Discovery from the State to the defense has been submitted.

We won’t be able to view the actual evidence online since much of it is CSAM, the stuff that is not CSAM is able to be viewed by appointment at Office of State Attorney

This is a list of what’s been provided by the prosecution - over 1K pages & lots of interesting warrants and tracking methods

This subreddit doesn’t allow images & you have to verify the Captcha on Osceola Court site to access, so I can’t link or share other than with text, but if you’d like to see the PDF version of this list on the court doc, use case number: 2024 CF 001293 (including the spaces)

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The Following Pages Have Been Sent Electronically on May 6, 2024:
PG.1 Signature Affidavit D/S Christopher Johnson #2910
PG.2 Sworn Statement A. Hardy ¹ ######
PG.3 Consent to Search A. Hardy ###### (Hickory Tree Rd.) ²
PG.4 Crime Scene Contamination Log
PGS.5-7 OSSO Incident Report 24I023174
PG.8 D/S Christopher Johnson Supplement #2910
PG.9 Donna Sita Supplement #2249
PG.10 Sgt. Sharice Swan Supplement
PG.11 Name Involvements
PGS.12-19 OSSO CAD
PG.20 OSSO Property Form - Tire Tread - Scene Photos
PG.21 OSSO Sgt. Sharice Swan Signature Affidavit
PG.22 OSSO Signature Affidavit Donna Sita
PGS.23-24 OSSO Property Forms - FARO ³ - Major Case Prints V
PGS.25-27 Affidavit for SW - 4012 Santa Maria Dr #107
PGS.28-36 Affidavit for SW - Discord _.maddie.
PGS.37-43 Affidavit for SW - Google - sustinet@gma#lcom
PGS.44-51 Affidavit for Sw - Lincoln
PGS.52-67 Affidavit for Pen Register - Instagram "little_fi####"
PGS.68-165 OCSO Reports:

