TradingView.com.com is a popular online platform that provides a comprehensive suite of tools and resources for traders, investors, and analysts to analyze and trade financial markets. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of TradingView.com, its features, and its benefits, setting the stage for a deeper dive into the platform's capabilities in subsequent chapters.

What is TradingView.com?

TradingView.com is a cloud-based platform that enables users to analyze and trade financial markets, including stocks, forex, futures, and cryptocurrencies. Founded in 2011, TradingView.com has grown to become one of the largest and most popular trading communities in the world, with over 10 million registered users.

Key Features of TradingView.com

TradingView.com offers a wide range of features that make it an attractive platform for traders and analysts. Some of the key features include:
1. Charting and Technical Analysis: TradingView.com provides a powerful charting platform that allows users to create custom charts with various indicators, drawing tools, and annotations. Users can also access a vast library of pre-built indicators and templates.
2. Backtesting and Paper Trading: TradingView.com allows users to backtest and paper trade their strategies using historical data, enabling them to refine their trading ideas and test their performance.
3. Community and Social Trading: TradingView.com has a large and active community of users who share their ideas, strategies, and insights. Users can follow other traders, participate in discussions, and share their own ideas and insights.
4. Alerts and Notifications: TradingView.com provides a robust alert system that allows users to set custom alerts based on market conditions, technical indicators, and other criteria.
5. Data Feeds: TradingView.com offers a range of data feeds, including real-time and historical data, for various markets and instruments.
6. Scripting and Automation: TradingView.com's PineScript language allows users to create custom indicators, strategies, and automated trading systems.
7. Mobile Apps: TradingView.com offers mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, enabling users to access the platform on-the-go.

Benefits of Using TradingView.com

TradingView.com offers several benefits to its users, including:
1. Improved Trading Decisions: TradingView.com's charting and analysis tools enable users to make more informed trading decisions.
2. Access to a Large Community: TradingView.com's community provides users with access to a vast network of traders, analysts, and experts.
3. Customization and Automation: TradingView.com's scripting and automation capabilities allow users to create custom strategies and automate their trading.
4. Real-time Data and Alerts: TradingView.com's real-time data and alert system enable users to stay up-to-date with market movements and react quickly to market changes.
5. Cost-Effective: TradingView.com offers a range of pricing plans, including a free version, making it an accessible platform for traders and analysts.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have provided an overview of TradingView.com, its features, and its benefits. TradingView.com is a powerful platform that offers a range of tools and resources for traders, analysts, and investors. Whether you are a seasoned trader or just starting out, TradingView.com provides a comprehensive suite of tools to help you analyze and trade financial markets. In the next chapter, we will delve deeper into the charting and technical analysis capabilities of TradingView.com.

Chapter 2: Creating an Account and Setting Up Your Profile

As a new user, creating an account and setting up your profile is the first step in exploring the world of [Platform/Service]. In this chapter, we will guide you through a step-by-step process to create an account and set up your profile, ensuring a seamless and enjoyable experience.

Section 1: Creating an Account

To create an account, follow these steps:
1. Visit the Sign-up Page: Go to the [Platform/Service] website and click on the "Sign Up" or "Create an Account" button. This will take you to the sign-up page.
2. Enter Your Email Address: Enter a valid email address to serve as your login credentials. Make sure to use a unique and memorable email address, as it will be used to reset your password if needed.
3. Choose a Username: Choose a unique and memorable username that will be used to identify you on the platform. This can be your real name, a nickname, or a combination of letters and numbers.
4. Create a Password: Create a strong and unique password for your account. A strong password should be at least 8 characters long and include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
5. Confirm Your Password: Re-enter your password to confirm it. This ensures that you have entered the correct password.
6. Verify Your Account: Click on the "Create Account" button to create your account. You will receive an email verification link to verify your email address.

Section 2: Setting Up Your Profile

Once you have created your account, it's time to set up your profile. Follow these steps:
1. Fill Out Your Profile Information: Fill out your profile information, including your name, birthday, and location. This information will be used to personalize your experience and connect with other users.
2. Add a Profile Picture: Upload a profile picture that represents you. This can be a photo of yourself, a logo, or an avatar.
3. Add a Bio: Write a brief bio that describes yourself, your interests, or your expertise. This will help others get to know you better and find common ground.
4. Customize Your Profile Settings: Customize your profile settings to control what information is visible to others and what notifications you receive.
5. Connect with Others: Start connecting with other users by sending friend requests or joining groups related to your interests.

Tips and Best Practices

· Use a strong and unique password for your account.
· Keep your profile information up-to-date and accurate.
· Be cautious when sharing personal information or connecting with strangers.
· Use the platform's built-in features to block or report suspicious or inappropriate behavior.
· Respect other users' privacy and boundaries.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully created an account and set up your profile. You are now ready to explore the world of [Platform/Service] and start connecting with others. Remember to keep your account information secure, be respectful of others, and have fun exploring the platform. In the next chapter, we will dive deeper into the features and functionality of [Platform/Service].

Chapter 3: Navigating the TradingView.com

Interface

As a trader or investor, it's essential to understand the TradingView.com interface to get the most out of this powerful platform. In this chapter, we'll take a comprehensive tour of the TradingView.com interface and its various components. By the end of this chapter, you'll be well-versed in navigating the platform and ready to start exploring its features.

Section 1: The TradingView.com

Dashboard

The TradingView.com dashboard is the main hub of the platform, providing an overview of your account, market data, and other essential features. Let's break down the key components of the dashboard:
1. Header Bar: The header bar at the top of the screen displays your username, account balance, and other account information.
2. Navigation Menu: The navigation menu allows you to access various sections of the platform, including your watchlists, charts, and settings.
3. Market Data: The market data section provides real-time quotes for various assets, including stocks, forex, and cryptocurrencies.
4. Alerts: The alerts section allows you to set custom alerts for specific market conditions, such as price movements or news events.
5. Watchlists: The watchlists section enables you to create and manage custom lists of symbols, making it easy to track your favorite assets.

Section 2: Charting and Analysis

TradingView.com is renowned for its powerful charting capabilities, allowing you to create custom charts with various indicators, studies, and drawing tools. Let's explore the key features of the charting interface:
1. Chart Types: TradingView.com offers a range of chart types, including line charts, candlestick charts, and Renko charts.
2. Indicators: The platform comes with a vast library of built-in indicators, including moving averages, RSI, and Bollinger Bands.
3. Drawing Tools: The drawing tools allow you to annotate your charts with lines, shapes, and text.
4. Studies: Studies are custom indicators created by the TradingView.com community, offering a wide range of trading strategies and techniques.
5. PineScript: PineScript is a programming language used to create custom indicators and strategies.

Section 3: Community and Social Trading

TradingView.com is more than just a trading platform – it's a community-driven platform where traders and investors share ideas, strategies, and insights. Let's explore the community features:
1. PineCoders: PineCoders is a community of developers who create custom indicators and strategies using PineScript.
2. TradingView.com Blog: The TradingView.com blog features articles, analysis, and insights from experienced traders and investors.
3. TradingView.com Forum: The forum is a hub for discussion, debate, and learning, where traders and investors share their experiences and ask questions.
4. Watchlists: Watchlists allow you to share your favorite symbols with others, making it easy to collaborate and learn from each other.
5. PineScript Challenges: PineScript challenges are community-driven initiatives where developers create custom indicators and strategies, and the community votes on the best submissions.

Section 4: Customization and Settings

As you become more comfortable with the TradingView.com interface, you'll want to customize your experience to suit your needs. Let's explore the customization options:
1. Theme: TradingView.com offers a range of themes, allowing you to personalize the look and feel of the platform.
2. Layout: The layout options enable you to customize the arrangement of the platform's components, such as the chart, indicators, and alerts.
3. Notifications: The notification settings allow you to customize the types of notifications you receive, including market data updates and alert notifications.
4. Security: The security settings enable you to set up two-factor authentication, password recovery, and other security measures to protect your account.

Conclusion

Navigating the TradingView.com interface is an essential step in unlocking the full potential of this powerful platform. By understanding the various components of the dashboard, charting and analysis tools, community features, and customization options, you'll be well-equipped to start exploring the platform and developing your trading skills. In the next chapter, we'll dive deeper into the world of PineScript, exploring the programming language and its applications in trading and investing.

Chapter 4: Understanding Charts and Time Frames

In this chapter, we will delve into the world of charts and time frames, a fundamental concept in technical analysis. We will explore the different types of charts, time frames, and how to use them effectively on TradingView.com. By the end of this chapter, you will have a solid understanding of how to use charts and time frames to analyze and trade the markets.

What are Charts and Time Frames?

Charts and time frames are the foundation of technical analysis. A chart is a graphical representation of a security's price action over a specific period. Time frames, on the other hand, refer to the duration of the data displayed on the chart. In other words, time frames determine how much data is displayed on the chart and how often the data is updated.

Types of Charts

There are several types of charts, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The most common types of charts are:
1. Line Chart: A line chart connects the closing prices of a security over a specific period, creating a continuous line. This chart is useful for identifying trends and patterns.
2. Candlestick Chart: A candlestick chart displays the high, low, open, and close prices of a security over a specific period. Each candle represents a specific time period, and the color of the candle indicates whether the price closed higher or lower than the previous day's close.
3. Bar Chart: A bar chart is similar to a candlestick chart but does not display the open and close prices. Instead, it shows the high and low prices, as well as the open and close prices.
4. Renko Chart: A Renko chart is a type of chart that uses a unique algorithm to create a chart that is not based on time. Instead, it uses price movements to create a chart that is more focused on the price action.

Time Frames

Time frames determine the duration of the data displayed on the chart. Common time frames include:
1. 1-minute: A 1-minute chart displays the price action over a 1-minute period.
2. 5-minute: A 5-minute chart displays the price action over a 5-minute period.
3. 15-minute A 15-minute chart displays the price action over a 15-minute period.
4. 30-minute: A 30-minute chart displays the price action over a 30-minute period.
5. 1-hour: A 1-hour chart displays the price action over a 1-hour period.
6. 4-hour: A 4-hour chart displays the price action over a 4-hour period.
7. Daily: A daily chart displays the price action over a 1-day period.
8. Weekly: A weekly chart displays the price action over a 1-week period.
9. Monthly: A monthly chart displays the price action over a 1-month period.

Using Charts and Time Frames on TradingView.com

TradingView.com is a popular platform for charting and analyzing financial markets. Here's how to use charts and time frames on TradingView.com:
1. Creating a Chart: To create a chart on TradingView.com, go to the "Charts" tab and select the security you want to chart. Choose the chart type and time frame you want to use.
2. Customizing the Chart: Once you have created a chart, you can customize it by adding indicators, drawing tools, and other features.
3. Switching Time Frames: To switch time frames on TradingView.com, click on the "Time Frame" dropdown menu and select the desired time frame.
4. Zooming In and Out: To zoom in and out of a chart on TradingView.com, use the mouse wheel or the "Zoom" button.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have covered the basics of charts and time frames, including the different types of charts and time frames. We have also explored how to use charts and time frames on TradingView.com. By mastering charts and time frames, you will be able to analyze and trade the markets more effectively. In the next chapter, we will explore the importance of indicators and how to use them to make informed trading decisions.

Chapter 5: Technical Indicators and Studies

In this chapter, we will delve into the world of technical indicators and studies available on TradingView.com. As a trader, it is essential to understand the various indicators and studies that can be used to analyze and predict market movements. This chapter will provide an overview of the different types of technical indicators and studies available on TradingView.com, their uses, and how to apply them in your trading strategy.

What are Technical Indicators and Studies?

Technical indicators and studies are mathematical calculations based on historical price data that help traders identify trends, patterns, and potential trading opportunities. These indicators and studies can be used to analyze and predict market movements, making it easier to make informed trading decisions.

Types of Technical Indicators and Studies

There are numerous types of technical indicators and studies available on TradingView.com, including:
1. Trend Indicators: These indicators help identify trends and potential trading opportunities. Examples include the Moving Average, Relative Strength Index (RSI), and Bollinger Bands.
2. Momentum Indicators: These indicators measure the rate of change of an asset's price over a given period. Examples include the RSI, Stochastic Oscillator, and Momentum Indicator.
3. Volatility Indicators: These indicators measure the degree of price movement or volatility. Examples include the Average True Range (ATR) and Bollinger Bands.
4. Pattern Recognition Indicators: These indicators help identify specific chart patterns, such as head and shoulders or triangles. Examples include the Ichimoku Cloud and the Keltner Channel.
5. Statistical Indicators: These indicators use statistical methods to analyze market data. Examples include the Exponential Moving Average (EMA) and the Simple Moving Average (SMA).

Popular Technical Indicators and Studies on TradingView.com

Some of the most popular technical indicators and studies available on TradingView.com include:
1. Moving Average: A simple moving average calculates the average price of an asset over a given period.
2. Relative Strength Index (RSI): The RSI measures the magnitude of recent price changes to determine overbought or oversold conditions.
3. Bollinger Bands: Bollinger Bands consist of a moving average and two standard deviations plotted above and below the average.
4. Stochastic Oscillator: The stochastic oscillator compares the closing price of an asset to its price range over a given period.
5. Ichimoku Cloud: The Ichimoku Cloud is a comprehensive technical analysis system that inclues multiple indicators, including the Tenkan-sen, Kijun-sen, and Senkou Span.
6. Keltner Channel: The Keltner Channel is a volatility-based indicator that plots two lines above and below a moving average.
7. Average True Range (ATR): The ATR measures the average true range of an asset over a given period.
8. Exponential Moving Average (EMA): The EMA is a type of moving average that gives more weight to recent price data.
9. Simple Moving Average (SMA): The SMA is a type of moving average that calculates the average price of an asset over a given period.
10. Stochastic Momentum Index (SMI): The SMI is a momentum indicator that measures the rate of change of an aset's price over a given period.

How to Use Technical Indicators and Studies

To get the most out of technical indicators and studies, it is essential to understand how to use them effectively. Here are some tips:
1. Combine Indicators: Combining multiple indicators can help confirm trading signals and reduce false positives.
2. Use Multiple Time Frames: Analyzing multiple time frames can help identify trends and patterns that may not be visible on a single time frame.
3. Adjust Parameters: Adjusting the parameters of an indicator can help tailor it to your specific trading strategy.
4. Use Indicators in Conjunction with Fundamental Analysis: Combining technical indicators with fundamental analysis can help provide a more comprehensive view of the market.
5. Backtest Indicators: Backtesting indicators can help evaluate their performance and identify potential biases.

Conclusion

Technical indicators and studies are powerful tools that can help traders analyze and predict market movements. By understanding the different types of indicators and studies available on TradingView.com, traders can develop a comprehensive trading strategy that incorporates multiple indicators and studies. Remember to combine indicators, use multiple time frames, adjust parameters, and backtest indicators to get the most out of technical indicators and studies.

Chapter 6: Creating and Customizing Charts

As a trader, having the right tools and information is crucial for making informed decisions. Charts are an essential component of any trading strategy, providing valuable insights into market trends and patterns. In this chapter, we will explore the process of creating and customizing charts on TradingView.com, a popular platform for traders and analysts.

Creating a Chart on TradingView.com

Creating a chart on TradingView.com is a straightforward process that can be completed in a few steps.
1. Log in to Your TradingView.com Account: Start by logging in to your TradingView.com account. If you don't have an account, you can create one by signing up on the TradingView.com website.
2. Select the Symbol: Once logged in, navigate to the "Symbols" tab and select the symbol you want to chart. You can search for symbols by typing in the symbol name or by using the "Search" function.
3. Create a New Chart: Click on the "Create a New Chart" button to create a new chart. You can also create a new chart by clicking on the "New Chart" button in the top-right corner of the TradingView.com window.
4. Select the Chart Type: Choose the type of chart you want to create. TradingView.com offers a variety of chart types, including line charts, candlestick charts, and more.
5. Customize the Chart Settings: Customize the chart settings to suit your needs. You can adjust the chart size, grid lines, and other settings to create a chart that meets your requirements.

Customizing Charts on TradingView.com

Customizing charts on TradingView.com is an essential step in creating a chart that meets your specific needs. Here are some tips for customizing your charts:
1. Add Indicators: Add indicators to your chart to gain insights into market trends and patterns. TradingView.com offers a wide range of indicators, including moving averages, RSI, and more.
2. Add Drawings: Add drawings to your chart to highlight specific patterns or trends. You can add lines, shapes, and other drawings to your chart to create a visual representation of your analysis.
3. Add Alerts: Set up alerts on your chart to notify you of specific market events or price movements. You can set up alerts based on price movements, volume, and other market indicators.
4. Customize the Chart Grid: Customize the chart grid to suit your needs. You can adjust the grid lines, grid spacing, and other settings to create a chart that meets your requirements.
5. Save and Share Your Chart: Save and share your chart with others. You can save your chart as a template or share it with other traders and analysts.

Advanced Chart Customization

In addition to the basic customization options, TradingView.com offers advanced customization options that allow you to create complex charts and indicators. Here are some tips for advanced chart customization:
1. Create Custom Indicators: Create custom indicators using the TradingView.com PineScript programming language. You can create custom indicators that meet your specific needs.
2. Use Custom Drawings: Use custom drawings to create complex patterns and shapes on your chart. You can create custom drawings using the TradingView.com drawing tools.
3. Customize the Chart Layout: Customize the chart layout to suit your needs. You can adjust the chart size, grid lines, and other settings to create a chart that meets your requirements.
4. Use Advanced Chart Settings: Use advanced chart settings to customize your chart further. You can adjust the chart settings to suit your specific needs.

