My boyfriend (20M) and I (20F) have been dating for almost a year, and he is the sweetest, smartest, funniest and most handsome person I know. However, the one thing he’s not the greatest at is fashion.
His outfits primarily consist of sweatpants (basketball shorts if it’s hot out), hoodies, and old t-shirts. He sleeps, goes to class, works out, and goes out with our friends all in the same outfit. He refuses to wear jeans because he says they’re uncomfortable, and does not own a collard shirt. I am pretty into fashion, and tried to let it go at first because it felt superficial; however, it started to bother me a few months ago, when he wore a neon hoodie and ratty grey sweatpants to meet my parents for the first time.
I have tried subtly suggesting small changes (I.e. saying things like “you would look so good in this”), but that gets brushed off almost immediately each time. I even went as far as to get him a nice pair of sneakers for his birthday, yet he still ops for his dirty old gym shoes half the time.
I understand prioritizing being comfortable when going to class or the gym. However, what bothers me is when I look at pictures of us on nice dates or out with friends, I have clearly put effort into my appearance, while he has on the same thing as always. Am I being too superficial? And how do I get him to make a change with his fashion?

Hi all.
Now then, I have a good friend called Tim, he was forced into getting a spiderweb face tattoo on his 18th birthday, what happened was him and his friends went out, Tim got horrendously drunk and his so called friends took him to a backstreet tattoo parlour, one of his so called friends uncles owned the place and gave my friend a face tattoo.
His so called friends took him home and when he woke the next morning and looked in the mirror he nearly fainted in shock, it’s ruined his life, he’s 45 now and if it wasn’t for meeting his girlfriend Beth in 2011 he’d be swinging from a rope in the woods, she saw beyond the tattoo to the person underneath, love bloomed and they now live in a caravan in Sudbury, Tim is a Deliveroo rider, Beth has a small Etsy business.
Anyway things have been going sour, Tim only earns on average around £5 per hour, Beth earns £200 a month, with the rent on the caravan being £500 and with bills and everything this means Beth’s dad has been giving them £800-1000 a month, he owns his own roofing company and employs 9 men so he can well afford it.
The thing is, he detests Tim and calls him a lazy scumbag, Tim is in tears most of the time over it.
Tim has been discriminated against all his life, he’s never held down a job for more than a year or so, he went to an interview for Tesco and Sainsburys, they took one look at his tattoo and basically told him where to go, he was a chef in a country pub and the landlord brought in a new waiter who used to make fun of Tim, my friend told the landlord to sack the waiter, he didn’t, so Tim smashed up the kitchen and walked out, he couldn’t face the abuse from the waiter.
Anyway, Beth was looking online and saw a caravan up for rent in a village outside Chelmsford, it’s slightly cheaper at £475 a month, she could continue her Etsy business and Tim could do his delivering in Chelmsford, they said it would be busier than Sudbury and Tim would earn more money.
They asked me to see what people in Essex think, what would you do if you ordered something and my friend delivered it? He’s got long white hair, worry lines on his face, he’s usually in tears, his clothes are ripped and dirty as he can’t afford new ones and they don’t have a washing machine, and one of the soles is off his trainers.
Would you be pleasant and nice to Tim? Give him a nice tip?
Him and Beth want to know before possibly taking the plunge and moving to Essex.

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

What is TradingView.com?

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

Key Features of TradingView.com

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

Benefits of Using TradingView.com

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

Conclusion

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

Chapter 2: Creating an Account and Setting Up Your Profile

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

Section 1: Creating an Account

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

Section 2: Setting Up Your Profile

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

Tips and Best Practices

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

Conclusion

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

Chapter 3: Navigating the TradingView.com

Interface

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

Section 1: The TradingView.com

Dashboard

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

Section 2: Charting and Analysis

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

Section 3: Community and Social Trading

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

Section 4: Customization and Settings

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

Conclusion

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

Chapter 4: Understanding Charts and Time Frames

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

What are Charts and Time Frames?

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

Types of Charts

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

Time Frames

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

Using Charts and Time Frames on TradingView.com

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

Conclusion

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

Chapter 5: Technical Indicators and Studies

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

What are Technical Indicators and Studies?

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

Types of Technical Indicators and Studies

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

Popular Technical Indicators and Studies on TradingView.com

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

How to Use Technical Indicators and Studies

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

Conclusion

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

Chapter 6: Creating and Customizing Charts

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

Creating a Chart on TradingView.com

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

Customizing Charts on TradingView.com

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

Advanced Chart Customization

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

Conclusion

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

Introduction to Trading Strategies

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

Introduction to Trading Strategies

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

Popular Trading Strategies

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

3.

Implementing Trading Strategies on TradingView.com

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

Conclusion

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

Chapter 8:

Backtesting and Evaluating Trading Ideas

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

What is Backtesting?

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

Why Backtest?

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

How to Backtest on TradingView.com

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

Evaluating Trading Ideas

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

Best Practices for Backtesting

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

Conclusion

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

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

"These are the messy, broken pieces that inevitably exist in Star Trek, not just on the ships, not just on the worlds the USS Cerritos checks up on, but within the characters themselves. Star Trek: Lower Decks makes Star Trek better because it shows us characters that are real and relatable , with problems we can identify with, and additions that keep enriching Star Trek canon."
Star Trek Is Better Because Lower Decks introduced:
"Replicator Malfunctions; Hysperia, The RenFaire Planet; Ferengi Television; Badgey; AGIMUS; The Dog, Created By Tendi; Moopsy; The Smiling Koala; Orion Culture; Starfleet's California Class Starships; The USS Cerritos Crew)."
Jen Watson (ScreenRant)
Link:
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-lower-decks-canon-best-additions/
Quotes:
"Naturally, Star Trek: Lower Decks thrives on callbacks to some of the weirdest and most beloved parts of earlier Star Trek shows, but there's no need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Star Trek in order to enjoy Star Trek: Lower Decks. Instead of relying on all the Star Trek shows that preceded it, Lower Decks references itself as the seasons go on. Best of all, Star Trek: Lower Decks enriches Star Trek canon by introducing new elements that just didn't exist before, from minutiae that "upper decks" shows might not concern themselves with, to brand-new characters and creatures we all want plush versions of.
Replicator Malfunctions
What is life like for a junior officer on a starship? How do they sleep, shower, and eat? Well, it turns out that the lower deckers sometimes have to deal with what happens when the USS Cerritos' food replicators get a little ... touchy. Unlike tragic transporter malfunctions, which are the basis of many an introspective morality play on Star Trek, the not-so-tragic replicator malfunctions on Star Trek: Lower Decks are a little more comedic in scope.
If there's one true thing about advanced technology, it's that it's going to break at some point. Brad Boimler seems to get stuck with the worst of Star Trek: Lower Decks' replicator malfunctions, like a Bonsai tree for breakfast, everything tasting like black licorice, and an endless supply of steaming hot bananas. And when replicator credits are a thing, you can't just keep asking for new stuff. You get "banana: hot," and you deal with it.
[...]
Orion Culture
Star Trek: Lower Decks seeks to balance out the sexist tropes from Star Trek: The Original Series and the attempts to flip the narrative about Orion women in Star Trek: Enterprise by featuring Star Trek's first Orion main character: Science Officer in training Lt. D'Vana Tendi. Tendi showcases Orion culture from her own perspective, calling out Beckett Mariner for subscribing to harmful stereotypes, while also illustrating the true things that perpetuate the ideas of Orions being pirates and assassins.
In Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, episode 4, "Something Borrowed, Something Green", Star Trek's first visit to the Orion homeworld offers glimpses into the aspects of Orion culture that explain persistent stereotypes and why Tendi is sensitive to them. Danger and deception are a matter of course for Orions, with aspects of piracy playing a part in everything from Orion wedding traditions to competitive games. The Orion culture seen in Star Trek: Lower Decks is surprisingly nuanced, and actually manages to reconcile seemingly conflicting ideas from earlier Star Trek shows.
[...]
The USS Cerritos Crew
By far, the best additions that Star Trek: Lower Decks makes to Star Trek canon are its characters. Star Trek: Lower Decks would be nothing without the depth and realism of the character-driven stories that lay at the heart of every single episode. Each of Star Trek: Lower Decks' main characters has their own fatal flaw, ther own way of getting in their own way, so to speak, that proves relatable to those of us who are ambitious perfectionists, subject to self-sabotage, hiding who we are, unsure how to use our talents, or trying to find our place -- no matter how old we are. At the end of the day, Star Trek: Lower Decks is about the Warp Core Five's friendships making them stronger, better people.
By offering in-depth looks at the lives of junior officers, Star Trek:Lower Decks shows the depth of life aboard a Starfleet ship from the ground up. These are the parts of Starfleet that the upper-decker heroes of other Star Trek shows aren't privy to, or left behind long ago. These are the messy, broken pieces that inevitably exist in Star Trek, not just on the ships, not just on the worlds the USS Cerritos checks up on, but within the characters themselves. Star Trek: Lower Decks makes Star Trek better because it shows us characters that are real and relatable , with problems we can identify with, and additions that keep enriching Star Trek canon. "
Jen Watson (ScreenRant)
Link:
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-lower-decks-canon-best-additions/

LOOKING FOR WORK AROUND YOUNGSTOWN OHIO
Anyone looking for a woman with experience in everything from dishy, ordering, menu creation, COGs and menu pricing, training others, food certificates, being MOD during inspections, every station from dishy to head sauté to prep, to even being the one to tackle the nasty jobs because I recognise that I usually get paid more than my staff and I enjoy showing that I’m not afraid of getting dirty? I have 15 years in kitchens and 6 years of management.
One was a cafe style management position so like sandwiches and coffees (not really cooking IMO but where a lot of my management experience comes from), another was 3.5 ish years in a kitchen. Started as dishy and worked my way up to head sauté at two locations (owner and I would switch weeks - one week I’d be sauté at one and the other week sauté at the other. It worked for us because that way he could check on how I was managing the two places in his absence and we were low staffed at the time - he normally didn’t work that much).
By the time I left the second position, all of the younger employees were calling me “chef”, I assume because of The Bear, and I kept telling them that I wasn’t. Whatever, it was still great. I was essentially KM and head sauté and expo at both locations on the days that I’d work. Sometimes with one helper but sometimes even the dishy gotta call out 😔 I definitely have experience running four or five stations at once.
ETA - I have 15 years of kitchen stuff. I only listed the two most relevant.
I’m a quick learner and take lots of notes, so I’d be a great addition to any kitchen. I have also only ever had ONE steak sent back for being less medium and more rare. I have prepared thousands of ribeyes at this point.
I’m very interested in learning more about the industry and would love to engage in how and why you do your stuff the way you do it. I’m not a know it all but I am a very good learner. I’ll leave this with a quote from my personal favourite chef who was also into literature -
“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.”
Feel free to message me or comment here or whatever. The catch though, is that I’m happy to start at whatever wage, but by the time training is done, I’d like to be making at least $20-$25 an hour along with full benefits. I’m willing to be salaried and such as well. I also have no issues with 50-60-70 hour weeks. I’m ya fuckin gal.
Hmu or don’t! Love all of you always. 🫶🖤💫🌟

okay, i am female teen, and sometimes i have suicidal thoughts, i sometimes get bullied, and shamed. i'm raised in a Christian family, and i'm a Christian myself, i believe and know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, but i can't help but think that maybe it'd be better if i was dead so others could be happy, since they always get annoyed at me. i have a best friend, and honestly she makes my day better, when we both go to youth, i know she's a good Christian friend. I don't have a lot of friends, i go to a Christian school, and honestly most of the students in my class don't even treat me right, they interrupt me, get mad at me randomly when i just say something like, let's just say i say i tell them. "okay, RESPECTFULLY, maybe you should pray about them, that's the Christian response." when i said 'them' we were referring to a group of three boys in my class that would lets just say curse to the teacher behind their back, EXTREMELY dirty minded, and mock the teachers AND principal (who's an old lady and sacrificed their jobs to start the school), and honestly i feel like they're going on the wrong path, and i sometimes pray for them, but when the other students said they do pray for them, i told them to pray for them more.. anyways, i try and slowly move away from them because i think it's the best, since i think that they're not exactly good friends,, but the more harder i try, the more harder it is to let them go (they were my classmates since we were in kindergarten). when they act nice all of a sudden, even asking me for advice, i'm telling you... that makes my day, because they barely come to me, because i mostly come to them, and when they just ask me a question, i internally get excited. but either way, those cases are EXTREMELY rare, and i don't know what to do... every time i'm with my dad, and it's the school holidays, he'd always say that when he was younger he'd hangout with his friends, now honestly, i'm more of an inside person, but at the same time i dont' get invited to events, unless it's a family event, because i'm mostly the one that invites... i do pray that maybe the students in my class might change, and who knows maybe even me if i don't know if i'm the bad guy in this case because i know that i have my share of wrong doings, and i'm aware of that because obviously i'm not perfect.. i know i should probably get new friends, at least school friends, because the only school friends i have is either 2 guys from my class who're gamers with me, and the lower classes (my class are the current seniors in the school) because honestly the younger kids that are about a year or two younger, show me more respect than my own class does.. whenever i'm in my room and praying, i'd pray to the fact i can't breathe properly, and to the point i'm mentally breaking down, praying to God, asking Him why did He have to make me this way, i know He doesn't make mistakes, but i dont' know if i'm the problem in my friendships with others or not, i'd even beg Him to change me if i was the problem..
so if you have any advice, please share it, it would actually help, i feel like i desperately need it, because i honestly don't know what to do.

