 slugs, 3 or 3.5" shells and turkey loads.
Now, for the uninitiated: Turkey season is around the corner. ALL the ammo for turkey loads have been purchased by new shooters looking for home defense ammo since last year. Why turkey loads for self defense? That's all the cabelas had....
Come season, there will be lots of very disappointed hunters who were unprepared. Those with ammo will hunt, those without ammo will hunt for ammo, and they will not be successful given the state of the ammunition markets. There is far more money to be made cranking out buckshot and slugs than there are turkey shells.
Package comes in for transfer. Guy has a NJ license. He's just moved here. Has NOTHING with his new address. This is basically a repeat of Monday's SCAR sale. The guy here is ADAMANT that he's bought a home here and he can purchase a firearm without being a state resident.
He's technically right. HOWEVER this is why dealers hate doing things: The gun and sale have to follow both the laws of the state he's in AND the state of New jersey. Now I have to run down all the bullshit that is NJ published ordnances to ensure that this gun is Phil Murphy(TM) approved. For the price of a transfer. BUT WAIT THERES MORE!
The gun is for a BUDDY of his he's giving it to him as a gift when he's down here for a fishing trip in a few days.
https://imgur.com/0cqL7vX
Read that last line.
Yeah. I tell him that it's unlawful for him to dispose of a firearm to a non resident. He's wondering what the fuck to do. He insists on taking delivery. I tell him I need to run it down with the address and everything since his NJ license isn't technically valid since HE NO LONGER LIVES THERE.
The guy bought a double wide trailer here, the trailer park handles all the water, the power, the etc - he does not have any REAL property here. He's insistent that he has a deed for his house. He's holding a bill of sale for a mobile home.
sigh
I tell him we should just get things sent to his friend via an FFL in his state. The guy lines up an FFL and I fedex the gun to the dealer up there. We need ONE UNIFORM SET OF COHESIVE COMMON SENSE GUN LAWS, not one federal set and 50+ subsections on a state level plus NY State HOME RULE BULLSHIT.
I head home early, telemedicine with Dr Kaplan. He's impressed with my progress. I'm not.
There are no songs that have Wednesday that I can think of here
Wednesday, Hump Day
I decide to work from home today. I can take all the phone calls and tell people no I don't have anything from home. I decide to do some early spring cleaning. It's a BEA-U-TIFUL day. The sun is out, nice weather means I can work in the garage for once. I start a load of laundry. Everything starts off fine. I'm sorting through old shot show HK posters when I can smell burning. There's no smoke but I do smell burning. Am I having a stroke? I can't figure it out and I get a load of laundry processed through my carbon neutral solar powered clothes drying system. I start another batch of laundry and hear a massive grinding noise when I should hear the washing machine washing. That burning smell? That was the timer burning up. And I have a full tub of underwear that needs to get done since I'm nearly out. Fuck.
My dad's old toolbox is in disarray. Mine isn't. I quickly grab a few tools. A snap on general service kit is totally overkill, but it's super nice to have EVERYTHING in one spot ready to go. My 1/4 drive ratchet takes apart my washing machine panel with ease. I unplug the timer and hit the electronic bay for a replacement. I find one 2 hours away and they say they can ship immediately on my fedex account. I can get it here tomorrow if they fedex ground it on todays truck. Deal, here's my amex. Email me tracking when it's sent.
One problem arisen, one problem in progress of being fixed. Not bad for before noon.
I get a bunch of stuff stacked up and straightened up and I throw a ton of stuff on facebook marketplace. Old Glock signs and point of sale merchandise like hanging ceiling mobiles, glock pencils, FN pads, FN hats, Daniel Defense stickers and patches, HK pistol racks, some old Colt and Beretta Blue boxes, all that stuff.
People message me about the Colt box. WHATS IN THE BOX they ask.
Well it's an empty fucking box. I made that VERY clear in the description. So what's my witty rejoinder? A youtube link to the scene from Seven with Brad Pitt yelling at Morgan Freeman "WHATS IN THE BOX? WHATS IN THE BOX?!?!!?!"
They are not amused. I think it's brilliant. They ask me what gun is for sale. I tell them it's just an empty box but if they want a gun, here's my info and call me at work during business hours. I'm then told that people selling empty boxes on facebook aren't selling empty boxes, they're selling guns.
This, I did not know.
Armed with this newfound information, I proceed to post more random stuff from my garage for sale in front of a pile of 20,000 rds of 9mm. An old kegerator and some bar equipment my dad had, a Miller Genuine Draft neon sign backdropped with 5 cases of Winchester Q4170 45ACP and 5 cases of CCI Lawman 147gr 9mm. The messages flood in looking to buy my stuff cheap. But I know what I got.
My favorite interaction:
1: hey man, you got anything else for sale?
FC: Tons of stuff for sale!
1: I'm looking for pews.
FC: I got pews, you want to stop by and check out my pews? I got some real nice ones, super nice. Only used on sunday!
1: Yeah man I'm leaving for lunch in 10 min, give me your address
FC: Sure thing! Here's me, be here in 30 minutes!
I continue to clean up my garage and I pull out some of my dad's old auction finds. Under about 200 old polynesian tiki mugs, I dust off some white oak church pews and pull them into the driveway. The guy tells me he wants to see the pews I got, and I point them out to him in the driveway. White oak, great shape - just needs some lemon pledge and they'll be good as new. He calls me a clown, gets in his car and drives off.
What's wrong with these people?
I return to find 254 facebook marketplace messages for people asking me to sell/ship them guns and ammo to all sorts of places and that facebook has suspended my account for violations of their marketplace terms. The offending item? An old Sig Sauer binder that has a P226 exploded diagram on the front. Because firearm parts are not allowed.
I manage to sell on facebook marketplace an old surefire incandescent rifle light, a blue colt mustang box, a few tin winchester ammo signs, some beer neons that belonged to my dad and some soft pistol rugs that I ordered from RSR on clearance. A productive wednesday. My haul nets me after facebook marketplace fees and shipping about $54 on the shipped items and a few hundred bucks in miscellany. I give my business cards to all the folks looking for gun stuff and they seem surprised that I still have ammo and that they've never heard of me. They do all their ammo and gun shopping online and don't do B&M. That's the way things will be in the future.
I head to the tex mex joint for dinner. I chat it up with a very cute blonde that is the manager. She's just moved into a new place after her man chated on her and she ditched that zero. I offer her my stack of bed bath and beyond coupons.
FC: Starting over is expensive. Maybe this will make it a little bit cheaper.
1: Oh my gosh this will save me a bunch of money! Here, your dinner is on me.
FC: It's been a long time since a woman has bought me dinner. Perhaps I should return that favor. Do you like firefighters?
(she cracks a big smile under the mask)
1: I do, but I'm talking to someone right now.
FC: I can see you ditched the zero, but if it does not work out and you want to get yourself a hero - I'm here pretty often. Just ask and I'll take you to dinner at your favorite place.
I manage to get rejected by a woman at the same time she bought me dinner.
That takes talent. I head home, pop some ibuprofen and head to bed. I check my email in bed. There's a tracking number.
PICKUP OCCOURED AFTER FEDEX CUTOFF FOR TODAY, PACKAGE WILL BE TENDERED THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY
You fucking clowns. You had one job. I call fedex and ask them to hold it at the facility 2 hours away. I'll grab it in the AM. They can't even find it. Fuck it. Leave it. I'll deal with it later.
Thursday, I don't care about you
Thursday, or FC makes a new friend!
I head into work a bit early today, as I'm driving down my street, I round the corner and see an older fellow wheeling his trash to the curb. This guy had a '99 Ford F250 extended cab 4x4 with the venerable 7.3 navistar in MINT condition for sale. 129,000 miles, parked in a garage 10 months out of the year. He wanted $16k for this truck and I figured he got tired of tire kickers and lowballs and kept it. I messaged him 3 days after the post went up and I never followed up, I knew the house since I've literally been driving past it MY ENTIRE LIFE on the way to elementary, middle, high school, college and now work.
My passenger window rolls down as I stop right next to the mailbox.
FC: You still got your F250?
1: No! That thing sold in one hour! To a dealer!
FC: Son of a bitch! I wanted that truck, I didn't even know you were selling!
1: Dealer came over in one hour, took a look at it, put cash on the hood, slapped a dealer tag on it and drove it out of here!
FC: Damn! I wish you put a sign on it and I would have stopped.
1: I told my wife I didn't want to sell it to a dealer but my garage isn't big enough!
FC: No kidding. Say, you still got your T bird?
1: My thunderbird? How'd you know I have a thunderbird?
FC: I grew up here! When I was in grade school I'd ride by and you were wrenching on it, when I was in high school, I'd see you wrenching on it from the bus and when I was in college I'd see you wrenching on it on my way home from class!
1: I spent 20 years building that car 2 weeks at a time! You wanna see it?
FC: Well, when you put it that way....
I pull off into the grass. He's got a detached 3500 square foot garage with Snap On's Mr Big not 1 but 2 ben pearson four post lifts. He shows me his thunderbird he's been working on for two decades. We get to talking. He's a commercial alaskan fisherman and he spends 10 months of the year in alaska and seattle running boats. Super nice guy. He asks me what I do for work, and I tell him. He tells me all his friends are scrambling for ammo and he didn't think it was that bad. I tell him it's been that way for about a year. He needs 00 buckshot, 8 or 9 pellet. I just got a small delivery. I tell him I can get him some. I give him my card and tell him call me this afternoon and I'll throw a few boxes in my briefcase and I'll deliver them on my way home. I'm asked about my watch, he's apparently a GMT man as well. We both like fords and stainless GMT's. Nice. He tells me the story about how he accidentally welded the band to his boat in the bering sea while doing repairs with a stick welder.
FC: What do you catch?
1: Pollock, cod
FC: long line?
1: No, trawler..... You know your commercial fishing.
FC: I know my customers.
Impressed at my substantial seafood knowledge, he tells me he'll call me after he checks his safe. I head into work and get some more stuff done.
I get a call from a referral. This guy was busted for selling pot and spent 8 months in miltary prison at Leavenworth. He's wondering if he can still own or have a gun with a bad conduct discharge. I'm not sure. I call my retinue and we agree that it's worthy of research and we should do a bar journal article about it. I love it when a plan comes together.
Doctor lady and her husband come in and their attorney has told them that without a trust, their silencer order will need to be approved by the CLEO of the region. This is why people hate lawyers. I get all their stuff drawn up as they requested with two trusts and interlocking responsible parties. Double the prints and plenty of passport photos all around.
Dead Air is behind on pistons and mounts, as usual but I'm assured by the big man in charge that they will be at wholesalers shortly. I'm so scrambled that I forget to charge her for two cans. No big deal, I'll email her and deal with it when I get her the mounts.
I have a facebook marketplace post up for an old Glock brand Pistol case and some glock brand ear pro. Here's the message:
Hi Will it's John from facebook marketplace I was looking at the glock bb gun and head phones will you show me a pic of the actually glock and does it have a clip and a slide,,??¿?? My old one did but I left it at my apartment I was sharing with friends but I miss having it lmk asap please and thanks sincerely Jeff K.
FC: Lets start here. 1. I don't sell Glock BB guns. 2. I don't have head phones. Were you only interested in BB guns?
Ya I was on Facebook marketplace looking for BB c02 pistols
sigh
I go truck shopping online. A guy has a 2011 F250 diesel for $24k. Except it's not a 2011. It's a 2001. I don't know what's more absurd, a 2011 at $24k, when average retail is a shade under $20k or a 20 year old truck selling for half of MSRP.
I'm ready to give up on this. Truck prices are stupid. I check my email. Timer in transit, Fedex has it en route.
I head home and pop a flexiril and head to sleep. The flexeril isn't fixing any of my muscles but manages to knock me the fuck out quite nicely. I need to be up early.
Just got paid, Friday night....
