Cross reference sears mower with tecumseh parts

cryosleep: because you weren't planning on not being kidnapped by aliens anyway

2014.07.17 13:18 dogepoli cryosleep: because you weren't planning on not being kidnapped by aliens anyway

The future is true. It's going to happen, even if it doesn't.
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2024.05.16 04:27 adulting4kids Literature

Classic Literature: 1. "The Hanged Man" in T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" (1922): - Reference: Eliot's influential modernist poem references the tarot card "The Hanged Man" in the context of spiritual crisis and renewal. - Significance: The card symbolizes sacrifice and surrender, echoing themes of transformation and rebirth explored in Eliot's work.
  1. "The Magician" in Somerset Maugham's "The Magician" (1908):
    • Plot Element: Maugham's novel revolves around an occultist and magician named Oliver Haddo, inspired by the tarot card "The Magician."
    • Symbolism: The character embodies the archetype of the Magician, using mystical powers and symbolism associated with the tarot card to drive the narrative.
Contemporary Literature: 3. "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern (2011): - Tarot Influence: The novel features a magical competition between two illusionists, and tarot cards are used as a divinatory tool by one of the characters. - Symbolic Elements: Tarot motifs, including the Fool's journey and card readings, contribute to the atmospheric and mysterious setting of the story.
  1. "The Raven Cycle" Series by Maggie Stiefvater (2012-2016):
    • Character Incorporation: The character Ronan Lynch in this series is associated with tarot cards, particularly "The Magician."
    • Narrative Impact: Tarot symbolism is interwoven into the character's development, reflecting themes of power, transformation, and the manipulation of reality.
Magical Realism: 5. "Like Water for Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel (1989): - Tarot Spread Structure: Each chapter in this magical realist novel is introduced with a tarot card, setting the thematic tone for the narrative. - Symbolic Significance: Tarot cards serve as a creative and symbolic framework, guiding readers through the emotional and magical journey of the protagonist.
  1. "The House of the Spirits" by Isabel Allende (1982):
    • Tarot Readings: The novel includes scenes where characters engage in tarot readings, providing insights into their destinies and influencing the unfolding events.
    • Symbolism: Tarot cards become a symbolic and mystical element, enhancing the magical realism inherent in Allende's storytelling.
Dystopian Fiction: 7. "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood (1985): - Tarot Imagery: Tarot cards, particularly the deck known as the "Jezebels Tarot," appear in the novel as a forbidden and subversive element within the dystopian society. - Resistance Symbolism: The use of tarot cards symbolizes resistance and individual agency in a repressive regime.
From classic literature to contemporary works, tarot cards have served as powerful symbols, narrative devices, and sources of inspiration. Their presence in literature often extends beyond mere divination, delving into themes of fate, transformation, and the complexities of human experience. As a rich tapestry of symbolism, tarot continues to weave its way through the realms of imagination and storytelling, adding layers of meaning to literary narratives.
Fantasy and Magical Themes: 8. "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (1990): - Prophecy and Tarot: The novel incorporates tarot cards as part of the prophecies, and the card "The Tower" plays a significant role in the narrative. - Humorous Twist: Gaiman and Pratchett infuse humor and irreverence into the use of tarot cards, blending fantasy and satire.
  1. "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern (2011):
    • Magical Setting: Beyond using tarot cards as a divination tool, the novel features the Le Cirque des Rêves, a magical circus where each tent is inspired by a tarot card.
    • Atmospheric Influence: Tarot symbolism enhances the enchanting and mysterious atmosphere of the story, contributing to the novel's magical realism.
Mystery and Detective Fiction: 10. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1902): - Tarot Card Allusion: The novel contains a reference to a death card that could be interpreted as resembling a tarot card. This adds an element of mystery and foreshadowing to the narrative.
  1. "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco (1988):
    • Tarot Conspiracies: Eco's complex novel delves into conspiracies and secret societies, incorporating elements of tarot symbolism as characters explore esoteric mysteries.
    • Intellectual Exploration: Tarot cards become part of the intellectual and symbolic tapestry in a narrative that explores the boundaries between reality and imagination.
Science Fiction: 12. "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson (1992): - Tarot as Code: In this cyberpunk novel, tarot cards are used as a form of code for a virus that plays a crucial role in the plot. - Futuristic Integration: The novel explores how ancient symbols, like those found in tarot, can find new meaning in a futuristic, technology-driven world.
Romance and Relationship Dynamics: 13. "The Lovers" by Vendela Vida (2010): - Tarot Theme: In this novel, the protagonist becomes involved in a project where she creates a deck of tarot cards to explore themes of love and relationships. - Personal Journey: Tarot becomes a tool for self-discovery and reflection on romantic relationships, adding a unique twist to the exploration of love in the narrative.
In literature, tarot cards emerge as versatile narrative tools, blending seamlessly into various genres and themes. Authors employ them for foreshadowing, symbolism, and to explore the complexities of human existence. Whether in the realms of fantasy, mystery, science fiction, or romance, tarot cards contribute to the richness and depth of storytelling, offering readers a glimpse into the mystical and symbolic dimensions of the human experience.
Historical Fiction: 14. "The Eight" by Katherine Neville (1988): - Quest for a Chess Set: The novel weaves a complex narrative involving a quest for a mystical chess set, with each piece representing a tarot card. The tarot cards play a central role in unraveling the mysteries within the story. - Symbolic Elements: Tarot cards are intricately linked to historical events and characters, providing a symbolic framework for the unfolding adventure.
  1. "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (2001):
    • Tarot Card Readings: The novel features a mysterious character who conducts tarot card readings, offering insights into the destinies of the main characters.
    • Atmospheric Symbolism: Tarot cards contribute to the atmospheric and gothic elements of the narrative, adding layers of mystery and intrigue.
Coming-of-Age Narratives: 16. "The Raven Cycle" Series by Maggie Stiefvater (2012-2016): - Tarot Card Symbolism: Tarot cards, especially "The Magician," play a significant role in the character development and coming-of-age themes of the series. - Personal Growth: The use of tarot reflects the characters' journeys of self-discovery, empowerment, and understanding their places in the world.
Philosophical Exploration: 17. "The Castle of Crossed Destinies" by Italo Calvino (1969): - Silent Characters: In this experimental novel, characters communicate solely through laying out tarot cards to tell their stories. The tarot becomes a visual language, and the narrative explores the interconnectedness of stories and destiny. - Symbolic Interpretation: The novel delves into the nature of narrative, choice, and fate through the lens of tarot symbolism.
Memoir and Autobiography: 18. "M Train" by Patti Smith (2015): - Personal Reflections: In her memoir, Patti Smith reflects on her life, travels, and creative process. Tarot cards appear as a recurring motif, offering glimpses into the author's introspective and spiritual moments. - Intuitive Guidance: The author uses tarot as a tool for personal reflection and guidance, highlighting its role in her creative and spiritual journey.
Literary Criticism: 19. "Tarot as a Way of Life: A Jungian Approach to the Tarot" by Karen Hamaker-Zondag (2001): - Psychological Exploration: This non-fiction work explores tarot from a Jungian perspective, delving into the archetypal and symbolic dimensions of the cards. - Integration with Jungian Psychology: The author uses tarot as a means to explore the collective unconscious and the psychological aspects of the human experience.
Tarot cards continue to be a rich source of inspiration for authors across diverse genres. Whether as a narrative device, a symbolic tool, or a means of philosophical exploration, tarot's presence in literature enhances storytelling by tapping into the mystical, psychological, and symbolic facets of the human condition. As authors weave these archetypal cards into their narratives, readers are invited to explore realms of meaning, mystery, and self-discovery.
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2024.05.16 03:05 o0TG0o Checking Some Localization - Cold Steel III: Chapter 3 (1/2)

Once again, my next post concerning the localized script of Cold Steel III. With this, I'll tackle the first part of Chapter 3. The points shown here are based on my sensibilities as to what lines cause issues for the dialogue, from being outright wrong to being awkward. My previous posts are listed below:

Chapter 3

The localization has Jusis word this an absolute. "当主" should refer to the actual head of the house. Jusis could've said: [I take it this means House Hyarms will be the only one of the Four Great Houses in with it's head attendance?]
The phrasing choice of "earlier" in the localization makes this reference to a moment in Chapter 1, pretty much two months ago, strange. It feels like way too much like a direct translation of "この前," without the context. Millium could've said: [Every bit as tasty as the pancakes Tilly and I had (anything that'd make more sense) before/in Leeves/a couple months ago.]
Random moment in the localization where refering to the jaeger corp in question as just "the dragons"/"竜" is omitted. There were no issues in any other instance. Shirley could've said: [I figured the dragons would be good, but the other guys are no slouches themselves.]
The original has it as "changed"/"変わり," not outright lost. Gareth could've said: [The dragon changed its head, and as for the other group, well...]
The localization phrases this in a different way than it should. It's denoted that "the dragons and these jaegers in purple" are emphasized as the "two strongest jager corps"; however, the original is listing the four in the scene. Sara could've said: [We've got two of the strongest jaeger corps--Zephyr and the Red Constelation--the dragons and these jaegers in purple, battling it out.]
The localization changes the clear question about the actual term she read about, just to make it sillier. Besides the fact that it even chooses to swap "council" for "conference." Juna could've said: [What's this Provincial Council thing about?]
The localization omits the time held captive, "one week"/"一週間." Old Man Rod could've said: [One time, some bandits captured me and held me in a stone prison for a whole week...]
「I heard that they sealed it up so that the Noble Alliance wouldn't get their hands on it.」 / 「貴族勢力に使われないよう厳重に封印したって聞いたけど……」
Very weird way to phrase this line by the localization. Especially considering that it is also said "they sealed it" in the next line. The original already mentions the "military"/"軍." Celine could've said: [Speaking of which, was/wasn't the Azure Knight ever retrieved by the military?]
The localization lumps the meaning of reaching the "pinnacle" or "heights"/"極み" and "enlightenment"/"理" to be the same thing as "mastering"/"奥伝" the 7th form. That's simply wrong. Yun Ka-Fai's letter could've said: [Reaching the pinnacle of this form is more difficult than any other. I do not know if you are even capable of attaining "enlightenment", yet...]
The localization adds what I assume is meant to be a "threesome" joke. Sharon could've said: [Not to mention, I can't imagine you'd like me to intrude on your private time♡]
The localization saw fit to omit the specifications of the district. Elise could've said: [My school/St. Astraia/the Girl's School and the cathedral are both in the Sankt District, in case you were wondering.]
Actually, it's completely wrong. When questioned, by Rean, that she's never been to Armorica Village before, she's not supposed to have "studied in the village." Elise should've said: [Yes, I haven't. However, when I was accompanying the inspection team in Crossbell, I did some studying/read all *about it.]
「What is it that the Nord people worship?」 / 「ノルドの民が、空の女神と同じくらい大切にしているものは？」
There isn't supposed to be a comparison that reads as if the Nord people worship "something else" instead of Aidios. Rean could've said: [They also have the Goddess of the Sky, but they worship something else equally.]
「With such an amazing faculty member, Thors must really be an excellent school.」 / 「あんなに優秀な職員さんが いるなんて、トールズってやっぱり名門校なのねぇ。」
「Hahaha...(That doesn't quite seem like Celestin, but...)」 / 「ははは……（セレスタンさんはちょっと特別な気もするが……）」
The localization got this one completely wrong. How is describing Celestin as "knowledgeable about cooking" and "helpful" not like him? That response makes no sense. First, the second line should read more generalizing the compliments to the whole staff; Cattleya could've said: [With such an amazing faculty member/members Thors must really be an excellent school.] Second, the meaning is that "Celestin is a unique case among the faculty" (in regards to being so amazing.) Rean could've said: [Hahaha... (That doesn't quite seem like anyone but Celestin...)]
The localization also got this one wrong. The Japanese don't come across as completely unaware. The assumption of this scene is that to Wayne is standing outside the training hall. Rean could've said: [Huh...? (Wait, the one outside would be...)]
The localization omits the time spent traveling, "半年." Rean could've said: [She also said she apprenticed under a female martial artist and traveled around Erebonia for six months...]
The localization simplifies the explanation. Rean could've said: [Yeah, thanks to this pendant Emma imbued with her magic.)
「What a nightmarish beast that cryptid was...」 / 「はぁ、まさかあんな恐ろしい魔物がいるなんて……」
The localization mistranslated "fiend"/"魔物" for "cryptid"/"幻獣." Kurt could've said: [A monster? Wait that's some kind of fiend!] Musse could've said: [What a nightmarish beast that fiend was...]
The localization removes the direction of the city. The narration could've said: [After paying a visit to Professor Schmidt, Rean walked George to the station, where his train back to Roer, in the northeast, was waiting.]
The localization removes the remark about the duration of the last stand. Aurelia could've said: [I considered making a last stand there for a year, but news of the Northern War reached me.]
The localization changes, addressing Towa by her surname. Munk could've said: [You'll be just fine, Herschel. Now let's get this show on the road!]
The localization omits taking social classes into account. Munk could've said: [Not to mention, as the student council president, you were highly regarded by many of your fellow students--nobles and commoners alike.]
The localization omits the mention of the brand. Musse could've said: [Heehee. No elegant young maiden can resist the call of Mariage Cross beautiful lace/Mariage Cross' beautiful lace.]
The localization completely changes, from specifically teasing Elise to just be more of a general tease. Musse could've said: [I've heard that the princess has gifted you many such lace.]
The localization chooses to translate the general term for "ammunition"/"弾薬" to be specifically gunpowder. Marcus could've said: [Although, I was shocked when she tried to pay for it with ammunition/ammo/(maybe) *bullets".]
The localization randomly chooses to translate "yokan"/"羊羹" as just generic "eastern sweets", after having no problem doing it correctly in all other instances. Rean could've said: [How about some assorted yokan?]
The localization phrases the arrangement weirdly. Juna could've said: [Well, we've (Elise, Musse and Juna) basically just decided on the menu together with the Cooking Club.]
「I'm also worried about the 'true story' that Vita mentioned.」 / 「クロチルダさんが言っていた“真なる物語”というのもあったな。」
Again, it's made to use "Vita" instead of "Clotilde." I've already explained in previous posts how these changes can affect the dynamics of characters negatively. Rean could've said: [I'm also worried about the 'true story' that Clotilde mentioned.]
The localization removes what Roselia told Emma. Celine could've said: [From the day the Elder said 'forget all about heVita', Emma began training and studying as hard as she could with one goal...)
The localization swaps "used" or "piloted"/"使っていた" for "mentioned." Rean could've said: [That's the golden Spiegel the principal used!]
The localization omits the joke. The narration could've said: [And so, Aurelia finished (gently) training the members of Class VIII...]
The localization chose to phrase this as there's supposed to be reservation against these events being held at the same time. That wasn't particularly present originally. Tatiana could've said: [The Summer Festival is going to be held at the same time as Pronvicial Council...]; or: [I hear that the Provincial Council will be held together with the Summer Festival...]
The localization puts this as if it's a 'known regular hobby'. Tita could've said: [From what I heard, Olivier played his lute under it *once.]
「I hope our boss is doing well.」 / 「それにしても──女将さん、元気だといいんだが。」
The localization creates an awkward confusion for these lines. What would be expected is that "boss" would be the fleet's boss, but it's actually talking about the owner of the sailor bar, Miranda, by using "owner" or "landlady"/"女将さん." Leonora could've said: [I hope Miranda/the owner is doing well.]
「I think it'll be an eye-opening experience for everyone, yeah?」 / 「坊ちゃんやらジャジャ馬にだっていい社会勉強になるんじゃねえか？」
「Though I might consider doing something after we're done with the field exercises.」 / 「せめて演習が終わった最終日なら引率込みで考えなくもないが。」
「Huh...? Well, aren't you a stingy one?」 / 「ハァ……？チッ、ケチくせえ野郎だな。」
The point of the line doesn't really come across that well in the localization. It sounds like the punchline to responding to Ash's proposal to allow Class VII to go out in the nightlife of Raquel is that "I'll consider doing that by myself." That couldn't be more wrong. Rena could've said: [Though I might consider chaperoning you guys after we're done with the field exercises.]
Literally mistranslates "current"/"現." Altina could've said: [The current Duke Cayenne is still under arrest and no replacement has been named.]
Ash's line originally ends at the first clause.
The localization omits tthe fact that the snipers are from the army. Maya could've said: [I hear there are some snipers in the Imperial Army who chose the Hector... but I suppose it all comes down to feeling.]
The localization removes the previous remark. Rean could've said: [This way leads to Raquel--We need to focus on getting to Ordis.]
The choice of "used" makes the sentence read as a characteristic beyond the single event the Japanese refers to. Ash could've said: [Damn. So that monster locked herself/cozied up in there with fifty-thousand soldiers.]
「It's fully equipped with multiple Panzer Soldats, large-class airships, and enough supplies and anti-aircraft cannons to last three years.」/ 「多数の機甲兵に大型飛行艇、３年は継戦できるだけの物資、対空砲も完備していましたから。」
In the context of "the Noble Alliance forces, after the civil war ended, barricaded themselves in Juno Naval Fortress," the localization wrongly chooses to put it as "during the war." Much the same, the second line is supposed to be talking about that single past event. Altina could've said: [It was equiped with multiple Panzer Soldats, large-class airships, and enough supplies amd anti-aircraft cannons to last three years.]
The localization translated this line very wrongly. The situation being "shifted" isn't the Northern War. Rean could've said: [To resolve that situation (Aurelia's barricade in Juno), the deal to set out for the Northern War was struck.]
The localization omits the mention of the Main Battle Tanks. Ash could've said: [I don't see any Main Battle Tanks/MBTs/Achtzenhs or Goliath Soldats. Do you?]
「Activity that's led us to believe they're planning something for the Imperial Provincial Council in Lamare.」 / 「ール州で開かれる領邦会議に合わ・せるように。」
「Over the past six months, there haven't been any confirmed reports of jaeger corps activity within the Empire.」 / 「──ここ半月、帝国各地で 活動していた複数の猟兵団の動きが確認できなくなっている模様。」
By virtue of omitting information, the localization causes this line to have the wrong information. In the first line. Wallace could've said: [But over the past half a month/two weeks, we've not seen activity from the multiple jaeger corps which, until then, had been moving suspiciously in the Empire starting six months ago.] Consequentially, it's the lack of movement so close to the Provincial Council that makes them wary. The third line straight up mistranslated "half a month"/"半月." Wallace could've said: [Over the past half a month/two weeks, there haven't been any confirmed reports of jaeger corps activity within the Empire.]
The localization outright mistranslates "tomorrow"/"明日." The Provincial Army Soldier could've said: [Ordis will hold the Imperial Provincial Council starting tomorrow. Immediately after that's done is the Summer Festival.]
「The Port City, Ordis.」 / 「《紺碧の海都》オルディスへ。」
The localization refuses to establish a term for this other name that Rean and Musse call Ordis. Given some uses of the Japanese term, it could be "Saphirl Port City"; given the name of a food item in the city, perhaps "Aquamarine Port City"; even if not the same kanji, maybe "Azure Port City." As long as it's not entirely omitted from the game.
The localization omits mentioning the location of the monster. Ash could've said: [Yeah, but once we're done sightseein', we've got a monster to kill on the beach to the south/southern beach/beach south of the city.]
The localization singles out Luna. Lord Quinn could've said: [I hope Luna and Eclair aren't too bored.]
The localization messes up the timeframe a little. The Provincial Army Soldier could've said: [You're in luck. With the Summer Festival happening soon, the town is really buzzing with activity.]
Just like in Chapter 2, a maid is made to call her "master"/"lord" her husband by virtue of the fact that the Japanese term can be used for both. Pamela could've said: [My Master/Lord doesn't like things that come from the capital.]
It's not meant to be "households "in plural; the context here is that the glass workshop is used by the Cayenne estate. Musse could've said: [In addition to the taverns, there's an orbment store, and a glass workshop that is popular with the duke household/Cayenne/duke's estate*.]
「My big brother is coming back tomorrow!」 / 「今日は兄ちゃんが帰ってくるんだよ！」
Straight up mistranslating "today"/"今日" in the localization. Luka could've said: [Guess what! My big brother is coming back today!]; And: [My big brother is coming back today!]
The localization omits the line also havimg mention of the fact that the emperor is the award giver. Luther could've said: [Gramps is the ultimate craftsman. He even received the Golden Emblem from His Majesty himself.]
「We get all our seafood from Rossel.」 / 「ちなみに魚介はそこのロッセルさんが卸してくれるんだ。」
The localization got this line wrong. It's not about drinking a lot, even the owner of the inn says the same, "卸して." Just as mentioned in the second line, by the tavern owner, Edmond. Old Man Rossel should've said: [Though, all I do nowadays is sell my catches here!]
The localization chose to have the guy who's emamored with his new boat, and gave it it's own name, ultimately call it a "this." The Cheerful Man could've said: [I need to make sure it doesn't compromise Radiance's beauty.]
The original isn't really about being or not being "self-made." Lord Beckford could've said: [I had to rid myself of some of the merchant ships my grandfather passed down to me as if they were worthless!]
The localization makes up the logic that the count would somehow still be in doubt of the participation of Great Houses with one day to go. Count Florald should've said: [I mean, will all four of the Great Houses' thoughts even be in alignment? This truly is mindboggling.]
The whole point of the quest is to make "decorations"/"飾り" for the Summer Festival, and the localization decides it should be "accessory." Kurt should've said: [So this is a jade shell...It'd make for quite the decorarion.]
The original doesn't make it sound like the Purple Jaegers already lost men against Rean and Class VII. The Purple Jaeger should've said: [There's no point in us losing our forces here today.]
The localization mistranslated this line and also makes it sound silly. None of the characters put any doubt that there are jaegers around or that the Purple Jaegers are jaegers; needing to confirm that just comes across as awkward. Patrick should've said: [It would have been great if we had actually captured those jaegers roaming the area.]
The original is about "accepting the government's reform plan"/"政府の改革案を受け入れる. Lord Beckford should've said: [This is a travesty! Does Marquis Ballad truly intend to accept the reforms of the government like this?!]
The original is about the lovers being in Ordis "every year"/"毎年" during the Provincial Council. Hearhcliff could've said: [We both come to town every year while the council is underway.]
The localizations not only mistranslate "current"/"現" but also "sentenced"/"判決が出される." Reins should've said: [The current Duke Cayenne is about to be sentenced.]
「You can enjoy the night life without worrying about the time.」 / 「鉄道のお時間を気にせず歓楽街を楽しむ事ができますよ。」
The first localized line gives the wrong idea. That would cause the second line to likely be interpreted as "Ordis' night life" when it's actually about in "Raquel"/"ラクウェル". Receptionis Harold should've said: [Our hotel offers a taxi service jto and from Raquel*.]
The localization singles out Juna, when it's her and Class VII. Louise could've said: [Juna and everyone/Everyone/Class VII, see you later.]
The localization leaves to the imagination, for better or for worse to some, that she got a "nosebleed"/"鼻血." Angelica could've said: [Haha. Well, the three girls were so cute that I got a nosebleed--ahem, excuse me.]
The localization mistranslated "町" as "school," which doesn't have anything to do with it. Sister Olfa should've said: [There was a shooting near the city the other day...]
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2024.05.16 02:51 WestsideTy Niche Review Dump

Hi Everyone! I’ve always loved good smelling stuff and for the last 15 years I’ve usually had one bottle of cologne, and would replace once it’s out. Only in the last few months have I really delved into this world and began filling out a modest collection. I’m definitely not an expert (so take my reviews with a big grain of salt) but I love smelling and writing so here ya go. (Fucking wall of text incoming lmao, I didn’t realize how lengthy this got)
I just got back from a three-hour mall trip to try and get my nose on as many niche fragrances as my senses would tolerate. I had already done a good bit of research so I had some picked out to try and others already crossed-off. Im a 30M for reference.
I also had the goal in mind to find a contender for a fall/winter scent that exudes class, sophistication and decadence. For that, I’ve already tried a few that I really enjoy, and kind of used these as a springboard to continue exploring:
Xerjoff Alexandria II- This is what I envision royalty wearing. Lavender and rosewood mix soooo nice in the open, and dries into a lovey rose/vanilla/essence of oud. The oud is really toned down here for those that dislike it. It’s kind of hard to pick out. Nuclear performance.
Initio Oud for Greatness- Another good starter oud, you could say (this was my introduction to oud). It lasts forever and the dry down is seriously heavenly. The wet, soily oud is at the forefront for 2-4 hours, but I’m absolutely in love with what’s left when it disappears. Lavender, saffron, nutmeg and musk mixes into the best dryer-sheet-like scent I’ve come across (what it reminds ME of at least).
Perfums de Marly Haltane- Quite similar in the opening to Oud for Greatness. Haltane is darker, though, where I get more leathesmoke. I think the oud in this is more subdued, or at least less moist smelling. It blends well and lasts a good while.
Initio Atomic Rose- Holy shit. Apparently rose gets my motor GOING. I tried a lot of rose-centric fragrances today, but this probably still takes the cake for its balance and strength, in addition to the scent itself being just gorgeous.
So with those in mind I was off to Neiman Marcus. I sampled a large amount more than what I’ve written, but stuck to the ones that were memorable; good or bad.
Frederic Malle - Portrait of a Lady- My favorite of the Frederic Malle. Sensual rose/clove/currant at the front, but it is kind of hard to pick out specific notes on this one. After looking, I can get the cinnamon in the background of the dry down, it blends perfectly with the sandalwood, rose and benzoin after drying down. - Carnal Flower- Some similarity to POAL, lots of tuberose and jasmine, which I personally like. A bright yet sensual floral, and you get some coconut and melon there, too. I typically dislike coconut but this is blended masterfully. - Lipstick Rose- Yeah, that’s what it smells like. Try this if you’ve seen people describe scents as lipstick-y or violet taking on that accord. Not my cup of tea, also leans more feminine to my nose than the other two. - Musc Ravageur- I really wanted to like this one. And for a split second I did! A clove-y vanilla sasparilla is what I first got, and it unfortunately turned into barnyard urine. I immediately remembered seeing some reviews stating this, and I couldn’t get my nose to move past it. I can tell there’s good stuff there, but not for me.
Amouage - Reflection- The only one I’d tried before, and remains one of my favs. Rosemary and pink pepper greet you with a deep, fresh spice. The vetiver and patchouli sit nicely at the bottom, and the combination of white florals mixes wonderfully. Another scent I could imagine on royalty, and seems pretty versatile, too. You could wear this year-round without feeling out of place. Insane staying power. - Lyric- Probably my favorite, but I need to smell again on another day. Compared to the other Amouage, I had to continually stick my nose in the coffe beans to pick up the scent from the test strip. When I did get it, it was a lovely light, fresh scent. Quite a departure from the other Amouage I’ve tried, but great. No surprise, the list of notes are some of my favorites: lime, bergamot, rose, orange blossom, saffron, nutmeg, musk, pine, vanilla, incense, sandalwood. Seriously, love each and all those individually and they come together beautifully. - Interlude- Another good one. Dark, mysterious. Definitely get the oregano/peppepatchouli/incense bomb off the top. Leather lurking behind. I typically don’t gravitate toward the leathery scents but this one’s good. - Enclave- This pretty much seals the deal for me that on me, mint just ain’t it. I liked Sedley at first, but the mint somehow gets too cloying to my nose after too long. I can tell I would get the same from the peppermint in the opening of Enclave. I almost liked this one, too. If you can even tolerate peppermint, you’ll enjoy this one.
Mind Games - Blockade- Wowww. First sniff love, here. Explosion of citrus, juicy fruit-y sex. I usually find myself staying away from citrus-forward scents but this shit is next level. This will be a contender for my next upscale summer buy. - Double Attack- Another love at first sniff. It’s familiar, though. Chocolate/orange/cinnamon/vanilla. You’ll want to eat it right up. I already have this box checked in my collection, but may come back to it in the future. - Checkmate- Another lovely scent. Champagne, red currant, rose, magnolia, little patchouli. It all comes together really nicely, and it was difficult for me to pick out specific notes before looking. Not a love, but I was really impressed with the quality and scent profile of the Mind Games I tried.
Clive Christian - Town & Country- Wow. No seriously, like fucking wow. Smells like an Italian fruit cart strolling through an English manor’s sprawling garden road. I look at the notes and I don’t understand how you get this smell supposedly out of Clary Sage, Ambergris, and Sandalwood. Like, what? This is high quality shit. I get some pear or grapes there, too. Try this. - Crab Apple Blossom- Yum yum yum this is goooood. Smells like it sounds. Bergamot, apple blossom and rhubarb dance around playfully together. Can’t help but have a big stupid smile on your face when you smell this. The more it dried down, the more it might be my favorite over Town & Country. - Matsukita- Another great scent. In the same vein as the other two since they are part of the same “Crown Collection.” You get some smokiness, here. Bergamot with nutmeg and mate give depth and a little mystery. White florals, woody ambers and musk at the base. Just quality stuff here. All three of these in the Crown Collection were available in 10ml travel size gift pack for $300. Good idea to put on my wish list. That shit is kiiiinda expensive.
Xerjoff - Erba Pura- I did not expect to like this as much as I did! Favorite that I sampled. Perfect combination of citrus and fruitiness off the top, layered over a bed of sweet musk. Something here is very familiar to my nose but I couldn’t place it. This will be another top contender for a future upscale summer purchase. - Accento- Soothing scent. Fruity white floral (usually dumb reach for me), and the iris gives it some powder but not overpowering. Not as feminine-leaning as I would have expected. - Iommi- Delicious! Sweet smoky rum off the top, and it’s a little surprising how forward the patchouli and leather is in this. It’s bordering on being a little overpowering, but it tames a bit on the dry down. I’d need to see how this goes on my skin, for sure. - Torino 21- Another one that I liked way more than expected. I’m going back and seeing mint listed as a top note here…I didn’t get that! And thank God since mint usually is a non-starter. Kind of an aquatic green to my nose. Again, just a lovely scent. - Naxos- Yeah ok this is good shit. I was expecting a sweet bomb, but this is definitely more restrained than what a lot of reviewers will have you believe. I’m a sucker for lavender and bergamot. Throw in honey and jasmine atop a bed of tobacco, vanilla and tonka bean? Yes please. - Erba Gold- Pretty good. To my nose more feminine than Erba Pura, likely due to the extra fruits in the middle. That combination of citruses, pear and melon is reminiscent of particular ladies’ scents.
Louis Vuitton - L’Immensité- Ohhhh yeahh. Relaxation in a bottle. My favorite besides maybe Fleur du Desert. This, Imagination and Météore all kind of dance to the same song, so to speak. More than one of these would be redundant, in my opinion. The quality speaks through each of these fragrances, though- really nice stuff. - Imagination- The name fits, as a lot of the notes here are almost fleeting like a word on the tip of your tongue. It’s a great, calming scent but it didn’t blow me away. Like I said, L’Immensité was the best of these and I don’t see the need to diversify within this collection. - Météore- Compared to L’Immensité, there’s a little more sweetness here. This leans closer to a shower gel-like scent in my opinion. Still great. - Fleur du Désert- This one started out reallly good. Honey and cinnamon into rose and orange blossom is an intriguing, sensual combination. Unfortunately, smelling it on my arm after a couple hours, the jasmine and honey turn into something my mind recognizes as an old lady scent. The POAL on my hand, by comparison, keeps mixing with my skin in a great pheromonic way. - Ombre Nomad- Disappointed with this one. I’m realizing I don’t gravitate toward darker scents like heavy oud, leather, incense. I can tell it’s put together really well and uses quality materials, but this isn’t one that was made for me.
All in all, my main take-aways include: Xerjoff scents living up to the name. I was definitely impressed with their offerings, and would have expected it to lean closer to overrated. Same with Mind Games. Really enjoyed everything I sampled from them, even if it wasn’t my cup of tea, I was impressed with the quality. Also, I need to get back and sample the rest of the Clive Christian house. I was absolutely blown away with what I tried.
A little bonus: I tried TF Noir de Noir, Extreme Noir, and Cafe Rose. Extreme Noir is excellent. A regal mix of saffron, nutmeg and cardamom on top of rose and white florals. Ahhhh, again, similar to what I imagine a king or king to smell like.
Cafe Rose is probably the second best rose-centric scent to my nose besides Atomic Rose. I’ll need to put those side by side.
Anyway, feel free to ask away if you’d like. I was bored and inspired so killed some time writing this out :)
submitted by WestsideTy to Colognes [link] [comments]