1. Det. Maira Tagler #8601
   
2. Det. Julie Junco #6731
   
3. D/S Christopher Vazquez #10859
   
4. D/S Rene Davila #7453
   
5. Det. Robert Fischer #7706
   
6. Det. Jazmin Rembis-Licari #9408
   
7. D/S David Belardes #8068
   
8. D/S Charles Weaver #4792
   
9. D/S John Nguyen #9725
   
10. D/S Jessica Alicea #8144
    
11. D/S Leila Freeze #6804
    
12. D/S Leonard Jones #9030
    
13. D/S Matthew Chiang #10015
    
14. D/S Andrew Caliese #7774
    
15. Sgt. Brian Savelli #3175
    
16. D/S Kenneth Dale #7590
    
17. D/S Kyle Cole #8656
    
18. D/S Brittany Bradshaw #4870
    
19. D/S Jeffrey Payne #7576
    
20. D/S Luis Acosta #9910
    
21. Cpl. Evan Avila #8147
    

PGS.166-170 Application for Mobile Tracking Device - 2012 Honda Civic
PGS.171-175 Application for Mobile Tracking Device - 2010 Lincoln
PGS.176-180 Application for Mobile Tracking Device - 2022 Nissan
PGS.181-187 Affidavit for SW - 4012 Santa Maria Dr #107
PGS.188-190 Affidavit for SW - 4012 Santa Maria Dr #107
PGS.191-197 OSSO - Crime Scene Report - FT Soto #3184
PG.198 KIPD Electronic incident report transmittal form-T. Clark
PG.199 Reporting Officer Narrative- T. Clark
PG.200 Case Supplemental Report- J. Owens
PG.201 Firearms Trace Summary
PGS.202-213 Orange County Sheriff's Office Property Form
PGS.214-217 Orange County Sheriff's Office Evidence and Property Report
PGS.218-221 Orange County Sheriff's Office Property Form
PGS.222-224 Application for mobile tracking device authorization- Honda Civic
PGS.225-226 Order authorizing installation and use of a mobile tracking device- Honda Civic
PGS.227-228 Application for mobile tracking device authorization- Lincoln MKZ
PGS.229-230 Order authorizing installation and use of a mobile tracking device- Lincoln MKZ
PGS.231-233 Application for mobile tracking device authorization- Nissan
PGS.234-235 Order authorizing installation and use of a mobile tracking device- Nissan
PG.236 Affirmation of Warrant Exigency
PGS.237-239 Affidavit for Search Warrant- 4012 Santa Maria Drive # 107
PGS.240-241 Search Warrant- 4012 Santa Maria Drive # 107
PG.242 Search Warrant Inventory and Receipt
PGS.243-247 Affidavit for Search Warrant- Discord, Inc
PGS.248-250 Search Warrant- Discord, Inc
PG.251 Search Warrant Inventory and Receipt
PG.252 Firearms Trace Summary
PG.253 Non-Disclosure Order
PGS.254-261 Affidavit for Search Warrant- Google, LLC
PGS.262-265 Search Warrant- Google, LLC
PG.266 Non-Disclosure Order
PGS.267-271 Affidavit for Search Warrant- Lincoln MKZ
PGS.272-274 Search Warrant- Lincoln MKZ
PG.275 Search Warrant Inventory and Receipt
PGS.276-284 Application Requesting the installation and use of Pen registration and trap and trace device and the disclosure of stored electronic communications and transactional records
PGS.285-290 Order authorizing the installation and use of a Pen registration and trap and trace device and the disclosure of stored electronic communications and transactional records
PGS.291-299 Warrant- Target Device(s)/ Account(s)/ Telephone Number(s)
PGS.300-307 Application for Warrant- Target Device(s)/ Account(s)/ Telephone Number(s)
PGS.308-311 Application for Order (Warrant)- 718-###-1553
PGS.312-314 Order (Warrant)- 718-###-1553
PGS.315-318 Application for Order (Warrant)- 689-###-1067
PGS.319-321 Order (Warrant)- 689-###-1067 ⁴
PG.322 Non-Disclosure Order
PGS.323-324 Search Warrant- Charter Communications
PS.325-328 Application for Order (Warrant)-407-###-1832 ⁵
PGS.329-331 Order (Warrant)-407-###-1832
PG.332 KIPD Emergency Warrant Request Cover Sheet
PGS.333-335 Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant- Sterns
PGS.336-337 Search Warrant- Sterns
PGS.338-407 Madeline Soto: - Dr. Kumaraguru (Behavioral Health) - Dr. Kumaraguru (Orlando Psychiatric Associates Inc.)
PGS.408-450 ME Report
PG.451 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- M. Morris
PGS.452-456 Case Supplement.
PG.457 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- T. Clark
PG.458 Reporting Officer Narrative- T. Clark
PG.459 Case Supplemental Report- J. Ownes
PG.460 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- P. Woods
PGS.461 Case Supplemental Report- P. Woods
PGS.462 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- B. Moore
PGS.463 Case Supplemental Report- B. Moore
PG.464 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- J. Irizarry
PG.465 Case Supplemental Report- J. Irizarry
PG.466 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- J. Nieves
PG.467 Case Supplemental Report- J. Nieves
PG.468 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- C. Smallwood
PG.469 Case Supplemental Report- C. Smallwood
PG.470 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- A. Latchman
PG.471 Case Supplemental Report- A. Latchman
PG.472 KIPD Electronic Report Transmittal Form- A. Morales
PG.473 Case Supplemental Report- A. Morales
PG.474 Arrest Warrant
PGS.475-476 Affidavit for Arrest Warrant
PG.477 KIPD Emergency Report Warrant Request Cover sheet
PG.478 Arrest Warrant
PGS.479-480 Affidavit for Arrest Warrant
PG.481 KIPD Emergency Report Warrant Request Cover sheet
PGS.482-484 Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant
PGS.485-486 Search Warrant
PGS.487-488 VTM notification Card
PGS.490-491 Wanted person table
PGS.492-493 KIPD Incident/ Investigative Report
PG.494 KIPD Emergency Report Warrant Request Cover sheet
PGS.495-497 Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant
PGS.498-499 Search Warrant
PG.500 Firearms Trace Summary
PGS.501-512 Orange County Sheriff's Office Property Form
PGS.513-516 Orange County Sheriff's Office Evidence and Property Report
PGS.517-520 Orange County Sheriff's Office Property Form
PGS.521-523 OSSO Deputy Report for Incident 24I023174
PG.524 OSSO Deputy Supplemental Report- D/S C. Johnson
PG.525 KIPD Emergency Report Warrant Request Cover sheet
PGS.526-528 Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant
PGS.529-530 Search Warrant
PG.531 KIPD Emergency Report Warrant Request Cover sheet
PGS.532-533 Affidavit for Arrest Warrant
PG.534 Arrest Warrant
PGS.535-537 FDLE Case Tracking Form- Items 1-15
PGS.538-541 FDLE Lab Report- April 10, 2024
PGS.542-548 Log
PGS.549-556 Orange County Sheriff's Office Evidence and Property Report
PGS.557-974 Cellphone Mapping 407-###-1832 689-###-1067 718-###-1553
PGS.975-978 Building Log
PG.979 Declaration of Business Records- Captial One, N.A.
PGS.980-982 OCSO Incident Report
PGS.983-988 OCSO Incident Report- Supplement Report
PGS.989-990 OCSO Incident Report
PG.991 OCSO Incident Report- Supplement Report
PGS.992-993 OCSO Incident Report
PGS.994-995 OCSO Incident Report- Supplement Report
PGS.996-997 OCSO Incident Report
PG.998 OCSO Incident Report- Supplement Report
PGS.999-1000 OCSO Incident Report
PG.1001 OCSO Incident Report- Supplement Report
PGS.1002-1005 Affidavit for Search Warrant- Digital Device(s)
PGS.1006-1007 Search Warrant
PG.1008 Search Warrant Inventory and Receipt
The Following Media Has Been Sent by Mail on May 6, 2024: Digital Media # 2(DVD) - ME Photos Digital Media # 3 (DVD) - OrangeCountyForensicPhotos Digital Media # 4 (DVD) - OrangeCountyForensicPhotos
The Following Media is Available for Copy: Digital Media # 1 1 TB Hard drive
The Following Digital Media is Available to View by Appointment at SAO: - Defendant's Cellphone Download - Search Warrant Return of Defendant’s Google Account I CERTIFY that a copy hereof has been furnished to Alesha C. Smith, asmith@circuit9.org and Division301@Circuit9.org, 1 Courthouse Square, Suite 3200, Kissimmee, FL 34741 by e-mail on this 7th day of May, 2024. ANDREW ASHER BAIN, State Attorney By: Danielle Marie Pinnell Assistant State Attorney. Florida Bar # 88644. Division12-A@SAO9.