Suprabhat, Vannakam, Adab and Welcome to the 2024 LOK SABHA GENERAL ELECTION THUNDERDOME.
NO RULES, NO LIMITS, ONLY CHAOS.
THE CAGE -
India is a parliamentary democracy that follows the first-past-the-post voting system, similar to the standard Westminster System. The Lower House of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) consists of 543 seats representing 543 constituencies that send 1 Member of Parliament (MP) each. These 543 MP's then choose a prime minister via simple majority.
For each constituency, a political party gives a ticket to a single Candidate. The Candidate with at least a plurality of votes in a constituency represents that Constituency in parliament as a member of the party.
There are no party level primaries in India, the candidate for a constituency is decided by the party high command and only one person from a party can be on the ticket for a particular seat. You can contest multiple constituencies though from the same party as both Narendra Modi (2014 BJP Candidate for both Varanasi and Vadodara) and Rahul Gandhi (2024 Congress Candidate for both Rae Bareili and Wayanad) have done. If no existing political party gives you a ticket, you can contest as an Independent Candidate or form your own party and contest as a member of your own party.
The government can be formed by the party or the alliance that has a simple majority of MP's. When no single political party has a majority of MP's, an alliance of various parties can be formed that contains the majority of MP's. This is called a post-poll alliance, where the parties contest elections separately but might come together after the elections in order to form the government or be part of the government. However there is also the pre-poll alliance where political parties join or form an alliance before the elections.
THE DATES -
THE RESULTS -
EXIT POLLS -
THE FIGHTS -
Economy & Employment:
The incumbent BJP-led NDA government makes the positive case of economic growth and development under its decade long tenure. It points to strong rejuvenated GDP growth with relatively low inflation, rising wages, a growing middle class, stable macroeconomic positioning, strong spending, slashing of multidimensional poverty, a strong and well administered welfare state, expanded free trade, sharp reduction in regulation, increase in select manufacturing and industry, a revitalized finance sector, and a thriving service market.
The government points to the large-scale infrastructure development undertaken, expanding roadways, delivering expansive electrification, and provisions of basic utility services. They point to the stagnation and policy paralysis observed under the tenure of the last Congress government (UPA 2), and further make point to the opposition's alleged proposed populist economic programs as untenable and unfeasible. They make the case that the opposition has leftist economic policies that are not grounded in economic reality.
The INC-led I.N.D.I.A opposition on the other hand, makes the negative case against the incumbents, pointing to large scale youth unemployment, even among educated youth. They point to an alleged inability of the government to tie growth to employment. They allege a failure of manufacturing capacity and sufficient industrialization of the economy, highlighting the lack of sufficient private capital inflows. They criticize the growth figures of the economy by casting doubt on the government's statistics, and focusing extensively on growing wealth inequality, alleging that growth only occurs for the rich billionaire class, with minimal relief for the poor, targeting specific attacks against domestic industrial magnates, Adani and Ambani. They allege favoritism on the part of the incumbent government towards their select base, highlighting the state of Gujarat as being prioritized over other states.
In making their positive case, they propose a more inclusive and redistributive model of growth, proposing heightened subsidization programmes, more welfare and support programmes, higher taxation on the wealthy and corporations, leveraging private capital inflows for infrastructure development, and prioritizing equitable growth through a caste census, developing corrective policies for inequalities between castes.
They aim to solve the employment crisis through expanding roles in state enterprises and filling government vacancies, alongside expanding labour intensive industries like manufacturing and mining, whilst pointing to high growth rates of the economy as well as committing to expand manufacturing through reforms and subsidy platforms like the PLI, FAME etc., further claiming that increased infrastructure spending will lead to crowding in effect thus enabling faster industrialization.
Social Justice:
The issues of social equity and justice have become major cornerstones of both the incumbent and opposition electoral platforms. This is most prevalent through the forthcoming section on sectarianism, but also focuses on key issues regarding class equality and - most importantly - caste-based discrimination.
The incumbent BJP-led NDA government point to their solid track record of universal poverty alleviation, targeted successful welfare and affirmative action programmes. The INC-led I.N.D.I.A opposition on the other hand, point to growing wealth inequality and apparent institutional and systemic discrimination against underprivileged caste communities in academia, employment, governmental programmes, courts, the military, etc. They allege that the government has not committed to taking resolute and definitive action against casteism through corrective policy.
This all boils down to the Reservation system, a large scale, affirmative action initiative, conducted through a systematic quota-based policy of allotment of institutional positions in education, governmental employment, schemes and programmes, direct political representation, etc.
With reservations estimated to have hit 59.5% of Central Government Institutional positions, there are now broader calls to expand the scale and scope of this drive. The opposition wanting to break the cap limits and even introduce this system into the private sector to potentially induce parity, while the government commits to more modest hikes of upto 62.5% while playing into incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi's identity as a member of an underprivileged caste community.
While the opposition campaigns on removing limits to the quota system to deliver equity, the government alleges these commitments to be populist and detrimental, while alleging that the opposition seeks to potentially appease its Muslim voter base by introducing expanded reservations for Muslims, thereby allegedly sabotaging the disadvantaged Hindu lower castes, and redistributing their wealth to Muslims, in a bid to gain their votes.
Communalism:
Both the incumbent BJP-led NDA government and the INC-led I.N.D.I.A opposition have framed communalism as a lynchpin issue of the Election. The incumbent government points to alleged casteist and bigoted rhetoric against select caste groups and Hindus. They allege the opposition panders to minorities for their votes, whilst not delivering on the real issues. They allege the opposition seeks to drive up divisiveness and shared social harmony in India. They further allege that the opposition engages in divisive rhetoric on key issues of Hindu-Indian culture like that of the Ram Temple, in ways that contradict the spirit of the Indian State.
The opposition on the other hand, accused the incumbent government of being bigoted against minority communities, from the large Muslim community, to the lower caste communities of Indian society. They allege use of hateful and divisive rhetoric against these communities, and point to select controversial government positions and policies on issues like the Ram Mandir, the controversial CAA-NRC laws, the proposed Uniform Civil Code, among others. They further allege institutional degradation of key offices including policing, academia, and the military in discriminating against minority groups.
Institutional Independence:
The INC-led I.N.D.I.A opposition alleges institutional degradation and capture of various independent governmental entities by the incumbents. They point to the use of Executive, Investigative, Anti-Corruption, Enforcement, & Tax authorities against opposition figures and media as evidence, highlighting specific cases of the detaining and arrest of two sitting opposition Chief Ministers, and the resignation of one. They highlight alleged selective targeting of opposition figures for raids, charges, and arrests, creating an alleged environment of impunity for the government. The opposition alleges heightened and blatant partisanship of members of the Judiciary in support of the incumbent government. They also allege illegitimate freezing of campaigning funds, crackdowns on press freedoms via capture of media institutions, and also critically alleges institutional capture of the Election Commission, casting doubts on election results primarily critiquing India's Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).
The Government rebukes these claims as part of a strong anti-corruption drive, highlighting a drop in governmental corruption cases since the previous Congress government (UPA 2, infamously riddled with such allegations). The government frames the opposition parties as corrupt and power-hungry, while further disparaging the opposition's alleged unfounded attacks on Indian institutions, apparent partisan attacks on the judiciary and critiquing apparent unfounded claims of election denialism.
THE FIGHTERS –
The election is primarily clash between two large coalitions, and their leading parties. On one side, you have the incumbent government of the BJP-led NDA, or National Democratic Alliance, and on the other, you have the opposition INC-led I.N.D.I.A, or Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, a new mega coalition of more than 35 parties, with a few unofficial supporters too.
The following is a list of some key players in each of the alliances and is by no means a comprehensive or exhaustive list of all involved factions.
The incumbent NDA includes:

1. BJP – The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party - "Indian People's Party") is a Hindu nationalist party committed to Hindutva ideology, promoting Hindu culture, opposing Muslim immigration, and creating a nativist country wherein India embraces a fundamentally Hindu social fabric. The BJP government under Modi undertook strong reformist policies in promoting liberalization of the economy through aggressive regulatory reforms, furthering free trade through FTAs and privatization of underperforming state assets. They took aggressive stances on defense and counterterrorism against Pakistan and China, while pragmatically engaging other nations despite criticism on some foreign policy moves for being 'wolf warrior-esque'. They uphold a strong nationalist domestic and foreign policy, that simultaneously does not retreat from globalization. On National Security, they aim to make India a regional power with a strong emphasis on modernization & indigenization of military administration and technology, while also reducing bureaucratic and manpower burdens through varied recruitment windows.
   
2. JD(U) - The JD(U) (Janata Dal (United) – “People’s Party (United)”) is led by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and has been in power in the eastern state of Bihar since 2005. It was formed after a series of splits and mergers in the Janata Dal in the 90s. It is credited with doing good work in the state on roads, electricity, and water, however it has failed to provide jobs & spur manufacturing. This, combined with its leader frequently switching between rival alliances, is causing anti-incumbency.
   
3. TDP - The TDP (Telugu Desam Party – “Party of the Telugu Land") follows a pro-Telugu ideology. It was founded as an alternative to the Congress hegemony, by emphasizing Telugu regional pride and serving as the party for farmers, backward castes and middle-class people. Since the 1990s, it has followed an economically liberal policy that has been seen as pro-business and pro-development as well as populist welfare measures.
   

The opposition I.N.D.I.A includes:

1. INC - The INC (Indian National Congress) is a big tent social-democratic/democratic-socialist party with its foundational pillars being equity, equality, and egalitarianism. They take broad commitments to secularism and class equality to be principal positions. The INC under Rahul Gandhi has taken strong positions on caste issues, shining light on inequities from past and current discrimination, and proposing active policy interventions. While the INC also holds a free-market/pro-liberalization consensus, they emphasize growing social and wealth inequality and seek inclusive and redistributive growth with strong state intervention. They also see some proposed liberalizing reforms to further inequality and take an 'anti-corporatist' position. They take a slightly less strong position to Indian foreign policy, stressing a more diplomatic approach (with minimal variance on actual positions to the incumbents). They embrace globalization in part, while emphasizing India's need for domestic development. They aim to industrialize India rapidly through stimulating private investment and aim to subsidize both supply and demand. They seek to maintain the Indian military with a focus on highly trained soldiers. They pioneered multi-alignment as the foreign policy for India.
   
