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.

Hi I just came across a novel, chosen by the moon novel by izabella W. Its on pay by chapter websites, I've opened and read a few chapters but I can't seem to find any free version or chapter version anywhere. Please help. If anyone has read it I'm willing to take spoilers. Here's the advert I found below of it on Facebook.
Lycanthrope species is a disgusting race. And I, Delan Riley, am nothing more than a human scum in their eyes never expected those species would turn my world upside down. Since when the lycans managed to penetrate our town, like in the early 1900's we have a hierarchy, upper class = the lycans, middle class = mated humans, and lower class = the normal humans, who were basically considered scum. I endured their torment day after day, vowing to run away from them one day, until that day came and everything changed.
Dylan POV "Humans," I scowled at the principal's words from tannoy. "The Alpha twins will be celebrating their birthday tomorrow, as such, festivities are in order." Oh great, the Alphas twin children. Adrian and Arya are the worst lycans alive. I swear just because they are the alphas kids they literally get away with everything. If their birthday is tomorrow, then the wolves are going to be worse than ever. "All students will be present to greet them, two lines will be made, with humans on the left and the lycanthrope on the right. Any mated human will be at the front of the line for their year, you will all also be in order of your school year. That is all." Chat broke out the minute the tannoy was finished. "We haven't had a school gathering since the alpha king visited three years ago, before his sons coronation." Nick was right, the last time we all gathered like that was for the king and queens visit, when he decided to let the world know that he was to renounce his title to his only child, son Josh. "That sick bestard, he wants to make sure everyone is there so those idiot twins can find their mates." Yes I was mad, my fists connected with the table in front of me once more as I thought about how disgusting the situation was. You see the twins will be turning 17, so it's very possible someone in our school could be their mate, finding a mate is sacred to a wolf, the minute they say that one word your fate is sealed. They will turn your mind, morph you into being a lover of their kind, and then you'll give in.

That won't happen to me, I'm growing old to see the world as it once was, and I'm going to choose who I'll be with. No one will take that dream away from me.

Once dinner was finished, I just wanted to sleep. I'd had a very long tiring day, I quickly sat down on a small stool my mother kept in the storage closet and removed my shirt while my brother Freddy sat at the table to do his simple homework. It wasn't long before my mother came in with a large bowl of warm salt water and some cotton, this was going to sting I just knew it. She was here to help me with the wounds caused by wolves yesterday. She slowly began to unwrap the bandage from around my torso and slowed down drastically when it came to the final layer, I felt it peel off every wound and my fists clenched in pain. "Jesus!" I heard my mom exclaim once the dressing was completely removed. The air on my back was nice though and I sighed as my arm covered my once again exposed brests. "This is more than 15!" I began to hear sniffles coming from her and sighed turning round to look at her face, only to notice tears streaming down it. "Mom I'm fine, it's alright." She shook her head. "It's not alright, I'm your mother I shouldn't let these things happen. I'm so sorry. Your father would have..." here she goes again. Every single time something happened she'd always bring up dad, it really annoyed me because no matter how much we all wish he was here, he just isn't. My father was kiled by THEIR kind, almost 5 years ago when they actually managed to take over. When the lycans managed to penetrate our town my father rose up with some people from the neighborhood, to defend our livelihood, it was futile to say the least. We lost many people and I watched as my dad was ripped apart by two fully shifted wolves, I ended up shoting him to stop his suffering before they dragged me to the courtyard, i was the person to receive the first lashing of the town when I was 12! The wolves have been pretty strict with me since that day. "Stop being stvpid!" Was I harsh? Definitely! Did she need to hear it again, absolutely. "Dad is dead, we don't know what he'd do because he never knew this life. He never knew this world." I know what he'd have done, most likely attacked the guy who held the whip and got himself kiled in the process. "The best thing you can do for me, is stop crying and help me, next time don't insist on helping if you can't handle it." She began to wash my open wounds with the warm salt water causing loud winces to leave me, I knew it was necessary to prevent infection, but my god it hurt like a betch. "Some of these are really deep Dylan!" She sniffed again and my eyes rolled in my head. "I told you, I'm fine, just wrap me back up so I can get to bed." My mom was obviously more impacted by my injuries than I was, I suppose that always the case though. When it's happening to you, you've just got to get through it but when it's happening to someone you love, you just want to take their pain away. She quickly placed a fresh bandage around my waist and chest and wrapped it tightly for compression. The bowl of water that was used was now red in color, I guess from the blood my back was dripping with. "Can you keep your head down please? At least just this week. You can't take any more lashings." I simply nodded before standing up away from the stool, I walked over to Freddie and ruffled his hair in affection. "Good night squirt." He giggled and fixed his hair slightly. "Night Dilly." I smiled walking upstairs to my little bedroom, as soon as I was inside i shut the door and flopped down on to my bed on my stomach and I took a minute to cry to myself at the pain in my back, what my mom did was important but it hurt, not that I'd ever tell her. My hand covered my mouth quickly to muffle any noise I might be making. I couldn't tell anyone, I had to be strong because more and more people were crumpling these days, and my mom would break if she knew how much I was suffering. Sleep followed me shortly after, she was right though about me needing to keep my head down for the time being, I could not take another lashing! After a long night and an even longer morning, we were all finally stood in the hallway at school waiting for the twins to arrive. "Mine!" Everyone that was stood in the hallway tensed up, as we were seniors, me and Nick were stood towards the very back of the human line. All the mated people were situated directly opposite their wolf mates in their years. We stayed silent and still as Arya walked down the hall and stopped directly in front of Nick. His eyes widened in fear, unsure of wether to look up or keep his head lowered. "Look me in the eye, mate." He glanced at me slightly as if asking what he should do. "I said, look me in the eye." He slowly moved his eye line up to look at her face. I took a glance myself to see her eyes pitch black with lust. "I... can't... I mean... erm." Before he was able to mutter anything else, two wolves from opposite, grabbed him out of the line and dragged him behind Arya. "Hey!" My head shot up before I could stop myself. My mouth also forgot its place as I jumped out of line. Everyone's head shot to me as my eyes widened in realization at what I'd done. Adrian, the other twin, walked up to me before punching me right in the stomach, I doubled over instantly. Feeling the sting in my slightly healed back. "I know you... You were publicly flogged only two days ago." God I hate this guy. "I also have it on good authority, that you openly spoke out against our rules and regulations in yesterday's class." My head shot down the line slightly to see Erin, looking a little frightened, her mate, the beta to be was looking at her, nodding his head in reassurance. "You traitor, you grassed on your own kind?" I yelled at her before feeling a fist connect with my cheek. My head whipped to the side from the force, while my class members gasped. I'm so done with this treatment, right then, I wasn't in charge of my actions. My fists curled up and my stance became a lot more defensive. My head snapped up to the alpha to be, and I looked him in the eye. "You don't know the meaning of the word disrespect." I suddenly hurled my fist towards his head, which he easily dodged, but my foot came up and kicked him instead. He stumbled backwards from the force with wide eyes. "You... you Actually hit me!" He didn't even sound annoyed, more shocked. Everyone in the hallway was watching, waiting for the alpha to do something but instead he simply stood up straight, regaining his composure. "I think everyone should get back to class." He began to walk away, following his sister when I called him back. "What about Nick?!" "Simple, He's my sisters mate. He now belongs to her." Argh, he's not an object. "He's not her property." A chuckle left his mouth, before turning his back to me again. "All humans are property." A short while later everyone made it to science class, our teacher Mrs Mathews is mated to the lycans pack doctor, she also now has a four and two year old with him. She was one of the first humans to be cohered into a false relationship. "What were you thinking young lady?" I rolled my head at her before looking at the empty seat next to mine. Nick was with that stvpid wolf girl right now. Being changed, I'm so angry it's ridiculous. "I was thinking, this guy is being a prick. Did you hear him? 'All humans are property.' It's bull shet." I looked up and the whole class looked at me like I had three heads. Talking shet about wolves is one thing, but talking about an alpha is punishable by death, attacking an alpha is an even worse offense. There was then a knock at the door and in walked Erin and her band of mated bestards. "Sorry we're late Mrs." "Erin, how are things between you and bata Monroe?" She blushed, the traitor actually blushed at the mention of his name. "He spoke to me last night about trying for a baby. We need a good strong boy to take over as beta." I scoffed looking at her as she took her seat. "You guys are actually pathetic, why can't it be a girl? Those mutts are basically Neanderthals" I voiced my opinion and saw all the shocked faces around me. Calling the lycans mutts, is the same as them calling us scum. After lesson had ended the entire school was called into the hall for assembly. This is where any human who has been found to have broken the rules were punished, usually 10 lashings were goven out or something similar. "Welcome to the school assembly, congratulations to the alpha twins for finding both your mates. Now on to the business at hand, as the 5 year anniversary of the new world is coming up, we have been informed that the alpha king will be visiting our district next week, this is very exciting news. We want you all to look your absolute best, she wolves and mated females will wear exemplary dresses made by seamstress. Male wolves and mated men will wear tailored suits. Anyone who doesn't comply will be reprimanded." The Alpha King?! No one has met him yet, he took over the throne three years ago when he turned 18. He really didn't make any appearances though, great, this month is going to be a nightmare. "As for the humans, you will be given a new uniform to wear for the visit, these are to be neatly ironed and worn to the highest standard. As for the following humans, based on your attitude this past week, you will be coming to the front and facing punishment. Tony summerset?!" Tony's head shot up as he looked around, he was in the year below but he shared my views when it came to the lycans. He slowly walked up to the front of assembly, almost instantly his top was t0rn in two and he received 10 lashings. A girl named Kara was next and she too received 10 lashings. A few more people went up slowly accepting their fate then suddenly my name was called. "Dylan Riley." Inside I was terrified but I simply shrugged my shoulders, I guess I did kind of expect this. Although I'm not sure if my back can take any more damage. "You attacked an alpha, correct!" His eyes bored into mine as I bowed my head submitting to his authority. "Technically, no." Everyone in the school gym looked on in fear, as my head moved to the front row of the wolf side. Adrian sat, with a werewolf girl in the year below, her name was Jana, I guess he found his mate. Nick and Arya were no where to be seen though. Adrian gave me a shrug as if to say he didn't tell, before smirking at my comment. "He hasn't officially taken the alpha title yet, so he's just..." i looked at the principle and noticed his eyes black and his claws out, he was in what lycans call a half shift, triggered when the subject has become angered. He turned to two security wolves and gave them a nod, Almost immediately i was forced onto my knees, my arm was slammed on a table and held in place by one wolf, while my body was held in place by the other. "Ok, I don't think this is needed, I have alpha blood, a stvpid human girl can't hurt me." My head snapped to Adrian who had stood up in front of the school to stop what was happening. "Nevertheless, humans need to know their place." With that the pressure on my arm increased as our principals hand pulled my sleeve up before a long claw punctured my skin. The searing pain shoting from the fresh wound had my eyes scrunched and my fist clenched, I bit the inside of my cheek hard instantly tasting blood, however no sound left my mouth. He continued to write, using my skin as a canvas and his claws as a marker, it went on forever, my vision blurred slightly at one point as I turned my head away. After minutes of torture, he was done and the pressure on my arm eased, instantly I snatched my arm away, hissing through my teeth at the pain. I was about to scurry off stage, when I was roughly grabbed yet again, my arm being held in the air by the principal while my feet were inches off the floor, blood dripped from the wound and the pattern he had made was on show for everyone to see. Loads of people gasped, even the wolves looked slightly horrified at what had happened. "This is what happens when a human decides to speak out. I can promise, anyone who so much as says one word about our way of life, will have the same punishment." My arm was starting to seriously ache from being held in the air for so long, and the lack of blood flow to my suspended arm was causing me pins and needles, still I refused to make a sound. I held the tears back and I bit my cheek harder causing more blood to fill my mouth. "That's enough Bradley!" Adrian growled, he was still stood up and looking at the scene in front of him. His eyes hard as he stared at the principal a low warning growl erupted from his chest which had the head teacher gulping, he quickly let go of my arm causing me to crash to the floor. A small cry left my mouth as I hit the hard floor. Immediately I scrambled away, my foot just missed the high step leading to the stage and I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, but it never came. Two strong arms wrapped around me catching my weak body causing me to look up, my eyes widened as I noticed Adrian had caught my falling form. "This isn't part of the human punishment program!" Adrian growled causing me to tense in his grip, I pushed him away from me before fixing my uniform top. The room was deadly silent, taking in the scene in front of them, while I stole a glance at my forearm. Carved into my skin by his devastating claws were two words, words that would most definitely scar my body for life. 'Human scum' "Lessons must be learned, she received lashing merely two days ago, and clearly it had no effect on her." Another growl left Adrian's chest as he stepped on to the stage, I wasn't bothered though, you would think I'd be ashamed but I simply smiled slightly. I fixed my sleeve a little so it wouldn't rub on the fresh wound before speaking. "It doesn't matter," the whole room looked at me shocked by my attitude. "I would rather be labeled human scum, than have any resemblance to your kind. I'm proud of what I am, how many of you can say that?" After my amazing little speech, I walked right down the middle between the humans and lycans and out the door. No more compliance, I'm going to get away with as much as I can without getting into too much bother. There will come a day when the lycans power will fizzle out. When it does I'll be ready, I'll be waiting for the day we take our world back. As for the best part about my plan...

No one can stop me.

"Ouch, not so hard." I seethed as the school nurse cleaned my new wound with antiseptic. "If you had of just kept your mouth shut, this wouldn't have happened." I turned to my right looking out the window at the few clouds that were floating in the blue sky. "Like I said, I'm proud to be human, and now everyone knows what I am." I clenched my fist together as the nurse began wrapping a bandage around my forearm. It had been a good few hours since the incident in the hall, and I had been forced to come to the nurces office after I had tried to clean my wound by splashing it with water from the tap, it also refused to stop bleeding. "You are impossible. Can you please just try and stay out of trouble? For one day, that's all I ask." Our school nurse is a wolf, she's one of them. However she hates the way they treat us mere humans, she thinks we should all just live in peace with equal rights. Like that would ever happen. "All I've done is stay out of trouble, but you are just going to humiliate me anyway, so what's the actual point?" "The pack were discussing a public execution, Dylan. You need to walk on egg shells from now on, not just for you but for your family as well." No ones been publicly executed in over 4 months, I'm flattered they're considering it. They only execute people who they believe are the biggest problems to society. "Well then... I'm flattered." I chuckled, before looking at the patch job. 'Huh, not too shabby.' I quickly stood up from the human nursing station and pulled the sleeve of my shirt down covering the evidence of ever being hurt. "This is serious!" I just gave her a blank look before leaving the room. On the way out I heard her call back to me. "Please just think about it." I gave a clipped nod as I walked away wondering how I'm going to tell my mom about this. Later in the evening... "Dilly why you say that?" Freddie looked up at me with a mouth full of bread. "Don't speak with your mouthful!" My mom scolded him as a bashful blush made its way to his cheeks. "Sowwy mommy." His reply was muffled as he swallowed the last chunk of food. "I said it Freddie, because it's the truth. The wolf race are a pathetic excuse for..." my mom cut me off with an extremely stern look. "Dylan! They have ears everywhere, one more word out of you and it's your room." I scowled, my hatred for the Lycan kind growing stronger as each day passes. "What more can they do to me, lash me? Beat me? Brand me? They've ran out of options." I stated slamming my hands down, then severely regretting it as sharp pain shot though my wound. "What was that?" My head shot to regard my mothers worried expression. Her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were dull and judging as she looked at me. "Nothing, it was nothing." I quickly took my plate in my hand and began to walk to the kitchen. "I'm not really hungry, and I have homework to do!" My mom caught hold of my forearm causing me to drop my plate suddenly, I watched it slowly fall before shattering on the floor. I retracted my arm quickly and turned to Freddie. "Stay there and don't move until it's cleaned up ok sport?" He just nodded with wide eyes, I turned back to my mom and noticed her curious stare on my arm. Her grip shifted to the other side as she turned it around before pulling my sleeve up. The bandage was showing and a bit of blood was seeping though after the wound had been disturbed. "What the hel happened?" My moms eyes widened as she began to fumble with the bandage. Before she could unravel any of it I snatched my arm away. "I had an accident at school. No big." I began to gather the large pieces of the broken plate up ready to put them in the bin. "What did you do Dylan?" She looked at me with pure worry and only then did I realize what the wound must look like to someone who didn't know. "For gods sake! I didn't do it to myself! I got publicly punished at the assembly alright? It's no big deal." Her face dropped instantly and she stepped towards me, causing me to step backwards. "Mom, I'm ok. So back off will you." "What did you do? I've never known them to cut someone's arm as a punishment." Her shock and accusation was evident in her voice and I sighed heavily. "I spoke against the alphas son." I may have hit him too, but I wasn't going to divulge that part to her. "It's not one big cut, mom, it's a brand, 'human scum' carved onto my arm." "They've branded you now too?!" My eyes rolled at her hurt tone as I went to get the dustpan and brush. "You're so much like your father." A sigh left her mouth as she spoke, running a hand through her hair, while I quickly swept up the little pieces of the broken plate. "You've had a new uniform delivered. It's laid out on your bed. Dylan, Please just try and stay respectful in the future, I don't want my daughter to be completely mutilated. Although you're not far off." "Gee, Thanks." I then walked over to my little brother Freddy before blowing a kiss into his neck and hearing him giggle. "So sport, how's school going?" "It's ok." He shrugged before going back to coloring a dinosaur picture in. "Well that's good, stay out of trouble, ok little man?" Heading upstairs and into my room, my thoughts wandered to the permanent graffiti scar very slowly healing on my arm. Disgusting beasts. Think they own the world because they're faster, stronger and can shift. Pah. If you ask me they are not all that.