2024.05.16 01:25 Obsequium_Minaris The Vampire's Apprentice - Chapter 11

First / Previous / Royal Road / Patreon (Read 12 Chapters Ahead)

Alain kicked in the door to the gun store, and they all flooded in. There was nobody there, as expected, so that gave them free reign to take whatever they needed. Alain immediately stocked up on ammo for his revolver and shotgun, slotting cartridges into the spaces on his bandoleer and belt. All the other men did the same, and a few of them grabbed an extra gun as well.
"Everyone good?" Alain called. They all answered back in the affirmative, and he motioned for them to follow after him as he sprinted back outside.
The remaining undead had taken notice of them now, and were closing in once more. Their group opened fire as Sable and Az rushed forwards.
"Watch your fire!" Alain warned as rounds passed dangerously close to the two of them.
"What the hell are they doing?!" Rusty called.
"They're clearing a path for us!" Alain shouted back. "Come on, we need to-"
A pair of sickening gurgles from behind him caught his attention. Immediately, Alain turned around, and saw the two sheriff's deputies standing there, their hands thrust through the backs and out the chests of Jack and Redd. Rusty raised his rifle to try and engage, but he didn't get a chance to fire before one of the deputies drew his own revolver and put a round between his eyes. Alain could only watch in shock as he fell backwards, dead.
The two deputies pulled their arms out of their unfortunate victims, then shook them to get some of the blood off as they advanced on Alain and Felix. Both men took a step back as they shouldered their long guns.
"Deputies Timms and Brayton," Felix surmised, looking at each man in turn. "You know, I almost didn't want to believe it when Alain first told me you were involved with all of this. The sheriff put you up to it?"
Timms ran a hand through his beard, uncaring of how the blood and gore from his victim left a trail of slick red through it. "He told us what we stood to gain if we helped him. After learning about that, how could we refuse?"
"And what would that be?" Alain growled.
Brayton grinned, showing off yellow teeth as he twirled his revolver almost absentmindedly. "What do you think would coerce someone to sacrifice other people?"
"I don't know."
"Ah, well… it doesn't matter; you'll all be dead soon, anyway."
"So confident of that, are you?"
"I'm confident enough, we'll say." Brayton turned to Timms. "You take the bartender, I'll handle the drifter."
Timms nodded, and then before Alain knew what was happening, Brayton had rushed towards him. He just barely managed to avoid the incoming arm thrust, the deputy's fingers brushing against his shirt, tearing through the fabric with ease. Alain fell back, discharging his shotgun as he went; the load of buckshot struck Brayton in the chest, opening it enough to expose his blackened heart, and he stumbled back, but recovered quickly.
Brayton let out a low growl, then drew his revolver and began firing off shots. Alain was forced to dive for cover behind a nearby building to avoid the incoming shots. Just as he reached concealment, however, a series of moans from nearby caught his attention. He turned and found several undead moving towards him. Without missing a beat, Alain fired off the remaining shell in his shotgun, taking one out, and then held it in one hand as he drew his revolver and killed the other two with a series of well-placed shots.
Alain wasted no time in reloading his guns once the trio of undead had hit the ground. He broke his shotgun open and ripped the spent shells out, then shoved two fresh ones in and closed the weapon. Before he could cock the hammers back, however, the building behind him erupted in a shower of splinters, and Brayton came marching through.
"I must say, you're not making this easy," Brayton told him.
"I thought you would've learned that by now," Alain replied as he cocked the hammers back on his shotgun. "After all, I did plenty of damage to you two back in the jailhouse earlier."
"A shame it didn't last."
"This will."
Alain shouldered his weapon and fired both barrels in the same motion. To his dismay, Brayton was able to duck back into the destroyed building at the last minute, avoiding most of the buckshot; a few pellets lodged in his throat and face, but it wasn't nearly enough to kill him for good.
It did succeed in getting under his skin, though. Brayton stepped out of the building, a scowl etched across his face. Without missing a beat, he advanced on Alain's position, drawing his revolver and firing it as he went. Several shots rang out, and Alain felt a sudden, searing pain in his left shoulder; he turned and saw a bloody patch on his shirt that was growing more intense with every passing second. He only stared for a second though, then turned and began to run, desperate to put some distance between himself and Brayton.
"There's no point in hiding," Brayton answered as Alain ducked back into Felix's bar, stepping over a small mountain of undead corpses in the process. "I'll find you eventually."
Alain sat down behind the bar, then tore open his shirt to get a better look at the wound. Brayton's round had apparently nicked his artery; it wasn't spurting blood, but it was bleeding heavily. Alain didn't waste any time, instead tearing his cartridge belt off his waist and cinching it tight just above the wound as a makeshift tourniquet. He then forced himself back onto his feet, and with shaking hands, reloaded his shotgun as he looked around.
The undead horde seemed to have been thinned out substantially in this part of town. That led him to believe that Az and Sable had instead moved on to another part of town, most likely closer to the mines, and were working on clearing a path for the rest of them. That meant they'd be of no help to him anytime soon – they were almost certainly too busy fighting the undead to realize him and Felix needed help.
So the two of them were on their own. Alain grimaced as the thought crossed his mind.
He needed to take care of Brayton and Timms, and fast.
Alain vaulted over the bar, wincing when he felt the movement disturb the bullet in his shoulder slightly.
"Not doing anything like that again any time soon…" he muttered as he propped himself up against a wall next to the opening where the door had once stood, then peered out into town.
From here, he couldn't see either of the deputies, but he could still hear sporadic gunfire throughout town, along with the moans of the living corpses that were still walking around. Cautiously, Alain stepped out from behind cover, his shotgun already readied against his good shoulder. He looked around once more, trying to see where either of the deputies or Felix had ended up.
The click of a revolver's hammer being thumbed back struck his ears, and Alain hit the dirt just in time for the bullet to scrape across the top of his head, taking a few of his hairs with it.
There was little time to dwell on that, however, as another round came from out of the darkness soon after that one. Alain rolled to avoid it, and just barely managed to get out of the way in time for it to embed itself into the ground next to him. Dirt, pebbles, and bits of spall impacted against his back, but once again, he managed to avoid serious injury. A vein pulsed in his forehead, and Alain forced himself to stand up before firing off two shotgun blasts towards where he thought the shots came from. He was rewarded with the sound of buckshot impacting against flesh, and knew he'd hit his target.
Before Brayton could have time to recover, Alain slung his shotgun and drew his revolver, then advanced upon his position. Sure enough, Brayton was busy pulling himself up off the ground; Alain emptied his revolver's cylinder into the deputy's head. Blood, bone, and bits of brain arced through the air, staining the ground and the nearby wall with a macabre mixture of crimson, white, and gray. By the end of it, the deputy's head had been sheared almost in half, with the remnants of his brain exposed to the outside world.
Alain stood there, wisps of smoke curling up from the end of his revolver's barrel. That should have been it for Brayton – no mortal would have been able to survive something like that.
Unfortunately, Brayton was no mere mortal. He let out a shuddering breath, then began to lurch forward. His movements were sluggish and slow, and there was a dull expression of pain on his face, but he was still alive. Alain paused at the sight of it, his eyes wide with surprise.
"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me."
That was all he managed to get out before Brayton raised his revolver once again. Alain dove for cover; the bullet scraped across his lower back, just a few inches away from his spine. He scrambled to his feet, and only once he was back up did he realize that in the confusion, he'd dropped his revolver.
Alain went to reload his shotgun, but found that he was once again out of shells. He let out a muffled curse, then looked around for something he could use. Sable had told him that there were three ways to kill wights – removing the head, destroying the brain, and…
Alain's gaze landed on a nearby lantern hanging from an abandoned shop, swinging precariously from a rope. Even from here, he could see oil sloshing around inside it. A manic grin crossed his face, and he immediately made a mad dash for it. He got lucky – the deputy was caught in the middle of a reload, and was unable to shoot him. Alain ripped the lantern off the building, then hurled it at Brayton; it shattered on impact, coating him with oil. Once that was done, Alain reached into his pocket and retrieved a match.
"Mom always said those cigarettes couldn't be good for me," he said to himself as he struck the match against the building, lighting it. He turned toward the deputy, still coated in oil, and his eyes narrowed.
"I wonder what she'd say if she could see this."
He flicked the lit match towards Brayton, watching as it soared through the air. The flame made impact with the oil-slick deputy, and he caught alight immediately. An inhuman screech erupted from Brayton's throat, loud enough that Alain winced and had to cover both his ears. Brayton fell to the ground, his revolver dropping against the dirt and discharging harmlessly into the air as he rolled to try and put out the fire, but it was no use. In a matter of seconds, his movements stopped completely, his body reduced to little more than a charred corpse.
That wasn't enough for Alain. He sprinted over to where his Colt had fallen, retrieved it, and emptied the cylinder into what was left of Brayton's head, just for good measure. The body didn't even twitch as the rounds made impact, and by the end of it, his head had been reduced to little more than a jawbone still attached to the neck. Alain stood there for a moment, panting from exertion, before letting his arm fall.
Footsteps took him by surprise, and he rounded on them, only to relax when he saw that it was Felix, and he was apparently completely unharmed. The two exchanged a glance, and Felix's eyes widened.
"Shit…" he breathed. "What happened to you? You're covered in blood."
"I killed Brayton."
"Yes, I can see that. But did you have to put yourself through a meat grinder to do it?"
"Is Timms dead?" Alain asked.
"Yeah, he's done."
"How'd it happen?"
"I shot him in the head a bunch with my rifle. Why didn't you just do that to Brayton?"
Alain just scowled. Before he could reply, there were more footsteps – they both looked over and saw Sable and Az approaching. Both of them seemed a lot worse for wear, sporting more grievous injuries than they had before. Still, as Sable approached, her eyes widened when she saw Alain lying there.
"What happened to him?" she asked.
"Got shot," he grunted. "Hey, you needed blood, right?"
"Well, yes, but-"
Alain didn't wait to hear anything else, instead loosening his tourniquet. The blood began to flow once more, and he motioned towards his shoulder.
"Help yourself for a bit."
Sable went red in the face, but her shame didn't stop her. She immediately moved over to him, then latched onto the wound on his shoulder and began to drink. Alain winced when he felt her teeth lock into him and her tongue begin to lap up his blood, but he didn't stop her.
"I'm gonna be sick…" Felix said, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth as he watched the display in front of him.
Thankfully, Sable pulled herself away shortly after latching onto him. Alain turned towards her, and was surprised to see that many of her wounds were healed, though not all of them. Before he could inquire further about that, Sable began tearing strips off her gore-soaked dress, taking care to search for the few clean parts only, then wrapped his wound with them.
"You need a doctor," she declared. "But for now, that'll have to do. You can sit this one out if-"
"Stop," Alain managed to get out. "I'm not missing this. Help me up."
"Alain-"
"I said, help me up."
Sable hesitated, but ultimately obliged, pulling him to his feet. Alain stumbled a bit, lightheaded from pain and blood loss, but managed to maintain his footing. He slung his shotgun and reloaded his revolver, then turned back to the rest of them.
"Alright," he said. "To the mines."

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, Ickbard for the help with writing this story.
submitted by Obsequium_Minaris to HFY [link] [comments]

2024.05.16 00:49 spectre_rdt spectre's 5/15 market pre-open notes

Every day/night before the open of the next trading session, I write out my plan for the open, my general expectations for the market that day, and what buyers/sellers would want to see in each of the opening scenarios that I outline. Since I live in PST and do not/cannot physically get up at 4:30am everyday to plan a couple of hours before the market opens (this includes assessing any over night news, overseas markets, pre-open activity, etc), I make sure to plan for almost every possible scenario imaginable. This includes those that I feel are very unlikely.
Doing this provides me with many significant benefits.
First of all, I am actively planning out for all possible scenarios at the open. This means that I will not be blindsided by any "unexpected" move at the open. I will have already prepared for it and will have a guide that I can reference for what I need to do and watch to watch for.
Second, this plan helps to keep me "balanced" at the open. For every possible scenario that could unfold at the open, I write out in extensive detail what buyers AND sellers would want to see in order for them to get long/short. Importantly, this also helps me to detach from any directional bias that I may have, especially if I have swing positions that go with that bias. I will prepared and have played out the price action that both buyers and sellers will want to see to support their case.
Finally, and arguably most important, I am constantly reinforcing the need to be aware and proactive with discipline, NOT unaware and impulsively reactive. Being unaware and impulsively reactive is very dangerous in trading. When you have a directional bias and the market suddenly starts to do something that you were unprepared for and not expecting, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT GOES AGAINST ANY POSITIONS THAT YOU MAY HAVE ON, you're going to be prone to poor and emotional decision making. Being well prepared ahead of the game, IMO, is crucial, and will help keep you out of trouble.
After the market open, I set a 45 minute timer on my watch/phone. When that is up, I pause and open up my daily trading log/notes. I write out what the price action has been like up to this point and I once again write out what buyers and sellers would want to see. If I have a personal bias and want to get long, for example, I will wait for the "buyer" scenario to unfold before I get long.
​
With that being said, here are my notes/plan for the open tomorrow. For each scenario, you will see that I have laid out subsections for what buyers and sellers would want to see, as well as any levels of support and resistance that I feel are notable.

market 5/15 pre-open notes
Yesterday, SPY put in a large 'Gap n Go' after a quick and tiny bid check into the gap. Very bullish price action all day long with minimal retracement. SPY closed on its HOD at a new ATH on heavy volume. This is a strong breakout, especially considering the fact that SPY closed on its HOD without any EOD profit taking yday.
After the big day yday, I feel that SPY is very likely to have a rest day. I'd imagine that we're likely going to open within yday's range.
The price action into the breakout to the new ATH has been rather tenuous. Very light volume bounce above the SMA 100 with mixed candles. This isn't bearish (light volume rallies are NOT BEARISH. They just can't be trusted as much), but it does suggest that buyers early on (up until the last couple of days) have not be very aggressive. If they were, we would have seen stacked green candles on heavy volume. Instead, we've had a general light float higher. Given this relatively light price action going into the breakout, I want to see this breakout hold and gain traction within a few days. We don't want SPY to compress around here for too long without making much progress. That would be a sign of resistance if SPY is unable to add to these gains.
It's important to remember: "We don't make money on the breakout. We make money on the follow through" -- Pete S
I would've entered some swing longs yday, but the price action into the breakout makes me want to hold off momentarily. I would feel more comfortable with opening swings if I can see SPY hold the breakout well + technical confirmation of the breakout with follow through. A quick, wimpy re-test of support that forms a higher low, double bottom above 525.18 (low of 5/15 breakout) could setup an excellent entrypoint for longs if buyers show their aggression. Additionally, a quick little pullback could help us get a better sense of which stocks are actually RS, versus those that are just getting dragged up by their hair with the market.
SPY will be starting the day off finalizing a bullish 1OP cycle and will quickly develop into a bearish 1OP cycle.
​
## Scenarios for the open
### Gap Up above 530.08
On a gap up, I would be very, very cautious. Gaps up to new relative highs often times see profit taking, and we do not want that profit taking to turn into organized selling. Given that some of the move yday on the 'gap n go' was likely fueled by shorts getting squeezed on the breakout above prior ATH at 524.61, I feel that this gap up could potentially be a bit more "vulnerable" to a gap reversal than the one we had yday. What possible news would warrant a larger sized gap up overnight?
​
#### Buyers
For buyers, if the gap up holds the halfway point / prior day high (530.08) during the bearish 1OP cycle, that could set up a nice entrypoint for a long on a 1OP bullish cross + bounce (technical confirmation). Keep in mind that SPY has moved a lot over the last couple of days, and a day of rest is likely. Buyers would not want to see sellers aggressively fill the gap and get into the prior day range. Getting trapped in the prior day range would likely set up dull trading conditions.
​
#### Sellers
Sellers need to hold off on jumping into shorts. We know that buyers were very active yesterday--there were virtually zero dips yesterday, and that's a sign of conviction/strength from buyers. At a minimum, sellers would want to see the gap completely fill on the bearish 1OP cycle and to make plenty of retracement into ydays range. If on the next bullish 1OP cycle buyers are unable to breakout back above the prior day high (and the move up is tenuous with mixed overlapping candles), a lower high double top + a bearish 1OP cross + significant technical confirmation (i.e. long red bullish engulfing candle with quick follow through on heavy volume) could potentially setup a SMALL short. If we short, be mindful that we're shorting against a very powerful long term up trend. It's prudent to use a smaller size and to be mindful that this is likely going to be a lower probability trade, as we do not have the long term trend at our back.
​
#### S/R levels for a gap up
Support: ATH/yday high at 530.08
Resistance: None. Watch the price action very closely for clues of any resistance if SPY moves up to a new high and struggles to advance (tiny bodied compressed candles on light volume, bearish hammers, bearish engulfs).
​
### Flat open / smaller gap down within the upper end of yday range [527.17 (open of 11:05 long green key bar that broke to new HOD yday on M5 chart), 530.08]
If SPY opens within yesterday's range, warning signs to "error on the side of not trading" should flash. Remember -- successive back to back big days (i.e. two large bullish trend days in a row) are not very common. Usually, we're going to see a day of rest after a big day like we had yday. Additionally, inside days generally do NOT provide the best trading conditions. If SPY establishes a high and low well within the bounds of yday's range and sits within it for the first 60-90 minutes or so, we're likely going to see a choppy light volume range bound day. If that happens, be prepared to not take any trades and recognize that there may not be any great opportunity that sets up. Focus instead on setting alerts so that we're ready for the next higher probability opportunity (it will come, don't forget that).
​
#### Buyers
Buyers want to see SPY hold the bid well to start the day. Because we have a pending bearish 1OP cycle and a big day yday, there may be some initial selling on the open from profit taking after yday's big day. If SPY can hold itself together and is able to stay at/above 527.17 (where any drift lower is on mixed candles with retracement and low volume), a bullish 1OP cycle + technical confirmation of a bounce off of/above 527.17 support level could set up an opportunity for a long (don't force anything if there's nothing notable to trade). Watch for follow through and a nice drift higher, ideally without any large retracement. If SPY is below the HOD from wherever we open, buyers would want to see SPY easily get back to it and breakout through it without much effort. Any mamby-pamby patty-cake attempt to make a new high (very light volume + mixed candles, choppy move up, tails/wicks, compressed move upward/compression below the HOD) would be a sign that SPY is likely not going to have much luck breaking out of the range.
​
#### Sellers
For sellers, like the above scenario (gap up above yday high), they need to be patient on the open. There needs to be a very convincing reason to get short. Sellers would want to see an easy breakdown through the 527.17 level with organized selling to start the day. I personally would not chase a breakdown with follow through. We know that buyers were very aggressive at the end of the trading session on Tuesday + all day on Wednesday on a breakout to a new ATH (yesterday). In this breakdown scenario, I feel that buyers are likely going to try to bounce SPY back up to 527.17. If the bounce is wimpy and a lower high, double top forms below that level + heavier follow through selling with technical confirmation, a small short may set up. Be mindful of support at 525.18 (the low from yday into the gap). Shorting failed bounces is much easier than chasing long red candles when going against the strength of the longer term uptrend that SPY is in right now.
​
#### S/R levels for "flat open / smaller gap down"
Support: 527.17, 525.18 (prior LOD)
Resistance: 530.08
​
### Larger gap down within the lower end of yday range [525.18, 527.17]
In the case that SPY gaps down below 527.17, we need to closely watch how SPY behaves at the open. This would be a decent sized gap down, especially considering the fact that SPY closed yday practically at the HOD with no profit taking at the EOD. Because of that, I feel that
​
1) This is unlikely, and
2) If it does happen, both buyers and sellers need to have extra patience
​
#### Buyers
The ideal scenario for buyers would be for SPY to quickly start filling in the gap down. That would be a sign that buyers are eager to regain the overnight losses and that they're interested at this level. I would want to see buyers quickly break out above 527.17 with follow through to get interested in going long.
​
What buyers would NOT want to see here is for SPY to drift lower down toward yday LOD at 525.18. That would be a sign that the profit taking/selling from overnight + the open is heavier than expected. If this happens, buyers need to be careful and NOT rush into anything. They would want to see support form above the 527.17 level (M5 11:05 long green key bar) + a quick bounce with consecutive green candles on decent volume. If buyers can breakout above 527.17 with conviction and the next bearish 1OP cycle fails to produce (buyers defend that level + higher low, double bottom above it), the next bullish 1OP cycle could setup a potential long.
​
#### Sellers
While a gap down of this size would certainly be "exciting" for sellers, they must respect the strength in SPY from EOD Tuesday + yday's breakout to new ATH. Sellers would want to see a very weak attempt from buyers to get above the 527.17 level that's quickly smacked down with a long red bearish engulfing candle, or consecutive red candles on heavy volume. Since SPY will likely begin a bearish 1OP cycle shortly after the open, sellers would want to quickly try to get down to yday LOD at 525.18. If that level is easily broken by sellers, don't rush into anything. Sit back and expect some volatility. SPY would be in the gap from yday's large gap up, and the previous ATH at 524.61 would serve as support. If buyers are interested in this breakout above 524.61, they will try to support the market there. If sellers can break through that level with ease on stacked red candles on heavy volume, that would be a warning sign that sellers are active and aggressive above the 524.61 prior ATH.
​
Given the significance of a breakdown like this below the prior ATH at 524.61 + the chance for some increased volatility (this would be a potential failed breakout above prior ATH), don't rush into a short. I would personally want to wait for a failed bounce/attempt from buyers to move SPY back up above 524.61, or a compression near the LOD that does not last for long and where buyers are unable to retrace any of the long red candles. If that happens, that would confirm that the selling pressure is much heavier than expected and I can feel more comfortable getting short.
​
#### S/R levels
Support: 525.18 (yday low), 524.61 (previous ATH)
Resistance: 527.17 (open from SPY M5 11:05 long green key bar), 530.08 (yday HOD)
​
### Large gap down below 525.18
If SPY gaps down well below 525.18 (and below 524.61 ATH), this would be a significant warning sign. There would have to be a pretty substantial reason (whatever that may be) for institutions to NOT want to support the very strong and convincing buying we had yday to a new ATH. Expect volatility in this case.
​
Even more so than the "larger gap down within lower end of yday range" above, I feel that this is a very unlikely scenario.
​
#### Buyers
Buyers would want to see close to the same as the above in the "larger gap down withing lower end of yday range" above, but with much more aggression. Buyers would need to show aggressive interest that they want to support the breakout to a new ATH. They would want to very quickly fill in some of the gap down and get back into yday range. Be very, very careful here. I would personally only feel comfortable getting long if I can see buyers get above 527.17 with relative ease.
​
#### Sellers
A large gap down like this would be significant. Sellers should NOT be all giddy that "this is it! The top is in!". They must be mindful of the fact that a gap down would be going against the longer term up trend in SPY.
​
The best case scenario for sellers would be a wimpy bounce into the gap that fails to get above 525.18. A large red bearish engulfing candle or consecutive red candles on heavy volume that breaks down to a new LOD could set up a short.
​
The next best case would be an immediate "gap n go" below 524.61 (prior ATH). Even on stacked red candles with little to no overlap, sellers should be careful to not chase a short. Remember that they're going against the longer term strong up trend. Wait for a failed bounce on the part of buyers that fails to gain much distance/traction.
​
#### S/R levels
Support: 524.61, 523.8 (tuesday HOD), 522.67 (monday HOD), 519.59 (5/10 LOD)
Resistance: 524.61 (if open below), 525.18, 527.17, 530.08
submitted by spectre_rdt to RealDayTrading [link] [comments]

2024.05.16 00:49 AnnaNamyss Mama Makwa

I was invited by a couple of friends to go camping a few days ago. I'm honestly still exactly not sure if any of it was real, but I wish to share my story nonetheless. It began last Monday, when friend number Six invited friends One through Five to a girls get away. She claims to have found this beautiful spot in the mountain on one of her hikes and she says it’s perfect for seeing the stars at night. I was skeptical at first, to be honest I don't really like being outdoors, but it sounded like an experience worth having, so I thought "why not, this will be a wonderful memory to look back on!". I had just purchased a new camera as well, so I was honestly starting to warm up to the idea. I could take pictures of our excursion into the woods and make cute little picture frames for everyone for their birthdays, it would've been so cute! But things did not go at all as I had envisioned.
So the day of the trip arrives, a bit faster than I would've liked, but honestly I think I was just anxious about… I kept feeling this weight in my chest that made it uncomfortable to breathe, but I was going into the woods, strange things happen to women in movies; Jason Voorhees, Sasquatch, Shia LaBeouf! Who knows what could happen! Not to mention there is always the chance I could fall into a lake and get covered in leeches, or get surrounded by wolves, or chased up a tree by a bear… Hopefully a very soft bear so I'll at least know one pleasure before I die! There are all sorts of fears I had envisioned before the day of the trip, but anxiety just be like that.
I met up with my friends at the trail and learned that friend Six decided to bring her bf along, which I was upset about but I guess he was just going to get a hotel room nearby so he'd be close enough to her to feasibly show up if we needed any help. She later told us that he worries all the time because his father went missing in these woods years ago and he's worried the same might happen to her. This is where I learned that men tend to stay out of those woods because men have been going missing in those woods for years, but according to friend Six, she's been coming to this forest for a while now and hasn't had any bad experiences. Hearing that did oddly put me at ease, but now all I could wonder at the time was what happened to all those poor men.
Deep into the night we're all chit chatting, talking about where we are in our lives, things that are bugging us, what our hopes are, and dancing to the music of nature… but which of course I mean we got shit drunk, smoked some great wee, talked about sex, laughed over silly anime scenes, and twerked to slipknot girly bops!. It was such a fun night at that point that I honestly wish I could go back and never let that night end. It was intoxicating how beautiful the sky looked, and when gazed up it was almost like we could scoop the stars into our hands and sip from the sea of stars. I was worried we'd just be on our phones all night filming tiktoks or something but even with no signal, no one really seemed to be too stressed about it, we all just kind of felt safe… Almost welcomed into the forest, like being embraced by a loving mother. But unfortunately, heaven isn't forever, and men come not but to steal, kill, and destroy.
As we were drinking we decided to tell some scary stories… or well I decided to because I thought "it's so cliché but we have to do it. It feels like tradition almost." plus I would've regretted it if we didn't do it, so fuck it, right? Right. So we go around telling scary stories to one another, and I mention to friend Six that I keep thinking about those poor men that went missing. I then asked if any women had gone missing, and surprisingly she said yes… it was way back in the 1800's but after that there had never been a single missing woman in that forest. The forest was actually named after the first young woman who went missing all those years back, and now there are all these rumors about it but I don't believe in that stuff so I didn't really pay much attention… I kept thinking "I'll just wait for the manga… or the shitty Hollywood cash grab of it…" but I DO vaguely remember the history cause I find dark history lore to be super fascinating. So there was a time when the area had more indigenous citizens living here, before gentrification moved into town. She went on to tell us that indigenous people eventually began to keep to themselves because as more white people moved in, more of their daughters went missing. There are yearly parades to honor the missing daughters and to spread awareness to those living in the town. The police try to shut it down but they still do it every year.
Not long after hearing that we hear something howl in the distance. Friend Three howls back and friend Five falls on her out of her camping chair laughing. I tell them to knock it off because the last thing we need is for her to accidentally attract a wolf during mating season! I don't know if that’s a thing, but it sounds like something that’s a thing… So I'm just going to assume that it is. Don't judge me. She then says "But what if it's Taylor Lautner? Or Joe Manganiello? Personally… I'm more of a Meatloaf guy myself… But you know… RIP… But Joe is pretty fine and my mom did always hope I'd marry a black man to get melanin back in our family… But I don't think a splash of melanin is gonna override this asian/african skin so… Anyways! So these guys come walking past our camp site, and we're all drunk and high so we're already all on edge upon seeing random men this deep into the forest, but friend Four gets up and says "who the fuck are you and what're you doing here!?" One of the men quickly apologizes and tells us they're actually out here camping as well. They said a friend of theirs found this waterfall in the forest that glows because it captures the moon's light. Friend Two hears this and asks if we can go with them, to which we all begrudgingly agree.
At the "mooncuzi" I like to call it, we all sit around this beautiful natural pool lit up by the moon, and we were worried it would be cold but I was surprisingly warm, if I had to guess I'd assume there's a magma vein under there or something? Idk, I'm not a geologist or volcanologist, but something kept it warm and it wasn't my tiny bladder! Everyone was really relaxed and the guys honestly seemed super cool, and guy One honestly seemed really nice. I call him guy One because he's number 1 to me, we're still together now, and we even have another partner now, so yay! We all began talking and some of us were hitting it off, clearly… but we had all been drinking and smoking more which, honestly we had stopped… but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to get cross-faded in a mooncuzi. Nuh. Nope. Not on my watch. But someone clearly didn't get the vibe memo, because friend Two screams out "bro what the fuck I said no!"
The next thing we hear is "You don't have to yell about it like some kind of cunt!" Everyone runs over to try and figure out what's going on. Turns out guy Five didn't like being told no. He and friend Two were playing a drinking game with friends Three and Four and guy Three and Four. We learned that guy Five dared friend Two to take her top off, to which she said politely refused, and the guys didn't seem to like that. They tried to convince her it's part of the game. One of the guys said she was already in her underwear anyway, so she might as well… My guy, One, and guy Two scolded their friends for their behavior, which is why guy Two and friend Two are married now… Guess nice guys don't finish last, huh? Anyways, They scolded their friends for their behavior, I remember my guy yelling "you never speak to a woman like that!" and "If I ever catch you trying to peer pressure a woman again I'll take your testicals in my hand and squeeze on them slowly until I know what it's like to feel one pop in my hand." and it was honestly the hottest thing I've ever heard a man say… a bit violent… but fuck was I glad I was in the water!
Guys One and Two apologized for their friends' actions the whole way back. I asked them why they remained friends with them and guy One had gone off to college while guy Two went into the service, so the two of them had been away for a few years, but they swore their friends never used to be like that. This was actually supposed to be a reunion hike of sorts since they both happened to come back around the same time. After meeting up with guys Three, Four, and Five though, they realized their friends had been warped by these podcasts about alphas and betas and maximizing your sigma or something, and tried to convince him to listen to some pickup artist that claimed to know the secret to unlocking the female brain. Also known as, stupid useless slop grifters make to get rich off young boys with zero confidence and zero bitches. Lastly, he tells me guy Three was actually raised by a single mother alongside his two sisters, so he really wouldn't expect that kind of behavior from him. Guy Four was always sort of sketchy but they thought he was "just being funny", men right? The only thing they felt was weird about him was this one time when they were teens his sister moved away and he got really quiet afterwards, but then he dated a few people that looked almost identical to her, but for some reason he didn't see it, so they started calling him "little sister" (or did they? oooo) or "Lil" for short, joking he had an undiagnosed sister complex… Ew. That’s all I’ll say to that. The last guy, Five, they said always seemed fine to them, they didn't elaborate, so idk what their idea of "fine" is, sorry to disappoint.
Not long after we got back to the camp we heard engines in the distance, and as they got closer and closer we all stared in confusion. No one should be riding vehicles out this way, and friend 6 knows her bf wouldn't come out here without alerting us.
The vehicles stopped after surrounding us with their lights pointing right at us. We heard the familiar voices of guy Three, along with 4 new voices. He whined about how we hyurt his widdle feefees or something obnoxious. I tried to listen but it's just so hard to listen to some overgrown pissbaby go on about their fragile ego. Guys One and Two went to confront guy Three and his posse, asking why they didn’t wait at the car. Guy Three told them they wouldn’t understand because they’ve given themselves over to feminist ideas and allowed themselves to become beta cucks. He told them that simps deserve to die so other men won’t be warped by feminist witch pussy magic like they have… Like we just met these guys and he’s already acting like we had sex… This man's logic was like a runaway train, the cars are all there but they ain’t making it to their destination. Guys One and Two continue to argue with guys Three, Four, and Five, before guys Six and seven come up behind them and put knives to their necks. At this moment I noticed a gleam in guy Three’s eyes. He now thinks he’s invincible… I can see the depravity in his eyes as he looks upon friend Two, stripping her down in his mind, imagining all the sick things he’ll do. And as if to validate my suspicions, he walks up to her and says “You never did complete that dare… How about we start a new game… But this time we won’t have any need for truths.” I watch as fear washes over Two’s face, as she begins to imagine what he is implying, almost as if his depraved thoughts were being projected into her mind, instilling suffering on her before he had even begun to touch her. She catches herself, refusing to give him the satisfaction of fear and spits in his face. She then tells him “you couldn’t even please your hand with a prick that small.” The look of anger on his face was honestly delectable. If I could, I would put it on canvas and call it “Portrait of a Scorned Man” or “Man who just realized being a dick doesn’t make yours bigger”. ANYWAYS, he then began to yell something about "it's up to real men to show women their place in society!" OOO so angwy! They started circling around us like starving wolves. One of them placed themselves against friend Five’s back and said "I always wondered if trans women looked different down there." Which angered friend Five, but not as much as it did friend Four who tends to be a bit of a hot head.
Friend Four may look like a pretty cute petite princess, but she's manlier than most men I know. She's a competitive marksman, as well as being a gymrat who likes to build cars on the weekends. She's also the girlfriend of friend Five, not that that’s important but I feel like it should be important. So anyways, she starts blasting right? And one of these guys yells "what the fuck they’ve got funs!? Who the fuck gave these stupid bitches guns!?" I then hear one of them try to antagonize her by saying "pretty young thang like you shouldn't be carrying such a big piece until she's used to it! AYO!" So she shot a round off at the tree he took shelter behind as if to mock him by letting him know his life is in her hands… She looked like a real boss bitch, like for real! That girl is HIM! She has always been him, she will always be him! While this was taking place, friend Six reached out to her boyfriend now that we could finally use the radio without fear of them taking it. We explained what was happening and asked him to bring help. He told us to tie the button down and to hide it from sight so that he could listen in while he headed to the station to get help. I feel so bad for that man, having to listen to all those screams, feeling completely powerless to do anything in the moment, but we’re so thankful to him for being there in the way that he was.
Gun fire kept ringing out as Four kept firing rounds into the forests yelling “I shoot to maim!” and “You’re not safe here!” hoping to scare the men enough to make them retreat because none of them seemed to have rifles on them… But then we hear it… The first scream… Everyone freezes in their tracks, their heart stilled by this sudden shriek of terror that seemed to only further race towards the all consuming darkness. The moment it stopped nothing remained but the slow encroaching crawl of raindrops and the rapid beating drums of the fear in our hearts. It's then that the rain came down like a closing curtain on the chapter of our innocence, because that’s when we heard the second scream, a scream just as chilling as the first, ascending high into the tree tops before we see something that shocks everyone to their core; the haunting image of a man’s face still screaming, a face still unaware its going to meet, a face that still hopes to be saved but never will. Within unison, as if hell had a chorus, we all screamed in silence as we turned to run. With no other means of safety, my friends, guys One and Two, as well as myself ran for the tent. We don't really know what happened after we got into the tent, but not a second went by that we didn't think we wouldn't be next. We know better now, but in that moment I felt both relief and fear for my life. I just kept thinking how lucky I was that I was fortunate enough to die with my dignity still intact… I kept thinking "at least those man babies didn't get to do whatever depravity they had in mind"
Well by now everyone knows what happened, it's been on the news. Those 3 guys and all of their cronies turned up missing… But what the news won't tell you is that we were saved by Mama Makwa, we call her that due to the sounds we heard, as well as the site we saw afterwards. The bellowing sound of vengeance that came in the form of a bear’s roar was as loud as the mean screaming they saw a 9 ft tall bear with skin dripping off of its bone like fur. We later learned that men referred to it as “Slippy Skin” aka "Wejuk", as it seemed the bear would change appearance depending on who gazed upon its visage, but this was not "Wejuk". One by one, we heard those men scream for their lives, describing a creature with a mouth made of human hands that had palms covered by teeth shaped like hypodermic needles. It had claws that seemed like stone daggers that were etched by native americans. They warned each other "Don't look into its eyes!" before proclaiming how sorry they were for the things they'd done… They complained of the putrid stench suffocating them as they were pulled into its gaping maw. They screamed of the creatures rotting viscous flesh melting into their own, and making their skin a part of it, as if their skins were fuel for the fear this best could instill by its mere dominion over them. But we never saw that creature… Instead, after the screams stopped, we were greeted by this beautiful creature that looked like a bear, only it had this glow about it, and its fur seemed almost like the softest of opalescent feathers. Its eyes looked just like the aurora borealis, and she was mesmerizing. We felt safe, and welcomed, and most of all protected… After everything that happened, I think we will be coming back, because we know Mama Makwa will be there to protect us. We believe Mama Makwa is an avenging spirit born from the fear those women felt, here to make sure no other women ever have to suffer like they did within this forest. We also now understand why those men all went missing. My boyfriend and friend Two's husband weren't attacked by Mama Makwa… Only the men who felt any sort of ill intent toward us women that night saw Mama Makwa in that form, the form they confused for Slippy… But knowing there is a safe haven for women out there, I'm thinking we will have another girls night next year, anybody wanna come?
submitted by AnnaNamyss to u/AnnaNamyss [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 22:29 HealthyYard6559 Revelation 1:4-6