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Notez

Things with multiple ####’s were censored by me for reducing the likelihood of potential harassment to potentially non-criminal parties, but that info is on the actual docs …..so someone should look up who those other phones belong to lol (I will later if no one does :P)
¹ owner of property where her remains were discovered ² address of property where her remains were discovered ³ FARO ⁴ can’t find anything about the 1067 #, so I assume it’s Maddie’s ⁵ the 1832 # is what “Stephan provided his phone number to be” <- direct quote from PCA, but when I looked it up, it’s the contact number on some real estate listings

• 718 area code is NYC
• 689 is an ‘overlay code’ & serves the same area as 407: Orlando
  
• Stephen’s car is the Lincoln MKZ
  

^{The list items in bold are bc I found them particularly interesting; they’re not emphasized in the actual doc}

State Attorneys Office

415 N Orange Ave Orlando, FL 32801. 407-836-2400

A breakdown of the title and what it means:

• Meier: A reference to the primary name taken by the Human personage of __ias Meier, ironically meaning [REDACTED BY EMERGENCY ORDER 56] and also ironically meaning "Superior" -- secretary general of the United Nations (the Human-originated organization acting as Earth's local counterpart to the Federation of the greater galaxy, founded nearly two hectocycles ago in the wake of [REDACTED BY EMERGENCY ORDER 56]) until the [REDACTED BY EMERGENCY ORDER 56] in --- October (the rough match to an orbital period of Earth's moon that is the tenth within Earth's own orbital period, named after the number eight) --- 21st (referring to the planetary rotation that Earth was working through after the start of the aforementioned temporal unit), --- 2136 (the two thousand, one hundred and thirty sixth orbital period of Earth since a slightly miscalculated figure for the birth of [REDACTED BY EMERGENCY ORDER 56])
• is: The succeeding description applies to him, uninterrupted, to the present moment.
• the only: The succeeding description is not accurate to other characters in the narrative.
• Competent: He pursued his goals with the best use of his resources, only failing when outside factors interfered.
• Antagonist: Any knowledgeable person would have been aligned against him.
• (and why most sex scenes are not canon compliant): Terra Technologies, owner of the memory transcription technology, usually has more innocuous reasons to be selective about which memories to release from its collection of brain scans.