2. AAP - The AAP (Aam Aadmi Party – “Common Man's Party"), part of INDIA coalition, currently holds power in two key states - Delhi and Punjab. Its chief figurehead and leader, Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate under an alleged liquor scam in the run up to elections. Barely a 10 year old party it has expanded very quickly to many states, running two of them, and now has national party status by the Election Commission of India (ECI). It leans centre-left to centre-right, with some play of soft Hindutva, while its economic platform comprises heavy spending in education, health, and free schemes of water and electricity. They rose to power on an anti-corruption program in 2013 and continues to have it as its central plank.
   
3. CPI(M) – The CPI(M) (Communist Party of India (Marxist)). They commies lol. The CPI(M) is one of the larger and more mainstrean communist parties in India. Since they operate within the Indian republic's constitution they have adopted more Indian characterisrics. They are primarily against privatisation in the public sector and in favour of universal education and healthcare. Their base has traditionally been in Kerala, one of the more developed states in India in terms of income levels and HCI. they're in favour of private sector reservations and in recent years have also been pro-FDI They promise non-aligned foreign policy, but largely are very anti-US and pro-China. They promise to restore Article 370 and oppose forceful seizure of land by government. They're one of the most influential parties in India due to a strong cadre and student union ecosystem. They've had an effect on the farmers protests as well as economic positions of the INDI Alliance.
   
4. DMK - The DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam - “Dravidian Progressive Federation") is a big tent broad left-wing party that is foundationally Dravidian (primarily Tamil) Nationalist, with strong emphasis on social equity and caste issues, while being staunchly secular and atheistic, and interventionist, statist, heavily welfarist, and industrialist in economic policy. They are primarily a regional party operating in the state of Tamil Nadu, led by M.K. Stalin, the state's current Chief Minister.
   
5. RJD - The RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal – “National People’s Party”) is a caste-based (Muslims & Yadavs) political party in the Indian state of Bihar, which it ruled from 1990 to 2005. Its rule was one of extreme lawlessness & anarchy. It was called the “Jungle Raj”. Between 1990 & 2000, Bihar's per capita income and power consumption fell off a cliff due to mismanagement. Its CM, Lalu Prasad, was convicted of corruption in 2013.
   
6. SP - The SP (Samajwadi Party – “Socialist Party”) believes in creating a socialist society that operates on the principle of equality. Although the party previously ran on an anti-computer, anti-English, and anti-machinery platform, under its new national president Akhilesh Yadav, the party has made a 180° turn. Now, the Samajwadi Party declares itself to be the party of infrastructure while maintaining its commitment to social justice, with a special focus on teaching computer skills. The party's main base is in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is the most populated state in India, with a population of 230 million. The only negatives associated with the party are the rampant dynasticism within its ranks and its perceived soft stance on law and order issues.
   
7. JMM - The JMM (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha – “Jharkhand Liberation Front") currently runs the govt of eastern state of Jharkhand. The party has historically centred tribal rights as its central plank and agitated for a new tribal state separate from Bihar until 2000, when their demands were met. It leans centre-left to left with their key issues being tribal control of land, mineral and mining rights, addressing issues of rehabilitation of tribals. The party is primarily run by the Soren family, with Champai Soren being its chief minister candidate in the current government after the last chief minister Hemant Soren was arrested by enforcement directorate. JMM is in alliance with the Indian national congress in the state, and part of the INDIA coalition for the Lok Sabha elections. They face charges of corruption and the image of dynastic politics.
   

The “It’s Complicated”, Unaligned, Split, and/or other Supplementary Parties include:

1. TMC - The TMC or AITC (All India Trinamool Congress) is a Bengali political party ruling over the state of West Bengal since 2011. It is led by Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee. It is a center-left, welfarist, Bengali Nationalist party. It has been criticized for using heavy-handed authoritarian tactics against opposition leaders in the state, corruption, and political violence. It is credited with ending 34 years of communist rule in the state. West Bengal under the AITC has registered subpar economic performance and is largely stagnant. Pertinent to note Mamata used to be Congress leader till 1998, and AITC, in spite of being sympathetic towards the I.N.D.I.A. alliance at the national level, is fighting the Congress-Left alliance in West Bengal on all 42 seats.
   
2. AIADMK - The AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam – “All India Anna Dravidian Progressive Federation") is a broad centre-left/left-wing party adhering to foundational Dravidian philosophy, while emphasizing Tamil identity. Traditionally being less ethno-nationalist than their sister opposition party the DMK, they adhere to broad welfarist left-wing populism, focusing on social justice and communal equity, while being less economically statist than the DMK. They also focus primarily on Tamil Nadu as a regional party, currently led by Edappadi Palaniswami.
   
3. Shiv Sena - The Shiv Sena (“Army of Shivaji”) was founded by Bal Thackeray in 1966 as a populist, xenophobic party, although the party gradually added Hindutva ideology to its anti non-Maharashtrian plank. It was the long time senior partner to the BJP in Maharashtra till Narendra Modi's popularity caused a change in the dynamics. After power sharing talks with the BJP failed in 2019, the Shiv Sena switched alliances to join hands with their long time rivals in Congress and NCP in an arrangement that made Bal Thackeray’s son Uddhav Thackeray the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. In 2022 again, The Majority of Shiv Sena politicians led by Eknath Shinde rebelled against the top leadership to ally again with the BJP, taking control of the party and toppling the Uddhav Thackeray government. The splinter group led by Uddhav Thackeray is called SS (UBT) and it is allied with the Congress in the INDIA Alliance.
   
4. NCP – The NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) were founded in 1998 by Sharad Pawar and a few others who left the Congress in 1998 after Sonia Gandhi was made Congress president. Despite it's formation, the NCP was a long term ally of the Congress sharing virtually the same ideology. In 2023 however, like the Shiv Sena, In a rebellion led by Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit, a Majority of NCP politicians switched alliances to support the BJP and took control of the party. Like the Shiv Sena, the Splinter group led by Sharad Pawar and his daughter is called NCP (SP) and it's allied with the Congress in the INDIA Alliance
   
5. YSRCP - The YSRCP (Yuvjana Sramika Rythu Congress Party – “Youth, Labour, & Farmer Congress Party”) was founded by the son of an old congress Chief Minister after he was denied the role of Chief Minister after his father. It's a populist centre-of-left party with strong focus on welfare schemes and cash benefits. It's mired in controversy due to its dynastic nature, its ties to Christian Fundamentalism and American Missionaries targeting the marginalized.
   
6. BRS - The BRS (Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi – “Indian National Council”) was formed originally with a single-point agenda of creating a separate Telangana state with Hyderabad as its capital. They are largely neoliberal and are credited with rapid economic growth in Telangana.
   
7. BJD – The BJD (Biju Janata Dal – “Biju’s People’ Platform”) was formed by Naveen Pattnaik the son of the former CM of Oddisha, Biju Pattnaik. It’s a Odia regional party with a strong focus on poverty upliftment through welfare policies and equitable economic growth.
   
8. BSP - The BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party - "Majority Community Party") is a center-left party in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which was started to uplift Dalits and other marginalized communities in India by Kanshi Ram. Its current party president is Mayawati. BSP is considered as one of the biggest parties in India as per vote share, although it's currently in decline. At its height, this party had a strong base in many states across north India, but now it's only limited to the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is one of the largest states in India with a population of 230 million. There are strong suspicions of BSP working in secret with BJP, and maybe that's why the party is not fighting this election enthusiastically. Although they can still make the competition interesting on a few seats in UP.
   

OTHER KEY ISSUES -

1. Political Dynasticism:

Although dynastism is thought to be a good fix for internal chaos in a party, the current political leader of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi, is a fourth-generation dynast who has to carry the political baggage of everything which went wrong during the rule of his grandmother and great-grandfather.
Also because one family has been controlling the Congress for decades, it has caused various state-level leaders to either form their own party or join another one. They see no future in the Congress anymore because the door to leadership is always closed for them. This has destroyed the ground level cadre of Congress party in many key states.
Rahul Gandhi’s privilege combined with the lack of any real political acumen so far has led to the INC taking damage due to is infamy.
Nepotism and dynastic politics has been a key issue throughout the last 10 years as BJP positions itself as the ‘common man’s party’

1. The Ram Mandir:

A land dispute originating from the alleged destruction of a Hindu Temple, replaced by a Mosque built allegedly atop the site (the Babri Masjid) in the 16th century allegedly by Mughal Empror Babur in present day Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, the proposed birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Ram.
Following a century of sporadic conflict, from 1853 to 1949, a revivalist movement in the 1980's would lead to rising communal tensions, culminating in the 1992 destruction of the Ram Temple by Hindu Nationalists and devotees.
The legal conflict over the land would continue until 2019, when the Supreme Court of India issued the controversial ruling that the land be handed over to government trust for the construction of a Ram Temple, with seperate land being allotted to the local Muslim community for construction of a Mosque.
Almost all elements of the dispute remain mired in controversy. From the historical and religious associations of Ayodhya with Ram, the existence of a definitively Hindu structure, the alleged deliberate destruction of the said temple, the times and events of construction and use, the participants, planning, and events of the 1992 destruction, the ASI Archeological Surveys that served as key evidence for the Supreme Court being tampered and politicised by both sides of the politcal aisle, the legality of the ruling itself, and other surrounding issues regarding justice against those alleged to have partaken in the destruction of the Babri Masjid.

1. Foreign Policy:

The BJP is campaigning on building a multi-aligned foreign policy where India is seen as the world’s friend as well as an upcoming regional power. This was at its peak during India’s G20 presidency. Many Indians claim the rise of India’s global stature is an electoral issue. This can be seen in the popularity of the government’s anti-terror operations in both Pakistan and beyond. The resurgence of an interventionist foreign policy has proven to be popular in projecting the strongman image of Modi. The country’s commitment to it’s strategic autonomy and multi-alignment have been a fixture right since Nehru.
SUPPLEMENTARY SOURCES:

The more conspiracist someone in New Zealand is, the more likely they are to bring up Zimbabwe. I know that because I have a cooker in my family, and by god, you’d think the place was his home country for the amount he talks about it. But it’s become a real conspiracy for the right, and an angle from verified bad actor accounts that was modded out of this sub at our beginning.
And the reason why there’s a direct correlation between conspiracists and Zimbabwe stans is that you can’t help but notice their fears of history repeating fall apart somewhat when you actually look into it. For a start, you can blame one person for the deaths and economic devastation caused by Mugabe, and that Tony Blair, because he kicked the whole thing off when he walked back Thatcher’s promise of 50% of the compensation for white landowners. Thatcher did like one decent thing and Blair came in and messed it up. Not without context. But through its entire history, it is the UK’s choices and the choices of her colonial government there that spur change and negative outcomes in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe was first thought to be mineral rich at its early 1890 settlement, and a lot of money was put into getting prospectors to Southern Rhodesia. When this return didn’t eventuate, land was given to the settlers instead in hope their farming could become productive enough to cover the settlements continuing administrative costs. By 1986 they had distributed 16 million hectares, a sixth of Southern Rhodesia, and by 1917, this was up to 21.5 million hectares. However, this expanse of farming would cause friction of land rights and grazing rights with the two resident groups already living there. Cattle in the region expanded from about 60 000, owned mostly by the preexisting Ndebele and Shona peoples, to up to 2 million split evenly between both groups, leading to overgrazing and land competition.
The solution in the 1930s by the colonial government was a segregated land distribution method split into five parts, with the best 3/5 being reserved for white owners and the much more unusable remainder of the land being split amongst black land owners — despite them being greater in number than white people. White people had so much productive land they literally couldn’t farm it all, while the remaining Tribal Trust land was still being overfarmed, forcing black Rhodesians to seek work in cities and the colonial government to introduce forced destocking measures (sell or slaughter excess animals), as well as putting aside 7.2 million more acres for native farmers to purchase.
The 50s saw attempts at redistribution that ultimately failed and authority for this would then be vested the traditional tribal leaders.
The beginning of the 60s were an attempt to introduce a semblance of actual land parity, splitting the land 50/50 with whites and blacks — unfortunately this didn’t work very well because black people greatly outnumbered white people, and the fertile land was still just given to whites. Abuses of the system also saw white people legally shift their boundaries to claim black land resulting in evictions that would create Nationalist sympathies leading to the following war.
60s-70s was the Rhodesian Bush War between three groups, one of them being the colonial government, and resulting in Mugabe taking power. He was left juggling the land issue along with the cohesion of his new coalition. Farmer workers had fled to cities during the fighting and been organised into guarded settlements following state suppression of armed conflicts. More land was made available to purchase by people of any race, and then race-based ownership was abolished completely in 1979. Despite this, white farmers owned 73% of fertile land and contributed 80% of agricultural output.
Under a doctrine of willing buyer, willing seller for at least ten years, the US and the UK agreed to finance part of the redistribution costs, and Southern Rhodesia was recognised as finally-independent Zimbabwe. However, land inequality and erosion of black land due to forced overfarming continued, but white-owned commercial farms were reduced by about 20% by 1987, and progress was continued into the 90s. However corruption issues began to emerge with land and leases going to Mugabe’s family and political associates as well as other powerful people. Donor and investor states became concerned with who was benefitting, heightened when Mugabe took powers to supersede the courts. He held that land was a political matter only, not judicial.
British opinion in funding this programme would deteriorate, until the Short and the then-Labour government would deny their obligation to support the redistribution programme.

I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we were colonised, not colonisers.

In June 1998, the Zimbabwe government published its "policy framework" on the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme Phase II (LRRP II), which envisaged the compulsory purchase over five years of 50,000 square kilometres from the 112,000 square kilometres owned by white commercial farmers, public corporations, churches, non-governmental organisations and multinational companies. Broken down, the 50,000 square kilometres meant that every year between 1998 and 2003, the government intended to purchase 10,000 square kilometres for redistribution.
In September 1998, the government called a donors conference in Harare on LRRP II to inform the donor community and involve them in the program: Forty-eight countries and international organisations attended and unanimously endorsed the land program, saying it was essential for poverty reduction, political stability and economic growth. They agreed that the inception phase, covering the first 24 months, should start immediately, particularly appreciating the political imperative and urgency of the proposal.
The Commercial Farmers Union freely offered to sell the government 15,000 square kilometres for redistribution, but landowners once again dragged their feet. In response to moves by the National Constitutional Assembly, a group of academics, trade unionists and other political activists, the government drafted a new constitution. The draft was discussed widely by the public in formal meetings and amended to include restrictions on presidential powers, limits to the presidential term of office, and an age limit of 70 for presidential candidates. This was not seen as a suitable outcome for the government, so the proposals were amended to replace those clauses with one to compulsorily acquire land for redistribution without compensation. The opposition mostly boycotted the drafting stage of the constitution claiming that this new version was to entrench Mugabe politically.
Guerrilla veterans of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) began to emerge as a radical force in the land issue around this time. The guerrillas forcefully presented their position that white-owned land in Zimbabwe was rightfully theirs, on account of promises made to them during the Rhodesian Bush War. Calls for accelerated land reform were also echoed by an affluent urban class of black Zimbabweans who were interested in making inroads into commercial farming, with public assistance.
The government held a referendum on the new constitution on 12–13 February 2000, despite having a sufficiently large majority in parliament to pass any amendment it wished. Had it been approved, the new constitution would have empowered the government to acquire land compulsorily without compensation. Despite vast support in the media, the new constitution was defeated, 55% to 45%.
In response, a pro-Mugabe group marched on white owned farms, forcing them and their usually-black workers off their farms without compensation. In the subsequent years of land confiscation, several farm owners and more workers would be killed.
Some of this land ended up under the control of Mugabe and other politicians, however by 2011, 238,000 households had been apportioned from 10 million hectares of land, an improvement of 3.5 million over the 20 years up until 1998. In 2019, white Zimbabwean farmers accepted $17 million USD in compensation, and in 2020 the Zimbabwe government would commit to paying back a further 3.5 billion.
How does this relate to New Zealand?
Well let’s start with the obvious: land distribution issues do not go away because you want them to, nor will democracy protect you from it if you shit on the people you took the land from. Zimbabwe happened because landowners dragged their feet in every decade for a century, and a radicalised political faction springing from this injustice decided legal methods were not the way to go. By the time people were willing to come to the table to resolve it, they were a good fifty behind when they should have and it was too late.
Secondly, picking and choosing what you give back doesn’t work if you’re still just fucking over the tribes you’re giving stuff to to advantage yourself. If you say, give someone a couple of million dollars of value in exchange for the entire canterbury and otago regions, they may decide in 30 years time that wasn’t a very fair deal. And they’re probably right.
Thirdly, black people are not doing well right now in Zimbabwe and neither are white people. But the black people already weren’t doing well. You may look at Zimbabwe and say, well they’ve screwed over their own economy there. But they didn’t. They screwed over the white economy that too many of them already weren’t benefitting from. You see the stability a strong economy gives you and think that other people are benefitting too; Zimbabwe did get a lot out of their land in the 1900s due to colonial investment. But it didn’t benefit all people, and the failure to lift everyone in the rising tide sunk ALL the ships.
The Treaty idea of Partnership is the compromise. Giving back tiny bits of land and small change is the baby steps. Start taking us backwards and you’ll make Maori realise just how shortchanged they’ve been, and the natural result of that is not that they go away, it’s that they start demanding more.
But the level of disenfranchisement, of disrespect, of disempowerment does have to reach a much more egregious level than the situation we have here to result in widespread violence. Six months of Shane Jones does not a civil war make. It is a long, long process to get to a point where a country is that divided, and a lot of legitimate legal, political, and negotiating instruments have to fail. There is also a certain level of disinvestment people have to feel in the overall system to throw what they have away — there’s a reason socialist revolutions don’t come from peaceful, placated societies, even the ones educated enough to know there is something wrong. So therefore, progress must be made gradually through peace and cooperation, because unilateral force always has lasting negative consequences. Attempts to forge ahead with reform despite unhappiness of particular groups, even when legally decided will work out worse for everyone.
There are going to be a million opportunities to turn this ship around. This relationship is nowhere near beyond repair, even between this government and iwi. If Luxon had a spine, he would sit down with them and promise to reverse course, and probably send us all back to the polls as a result. He won’t. But I’m pretty confident he won’t win the next election either, whenever it is, and this country isn’t nearly so divided enough to split down the middle along race grounds, no matter what Seymour wants. But to unify, to meet in the middle, you have to stop considering what you think is fair and start hearing what the other group wants and why.
Otherwise we’re just letting corrupt politicians make land grabs while they cut us in half.

My partner (24M) and I (23F) recently bought a house and his best friend (24M) came with us. He's been living with us for 3 years now and it's been fine for the most part. One month ago he lost his job because he was staying up till 7 am playing video games and kept showing up hours late to work. We told him not to worry about rent for the first month of him not having a job, thinking he would try to get one soon. He's decided to do doordash, but has kept his horrible sleep schedule and doesn't spend much time dashing. We charge his $600 for rent and utilities but he hasn't been able to pay us the full amount for the second month. I don't like having a roommate as it intrudes on my privacy and I feel like I can't do what I want in my own home. We did tell him, before he lost his job, if he started school he could just pay his share of utilities. Since then it feels like he's wasting time till August when he can start classes. I wish I was confrontational but I know he'll just shut down if I tell him to get a job or move out. I don't know what to do and I'm tired of living with someone who won't help themself. I know he has struggled with depression in the past, but I don't think that's what this is. He has always attributed his depression to not having a girlfriend, and he's now been in a relationship for almost a year. I am ready for him to act his age and move out but I don't know how to go about it in a nice way. Any advice (other than letting him stay rent free) is needed.
On a side note he keeps using our spoons and won't bring them back to the kitchen. If he brings dishes to the kitchen he put his them in the sink and NEVER in the dishwasher, even tho I have asked him multiple times to just put them in the dishwasher. His room is always super dirty and he doesn't do anything to help out around the house.
Please help.

I am writing this completely frustrated with my living situation. I am a recent college grad (24F) living with 2 other roommates (one is 24F and one is 22F) in a 3 bedroom house. I found this place on Facebook marketplace when I was borderline homeless and was desperately looking for a room, and made the grave mistake of taking a chance on random roommates.
The 22F, lets call her Amy, is the most disgusting, rude and immature person I have ever met and is the textbook definition of a bad roommate. She is dirty, will leave dishes in the sink for days (letting the dishes rot!!!), never cleans up after herself, and leaves shared living room, bathroom and kitchen spaces dirty. It's bad enough she is a horrible roommate, she CONSTANTLY has friends over for days who sleep in the living room, even letting them sleep there when she is at work. They sometimes stay up until 4AM, playing loud music and slamming doors, and ignoring my text messages to keep it down. Like do y'all not have jobs ??? Worst of all, her friends smoke (Backwoods specifically) inside the house and the house now has a lingering odor of cigar stench. I do not mind weed at all, I also smoke occasionally, but I do not like the smell of tobacco and much less when it's coming into my room where I pay rent. She has ignored my polite requests to let me know if her friends are coming over, and to have them sleep and smoke in her room. Amy even threatened me to "Keep my mouth shut because it's safer for me" and "Not look at her or talk to her" after I called her out for leaving a moldy dish for 2 weeks. Ever since then I feel unsafe living here. The other roommate, let's call her Allie, I don't really have a problem with, but she never ever pays her share of the utilities on time, and is good friends with Amy, so I feel uncomfortable talking about Amy with her.
I have been dealing with these roommate issues for months now but it's gotten worse. Recently, BOTH roommates have been paying their part of the utilities so late that our light has gone out twice already, despite my multiple attempts to collect the money on time and am unfortunately tasked with handling it myself because it's under my name. After months of trying to solve the issues between us three, I decided to let the landlord know about the unwanted guests, the smoking, and the late utility payments that have caused our power to go out, yet I NEVER received a response. It has been a month since i messaged him.
I am so truly fed up to the point where I never want to be home, and stay in my room if they are home. I loved going to class because it meant not being at home, but now that I've graduated and it's summer, I am worried that if I tell Amy anything, she may retaliate physically since she threated me already. She has also mentioned that she has fought her past roommates so... I fear I'm next. My lease is up in August, I know it's only 2 months away but I can't stand another second living here when I've done everything in my power to help fix the problems. Do y'all have any advice on how to go about this situation, and I'm wondering if I can somehow break my lease early ?
note: we each have individual leases for our rooms

Hi! I tried writing it all out, but it was too long so I am going to try to keep bulletpoints and keep a timeline.
Junior year, 15 years old:

• Did not have friends til this point, met this one guy in class though
• first relationship, first kiss, first everything until one month later when he left me for someone else (also cheated on me)
• anxiety latched onto losing him, kept sending messages trying to get him back for two months until it was no contact for 4 months, he knows that i struggled with losing him though heavily
• I notice people he knows keeping tabs on me, I didnt realize until I sent him a message asking to get back together and one of them starts laughing at me + i think one of them took a photo in class but not sure, just suspicion

Senior Year, 16 years old;