Conclusion

Creating and customizing charts on TradingView.com is a powerful way to gain insights into market trends and patterns. By following the steps outlined in this chapter, you can create complex charts and indicators that meet your specific needs. Whether you're a seasoned trader or a beginner, TradingView.com offers a range of tools and features that can help you create charts that meet your specific needs.
Chapter 7:

Introduction to Trading Strategies

As a trader, having a solid understanding of various trading strategies is crucial for making informed decisions and maximizing profits. In this chapter, we will explore popular trading strategies, their underlying principles, and how to implement them on TradingView.com. By the end of this chapter, you will have a comprehensive understanding of various trading strategies and how to apply them using TradingView.com's powerful platform.

Introduction to Trading Strategies

Trading strategies are pre-defined rules or methods used to make trading decisions. These strategies are designed to help traders navigate the markets, identify profitable opportunities, and minimize losses. Trading strategies can be categorized into several types, including:
· Trend following strategies: These strategies aim to identify and ride the trend, whether it's an uptrend or a downtrend.
· Range trading strategies: These strategies focus on identifying and trading within a specific price range.
· Mean reversion strategies: These strategies rely on the idea that prices will revert to their historical means.
· Statistical arbitrage strategies: These strategies involve identifying mispricings in the market and exploiting them.

Popular Trading Strategies

2.1 Trend Following Strategies
Trend following strategies are designed to identify and ride the trend. These strategies involve identifying the direction of the market and trading in that direction. Some popular trend following strategies include:
· Moving Average Crossover (MAC): This strategy involves identifying the crossover of two moving averages to determine the direction of the trend.
· Relative Strength Index (RSI): This strategy involves identifying overbought or oversold conditions using the RSI indicator.
· Bollinger Bands: This strategy involves identifying breakouts above or below the bands to determine the direction of the trend.
2.2 Range Trading Strategies
Range trading strategies focus on identifying and trading within a specific price range. These strategies involve identifying support and resistance levels and trading within the range. Some popular range trading strategies include:
· Support and Resistance Trading: This strategy involves identifying key support and resistance levels and trading within the range.
· Channel Trading: This strategy involves identifying and trading within a specific price channel.
2.3 Mean Reversion Strategies
Mean reversion strategies rely on the idea that prices will revert to their historical means. These strategies involve identifying overbought or oversold conditions and trading in the opposite direction. Some popular mean reversion strategies include:
· Mean Reversion Trading: This strategy involves identifying overbought or oversold conditions and trading in the opposite direction.
· Statistical Arbitrage: This strategy involves identifying mispricings in the market and exploiting them.
2.4 Statistical Arbitrage Strategies
Statistical arbitrage strategies involve identifying mispricings in the market and exploiting them. These strategies involve analyzing historical data and identifying statistical anomalies. Some popular statistical arbitrage strategies include:
· Statistical Arbitrage: This strategy involves identifying mispricings in the market and exploiting them.
· Event-Driven Trading: This strategy involves identifying and trading on specific events, such as earnings announcements or mergers and acquisitions.

3.

Implementing Trading Strategies on TradingView.com

TradingView.com is a powerful platform that allows traders to implement and backtest various trading strategies. Here are some steps to follow when implementing trading strategies on TradingView.com:
1. Create a new chart: Open a new chart on TradingView.com and select the asset you want to trade.
2. Add indicators: Add the indicators you want to use for your trading strategy. For example, you may want to add a moving average crossover indicator.
3. Set parameters: Set the parameters for your indicators. For example, you may want to set the period for your moving average crossover indicator.
4. Backtest the strategy: Backtest your strategy by running a backtest on TradingView.com. This will allow you to evaluate the performance of your strategy.
5. Refine the strategy: Refine your strategy by adjusting the parameters and testing different scenarios.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have explored popular trading strategies and how to implement them on TradingView.com. By understanding various trading strategies and how to apply them using TradingView.com, you can make informed trading decisions and maximize your profits. Remember to always backtest and refine your strategies to ensure optimal performance. In the next chapter, we will explore advanced trading strategies and how to use them to improve your trading performance.

Chapter 8:

Backtesting and Evaluating Trading Ideas

As a trader, it's essential to test and refine your trading ideas before implementing them in live markets. Backtesting and evaluating your trading ideas can help you identify potential flaws, optimize your strategy, and increase your chances of success. In this chapter, we'll explore the process of backtesting and evaluating trading ideas using TradingView.com, a popular platform for charting and backtesting trading strategies.

What is Backtesting?

Backtesting is the process of applying a trading strategy to historical market data to evaluate its performance. It allows you to test your trading idea on past data to see how it would have performed in real-time. By backtesting your strategy, you can:
1. Identify potential flaws in your strategy
2. Optimize your strategy for better performance
3. Refine your strategy to improve its accuracy
4. Evaluate the strategy's risk-reward ratio

Why Backtest?

Backtesting is crucial for several reasons:
1. Risk management: Backtesting helps you identify potential risks associated with your trading strategy.
2. Strategy optimization: Backtesting allows you to refine your strategy to improve its performance.
3. Performance evaluation: Backtesting enables you to evaluate the performance of your strategy and make data-driven decisions.
4. Confidence booster: Backtesting gives you confidence in your strategy, reducing the risk of emotional trading decisions.

How to Backtest on TradingView.com

TradingView.com offers a range of tools and features for backtesting trading ideas. Here's a step-by-step guide to get you started:
1. Create a new chart: Open TradingView.com and create a new chart for the asset you want to backtest.
2. Select the data range: Choose the time period for which you want to backtest your strategy. You can select a specific date range or use the default settings.
3. Add the strategy: Click on the "Indicators" tab and add the strategy you want to backtest. You can use built-in indicators or create your own custom indicators.
4. Set the parameters: Configure the strategy's parameters, such as the number of bars to look back, the number of trades to take, and the stop-loss levels.
5. Run the backtest: Click the "Run" button to start the backtest. TradingView.com will apply your strategy to the selected data range and provide performance metrics.
6. Analyze the results: Review the backtest results, including the strategy's profit/loss, drawdown, and other performance metrics.

Evaluating Trading Ideas

Evaluating your trading idea is a crucial step in the backtesting process. Here are some key metrics to consider:
1. Profit/Loss: Calculate the total profit or loss generated by your strategy.
2. Drawdown: Measure the maximum loss experienced by your strategy.
3. Sharpe Ratio: Calculate the Sharpe Ratio to evaluate the strategy's risk-adjusted performance.
4. Sortino Ratio: Use the Sortino Ratio to evaluate the strategy's risk-adjusted performance, focusing on the maximum drawdown.
5. Information Coefficient: Calculate the Information Coefficient to evaluate the strategy's ability to generate profits.

Best Practices for Backtesting

To get the most out of backtesting, follow these best practices:
1. Use a robust data set: Ensure your data is accurate and free from errors.
2. Test multiple scenarios: Test your strategy on different time frames, assets, and market conditions.
3. Monitor performance metrics: Keep track of your strategy's performance metrics and adjust as needed.
4. Refine your strategy: Continuously refine your strategy to improve its performance.
5. Avoid overfitting: Be cautious of overfitting, where your strategy performs well on the training data but poorly on new data.

Conclusion

Backtesting and evaluating trading ideas is a crucial step in the trading process. By using TradingView.com and following best practices, you can refine your trading strategy, optimize its performance, and increase your chances of success. Remember to evaluate your strategy's performance using relevant metrics and refine it continuously to improve its performance. With practice and patience, you'll develop a robust trading strategy that can withstand the challenges of the markets.

The profusion of identical green tents at this spring’s anti-Israel protests struck many as odd. “Why is everybody’s tent the same?,” asked New York mayor Eric Adams. Like others, the mayor suspected “a well-concerted organizing effort” driving the protests. More recent reporting shows a concerted push behind the Gaza protest movement. But it is not as simple as a single organization secretly rallying protesters or buying tents. Instead, the movement’s most determined activists represent a network of loosely linked far-left groups. Some are openly affiliated with well-known progressive nonprofits; others work in the shadows.
The movement also draws on diverse but generous sources of financial backing. Those funding streams may soon be augmented by the federal government. As I chronicled last year in a Manhattan Institute report, “The Big Squeeze: How Biden’s Environmental Justice Agenda Hurts the Economy and the Environment,” the administration’s massive program of environmental justice grants seems designed to prioritize the funding of highly ideological local groups. The Inflation Reduction Act, for example, earmarks $3 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” intended for local nonprofits. Today, hundreds of far-left political groups include language about environmental issues and “climate justice” in their mission statements. If just a fraction of planned grants flows to such groups, the effect will be a gusher of new funding for radical causes.
As the Gaza protests spread across U.S. college campuses, many observers noted an eerie uniformity among them. From one campus to the next, protesters operated in disciplined cadres, keeping their faces covered and using identical rote phrases as they refused to talk with reporters. The Atlantic noted the strangeness of seeing elite college students “chanting like automatons.” Students held up keffiyeh scarves or umbrellas to block the view of prying cameras and linked arms to halt the movements of outsiders. At Columbia University and elsewhere, protesters formed “liberated zones,” from which “Zionists” were excluded. Around the edges of the encampments, the more militaristic activists donned helmets and goggles and carried crude weapons, apparently eager to mix it up with police or counter-protesters. We’ve seen these tactics before—notably during the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, when full-time agitators helped ignite riots, set up a police-free (and violence-plagued) zone in Seattle, and laid nightly siege to Portland, Oregon’s federal courthouse.
In a remarkable work of reporting, Park MacDougald recently traced the tangled roots of organizations backing pro-jihad protests, both on and off campuses. These include Antifa and other networks of anonymous anarchists, along with “various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition,” MacDougald writes. Higher up the food chain, we find groups openly supported by America’s growing class of super-rich tech execs or the anti-capitalist heirs of great fortunes. For example, retired tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, who is married to Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, funds The People’s Forum, a lavish Manhattan resource center for far-left groups. As the Columbia protests intensified, the center urged members to head uptown to “support our students.” Following the money trail of other protest groups, MacDougald finds connections to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and—surprising no one—the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation.
Of course, the current wave of anti-Israel protests also involves alliances with pro-Hamas organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine. Last November, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that SJP and similar groups have deep ties to global terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
For many keffiyeh-wearing protestors, however, a recently professed concern for Palestinians is just the latest in a long list of causes they believe justify taking over streets and college quads. In Unherd, Mary Harrington dubs this medley of political beliefs the “omnicause,” writing that “all contemporary radical causes seem somehow to have been absorbed into one.” Today’s leftist activists share an interlocking worldview that sees racism, income inequality, trans intolerance, climate change, alleged police violence, and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts all as products of capitalism and “colonialism.” Therefore, the stated rationale for any individual protest is a stand-in for the real battle: attacking Western society and its institutions.
In the U.S., this type of general-purpose uprising goes back at least to the riots at the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. In those protests, mainstream liberal factions—including labor unions and environmentalists—were joined by “black bloc” anarchists and other radicals eager to engage in “direct action” against police. That pattern—relatively moderate demonstrators providing a friendly envelope for hard-core disruptors—formed the template for many later protests: the Occupy Wall Street encampments in 2011, demonstrations following the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, 2016’s Standing Rock anti-pipeline movement, and of course, the calamitous summer of 2020.
These uprisings were not entirely spontaneous. In some cases, activists spend months planning mass actions—for example, against economic summits or political conventions—and can recruit street fighters from across the country. In others, an event, such as George Floyd’s death, sparks popular protests involving neophyte demonstrators. Those attract far-left activists, who swoop in to organize and expand the struggle, often tilting it toward more radical action.
That has certainly been the case at the college Gaza-paloozas. At Columbia, the New York Times spotted a woman old enough to be a student’s grandmother in the thick of the action as protesters barricaded that school’s Hamilton Hall. The woman was 63-year-old Lisa Fithian, a lifetime activist, who Portland’s alternative weekly Street Roots approvingly calls “a trainer of mass rebellion.” A counter-protester trying to block the pro-Hamas demonstrators told NBC News, “She was right in the middle of it, instructing them how to better set up the barriers.” Fithian told the Times she’d been invited to train students in protest safety and “general logistics.” She claims to have taken part in almost every major U.S. protest movement going back to the 1999 “Battle in Seattle.”
America’s radical network has plenty of Lisa Fithians, with the time and resources to travel the country educating newcomers about the “logistics” of disruptive protests. And these activists appear to have played key roles in the college occupations. The New York City Police Department says nearly half the demonstrators arrested on the Columbia and City University of New York (CUNY) campuses on April 30 were not affiliated with the schools. One hooded Hamilton Hall occupier—photographed scuffling with a Columbia custodian before getting arrested—turned out to be 40-year-old James Carlson, heir to a large advertising fortune. According to the New York Post, Carlson lives in a $2.3 million Park Slope townhouse and has a long rap sheet. For example, in 2005, he was arrested in San Francisco during the violent “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.” (Those charges were dropped.)
For a quarter-century now, Antifa and other anarchist networks have worked to refine tactics and share lessons following each major action. At Columbia, UCLA, and other schools, authorities found printouts of a “Do-It Yourself Occupation Guide” and similar documents. The young campus radicals are eager to learn from their more experienced elders. And, like the high-achieving students they are, they follow directions carefully. MacDougald asked Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, about the mystery of the identical tents. There was no need for a central group to distribute hundreds of tents, Shideler said. Instead, “the organizers told [students] to buy a tent, and sent around a Google Doc with a link to that specific tent on Amazon. So they all went out and bought the same tent.”
In other words, America’s radical class has gotten very skilled at recruiting and instructing new activists—even from among the ranks of elite college students with a good deal to lose. How much more could this movement accomplish with hundreds of millions in federal dollars flooding activist groups around the country?
From its first week in office, the Biden administration has trumpeted its goal to funnel more environmental spending toward “disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized,” partly by issuing grants to grassroots organizations. Previous environmental justice (EJ) grant programs were small in scope. But, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, a huge pool of grant money became available. EPA administrator Michael Regan told reporters, “We’re going from tens of thousands of dollars to developing and designing a program that will distribute billions.”
More than a year and a half later, it remains hard to nail down just where the Biden administration’s billions in EJ grants will wind up. Money is being distributed through a confusing variety of programs, and the process of identifying recipients is ongoing. To help outsource the job of sifting through proposals, the EPA last year designated 11 institutions as “Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmakers.” These groups are empowered to make subgrants directly to community organizations, under streamlined EPA oversight. In all, the Biden administration has entrusted these outfits with distributing a staggering $600 million in funding. The money is expected to start flowing this summer.
The EPA’s grantmakers include a number of educational institutions and left-leaning nonprofits. For example, the EPA chose Fordham University as its lead grantmaker in the New York region. Fordham, in turn, lists as partners two nonprofits that oppose immigration enforcement. (One, the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, states on its website: “NJAIJ believes in the human right to migrate, regardless of citizenship or political status.”) Neither group claims expertise in environmental issues. Given that the IRA’s eligibility requirements for EJ grants are extremely vague, however, perhaps that’s not a problem. Almost any activity that could help “spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities” (in the words of Biden’s EJ executive order) might qualify.
Perhaps the most prominent—and problematic—EPA grantmaker is the Berkeley, California-based Climate Justice Alliance. The CJA is a consortium of mostly far-left activist groups. It describes its mission as working for “regenerative economic solutions and ecological justice—under a framework that challenges capitalism and both white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy.” The group is a vigorous proponent of the omnicause, embracing almost every left-wing concern as a manifestation of climate change. For example, the CJA website proclaims: “The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” MacDougald notes that the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, one of CJA’s affiliated groups, “organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested.”
The CJA website also includes a section dedicated to the cause known as Stop Cop City. It refers to an effort to halt the construction of an 85-acre police and firefighter training center outside Atlanta. Rag-tag activists from around the country have gathered around the facility since 2021. They have repeatedly battled with police—sometimes with fireworks and Molotov cocktails—and used bolt cutters to enter the site and torch construction equipment. (CJA’s Stop Cop City page features a cartoon illustration of three childlike activists; one brandishes bolt cutters.) The group also backs a legal defense fund for activists arrested in attacks on the training center or in other protests. For those looking for more inspiration, CJA links to an interview with former Black Panther and self-described revolutionary Angela Davis.
The Alliance is not an ideological outlier in Biden’s EJ coalition. On the contrary, when the White House assembled its White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), a panel of outside experts meant to provide “horizon-expanding EJ advice and recommendations,” it chose CJA co-chair Elizabeth Yeampierre to help lead the committee. Like other members of the panel, she sees environmental issues through an ideological, not a scientific, lens. “Climate change is the result of a legacy of extraction, of colonialism, of slavery,” Yeampierre told Yale Environment 360. As a group, radical EJ activists tend not to focus on pragmatic ways to reduce pollution and carbon emissions; for them, the real goal is overturning what they see as an exploitative economic and political system. Since these are the voices the White House chose to help shape its EJ policies, we can assume this worldview will dominate grantmaking decisions.
In February 2023, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, along with fellow committee member Pat Fallon, wrote to EPA administrator Regan asking for more information on the EPA’s grant programs. They noted that the EPA’s own studies of EJ grants issued in previous years showed sloppy supervision. According to an EPA report, an earlier version of the program funded projects that did “not logically lead to the desired environmental and/or public health [result].” Without better oversight and more clearly defined goals, the congressmen wrote, the EPA’s EJ grant machine risks becoming simply a “slush fund for far-left organizations.”
Since then, the administration has done little to reassure skeptics. To the contrary, the EPA has put at least one far-left organization—CJA—in charge of distributing $50 million in grant money. No doubt, many of the EPA grants will go to worthwhile projects. But money is fungible. A group that gets a large grant to, say, clean up dirty parks or teach children about recycling will also be able to hire more staff and divert more resources to political action.
With graduation behind them, most of the anti-Israel college protesters have stowed away their keffiyehs and moved on to summer vacations or internships. But the peripatetic activists who helped guide and intensify those uprisings are doubtless already planning their next actions. After all, two political conventions are looming. This fall, the college protests will likely flare up again, though by then perhaps focused on a different facet of the omnicause. And, with hundreds of millions in fresh funding flowing through the activist ecosystem, the groups that quietly nurture extremists—like those who firebombed “Cop City,” or who chant “Intifada Revolution!,” or who block bridges in the name of “climate”—will be more emboldened than ever.
A Slush Fund for Radical Protesters? City Journal (city-journal.org)
​

One of the recurring characteristics of Loona's discography up to [X X] was lyrical self-referencing: phrases and motifs that would occur in one song and then reappear down the line. It could be a little too much sometimes, but it was a reliable way to keep up the fan engagement and build something like a lyrical identity for Loona alongside a sonic one.
I wrote a post about this five years ago, and I think Dall is the first album since then to really obviously lean into it. So that warrants a follow-up. This is not a theory post - it only examines the text of the lyrics and what connections I draw there.
Translations below are from our Team Subbit versions. Along the way, I also wanted to highlight a few translation notes for discussion.

