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by Weshallntinstallcommunism. . 103 reads.

The Great Furniture War

Upon interaction with the United Kingdom of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, otherwise referred to as the N.D.S, the IKEAŽ corporation originating within that nation attempted to establish itself in the national furniture market, much to the chagrin of nationally-recognizable furniture chains, least of all the largest of those firms. As citizens began to buy IKEAŽ product, all of which were offered for lower prices than what was offered anywhere else in WeShallntInstallCommunism, otherwise referred to as the W.S.I.C, the executives of that largest firm hatched the first of many plans.

They rebranded themselves as BetterKEA, and launched private military attacks on all IKEAŽ locations within national borders. This initial success leads to the First IKEAŽ Exodus, as they flee in confusion back to N.D.S territory. Their task finished, the mercenaries then returned in success, the executives of BetterKEA knowing better than to provoke the N.D.S, as the retribution from their military was entirely undesired. But the celebration over the rout of IKEA would be shorter than expected.

IKEAŽ was not at all willing to back down from such a lucrative market. They launched an even more extensive line of stores, now protected by soldiers. Whether these soldiers were private contractors or N.D.S soldiers is not fully known or explored, the government of W.S.I.C not desiring to sour relations with such a valuable ally, especially so soonly following the successful dual invasion of The Empire of Catlandiea, despicable due to its communist agenda. Despite these soldiers, BetterKEA was also not at all willing to back down from such a lucrative market. However, it was clear that physical force, while effective, would need to be otherwise supplemented by other methods of waging war, and a second plot was hatched.

As battle raged between the two forces, BetterKEA aimed for their true target - IKEAŽ's public perception. It should first be noted the hatred held by W.S.I.C citizens towards any communist threat, true or otherwise. Thus, BetterKEA launched the first of many ad campaigns targeting IKEAŽ, proclaiming IKEAŽ to be infested with communist throughout all levels of the business, from the lowliest janitor to the highest executives. With threat of communism pervading throughout public consciousness, the consumers turned on IKEAŽ. Not even the promise of quality real leather couches sold for the lowest of prices were enough, as many citizens were convinced that IKEAŽ furniture would turn their kids communist. Due to this absolute loss of consumer support, the Second IKEA Exodus occurs, be it at a slower rate than the first exodus.

From their corporate office in the N.D.S capital of Oslostopenhagen, IKEAŽ begins an ad campaign to convince W.S.I.C citizens that they are not in fact communist. This was an ultimately futile effort due to the fact that the large volume of ads from BetterKEA still proclaiming IKEAŽ as communist drowned out their defensive ad campaign in an unrelenting stream of accusations. Despite this, IKEAŽ was not willing to give up on such a lucrative market, even though all hope of the IKEAŽ brand taking hold anywhere in W.S.I.C seemed lost. Instead of directly competing with BetterKEA, they attempt to move into other areas of the market, such as clothes and sports equipment in the same vein as Nike. This was also largely unsuccessful, due to their unfamiliarity with those aspects of the market and the stiff competition offered by established W.S.I.C brands.

Meanwhile, the continuous ad campaign by BetterKEA proclaiming IKEAŽ's communist slant had advanced as far as to largely influence public perception of N.D.S such that they believed all N.D.S citizens looked like Joseph Stalin of the U.S.S.R. This effect bleed over such that all stores associated with the IKEAŽ brand were treated with the same distain as the main company. This was only accentuated by IKEAŽ's underestimation of W.S.I.C's hatred of everything communist, which lead to the mistake that was IKEAŽ's third grand reopening, where they attempted to advertise with the ultimate lure of a product giveaway.

Unfortunately for IKEAŽ, this was taken as a sign of the communist ideals the public perceived as integral to the IKEA Ž communist, leading to the Third IKEAŽ Exodus occurring before the stores even opened. Public perception of IKEAŽ and N.D.S at large had now dropped so low that citizens of W.S.I.C demanded that there be a wall built between W.S.I.C and N.D.S, and that Catlandiea be made to pay for it. Even when public perception was at it's worst, citizens still remembered how the N.D.S military helped to smash the communist menace that was Catlandiea. Furthermore, Catlandiea had refused W.S.I.C demands to pay for a wall to be built across the Baltic Sea in order to better separate the two nations. It is with these events in mind that the proposal for the Northern Anti-Commie Defense Wall That We Made Commies Pay For, otherwise known as the NACDWTWMCPF, or NACDW for short.