Friday, or FC vs The Washing Machine
As a kid, I always played with my dads toolbox. I took apart tons of stuff and had no idea how to put it back together. Some kids when they're in the tender years made birdhouses and small woodworking projects and it was super fun for them to pretend. Me? I took apart a 1 horse GE electric blower motor my dad short circuited on accident and made a pretend General Electric first generation boiling water nuclear reactor. Which was not really easy to do given the fact that the internet didn't exist in the early 90's. You had to have some modicum of imagination, and in that case your design was neither right nor wrong because nobody could easily prove your design accurate or otherwise. I had effectively built Schrodinger's BWR. I used different colored and sized tapcons and red heads for fuel/control rods if anyone was wondering. I think I can handle the washing machine. Just for good measure I put on my Cal Tech shirt.
As I warm up breakfast, I get an email from a guy named Eddie. He wants to see some 40S&W pistols. I tell him I have a busy morning. I can find some time for him around 10AM if he wants to stop by and I'll have what he's looking for ready.
My fedex guy stops at the Boeing facility first thing in the morning to drop off parts at the loading dock, I know his schedule so I pull up to the dock and hang out there waiting for him. Jeff is right on time and I snag my washer timer. No email back from Eddie so time to head back home to put everything back together. I'm in the middle of buttoning it up when I get a call.
Eddie is standing in my parking lot wanting to check out some 40S&W pistols I have in stock. I tell him all my available inventory on the website and that if he wanted me to have everything ready for him at 10AM, he should have given me an affirmative reply or a phone call. Right now, clean underwear is a priority and Eddie seems to understand this and he says he will chat with me later.
I head back to work. The entire parking lot smells like weed. There's a VW microbus parked on the far side of the lot and I'm downwind of it.
This is not a coincidence.
Wholesale rep tries to sell me $700 complete andersons again with a min order of 50. Pass.
I get a bunch of messages from other dealers looking to buy ammo off me and resell it to their customers at "reasonable" prices and I tell them they are fools for selling stuff cheap. They just don't get it and they'll be out of business soon.
I get a call from a guy wanting ammo. He wants all my 22LR. I tell him the price and he says "I can't make a profit selling it at those prices!"
This is the reason regular people can't buy ammo just FYI.
It's Friday again. I've got another gun show to prep for. New product just rolls in on the UPS truck. A few glocks, a few shields, and for some reason the rep sent me 5 sets of rear MBUS sights instead of 5 front and 5 rear. Ugh. I manage to get a small allocation of 9mm in on this truck as well as 11 boxes of 10mm! This year is looking better by the week!
I get several calls for AAC mounts that nobody has in stock and the owners are totally confused. One guy had a can and was selling a rifle and sold the ONLY mount he owned for that can to the guy buying his rifle for $200.
He was under the impression that you could just call AAC and order another mount for $112. I tell him if I can find what he's looking for, I'll need to buy it for $250 from someone and that it will sell for $350-500 by the time I mark it up. He's super confused as to why everyone is running out and buying AAC mounts and why they can't be ordered. I explain AAC/Remington's two bankruptices in 5 years. He is even more confused. I finally blurt it out.
You had ONE mount for your can. You sold it. There are no other mounts. You have paid a tax stamp for and own a can that YOU CAN NO LONGER MOUNT because you sold them. He now realizes the error of his ways. Nothing I can do about that.
Second guy tells me he sees I have AAC mounts. He needs one for his can. I ask him what model he has. He has to crack open the safe.
1: It's an Advanced Armament Corp Norcross Georgia
FC: That's the manufacturer......
1: It's a.........ZERO ENNN DASH ZERO EFFF EFFF
FC: It's a what?
1: It says on the side ZERO ENNN DASH ZERO EFFFF EFFFF
(Editors note: https://www.advanced-armament.com/assets/products/762-SDN-6.png )
FC: That's not the model.
1: It's not? Then what did I read to you?
FC: That's not a zero. That's the letter O.
  1. The number O?
FC: O. As in Oh. ENNNN. Dash. Oh. EFFF EFF.
1: I'm confused.
FC: You just read the directions to take the can ON or OFF.
1: Huh that would explain the arrows wouldn't it......
FC: Yeah. What model do you have?
1: It's an MK13-SD!
FC: You need a 90T ratchet mount.
1: Great! You stock em, right?
FC: Nope.
1: But your website has some, those will work right?
FC: Unless you need 51T mounts, I can't help you.
1: Can you suggest someone that can? I need mounts.
FC: AAC is gone, these mounts may never be made again.
1: Shit.
Not to be out done, I get one more phone call.
1: hey this is brent, I need an AAC mount
FC: What model you got?
1: 7.62
FC: Right, thats the caliber.
1: RS7!
FC: SR7?
1: That's the one! I need an SR 7 mount in 5.56, the one I have is in 7.62
FC: Got four here. $400.
1: I just need one.
FC: That is for one.
1: WHAT? FOR ONE? Why's it so expensive?
FC: Remington went under. These may never be made again. I've been buying up everything I've been able to find so I can run the table.
1: That's a good business move.
FC: Not my first rodeo.
1: Well for $400 I'll just take a mount off a rifle I'm not using and I'll set that up. Thanks anyways.
(90 minutes later, my door swings open)
FC: What can I do for you?
1: I'm brent, we talked about that RS7 mount.
FC: SR7.
1: Whatever. I got this here and it does not even fit! It's for the wrong rifle! I need the right mount, this one is in 5.56 I need the one for the 7.62
FC: Lemme see what you got.
(Looks at package. AAC 90T TAPER MOUNT FH SR-5 5.56 1/2x28)
FC: What are you mounting this to?
1: AR15 in 223
FC: This is the correct mount.
1: No it's not! It does not fit!
FC: Does not fit barrel or can?
1: The can! I mounted it to the barrel and the can won't work! Need the one for the RS7!
FC: SR7
1: Whatever! I have a 7.62 can, this mount is for 5.56 and it's the wrong one.
FC: Who sold you this mount?
1: The gun store across the street from my house.
FC: You live an hour away, why didn't you go there?
1: I did, they don't have this mount in 7.62, I went there first.
FC: And they didn't explain this to you?
1: What is there to explain? This mount is marked 5.56. My can isn't 5.56. It's 7.62.
FC: Oh, so you want the one marked 7.62 in 1/2x28.
1: Exactly!
FC: 7.62 mounts aren't made in 1/2x28, all the 90T mounts are 90T exterior and the threading internally is different.
1: You're wrong.
FC: Please, argue with the guy wearing a caltech shirt.....
1: Prove it.
(I open his package and I grab an SR7 out of the safe. I press the latch down and thread it on)
1: You son of a bitch.
FC: You want to argue with me some more?
1: So what mount do I need?
(I pull out one of my mounts and show him side by side they're exactly the same)
1: Hmmmm. Okay. I must have done something wrong.
FC: There's not a lot of ways to do this wrong, but you found one. Go try it again.
(90 minutes later he calls back and tells me I was right)
What the fuck is with all the AAC people this week that are totally clueless?
But hey, at least I have clean underwear.
submitted by fcatstaples to guns [link] [comments]

/r/QOTSA Official Band of the Week 38: THE BLACK KEYS

Of all the casualties of the year from hell 2020, one sticks out for me the most.
Pearl Jam.
I had motherfucking PEARL JAM tickets. I was going to see them on the Gigaton tour, and they cancelled back in March.
You have to remember that this was before sports and gatherings were cancelled, well before any widespread loss of life. Back then, I didn’t know anyone sick from COVID-19, let alone anyone who had died from it. Hell, these were the good old days when nobody wore masks outside, and you couldn’t tell the flat-earth anti-vaxxer loser crowd from anyone else until they opened their mouths.
I gotta say, that concert cancellation felt like I’d been emotionally kicked to the curb. I had such high expectations and I was psyched. When it was cancelled, it was the first thing that really made COVID-19 feel real to me.
Of course, all the other shit that has happened since, and the unbelievable loss of life due to the disease makes this moment completely pale in comparison to our current reality. But in March 2020, this was my personal turning point.
Live music continues to be a casualty of the pandemic. At least my Pearl Jam tickets are electronic and the concert has just been postponed. I am hanging on to them in the hopes of seeing Eddie Vedder and the boys when the apocalypse is over.
So I can’t say that I was super surprised when my tickets to see The Black Keys that same month were also cancelled and my money was refunded. That one was like getting a kick to the gut when you are already down, but it wasn’t unexpected either. The shitty thing is while I still have the Pearl Jam tickets, The Black Keys ones just plain evaporated when the money was refunded.
Did I mention I miss live music?
It doesn’t look like we are going to get to see concerts any time soon (or at least not until the vaccines are out there in far higher numbers than today).
In the meantime, I am going to take us to enjoy the memory of my month of March 2020 that never was. That’s right, we are continuing our exploration of the Letter B. This week, we are going to check out THE BLACK KEYS.
About Them
What do you think of when I mention Akron, Ohio?
If you are anything like me, you said tires. Akron was the home of the American Rubber Industry at the start of the 20th Century, to the point where the city called itself ‘the rubber capital of the world’. Four major tire manufacturers were located there: Goodyear , Firestone, Goodrich and General Tire. In fact, much of the housing in the city was built in part by the rubber industry to support the workers.
So circular black round things are nothing new to Akron. But flat ones made of vinyl there are somewhat more rare. I know I was surprised to find out that Akron was also the home of Chrissy Hynde of The Pretenders, the 80’s new wave/punk band Devo, and this week’s rockin’ duo, The Black Keys.
Also, some guy named LeBron James is from there, but since he left Cleveland it is a sin to even mention his name.
Patrick Carney was born in Akron in 1980. His dad worked for the local newspaper as a reporter, and his mom worked for the city. His parents divorced when he was 6. His dad listened to all kinds of music and introduced him to many different genres. He lived part time with his mom and part time with his dad. Turns out, his dad’s house was right around the block from where Dan Auerbach lived.
Auerbach is a year older than Carney. His mom was a French teacher and his father smelt of elderberries was an antique dealer. It was his dad’s collection of old Blues records that infected young Dan with a love for music. He grew up with Bluegrass and Blues in a time when other kids were listening to Nirvana and Soundgarden.
As it turned out, there was a pretty strong musical background hidden in the neighborhood where both boys grew up. Auerbach, the cousin of one late great Robert Quine, was fated to meet Carney, the nephew of saxophonist Ralph Carney, who worked with the also late-great Tom Waits.
Or, going by genres… a combination of experimental rock and Blues/Jazz. Yep, sounds about right.
Their friendship first developed in highschool. Despite being in very, very different circles (cheer captain and bleachers soccer captain and social outcast) the boys found a shared interest in music. They began jamming in 1996, with Auerbach learning guitar and Carney playing drums (and recording with his shiny new 4-track tape recorder. )
Not much came from this until Auerbach, a fresh dropout of U of Akron, began touring. He tried to make a living doing small bar performances, but quickly found most venues would demand a demo tape. Auerbach reached out to the only person he knew who had recording equipment - Carney. Carney agreed, allowing his basement to be used as a studio while Auerbach found his bandmates.
Who, fatefully for us, never showed up.
The duo ended up jamming out in the basement. Their chemistry led to them producing a 6-track demo consisting of “old Blues rip-offs and words made up on the spot”. They sent this rag-tag demo off to 12 labels. Only one label replied: a small-time one out of Los Angeles called Alive. The year was 2002.
The duo needed a name. Their moniker came from schizophrenia - I kid you not. And neither do I. (We also don’t.) A mutual acquaintance, Alfred McMoore, would leave incoherent messages referring to the boy's fathers as “Black Keys” - you know, those piano keys like D-Flat or C-Sharp or B-SharpSharp. In March of 2002, the duo played their first live performance at Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom and Tavern, to an astonishing eight people. The duo needed a “big” release to make it “big”.
So, they had to “come up” with something “big”.