Virtual Angel

The last time we saw reference to an angel was "Egoist"'s MV, which cast Jinsoul as a "fallen angel" in big neon letters. It's interesting to me that this song, with its broken wings and vision of Eden, leans most heavily on the yyxy era, with none of those members belonging to ARTMS. Looking past that, lyrically I think it does enough to give a sense of closure to the yyxy stories.
1.

In my frozen heart Flowers have newly bloomed And what I’d hidden inside the freezing point Is my heart for you, encased in ice Your angel

This is a reprise of yyxy's "Frozen", which is entirely about the narrator being trapped in a metaphorical ice castle and being thawed out of it by love. We see the same imagery of flowers blooming to signify the thaw. Here's the chorus of that song:

Frozen, frozen Thaw me before it's too late Shine your light And bloom a flower upon frozen lands Hold me, hold me, oh now, right now Thaw me, thaw me, even warmer for me Hold me, hold me, deeper and deeper Would you become my sun

2.

The sin of having swallowed the sun Forgiven in this moment

The most overt reference in the album is, of course, from "Singing in the Rain"'s iconic prechorus 1:

For the sin of having swallowed the daytime sun Burning up, here I am

And you may remember Jinsoul already called this back in "Egoist"'s rap break:

Hey, for the sin of having swallowed you You, beautiful, grow larger You are me, now I am you

Also a translation note: I think the Modhaus sub on this line is mistaken. It currently reads "The sin of absorbing the sun // The moment it causes harm", which is just not what the original says. My best guess is that someone misread "사해진" ["forgiven", archaic] as "상해진" ["spoiled"].
3.

The Moon’s risen and my heart is complete Your angel

Moonrise is such a common image with Loona that you could name a whole bunch of songs here - "Loonatic", "Satellite", "PTT", "Wow", "Need U", and "Pale Blue Dot" just to name a few. But the way this is written specifically reminded me of two things. One is the chorus of "Let Me In", in the sense that both lines begin with the words "달이 뜨고" ("Moon rises and") followed by some kind of transformation:

The moon rises and I become you

The other is the final chorus of "Heat", where moonrise also functions as a signal:

Today I prepared for you A beautiful star is shining bright (I want to float up higher, above) This isn't the end, look up and look for me (Turn around) There, the moon is risen tonight (tonight, oh)

4.

When I open my eyes as a butterfly Save me, savior

References to Loona's most representative song, "Butterfly", have been the most common shared thread among post-lawsuit work: see Loossemble's "A Butterfly's Signal" or Heejin's "Sad Girls Club". This one is kind of random and I think it actually takes away from the song's focus a little, but it's there.
Another translation note that the "저장" ("save") in "save me" is not the word for "rescue", but instead the one for "preserve" or "keep" - like saving a digital file. So the line is not as redundant as it looks, and also helps prime for the next line where Haseul says happiness is "through the line" (which I'm reading as in electronic cords and cables).

Sparkle

1.

Before the Sun goes down Come fetch quickly For the Moon will rise soon

It's moonrise again, but with a subtle difference. The verb used in "Virtual Angel", "Let Me In", and "Heat" is "뜨다", literally just "to rise". This one is "차오르다", which is actually more commonly used to mean the waxing of the Moon. The translation chosen here is "rise" because it's not unheard of for it to be used as "rise" and it contrasts with the sundown line above, but worth highlighting.
Trivia: has any Loona song used the "wax" verb before? Yes! One I recall is "365", where Loona liken themselves to the Moon:

I'd grow ever so small but then A tad closer towards you Again I wax and wane

2.

A different emotion We follow the light

I don't actually think this is a throwback because it's a common phrase, but I just wanted to highlight just how many times "follow the light" is used in the discography because it's a lot. All of these use the exact same phrasing ("빛을 따라") even when translated slightly differently for context.
Sonatine, bridge:

Following the faraway light

Chaotic, bridge:

Following that light, reach out to me

Rosy, bridge:

Following that light, shining on me quietly

Day & Night, prechorus:

Like a habit, I walk towards your light

Flip That, prechorus:

Following the new light that pulls me still

Day by Day, verse 1:

Following the light engraved in old memories

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This is one of the most celestially-themed tracks any of them have ever done, which is saying something given the entire discography. As a result it has passing shades of a lot of different tracks that I won't bother to name, like the blooming image of "Chaotic" and the orbiting of "Satellite". The 12 constellations and 12 months bits are super on the nose and I'm all for it.
1.

Following the twinkling Morse code I am called dimly Click click, right here [...] The signal comes through clearly Click click, here

The most obvious parallel is another yyxy song, "Rendezvous 18.6y". Both tracks use radio signals and scanning/tuning them as a metaphor for yearning and connection, and Hitchhiker massively expands the scale of that metaphor. Here's the opening verse of Rendezvous:

Where is it from? A sound coming from somewhere Seems to have found me again, this familiar radio tone (8 point 5, what is your signal?) Among the many faint noises, coming clear Is your feelings, making me fly (fly fly fly)

While we're at it, even this jazz-standard line is kind of a throwback.
Hitchhiker:

Fly me to the moon

R18.6y:

Let's stay on the moon On the way back there [...] Let me fly to the moon

2.

Tonight perhaps two Moons may rise

The obvious comparison is Loonatic, which goes:

Three moons rise up (I'm not insane)

and also has Milky Way references just like this song. The other line that's kind of written like this is "PTT"'s "Keep open the 12 different doors", though I think I'm content to let those lyrics lie.

Flower Rhythm

1.

Adorning the sky, mystical sway Causes your heart to open too

So this reminded me of OEC's "Starlight", but only because I thought that song also combined the word "수놓다" ("to embroider", but more often used metaphorically for stars or other shiny things in the sky) with a sense of something opening. What "Starlight" actually says is this:

Like lighting in the sky The starlight slowly turns on The password solved, this night unlocks

So it was kind of similar (the "unlock" there is the same word as "open"), just without the word "adorn".
More trivia: that embroideadorn word is used in four songs -
D-1, verse 1:

Rainbow of shining stars, the studded bridge

U R, chorus:

It’s like the dotted starlight Is surrounding me

Newtopia, verse 1:

Following the tip of the star-adorned orbit

Day by Day, verse 2:

Adorning my heart full

Candy Crush

Given the subject matter, there are some natural similarities to Choerry's "Puzzle" and the aforementioned "Starlight". I love the spilling/showering light imagery at the start, which "Need U" also pulled off well:

The deepest night Light showering above my head (Candy Crush)
And stars of such faith rain down They rain to make the whole universe shine (Need U)

But I didn't notice any specific wording that hearkens back to older songs. (Obviously "Plastic Candy" can't count since it's the whole song's reference.)

Air

1.

Been been there and I’ve been been there Feel it, what what, a totally different deja vu

As we know, this is just "Butterfly". The first line is obvious and the second line is the opener of that song:

Will you whisper, you're the deja vu that wakes me up

I'm not sure there's anything else in this one, other than "Air Force One" which again shouldn't count. Daft Punk I guess?

Unf/air

This one stands out lyrically from the rest of the album, because of how down-to-earth and comparatively mundane it is. Reminds me of "Valentine Girl" and "Ding Ding Dong" in vibes, if not in expression.

Distress

It's a little curious to me that they translated this title to "Distress". It's not totally wrong, but the word "조난" specifically refers to a shipwreck or stranding. That's the reason why the song refers to signs, lights and sirens, and the context for its overall sense of being lost and drifting. I guess a distress call is maybe what they were going for.
1.

Between the time I’ve waited Always that same light

The concept of being or going "between time" is not uncommon in lyricism, probably because it's evocative yet ambiguous. I also don't think this one is an intentional callback, just a reused phrase. We see it in a few spots in the discography (interestingly, they're all songs mentioned already).
Puzzle, prechorus 1:

Between the cracks of time that passed by, you graze through

Loonatic, last chorus:

Three moons rise up (I'm not insane) Between time that has stopped

D-1, verse 1:

Between a changed passage of time

Rendezvous 18.6y, verse 2:

Beyond the gaps between renewed time and space

Butterfly Effect

As they have said, this is basically a Butterfly sequel. Perfect title as well.
1.

Do you remember The way it began as a little fluttering of wings I’m still believing Ever since that day, it grew, the hurricane in my heart (Butterfly Effect)
It starts with a little fluttering of wings Now inside my heart a hurricane (Butterfly)

2.

The torn paper moon It’s drifted too far away now, can’t reach it (Butterfly Effect)
A folded paper moon, as if to circle between it (Butterfly)

3.

Full of newness, at the end of the long journey I think I’ve reached it, dream of mine Look at the world, distant, at the end of the long journey I think it’s a new beginning, dreams of mine (Butterfly Effect)
The world becomes smaller Take me way too far, become new In this moment dreams, dreams may come true (Butterfly)

Birth

I've posted a comment before about how the Modhaus translation departs from the original. Other than that, this is a wholly original text that doesn't really have a comparison among Loona's past lyrics. Maybe it could be a new archetype for ARTMS.
I will make one shoutout to the "My birth through a false smile" line. It's like a yandere version of the "My day filled with fake smiles" bit from "See Saw".

Are you ready to elevate your drawing skills and create stunning 3D lettering? In this step-by-step tutorial, we'll guide you through the process of drawing a captivating 3D letter S. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned artist looking to refine your technique, this tutorial is designed to help you achieve impressive results.
View Tutorial Here:- 3D S Letter Drawing
Step 1: Start by sketching the outline of the letter S lightly on your paper. Pay attention to the curves and angles to ensure a well-proportioned shape.
Step 2: Add depth to your letter S by drawing parallel lines along the edges. These lines will serve as guidelines for creating the 3D effect.
Step 3: Begin shading the areas of the letter S that would appear darker or receded in a three-dimensional space. Use hatching and cross-hatching techniques to build up the shadows gradually.
Step 4: Continue adding layers of shading to enhance the depth and dimensional of your letter S. Blend the tones smoothly for a seamless transition between light and shadow.
Step 5: Add highlights to the areas of the letter S that would catch the light, such as the top and outer edges. This will further enhance the illusion of depth and realism.
Step 6: Fine-tune your drawing by adjusting the shading and refining the details until you're satisfied with the result.

I'm sure someone has already mentioned this or even posted it already, but I was surprised to see all of the parallels between Christianity and this show in its imagery and culture portrayed in the Mandalorian "children of the watch". It can't be a coincidence that in order to be brought back into his religion, the Mandalorian needs to be rebaptized in the "living waters" of the mines of Mandalore. Either by pouring or immersion, baptism is how they enter as full members of "the Way", which can also be found as a parallel to Christianity. In the book of Acts, the members of the early Christian church were called "followers of the way", as "Christian" was a name given to them a little while later. "and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." Acts 11:26. However, in quotes of Paul in Acts he repeatedly refers to them as those of "the way".
Also, Jesus refers to Himself as the way, "Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." John 14:6 and Isaiah 30:21 spells out the phrase in most English translations "Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left."
The children of the watch cult/sect obviously drew inspiration to religions/cults in our own galaxy, but I find it fascinating to see the imagery of a public baptism at the beginning and the end of Season 3 is such a direct comparison to Christianity that you wouldn't see in most modern fiction today. Not even The Lord of The Rings movies had such direct drawings from it (The closest I can think of is The Chronicles of Narnia). Though I suppose since the events of The Mandalorian all took place in a galaxy long ago, they came before Jesus' ministry! Below are some more Bible verses related to "The Way" and "Living waters"

• "but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” John 4:14
• Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street." Revelation 22:1-2
• "Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem." Acts 9:1-2

Hello, I hope you're having a good time! I'm looking for someone whom I can have conversations with in the long term but if you want to have a short conversation, that's okay as well. Who knows if we get along well and end up being in touch for years? I prefer talking to people within the age range of 18–25 as I have talked to older people all my life but it's fine if you're a bit older than the specified range.
Please read the post entirely before you decide to send a chat request or message. It will take about five minutes or more depending on your reading speed. You may skip this post if you can't bother reading it. This is only for people who love reading and typing lengthy messages, because that's the only way we can communicate with each other when we don't get enough time to have real-time conversations. I am mentioning this only to save your time; I don't mean to come off as rude. The messages I send can be way longer than this post if we happen to click, and people who can't read the post entirely won't bother reading my messages properly either, and that would be a waste of time and energy for both individuals. You might have seen my posts very often in case you visit this subreddit on a regular basis, but I assure you that I only post so frequently because I don't receive any responses—and when I do, they're from people who either can't hold a conversation for long or message me without reading the post at all.
A bit about me:
I'm interested in all types of visual and aural arts. Writing, drawing, listening and composing music, watching movies and photography (I'm an amateur though) are my interests and hobbies. I'm broke so I'm not a gamer. I do have a fairly powerful PC but with a low-end graphics card I play older games on. Nothing online though.
Speaking of music, I'm mostly interested in Jazz, Funk, Hip-Hop, R&B/Soul (both classic and modern). I like listening to The Weeknd, Prince, Michael Jackson, Bruno Mars, Sade, Aaliyah, The Isley Brothers and various artists from the 70s to late 2000s generally. I'm a movie buff so I can recommend you movies too if you're looking for something to watch. And yeah, I LOVE MEMES! Keep sending them all day and I won't complain!
I'm an ambivert (more of an introvert though). My MBTI is INFP-T if that matters. I'm looking for people who are willing to share the events which occur in everyday life, joy and sorrow, secrets, deepest fears, and build a genuine connection over the course of time. I'll be there for you throughout the good and bad times; I expect the same from you too. I am active on most social media platforms. We can move on to other platforms once you feel comfortable with me.
Now here's the important stuff:
I would appreciate it if you don't just send me a "Hi/Hello/Hey." Introduce yourself; the longer the introduction is, the better. Makes room for questions. Instead of simply stating that you like movies/music, mention what genres you prefer. Makes the conversation more interesting. Please put effort into maintaining the conversation. Ask plenty of questions with the data I have provided in this post so I know that you're actually interested in getting to know me as well rather than simply talking about yourself. I feel like an interviewer if the conversation is one-sided. Don't bother messaging me if you're not naturally inquisitive and just want to talk about yourself all the time. I won't respond to any short messages (4-8 lines). If you want to leave, don't ghost me without stating a reason if we've been talking for longer than two weeks. Just tell me that we can't get along if you think the conversation isn't going anywhere. I won't get offended.
Your gender, race, sexuality don't matter at all, but tell me your age and gender just so that I know who I am talking to and follow social etiquette. I absolutely love lengthy messages; I don't feel overwhelmed by them. So bonus points if you're capable of typing lengthy messages. I'm a person who would spend an hour(s) typing a well-thought lengthy message rather than having small talk in real time. I type as if I'm writing a letter. I can chat in real time as well, it's just that I don't get much time throughout the day and I'm active at odd hours. And time zones exist, unfortunately. Short messages or long messages, the amount of time and energy you have to spend will be the same anyway.
Please don't message me if you're just looking for people to kill your boredom and later abandon them. No, I'm not being rude. I have had enough. Those one word or one sentence responses lead nowhere. Also, if you're someone who wishes to stay anonymous forever even after talking for a considerable amount of time, I'm not the person you're looking for. This is an important thing to keep in mind. I am open to revealing my identity if we get along well so I would appreciate it if you're open minded as well. But that doesn't mean I want you to reveal your identity in the very beginning itself. However, I won't wait more than three months just for you to reveal your identity if we communicate regularly. In fact, it's a great feat to converse for longer than a month on the internet. I personally think that anonymity acts as a barrier in any kind of relationship. I would love to meet you in real life at some point in the future if we get along and stay in touch for a considerable amount of time.
In the past 12 years, I have talked to several people around the globe on different platforms who wished to stay anonymous. I had conversations with them for months and years, but they always considered me as a stranger and eventually left. I'm tired of being a disposable person. What's the point of having a friend without a name and a face? I have no reason to trust someone who doesn't trust me. You can call me picky; I indeed am. I don't want to have conversations where both parties only ask each other about hobbies and interests and leave once they feel there's nothing in common. That's the reason why I asked you to cover those topics when introducing yourself. And just because I have already talked about my interests and hobbies doesn't mean there's nothing more to know about me. Human connection is a lot more than mere interests and hobbies.
I would love to interact with someone who doesn't treat me like an AI chatbot and acknowledges the fact that I'm an actual human being with feelings and emotions beyond the digital screen who spends his valuable time and energy to communicate with people—precious time and energy that I'll never be able to get back. I understand that these connections over the internet are very fragile and I can't control things the way I want so if you're interested feel free to send me a message anyway. I enjoy having conversations with people even if only for a while. Sometimes people you expect to be in touch for years leave you while the ones you don't expect to be in touch for long end up staying for a long time. Nothing is set in stone. All I ask you is to not leave without notifying me. Yes, I know whatever I have expressed so far sounds contradictory, but that's how life works, right? Reminds me of this quote by Japanese author Haruki Murakami:
"Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?"
While I agree with the fact that it's not possible to get to know a person entirely, I think connecting with another human being is a beautiful experience in itself. In the end, we are just lost souls yearning for human connection; searching for people who will provide attention and affection and accept us as we are. If you're still reading this, it means you are a good listener and reader. Message me if we have similar interests or ideals and if you think we can be potential friends. It doesn't really matter whether we have similar interests or not though, I would love to have you as a friend.
There's a lot more to learn about me but I would rather tell you all that when we begin interacting with each rather than typing it all here. Feel free to ask me any questions. I'm open to having a conversation with people around the globe any time. I'm also very patient so I don't mind waiting for weeks or a month if the messages are lengthy. I understand that you might find all of this intimidating, but there's nothing about me to be afraid of. My messages can be lengthy, but only if you reciprocate my efforts and keep on adding stuff to the text. I know that this post sounds like a contract. I know I sound very serious but that's not entirely true. In fact, I can crack jokes sooo bad that will make you laugh. Thank you for spending your precious time reading this post. What are you waiting for? Text me right now! Feel free to message me even if you're seeing this several hours or days later.
Have a nice day/night and I hope you find someone to develop a strong bond with in case I'm not the person you're looking for. Take care of yourself and always stay hydrated!