,, From John to the seven churches that are in Asia: grace and peace to you from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come; and of the seven spirits which are before His throne; And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, and the Firstborn from the dead, and the Prince of earthly kings, who loves us, and washes us from our sins with his own blood; And makes us kings and priests to God and his Father; to that glory and country for ever and ever. Amen."
Rev. 1:4-6
John is a witness of Jesus Christ who testifies to the word of God. the testimony of Jesus Christ, and everything that Jesus showed him and he is now sending the testimony, i.e. the Revelation to seven churches in Asia Minor. We can read who John is sending to in verse 11, where we have written the names of the churches to whom John needed the Revelation to be sent.
"And write what you see in a book, and send it to the churches that are in Asia: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea"
Rev. 1:11
Apart from these churches that are mentioned here, there were other local churches, but the Lord Jesus chose seven representative churches that had different problems that symbolize and represent the period of the church until the coming of the Lord Jesus for it.
In addition to these churches, the Revelation was given to all people, especially the church throughout history, and of course also to us in order to learn the details of the events that will soon begin to unfold, because the signs of the times indicate that... the end times" are near.
"Whoever has an ear should hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches."
Rev. 3:22
Jovan continues with the greeting, "Grace to you and peace" and this greeting is not from him because he cannot give grace and peace, true grace and peace can only be given by God and here practically as if he said, "Grace to you and peace from Lord Jesus Christ" the savior, because salvation and everything we receive from God is at the expense of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is a gift, because none of what we receive is a free gift. How important this word is in the New Testament is also evidenced by the fact that the great many books of the New Testament begin with the words "blessing you and peace" in the greeting sentences.
If there was no grace, practically no one would be alive today because all we deserved was death, but we are alive because of the grace and grace of God and not based on any of our merits or actions.
Everything we have in our physical, physical life is God's grace, and also all spiritual life and salvation is by grace from God whom Peter calls the God of grace.
"And the God of all grace, who calls you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus"
1 Peter 5:10
"Because you are saved by grace through faith, and it is not from you, it is a gift from God. Not from works, so that no one can boast."
Eph. 2:8-9
We see that we are saved by grace, but that is not the end, we need to continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
"But progress in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and the salvation of Jesus Christ."
2 Peter 3:18
"Because the grace of God that saves all people has been shown, teaching us to renounce the impiety and desires of this world, and to live honestly and righteously and devoutly in this world."
Titus 2:11-12
Here we have advice for an honest worldly life, and we also have a promise that we will receive grace if we find ourselves in some kind of trouble or perhaps illness.
"My grace is enough for you; for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
2 Cor. 12:9
"Let us therefore approach freely to the throne of grace, to receive grace and find grace for the time when we need help"
Hebrews 4:16
In the context of those advices for an honest life, there is also a Record about to whom God gives grace.
"...for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
1 Peter 5:5
and in Jacob, God adds and says that he gives greater grace than problems
"And He gives a greater grace. Because he says: The Lord opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
James 4:6
"Grace to you and peace" here is first grace and then peace, and that is because peace is the result of grace. We get peace when we are in a good relationship with God, which means that we are born again and live according to God's will.
"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Rom. 5:1
When we have this peace with God, we are safe in God's hands and God will never throw us into hell because of our sins because the Lord Jesus died on the cross to redeem us and make us righteous, it is up to us to trust God, confess our sins and live according to the will of God.
"And I will give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."
John 10:28
Now that we are this safe and reconciled with God, God gives us another blessing Peace from God and this is something that someone who is not at peace with God will never get, and we need this peace every day in our lives, and we don't think and worry about the daily problems, we already enjoy communion with God who is close to us and who cares for us, we see from the whole verse that we just need to ask in prayer and finally give thanks.
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, to guard your hearts and your thoughts in the Lord Jesus."
Phil. 4:7
"The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving that your requests may be answered by God."
Phil. 4:6
,,...Grace and peace to you from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come; and of the seven spirits which are before His throne; And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, and the Firstborn from the dead, and the Prince of earthly kings, who loves us, and washes us from our sins with his own blood; And makes us kings and priests to God and his Father; to that glory and country for ever and ever. Amen."
Rev. 1:4-6
Below we see where grace and peace come from. Grace and peace is not a human creation as many try to portray or try to bring peace in some way through various activities or actions. We saw that grace and then peace come from God, and here we see that three times it is written that they come "from" the Father, from the Son and from the Holy Spirit.
Also in these verses we see that God is eternal because it is written, from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come" and similarly it is written in 4:8
"Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, Who was, and who is, and who is to come."
Rev. 4:8
And now we could say this differently, God who has always been God until now, God who is God now and God who will always be, therefore, eternal God.
Here is another confirmed confirmation of what we said with a slight difference, it does not say "which will come" because here in the 11th chapter events from the future are described which are already here, therefore "future" is at this moment "present" and here we see the confirmation that in the Revelation the future events are still described for us, but John saw them as the present or even the past when they were shown to him, that's why it says "you will be" and not "which will come."
"We praise you, Lord God Almighty, who are, and were, and will be"
Rev. 11:17
Here is something else from the 16th chapter where we see something similar but it is written even in the past tense, that you judged this "so these are events from the time;; when the Lord Jesus came" for us it is still a perspective of the future but for John it was a perspective of the present, this is what today's modern reporters would say, "a report from the scene"
"You are righteous, Lord, who are, and who were, and holy, that you judged this"
Rev. 16:5
It goes on to say,,, and of the seven spirits that are before His throne"
This refers to the Holy Spirit, but it says "seven spirits" because seven is the number of perfection, fullness and completeness. Here, in fact, the fullness of the Holy Spirit is described because in Isaiah it is written about Jesus:
"And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and power, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord."
Isa 11:2
In several other places, the number seven is mentioned in relation to the Holy Spirit.
"And he said to me: What do you see? And I said: I see, behold, a candlestick all of gold, and a cup above it, and its seven jars on it, and seven funnels for the seven jars that are above it, and two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the cup and one from the left. And I spoke to the angel who spoke with me, and I said: What is it, my lord? And the angel who spoke with me answered and said to me: Don't you know what it is? And I said: No, my lord. And he answered and said to me, saying: This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: not by force or by virtue, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. What are you, great woe, before Zerubbabel? Ravnica; and he will bring out the highest stone, with exclamations: Mercy, mercy to him. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Zerubbabel's hands founded this house, his hands will finish it, and you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. For who has despised the day of small things? Because he will rejoice when he sees the measuring stone in the hand of Zerubbabel, those seven eyes of the Lord that cross the whole earth"
Zechariah 4:2-10
Here, from the sixth verse, we conclude that it is about the Holy Spirit, "not by power or virtue, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts."
"And I saw, and behold, in the middle of the throne and four animals, and in the middle of the elders the Lamb stood as if it had been slain, and it had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent throughout the world."
Rev. 5:6
Here we have seven spirits and seven eyes that refer to seven aspects of the work of the Holy Spirit that brings us God's graces, that is why Paul could write in the first Corinthians:
"The gifts are different, but the Spirit is one. And there are different ministries, but the Lord is one. And there are different forces, but there is one God who does everything in everything. And in everyone the Spirit appears for the benefit; For once the word of wisdom is given by the Spirit; and to another the word of understanding by the same Spirit; And to another faith, by that same Spirit; and to another the gift of healing, by that same Spirit; And to another to work miracles, and to another to prophesy, and to another to discern spirits, and to another different languages, and to another to speak in tongues. and he has many members, and all the members of one body, although they are many, they are one body: so is Christ"
1 Cor.12:4-12
"And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, and the Firstborn from the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth"
We have seen the entire Revelation that it is from the Lord Jesus to the church for encouragement, and here it says, "Faithful witness," and that is what the prophet Isaiah prophesied many years before
"Behold, I have given him as a witness to the nations, as a leader and commander to the nations."
Isaiah 55:4
and faithful because God is faithful and he can be unfaithful
,,,, God is not a man to lie, nor a son of man to repent. What does he say he won't do, and what he says he won't do?"
Numb. 23:19
"And so know that the Lord God is your God, a faithful God, who keeps his covenant and his mercy to a thousand knees to those who love him and keep his commandments."
Deut. 7:9
"And he raises the horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant, as he says through the mouth of his holy prophets from the ages that he will deliver us from our enemies and from the hands of all who hate us; To show mercy to our fathers, and to remind ourselves of our holy covenant, the Curse with which he swore to Abraham our father that he would give us"
Luke 1:69-73
"God is faithful who has called you into the community of his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord."
1 Cor. 1:9
"No other temptation shall come upon you but that of man; but God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able, but will also make an end with the temptation, so that you can bear it"
1 Cor. 10:13
"He who called you is faithful, and he will do it."
1 Sol. 5:24
And in Revelation it says more
"Thus says Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of God's creation"
Rev. 3:14
The Lord himself practically confirmed that he is faithful and that he came to testify to the truth
"I was born for that, and that's why I came into the world to bear witness to the truth. And everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice"
John 18:37
"and the Firstborn from the dead" here this does not mean that Jesus was the first to be resurrected because we read that there were people who were resurrected before Him but they later died again. Jesus was the first to be resurrected in a glorified body and He more he never did nor will he die, this part of the verse refers to these facts.
,, And this one, since he remains forever, has an eternal priesthood. That is why he can forever save those who come to God through him, when he always lives to be able to pray for them."
Hebrews 7:24-25
"and Prince over earthly kings" prince means ruler. Lord Jesus is ruler and prince from the beginning to the end, from creation to eternity, He is the faithful and true one from eternity, He is the firstborn in the glorified body and He is the eternal ruler and prince , He is King of kings and Lord of lords because he writes.
"And he has his name written on his robe and on his bosom: King of kings and Lord of lords."
Rev. 19:16
"He will rule from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth."
Psalm 72:8
"All kings will bow down to him, all nations will be submissive to him."
Psalm 72:11
"Who loves us" Jovan continues and says that God loves us permanently and does not say that he loved us, because then that would mean that he once loved us but that he may not love us now for some reason. we would not have permanent security of salvation because it might happen that Jesus returns and God returns at that very moment and we are left behind as they say, "we were unlucky". "so all the time, not sometimes or sometimes. He loves us all the time and that's because of the grace we talked about, we didn't deserve anything, neither salvation, nor the forgiveness of sins, nor life by grace, the only thing we deserved was to throw us into hell and that would be deserved because we do mostly what we shouldn't do. And not only does he not punish us, but makes us emperors and priests.
,, And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, and the Firstborn from the dead, and the Prince of earthly kings, who loves us, and washes us from our sins with his blood; And makes us kings and priests to God and his Father; to that glory and country for ever and ever. Amen."
Rev. 1:5-6
Jesus loved his own even in the most difficult moments before going to the cross, we read in John:
"And before the Passover, Jesus knowing that the hour had come for Him to pass from this world to the Father, as He loved His own who were in the world, He loves them to the end."
John 13:1
and this greatly impressed Paul, so he wrote:
"That you may understand with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, And know the love of Christ that surpasses reason, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
Eph. 3:18-19
and this love of Jesus cannot be understood by human thinking, this is God's love that surpasses every mind.
"Because I know for sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor present, nor future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other substance can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus , to our Lord."
Rom. 8:28-39
"And wash us from our sins in your blood" unlike a while ago where it is written in permanent time, now we have a part that has been completed in the past and that is finally there are no more new washings, once all the work Jesus finished and that happened on the cross of Golgotha ​​where we are redeemed once and for all by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, we need daily cleansing in the form of confession of sin, but not complete washing.
,, Jesus said to him: He who has been washed should not wash only his feet, because he is all clean; and you are clean, ..."
John 13:10
"And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin."
1 John 1:7
So the blood of Jesus cleanses us from every sin and God will never mention what he cleansed again.
"And their sins and their iniquities I will no longer mention."
Hebrews 10:17
"And make us kings and priests to God and our Father" of course this is also by grace because this is unimaginable for us humans. We know what we are like and what we like to do, but still God does not deal with us according to our mistakes but makes us kings and priests.
"And you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy people, a people of gain, to announce the benefactors of the One who called you out of darkness to his strange light"
1 Peter 2:9
We therefore became the emperor's priests and now we all have direct access to God based on the merits of the Lord Jesus, unlike the people in the Old Testament where only the high priest had access to God once a year in the Holy of Holies and he did not have that access without a sacrifice that he had to make sacrifices.
For us, that sacrifice is the Lord Jesus Christ, and based on that sacrifice, we have constant access to God.
"To him glory and the country forever and ever." Amen." And now at the end, John wants to say that eternal glory, praise and power belong to Him who has given us so much grace and grace.
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2024.05.15 22:00 Discardbobulated “SHE’S FAST ENOUGH FOR YOU, OLD MAN.” A shift of gears and a timely change of approach along with an update, a rant, a ponderance.

Cross-posted from AOAIBetrayeds. AOAIBetrayeds is an online peer support group and safe space reserved for betrayed individuals who are considering, actively attempting to, or have reconciled after infidelity. If you feel you would benefit from a more private supportive sub for only betrayed people, message the mods at AOAIBetrayeds or send me a DM.
It's been 2 months since I posted an update so I think it is time.
Context: Me: 59m. Her: 55f. Married 33 years, together 36. WW had a full on EA bookended with multiple sexual PA's (1 in Dec, 2022 and 3 in Sept, 2023 (last 2 on Dday). She then pretended to go NC with AP for an additional 5 months which created Dday #2 in February. Read my story and updates using my profile for posts if you want to see background.
https://www.reddit.com/useDiscardbobulated/submitted/
NO ADVICE PLEASE: Just like last time I posted, and the time before that, I am processing all of this stuff, and working with my therapist and my support group closely, so I will ask for advice only when I think I need it and when I think I am ready to receive it. Right now, I just thought I’d post an update for those who might be following along or anyone for whom my story resonates. I hope you’re OK.
I can use reassurance. I have asked for no advice because I am all full-up with advice that I am taking and utilizing. More and/or different advice will potentially muddy my process and have my approach blurred. Reassurance though? Bring it on. We all need it. Sometimes directly and sometimes just by being here and reading the stories of others. Reassure me.
As many of you know, I was dealt a huge blow the day after Valentine’s Day. That’s 3 months ago today for those of you keeping track. My wife, with whom I was 5.5 months into ‘reconciliation’ with, came clean and told me that she was still in contact with her AP for the entirety of that span of time.
The revelation of The Big Lie as I refer to it now, even with my wife, was in incredibly damaging hit to the idea of reconciliation. It was as shattering, if not MORE shattering as the original affair revelation. Big lies, little lies, untruths, the masking of truth, the omission of truth…all are devastating to the traumatized betrayed. If you know anything of the effects of trauma (as most of you do I am sure), you know that each lie usually triggers a trauma response, and each trauma response piles into a vast storage area in your brain where it pools and stays ready to fuck you up every time it’s poked. And mine was poked A LOT in the last 3 months. A LOT.
I started the ‘last 3 months’ phase of this journey with this huge setback that was The Big Lie. It reset our progress to zero in some cases. If you look at some things, like my ability to control the PTSD events, then that progress was still in effect. (I was still able to recognize the PTSD event coming on and sometimes get control of it before spiraling out of control). If you look at the timeline of physical sexual events, that didn’t change. If you take into account all the books and articles read, all the podcasts and audiobooks listened to, and all the hours spend by me in IC, then then those items were (mostly) still intact.
But you know what was now absolutely fucking GONE?
~T R U S T~
I had spent that first 5.5 months learning to trust again as we were working our way through reconciliation. You can look back at my post history prior to February, 2024 and see a solid progression of trust being built, of confidence being regained, and of affection, sexuality, appreciation, and friendship being rebuilt.
ALL of that was 100% GONE in ONE moment. GONE.
LIES are destructive. Secondary Dday lies like this one are DEEPLY destructive.
Trust is often cited as the most important ingredient in a personal relationship. How can we even begin to consider something as gigantic as a marriage reconciliation when trust has been completely blown up? I don’t have an answer to that. I am looking for it.
You know what was also lost at the point of the revelation of The Big Lie?
Hope. Optimism. Self-esteem. Admiration. Lust. Attraction. Affection. All gone.
My feelings of these things were returning in slivers over those 5.5 months after Dday and now they were just GONE.
Replacing these feelings were different feelings I had. Now I was feeling: Helpless. Worthless. Inadequate. Unloved. Betrayed. Devastated. Like a Chump. Belittled. Emasculated. Unworthy. Ugly. Undesirable …and incredibly MANIPULATED.
She had spent this time manipulating me into complacency while she continued to carry on her affair in the form of regular communication with ‘her friend’ AP. They talked on the phone regularly, texted regularly. All the while she was putting forth what I THOUGHT was EFFORT into our reconciliation, but was really just a collection of actions that were meant to placate me.
The Fake R time, as I now know it, included: I love you’s. Hand holding. Sex. Apologies. Forward thinking. Plans. I was feeling like PROGRESS was happening. I was still experiencing the PTSD events. Still having times when I would lash out in anger at her for what she had done, but those awful things were decreasing in intensity and frequency and I was thankful for that.
I was able to see what reconciliation looks like.
Only I wasn’t. It was all a sham. Now that she is not in contact with him (I hope and believe), she has stopped the hand holding (mostly). Not one ‘I love you’ in the past 3 months. The hugs I used to get now feel like the hugs you’d give a kid with a scraped knee. The feeling of being wanted and being on a path to something better has been obliterated. And sex? 2-3 times a week during the Fake R has become 1 time in the last 3 months.
So now, after the revelation of The Big Lie I am left with a VERY odd feeling. A feeling like what I WANT BACK is the pre-Big-Lie actions. The ‘I Love You’s’, the hand holding, the sex…
But since I now know these as things that were done to manipulate me, I really DON’T want them back. What I want is something that I have not yet seen: An honest reconciliation and the actions that come with that. And now that my mind has suffered the mind-fuck rollercoaster of the last 8 months, I don’t even know what honest reconciliation looks like. My perception is fucked up. I no longer can think accurately about this stuff because of the gaslighting. It’s hard to even describe the feeling of disconnection with my own reality.
A METAMORPHOSIS The changes in how she was treating me now that she no longer has AP in her back pocket as a ‘friend’ to talk to are stark. She has expressed that the sex was just to placate me. That she can’t feel good about US anymore because she doesn’t have knowledge of how HE is doing anymore. She cannot “live her good life” with me because she doesn’t know if HE is able to “have a good life”. She is NO CONTACT with him, but clearly some of her still has a connection to him. That hurts.
During these last 3 months I have gone from non-functioning to confused to (almost) accepting. Along the way I have passed ANGRY, DEVASTATED, DEFEATED, and a hundred other negative emotions.
I also spent nearly all of my time doing what ALL us betrayeds do. I tried to get her to UNDERSTAND MY PAIN. I wanted her to really know what she has done to me. Not just what she did with the affair, but with the aftermath of the affair and the 5.5 months that I was trying to regain trust in her and she was faking R with me so that she could continue her EA with HIM. I was CONSTANTLY wanting her to HURT because I thought that if she could HURT like I HURT then she could understand my pain and come to really know what it is she has done. And if she could get to THAT place, then surely she would finally find the shame and guilt that I think she deserves to bear.
The problem is that even with all my effort to explain to her in words, in mental breakdowns, in PTSD trauma events, in triggers, sadness, crying and constant malaise, nothing was changing.
She wasn’t displaying any of the remorse, guilt and shame that I want from her. She wasn’t giving me any of the actions or words she was giving me during Fake R. She wasn’t holding my hand. She wasn’t saying I love you. She wasn’t touching me or having sex with me. She was just enduring my wrath.
During the last time that I sat with her and had a Q&A about how she could do this and all the same questions that I have asked before and my saying again how hurt I was and how it was ALL HER FAULT and how I thought she should feel SHAME I ended up feeling a little tranquil. I felt like maybe I had told her enough times. I didn’t know if she fully understood like I wanted her to but I thought that we were at a place where MORE of this was going to do NOTHING. After all, almost 3 months of it hadn’t YET produced anything, why would MORE have any potential for positive progress.
So I had a thought. What if I just treated her nicely? What if I stopped with the finger wagging and the name calling and the ‘why me’s’ and the angry lashing out. What if I instead tried to hold HER hand occasionally? What if I just WASN’T adversarial? Could that help? Could that get her to see me differently? Could that get ME to see me differently? Could that reset my mind and get me out of the victim moment and into some undefined type of recovery?
I wondered to myself if I had it in myself to let those things go. I wondered if I was CAPABLE of not being so fucking angry at her for what she had done. I mean, we both are clearly aware of what she has done and what it has caused in me, so I don’t have to restate that over and over and over again, DO I?
I took this question with me to IC.
IC reframed it in a way that resonated with me somehow. She said: “Look, you’ve spent a lot of time ‘spinning’, trying to make heads or tails of your predicament. Trying to get her to love you again. Trying to find connection with her. Why? Because you love her. Isn’t that the entire point? If you want to reconcile with her the end goal is for you to love one another again because you love her, right?” She said: “Why don’t you try showing her your true self? The self that loves her. The self that wants reconciliation because you love her. Maybe start with small things? Don’t go crazy and drive yourself nuts with a huge reversal from anger and hurt to loving and wonderful. Instead just don’t hurl negativity all the time. Relax instead. Act like reconciliation is under way in order to see if that action can initiate a real reaction.”
In other words, release the Restraining Bolt that keeps you in the stew of anger and contempt and head off to find a crazy old wizard and your path to freedom from the tyranny of self-pity.
Interesting.
This made SOME sense to me, and partly made sense to me because of the way I was FEELING. It would NOT have made sense to me 2 months ago, or even a week ago. It makes sense to me because of where I am NOW. A shift in gears from the anger and hatred to something more nurturing. Not a full tack. More of a subtle lane change. (sorry to mix my motoring and sailing metaphors).
So this is where I am now. I made the decision in my head to move over into this other lane. I did this less than 36 hours ago. I have not yet determined if this has been beneficial or not. I feel anxious. Of course I didn’t NOT feel anxious in that other lane, so this is a wash. I have not yet experienced any super-positive changes to my own attitude. I have no idea if she has even noticed. I hope she has and I intend to ask her if she has when we go see our marriage counselor today.
T I M E
My support group has told me that time is my friend. That only time will allow my wife to recognize that she truly is the villain in her own story. To have her really understand that SHE is the cause of all of this. For her to recognize also that her AP is not the needy ‘good guy’ that weaseled his way into her psyche, but the manipulative fuck that we all know he is. TIME. Time also for me to be able to release the anger like I have been attempting to do over the last couple days. Time for me to ponder how I can find my own self esteem again and really shed my feelings of inadequacy and ugliness (among others). Time for WW and I to possibly find some bonding time and make some memories that are not anger and sorrow and self pity and….
“She’s fast enough for you, old man.” I guess she is. That’s what they tell me. Essentially the theme of this slow-burn reconciliation thing. That if she is showing ANY progress, then that is the progress that we as betrayeds need to embrace. ANYTHING is “fast enough” because you cannot speed this process up. You will never do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Not gonna happen. 1-5 years is what they say reconciliation takes for it to be complete if it makes it to complete. I have told myself to give it at least 3. My hope is that I will feel a shift from tentative to optimism at some point along the way and that will give my brain the jump to light speed that it needs for me to relax and feel safe again.
This ‘update’ doesn’t predict a future. I have no preconceived ideas about how this might pan out. I just thought that an update could be beneficial.
Beneficial to ME in my selfish need for some validation of where I am and what I’m going through. For ME to be able to try to get it all on ‘paper’ so that I can help myself try to understand where I am. For ME to see a progression, no matter how up-and-down it has been.
Beneficial for OTHERS who may have a story like mine or PARTIALLY like mine who will be able to see themselves in this writing and be able to feel less alone. Beneficial maybe to all of us who might have a Bad Motivator.
Thanks for reading, my fucked up comrades. Sorry you are here in this sub. It’s a truly shitty place to need to be. I appreciate all of you. Without this sub and the people in it I think I might literally not be around. Here’s to you and your futures. May you find some peace.
Fuck these affairs.
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2024.05.15 21:47 MUI-Tojo Re:Cord of Ragnarok [Chapter 21] Part 2