(This hyperthesis is a long one, so you can scroll to the bottom of the second fourth post for a less than 2000 character TL;DR.)
I'm not posting another bit, this is my unfiltered opinion of one of the most erratic characters in a story full of lunatic protagonists. Some people call this a crack theory. I can't agree, the intended reading is the crack one to me. The plot is moth-bitten if you accept Meier as a swell man that wasn't prepared for reality. And I will take you to those bites so you can know that they are scissor holes.

What are you talking about?

SecGen Meier is the local version of Wallace Breen, a delusional and all too willing accomplice to the invasion and forced transformation of Humanity into servile abominations. By the end of this thorough analysis of his actions, and the distressingly small sample of his thoughts that we read, I will demonstrate to you that he is a character belonging among the likes of Nikonus and Giznel in the annals of history, shielded from his rightful place by the Terran propaganda machine using the simple trick of never showing any bit of haughtiness or rudeness to the notoriously naive main characters.
Let's say that you are working on the fedboy hypnosis of a species. What steps do you take?

• Local powers are consolidated into a planetary government to enable later steps of the Uplift.
• The native culture is repressed in every form until you have drafted a final vision of their role in the galaxy.
• Ee-yos are globally issued to enforce galactic norms on the natives.
• The completed Uplift is finally given some measure of independence once inertia and peer pressure can be trusted to hold them in place.

And how can I show that his actions were following this model?

A case for selective transcription

This post had been a work in progress for quite some time and it's about to show in two ways. Kalsim's fate showed me that I was only right about the one which this entire theory rests upon.
The strongest argument that can be made against this whole interpretation, is the fact that we do read memory transcriptions of himself on two separate occasions, and neither displays any ulterior allegiance to Chairman Nikonus. There is obviously, no tool of investigation that is more thorough than examining the history of someone's actual thought processes. But I can show you how little that matters.
Open SpacePaladin15's patreon, in incognito mode if you're a patron, and keep scrolling down, do not close it when you're done with the following observation. The majority of Isif chapters will have a preview like "Memory Transcription Subject: [REDACTED]", excluding chapters 101, 112, 119, and 142 onwards. Convention leads us to assume that they were undisclosed for being sensitive information. BUT, the rebellion was long over by the time that Memory Transcription technology was developed, and all its structures replaced with formal counterparts, not to mention that there is information that was clandestine at the time in the 4 publicated Isif chapters among many others.
But consider the ethics of allowing anyone to see the most intimate record of someone's history, even posthumously. (Fun fact: this is how everyone in real life will be tortured after their death, good or evil. They'll invite everyone that ever interacted with you in any way to a theater where your special chair projects every second of your existence in supersensible fast motion. Punishment? Hazing? Don't be so egotistical, your comfort and dignity is only an acceptable sacrifice for the closure of others.) When publishing memory transcriptions for civilian use, you would best skip over not just the uneventful parts, but those that were private or downright shameful. Isif executes a cruelty deficient in his very first chapter, not to mention the earlier crimes against sapience he committed offscreen at the beck of Giznel or Meier. It WAS NOT hidden for galactic security, they do not want to depict memory transcription subjects as the villains of their own stories.
(Notice that Sovlin POVs cease once he made his mind to torment Marcel and they don't resume until the latter escapes. And notice again that other protagonists are never caught perpetuating the heinous practices that we know them to endorse. Forget Glim's entire line of work, do you really think that Slanek never gaslit an uplift victim, Tarva never subsidized the opening of new treatment facilities, or Noah never snitched on a history enthusiast?)
And with this in mind, notice that we never get to read his mind during the whole time that humanity is on speaking terms with the Federation. Of the three chapters featuring his POV, Chapter Five was him learning about them for the first time, and Chapters Fifty Three and Fifty Four are aftermath to the Battle of Earth. In other words, no point where he would be thinking "it's so great to be selling Humanity out to the greater galactic order".
Now, while they do admit to Meier doing something far worse than being a normal citizen of the galaxy, that was just a hard man making a hard decision. Unfortunately, even the circumstances leading to him doing the worst thing that any human has ever done, or will be capable of doing for the forseeable future, are still his fault. It would be the last nail in the coffin of his legacy if they admit that he was a part of business as usual for the Conspiracy, and he intentionally killed billions of complete innocents because of the consequences of his own actions.