The Big Come Up (2002) is Indie as fuck. Much like their first demo, it was recorded entirely in Carney’s basement on an 8-track tape recorder. (If you are following along: Upgrades, people. Upgrades! !) It’s a mix of Blues covers and original tracks, and despite it’s roughness, it’s a beautiful example of the duo’s sheer talent. Honestly, the loose, rough-around-the-edges nature of this thing suits the music exceptionally well. Tracks like I’ll Be Your Man, Busted, and Heavy Soul are lo-fi, Bluesy blasts of distorted guitar, sultry vocals, and thinly mixed thumpin’ drums. What can I say - there’s an undeniable charm in simplicity.
And this big come up was not going unnoticed. The boys achieved some decent sales, and garnered a bit of a cult following. Critics started to notice them, and soon, they managed to land themselves a whole new deal.
That’s right, they were moving up in the world. The Black Keys started mowing lawns full time.
Truly, the dream job.
Look man, I said the sales were decent, not amazing. The duo still needed cash for the road, so they did what they could to make ends meet. Mowing lawns really paid off when they earned themselves a new record deal, this time with Mississippi’s Fat Possum Records.
Evidently, they completed their second album within mere days of signing. Possums are inspirational, what can I say.
2003’s Thickfreakness is every bit as Indie as their first album. It was recorded in the same style as its predecessors - i.e., Carney's basement on ye olde 8-track tape recorder. This time, however, all the recording was done in a single 14 hour session. Apparently, this strategy was necessary since the band had spent all of their advanced pay on rent. In other words, it’s basically a live album. It’s raw, it’s rough, and it’s rockin’ - and yet somehow, it’s as smooth as the petroleum jelly on its cover. Oh yeah. Thick AND freaky.
Actually, quick side note on the cover art of this album: the band had almost zero idea what they wanted to do for it at first. They drove around Akron searching for ideas, and only got one when they stumbled into a Super K-Mart. There, they found a can of Pomade hair styling cream, and were struck by inspiration. They rushed it home and took the image we all know and love by lighting it up with every lamp in their house. Patrick Carney’s hand is seen in the image. Now you know!
Any way, if you liked their first album, you’d love Thickfreakness just as much. Tracks like Hard Row, Set You Free, and the titular Thickfreakness are explosions of catchy riffs and Bluesy euphoria. Critics hailed it once again, and soon, The Black Keys were garnering even more attention than before.
Many compared them to the White Stripes, and not always in a positive light. There was a certain level of derision in the comparison, since both bands were duos from the midwest that played Garagey Blues Rock and had a color in their name.
Hmm. Okay, when you put it like that they sound pretty fucking similar. But I mean, it isn’t completely unfathomable that it happened twice…now, if I were to go start a band called “The Grey, Door-Unlocking, Straight Lines”, THAT might be a bit copyright infringe-y.
This also gave rise to their first big time advertising offer. They could have gotten £200,000 for letting a company use one of their songs in an English Mayonnaise Ad. Mayonnaise: the international benchmark for when you are hitting the big time. However, they turned down the offer in order to not be perceived as “Sell outs”. This may be foreshadowing, unless I forget to follow up on this. I guess we’ll find out later.
The band faced a challenge in their third album. Their previous record studio, a basement, was no longer available to them after the landlord sold it. They found the answer in Akron’s industrial history: a makeshift studio in a former tire factory.
Released in September of 2004, Rubber Factory received critical acclaim. It was the first of their albums to chart on the US billboard 200 (at a respectable 143). Stand-out songs include the two singles, 10 A.M. Automatic and Till I get my way/Girl is on my Mind, the latter of which being a double A-side. The duo rolled across the globe on a world tour, spawning a live album fittingly called Live in 2005.
The boys were doing pretty damn well. Enjoying the success of their previous album, they went on to finish up their deal with Fat Possum. The 6 track album Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough acts as a tribute to Bluesman Junior Kimbrough, who had previously signed on with the Chunky Marsupial label. Recorded in an Akron Basement, it’s a classy tribute to a good musician.
But the most important part of Chulahoma was that it set the boys free from the… pouch, I guess? Marsupials are weird. The point is, the boys could now sign on with a different label. And after Rubber Factory, they certainly had options.
The Fat Possum contract satisfied, the band signed with Nonesuch Records in 2006. Later that year, the band released a second live album, Live in Austin, which was recorded in 2003. The band also landed a few major advertising gigs, including Sony, Nissan, and Victoria’s Secret.
You’d think with all this new popularity, the band would go for a real, serious studio for their fourth album.
Magic Potion (2006) was recorded in Carney’s Basement.
I guess some habits are hard to shake. Auerbach was quoted as saying, “We like the sound of odd rooms. It's got concrete floors and walls. The upstairs floor is the ceiling. The mixing desk and computer are on top of the tool desk built by the old guy who used to live there.”
The band took the finished tapes, and had them remastered for $350.
When they were returned, the duo discovered that their master tapes had zero bass. In a move that Carney still regrets, the band went “Oh, Ok” and mailed them off to the record label anyway.
The album was their first to contain all-original songs, and included three singles: Just Got to Be, a pretty started Bluesy-Rock song. Your Touch which could also be a Victoria's Secret deal is a pretty straightforward Rock song. You’re The One is a bit more reserved, but not a ballad by any stretch of the mind.
It’s 42 minutes of their standard, Bluesy Rock and it’s worth a listen. It also spawned the band’s largest tour thus far, filling theaters and 1,000-seat venues.
In 2007, producer Danger Mouse began working on a record for one Ike Turner. Turner was an early Rock and Roll legend, and when Danger Mouse asked if The Black Keys would like to record a few songs for the project, they jumped at the chance.
Unfortunately, the deal did not go through. Later, in 2007, Turner passed away. The band was left with a scattering of material that they decided to use to build a new album.
Attack & Release, their fifth studio album, was born of this and produced by Danger Mouse. The band noticeably moved away from their “homemade” ethos by recording in a professional studio. They also hired an outside producer. Danger Mouse helped the band out with buttery-smooth production values and instrumental flourishes.
The net result was an album that debuted at #14 on the Billboard 200. This thing is a real Beaut’. It brings a whole new sheen to the Black Keys’ signature brand of garage minimalism. The band stepped out of their established comfort zone, and came through better than ever. I’m talking backing vocals, guest guitarists, flute players. Dogs and cats, living together. Mass hysteria. Hell, why not throw in a jaw harp and a bass clarinet? We’re getting creative here.
Front to back, this album is thoroughly enjoyable and remarkably clean, especially if you’re used to their more rugged early work. Check out the banjo-inspired riffage of Psychotic Girl, and you’ll understand. Fun fact: that song is certifiably catchier than syphilis. I Got Mine and Strange Times are fast, thumping, and should probably come with a speeding warning. Yet the Keys showed a softer side here too - Remember When is a beautiful two part slow burn, and the album’s final track Things Ain't Like They Used To Be is a silky, freshly-mowed Bluegrass duet.
The production quality on Attack & Release became a staple of all of their future albums.
Have you ever wondered about those crazy stupid instructions you sometimes see on everyday items? Like, Q-Tip instructions where they say not to put them in your ears? (Which is exactly what I do, because they scratch that itch so good.) Well, if you look at the cover of the 2010 album Brothers, you totally get the same vibe. It was a success, with two songs off of it - Tighten Up and Howlin’ For You - generating tons of buzz for the band. Both had significant airplay.
If I am completely honest here, Howlin’ For You was my introduction to the duo. I remember hearing it on the radio one day and thinking how different the sound was, and how fresh it sounded compared to the hillbilly-hey-ho kinda stuff that was then all over the airwaves.
In reality, the success of this album probably saved the band. Auerbach had been dabbling in solo projects and had let everyone know - except Carney. Carney had been going through a particularly shitty time, as his wife had cheated on him, stolen money, and lied to him repeatedly. He had just gone through a bad divorce (is there such a thing as a good divorce?) and his last important relationship was with his bandmate - who now wanted to do music without him.
Fuck.
Fortunately, the duo got their proverbial shit together and decided to keep making music. The title of the album reflects this re-commitment to the band. Brothers is darker, because Carney was in a dark place when it was made. The vibe of the record resonated with many. It won Grammy awards and gave the band some significant airplay and critical momentum. The boys went from being Indie darlings to mainstream music icons with this release. It has just been re-mastered and re-released for its 10th anniversary.
The slow burn of success finally peaked for the band with El Camino in 2011. Seriously, you have already heard songs from this record, as they had massive airplay. If you somehow have lived under a Rock, this is a great place to start for the band. If Brothers was their Rated R, then El Camino is their Songs for the Deaf. Tracks like Lonely Boy and Gold on the Ceiling and Little Black Submarines were everywhere. The album received absolutely universal acclaim, and anyone who doesn’t like it is a flat-earth QAnon supporter. Well, probably.
Perhaps one of the best things about the album is that instead of the classic title vehicle, the cover has a Plymouth Voyager. A van. With woodwalls, ffs. Anyone that knows any history of the band knows that the van there was a picture of the first vehicle that they toured in, making it the ultimate kind of in-joke. Carney, never one to be shy, compared the appearance of his home town to the cover of the album, saying that Akron was, “A busted up parking lot with a busted up car.”
But at least we know that van had good tires. It was from Akron, after all.
El Camino propelled The Black Keys from an opener to a headliner. They were soon selling out venues all over the world. To new listeners in 2011, they seemingly came out of nowhere. But to the eight early fans that had seen them (perhaps when they toured in that fugly van) this was the culmination of years of steady effort.
Now they had to prove to the world that this record was not a fluke.
Turn Blue, their eighth effort, came out in May of 2014. El Camino had been such a massive hit that the boys felt the heavy weight of expectations.
They did not disappoint.
Clearly inspired by Auerbach’s love of the Blues, this effort made numerous global top ten lists. Critics LOVED it. Tunes like Fever and Bullet in the Brain made you think you were listening to an album from the 60’s that was also somehow brand new. Their unique brand of Bluesy Garage Rock mixed with Psychedelia was unlike anything else out there. The cover art was supposed to be reminiscent of hippie mind control, and helped portray them as modern throwbacks.
The boys had truly found fame. They were now headlining world tours, selling out stadiums, and finding their way into mainstream culture. They performed for the third time on SNL. Carney was having twitter fights with Justin Bieber fans (I mean, not the worst thing you could do) and, somewhat to his surprise, this kinda shit now made the entertainment news. Even the album was announced in a tweet by retired Heavyweight ear muncher boxing champion Mike Tyson.
The Black Keys had a massive global tour in support of the record. They were on top of the world.
And they were very soon burnt out.
The constant grind of touring got to them. They got into music to make music, and felt that they were just too drained to do so.
So they took a break. A long one.
After a five-year hiatus where fans feared that they may never return, The Black Keys finally dropped Let’s Rock in June of 2019. The lead single from this album, Lo/Hi, was a gritty guitar-themed track that showed that this duo still had all the right moves, despite the long time between recording projects. The album itself is a scorcher. All of the songs were written by Auerbach and Carney in the studio, with neither of them bringing in anything pre-worked. They’d mess around with a lick or a theme for about an hour and if something in it clicked, they’d continue. If nothing did, they’d ditch it and move on.
This approach may sound similar to many QotSA fans, as it mimics pretty closely what Josh does with his parade of artists out at Rancho de la Luna when coming up with material for The Desert Sessions.
The title of the album was inspired by the execution of convicted murderer Edmund Zagorski. As he was strapped to the electric chair and asked if he had any last words, Zagorski said, “Let’s Rock”.
So now you know how the album got its title, and also why it has an electric chair on the cover.
I have no fucking idea why it is a pink electric chair, but the cartoon lover in me wants to think that it is because of the clearly pink zaps of electricity that the chair delivers.
Pink zaps or no, the band had a hit record. It was an international stand out, and remains one of their best recordings.
And I, like some of you, was going to see this goddam tour before COVID. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
I miss live music, and I for-fucking-sure am going to catch them the next time they tour. I encourage you to do so too.