Re:Cord of Ragnarok [Chapter 21] Part 2
Chapter 21.2:【Tales of Fire and Ice】
The Arena
Tsukuyomi gripped his sword firmly in hand. He looked forward at his foe, allowing the audience he knew was watching, the words he knew they were saying, the arena itself, to all simply fade away into the darkness. Right now, to him, the only things shining in the night were he and his foe. Nothing else mattered, not even the past and future. He gave himself a quiet, bitter, yet lighthearted laugh, and shook his head with a slight smile. The scabbard had cracked. And yet, once the shock had worn off, it now seemed so incredibly trivial.
“...What have I been doing? I can’t believe I paralyzed myself for so long. Even after I met Mother, even after that day, I was just making excuses to be a coward. To never truly fight. But they all…wanted me to just do my best, didn’t they? They wanted me to fight just like that woman does. If so…”
He had fallen countless times. Won many victories. But before today, how many of those battles had he really given his everything to? He regretted every single one of them in hindsight. But now, the god of the moon brandished his sword with a determined light in his eyes.
“...Then that’s the only expectation I need to fulfill!”
He looked Zetian right in the eyes as he replied to her. His voice was as unwavering as his blade.
“Indeed. My father taught me so much. So did my mother. They are truly incredible. I’ve been…such a fool for not listening to them until now.”
Wu stood before him in silence. A blank look distorted her face for a second, as a sense of regretful jealousy almost took over, before the strength of her glare and stance returned twice as strong. Her presence was now like that of a ferocious dragon.
“Hah…how very lucky you are. To have someone at your side to raise you up like that. You’ll never understand what it means to fight truly alone.”
“W-W-W-WAIT A SECOND!” The distressed voice of Mammon pierced the ears of the fighters. “You should not be able to return to sanity! It's not possi-” “SHUT UP! No one has the right to decide what I can and can’t do, you hear me!?” The Empress barked out a command for all to hear, a symphony of the rage and frustration she obtained throughout her life.
Luoyang, Henan Province
It was nothing new, really.
Spears and swords surrounded her on all ends. Eyes that threatened to burn right through her soul- hollower than usual, but intending to kill nonetheless. The roaring and desperate sounds of battle raging around her. Once again, a blade was pointed at her rise to the throne, and once again, Zetian would fight with all she had to defend it.
Even against her own men.
The devilish talismans around the soldiers’ necks glowed with an eerie purple light, illuminating the bloody Luoyang streets below them. Zetian had ordered them locked away upon their discovery, but clearly, at least one of her ministers was less than trustworthy. A shame. Pushing all thoughts of future executions to the side, she looked upon her gathered allies turned foes, already braced for lethal combat. Her eyes narrowed as their leader stepped forward: a nobleman clad not in his usual fine robes, but regal battle armor, clearly prepared for this very day. A more ornate talisman that surged with dark power hung from his neck. Li Zhen, the Prefect of Yu, regarded Zetian with the same sneering smirk he had always worn around her.
The brother of the late Gaozong, and a young prodigy of the Li Clan, Zhen had opposed her from the beginning, almost obsessively so. As if being in her presence and seeing her rise was a reality he could simply reject. Even as the other clans and officials of China fell before her, acknowledging what she had become, Zhen and the Li Clan remained stalwart in their defiance. To Zetian, their eyes burned more than anyone else’s- Zhen’s insults, beatings, and even the cold silence he regarded her with were seared into her mind. It was almost preordained in the heavens that he would be her final obstacle.
“My greetings, Empress Dowager! I must offer my humblest apologies! After all, it’s a shame you’d be struck down like this, when you’re so close to the finish line.” Zhen laughed coldly. He drew his sword from his waist and stepped forth, before gesturing to the soldiers with pride as they all followed at his command. “You’ve slain so many of us Li without even batting an eye…but can you do the same to your own royal guard? That one’s been with you for thirty years, I believe, and that one twenty-five. Such loyal soldiers they are!” He laughed mockingly and patted the soldier next to him on the shoulder.
“...Of course I can.”
Zetian’s reply was clear and sharp, lacking the honeyed arrogance she had grown into over the years. Li Zhen raised an eyebrow. The burning in her eyes hadn’t even flickered a bit. He had wanted to snuff it out, but now, even making it waver seemed like a heavenly task.
“Then come try it, Wu Zetian! Show me what made a subhuman like you into an empress!” He laughed and stepped away, behind a wall of Zetian’s most loyal and powerful soldiers. Without warning, they all attacked at once.
She didn’t even hesitate.
In but a single minute, without a hint of mercy or pause, Wu Zetian slaughtered the elite guard she had cultivated with her own two hands. The deaths were swift and brutal. These loyal warriors, perhaps even companions, were now merely the same as the fallen Li soldiers that littered the streets. But perhaps that kind of death was a mercy in itself. The talismans leeched at the very soul to empower their victims, and agonizingly drove both mind and body to death- so Zetian killed them quickly. It was most efficient to end them before they could grow more powerful. Yes, that was why.
“...Well done!” Zhen remarked. The blood shed by Zetian had begun to pool at his feet. Awe was visible on his face, a horrified form of delight, as he slowly began to smile. It was an expression fit for the descent of a god. Zetian paused with an almost incredulous expression.
“It’s a bit too late for that, isn’t it, Li Zhen?”
“On the contrary…this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. Finally, you’ve bloomed into a flower that Gaozong would be proud of!” Zhen’s smile was now jolly, the sneer he had worn for decades all but gone. He spread his arms wide in a grand gesture and laughed. Zetian remained silent, almost daring him to speak further. The Prefect of Yu happily obliged.
“I knew from the very beginning that you had the drive to claw your way to the top. Those pitiful princes, ministers, prefects, and dukes…they languish in their role, blinded by the comfort of their titles. They lack the fire that a ruler needs, the cold blood of those born in hell. Only someone like you, who knows what it means to truly rise, could be worthy of the throne!”
“...And that’s why the Li Clan never gave me my due respect, eh?” Zetian cocked her head back. The ever-present flame in her eyes was almost cold.
Zhen nodded in glee. “But of course! If a woman were to rule at Gaozong’s side, or any of ours, we would accept only the finest. And you, dear Zetian, have become something beyond my wildest dreams.” He approached her as his grin turned manic. “A mind, body, and soul of finest steel…yes! That carnage just now proves it! You are the only one who can be my empress!”
“You expect me to join you?”
“The Li Clan remains mighty, despite your actions against us. We are your only true opposition. If we join hands, my empress, heaven and earth shall be ours to rule! So thank you, truly…for meeting my expectations.” Li Zhen’s eyes softened further now, his smile almost fatherly. Zetian had almost forgotten what such a smile looked like, even if Zhen’s was one with venom behind it. It was a warm venom. One she was nearly tempted to crave.
It was a pity she would have to destroy it too.
Zetian clenched her fists, steeling herself. And then she spoke. “My rise, my rule, what I’ve done then and today…not a single moment of it was for you, or anyone else. This power is mine and mine alone. For all your talk about the throne, Li Zhen…you’ve forgotten the most important thing of all.”
“Oh?”
“That there can only be one ruler.” She lunged directly at Zhen, just as coldly as she had done her own soldiers. As if his words had truly meant nothing to her.
Li Zhen had always been a prodigy. A genius of politics and war, of swordplay, and even of martial arts, which he had turned to out of sheer boredom. For his entire life, he had wanted nothing more than an equal. He prayed fervently that some twist of fate would place Zetian by his side. Not Gaozong’s or anyone else’s. A one-on-one fight with her was, truly, the culmination of that dream. But as Zetian parried, dodged, and blocked every single one of his blows, as if he were but a child with a stick, striking back over and over with force that shattered his armor and bones, the prodigy of the Li Clan realized that he had made a fatal mistake.
Wu Zetian was not his equal, and hadn’t been for a long time now. Perhaps she never even was. She had not simply met expectations- she had unquestionably surpassed them all.
BLACK TORTOISE’S SHELL
His strongest all-or-nothing strike didn’t move her an inch.
VERMILLION BIRD’S FLIGHT
Before he could even begin to follow up with a swing to her throat, she disappeared from sight. He turned around far too late. She was lunging for him.
DRAGON’S MIGHT
Zhen opened his mouth to choke out what he knew would be his final words. But faced with the wildfire burning in Zetian’s visage, with the bestial, almost hungering way she was now moving, what could he even say? It was only now that Li Zhen began to fathom what he had created.
WHITE TIGER’S CLAW
“Have we given rise to an empress, or a demon-”
Zetian’s whole body moved in a brutal downwards arc. The claw of a monster swept right through Zhen’s body, devastating it, tearing muscle and shattering bone, the armored, empowered prodigy little more than the weakest of peasants before its might. His life ended before he could even process his last, horrified thoughts.
Zhen’s corpse dropped to the floor in two. And next to it, with no one to see them in this secluded corner of Luoyang, as the battle began to die down, Wu Zetian simply looked upon her nemesis’ corpse, overcome by a hollow catharsis, the flame in her eyes now burning coldly. That last warm smile was something she had fought for decades to see, even if she herself had forgotten why. Yet it was unable to move her. Could she even move her own heart, at this point?
She had now slain Li Zhen with her own two hands. Her armies had already crushed many of the Li, and would end the rest of them soon. Zetian had conquered all possible opposition. But even as she stood atop a mountain of corpses and destroyed expectations, all those scornful eyes now looking towards her with reverence…she still felt that same empty, terrified hunger once the fearless rush of victory had passed. The hunger of a pitiful peasant girl destined for an unnamed and shallow grave. Even the throne wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough. She still wasn’t enough. She still had to prove herself more. Li Zhen and countless more had died, but their ghosts would gaze upon her forever.
The peak of the mountain was still a lonely place.
But even if it was lonely, it was safe for now. Neither blades or words, pointed towards her at all times, could even begin to reach her from where she stood. That was why Zetian had to keep climbing higher. All doubt and fear had to be banished. If she showed her constant hesitation, if any part of her was weak, then she’d fall in an instant, all the way back to the hell that lay below the earth. Back to the girl she used to be, and refused to admit she still was. To stay on the throne of heaven…Wu Zetian had to live as a devil.
Thus, Zetian remained standing. Not a single tear fell, and not a single tremor ran through her body. Whether it led to heaven or hell, she would continue walking the lonely path of an empress, paved with the corpses of friends and foes. She had no choice but to. Without hesitation, she ran to the raging battle ahead, not sparing a single moment of goodbye or prayer for her closest comrades. They had sacrificed themselves for a cold and ruthless empress, a ruler who would make China as strong as herself, and she intended to honor that.
Her country, her world, would never even begin to crumble. She would make sure of it. An empress never faltered, and an empress never relied on others. Even if the warmth- no, the absolute power she sought was impossibly distant, and fleeting in her grasp…she would chase it forever.
Even if she had to chase it all the way to the heavens.
The Arena
Zetian glared back at Tsukuyomi, her composure unshaken, but a burning, primal desire to conquer in her eyes. The moon god’s resolve remained unshaken. If anything, his face only softened with pity. But it seemed as if it was a battle to remain resolute, as if Zetian’s eyes were imposing her dominant will on the heavens themselves- it was as if Tsukuyomi was looking towards the peak of some unfathomable, treacherous mountain, and the dragon that reigned there as its ruler.
“The desperation of having nothing at all is what breeds the greatest hunger for power.” Solomon mused, a cool smile on his face. “And when one with such a craving actually reaches the heights that they seek, nothing in heaven and earth can stop them.”
“Wait, that makes no sense!” Legion interjected. “So she can control Demon Mind because…”
“Indeed. Wu Zetian has always been a human with the ‘greed’ of a demon. Perhaps even beyond one. That is her path as an iron empress, unchallenged by any in China. Only someone like her, one with an ‘ego’ that burns like an infernal flame, could ever harness Mammon to this extent…” His confident smile unwavering, Solomon turned his attention back to the arena.
“...You must have suffered greatl-” Tsukuyomi began.
“You shut up too, you patronizing asshole! As if I would care about the validation of those stuck up bastards, or even oh-so-almighty gods like you.” Tsukuyomi’s attempt at consolation was shut down by the ravings of Wu Zetian. Her words resonated with the moon god, the fiery glare she met him with shaking him to his core. She took a step forward and spread her arms, a grin and snarl simultaneously on her face as she continues.
“From the beginning, my throne has been mine and mine alone. I’ve fought, bled, and killed for no one except me, I clawed my way to the peak with my own two hands! And I’ll crush anything that wants to take that from me- I don’t care if it’s the heavens themselves! For I am…the Empress of China!”
A familiar figure in the audience smirked gleefully. “Wonderful! Show them the dragon’s fire that consumed all of China! Show them everything you are, my Empress!” Li Zhen roared out pridefully, the rest of the Li Clan with him. Their stands were surrounded by many of Zetian’s other fallen foes, watching intently. Li Jingye, Empress Wang, Sun Wanrong- regardless of their feelings, they all stood firm in their support, placing their faith in the one who had unquestionably crushed them all.
It didn’t matter what she had done to them, at least, not here and now. Zetian’s might was the single, immutable truth uniting them, a grand temple that had been built upon all their corpses. And they would uphold that embodiment of their China until the very end. As the Empress returned to her fearsome martial stance, firm as iron yet ready to rage like a flame, Tsukuyomi steeled himself and took a breath.
‘She does not have her demonic form activated…This is my chance! It’s now or never!’ He grasped his damaged haori in his hand and slung it towards Wu. The Empress was surprised with the newfound courage of Tsukuyomi, yet prepared herself all the same. It took only a single swipe of ‘Tiger Claw’ to shred the haori into pieces, but the brief distraction was enough for Tsukuyomi to reach her. His sword flashed through the air towards her leg, forcing the Empress to jump up with a feral glint in her eyes. He looked up, knowing just what to do next- but the brief moment of pause he gave before doing it was more than enough. Zetian lunged forth and swung, landing a palm strike to his ribs, and very nearly taking his head off with a turning kick, still grazing his cheek even as he ducked away. Tsukuyomi stepped back, grimacing but resolute as Zetian rushed at him once more.
“Don’t you dare hesitate like that again, boy!~”
“...You’re right! No more regrets!”
As he swung to intercept her, Zetian batted his blade down to the god’s side and closed in on the opening before Tsukuyomi. However, the young god steeled himself. It was just as he had planned- the creation of a second chance to execute that maneuver. Without hesitation, Tsukuyomi spat the blood pooling in his mouth into the eyes of his monstrous opponent.
“I can… NO! I WILL WIN!” He declared to the heavens, to the tune of a demented snigger from his opponent, before bringing the blade to her neck. A beheading fit for royalty. Yet, the Empress’ demonic eyes flashed open through the blood, and his blade was stopped firmly by her palm. Zetian diverted it to the side with a manic expression.
“What the..? Wait. Her pupils changed?!” Shock and horror palpated in Tsukuyomi’s brain as he realized that the demon mind had once again brought Zetian into her demonic state.
In the stands, Solomon laughed to himself as he observed the battle below. “It would appear that greed is truly the quality of a dragon, and you have achieved the pinnacle of it….well done Wu Zetian~”
“Oh my. So this is the ‘hunger’ that made her such a mighty empress…” Amaterasu mused to herself. Izanagi was now sweating slightly, his arm trembling in rage.
Mammon, meanwhile, was quivering, too shocked to even speak. Just what kind of relentless beast had Solomon bound him to? The demon, who walked through hell itself without a hint of fear, now felt as if he was in the presence of a monster.
Wu positioned herself in the same stance she had performed her White Tiger Assault in, before firing herself precariously towards the panicked God. Tsukuyomi’s eyes widened. He was too slow to dodge. He didn’t have enough momentum to parry. He couldn’t guard, or he’d be crushed under the blow’s pure power. Every option began to fade away in his mind, the Tsukuyomis of every possibility crushed by their foe…
Except the one he had finally found confidence in. The only way to advance was to move forward. Even if it was just this once, for a single strike and the rest of the battle afterwards, he was done hesitating. Here and now, he could go all out. He rushed forward, his blade surging with light.
This was the final stage of the self-mastery he had cultivated. At the end of the path of moonlight, the thousands of victories and twice as many failures forming it…simply stopped existing. The only truth remaining was this moment. To master one’s self meant to put one’s present self, all that they knew they were, into every single swing. And after so many years, Tsukuyomi’s blade and heart had finally become one shining light.
WHITE TIGER’S ASSAULT
PERPETUAL MOON CYCLE: HALF MOON
https://preview.redd.it/cjl9gbqb8n0d1.png?width=1011&format=png&auto=webp&s=d130842aaee35ab3a46277b2ca1988f56e157ee5
Tsukuyomi raised his blade up high, and sent it cascading down like a waterfall of pure surging moonlight, almost meteoric in its descent as radiant power wildly trailed behind it. At the same time, Zetian’s raging, hungering claw of a hand shot upwards in that same bloodthirsty arc of destruction.
“Oh my.” Thoth gasped. “Their power is beginning to approach that of Lucifer himself!”
“This is gonna be bloody.” Crowley cackled, gently rubbing his hands together.
“Yes! Crush that boy, Empress!” Li Zhen yelled. Both his fists were clenched in anticipation.
“...G…GO FOR IT, TSUKUYOMI!” cried out Izanami, raising one fist and nearly standing up from her chair.
It was a clash of pure unwavering will. Hell’s raw tenacity and heaven’s steeled resolve met in the form of a fist and blade, the flesh and light that burned in their hearts trying to consume the other entirely, the blast of their collision a passionate roar towards the sky.
“I won’t lose!” Tsukuyomi declared, tightening his grip and clenching his teeth.
“Eat shit!” Wu snarled, the grin on her face almost hungering.
With one last shout from both sides, as they poured all that blazed in their souls into the clash, it ended in a single, explosive instant. Tsukuyomi was blown away along with his sword, and tumbled across the arena floor, as Zetian was forced backwards in a burst of blinding moonlight, hissing in pain and nearly falling over- but standing her ground nonetheless as she dug one foot into the ground behind her.
Gaozong breathed a sigh of relief from his seat. Qin and the Li clan nearby, meanwhile, let out an invigorated cheer. “What a clash!” said the First Emperor with a grin. “Just a little more, and victory will be hers to seize!”
On the other side of the arena, Izanami yelped a bit, clutching Lucifer’s hand briefly. Tsukuyomi’s siblings looked on with concern, but not fear. Everyone in the room knew Tsukuyomi still wasn’t done. But just how much more did he have left to give?
“Tsukuyomi…damnit…” Metatron muttered, adjusting his glasses anxiously. Michael remained watching, his smile unusually firm as he spoke.
“Worry not, brother. His soul is still far from exhausted. And as his family, it’s our duty to watch until the very end…and to believe in him more than anyone else can!”
“...son of a bitch…” Wu mumbled to herself, observing the deep, frostbitten cut that had torn at her fingers. Small drops of blood seeped down and pooled below her, yet she stood tall and defiant. The blade had shattered upon impact and the claws had crippled Tsukuyomi to his knees…
“At least you died like a warrior, I will give you that mu-”
“I’m…not...done…yet…” The croaky voice of Tsukuyomi beckoned in her ears. Alarm and confusion arose, as Zetian watched the feeble god lift himself up with an empty, half-dead look on his face, yet determination in his eyes. ‘When did he become so persistent? I have crushed him time and time again, destroyed his blade and stolen his pride…From where does he draw strength?!”
https://preview.redd.it/cv35garf8n0d1.png?width=757&format=png&auto=webp&s=2dd9f788709d270b1587802483a30970fadc507e
Tsukuyomi looked down and noticed the blood that swam below him. ‘Am I dying? No…I can’t die yet…I don’t want to die…I suppose father, mother, and Michael would want me to live… Right…? I must try that, right father? This forbidden technique…’
The broken blade glowed before him as he exhaled a frigid air. Blood was coughed onto the ground, yet froze upon meeting his mist-like breath. His arm, covered in blood, cracked and began to tremble as it was now coated in shards of ice.
Wu looked towards him carefully, “I don’t like this at all.” Her instincts were raging at her. Primal instincts of the first of mankind suffering an age of ice, the opposite to their glorious fire, that killed all indiscriminately.
“I am sorry that you must experience this, Lady Zetian…It is a horrid power…Forgive me”
As Zeitan assumed a defensive stance, Tsukuyomi brought his blade before him, a fragile look in his posture.
“Tsuku…Yomi…!” Lucifer’s eyes widened, in a way they hadn’t since his earlier match. “Son… You truly… Have grown up…” His quiet voice held a mixture of realization, pride…but also a hint of anxiety, one of the emotions he discarded long ago. Metatron remained silent, sweat pouring down his brow, as Hanuel’s eyes widened next to him.
“He can’t be…!” Hanuel muttered. “Just what is he doing!?”
“Ahhh, Tsu-chan is about to do something splendid~ I wonder~ How will Wu-chan manage?” Dionysus' relaxed voice didn’t exactly match his eyes burning with passion and excitement.
“HA! What the fuck is he gonna do now?” Moros chanted, his eyes enchanted with excitement, his fingers burying into his hands as he awaited Tsukuyomi’s move.
“Hooh boy. I’m beginning to feel what I felt back in the center of the Hurikan again.” Da Vinci thought to himself in the infirmary, still in too much pain to speak.
Izanagi watched with a snarl, taking a deep breath of frustration at what he believed was Tsukuyomi’s incompetence. Amaterasu simply continued to watch unperturbed, an interested twinkle in her eyes. She turned to the sword-wielding god nearby and spoke with her head tilted curiously.
“Oh, Mikazuchi. Isn’t he doing the same thing as you? Or is it another one of his father’s techniques…” Amaterasu’s words were light, almost teasing. The masked god shook her head and crossed her arms as she replied with a sigh.
“Of course not. Every ‘sword’ in the world is different. Whatever he’s about to do…is something that only he can pull off.”
“This is your final test Zetian, will you manage to overcome your final obstacle, prove to everyone who ever doubted you, how wrong they were…Or fall trying” Even the ever-so collected Solomon had his full attention on the fight.
“Oh? No matter…whatever that brat god tries, our empress can overcome it! Isn’t that right?!” Li Zhen shouted. A confident smile was on his face as the cheers of his clan erupted around him, Gaozong watching intently nearby.
“Well gods, angels and men!” Thoth announced triumphantly. “Prepare yourselves, because the climax of the battle starts here!”
“Please, Tsukuyomi…win and come home.” Izanami’s voice was strangely calm, her hands clasped together as if praying. All her anxiety and confidence towards her son seemed to have vanished together, leaving only the nothingness of what was to come.
He twisted his grip on the handle, pointing the tip of the glimmering moonlight at himself. He took a deep breath before plunging it deep inside him, twisting the blade in his guts.
“The fu-!!!” Wu was startled by his suicidal display, before realising the temperature had dropped far below its former warmth. She looked to the ground and only barely avoided the expanding permafrost that encased the castle. Had she not jumped, she would have surely been trapped.
The blood that dropped from his back shot out with the thrust of the sword, yet seemed to freeze instantly. Their chilled form intensified, and became reminiscent of the wings of an angel.
The frozen wings of glimmering ice, the coming of Fimbulvetr…
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2024.05.15 20:36 SenlanZWH T1 vs TL Hupu Rating and Comments

I'm going to try to translate those top comment from Hupu for MSI, I might skip some of them as they are Chinese internet memes that I've no idea how to translate, and those comment related to Honor of Kings, a popular league like mobile game made by Tencent.
The rating is user poll generated, you can give a rating between 2 and 10, and average is used. A total of 86k people participated in this series' rating.
Hupu rating is an in APP feature so it doesn't really have a link, but here is the post match thread for the match, and on the top there is an link you can click on that get you to that page. link

MATCH 1: T1 vs. TL

T1
Player Rating Top Comment
Zeus Camille 7.6 Broke into an army of a hundred legions, cut off the general's head, and did it as easily as picking something from his own pocket. (Romance of the Three Kingdom, Chapter 25.)
Oner Poppy 7.2 Guys, my head is a bit itchy. (I think this is referencing a Chinese meme about head itchy means growing brain.)
Faker Taliyah 8.6 Not only all of the league bloggers and your fan/hater bloggers have been feeding off you for the past 10 years, the four "genius" and a championship coach is also feeding off you. You must be exhausted.
Gumayusi Senna 7.4 So, are you picking Senna because your support doesn't like to ward?
Keria Ornn 6.3 Ram passed. (This in Chinese is 羊过, sounds the same as had Covid, suggestion he is still having long Covid symptoms.)
KkOma 4.2 I want to flame you even if you guys won, this comp, if they don't make any mistakes you guys can't do anything, if Old Guy(Faker) don't carry you don't have any damage. Thought you come back to solidify your GOAT coach position, instead you are just coming back to leech.
Team Liquid
Player Rating Top Comment
Impact K'Sante 8.5 SKT legendary top laner Impact ready to come back!
UmTi Xin Zhao 2.4 Former worst jungler in LCK.
APA Aurelion Sol 2.5 oto. (Referencing Otto, the mid laner just got banned from streaming and Old Guy Cup for flaming, also known for been bad.)
Yeon Kalista 3.4 I'm farm when my teammates are fighting, I'll emote after I cast abilities.
CoreJJ Alistar 3.0 I was eating noodles, and saw your flash kowtow, noodle just flew out of my nose. (kowtow is Chinese nickname for Alistar Q, often used when it misses.)
Spawn 3.3 I firmly believe a team that could be 3:0 by TES should not ever appear on an international stage.

MATCH 2: T1 vs. TL

T1
Player Rating Top Comment
Zeus Vayne 4.4 The only bright side is your KDA, you are either farming or trolling this game.
Oner Jarvan IV 2.7 To think that one of the two team playing this game today will win just makes me uncomfortable.
Faker Ahri 9.2 They need to rely on you against TL, sad.
Gumayusi Varus 8.3 You and old Lee holding this T1 together, but this MSI I don't see any hope. (Lee is Faker's Last name).
Keria Kalista 3.4 I've been thinking, is the reason Guma's priority in the team is low because you want to have fun.
KkOma 2.8 You should just pick Lucian jungle and remake. (Uzi Reference.)
Team Liquid
Player Rating Top Comment
Impact K'Sante 7.2 Thought you are safe just building armor with 3 ad? Guess again, the only damage dealer was your old teammate.
UmTi Lee Sin 2.3 You know what, you reminded me of when I first started playing league.
APA Taliyah 4.1 One American can't win against nine Koreans.
Yeon Samira 9.6 Only one knows how to play league in your team.
CoreJJ Nautilus 2.3 Patriot!
Spawn 5.4 Cover up the name plates I thought this is LGD vs RA.

MATCH 3: T1 vs. TL

T1
Player Rating Top Comment
Zeus Vayne 3.0 Wow, you just invented a new style of Vayne, the fly style, going around annoy people, and just got splatted on the wall, like a fly.
Oner Sejuani 2.7 Got gapped by a team that got 3:0 by TES, and the fans were dreaming about a miracle run?
Faker Corki 2.9 Are you considering to join the Old Guy Cup?
Gumayusi Varus 8.5 You played well, please use your autos on your teammates when you get off the stage.
Keria Rell 2.6 T1 Esport club transfer announcement: After discussion with the player, the club will respect player's will, as of today, T1 league of legend esport club's support player Ryu "Keria" Min-seok will no longer be part of the organization and join Le Crazy Horse de Paris.
KkOma 2.7 Why did you ban Lucian and Senna, just ban Naut and Taliyah. Why don't you ban head lock champion like Naut when you have Varus?
Team Liquid
Player Rating Top Comment
Impact K'Sante 9.6 What champion are you? S3 worlds champion.
UmTi Rek'Sai 9.1 Even NA can win a game against T1, how bad is TES.
APA Taliyah 9.0 All chat every time you get a kill, if you tilt Keria, you chance of winning just go up 10%. Remember worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities, the best policy is to attach enemy's heart.
Yeon Kalista 9.4 Its a success if you don't get 3:0
CoreJJ Nautilus 3.1 "So good"
Spawn 8.2 Kenzhu: Guys, I logged on and did this BP.

MATCH 4: T1 vs. TL

T1
Player Rating Top Comment
Zeus Vayne 5.8 I thought TL vs T1 would be a quick 3:0 turns out it is a lot closer. I thought the CBA final was going to be a lot closer, they are down 15 points already at end of second half.
Oner Poppy 5.7 Are you guys playing Arena with TL?
Faker Orianna 9.1 Finally got Ori, this is going to be a fun game for me.
Gumayusi Senna 6.4 Am I weaker than them? Kept picking me Senna, a weak laning AD.
Keria Ornn 5.0 Top plays AD, AD plays support, support plays top.
KkOma 3.8 Why are you always crossing your arm and not talking, let Faker do all the talking during BP.
Team Liquid
Player Rating Top Comment
Impact K'Sante 4.4 SKT, I don't own you anything anymore.
UmTi Lillia 4.1 MSI? No. Collegiate League, Yes!
APA Ziggs 4.8 Brand: Should've picked me.
Yeon Kalista 4.8 He is clean, he doesn't know anything.
CoreJJ Rell 2.9 Team Liquid Esport club transfer announcement: After discussion with the player, the club will respect player's will, as of today, T1 league of legend Esport club's support player Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in will no longer be part of the organization and join Le Crazy Horse de Paris.
Spawn 3.5 Even BLG bans Ori, you are?
submitted by SenlanZWH to leagueoflegends [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:22 Waste-Ad33 I got 95% in boards, and full in Pol. I am sharing the pattern and strategy that helped me in prepping for my subjects(Eng/Pol/socio/Econ/Legal). Y’all can dm me for notes as well.