Why this theory is possible

Here are some things that we can tell about the Kolshian fleet:

• The Federation navy is divided between cosmopolitan jobbers and the Kolshian Commonwealth's shadow armada. It is reasonable to assume that there is similarly secretive infrastructure to serve the other needs of the conspiracy.
• The FTL communications in particular, were of sufficient quality that Nikonus and Giznel were able to have a real time video conference.
• It is safe to assume that any species being prepared for subjugation has Shadow facilities underwater and in nearby space, for purposes of co-ordination, vehicular maintenance, and surveillance of the natives.
• We know that technology used by the Kolshian Commonwealth significantly outdoes any of their vassals in automation, security, and counterintelligence.
• The Archivists believed that the extinction of humanity was no sooner than 1974 (control-F "Farsul Abductee (1/8)" in the patreon tab that I told you to keep open). Nuclear testing already peaked by then, and regardless of how they would interpret the intentions of the act, it clearly wasn't wiping us out, so "the Cold War" is a misconception of how they misconcieved us. This means that the Conspiracy only gave up on humanity by the next major war, a century later, likely because nothing says "Kessler syndrome" like a Satellite War. -- It is possible that this impression was reinforced by the accidental destruction of monitoring bases. It is possible that some uncredited attacks were actually the self-destruct procedures of alien facilities. This bullet point wasn't actually that important because I was just making the observation that some bases had less time to degrade than you would expect which doesn't matter that much in space but I guess the mention of self destruct sequences goes against that. --- It's actually up for question if the Farsul ever believed that Humanity went extinct, they said so when their popsicle stand was blown, but lying is their entire job. Why bother with continuing to defrost humans for the creation of a Cure that you'll never be able to apply?

With this information, I can assume that Nikonus had the means to covertly contact SecGen Meier through an unsquidded vehicle before the information blackout was lifted from the Venlil Republic, and lay down exactly which actions he was supposed to take if he wanted Humanity to live. Remember also that this was all happening in the backyard of a species rightly known as a sleeping existential threat, that all but formally declared independance from the rest of the galaxy - as much of a obvious cover-up as what we're about to discuss.

How would aliens react to ee-yo-fifty-six?

Emergency Order 56 was a legal prohibition against the disclosure of "predatory" topics with aliens, ostensibly an effort to keep them from finding materials that could be used to demonize Humans, as if a photo doesn't do the trick. BainshieWrites already answered the title of this section in Predator War Uncovered - Emergency Order 56, and this section is more specifically here to question its official motive, because it was not something that he made up to downplay the competence and ethicality of the UN, it was something that SpacePaladin15 made up to downplay the competence and ethicality of the UN.
Did your mental alarms go off when I said predatory? Recall how the list of applicable topics grew throughout the story in a way that could be used to make the world's most confusing Bob Parr slideshow. It does not mean threatening, it doesn't even mean carnivorous, it means anything that would challenge their worldview.

• A list of ways that Humans may develop inherent inclinations to conflict with society.
• The animal motifs that we use since childhood (the "animal loving" Marcel wouldn't elucidate Slanek to the idea of safe interactions with carnivorous animals until the antichrist needed guard dogs)
• Any knee-level or deeper lore of a Human religion (ostensibly just proselytism, but both sides have motivation to blur the lines between preaching and satisfying curiousity)
• A digestive imbalance in humans that most overcome by eating meat, and the horrifying consequences of leaving it unchecked. (This is information that was being denied even to Governess Tarva until a global tragedy that was brought about by keeping it a secret)

“You have been starving from eating plants?” I squeaked.
Meier breathed a frustrated sigh. “Humans are omnivores, Tarva, as we have told you many times. The nutrients in vegetables are quite accessible to us.”
“That said, without animal products, we usually develop serious mineral deficiencies,” Noah interjected, sensing my next question. “Vegetarians need supplements or fortified foods: B12, iron, protein, and so on. This has been explained to your medical community.”
Undoubtedly, it was easier to absorb those nutrients through dietary means. At least the Terrans could survive on vegetation, with a little help. The Arxur couldn’t derive any nutritional value from plants, even if they wanted to. I didn’t know why zero scientists, here or in the Federation, had figured that out.
“So it’s not about bloodlust at all. I get the point, I think,” I sighed. “What do you want to do about the grays’ story?”