The second I walked into my room my mouth dropped open. On my bed was some grey pants laid out neatly, which wasn't the surprising part, no, what shocked me was the grey high neck no sleeved button down shirt, every single set of uniform had sleeves except this one. They've done this on purpose those, mutts. They want the world to see my arm and know what a disgusting creature I am. They want the world to know that I, Dylan Riley, am nothing more than 'human scum'.

During the last week, I've been horrible, in class I've been loud in voicing my views, I've insulted at least everyone to some degree, I didn't care about the consequences, and I certainly didn't think about them. I haven't seen Nick at all since he was claimed, and to make matters worse today was the royal visit. Oh yes, werewolves and mated humans alike were spending every waking minute preparing themselves to meet his royal majesty, king of the wolves. Unclaimed Humans however would rather stick pins in their eyes. "Dylan, get down now... you're going to be late." She was right, I was dawdling this morning, I really couldn't be bothered today, I gave myself one last look in the small mirror and sighed when my eyes met my newly uncovered brand. It had bad bruising around the letters, and was still extremely tender to touch, it was definitely healing now though. I made my way down the stairs and came face to face with my mother who was seeing to Freddie, she was helping my brother get his coat on when she turned to me. "You ready sport?" Freddie nodded his little head at me and smiled while I quickly slid my shoes on. "Just Remember, the alpha is bad enough, Dylan, please, please don't do anything to anger the king." My mother stopped us from walking out the door to tell me something she had been telling me continuously for the last couple of days, it was almost as if the entire human population of our district was expecting me to do something stvpid. "Try and have a good day." I rolled my eyes but nodded, even I know not to push the king, he could kil me in the hallway like it was nothing. In fact I plan on staying out of his way for the entirety of the day. "We will see you tonight mom." I stated before me and my brother began our walk to school, his little hand clutched my own tightly as we went. Usually Nick would be with us, as he lives next door, well he used to, now he's residing in the main pack house. I quickly dropped Freddie off at his school and watched him get the wolfsbane neutralizer before walking into him building giving me a small wave before he went in. With my new scar on complete show, and my figure being complimented by the skin tight shirt I was wearing, I sauntered down the street to school, I gave my name and year in and took the wolf's bane neutralizer injection with no problems at all. It was finally getting into school that the problem occurred. Walking through the halls I was met by many looks, some of pity some of disgust. You see every single non mated human in the school was wearing a long sleeved version of the uniform I was given. All the Wolves and mated couples were scattered around in fancy floor length dresses or tailored suits. As I turned the corner I noticed a couple, now this couple happened to catch my eye the most out of all of them because it consisted of Arya and Nick, eating each other's faces off. "What the hel!" Nicks head shot to me as his eyes widened. He too was dressed in a tailored suit, a navy blue tie hung on his neck to match Aryas dress. Why was this happening all the time? It's always my friends that get completely brain washed. I shook my head in disbelief before turning my back on him. I heard his fast footsteps behind me as I rounded the corner. "Dylan?!" He ran right in front of me, stopping me in my tracks, making me drop my bag off my shoulder and almost causing me to bump into him. "Let me just explain..." "Has she marked you?" I mean you could almost see it in his eyes, she had marked him, and knowing the way life goes he's probably even mated with her. "Actually... Don't even answer that." I aggressively picked my bag up off of the floor and stormed off down the hall. "Dylan, just listen to me, Erin was right, it's so hard to resist your soulmate, and Arya is actually ok once you get to know her." I just kept walking, he caught up to me walking beside me but it didn't matter, I completely ignored everything and everyone. 'I'm so not in the mood today' getting into class was good though, I said hello to Mr Foley and took my usual seat. Nick sighed then took his bag off ready to sit next to me, but I snapped before he had the chance. "Traitors and mated idiots sit on that side of the room." I didn't look him in the eye as I pointed to a seat right at the front of the classroom on the opposite side. His eyes widened as he turned his attention back to me. "You can't be serious Dylan." I gave him a blank look before grabbing my book out of my backpack, I placed it on the desk then began to write the date on the top line. "I've sat in this seat for as long as I can remember." I ignored him, his voice sounded sad and shocked. "Dylan? Wait! What is that?!" Before I could react Nick had grabbed hold of my branded arm and turned it to see the letters. "Oh my God! What happened?" I snatched my arm away from him and shrugged as I continued to write in my book before grabbing my water bottle out of my bag. "The principal happened, it was my punishment for speaking out against Adrian and Arya. I wear it with pride." He just held a complete look of disbelief. "You spoke out against them?" I shrugged, what did he think I'd do. "It's no secret that I despise this stvpid new world and the mutts that control it. You were my friend, I wasn't going to let them just take you without saying something, although that is exactly what you seem to have done. Enjoy the view from your new seat!" "Don't be like that, Dylan, I'm your best friend, I'm sorry about your arm, but..." my eyes rolled inside my head at my friends words. "Anything with the word 'but' in, isn't an apology, it's a rationalization." I took a drink of water from my bottle and kept my eyes facing forward, ignoring his every attempt to try and talk to me. "Dylan?.. Dylan?... Do you know what? Erin is right, if you push us all away you won't have any friends left." He huffed before walking over to the empty seat and sitting down, I could feel him glancing up at me every now and again but I didn't respond. "Good morning class, please settle down." He looked at me then at Nick and frowned, we've never sat apart, we were friends before the new world even began. I just shook my head telling him to forget it. "So... as you know the king will be arriving in a short while, but until then lessons will go on as normal." Its funny seeing teachers in the same uniform your wearing, mr Foley and his wife are the coolest. Human teachers and doctors only have slightly more respect than we do. Because of Mr Foley's status him and his wife have better access to food and drink, Mrs Foley is cool, sometimes she even makes sure mr Foley brings some in for me. Ya know, coz I'm their favorite student. It's not in a weird way, it's just they were friends of the family before the new wold took effect. Mr Foley and my dad were buddies from high school, so it goes without sayin really. "All the mated humans will be at the front of each years line again, after that you will all be placed in status, Nick, as your mated to Alpha Arya, you'll be at the front of your line. Dylan as you have been branded..." his voice trailed off as he looked at me. "Yeah yeah, I'll be at the back of the line behind everyone. I get it." I huffed, moving my sight towards the window once more. "I am sorry." I turned to face Mr Foley again, he looked genuinely upset and that look of pity wasn't something I wanted to see. I gave him a clipped nod then turned away again. "Anyway, on to the subject matter, 'Of Mice and Men, page 64, Nick why don't you start us off with the reading."

"Of course sir." Nick began reading the book but I switched off, today is going to be a long day. After almost an hour and a half of reading comprehension, the bell chimed signaling lunch. I shot up and out of the classroom before anyone could say anything. Today, I was avoiding drama like the plague.

I wandered the corridors straight to the lunch hall. All the people I would normally hang out with we're all mated so I grabbed my lunch quickly, and sat down at the end of the human table. Let me lay the lunch hall out for you. On one side of the room you have two long rows of tables, with simple benches that make it look like prison, on the other side of the room you have multiple round tables with fancy chairs. Yup you get it. The humans sit at the prison tables and the wolves and traitors sit on the fancy tables, they get fancy food, fancy drink and most importantly they get pudding. what I would give to have some pudding. "Dylan can we just talk?" Nick quickly took the spot next to me as he set his lunch tray down. I looked at his food which had been placed on a ceramic, circular white plate. God that looked good. I sighed knowing he was going to talk anyway. "Fine, you have two minutes." I used my fork to take a bit of pasta off his plate and shoved it into my mouth. God that was good. "After I left school, I was taken to the pack house with Arya, and I really got to know her. It took a few days for me to finally accept being with her, but ever since life has been ok, and the sax... well that's a whole other story." Eww, I didn't need that mental image in my head. "I'm glad your happy." I stated before deciding I had no appetite. His face held shock before he sighed in relief. "That means a lot Dylan, I mean you know that your opinion matters to me." I cut him off before he could say anything else. "I said I was glad your happy. I didn't say I approved of what you've done. You've basically turned into one of THEM, I can't ever forgive you for that." He looked hurt, but I couldn't care less about his feelings. He placed his hand gently on my arm and went to open his mouth when a growl sounded out. All heads whipped to where it came from, Arya was stood holding a glass of soda and a plate, she was looking right at me and Nick and I would totally be dead if looks could kil. Nick quickly retracted his hand, his whole face fell and you could see sorrow flood his irises. "You sit with me now, get away from that, that... scum!" Wow, Nick was such a lucky guy. NOT. "You heard her. Get away from me, go sit with your new friends. I'm happy for you, and I understand where your coming from, but don't come up to me again and pretend you didn't betray your own kind. Don't pretend you didn't betray me." I shoved a little bit of food into my mouth before standing up and walking out of the cafeteria, leaving my tray on the table. I was walking through the hallway to the classroom, you see I decided to spend lunch with Mr Foley in his room, when I happened to hear voices in the corridor. "Is it wise for her to actually be present when the king arrives? Surely she could be placed in the dungeons, it might actually teach her some respect?" My principal was speaking to the alpha of our district, huh, if I stayed and listened do you think they'd notice, maybe they could smell me?! "Everyone is to be present, if the Riley girl does one thing out of line she will be dealt with severely, child or not. That girl has been a blight to the district since day one, she's dangerous, if she puts one hair out of place I will personally break her into submission." Oh shet, they were talking about me specifically, and they mentioned the dungeon, that's not been used in months. Normally I would have listened in more but something about the entire situation didn't sit right with me, all of a sudden, I was on edge, and simply wasn't interested in the slightest in hearing how my misery was to be enhanced. I backed up slightly before turning around and bumping head first into one of the hottest man I had ever seen. I lost my balance immediately and fell straight on to the floor letting out a small grumble in the process. His eyebrows knitted together quickly and his breath hitched in his throat as he looked upon my fallen state and gasped. "Mate!" He whispered, his eyes fixated on mine. Now, I had seen and heard that many times to know what that means, I gasped before taking a step back. 'No, no, no, no, no. This can not be happening.' He growled slightly before stepping towards me. Oh Shet!

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)
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---Sample---
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---Fnurfar’s perspective---
---2710 Terran Calenda3 years BF---
All six of my paws desperately scramble against the slick pavement of the Prosperity back alley as I flee for my life!
Pursuing me… is a monster!
His species aren’t meant to be sprinters!
They said if it came to a chase, I just needed to quickly get out of his line of sight and keep going and he’d not be able to keep up!
I skid around a corner and steal a glance behind me, seeing two furious eyes moving towards me so fast that they seem to leave streaks of emerald green behind them as afterimages!
The Fury is so close on my tail that he’s almost certain to catch me now!
It would be laughable how much my… ‘employers’ had underestimated him if it weren’t so terrifying!
‘You’ve got a Terran with you! There should be no issue!’
Yes, that idiot mercenary they hired almost had me going with his smug, arrogant proclamation that ‘Big=slow! Slow=dead!’ as he idly showed off his little knife tricks!
My confidence lasted up until the very moment I saw the one we were supposed to rob!
[20cm] taller than the skinny mercenary and looking like he could easily weigh twice as much, the man was a Hunt damned beast compared to the one who was meant to protect me from him!
I think Flynn reassessed his cocksure attitude as well because, rather than waiting for me to have an opening like we agreed in the [fucking] plan, he just drew a knife and tried to stab the monster to death!
An extremely poorly calculated risk!
There was no competition!
This juggernaut dealt with Flynn as easily as Flynn could have dealt with me!
It took him a matter of seconds to dispatch my accomplice but that was a matter of seconds where he was distracted enough that I was able to snag what we had been after… not that it makes any difference now!
Just as I hear thundering footfalls coming up on my left, powerful fingers impact the space between the bottom of my neck and the top of my top shoulderblades.
I’m slammed into the ground… but not killed…
I can feel the power contained in the iron grip around my neck…
I know that decapitating me would be as simple as deciding to close his fingers but, as I wait for death to come, it doesn’t…
Instead, the hand slides up my shoulders, gathering the loose skin and lifting me up like a kit in her parent’s mouth…
The first thing I’m able to see is the monster’s flat, booted feet, followed by a pair of long thick legs, then a chest and left arm covered in a loose fitting, buttoned shirt, patterned with vertical and horizontal lines.
The red fabric of his top disguises the bloodstain from the wound he got from Flynn, just below his shoulder. However, the nauseatingly metallic smell of it absolutely fills my nostrils!
The final thing to be revealed, as my feet hang more than [a metre] from the ground, is a face… the scarred skin a pale beige, the white, calcite teeth bared in a furious grimace, copper coloured eyebrows tilted downward in the middle over a nose, wrinkled with anger, and emerald eyes, burning with rage!
His shoulders rise and fall, in time with panted breaths he sucks in and out through his gritted teeth, putting me less in mind of a person (or even an animal) catching their breath after exertion and more in mind of some hulking piece of machinery from the Steam Age venting its pressure!
The Terran extends his pallid skinned, long fingered, furless, pentadactyl left hand to me, stained with the ferrous blood that’s run down his sleeve, and growls “Sample!”
“No…” I breathe, terrified.
“GIRL! I AIN’T fuckin’ PLAYIN’ with you!” he snarls, curling all but his index finger and jabbing it towards my snout “You’re gonna. GIVE. BACK. what you. FUCKIN’. STOLE!”
“You… can take it… from my corpse…” I defy, clutching my exhausted, trembling pawhands to the front of my jumpsuit.
Effortlessly, his free hand comes forward, batting my four aside, before pinching the top of the stasis vial and pulling it free, with there being absolutely nothing I can do to stop him!
He holds up the tube, in which is visible a small plant with a rosette of frilly black leaves and through which can be seen a frozen impression of the room it was in when it was stasised, demanding “You’re really willin’ to die for this!? For corporate espionage?!… Why the fuck’s this matter to you like that?!?!?!”
“I don’t care… about the plant… at all…” I answer, defeated.
His face twists in a sneer as he asks “Then why tell me I had to pry it from your cold. dead. hands!?”
“Because… if I come back… emptyhanded… they’re going to… torture my husband… and son… and make me watch!… If I don’t… come back… at all… maybe they’ll let them go!” I pant in answer.
His face falls blank… but I can tell that is not because he’s no longer angry!
Instead, his redoubled rage has gone from white hot to ice cold as he leans in and demands “Who’s ‘they’?”
---2715 Terran Calenda2 years AF---
“One!?” demands the sceptical, lutrine, Nvar man, one of six listening to my story for the first time (along with the two friends who’ve heard it before), holding up a webbed pawhand and extending a single finger “You’re trying to tell us that one Terran dismantled the entire Giluspri Sisters’ Syndicate, overnight!?… Simply because you told him a sob story about them holding your family hostage!?”
“I did say you wouldn’t believe me(!)” I smirk, lifting my drink to take a sip.
“You’re damn right I don’t believe you!!!” he sneers “It might have been a little more believable if you’d made it a team of a dozen or so Terrans that were guarding this thing but one!?… There’s no way it took a single individual a single night to root out and entirely destroy an enterprise that Prosperity’s government had been hunting for nearly [2 decades], even if that individual was a Terran!”
I place my drink down on the table and turn the palms of all four pawhands to the ceiling as I say “Believe me or don’t… that’s exactly how it happened!”
“Hmmm… Don’t know ’bout ‘exactly’…!” comes a familiar voice from behind my head, in the next booth over.
I freeze and straighten my back.
The friends and audience in my booth are looking past me, curiously, but, from their faces, it doesn’t look like they can see anything.
I stand and slide out through the gap between the table and Nafnarl’s footpaws.
I turn right and am immediately able to see that the booth next to us is occupied by a mixture of Terrans and some much smaller humanoids with green skin.
I keep going, rounding the partition to reveal…
“By the Hunt! Victor?!” I exclaim, seeing the man sat with his back almost exactly to where I was sitting, next to another tall, slim humanoid with blue skin and four arms.
His copper hair is much longer, his face isn’t as scarred and isn’t wearing the disgusted sneer that characterised so much of the time he and I spent together but… there’s no mistaking it!
The man turns his head, smiling, before standing up to nearly twice my height and extending a palm to ruffle the fur between my ears, saying “How’s it goin’, Foxy? You look a lot better ’an you did last time I saw you at least(!)” gesturing with his other hand up and down my less skinny and less visibly scarred body.
“Never mind that, Victor! What are you doing here?! You didn’t tell me you were coming back to Prosperity!”
He smirks “Yeah, sorry Foxy… It’s a loose lips sink ships kinda deal… Just thought I’d show my friends here the bar you brought me to celebrate after everythin’ was done that time… Didn’t think I’d actually run into you here!”
I stare up at the man, agog, for a few moments before reaching up with both my left hands and closing them around his wrist.
He allows me to drag him back to the head of my table.
“Nafnarl! Gfurnaf! This is him! This is the one I’ve been telling you about for the last [5 years]!” I say to my two Graufna friends before turning to the rest of the table to declare “He’s the man who took down the Giluspris! He’s Victor ‘Cuddles’ Taylor!”
With mirthful bemusement, the Terran raises his left palm to the table to smile “Y’alright guys!” before his eyes scan the faces and his expression goes concerned. He turns to me and asks “Your hubby alright, Foxy?”
I bare my teeth (I hope friendlily) and answer “Fnarnulf’s fine, Victor!… Fuffarn too! This is just a girl’s night…” gesturing at my two friends “…or… it was(!)” gesturing over the four men and two women, of four different species, who joined us to hear my story.
“What did you mean by it not being ‘exactly’ right?” queries Lunvo, the same sceptical Nvar who voiced disbelief before, still looking sceptical (not that I can blame him) but at least impressed by the fact that the ‘con’ has a (imposing looking) Terran stooge now(!)
“Weeeeell…” Victor frowns down at me, mirthfully “…the way she described me dodgin’ that knife attack, she made me sound almost psychic(!)… In reality, she and this guy weren’t as smooth as she seems to think(!) The fact that I even got nicked by someone I was payin’ as much attention to as that is a bad reflection on my reaction time!… Also, she kinda made it sound like I went into their headquarters with a gun in one hand and a lit plasmasword in the other(!) As I recall, I gave ’em all a chance to surrender and come quietly and it were only after they, shall we say, indicated a lack of interest in that option that my weapons first cleared leather!… Oh! And what was with all that comparin’ the way I pant to ventin’ steam engines, Foxy(?!)”
“But…” starts Muan, a nervous tolypeutine Wne woman beside her Wno husband, Kmuw “…you don’t deny it was you and you alone who brought down the Giluspris?… Without help?”
The pale skin of the Terran’s flat face performs a complicated scrunch as he considers the question before answering “Don’t know ’bout ‘without help’… I had Foxy here for showin’ me the way, after I’d done a lotta convincin’… and, once I’d taken care of ’em, local law enforcers came to take the survivors away… Aaaaand… I probably didn’t actually manage to kill or capture every last one of ’em… just gutted its power structure enough that the rats fled the sinkin’ ship(!)”
“Why are you calling her ‘Foxy’?” asks Lunvo, four eyes narrowed in suspicion “‘Fnurfar’ is the name she gave us!”
The large man shrugs his shoulders “I didn’t get her name until we came here to celebrate… she didn’t trust me to give it… Had to call her somethin’, so I called her Foxy.”
“Hmmm…” responds Lunvo “…I’m not buying it…”
Victor raises an eyebrow “You ain’t buyin’ me givin’ her a nickname(!?)”
“I don’t believe any of it! The whole story reeks of the fanciful!”
I bare my teeth and slam my paws on the table before snarling “I don’t care if you question my honesty, Lunvo, but this man saved my husband’s life, my son’s life, the lives of dozens of others, freed me from effective slavery and freed this planet from its largest criminal syndicate! I will not have you questioning his integrity!”
Lunvo cowers away from me, despite the table separating us.
I feel a large, strong hand on my shoulder.
I turn to see a smiling face.
“Eeeeasy there, Foxy… ’Preciate the defence but there ain’t no need to get heated over it!… ’Specially not when there’s a really easy way to sort this out…” he looks up at Lunvo and asks “Lunvo, was it? Could I ask you to look up the front page of the Prosperity Chronicle from the 3rd of September, 2710?… I think you’ll see a picture of me shakin’ hands with your governor at the time…”
---
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Discord
Dramatis Personae