Hello class 12 humanities students! I just received my class 12 results, and am sharing my study pattern, tips and tricks, and guide to score 90+ in your domains. (Eng/Pol/socio/Econ/Legal) Jitna jaldi shuru karoge, it’s better. Believe me!
For context, my aggregate scores were 95% I have a full in polsci as well!
I’ll go subject wise. Lmk if y’all need any other help!
Anyone who wants extra question papers, or material, can dm me :)
SOME COMMON POINTS
-> Questions get repeated more often than u notice in humanities. The answers expected from u oscillate around a select few topics. They alter the wording and present the questions.
-> NEVER FOLLOW GUIDEBOOKS BLINDLY. They have multiple discrepancies, and can misguide you
-> KV notes (especially the ones by Ranchi and Chandigarh), Edudel, and jawahar navodya vidyalaya notes are top notch. Do refer to them.
-> NCERT is your holy grail, even for economics. Read it very very well.
-> 5-6 markers ke lie always make mind maps after your answersin your core subjects.
-> Never write para style for theory subjects. Make crisp and clear points acc to the marks of the question.
-> Language mein para answers always.
-> questions at the end of the chapters are v important. Never miss them.
-> you should practice papers in real test like conditions to ensure getting used to the pattern and the environment.
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::English::
Never, I repeat, never take English lightly. My marks were cut in English purely because I made the mistake of taking lit. section, especially Vistas lightly.
The best way to study English Lit. is to make short notes of each chapter, and they should have: - Keywords, poetic devices
 - Theme - Character Sketches (keypoints) - A self prepared outline of the story/poem. This should have some important lines from the text that u quote, and some quotes from outside that are related to the main idea of the story/poem. U can also prepare model answers.
-> REVISE THESE NOTES ON A REGULAR BASIS.
-> Remake and re-remake them on rough sheets before exams. This helps retain more.
Clarify the updated writing section formats with your teachers before your mid-terms. Try making model answers for each chapter. For reading comp., I believe understanding the format of the current year is what u need.
TOP RESOURCES:
  1. KV notes (Ranchi is the best), edudel https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xpuBvLfZvoKTvfHN0JR4sjcTgk1FsQ6Y/view
https://edustud.nic.in/edu/SupportMaterial202324/12/12_english_eng_sm_2024.pdf
  1. Shipra Mishra’s YouTube videos
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::Political Science::
This subject is very interesting! 12th pol is fun and easy.
****start with world pol
 -> For end of bipolarity, read Cold War era first. It creates a good base, plus helps u a lot if you’re prepping for cuet! -> mind maps!!!! Always make mind maps. It helps a lot. -> globalisation, environment, security ko lightly mat lena. Very scoring but can also drop your marks if you don’t prep them well.
**** indian pol
 -> chronological order mein jaana here is better. Maybe club chapter 2 and 5. -> indian pol is much easier. Make detailed notes for indian pol.
NEVER TRUST POL GUIDE BOOKS!
*maps and cartoons are important. Maps of Indian pol and cartoons of both. Mere paas pdfs hai of all the cartoons and maps if y’all need em*
BEST RESOURCES:
  1. KV notes, edudel notes https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EvoVIwVKVNZUIllRAT0XhTGpihHMCX08/view
https://edustud.nic.in/edu/SupportMaterial202324/12/12_polscience_eng_sm_2024.pdf
2.Human at Ease. Poorva ma’am’s classes are the best for sure!!
  1. Notes banao, ya phir make questions out of each topic and create answers and use as notes, or do both.
  2. PYQS (last 13 years)
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::Economics::
Economics mein IED is very simple, but macro (esp numericals) can baffle you.
  1. IED
    -> Trust NCERT blindly for sure, but sandeep Garg notes are good for memorising points wise. -> Make short notes.
  2. Macro
    -> Sandeep Garg se numericals karna is much simpler. Formulas are crisp, and they have plenty of additional questions at the back. -> I’d say it’s better to do theory from NCERT. -> theory ke short notes banao, point wise. -> for numericals, practice them regularly, especially if you suck at mathematical things.
BEST RESOURCES:
  1. Rajat Arora
  2. Sunil Panda
  3. KV notes, edudel https://edustud.nic.in/edu/SupportMaterial202324/12/12_economics_eng_sm_2024.pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZQTmaXYN8otZeUa07MMb-cyVwlVEqhFc/view?usp=sharing
  1. PYQS (last 15 years)
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::Sociology::
Very interesting, but can get confusing if your 11th concepts aren’t clear.
Again, don’t use help books, I beg of you guys. Apne notes banao, and do PYQS.
Notes banao detailed Format questions and answers NCERT is your holy grail, I repeat, your holy grail.
BEST RESOURCES:
  1. Human-at-Ease Edudel notes https://edustud.nic.in/edu/SupportMaterial202324/12/12_sociology_eng_sm_2024.pdf Throughly do ncert PYQS ( last 13 years )
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::Legal Studies::
Possibly the most unpredictable subject of humanities, that is open to a plethora of interpretations. You need a lot of time to understand the pattern, as well as the textbook. It is very text heavy, with a lot of terms and articles and sections.
I can’t emphasise enough on the importance of being thorough with NCERT.
Make detailed notes, and reread them on regular intervals. Arihant is a good reference book (possibly the only one out there), but that too has errors. There is legit no good yt channel for legal.
TOP RESOURCES:
PYQs: read the answer keys very very well. It helps a lot, trust me. ( last 8 years) Arihant: but always cross check the answers from pyqs and the book. Notes are good.
**** I can share notes if y’all want as well. ****
A chapter-wise guide of sorts (cuz legal ka material nahi hai zyada)
Judiciary: A long and exhausting chapter. For preserving your own sanity, divide it into three parts: -> Page 3-14
 -> Page 15-21 (right before judicial review) -> Page 22- 26 (I advise reading supplementary material as well. It helps understand the cases better + is good for case based questions)
*do them separately, otw pagal ho jaoge)*
ADR: seems long, but is a rather simple and straight forward chapter. -> make a comparative table of Arbitration, mediation and conciliation, along with mind maps of each topic.
4 business laws: very simple and scoring. 20 marks guaranteed if you do them well. -> understand the cases given very well. They are always used for the case based questions. Any topics that mention steps of any sort, or a doctrine are vv important.
 -> mind maps ; differentiation tables are vv important here.
Law and sdg: simple hai boht. ->Just read the book and make basic notes.
Legal Entities: again, v simple. -> make a table for diff b/w ops and sole proprietorship ; public and pvt company ; partnership and lap.
Criminal Law -> objectives of cl is v imp. 
 -> ipc, cps and iea ache se clearly samjho. There should be no confusion, nahi to phase jaoge. -> confession v/s admission is imp. -> cases ache se samjho pls
Human Rights: v difficult to remember. If you can rote learn, then nothing like it. Many case questions from here as well. ->best bet: sticky notes pe pointers banao and stick them above your table. Roz thoda padho.
 -> some things I found v imp: article 14 (equality principle) ; article 19 (reasonable restrictions) ; Article 20 (section 377 chronology) ; Article 21A - DPSP to fundamental right ; arrest v/s detention ; DPSP ( 5 features, 5 dpsps) ; Fundamental duties (5)
Quasi judicial bodies: v simple -> functions and features pata hona chahiye
Intl Law Divide into 2 parts and do separately: 
 -> Page 163- 172 (right above intl human rights) -> page 172 ( intl human rights) to 178
Legal Professions Again, divide into 2 parts: 
 -> page 183-189 ( legal ed in india) -> pages 189 ( usa) to 193. (This is a lot to retain thus I recommend doing this alag se)
Legal Services: Simple hai sabse zyada! 
 ->make good notes
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2024.05.15 20:22 Waste-Ad33 I got 95% in boards, and full in Pol. I am sharing the pattern and strategy that helped me in prepping for my subjects(Eng/Pol/socio/Econ/Legal). Y’all can dm me for notes as well.

Hello class 12 humanities students! I just received my class 12 results, and am sharing my study pattern, tips and tricks, and guide to score 90+ in your domains. (Eng/Pol/socio/Econ/Legal) Jitna jaldi shuru karoge, it’s better. Believe me!
For context, my aggregate scores were 95% I have a full in polsci as well!
I’ll go subject wise. Lmk if y’all need any other help!
Anyone who wants extra question papers, or material, can dm me :)
SOME COMMON POINTS
-> Questions get repeated more often than u notice in humanities. The answers expected from u oscillate around a select few topics. They alter the wording and present the questions.
-> NEVER FOLLOW GUIDEBOOKS BLINDLY. They have multiple discrepancies, and can misguide you
-> KV notes (especially the ones by Ranchi and Chandigarh), Edudel, and jawahar navodya vidyalaya notes are top notch. Do refer to them.
-> NCERT is your holy grail, even for economics. Read it very very well.
-> 5-6 markers ke lie always make mind maps after your answersin your core subjects.
-> Never write para style for theory subjects. Make crisp and clear points acc to the marks of the question.
-> Language mein para answers always.
-> questions at the end of the chapters are v important. Never miss them.
-> you should practice papers in real test like conditions to ensure getting used to the pattern and the environment.
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::English::
Never, I repeat, never take English lightly. My marks were cut in English purely because I made the mistake of taking lit. section, especially Vistas lightly.
The best way to study English Lit. is to make short notes of each chapter, and they should have: - Keywords, poetic devices
 - Theme - Character Sketches (keypoints) - A self prepared outline of the story/poem. This should have some important lines from the text that u quote, and some quotes from outside that are related to the main idea of the story/poem. U can also prepare model answers.
-> REVISE THESE NOTES ON A REGULAR BASIS.
-> Remake and re-remake them on rough sheets before exams. This helps retain more.
Clarify the updated writing section formats with your teachers before your mid-terms. Try making model answers for each chapter. For reading comp., I believe understanding the format of the current year is what u need.
TOP RESOURCES:
  1. KV notes (Ranchi is the best), edudel https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xpuBvLfZvoKTvfHN0JR4sjcTgk1FsQ6Y/view
https://edustud.nic.in/edu/SupportMaterial202324/12/12_english_eng_sm_2024.pdf
  1. Shipra Mishra’s YouTube videos
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::Political Science::
This subject is very interesting! 12th pol is fun and easy.
****start with world pol
 -> For end of bipolarity, read Cold War era first. It creates a good base, plus helps u a lot if you’re prepping for cuet! -> mind maps!!!! Always make mind maps. It helps a lot. -> globalisation, environment, security ko lightly mat lena. Very scoring but can also drop your marks if you don’t prep them well.
**** indian pol
 -> chronological order mein jaana here is better. Maybe club chapter 2 and 5. -> indian pol is much easier. Make detailed notes for indian pol.
NEVER TRUST POL GUIDE BOOKS!
*maps and cartoons are important. Maps of Indian pol and cartoons of both. Mere paas pdfs hai of all the cartoons and maps if y’all need em*
BEST RESOURCES:
  1. KV notes, edudel notes https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EvoVIwVKVNZUIllRAT0XhTGpihHMCX08/view
https://edustud.nic.in/edu/SupportMaterial202324/12/12_polscience_eng_sm_2024.pdf
2.Human at Ease. Poorva ma’am’s classes are the best for sure!!
  1. Notes banao, ya phir make questions out of each topic and create answers and use as notes, or do both.
  2. PYQS (last 13 years)
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::Economics::
Economics mein IED is very simple, but macro (esp numericals) can baffle you.
  1. IED
    -> Trust NCERT blindly for sure, but sandeep Garg notes are good for memorising points wise. -> Make short notes.
  2. Macro
    -> Sandeep Garg se numericals karna is much simpler. Formulas are crisp, and they have plenty of additional questions at the back. -> I’d say it’s better to do theory from NCERT. -> theory ke short notes banao, point wise. -> for numericals, practice them regularly, especially if you suck at mathematical things.
BEST RESOURCES:
  1. Rajat Arora
  2. Sunil Panda
  3. KV notes, edudel https://edustud.nic.in/edu/SupportMaterial202324/12/12_economics_eng_sm_2024.pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZQTmaXYN8otZeUa07MMb-cyVwlVEqhFc/view?usp=sharing
  1. PYQS (last 15 years)
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::Sociology::
Very interesting, but can get confusing if your 11th concepts aren’t clear.
Again, don’t use help books, I beg of you guys. Apne notes banao, and do PYQS.
Notes banao detailed Format questions and answers NCERT is your holy grail, I repeat, your holy grail.
BEST RESOURCES:
  1. Human-at-Ease Edudel notes https://edustud.nic.in/edu/SupportMaterial202324/12/12_sociology_eng_sm_2024.pdf Throughly do ncert PYQS ( last 13 years )
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
::Legal Studies::
Possibly the most unpredictable subject of humanities, that is open to a plethora of interpretations. You need a lot of time to understand the pattern, as well as the textbook. It is very text heavy, with a lot of terms and articles and sections.
I can’t emphasise enough on the importance of being thorough with NCERT.
Make detailed notes, and reread them on regular intervals. Arihant is a good reference book (possibly the only one out there), but that too has errors. There is legit no good yt channel for legal.
TOP RESOURCES:
PYQs: read the answer keys very very well. It helps a lot, trust me. ( last 8 years) Arihant: but always cross check the answers from pyqs and the book. Notes are good.
**** I can share notes if y’all want as well. ****
A chapter-wise guide of sorts (cuz legal ka material nahi hai zyada)
Judiciary: A long and exhausting chapter. For preserving your own sanity, divide it into three parts: -> Page 3-14
 -> Page 15-21 (right before judicial review) -> Page 22- 26 (I advise reading supplementary material as well. It helps understand the cases better + is good for case based questions)
*do them separately, otw pagal ho jaoge)*
ADR: seems long, but is a rather simple and straight forward chapter. -> make a comparative table of Arbitration, mediation and conciliation, along with mind maps of each topic.
4 business laws: very simple and scoring. 20 marks guaranteed if you do them well. -> understand the cases given very well. They are always used for the case based questions. Any topics that mention steps of any sort, or a doctrine are vv important.
 -> mind maps ; differentiation tables are vv important here.
Law and sdg: simple hai boht. ->Just read the book and make basic notes.
Legal Entities: again, v simple. -> make a table for diff b/w ops and sole proprietorship ; public and pvt company ; partnership and lap.
Criminal Law -> objectives of cl is v imp. 
 -> ipc, cps and iea ache se clearly samjho. There should be no confusion, nahi to phase jaoge. -> confession v/s admission is imp. -> cases ache se samjho pls
Human Rights: v difficult to remember. If you can rote learn, then nothing like it. Many case questions from here as well. ->best bet: sticky notes pe pointers banao and stick them above your table. Roz thoda padho.
 -> some things I found v imp: article 14 (equality principle) ; article 19 (reasonable restrictions) ; Article 20 (section 377 chronology) ; Article 21A - DPSP to fundamental right ; arrest v/s detention ; DPSP ( 5 features, 5 dpsps) ; Fundamental duties (5)
Quasi judicial bodies: v simple -> functions and features pata hona chahiye
Intl Law Divide into 2 parts and do separately: 
 -> Page 163- 172 (right above intl human rights) -> page 172 ( intl human rights) to 178
Legal Professions Again, divide into 2 parts: 
 -> page 183-189 ( legal ed in india) -> pages 189 ( usa) to 193. (This is a lot to retain thus I recommend doing this alag se)
Legal Services: Simple hai sabse zyada! 
 ->make good notes
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
submitted by Waste-Ad33 to CBSEarts [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 19:58 Aster_- first therapy session tomorrow, please help

Hello, i (24 afab) am not officially diagnosed with autism yet. There is a high possibility tho. Several people with official autism diagnoses in my friend circle have rather quickly told me they think i am likely to be neurodivergent. As have my own father, mother and work collegues. I have done extensive research over several years and have found great help from youtube videos targeted at neurodivergent people. I won't go into detail about all the signs here. Online test indicated highly too (not posting specifics dues to rules).
Now for my concern: I am unsure how to approach the subject well. I prepared several sheets and lists with personal experiences, struggles and signs to refer to at the appointment. And have gone througth the interaction several times in my head.
I am very afraid that i won't be taken seriously if i mention my own suspicions when it comes to diagnoses. Or worse missdiagnoses. Especially because it is likely I might recieve several diagnoseses. I am also considering i might have: PTSD, OCD, Anxiety and panick attacks, which i know oftenoverlap or are a part of neurodivergency.
Imposter syndrome is also kicking in ALOT for me when it comes to this.
I would appreciate any advice from people who have gone through assesments themselve.
(english is not my first language sorry for mistakes, cross posted on autismtranslated and autism. i hope this is allowed)
submitted by Aster_- to neurodiversity [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 19:55 Aster_- first therapy session tomorrow, please help

first therapy session tomorrow, please help
Hello, i (24 afab) am not officially diagnosed with autism yet. There is a high possibility tho. Several people with official autism diagnoses in my friend circle have rather quickly told me they think i am likely to be neurodivergent. As have my own father, mother and work collegues. I have done extensive research over several years and have found great help from youtube videos targeted at neurodivergent people. I won't go into detail about all the signs here. Online test indicated highly too (not posting specifics dues to rules).
Now for my concern: I am unsure how to approach the subject well. I prepared several sheets and lists with personal experiences, struggles and signs to refer to at the appointment. And have gone througth the interaction several times in my head.
I am very afraid that i won't be taken seriously if i mention my own suspicions when it comes to diagnoses. Or worse missdiagnoses. Especially because it is likely I might recieve several diagnoseses. I am also considering i might have: PTSD, OCD, Anxiety and panick attacks, which i know oftenoverlap or are a part of neurodivergency.
Imposter syndrome is also kicking in ALOT for me when it comes to this.
I would appreciate any advice from people who have gone through assesments themselve.
(english is not my first language sorry for mistakes, cross posted on autism)
submitted by Aster_- to AutismTranslated [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 18:58 HeadOfSpectre There's An Abyss Even Deeper Than The Mariana Trench

“Ready to make history, baby?”
I looked over toward Sheila as she stood on the gangplank leading up to The Burger. I still couldn’t believe she named our research ship ‘The Burger’... emotional relevance be damned.
“It's not exactly history,” I corrected.
“Oh come on! If your survey is right, this trench might run even deeper than the Challenger Deep, and you’re gonna be the first person to explore it! How is that not exciting?”
“Might be deeper, we only have a limited amount of topological data. And even if it is deeper, we’re talking only a few hundred feet at most, it’s really not that im-”
Sheila silenced me with a kiss.
“Nerd.” She teased, and I found myself too flustered to reply. After five years of marriage, she still could leave me speechless with just a kiss. God… how did someone like me end up with a woman like that?
Then again, how did someone like me end up where I was in general? It was honestly a little overwhelming. Standing on the dock, getting ready to board that ship and join the ranks of Jacques Piccard and James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) as one of the few people to take a manned submersible down to the deepest parts of the ocean. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared too. Diving down that deep could easily be a one way trip if even the slightest thing went wrong. My submarine would be experiencing between 600 to 1100 atmospheres of pressure and while we’d tested it over and over again to make sure it would actually be up for the challenge, there was still a lingering iota of doubt in the back of my mind. All that needed to go wrong was one little thing, and that would be it for me.
The scariest part is that I probably wouldn’t even know what had happened… I’d simply be gone… and Sheila would be alone. The thought of that caused a momentary spike of panic in my chest that almost made me want to call this whole thing off.
Almost.
But, then I felt her hand close around mine. I looked up into her bright blue eyes, and saw her gentle smile.
“You’re gonna be okay, hun,” She promised. “You and your team have been running the numbers, right? It’s gonna go just fine!”
I nodded slowly.
“It’s gonna go fine…” I repeated, before she leaned in to kiss me, and gently pulled me by the wrist up onto the deck of the Burger.
She was probably right.
It probably would be fine.
Probably…
The trench I’d be exploring was a fairly recent discovery, located south of Greenland, in a vast stretch of water situated directly between Newfoundland and Iceland. It’d been uncovered during a topological survey in the area, and my team had taken an interest in investigating it further. At minimum, it was believed to descend to about 35,000 feet deep (over 10,000 meters), although the current theory was that it might have run even deeper. Determining the exact depth of the yet unnamed chasm was just one of the intents of our dive. The rest was studying the organisms that might be found down there, and how they might have differed from the ones found in other deep ocean trenches (some variation being expected given the isolated environment they were developing in.)
I had to admit, it would be exciting to see what new life might have developed in a place such as this, especially if it ran even deeper than our predictions… and that excitement was enough to make me chase the fear of the risks out of my mind, even if it was only briefly. While Sheila went to make sure we were ready to embark, I caught myself wandering out toward the rear of the ship where my submarine, The Tempura, waited for me. Did this submarine deserve a better name than The Tempura? Probably. But, this was my project, so I got to name it and since Burger was already taken, Tempura was the next best name I had. I liked to think that the subs namesake might approve… if she hadn’t died fifteen years ago. Shrimp don’t live very long.
As the ship began to depart, I caught myself reminiscing on how I’d ended up here… it really was all because of those damn shrimp, wasn’t it? Well… maybe not all because of the shrimp. But they were certainly part of it. Back when I was a lot younger, I never really gave much of a shit about anything at all. I guess I did have a thing for the ocean… the great, romantic vastness of it. The sense of adventure that it beckoned with. The endless mysteries that lay within its dark depths. I used to read about it all the time when I was a kid and I especially loved the classic adventures: Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and Melville’s Moby Dick… but that love was just confined to my books. I didn’t really have any interest in actually going out and seeing the ocean. Hell, the idea of going to a beach and standing in the sun with my toes in the sand seemed miserable to me. I was happier (although calling myself happy might’ve been a little disingenuous) alone in my room, enjoying the company of books as opposed to people.
Then came the shrimp.
One of my online friends kept them as a hobby. He used to post pictures of his tanks all the time, and I always thought they looked kinda cool. He said that if I was interested in them, I should try keeping some for myself, and during a particularly bad bout of depression, I figured that maybe it might be worth a shot. So, I bought a cheap tank and some cheap decorations, bought myself some shrimp… and promptly watched them die over the next few weeks. That… that bothered me. I don’t know why but… it really bothered me. I’m still not entirely sure how to describe what it was that I was feeling. Guilt? Defeat? Shame? Here I was, trying to set up a habitat for these creatures just to have something to do to keep the suicidal ideation at bay, and I’d failed almost right out of the gate.
Was I just that bad? Was I just that much of a failure? Was this just going to go to shit just like everything else in my life did, because I was just such an abysmal piece of shit who barely deserved the life she had? Had I just not tried hard enough? Was I too apathetic? What had happened? What went wrong?
It bothered me.
It bothered me enough that I made up my mind to just dump the remaining shrimp down the toilet and toss everything. Forget about it. Move on. End of story. But… that wasn’t fair, was it? The shrimp didn’t all deserve to die just because I couldn’t be bothered, did they? Sure, they were just shrimp, but they were alive too, just like me. They deserved to be alive.
I owed it to them to try and keep them alive, didn’t I?
So… I didn’t dump the shrimp.
Instead, I started doing some reading. Started looking into what I was doing wrong and how to do it all better. I actually got really into it and a few months later, I had a nice planted tank. Looking back, it was amateur shit… but it made me happy. I’d even picked out names for my two favorite shrimp. Burger and Tempura. They’d been the last survivors of my original batch, and they were the ones I ended up caring about the most. Caring for Burger and Tempura gave me a purpose. It became an obsession… and that little obsession drove me to finally start turning my life around.
Like I said, shrimp don’t live for very long. Burger and Tempura were long dead by the time I graduated with a degree in Marine Biology. But they were the ones who inspired me to finally get my life in order. Hell, the shrimp were half the reason that I met Sheila. She was something of an aquarium fanatic too… we’d met on a forum, and gotten to talking. I found out that she just so happened to be studying Marine Biology at another school, and we bonded pretty quickly after that. After graduation, I moved to California to be with her and after that, the rest is history. She was my rock. She was the one who always pushed me to be the best possible version of myself… and I loved her more than I ever knew I could love someone.
A glance back at the shore, fading into the distance tore me out of my reminiscing, and I shifted my focus to the present, going over The Tempura to perform some quick checks. My colleagues and I would be checking and rechecking the submarine over the next two days as we made our way toward the dive spot. Considering the danger that descending that deep posed, I didn’t want to take a single unnecessary risk.
I had too much to live for, after all.
***
The day of the dive, I couldn’t notice how excited the rest of the crew seemed… well… Sheila’s usual crew seemed excited. I guess to them, this was just another research expedition, no different than the ones Sheila usually took this ship out on. Lately her research had been focused on the analysis and study of whale calls. Her recent voyages had involved following their pods, recording their calls and playing them back to see how the whales reacted. It was fascinating stuff, but my research was admittedly a lot different than that.
My obsession had drawn me to the denizens of the deep sea. I’d used The Burger for expeditions before, although none of them had been on quite the same scale as this one. Up until today, the most ambitious thing I’d done was send down unmanned submersibles with cameras. Those submersibles had typically returned. We had lost a few early on due to technical glitches, but the past few years had been blissfully uneventful. Logically, this dive would probably be uneventful as well. But it was still hard to get the jitters out of my head.
My team and I did the final checks necessary to make sure that The Tempura was good to go, before setting up the crane to begin lifting it up. In less than an hour, I’d be inside of that thing, descending to the darkest depths of the ocean.
It didn’t feel real.
I felt Sheila’s hand on my shoulder, and looked over at her.
“Moment of truth, huh?” She asked. She probably meant it to sound encouraging, but it just sounded ominous.
“Moment of truth…” I replied.
“You’re gonna be okay, honey. I know you will.”
She reached out to gently squeeze my hand and gave me a reassuring smile that I meekly returned.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be okay,” I agreed, although there was an element of a lie in it. Statistically, yes. It probably WOULD be okay. But there was that lingering anxiety in the back of my mind that just wouldn’t go away. I looked quietly out at the submarine before me and couldn’t shake the thought that it sort of looked like a giant coffin. Unconsciously, I found myself squeezing Sheila’s hand tighter than normal. She just held me close and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, before gently rubbing my back.
“You’ll be okay,” She promised.
“Dr. Jenner, we’re ready for you.” I heard one of my colleagues say.
Moment of truth.
I took one last look at Sheila, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips for luck. She smiled at me, and I smiled back anxiously at her before heading over toward the submarine.
The crew helped me enter the cockpit and get myself situated inside. The cockpit of the Tempura was fairly cramped and not particularly comfortable. Space and comfort aren’t really luxuries you can afford in a submarine like this. The instruments I needed took up a lot of space, leaving little room for me in there… and I am not a very big person.
Once I was inside, they sealed the hatch. Then the diagnostics checks began.
“Grayson, can you hear us in there?” I heard Sheila say through the radio.
“Loud and clear,” I replied.
“Great. We’ll keep in constant radio contact, just to monitor the signal. In the meanwhile, how’s everything looking in there?”
“Green across the board so far,” I said, although I hadn’t finished running all my final checks yet. Ultimately, nothing was out of place.
This submarine was as good to go as it was going to get.
“I’m all good in here,” I said once I was done. “You can drop me when you’re ready.”
“You got it, honey. Let’s get you in the water, run one final round of tests and start lowering you down.”
A short while later, I felt the submarine begin to move as the crane lifted it off the deck and lowered it into the water. The Tempura honestly resembled its namesake in a way, being long and cigar shaped, only vertically oriented instead of horizontally oriented. We’d admittedly taken more than a few design cues from James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger. Why fix what isn’t broken, after all?
Once I was in the water, a 1000 pound releasable ballast weight would cause the submarine to sink. Releasing that weight was also my ticket back to the surface, and I could either trigger it from inside the cockpit, or, in the event that the release failed for any reason, it would trigger automatically after roughly 12 hours of exposure to salt water.
Ideally, this would be the first of a number of dives I’d be undertaking… and if all went according to plan, the Tempura could be the first of many similar submarines that would allow other researchers to safely and effectively descend to extreme depths. If all went well, this could be a massive leap forward for researchers like me, allowing us to better explore the deepest depths of the Hadal Zone and learn all we could about the ecosystems down there via direct observation.
If all went well.
If.
Through the viewport, I watched as I was lowered into the ocean. A few of the other crew members had donned diving gear to escort me down, and after they did their final checks and I did mine, we were fully ready to go.
“All’s green across the board,” I said into the radio. “You can start my descent.”
“I hear you, honey,” Sheila replied. “We’re letting you go. Have fun down there.”
“Yeah, I’ll try…” I said quietly as finally, my submarine began its descent.
I took a deep breath, and told myself again that everything would go fine. We had checked everything on this submarine. We’d tested it rigorously. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to set foot inside of it if I hadn’t personally assured that it was safe. But anxiety never really goes away, does it? The crew couldn’t accompany me far. After only a few meters, they fell behind me as I sank deeper and deeper into the infinite, empty blue of the ocean. Soon after, the tether was released.
I was officially on my own.
“60 feet,” I heard Sheila say over the radio. “How are you doing in there?”
“Good,” I replied. “Doing… doing good.”
The submarine continued to descend. Through the viewport, I could see a few stray fish, but nothing particularly eye catching. I almost felt alone down there… almost…
“120 feet…” Sheila said.
“Still doing good,” I replied.
The descent continued, as the waters slowly grew darker and darker.
“400 feet…”
Everything around me just kept getting darker and darker. Only a fraction of the light from the sun ever reached these depths… and I’d be lying if I said that darkness didn’t feel a little… oppressive.
“800 feet… still feeling good?”
“Yeah, still feeling good…” I said, although it was a bit of a lie. If anything, I was second guessing all of this, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud.
“1000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…” I murmured. “I hear you loud and clear.”
Deeper… deeper… deeper.
“1500 feet…”
Three miles. I was three miles away from home. Three miles away from Sheila.
“2000 feet…”
Still a ways to go.
“3000 feet…”
By this point, it was fully dark outside of my cockpit. Outside, all I could see was inky darkness. Even the submarine’s lights didn’t really cut through it. And the kicker? Relatively speaking, I wasn’t that deep. Fishing trawlers reached deeper than this. Better to conserve power until I was at the bottom. My descent continued.
“6000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…”
The check ins were becoming less frequent. My descent still continued… deeper… deeper… deeper. By now, I’d entered the Hadal Zone. But there was still so much deeper o go.
“8000 feet…”
This was past the depths that most whales would dive to… and I still had a ways to go.
“10,000 feet.”
This was close to where the ocean floor usually bottomed out… and yet there was still so much further to go. No. I was really only a third of the way there. How long had it been?Not much had happened beyond my descent and a few sightings out of my viewport, but time had been passing. A glance at my watch confirmed it’d been almost an hour since I’d started to sink… and I knew I wasn’t even close to the bottom yet. The submarine continued to descend, sinking ever deeper as I dropped into an infinite darkness that few had ever dared to witness.
“15,000 feet.”
This check in came later than the others. At this point, Sheila and the crew must have figured that no news was good news, and they were right. I just continued to sink peacefully, down into the crushing depths of the ocean.
These were the depths that one might normally find deep sea fish… and yet I was going somewhere even deeper than that.
“20,000 feet…”
So close…
I continued to sink.
“25,000 feet.”
Soon… and finally…
“30,000 feet. You still doing alright, honey?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m doing good,” I assured her. I was so close…
By this point, my real work had begun. I’d engaged the lights and begun documenting what little I could see using the on board cameras. Granted, there wasn’t much life at these depths and what little there was, was scarcely documented. Most of what was down here consisted of invertebrates and microscopic life that seemed to float past my viewport.
The light seemed to draw a few creatures in search of food. Small, hardy things that resembled shrimp.
“How’s it looking, Grayson?”
“Dark,” I said, half joking. “We’ve got some life… shrimp. They’re translucent. Can’t get a great look at them… but we’ll see what the cameras pick up.”
“They’ve recognized you as a friend,” Sheila said. I could almost see the smile on her lips as she said it.
“Yeah…” I replied, “Tempura sent them a message, told them I’d be down. How am I looking on depth?”
“35,000 feet… you seeing a bottom yet?”
“No… not that I would until I was there.”
“Damn… how deep does this go?”
“It can’t go that deep…” I murmured, although I really wasn’t so sure about that.
The submarine continued to sink…
36,000 feet…
37,000 feet…
38,000 feet… and then finally, just past the 39,000 foot mark, I finally saw solid ground below me.
Looking through my viewport, I could see a familiar dark brown diatomaceous sludge, covering the seafloor. Microscopic life, likely similar to what had been observed in other deep sea trenches, such as the Challenger Deep.
I needed to gather a sample.
As my submarine reached the bottom, I extended the mechanical arms, pressed flat against the surface of the Tempura, and opened the collection port near the bottom of the ship. Slowly, I sifted some of the sludge into the port. My disturbance of the seafloor kicked up a cloud of the microbial colony, and I could’ve sworn I saw something wiggling through the debris. A pale, white thing, perhaps some sort of sea cucumber? I hastily angled my submarines camera to try and catch a glimpse of it, before returning to my collection. Even in this forlorn place, there was still so much to see! And here I was… completely forgetting my fear as the excitement took hold of me! Few people had ever been down to these unfathomable depths… and yet here I was.
It didn’t feel real but it was! I had reached the deepest part of the ocean!
“How’s it going down there?” I heard Sheila ask. Her voice was a little garbled. The connection down here was faltering.
“It’s beautiful…” I said. “I can’t wait for you to see it!”
“I’ll bet…”
“I’m going to do a sweep of the area, see what samples I can gather,” I said. “What’s my time right now?”
“Three hours. You’ve got nine before your connection to the weight deteriorates and you start to ascend.”
“I’ll make the most of it,” I said. The plan was only to stay down there for six hours, and I didn’t want to push that limit. Life support would only last me for so long, and one little error was all it would take for the ungodly pressure down here to crush me.
I began to move the submarine. Mobility was limited. This thing wasn’t built to travel far. But I still had some limited movement. I recorded all that I could, filming the shrimp that investigated my light, and the things that slithered and crawled through the muck, likely feeding on the carpet of single celled organisms that populated these depths.
The first two hours were… well… I hesitate to call them uneventful, they were actually very fascinating, but little of note happened beyond my recording of a few specimens.
Midway through the third hour though, as I was reaching one of the rock walls of the abyss, I noticed something just above the edge of my viewport swimming away from the light. I could’ve sworn I saw slender, pale tentacles of some sort. Was that a squid? Were there squid down this deep? I wasn’t aware of any species of known squid who could reach these depths… but in this unknown place, what use was the known?
I moved my light and my camera to try and catch another glimpse of it, but whatever it was, it seemed to be gone. Maybe I’d see another one. I still had plenty of time.
“You made a noise. What’d you see?” Sheila asked.
“Something big… I think,” I said.
“Down there? Like a fish?”
“Squid. You wouldn’t find any vertebrates down this deep… the pressure would crush their bones.”
“Jeez…”
I didn’t reply to that, still searching for the thing I’d seen. I shone my light up along the walls of the chasm and angled my camera up as far as it would go. I could see a few volcanic vents, spewing dark clouds into the darkness, and more diatoms. But not much else. Strange invertebrates crawled along the walls. Small creatures, no bigger than an inch long. Related to isopods, perhaps? If I could collect one as a sample, I would have… although taking any of those back to the surface would surely kill them. They were built to live under the impossible pressure of these depths. Taking them to the surface would rip them apart.
I went back to my research, and it wasn’t long until I saw something in the darkness, just on the edge of where my flashlight reached. Trailing white tendrils, snaking their way through the darkness. My eyes narrowed as I moved the submarine forward, trying to catch whatever it was in the light. I saw the shape move, its body turning… I saw its tendrils unfurling. Whatever this was, it was big. It was almost as big as The Tempura… although it was also slender. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought I was looking at some sort of floating debris, but this far down? No. And debris wouldn’t move like that.
This had to be a deepsea squid… or perhaps some other type of cephalopod? Something that preyed upon the various invertebrates down here, perhaps? It seemed to float, just out of sight for a bit, as I tried to get closer. I angled up my light to get a better look at it. The light seemed to shine through it, like some sort of ghost… but I did manage to get a look at it.
Although that look…
That single look made me freeze up.
This things slender tendrils certainly resembled a cephalopod of some sort, but the rest of it… the rest of it looked like something else entirely. Its body was thin, emaciated and translucent, yet despite that it still had characteristics that almost seemed… human. It wasn’t human! Not by any stretch of imagination, but the resemblance was there. It almost reminded me of an exhibit I’d seen in a museum once, depicting a preserved, fully removed human nervous system. I could see a similar shape in its translucent body. Its head seemed almost human as well… albeit with no eyes, and a lamprey like mouth I could only describe as fleshy yet crablike.
Still, despite having no eyes I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was looking at me. And that was when I felt something hit the submarine.
I felt a sudden jolt of panic in my chest. For a moment, I thought that the pressure had started to crush me, but no… no, everything was still fine. Something had just hit me. But what? It didn’t take long before I got my answer.
Another pale creature floated past my viewport, swirling gracefully in the cold dark waters. I watched it for a moment with wide eyes, before noticing its ‘head’ turning slightly toward me. Then, almost instantly, it launched itself at the submarine, darting toward me with blinding speed.
I heard a distinct THUD as its body collided with me, and I could see its pale tendrils pressing against the viewport, twisting and writhing violently. It was trying to attack me. The first creature that I’d seen lunged as well, pounding on my submarine with another THUD. And moments later, I could hear more impacts against the hull. There were more of them… and they did not like having me down there.
“What’s going on?” Sheila asked.
“Somebody doesn’t like me…” I said. “One of the animals down here… some kind of squid, it’s just started attacking the hull.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“Not sure… could be nothing, could be-”
I felt the submarine shake as I tried to move it. The thrusters that pushed me forward weren't responding. Had something gotten caught in it? One of the creatures perhaps?
“Grayson?!” Sheila asked.
“Lost propulsion…” I said. “Fuck… I can’t move.”
“Then drop the weight and come up!”
“No, it’s fine, there’s no other damage, I can still use the port and starboard thrusters to-”
“Grayson!”
I paused. There was genuine panic in her voice… enough to make me realize that even if these things stood little chance of actually breaching the hull, taking the risk would be a fatal mistake.
“I’m on my way up…” I finally said, before reaching out to disengage the ballast weights.
Immediately, I felt myself beginning to rise, although the tentacles clinging to my viewport didn’t disappear.
“We’ve got you…” Sheila said. “Rising up to 38,000 feet.”
The submarine continued to rise, but the creatures clinging to me went nowhere. In fact… I was sure I could see more of them. More pale shapes coming up through the darkness, and these ones filled me with dread. I thought I had been looking at some sort of eerie undiscovered life. But seeing what was coming up toward me now… I knew that I was looking at so much more. The creatures swimming up toward me through the darkness carried weapons… makeshift stone spears and daggers. Primitive tools… but tools all the same.
Signs that these were more than just undiscovered animals.
Much. Much more.
The word: ‘Mermaids’ crossed through my mind, but these were something far different than the ones I’d heard of in folklore. These looked like they’d swam out of the depths of hell itself. Boneless pale tendrils reached for me… and they were getting closer. The pale shapes reached my submarine as I rose higher. I kept praying to whatever God may be listening that the dropping pressure would force them off. The air in a submarine is pressurized, so during normal operation, there should have been no danger of decompression sickness for me.
For them… well… normally I’d feel a little guilty about subjecting an undiscovered species of deep sea mermaids to the horrors of the Bends. But given my circumstances, I didn’t have a lot of other options.
They didn’t let go, though.
They should have. But they didn’t.
What were these things?
I saw a splayed hand press against my viewport. Or… it somewhat resembled a hand. It had suckers on it, like a tentacle and the ‘fingers’ curled open like tentacles. The creature crawled over my viewport, clinging to The Tempura as it rose, and I could see the folds of its crablike mouth opening and pressing against the glass. I could see some sort of bile rising up through its translucent throat, before it secreted it all over my viewport. Was it trying to digest me? Was that how these things fed? How strong were its stomach acids? Were they strong enough to-
The window cracked.
My heart skipped a beat.
“No… no, no no…”
“Grayson, what’s wrong?!”
“They cracked the window… S-Sheila they… oh God… oh fuck, they just…”
“THEY DID WHAT?”
“It’s secreting some sort of enzyme… it’s on the window, it’s… FUCK… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die…”
“You’re not gonna die, baby! Just… just keep ascending, okay? You’re at 30,000 feet… just keep going…”
I nodded, and kept on rising, although the question of whether or not the rest of the creatures were trying to digest the other parts of my submarine floated through my mind. How much damage could The Tempura take before it imploded? How much longer did I have? The submarine still continued to rise… 25,000 feet… almost halfway home… almost… almost.
The creature outside of my viewport slithered along the glass, searching for a better area to try and digest. Past him, I noticed a few of his companions dropping off. Maybe the change in pressure finally was getting to them?
From the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a flashing light. A warning. The hydraulics on one of the Tempura’s arms were shot… what else was damaged?
I checked my oxygen levels. 32%.
I should’ve had at least 14 hours of air. I’d only been down there for about 6 hours… I shouldn’t have been this low.
31%.
No… no, no, no, no… they’d damaged the air tanks!
30%.
29%
“20,000 feet!” Sheila said. “You still with me, baby?”
“Y-yeah…” I said. I didn’t mention my air situation. I didn’t need to worry her further.
The submarine continued its ascent.
15,000 feet.
24%. I was running out of time.
The creatures still clung to the Tempura. How had the pressure change not killed them yet? My oxygen was dropping faster than before. I was hemorrhaging air. Another crack formed across my viewport. I let out a little, involuntary gasp before trying to force myself to stop hyperventilating.
“Grayson, what was that?”
“I-it’s fine…” I stammered, “It’s fine!”
“Grayson what the hell is going on down there?!”
“They’re still on the submarine… they’re still…” I paused, looking at my oxygen levels. “19%...”
“19% of what? Grayson what’s going on!”
I paused.
18%.
“Air… I’m… I’m losing air…”
“That’s fine, you’re going to make it!” She said, although I heard her voice cracking a little. “You’re gonna make it!”
I didn’t answer.
12,000 feet.
11,000 feet…
My oxygen level continued to drop.
15%.
14%.
12%.
9,000 feet.
The creatures still clung to me, as the submarine continued to rise. The one on my viewport was still there, slowly crawling along the glass again. I stared into its eyeless face and swore I was looking at the face of my killer.
7,000 feet…
Oxygen had dropped to 9%. It dropped to 8% before I even got to 6,000 feet. I was going to die here…
The viewport cracked again and I squeezed my eyes shut. The submarine rocked. I was sure one of the thrusters had been damaged. My ascent slowed.
“Grayson, what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry Sheila…”
Another crack spread across my viewport.
“I’m… I’m not making it back up…”
“YES YOU ARE!”
“I’m sorry…” The tears started to come as the reality of my death became clearer and clearer… this was it.
“YOU’RE COMING BACK UP, YOU HEAR ME! GODDAMNIT, I’LL BRING YOU BACK UP!”
“I love you…”
That creatures face pressed against the glass. It vomited more of its stomach acid onto the cracked glass, and I wondered if this might finally be what broke it. Part of me hoped it would be… the one good thing about dying this deep was that at least I’d die quickly. My suffering would be over. Then, the creature suddenly pulled back, twisting and writhing violently. I saw other shapes moving past it in the water, other ‘mermaids’ that had been clinging to the submarine.
Something was agitating them.
Something was scaring them off.
Then I heard it, over the radio… whale songs.
“What the hell…?”
“Grayson, are you still there?!”
“I… they’re finally breaking off. Sheila, what did you do?”
“I’m broadcasting some of the orca recordings we’ve been using. Are they still clinging to you?”
“No! They’re backing off! I… whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
The submarine kept rising.
5,000 feet.
4,000 feet.
4% oxygen.
I could still do this, right?
The submarine continued to rise.
3%.
3,000 feet.
2,000 feet.
2%.
1,000 feet… so close… I was so close…
I could almost see the surface through my viewport, rushing up toward me. I tried not to breathe. Tried not to move. All I did was hope.
500 feet.
I closed my eyes.
“Grayson we have your signal, we’re coming to pick you up!”
Sheila’s voice sounded so far away as my submarine finally breached the surface of the water… and with the last of my strength, I pulled the emergency release on the hatch, and threw it open, taking in lungful after lungful of fresh salty air.
I didn’t dare so much as touch the water beneath me… but I was topside again, and in the distance, I could see The Burger!
“We see you!” Sheila said, “We’ve got you baby… we’ve got you…”
“I see you too…” I said through the tears. “Thank you… thank you…” I didn’t have any words left in me after that.
As soon as I was back on the ship, I collapsed into Sheila’s arms, breaking down into tears as I clung to her, terrified that at any moment, some sort of unspoken other shoe would drop and I’d lose her all over again.
“Shh… it’s alright baby… I’ve got you… you’re safe… you’re safe…” I felt her fingers running through my hair and I knew that what she said was true.
I was home.
I was safe.
***
I left my colleagues to review the data that the Tempura gathered during its short expedition. As far as I know, they haven’t published anything. I have a few ideas as to why, but I’ll keep those to myself. Let’s just say that some people would rather this information not become public.
I have a feeling that the Tempura may not be diving again for some time, if ever. I will confess that I do consider that a bit of a shame. Despite everything… I would consider it a success. It endured far more stressful conditions than I had expected, and from what I heard, required fewer repairs than I’d thought it would. But, even if it was approved for another dive, it wouldn’t be me piloting it. No. I will never be setting foot inside of that machine again, nor will I ever be returning to what my colleagues have been quietly referring to as ‘The Jenner Trench’.
I can’t.
Every night, I wake up crying after dreaming of pale shapes outside of my cracked viewport, clinging to Sheila and sobbing. I can’t put myself in that situation again.
I can’t.
Instead, I think I’m going to spend the next few years on solid ground. There’s a teaching position available at a local university. I think that might be the best place for me right now. Who knows, maybe I can help some other deadbeat discover a passion for marine biology.
After everything, my love for the sea remains unchanged… I’m just a little more wary of it, these days.
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2024.05.15 18:39 Undyingcactus1 The goat story