Links to QOTSA
The Black Keys have shared a stage with QotSA a number of times at concerts and festivals. These guys are true contemporaries in the music world.
However, things have not always been super-duper between them. Patrick Carney has lit into Josh Homme and Lady Gaga in the same sentence. Commenting on Gaga’s song ‘Perfect Illusion’ (that our boy Josh plays guitar on) Carney has been quoted as saying: “I’m lost because the guitar at the top of it sounds so shitty...It’s like ‘Eye Of The Tiger’, but not even nearly as good as that. It sounds like Hulk Hogan is playing the fucking guitar.” Gaga was not shy about replying, saying about Carney that, “...he’s not as snarky as I would be, watching him in a guitar death-match w Kevin Parker and Josh Fucking Homme”.
Here’s the video for Gaga’s Perfect Illusion - judge for yourself. All I have to say is that I may have been high when writing this, but I’ve never been quite as high as her shorts are in this video. Somehow this song that involves intense crotch chafing in the desert has over 150 million views.
It is also notable that Mark Ronson and Josh Homme worked on this song together, and that Ronson went on to produce the latest QotSA album Villains.
Their Music
Next Girl - Godzilla looks way fucking bigger in the movies. But man can he sing.
Tighten Up - The most unbelievable thing about this video is that two grown men would be at a children’s playground without Karen calling the cops.
Howlin’ For You - Alexa Wolf: A Sexy Assassin With A Troubled Past. Also, I am pretty fucking sure she is a Cylon. Someone better tell Las Teclas de Negro.
Lonely Boy - Say what you will, but buddy here has some moves.
Gold On The Ceiling - You know the van at 0:08 is an Easter Egg. Blink and you miss it.
Dead and Gone - Just in case you missed it.
Fever - Auerbach looks more strung out here than a busted guitar. The cuts from actual TV Evangelist audience members make this video a bit creepier than it needs to be.
Turn Blue - Watch out for Hypnotoad. Oh SHI~ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
Just Got to Be - The boys appear to have snuck into a rural elementary school gym to record this video. The song still kicks all kinds of ass.
Lo/Hi - I gotta say, the pink lightning bolt is a nice touch.
Strange Times - Lazer Tag: the game that is never quite as fun as you think it will be.
Your Touch - This video starts with the boys getting shot. Fuck, the mean streets of Akron are WAY tougher than I ever gave them credit for.
Show Them Some Love
/TheBlackKeys - just short of 7,500 members. Maybe if they had made that Mayo ad, more people would be in this subreddit. See, I told you to pay attention! That was totally worth it.
Previous Posts
Band of the Week #1-25
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Black Flag
Alain Johannes
Pixies
Truckfighters
Melvins
Muse
Stone Temple Pilots
Black Sabbath
Baroness
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
The Black Angels
submitted by House_of_Suns to qotsa [link] [comments]

I study forbidden and 'cursed' media (Part 1): Money for Nothing

Whenever anyone thinks of forbidden or ‘haunted’ media, they usually mean something like a video game that kills you, a tv commercial that creeps them out, or a movie whose production is met with misfortune at every turn. While those things certainly do exist, they overshadow bits of cursed media that I feel are more deserving of modern attention, since they act as both curiosities, and dangers. While we do have some that could be quantified as ‘supernatural’, a lot of it is fairly mundane-- like what I’m covering today.
Money for Nothing was a stunt-based game show that was intended to air in 1999; however, in the middle of filming the fourth of five episodes, the host (Who I’ll just call [Host]; I won’t name her, but she was a fairly prominent actress at the time) walked off the set, threatening to terminate her contract with the network if they ever tried to get her to appear on another program like it.
Officially, all tapes of the show were destroyed by order of the studio; however, in the course of my study, I have seen part of the first episode, the majority of the second, a series of stills from the third, and the final shots of the fourth episode that caused [Host] to walk off the set.
Up until November of last year, the fifth and final episode was thought to be completely lost.
The objective of Money for Nothing was simple, and summed up in its tag line: “Do you have what it takes… to do NOTHING?”. From what I’ve been able to research, it was based off of the principle of the ‘Quiet Game’, the ever-iconic pastime of harried mothers on road trips everywhere: how long can you go without doing anything? Adding to this was an element of chicken-- the first one to do something loses.
The set of Money for Nothing is a bizarre hybrid of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with its moody lighting, darkness, and amphitheatre-like setup, and Double Dare, featuring several areas of modular (possibly retractable) flooring which could be used to set up the various equipment used in the stunts. From what I’ve been able to determine, the floor was fairly large-- over 600 square feet, with a very high ceiling in the studio. With some creative set design it could be used for conceivably anything.
As you may be able to guess from what I’ve said so far, Money for Nothing was a very strange show. Challenges consisted of trying to stay as still as possible while everything went wrong around you-- For instance, the surviving footage of episode 1 featured the segment ‘Stopping Cart’, where the contestants sat in the basket of standard supermarket shopping carts and rolled down a ramp that gradually got steeper, until it ended in a large pile of padded material. One of the contestants bailed from their cart less than halfway down the slope, losing the challenge. In documents related to the show, challenges like these were termed “Chicken Challenges”.
Other than Chicken Challenges, we had what was meant to be the main draw of the show: what these documents called the “Skin Crawling Challenges”. Here, contestants were expected to sit perfectly still and make as little noise as possible while various unpleasant things happened to them. Episode 2 featured three different Skin Crawling Challenges: the first one, “Hammock Panic'', featured a contestant laying in a hammock within a small wind tunnel, attempting to not fall out of it while moving as little as possible. Secondly, there was ‘Oh, Honey!’, where [Host] would drizzle honey on the contestant while buzzing sounds played, mimicking a swarm of bees; this seemed at least somewhat pleasant, due to the fact that the honey was clearly very warm if it could be drizzled so easily. Lastly, during the championship round, was the game ‘Arach your Brain’, where a contestant had their head placed in a box full of wolf spiders, which are harmless to humans-- terrifying, but harmless.
The three stills I have of Episode 3 are almost entirely unenlightening; when I got the first one, I swore the set was on fire, due to the sheer amount of smoke or gas in the frame. Upon further inspection, I saw three contestants sitting in lawn chairs, casually reading through magazines, while [Host] stood by in a prop gas mask. The second still almost looks like it’s from the set of The Wicker Man, with two contestants hanging upside-down from wooden scaffolding, clearly trying not to laugh from the headrush.
The last still from Episode 3 was likely not intended for broadcast; it shows one of the producers (who shall go unnamed) getting into an argument with a man who appears to be a crew member; both of them are covered in some form of white foamy fluid. An occupied stretcher is seen in the background. Since I first saw this photograph back in 2017, I wondered what was happening with it.
In November of last year, I started to get answers. A friend of mine got me into contact with one of the producers of Money for Nothing, and while he’s technically under an NDA, he’s breaking it for the sole reason that “You’re a bunch of nutjobs and nobody would believe you anyway”. Harsh, but fair.
The producer, who I’ll call [Riley], talked to me over a Zoom call from L.A. After I introduced myself, I asked him about the picture with the stretcher. He shrugs. “The challenge called for the contestant to hold a lit candle on their head. But they sneezed, and… look, they made it out alive.”
“So the white stuff is fire retardant? From an extinguisher?”
“Exactly.”
“There’s a lot for it for someone setting themselves on fire.”
“I never said they set themselves on fire.”
With that question filed away, I presented him what I had of Episode 4-- he asked how I got it, which was a fair question, considering the fact that the Network itself had lost the recording some time in 2001 or 2002.
There were three cameras that captured the last moments of [Host]’s tenure on Money for Nothing, and in summer of last year, I had tapes from two of them; the person who had the last tape was well known among our community of researchers, but refused to part with it for any amount of money. He was a massive fan of [Host], ran a fangroup for her on UseNet all the way back in the day, named his cat after her most well-known character-- and he has a restraining order from her framed on the wall in his ‘office’.
Now, I have to admit something. In the field of research I carry out, there tend to be more B&E’s than Ph. D’s. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and find something on eBay or at an estate sale or in a library, where you can essentially scoop it up and research it at will; this wasn’t one of those cases. I wanted to see what was on that tape, so…
My original plan was to break into the house and copy the tape with some equipment I had-- something a friend of mine frankensteined out of a tape player and one of my old laptops. It’s meant to convert tapes to a digital format quickly enough that you can be in and out in five minutes, ten tops. It’s portable, if not particularly light, and you don’t really leave any evidence.
So, when he left for work, I waited ten minutes, then went through the back door. From there, I made my way to his office on the second floor-- in addition to the restraining order (which he had posted on Facebook as a point of pride) he had posters, action figures, photos [Host] did from Playboy, and a signed photograph of him and [Host], where she is clearly screaming on the inside. He wasn’t cliche enough of a stalker to have a carefully curated shrine; it was all on a series of bookshelves. And on one of them, sandwiched between several volumes of TV shows [Host] had been in, was a single black plastic tape case, with the words ‘$.F.N. 1999 Last Apperance[sic]” written on it.
Only one problem: the case it was in was too small to be a VHS tape. I realized that I was dealing with a Betamax tape. I had a VHS-to-Digital setup, and Betamax-to-Digital conversion required an entire room’s worth of specialized equipment-- equipment that I had access to through the research group, granted, but I was going to have to physically take the tape out of the house.
That was the first snag I ran into. The second was physical; I felt it catch on something as I tried to pull the case off the shelf, and heard something go click. There was a cable tied to the Betamax case, into some mechanism behind the bookshelf that I didn’t see, but I knew that if I pulled the case off the shelf completely, something bad would happen, and I didn’t see if there was a way to deactivate it; judging by the fact that I hadn’t seen a Betamax player anywhere in the house, he probably didn’t actually watch it. He’d set this up specifically to get someone who was after this tape.
So, keeping the case perfectly still on the shelf, I took out my box cutter and began the arduous process of dissecting the case. This case was made of a solid, if cheap, plastic, and it was more likely to shatter and leave plastic shards than it was to just cut; I couldn’t risk that. I’d given the owner a fake name and was wearing gloves, so if he didn’t know the tape was gone for at least a week, I could make myself scarce. But if he found a shard of the black plastic I was trying to saw my way through… well, the good news is that we have a couple of lawyers in the community.
After ten minutes, I managed to get through the seam linking the front cover of the tape and the spine. I dug my fingers into the sharp plastic, and began peeling it off-- and was immediately met by a strange sight. The tape was in there, all right, but immediately in front of it was a plastic bag filled with some sort of liquid. There was a bare wire inside of the liquid, a battery on the inside of the front cover, and I could smell alcohol-- a booby trap to destroy the tape? Why go through all that trouble? And why keep a Betamax tape if you didn’t even have a Betamax player?
My heart stopped as I heard a car pull up outside; he wasn’t supposed to be back from work for another six hours. The tripwire must have been some kind of alarm system, maybe set up to send a text to him if it was tripped. I pulled aside the makeshift firebomb, prayed I wouldn’t set anything off, and grabbed the tape, intact. A door downstairs slammed open, and I heard him enter the house, heading straight for the room I was in.
I knocked the bookshelf down so it landed in front of the door, and dashed across the office to a window. It was on the second floor, but outside of it was a bare trellis that had to have come with the house, as the rest of the garden was equally dead. It made for a good ladder.
I was about halfway down when I heard the door burst open, despite the bookshelf in front of it. I thought for sure that he was going to come to the window and start either throwing things down at me or shooting at me, but instead I heard him fall to the floor and start crying, saying that something was ‘ruined’ and that he could ‘never fix it’.
I didn’t stay for long after that. I ran out of his backyard and to my car parked three blocks away. Didn’t see any police presence until I was at a diner about two miles away from his house, on IRC with my friend who has the Betamax-to-Digital setup.
-------
“Hell of a story,” [Riley] admitted once I got done telling it. “Been over twenty years since I saw this. Let’s see if it’s as fucked as I remember.”