Much as you love to accuse background racists of being brainwashed idiots - like I'm one to talk with a title like this - let's use empathy for a moment, theory of mind, not just being nice to sad people. Here is what is happening on Venlil Prime:

The Governess has thrown her lot in with an alien race that has a universally attested history of depravity. The latter will confirm but not elaborate on this history, in fact they are morally obligated to attest it with everyone else.
But they refuse to elaborate. This would have just been a case of collective shame if they weren't equally secretive about their current state of affairs, including their daily lives. The information that they will give either drops in clarity at alarming and suggestive frequencies in its coverage of both the past and present, or suspiciously outdoes less infamous cultures at conforming to your idea of civilization. There is a grim precedent for the sort of secrets they could be keeping from everyone, but others will tell you to "think for yourself" when you point at the worrisome data.
And it's always a backhanded appeal to your sense of pride when someone says that. Yet you are noticing, more than ever, that people really don't think for themselves at large, and the secretive warmongerers are exploiting their blind trust in the government through vague assurances that these newcomers have totally changed for the better. From unspeakable, to still unspeakable. The set of possible secrets is infinitely longer than just the ones that are shocking but ultimately acceptable as consequences of a different evolutionary foundation, and you know that they have already strayed far out of the latter category.

Look, I'm sorry. It is shitbrained to have any trust in a species that feels the need for this law. Typically, there are one between three reasons in NoP that someone has chosen to reap the benefits of a brain-crackingly stupid policy, either they do not know better because they were lobotomized by outside influences, their mental facilities atrophied from centuries of political omnipotence, or it worked so it isn't stupid no matter how much we complain. It achieved nothing except to preserve drama, so we can rule that last one out.
But Humans do know better. That's their entire edge in the story. It makes no sense in PR terms to do this when your dirtiest of laundry is being aired out by the heart of civilized space. But if you, the author of this law, actually share an agenda with the Shadow Caste, then it's the perfect trident for roasting your marshmallows. First, it produces the impression that virtuous Humans still need to be unburdened of their current circumstances. Second, it complicates the ability of Human culture to flee a genocide. Third, it protects the galactic consensus in the topics of nature, of predators, and of Humans, from being challenged by their observations.
And speaking again about achieving nothing. Haysi's 'Pure Evil' exhibit stayed up, even unmolested, in the very capital of Venlil Prime for the entire time that he was alive. We know that Tarva knew about this, it might have even been her introduction to the Human race. And she had the ability to follow her interest in taking this slander down. If not from the totalitarian powers that she displayed at the very start of the story, or from the fact that it was most likely public property, then how about Sam's ability to get away with what amounted to very polite vandalism? Tarva must have told some flat nailed biped about it, and one has to assume that this creature told her not to worry about it.
In the end, this officially self-inflicted restriction serves much of the same purpose as the way that recent uplifts are marginalized and postured over. We can assume that every world government, most recently Leirn, started out with laws concerning resistance to modernization that were enforced in similar circumstances.
Special mention should be given to one of the few biological features that were censored; the idea that our hunting strategy made us into an excellent labor force. The galaxy is only fascist in the sense of "the government is being mean :(", and has more of a neoliberal inclination [lie]when predators are taken out of the picture[/lie]. So if anything, it would have given a profit motive to the acceptance of the Human race. If you think that it was just going to brand the Terran work ethic as predatory, that's first a backwards chain of causality, it's predatory because Humans are involved; and second, the official narrative said that Human sociality was predatory under your logic.
However, consider how some amount of 'declawing' was likely to go into our version of the Cure.
They'd never Cure the Human capability for close bonds since imagine proposing that nonsense at the Cure labs and the Behavioral Sink would have done that without need for high tech meddling. Humans were not just personally kinder to the aliens because the survival of their species depended on their best behavior, they couldn't emotionally tell that the aliens were people thus embarassing to care about. In time, this opening in their own kind of artificial callousness would have healed, as both civilizations demanded (and continue to demand), through the integration of alien intelligence into Human norms. This will still happen, the disease of the symptoms has not been treated, apathy will continue to kill the galaxy.
On the other paw, it's much easier to write a takedown order of Human persistence without being spaced into Talsk's hadopelagic zone. If the galaxy knows that our physical heart, not the metaphorical, is a hunting tool, that's something they can announce a Cure for without much more controversy, easily drumming the masses up to demand it before anyone can feel safe around the Children of Planet Earth. And there goes our economic edge in the Federation (in it, not over it, you maniac). It's best if they just think that they need to genetically shave our canines.