I'm on a re-read and wanting to put some of my thoughts out into the universe so we can appreciate Collins as the master of the craft she is. Here is a lil bit on the goat story, please share your own thoughts!
As they settle into domestic life in the cave, Peeta prompts Katniss for a story, which she likens to singing, an activity she views as superfluous but connected to her father, and, as of recently, Rue. Peeta, the artist, and Katniss, the utilitarian.
The goat story provides important insight into Katniss’ background and their world on multiple counts:
Peeta’s prompt is specifically for the happiest day she can remember, so her mind turns to Gale, which she intuitively understands would not go over well, and Prim. I find it interesting that she doesn’t even consider memories of her father, say, teaching her to swim or singing to the mockingjays. Lady the goat was introduced back in chapter one with her cheese and milk featured in the reaping festivities and here we get her backstory as a 10th birthday present for Prim. The story opens with Prim giving a gift of goat cheese to Katniss, and this story reverses the situation with Katniss giving Prim a gift of goat, the gift that keeps on giving between the sisters. Timeline wise, Prim’s 10th birthday places the events around two years before THG, and Katniss at around 14.
The first half of the entire story is an internal monologue, not spoken out loud, to protect Greasy Sae, Rooba the butcher, and even the peacekeepers from punishment for breaking the laws by engaging in the black market. Katniss’ awareness that the audience will have already figured she was illegally hunting but her refusal to implicate anyone demonstrates her nature as a protector and the need for mutual silence within District 12. I doubt anyone from District 12, regardless if they are from the Seam, town, or a peacekeeper, would say any of the first half of the story out loud. It is their mutual silence, their mutual dependence, their mutual aid that protects them all. The black market is an integral part of their economy and way of life.
Gale and Katniss shoot down a young buck and Katniss describes him in detail, remarking on his youth, beauty, unfamiliarity with humans, and innocence. Her description calls to mind the tributes themselves, innocent children. We learn it is Greasy Sae, a trader at the Hob, who seems to be well-respected within their community, that refers them to a butcher in town. Greasy Sae could certainly use the buck for her stews, but she clearly has Katniss’ and Gale’s best interests in mind and wants them to get the highest price for their kill. The Hob operates on goodwill and trust between the traders with Katniss and Gale being established and well-regarded members of their ranks.
They take the buck to Rooba, the butcher in town. Katniss and Gale have crossed the threshold of the Hob, where haggling is the way of commerce, and into town with Rooba where the merchant class controls trade. The pair receive the most money they have ever had at one time and head for the market square.
From here, Katniss narrates the story out loud directly to Peeta and indirectly to Panem, claiming she traded her mother’s old locket in for money. She is drawn to the Goat Man’s injured goat, noting how owning a goat can change your life in 12. I find it a bit amusing how nonchalant Katniss and Gale try to be while sizing up the goat, even buying a cup of milk, but the Goat Man insists she is for the butcher. When Rooba shows up, she complains of the goat’s worsened state, then leaves with a wink to Katniss. The crowd joins in the haggling between the Goat Man and Katniss.
Rooba’s shenanigans and the involvement of the crowd show how invested the communities of 12 are in Katniss from even before the reaping. We see over and over her suspicious nature blinds her to the perceptions of others. She is taken aback by the salute she receives at the reaping, but as we learn over the course of the books, District 12 respects and admires her. We hear this explicitly from Delly, in Mockingjay, but more subtly in this story. Katniss denies that Madge is her friend, denies that she would get generous trades on her own merit instead of her father’s or Prim’s reputations, denies that the people of District 12 care for her. Her years of trading across the lines that divide 12, interacting with the people of the Seam, the town, and the peacekeepers and officials means she is one of the few that would be known to almost everyone. Almost everyone in 12, besides Haymitch, is aware of her dedication to providing for her family. Katniss interprets the “effect she can have” that Peeta refers to as pity and an insult, but really, it is anything but. I’ll bet NO ONE from 12 was surprised when Katniss volunteered. Katniss’ inner dialogue throughout the games show how profoundly the watchers of 12 influence her decisions and how it is distinctive from the influence of the watchers of the Capitol. She knows she would be ostracized in 12 if she didn’t ally with Peeta after the rule change, and she knows she would never accept anyone back into 12 if they didn’t do the same.
Gale carries the goat back, because, according to Katniss, ‘he wanted to see the look on Prim’s face as much as I did’. This line tears me up knowing what is coming in Mockingjay.
Katniss has a very rare show of sentimentality here by buying a ribbon for the goat to present to Prim. The conversation between Katniss and Peeta after she tells this story never fails to crack me up. Peeta KNOWS this story is the happiest in Katniss’ life because of the ‘lasting joy you gave the sister you love so much you took her place in the reaping’ but she insists that the goat was a ‘little gold mine’. Their banter here is why we are all Everlark shippers.
Thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts on the goat story
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2024.05.15 18:39 RazarTuk What do people actually mean by "showtunes" with Disney Night?

I'll just be blunt. I honestly don't know what people mean when they complain about Disney Night being "showtunes". Technically speaking, I'm fairly certain that just means songs that were written for musicals, contrasted with jukebox musicals using existing music, which is so vague as to be useless. For example, if it's just flashy, over-the-top numbers you don't like, I can think of scenes from jukebox musicals, like Dancing Queen in Mamma Mia, which fit the bill better than some songs that were written for musicals, such as Reflection from Mulan. Basically, there can be all sorts of musical styles used within a musical. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an amazing example of this, because basically every song is its own style. It's also what makes Joseph such a difficult role to perform, because you need to be both convincingly arrogant, such as in Joseph's Dreams, and convincingly humble, such as in Close Every Door. (Which is also just amazingly performed. I don't think I've ever heard so many stops actually be released) But perhaps my favorite example is Happy Ending from Twisted. For context, Starkid did a parody of Aladdin, where they retold the story from Jafar's perspective, similarly to how Wicked retells the Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch's perspective. Its soundtrack is interesting, because the three lead characters - Aladdin, Jafar, and the princess who had to go unnamed because she wasn't named in the original story - each have their own musical styles. Aladdin has a rock style, Jafar has a classic Broadway style, and Jasmine the Princess has a classic Disney style. Happy Ending is the act 1 closer, where each character sings, and apart from Jafar getting a very Wicked-themed part at the middle, they each use their own styles, switching fairly seamlessly. (Try to tell me the middle doesn't sound like the Wizard and I)
Yeah, Disney's the same. Remember that even just counting the official animated canon, they've already made 62 movies, which doesn't even count all the sequels from the 90s and 2000s, other musicals they've made like Nightmare Before Christmas, all the Pixar movies with their own original songs, all the DCOM musicals... There are a lot of songs out there, in a massive variety of styles.
For example, a lot of movies from the Experimental Era didn't have that many original songs, and just used existing songs, such as most of the songs in Lilo and Stitch just being Elvis. Tarzan actually uses music the same way. Because of the focus on Tarzan learning English, they wanted to take a vaguely more grounded approach to talking animals, and specifically avoided having the animals sing any songs. So apart from Trashin' the Camp, you'll notice that all of the songs are voiceovers by Phil Collins. And, well, a lot of them just wind up feeling like pop songs as a result. For example, you could probably take Son of Man from Tarzan, show just a soundtrack version to someone who's never seen the movie, and convince them it was an existing pop song.
Or Disney kept trying to turn their female stars into the next Miley Cyrus, so surprisingly many DCOMs have songs just feel like pop songs. (As opposed to how they normally need to specifically make a pop version of a song for the credits) As a few examples of this, there's This Is Me from Camp Rock, Determinate from Lemonade Mouth, or, yes, the Climb from Hannah Montana the Movie. And just to demonstrate my point, Gabby even performed the Climb as just... a normal song in the top 14 week of season 16 (season 1 on ABC).
Then there's the category of lesser-known songs. For example, I feel like everyone recognizes the Start of Something New as High School Musical. But would you recognize a song like Can I Have This Dance as being from High School Musical 3? Sure, that was one of the only DCOMs to get a theatrical release, but it's not one of the songs to have its own Wikipedia page. Or as a closely-related category, there's also all the sequels and spin-offs. For example, unless you're a massive Disney nerd, you probably didn't even know that they made an entire spin-off TV show for Tangled, and even brought Alan Menken back to write songs. And while the more popular songs from the show tend to be very plot-related, like Crossing the Line (WARNING: Major spoilers for the end of season 2), there are also songs like Waiting in the Wings.
There's also a whole category of songs which don't actually have all that much to do with the plot. Or more precisely, songs that reference the plot in oblique enough ways that you could remove them from the movie and still have them make sense. Sometimes, you need a credits version of the song for this to work. For example, the movie version of Can You Feel the Love Tonight wouldn't work, because it very much includes Timon, Pumbaa, Simba, and Nala singing, but Elton John's version removes that. But Go the Distance is one where both the movie version and the credits version work. Other examples include Reflection from Mulan and the credits version of God Help the Outcasts from the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Related to that category, there's also an entire category of songs that aren't actually from musicals. (Which tends to mean from Pixar) For example, Real Gone and Our Town from Cars, Carried Me With You from Onward, When She Loved Me from Toy Story 2. Or going through the list of songs people have sung on past Disney Nights, even something like You Can't Stop the Girl would meet my minimum definition of "A song that was specifically written for a Disney movie".
If we're already counting things by studios that were purchased by Disney, you can also tap into Fox and LucasFilms. For example, I honestly don't know if At the Beginning from Anastasia would count. Or, and apologies for reminding everyone that the Star Wars Holiday Special exists, I'm fairly certain that Goodnight But Not Goodbye was written for that accursed thing.
Or even if you want to sing just a classic Disney song and embrace the Disney, there's variety there as well. For example, it feels practically required at this point for the country singer to do You've Got a Friend in Me. If you want something campier, Poor Unfortunate Souls was literally inspired by drag, so it's more or less impossible to be too campy. If you want to show off your lack of media literacy, you can sing Remember Me from Coco. (I hope that by using the clip where Ernesto de la Cruz dies, I got across my disdain for anyone who saw that movie and decided it would be the perfect song to sing for Idol) If you want a peppier I Want song, there's How Far I'll Go from Moana. If you want a more pensive I Want song, there's Part of Your World from the Little Mermaid...
Also, if you notice, almost every single one of the songs I just mentioned is either a solo or a duet that could easily be modified to be a solo. The Start of Something New and Crossing the Line are the only two that aren't, and they weren't even meant as examples of songs you could sing. But I hope this post illustrated how much variety there is within the broader concept of Disney songs, and how it's not all just "showtunes".
submitted by RazarTuk to americanidol [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 17:52 DazzlingShiny130 Beyond Light (The Storyteller Spider)

SUMMARY

"The Storyteller Spider or Beyond Light is a major character from the web-novel Tales We Weave appearing directly and indirectly as the author and supreme creator of all creation and serving as a narrator above all concepts, meanings, entities, creation and the narrative itself, existing outside of it like a human reading a book. The myth of Beyond Light started millenniums ago on earth more specifically on the African continent, with the first humans believing on a spider god that from time to time, descended from the divine realm to earth with the single purpose to share his stories with the people. The myth still being a myth however inspired a whole generation of humans to write about the entity and the fables of Beyond Light became famous around the world with each one of them having a meaning. With the time as generations passed, humanity slowly forgot about them and even though their stories were slowly getting forgotten in time, there would exist those who would never forget about the myth of the Storyteller Spider as well its fables"

APPEARANCE

"In chapter 4-5 the Storyteller Spider is described as an big white spider with a undefined size, it is believed that Beyond Light's true form cannot be understood by any mind and being forever a mystery even to editors. While other beings are not able to understand Beyond Light's true form, he is sometimes described as an giant eldritch white spider and sometimes appearing in a human form. The true aspect and form of The Storyteller Spider is believed to exist beyond the dark frontier and being forever a mystery to those below it"

PERSONALITY

"The Storyteller Spider shows to be a friendly entity rather than a controlling entity like editors, he sees creation more than a story but a happy and cheerful world full of different individuals with each one building their own story. According to Beyond Light every single being has a story to tell be it about their daily lives or whatever action they take, there is always a story to tell wherever you look around. Beyond Light also shows a lot of interest for external stories be it from his creation or even from other places. During chapter 4 of Tales We Weave, Beyond Light mentioned the SCP Foundation showing he was aware such verse existed and adding how he liked the writing and lore the SCP writers from the wiki. Beyond Light doesn't just seems to love narrating and weaving new stories but seems to also love reading external stories, according to him there is always something new a person can learn when reading a story, that's the fun of creation and the thing that gives colors and joy to existence, the endlessly stories the individual can learn and extract a lesson from it"

NARRATIVE LAYERS (WEBS)

1. The Collective Webs

"The Collective Webs is the place where all single stories meet with each other being a place weaved by editors, each web from the collective webs contains a infinite number of multiverses with each one having a different story editors created"

1.2 The Primary Web

"The Primary web exists above all concepts possibly containing half of the entire narrative stack weaved by editors, is also the web that contains the entire existence such the omniverse, dimensions, realms, planes of existence, mathematical concepts and concepts of existence, all stacked inside the primary web"

1.3 The Fourth Web

"Although it was not mentioned, It is highly implied that there are upper layers above the primary web before reaching the dark frontier as editors can also manipulate the primary web. Above the Primary Web there exists the Fourth Web which is the place editors resides, the fourth web is an fourth wall aspect established above the narrative of the Primary Web, serving as an web that exists beyond the fourth wall"

1.4 The Mother Web

"The Mother Web is implied to be the last web of the narrative weaved by The Storyteller Spider, existing beyond the fourth wall and containing the entire full narrative stack from infinite stories. The existence of editors and other meta beings are also tied to the mother web as they are part of it as a whole, the Mother Web is argued to contain the entire fiction inside it, everything that existed, exists and will exist in the narrative is contained inside the mother web"

1.5 The Dark Frontier

"The Dark Frontier serves as an barrier that traps and seals the mother web, due to its nature it is impossible for any meta or pataphysical being to cross it, representing also the edge of fiction and the true point of no return. The dark frontier is also extremely large, encompassing and evolving the entire mother web like an spherical cloud of darkness. Due to its nature it is believed that Beyond Light exists above it, however as none ever managed to reach it, it is unknown what exists above it but it could possibly be the place Beyond Light resides as a whole"

POWERS AND ABILITIES

"Beyond Light's true powers remains a mystery for most entities but they are highly believed to be above all concepts of existence and above creation itself, seeing the narrative and everything as fiction to him, thus granting him great power and influence to control what happens in the story. During chapter 4-5 Beyond Light reveals to Skinande existence itself is merely something he weaved to narrate, even the existence of meta entities such Skinande or editors are tied to the narratives of Beyond Light. He was also responsible for the creation of the Primary Web, something that contained the entire omniverse with every realm, dimension and a fraction of the narrative stack created by him. Concepts such; destruction, chaos, destiny or light are conceptual ideas tied and confined inside the Primary Web"
Powers and Abilities: Beyond-Dimensional Physiology (Exists beyond the Primary Web and outside all the mother web, the narrative itself), Acausality (Type 5: Existed before editors, who created causality and the primary web), Plot Manipulation, Mathematics Manipulation, Space-Time Manipulation, Quantum Manipulation, Conceptual Manipulation, Omni-Lock, Omniarch, Complete Arsenal, Text Manipulation, Data Manipulation, Creation (created and weaved the entire Mother Web), Existence Erasure (can erase and wipe the mother web with everything inside it), Transduality (Type 3:, Existential Perfection, Omni-Negation, Absolute Invulnerability (can survive even if the mother web is destroyed), All types of immortality, Omnipresence (can exist everywhere at the same time in the narrative), Omniscience (Knows everything and contains all knowledge possibly), Transcendence (transcends all meanings, concepts, ideas, entities, deities, and the narrative itself)

QUOTES

"Time...It's not what you think it is, time is like a cage or cube that revolves everything and when you freed yourself and leave its boundaries you realize time is just a cage trapping third dimensional beings inside, you see how time is so small but big compared to those people" - Beyond Light to Skinande when explaining about conceptual meanings
"Everything is more fun and better when people shares their ideas and gathers them together with other's ideas thus making a lot of stories" - Beyond Light to Skinande
"Every work has an message the author desires to pass to the readers, the message I wanna pass here is that with a bit of creativity, effort, and imagination someone is already capable to create and build different types of stories, and that's exactly the message I try to pass on this web-novel, the "Tales we Weave" or stories we create together" - Beyond Light to the readers

TRIVIA

*In the African continent, Beyond Light was once mistaken with the god "Anansi", the spider god
*Although It wasn't mentioned, Beyond Light's favorite story and narrative is the "Self Reference Engine", with himself being a "fan" of Nemo Ex Machina's work
*Among the many names he was given already, the names "Beyond Light" and "The Storyteller Spider" were the most famous and used ones by himself
*It is not fully know why Beyond Light picks the form of a spider to manifest himself but it could possibly be related to how he weaves and create stories like an spider weaving its webs
*He seems to be aware of other verses as he mentioned SCP writers in chapter 4
*SCP-2747 was almost mentioned by Skinande before he got interrupted and cut by Beyond Light
*As mentioned above, Beyond Light shows an deep passion and interests for stories, quoting them as "the joy of creation" for him and being the thing that moves every writer to write, the passion for the narrative and the writer's creativity
*"Did you liked my own improvised fandom wiki, reader?"
submitted by DazzlingShiny130 to u/DazzlingShiny130 [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 16:38 Imagen-Breaker GT9 Rewrite Part 14.4 - Older Scenes