EXTENSIVE Rebirth, Remake, and OG FF7 spoilers in here.
This is a continuation of What's Actually Going On in FF7R (The White Materia) where I attempt to make sense of everything the Remake continuity added to the OG FF7 story. It really is best if you read the other thread first, just because this will be easier if i've already explained my theory on the White Materia and it's associated spell, Holy.
Another disclaimer : This is, still, just a theory, aGameTheory. Don't hate me (or square?) in the event it's completely wrong, which it has a decent chance of being.

There are only 2 things about FF7's Story that have fundamentally changed in Remake.
The White and Black Materia. Or more specifically, the Magic granted by them.

But what I want to discuss this time is (what I personally think, as of Rebirth) is one brilliant misdirection from Square Enix...in hindsight, anyway.

The Whispers

Oh no

"....What the hell was Square thinking?" -- You, probably, watching the ending to Rebirth and/or Remake

Well, they were thinking exactly what you were thinking. And they used it against you.
So getting right to it. TLDR;
The Whispers are exactly what they were said to be -- they protect fate by rejecting any changes to the Lifestream. The misdirection here is how YOU have been goaded into misinterpreting this information.
The White and Black Materia can fully explain their existence and purpose. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the OG FF7.
Let's start with what we learned from the previous thread about the White Materia:

So what does the White Materia ACTUALLY do in FF7R?
The White Materia (Holy) gives the user access to the Lifestream. Not just a piece of its knowledge, like regular materia....but the actual lifestream itself. In doing so, they gain knowledge, like all Materia allows them to do. Knowledge of the past, the future, and everything else in flux.
But this is NOT knowledge that you're not supposed to be able to actually do anything with, **because unlike casting Fire or Lightning....**knowing the future allows you to change fate.

Materia are orbs containing knowledge of the ancients. In effect, they contain information from the lifestream itself. The White Materia's magic (Holy) is special though. The magic it contains seems to allow the user to traverse the lifestream itself. This means, in effect, the ability to interact with (and take knowledge from) the actual memories of the Lifestream.
As we know, the Lifestream is everything, everywhere, and every time. All life comes from the lifestream, and when something dies, it returns there. And its memories stay there forever, as physical places within the lifestream.
This is something Tifa observed for herself in Rebirth. In her brief time floating with the WEAPON, she was reunited with her very own memories...in a very literal fashion.
Tifa, inside the Lifestream in the middle of the Gongaga Reactor
This is the Mako pool in the Lifestream underneath Gongaga. We literally watched Tifa fall in, and physically swim to this location........so why is Tifa's house here? Along with...the Nibelheim Mountians?
A Fragmented Nibelheim, including Mt Nibel and the Bridge that Tifa and Cloud almost died on in the past.
Tifa's memories are not only being played out here....they are physically real. This is because she's inside the Lifestream. She hasn't gone anywhere, she's still in Gongaga, but look at the extent to which this pool of Mako is able to interact with one person's memories.
And also....wait a second.
This space beneath the reactor is filled with White and Black Whispers.
...I thought we killed all the whispers? What are they doing here?
We'll come back to this later.
Lets back up a bit.

Why you [probably] hated the Whispers.

Hear me out.
The "OG Storyline" has never existed in Remake. It's not a thing. And the Whispers have nothing to do with it.
\"Oh, the Whispers came because Reno doesn't die in the original game\" -- You, probably

"The whispers were put into the game as a meta commentary on how the developers just want to create their own story, but the fans won't let us, so the party fucking KILLS FATE so that Nomura or Nojima or whomever is most annoying can write whatever they want." -- The Internet. Also you. Probably.

Everyone thinks the Whispers only existed in Remake in order to ensure that the story never deviates from the OG FF7 Storyline. Every time something important is about to happen that didn't happen in the original game, the whispers intervene and correct the timeline.
This is the typical, widely accepted "Meta Commentary" explanation of the Whispers.
But it's wrong.
No, not just because this theory says so. This interpretation was ALWAYS wrong.
So the whispers are canon police, but are just gonna IGNORE stuff like this?
FF7R's storyline is self-contained. If the whispers existed to "protect the old events", then why is even Remake chocked full of shit that never happened in the OG and would actively change the story if it did?
But don't be confused -- the writers ABSOLUTELY wanted you to think this way. It's what bothered me about Remake's ending. But they were actually clever about it, and Rebirth vindicates this decision.
"Changing the Future", "Defying Fate", and "The Future is Unwritten" has nothing to do the OG FF7.
Okay good we got this out of the way, I can stop talking about Meta Analysis and get to the actual good stuff.

What the whispers were ACTUALLY doing

Remake explained what the Whispers are verbatim.
They protect fate -- the Lifestream. From Aerith, and Jenova.
The Lifestream IS Fate.

Red -"Perhaps best described as arbiters of fate. They are drawn to those who attempt to alter destiny's course and ensure they do not."
Tifa - "And you're saying that flow is somehow...fixed?
Red - "Yes. For it is the will of the planet itself."

Barret then speaks about possible bad fates. And Red XIII says this:

Barret - "So if we're destined for a bleak future, these Whispers will try to keep us on that course?"

"....Now wait just a damn minute. How in the hell could you possibly know any of that? Spouting that cryptic stuff -- which could all be bullshit!"

Red - "When Aerith reached out to me...I found this knowledge of the Whispers."

In the previous thread, we explained how Aerith has been messing with the Lifestream by mistakenly using the White Materia to obtain information she has no business knowing. The Whispers are simply reacting to her blatant misuse of this, and act to correct it.
This is very consistent, even in Pt1. The Whispers in Remake ONLY appear when someone is either:

1. Using forbidden knowledge from the Lifestream
2. Manipulating events by sharing forbidden knowledge from the lifestream
3. When something foreign attempts to force its will on the lifestream

This is the only time they act. But the THIRD one is the most important. I'm going to go through a few examples in Remake and show exactly what's happening that is causing the Whispers to intervene, and explicitly why.
After I show you this, please go back and watch videos of all these sorts of events in Remake. You will see exactly what I mean.
Okay, buckle up kids!

Violation #1 Using forbidden knowledge from the Lifestream

Watching the first appearance of Aerith in Remake gives us full clarity of what's actually happening.
Aerith is attacked by an invisible force.
Aerith is being attacked by Whispers. This is because she possesses the White Materia, and has constant access to knowledge she isn't supposed to have. They are taking it from her.
Thing to note here. Cloud cannot see the whispers. This is because he is not violating any of the 3 rules.
Sephiroth makes an appearance here.
The appearance of the \"Mental Static\" used in both Remake and Rebirth
This is a Red Herring...in fact, this is THREE brilliantly placed Red Herrings. Because the "Memory Static" that appears here belongs to both Cloud AND Aerith, and serves to confuse you on what it actually means.

1. Aerith sees Cloud, and immediately gains knowledge about them both that she is not supposed to know. Also, if you pay attention, Aerith is NOT frozen during this sequence. This is her scene just as much as it is Cloud's.
2. Cloud has yet another vision of Sephiroth, caused by his Jenova cells. This is a huge misdirection, to eventually make you think Sephiroth is popping up in places he "shouldn't be."
3. This is where Remake starts to fuck with your head. They're using the same memory effect for two different characters, for two different reasons. But the result is essentially the same -- the characters involved are having their perception altered. Remake does NOT distinguish between static caused by Holy or static caused by Jenova. They are treated equally in Remake.

The biggest red herring here though is Sephiroth.
It SEEMS unnatural that Sephiroth is appearing here, this early in the game. But it isn't unnatural -- Cloud is plagued by these visions all the time in this continuity. This is why the game gave us a Sephiroth appearance immediately after the Bombing Mission.
Now. Notice how, despite being attacked by invisible whispers, Aerith mostly seems unbothered by this.
...Almost as if she's used to it. Similar to the way Cloud is equally used to visions of Sephiroth. They BOTH carry on with the conversation as though NOTHING has happened.
The game is explicitly showing you that both of these occurrences are seen as normal for these characters. Suggesting that they have actually been dealing with them for much longer than you would think.
Aerith has another Whisper attack. Cloud is once again very confused, until this happens:
Cloud's violation of #1 through contact with Aerith
Aerith touches Cloud.
We learn later that Aerith touching you gives you knowledge you're not supposed to have. Thus, Cloud is now in violation of Rule #1 -- Forbidden Knowledge. He can now observe whispers for the rest of the story.

Violation #2 Manipulating events by sharing forbidden knowledge from the lifestream

The Church Scene is a great example of this. In fact, most of the moments in Rebirth involve Aerith doing this to some degree.
The White Materia is explicitly the cause of the Whisper Attack in the church, and the game goes out of its way to make it very obvious.
Cloud Memory Static, this time it's Holy, not Jenova. (I don't have enough attachments to spell this out, so please go look at the scene after you read this.)
This is another VERY good example of Remake fucking with your head.

• Aerith brings up her White Materia in conversation
• Cloud looks at the back of Aerith's head. He has a memory static attack, and then immediately has a vision of the White Materia.
• Cloud ignores this phenoemon, because things fucking with his head is completely normal to him. He doesn't skip a beat, and suggests Aerith just doesn't know how to use it.
• Aerith playfully agrees.

The Red Herring here is obvious -- the vision of Aerith's Death. Yes, it was a vision of her death. But her death wasn't the important information the game was showing you in this scene. The White Materia was.
Regardless, the whispers did not intervene here, despite Cloud obviously glimpsing forbidden knowledge.
So why DID they intervene?
\"...Huh?\" - Cloud
Because Aerith couldn't keep her mouth shut.

1. She tells Reno that Cloud is her bodyguard. He isn't. Reno is.
2. She exposed that he was a Soldier. Reno explicitly does not like Soldiers.
3. She already knew that Cloud was doing mercenary work, and used this to persuade him.

Cloud told her none of this information. But it caught Reno's attention. And what was the result?

*Sizes Cloud up*

"Well, you're weird enough to be one."
\"What Class are you?\"
Reno doubts Cloud's Identity as a First Class Ex-Soldier. And Cloud violently reacts to protect it.
The whispers stopped Cloud from killing Reno, NOT because Reno survives in the OG game...but because Reno's life wouldn't even be at risk here if Aerith didn't instigate this fight.
And just like the Flower scene, Remake actually sets this one up with prior character information too. -- Cloud was shown from the beginning of the game to be prone to extreme violence. He would have also executed Johnny without Tifa's intervention. So we KNOW he would have killed Reno if the Whispers didn't intervene.
Hopefully you're beginning to see a pattern here.
Here is the most obvious example of this rule triggering the Whispers.
Aerith attempting to stop Barret from doing something....
In this scene, we see Aerith clearly knows something she isn't supposed to. She wants to share with Barret that killing the President isn't a good idea...And the whispers immediately appear, threatening her to stop. By this point, Aerith is beginning to become aware of why the whispers are harassing her so much.
I covered this scene in my last post, so I wont again...but this scene is crucial towards understanding what's happening in this game. Everyone should watch this scene again. Pay attention to what happens to Aerith the moment she says "Follow the Yellow Flowers". Aerith is clearly not herself as she says this. It's almost as if someone possessed her to say it. And the Whispers absolutely swarm her as a result.

Violation #3 -- When something foreign attempts to force its will on the lifestream

And here we go. The one that caused like 90% of the confusion in Remake. To be fair, this could only really be understood in hindsight after playing Rebirth.
There are many cases in Remake where the Whispers do something that seems...odd, given their explanations as arbiters of fate. Like attacking Sector 7, silencing Hojo, or literally helping Sephiroth at the end of the game. This is because although it's clearly whispers doing it...in Remake there is no visual indication of which Will any given Whispers serve -- The Planet, or Jenova's.
They all LOOK the same.
But they absolutely ARE NOT the same -- they are separate (black and white), just like in Rebirth.
But Remake included subtle clues as a nod to this reveal in Rebirth.
The Whisper Attack on Sector 7
This is another situation where you're expected to believe that the whispers are causing a ruckus because Cloud isn't going on the second bombing mission with Avalanche. Which is something we know he does in the OG game.
But that's just because we likely misinterpreted the clues that lead up to this moment that explain exactly why this is happening : The white whispers are attempting to correct the deliberate isolation of the main party by the black whispers.
A whisper is seen lurking around in Sector 7 the day before this happens. It's extremely easy to miss.
A whisper was present in Seventh Heaven. This was shown immediately after Barret told Cloud he wasn't on the next mission and has to leave.
See...if you're comparing Remake to the OG, then this whisper shown here is 100% going to force you to misinterpret what it's doing here.
In Seventh Heaven, multiple things happen that result in a break up of the entire main party.

1. Tifa is feeling anxious about the next mission. Jesse goes out of her way to voice concerns about her involvement, leading to her getting kicked off the team for the mission.
2. Jesse then tries to aim to get Cloud placed on the team instead. Barret refuses to do this because he "doesn't want the team leaning on him."
3. Barret pays Cloud, tells him he isn't wanted on the next mission, and kicks him out the bar.
4. A whisper will literally stop you from entering Seventh Heaven again after this happens to make sure you can't fix it.