Episode 4 is… uncomfortable to sit through. Thanks to the tape I procured, what we have of Episode 4 consists of fifteen minutes of footage-- three of [Host], talking with the crew to the incident, seven with her actually presenting the stunt, and five minutes of the aftermath.
The stunt that caused [Host] to walk off the show was called ‘Raindrops on Noses’. It was the only stunt on the show that used restraints; I’ve yet to find any documentation pertaining as to why, but the contestants were strapped into a set of reclining chairs. Above their heads, a prop in the shape of a large raincloud would drip water onto their faces, drop by drop. The chairs had buttons on them that would release the restraints and light up a sign indicating they forfeited.
The first three minutes of the tape consist of [Host] having a conversation with one of the producers; it’s indistinct, and the words ‘disgruntled employee’, ‘fired’, and ‘call security’ can be made out.. [Host] looks exasperated, like she clearly doesn’t want to be here; she’s rubbing her hands together when she clearly just wants to wipe all of her makeup onto her shirt and start screaming. It’s something you see a lot of when you study media like this; when they think the cameras aren’t rolling, people become giant balls of stress. Part of me thinks that they were trying to record a blooper reel, considering that she drops her American accent at one point and says something along the lines of ‘buncha horseshite’.
Then, the lights come back up. There are cheers from the audience as the host escorts the two contestants-- who I’ll call [Carter] and [Etta]-- to the chairs. She explains the challenge to them, and the mechanics of it, demonstrating the button they need to push to be released from the restraints. Then, when she’s sure the contestants are in the positions, she says “Are you ready to Earn… MONEY FOR NOTHING?”. The audience cheers, and the challenge starts.
There’s a lot of droning, moody music here. Upon five different viewings, I think that it’s just to cover up the snoring of the audience.
“The show was bullshit,” [Riley] admits, lighting up a cigarette. “Nobody wanted to watch people just sit around and do nothing. The shopping cart ride was an example of a good stunt-- people were expected to just sit around and not bail out, kind of a weird expression of machismo. But this rain challenge? We were having people sit and watch contestants get wet for three to six minutes.” He rubs his face. “One of the production assistants, he came to us with an idea-- make the droplets fall randomly. He read somewhere that it can drive people mad.”
“...isn’t that basically Chinese Water torture?”
“I didn’t know that until later but… yeah.”
Since this episode was never aired, all the sound here is diegetic and unedited; the video was cobbled together by my friend from three different tapes. While the motion of these cameras tries to convey some kind of grand event, it’s clear that this should not have been on television in the first place; the first time I saw this, I was nearly falling asleep.
The challenge should have ended quickly-- [Carter] starts tapping at his release button while the [Host] is in the middle of commentating and cheering them on. His restraints don’t open-- bear in mind that this is the same chair [Host] had pressed the release on two minutes earlier to demonstrate its mechanism. The alarm to show that he’s forfeited doesn’t even light up. He keeps pressing it, and [Host] doesn’t seem to notice.
[Etta] takes a bit longer to crack; at the five-minute mark, she presses her button, and it works. As [Host] gets up to thank her for playing and congratulate [Carter], she notices something is wrong with him. The camera closest to him zooms in on his hand. It's been trying to press the button for the last three minutes; the plastic on the button is broken, and there are several cuts on his hand from him desperately trying to press at the shards that remain. He’s clearly sobbing and writhing in his restraints, saying ‘Please, please, oh god please, let me out please, let me out, let me out’. There appears to be smoke coming from his forehead, and I hear a sizzling sound, before the camera cuts.
The only camera to remain un-cut is the one positioned where [Host] would be sitting. [Etta] is pulled out of her chair and taken off-stage. The audience looked on, confused, some wondering if they should call 9-1-1. The audio feed is overtaken by [Carter]’s sobbing as he begs to be let out of the chair. A member of the crew yells to get the water shut off, and eventually resorts to breaking the apparatus dispensing it.
[Carter] is cut free of his restraints and layed on the ground. He is crying. [Host], showing some modicum of tact, goes directly in front of the camera, where she has an argument with her producer, again dropping her accent. Despite the hushed voices, the audio is fairly clear; a transcript is below, with “H” for [Host]t and “P” for the producer.
H: Are you fucking insane?
P: Look, this show is fucking boring. It was a bad idea to begin with, but something like this could get us into syndication. We just needed to bring a little more excitement--
H: Excitement? If people want excitement, they can watch me poke through someone’s guts on Sunday night. What-- what just happened here is fucking torture! I won’t have it! The gas was bad enough, but this?!
P: Look, it was a mistake. We’ll scrap this episode, give them both compensation. They signed waivers--
H: Fuck you. I’m calling my agent. Anyone who wants me to stay here can kiss my--
At this point, a member of the crew enters the shot and shuts off the camera.
“What’s this about the gas?”
[Riley] shakes his head. “The guy in the chair was part of a stunt earlier in the program where he sat in a room full of smoke. It wasn’t even smoke, it was a stupid fog machine. He had some residue on him, but… I’ve never seen it react like that with water.”
“And… it was water in there?”
“...maybe. The cloud prop-- literally just a showerhead-- vanished before we could get the police to look at it.”
It’s here that I started asking about Episode 5.
“So, after [Host] walked off the set… we still had a contract with the network to fulfill. They asked for five episodes, and if their Queen of the Small Screen wanted off the show, they weren't going to say ‘no’.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “So, I make a few phone calls. My dad worked on [Sitcom] in the 80’s, you ever heard of it?”
“Yeah.” [Sitcom] isn’t the actual title, obviously, but ‘cursed sitcoms’ are a specialty of one of my friends. I might ask her if she has any ideas for a post like this.
“We managed to get [Actress]. She played the mom on the show, but was almost entirely forgotten by ‘99. She got to relaunch her career, we got a new host. Win-Win.” He chews his lip. “It… it’ll be easier to show you what happened than tell you.”
My eyes go wide. “You have footage?”
“Kinda. It’s only one angle of the set, and a wide one at that. But… it captures most of the action." He sighed. “Your email is XXXXX@gmail?”
“Yeah.”
Ten minutes later, I’m watching the clip. It’s six minutes long, and most of the dialog is indistinct. And… look, in the course of my research, I’ve seen stuff that makes ‘National Anthem’ from Black Mirror look like Peppa Pig. And I need to say that this… this was rough.
The last recorded challenge of Money for Nothing begins with the contestant being placed into a clear, plexiglass box. He stands completely still as [Actress] walks around him; I can make out the words ‘little furry friends’ and ‘maybe you’ll come out the big cheese!’. Then, she looks out at the audience, and says “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the [inaudible]ack!”
The floor around the man opens up, and a swarm of what I assume are brown rats comes flowing out, gathering around his feet. Credit where it’s due, he stands completely still-- for a while, anyway. Once they start clawing at his clothing, he gets shaky, and by the time one climbs onto his chest, he collapses-- fainted, by the look of his body language.
I hear a tone over the audio; the Zoom call has been continuing this whole time, and [Riley] must see my confusion. “Get to the rats?”
I pause the playback. “Yeah. What’s that sound?”
“It was meant to be a rodent deterrent. Something to make them go back below the stage once the stunt was done. It was never tested. Just…” He looks like he’s turning green. “Keep watching.”
I unpause the video. The tone plays, but the rats remain in the box, crawling over the body of the fallen man. [Actress] is looking at the producers in confusion, and gets up to approach the box. She recoils as the tone sounds again, and I see it-- the rats are swarming over where the man fell. I know where this is going.
There’s panic in the audience. Staff is starting to have them evacuate. [Actress] tries opening up the box, but is stopped by someone on the set-- they get into a fight, with her gesticulating at the swarm of rats. The bottom of the box begins to fill with a visible layer of red liquid. Someone come over with a fire extinguisher to try to break open the glass; [Actress] tries to stop them, but it’s too late.
The box doesn’t shatter as much as it tips; apparently it was never well-secured to begin with. Rats and blood flow out from beneath the box as it falls over, and everyone who hasn’t already evacuated the set does so. The rats abandon a bloody mass that I’m thankful I don’t get to see clearly-- there doesn’t seem to be much skin left, and barely any muscle. All there is are bloody bones covered in the barest fibers of flesh.
“Fucking god.” I swallow.
“It gets worse,” Riley assures me. “Keep watching.”
So, I do. Two minutes after everyone leaves. a figure emerges from the audience section, dropping down opposite the camera. They’re hard to make out, even though the entire set is lit from below; they don’t seem to have any distinct features, barring what seems to be a white T-Shirt with what looks like a broad “V” on it.
Then, the lights go out entirely, leaving the set in darkness.
“What the hell?”
“Rat chewed through a cable. Keep watching.”
I do. I hear footsteps approach the camera. The emergency lights show a shadowy form come up to the camera; his body obscures the lens. He picks up the apparatus and wheels it over what I assume is the center of the room, aiming the lens downwards. This whole time, I’m expecting his face to pop into frame, but instead I hear footsteps walking away.
I check the timestamp; there are maybe ten minutes left in the recording. I only have to wait for five of them, though. I hear voices and see the beams of flashlights briefly illuminate the… the…
When they’re scavenging a corpse, animals normally go for the softest parts of the body first-- the eyes, the lips, the ears. So no, I can’t explain why the head of the contestant that the rats had eaten was untouched. I can’t explain why his eyes seemed to open in response to the flashlights. And I hope to god that his mouth wasn’t actually opening to call for help when I shut off the recording.
I close the window and begin saving the file to a thumb drive. “What the fuck was that?”
“That’s what the LAPD has been trying to figure out for over twenty years.” [Riley] lights another cigarette. “We’re fairly confident someone sabotaged the production, between the incident with the Raindrops stunt, and this one, which… god, I think they called it ‘Rat Pack’.” He shakes his head. “Production was scrapped, tapes were burned, and any props that weren’t essential to the investigation were mothballed or destroyed. That footage you saw is supposed to exist only in evidence lockup, and nowhere else.”
“How’d you get it?”
“It’s Hollywood. Do the math.”
The video finishes saving. I delete the email off of my computer. “Were there any other acts of sabotage at the studio around this time?”
“Surge of crank calls made to [Crime Show] right after this happened. Beyond that, nothing.”
“What about at other studios?”
“Wouldn’t know.” He blows on the cigarette. “Would you?”
I frown. “I’ll have to look into it. Now, how much do I owe y--”
He shakes his head. “Kid. I’m loaded. I could pay for my grandkids’ dog’s retirement. I just… needed to get this off my chest.” He’s pensive for a moment. “There is one thing.”
“What?”
“You do this all the time, basically? Look up creepy media, TV shows and that?”
“I mean, I have a job, but yeah...”
“If you ever find anything related to a show or movie that involves an actress named ‘Zelda Plunick’, you call me.”
WIth that, he terminated the call. I haven’t been in contact with him since; despite searching with the help of other people involved in the forbidden media crowd, the name ‘Zelda Plunick’(sp?) hasn’t come up yet.
------
The deaths and injuries caused by Money for Nothing seem to have largely been swept under the rug. [Carter], the contestant from Episode 4, declined a request for an interview, as did all other living contestants I could find, and I’m not about to bug [Host] or [Actress].
The video of Episode 5 has been analyzed by some other people in my community-- they’ve tried fiddling with the colors on the video, but that can only do so much. We’ve determined that the figure is tall, but not anomalously so; maybe 6’4”, and is likely male.
Like [Riley] said, he did break an NDA on this. He’s apparently wealthy enough to settle out-of-court, and I’ve heard nothing from entertainment news about a big honking lawsuit, so I’m assuming he’s going to be fine up until the second I post this.
I normally keep this kind of analysis and history to our own little group. But something happened a few days back that got me spooked enough that I decided to post this out into the broader world.
The USB drive I had the video stored on went missing around the start of the year; it was already uploaded to others in the channel, so I didn’t really need to keep it. But I came home two days ago, and found it sitting on the desk where I do the majority of my work.