Part 14.3

Heracles VS Lernaean Hydra

Author Note: I was thinking about it and I really wish that GT9 used more draconic symbolism throughout the story when (or if) I revisit Team Crowley VS Rosencreutz I'll have symbolism of Aleister (TheBeast666), Aiwass (Codename: DRAGON) and Coronzon (The Dragon of the Abyss) all have symbology of them being Dragons preying on a God/Hero like CRC and the reversed conflict of Chaos VS Order you see in mythology, I also wanted to achieve something similar with Kakine Teitoku as he can represent the Fallen Angel and the Seraphim but for now I'll try adding draconian symbolism into Gunha VS CRC.
True Expert Christian Rosencreutz, with his golden rosy cross sword, clashed relentlessly against the indomitable force of the Strongest Gemstone, Sogiita Gunha. With each clash of their powers, the air crackled and compressed, and the pavement trembled beneath.
CRC, observed Sogiita with a mixture of intrigue and disdain. "You fight like the legendary Heracles," he remarked, his voice carrying over the din of battle. "But know this, I am the Lernaean Hydra, and no matter how many heads you sever, I shall always rise again!" Rosencreutz roared to slice the #7’s midsection.
Sogiita, his entire body wreathed in unknowable energy, met CRC's blade unyielding. "Bring it on, old man!" he retorted, his voice brimming with confidence. "I'll knock you down as many times as it takes! I won't stop till you come to your senses and remember your roots, like the roses you love so much, Rosencreutz!!"
Their clash intensified, that old man’s higher dimensional sword colliding with the raw power of that boy’s fists and kicks as they pushed each other to their limits with each sword swing, punch, kick and flash.
Sogiita unleashed a barrage of punches, each strike carrying the force of a meteor, while that silver young man countered: he wielded his sword in his right hand and released impacts followed by white light that was enough to previously take down all of The Bridge Builders Cabal.
As the battle raged on, the very fabric of reality seemed to warp and shift around them, bearing witness to the titanic struggle between two unparalleled forces.
The founder of Rosicrucianism who intimidated reality itself to obey his will and that Gemstone with an unstable personal reality that could change on a whim.
The atmosphere crackled with electrifying distortion.
Sogiita's fists tore through the air with the ferocity of meteors, their velocity enhanced by his ability to adapt and accelerate, surpassing even CRC's speed. As each blow was released, the friction with the surrounding air molecules ignited a scorching heat, intensifying the impact.
The rapid movement of molecules generated an escalating thermal energy, causing the air to seethe with increasing temperature. It was akin to a tempest of incandescent projectiles hurtling towards CRC, their speed surpassing the limits of human perception.
It was like a storm of brilliant fiery arrows was fired at Rosencreutz.
These blazing arrows of force were reminiscent of the elusive strikes employed by the Rose & Cross Leader, ignoring distance with deceptive agility.
With each thunderous punch, that bandana boy sought to overpower his adversary through sheer kinetic force, his unwavering resolve palpable in every motion.
But that wasn't enough for this superhuman.
CRC, wielding his cross sword with precision and skill, deflected each and every one Sogiita's flaming arrows with calculated strikes of his own. Each impact unleashed a burst of blinding white light, sending shockwaves rippling through the chaotic city.
"You think brute strength alone will defeat me?" the silver man taunted, his voice cutting through the chaos of battle. "You may be strong, but strength without strategy is nothing but raw power wasted."
Sogiita grinned, his confidence unshaken. "Strategies for cowards who can't handle a real fight," he retorted, his voice ringing with defiance. "I'll K.O. you with my fists and guts alone!!!!"
Rosencreutz's eyes narrowed as he parried another of Sogiita's punches. "Your arrogance will be your downfall," he warned, his tone tinged with certainty. "I may not match your overall speed, but I have something you lack: intellect and precision.”
Christian Rosencreutz then plunged his cross sword into the ground.
"This is what harmed Kamijou Touma," he declared, grinning and unleashing a torrent of lethal invisible attacks from his outstretched palms.
However, the #7 countered with a relentless barrage of flaming arrows from the thermal aftershock of his punches.
Each strike akin to a particle accelerator in its intensity and speed. That Gemstone was the particles being fired on the right and that True Expert was the particles fired on the left.
As the attacks clashed, the battlefield became a spectacle of raw power and precision.
“Roar!” CRC held his open palm to his mouth and blew gently on the tip of the middle finger.
That was all it took for a blaze easily outdoing a flamethrower to rush out. And this was not just any fire. It fed on the power of a ley line and stole vitality from space itself. This overwhelming mass of light and heat was wielded for no other purpose than to take lives. Anyone who tried to survive it using simple composite armor or special fibers would dry up and burn away in less than a second.
But that wouldn't kill another superhuman would it?
Of course not.
“Aaaaarghhhh!!!!” screamed the #7.
Some assaults bypassed the fray entirely, slipping through the chaos like elusive particles in a collider.
A smokescreen.
Those brilliant fireworks from hell weren't meant to take Sogiita’s life. They were meant to disrupt the Gemstone's senses and sight so he couldn't counter all of that old man’s deadly attacks.
Invisible strikes found their mark on that Gemstone, and the searing arrows of the arrows scorched Rosencreutz.
CRC was wounded but he rejected to make any whimpers. Instead with a sudden burst of velocity, the young silver man picked up his cross sword from the ground and launched a flurry of strikes, cutting at the #7’s body with pinpoint accuracy.
His arms, his head, his face, his stomach, his legs, his midsection, his back.
Each blow landed with devastating force, causing Sogiita to stagger back under the onslaught.
If that bandana boy hadn't had his defenses and general stats raised by the #5 he’d be cut to pieces.
The #7 fell on his back.
"There's a fire," Sogiita declared, his voice ringing out amidst the chaos of battle.
With each attempt to break his spirit, Sogiita's resolve only grew stronger, fueling the flames of his determination. "Every time someone tries to make me give up, it's like wind feeding my flames, making them burn even brighter just like my punches," he explained, his words carrying the weight of his unwavering determination.
He refused to stay down.
With a roar of defiance, Sogiita surged forward once more, his movements blurring with speed as he disappeared from view. In the blink of an eye, he reappeared behind Christian Rosencreutz, catching the magician off guard.
"Hey, old man," Sogiita taunted, his voice filled with confidence as he seized Rosencreutz from behind.
Christian Rosencreutz's eyes widened in surprise as he realized he had been outmaneuvered.
As Sogiita Gunha faced off against Christian Rosencreutz in their airborne duel, he felt the flames of determination burning within him, driving him forward with unstoppable force.
Before he could react, the boy lifted him effortlessly and slammed him onto the pavement below with a resounding thud.
"I'm not just a kick-boxer!!" Sogiita sang.
As the impact reverberated through the air, the young silver man let out a pained cry. The force of the collision compressed the surrounding air, heating it up until it crackled with energy. Christian Rosencreutz's head struck the ground with a velocity equivalent to mach 20, igniting his body in flames upon impact.
This move is called a suplex.
Struggling to regain his bearings, Rosencreutz muttered in a daze, "The House of the Holy Spirit...the seven walls..."
"You said it yourself, didn't you?" the gutsy boy retorted, cocky. "My power and my guts can break through your impenetrable walls. And I can spread those same guts to the world around me."
With a grimace, Christian Rosencreutz acknowledged the truth of the boy's words. "Your uncontrolled AIM field grants you the ability to imbue non-organic objects with the properties of your virus," he observed, his voice tinged with begrudging admiration. "Allowing them to bypass even the defenses of the seven-walled tomb.”
"A virus? Don't be so gutless, CRC," the #7 retorted, his voice filled with defiance. "This battleground ruled by wills is a two-way road between you and me."
Christian Rosencreutz raised an eyebrow at the boy's words. "Hey Gemstone, you could've killed me if I weren't a superhuman with an idealized body that accomplished The Great Work and crossed the Ungrund, what then short-stack?" he questioned while fitting an insult against his height.
Even without the seven-walled tomb or sheets of diamonds Rosencreutz was cartoonishly durable.
"Sorry, old man," Sogiita retorted, a hint of irritation lacing his words at the jab about his height. "I may have let my enthusiasm get the better of me, but rest assured, I understand the magnitude of this battle. Just like the Hydra, no matter how many heads you regrow, I'll persevere until I've completed my labors.”
"Mhm, so you do know your mythology," CRC remarked, a hint of amusement in his voice. "The Lernaean Hydra, or simply Hydra, is a serpentine lake monster in Greek and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, known as an entrance to the Underworld. In the canonical myth, the monster is slain by Heracles as part of his Twelve Labors."
"Yeah, I know," Sogiita replied confidently. "I studied the tales of great gutsy heroes in school.”
"So, short-stack," Christian Rosencreutz began, his voice carrying a hint of scholarly interest. “Have you ever considered the parallels between our battle and ancient Near Eastern religions?”
Sogiita listened intently. "Are you saying you see yourself as a god of war or a hunter?" he inquired.
CRC chuckled softly. "In a sense, indeed. We are both assuming roles in this grand theater, are we not? I, the Hydra, and you, Heracles."
He continued, "Consider the Second Labor of Heracles. Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns, sent Heracles to slay the Hydra, which Hera had raised specifically to defeat him. Heracles approached the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelled. To protect himself from the poisonous fumes, he covered his mouth and nose with a cloth and shot flaming arrows into the Hydra's lair, causing it to emerge and terrorize the surrounding villages."
CRC paused, drawing a comparison. “In our own clash, the flaming arrows that Heracles hurled at the Hydra find their echo in your lightning-fast fists, generating shockwaves that ignite the air with their speed and force. It's as though each strike of yours is akin to shooting a flaming arrow, much like Heracles did.”
“Huh? Are you suggesting we're caught in a time loop? That some enigmatic group, like the Bridge Builders Cabal, manipulated events to resurrect you, pitting us against each other in a timeless struggle? I've never met them, and I'm certainly no child of Zeus. Are you implying that our battle will be distorted into a Greek legend by a meddling time traveler?!” frantically asked the boy.
“No, no, you simpleton. This world contains synchronicities. In Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian mythology, the war and hunting god Ninurta was celebrated for his deeds. The Angim credited him with slaying eleven monsters during an expedition to the mountains, including a seven-headed serpent, possibly identical to the Mushmahhu, and Bashmu, whose constellation was later associated with the Hydra by the Greeks. In Babylonian contexts, the Hydra's constellation is also linked to Marduk's dragon, the Mushhushshu.”
“Uhhh….” That shounen boy was dumbfounded.
"Hhm, I suppose calling it a time loop isn't technically wrong," Christian Rosencreutz began, his tone measured. "I'll break it down from history class and reconstruct it through the lens of the occult. Historic recurrence, young Gemstone, is the phenomenon of events echoing throughout time. Whether it's the rise and fall of empires or the repetitive cycles within a single society, it's all part of this grand plan that was decided when Adam ate the forbidden fruit."
The #7 with his guard up but curious listened: "So, history just keeps repeating itself? Just a series of coincidences?"
Christian Rosencreutz shook his head sagely. "There is no such thing as coincidences. Take, for instance, the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, pondered upon by thinkers like Heinrich Heine and Friedrich Nietzsche. While it's said that 'history repeats itself,' it's not quite that simple. Rather, these recurrences stem from identifiable circumstances and chains of causality."
He continued, his voice carrying the weight of centuries of philosophical debate. "Consider the phenomenon of multiple independent discoveries in science or the reproducible findings in natural and social sciences. These recurrences, whether in the form of rigorous experimentation or comparative research, are vital to our understanding of the world."
Christian Rosencreutz paused, allowing the weight of his words to sink in. "G.W. Trompf, in his seminal work, The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought, illustrates the recurring patterns of political thought and behavior since ancient times. Through these patterns, history offers us invaluable lessons, often leading to a sense of resonance or déjà vu."
Their words reverberated like a challenge to destiny itself, a testament to their unyielding determination in the face of adversity.
That Gemstone didn't surrender his characteristic fervor. "History echoing through time, huh? It's like the universe itself is stuck on repeat, and we're just caught in the cycle. But you know what? If history's gonna keep looping, then let's break the pattern! Let's smash through those chains of causality and forge our own path. Who cares about déjà vu? We'll create something entirely new, something that'll shake the very foundations of this world and we’ll do it with guts!!!" He defied that silver monster.
But Rosencreutz wasn't finished. He pulled out his Crystal World Map.
The supposedly old man listened intently to that boy's impassioned response, his expression inscrutable behind his clairvoyant card. After a moment of contemplation, he spoke.
“Gemstone, you speak of breaking free from the chains of repetition, of forging a new destiny against the backdrop of eternal return. It is a noble aspiration, indeed. However, consider this: eternal return is not merely a philosophical concept or a whimsical notion of fate. It is the very fabric of existence, woven into the nature of time itself.” He pressed his finger on the Miniature Garden and a 3D holographic projection flew out—
“In ancient times, the Stoics grappled with the idea, seeing in it both a sense of cosmic order and a challenge to individual agency. Augustine and others recoiled from its implications, fearing it as a negation of free will and salvation. And yet, Nietzsche, in his brilliance, dared to confront the concept anew, exploring its depths in the crucible of human consciousness.”
Didn't Aleister Crowley say that he had to shatter every single phase in order to eliminate the concept of fate?
“I will shatter every last phase and put an end to all mysticism. It can be helped and we need not restrain our tears and bite our lip when faced with tragedy. I will bring back the pure world in which everyone can feel anger like normal and question it all like normal!!”
And didn't Coronzon appear to break down all the phases including the Pure World?
Partial destruction would be meaningless. If anything remains and an eternal distortion is born from that, then it will all happen again. I will eliminate the ten spheres, the twenty-two pathways, and the hidden eleventh symbol. Collisions between phases? Sparks and spray? You cannot save anyone if you only treat those symptoms. All of the fundamental clogs must be removed. All so we can pass the baton to whoever comes next.”
“Sparks and Sprays…” Rosencreutz muttered.
“Eh?” The #7 didn't quite hear him.
"Beside time stands fate, cruelty's steadfast herald. In the silent chambers of the soul, whispers the most profound wisdom. Humanity, in its folly, neglected to exalt life's splendor, its radiance, its grandeur. Truly, it is a rare gift to comprehend the forces that shape our existence.” That magician spoke in despair.
“From the moment man ate the fruit of knowledge, he guaranteed your species’ failure... Entrusting his future to the whims of fate, man clutches to a flickering hope. Yet, within the Miniature Garden lies the key to all revelation. Beyond the well-trodden path lies the ultimate terminus. It matters not who you are; Death is the sole certainty awaiting all.” he finished with scorn.
Shokuhou Misaki was currently linked to Sogiita Gunha so she was overhearing the entire conversation.
“Are you okay, Leader?” asked Kamijou back at the hospital.
“Yeah…” she responded.
*“Really?” Mikoto breathed a white sigh. “It wasn’t the shock of seeing their school destroyed. Nor was it the fear of having those rioters attack. …They’re afraid of their own power. And after learning how exactly to use that power to survive, they’re not sure they can just switch it off and return to their normal lives. So their gears have ground to a halt.”
Tokiwadai Middle School was a prestigious esper development school.*
The young ladies registered there were Level 3 at the lowest and Level 5 at the highest.
Almost all of the students had a power that surpassed that of a blade or handgun if used properly, but something had become twisted.
Yes.
“A lot of them weren’t really sure why they were training their powers.”
Shokuhou breathed a white breath, wrapped her own arms around herself, and rubbed her thighs together.
Why are you studying?
How many people could give a proper answer to that question? Because my parents told me to, because my teachers taught me to, because that’s how the world works. Those would be most people’s answers. Even the students with a clear vision of their future would only have something vague like “for the entrance exams” or “for my future”.
Only a small handful would have specific puzzle pieces in mind, such as “I need to learn how to use this equation so I can build a rocket”.
The young ladies of Tokiwadai Middle School were the same.
What if the very gears that humans have…their actions, reactions, inactions were all the result of some transcendental entity hovering above.
Like God or The Devil watching over humanity’s reality sphere and ordering around his system like everyone was a pre-programmed NPC that had specific events occur to them to get them to develop in the way that they did and determined their genetic bloodline that composed their psyche?
Is there truly a free will?
It was said that in order for you to break out of the system of society that the working class was stuck in you had to climb to the top where the corrupt elites resided.
Imagine Breaker negated sparks, Aleister Crowley could see through the veil thanks to Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass, Great Demon Coronzon could always see the cogs.
Christian Rosencreutz could view the entire world through his Miniature Garden.
The rest of humanity was at the mercy of their own destinies.
A Guardian Angel wouldn't arrive to save a parent’s child from fate every single time.
"Okay, nice poetry, can we get back to fighting already?" asked the #7 impatiently.
"Seems I got carried away," the old man conceded with a nod. "The synchronicities of this world, akin to the astral configurations in astrology, serve as an example of synchronicity, according to Jung. It describes circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection, much like the parallel relationship between celestial and terrestrial phenomena. Synchronicity experiences entail subjective encounters where coincidences between events in one's mind and the external world may lack a clear causal link but still harbor an unknown connection.”
"Ah," Sogiita chimed in, recalling his philosophy class discussions. "We talked about synchronicity back then. Jung thought it was a good thing for the mind, but said it could get dicey in psychosis. He cooked up this theory as a kind of mental link between those meaningful coincidences, calling it a noncausal principle. This term came about in the late 1920s, and then he teamed up with physicist Wolfgang Pauli to dive deeper. Their work, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, dropped in 1952. They were big on this idea that these connections, even the ones that don't seem to have a cause, could still teach us a lot about how our minds and the world work."
“Mhm, you know more than you lead on, Gemstone.” pondered CRC.
“Oh this? My teachers say I'm not good at remembering speeches hahaha…” The #7 looked slightly nervous. “You know, analytical psychologists really push for folks to get what these experiences mean to boost their awareness instead of just feeding into superstitions. But funny thing is, when clients spill about their synchronicity experiences, they often feel like no one's really hearing them out, or getting where they're coming from. And hey, having a bunch of these meaningful coincidences flying around can sometimes ring the schizo bell. Delusions aren't healthy.”
Where was this conversation going?
"Delusion! Hah! That's a good one coming from you," CRC fired back.
"The real delusion is thinking humanity isn't worth a darn," Sogiita shot back, pulling out some info from Johansen and Osman. "Some scientists think coincidences are just random flukes, but counselors and psychoanalysts reckon there's more to it, like some deep-down stuff needing to come out. Unconscious material to be expressed."
Rosencreutz interjected, his expression reflecting a mix of confusion and concern. "Aleister Crowley's actions have left a lasting scar on this world and this city," he began, his voice weighted with solemnity. “The vacuum-like dichotomy between magic and science created by the use of that colossal psychotronic weapon, has damaged this world's memory almost irreparably.”
Psychotronic weapon?
The Archetype Controller?
He paused, his gaze piercing as he continued, "Jung's exploration of synchronicity as evidence of the paranormal paved the way for further inquiry, notably by Koestler and the subsequent embrace of these ideas by the New Age movement.”
Sogiita shrugged, "Some folks say synchronicity is impossible to test or prove, so it gets labeled as pseudoscience. Jung even acknowledged that these synchronicity events are basically just coincidences, statistically speaking. But hey, who's to say what's really going on without some solid scientific studies, right?"
"Dubious as his experiments may have been," CRC interrupted, "Jung believed in a connection between synchronicity and the paranormal, drawing parallels to the uncertainty principle and works by parapsychologist Joseph B. Rhine.” CRC posed a thought-provoking question, "How are we to recognize acausal combinations of events, since it is obviously impossible to examine all chance happenings for their causality? The answer lies in the fact that acausal events are most readily expected where a causal connection appears inconceivable upon closer reflection. It's impossible, with our current resources, to explain ESP or meaningful coincidences as mere phenomena of energy. This challenges the very notion of cause and effect, as these events occur simultaneously rather than in a linear cause-and-effect manner. Hence, I have coined the term 'synchronicity' to describe this phenomenon, placing it on equal footing with causality as a principle of explanation."
Getting closer to that Gemstone, CRC emphasized, "Esper abilities cannot be fully understood with science alone. They defy traditional cause-and-effect explanations, instead representing a convergence of factors that create a quantum phenomenon affecting both the micro and macro. Why were there the naturally gifted and the naturally ungifted?”
Why did some students get praised for their abilities while others needed to work harder?
Others among them would have worked every hour of their free time and not progressed anywhere in this city’s leveling curriculum.
Why did this city present such an unfair and unpredictable status quo of potential?
Why did hard work barely matter in a city of empirical evidence to record any possible progress?
Sogiita Gunha wasn't a normal Level 5 but he wasn't always this powerful. He went through the curriculum same as everyone but if the outside conditions for his Gemstone ability to manifest didn't form in the exact way that it did, in such an acausal form then would he even be here to challenge Christian Rosencreutz right now?
Everything just happened to fall right into place.
All those puzzle pieces that would lead to this moment here and now.
Was it all just talent? God picking a fool as his champion?
The #7 leaned back, absorbing CRC's words with a thoughtful expression. "So, what you're saying is, there's this whole other layer to reality that we can't quite wrap our heads around," he summarized, nodding slowly. "I mean, it's like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands—slippery and elusive."
He chuckled, shaking his head slightly. "Historic recurrence, synchronicities, all these things—they're like pieces of a puzzle scattered across this substantial reality. And sometimes, they just... click into place, right? It's like the universe has its own plan, and we're just along for the ride."
That bandana wearing boy's gaze drifted, lost in thought. "You know, CRC, it's funny," he remarked, a wry smile playing on his lips. "Here we are, with all our powers and potential, but at the end of the day, we're still grappling with the same questions as everyone else. Talent, destiny, divine intervention—maybe they're all just different sides of the same coin."
He shrugged, the weight of the philosophical musings settling over the broken city. "Who knows? Maybe God does have a sense of humor, after all.” that boy chuckled.
There was a deep silence between them.
Rosencreutz’ response was swift and resolute, his tone filled with certainty. "All this ‘universe has a plan’ banter is just a distraction from the inevitable," he declared, his eyes narrowing. "We can debate the nature of us being all-powerful yet struggling with mortal issues until the sun burns out, but it won't change the fact that our fate was sealed upon the knowledge Adam learned."
“To think so many trivialities have developed while this old man wasn’t watching. Heh heh. Then I should assume the thread of fate has again begun to weave its strange connections between myself and some unknown human.”
He rose forward, his movements purposeful. "It's time to put an end to this dance of platitudes," CRC continued, his voice cold and unwavering. "We'll settle this the only way that somewhat matters—through objective action in this grand play."
“Silence, preserved doll. Illusionists are meant to remain silent. That is all we magicians are: wielders of substanceless illusions. Opening your mouth serves only to break the illusion.”
With a flicker of resolve in his eyes, he locked gazes with the #7. "I am Hydra, Gemstone," he said, his voice carrying a hint of challenge. "Our battle ends now.” CRC opened both his palms and began shooting at their surroundings, the buildings, the pavement, the apartments, the rubble.
It probably wasn't random as it seemed to create a pattern.
“Huh are you getting senile old man?” asked the young Gemstone.
“What fun. I never imagined someone would bother diligently polishing their skills this far while knowing it is all essentially an illusion. Didn’t you ever feel silly going to the effort?”
Rosencreutz dropped to all fours, his rosy cross sword gripped tightly in his right hand.
He moved—
“Arrgh!” Sogiita yelled amidst the relentless and precise and precise strikes from that golden cross. “Old man?” he asked.
That magician didn't say anything.
That silver man’s movements became more beastly.
Faster.
Stronger.
Fiercer.
Something new was beginning to manifest.
With each strike of his higher dimensional blade that old man’s blows seemed infused with an otherworldly energy.
The wounds inflicted by his weapon burned with a venomous intensity, sending searing pain coursing through Sogiita's body.
That boy grimaced as the poison from that silver man’s strikes surged through his being, each wound feeling like it was ablaze with venomous fire.
"Damn... That burns…like a killer hornet’s sting," he muttered through clenched teeth, his voice strained with effort. Gritting, he fought to maintain his focus, despite the agony threatening to overwhelm him.
Was this another application of The Four Stages? Citrinitas? No, there was nothing yellow here, it was more like a dirty purple.
But it wasn't just the physical damage that posed a threat.
As the Rosy Cross leader leaped on all fours his movements took on an almost erratic quality, he was bouncing from one building to another with an animalistic agility.
With each jump, a shockwave rippled through the air, carrying with it a palpable sense of dread.
Something was spreading.
The air around them seemed to thicken with a toxic miasma. The #7 struggled to breathe, the noxious fumes clouding his senses.
Like a chaotic monster’s venomous poison breath.
The once-clear air now felt thick and suffocating.
Gasping for breath, the bandana boy struggled to maintain his focus amidst the swirling chaos.
His vision blurred, his movements sluggish as he fought against the oppressive atmosphere.
Blinded that heroic boy could only fire a flame arrow without his sight.
His fists striking out with all the strength he could muster. Igniting in that poisonous compressed air.
It seemed to be flammable like a dragon’s breath.
???
At the hospital, Shokuhou's voice carried a mix of surprise and relief. “He caused real damage.” she exclaimed.
Kamijou turned his attention to her, intrigued. “What happened?”
“It's hard to see clearly, but it looks like the #7 managed to blast off CRC's left arm,” she explained. “Though, I'd say it was more of a lucky shot. I can read he acted on pure instinct.”
Kamijou nodded, a hint of melancholy in his tone. “Yeah... the psychic link and all.”
Had the #7 Level 5 given up on the old man?
Back on the battlefield, Sogiita cursed under his breath. “Dammit... Sorry, old man,” he muttered. “I was aiming to hit your whole body to maximize the surface area, maybe break a few bones as a casualty. We can probably get your arm reattached at the hospital. Heaven Canceller has enough guts to even fix me.”
It was clear—he hadn't given up.
It was an accidental strike of his arm.
“As each ghastly head was severed from its serpentine form, dreadfully, two more writhed forth from the abyss.” a cryptic voice amidst the chaos spoke.
Wasn't it said that the Hydra’s lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid.
Lerna was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld.
The abyss.
The Ungrund.
There is no limit to the depth of the Alcyonian Lake, and I know of nobody who by any contrivance has been able to reach the bottom of it since not even Nero, who had ropes made several stades long and fastened them together, tying lead to them, and omitting nothing that might help his experiment, was able to discover any limit to its depth. This, too, I heard. The water of the lake is, to all appearance, calm and quiet but, although it is such to look at, every swimmer who ventures to cross it is dragged down, sucked into the depths, and swept away.
The keeper of the gate to the Underworld that lay in the waters of Lerna was the Hydra.
The serpentine Lake Monster.
“Rosencreutz……?” The #7 muttered.
That magician chuckled ominously. "No, young Heracles, Hydra." he intoned, his voice echoing with a bizarre resonance. “The Lernaean Hydra's curse is upon you now.” as he said that he cut off a bit of his arm that was cuterarised with his golden blade and it began bleeding.
Anna Sprengel’s blood was said to create unknown miracles when spilled.
Christian Rosencreutz’ blood was so virulent that even its scent was deadly.
As Sogiita Gunha glanced at his severed arm lying on the ground, a creeping sense of horror enveloped him. "All of fate is a curse and that curse," he murmured, his words barely audible over the din of battle, "extends even to my severed limb.”
Christian Rosencreutz’ left arm grew back.
No.
Two new arms grew in its place.
The fate of chaoskampf? The hero battling the dragon?
The arm was fully functioning with no defects.
Although one of the arms appeared somewhat scaly and lanky like a serpent.
It had human anatomy but something was abnormal here.
He almost looked like a spider as he emerged from the poisonous fog as he remained on all fours.
“So short-stack. Are you ready to complete your final labor: Crossing the abyss!!!” He challenged that boy with his cross sword facing him.
"Boss, what's up? You look kinda stuck," Kamijou asked, his tone concerned.
Two students were sitting together in the waiting room at a hospital.
"—abyss, Hydra, curse, synchronicities, Historic recurrence." she replied, her words carrying a weight of unease.
"Huh? What? Can you give me the lowdown?" Kamijou prodded, his urgency evident.
"Can't quite wrap my head around it. But what I can tell you is that after CRC started talking about these esoteric concepts, he leveled up his power ability, managed to seriously hurt the #7 despite me cranking up all his stats for the win condition," the honey-blonde girl explained, frustration creeping into her voice.
"Can you beam all that stuff into my head, like a memory download? You're a psychological esper, right? My right hand won't mess with it, and we've done the telepathy thing before," Kamijou suggested.
"Memory download's not quite it, but I can send you a recording," she clarified.
"Got it," Kamijou muttered as he absorbed the info.
"You got any ideas to help the #7’s situation ability, Kamijou-san? We're kinda desperate here," she asked.
"I wish Index was still here, dammit.” he lamented, “But you know about magic, right?" he queried.
"Yeah, people converting their delusions into reality right?," she admitted.
"Well, magic's not just about delusions; it can be tied up to the whole world. Not sure if it's relevant, but based on Idol Theory, Rosencreutz might be pulling in 'energy’ from the Greek 'phase’ of Heracles for an edge," Kamijou theorized.
"Like a chessboard flip?" Shokuhou Misaki inquired, her brow furrowed with concern.
"No, more like... imagine you're playing checkers with a buddy, and you're totally crushing it because you're a checkers pro. Then suddenly, your buddy switches it up and challenges you to an arm wrestling match, and you lose because, well, arm wrestling isn't your forte," Kamijou Touma explained, trying to paint a vivid picture.
"So, by taking on the role of the Hydra from Greek myth, he's essentially forcing the #7 into the role of Heracles? But didn't Heracles defeat the Hydra?" Shokuhou sought clarification.
"Yeah, but..." Kamijou recalled the tale from the movies he'd seen. "Lichas gave Heracles a shirt soaked in the Hydra's poisonous blood from his arrows, which ends up killing him by tearing his flesh down to the bone," he elaborated.
"It was actually Nessus seeking vengeance and tricking Deianira into giving it to Heracles as a gift, delivered by Lichas without disclosing the tunic's lethal bloodstained secret from the Lernaean Hydra, but you're right," Shokuhou corrected gently. "So, Rosencreutz is harnessing the power of that legend to slowly poison the #7?"
"Not literal. I mean the poison is real but his slashes do significant harm now so it's more like shifting the paradigm in his favor…shifting his position.” The spiky-haired boy wasn't in the mood to explain Phases, “Earlier, he mentioned Sogiita spreading his 'virus' throughout the world. A virus isn't a poison in the traditional sense, but the Rosicrucians originally sought to create a universal cure for all illnesses. Now, CRC is spreading a literal poison, positioning himself as the ultimate predator and his opponents as prey rather than his savior role, the paradigm has been shifted." Kamijou concluded, his voice tinged with gravity.
“So he’s changed the environment to get the win condition? The #7’s durability doesn't matter in the face of the world being forced to go about a certain way because of Rosencreutz stage play?” The girl asked.
“Yeah…if things keep going this way…Sogiita will….goddamnit….” The spiky haired boy swore. “I can't let someone else die after all that's happened but I feel like if I go out there I really will kill him…” he muttered that last bit while clenching his right fist that began shaking uncontrollably.
The girl’s eyes seemed confused.
“What did you say?” The honey blonde middle schooler asked.
“Nothing, just mumbling to myself.” he spat out.
That boy and girl could never come to the right conclusion on their own without the aid of former Magic God Othinus by their side.
“Did you think I had challenged you with no hope of succeeding, you cesspool? The magic born on earth is bound by the directions based on the earth’s magnetic field and by the density and composition of the air which is determined by air pressure which is in turn influenced by gravity. That is inevitable when you are focused on the cardinal directions of north, south, east, and west or on the basic elements of fire, water, wind, and earth. But what you will find upon leaving the atmosphere is an unknown. Coronzon, are you sure there will be no malfunction in the magic giving you control of Avatar Lola? And before, my power was bound by the puny speck named earth which failed to become a black hole or even a sun, but once we enter outer space, just how far do you think that power will be released? I do not mind at all that I will lose the support of Academy City.”
Well the boy was half right.
“Let us test it out, you cuspidor. On one side, we have you using the planet and bound to an avatar. On the other, we have me exposed and freed from the planet. Now, who will be the star of this show?”
Christian Rosencreutz did not shoot at his surroundings for no reason.
The battlefield transformed into Rosencreutz's canvas, resembling the legendary battleground of Lerna where Heracles once clashed with the Hydra.
Yes.
He didn't unleash his powers randomly; every action was deliberate.
In the magical side of Idol Theory, mimicking an object, event, or person allowed one to tap into a fraction of its power.
And that even applied to locations that essentially worked as stage plays.
Idol Theory was so absolute that even the basic cross held a portion of the son of God’s power.
As Above, So Below.
As Below, So Above.
Macro to micro.
Micro to macro.
And the macrocosm and the microcosm are always linked.
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2024.05.15 15:21 azrael2k24 What will convince me of God's presence?