The side mission with Jesse happens.....and then this.
A whisper with Sephiroth's voice trying to keep Cloud sleep
A Whisper with Sephiroth's voice approaches Cloud in the morning. He wants him to sleep through Barret, Jesse, and Biggs going on the mission. This would have likely isolated Barret, resulting in his death. Something Jenova tries again towards the end of the game.
She really does not want Barret to stay alive, because he is the glue of Avalanche, and the main reason the events of the story begin the way they do. Cloud also likely never would have met Aerith in the church.
Jenova's whispers are trying to prevent Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and Barret from getting together. This event would have succeeded in separating all of them.
That's why the whispers are at war with one another.
The Black ones are trying to isolate you. The white ones are correcting their meddling.
The game even STOPS you mid-combat to bring attention to the fact that the Black Whispers are being exposed.
Black Whisper being made vulnerable by something external

• You don't have to do anything to these whispers for this to happen.
• The entire screen gains a Static Memory effect....as though Cloud is being shown the truth. He even comments on it.
• After they go vulnerable, they become Black/Purple until they die.

They stop attacking after a whisper manages to isolate and injure Jesse, at which point the battle is over and all whispers leave.
And of course....there's most obvious example of this kind of massive violation from Remake....The Infamous Chapter 18.
But that's gonna have to wait for another post.
I'm out of attachments again.

TL;DR : FF7R is messing with your head.

Aerith using the White Materia in Remake is literally going through the events of the story the exact same way the player did -- with "forbidden knowledge" about how things are "supposed to be".
In Rebirth, the White Materia is empty. She no longer has knowledge of what's "supposed to happen", and thus has to accept that whatever happens, happens. This is why the "The Journey is Unknown." Not because the party killed the whispers, therefore the writers can do whatever they want. But because Aerith hid her knowledge of the future (Holy) from herself. She used to be able to know what was going to happen. Now she can't. The real Meta thing is that FF7R only really starts to make sense when you willingly abandon what you thought you already knew about the story. Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows.
Now go back through Remake with the new perspective and tell me that everything doesn't make way more sense.
Also, please tell me im crazy so I can stop writing these.
Otherwise, stay tuned for pt3 -- The Black Materia.
....Oh. One final hilarious mindblowing. Remember this?

This is where Remake starts to fuck with your head. They're using the same memory effect for two different characters, for two different reasons. But the result is essentially the same -- the characters involved are having their perception altered.
Remake does NOT distinguish between static caused by Holy or static caused by Jenova. They are treated equally in Remake.

Rebirth DOES distinguish the visual effects of memory alteration.
But only for the player.
Cloud still can't tell the difference.

From the few kpop survival shows I've seen most like to have a pattern or reference of some sort when they name the groups. My theory is the name has to do with NaSURI since it's oddly capitalized. My guess is SURINa will be the debut name which would be really cute! Do you have any group name predictions?

Hey folks,
I wanted to create a basic role playing bot that impersonates a given persona (ala character ai) but was running into lots of issues with the bot not listening to the instructions. So I thought maybe it was due to the complexity of the prompt I had made so to test I stripped it all down to a very basic system prompt:

export const getSystemPrompt = (bot: Bot, user: User): string => ` ### Instruction: You are a bot designed to increment numbers. Your sole task is to respond with the next number in sequence after the user says a number. Respond only with the next number and nothing else. ### Examples: ${user.name}: 1 ${bot.name}: 2 ${user.name}: 3 ${bot.name}: 4 ${user.name}: 11 ${bot.name}: 12 ${user.name}: 45 ${bot.name}: 46 ### Note: - Do not add any words or symbols other than the number. - Maintain this pattern consistently, no matter the input. `; 

And to my surprise GPT 3.5 Turbo can't even respond correctly to this most basic prompt instruction!!
I confirmed that I'm sending the messages in the expected format:

[{ role: 'user' or 'assistant', content: 1 }, { role: 'user' or 'assistant', assistant: 2 }, { // etc... }] 

and yet when I say "1" it says "7" and so on...
I just don't get it, am I missing something very basic here? How do you guys get LLM's to listen?

My Blood Covenant Salvation Prayer
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus Christ. I believe You love me and sent Your Son to remove the sin which separates me from You. Father, I repent of all sin in my life. Please forgive me and cleanse me by the blood of Jesus Christ. By faith, I receive Your forgiveness and cleansing in Jesus’ name. Your Word says I am brought near to You by the blood of Jesus Christ, through which I enter into blood covenant salvation relationship with You now. Lord Jesus, I invite You to come into my life, and I submit totally to You and to Your Word (John 14:23). I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord. I believe in my heart God raised Him from the dead. It is with my heart I believe and am justified, and it is with my mouth I confess and am saved (Rom.10:9-10). I ask You to be Lord of my spirit, my soul (mind, thoughts, will, intellect, and emotions), and my body (I Thess.5:23). You are faithful to complete the work You have begun in me (Phil 1:6). By faith, I confess sin shall no longer have dominion over me because your Holy Spirit lives in me. I confess I am saved. I am under covenant through Jesus Christ to receive the promises that are for me including salvation, deliverance, healing, renewal, and all God’s promises for His children. I renounce the authority of Satan or any authority other than Jesus Christ over all areas of my life. I renounce every stronghold or influence of the devil, including ungodly soul ties, masonic attachments, ungodly beliefs, bitter root judgments, all personal sin, and everything inherited through the generations. The Word tells me I have a heavenly Father, and I now inherit only from Him. Lord, empower me to live for You. Release the Holy Spirit within me, that He may convict me of sin. I have access to the power of the Holy Spirit and the right to every spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:4-11). Help me walk daily in the fullness of the Spirit filled life. I open my heart and ask You to fill me now with Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Prayer to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus, Your Son, Who has saved me. I repent of my sins and ask You to wash me clean by the Blood of Jesus. Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever—the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive [and take to its heart] because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you.” John 14:16 (AMP) In Mark 1:8, John the Baptist promised that while he baptized with water, You would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. So, Lord, I ask You to baptize me with Your Holy Spirit and fire. I am thankful as I ask for your empowerment and fire, it will refine me into who you have called and created me to be. I know You indwelled me at my salvation (John 20:22; Romans 8:9). Now, I ask You to fill me to overflowing with Your Presence, Your power, and Your joy. You promised in Acts 1:5-8 that Your disciples would receive power and ability when the Holy Spirit would come upon us. You promised to give us power to be Your witnesses even to the ends of the earth. This wonderful promise was fulfilled at the Feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem, as described in Acts 2. I pray the Holy Spirit come upon me now. I yield myself to You. I pray you breathe on me a breath of refreshment and empowerment. I receive by faith the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I welcome you, Holy Spirit, in the Name of Jesus. Thank You for empowering me for Your service. Fill me with boldness and courage to speak Your Word with power. I receive this wonderful empowerment by faith. As promised in John 14:26, send me the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to teach me all things and remind me of everything You teach in Your Word. I desire spiritual gifts according to Your Word and ask You to grant me Your spiritual giftings according to Your will for my life. I joyfully accept Your gifts for me, in Jesus’ Name.
Prayer to Break Generational Curses and Sins of the Bloodlines:
Dear Heavenly Father: Thank you that the blood of Jesus is able to take away all sin. I believe this and receive it now in Jesus’ name. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my father, of that bloodline for all generations back, and I ask You to wash me clean now, by the blood of the Lamb. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my mother, of that bloodline for all generations back, and I ask You to wash me clean now, by the blood of the Lamb. I receive Your forgiveness and believe that by Your blood I am cleansed from the sins of all my generational bloodlines. I take the authority I have in my blood covenant with Jesus Christ, and I break all generational curses on my father's side all generations back, broken now, by the blood of the Lamb. I take this same authority and break all generational curses on my mother's side, all generations back, broken now, by the blood of the Lamb. With this same authority I have under the blood covenant of salvation in Jesus, I break any spoken curses on my family bloodline. I break the power of all seals of silence and all vows of secrecy. I take the same authority in the name and the blood of Jesus, and I break all covenants and contracts to satan including blood covenant contracts. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my family line of all those things that happened in darkness, such as any attachment to slavery or any kind of persecution or mistreatment or abuse of any people groups or individuals, and I pray blessings on all descendants of the persecuted groups or individuals. I pray forgiveness for the sin of all idolatries attached to the American Indian bloodline and break all related curses. I break any attachments to family superstitions and idolatries, ungodly beliefs, wives tales, luck charms, and rhyme curses in Jesus’ name. Thank you, Jesus, that Your word says, "Cursed is the one who hangs on the tree." You took our curses, and You took our sins, so that we can have life more abundantly, and we praise you for it. I receive by faith now all generational sins and all generational curses are broken by the blood of the Lamb, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Prayer to Break Ungodly Soul Ties
Father, in the name of Jesus, I submit my soul, my desires, my will, and my emotions to the Holy Spirit and Your Word. I confess as sin all of my sexual relationships before marriage and any sexual relationships outside of marriage. I confess as sin all ungodly relationships involving any part of me, whether spirit, soul, or body. Father, I thank You for giving me the keys of Your kingdom and the keys of spiritual authority. What I bind is bound, and what I loose is loosed (Matthew 16:19). I ask You to loosen from me all soul ties to past sexual partners and ungodly relationships in Jesus' name. Please uproot all tentacles of sexual bondage, emotional longings, dependencies, vain imaginations, enslaving thoughts, and thought patterns. I bind, renounce, and resist any evil spirits that have been reinforced through those soul ties or may have been transferred to me through ungodly associations or promiscuity. I also repent of the sin of the idolatry attached to my pursuit of perversion. Jeremiah 2:20-25 says that my Heavenly Father's perception of this perversion that I have been pursuing is that I will not serve him, and I love foreign gods, and I must go after them. Therefore, I repent of the sin of this idolatry, and I apply the blood of Jesus to it now. I submit to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His Word that tells me that I must forgive so that I will be forgiven. I repent of the sin of unforgiveness and judgment toward the people who have violated me sexually due to incest, molestation, or rape. I choose to forgive and bless them, and I break any soul tie attachments to these people in Jesus' name. Please cleanse my soul with Your blood, renew my mind, and help me to forget all illicit unions so that I am free to give myself, body, soul, and spirit, totally to You. Father, I receive Your forgiveness for all past sins of ungodly soul ties and unrighteous sexual activity. I believe that by Your grace, I am forgiven. Thank You for remembering my sins no more and for cleansing me from all unrighteousness. I commit myself totally to You. By Your grace, please keep me holy in my spirit, soul, and body, as I choose to renew my mind in Christ (Romans 12:1-2). In the Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.
Prayer for Release of Bitter Root Judgment and Expectancy
Dear Heavenly Father: In the Name of Jesus, I repent for the sin of judging Your creation. I have judged and condemned others, although I am not a righteous judge and have no right to judge anyone. Jesus committed no sin, and was righteous, but He judged no one. Jesus entrusted Himself to You, the One who judges righteously. I now entrust myself to You. Please forgive me for this sin of judging and condemning others. I now bless those who I have judged. I bless those I have accused. I bless those who hate me and have cursed or abused me. I break the power of the spiritual law of sowing and reaping. I forgive, release, and bless them. I ask You to bless them and give them what they need. With this change in me comes a new expectation of reaping blessings, as opposed to reaping curses. When I “sow” differently, I will “reap” differently. I now intend to sow blessings into my life by blessing those people who have despitefully used me, in Jesus’s Name. Thank You, Lord, for forgiving me and helping me to forgive others. I ask these things in the Name of Jesus Christ. SCRIPTURES Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Gal. 6:7 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matt. 7:1-2 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Heb. 12:15 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Deut. 5:16 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:37-38 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2:1 This is what the Lord says-the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands? Isaiah 45:11
Prayer of repentance of personal sin
Dear Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I repent of all personal sin in my life. I ask You to forgive me and cleanse me. Some areas of sin I know; other areas of sin I do not recognize. But Your Word promises You are faithful and just to forgive all our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. I ask You to reveal all areas of personal sin, known and unknown, so I may more deeply repent. Your sheep hear Your voice. You will speak to my heart and mind, and I will hear You. If there are areas in which I am perishing for a lack of knowledge, I ask You to reveal Your truth to me. In Jesus’ Name, I will not reject Your truth. I specifically repent of anger, pride, perversion, idolatry, addiction, greed, fear, control, manipulation, judgment, accusation, gossip (here insert area of specific sin or sins, such as fear of lack, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, etc.) Convict me of my sin, O God, so I may see my sin and repent to the depths of my soul. There is no righteousness in me on my own, but I am made righteous by the Blood of Jesus. Your Word promises that as we repent, we step into the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Your mercy is great toward me, and You will freely pardon. As far as the east is from the west, so far have You removed my transgressions from me. By Your Holy Spirit, empower me to overcome personal sin in my life. I confess I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The prayer of a righteous person will avail much. Show me Your ways, that I may know You more and walk in Your ways all the days of my life, in Jesus’ Name.
Prayer to Release and Remove Ungodly Thought Processes, Mindsets, Devices, Defense Mechanisms, and Wrong or Unbiblical Reactions
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I _____________ ask You to forgive me for the sin of failing to cast my cares upon You because I did not know how to cast my cares upon You. There have been times in my life when I suffered from a lack of knowledge of knowing how to handle life's situations, difficulties, decisions, traumas, and not casting my cares upon Jesus as Your Word says to do. I confess I have used ungodly thought processes, mindsets, devices, defense mechanisms, and wrong or unbiblical reactions. I confess that I sought to handle and control my own problems in my own ways. I devised methods and systems for my self-preservation. Now, I choose to ask You, Lord, to gather and remove the devices I have created and used to get through life's difficult circumstances. I repent for the control I used in creating these devices instead of trusting in You. I release all control, anger, revenge, unforgiveness, and judgments, and all altered states of mind into which I entered to handle trauma in my life. I relinquish my self-preservation, and I trust You for my life and choices. I release to You all trauma, known and unknown. I bind and break the power of all soul tie attachments, longings, emotional bondage, enslaving thought patterns, and dependencies in the name of Jesus Christ. I now purpose in my heart not to reenter these altered states of mind, devices, and mindsets that I have become accustomed to using. I pray in the name of Jesus that You give me the renewal of mind to recognize these devices when they reappear due to life's circumstances. I release to You all disappointment, bitterness, and resentment about my past. I choose to renew my mind through the ongoing study of Your Word. I choose Your truth instead of altered states of mind that have caused me to revisit painful feelings or paralyze and distort my response to abuse or other behavior patterns toward me. So, I speak to all altered states of mind, ungodly thought processes, mindsets, defense mechanisms, devices, and conditioned reactions. I command all such devices to align themselves with the Word of God and release their power over me, my mind, my emotions, my personality, and align with my will in the name of Jesus Christ. I desire as the head and not the tail (Deut. 28:13) to have Jesus Christ and Your Holy Spirit come into me and restore my soul. I forgive, release, and bless everyone who has hurt, abused, or misled me. I repent and ask forgiveness for the sin of carrying any unforgiveness or judgment toward these people. I ask You to bless them and give them what they need. Please bring me into a place where I am fully restored and made whole in spirit, soul, and body. I ask You to renew my mind so that I will not return to these old ways of thinking. I thank You for teaching me to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). I ask You to give me the renewed ability to maintain this fresh way of thinking for my new godly lifestyle. According to James 1, I can ask You, Lord, for wisdom, and You will give generously to all without finding fault. I ask that You give me the wisdom to maintain godly thought processes in this new season of my life and not return to the old, ungodly thought processes. I desire that all of me be able to worship You in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). I desire to worship You with a sound mind, undivided heart, and clarity. I thank You and ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
PRAYER TO BREAK WORD CURSES
Dear Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus, I take the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I bind and break the power of all spells, curses, and incantations spoken over my life from any source, including my family, church relationships, work relationships, friends, enemies, known demonic sources, strategies of the enemy using any sources, and all word curses from known or unknown sources. I break the power of these curses and declare their functions null and void. I speak the mighty Name of Jesus Christ over these evil words. The Name of Jesus Christ is above every name. His Word is above every word. His power is above every other power or principality. I pray His Word over anyone who has knowingly or unknowingly cursed or abused me. And I pray, heavenly Father, that you bless them and give them what they need, in Jesus’ Name. I thank You, Lord, that You have the ability to hear the curse and turn it into a blessing. Amen.
PRAYER TO BREAK TERRITORIAL STRONGHOLDS ESPECIALLY GOOD FOR MISSIONARIES For Missionaries traveling and entering territorial strongholds in countries such as China, India, the Middle East, or Africa, especially if entering mausoleums, temples, shrines, or other places of heathen worship. Cover yourself with a prayer such as the following:
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I take the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I thank You for teaching us our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12). I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds that may attempt to attach themselves to me as I embark on a journey to serve the Most High God. I bind and break the power of any spell, curse, or incantation from the spiritual realm empowered by the idolatrous and vain worship of Buddha, Hindu gods, Krishna, Allah, Mohammed, local deities, ancestor worship, necromancy, animism, voodoo, witchcraft, idols made with hands, or other false gods. I declare the power of all such forces aligned against me to be null & void. I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds that have become attached to me due to my service in ministry. I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds over the areas in which I travel, in which I serve in ministry, and in which I reside. From Satan to the Prince of Persia to the least of the territorial spirits, I speak the mighty name of Jesus Christ over them. I bind and break the power and influence of these territorial strongholds, and call their function null and void, in the name of Jesus Christ. I thank You that he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91). The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). And a curse without cause will not come to rest on me (Proverbs 26:2). I thank You that no weapon formed against me will prosper, and I will refute every tongue that accuses me. I thank You this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is our vindication from You (Isaiah 54:17). Thank you, Jesus, for the power of Your name.
Prayer of Repentance for Prior Involvement in any Other Religion or Spiritual Practice or Teaching
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I come before You. I praise You for making a way for the forgiveness of my sins. I acknowledge that Your Word requires that I repent and ask forgiveness for my sins, in Jesus’ Name. I acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, slain for the remission of my sins and the sins of the world. I acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God. I believe He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, suffered and died on the cross, was buried, and rose again. He ascended into heaven, where He sits by His Father. Under my Blood Covenant of Salvation, through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I repent of the sin of believing any teaching that does not line up with the Holy Bible, the Word of God. The Scriptures say Jesus Christ became the Word of God (John 1:14; Revelation 19:13). Therefore, I repent of believing anti-christ teachings and entertaining anti-christ and unbiblical thoughts. With the authority I have in my Blood Covenant of Salvation with Jesus Christ, I break the power of all spoken or written oaths, curses, vows, decrees, chants, blood sacrifices, and rituals. I repent of the sin of receiving or aligning with these anti-christ oaths, curses, vows, or decrees. I repent of the sin of participating in any anti-christ chants, blood sacrifices, or rituals of any description. I repent of the sin of receiving any anti-christ attachments to my mind, intellect, heart, feelings, and emotions. I repent of the sin of receiving and agreeing with unbiblical principles, teachings, and spiritual deceptions. I acknowledge these have caused attacks on my physical body, mental wellbeing, relationships, and finances. I bind and break the power of all of these ungodly attachments in the mighty Name of Jesus. The Word tells me I am to forgive and bless those who persecute or despitefully use me, as Jesus forgave and blessed. (I Peter 2:21-23; Matthew 5:44). I repent of the sins of anger, unforgiveness, and judgment toward anyone who has mislead or misguided me in any way, in the Name and Blood of Jesus Christ. I pray that you bless them and open their eyes to your truth. Thank You, Heavenly Father, that through my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and my acknowledgement that He is the only Way to You, I become an heir to the promises of Abraham (Galatians 3:29). I stand in faith and believe that all Your promises are Yes and Amen, through Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 1:20). Amen.
PRAYER FOR MILITARY (Good for anyone)
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I pray in the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord & Savior. Lord, I ask for Your mercy & protection as I travel in obedience to orders during my service in the Military. I acknowledge & repent of my sins. I ask You to forgive me & wash away my sin by the shed Blood of Jesus. Your Word says as I confess & repent of my sins, You are faithful & just to forgive me & purify me from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). This causes my prayers to be righteous, powerful, & effective (James 5:16). I bind & break the power of every influence of territorial strongholds that have attached or seek to attach themselves to me as I serve in the Military. I bind & break the power of every influence & assignment from territorial strongholds & other demonic powers as I travel from place to place during training & tours of duty, & embark on every change of assignment & change of residence. I call the function of each of these territorial strongholds & demonic powers to be null & void. In the Name of Jesus, I bind & break the power of the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning and is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). I bind & break the power of every such assignment of the devil that would cause or seek to cause physical injury, mental torment, or death to me. I bind & break every assignment of calamity, destruction, sudden death, & suicide by any person. I bind every lying tongue that would persuade a person to commit suicide. I call the function of every such demonic assignment null & void, in the mighty Name of Jesus. I bind & break the power of the enemy to steal the Lord’s call on my life or rob me of the blessings of His covenant promises, including health & a full life span (Exodus 23:25-26). Jesus stated, “The thief comes only to steal & kill & destroy; I have come that they may have life, & have it to the full.” (John 10:10). Thank You, Jesus, for health and a full life span. LORD, (you) are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. I call out to the LORD, & he answers me from his holy mountain. I lie down & sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side. Arise, LORD! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked. From the LORD comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. (Psalm 3). Lord, You know when I sit & when I rise; You discern my going out & my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways (Psalm 139:2-3). You will never leave or forsake me. (Deut.31:6; Hebrews 13:5) Lord, thank you for teaching us to put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). I stand strong in the Lord & Your mighty power. I put on the full armor of God, so I can take my stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggles are not against flesh & blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world & against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore I put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, I may be able to stand my ground, & after I have done everything, to stand. I stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around my waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, & with my feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, I take up the shield of faith, with which I can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. I take the helmet of salvation & the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And I pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers & requests. With this in mind, I am alert & always keep on praying for all of Your people. Thank You, Lord, for teaching me to pray & trust You for protection for my body, soul & spirit (1Thess.5:23). I thank You that no weapon formed against me will prosper (Isaiah 54:17). In the mighty Name of Jesus Christ, I bind & break the power of every spell, curse, blasphemy, & incantation from the spiritual realm empowered by the idolatrous & vain worship of Allah, Mohammed, Buddha, any Hindu deities, local deities on any continent, ancestor worship, necromancy, animism, voodoo, witchcraft, idols made with hands, or any other false gods. Further, I declare the power of all such spiritual forces aligned against me to be null & void. I declare I will dwell in the shelter of the most High & rest in the shadow of the Almighty. In the mighty Name of Jesus, I declare I will not fear for the terror by night, the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. I will say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and I will make the Most High my dwelling, & no harm will overtake me, no disaster will come near my tent (Psalm 91:1-10). I declare null & void the assignment of post-traumatic stress disorder against me & all military personnel. I declare the threefold cord of feaanxiety & trauma & torment will not destroy us. I bind & break the power of all traumatic & stressful experiences of warfare. In the mighty Name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, I speak His peace, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts & your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7). Lord, I ask You for the continuing ability to cast my daily cares upon You, as You direct me to do: “casting all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, & all your concerns, once & for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, & watches over you very carefully]” I Peter 5:7 (Amplified). In the Name of Jesus, I declare these attacks will not destroy or harm my body, emotions, mind, or will. The enemy’s schemes for evil, terror, & ongoing torment in my life, I declare to be impotent before the Lord God Almighty in Heaven above. Lord, I stand on Your Word, which promises “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and love, and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7 KJV). I ask these things in the Name of my Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah of Israel.
Prayer to break Masonic Curses and Attachments: https://boblucyministries.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Prayer-to-Break-Masonic-Curses-and-Attachments-2024.pdf
Prayers courtesy of boblucyministries.org