In addition to the audio file, there was a photograph on it. A man in my room, standing in front of my webcam, his head out of frame. He is wearing a white T-Shirt with what I now recognize as a set of TV ‘bunny ear’ antennas on the front-- the same shirt that was in the recording from Episode 5 of Money for Nothing.
-------
That’s all I have for today. Should this not get taken down by whatever NDA the Network suits have on [Riley], I’ll be back with a first-hand experience-- my time watching one of the great lost gimmick films of the 1960s, Laurence Forrest’s The Maddening Quiet.
submitted by CursedMediaStudent to nosleep [link] [comments]

Give him what he wants

I still don’t know why I did what I did to Michael. I’ve thought it over every way I can, turning the memory upside down and inside out until it felt like I was going insane. At the time a part of me thought it was just a bit of fun. I meant no harm. I was nineteen and hanging around outside of school waiting for my girlfriend to get out when I spotted the guy in the parking lot. He must have been there to pick up his younger sister. Like a lot of us, he wasn’t able to make it to university, or even just get a job in the city, so he was stuck at home like the rest of us. But growing up he’d been a real pain in the ass, a special kind of dweeb born out of insecurity and petty jealousy. He hated everyone. He hated the smart kids most of all, but that didn’t stop him from saving some choice words for the rest of us. All of us kids were just trying to have a good time. Smoke a little dope, get a little drunk, feel each other up… Michael would rock up to our usual haunts with the police in tow and then act high-and-mighty about it the next day.
He had thrived in a controlled schoolyard environment. But on that day, looking at him sat in his car, it dawned on me we weren’t in a schoolyard anymore. It was the real world. And in the real world there are consequences for your actions. Acting like an asshole, pissing people off… well it’s liable to get you a slap around the head. I could see him eyeing me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I knew what he was thinking as I sat there smoking. Had I turned out to be everything he hoped? Some loser with no future and no ambition? It made me angry to think of him judging me when he’d turned out no better. His sly little glances only got worse when Dave and Andy wandered past and I called them over for a chat.
He must’ve known we were laughing at him. He must’ve heard us chant his old nickname and clutch our stomachs in faux-laughter. We were doing it for his pleasure. I could see him squirm. It wasn’t meant to go further than that. I just wanted to give him something to think about. I knew he’d spend that night tossing and turning, as furious at us as were at him. But then Andy started throwing beer bottles and I should have stopped him. It was a silly thing to do. Too loud. Too angry. Too stupid. But before I’d even thought of what to say to Andy, Michael was up and out of his car and filming us with his phone.
“Please leave the premises!” he cried, his voice a little shaky. “This is a place for learning! Not for drunken yobs to pick up underage girls.”
We shouted our own replies, about his sister, his mother… Michael called us losers. We called him pathetic. If we’d left it at that, maybe it would have been fine. But it went on until Michael cried something a little too close to home.
“I hope your dads are fuckin’ proud!”
Those words hit a sensitive spot for Dave. Before I had time to think of what any of it might mean to him, the young mechanic was already charging forward. I figured he’d just hit Michael, but he slapped the boy hard around the back of his head, hard enough to daze, and then hoisted the little Michael up into the air with ease. Andy ran over and grabbed the boy’s ankles to stop him kicking, and we were all howling with laughter and excitement, just waiting to see where this was going to go.
“Time out corner!” Dave cried. “Michael you’re going in the time out corner! Just like in Mrs Ketchum’s class!”
Michael was calling us every name under the sun, but when he heard Dave tell me to pop the trunk his tone changed. In the few steps it took for Andy to cover the distance, Michael went from screaming to shouting to pleading to begging and then right back to raging. I later found out he was claustrophobic, something to do with his own dad being a real piece of work. But we didn’t know at the time. We just wanted to scare him a little…
We shoved Michael into that trunk like he was a cardboard box that wouldn’t fit. It took three attempts to slam the hatch shut. First time his ankle got in the way and that must’ve hurt, but Michael was still determined to make his way out. Second time it was his wrist, and Michael’s voice started to falter. Third time we caught his fingers, and Michael started screaming like an injured dog. I often think about him pulling his hand back into the dark. I think about it because it was the moment he gave in and it makes me feel sick to my stomach. At times I blame him for letting us do it… mostly I just hate myself for putting him in that place.
After his hand slithered into the shadows, we finally managed to close the trunk for good and shut out Michael’s hysterical crying. And then we sat, drinking beer, while Michael screamed and howled. It was a ragged desperate kind of shriek that went on rising forever like a violin crescendo, finding new and dangerous notes of despair. You ever heard a dog scream? It had that kind of animalistic quality to it. Andy would later say it was like an opera singer with his hand caught in a wood chipper. I can’t say for certain if it bothered the others as much as me, but after only a few minutes it felt like I was carrying a lead weight in my stomach. We talked and laughed and joked, but I don’t remember what about. Even as I nodded and replied, I found all my thoughts returning to the muffled cries of the young man trapped in the trunk beneath my legs.
By the time he stopped, my girlfriend was coming out the doors, and Dave and Andy said their goodbyes. Two more beers were sent arcing through the air to shatter into a thousand pieces and they were gone like we’d done nothing more interesting than just chat about the weather. I waited for them to turn the corner—my girlfriend had stopped to chat to some of her own friends and I knew I had a few minutes—and I finally opened the damn trunk. By now my stomach was in my ass, that’s how fucking bad I felt. I may have even started mumbling some kind of response. God… maybe even an apology.
But no one was there to hear it. Michael was gone. He’d torn the shit out of the fabric in my car, gouged these long claw marks into it like a pissed off cat. I touched every inch of that trunk like I was trying to find the magician’s secret hatch. By the time my girlfriend made it to my side, I’d pulled what was left of the fabric away and was getting ready to crawl under just to take a look.
“What are you looking for?” she asked, her head cocked to one side.
“N-n-nothing,” I stammered. “He must have… he must have…”
He must have what? I never finished the sentence. I rationalised it, you see. Told myself he’d gotten out, that was all. Even as I rolled past the lot and I saw Michael’s sister staring at his car, looking around for her older brother, I just kept telling myself he’d gotten out and was probably running to the police ready to file assault charges.
Course, that wasn’t true at all. From what I understand, Michael’s sister had to go back in and call her parents, who in turn called the police. I woke up the next morning to Michael’s smiling spotty face on the gazette, the picture cribbed from one of our school photos. It must have been taken at a school play with me standing just a few places over. I was nearly sick with guilt at, and I tried to pretend that my mind was playing tricks on me. Not that it stopped me going over my car with a fine-toothed comb. I’m hardly CSI, but there were a few blond hairs in the back that I’m sure he must have shed. And the scuff marks… they were never imaginary. They were real. 100% authentic. I called Dave and Andy and they confirmed what we’d done, not that they saw it with the same significance.
“Oh he musta got out is all,” Andy said. “For all we know he wandered out and straight into some serial rapist’s van. I don’t know what you’re so worried about. Is he in your basement chained up?”
“No,” I answered.
“Is he dead and buried in your garden?”
“No.”
“Did you chop him up and feed him to his family at a town barbeque?”
“No.”
“Good well chill the fuck out,” Andy said. “We played a mean prank is all. Not my proudest moment, sure. But hardly worth going to the police over.”
I convinced myself of this because it made a kind of sense. We really had just played a mean prank. We hadn’t killed anyone, or raped anyone, or stuck knives into them like they were a pin cushion. But in the background of my mind, I learned a new mantra. It was one I pictured myself saying to the police, to the press, to Michael’s weeping family. It was like a prayer that I started muttering in quiet moments between chores and work. A prayer that’s still with me. A nervous tick that I repeat incessantly in hushed breaths even though I don’t always know what it means.
I didn’t mean no harm. I didn’t mean no harm. I didn’t mean no harm.
They should’ve carved those words into my skin the day I was born. It’d save people who meet me a lot of time. Lied to my old man and got my little brother in trouble? I didn’t mean no harm. Hid my speeding tickets from my parents until the debt collectors came and took the car? I didn’t mean no harm. Got caught driving home after too many drinks? I didn’t mean no harm. Lost my first real girlfriend after I got drunk one night and sent some messages to her sister on Facebook? I didn’t mean no harm! Hell, I got a daughter I don’t see anymore after I overslept one night and didn’t manage to change her. Her mother turned up one Sunday morning to pick her up and found her watching cartoons in a shit-soaked diaper while I slept off an apocalyptic hangover. Last thing I remembered, I’d put her down to sleep and had a couple of beers.
I didn’t mean no harm.
They never found Michael. They looked and looked and, yes, they even looked at us. A few people had seen us messing around with him—some from passing cars, some from tall windows—and the police found out. Our faces were in the local papers, and some wider-reaching ones too, but it never amounted to anything because the police didn’t have a body. His parents made a few public pleas, my car was taken and searched top to bottom. They have it at a police impound where I ought to have picked it up, but never did. A psychiatrist would probably tell you that’s guilt. But fuck… there’s a good chance I left the car to rot because I just couldn’t be bothered. I’m not sure I even know myself anymore.
First time I saw Michael after the incident I was wandering out of a bar and feeling a little mean, which happens a lot when I drink alone. I had a half-bottle of beer in my hand when I passed this homeless guy sitting outside. He was new, probably a drifter, and just looking at him put all these cruel thoughts into my head. I often think cruel things, and I was ready getting ready to ignore these ones like normal, except this homeless man, he calls out and asks for a swig of the beer. And I look at this guy and all these pictures come rushing into my head. Pictures like sawdust soaking up vomit and piss. Pictures like my boss talking down to me after I used the wrong mop in the canteen. Pictures like the way the admin ladies look at me when I smile at them in the smoking area. And then there was this guy, sitting there with a blanket on his knees, absent-mindedly tilting his head side-to-side while waiting for an answer.
“Sure,” I said, and I threw the beer at him so hard it conked him right on the skull. There was a little peep there for a second, a split-second cry of pain that was cut short. It made me laugh. It really did. I hadn’t meant to hit him, just scare him. But the outcome made me giggle anyway. I was already walking away, feeling a little better, when someone else called out to me, and the sound of their voice made my blood freeze solid in my veins.
“Alex,” it said. “Psst! Hey! Alex!”
It was Michael, and I turned feeling as if the whole world was about to snap shut on me like a Venus flytrap. I nearly passed out, just crumpled to the floor then and there. I’d spent too many years telling myself that boy had disappeared on his life, just done a runner off into the horizon to go live in Mexico or Sweden or who-fucking-cares.
“Over here!”
It was coming from the homeless man. I got closer and tried looking for the voice, but all I saw was some smelly old guy, blood trickling down from his temple.
“Down here! Under the blanket.”
I pulled it aside and saw a can of lager—open but empty—resting between the man’s legs.
“That’s it! Right here!”
A finger rose up out of the empty can and wiggled at me like he was saying hello. Michael giggled.
“You found me!”
“What the fuck…?” I said. “Michael? Michael is that you?”
“You bet!” he cried. “Look, I need a favour and I think you owe me given…”
“How the fuck… what is this? A magic trick?” I reached down and took the can and held it up, turning it over and over and even shaking it thinking something would rattle. But nothing did.
“This is not a trick, Alex.”
A veiny eye bulged against the ring-pull and glared at me.
“Been a long time!” Michael said, chirpy in a way he’d never been in real life. “You gonna do me this favour or not? I mean… I don’t want to point fingers or nothing, but who’s fault is it that I’m in here, eh?”
“Uh…”
“Oh you aren’t so fuckin’ witty now, are you?” he laughed. “I didn’t mean no harm,” he added, mocking me with a faux-dumb tone. “You say that in your sleep, you know?”
“Uh huh.”
“Jesus Al, I know I called you dumb but we both know you’re better than all this uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, crap. Come on, use your big boy words!”
I held the can up to my ear and rattled it once more.
“STOP IT!”
He screamed with the authority of a drill sergeant and I dropped the can without thinking.