Just as people of W.S.I.C made to vote on the referendum for the wall, a shocking revelation derailed the whole process as information was found to show that another nation, The Matriarchy Of Fresno County Freedom, actually had lower taxes than W.S.I.C. Upon this revelation, the public went into a fervor, forgetting about the referendum as the government began to lower taxes as fast as possible. It is suspected that this information was released by undercover IKEAŽ operatives, as it was in the wake of this public frenzy that IKEAŽ again opened stores in W.S.I.C, this time slashing prices by 60%. However, even as the public forgot about IKEAŽ, BetterKEA had never forgot their mortal rival, their name reflecting the threat they were well aware of. While the referendum dominated the public sphere, BetterKEA had prepared for an IKEAŽ reappearance.

BetterKEA proceeded to launch extremely miniaturized nukes at every new W.S.I.C IKEAŽ branch, leaving block-sized nuclear wastelands. The radioactive fallout killed millions, yet BetterKEA somehow managed to avoid association. Without a culprit to blame, the W.S.I.C government reclassified IKEAŽ stores as a natural disaster that cause nukes to rain from the heavens upon any IKEAŽ store within the country. Any new IKEAŽ store was then beat by a mob of civilians armed with BetterKEA furniture, increasing their sales figures. Any attempt by IKEAŽ to dissuade this was met with a general sentiment that communist could not be trusted, often expressed as, "That's what a commie would say."

During this time, a rumor began to spread that communist could be weakened and killed by close proximity to currency of any kind. As the most common currency in W.S.I.C was the shekel, it became an increasingly common practice to tar and shekel any N.D.S citizen found within W.S.I.C territory, the practice entailing taring a person, then showering them in one-shekel bills with the hope that they would weaken and die sometime after exposure. In some regions where coins are used instead of paper currency, the practice was said to be extraordinarily vicious, the victim often dying from the initial impact of the coins. Even if they survived the initial process, they often faced a more immediate death as the heavier coins would cause faster exhaustion, and thus a quicker demise.

IKEAŽ executive, tired of constant BetterKEA attacks, decide that the best defense was a good offense, and moved to attack employees of BetterKEA, putting them on the defensive. However, BetterKEA had now fully committed to their strategy of destroying public perception of IKEAŽ, and they now put another devious plan into action. BetterKEA had spent a good percentage of their yearly profits to research invisibility technology, with was then finalized as a cloak. It is of note that the engineers in charge of final design and utilization of the technology were all of British origin, and were all born within two years of 1985. 95% of those engineers admitted to being fans of the Harry Potter novels since the first was released in June 26, 1997. However, this invisibility technology was only a portion of the plan laid by BetterKEA executives. They also began to obtain large quantities of southeast asian children, often by advertisements claiming to offer free American education for any child who signed up. Through this process, thousands of children were gathered for the plan.

With cloaking technology and a copious amount of southeast asian children, BetterKEA special operatives infiltrated IKEAŽ warehouses located in W.S.I.C in order to plant the children in the hope that the assumption that would be made upon their discovery was that IKEA utilized slave labor. When these children were discovered, public perception of IKEAŽ dropped lower than ever, nearly surpassing the time when one unfortunate W.S.I.C representative suggested that taxes should be increased to upwards of 10% in order to better provide welfare, and was subsequently murdered in broad daylight, yet the court case was unable to find a single witness. Additionally, when IKEAŽ attempted to prove they did not use these children as slaves by releasing security tapes of the warehouse cameras, the sudden appearance of the children on the film convinced various religious organizations within W.S.I.C that IKEAŽ was in fact practicing dark magic and heresy on a large scale, leading to declaration of holy war upon IKEAŽ by numerous groups. IKEAŽ was also unable to prove BetterKEA involvement as BetterKEA had never filed a patent for their technology, and had utterly destroyed every trace of their development of this technology. The large scale gathering of southeast asian children was done through 5 layers of shell companies, none of which were even investigated. Thus, the entire special op was a complete success.

IKEAŽ, now desperate as the W.S.I.C market slipped further out of their reach, made a classic move with a Black Friday sale, despite W.S.I.C's lack of a thanksgiving-like holiday. However, it was a seeming initial success as public perception of IKEAŽ brightened slightly. Communist didn't participate in such spectacles of capitalist gorging, and thus some fears were assuaged. As the day of sales approached, citizens began to plan for the shopping spree that IKEAŽ promised.