• Our classes are close so we see each other again
• he tried to message me before the year started though but went silent afterwards and backed out
• I offered to be friends with benefits, he agreed, the first night he wanted a BJ so I did a little bit but didn't want to do anymore
• he locked in his car until I agreed to date him again
• broke up the next day with him because the anxiety of worrying if he was cheating was too much
• tried to get him back the same night, it was the last time I was emotionally intimate with anyone like that as I confessed how I missed him, how it was hard moving on, etc. and he agreed to get back together
• we hooked up and he ghosted me (hard block and everything)

Still Senior year but here is where the cycle starts

• he unblocks me and tries to get another hookup, i say no, he begs and I give in, it was just a hookup
• He does this again, begs for sex, I say no but give in
• at this point, my anxiety is kicking in hard, i block his accounts and he makes more to get to me anyways, it just becomes a chore to give in
• He calls up my phone at 3 am repeatedly, I say no but he threatens to make a scene, I give in, he is drunk and I am starting on antidepressants so I am nauseas, when I can't give him a BJ, he gets mad and berates me saying that he found "badder bitches" and telling me everything wrong with me
• When I tried to leave, he just said "leave like you always do" and I always wondered if it was his revenge for leaving the first night
• Cycle continues, I get anxiety seeing his name on the phone (like instant nausea and disassociation with my body)
• one time he threatens to knock my door down when i stood my ground and talked about reporting, saying he didn't care, deleted everything when I started taking screenshots, he just came back again the next day
• I keep going back though, mainly because he gave me validation and attention and it felt like he was the only person that saw me (at this point, no relatable friends and no family support system, he was the only person who shared my experiences)

Post Graduation 2023

• I moved to another side of town, all my friends left the state or just went silent, had to leave my job, i went to him for comfort for the first time because he was the only person I knew so i started embracing him
• we still had moments where I didn't want to but he did so I felt like I had to
• I tried dating but each time, I couldn't trust them; i was so afraid that they just wanted my body that I started treating it like that, which ended in only one night stands
• Met this new guy D that was his opposite in november, changed my usernames, we went on for three months until he left me because I had too much intimacy issues (emotional mainly) and didn't let him past my walls, so i tried to go back to the first guy
• first guy moved to cali, admitted to wanting to reach out to me (pretty sure he tried but couldn't find me anymore), we relied on communication and he would be pressing on for photos and video calls, one time he said that it'll be better next time because this time we will both want it this time, not just him
• until we had a conversation on how he really saw me
• I romantized it all as a complicated relationship, to a friendship, and I think that was just to protect myself from the truth because he admitted that he only cared about the sex with me, never beyond that. I asked if he ever felt guilty and he just said that he didnt, we were young and we didn't understand anything
• I ended it and he tried to make another account, I accepted but he didn't say anything. I think its either because there really isnt any use since he is in another state, but also maybe to see if I would take him back still.

I am still processing it. I left it behind in March. I am not sure what to make of it. Calling him an abuser feels so dirty, like I am shitting on everything that happened and every tiny detail that mattered to me. I am just confused. Some times it feels like it fits and he is a bad guy but other times, like now, I feel like I am just overreacting and it really was just us being young, which feels wierd cause half of it was barely a year ago. I don't know . I am just confused and would love insight from others.

# Today In Phishstory - June 1st Brought to you by tiph-bot. Beep.
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Phish

Phish, Wednesday 06/01/2022 (2 years ago) Credit One Stadium, Charleston, SC, USA
Gap Chart, Tour: 2022 Spring Tour
Set 1 : Cool It Down , Foam , Knuckle Bone Broth Avenue , Dirt , 555 > Gumbo > Backwards Down the Number Line > The Wedge , About to Run , Divided Sky
Set 2 : Wilson > Simple , Prince Caspian -> Egg in a Hole > Piper > Prince Caspian , Lonely Trip > Back on the Train , Most Events Aren't Planned , Blaze On
Encore : Nothing > When the Circus Comes , The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg
Jamchart Notes:
Backwards Down the Number Line - Great versions produce different points to view. Be it 7/8/14's summertime "Line"d up shimmery shake; Pitt 17's huge, crazed sustain; or 10/20/21's incendiary take; this here jam features what the best "BDNTLS" have in common: Fire Trey. Largely straightforward guitar whose inspired improvisation, offset by impassioned Fish, is the best of its type, carrying you not so much backwards, as away.
Simple - Multi-faceted shapeshifter cruises through an array of styles ranging from heavenly bliss to industrial funk, eventually ascending to a sizable peak and then briefly returns to "Simple" to close.
Piper - > from "Egg in a Hole". A familiar propulsive jam develops, with the music initially coalescing around a repeated minor key motif from Trey. Fishman and Mike's driving rhythms provide a bedrock for Trey and Page to dole out a bevy of varying textures. The jam threatens to fall apart but comes back alive via a "Manteca" tease. This then morphs into a peaky, psychedelic hard rocking jam before executing a rickety > "Prince Caspian."
Show Notes:
Mike teased Do You Feel Like We Do before Dirt. Trey teased Prince Caspian near the end of Egg in a Hole. Piper contained Guy Forget teases and quotes from Page and Manteca teases from Trey. Nothing was last played on January 15, 2017 (158 shows). The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony was last played October 20, 2018 (108 shows). The soundcheck's My Soul had Guy Forget lyrics from Fish.
Listen now at Phish.in!
Phish, Wednesday 06/01/2011 (13 years ago) PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ, USA
Gap Chart, Tour: 2011 Early Summer Tour
Set 1 : First Tube , Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan , Camel Walk , Heavy Things , Gotta Jibboo , Wilson > Seven Below > Kill Devil Falls , Axilla > Split Open and Melt , Suzy Greenberg
Set 2 : Tweezer > No Quarter ¹ , Carini ² > Piper > Twist > Ghost > Backwards Down the Number Line
Encore : Show of Life > Tweezer Reprise
1 Phish debut. 2 Unfinished.
Jamchart Notes:
No Quarter - Debut of the "Led Zeppelin" classic emerges > from a foggy "Tweezer".
Backwards Down the Number Line - Fiery and rocking "Type I" version with a nice big peak.
Show Notes:
This gig featured the Phish debut of Led Zeppelin's No Quarter. Trey subsequently teased No Quarter in both Ghost and Number Line. Carini was unfinished.
Listen now at Phish.in!
Phish, Friday 06/01/1990 (34 years ago) The Cotton Club, Atlanta, GA, USA
Gap Chart, Tour: 1990 Tour
Set 1 : Take the 'A' Train > Reba , Colonel Forbin's Ascent ¹ > Fly Famous Mockingbird , Bathtub Gin , David Bowie , Lawn Boy , Bouncing Around the Room , The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > AC/DC Bag
Set 2 : Rocky Top ² , Uncle Pen ² , Run Like an Antelope ³ , Mike's Song > I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove , Hold Your Head Up ⁴ > Fee ⁵ , Terrapin ⁶ > Hold Your Head Up , Possum , Fee , Big Black Furry Creature from Mars , Contact
1 Lyrics changed to refer to Col. (Bruce) Hampton. 2 "Reverend" Jeff Mosier on banjo. 3 "Reverend" Jeff Mosier on banjo and Oteil Burbridge on bass. 4 Crowd chanted for Fee as Fish took the stage. Fish sounded perplexed and remarked that he doesn't sing Fee, but Trey and Page started the song up anyway and left Fish on the spot. 5 Fish on vocals, aborted in chorus after first verse. [6] Fish on trombone.
Jamchart Notes:
Run Like an Antelope - Awesome version with the "Reverend" Jeff Mosier on banjo and Oteil Burbridge on bass. Great intro, good jam with a huge peak, and then a cool breakdown jam featuring the bass acompanied with scat singing.
Show Notes:
After Reba, the crowd was chanting "cheeseburger." Fish and Trey subsequently went into a rap about burgers. Trey dedicated Forbin's to the Colonial (Bruce Hampton). Forbin's was then performed with a variety of lyric substitutions of Col. (Bruce) Hampton for Col Forbin. Rocky Top through Antelope featured the "Reverend" Jeff Mosier on banjo; Antelope also featured Oteil Burbridge on bass. As Fish took the stage during HYHU, the crowd chanted for Fee. Fish sounded perplexed and remarked that he doesn't sing Fee, but Trey and Page started the song up anyway and left Fish on the spot. He tried his best and got through the first verse before falling apart during the chorus. Terrapin featured Fish on trombone. The band said "Fee" several times at that start of Possum, which contained subsequent Blue Monk teases from Trey and a Rhapsody in Blue tease from Page. BBFCFM contained an Auld Lang Syne tease from Trey. The source of Set I is phish.com.
Listen now at Phish.in!
Phish, 1986-06-01 Boston Harbor, Boston, MA, USA
Setlist: https://phish.net/setlists/phish-june-01-1986-boston-harbor-boston-ma-usa.html
Tour: 1986 Tour
Show Notes: This show was performed on a boat in Boston Harbor as part of the Cambridge School graduation festivities. Mike's brother assisted Phish in securing the gig.

Trey Anastasio

Trey Anastasio Band, 2019-06-01 The Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA, USA
Setlist: https://phish.net/setlists/trey-anastasio-june-01-2019-the-tabernacle-atlanta-ga-usa.html
Tour: Not Part of a Tour
Show Notes: This show was webcast via Live Phish and featured the TAB debut of Friend. Brian and Robert and More were performed by Trey solo acoustic.
Trey Anastasio Band, 2002-06-01 Thomas & Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV, USA
Setlist: https://phish.net/setlists/trey-anastasio-june-01-2002-thomas-mack-center-las-vegas-nv-usa.html
Tour: TAB - The Dectet Summer 2002 Tour
Show Notes: The Roots, and then Antibalas opened. Trey performed "Thunderhead" acoustic.

Mike Gordon

Mike Gordon, 2019-06-01 Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO, USA
Setlist: https://phish.net/setlists/mike-gordon-june-01-2019-red-rocks-amphitheatre-morrison-co-usa-2.html
Tour: Not Part of a Tour
Show Notes: White Denim and Mike Gordon opened for moe.
Grappa Boom, 2003-06-01 Higher Ground, Winooski, VT, USA
Setlist: https://phish.net/setlists/mike-gordon-june-01-2003-higher-ground-winooski-vt-usa.html
Tour: Mike - Grappa Boom
Show Notes:

John Fishman

Jazz Mandolin Project, 2004-06-01 Stella Blue, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Setlist: https://phish.net/setlists/jon-fishman-june-01-2004-stella-blue-albuquerque-nm-usa.html
Tour: Fish - Jazz Mandolin Project Summer 2004 Tour
Show Notes:

Page McConnell

Page McConnell, 2007-06-01 Lupo's at the Strand, Providence, RI, USA
Setlist: https://phish.net/setlists/page-mcconnell-june-01-2007-lupos-heartbreak-hotel-providence-ri-usa.html
Tour: Page McConnell Spring & Summer 2007 Tour
Show Notes: Carl "Geerz" Gerhard sat in on trumpet for "Cars Trucks Buses."

Other

moe., 2019-06-01 Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO, USA
Setlist: https://phish.net/setlists/mike-gordon-june-01-2019-red-rocks-amphitheatre-morrison-co-usa.html
Tour: Not Part of a Tour
Show Notes: Mike sat in on In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.

This is something I noticed recently and found I had some misconceptions about: How long exactly Bilbo was mentoring or teaching the younger hobbits. From A Long-expected Party:

[Bilbo] had many devoted admirers among the hobbits of poor and unimportant families. But he had no close friends, until some of his younger cousins began to grow up.
The eldest of these, and Bilbo‘s favourite, was young Frodo Baggins. When Bilbo was ninety-nine he adopted Frodo as his heir, and brought him to live at Bag End. […] At that time Frodo was still in his tweens.

