Hey, y'all.

Most of y'all don't know me, and most that do recognize my username will probably only know me for arguing about guns and telling horrible jokes in the comments. Some of y'all will know who I am, though. I've met some of y'all in person, which was awesome.

Anyways, I had started writing a series of articles about the fecal matter and its proximity to the air redistribution mechanism in our current political climes, informed by my own experience as a veteran who was deployed three times to Iraq and elsewhere in a combat MOS. I've also been into prepping and survivalism since I was a teenager deep in the long-forgotten mists of the late nineteen hundreds.

Some of the stuff I wrote... Well, I don't really want it getting out there. But the parts I wrote that aren't so delicate, I got no problem sharing, so I put them on my blog, where anyone can access them, and I figured I'd share them here for all of y'all.

• The Politics and Predictions of Prepping and Warfighting
• On the Use of Armor in a Civil Defense
• On the Setup of Rifles
• On the Possible Scenarios and Their Likelihood

Now that I've been reminded by seeing someone else post a guide to setting up a rifle, I'll likely get to the posts I promised about future topics.

Warning: Do NOT read this if you haven't done the Red Death mission yet!

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My girlfriend recently got into the game, and she's loving it so far. She recently got into Far Harbor, and she's going to be doing the Red Death quest either today or tomorrow.

A mutual friend has already got the ball rolling, telling her how difficult it can be and that she should get with me before she does it, so I can lay out exactly how she she approach it.

That same friend has loved the game for years, but only got Far Harbor last year. When she asked me what the Red Death mission was like, I realized the opportunity I had. I asked her what level she was, and when she told me, I hissed through my teeth skeptically and hemmed and hawed for a bit, before I said "Yeah, you might be alright doing it... But honestly, maybe you should get like, five more levels, first."

And she did. She farmed XP for a day or two, then came back to me, asking for advice. I told her to farm Stimpacks for a while and to bring a fat man and as many nukes as she could, which kinda surprised her. She knows I've got like 4k hours in this game and know it inside and out. Every other 'boss fight' in the game we discussed, I always talked like it was super easy. I'd even said the game was surprisingly easy, even on higher difficulties, multiple times, though I'm obviously a bit biased these days (I legit used to die a lot, just not in a long time).

I actually got her a bit worried about it. She even considered not doing it, as she was playing the game on hard difficulty, but I insisted she had to. Even if she couldn't beat it, it was worth the fight.

She pulled me into a Discord voice chat when she was ready, sharing her screen and asking me to stay with her as she did it. I did, of course. I legitimately had her freaking out by the time she got to the island with my constant stream of advice and pretend second-guessing, and then she saw it. I distinctly remember her words and tone when she finally laid eyes on it.

"The fuck is this bullshit?" in the most incredulous OG-goth-girl-from-the-90s-and-been-smoking-Djarum-Blacks-the-whole-time voice I've ever heard.

She called me an asshole, disconnected from the chat, then called my phone just so she could call me an asshole again and hang up on me.

It was glorious. All of our other friends (who were there in the Discord call) thought it was hilarious. Truly, one of the fondest memories I have of the last few years.

So ya'll, now it's my girlfriend's turn. She's 40 and pretty canny. She grew up poor, living in rough neighborhoods and has dealt with a lot of bullshit, up to and including multiple hate crimes over the course of her life. She's not a gullible person, by any means. That being said, she trusts me, and on this topic, I have every intention of abusing the fuck out of that trust.

To do that, I need some really good lines to feed her. Help me come up with some suitably dramatic and over-the-top advice on how to prepare for this mission.