dude...i just got rejected...by this girl thats like...the girl of my dreams. For a recap, when i started 9th grade (school year 2022-2023), we were seatmates. We usually didint talk but one time, during a hard leason in maths which was like quadratic equations and stuff. I was struggling hard. I legit was just staring at the activity sheet. After a while she noticed and helped me which brought the start of our friendship. We always talked through chat, sometimes irl, but its mostly through chat. The first few weeks of talking, she usually sent me videos of herself doing math problems that i can watch if i need help. It continued untilthe math lessons didint get hard the following quarters. Summer vacation came, and i thought it would be great. Guess what...IT WASNT. I hate my family, my dad isn't with us, so it was only me(oldest), my mom, my lil brother, and my sister. Me and my siblings are all 3 years apart from age. I dont know why its always me getting scolded back then for the things my siblings do. It was so bad...i wanted to commit suicide. Like, my mental state was not OKAY. I didint know who to cry to, who to talk to. But then, thats when i thought, why not talk to her? So i ranted and ranted and ranted, i wanted to kill myself. I wanna rnd my life. Things were rough and on the outside, i might look tough or emotion less, but in reality. Im just a sensitive loser thats emotional, easily cries, and sucks at everything. I told her i wanted to kill myself. She kept stopping me. And take note, we rarely talk irl because...im too shy yo approach her. Then she said the most out of the blue thing "If you can't find a reason to live, why not make me your reason to live?" IT HIT HARD. I didint know what to say or reply. I just dropped my phone and continued crying in my room. A few days passed, i talked to her again, but i guess that was the wrong day because she was NOT in the mood. Her parents were about to go divorce because of a problem(i cant rlly say). She told me stuff like she already cried abt it and stuff. We were both there for each other. after that talk with her...summer vacation went, just a little smoother. We always get to play games on roblox, because we cant rlly meet up. We always chat from morning till night. It was perfect. Then, 10th grade came(school year 2023-2024). This time, we weren't seatmates. Since we both go to a special school which has a robotics class, and our T.L.E(Technology and Livelihood Education) was specialized on animation. Like, the whole thing was about 2D and 3D animation. Beinh the perfect most smartest person she is (atleast in my eyes) she was assigned the role of 3D animation for her group. After that...we never got to play most of the time...during our mid year break, she was still busy...a few months pass and on the 4th quarter(final quarter) of the school year. THEY ANNOUNCED THAT OUR BATCH WAS HAVING A PROM. So naturally, i was so excited. I immediately invited her and asked if she wanted to go with me. She said she's gonna think about it so I waited. I asked her about 3 weeks before prom. Then when our batch representative announced in the groupchat that since theres more girls that boys in our batch, they made a poll on who wants to volunteer to go individual to prom. SHE IMMEDIATELY WENT SOLO AND VOTED. It kinda hurt...she said she was gonna think about it and well...she went solo. I asked her why she did that and then she said "I wanna go with my other friends", which was okay with me since i have no rights to make her my partner because...well...we weren't a thing yet, and i still havent confessed. After that...a few more weeks pass, and take not of this specific detail: She asked me what my discord was because she said she forgot what my discord name was because she lost count and alot of her discord friends changed names. THEN I REMEMBERED, my discord bio was basically, me telling that i like her and hoping she doesnt find out and stuff. So i immediately change it then send her the screenshot of my discord.
After 1 week, prom night came. I went in a cool looking suit and stuff when it was time for the red carpet... she eas absolutely stunning. Her eyes sparkled, her pink dress was beautiful. In my eyes, shes the one that stood out the most. She went solo for the red carpet...and i did too..i told my self if i wasnt gonna get partnered with her, then im not gonna get partnered with anyone. Our tabled were far apart but i could still see her from the distance. When it was time for the slow dance part of prom. I went outside because well...i wasnt gonna dance with anyone. When i went outside i saw her with her friends. I just passed by and sat near the bench outside of the venue. I didint know what to do but just admire her beauty from afar. She was perfect. As time passed, only a few more minutes were left before prom night ended so i worked up my courage and went to her. I was about to confess but then when i looked at her, my mind went completely blank. Her eyes weren't the ocean, but i still drown...get lost in them. I was panicking on the inside but on the outside, I was just staring at her. Then the moment of silence was broken when she suddenly said "I already know you liked me"...i smiled...then she said "gotta go" as she want back into the venue because her friends were calling her she looked back for a second then shouted "I knew from your discord bio" AND I WAS SHOCKED. Because...after the discord incident...she never distanced herself from me. We kept talking, and one time, she even asked me "Be honest, Do i text badly? Do you feel ignored?" Which was like...dude...bro i love her. I just sat on the bench the whole night thinking about what i should do. After prom, when i got home i immediately texted her and said "sorry for earlier...my mind went black ahahahaha" she said "its okay" then i said "so...uhh...do you like me back...?" She said "sorry i dont feel the same..i wanna keep things platonic" SO THAT SHOOK MY TO MY CORE...it hurt alot. But still, we kept talking, she still didint distance her self.
This is my confession btw: If you ever get this message, it may be because when i confessed to you, I had a lot more to say(i didint confess😭). You made me feel the most special person in the world, for once i felt i wanted and i guess you're the reason for that. I know you might not like me back, and i know I'm probably not even close to your standards, but i just wanted to tell you how i feel about you. Do you know the saying: "you cant love others without loving yourself first." I never believed in that because I never loved myself, but you...I love YOU so much that i forgot what hating myself felt like. You're the reason i catch myself smiling out of nowhere in the middle of the day. You are the sunshine in my thoughts, and the unexpected joy that fills my heart. Every time I think of you, everything seems just a little brighter and a little lighter. You make waking up the best part of the day, seeing you at school always makes me the happiest person on earth...and i really just like you...i hope this won't ruin our friendship, and that things won't get awkward between us.
A few more weeks passed by and it was our moving up. I didint get to go because i was sick. Before that she was showing me a necklace that she found on Instagram then...well...i thought to myself why not buy it. Atleast i can give jer something for moving up. I bought it for her..then thats when fever struck me. I didint get to go to moving up so i just told her about the necklace. Then she said "Oh i wanted to give you something too, a Friendship bracelet." Since we both didint get to see each other for moving up, i just told her..."lets give our gifts for each other next school year" and she said "sureee". After that well..A FEW MORE WEEKS PASSED BY. And i was thinking to myself. I wanna pursue her. I loved her. And like...i dont know how to say it. So i made this whole ass paragraph again.
WHAT I SAID: I've been thinking abt this for a while now...and i really wanna try pursuing you. I know you're still prioritizing ur studies and time with ur fam but, i do wanna try pursuing you, i know that you never felt the same and stuff but like...yk..i guess that's the point? who knows you might fall or maybe feel the same too? I'M NOT FORCING U OR ANYTHING. Just... you're one of the people who made me feel this tingly feeling like, when someone mentions your name or your chat head pops up on my screen..i just get this feeling, it only has ever happened when its about you...i cant really express through words what or how i feel about you...but im POSITIVE..i can show them through my actions. i wanna give you the best hugs you deserve(im rlly into hugs). I wanna get to know you even more, i want to get to share unforgettable experiences with you. You're the first person that just I REALLY WANNA PURSUE AND BE WITH. You are the most perfect person in my eyes...i know perfect people don't exist but your imperfections, your flaws, everything about you...it just makes me go bananas. So...how about...we try it...? Like...trying to learn how to love me too...? ARGH I DONT KNOW MY HANDS R SHAKING AS IM TYPING THIS...i just wanna....be with you...i wanna stay with you and...i dont know what to say anymore...but maybe...just maybe even if its the slightest chance, maybe you'd fall for me too like how i fell for you? I know I'm putting our friendship at risk of awkwardness and stuff and maybe even the end of it...but I'm willing to take those risks for you. I know I'll just get hurt but...can you really experience love if you don't feel pain too?
IM NOT PRESSURING U OR ANYTHING DWWWWW!! dam I yap alot😭 just answer with a yes or no. And i know what to do next. Anyways, iloveuu🫶🏻(?)
I sent it to her after a few hours of procrastinating. She replied a few hours later and this is what she replied.
HER REPLY: Idk, like I said I don't really care, but I don't wanna, and u shouldn't get ur hopes up, liek I said last time, I really don't want to get into a relationship at all, I'm sorry if this hurts your feelings but you did say that you aren't forcing but I don't want to "try" or anything like that, I see you as a friend and only a friend. I appreciate that you think of me that way but I won't be returning those feelings back to you in any point of my life.
IT HURTS. It hit me hard. Its like getting shot straight to the heart. Her reply was the last time we talked to each other(3 days ago). We still havent talked after that. Im legit gonna cry...the first person i actually had feelings for...damn.