Prompt 8: Silkpunk
Dear Writer,
Silkpunk draws inspiration from East Asian cultures and technology, featuring silk-based technology and societal structures. Craft a letter in this subgenre addressed to a character from your story, immersing them in a world where innovation intertwines with the elegance of silk-based technology and cultural influences.
Describe how your character navigates a society where technology is based on the properties of silk, incorporating advanced inventions and societal structures inspired by East Asian cultures. How do these silk-based technologies impact daily life, traditions, and the character's interactions within this unique world? In what ways does this blend of technological prowess and cultural heritage shape their experiences and aspirations?
Your task is to intricately blend the silk-based technology and cultural influences into a letter, creating a narrative that authentically captures the essence of Silkpunk, offering a rich and vibrant portrayal of this unique subgenre.
Best Regards, The Writingthruit Subreddit

εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ κοπιῶμεν καὶ ἀγωνιζόμεθα, ὅτι ἠλπίκαμεν ἐπὶ θεῷ ζῶντι, ὅς ἐστιν σωτὴρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων, μάλιστα πιστῶν (1 Timothy 4:10)

The (as far as I can tell) unanimous universalist assumption is that this refers to eschatological salvation in its normal sense: the state at the end of time where one is ultimately reconciled to God, having avoided perdition. But if so, universalists find themselves in an impossible situation regarding the use of "especially" (μάλιστα) and the logical implications of this in context. How can anyone be any more saved than anyone else in this sense?
It's of course one thing to undergo more or less punishment than another. Luke 12:48 may already broach this in an eschatological context; and it's surely implied in other texts like 1 Corinthians 3:15. But it's quite another to be more saved. This problem was already recognized by interpreters in the mid–19th century, e.g. by Albert Barnes: “if he brings all people actually to heaven, how can it be especially true that he does this in regard to those who believe?” (Notes on the Epistles to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, 209).
To the best of my knowledge, not a single semi-orthodox ancient Jewish or Christian interpreter even remotely contemplated or hinted at the possibility of differing degrees of salvation itself.
Ronald Herms has explored whether the notion of an "inferior or diminished state” of eschatological salvation can be detected in 1 Enoch, and argues that this may elucidate the background of the concept of being saved “as through fire” in 1 Corinthians 3 ("‘Being Saved without Honor’: A Conceptual Link between 1 Corinthians 3 and 1 Enoch 50?"). However, the very text on which he depends appears to be textually corrupt, and the relevant language isn’t reflected in the reconstructed original text by Nickelsburg and others. Beyond this, Herms refutes that Paul himself posited any qualitatively distinct salvation in 1 Corinthians 3 (202-3).
Again, one would search in vain for any other examples in the entirety of Jewish or Christian literature that could convincingly elucidate the idea of differentiated eschatological salvation in 1 Timothy 4:10. The ancient reception history of 1 Timothy 4:10 itself knows nothing of the sort. παντελὴς σωτηρία in 3 Maccabees 7:16 may seem like a potential starting point; but this is used in a non-eschatological context (cf. Theodora Suk Fong Jim, "Soteria in Ancient Greece and Early Christianity"). That Christ σώζειν εἰς τὸ παντελὲς δύναται in Hebrews 7:25 is ambiguous for several reasons — most notably whether εἰς τὸ παντελὲς is even qualitative at all, rather than temporal (Attridge, 210; Ellingworth, 391; Koester, 365). Either way, in its immediate context, this superlative descriptive is almost certainly intended to polemically contrast Christ’s saving power with the abilities of the prior high priests of Israel. Beyond this, although the idea of differing eschatological rewards for the saved is well attested (e.g. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.36), and may have its earliest New Testament expression in texts about the “least” and “greatest” in the kingdom from the gospel of Matthew, this is entirely conceptually distinct from the idea of greater or lesser saved persons themselves. The only nominally Christian texts that apparently conceptualize the idea of differing types of actual salvation are idiosyncratic Valentinian “gnostic” texts from around 200 CE (cf. Alexander Kocar, "The Ethics of Higher and Lower Levels of Salvation in the Excerpts from Theodotus and the Tripartite Tractate"). But not even these draw on 1 Timothy 4:10 for the idea; and they have no meaningful parallels in any other Christian tradition, either.
Indeed, in the previously-cited tradition from Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.36, the varying blessed existences/habitats that the righteous will receive in the world to come are explicitly described as being differing modes "of those who are saved," full-stop — none being any more saved than any other.
If this is the case, we have to look elsewhere to explain the use of the "special" salvation of believers in 1 Timothy 4:10. One potential avenue for explanation is that it's not differentiating degrees of salvation, but rather different realizations of this. Noting that 1 Tim 4:10 does not say that "God saves all, especially believers," but rather that "God is the savior of all, especially of believers," one might suggest that God is the potential savior of all humans (who’d repent and come to Christ), while he’s the actual savior of believers.
At first glance, this seems like a quite plausible interpretation. For example, in Romans 4:5, God is called the “justifier of the ungodly”; but no one understands this to mean that the ungodly are actually justified by default. Rather, this means that God is able to justify the (repentant) ungodly. This gains even better support from related texts that explicitly use language of salvation, too. There’s no better example of this than in the 16th chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon. There, like in 1 Timothy 4:10, God is also explicitly called the “savior of all” (ὁ πάντων σωτήρ). However, in context, it’s inarguable that it means this in the sense that God only potentially realizes salvation for all. Referring to bronze serpent incident in Numbers 21, it says that God is the universal guarantor of salvation by virtue of the fact that all who turned to look at Moses’ serpent were saved... while those who didn’t, perished (Wisdom 16:5; Numbers 21:6). Similarly, Philo of Alexandria can refer to God as the "savior and friend of mankind" precisely insofar as he destroyed — with "startling and extraordinary" torments — the Sodomites with their sexual perversity, and "gave increase ... to the [sexual] unions which men and women naturally make" (Abraham §137).
Yet this isn’t the only alternate explanation for 1 Timothy 4:10; and perhaps not even the best. However, it still opens up a crucial path forward. In Wisdom 16, its σωτήρ/salvation language was not in fact used as a reference to the fully-fledged notion of eschatological salvation in the age to come, as it's known from early Christianity and other early Jewish texts. Rather, here it refers to a broader notion of God’s rescue and protection, even on earth — with God similarly described immediately after this as ὁ ῥυόμενος ἐκ παντὸς κακοῦ, “the one who rescues (people) from all evil.” And the notion of such a type of benefaction wasn’t only familiar to Jewish tradition, but is found commonly in Greco-Roman tradition, too. In fact, one would actually be hard-pressed to find any description of God as the “savior of all humanity” in the Hebrew Bible.[1] However, it’s well-known that phrase σωτήρ πάντων (ἀνθρώπων) appears — sometimes verbatim — as an epithet not only of several gods worshiped in the wider Roman empire, but of several Roman emperors and other secular authorities themselves. For example, Aelius Aristides calls the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis σωτῆρ(α) πάντων ἀνθρώπων verbatim, as in 1 Timothy 4:10. The late 3rd century BCE Ptolemaic pharaoh Ptolemy IV Philopator was referred to as τὸν πάντων σωτῆρα, verbatim as in Wisdom 16:7. In a letter by the first century (former) Jew Tiberius Julius Alexander, he refers to the emperor Galba who "has brought light to us for the salvation of the whole human race [σωτηρία τοῦ παντὸς ἀνθρώπων γένους]."
If the epithet in 1 Timothy 4:10 would have additional poignancy in this Greco-Roman context, this gives us another slightly more specific option for understanding the idea behind the “greater” salvation for believers vis-à-vis that of all humanity. Indeed, in other Greek texts we find other formulations where secular saviors/benefactors are described in ways that all but replicate the logical syntax of 1 Timothy 4:10 exactly — with a broader group first specified, and then a more narrow group singled out for special honors with μάλιστα. For example, Pausanius writes that

Here stands Zeus, called the giver of freedom, and emperor Hadrian, who demonstrates his benefaction (both) to others who he rules and especially to the city of Athens [βασιλεὺς Ἀδριανός, ἐς ἄλλους τε ὧν ἦρχεν εὐεργεσίας καὶ ἐς τὴν πόλιν μάλιστα ἀποδειξάμενος τὴν Ἀθηναίων]

Putting it all together: building on the previous suggestion that 1 Timothy 4:10 is contrasting the potential eschatological salvation of nonbelievers with the assured salvation of the faithful, the most expansive or inclusive version of this would be that God is universal savior — especially of believers — insofar as 1) he’s both the (actual) earthly benefactor and potential eschatological savior of all humanity, vs. 2) that he’s certainly both the earthly benefactor and eschatological savior of believers. The primary advantage of this option is that here, God’s salvation and benefaction aren’t purely hypothetical in relation to nonbelievers. Rather, God’s salvation is already realized, with all persons reaping some manner of the reward of this in a way: God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). And indeed, upon the correct response to this, his earthly mode of interaction even with nonbelievers can lead to assurance of eschatological salvation: his kindness (χρηστότης) leads to repentance (Romans 2:4).
Notes
[1] Something like Psalm 36:6 may be the closest to this.

What you low cost brain juicing biohacks?
Backstory, I'm a father of 4. I work In logistics administration. Overweight. And I feel like I cannot mentally perform to the level I'm use to.
Over the past 10 years I've been in multiple team leader, supervisor, and stock controller roles. I'm now administration position in Dangerous goods and I feel like im simply not picking it up as far as I'd like to. Missing small details that have major consequences.

• My diet, I already don't eat much processed foods, mostly homemade meals, protein is about 100g per day. But I'm doing IF and currently on a 7 day fast. Might switch to a more Paleo diet afterwards.
• My fitness, My knees are shot so I don't run but I try walk every morning for about 45 minutes, and I do some dumbell exercises with 2 x 5kg dumbells.
• Spiritual health, I want to do more meditation, prayer, and gratitude.
• My social health is minimal. I virtually just spend time with my wife and kids. I see family once a month and friends bi-monthly.
• Education, I've recently sat through some courses for work which I barely scrapped through the last one. I read here or there, mostly personal development. I listen to a few podcasts, either theovon for a laughs, or modern wisdom, the ed mylet show, or joe rogan when he has an interesting guest.
• Hobbies, I do graffiti/street art but I'm trying to learn how to draw real things other than letters, and I'm currently learning how to play the drums.
• Vices, Energy drinks, probably drink 5 to 10 standard drinks a week, and I have 2 Zyns a day.
• Sleep, I average 6 hours a night. Sometimes 7 or 8.

When doing fonts for graphic design, do you have to make your own fonts or is it okay to borrow from pre exsisting ones if you are working professionally? I'm not a graphic designer (yet) so please excuse me if this is a dumb question, but I was curious. I can draw, but it's so hard doing digital lettering. I want those clean modern (or just any other font in general) letters I see in professional graphic design and I just can't copy it. Do I have to learn how to hand curate a professional font to be successful?

To: Hy'Rell [hy.rell@archive.ega.mw.edu]
From: Burnham-Booker, Cleveland "Book" III [book@michaelburnhamranch.sanc4.ufp]
Date: April 25, 3196
Dear Hy'Rell,
I hope you and your fellow archivists at the Eternal Gallery and Archive are well. I apologize for my delay in writing to you, it has been a wild five years since our encounter in the Badlands.
As you've surely heard by now, Michael and Discovery were successful in our mission to track down the Pro--- Uhh, the "Pro"-fessional-strength fertilizer formula referred to in the set of clues we were following.
Ultimately, Michael made contact with the, uh, original manufacturers, and decided that the fertilizer was too powerful to be left in the hands of any single... Gardener. And, the Federation has determined to restrict all accumulated knowledge about it, which should last at least until the survivors on Ruhn's Breen Dreadnought make it back to local space in around 15 years.
I apologize that I can't give more detail, but Starfleet has assigned its highest level of regulatory classification to this information, which I'm told in no uncertain terms means I am only allowed to allude to it in veiled references and innuendo, and only then once I am fairly confident the other party is already in-the-know.
I understand following the death of Ruhn, that Tahal and the other four Primarchs made overtures to repair their government's relationship with your Eternal Archive... Perhaps you will receive more data from them when the time comes.
I must admit I was originally hoping to use the... Umm... "Fertilizer" to restore the lost world of Kwejian. Although I know it could never bring back the people themselves, or the lost aspects of our culture, for a while it seemed there was the capacity to restore the Kwejian ecosystem, the World Tree, the interconnectedness and the diversity of Kwejian life; The life itself.
In a way, that would have preserved a great deal of our cultural identity, as an empathic people we always strove to remain connected with nature, a part of it. And it formed us, as well. Also, it would have been a wonderful (if bittersweet) homecoming, of sorts, for myself and the other surviving Kwejian refugees scattered about the Galaxy. sigh. Oh well.
Michael has set up a ranch-- That is, we've set up a ranch on Sanctuary IV, and I've planted the first of the two World Root cuttings in Michael's back garden.
This was actually our third attempt to plant the first cutting-- We first tried four years ago in 3191, but had to abort the attempt because of our fur-baby Grudge, "the Queen" (an Earth Maine Coon cat, with Augment DNA, descended from escaped experimental subjects from Earth's 21st century).
Grudge and Michael got along well, and Grudge adapted nicely when Michael took a leave of absence from Kovich to come make our home together here. (I believe Nhan was assigned as interim Captain to work with Commander Rayner while Michael was away.) But things changed for the worse once Michael became pregnant with our son, Leto... Grudge was not taking that very well, at all.
She systematically dismantled the handmade bassinet three times before we switched to programmable matter with a force-field, and this of course only angered Grudge further. She then turned her attention toward the garden-- Michael's Kaminaran Fredalias were a total loss, but luckily we managed to save the world root cutting in time while Grudge was distracted wrestling with the Reticulan Beauregard Weepers.
It took me three hours to remove all the weeper spines and to heal her acid burns from the weepers' digestive fluid. You can just imagine the difficulty of keeping a Maine Coon still for the dermal regenerator, I was scratched to hell. Another whole round for follicular stimulation was out of the question, so I just left the bald spots in her fur to regrow naturally. Served her right.
I did try to calm her down through the "new baby" anxiety; To reason with her using my Kwejian empathic abilities, but all she sent back was images and scents of blood, and lots and lots of fish. We replicated a lot of fish that year, to placate her, until she learned to hop on the table and replicate them herself.
We're keeping the second world root cutting in a portable transporter buffer, for safekeeping, but we still have the Tuli wood box on proud display! We keep our tricom badges in there whenever we're home, and Michael puts her wedding ring in when we're doing chores. Grudge used to like to knock it off the counter over and over, but eventually she got bored of it when we programmed the transporter to replace it instead of coming to pick it up off the floor ourselves.
We weren't able to enjoy landscaping again until Grudge passed away this year, at the age of 26. At least, we think she passed. She disappeared and there's been no sign of her. But we take comfort in that she lived out her final days chasing baby tranceworms back toward the river, stalking and riding the Spectral Elk through the forest. Which was initially a problem, because of her claws, but I equipped her collar to deploy a programmable matter Elk-saddle-- Which really worked a lot better than you'd think!
We're not sure exactly what happened to Grudge in the end, one day we found the image of a koala scratched into the dirt path in our sideyard (doodling was a hobby of hers), and there was Grudge's collar just sitting on the ground. We checked sensor logs, but there were no signs of intruders, no transporter traces, or any predators large enough to take a Maine coon. Our Queen, forever cloaked in mystery.
We've protected the garden with a fence made from scraps of wood, and replicated wire. Do you think that will be okay? We tried a force-field, but unfortunately the polarized electromagnetic fields attract tranceworms, as well as a colorful semi-luminescent elk-like species (the Spectral Elk I mentioned earlier). It turns out these Elk have a peculiar neuroelectric biochemistry, which allows them to get high by bonking their heads against vertices in the forcefield where the EM repeller envelopes overlap.
We're hoping the wood fence will be fine, so far the Elk seem somewhat (though not completely) less interested in bashing their heads against it. Michael has a theory that the Elk perceive the fence to be a sexual rival, and are attacking to assert dominance. I often wonder what threat on their original homeworld caused the Elk to be chosen for preservation, and brought to Sanctuary IV. Perhaps there were too many fences there.
Growing up on Kwejian, I remember the World Tree grew literally everywhere, so I have no reason to think it won't grow in our back garden. The dirt here is the same colour as on Kwejian. As a courier, I never did pick up a knack for gardening, but I've watched a few tutorials on subwave and the Starfleet database so I'm sure it will be fine.
When the tree grows large enough, we're thinking of moving the house into it. But that won't be for another... Three? Maybe five years? I should ask the computer. I love trees, right, but I don't really "know" trees, you know. Anyway.
So, that's the update from the Burnham-Booker clan, I suppose! Hy'Rell, once again I can't ever thank you and the Archive enough for what you've done for me, and the remainder of my people. Every time I climb in and out of our epic tree-house, I will think of you and-- Just a second, Tricom's beeping. Computer, pause recording...
Well Hy'Rell. Sorry about that, Michael and I were called back in on a new Red Directive mission for Kovich. As always, we left Leto in the care of the holo-nan.
I meant to transmit this letter to you on our way out, but I caught a Phylosian in the garden, tampering with the world root!
I had already captured them in a Kwejian empathic rage stasis field, and materialized a phaser from my sleeve, when I noticed the Phylosian wore a Starfleet tricom badge.
It turns out, Michael hired a Starfleet botanical conservation expert behind my back. I was devastated, hurt and betrayed by her sudden and inexplicable lack of faith in my gardening-- In me.
A sense of distance and distrust reappeared between us. I knew we needed to communicate, to connect, to resolve this conflict, but there was no time (due to the new Red Directive). So instead we departed together in silence, while the Phylosian ministered to our garden.
I can't tell you when we were sent-- That is, where we were sent, on our Red Directive mission. But it was rough going, trying to work as a team (for the sake of five major quantum realities, including our own) despite this heavy weight that hung between us.
But then, dangling over the clifflike edge of an obloid onyx asteroid... Pulled down toward a screaming event horizon from the shattered remains of the T'Kon multispatial dimensional supergateway... With our slippery grips on each other's wrists the only thing separating me from complete transdimensional spaghettification and eternal consignment to hyperoblivion...
A tear rolled down her cheek.
And she explained. Her doubts about my gardening skills were never meant to be a proxy for her trust in me as a person. Or as a husband. Or as a father.
She told me that communication is love, and she loves me, and she should have discussed the botanical plan for the world root cutting with me first, before hiring the Phylosian.
At this point my hand slipped, but I managed to grab ahold of her with my other arm at the last second... Unfortunately this caused me to lose my hold on The Artefact, which fell toward the event horizon and stretched into an impossibly skinny thread before disappearing forever and completely.
So I told her, ever since receiving the root cuttings from the Archive, as one of the last surviving Kwejian, I had always seen it as my responsibility to restore the World Tree. My burden to bear, and no one else's.
I explained that I was alone for so long as a courier before Michael came, and then I thought I was the last survivor of my people: The ultimate loneliness and isolation. I was so used to being on my own, it just felt wrong, unnatural to receive any help with it, let alone to ask for help.
Just then, the cliffside began to crack ominously.
Michael suppressed a sympathetic sob, and she reminded me: I am no longer alone. That I've never been alone, since the moment she came into my life.
She says that Kwejian lives on in both of us, through our connection, and in our son, Leto. No matter what happens to us. And she was so right. I can't believe I didn't see it before.
Thusly reconciled, we were then able to combine our efforts, redouble and renew our attempt to pull me up off the side of the eternal space cliff.
And that's when we finally lost our grip completely. I fell as if in slow motion, reaching up-- Reaching out, to her. Trying to project forgiveness through my empathic senses... And in my eyes.
I saw Michael, still dangling over the edge, the rocky cliffside surrounding and framing her like an ominous black mountain. Her eyes, wide with shock and disbelief, tears streaming freely. Her arm, outstretched, strained fingers twitching at emptiness.
I felt hope slip away.
Just then, something happened that I truly can't explain.
It was as though for just a moment both space and time shifted around us. This itself was not so unusual, Michael later theorized it was a residual Manheim effect caused by gravi-temporal shear from the shattered supergateway. But the experience was transcendent. I witnessed colors, shapes at that time, that I can't picture now and which I couldn't name.
But when reality re-settled around us, and our senses returned to normal, we were both somehow safely deposited back on the clifftop. As if by some loving hand, or paw, of a merciful and caring higher being.
And it was the strangest thing, Hy'Rell, but in that moment I could swear I heard a plaintive, longing "meowww," echo through the deafening ionic wind.
Michael and I were able to cross-patch our tricom badges, match the frequency variance of the ionic hurricane, and achieve enough pattern-enhancement to jump the quantum barrier and get back to the Prime-- Uhh, anyway we got back home. Where Leto was waiting for us with a crayon drawing.
He always draws Michael taller than me. Takes after his dad in that way, because that's how I see her as well.
While we were gone, the root sprouted its stem and first leaves. The Phylosian botanist, whose name is Peet, has decided it would be best to relocate the new World Sprout some distance from structures and dwellings, to a spot that can be safely nurtured and protected.
Michael says we can't live in a tree house, but I can build one some day for Leto. She hasn't given me a limit on size though.
We talked it over and decided we would like to once again entrust the remaining world root cutting to your capable hands within the Eternal Gallery and Archive. I've tucked it away in the Tuli wood box, and secured them into a quantum matter stasis packet (please see subspace attachment).
I have also enclosed one more item which I hope you will find worthy of your collection; A collar. Somewhat ornate, with a pressed-latinum tag. Contains tracking device (never used, since deactivated). It belonged to a Queen, who no longer has need of it.
Take care of yourself, Hy'Rell
Empathically yours,
Cleveland "Book" Burnham-Booker, III