After his adventures Bilbo clearly takes on the role of a teacher and scholar in the Hobbit society. He teaches language (reading and writing to Sam at least, Elvish to Frodo), history, poetry (see Sam‘s recital of the Fall of Gil-Galad), Geography and other Cultures through the tales of his travels. In many ways he elevates (parts of) Hobbit society, their provinciality and isolationism are some of the few 'negative' traits of Hobbits. He is like a smaller (ha!) reflection of the Valar teaching the Eldar, the Eldar teaching the Dunedain or the Dunedain teaching the 'lesser' Men.
This role of Bilbo‘s is so clearly depicted as very influential that to me at least it is easy to forget how comparatively short and also long ago his teaching must have been at the start of Frodo‘s adventures. Here is a timeline as a reference, mostly from the Tale of Years and Family Trees (Appendices B & C):

2890 Bilbo born in the Shire
2942 Bilbo returns to the Shire with the Ring
2968 Birth of Frodo
2980 Birth of Samwise and Fredegar
2982 Birth of Meriadoc
2989 Bilbo adopts Frodo; Frodo moves to Bag End
2990 Birth of Peregrin
3001 Bilbo‘s farewell feast
3018 Frodo leaves Bag End

Notably, this means:

• Frodo has been living alone in Bag End for 17 years, quite a bit longer than he lived there together with Bilbo (12 years). I don't think we know when Bilbo's and Frodo's relationship started, but conceivably this is even as long as Frodo had known Bilbo at all!
• Pippin was 11 at Bilbos departure, Merry was 19. This means that to Pippin at least, Bilbo‘s tales must have been mostly like children‘s tales, there is very little time for Pippin to learn much from Bilbo directly.
• For about half of Merry‘s life and more than half of Pippin‘s, Bilbo has been gone.

Here is a quote about Pippin and Bilbo‘s Trolls that shows Tolkien recognising this matter, from Flight to the Ford:

He [Pippin] knew the story well. Bilbo and Frodo had told it often; but as a matter of fact he had never more than half believed it.

Emphasis mine - I like how Frodo seems to have taken over some parts of Bilbo‘s teacher role after Bilbo‘s departure.
It is also interesting to consider that Bilbo's 'younger cousins' happen to contain the children of some of the most influential families of the Shire. Merry and Pippin are after all the closest thing to princes of the Shire we have. In contrast to lower class families like the Gamgees it seems to have been usual among these families to teach their children to read and write at least. I wonder what this more pro-education stance meant for their relationship to Bilbo. Was Bilbo's growing learnedness recognized by the higher class families and seen in a more positive light? Would Pippin for example have been sent to Bilbo as a sort of private student? Or was the connection more accidental (as in: Uncle Bilbo is visiting his Tuck relatives and telling stories to young Peregrin) and frowned upon by the older family members?
Anways, I‘m not quite sure what the point of this post is, except to give some clarity to my own conception of the younger Hobbits. I find it easy to assume that all the main Hobbits have at least a similar degree of knowledge about what we know as 'The Hobbit', but this is clearly not the case. Apart from Frodo (and Merry in part) no one has read the book itself, and even direct instruction from Bilbo is both long ago and for the younger Hobbits like Pippin probably more like a hazy children‘s memory.

Hello I’m just posting here because I have a bunch of symptoms but I can’t determine if i’m sad or depressed or idk anymore.

1. No energy ever. I wake up tired, i go to bed tired, i’m tired while doing homework, i’m tired while at the gym and i try and to sleep more by staying in bed and taking naps but it doesn’t help.
   
2. Insanely messed up sleep schedule. I can’t sleep until after 3 hours of being in bed consistently. I always go to bed around 3/4 in the morning and end up missing class a lot of the time at 11;30.
   
3. Severe social anxiety. I rarely go out in public unless it’s after midnight and i know no one will be there or i absolutely have to go to something. But besides that I stay in my dorm all day everyday and only leave for class occasionally and the gym. I just can’t function in public and going to class is just a struggle by itself.
   
4. No motivation at all, ever. Everything i do is by willpower alone. I have to will myself out of bed in the morning or afternoon as of lately. I have to will myself to do my homework. Everything seems like a task now and I can’t even do the things I enjoy anymore without wanting to get it over with and go back home.
   
5. Dirty room. I recently failed room inspection and I honestly can’t bring myself to clean my room. I have clothes everywhere records, laying around I have clothes everywhere, stuff on the floor, trash everywhere, food containers. it looks like an explosion happen in here and I just can’t bring myself to clean it because it’s just so much and I try to take it slow and do a bit by bit, but it’s just insanely hard and I just can’t do it.
   
6. Physical appearance, I can see my face deteriorating. I have eyebags that are visible and it looks like I’m a zombie. Well, I have been going to the gym consistently and I have a good physique. It doesn’t matter because I lookdead and I feel dead all the time too and I think people can notice which makes me feel even worse.
   
7. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I don’t be answering calls, I don’t respond to text messages, I don’t go in the discord call with my friends anymore, I’m just always alone and on Instagram or TikTok. I uninstalled the apps and I’m trying to cut back, but I don’t know how to feel. I try to be a nice person. I hold the doors open for people. I wait the elevator. I try to help people out, but I just feel so empty and I don’t want to talk to people usually.
   
8. Isolation, I am constantly isolated. I don’t talk to anyone mostly throughout the day as I stated I only talk to people at class or when I have to do something, but usually it’s just me alone in my room. When I go to the gym, I don’t really talk to people there too. I think they know too, so there’s lowk no point.
   
9. Anger. sometimes I just get angry or irritable for no reason the littlest reason I have little patients now and my attention span is definitely shortened. I can tell I know this is from apps like Instagram and TikTok but I just can’t stop. I mean I’m stopping right now, but I might be back on the apps.
   
10. I just don’t know how to feel sometimes. Like sometimes I’m just empty like for example today I was just driving around with just listening to an audiobook you know just not thinking at all just I just felt empty completely empty. Like I can’t even describe how I felt.
    

I don’t know anymore. I feel like I’m just going through motions at this point.