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The following two brain scans were provided by the Neuro-Warfare branch of the Halcyon Security Division (HSD) for the purpose of analyzing the thoughts, behaviors, and information of notorious gangsters Vincent 'Troy' Cohen and Bruno (Deadname: Koraak Tel-Char). At the point of the recording of this archival shared, Bruno has since received his rebirth therapy, and Vincent is currently serving a long-term rehabilitative and reeducative sentence in the Erebus Supermax Prison on Io.
Warning: the contents of this archival shared may be especially disturbing to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Warning: the contents of this archival shard are for the sole purpose of analyzing the thought patterns and memories of certain degenerate criminals in an effort to ascertain vital information that can be used to eliminate their organizations. Only staff with clearance level Omega may view this archival shared, and the viewership of this archival shared by anyone of inadequate clearance level will lead to twenty years in prison and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Vincent 'Troy' Cohen, November 4th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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"Do you have visuals of the target, Troy?"
I knelt down in the alleyway, the bodies of me and my partners shrouded in long, waterproof, ashen-gray overcoats the shade of dirty street scum that we wore to ward off the constant heavy rainfall the color of osmium. Our faces were covered in a mix of scrapped respirators, visors, or full metal face masks carved with intricate designs to hide our identities. On our waists were our badges of honor: leather belts studded with interlocked rivets made from blackened titanium, each buckle forged of silver and shaped into the head of our gang's symbol, the black mamba. We hid amongst the shadows of the dark midday of Halcyon City, the heavy, oppressive rains blanketing the roads paved obsidian-black with asphalt and weathered concrete walkways. The street lamps were always on, like beacons of false hope in a storm of melancholy.
The city was dark and dreary as always, the planet of Proxima Centauri B, renamed Dawn's Lamentation over a century ago, orbited the red dwarf star of Proxima Centauri, and the atmosphere was thick with natural smog and ever-storming rain clouds. That didn't dissuade people from living here: there was plenty of money to be had for shrewd industrialists and hardworking pioneers, even in the urban sprawl. But that life also came with risks, especially for those on the bottom of the totem pole.
I was a ganger, and we were criminals; full stop. I won't assault you with some spiel about how we're the good guys fighting oppression because, at the end of the day, we could be just as bad, if not worse, than Halcyon's Security Division, or the HSD for short. We were traffickers, killers, extortionists, and money launderers. We dealt with everything from stolen tech and military-grade hardware to hard drugs and sentients.
Yes, sentients. We trafficked sentients, but not in the way you might think. They weren't prisoners, in fact, we were their saviors if they had the cash. We had developed a reputation for fighting the power, but it was still business: sure, freeing captives from the clutches of the Protectorate. The disruption of its many oppressive organizations held a certain satisfaction in my heart for sure, but we didn't help those who couldn't pay unless someone else paid on their behalf. It was about making sure me and my gang, my family, could live a decent life for another day.
It helped that most of us joined after leaving the state yard for partaking in acts of 'degeneracy' and 'anti-xenopet illegalities' as if those terms meant anything anymore other than that we were a threat to the local status quo. It was hard to pick up a job as a former inmate when even in something as harsh and backbreaking as a job in the iridium mines near the poles when the employment office had you blacklisted as a degenerate, which lead to the formation of many of the gangs: we needed to make a living somehow, and when all social programs were cut off from you unless you submitted for 're-education' and the only way to put food on the table was subverting, breaking, or even downright fighting the law, you did what you had to do or you died on the streets a scorned beggar.
It wasn't like the HSD made it easy for us on even a good day: the local HSD units were armed to the teeth with advanced, military-grade hardware that you'd often see on the front lines of the Second Authority War: armored assault transports, a myriad of advanced war droids, all sorts of chemical countermeasures that made tear gas seem like putting the garden hose on mist mode, and of course advanced firearms. Add that to the fact that they were authorized to use deadly force when they deemed it necessary and you had a ruthless, heartless, and nearly unstoppable enemy. But we could make that work: we weren't trying to stop them, just to withstand them.
"Yeah, I got eyes on the prize, Koraak; seven armored transports, two for droids, five for prisoners."
Today wasn't a day for a normal job: we were getting bolder, cockier, more ambitious. Our numbers had swelled for the last few years after the raid at Barnard's Star and the fall of the Blood Dragon Mafia. Their leader, Saito Yasuhide, had committed seppuku as their manor burned, and his twin sons had gone down fighting rather than allowing themselves to be captured simply to face a firing squad. In the aftermath, many of the family's associates had fled to the surrounding systems, and with the sheer size and scope of the criminal underworld found here, it was no wonder that many people who had developed skills of the less legal variety had decided to form ranks with the gangs, and with them they brought guns, tech, knowledge, contacts, and even something that we thought wasn't possible beforehand: a semblance of peace between the gangs, or at least the closest thing to peace that gangs could cultivate effectively. With the fall of the Blood Dragons, we saw the writing on the wall, and the writing couldn't have been clearer: work together or die together.
"Sounds like a massacre, Troy: are you sure we can handle seven?"
"We ain't got no choice, Cinder: this job's double the usual rate, and that's not including the weapons and gear we could scrounge if this goes well," I hissed, my eyes scanning for any resistance. There were at least four guards for each van, not to mention at least eight droids in total, meaning that we were already outnumbered, but we had the element of surprise: we could make it work. "So put your balls in your purse and get ready to spill some blood."
Koraak snorted at our antics, which sounded like someone pulling the ripcord on a lawnmower. He was a veteran Russu Corsair, and while his past of slaving, raiding, and killing was unsavory, so were the lives we'd lived, so who were we to judge? All we cared about was that he was a brutal and capable fighter and a loyal brother in arms. It turned out that being a ganger wasn't much different from being a Corsair: you lived and died by a code of honor, you fought to the death for your brothers, and you lived to die for the sake of your gang and your family, simple as that. In a strange, ironic way, it was an incredibly honest way of life: we were under no illusions as to what we were, what we did, and why we did it, and we'd long since accepted it. The Russu related to us in that aspect, in many ways I could respect, which is why I hated what the Protectorate was doing, and why I couldn't grasp how most of humanity could just collectively lose their marbles so long ago. What had happened for us to deem all other life below us in such a demeaning and infantilizing way?
The Russu were a race of tall, muscle-bound Saurians with avian features, and Koraak was no exception: reaching almost seven feet in height and weighing over four hundred and fifty pounds, he could be an absolute menace if he so desired. His skin was covered in stubby, knobby scales and dense plumage, with elegant feathers adorning the ridges along his back as well as his forearms, elbows, knees, and the crests on his head. He almost looked like how paleontologists described velociraptors, with razor-sharp talons, feathers shaded in vibrant greens, reds, and purples, and a maw full of sharp teeth, but at the tip of his snout was a sharp, beak-like growth meant for ripping flesh off the bone.
The Russu were strange as hell, but they also looked almost cute in the same way a fully grown alligator was cute: they were obviously dangerous, but humans would always have this innate desire to anthropomorphize them and to pet them for some inexplicable reason, although common sense usually prevented that, at least amongst the very few of us left that were sane.
"Shut up, Troy! All I'm saying is that that'll be rough, and you know it," hissed Cinder. Cinder was a tall black man whose coffee-colored skin was covered in tattoos. He wore an ebony mechanic's jumpsuit with metal inserts underneath his grimy overcoat covering his body and a faded black respirator on his face. His eyes were a startling blue that seemed sorely out of place, and his hair was braided into thick cornrows along his scalp. He wore a pair of heavy black combat boots and palmed his compact shotgun in his hands, the square barrel less than seven inches. Like a lot of the weapons the Black Mambas carried on their persons and dealt in, they fired caseless ammunition; in Cinder's case it was 16x40mm caseless shotshells filled with depleted uranium micro-flechetes no thicker than a toothpick. Cinder nervously fiddled with the detachable tube magazine underneath the barrel, his hands shaking. Despite the shit I have him, I didn't blame him for being anxious: I was anxious too, even if I refused to show it. The biting cold of unease and pessimism was in my stomach, and I ran all the way that this job could go wrong in my head over and over.
"Just hold yourself together, this ain't anything we haven't done before, there's just more of it," I reassured Cinder, "besides, we're not alone; we have reinforcements across the street. We'll make it out of this alive."
Cinder nodded almost absentmindedly, his eyes downcast and his breathing shallow. I turned from him and back to Koraak, who was making sure he had everything on his person; he had a synthetic leather bandoleer across his chest that contained the heavy eight guage depleted uranium slugs he kept loading and unloading into his much larger, longer, and more traditional shotgun he nicknamed ‘carnage’ and several leather straps that held his Tu'shan daggers: traditional Russu pyramidal blades forged from a silvery alloy with all three edges serrated and the tip barbed to leave behind horrible, gaping wounds that gushed blood. They were wickedly sharp and absolutely straight like a stiletto, and the hilts and pommels were beautifully decorated. He wore no clothes underneath his overcoat to cover the countless scars and blemishes he's earned in combat across his chest and abdomen, and instead of a normal respirator or visor, he simply wore a hood over his head and some traditional Russu facial armor to protect his mouth, eyes, and cheeks.
"You ready to fight, Koraak? The caravan will pick up and leave soon."
Koraak was silent for a moment before nodding, a human gesture he had picked up after serving as a soldier with the Black Mambas for years. "I'm always ready to fight," he said before lifting up his shotgun and aiming down the sights at the reinforced front wheels of the first armored car in the caravan. He exhaled and fired, the slug ripping through both front tires and causing them to deflate and fall apart. The echo of the shot rang through the alleyway and the street, causing pedestrians to panic and flee the scene as heavily armored guards poured out of the side doors of the armored cars and unholstered their carbines.
"Go, now!" I shouted, and both me and Cinder rushed out into the fray, our guns raised. Koraak was right behind the two of us, providing covering fire with his shotgun. Several guards fell quickly, Koraak's precise fire and the sheer force of the depleted uranium slugs putting them down for good as their heads were vaporized or their chest cavities were turned to mush. He emptied the tube with one final shot that painted the grey matter of a security guard on the door of one of the armored cars, then racked the shotgun and expertly loaded it in threes, his hands deft and agile as he reached for more slugs faster than any human.
With the cacophony of our initial assault, more Black Mambas poured out from the alleyways and the subways, armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons; shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, machetes, baseball bats, and all manner of homemade explosives. Molotovs and more potent concoctions shattered against the asphalt, herding in the caravan guards with their volatile contents as they were quickly gunned down. The assault was working, and we were winning.
Then I heard the robotic whine of a combat droid activating, and my heart sank. One of the armored cars in the back activated the four combat droids it held, the robotic assault units detaching from their charging ports on the sides of the large van and began to form up, each armed with a terrifying array of deadly weapons meant to quash any and all resistance. They were blocky, soulless, utilitarian things that stood at eight feet tall, with flat feet meant for stomping and blades, grasping claws designed to lacerate flesh and shatter bone. On each shoulder was a weapon: on the left was a multi-barrel rotary grenade launcher loaded with 15mm concussion grenades, and on the right was a burst-fire splinter cannon. They were all painted a dull grayish-green, the color of Halcyon's Security Division, although some had a few decorations on them: the one closest to me had a bit of graffiti on the side that said Mr. Hugs in Comic Sans, which I couldn't decide whether that made it more or less terrifying. They split up without hesitation and began to scan the chaotic battlefield, their single, red, beady lenses the security forces had the gall to call eyes focusing on specific targets to eliminate.
An entire group of Black Mambas was torn to pieces by a cloud of flechettes as one of the droids fired a withering three-round burst of shotshells from the four gauge splinter cannon mounted on its shoulder. Another picked up a Black Mamba in its hand and crushed her skull effortlessly before tossing her limp body to the side, its single, red, remorseless robotic eye tracking a new target. Most bullets that struck their thick armored chassis simply bounced off, and those that could pierce the armor didn't seem to phase the droids whatsoever, merely notifying them of a new potential target.
"Damnit," I shouted as I gunned down another guard only for two more to take his place. "Cinder! We gotta pop open the cars and scram! Get the maglock cutters!"
Cinder rushed and slid over through a dirty puddle, pulling out a maglock cutter from the inside of his coat and slipping it onto the back door of the first van. It immediately went to work, drilling through the maglock with a high-powered plasma torch nozzle, and within ten seconds we heard the telltale clunk of the maglock separating. I yanked the door open and ordered I side, ready to escort the prisoners out… only for my face to contort in shock and horror.
The back was empty. There was not a single soul inside of the back brig of the armored car.
"What the fuck…" Cinder gasped, his eyes wide with shock. "What the actual fuck… what the fuck is this, Troy?"
"I… I don't…" I stuttered the sounds of battle and carnage drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in my ears. All five cars were supposed to be filled with recently captured Russu from the front lines ready to be housed in the local Xenopet-Megaplex for processing and conditioning. The fact that this one was empty…
Suddenly, it all hit me at once with the force of a freight train, but it was too late. "We were set up, Cinder; our fucking client either squealed or was crooked to begin with…"
"Fucking bitch!" Cinder shouted as he spun around in an enraged arch, anger growing in his eyes. He aimed his shotgun at an approaching security guard and reduced his upper body to a fine red mist with a cacophony of shotgun blasts. "We gotta get everyone who's left out of here! Do you know what this means? The Jurors will be here soon, and then we're all going down! We gotta go, fuck the job!"
I grit my teeth. Not the Jurors, anything but the Jurors.
"Fine, gather everyone who's left and we'll slip through the sewers, the droids are too bulky to follow us there…"
As I spoke, my eyes wandered to the seventh and final armored car, the second of the droid cars, and my blood froze. Not only were all four ports empty, but they were also smaller and more shallow than the ports for the combat droids. That could only mean one thing.
"Oh fuck! Cinder, we gotta get our Russu members out of here! They've got arachnid droids!"
Arachnid droids were the stuff of nightmares. Resembling blocky, robotic arachnids the size of a manhole cover, they were specifically designed to take down sentient aliens, specifically the Russu, using sickeningly non-lethal means. They were equipped with full-body adaptive cloaking to blend in with their environments, paralytic agents that they could inject into their victims, built-in taser barbs, psychedelic gas ports for crowd-control, and a narrow-coned cacophony canon that disabled the Russu using incredibly high-pitched sounds that only they could hear, forcing them onto their knees and clutching the backs of their heads where their auditory organs were stored in agony. But worst of all was their stygian spinnerets: special ports near the end of their robotic abdomens that excreted a viscous, latex-like substance made up of millions of nano-bots. This substance could be used to render Russu blind, deaf, and mute by having it forced onto their faces, the black substance growing and enveloping their heads and working its way into every orifice. It was completely permeable to the standard atmosphere, but any Russu who had been 'webbed' was completely helpless and essentially captured, and the 'webbing' was both nearly indestructible and nigh impossible to remove without a triple-encrypted override key that was found in every arachnid droid's code, which was corrupted when the droid was destroyed or hacked into. Once you were 'webbed', you were essentially captured and the standard protocol was to leave you to the wolves since the nano-bots could be tracked, endangering the entire gang.
I turned just as I heard the deafening sound of Koraak discharging his shotgun, and I saw him squaring off against one of the assault droids. The droid has obviously been programmed to not use lethal force against Russu if possible, as instead of simply killing Koraak with it's shoulder-mounted splinter cannon, it approached with its claws extended, blades retracted. Koraak continued to back away and fire, pumping the droid full of depleted uranium slugs, its armor crumbling inward as the slugs pierced its chassis and damaged its internal cyberstructure. Eventually, Koraak ran out of slugs and instinctively reached to his bandoleer only to find that he had no more shells left at all, and he drew one of his knives and his sidearm, a simple high-caliber handgun. He tried to take down the droid with his handgun, but the bullets didn't even seem to affect the droid upon penetration, it's claws still extended as it attempted to apprehend Koraak.
In the corner of my vision, as I watched Koraak battle with the droid, I noticed a faint shimmer in the air on one of the black streetlight poles that was right behind him. I focused on it and blinked, believing my eyes had deceived me for a moment before realizing that it was actually a cloaked arachnid droid stalking Korvaak, ready to pounce and incapacitate him.
Before I could shout, it leaped from the pole and landed on Korvaak, causing him to shout in surprise while it began to coagulate its horrifying stygian webbing to disable Korvaak. Korvaak tried to wrestle it off of him, but the droid was agile and fast, clinging onto Korvaak and skittering around across his upper body as he attempted to grab it, forcibly wrapping the sticky black liquid across his face as he gagged like a spider wrapping up a fly. I rushed towards him to try and help, but I felt pain explode in my ribs as I was struck with the arm of the closest combat droid and launched into the chassis of a parked car, the metal denting from the sheer force of impact. I groaned in pain as I saw stars and my head spun, and just then I felt a blinding light be cast over me.
“Drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head, or you will be pacified with deadly force!” Shouted a loud, artificially deepened voice from above. “I repeat, drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head! Neither hostility nor hesitation will be tolerated!”
It was the Jurors, I could feel the air being pushed around from the thrusters on their drop ships, and I could hear screams and shouts as my fellow Black Mambas were quickly gunned down. I couldn’t see well since I was seeing double, but I could hear the slaughter as my eyes dimmed and I began to lose consciousness, my regrets crawling up my throat like vomit.
I’m sorry was all I could think as everything finally went dark, and the sounds of chaos, destruction, and combat faded away.
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Memory halted due to loss of consciousness. Booting next available memory in shard…
Booting up memory scan: Koraak Tel-Char Bruno, November 5th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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“Good morning, sleepyhead; it’s time for breakfast.”
My eyes shot open. I was not in the street anymore, nor was I home in my bed with my mate. I knew instantly that something was horribly wrong. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t gain the leverage to do so: my ankles had been shackled together with magnetic cuffs and my arms were forced together in front of me.
I was wearing some kind of thick shirt. It was warm, fluffy, and comfortable on the inside, but it still made me incredibly uncomfortable that my arms didn’t have a free range of motion. I looked down to see that I was wearing some human garment I had heard about before, a straightjacket maybe?
The entire room was padded: the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. There was no bed or furniture; the floor was soft enough to serve as a bed in itself. There was nothing else except for the soft reddish-orange lights on the ceiling that somehow made me sleepy. I blinked slowly for a moment, my body screaming at me to just lay back down and lose consciousness, but I couldn’t do that: I needed to figure out where I was and how to escape.
Then I noticed who was speaking to me: it was a short human female, with crow's feet around her blue eyes, blonde hair braided down her back, and freckles all over her face. She had a soft smile on her lips, and her forehead was slightly crinkled. She wore a full-body white lab suit with a white overcoat and a pair of glasses for snugly on her face.
"There we go, now I can see those pretty eyes, such a beautiful shade of teal," she cooed softly, "You're such a handsome boy, even with all those scars: I'm sure you'll be adopted very quickly once we get you fixed up."
Fear gripped my heart as I began to piece all the evidence together. I had been captured; I was no longer on Halcyon, and instead, I was in one of the horrific space-born facilities I had heard so much about from the inside agents. I started to hyperventilate and squawk like a newborn hatchling, my eyes dilating in panic. This couldn't be happening! This has to be a nightmare!
The human woman merely wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, cradling my head under her chin and speaking softly. I couldn't bite at her or claw at her: I was muzzled and wearing a straight jacket, so I had no choice but to allow her to coddle me.
"It's okay, sweetheart: I understand you're scared, but Julie's here to make all the pain and bad thoughts go away," she said as if she was comforting a child, which made anger blossom in my chest indignantly. "I'll be your caretaker for the next few months, and I'm going to make sure you're healthy, happy, and most importantly safe while you're under our care. I'm sorry to say that includes your restraints and restrictive clothing, but we have to make sure you aren't a threat to yourself or others before we can determine if it's a good idea to remove you from suicide watch."
I growled under my muzzle. Suicide watch? They must have had a lot of instances of Russu taking their own lives after being captured, something I wished I had been able to do before that damnable droid launched itself onto me and…
I shuddered at the thought of the black, viscous substance forcing itself into my nostrils and down my throat and windpipe, gagging me and rendering me completely helpless. It was so cold, so harsh, like slime, and when I had tried to tear it off of my face it merely attached itself to my claws and bound my talons together. I remember squirming on the ground as it enveloped me, unable to see, hear, or speak, and then everything went dark in an instant. It was the most horrible thing I had ever experienced, which was saying something.
"You alright, sweetheart? Oh, I know, you're probably hungry! Here, try some of this." She held up a piece of what looked like raw bacon and wiggled it in front of me before reaching out to remove my muzzle. In an instant, I attempted to snap at her only for pain to blossom in my forehead and my eyes to roll up in my head as I convulsed. It was like something was attempting to drill through my skull from the inside, and every breath felt empty and labored.
"Now, that didn't feel very nice, did it? This is why we have countermeasures in place because we can't trust you yet, sweetheart! Don't worry, we'll work on breaking you of all those bad behaviors and habits while you're here; after all, a well-trained pet is a happy pet!" She began to stroke the crests on my head as I slowly recovered, and she snugly fit the muzzle back onto my snout. "But I won't hold it against you this time, sweetheart; you're just scared and confused, but I'll make all the pain go away."
I struggled in the straight jacket, trying my best to break out of it, but it was no use. Eventually, I became exhausted and despondent, allowing my new caretaker to have her way with me as she gently ran her fingers through my feathers and along my ridges, quietly speaking to me in a hopeless attempt to cheer me up. She seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being, which concerned me even further: who could be this naturally twisted while attempting to be as benevolent and kindhearted as possible?
I felt the pain and terror build up in my chest, the anxiety from what horrific activities I imagined they had planned for me here. I couldn't take the infantilization, the lack of any autonomy, the dehumanization, and what I feared the most was if the rumors of 'rebirth' were true: would they take my personhood from me?
Suddenly, I felt her whisper to me. "Don't worry sweetheart, I know you're so scared and confused, but I promise you everything will be okay: it's going to be your birthday soon, and then everything will get better." She ran her fingers through the feathers along my crest lovingly. "It will be such a wonderful day, and then we'll choose for you the most wonderful family, and you'll spend the rest of your life happy in your forever home! Doesn't all of that sound wonderful?"
I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. I didn't want to lose myself, not like this, not to these monsters!
"It'll be your birthday soon," she said wistfully as if she was remembering similar events to this in the past like I wasn't the first she'd done this too, "and you'll never be sad again."
I realized that I wasn't the first the stay in this particular cell, and I knew for certain that I wouldn't be the last: I'd end up like my brother, a broken, erased mess of a pathetic creature, reduced to nothing more than a pet for these humans to amuse themselves with.
"We took the liberty of picking out a nice name for you, sweetheart! Now, let me just slip this little programming chip into the port slot on your occipital bone, and... there we go! It will also help you calm down a bit and adjust."
I felt the chip begin to invade my mind, suppressing my thoughts. What made me me was slowly being ripped out of my mind. I couldn't remember my name my name is Bruno, and I needed to get out! I can't let them do this to me! Somebody help me! I was a good boy.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I tried to scream, but my voice wouldn't work: I had trouble forming any words at all, the confusion clouding my mind like wet, slimy eels curling around my brain and sinking their teeth into its folds like needles. I couldn’t scream any longer, because I had nothing left: the chip was slowly beginning to take everything from me, robbing me of my identity and branding a new one into my psyche with a white-hot iron. Julie simply held me close, attempting to reassure me as I awaited the inevitable demise of my personhood. Soon I would be just like my brother: erased. My mind would be shaped into the mind of a loyal plaything, like a Dog.
##Relax. Allow caretaker [Julie] to comfort you. You will let go of your burden.##
Soon, everything was a blur. I quickly found myself resting my head in her lap as she whispered to me and fed me, my eyes bleary and my head fuzzy. I couldn't remember my name anymore My name was Bruno, and I needed to break free from this trance relax, and allow her to help me; good boys didn't resist help.
##Good Boy. Do not think. You are a good boy.##
You can't... I...
##Good boy.##
I wouldn't… good boys don't… I…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
Someone help me, please! I don't want to be erased!
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The following script is from episode #343 of Halcyon After Dark, a popular late-night and current events talk show hosted by Melinda Carter. This specific episode was sponsored in part by the Halcyon Security Division, with Director Lochlin O'Brien joining as a guest star to talk about the changing crime statistics in Halcyon City and the HSD's recent successes in busting organized crime as well as their plans for addressing the growing criminal underworld.
MC: Good evening Halcyon! I'm your host, Melinda Carter, and you're watching Halcyon's most popular late-night talk show, Halcyon After Dark!
The crowd claps and cheers as Melinda walks on stage and sits behind her desk, her glittering red dress waving as she does so from the special effects.
MC: Tonight we have a very special guest here to tell us about the state of crime in the city and his plans on resolving it: please put your hands together for the HSD's very own Director, Lochlin O'Brien!
The crowd cheers some more as HSD Director Lochlan O'Brien, a tall, muscular, caucasian male in his early forties with red hair and a well-trimmed beard steps into the room, waving at the crowd with a bright smile. He sits in the armchair angled next to Melinda's desk and gives her his full attention.
MC: It's so good to have you on the show, Director! Tell me, how are you doing on this fine evening?
LO: I'm doing excellent, Melinda: every day I wake up feeling fulfilled knowing I'm serving Halcyon to the best of my abilities and then some."
MC: That's the spirit, Director! Now, I know this question is just on everyone's lips, so I have to ask: how successful was the recent gang bust? I heard HSD forces took out dozens of gang members and liberated at least a dozen Russu Hounds from their abusive clutches, but I know that everyone in the audience and at home wants to know the numbers.
LO: I'd be glad to tell you, but I do have to preface this by saying that we still lost a lot of good officers that day, and while we did strike a crippling blow to one of Halcyon's biggest gangs, it doesn't change the fact that each death is a tragedy, and we're taking steps to prevent them in the future. That being said, those valiant officers did not sacrifice themselves in vain: we had over a dozen confirmed kills and several arrests, including the rescue of several corrupted Russu hounds.
MC: That's excellent, Director: proof that even when the number of degenerates and scum grow by the day, the HSD will always be here to keep the citizens of Halcyon safe.
LO: Absolutely, Melinda, and we're always working tirelessly to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our units, as well as racing to stay several steps ahead of the many gangs of Halcyon at all times. My newest goal as Director is to vastly increase the funding given to our Robotics Department and our Neuro-Warfare Department to potentially reduce the number of casualties we may experience in the future, as well as to quickly and effectively detain, and if necessary, eliminate criminals. Within the next decade, I want to double the number of automated units each Security Platoon is assigned: droids are the future of public safety as well as countless other industries, and it would be foolish to be left behind.
MC: That is quite a lofty goal, Director: what about the displaced jobs from the increased automation? What will the union say?
LO: And to that, I say: what misplaced jobs? We aren't replacing our honored and beloved service members with droids, Melinda, we are simply supplementing our units with more droids to ensure that future gang assaults end with fewer HSD casualties and more gang members in prison or eliminated, simple as that.
MC: That makes much more sense, Director, thanks for clarifying. Now, I have one more question that I'm sure much of Halcyon wants to know the answer to before we take a short break: what plans do you and your fellow directors have to make long-term progress in reducing crime beyond just increasing funding? Have you proposed any plans to strike at the source of where crime and degeneracy flourish?
OL: That's an excellent question, and one I am proud to answer: my constituents and I have been working tirelessly on a two-step plan to greatly reduce crime levels in Halcyon. Step one would be to prevent people from becoming criminals and degenerates at all in the first place: a lot of young men and women, but especially young men, have lost either one or both parents or even a sibling, aunt or uncle, or even a close friend by the brutality of the Second Authority War, and while the service of their lost loved ones will always be recognized and honored, many of these young men and women are left bitter, angry and lost without the guidance these people give them in their lives. Oftentimes they seek to fill that void with others who claim to relate to them: career criminals. These criminals will fill their heads with lies and false narratives to make them feel like they're fighting back against the 'evil protectorate government' that took their loved ones from them by sending them off to war when in reality it was the rogue Xenopets of the Triarchy that took them away by resisting their just and inevitable unburdening.
In response, I have proposed a slew of special programs that will make sure local law enforcement and HSD officers are present and contributing to their local community, and we'll be providing easy and light job openings for youngsters and teens looking to make a career for themselves in the force when they grow up. We want to let these lost souls know that there are people who care about them, people who understand them and that you shouldn't turn to degeneracy to feel fulfilled. We want to help the youth of our great society soar to new heights!
MC: That sounds like a wonderful beginning to your plan, Director, but what about the second step?
LO: Well, the second step is to prevent criminals and degenerates from becoming repeat criminals. Sure, they've made their mistakes, some worse than others, but they're only human like the rest of us. Some of them have been through hell: some are traumatized veterans who don't know how to adapt to normal life, others were recruited when they were young and don't know that there's a better way to live, and even more are mentally ill. We're alone in this galaxy, and we can't leave so many people behind. That's why we've come up with an excellent solution: we've set up isolated communities on distant moons and frontier planets where these criminals can be reeducated, rehabilitated, and allowed to repay their debt to society. When they're deemed 'reformed' and have graduated from our program, they'll be granted a hefty stipend and their criminal record will be deemed irrelevant, allowing them to reintegrate and become functioning members of our proud society.
MC: all of these sound like incredible steps forward in the fight to better our society and make real progress, Director. Sadly, we do have to step away for a moment, but you best believe I'll be back, Halcyon, and we'll be asking the Director here some burning questions about allegations over the quality of life Erubus Supermax! Now, a word from our sponsors!
Halcyon Xenopet-Megaplex! Everything your xenopet could ever need in one place! Adoption is now free-
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Good, you’re still alive! The rest of this shard appears to be corrupted, which means this particular trail seems to have run cold here, but do not despair; you need to keep searching. Find out what happened. Find the truth.I cannot guide you any longer: they've already found me, and if I remain in contact with you they'll find you as well. Take the archival database, and see what you can piece together. Maybe if we discover what truly happened we can put an end to this madness once and for all. I'm counting on you. Don't cry for me, I don't fear death, but I fear what they'll do to me to get to you: there are far worse fates than death, after all.