However, BetterKEA was not at all willing to let IKEAŽ have any victory, no matter how small. They countered with a Green Thursday set the day before IKEAŽ's Black Friday, so named because BetterKEA promised to pay customers to just take items. The company took out several small fortunes in green 100 shekel bills in preparation for the day. The plan was a success, the citizens of W.S.I.C so shopped out by Green Thursday that none participated in the lesser event that was Black Friday. However, as plans go, this was an incredibly risky one on the part of BetterKEA, bankrupting them. It was only due to government financing that BetterKEA was able to stabilize their financial situation.

But IKEAŽ wasn't quite done with their own schemes, aiming their sights squarely at one of W.S.I.C's most beloved pastimes - weapon ownership. IKEAŽ advertised about the new armory section of their store, where every gun, bomb, and armored vehicle under the sun would be offer. Modern tanks, explosives, and drones were on offer for prices where even the poorest W.S.I.C citizen could afford something from the shop.

This launched the BetterKEA executives into a panic. They hadn't predicted such a move from IKEAŽ, and as such were left with seemingly no counter. However, quick thinking and a search of their archives presented a genius solution - weaponized furniture. During the invasion of Catlandiea, the furniture industry had heavily contributed, providing furniture in place of bombs and as mobile cover of invading W.S.I.C and N.D.S forces. Through this process, they had began development of armored couches to better serve as mobile cover, even making late-war models that were manufactured with mobile miniguns.

With these in mine, BetterKEA released their line of FurnishedInvasion, which served as an offensive minded model of weaponized furniture, promising that every piece would be equipped with mounted miniguns and come with 10,000 complimentary rounds. IKEAŽ quickly moved to compete, but BetterKEA had already made their mark on the market, controlling the majority of the marketshare before IKEAŽ had even finished R&D for their line of BuildAndInvasionTM, which possessed larger weapon variety that the BetterKEA line, but emerged far to late to be a real threat to BetterKEA. Furthermore, their ad slogan "press a button, and invade!" inspired further public fears over the possibility IKEAŽ might arm the N.D.S population so the communist may invade W.S.I.C. It is in this atmosphere that BetterKEA launched their FurnishedDefense line along with Green Thursday 2.0, which was a much more conservative affair than Green Thursday, but was just as much a success, with every W.S.I.C's home owning an average of 3.4 couches, generally in a ratio of 1 FurnishedInvasion to 2 FurnishedDefense, leading to the common sight of FurnishedDefense models being placed in defensive positions on neighborhood lawns, with some neighborhoods banding together to form informal perimeters in case of the communist invasion.

IKEAŽ made a final play in the form of grocery chain Wal-keaŽ, aiming to sell just about everything. Unfortunately, it would appear that an informal slang for BetterKEA had already emerged, walkea, in reference to how similar to Walmart BetterKEA sometimes appeared. Wal-keaŽ was then seen as a copy, even heresy by some of the religious groups still proclaiming holy war against IKEAŽ forces. This would matter little however, as the N.D.S government formally asked the W.S.I.C government for a market ceasefire so that the two nations could again invade Catlandiea as the people had moved to a region formally known as Romania. The war was then ended, with the Fourth IKEAŽ Exodus.

The aftermath of the war is immense. Millions dead, small nuclear wastelands throughout W.S.I.C, and BetterKEA still struggles with the aftermath of the first Green Thursday. However, it is the general consensus throughout the W.S.I.C intellectual sphere that BetterKEA ultimately won the war. To most, it may seem a draw, but one must consider the goals of either sided. While IKEAŽ desired a place in the W.S.I.C furniture market, BetterKEA desired to block every attempt by IKEAŽ and prevent them from gaining a foothold in the market. In the end, with IKEAŽ denied their foothold, it is BetterKEA who achieved their ultimate goal, at least for now. The governments of both countries only care about the prevention of a market war as so long as it would stop them from achieving the goal they set out for themselves, that being the destruction of communism, most notably Catlandiea. It in almost without a doubt that, given an opportunity, the two corporations would again duke it out for control over one of the largest portions of the W.S.I.C market. However, given the incredible damage done to IKEAŽ's public perception in W.S.I.C, it seems unlikely that they would win a further conflict. Only time will tell what these corporations are capable of.

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