Hi.. i want a reason to write more! Ive also always wanted a snail mail penpal but never got to it. I like drawing/painting/art in general, reading, sometimes writing, playing my 3ds, listening to music, and i really like shopping for trinkets at flea markets/thrift stores Some things that i am interested in are dark topics, or morbidity.. true crime, dark history, torture methods, etc., but i also like other things. Vintage toys and trinkets, pajama pants and funny shirts. I like looking at art...
Other than those things i am hoping to become penpals with someone in another country, or another state, but i am completely okay with anybody anywhere wanting to reach out :,3
I can offer long letters, possible art, trinkets, snacks....
Im not sure how well i will respond to this post, but feel free to comment! You can also drop me a dm :333

I've been trying to record my experience in a post for hours, because it left me with a flood of thoughts swirling around in my brain. I feel like it's best that I just get to the point and start right at the beginning of events. It has been about a week since it happened, when I got a restricted delivery right as I stepped through my door to leave for work.
​
First weird thing that stood out to me is that even though it was a restricted delivery, which means it's supposed to be, well, taken good care of, this package was tattered and discolored, as if it was on its way to me since the 50's. As if that wasn't enough, the contents of it made me feel like I was about to swallow my own tongue.
​
"Dear SiMadam, you are hereby invited to say your last goodbyes to (I won't mention my friend's name here) after their untimely passing" it read, followed by the date and the location. It was devastating news, as is any news of someone you knew passing away, but what's even worse is that there wasn't even a single word about what happened, because it was definitely not of natural causes, "It couldn't be!" I thought, although I haven't kept in constant contact with this friend, he was supposed to be perfectly healthy, in his mid 20's, therefore foul play and accidents are the only options left and it feels like this is something that should be mentioned.
​
So when the day came, I drove to the specified location, still in disbelief of where I'm going, I arrived 15 minutes early, I thought that was respectfully early but not overly early, I mean, I have never actually been to a funeral since I was really young. I saw a few people already taking seats in the hall, and seeing the type of casket on the table at the very end of the room with a bright, almost heavenly light shining on it that it would be an open casket funeral, although there was no cadaver, but I was early, so it's probably still being prepared to be presentable, and we'll be asked to leave the hall while they place the body right? Right.
​
Ten minutes passed and a crowd filled each row of seats, turning the beige room into almost a dark void. Meanwhile, no cadaver arrived, on the other hand the eulogist did, probably to tell us to temporarily leave the hall or that's what I thought, but no, he started the ceremony by unveiling the memorial display but, it was empty. Correction, only my friend was missing from it. At first I thought it was a malicous edit by a salty underpaid employee and was about to make a scene and then the terrifying fact fully reached my brain. Everyone around me was mourning, crying, blowing their noses, reminiscing about old times.
​
Could they not see that the subject of the ceremony was lacking in their "last moments present with us" as the eulogist put it? I was deeply uncomfortable and as the funeral went on and I kept glancing at the casket it grew into panic and confused fear that manifested itself as sweat droplets all over my back, which despite the heat of the outside temperature and my suit kept feeling like it was ice cold.
​
After what feels like forever it was over. As if released from my chains of torment, I leapt up from my seat with a gasp. I ran up to the memorial display, quickly placed the flowers I brought, said goodbye to "Mr. NoShow" and ran home to smoke away the stress and pass out. When I awoke the next day I was sure to find myself realizing it was one of those dreams that felt all too real. Unfortunately it was quite the opposite, as I checked my mail, I saw the local newspaper of our district with an obituary, of my friend whom once again was not visually present where he should be.
​
I could not just accept this, I started calling some attendees with the guise of asking if they're okay, but really I just wanted to check if they'd only acted like part of a crowd just as I did or did they really not sense that anything was wrong, unfortunately the worst was confirmed. Not only that, but even when their name was mentioned it sounded as if it was distorted, it was as if he was a drawing in a comic book panel that got erased but the other characters still acted like he was there. It was an awfully lonely experience.
​
Two days passed, with still a glimmer of hope I looked up my friend's name. Suprisingly I found him online, posting photos, in Queensland, Australia? Day 25 of moving? Right on the day of HIS funeral. I spoke to him less than a week before I got the letter and there was no talk of moving at all, in fact not even his backdrop during our videocall changed from his usual office room. If my predicament didn't seem like the result of a creative brain during deep sleep than I can assure you it gets worse. One thing I found was a day old local article, another obituary, with my name and once again no photo where it should be, the second thing I found was my friend's newest post, having a beer with me, 10 minutes ago. So there I was apparently, a recently passed away person, while also partying in Australia, but in actuality standing in my living room, crapping myself from fear.
​
Today it escalated further, the envelope the invitation was in vanished, but I took out the invitation itself and stashed it in my drawer so I quickly checked it, it's still there. At first it seemed normal, well as normal as something like this can be, except for the spine chilling detail that I read my own name on it. The date for the funeral? The exact date when I found my obituary. This all happened soon after I attended. Out of any invitation I cancelled on in my life this should have been it.
​
I don't know what the solution is, I don't know how this is happening or why. My neighbours still talk to me so it's obvious I'm not a ghost or undead. After I post this, I'm going to start planning for leaving city life behind and moving, I need peace and I'm looking forward to getting it.

This is going to be a long one. I will both talk about the anti semitism and turkophobia in the world, how it came into existence and then i will talk about how they made turks anti semites through lies and making them forget their past with the jews. So i was very very antisemitic when i was a child. Like i was no different than hitler. I believed every single stupid conspiracy theory i was told to and whats wierd is that every single person that told me them were very educated people who read lots of books. Then I grew up and asked "What if israel is right?" and then started doing my own research and everything changed.
So we first have to look at history to see where this all began. This all began in the roman empire. Europe hated both the turks and the jews in the world. They blamed everything on them. Turkophobia in europe started when huns started invading the roman empire. The word "Barbar" has its roots in here. Turks were the wild attackers to them. After this, in books, artpieces and everything, turks were shown as devils who are the divine punishment of the christians. Jews were blamed and dehumanized in the same way. Both jews and turks were being used as political tools throughout the history. There were lots of conspiracy theories and hatred formed in those times which still exist today. Most fo those antisemitic conspiracy theories you hear today can be found in literature and artpieces of the medieval christian europe, the roman empire until ww2. There are also a lot of examples of turks being blamed for being jews and jews for being turks. They tried to show the enemy the same to raise hatred. I will share examples of these at the bottom as sources, you can reaad them if you want. For this reason, jews were attacked, expelled, massacred and exposed to many different kinds of oppression. The reason they could not do this to the turks until ww1 was that turks had their own countries but jews didnt. Jews had to do whatever was expected from them or they were just executed.
This has formed a friendship between jews and turks in the history which is what the world is trying to make both jews and turks forget because now, jews are not weak and becoming enemies with them will really hurt europeans.
Now, we come to the first world war. Everything that happened between turks, jews and israel are very important because these are never mentioned. As I said it is very easy to make soemoen believe that jews or turks are bad. Just say something bad about them and even if it is slightly believable, people wont pursue the reality because they have been doing this for centuries. Hating turks and jews is just culture at this point. For example, the khazar theory saying ashkenazi jews are turkish is a continuation of this just like how melanchton said turks are red jews. If you read literary pieces of medieval europe and then look at today's conspiracy theories, you will see that there are a lot of similarities. They used to blame turks and jews for being eachother and they still do that. If they can make the world believe jews are turkish, it will become much easier to blame them and vice versa. People saying ataturk was jewish is another example of this. When you say something bad about ataturk, people will question it. But if you say then ataturk was jewish, people will be like "ah okay he was jewish so im not surprised that he was a bad person". They did this a million times and are still doing it.
So what happened in ww1? Only but only jews did not betray the empire and then turkey. Only jews. Did you know that moshe sharett was a gallipoli veteran? No, no one does because no one is going to talk about it. Did you know ben gurion tried to find soldiers for the ottoman empire? Again, no. It was the palestinians that betrayed the empire and fought against the turks killing thousands of them while jews fought on our side. Moshe sharett was also in this war btw. So why are jews hated so much despite being the only race in turkey that didnt harm turkey? Thats because of that antisemitism in the world. I would know because i was one of them. I was always told israel is the evil, israel supported pkk and asala, israel doesnt want us to develop so they repaired our war planes, israel wants to invade turkey because they want their promised lands, jews work with the masons and want to lower the world population, they control the world and banned silver from being used as medicine because they want to sell drugs and many many other shit Well I was a kid so I blame my parents for this.
So when theodor herzl met abdulhamid, people will say abdulhamid told him "you loser, we wont give you land and slapped him". In reality, he said "we cant give lands from jerusalem so if you want, we can sell lands from iraq instead". In the end, they couldnt make a deal but it wasnt like a fight going on in there. Furthermore, jews actually joined the movement of the young turks and contributed a lot. The purpose of young turks was to unite every nationality under the ottoman empire and throw abdulhamid down to build a more democratic regime and the only nationality that this movement was successful on were the turks and the jews. Most people will tell you that it was the jews that started the ww1 which also isnt true. They only bought lands from britain and paid their debts in return. They made the same offering to the empire but they refused. Then, after the war, during ww2, lots of jews migrated to turkey. Here is the letter of einstein to ataturk asking professors in europe to be taken into turkey. Here is a photo of those scientists and ataturk. These scientists contributed greatly to our universities and opened many faculties which still exist today. They built the foundation of the turkey we are living in right now. It was also a jew that built the grave of atatürk and refused payment for it saying that he owed to atatürk for saving him from nazis.
Then israel was built. Now i want to mention what turks think about israel and the reality. First I will talk about palestine. Palestine supported asala, an armenian terrorist organization which killed many turks and politicans. Trained their terrorist soldiers and provided them with intelligence and guns along with syria and lebanon. Syria sees hatay, a province in turkey's farthest south as its own territoryy and constantly makes claims about wanting to take it back. These same countries also supported pkk. PLO was the organizaiton that thought pkk militants, the guerilla fighting tactics and also provided them with guns and intelligence. Here is the video of palestinians burning a turkish, israeli and US flag after we arrested Öcalan witht he help of mossad, the leader of pkk in 1999. So both PLO, PKK, Hamas, ASALA and the syrian governments are our enemies. Also the leader of the team that was formed by turkey ot catch asala terrorist in euopre was a turkish jew called Hiram Abbas. Recently, Mahmud abbas declared his support for armenia agaisnt azerbaijan and china against uighur turks. Also syria, lebanon and palestine recognize the armenian genocide while israel doesnt. Also PLO attacked the neve shalom synagogue in turkey too.
Now, why do turkish people in majority still support palestine to the end? Because our government wants us to do so. As i said at the very beginning, its so easy to blame everything on jews and our government took advantage of that very well.
The actual sides in this war are very clear. Its russia, france, lebanon, armenia, syria, palestine, Iran regime vs turkey, israel, US, azerbaijan, iranian people, UK.
Maybe you didnt know but france supported all of the terrorist organizations including asala, pkk, and plo created in palestine, lebanon and syria by russia. Where do you guys think the communist star on the pkk flag came from?
Even today, why do you guys think israel gets so much support worldwide especially by germany. Because they want to blame you guys for genocide as well. Let me put it this way. For example, biden is always saying hamas is bad and we should support israel but he never explains why hamas is bad. What hamas wants is to exterminate every single jew and also other ethnicities and religions from the land of israel to build a sharia islamist country like taliban did. They dont even want a free palestine. So biden never talk about this but says hamas is bad and is a terrorist organization. This is actually a very good strategy because he makes himself look like he is supporting israel very well but at the same time he is digging israel's grave. So when people hear biden saying this, they will assume biden is lying and hamas is actually the good side being oppressed by israel. Most people wont do research. They will just see one or two videos on youtube or tiktok and believe them. Since most people think governments are always the liars, they will start looking for the truth. Biden very well knows that since israel is the stronger side, people wont belive that israel is also the good side very easily. Then they will learn about the history and think that israelis are the occupiers of palestine and invaders because of all the propaganda on the internet. Then they will believe what they found after what they heard from biden as the truth, they wont look any further. Most people, when they think they found the truth, they wont question it and look further into the question. Biden knows this very well and knew it from the beginning. In all of his speeches, he said hamas is a terrorist organization without giving any explanation why and since people have a tendency to believe terrorist organizations arent actually terrorists but shown like terrorists by their oppressors especially when they are the weaker side and also when the stronger side is jewish which is a race that is very easy to draw a bad image about. This will also convince people to not believe conspiracy theories about the jews since they already believe many conspiracies about the jews. So if an ordinary person like me figured this out, the president of the US must have figured it out from the beginning right?
They did this to turkey as well. First US supported turkey against pkk and asala since they were both communist organizations and also israel against plo and now, look at turkey's situation. Last week, japanese people protested against the pkk presence in their country, why didnt europeans do the same? Because they hate turks and jews. This has been like that in the history and is still like that today. Ask someone what antisemitic conspiracy theories they heard from antisemitic people, its very probable for you to find the exact same story in an old european literary piece.
After the war and after some time the war ends, all western countries will start blaming israel for a genocide just like they did agiant the turks. All those palestinians will start doing propaganda against israel. If you want to see your future, look at what armenians and kurds doing against turkey in europe and US. Thats the future of israel. This is why it hurts to see my government supporting terrorists against israel. I cannot believe my country can support terrorists after years of suffering under terrorism. Jews and turks should really start working together against this bs propaganda against us. Those who are protesting against turks in europe are the same people supporting pkk in other protests.
When they want to blame us, we become the white people as leftists say and when want to dehmanize us, we become the black people. Both turks and jews. Erdogan brainwashed our entire population against jews. When i asked my father why he dislikes israel, he told me israel is repairing our planes. So he saw even israel helping us as a bad thing. Its insane how people here forgot our history this fastly.