Loose lips sink ships but tight ones raze planets

As I mentioned with the Tarva example, all information covered under this law is only spread on a need to know basis, even with leaders that are notorious for their faith in Humanity. But you'd need some sort of consultant for navigating the Federation's 'predator' anticoncept - yet any remotely loyal citizen of the Venlil Republic would be passing the worst of it to their own government, which is exactly what they are trying to prevent. Venlil indiscretion has been as much of a driving force for the story as Human...something. Stars above, this order can not be enforced with any loyalty to the people that you love.
So either they were working on oddly accurate guesswork or their consultants were just more tight lipped than they had any reason to be, or they were using consultation disguised as guesswork. There is no reason that the Conspiracy would wager all the progression of an Uplift on one person, see how the archives were a pan-species effort to everyone that entered their place in the galaxy.
But that hasn't come to fruition yet, so Meier and his colluders had been answering directly to Nikonus, and some silly doggies were ripping their furs out because they're locked out of the loop for anything relevant to the projected zombie apocalypse, and can't even begin to crack the code themselves when any acknowledgment of a nutritional need for meat would be treasonous under the United Nations.
None of that is Meier's fault, there was no way for him to know that it was happening. Although he caused it to happen; and could have prevented it if he had aspirations beyond herding people into ever bigger blobs; the exact factors were out of left field. The archive experiments are not something to be admitted to a third degree Fedboy Hypnotist, and the Hunger incidents were kept as a secret even from the Kolshian Commonwealth. Meier would have just truthfully told Old Nick that forced veganism was a bridge that we were able to cross, save some resistance from those who were...how does that go..."too arrogant". He doesn't know that he needs to give an explanation to other parties why some people were contracting physically lethal cases of predator disease once they were civilized.

It is a common misconception that Meier is the only Human to have a canonical memory transcription.

The wrinkles on Meier’s face were taut with sympathy. “But please let me correct that statement: you did not kill her. You chose not to prolong her suffering, because you’re a selfless, kind person.”

Can I get an opinion of this line from someone that understands Human emotion? It's easy to imagine myself saying it before I take all of my clothes off for a walk into the thruster engines, but I'm not a Venlil Prime Extermination Guild certified Good One like Meier (and which of you here wouldn't commit chicken dinner to clean out the taste of such a commendation?), so I could be ignorant that it would be [squints at teleprompter]...a true...[mumbles into earpiece]...[takes something from assistant] Ritz© moment [waves box around]. So does he know that nothing wins a Fedboy over like dismissing their guilt, or does she take anything that resembles an attempt at consolation? Could Meier have done the same thing by gurgling in a concilatory tone? We are talking about the same woman that locked down lightyears of space over a hug.
But if we skip to the end of his story for a little bit, there is one line of hers that can't be explained by the conventional narrative, at all.

[Censored] Meier had dedicated himself to virtue and the pursuit of peace to the last. Every temptation pushed him the opposite direction, but he was true to his beliefs.

Really. Really. Out of everything there is to deny about the whale in the chinchilla cage, are people really going to say that it wasn't any instance of yielding to the temptation to kill? And Governess Tarva wouldn't just forget about that. No one would be able to enter her position without keeping awareness of such actions and their ramifications. No one can do those things without permanently tainting an onlooker's image of them, either, that's why this post exists!
There is room to argue that these words were put into her proverbial mouth, since the story periodically switches to using italicized paragraphs, an indication of being an internal monologue. As if the rest of the narration isn't, and many 'thoughts' were just an attempt of the transcriptors to put their drives and emotions to words, just like with the visual imagery of the scanned brain, and this time, they went overboard wiping his butt. We can rely on Terra Technologies to have no conflicts of interest when documenting Terran atrocities. And with that in mind, isn't it interesting that our second layer of unreliable narration idealizes codependance of both polity and person, the cause of all problems in this story? Perhaps this is why they never rebuked biocalvinism in the case of Arxur non-defects. Any proof that predapaths can have productive, harmless lives would mean showing how to give moral inclinations to those that were resistant to the traditional means of this, and that means that employees of this alarming gigacorp have to play by the same rules as everyone else in this galaxy.
And just like that, this thought is immediately followed by an example of an internal monologue.