VEHICLE VOLTRON I: THE MIGHTIEST OF SAVIORS RISE
written by Robert D.C. Barnes III (PeachLover94)
Inspired by "Voltron: Defender of the Universe" created for World Events Productions
by Peter Keefe, John Teichmann and Toei Animation
Based on "Armored Fleet Dairugger XV" created for Toei Animation
by Saburo Yatsude (Kozo Morishita, Masahisa Saeki, Keisuke Fujikawa,
and Shigemitsu Taguchi)
TREATMENT: 07-21-2017 2006.cosmo@gmail.com
NOTE: This proposal is the property of New Frontier Cinema (PeachLover94's production company) produced in partnership with World Events Productions (WEP LLC) and Toei Company, Ltd. Any unlicensed exhibition, copying or redistribution without written consent of the mentioned parties is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.
Vehicle Voltron I: The Mightiest of Saviors Rise Story Treatment
The Logline
In the Near Universe, an experimental carrier-battleship hybrid starship under the command of fifteen crack space explorers from the Galaxy Alliance of Earth comes under assault by the evil Drule Empire. On a faraway planet, they find fifteen vehicles which combine into the evil-fighting giant humanoid robot - Vehicle Voltron.
Main Characters
1) JEFF ♂ - Pilot of the Command Jet Explorer #1 which forms the head of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Jeff Aki Manabu. Being the leader of the entire Vehicle Voltron Force and commander of the Air Team, Jeff is head-strong, occasionally quick-tempered, yet still a great fighter and a very capable leader, even if he does not always follow the rules. During his time at Galaxy Alliance Academy, Jeff was one of the first to ever beat the no-win scenario test entitled the G.A.S. Zodiac simulation - by reprogramming the simulation to make it possible to rescue the ship and its people. A major source of contention with his peers in the Sea Team's Krik and Land Team's Cliff is Jeff's continuous scoffs at no-win scenarios trying to one-up his older sister Janet.
2) KRIK ♂ - Pilot of the Communications Module #6 which forms the torso midriff section of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Krik Miranda Keats. Hailing from the water planet of Dulcinea (Mu Arae c) with a light blue skin tone and pointed ears, Krik is appropriately the leader of the Sea Team. Speaking with an alien dialect (which can be approximated to possibly being played by an Indian), he has clairvoyant powers that tells him when something bad happens or will happen. Of the five members of the Sea Team, it is Krik who keeps a cool head and is quick-thinking when situations call for it – particularly when he is at the receiving end of a gun or when the security of Voltron Force is compromised. He will often share drinks with the others in victory times.
3) CLIFF ♂ - Pilot of the Jet Radar Station #11 which forms the lower torso and hips of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Walter Clifford Jack. An accomplished sportsman and former racing driver who won many circuits in Australian touring car championships before joining the Galaxy Alliance, he can at times be bad-tempered and reckless. Cliff studied at Sydney University before transferring to Galaxy Alliance Academy, where his own nigh impetuousness led to a clash with authorities over the launching (and subsequent crash) of an unsanctioned rocket he built. Hawkins took charge of the situation, steering the interest toward constructive ends, with Cliff now serving with the Vehicle Voltron Force's Land Team. But sometimes he misses the old days of his racing.
4) ZANDEE ♂ - Pilot of the Multi-Wheeled Explorer #10 forming the left lower leg of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Zandee Barros Carateja. Born to a Boston astronomer father and Brazilian mother, Zandee is boyishly handsome, still long in the process of maturing. An unusual combination, he has inherited from his father the mathematical ability and navigation sense from his mother. He is a phenomenally brilliant mathematician and space theorist. But he has also inherited his mother's Latin temperament, fighting what is his perpetual and highly personalized battle with his technology, suspecting that space is engaging in a gargantuan conspiracy to make his professional and personal life as difficult and uncomfortable as possible in both life and love.
5) CHIP ♂ - Pilot of the blue Advanced Recon Helicopter #4 forming the left upper arm of the Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Chipley Yasuo Mutsu Stoker, and the twin brother of Darrell Hiroshi Suzuishi "Pidge" Stoker or "Pidge I", the first Paladin of Lion Voltron's Green Lion of Forest. Chip is very much the youngest member at 13 of the Vehicle Voltron Force. He can best be described as the brains of the Vehicle Voltron Force, much like his brother Pidge I is or will be to the Lion Voltron Force in the Denubian Galaxy (Far Universe). When he is not tinkering with inventions or fawning over technology and displays of data, Chip spends most of his time with Rocky in trying to find suitable soul mates for Jeff, Cliff and Krik so that they can keep all their stress down.
6) MARVIN ♂ - Pilot of the yellow All-Terrain Space Vehicle #14 which forms the right foot of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Marvin Tasuku Izu. A good friend of Hutch's since childhood and both being members of the Land Team, the two can often be seen together, either playing cards or brawling with each other. Marvin is usually comedic, with his sense of humor being on par with that of Shannon and Cliff's in riling up Jeff and Krik. During most of the operations the Vehicle Voltron Force takes part in, Marvin's specialist expertise is in Demolition, Heavy Lifting and Logistics which he sometimes cracks jokes that are sometimes inappropriate only because he is able to do it so well for such a long time. But his jokes have even started to bug Lance.
7) GINGER ♀ - Pilot of the Falcon Jet Fighter #5 which forms the chest plate of Vehicle Voltron. Her full name is Patricia Ginger Ellington. She is a strong and brave pilot, who has always tried to fight the good fight and to this day maintains a distrust of the arrogance of science ever since seeing her family destroyed in an starship crash when she was young. She is smitten towards her Air Team commander Jeff, and the two still maintain a close professional relationship. With that said, she certainly doesn't hide her jealousy when another woman shows any affection towards him, married or otherwise. When not in the heat of battle, Ginger likes to spend her downtime shopping, hanging out with friends, or helping Cinda and Lisa with science and cartography.
8) LISA ♀ - Pilot of the red Space Prober #7 which forms the left thigh of Vehicle Voltron. Her full name is Lisa Haruka Kaga. She is very knowledgeable in ancient cultures, and always seems to know the right thing to say to others. Born on the colony world of New San Diego, Lisa was enamored with the ocean and all its native forms of life at a young age. This led to her entering the 2976 Olympic Games, and at 16 years old, became the youngest human of the Galaxy Alliance era not from Earth to win the Gold medal in the 400 meter backstroke event. Possessing an unyielding affinity for the undersea animals and environment, this makes Lisa a perfect choice for the Vehicle Voltron Force's Sea Team, as she is able to urgently take command if Krik is unable to.
9) CINDA ♀ - Pilot of the Rotating Personnel Carrier #12 which forms the right forearm of Vehicle Voltron. Her full name is Cinda Moya Qiligasz. Like Lisa, she too is kind and emotional, especially when it comes to nature. She is a Dulcinean like Krik, and the two are the main psychics and mystics of the entire Vehicle Voltron Force. It would not show up on Krik's file, but Cinda was often the only friend he had growing up back on Dulcinea, as young Dulcineans have their fears like human children have of monsters under the bed. Krik often had to have his fears reined in by Cinda, who vowed to banish all the monsters from peoples' lives so that they would not have to suffer like both she and Krik had to suffer. Even as an Alliance world, Dulcinea has hard times for Cinda.
10) WOLO ♂ - Pilot of the red Advanced Recon Helicopter #3 forming the right upper arm of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Shota Wolo Kreutz. He is a blue-skinned Galilean of the Galileo (Kepler-451b) system who is a noted scholar of astronomy and has authored several of the most popular accredited astronomy textbooks in use by the Galaxy Alliance. He is a graduate of the Galileo Polytechnic University with an esteemed Doctorate degree in Advanced Telecommunications. Among his friends, Wolo is known to be exceedingly patient, kindly and gracious and possessive of both great intelligence and poise as the gifts he has inherited from his talented mother through which he is able to take charge at times. The kindness comes from helping raise seven sisters.
11) SHANNON ♂ - Pilot of the Multi-Wheeled Explorer #9 which forms the right lower leg of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Shannon Tatsuo Izumo Cochrane. During his childhood, he piloted a deep-sea bathyscaphe to investigate marine farming methods in making food production on various worlds possible. Of all the Vehicle Voltron Force, Shannon tries to keep things from getting too serious by becoming the funny one, which gives him a tendency to get into trouble with Jeff and Krik over his flippant sense of humor. Even so, he chooses to fight for nobler causes than himself, as his brother was just taken to be a prisoner of what will be known as the Drule Empire on its tribute vassal world of Galra (Planet Doom) in the Denubian Galaxy (Far Universe).
12) HUTCH ♂ - Pilot of the black All-Terrain Space Vehicle #15 forming the left foot of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Kazuto Hutch Nagato. A good friend of Marvin's since childhood and both being members of the Land Team, the two can often be seen together, either playing cards or brawling with each other. In contrast to the comedic Marvin, Hutch is a regular tough guy, always looking for a good fight with any Drule that has the guts to challenge him mano e mano. Outside of space missions, Hutch loves to dance, listen to music, and wear the most extravagant clothes around. His strong, muscular build was put to the test during the 2976 Olympic Games, where he won the Gold medal in the weightlifting event to the congratulations of future comrade Lisa.
13) ROCKY ♂ - Pilot of the Strato Weapons Module #2 which forms the upper torso of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Rockford Kai Shinobu. He is the Brooklyn-accented member of the Air Team, usually described by the Galaxy Alliance and by the Drule Empire as the "Hunk" of the Vehicle Voltron Force, which paints a big target on his back for many of the Drule commanders like the Galvestonian Throk in the Milky Way (Near Universe), the Derinja Bi'Os in the Hyperion Galaxy (Middle Universe) and the Galran Prince Lotor in the Denubian Galaxy (Far Universe). He did not have much family growing up, so the chance to have a spiritual little brother in Chip gives him something missing from his life. He joined the Alliance to be able to make a chart of all the stars.
14) TANGOR ♂ - Pilot of the blue Space Prober #8 which forms the right thigh of Vehicle Voltron. His full name is Saluta Tangor Katz. He is as dedicated to his calling of serving the Galaxy Alliance on Vehicle Voltron Force as any of his shipmates. His off-duty demeanor is at times much less boisterous than most of his male colleagues, indulging in painting and playing the piano. Tangor has, in fact, composed a great deal of lounge tunes on the piano to play so to keep his shipmates relaxed and escape boredom. Some of his tunes he is compiling to be sold as an easy listening album. His and Wolo's species is the blue-skinned Galileans from their planet Galileo (Kepler-451b), who are very noted for their appreciation of the finer arts that speak to the soul about existence.
15) MODOK ♂ - Pilot of the Armored Equipment Carrier #13 which forms the left forearm of Vehicle Voltron. His full given name is Modok MacKenzie "Mack" Chucker. He is one of the few eldest active members of the Vehicle Voltron Force. Stern and serious, Modok focuses on the task at hand above all else. He acknowledges that his gruff approach can lead to conflict with the younger crew, though he always means well, and just is out to ensure their mission is accomplished successfully, safely, and professionally. When not on assignment, Modok is a self-described gentle giant like Rocky from the Air Team who likes to find a secluded spot outside the G.A.S. Explorer/Rugger Guard on planets and spend a day fishing and cooking whatever fish are caught.
16) HAWKINS ♂ - Age: 54. Acting Commander of the Vehicle Voltron Force stationed aboard the new Galaxy Alliance Starship Explorer (the pride of the Galaxy Alliance's project code-named Rugger Guard). His full title is Commander James Shinji Ise Hawkins of the Galaxy Alliance. While it is Commander Hawkins who gives all the orders to the Vehicle Voltron Force, he is Executive Officer who answers to Captain Newley on the mission of the Explorer. When it comes to saving lives, Hawkins is always deadly serious - but subtly cracks a joke every now and then. He's so dedicated to the mission that he constantly remains on assignment, and has very little time for recreation, much to the disappointment of his gentler and relaxed commanding officer Newley.
17) NEWLEY ♂ - Age: 58. Captain of the Galaxy Alliance Starship Explorer who is the Commanding Officer of and a good friend to the Vehicle Voltron Force's Commander Hawkins. His full title is Captain Richard "Dick" Asimov Newley. He regards all the members of the Vehicle Voltron Force as replacements for the son he had lost in battle, and sorely regrets his son's death in battle near planet Likon, along with the apparent death of Jeff's older sister Janet who represented him in court martial over cheating to win the G.A.S. Zodiac scenario, but was lost in a training accident. As a child, he was told of the story of Voltron and became intrigued with the prospect of finding it and bringing it back. Now it seems like that dream shall come true at last down on Likon.
18) PAGE ♂ - Age: 56. Science Officer of the Galaxy Alliance Starship Explorer. Though originally an aerospace engineer (albeit an unsuccessful one), he becomes the ship's primary medical officer. He is good humored and always willing to give advice, but he can become deadly earnest when chiding others' behavior. His full title is Professor Michael Search Page. He frequently sips up coffee whilst moving around speaking at an extremely accelerated rate. Despite his bumbling nature, he is actually very wise and knowledgeable, choosing to learn from mankind's past mistakes so that they won't happen again in the future. Page believes that knowledge is the most powerful weapon from any species' history and seeks the knowledge of the universe for this goal.
The Background
Long in the past of the Milky Way Galaxy, the fifteen-piece fighting humanoid robot known as the Vehicle Voltron was known as Dairugger XV by the peoples of the planets the robot visited. Dairugger XV or Vehicle Voltron was a sentient being, renown across the galaxy for its feats of heroism and bravery. Ultimately, this led to Voltron developing something of an ego, as it challenged both a reincarnated wicked Zaar King Drolmacht Dolmen and the goddess Arcadia to battle it for supremacy. Arcadia, having sensed the egotism brewing in Vehicle Voltron/Dairugger XV out of simple ignorance of its own power and not out of sinister malice, defeated but spared the robot as she pondered what punishment would do it best to teach humility/sportsmanship.
In a rage, the dying King Drolmacht disguised himself as Arcadia and tried to destroy Voltron while succeeding at slaying Arcadia. With her last acts, a mortally injured Arcadia managed to save Vehicle Voltron/Dairugger XV by splitting it back up into its fifteen component space vehicles - five joining into the airborne Strato Fighter the Kurugger, another five forming the submersible Aqua Fighter the Kairugger, and another five forming the ground-hugging Turbo Terrain Fighter or Rikurugger - that when all are combined together form Voltron. They were flung through space until they crash-landed on the uncharted planet known as Likon. It is here that the fifteen vehicles will rest until the arrival of the Zaars' posterity in the form of the Drule Empire of Galveston.
The Premise
Historically, the Vehicle Voltron Force story arc of Voltron: Defender of the Universe was adapted from the 1982 anime series Armored Fleet Dairugger XV - but was adapted to be part of a much bigger storyline. We start the Voltron story as a Asimovian science fiction story that is about how the titular machines came to be, used to solve problems, and how their presence affects people for good or ill. Taking the team of heroes premises of the Japanese Super Sentai/Power Rangers series, the galactic journey of Star Trek, the swashbuckling adventure and journeys of Horatio Hornblower, and the appeal of robots found in both the Gundam and Transformers franchises, Voltron is ready to launch with the debut film of a potential cinematic universe of science fiction.
In this four-quadrant five-act mecha science fiction epic, the Galaxy Alliance Starship Explorer launches from Earth in the year 2981 on its mission to chart the Milky Way Galaxy and to find new planets for the Alliance to colonize or terraform to solve problems of scarce food and water supplies as well as both overpopulation and resource depletion. They are forced to land and make repairs on the planet Likon by the forces of the Drule Empire of Planet Galveston, when fifteen of its primary space explorers find fifteen space-worthy ships able to join together to form the mythical Vehicle Voltron - Defender of the Near Universe. Can they join together to stop a Drule attack that threatens a peaceful planet? It may lead to war, but also a step towards evolution.
The Nemeses (The Galvestonian Drule Empire of Planet Galveston)
Aside from normal human squabbles and quandaries that face teams of people trying to survive in the hostile universe, Vehicle Voltron and its team of pilots have to contend with the new horrible menace threatening the Milky Way Galaxy. Many of the Galvestonian Drules of Planet Galveston (also called the Drule Homeworld) fit the tradition of the classic "empire of evil". Most of the Drules are humanoids with light purple skin and red eyes. With fleets of starfighters and space battleships; as well as armies of tanks, super soldiers and Robeast mecha monsters, Galvestonian Drules are aimed at making the Drule Empire a major if not the superpower in the Milky Way Galaxy controlling hapless innocents, with only the Voltron Forces daring to stand in their way.
1) ZEPPO ♂ - Age: Late 40s/Early 50s. Species: Galvestonian Drule. Homeworld: Galveston (Drule Homeworld). Eye Color: Red. His full title is Emperor Zeppo Corsair of Planet Galveston. Like many a major and admittedly rather incompetent dictator, Zeppo rules the Empire with the fists of iron fury, sending others to do his dirty work and harshly punishing those who fail him. With how abusive and destructive he can be towards his many subordinates on a bad day, it is practically insane that there have not been attempts to overthrow him as of yet. A complete and utter sadist by inclination, Zeppo is willing to send his forces to capture slaves from other worlds and force slaves of his own people to fight to the death. His tyranny is only egged on by his followers.
2) ROBEASTS - Wherever one goes in the Empires of the Drules, there will always be such things as Robeasts to challenge the Voltrons and threaten the peace of the Near, Middle and Far Universes. Robeasts from Galveston (Drule Homeworld) sent to battle the Vehicle Voltron are humanoid monsters created through more advanced science and technology, most often from the prisoners of war that are reared in Zeppo's sadistic gladiatorial combat, though some of them are simply giant robots piloted by Centurion troopers. There is often a platoon of fifteen robeasts ready at a moments notice to travel with fighters, tanks, space battleships and or Centurion armies to lay siege to whatever may get in their Empire's way. The Vehicle Voltron Force must take great care.
3) THROK ♂ - Age: Late 60s. Species: Galvestonian Drule. Homeworld: Galveston (Drule Homeworld). Eye Color: Red. Hair Color: White. His full title is Viceroy Throk Al Caponero. Possibly the worst of the worst, Throk is at bitter ends with Hazar, and the loyalest supporter of Emperor Zeppo. It is often rumored that Throk is the one stroking Zeppo's ego to throw him off the scent of Throk's own attempted bids at becoming Emperor of the Drules. A natural-born kiss-up and backstabber, he lives for nothing more than destroying any "invaders" that could make a pass at the Empire and generally making Hazar and his followers out to look like fools, imbeciles and other pejorative words not to be listed. But it is his lust for power that makes Throk underestimate foes.
4) CENTURIONS - Say hello to the mixed organic and cybernetic shock troopers of the Drule Empire. They all serve as the central backbone of the Drule military forces. Their drones have no built in weapons, instead using the same weapons as their mainly organic counterparts. Drones are capable of squad-level infantry tactics and understanding vocal commands. These androids can somewhat resemble fellow Drules, appearing to wear this green-purple armor. In fact, some of the living soldiers appear identical to their own Drones. In addition, Drule Drones can be used for scouting environments full of every kind of hazards, are more durable, and have no fear of utter destruction to claim victory for Zeppo and the Empire. Some are known to pilot their Robeasts.
5) HAZAR ♂ - Age: 40s. Species: Galvestonian Drule. Homeworld: Galveston (Drule Homeworld). Eye Color: Red. Hair Color: White. His full title is Chief Commander Hazar Dorita Teles of the Galvestonian Drules. Hazar is an athletic fellow, able to dodge and move around quickly to evade attacks. This is despite his large size, topping at about six and a half feet. Unlike most other fleet and army commanders in the Empire of the Drules, Hazar is often a composed and rational figure who never has a bad word to say about any of his underlings. He is his own worst critic, as inside, he frequently doubts himself on whether an action he or the Empire takes is right or at least justifiable. Due to this, Robeasts and Centurions alike find him to be more approachable than Throk.
The Heroes and the Twist
Each member of Vehicle Voltron's three teams (Air, Land and Sea) of a super force of space explorers is meant to be reflective of aspects of ourselves that we all have been at some point in our lives - a class clown, a lone wolf, a young genius, a tough guy who is also a mediator, and that young person destined for life greater than their own backyard. At the beginning of the story, the three team leaders Jeff, Cliff and Krik all function as the Id/McCoy (Cliff), Ego/Kirk (Jeff) and Superego/Spock (Krik) found in the Freudian psyche. It is what they learn from each other that they all have to pass down to the other four members of their respective teams in order to effectively come together and operate Vehicle Voltron to save both the Galaxy Alliance and planet Galateia.