This was something I wanted to use in a comment here but it was too long, so I'm putting it here with the lead-in from the comment:

An essential element is the charisma of NSA's leaders. Theoretically, charisma is an event which takes place between a leader and a group. Charisma exists only as it is perceived in someone by others and cannot be artificially produced. Source

Of course, sometimes the way a person, like an SGI leader, is described to someone else can set that other person's expectations, prime their perceptions, to regard this SGI leader as someone worthy of an extra helping of respect and admiration, provided that person is susceptible to being led in that way. That's a function of the SGI indoctrination, to regard the leadership as "special", as automatically possessing superior wisdom and understanding (which is all that qualifies them to dole out "guidance" to everyone at a lower leadership level than themselves). However, when someone isn't in thrall to that kind of delusional thinking, the SGI leader often comes off poorly, as in Eddy Canfor-Dumas' book The Buddha, Geoff and Me (2005). While I was still in SGI, a friend asked me to read it, so I got ahold of a used copy and gave it a read. It left me totally WTF, honestly - I think you'll get an idea why from this section.
Eddy, the protagonist, has this on-off girlfriend who is Jewish and who strenuously objects to the concepts of "karma" and "cause and effect" because those lead to the conclusive, inescapable, irrevocable, and completely unacceptable conclusion that the Jews themselves were responsible for the death camps like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen and the whole of the Holocaust itself! We've noted the same problem here - holding the victims accountable for their own victimization! If you're already "going there" already, it's only a tiny baby step to extend that to the Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis in WWII - and his girlfriend could see that clearly, even if poor Eddy couldn't (or wouldn't). As you can see here, this concept, that the Jews were ultimately responsible for their own victimization, that they CHOSE that, does exist within these silly weird religions that put so much faith in "karma". Eddy can't explain; he's left embarrassed and she's angry. It starts in Chapter 8 (p. 123); here's the relevant piece:

Perhaps if [SGI-UK member] Geoff talked to her like he talked to me, if he convinced her, charmed her, reassured her that this Buddhism thing I was getting interested in wasn't a load of old nonsense ⏤ well, perhaps we'd be all right after all. She wouldn't be a walk-on in the first act of my story; she'd be the girl the boy meets and loses and wins in the end. Perhaps. (p. 141)

As you can see, Eddy is counting on Geoff's "charisma" to impress his girl. But it doesn't go quite as he expects:

'So,' said Angie after a while, 'Ed says you've got a Buddhist explanation for the Holocaust.'
Geoff smiled. 'It's my explanation,' he said. 'it's not an official line or anything. It's how I've made sense of it, through Buddhism.'
'Can you make sense of it?'
'I've tried.'
'OK. Fire away.' Angie sipped her wine and smiled sweetly, but I knew that look. Inside she was coiled, ready to pounce on any statement that in any way suggested the victim was culpable.

As if that's a BAD thing! Why shouldn't people be on their guard when a stranger is clearly ready to launch into a sales pitch of some kind?

Geoff took a deep breath and launched in. 'Right. Well, first off, I want to make it clear that nothing I say should be taken in any way to justify what the Nazis did.

Uh-oh - not off to a great start, I'm afraid 😒

'That was disgusting, an atrocity, and the people who did it and supported it are totally responsible for their actions. OK?'
Angie nodded and sipped her wine, watching him closely.
'And from a Buddhist perspective they've created terrible karma for themselves in doing what they did.'
'Karma ⏤ that's the punishment they're going to suffer in the future?'
'Not punishment, exactly. It's the effects you experience as a result of causes you make, good or bad. So if you cause suffering at some point you'll suffer in return.'
'Which means all the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust must have made the cause at some point to die like that ⏤ which I absolutely refuse to accept.'
'That sounds outrageous to you?'

WHAT?? How could it NOT??

'Totally.'
Geoff grunted. 'Ed said members of your family were killed.' He glanced at me.
'On my mother's side, yes. Her mother's parents, two brothers, cousins, uncles and aunts. My grandmother was the only one who got out, on the kindertransport. If she hadn't I wouldn't be here.'
Geoff shook his head. 'Terrible. So anything that even hints the victim is somehow responsible feels like a real insult.'
'Yes.'
He sighed. 'I know. It's very hard, even if you believe in the eternity of life, like I do. But for me the question isn't so much what causes did these people make to suffer like this, because I think that's impossible to answer⏤'
'That's convenient,' said Angie tartly.
'For me,' said Geoff, ignoring her tone, 'the important question isn't what causes people made in their past lives but what people do in this life. What makes people behave like the Nazis did to the Jews? Why did other people let it happen ⏤ or not? In Denmark, for example, the vast majority of Jews were hidden by the non-Jewish population, or helped to escape, whereas in Poland they weren't. And for me, above all, the crucial question is what can we all do to make sure it doesn't happen again?'
'Only it has, hasn't it?' I said. 'Rwanda.'
'Exactly,' said Geoff.
'Exactly what?' said Angie, still seething. But at least she hadn't walked out, which i suspect she would have done by now if it had been just the two of us.
'Well, I reckon,' said Geoff, 'everything boils down to what Buddhism calls the world of Anger. Which isn't just losing your temper. It's ego, identity, how you define yourself as separate from other people; the rest of the universe, in fact.'
Angie crossed her arms and legs and gazed at him, aggression shining from every pore.
Geoff ignored it. 'One way we do it is in opposition to other people, or groups of people, often putting "them" down to make "us" ⏤ our group ⏤ feel better or superior. You see it in football supporters, nations, religions, political groups ⏤ everywhere.'

Especially in how certain SGI members attack this SGIWhistleblowers ex-SGI members' support group, all the while bragging that they are "Bodhisattvas of the Earth", clearly superior to everyone else.

'And?' Angie's tone was harsh, impatient.
'And taken to extremes,' said Geoff, 'that attitude can be used to justify anything "our group" decides is good for us, and to ignore anything "that group" says or wants. They don't count; our needs come first.

Just like how those SGI member-attackers insist that what they're doing somehow qualifies as "right speech", even though it's the OPPOSITE of the actual definition!

'So time and again through history you see groups of people who've wiped out other groups they've classed as enemies or a threat or inferior in some way. The Mongols did it right across Asia. We Europeans did it to millions of "darkies" during the whole period of colonialism. White people wiped out or ethnically cleansed millions of indigenous people when they settled the Americas. And we're still doing it.'
'How?' Angie sounded incredulous, and even I was taken aback.
Geoff ploughed on. 'Every year,' he said, 'millions of people in developing countries die from poverty, disease, hunger, malnutrition; more people every year than died in the six years of the Second World War, including the Holocaust. In fact, some people call this the Silent Holocaust. We know about it but we let it happen ⏤ because it suits us, our lifestyles.'
Angie looked floored for a moment. 'How do we let it happen?'
'Because a lot of this death is the result of international debt and unfair trade policies skewed toward the West. We benefit, so we do little or nothing to change it.'
Angie's eyes narrowed. 'If you're saying that me buying a cup of coffee from Starbucks or wherever is the same as the Nazis shovelling men, women and children in to the gas chambers . . . well, that is such complete crap. And trying to make the link, to make them equivalent ⏤ I find that disgusting.'
Geoff didn't turn a hair. 'I'm not saying it's equivalent. I'm saying what the Nazis did isn't unique or even unusual. It's an extreme case of what human beings have done since for ever: denigrate, devalue, disregard other human beings when it suits them.'

Oooh - sick self-burn, bruh!

Angie stared at him with naked hostility, and inside I groaned. If I'd known he was going to start sounding like Red Pete I'd never have put him anywhere near her, because she was basically a Daily Mail editorial on legs.

"Red Pete" was "a bloke from college" who was always involved in causes - protests, leaflets, rallies, etc. (p. 148)

But he hadn't said any of this to me. He'd talked about history, about how Christians had felt insulted by Judaism because it denied that Jesus was the son of God; and how the Jews were often feared as alien because they were a tight-knit and self-reliant community, forced into separate development by persecution. And a lot of the time people were simply jealous of them because they were so successful in trade and business. 'Look at how Jewish businesses were destroyed by the Nazis, or stolen,' he'd said. 'That shows where a lot of anti-Semitism was coming from: greed and envy.'

But what of Dickeda's "eternal clear mirror 'guidance'" from 1990? That says that everything in one's environment is simply a reflection of one's own life?? Where did THAT go?? IF others were reacting to them with "greed and envy", then isn't it OBVIOUS that "greed and envy" are firmly entrenched in those victims' LIVES, because by definition the others were simply a reflection?? Take it up with Sensei.

But ⏤ and this was the bit that brought me up short ⏤ he'd also wondered how the Jews calling themselves the Chosen People might have affected non-Jews. 'Anyone who sets themselves up as special in some way ⏤ even if they are special ⏤ is always going to be targeted by other people',' he'd said. 'It's not nice, but it's a fact. Like, we had this rich kid at school who really thought he was a cut above us, and we all hated him, wanted to bring him down to size. So we bullied him ⏤ including me, I'm ashamed to say. And with the Nazis ⏤ well, they were the Chosen People too, weren't they? Aryans, the Master Race. And you can't have two Chosen People, so they tried to wipe out the Jews. Horrible.'

But - and hear me out here - according to THAT logic, if the Jews hadn't felt themselves to be superior Chosen People, then the Nazis wouldn't have felt compelled to exterminate them - right? So THAT argument makes it the JEWS' fault! THEY essentially created the "effect" of being exterminated through their "cause" of ego, hubris, and superiority!

I'd had to think hard about all this. It went beyond labels like 'good' and 'evil' to basic human attitudes like resentment, fear, and jealousy. It sort of made sense to me, but then I wasn't Jewish.

When YOU aren't involved, it's EASY to make it into an abstraction, something just theoretical that isn't involved with anything real and doesn't really make any difference, practically speaking.

I didn't know how it would sound to someone more closely involved ⏤ like Angie. I hoped she might just be able to consider it without getting all worked up. But somehow the conversation had taken the wrong track and come off the rails. Time to rescue the situation. I opened my mouth ⏤ but too late.
'There is no way,' Angie hit back, 'that you can equate people starving in the Third World to the Holocaust. That was genocide ⏤ one group deliberately targeting another people and trying to exterminate them. And even talking of them in the same breath is an insult to the six million Jews who were deliberately, wilfully, systematically murdered.'
'Fair point,' I said, desperate to appease her. Geoff wouldn't budge.
'If governments follow economic and trade policies that they know result in massive numbers of deaths,' he said, 'does it matter what it's called? And how different are we from people living in Germany during the Holocaust if we know our governments are doing this but turn our backs on it?'
I winced again and waited for the explosion.
Angie looked at Geoff as if he were from another planet. 'So now I'm as bad as the people who supported Hitler?'
'Look, I don't want to upset you, Angie,' Geoff said.

Notice he didn't say "No, of COURSE not!"

She snorted with derision.

Fair.

'All I'm saying is the Nazis blamed their problems on the Jews and consciously decided to get rid of them. We sacrifice other people indirectly, by building our wealth on structures and systems that cause incredible suffering in poorer parts of the world. And basically we think that's OK, or not enough of us care enough to stop it.'

Just look at the "Big Ideas" pouring out of this SGI member to justify doing DICK! Where have we seen THAT before??

Angie sighed and stared at her empty wine glass.
I leapt in. 'Another one?'
'No, thank you.' Her answer was clipped, terse. She composed herself and looked up at Geoff. 'Is this Buddhism ⏤ or communism? Because it sounds identical to the sort of crap you hear from those people who riot about the "evils of globalisation" and capitalism. Despite the fact that every society, when it gets freedom, freely chooses the free market.'
'Actually, I did used to be very left-wing,' Geoff admitted cheerfully, 'till I realised neither communism nor capitalism's got the whole story. And if you base your society on ideas that are incomplete, sooner or later you're going to hit the buffers.'
'What do you mean by "incomplete"?' Angie asked, her critical antennae still quivering furiously.
'Ideas that don't understand cause and effect properly, or don't reflect life accurately. Or exclude whole groups of people ⏤ like women, or savages, or Jews, or non-Aryans, or non-Christians, non-believers, the rich, the poor, the working class, the bourgeoisie. You name it.'
'Meaning, I suppose, every idea except Buddhism.' The contempt in her voice was so heavy I sensed the conversation might be drawing to a close.

I'm surprised Eddy didn't use the word "incredulous" anywhere here - I can only imagine that was how Angie was feeling, at this guy's effrontery and smug self-satisfaction.

But again, Geoff sailed over it. 'Well, even most Buddhist teachings are incomplete,' he said. 'Some of them say women can't become enlightened, for example.' He flashed her a warm smile, but it was far too late for that.
'How very enlightened,' Angie replied ⏤ her one joke of the evening.
'Exactly. Not the sort I practice, though.' He smiled again.
'So there is hope for me,' she said dryly. 'As long as I follow your example, hmm?'
'As far as I'm concerned,' said Geoff, 'the important thing isn't what people practise, or even what they believe ⏤ it's how they actually behave towards each other.'

Yes, if only the Nazis had been nicer to the Jews, which we're all confident they would've been if the JEWS hadn't been such offensive individuals!

Angie looked at him a moment. 'Right,' she said. She held his gaze a while longer, then gave a short sigh, grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. 'Well,' she said, getting to her feet, 'it's been very informative. Thank you for the drink.' She headed for the door.
I jumped to my feet and ran after her. 'Angie!'
She turned and looked at me.
'Come on, stay for another one.'
'No thanks,' she said, glancing daggers over my shoulder at Geoff. 'I've had a long day and I want to get home.'
'Angie . . .' I pleaded.
'OK?'
The two letters were laden with a warning that froze me dead. Helpless, I watched her push open the door and turn out of sight along the street. Out of sight and out of my life for ever? (pp. 149-156)

It's so easy for those who aren't involved in a specific situation to be glib, insensitive, and callous to the concerns of those who are involved. "Karma" is their "get-out-of-caring-free" card. The sort of pontificating and grand generalizing that Geoff was engaging in, demonstrating such privileged, entitled DETACHMENT, is deeply non-compassionate. "I don't HAVE to care because c'mon, it was all their own fault, they deserved it, everyone can see that."

What started as a panicked attempt to get her over-intoxicated friend to a hospital ended up in a disastrous car crash that claimed the lives of her friends... and a careless God crossing the street. But Sammi's adventure wasn't about to end there. In her dying breath, the God curses Sammi to take up her mantel. Now with her three friends resurrected as ghosts, Sammi has to navigate the tricky world of godhood.
Previous Chapter Next chapter coming soon!
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Scheme Update:

Type: Impersonate
Difficulty Level: Blue
Participants: Cara Geraldo, Tina Dominic, Self
Status: Success!
Details: Participants obtained illegal permission to reside in a housing unit.
Reward: Level up!
~~~
Hell yeah.
~~~