“Fuck. Shit. Sorry,” I mumbled. “Sorry Mike.” I picked the can up and focused on the ring pull. A single brown eye was looking at me and I felt myself shrink before the withering gaze.
“You gonna help or you just gonna keep trying to make me sea-sick?” he asked.
“Course I will,” I said, nodding. “Anything. Anything at all. You know people are looking for you, right?”
“Did I ask for your fucking advice Alex?” he snapped. “If I ever need to know how to get rid of pubic lice I’ll speak to you ASAP, kay? For now, I just need help. A tiny bit of help. That’s all.”
“Sorry.”
“Look, I think even you can manage this. Just put the can down and, you see that homeless guy? The one you knocked out like a real Good Samaritan?”
“Yeah.”
“Put his finger in the hole.”
“What?”
“The hole in the can,” he said. “Any finger. Doesn’t matter. Just do it.”
I nodded and carefully put the can back where I’d found it. I held the old man’s wrist with one hand and gingerly pinched a single finger with the other, sliding it into the can like I was slipping a wedding band on.
“That’s it,” Michael said. “Up to the knuckle if you can.”
I pushed the finger in as far as it could go without the metal cutting the old man’s skin. I was so close to the poor guy I could smell the coppery trail of blood that ran down his scalp. The realisation made me feel like a real piece of shit. I hadn’t meant to hit him, just scare him. Chance and bad luck meant the bottle had hit him. That was all.
I didn’t mean no harm.
“Oh goody,” Michael giggled after I’d wedged the finger in there good and proper. “Oh and Alex, I have one more favour to ask you.”
“Anything,” I nodded.
“Don’t look away.”
When it was over the can looked like a spent bullet, all frayed around the edges like a blooming flower. And the man was… well, he woke up when the first finger bent backwards at the knuckle. And he looked at me like I was a doctor about to explain some strange amputation. He wasn’t angry at me, he just wanted to know and somehow that made me feel even worse. I’ll never know exactly what happened to him, anatomically speaking. To put it simply that old homeless guy, he got sucked into that can, and not fast like explosive decompression either. It was real slow going, painful too, given the noises he made. And the way he ran around screaming and hollering while his arm was just torn to shreds, that’s something I’ll never forget. As a kid I watched this old horror film and a guy got sucked out into space through this tiny little hole over the space of minutes and it was just like that, only it weren’t cheap rubber and latex skin getting pulped into goo.
By the time it reached his elbow I was trying to help pull it off. Somehow, he was awake the whole time, joints cracking and snapping, bones and muscle sloughing off like melting wax. How no one came to help us I’ll never know. I screamed for help so long my throat turned raw, and I was spitting up blood for days.
Just before the end, the man went quiet and he looked at me like he was a cancer patient that just knew what was coming. The can was up to his shoulder and, without warning, he just slipped on in there. Pop! and the mess flew up into the air and only the can was left behind. You could see the inside plain as day, and there was blood and goo and even a tooth, but there wasn’t a whole human stewing around in there. More like half-a-glass’s worth, but not a whole man.
“Michael?” I whispered.
But no one answered.
They were gone.
-
“Give him what he wants,” Dave said, droning into the phone like a braindead drunk.
“Give who?” I asked.
“You know. We put him in there and he never left.”
“Dave,” I said. “Where are you? Do you need help?”
“Just give him what he wants Al,” he replied. “He’ll ask for a lot, but we owe it to him.”
Click.
The line went dead and I was already putting my coat on before another minute had passed. Dave and I hadn’t spoken in years. Hell, it had been a good four years since I’d heard any voices in cans, whatever that was. A dream, I figured, even if I did drive past some very scared looking cops outside the bar the next day. It was just a dream, I told myself. Yet I knew what Dave was talking about, and that scared the hell out of me.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the garage Dave owned hadn’t opened all day. A string of angry voicemails were left waiting on his phone and the flashing red buzzer lit up the small reception desk with Godly patience. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. I saw it through the front window with my hands cupped around my face. Dave and his family lived above that place in a small flat, and I had to break a small window around back to get inside. Dave was sat against a wall on the cold shop floor, his chin slumped down over his chest and his legs splayed out in a V. I tried the lights, but they didn’t work, and glass crunched under foot along the way. Someone had done a real number on the place. Rubber and metal lay strewn about the floor in twisted bits and pieces. Whoever owned the car Dave had been working on would be pissed. It was smashed all to hell with panels wrenched off and embedded in the shop walls and floors. The drive shaft was sticking through the back windshield and the roof had been curled back like a sardine can. It looked like it had gone through a vivisection, especially given how liquefied flesh dripped off the twisted frame like vines on an old wreck.
When I moved around to check under the hood, I saw a dense labyrinth of finely machined parts I guessed to be the engine block. Fingers jutted out of every shadowy crevice, and delicate mechanisms were choked with hair and skin. I thought of the old man and the can and felt my gorge rise. Something about the scene looked familiar and I was wondering what that was when a flash of colour caught my eye. I backed away to get a better look and, angling my light, I saw a small red shoe dangling from the bumper by a lace. It was the kind of thing a girl of eight or nine would wear, and it was dripping with blood.
I thought of Dave’s wife, of his kids… of what he’d said on the phone.
“Dave, what did you do?”
“What I had to.”
I looked and Dave was staring right at me, blood filling his mouth. He looked so pale in my light I didn’t know if he was just close to death or an actual talking corpse.
“What happened here?” I asked. “It’s like a bomb went off.”
He stared for a while longer and then lifted his arm, pointing to the car.
“I think his back is broken.”
That voice was like acid in my veins. It definitely wasn’t Dave who’d spoken. He was still staring at me like a drunk on the side of the road, his glassy eyes vacant of all thought.
“Over here Alex,” Michael said, and I followed the voice to the engine block. “Woo hoo.” A small finger wiggled at me out of a black cylinder. “Yes that’s right. Look, I need your help. I know it’s a lot to ask of someone like you, but you gotta admit, you kinda owe me.”
“Sure,” I mumbled. I was dumbstruck by the strangeness, sure. But looking back I can also remember a kind of haze, a crippling guilt so powerful it was like standing on the surface of the sun, like there was enough power in Michael to snap me in two like a bundle of raw spaghetti. “Anything you want.”
“Good,” Michael said. “That’s what I like to hear. What I need is for you to grab Dave, pull him over, and just pop him down against the engine.”
“Anything,” I repeated.
“You’re a good guy you know that Alex?” Michael said. “Just try not to fuck it up.”
I half-expected Dave to put up a fight, but as I stepped over, he just looked at me like we had a job to do. Not really thinking, I gave his shoulder a tug and he fell over. His head hit the floor with a loud crack! Poor fucker. His eyes rolled around like I’d turned his brains to omelette.
“Don’t worry,” Michael cooed. “There was nothing important in there anyway.”
“I deserve it,” Dave slurred. “Shouldn’t have hesitated when it came to my little girl. That was selfish.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Michael agreed.
“So selfish,” Dave groaned as his eyelids fluttered and his breathing slowed.
It was hard work dragging him, but I got him there. I had to prop him up awkwardly against the slab of metal like it was some kind of upright pillow. It was a clumsy job, but good enough. A single thumb emerged from the darkness and gently rubbed a trickle of drool from Dave’s lip.
“Alex?” Michael said. “I think you know what I’m going to ask, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “I won’t look away.”
And I didn’t.
-
I didn’t have a shit childhood but it sure had its moments. Despite a father with anger issues and a mother with gin in her veins, it wasn’t too bad. The only time where I felt truly singled out for cruel and unusual punishment was the time my cousin locked me in an airing cupboard. I’d had a wicked time with night terrors growing up and it was no secret among the family. I think he thought it’d be funny, or that maybe he’d find something out about me. I don’t know. Looking back it was the first time I ever understood what real cruelty was. It was a small space he crammed me into. God no bigger than the inside of your standard washing machine. And dark, obviously. Pitch black all around me. And you gotta understand that to a kid the universe ain’t ordered and sensible. Shit just fuckin’ happens all the time.
Old dude you liked who gave you candy every weekend? He’s dead sorry. Come home to a crying mother? No one’ll tell you why. Wake up one day and your old man don’t go to work no more? He won’t say what happened, but everyone’s crying and it soon turns to fighting. Do you know what a pro-mo-shun is? Well your best friend’s dad just got one, so now you’ll never see him again. Ever.
The universe is chaos.
You will suffer.
Without warning.
Enjoy.
To me and you being locked in a room or a cupboard probably ain’t a big deal. Kick the door down. Scream. Cry. Holler. Shout. Bide your time. Do what you gotta do. But I didn’t know that. I was six and strange things happened to me all the time. How was I to know my Aunt would hear and come open the door in just ten minutes? I didn’t know someone would come for me. I didn’t even know whether this was part of the fucking plan. For all I knew I was right where my parents wanted me, and my suffering was the desired outcome.
You’d think I’d be scared of dying in there. But as I screamed so hard that my lungs turned ragged, well… it wasn’t dying I was thinking about. It was living. It was spending my whole life trapped in the dark, in the cold and lonely outskirts of existence where no one would come to get me. How long does a person live? Eighty, ninety, a hundred years? To a kid it doesn’t matter. It’s all the time you got and when you’re six you have a lot of time. And there I was in a space so small I couldn’t stand or lie down or lift my elbows more than a few inches from my side.
By the time my Aunt arrived I’d broken two fingers and dislocated a shoulder. Panic can do that to you. I remember her looking so sad and worried and confused. She asked me why I’d done it, let myself get so crazy, but I wouldn’t say. If she didn’t know already, she’d never understand. I only did what I did because of something that, deep down, all kids know. But then they grow up and forget. Or at least you’re supposed to.
You’re never alone in the dark. There’s always something waiting for you in there.
You’re not meant to remember that fact as an adult. It’s meant to burn away until it’s just ash. But something about Michael had set the thought ablaze in me again… maybe it was when I locked him in the trunk. Maybe it was when he first came back. But as time ticked on I was starting to feel like I could just about glimpse something in the corner of my eye. Like I had a taste of the truth and it was hurting me… physically hurting me like a knife in my skull being twisted around by a great big greasy fist. Sometimes I’d find myself staring at shadows and trying to look beyond the dark into the place beyond, the place I’d seen first-hand as a kid, the place that Michael had slipped into… or more-likely dragged.
“I didn’t expect her to grow up like that.”
Andy was sat next to me, his feet up on the dashboard with a cigarette between his lips. Trying not to make him look, I pulled up my sleeve and wiped away the blood collecting in the corner of my eyes. I’d been staring at the footwell for the last hour or so, refusing to blink. If Andy had thought me crazy, he didn’t say. Truth is he didn’t look so hot either. He’d had a wife once upon a time. A real battle axe. Dave and I used to joke that if it weren’t for the fact we saw the two of them in the same room, we would think Mrs Andy was just her husband in a wig. But Andy liked her. He did. He liked her a lot. And by the time we finally saw fit to contact each other, I was pretty sure Andy had already given his beloved over to Michael.
“She’s looking good,” he smiled, biting the tip of his tongue like a cherry pip.
I looked at the young woman walking down the street and I shrugged. I hadn’t had thoughts like that for a long time.
“Looks like him. You can see the family resemblance,” I said.
“Do you think he can see us? Do you think he sees everything we do?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m not sure he’s even human anymore.”
“Well you better hope he is,” Andy scowled. “Otherwise this plan is shot to shit. She’s a pretty thing though. Couple of ways we could show him we’re serious.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I replied. “We need to show him what he can lose if he doesn’t leave us alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean let’s try and scare him, yeah? Not piss him off even more than he already is.”
“Whatever! Now come on and get ready” Andy said, sitting upright and slapping his thighs with excitement. “Here she comes.”
Something about this experience was wearing on me. The last few weeks had started to smudge together. I wasn’t even sure how I’d gotten out of Dave’s place. It was like my brain had purged all those events from my memory and yet sometimes if I closed my eyes I’d see skin-coloured wax melting through a sieve. It made me ill every time. But it wasn’t just that rolling around inside my head, making me nervous. It was Andy. He had a nasty little look in his eye.