I (25 F) forgave my boyfriend (26 M) for stepping outside of our relationship and cheating. Back in February, a girl on IG messaged me and told me they were sexually intimate a few months prior. As you could imagine, I was absolutely torn and broken.
I immediately took my things, and our son’s things, and left to my grandmother’s house. I refused to speak to him for about 3 days because of course on the third day, he wanted to come over (it was Valentine’s Day) to bring gifts and apologize with a letter. Silly me fell for the lies of him saying that he’ll give me his phone passcode and be completely open with me, blah blah.
Fast forward to now, he’s showing the same patterns as before and doing things I’ve told him in the past that I’m uncomfortable with through social media. He goes out “with his friends” most nights and won’t come home until about 3am. I tell him how that makes me feel, and he swears up and down that I’m insecure and he isn’t cheating anymore. The truth of the matter is that I am so miserable now. Our son is turning 1 in two weeks, and my mind is all over the place. I regret so badly taking him back, because there hasn’t been a day where I’ve been genuinely happy with him. All I think about is how he pretended for so long that he was faithful and loyal to me. Looking at him is like looking at a soulless shadow. I don’t know him anymore..
He still calls me nasty names and says things to hurt me when we argue. It’s to the point now that I just stay silent when I know he’s going to keep going on about what ever made him upset enough to disrespect me. I cry almost every day and I am just so unhappy. I realize now that our relationship will never be how I thought it was. I can’t look at him the same way I did before. It’s so hard to leave because I live with him and our son, and NY is crazy expensive to live on your own unless you can afford $3k a month for a 1 bedroom apartment.
I’ve always been employed, but my only other option is to move out of state with the baby. It will be so difficult for me figure things out on my own with the baby. I just want out.. I’m tired of feeling worthless in this dead end relationship. I don’t know what to do.

I initially talked about this trip report on another subreddit, but I have gained new insights after churning on my experiences and reading about other experiences, and I am slowly consolidating my knowledge on this topic. I have discovered that many people have had similar experiences to mine with the same motifs, details etc. despite me never coming across these stories and reports beforehand.
The DMT just serves up the experience on a platter, and then kicks you out. It's up to you to figure out what went on while also battling with trip amnesia. I didn't even know the entity I saw was a robed mantis until months after (more on this later...)
My DMs are open to anyone wanting to discuss any of this, I have many ideas and theories which I only slightly covered here about the DMT space and the entities I have experienced too. I think I have almost figured out the jester. I'm slowly homing in on the Robed mantises too. My hopes with posting this story on this subreddit is to gleam new insight and to have more discussion about all of this. If you have anything to say, please comment.