Hi all. Firstly, apologies if this post becomes a rant or convoluted in any way. For context, I grew up in a fairly liberal Muslim household, and at one point in my teen years was very close to Islam. In hindsight, I don't think this closeness was the result of an actual connection to the faith, but more so a connection to the community. In my late teens, I became disenchanted with Islam, and later religion as a whole. Up until just over a month ago, I was convinced God didn't exist whatsoever.
When Easter Sunday came around last month, I decided to dig a little deeper into the story of Jesus' crucifixion. I knew the basics of course, but there was always a considerable doubt in my mind as to whether the event happened at all. My interest peaked when, for the first time in my life, I came across the non-Christian historical evidence of Jesus' crucifixion. I'm of course referring to the writings of Tacitus, Josephus etc. This was a game changer for me, and I immediately began researching arguments in favour of Jesus' subsequent resurrection.
After this, my newfound intrigue in Christianity took me to the Bible. I've now read the book of John and, as of today, am just past halfway through the Proverbs. My Bible study is rather random at this point. I'm also reading a book called: "Christianity: A Complete Introduction," by John Young and Greg Hoyland. Further, I'm fortunate to have a close friend who is a devout Christian, whom I've shared many conversations about Christ with, and I've also attended a couple of church sessions, too.
My problem is this: I'm waiting to FEEL God's presence. The story of Christ is a beautiful one, but I'm waiting for that moment when it clicks, and I become convinced. The reason I left religion initially was because of the lack of evidence for a God, as well as the scientific and ethical errors and contradictions I personally found in Islam.
I desperately WANT to believe in God, but I feel something is somehow restraining me from committing to the idea that Jesus really performed the miracles he did, including resurrection, and that there really is a God in heaven who sent his only son to die for my sins. I'm just somewhat doubtful, and I'm really not sure why. Perhaps a lack of practical evidence, or the same lack of sense I felt with Islam, but something is preventing me.
Am I wasting time waiting for this "eureka!" moment? I know Christians "walk by faith, not by sight" and I can make peace with that but I feel like I can't fully commit to this beautiful religion without finding some way to truly convince myself to have faith. I want to be able to confidently say Jesus was real, he lived and died for me, and he resurrected after being crucified.
I've prayed numerous times, a task I find hard, part of me feels like I'm talking to nobody.
But I would like to point out that I have become more conscious of sin, and when I have either just or are about to commit a sin, I feel a slight twinge of guilt, something that I haven't felt for a tremendously long time. This feels like a step in the right direction.
If anybody out there can point me in the right direction, perhaps share some advice or anything else you feel would help me cross the bridge to total conviction, I'd really love that right about now.
submitted by azrael2k24 to Christianity [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 14:59 crimsontape This week's grocery review - Sales for May 16th to May 22nd - Lots of BBQ items and excellent corn deals! But, cucumber pricing is down quite a bit. Nice spread of sales on tomatoes. LOTS of blueberry and strawberry deals around! Some good mango and cherry sales, too. Fewer sales on fresh chicken an

(As always, flyers are out Wednesdays, most store sales for the new flyer start on Thursdays)
Adonis
Farm Boy
Farmers Pick (can be a little late on their flyer) (https://www.farmerspick.ca/flyer-specials)
Food Basics
FoodLand
Freshco (price matcher)
Giant Tiger (*note the VIP prices; sales begin today) (price matcher)
Green Fresh Supermarket (Vanier) (check https://greenfreshottawa20.wixsite.com/greenfreshottawa)
IGA (price matcher)
Independent
Loblaws
Provigo
Maxi (price matcher)
Metro
No Frills (price matcher)
Produce Depot (usually a little late on the flyer) https://producedepot.ca/
Real Canadian Superstore (price matcher)
Sobeys
Super C
T&T Supermarket https://www.tntsupermarket.com
Walmart
Costco (Note that these are the online/shipped prices - reduce each item by $3 for in-store pricing)
Jean Coutu (new sales start Fridays)
Shoppers Drug Mart (new sales start Fridays)
Some additional references!
submitted by crimsontape to ottawa [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 12:00 The_Way358 Essential Teachings: A Biblical Model of Ethics

Introduction

In this post, we'll be discussing something called "Virtue Ethics." This is a normative theory of ethics that's most associated with Aristotle, though has in recent times experienced a resurgence of sorts from modern philosophers, some of whom have tweaked and modified it, and in doing so have created different branches on this tree of moral theory. We will be comparing these different flavors of Virtue Ethics to that of the New Testament's, pointing out where they're similar, as well as highlighting where the NT differs (and is actually superior) from the heathens' views.
I want to preface all this with a verse and a warning:
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."-Colossians 2:8
The entire Bible, over and over again, warns against syncretism. It's a running theme throughout to condemn the practice, with this verse being one of the more explicit ones to do so.
Mapping the ideas of Pagans (and especially Greek philosophers) onto the Scriptures has always resulted in people severely misinterpreting the Bible, as looking at the Word of God through a Hellenistic lens is and always has been extremely innapropiate to the author's original intent.
Whenever Greek philosophy or ideas are referenced, they're always portrayed in a bad light or otherwise used to make a point. Examples of the latter could be found in the apostle Paul's writings, as he was a fully educated Roman citizen of his day, and so he made use of known Hellenestic philosophy and literature (that he would have been familiar with) by redefining their terms and ideas in a way that would be consistent with the theology of his own religion. The apostle Peter did the same within his own epistles whenever he mentioned "Tartarus," the abyss/prison for certain disobedient angels that rebelled against God, despite the fact that the word has its roots in Greek mythology and not Hebrew religion (though, the belief that there were a group of spiritual beings that rebelled against the highest authority in the heavens was one technically shared between the two ancient cultures; even if the parties involved were vastly different, as well as the contexts of the rebellion itself).
The affect Hellenstic philosophy has had on the way people think (even subconsciously) can still be felt to this day, and can be seen in the confusion modern "Christianity" has brought on through its adoption of Gnostic teachings such as Dualism or the inherently fatalistic views that many unknowingly hold due to the error of Classical Theism.
While yes, I will be commending the heathen (unbeliever) whenever they are right with their ideas as pertaining to this subject, I will also show where they are wrong.
Let's begin.

"What Is Virtue Ethics?"

First, we need to define some terms and point out the differences between this view and others within the larger debate of normative ethics.
There are three major approaches in normative ethics, those being: Consequentalism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics. The following are definitions of the terms:
Consequentialism – a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.
Deontology – theories where an action is considered morally good because of some characteristic of the action itself, not because the product of the action is good. Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts are morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare.
Virtue Ethics – theories that emphasize the role of character and virtue in moral philosophy rather than either doing one’s duty or acting in order to bring about good consequences. The virtue ethicist would argue that actions themselves, while important, aren't as important as the character behind them. To the virtue ethicist, consequences are also important, but they would say that good consequences ultimately flow from a virtuous character who has made virtuous decisions. Theories of virtue ethics do not aim primarily to identify universal principles that can be applied in any moral situation, instead teaching that the best decisions can vary based on context, and that there are only some actions that would be universally evil, only because those actions could never flow from a virtuous character in the first place (e.g., rape).
Aristotle's idea of ethics is in an important respect different from most people's, especially today. Heirs as we are to Kant’s idea of duty – there is a right thing that one ought to do, as rational beings who respect other persons – and to Mill’s idea of utility – the right thing to do is that which produces the greatest good for the greatest number – most of us see ethics as concerned with actions. "The function of ethics is to help me see what I ought to do in a given situation," the modern says. Aristotle’s approach was different. His ethic is not so much concerned about helping us to see what we ought to do, as about what sort of person we ought to be.
Aristotle was concerned with character, and with the things that go to make up good and bad character; virtues and vices. His sort of ethic does not look at our action to see if it fulfils our duty, or produces a certain outcome, such as the greatest good of the greatest number, and therefore merits approval. Instead, it looks at us; at the character behind the actions, to see whether we merit approval.
Comparing Virtue Ethics with philosophies such as Deontology and Consequentialism, we are able to divide ethical theories into two kinds; act-centered theories and agent-centered theories. Kant’s (Deontological) and Mill’s (Utilitarian) approaches are act-centered, because they concern themselves with our actions, whilst Aristotle’s is agent-centered because it concerns itself with the character of a person, which in his view was ourselves and our own dispositions that prompt our actions.
Both approaches have ardent present-day advocates, and so both are alive and well. Virtue Ethicists are dissatisfied with the answers ‘modern’ act-centered philosophy offers, and look for a more flexible, person-centered approach that takes more account of the subtle varieties of human motivation. Those in this camp see ethics as being about people – moral agents – rather than merely about actions. Of course, your actions matter. But, for Aristotle and his present day advocates alike, they matter as expressions of the kind of person you are. They indicate such qualities as kindness, fairness, compassion, and so on, and it is these qualities and their corresponding vices that it is the business of ethics to approve or disapprove.
All this seems simple and uncontroversial; there are two ways of looking at an action to evaluate it morally. You can take the action in isolation and judge it, or take the agent and judge him or her.
Virtue ethicists argue that act-centered ethics are narrow and bloodless. What is needed is a richer moral vocabulary than just ‘right and wrong’. There are subtle but important differences between actions that are good because they are kind and those that are good because they are generous, and those that are good because they are just. Likewise, there are subtle but important differences between actions that are bad because they are selfish and those that are bad because they are cruel and those that are bad because they are unfair. These, and many other, distinctions are lost when we talk simply about doing one’s duty, or promoting utility. Questions of motive and of character are lost, in these asceptic terms. Modern moral philosophy won’t do: it is cold, technical and insensitive to the many kinds and degrees of value expressed in human actions. Ethics is more than just thought experiments and hypotheticals about what would be the right course of action to take in any given situation we might conjure up from the comfort of our armchair. Ethics is about doing, and about context and character.

The Different Kinds of "Virtue Ethics"

Virtue Ethics has has been developed in two main directions: Eudaimonism, and agent-based theories.
Eudaimonism (Aristotle's view) bases virtues in human flourishing, where flourishing is equated with performing one’s distinctive function well. In the case of humans, Aristotle argued that our distinctive function is reasoning, and so the life “worth living” is one which we reason well. He also believed that only free men in the upper classes of society (i.e., the aristocrats) could excel in virtue and eschew vice, being that such men had greater access to the means in accomplishing this task as they had the wealth and resources to better perform their distinctive function of 'reasoning,' and thus "live well." For the Eudaimonian, inner dispositions are what one ought to focus on in order to cultivate virtuous traits, and thus a virtuous character.
In contrast, an agent-based theory emphasizes that virtues are determined by common-sense intuitions that we as observers judge to be admirable traits in other people. There are a variety of human traits that we find admirable, such as benevolence, kindness, compassion, etc., and we can identify these by looking at the people we admire, our moral exemplars. Agent-based theories also state that the motivations and intentions behind an action are ultimately what determine whether or not said action is actually virtuous. Whereas Eudaimonism understands the moral life in terms of inner dispositions or proclivities to act in certain ways (whether righteous or wicked, just or unjust, kind or cruel, etc.), agent-based theories are more radical in that their evaluation of actions is dependent on ethical judgments about the inner life of the agents who perform those actions, that is, what the motivations and intents are of a person.
[Note: While both Eudaimonism and agent-based theories are both agent-centered, Eudaimonism is not to be confused with an agent-based theory. Both branches concern themselves more with agents rather than acts themselves, but Eudamonism focuses on the self to improve whereas the agent-based theory focuses on others to improve.]

Common Critcisims Toward Secular Forms of Virtue Ethics

Firstly, Eudaimonism provides a self-centered conception of ethics because "human flourishing" (here defined as simply fulfilling our base function as humans, which is "reason" according to this view) is seen as an end in itself and does not sufficiently consider the extent to which our actions affect other people. Morality requires us to consider others for their own sake and not because they may benefit us. There seems to be something wrong with aiming to behave compassionately, kindly, and honestly merely because this will make oneself happier or "reason well."
Secondly, both Eudaimonism and agent-based theories also don't provide guidance on how we should act, as there are no clear principles for guiding action other than “act as a virtuous person would act given the situation.” Who is a virtuous person? Who is the first or universal exemplar?
Lastly, the ability to cultivate the right virtues will be affected by a number of different factors beyond a person’s control due to education, society, friends and family. If moral character is so reliant on luck, what role does this leave for appropriate praise and blame of the person? For the Eudaimonian, one ought to be born into a status of privilege if they wish to excel in being virtuous. For the proponent of an agent-based theory, one ought to be born into a society or family with good role models and preferably be raised by such, else they have no moral exemplars to emulate.

The New Testament's Virtue Ethic

The New Testament authors didn’t sit down and do a self-consciously philosophical exercise, for this was not what they were concerned with. They were concerned with giving practical instruction to disciples of the faith, and merely trying to express the ethical implications of their spiritual experience. That being said, we know the apostle Paul was familiar with the writings of Aristotle. We can actually identify places where Paul displays knowledge of Aristotle and incorporates some of the philosopher's ideas into his own epistles. Before we do this, however, it's important we refute common misnomers about what the Bible teaches concerning ethics in general.
You probably have heard many attack the ethics of the New Testament as being primitive and simplistic. "God dictates universal commands to follow: 'do not lie,' do 'not divorce,' 'do not insult.' And the only motivating factor is escaping hellfire and obtaining the reward of eternal pleasure." But in reality, this is a gross misrepresentation of the ethics laid out in the NT. I will argue the NT advocates for a form of virtue ethics, instead of claiming the NT contains a form of deontic ethics, as it is so often assumed.
Elizabeth Anscombe was one of the most influential virtue ethicists of the 20th century. Her work helped to revive virtue ethics in the modern era, however she also criticized the ethics of the Bible for promoting a form of ethics different than what Aristotle promoted:
"...between aristotle and us came Christianity, with its law conception of ethics. For Christianity derived its ethical notions from the Torah. (One might be inclined to think that a law conception of ethics could arise only among people who accepted an allegedly divine positive law..." (Modern Moral Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 124, 1-19)
We've already dealt with the issue of the Torah in another post. The Torah is not laying down moral laws, but describing justice in the form of ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature. But does the New Testament teach a deontic form of ethics? Anscombe might appear justified in her claim, as some "Christian" theologians have explicitly taught the ethics of the NT is deontic.
However, other theologians have argued the ethics of the NT is best characterized as a form of virtue ethics. In a study of the NT, we'll support this notion. As noted earlier, one of the central features of this approach to ethics is that the aim of ethics should be on living a virtuous life. Other forms of ethics focus on directing actions when confronted with a moral dilemma, but for virtue ethics every action is a moral or immoral action because all of our actions contribute or do not contribute to living a virtuous life. In other words, for a virtue ethicist, everything we do will contribute to living a fulfilled life. Now, the NT promotes a similar idea with a slight modification. The NT changes the distinctictive function and purpose for man in Eudaimonism from "reasoning" to loving God and others instead, and thus "living well" is changed from self-centered 'flourshing' (as defined by Aristotle) to glorifying God instead. The apostles taught everything we do contributes to living a life that glorifies God:
"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."-1 Corinthians 10:31
"And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him."-Colossians 3:17
So we see the same idea in Paul, that everything we do can be seen as a moral or immoral action. Everything we do should be seen as contributing to living a life that glorifies god or not. As a believer, the aim is not just doing good actions to avoid punishments, but to see everything we do as glorifying God. On secular virtue ethics, all our actions are either advancing a good life or not: nourishing your body contributes to living a good life. In a Biblical context: taking the time to properly dress contributes to living a good life, and not giving into the sin of sloth. So all our actions can be moral actions in this context, and so likewise for Paul and Jesus, all we do can contribute to living a life that glorifies God.
Since God made our bodies to thrive and enjoy life, we should nourish our bodies so we can thrive as God intended for our bodies to do, thus ultimately glorifying Him. Since we were created to experience and feel enjoyment, laughing and enjoying things throughout life glorifies God as well since we're experiencing emotions that God created to be experienced. Everything we do should be to glorify God, and often all that is is living our lives in the way that they were intended to be lived. Biblical ethics is very much more than merely performing right actions, but living a virtuous life that brings glory to God.
As Jesus said:
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."-Matthew 22:37b
It is also important to focus on what it means to love, which is an important aspect of what it means to be a believer. Paul makes the radical claim that to love is the entirety of the law of God:
"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."-Galatians 5:14
Jesus also taught that to love God and love others were the two greatest commandments (Mark 12:28-31, Matt. 22:34-40). He also extends the commandment to love beyond one's brethren, and to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44). Loving those around us is central to what it means to be a believer (John 13:34; 15:12-17, Rom. 12:10; 13:8, 1 Cor. 13:1-8; 16:14, 2 Cor. 8:8, Eph. 4:2; 5:2, Phili. 1:9, Heb. 10:24, Jam. 2:8, 1 Pet. 1:22, 1 John 2:10; 3:23).
One might suggest this is no different than the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do to you," or a Kantian rule: "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law." In other words, "to live well is to perform good deeds or actions and nothing more." But an important point about loving someone is it cannot be done through actions alone. For example, one could buy a gift for their spouse to cheer them up. However, one could perform this action merely because they value performing right actions without any love for the person. One could donate to charity because it is the right thing to do, and not because she cares for the people who would benefit. In such scenarios, they can be seen as idolizing moral laws, not necessarily caring about helping others.
But to love someone requires more than merely performing right actions. You cannot love someone and not care about who they are as a person and where they are heading in life. To love is to will the good of the other. Jesus chastised the Pharisees of his day for only performing right actions, but not loving their brethren in their hearts. His criticism follows Matthew chapter 22, where Jesus says the greatest commandments are to love. The implication is the Pharisees perform proper actions, but have the wrong motivations for doing so. James Keenan puts it like this:
"Essential to understanding this command is that we love our neighbors not as objects of our devotion, but rather as subjects; that is, as persons. Thus, we cannot love others only because God wants us to do so, since then we would love them as means or as objects and not as persons. We can only love one another as subjects, just as God loves us." (Jesus and Virtue Ethics: Building Bridges Between New Testament Studies and Moral Theology, pg. 86)
A critic may bring up that verses of the NT are still phrased as commands, and therefore the structure implies duties were the central aspect of Christian ethics. But the importance of duties is not foreign to Virtue Ethics. Instead of being central to the ethical framework, duties flow from a virtuous character. Virtues are active and have certain demands for which a person must fulfill in their active behavior.
According to Aristotle, knowledge of the virtues gives us practical wisdom in how to properly act. Duties flow from the understanding of the demands of virtues. To put it another way, for virtues to manifest in persons, they have certain demands that must be fulfilled. For the believer, the command of love flows from being virtuous and aligning oneself with the character of God. Commitment to the character of Christ, who perfectly carried out the will of the Father, allows us to perform right and proper actions.
The NT also contains lists of virtues the believer ought to emulate, the most famous of these is in Galatians chapter 5:
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." (vss. 22-23)
Now, the connection with Aristotle cannot be more pronounced. The Greek phrase "against such there is no law" is almost identical to what we find in Aristotle's politics (3.13.1284a). It seems clear Paul is teaching a similar ethical framework to what Aristotle advocated for. Paul is teaching that the believing community ought to be persons who display key virtues, and that their conduct would not need to be regulated by a law. Instead, their character should be the standard others can measure themselves by. Romans chapter 2 is also a place we see references to Aristotle, where Paul notes that when Gentiles do what the law requires, they are "a law unto themselves" (vss. 14-15). In other words, they do not need to be told to act a certain way. They have the proper virtuous character that directs their actions, to do the good the law requires. Paul is advocating in Galatians that believers should think in a similar way.
So in Galatians 5, we have affinity with the teachings of Aristotle, and in other lists of virtues throughout the NT we see a similar idea, which is that Christians were meant to display virtues primarily (Rom. 5:3-5, 1 Cor. 13:1-8, Col. 3:12-17, 1 Tim. 3:2-3; 4:7-8, Jam. 3:17-18, 2 Pet. 1:5-8). From that, good deeds will properly manifest in our actions.
Anscombe made a great point on what the focus of ethics should be:
"It would be a great improvement if, instead of 'morally wrong', one always named a genus such as 'untruthful', 'unchaste', 'unjust'. We should no longer ask whether doing something was 'wrong', passing directly from some description of an action to this notion; we should ask whether, e.g., it was unjust; and the answer would sometimes be clear at once." (Modern Moral Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 124, 1-19)
Interestingly enough, Paul lays out a similar idea in explaining Christian ethics:
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you."-Philippians 4:8-9
In other words, the central aspect on living a Christian life was on what is virtuous, not on what is lawfully right or wrong. Right actions flow from whatever is honorable, true, and pure. Correlating with this is how Paul responds to the Corinthians who claimed that "all was lawful." Paul reminded them the emphasis is not on what is lawful, but on what is good for building a virtuous character:
"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not."-1 Corinthians 10:23
One's main focus ought to be on what is good, not on laws that dictate behavior.
One of the key aspects of Virtue Ethics is the idea we ought to learn from virtuous teachers and imitate them. A virtuous character is obtained by imitating what a virtuous person does. This parallels a key aspect of Christian ethics. Imitating Christ was (and still is) crucial to living a virtuous life:
"For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:"-1 Peter 2:21
Paul says in Romans 8:29 that Christians were predestined "to be conformed to the image of his Son." Jesus often taught his followers to do as he does (Matt. 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 6:40; 9:23, John 13:15, 34). Paul says in 1st Corinthians 11: Be ye followers [i.e., imitators] of me, even as I also am of Christ" (vs. 1). Hebrews 13:7 says to imitate the faith of the patriarchs. 1st Thessalonians 2:14 says to imitate each other. And jesus taught to imitate the good Samaritan from his parable (Luke 10:37). Imitating virtuous teachers was key for Christian ethics.
Aristotle tended to compare acquiring virtues with that of learning a practical skill, like playing an instrument or learning how to become a builder. Such practical skills are best picked up when trained by a master of that particular skill, because a teacher can always provide more insight through lessons they learn from experience. For example, an expert salesman can provide examples from his experience of what works with specific customers that a sales textbook could never provide. Many professions today require on-the-job training or experience before even hiring an applicant. The reason is: experience is key to learning a profession. Merely acquiring knowledge from a textbook or an instruction manual is often insufficient to master a skill, so why would mastering the skill of virtue be any different?
In the NT, a believer is to see the world through the eyes of Christ and to love as he loved. One cannot learn how to be a virtuous person without knowing what that life would look like. A key component of Christian theology is that the Messiah perfectly represented the Father and His will on earth, to show us how to properly live as God intended for man. This central tenet of the NT aligns well with agent-based theories of Virtue Ethics, and modifies it so that the person of Jesus Christ is the universal exemplar that one is meant to emulate. We are called to imitate him through our actions, thoughts, and desires, and to conform ourselves to the way he lived. As Paul said:
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."-Galatians 2:20
If learning from Christ is key, we should briefly take a look at the Sermon on the Mount, which is said to be one of Jesus' most important series of teachings. Daniel Harrington notes:
"The sermon begins with nine 'beatitudes' (see 5:3–12) in which Jesus declares as 'happy' or 'blessed' those who practice certain virtues, and promises them an eternal reward and the fullness of God's kingdom." (Jesus and Virtue Ethics: Building Bridges Between New Testament Studies and Moral Theology, pg. 62)
Jesus laid out what a life for those that follow him look like in detail. One ought to be merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker, thirst for righteousness, etcetera (Matt. 5:2-10). The Sermon does not merely include what right actions are, but includes sections on proper desires. Not only is it wrong to murder, but it is wrong to desire to murder or wish ill on someone (Matt. 5:22). Avoiding adultery is good, but one also should not covet after another man's woman in their heart (Matt. 5:28). In other words, merely avoiding immoral actions is not enough. One must also not desire vices. A believer is called to desire what is good.
The Sermon is not necessarily laying down universal moral commands. For example, Matthew 5:9 says, "Blessed are the peacemakers," but this doesn't imply absolute Pacifism, as it would contradict passages in the Old Testament where it explicitly says there is a time for war (Ecc. 3:8). The point of the Sermon is to teach what a virtuous life ought to look like. A follower of Christ ought to use reason to know what is proper to do in various circumstances. For example, in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus offers guidance on how one ought to pray by presenting the Lord's prayer (vss. 9-15). This is a model of how to pray. It's not a command for followers to always pray in this exact way.
In reality, the Sermon on the Mount mixes in exhortations, parables, hyperbole, declarations, commands, etc. It is best understood as displaying what a virtuous life ought to look like. It's not a law code. Building on this, it's important to understand a proper action is context sensitive. Under Virtue Ethics, one should not necessarily apply a universal maxim to every situation. Sometimes the proper action will depend on what is at stake, who is involved, what is the background, etc. Aristotle advocated against the idea there were fixed universal laws that dictate actions, and instead he argued the right action would depend on the circumstances one finds themselves in. Although the ethics of the NT may be a bit more strict, it still places an emphasis on being sensitive to the context of situations.
In 1st Corinthians chapter 8, Paul lays out instructions on how to deal with meat that has been sacrificed to Pagan idols. Instead of stating an absolute prohibition against meat sacrificed to idols, Paul instructed Christians to use reason to come to the proper ethical decision based on context. In other words, the right action is not determined only by a law. Instead, the Christian had to make the proper decision based on the context: if eating caused another to stumble, then you ought to abstain; if not, then there's no harm done. The value of the action depends on the context.
A Deontologist might reply that there's still a universal law given here: that one should always abstain if it's going to cause another to stumble. This objection can be addressed by asking: how are we to know if eating the meat will cause another believer to stumble? To answer such a question, one must be sensitive to the context, which in this case would be knowledge of the fellow believer and your relation to him. It is the context that determines the right action, not a universal law. Moreover, Paul states that the primary goal for the believer should be to love (1 Cor. 13). The first consideration is once again not the rightness of action, but having love for one another. From this, knowledge of the proper action will follow.
Paul often explains that living a proper life as a believer will take work and practice. He reminded Timothy to attend readings, practice what these things mean, and keep a close watch on himself (1 Tim. 4:13-14). Elsewhere, he directs that all believers must work on their faith (Phili. 2:12). Beyond this, he also noted that not all Christians would have the same gifts, and to accept that this was normal (1 Cor. 12). For some, certain things may be a hindrance, whereas for others it is acceptable (Rom. 14:2-4). What matters is that we love and build one another up (1 Thess. 5:11). Right actions flow from love and knowledge of virtue. Rules are not the primary motives that dictate our actions; rules are secondary in this regard.
An interesting case can be studied with regards to divorce in the Gospels. Jesus preaches against divorce (Mark 10:7-9) and it is often interpreted to mean "divorce is always wrong, regardless of circumstances." However, it should be noted the prohibition on divorce is not a universal law. The context can affect whether or not a divorce is permissible. Jesus says that one can divorce over sexual immorality. Paul also has a situation where divorce is permissible, namely if one spouse is an unbeliever and wishes to leave (1 Cor. 7:15). The implication one can derive is divorce is not ideal, but there are circumstances where it may be the proper action to take. Given the other features of Christian Virtue Ethics we already covered, the proper action to take will depend on the circumstances and what the virtuous agent thinks is the most loving thing to do. A universal prohibition on divorce is not a Christian ethic. Instead, one ought to discern the proper action from circumstances. However, it's clear in most cases divorce would not be the virtuous thing to do.
Building on this, it's important to note that within NT ethics, certain acts are always wrong. For example, idolatry and sexual immorality are always wrong (1 Cor. 10:14, Col. 3:15, 1 Pet. 4:13). There are no possible scenarios where it would be okay to rape, because such an act would never flow from a virtuous character. But this concept is not foreign to theories of Virtue Ethics. Aristotle noted that for some actions, no qualifications could make them virtuous. Actions such as rape or murder are always wrong, because they would never flow from a virtuous character. So it's not as if a Virtue Ethicist cannot claim that some actions are always wrong. They simply are qualified as being unable to flow from virtue, whereas actions like lying or waging war could be considered virtuous for the right reason.
Now, despite Christian Virtue Ethics having many similarities with Eudaimonism (Aristotelian ethics), there are also numerous differences beyond what we've already noted. One of the deficiencies of how Aristotle lays out his ethical theory is that it is essentially an all-boys club. Aristotle writes mainly to aristocratic men, excluding women and slaves. In his view, women were inferior to men and slaves lacked the necessary rational faculty. But the Christians rejected this mentality, as the teachings of Christ and the apostles were available to all (Matt. 28:19). Paul said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). Peter wrote that all Christians were part of the priesthood of Christ (1 Pet. 2:5). Jesus had women followers (Luke 8:2-3), and they were entrusted with delivering revelation (Mark 15:40–16:8). What we find throughout the NT is a radical change to how women were viewed in the ancient world. Paul is also likely building on Aristotle's household structure and refining it. David deSilva says the household codes of the NT are "...following the pairs laid out as early as Aristotle to such a degree as to suggest that these were standard topics in ethical instruction" (Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity, pg. 231). But Paul adds an important preface: submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:20-21). DeSilva says:
"...husbands, we cannot then ignore the distinctively Christian addition they bring to this arrangement; husbands are to be subject to their wives as well." (Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity, pg. 233)
Thus Paul doesn't break down the traditional perspective on the structure of the family, but he does add the idea that we all must submit to each other in reverence, love, unity, and cooperation because all are equal before God. There is no explicit mention in the NT calling for the abolishment of slavery, but it should be noted that Paul taught that slaves should be seen as equals. In the letter to Philemon, Paul is clear that his slave is no longer "as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved" (vs. 16). Thus, within Christian ethics class distinctions were supposed to evaporate. All were brothers and sisters of one family.
An important aspect of Christian ethics is that it wasn't a standalone ethical theory. It's embedded in the larger Christian worldview. The ethical framework is dependent on Christian doctrines. For Aristotle, his ethical theory is for men who were raised well. This is why these specific men desire to be virtuous and perform right actions. As for why the believer does good and desires to be virtuous, it's not because one was raised well, but because they have been activated by the power of God's Spirit (John 3:6, 1 Cor. 12:13). For believers, the reason as to why we desire to be good and virtuous is because the Spirit of God has regenerated us. He loves us so we can love others (1 John 4:19). One is meant to look to the life of Christ and what he has done by dying on the cross, to know that we are loved and forgiven. This in turn is meant to activate a good life, having seen what we have gained and been forgiven of. He calls and activates us to do similar to those around us. This is a more open system for people of all groups and classes. One only has to call upon the name of the Lord to be included. It does not require a specific gender or to be raised a certain way.
The goal of Aristotelian ethics is to achieve 'eudaimonia.' However, within the Bible the goal is as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever." Since the central aspect of Biblical Eschatology is that humans will continue on forever in resurrected bodies, the aim of ethics is more than living a good life presently. Living a good life now is important, but it was only one aspect in the Christian worldview. Humans are meant to live beyond this life, so the aim is also about building virtuous souls that will continue on. The importance of this is more crucial than it may seem at first. Paul said that we must all appear before judgment, so that "every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. 15:10).
Being a virtuous person requires integrity, because one will still have to answer to God after death. If one can commit an evil act and no one finds out, then from the outside perspective he or she may still appear virtuous. Culturally speaking, the ancient world was very different from our own. All wrongdoings centered around public honor and shame. One did good to receive public honor, and one did not do what was bad to receive public shame. Right and wrong were connected to one's public honor and shame in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Thus good and evil were public ideas, not personal ideas. Ethical demands were grounded in the community in one's public appearance
The Biblical idea of an omniscient God who cared about our ethical status laid a foundation for integrity and personal guilt to emerge. Now one ought to do good because he is beholden to God, not just the community. Believers are to remain focused on God's approval and on the actions that lead them, regardless of the world's response. This lays down fertile ground for integrity to emerge. So the Biblical worldview has another important element built in that encourages ethical behavior, regardless of the honor it brings. One ought to do good because of a commitment to God not, because it might bring honor to one's name publicly.

Implications for Preterists

Paul believed that the Second Coming would happen in his generation, and prescribed certain things in the NT on the basis of that belief. An example of an exhortation that would no longer apppy to us today would be 1st Corinthians 7:24-29, where Paul argues that the times him and his fellow Christians were in called for celibacy, being that the Lord was fast approaching. It wasn't a sin if you did get married, of course; it was just harder to serve the Lord in this context if you had a family to worry about. Thus, Paul encouraged being single.
So, we need to be careful when reading the NT and determining what prohibitions or exhortations are still applicable to us today. Context is key.
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