God of Schemes

Tier: 3
Powers Unlocked: Verity Tongue
Familiars: Joni Beck, Christopher Ricci, Blair Yan
Familiar Powers Unlocked:
Blair Yan, Banshee, Illusion
(+1)
Attributes: Delayed Sensitivity, Reduced Sensitivity, Heightened Constitution, Regeneration Tier 2, Unaging, (+1)
~~~
Huh. Apparently I got to pick an attribute this time instead of having it automatically select one. That should have been a good thing, but I always got decision paralysis and I had a whole list of things I could pick.
Regeneration Tier 3
Durability Tier 1
Evoke Spirit (Alive)
Heightened Speed Tier 1
Heightened Strength Tier 1
Low Light Vision Tier 1
And so on.
The thing is with all the tier stuff, I actually didn’t know what it meant. I mean, okay, I’m not so stupid I don’t know what ‘low light vision’ meant. But who knows exactly how much I’d get from a single tier? How many tiers until I could just see in the dark? Would this just make me able to read a book in a movie theater? What level were we talking?
There was a lot of risk. The whole level up might end up being useless if it wasn’t strong enough.
Besides, I had my eye on another spell. Evoke Spirit (Alive). Because that sounded an awful lot like make spirits alive, right? I mean, spirit and alive in the same description sounded pretty promising.
So I selected that one. Did it cross my mind that resurrection might not be ‘tier 4 God’ material? No. Did I really think that Delayed Sensitivity and a familiar that could make police sirens put me on the same level Jesus Christ? Yes.
Did I hestiate at all to contemplate whether taking this vaguely worded ability might not, in fact, give me the power to raise the dead and might, in fact, just be a waste of a level up?
Again, no.
Anyway.
I did have the brains to not immediately tell the ghosts my plan. Just in case it didn’t bring them all back to life miraculously. Also, because I promised (at least to myself), I tapped my familiar upgrade and selected Joni Beck from my options. Maybe they’d retain the powers once alive again? Wouldn’t that be cool.
~~~
Familiar level increased!
Familiar: Joni Beck
Type: Wisp
Abilities: Atmosphere – Minor Temperature Alteration
~~~
I frowned. Alteration, huh? So like making it hot and cold. I gave Joni a sideways squint, where she was scratching at her ear. Would she like this more or less than Blair’s ability? Wisp sounded kinda lame, as ghost types go. Banshee was kinda cooler.
I decided against telling Joni about the power up thing for the moment. Instead, I called up all the magic in my brain and pointed my finger at her, closed my eyes hard and focused on the words “Spirit Alive.”
“Uh.”
Joni’s flat deadpan did not sound like a dead woman who found herself alive again. I cracked an eye open to find that she was, in fact, still very dead.
“Damn.” I snapped my fingers in disappointment. Not only had I failed to level them up, but I no longer had any idea what this new ability did.
“Did you shit yourself?” Joni asked, raising an eyebrow sky high.
“Dude, you looked in pain there,” Christopher said, laughing. “I thought you were having an aneurysm or something.”
“I was trying to resurrect you.” My cheeks burned. “You know, bring you back to life? I got this new ability, uh, Evoke Spirits Alive? Was hoping it might, you know, bring you all back.”
Christopher frowned. “Seems like kind of a strong ability to get at–what are you now, tier 3?”
My cheeks burned hotter. Of course it was. “Well what do you think it does?”
Everyone was quiet. Even Cara for probably the first time in her life. Even Blair had puckered her brow in deep thought.
“Evoke means, like, bring forth, right?” Christopher said, finally breaking the silence. “So you can bring forth spirits.”
“And we’re spirits,” Blair clarified. “So you can make ghosts.”
“Make alive ghosts,” Joni said. “So maybe you can bring ghosts out of dead people, like the initial God did.”
“Maybe,” Cara said, the start of her sentence overlapping the end of Joni’s, “you can evoke spirits out of living people?”
All of my ghosts fixed her with looks of outrage at the sheer stupidity of this question. Even Blair seemed to find this stupid. She had her head cocked sassily to the side, lips pursed. Blair’s “I’m smarter than you” look was a thing of legends, in that only a few people had ever claimed to have seen it because Blair wasn’t typically known for being smarter than people. Though there was a time where an old friend, Fritz, had ODed at a party and Blair had been the first person to recognize his symptoms. She flashed this same look at that event, before saying ‘We really should call 911.’
Luckily for Fritz, there had been service, so instead of being hurled into a car to die a horribly violent and premature death like Blair had, he’d been carted off to the ER and then to rehab. I haven’t seen him since, cause we really only ever saw each other at parties and he went full sobriety guy after that.
Good for Fritz, though.
But my old druggie friends aside, this was the second time I’d ever seen Blair be this convinced that someone else had just said something very stupid. It was miraculous to behold, but I wasn’t going to acknowledge it. It’d just egg the ghosts on to make fun of poor Cara.
Instead, I just shook my head wisely.
“Could be, Cara. Could be.”
–
Tina the Taxi returned later that night with my car. I hoodwinked some guards into helping me bring my stolen gear to the apartment so it could start feeling like home. They left the boxes in the corner and left, muttering about how this was not the overnight shift’s typical job.
We had a lot of decorating to do.
“Well,” Christopher said, appraising the stack, hands on his hips. “This is… well, like, it’s something I guess.”
“Um, did you get all that from TechShack?” Cara asked, eying my ‘bounty.’
“Yeah.”
We may not have had as much decorating to do as I’d thought.
I was more than a little let down by how it all looked in the middle of the floor. When I’d first pictured New Olympia, I think I’d expected something smaller than this place. Something more like the 10x10 bedroom where I used to live. I had severely misunderstood how much stuff was needed to outfit a place this big.
Because boy let me tell you, a single shopping cart worth of video game consoles, a monitor, a few keyboards, and a medium sized speaker didn’t make a dent in a five bedroom apartment. It looked pathetic just sitting on the living room floor.
“Okay.” I sighed. “This might actually take some time to fill out.” After a moment of my face getting redder and redder, I took a deep breath and forced a smile. “We can get started on that tomorrow though. First thing in the morning!”
“Shouldn’t we deal with the whole, ya know, fugitives from the law thing?” Cara asked, voice spiking in a familiar note of oncoming panic. “I mean, what if the police find our spot while we’re out and set up a barricade around it? What if they shoot you before you speak? What if they shoot me? And speaking of shooting, aren’t we supposed to be tracking down that Henry Miller guy? We need to–”
“Cara!” My face was back to red. “Okay fine, so a shopping spree isn’t top on the plate. I’ll just…” An idea popped into my head. “Okay. Tina, would you like to do a shopping trip tomorrow?”
Tina pursed her lips. “I mean, yeah. You got a card though I can use? Cause I can’t afford much right now and maybe you feel comfortable hustling but I can’t cut and run like that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll get you a card. Easy peasy. I’ll just make a call in the morning. You just hit up whatever furniture stores you think look cool, buy whatever you can until the card hits its limit, and we’ll go from there.”
Tina’s lips pressed together, stretched out in something that might be a smile but was contradicted by the crease between her eyebrows. “You sure?” she asked.
“Positive. Just… you know. Tomorrow.” I let out a sigh that turned into a very long yawn as I took a hard look at the gleaming, shiny, very hard hardwood floor. Man I was tired. I was dog tired. The more I thought about how tired I was, the more tired I got. We’d visited Noah today, broke Cara out of jail, hired Tina, and gotten a house all in one.
I was almost tired enough to sleep on the wooden floors.
“Cara, call the front desk and ask for some blankets. Tina—” I jabbed a finger at her “—your first priority tomorrow is beds. Mine will be getting some breathing space from the cops. Might take a buncha of the day, but we gotta do what we gotta do.” I’d hoodwinked cops before. I could play them like a flute.
—

Day 3: Friday

–
I’d taken flute in the seventh grade. It was the only instrument I’d ever played beyond banging on a grandparent’s piano once as a kid, or screeching on recorders in first grade. Like an idiot, I’d assumed you played flute and recorder the same way. Didn’t realize it was supposed to be sideways. So first day of flute class, I stuck it in my mouth and blew. Got a very judgy look from my teacher, whose impression of me didn’t change throughout the entire miserable year. Finally she left a kindly worded letter suggesting that my passions may lay outside music.
Which is to say, ‘playing something like a flute’ was a bad metaphor for ‘something easy.’ It was, however, a good metaphor for something difficult. Something like buying time from the police.
I’d had a good, if short lived, feeling about the whole thing as I cruised into the police station. Things had been going pretty well, the last few lies I’d told. Got the guards to give us free blankets, got Jordan the landlord to lend us his credit card, got a spanking good free breakfast.
I was feeling good until maybe thirty seconds after entering the police station.
“Hands up where we can see them! Keep your hands over your head and don’t move.”
I’d kept Cara at the apartment because I knew I was more likely to be able to survive a gunshot than her. I hadn’t expected to be shot, it had just been a precaution. So this was definitely taking me by surprise.
“What I do?” I shrieked, hands jumping over head. “I just came in here to–”
“We got two men missing, last seen escorting you and murder suspect Cara Geraldo from the premises.” The cop pointing his gun at me didn’t even lower his voice. Everyone else in the office looked very tense, and I could see a half dozen hands itching towards holsters.
“Uh.” I swallowed. “Don’t shoot please?”
“I’m getting cuffs on her,” the officer with the gun said. “Now. Someone hold my gun and check her for weapons.”
“Wait wait wait wait, I do not consent to being frisked.” I wanted to run or duck or something, but my hands were still over my head, and I knew if I took a step, they’d shoot. So instead I started kinda wiggling like my feet were glued to the ground. “No handcuffs either. Stop. Don’t. Please. Come on, guys, give me a break.”
They weren’t listening because I wasn’t telling lies, but my brain was drawing a bit of a blank. The ghosts, meanwhile, were full of ideas, which was part of the problem.
All anyone in the office saw was me wiggling and begging not to be handcuffed while a cop handcuffed me.
But what I was hearing was:
“Not commands, not commands, not commands are you fucking stupid?”
“Bro, Sammi, deep breaths, you’re gonna get yourself shot. I like, don’t think that would kill you depending on where you get shot but maybe we, you know, shouldn’t test it?”
“Sammi, oh my gosh, you’re being so silly! You’re gonna end up next to poor Noah if you’re not careful. You gotta–”
“Shut up, Blair, you’re distracting her.”
“Maybe you need to stop stressing her out. Chill, Joni chill. You need to–”
“Don’t be mean, Joni. Sammi needs–”
“She needs to not get shot, she needs to–”
“Deep breaths, girls. Deeeeeep breaths. It’ll be–”
“If you tell me to calm down, I’ll kill you. Sammi is literally going to die–”
“She’s just gotta stay positive! Okay Sammi, repeat after me. I am the God of Schemes and you’re all gonna be in a lot of–”
“Just say you’re not a criminal.”
“Say you did nothing wrong.”
“Tell them you work there.”
“Keep it simple.”
“Say something!”
“You’re running out of time.”
“Just tell them you’re supposed to be here.”
So I was hearing a lot. And I was fucking sweating my ass off. This had to have been the most stressful moment of my life, cause my face was beet red and I could feel steam coming out of my ears and I felt like my head was about to explode, and finally what came out of my mouth was.
“I’m not supposed to be in trouble or do anything wrong please.”
Which made no sense.
It did, however, get everyone in the room to pause, parsing my garbled sentence.
“You’re… what?” Officer Handcuffs asked.
“I’m…” My voice trailed off in a whimper. “I’m not in trouble.” I looked around the room at the frozen police officers. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
They were quiet for another long few seconds. Officer Handcuffs looked around the room, eyes slowly starting to bug more as he took in the accusatory glares of everyone in the room and then looked back to my handcuffed wrist.
“Jim.” An older woman with a bigger badge than many of the others, stepped forward. “This is enough.”
I froze, holding my breath.
“Amanda–”
“No.” Amanda shook her head. “You narrowly avoided probation for the vending machine incident. Now you’re handcuffing this poor girl who hasn’t done anything wrong?”
Jim was starting to sweat. Actually, everyone was starting to sweat. It was absolutely sweltering in here.
“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t–she looked like–”
Amanda was still shaking her head. “Uncuff the girl, Jim. Then you and I are gonna have a little chat. And I’m looping Charlotte in.”
Jim’s face probably would have gone white at this if it wasn't, like, eighty degrees in the room. Instead, it went a dark red. I was starting to worry for his health.
“Y-yes Sarge.” His shaky, sweaty, slippery hands fumbled with the lock on my cuff before unclasping it from my wrist. “Sorry miss. I…”
I waved him off. I had no idea what to say, but this was working kinda sorta, and I was scared to ruin it.
After Amanda escorted Jim away, the rest of the office sorta returned to normal. My mouth felt super chalky as I willed my heart to slow down, but I swayed where I stood, dizzy. Spots flashed in my eyes. Was I having a stroke?
“Jesus, someone wanna turn the AC on?” the woman at the desk asked, her voice a gravelly growl.
“Don’t normally need to in September like this,” Officer Handcuffs said. Then he pulled at his collar and took a few panting breaths. “But yeah. Yeah, let me go check on getting that cranked up.”
“Bro, you all look like you just ran a marathon.” Christopher pulled his legs up into a criss-cross applesauce pose. “Is it actually that hot?”
“Yeah, what gives?” Joni asked, blithely unaware–as I had been, until she’d asked–that she was ‘what gives.’
“I uh…” My eyes slunk around the room at the various police officers. How was I supposed to have a conversation with Joni here? Too many people who were gonna find it weird. “I’ll tell you outside,” I said, teeth grit. I just needed to have a conversation about posting bail and we could bail.
Joni wasn’t impressed by my blow off, but I didn’t really care. I needed to get us out of this office before people started passing out.
Phew, another week over. Let me know what you think!

What does it mean to be a good friend?
Platform Sutra:

And what do I mean by a ‘truly good friend’? Someone who understands the teaching of the Supreme Vehicle and who points directly to the true path is a truly good friend, a great intermediary, a guide who helps people see their nature. All good teachings can only come about due to truly good friends. ~PS

Someone who has seen their nature and helps others see their nature.
Foyan says

The original Zen masters are real true friends. Ha, ha, ha!~IZ

In the context of Zen, a good friend is a teacher who helps you pull out the roots of your false conceptions.
Yangshan says:

the roots of your false conceptions are deep, and after all are hard to pull out all at once. That is why I temporarily set up expedient methods to take away your coarse discriminating consciousness~BCR

Only someone who can do this for you can be called "a good friend".
Yuanwu says

In general, a teacher of the school must pull out the nails, draw out the pegs, remove the sticking points and untie the bonds for people; only then can he be called "a good friend."^1~BCR

Cleary's note:

Shan chih shih, a translation of Sanskrit kalyanamitra, which means a good or virtuous friend, refers to a spiritual guide, teacher, benefactor.

If you're not compassionate and are just clouding the eyes of others, you're not a good friend.

How could Hsueh Tou be called a Good Friend if he hadn't been this compassionate, making a verse to enable people to see?~BCR

The compassion should be unconditional.
Regarding Yunmen, Yuanwu says

By means of the knowledge that has no teacher, he produces the marvelous function of non-doing; by means of unconditional compassion, he acts unasked as an excellent friend.~BCR

In the context of Zen, it is important to meet a good friend
Xuansha says

Failing to meet good friends, or companions on the Way, they only go by their own subjective interpretations; even if they hold discussions, it is all speculative.-TotEoTT

Yuanwu says

Unless you have the bold, fierce spirit of a person of power, and manage to select a genuine enlightened teacher as your spiritual friend, how can you cut off the flow of birth and death and break out of the shell of ignorance?~ZL

And

Contacting people to help them is being a good spiritual friend. Bringing to light the causal conditions of the great mat- ter operates on the principle of mutual seeking and mutual aid. Ever since ancient times, it is only those who are able to bear the responsibility of being a vessel of the Great Dharma who have been able to undertake the role of a Zen teacher and stand like a wall a mile high. These people have been tempered and refined in the blast furnace of the teachers of the Source, taking shape under the impact of their hammers and tongs, until they become real and true from beginning to end. Otherwise, they do not appear in the world as teachers.~ZL

They wouldn't be called Zen masters if they didn't want to help people.
Bibliography
PS: Platform Sutra
IZ: Instant Zen
BCR: Blue Cliff record
TotEoTT: Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching
ZL: Zen Letters

As always, thank you to u/SpacePaladin15 for the wonderful universe that is NoP! Thank you to u/cruisingNWfor proof reading and helping me make this chapter as good as it can be, you're the man! Honestly LoM wouldn't have gone very far without him! If you haven't you should absolutely go read Foundations of Humanity! It's very good! :D
A big thanks to u/Saint-Andros for helping with proofreading! He writes Out of Our Elements which is a very good one! If you like a good fic in the wilderness and a pair of cute 'friends' ;) you'll love OOE!
Also thank you to u/brotanics! For this wonderful fanart of Taisa. And this one! She's so cute I'm gonna die
And thank you to u/Jimdandy117! For this adorable fanart of Chris and Renkel! Dear god help he's adorable I love him so much
Thank you u/SlimyRage, or AsciiSquid on Discord, for makin' Vengineer Taisa Gamin'. She's absolutely adorable, I love her lil' workers apron. She looks so excited to get to work!
Thank you u/Braquen! For this astounding Pixel Art of Taisa after a few range day dates with Chris! Her little hat and gunbelt are absolutely astounding!
Thank you u/VeryUnluckyDice! For this Artwork of Taisa and Chris as characters from One Piece! I've never seen or read it before but it's incredibly cute!
Thank you to u/creditmission for their wonderful work of several LoM fanfics!
First Prev. Next
---
Memory Transcription Subject: Taikel, Venlil Farmer, Venlil-Human Exchange Host
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 18th, 2136
Polani guide her light… please.
My heart hurt as I awoke to the familiar clatter of the window’s auto blinds snapping me to consciousness, rousing me from my sleep as golden twilight rays filled the room, forcing me to follow through. Everything felt tighter, stiffer, more painful as I slowly rose upright, my paws finding and pressing into the tension at the base of my neck, my eyes squeezing shut as I did everything I could to push past the tide of reality falling on my shoulders.
Rensa laid at my side while her occasional muffled beep drifted from her as she was lost in whatever dreams her medicine had brought to her mind this time. She’d cried into my shoulder when she’d broken from them after the accident, wailing about the horrid events and images she’d been forced to endure, or relive, in the nights of her dreams. All I could hope was that her stillness was a good sign that she wasn’t haunted by those horrors again; old, or new.
The heavy weight hanging on my eyelids beckoned me to give in, to turn over and bury myself back into the covers, to hide from the thought of what we’d los-
No. Not yet.
The thought of losing them. The UN hadn’t confirmed anything and wouldn’t for a few more paws - or ever, Stars willing - but Taisa’s silence set ice in my veins. Until then, I had to push forward to help Rensa and to keep Renkel’s spirits up. Even if it meant I’d have an even farther fall.
And if they are gone, they wouldn’t want you to sit and rot away in bed. Keep everything together, gray coat, for them-
A tight, high whimper from my love, my life beside me all but shattered my heart.
And for her.
I leaned over, gently licking Rensa’s cheek before tucking the blankets a little tighter around her and slipping myself free from beneath their enticing embrace. I wasn’t entirely alright; wouldn’t be until I knew, for better or worse. Until then… Until then I’d do everything I could to make them proud.