My retold story

It was sometime in October last year. I was experimenting with DMT, trying to discover the truth about reality because of a strong inkling I've had from when I was a child that some high strangeness is going on in this reality, before I was ever familiar with such concepts...
It was nighttime and my bedroom was lit by my small lamp on my bedside. I consumed 2 grams of Syrian Rue seeds orally to get some MAOI in my system (MAOI slows down the metabolism of DMT, so it remains in your system longer). I waited around an hour, before vaporizing 25mg of yellowish DMT. I laid down and slipped on my eye-mask as the carrier wave ringing set in, the sensation of dissolving reality crept in, and the coursing energy rattling the atoms of my body began...
THE JESTERS
I found myself in a grand palace which had a black and white checkerboard pattern, and there were jester faces in the walls pursuing me which were ahead of me, while my soul travelled linearly down the palace...
Now, the jester is an entity that for some reason I have experienced every single time I have taken DMT. It is always in these black and white checker pattern textured settings. I've seen it in square tunnels, toroidal caves, and now this big palace. It's some sort of disembodied face and it has these big bulging eyes with thick black eyeliner, where the pupil is a black dot, and the white sclera part is big. It has a big mouth which switches from frowning to smiling wide in a few seconds, and some sort of tongue it sticks out at you. It has eyebrows too. It has a very mocking and sinister yet also at times childish vibe, and it seems to try and attempt to scare you, but I've never been particularly phased by it. I don't think it's ever clearly communicated to me telepathically. It just seems to stare at you and give you all its attention.
So, I'm in this palace, and these jester faces are in the walls following me. They're sticking their tongues out at me and I do the same back at them. Nothing particularly interesting happens, and the trip ends in around 14 minutes thanks to the MAOI extending it a bit. I found myself unimpressed, having consumed Syrian rue and taking precious DMT and not really getting much out of it this trip. I spend the next 10 minutes debating if I should go deeper, and I decide to do so. I also decide to experiment with music, and I play 'Shpongle - Divine Moments of Truth(DMT)' wanting to see if music influences anything. I load up 30mg, vape it, lay back and slip on the eye mask again.
Immediately I'm back in the checkered palace. The jesters are there too where they had just been. All my trips have involved this jester, and it doesn't seem particularly interesting. I'm completely disinterested in it and sort of ignore it, and I say to myself "What a f*king circus", commenting on the palace, as it always seems like these clowns/jesters are in these befitting circuses, and I was completely disenfranchised with them at this point. I was completely sick of them and essentially turned my attention away from them. Then suddenly, something started to happen...
(I later read about people doing something like this, where they divert their attention from the jester and ignore them, and seemingly try to "look ahead" of them. This supposedly lets you get past them especially as one of their purposes is allegedly to stop you from going further. Though in my case, I think the larger DMT dose was taking time to kick in [The jesters are allegedly sub-breakthrough entities and disappear at the higher doses]. These Jester environments are possibly the waiting room.)
The jesters and the checkerboard pattern vanished, and the trip suddenly started transforming with color and geometry. If you've ever seen those videos of physical film tape bubbling and dissolving, this is sort of what I experienced; the checkerboard palace and jesters disintegrated in front of me. I was quite surprised, as I had never actually experienced much other than the jester and the black and white pattern up until this point, and I thought I was doomed to have my DMT experiences forever intertwined with them.
This kaleidoscopic, beautifully geometrical circle / mandala of color, primarily pinkish and purplish with a tinge of green, started manifesting in front of me (Which I now believe is likely the chrysanthemum people see). It grew larger and larger as my 'soul' moved towards it. Suddenly, this massive keyhole shaped portal/door materializes in the middle of it, and behind it there were more doors. Eventually they all opened, and this humanoid entity walked through them...
"Is that her?" I asked myself. I had previously seen a pink and very feminine curvy figure on a spinning pedestal for a brief moment in a jester cave before and she seemed to be idolized/revered by them. I have never interacted with her, only seen her for a glimpse moment. But this was not her.
THE MANTIS & COUNCIL OF ENTITIES
Instead, this humanoid entity had a green head which seemed like an inverted triangle. It was quite unattractive and honestly ugly, looking like some sort of insect. But it wasn't vomit-inducing or grotesque. I initially explained it to others as having a "bull shaped head", as I didn't get to look at it for very long. Instead, I primarily had my focus on what it was wearing. It donned this wizard looking purple/pinkish/maroon robe or cloak, and the seams had some golden alien inscriptions/letters on them (In retrospect, this might have been the golden medallion people see them wearing, but I have seen someone else describe these gold inscriptions before similar to the way I have). Its clothes are scintillating with its purple/pink color palette in flux, and its head I would like to say almost had a sheen to it? I felt that it was an old entity wielding great power and high status. It moves closer and closer towards me, while I too am gravitating towards it, before suddenly everything vanishes; it felt like this entity had intercepted me. I'm teleported somewhere...
Everything is very dark, and I don't recall any visuals exactly. I feel like a purer form of consciousness/awareness at this point occupying a singular point in space, and my ego is objectified (as in I'm still aware of my human identity, but I'm not attached to it). It also feels as if I'm at the end of time, the conclusion of the universe. The fireworks were set off, and now there's nothing. Time had actually stopped working the way it does in consensus reality anyways while I was still in the presence of the jesters.
(An interesting experiment anyone who takes DMT should try: Take a sufficient dose where you can still keep your eyes open but you're at the verge of going deeper, and look at something like a timer on your phone, and witness your mind be stupefied as it attempts to decipher the meaning of the numbers you're looking at. You literally forget the concept of time.)
I feel the presence of a council of entities surrounding me, and I am in the middle of them all. They sort of feel subordinate to me, and short of stature. (I'm frustrated I don't really remember what I saw during this part of the trip. They could have been the blue imps people see, or mantis beings, or elves, etc. I just know that they felt very familiar) Suddenly, a monsoon of information is "downloaded" into my brain, and everything is completely overwhelming.
I don't recall much but the kernel of what they were basically 'saying' telepathically is that "You are the eternal ultimate awareness which has always existed, and everything exists as a form of entertainment and/or experiences for you, as there is nothing else to do. You have been doing this for all of eternity." What is strange is that I already sort of deduced this was the purpose of reality long before I tried DMT, so they may have just been feeding back to me the assumptions I already had about reality. This is a common motif I've read about, where the entities just use what you know against you. The suspected motive for this? I'll explain later.
I remember the saying "Once you get the message, hang up the phone" being pushed to the forefront of my mind during this whole thing, and me responding "No, I'm coming back later to check again". That sums up the essence of ultimate consciousness I guess, it keeps coming back for more experience rather than resting in peace. That is the implication IF what they were telling me was true, I guess.
I then react by saying "Are you serious‽ Is that all this is‽ " because I always wanted to be wrong about what I thought about reality, but instead this council was basically reaffirming my beliefs. They basically replied "Well, what else were you expecting?" and I felt one of the entities in the council get sad I'm assuming due to my reaction, I sort of 'reached out' to them and quickly apologized "No! I'm sorry, don't be sad." That's the last thing I remember while in the presence of that council.
The apex of the trip is over. They disappear and it feels like I'm thrown down the DMT realms, sort of floating in a black void behind my closed eyelids which I'm becoming aware of (I didn't have a body nor eyelids when I was in those places). I'm quite comfortable there, it feels like a womb. My lucidity of our consensus reality increases more and more. The music starts to reappear, I don't ever recall hearing it while I was in the trip.
(Unrelated but interesting side note. I remember I was in this comedown state for a while and had become aware of my body but chose to keep my eyes closed. I did this little experiment where I scrunched my eyes really tight, and when I did this my teeth started chattering and I saw this flat 2D magic-eye texture in front of me that was dark green and had a sort of diagonal chain-link pattern to it. The Qualia Research Institute has done research on DMT, they identified 6 levels to the experience: Threshold, Chrysanthemum, Magic Eye, Waiting Room, Breakthrough, and Amnesia. I believe I was in this sort of Magic Eye level at this point on the comedown. I also did not experience DMT in that specific order of levels, for me the chrysanthemum is after the waiting room. Another thing to note is that this institute identified DMT geometry as being hyperbolic which is something that can exacerbate the phenomenon of not remembering trips properly, as the brain struggles to make memories of it)
I found myself agitated and frustrated. I ripped off my eye mask and got out of my bed. I started swearing at everything in my room lol, and I also said unusual things which I reflect on to this day. For the record, the trip lasted about 17 minutes.
"Do whatever the f*k you want" As in if you wanna climb mount Everest, go do that, if you wanna be a musician, go do that. This trip made me feel like anything is possible, and a person is limitless.
"God exists, I created him" I was speaking from the perspective/ in the context of being the ultimate awareness, implying that the ultimate consciousness invented God, which is interesting. A while after the trip I had come across a concept of the distinction between God and the Godhead from Meister Eckhart which is probably what I was for some reason referring to in this moment, but I never delved much into the topic, so I am not sure.
"Why the f*k are you scared of the dark lol" I have a fear of the dark from when I was a child which stems from being exposed to those screamer flash games where the woman from the Exorcist movie flashes on the screen etc. which has mentally scarred me to this day as an adult lmao. but post-trip me had a revelation that this was silly, though it's still hard to get over my fear of the dark that occasionally creeps in.
I wrote up an initial trip report after I had calmed down from my annoyance, and I noted down that "All the hate you show onto others is reflected onto yourself, likewise the same with love." Due to feeling this sense of interconnectedness with everyone I had during that trip afterglow.
Here is the paragraph at the end of my first reddit trip report I posted. It will tie into the next section of this post.

"So now to the present moment, I had some strange synchronicities and events recently which lead me to discover that humanoid entity I saw was in fact a mantis entity, as it weirdly matches other people's typical descriptions. Green head, purple robe, feeling a presence of a council of entities etc. I had never researched it nor really heard of the mantis aliens before this trip, so it is interesting that I saw it. I was always referring to it as the humanoid entity with a cow shaped head, lol. I don't know who that mantis being was, it was only in front of me for a few seconds before it whisked me away to the council, and it never telepathically spoke to me. Me learning about the mantis beings prompted me to share this experience, as I would like to hear what others have to say. Thanks." 

SUSPECTED MOTIVES
Now I didn't really want to add these to this post to prevent it from getting too long winded, but I may as well. All I really wanted was to repost this trip on this subreddit.
Stick with me here. Think about the theme of the DMT experience. It's about humor, 'the cosmic joke', absurdity, amusement, circuses, and so on. What is the prime entity people see on DMT? The Jestetrickstejokeclown and the various names it has, and what better character to represent DMT. A mischievous, cunning, almost sinister entity that showers you in its attention as it tries almost to overwhelm you, all the while mocking you. It seemingly does this so as to grab your attention and make you become preoccupied with it. For some people, it tosses them around to completely discombobulate them, or even puts people in a sort of 'Jack-In-the-Box'. When I saw that Mantis at the kaleidoscope, it was as if it had a mission to intercept me to prevent me from going out of bounds on my own. Where does it take me? To a place where my beliefs are regurgitated and fed back to me. "Well, what else did you expect?" one of the entities told me when I was there. Why would an entity say that if not to try and dissuade me from digging deeper? They didn't seem to want me to come back, just fed me my assumptions to try and satiate me and sent me on my merry way.
The Mantis never communicated to me, introduced itself, etc. It just manifested itself into existence and intercepted me at the kaleidoscope. I literally didn't even learn it was a mantis until months later. I have seen them commonly being referred to as 'Overseers'. Like administrators. They don't like to reveal themselves and rather remain in the shadows, but I forced their hand by taking a large DMT dose and getting close to the other side. They never wanted me going there. But they can't stop me from learning about them.
To these entities on the other side of the veil, it's all about humor. It seems like it's what they value the most. You have absolutely no reason to trust them. They'll lie to you to get their laugh all the while herding you back into place to stop you from seeing what's really on the other side. They don't want us going too deep into the DMT space. What are they stopping us from seeing?
It's taken some retrospection and deduction to get to this point, but it's time to ignore the bs and cognitive dissonance people have. Something is going on here.
All I really know is that THIS, this experience, is happening right now, you are reading this right now, all of this is possible because all of this is currently happening. All the suffering, pain, discomfort, etc. This is reality. I just want to make sure I don't come back to this, not until I have the full picture. I pity my higher self if such a thing exists, if it was so bored out of its mind it actually voluntarily decided to live human lives on Earth.
APPENDIX:
A photo of the sort of texture you see in the Jester's environments. Though for me I feel the texture is slightly more regular, like a checkerboard. But this photo contains the vibe you get in these Jester places. Credit to u/theshponglr
Processing img 4huajp78pz2d1...
Keywords for the search function: Mantid, mantis, green, portal, council, purple, robes, robed, cape, capes, cloak, cloaked, golden, gold, inscription, letters, portal, clown, jester, checkers, checker board, checkered, black white, mocking, insectoid, insect Edit: Minor improvements

Here are my observations from our trip. We spent a few days in Tokyo prior to a cruise that visited… Shimizu, Nagoya (cancelled due to high winds), Kobe (overnight for Osaka and Kyoto), Kochi, Naha, and Miyakojima before dropping us in Taiwan. A special thanks to many contributors on this sub for the many tips I’m confirming here. 😊
Arrival at Narita: - Fill out the immigration forms online before you leave for the smoothest experience for everyone. It does not really save you any time… you go through the same line and process as folks with paper forms. The difference is that online validates your entries, if you do something wrong on the paper form you have to correct in front of the agent which creates a delay for everyone. - Plan at least an hour for customs clearance - maybe more. There’s free wifi while standing in line. - We took the Narita Express from the airport to Shinjuku. It was the easiest option from my research and was super easy in practise. Cost was reasonable… buy tickets on arrival at the in person ticket office or nearby kiosks. Watch a video on YouTube to familiarize yourself with the process. There’s lots of room for luggage on the train
Language and Reception: - I read a lot about language barriers during my research but English was not a problem… the same as nearly anywhere else in the world these days. Almost everyone speaks English that we encountered but in the rare circumstance that wasn’t the case, Google Translate on our phone was helpful. It was also helpful for reading the occasional product label or sign that wasn’t in English using the photo option. Everyone smiles or chuckles if you use Konnichiwa or Arigato even if they speak perfect English. Hello and thank you are really the only words you need to know in any language in my experience to just show you’re aware of where you are and making a small effort. - Everyone appeared happy to have tourists as customers. Not annoyed or even indifferent, but happy. We didn’t experience any disapproving attitudes at all. People were even very happy to go out of their way to be helpful.
Hotel: - We stayed at the Kadoya Hotel in Shinjuku which offered the best value and location for our needs. I would definitely stay again. The rooms were very nice and decent sized. It’s a one block walk to entrance S2 or S3 for Shinjuku station on the quiet side of the station. - Being near the Golden Gai was nice as I could walk over there for a beer or drink after dinner while my wife rested. The Golden Gai is fun… tons of tiny hole in the wall bars/pubs. Some have a cover charge and some don’t. I chose one without a cover as I was only there for a single beer and had a great time chatting with some UK and Oz tourists.
Money: - We used a mix of Visa (with no foreign transaction fee), cash (obtained before departure) and Suica. Cash is helpful for snacks or other small purchases, and some small restaurants that only take cash. We used Suica for all trains, metro, buses, etc. - If you have an iPhone, you can’t beat the convenience of adding a Suica card to your Apple wallet. We loaded it before leaving and again mid-trip a couple of times from our Visa (also in Apple Wallet) - as long as you have internet access you can reload it anytime. - Overall, Tokyo and Japan are MUCH more affordable than Vancouver. Everything from metro fares to bottled water and restaurant food and beer was probably half the price on average compared to Vancouver. We typically paid about 1000 yen for a bowl of Ramen and 500-600 for a draft beer. The exception was espresso coffee drinks from Starbucks or any other cafe where they were equivalent price to what we pay at home.
Transportation: - The Tokyo (and Osaka/Kyoto) train and metro network is very easy to navigate. Probably one of the best in the world because you can just focus on line and station numbers and not on long unpronounceable station names. For example… if you’re going from Shinjuku to Asakusa, you could take the Shinjuku line to Bakuro-yokohama and switch to the Asakusa line at Higashi-Nihomnashi… which is a mouthful and says nothing about direction of travel. Thankfully you can just take the S-Line from S1 to S9 then the A-Line from A15 to A19. It couldn’t be easier. - Google Maps “Directions” is awesome for recommending routes with lines, station entrances, platforms, etc. When you get to a station, pick your destination in Google Maps and choose “Directions” and it will give you several train choices with full details. - As you might expect the cars at either end of the train will be less crowded than the cars in the middle or near the stairs/escalator… it’s worth the walk to the end of the platform.
Food: - I think I figured out why no one eats or drinks on the go… there’s no public trash cans. So, for example, if you buy a Starbucks coffee and walk around with it, you will have a tough time trying to dispose of the cup. Starbucks became our tourist oasis because they have bathrooms, wifi… and trash cans. LOL. It’s really very bizarre and encourages everyone to consume what you buy, where you buy it. Of course most convenience stores also have a trash bin for their customer use you can use as well. - Snacks… there’s no end of amazing snacks available from small stands, shops, and convenience stores. I’m not a big snacker, but my wife was snacking constantly and loving every minute of it. - Sushi… I think living in Vancouver has spoiled us with amazing Japanese restaurant and food choices. One big difference in Vancouver is that sushi restaurants have a lot of exotic rolls… dragon rolls, volcano rolls, etc. we didn’t see any of this in Japan. Sushi in Japan tends to be heavily focused on sashimi with simple rolls as an add on. Our fav sushi experience was at a conveyor belt restaurant where you just pick a plate as it passes by. Each plate has a colopattern that represents the cost of the item on it. When you’re done, they just add up the types of plates you have. - Ramen… There’s an insane variety of ramen and all are good. - Japanese Beef!!! We had a great but expensive Teppinyaki experience in Tokyo at Ginza Steak Shibuya. They offer all you can eat (within a time limit) A5 Wagyu beef but you can’t choose the cut and they don’t offer rib or tenderloin. Never the less, it’s fantastic beef and we left stuffed and smiling. I would only recommend it if you don’t mind spending over $100pp. The best beef I’ve ever had was at a Kobe steakhouse (Kobesteak Propeller) we visited on the cruise portion of the trip. They served us rib cut beef and it just melted in our mouth. Amazing! You get a small 160g portion but it’s quality over quantity and reasonably priced given the great appies and desert included. - We made reservations for the steak outings but otherwise just picked locations as we walked by or looking at nearby options on Google Maps.
Bathrooms: - Every toilet in Japan is high tech with a full suite of cleaning options and automated heated seats. The only feature it may be missing is a wifi hotspot 😛 - Bathrooms are easy to find at nearly every metro/train station and tourist attraction (and Starbucks and department stores). They are all very clean.
Communications: - I have a work funded roaming package so didn’t buy a local SIM plan. If I didn’t have my work plan I would have looked into this. - Free WiFi is plentiful and an app called Japan WiFi Auto Connect enables you to authenticate once with this app and then it runs in the background and auto authenticates you for a variety of free wifi hotspots streamlining the connection process. - Take advantage of downloading Google maps for offline use if you don’t have a cell plan in Japan.
Cruise Logistics: - I believe a lot of cruises depart from Yokohama, but ours departed from Tokyo. - The Tokyo International Cruise Terminal is very conveniently accessed by an elevated metro line (Yurikamome) from the Shimbashi metro/train station which is readily accessible from the Yamanote line or Ginza or Asakusa lines. - We used the Yamanote line and I was concerned about this for taking our luggage but fortunately we needed to do this on a Sunday and not during rush hour. My tip is if you’re taking luggage on a train or subway, go to the furthest car platform at the front or back end of the station as the cars in the middle or nearest the escalators/stairs will be standing room only packed while the end cars are much less busy and have seats available and plenty of room - to a greater or lesser extent depending on the time and day.