The girl was on her way home from college. She was all grown up since I’d last seen her standing outside her school, looking around for her missing brother. She looked like she’d grown up on the straight and narrow, and I could see a satchel bouncing around by her hips that was full of thick-looking text books. It was fucking bizarre but right before we snatched her, right before Andy lunged outta the car to hug her waist and throw her against the door, I remember thinking,
Good for her… getting an education.
And then Andy punched her so hard her head snapped back against the car window and she went out cold, sliding onto the floor.
“Got the little bitch,” Andy growled as he bundled her into the car. “Come on! Move it! Fuckin’ move! We can’t just sit here forever!”
I turned the keys and pulled outta the alley we’d been hidden in. When I looked in the rearview mirror I could see Andy staring down at Michael’s sister.
He looked insane.
-
“Don’t,” I said, and I gently pulled Andy’s hand away from the girl’s hair. He’d spent the last few minutes caressing her head a bowling ball.
“Isn’t the whole point to scare him?” he asked, flashing me a toothy grin.
“It’s me you’re scaring right now,” I said. “Just… just wait…”
“For what? She wakes up and starts crying ‘Michael Michael come save me!’?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, wiping another trickle of blood away from the corner of my eye. We were sat in our old locker room. The school had been shut down years ago and all its students sent to another place a few towns over. There was no electricity, so we had to bring our own lights. They cast harsh shadows that plucked away at my consciousness like the aura of a migraine. “Please just sit down,” I said. “And stop pacing.”
“How the fuck is this my fault?” Andy screamed, and he probably didn’t mean the words entirely for my benefit. For a brief moment he unravelled and punched a locker door so hard, and so often, that he left an impression of his knuckles as bloody dents. Only when the locker collapsed backwards did he seem to finally register where he was and who he was with, and he sucked a long breath between his teeth while trying to soothe his sore fist. Muttering furiously, he walked over to a nearby sink and washed the blood away.
“I gave him what he asked for,” he said when he finally came back. “Did everything he wanted. Not just Bethel either. The dogs. The cat. The chickens out back. Even the fucking ficus had to go. If it lived, it went.”
I just nodded.
“It wasn’t enough,” he growled.
“It never will be.”
The girl was awake and she was looking right at me. Her voice had made me think of how funeral homes smell, like it was the kinda thing that’d talk to you as you turned to mush in a crypt somewhere.
“Oh boy!” Andy cried, stepping towards her like a boxer in the ring. “Here we go sweetheart!”
He grabbed her chin with one hand, and he looked ready to crush her head in a single move. Big guy, our Andy. But for some reason I wasn’t too worried about that. It was the girl. How long had she been listening to us? And the way she looked… she didn’t seem right. Even as Andy lifted an arm and sent an open-handed slap barrelling towards her, she never looked away from me. She barely even flinched.
“Michael!” he roared, turning to every corner of the room. “We have your fucking sister! We have her and we’re not afraid to hurt her cause we ain’t got nothing left to lose! Anything we do now pal, it’s on you!” His voice was hoarse like a soldier screaming bloody murder. Like this was a battlefield and he was getting ready to face off against a final foe. Like he had it all figured out.
But I was starting to get the funny feeling we hadn’t found a winning strategy at all.
“That’s not true,” she said.
“Where’s your brother?” Andy roared, hitting her again. “Tell him to come out! Tell him to come out and face me like a fucking man!”
“What’s not true?” I asked, my words frightened whispers.
“You have plenty left to lose,” she answered. “Alex,” she smiled, her mouth all crooked from where Andy’s gorilla-fist was crushing her cheeks in his palm. “Could you do me a favour? Please?”
Andy looked at me for a moment like he thought I’d planned some kinda ambush, and her and I were in league.
“Don’t answer her,” he said. “What the fuck is going on!?”
“Don’t look away,” she said. “It’s important to him that you watch.”
“I won’t,” I whispered, and I think it was right about then that Andy’s bluster failed. I’m sure I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes before the hand reached out of the girl’s mouth and grabbed his wrist. Andy cried for me. He cried a lot. Towards the end he cried for his mother, for Bethel too. But the girl, she never cried. What happened to her was probably just as bad as what happened to him, worse even. Bodies aren’t meant to do that. But whatever hold Michael had over her, it was strong. I guess it must be so dark inside a person…
By the end she looked like a clay statue of a girl that had been squished by a toddler’s fist, those chubby fingers gripping so hard that some parts squeezed out in funny trickles, while other bits split apart and crumbled. I remember looking into her chest cavity when it was over, looking at the way the shadows made it look so big and vacant. I’m pretty sure her head had been split open in places, but it was hard to know what was her, and what were just the dripping remains of Andy.
I was captivated by the raw destruction of the scene. I must have stayed there for an hour, just looking down at her. Sometimes I’d catch a sound, a little bit like a crying man. It sounded like Andy but it didn’t always come from the gaping hole made out of the girl’s collarbones. Sometimes it came from the lockers behind me.
If I listen carefully, I can still hear him screaming in the dark.
-
“Don’t do that again,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“Don’t try to threaten or intimidate or outwit me.”
“I won’t.”
“I’ve seen what’s on the other side.”
I nodded.
“It’s not good,” he added. “You’re not meant to have a body here. Makes you… indigestible. It’s been a real struggle, Al. You owe me for what you did, more than just a single lifetime because thanks to you I’m not going anywhere, am I?”
“No…”
“It was a rhetorical question, Al.”
“Sorry.”
“You should be,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
The words pulled me away. I’d been staring at my feet the whole time, my eyes drawn to the patch of shadow beneath my seat. The train shuddered gently as it traced the railway’s curve, the lights flickering weakly. I could feel the air growing heavy.
“What’s your name?”
The woman sat beside me and smiled. She was old and spoke with a sympathetic authority.
“Alex,” I said.
“How are you feeling Alex?”
“Not good,” I answered, and to my surprise I burst out crying. “Not good at all.”
“I’m Beatrice,” the old woman said. “But you can call me Bee.”
“Thank you Bee.”
“Do you have anywhere safe to stay, Alex?”
I nodded, wiping the snot from my nose.
“Are you going there now?”
The few other passengers aboard were looking at Bee like she’d just approached a hungry lion. They’d spent the journey doing everything to avoid me, treating me like your typical lunatic. I never tried to hide anything, never tried to hide who I was or what was going to happen. But they always thought I was talking to the voices in my head. They didn’t know I was speaking to the shadows. They didn’t know how real it was.
“Do you need any help getting home?” Bee asked. “Is there anyone I could call for you?”
“I have no one,” I said, feeling my heart break a little at the admission. When I looked up at Bee, I saw the tunnel fast approaching. I reached out and grabbed Bee’s hand so tight it must have hurt. She looked so worried, so concerned. Her eyes darted around looking for what had scared me. When she realised what had scared me, she looked relieved.
“Oh it’s okay,” she said. “Are you claustrophobic? I’ll be here the whole time but don’t you worry. The darkness always passes.”
The train entered the tunnel. There were a few gasps, one even from Bee who must’ve wondered, just like all the others, why the shadow that enveloped us was so devastatingly black. That was the last noise any of them made. There were no screams. Only a whoosh of displaced air, like I’d stood next to a speeding truck on the highway. Something enormous had just passed me by, and it took all my strength not to scream.
There were other things too. Smaller predators floating behind in a shoal, scavenging what little remained. They would ignore me if I stayed perfectly still, so said Michael. When the light returned there was there was hardly a sign that there’d ever been anyone else aboard. The sole exception being the severed hand of Bee that remained clutched in my fist. Even in plain daylight I couldn’t bring myself to let go. I just kept holding it, hoping and willing the past few minutes could somehow reverse and undo themselves. I didn’t want to be this person. I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s suffering.
“But you are,” Michael said, and when I looked back down he was there. “You are very responsible. None of it could happen without you. You think that things would be like this if it had just been Dave or Andy on top of that car? No, Alex. It was you. You remembered what lives in the dark, and they remembered you.”
I let go of Bee’s hand and it fell to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s too late for that Alex. You carry this darkness around like luggage. And the holes you make are getting bigger every day. A lot of those people are still in one piece. Do you know what that means? They’re alive. And there’s no time here. No death. No entropy. They will always be alive. And the things that live here just love flesh. Can’t eat it, but they sure do love to play with it. Something alive, something whole, that’s like Christmas. They spent a long time playing with me. But I’m not sure ol’ Bee will be able to strike up a deal like I did. No escape for her.”
“I should kill myself,” I whispered.
“You can,” Michael said. “But where do you think you’ll go?”
“Hell?” I asked.
“Oh Alex,” he laughed. “Hell implies another option. But this is all there is. Just an abyss. The abyss. And the things that live in it. You don’t have a lot of time in the light, nobody does. But that’s why it’s so important you put it to the best use. And, as we’ve already discussed, everything you have really belongs to me, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Good,” and I could hear the smile in Michael’s voice. “There’s another stop soon. Just a few more people, then we’ll move on. Gotta change it up Al. We don’t want to draw too much attention. After all, there’s so much more you can give me.”
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what does a black thumbs up mean on facebook video

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It depends on the message you got for example, someone said something you agree but to lazy to type the word yeah you’re right,yes i completely agree etc, you’ll just press that thumbs up as a sign that you agree to the person you’re sending it. Thumbs Up - Black may look different on every device. In the above images you can view how Thumbs Up - Black emoji appears on different devices. Emoji of Thumbs Up - Black can be used on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and many other platforms and OS but not supported in HTC, Mozilla. Some devices may show a blank box or X instead of emoji as Once you’ve set up Facebook Messenger for your business, some of the symbols and icons on Messenger’s interface may seem foreign. This guide will help you know exactly what Facebook Messenger symbols are trying to tell you. What do the Facebook Messenger symbols mean? Open Blue Circle. An open blue circle means that your message is in the process of sending. If you see this symbol, you The thumbs-up emoji also frequently punctuates text, sometimes in strings for additional emphasis, to indicate positivity, agreement, approval, encouragement, or assurance, an equivalent to “Awesome!” or Great job!”. Someone might comment “That looks great! 👍” to celebrate a piece of online artwork. Another person might post “Please subscribe to my channel if you like my content 👍🏿Thumbs Up: Dark Skin Tone Emoji Meaning. The Thumbs Up: Dark Skin Tone emoji is a modifier sequence combining 👍 Thumbs Up and 🏿 Dark Skin Tone.These display as a single emoji on supported platforms. Thumbs Up: Dark Skin Tone was added to Emoji 2.0 in 2015.. Copy and Paste Without further ado, I will show you the steps on how to change thumbs up on Facebook messenger. How to Change Thumbs up on Facebook Messenger. 1. Launch your messenger app and start a chat. 2. Click on the circled (i) located at the top right of your screen. 3. Click on emoji. 4. Scroll and select an emoji of your choice. The black profile picture is back, and it has a message. Though its specific origin is unknown, social media users have explained that the trend is a movement to show what the world might be like I am not clear with this question. :D Do you want to ‘Thumbs Up’ a post or put it in a comment or chat? I wonder why this question has been asked in the first place! Anyway, I will explain it here. :P * There is a ‘Blue Colour’ button with four f... Facebook emoji, no matter how trivial it sounds, appeared for using in Facebook services which are a social network, a messenger for PC and applications for mobile devices. Facebook offers its unique emojis in two versions with different designs – one for the website, and the other for the Messenger. To transcend cultures and languages, Facebook uses symbolic menu icons at the top of the page. The silhouette of two people shows where friend requests are managed. The chat bubbles represent inbox and instant messages, and the globe icon houses notifications. Just to the right of those symbols is a lock icon, representing privacy settings. The upside-down triangle is a drop-down menu of page

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7 Sounds Cats Make and What They Mean - YouTube

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what does a black thumbs up mean on facebook

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