The wood beneath my paws let out a long, sighing creak as I rose from the bed, pushing myself out into the hall before gently sliding the door closed behind me. This waking, for Renkel at least, would be no different than any other waking he had off from school. Not if I had anything to say about it.
The stairs were silent as I descended, turning into the open living room and staring at the hearth for a long moment, doing my best to keep my attention off of Chris’ empty room and onto the task at hand. I let out a long sigh, flapping my ears to try and batter the thoughts away as I padded into the kitchen. Warm pops and wet hisses of my cooking soon filled the air as I set about making first-meal with a hearty helping of Human vegetables.
Before I knew it the soft click-clack of pup-claws sounded from the stairs as Renkel followed his tongue to find a steaming bowl of scramble waiting for him.
“Good waking, Rekan.” I whistled, doing my best to shear the melancholy from my voice as he clambered up into his seat, clutching one of his Human ‘Animal Encyclopedias’ close to his chest. “How was your rest?”
“Good! I dream’d’d of fishies!” He exclaimed before thumping the book on the table and flicking it open to a page with the dull, speckled flanks of some massive fish that dwarfed the Human swimming next to it. “That one! It’s my favorite!”
A small titter of amusement slipped from my snout at the fickleness of a pup’s interests. “Oh really now? I thought you said the Manta Ray was your favorite!”
“Muh-uh! Whale sharks is way cooler! Look how big it is! And it swims around with its mouth open like the manta but way bigger!” Renkel groaned, tossing his arms as wide as his maw in imitation of the gargantuan fish.
“Well you’ll have to tell me all about them!” I whistled in return, serving myself a steaming bowl of the mix before knocking the heat down to keep it warm for Rensa… whenever she woke up.
“What’s wrong, Papa?” >Alright?< My son asked with his, curious, worried eyes staring up at me past the wisps of steam drifting from his food. “Is Mama ok?”
“She’s… She’s alright, son. Her leg’s hurting her a lot lately. Everything going on has got her real worried, is all.” >Everything Fine.< I answered, my voice sounding far more sure of the words than I felt as I paused for a moment. >Eat Up!<
His attention hung on me for a few moments longer before he let out a happy, satisfied beep and launched into an explanation of everything he found interesting about these ‘Whale Sharks’, only pausing to breathe and stuff whole skewers of vegetables into his mouth. The enthusiasm of a pup never did fail to amaze, and Renkel certainly had enough to go around! Our bowls were soon finished and empty, but Renkel kept going, happily whistling on about how their gills worked and how their coloring was to protect them from predators. Before long the dishes were cleared and in the sink, all except for one.
She needs to eat.
“Tell ya what, Rekan, you find yourself a few more facts and you can teach me even more about them after I give your Mama her first-meal. How’s that sound?”
“More fishie facts!” He exclaimed with glee, his paws in the air as he rocked back in his chair before plunging straight back into his book. My paw slipped beneath his bowl, scooping a fresh serving into it before gently nuzzling the studious pup’s crown on my way to the stairs. His happy whistles faded as I plodded up the old wooden steps, stopping for a moment at the door to mine and Rensa’s room, my paw hovering above the door-slide as I listened for any sign that she’d stirred.
I didn’t hear any.
The door whined as I gently slid the door aside and found her awake, staring at her cupped paws with a vacant expression. Her ears swung in my direction as I stepped in, only for a moment, while I did my best to keep my voice positive as I approached with food in paw. “Good Waking, Sweetheart.”
A small, grumbled ‘Good Waking, Love’ was all she could muster for me as she stared at the black bead cradled in her paw.
So soon?
“Your leg feeling any better?” I whispered as I set the bowl of scramble and glass of water on the bedside before gently taking my place at her side.
“Not really.” She hissed, her voice distant as an unladen paw kneaded at the border of her wool and the leg’s interface plate, squeezing her eyes shut and drawing in a long breath before shaking her head, her tail bobbing a succinct >Not at all.<
“Maybe some food will help.” I whispered, gently trading the bead for her bowl and skewer and setting it on the bedside before softly pressing my snout to her’s.
She was quiet, staring into her food for a long moment, her eyes puffy and orange. >Don’t think so. Gone.<
Tears pooled at the corner of my eyes, burning like firefruit oil as I twined my tail around what little of hers hung over the side of the bed, squeezing tight as I could to ground my wife to what of this world, of our family, we had left. Her paws moved, slowly poking the skewer into the food before raising it to her mouth, and then again and again before the bowl and glass were empty.
“I…” Rensa let out a small sigh, setting the bowl on the old bedside with a loud clunk before her tail squeezed, weakly, back into mine. “Th-Thank you, Love.”
“It’s ok, Sweetheart.” I replied, leaning into her side and soaking in the silence that stifled the space between us. She sucked in a pained gasp as her free paw found its way back to the remains of her leg, clutching the wool tight. “W-Were the meds helping any, last paw?”
>Yes.< Her tail flicked slowly, almost reluctantly as I watched tears gather in the folds of her squinted eyes.
I rose, gently nuzzling her crown with a forlorn mewl before guiding her paw back to mine for a moment, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’ll be right back.”
I hate to see her like this, more than I hate seeing her drifting a while. At least then she’s not crying from the pain. Not suffering…
I rushed to the bathroom, ripping open the closet and retrieved the damned bottle. A single pill tumbled into my paw, the remainder clacking noisily against the sides as I slipped them back into the box they had been stowed in. The little tan capsule churned my stomach as I looked down at it, horrid memories sprouting in my mind. The memories of the paw of the accident and the herds after it where she was despondent, from the pills and the loss of her career.
If those two are gone…
My tail shuddered, trying to shake the creeping vines of despair free from my heart at the thought before I drew in a deep breath, steeling myself and stepping back into the bedroom. Rensa stared up at me as I approached, her eyes filled with worry as I settled back down on the bed beside her, holding the pill out on my paw. She hesitated, her tail curling as her attention slid from me down to the proffered pill before her eyes squeezed shut and her paw seized as hard as her leg, digging her claws into her pads with a low, pained mewl.
“Please, Sweetheart…” I trailed off, my paw sliding over hers to try and calm her squeezing claws from hurting herself further. I’d seen her draw her own blood far too many times.
A soft gasp sucked into her mouth as she leaned forward, wrapping her paws around me with a stifled cry before accepting the pill and downing it with a sip from her glass. “I-I’m sorry, Love.”
“It’s ok, Sweetheart.” I soothed, pulling her close to me as I ran my paws through her wool, doing my best to drive the sorrow burrowing in my heart away. “It’s ok…”
Her sobs began to fade as the medicine took hold, her arms slackening around me a little before she let out a harrowingly familiar, relieved sigh. “Thhhank you, Taikel…”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer in kind as I pulled her closer, fighting away the tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. Instead I settled on easing her back on the bed before gently nuzzling her snout, receiving a passive mumble of acknowledgement as I stood from the bedside, stopping to stare down at the black bead on the bedside, quietly pawing it before I padded through the door to the upper landing. I paused. Took a breath. And another. Willing myself to stifle the rattle in my throat before I faced my son again. There was little more I could do for her right now; at least the meds might let her sleep for a while longer.
The stairs beneath my paws clicked and creaked between the amazed whistles and beeps of Renkel still at the island meeting my ears; most certainly still enamored with his book. Quietly I found my way to the hearth, doing my best not to alert the pup as I gently opened the Heartwood box Rensa and I had made when we’d married, staring down into the void-black padding at the singular circle of white, Amarek wood at its center.
When we’d made it her father had insisted that, according to tradition, this was where it was meant to be, in the middle of everything else in your life. That the chest that held your darkest days should live with the rest of your joy until it would in turn join the others in the tapestry of your life.
We’d only ever used one since we’d married… I had hoped we wouldn’t need anot-
No. Not until you know.
My ears battered away the despair sprouting in my chest as the bead slipped into place, standing in stark contrast to the brilliant wood encircling it like an eye peering back up at me while the lid slowly closed over it, shielding the burrow from the pain it held. I pulled in a quiet breath before turning, squeezing my eyes shut again to hold back the tears I knew were just one bad assumption, one errant thought, one horrid message away from spilling forth.
The pup whirled around as I stepped behind him, peering over his shoulder to see what new tidbits of information he was foraging for this time. A new picture of the massive fish was spread across the page, this one taken from above the water looking over the side of some vessel staring down at the animal through glimmering, crystal clear waters.
“I wonder if Chris has ever seen a whale shark! That’d be so cool!” Renkel exclaimed, his tail zipping back and forth excitedly as he tapped at the page. “I bet he’s been all over the carry-bean!”
A pang of grief flashed through my heart at the mention of the missing pair, the feeling festering for a long, gut wrenching moment before I whispered to him over his shoulder. “I’ll bet he has, son, and I bet he’ll be happy to tell you all about it when they get back!”
Then if they c- When. WHEN they come home, I’m going to give them both ears so full the stars above will hear everything I’ve got to say.
And then some.
---
Memory Transcription Subject: Taisa, Venlil Starship Engineer, Crystal Star Shipping Co-Owner
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 19th, 2136
Another paw of sun-scorched hell. Stars, I hope Mama and Papa are alright….
The pad in my paws was still harrowingly silent as I gazed down at the screen, a trail of my own messages dotting their way up the screen had gone unanswered these last two paws. Letting them know that we’d made it out safe, what we’d been doing, when I thought we’d be home…
Polani shook and shuddered as Chris brought her around again, shaking me from my thoughts as we passed over charred, smoldering tracts of forests on the eastern side of the crash site that looked like little more than blasted ashen sticks. It’d been a sleepless night as we rushed to help quench the fire the Glorious Pyre and the Twilight Star’s drives set when they’d crashed. The U.N. had leapt to invoke our contract again, putting us to work shuttling material, equipment and water to put out the inferno that threatened Chris’ home and the surrounding areas. Thankfully they hadn’t sent any Arxur for us to shuttle!
The fact that they were here. That they were helping. That they’d even showed up to Humanity’s defense in the first place was… it was unthinkable!
Every stray glance I was forced to see them, every plodding step they took, every reverberating growl of their horrid language and every time I caught one of them staring at me like I was little more than a cut of meat to hunt, to chase, to toy with… Sent shivers down my spine and out my tail.
I hated it.
Hated them.
Hated what I’d seen them do on the Cradle, what one of them had done to me. What one of them had made Chris do to protect me. Hated what they’d made us have to see, hear, and live through. It didn’t matter what they were here for, it bought no good will of mine. Chris promised to protect me again if we got assigned to moving any of them, that he’d happily put another bullet in one of them before chancing the possibility of losing someone else.
Annabelle.
He, and the rest of his family, were still holding out hope that they’d find her and the rest of her bunker beneath what little was left of what had been the outskirts of London. I wanted to be hopeful with them, to pray and call and beg to every star I could see, every star I could name for her to have been spared but… but the pictures didn’t look good. The scattered rubble that had once been so many Human cities left the bitter taste of bile and sorrow in my mouth as I thought about the millions of lives the federation I’d once believed in had snuffed out in a flash.
The monsters I’d once championed had tried to take everything from Chris, from his Family, from all of us. From Me. They’d stolen parents from their children, shattered families, people, communities and cultures that they’d turned to ash in the wake of their failure. So much gone, so much destroyed, so much lost, so much taken.
Taken.
Because of their fear. Because of their hatred. Because of their cowardice.
Because of their weakness.
“At least the fires are out.” Chris sighed, the long, forlorn sound gently pulling me from the anger simmering in my chest. “Ma, Pa, an’ Ryan’ll be alright, so long’s the Peacekeepers actually do their job with trackin’ down those… stragglers.”
“Let them burn or let them rot for all I care.” I grumbled, staring out the viewscreen down at the devastated countryside below; images of Chris’ family, tears in their eyes as they huddled around their TV looking for any information they could find about Annabelle. “It’s the least they’d wanted to do to us.”
“‘Much as they fuckin’ deserve it…” His voice cracked as a flash of concern passed over his face while he glanced over at me, hesitating for a moment before responding. “Probably for the best we don’t reinforce what everyone the arm over already thinks of us.”
>Fair.<
“‘Specially not the new friends we picked up, doubt the Zurulians would be particularly big fans of Humans doing… that to prisoners.” He sighed, righting Polani from her bank before guiding her nose around, across the horizon, and back towards Blacksburg, the hum of her thrusters building to a mournful, crackling wail as they pushed us onward. “For now though, let's get some food in us; Ma’s bound to have something good.”
My tail twitched at the idea of a belly full of Darlene’s wonderful red beans and rice to try and take my worried mind off of the world of ash and fire smoldering around us as a meek mewl slipped from my mouth. “Thank you, Love.”
I swear to the stars above:
I’ll get even for what they’ve done.
[Advance Transcription by Time Unit: 1.5 Hours]
The comfortingly warm weight of Darlene’s cooking settled in my stomach as I sunk back into the chair, my tail wrapped tight around Chris’ leg. Darlene stared through the window out at the pasture beyond, passively scrubbing grime and grit away from the white pot in her hands as the sound of running water filled the air.
“Where’s Ryan now?” Chris grumbled as he scooped another mouthful of meat, beans and rice from his bowl.
“Out ‘helping’ ‘gain.” Darlene sighed, setting the pot on her drying rack with a ringing clang as she turned to point a wooden spoon at an empty plaque on the wall. “At least Cobb’s gon’ go out with ‘im.”
“Boy went out an’ got hisself hurt on ‘nother planet and now he’s damned well set to go on ‘n get hurt again on this’n.” Michael grunted, anger in his voice as he flicked through article after article on the pad sitting on the counter in front of him. “‘Tween those fire-crazy exterminators and these god-damned lizards I ‘on’t find myself thinkin’ this shit’s hardly a good idea.”
“Pa’, come on, you know how he fe-” Chris started, swallowing his food as he leaned forward over the counter, his response cut short by the ringing chimes sounding out from both of our pads.
TO: CRYSTAL STAR SHIPPING
FROM: THOMAS ASHFORTH
NORFOLK AID PICKUP
Your services are required to move the personnel and material listed in the attached manifest from the subject port to the following aid sites:
U.N. COALITION NEW YORK AID AND RESCUE CAMP - 06
U.N. COALITION NEW YORK AID AND RESCUE CAMP - 11
U.N. COALITION NEW YORK AID AND RESCUE CAMP - 14
Thank you,
Thomas Ashforth
U.N. Logistics Coordinator
A manifest was attached, listing off everything from pallets of food, medical supplies, material for expanding the aid camps, a pawful of Zurulians and U.N. staff an-
Oh Stars.
My blood ran cold as my tail tightened around Chris’ ankle, a small, weak, terrified mewl weeping from my snout at the sight of the final thing on the list.
Arxur Volunteers.
A low growl built at my side as Chris stared down at his pad, his fists tightening around the pad until his knuckles were white with the strain. “Rat fucking bastards.”
>We have to.<
He nodded, his mouth tight with anger as the scrape of his stool sounded across the room while he rose to his feet. His hair tossed about as he shook his head, doing his best to drive off whatever thoughts were raging behind his eyes as he looked over to me, gently slipping his leg free from my tail before he marched to his room, Roscoe’s wagging tail close at his side. The comforting, familiar thump of his boots on hardwood marked his return just as fast as he’d left, the glint of his pistol holstered across his chest and the soft shine of the rifle hanging from his shoulder telling me everything I needed to know.
“Together?”
“Together.”
---
Memory Transcription Subject: Rensa, Venlil Farmer & Ex-Exterminator, Venlil-Human Exchange Host
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 20th, 2136
Fire’s gone. Pain. Gone. Daughter. Taisa. Gone.
My mind swam as I stared at the stars high above the Warren, drifting in a sea of white, black, and gray, feeling little but the chill of the glass of gin resting in my paw alongside the whispering cold of twilight’s winds. The occasional drift of odd colors floated through the air, harvesting my attention from the morass of nothing that had filled this paw and the one before it. Warbling sound filled my ear, vibrating the left side of my vision and sending new waves of kaleidoscopic colors across the sky.
I was hallucinating again. It’d been a while.
Dr. Poreth had told me a long time ago not to mix; it hadn’t stopped me then and it certainly couldn’t stop me now. Besides, they were a far better distraction than anything else I had right now. So instead I sit and stare at the sky, watching the pretty colors.
They were just as real as anything else.
A tide of messages from Taisa had bolted through my pad early this waking, from before the bombing. Each one the last I’d ever hear from her. The last words I’d ever see from my darling daughter. Renkel still didn’t understand, the pup happily chirping away about when they’d be back, about his next paw at school and about going with Taikel to one of the shelters in a claw or so to try and help ‘keep their spirits up’. Through the haze I envied him, wishing and pleading to Polani that I could have that same youthful hope.
Even if it would just be cut down by the scythe of the real world.
The glass in my paws slips away as the wavering rays of the sun are blocked, quickly replaced by another, and a soft nuzzle on my crown. Taikel’s wavering voice floated across my ears, still filled with mournful sorrow. I can’t make out the words but Renkel’s upbeat whistles tell me enough; they’re off to the shelter.
Barely seems worth it with them gone.
I weakly return the nuzzle, barely leaving my chair with my leg feeling like little more than juicefruit pulp as Taikel’s shadow slips past me, Renkel asking something I can’t quite make out past the fog.
So strong, stronger than me.
The rumble of the truck’s engine shuddering to life sends waves of green across my vision, accompanied by the crunch of gravel following after it before it fades into the distant hum of tires on the road. Alone again. The fog falls back in around me, stifling the sounds of nature that had begun to creep in at the edges of my mind. I sink again, staring up at the sky, watching the drifting colors and clouds as I sip at the liquid fire in my glass.
At least it helped smother the fire eating my leg and dull the storm in my mind.
The sound of my pad letting out a painfully familiar chime on the table split the air, stirring me from my stupor to clumsily paw at it to go silent. The offending sound faded, replaced by the isolating silence that I’d craved; at least in it I didn’t have to think about what I’d lost.
About the tricks my mind was playing on me.
A long, deliberate sigh fell from my snout as I pressed my paw into the thready wool near the stump that’d once been my leg, trying to push the pain away as best I could before reaching, once again, for my gin. Before my paw met the star-slicked glass flanks my pad bleated out the same, mocking chime.
A growl built in my throat as I grasped at it, angrily hurling the offending electronic phantom what few tails my numb shoulder could manage.
Another trick of my mind
Another message from Taisa’s ghost.
Another claim that the Arxur were ‘helping’ them.
Another promise of them coming home when they were done.
Another mote of hope sprouted before being ripped from my grasp.
Another paw of despair.
Another river of tears.
Another dose.
---
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