Beijing, Dubai, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore. Those are world class cities. It's like going 50 years in the future.
Cities like NYC, London, Paris. They have too many problems to be world class. It's like being in the 80s. Crime, homeless, dirty, cost of living.
A person from Tokyo coming to NYC, London or Paris will probably think they're cute, old fashioned or quaint. But not world class.

This is a middle school story, I go to a private school, and I am a theater kid.
I realized I was bi a few months before the events of this story, and I had only come out to three of my theater friends (not at school); two also being queer (both girls and one of them I later had a crush on) and one who hasn't said anything (a guy). All three of these friends are people I met in theater, and they were all supportive. About two months after closing night of the show when I hadn't seen these people for a while I started crushing on one of the girls I came out to. She is very openly a lesbian. Let's call her Ashley. I told a separate cast member of this show(I'm very close with the whole cast of the show) that I had a crush and came out to them over text. I then told my guy best friend (the guy I came out to in the beginning and his name can be Steven) that I had a crush on Ashley and he got so excited. I shared the song I wrote for her with him and went over to his house to hang out. We had a good time and for a week he dropped subtle hints to Ashley about my crush when the cast group chat was active. Everything in the italics happened during April vacation, so when school started again on Monday, I told my best friend (let's call her Isabella) that I had a crush on someone outside school. Isabella's parents are silently homophobic and transphobic and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree if you get what I mean. When I would talk about Ashley I'd just use they/them pronouns because I was not yet ready to come out to her but she kept saying things along the lines of "Omg where did you meet HIM? Who is HE?" Pretty soon I sent her a picture of my crush and said "ya so this is my crush, im bi, and here's the song I wrote for her." I asked what she thought of the song and a few minutes later I got a response saying "its fine but i won't say anything about your decision". I just asked what she meant by my 'decision' even though I knew what she'd say. "to be bi obvi". I was just like "???" and started getting kinda mad trying to explain to her how you dont choose who you like and you only pick whether or not to accept it. I had beef with her for the whole week and straight up ignored her which I know is kinda cruel but she didn't take me seriously and asked me why I was mad at her. In this time frame that I was mad at Isabella, I started dating Ashley. I eventually forgave Isabella just so I could have my best friend back because I don't really have many friends at school. She later told me, and i quote, "I just realized that you were saying they before telling me your crush was a girl.The whole time I thought you were talking about two guys and you liked one of them" and she laughed it off. It's been over a month and we havent had any issues or bad blood between the two of us, but I keep trying to get her to be more open to discussion of queerness but no good results. I started hanging with the only two other openly queer people around isabella and we've all tried explaining to her about things like this. I still remember several occasions where she's said things along the lines of "Why don't people just stay with the gender theyre born with" or "Just pick one gender, why is it that hard???" and even "People are just saying they're LGBT+ because its a trend and they think it's cool". It seriously bothers me, but we've been friends since preschool and our friendship it really important to me. She still acts weird when I refer to Ashley as my girlfriend. I've begun to distance myself from her a little, doing partnerwork in class with other people instead of her and such. I'm really conflicted on what to do; drop her, try to explain again, or just stop bringing it up? Someone please just help me out here.

“She Made the Salad”
Memoirs of Kathryn Robinson Knight
Dedicated to her Descendants
Summer of 2020
My mom and dad were married after he returned to Auburn following the First World War. Dad’s official name was Carey Carslile Robinson, but we called him “Cackey.” He was an Army First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Infantry at the time. He referred to himself as a foot soldier and always kept his service in the Reserves up to date and remained on inactive duty.
Cackey’s first job was Line Coach at Auburn. He and my mom “ran away” after the GA Tech – Auburn game in Atlanta. She was eighteen; he was twenty-four years old. (This is the story I was told, but the dates may be off!)
After his football career, my father was Athletic Director at Mercer University in Macon, GA. My sister, Suzanne, was born there in 1924. He was later Athletic Director at Birmingham Southern, which is where I was born in 1930.
Our family later moved sixty miles to Alexander City, where Dad bought the Ford franchise car dealership. My mother’s family had the same business in Opelika; my dad’s brothers had a franchise in Kansas. So, we have always been in the car business – General Motors, Chrysler, Cadillac, etc.
It was in “Alex City” that I started school and also began dance instruction in 1935. In 1940 my dad was recalled to active duty and was promoted to Captain and sent to Columbia, SC, where Fort Jackson is located – U.S. Artillery Headquarters.
War was anticipated, and Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. “A day that will live in infamy.” My dad was Provost Marshall (Head of Military Police.) In 1940 there were 10,000 soldiers at Camp Jackson. After 1941, the numbers grew to 75,000 men almost overnight.
What an experience for an eleven-year-old! So many things changed during those three and a half years of war time. It reminds me of the current craziness of today’s world.
Fort Jackson was visited by so many top security people, from President Roosevelt to Churchill and all the generals who came to see the troops in review. My family was allowed to see all this because of my dad’s job. Not many people had this experience.
Many famous people came to entertain the troops, which we also got to see. Entertainers included some of the 40’s greats such as Bob Hope, Tommy Dorsey, Bing Crosby, and Benny Goodman. America at War is something I will never forget! It was in Columbia that I got my very best dance training.
In 1945 we were transferred to Fort Benning, GA. My dad was a Major by then and with the Infantry School at Benning. This was a beautiful place to live! Two historic events took place there. First, when President Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, GA, his body was taken there. His sendoff by train to Washington, DC, was full of pomp and circumstance. Also, a mass celebration occurred at the end of World War II.
In 1947 my father was transferred to Pratt General Hospital in Coral Gables, FL, due to a medical emergency – ruptured gall bladder. Dad, a Lieutenant Colonel by then, retired at that time. My parents decided to stay in Miami Beach until I finished high school in 1948. My last two years were at Miami Senior High.
I went to Florida State University for my freshman year of college, and pledge Delta Delta Delta social sorority. The chapter in Gainesville was new and needed older chapter members to help get it established.
The National Traveling Secretary wanted chapter members from Stetson, University of Miami, and FSU to transfer to UF. There were about ten of us from other schools who agreed to do this, so I transferred to the University of Florida for the remaining years of my college education.
Our group was very close and worked hard for Tri Delt. It was great fun! Our reward was to be allowed to live in the sorority house. Not often is that privilege extended to sophomores.
I majored in elementary education. Dance classes were always part of my life – on the university level and in private studio classes. This was true in both Tallahassee and Gainesville. At that time there was no dance major – too bad!
“Dancing with the Stars”
I started dance in Alexander City at age five and was always involved in a dance program during all of my school years. In Columbia, SC, my serious ballet training began. From ages eleven to fifteen, “class” was every day, and I was a “studio rat” – a group of kids who were always at the studio.
The Foster School of Dance had many students and adults who were members of the Carolina Ballet Company (the regional ballet company.) I was a junior member. Mrs. Foster took three of us to New York during the summer for two years. It was great training and a wonderful experience.
As an Army “brat,” we moved to Fort Benning, and I studied in Columbus, GA. I took dance on weekends in Atlanta. It was at this time that I met Mrs. Dorothy Alexander as a teacher. She later became Artistic Director of the Atlanta Civic Ballet Company. This is still an outstanding company!
They came to Orlando periodically, and I always loved to see them. Later, in Miami, I also found a great teacher. The love of dance never ends.
“Don’t Tell Mom!”
After college, when I married Gordon Oldham in Opelika, AL, and moved to Leesburg in 1952, my dance was put on hold while I raised a family. I managed to substitute teach in Leesburg at Helen St. John’s Studio at Lake Sumter Community College for continuing education classes.
The years spent raising my family will always be remembered as the very best! Raising my three children – Gordon, John, and Carey – was and always will be the greatest joy of my life. All three of my children are Gators now.
During these years I did all the things that were important to life in Leesburg: Junior Women’s Club, Triangle Club, Daughters of the American Revolution, Garden Club, and – always – St. James Episcopal Church work.
In later years, I became involved with Women for Hospice, Heritage Society, LSCC Foundation Board, and the Performing Arts programs. I also assisted Lifestream with social dances for the mental health center.
I was divorced in 1977. In 1978, I married Art Knight (a Seminole!) and acquired another son – Arthur - also a Seminole. That same year I fulfilled a lifelong dream and opened the Kathryn Knight School of Dance studio. The next sixteen years were devoted to teaching many children the love and joy of dance.
Art and I enjoyed living part time in the mountains of Maggie Valley in North Carolina until his death in 2011. We were able to achieve many of our dreams and scratch lots of items off our bucket lists. These included traveling to Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, and my favorite – St. Petersburg, Russia. I was fortunate to attend the ballet Giselle while there, an experience I will always treasure.
Our greatest pleasures came from our ten grandchildren. I now have four great-grandchildren and hopefully anticipate more. I am a three-time cancer survivor and am grateful for each and every day of my life.
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