[Censored] will be missed. He was a true leader, willing to do whatever was necessary. He dreamed big; there was so much he could’ve offered humanity.

This isn't the same sort of an outright delusion, as it's just an opinion. A stupid one, but the kind of stupid to expect from the combination between apathy and naiveté that Tarva has been raised into. Same vein as the non-reaction that many had towards the Kolshian Commonwealth's genetic intrusion, cultural genocide, and colluding with Arxur to destroy the homeworlds of Federation members.
And to make more counter-criticism of the way that aliens behave in this story, this aspect of the narration exonerates them from a lot of oblivious comments ascribed to the depths of their minds. They literally did not know what they were thinking. Our self awareness is mostly limited to that which we're setting ourselves to commit our own physical beings towards. This is why the Human system as much of a leap in insidiousness over the Kolshian system as the latter were over the Arxur system, since it does a better job at hiding the injury that your compliance brings. The story of Kalsim is that empathy is no replacement for a moral code, it is simply the bodily function to model other people's mental states. If you start treating empathy as a synonym for morality, you'll spare anyone with the luck to be in front of you, whether they're Arjun or Kalsim, while continuing with the eradication of everyone that couldn't stimulate your mirror neurons.
But I decline the possibility that Tarva's first thought was an oblivious moment of idealization, when those actions should still have a weight on her subconscious idea of him.
I might have to move to Wriss after ending this lecture. The personality disorder assessor can finally detain me for lovebombing and a chemical lobotomy if she has sufficient grounds to pile Schizotypalism on top of my Oppositional-Defiant diagnosis. The prior sorcery allegations had been a joke for the purposes of all conversations with her, but I don't think that I can keep saying so when I have evidence that he was using mesmerism on Tarva.
That's not insanity, I'll tell you what is insanity: accusing Terra Technologies of directly lying to cover up for the brood parasite. They can downplay, hide, simplify, mistranslate, but never lie. There is no more meaning in this subject if we allow ourselves to reject the text. If that can be thrown out, anything else can, and there goes all shared ground for the 'reality' suggested by chapters of The Nature of Predators.
So Meier has to be a literal hypnotist that used unnatural means to repress, but not erase, inconvenient memories of Tarva's. It's that, or he was already gave her the impression that he'd, well...

Did you know that Anne Frank was bisexual that her father took that out of her diaries so that he could get it published and protect her reputation?
Did you know that Donald Trump has agreed to follow Project 2025, which is a blueprint for efficiently consolidating power to make America a dictatorship under Trump and outlines how they will replace the government with a crystal fascist plutocracy? And did you know that in that process they intend to reclassify gender non-conforming people as pornographic? Anything that talks about lgbtq people, including people who look gender non-conforming (you know that won't stop at trans people!) will be considered "pornography" under the law. They're going to censor the internet of all content they've reclassified as pornography. We won't be able to talk about being lgbtq and our history will no longer be accessible unless it's stored abroad and we're able to access it without the government finding out. They've already purged libraries; that will continue. They plan to get rid of public education, so I'm sure the new curricula in private schools will say whatever the hell they wanted it to say about us.
They plan to take all research funding for transgender healthcare and pivot to coming to with a new form of conversion therapy. They intend to remove ANY mention of gender from the law... From trans rights to workplace discrimination protection to title 9.
They're going to put women back in the kitchen by making divorce impossible, making abortion punishable by death and imprisonment, making it illegal to access birth control, ending child support(!!!), and ending supplemental nutrition programs for children of single mothers(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Queer children whose parents allow them to express themselves will be removed from the home. Queer parents can be arrested and charge with exposing their kids to pornography--they themselves being the pornography. Of course they're going to repeal gay marriage. And the Supreme Court has already taken the first step towards bringing back the sodomy laws.
They've already cut funding for HIV prevention and medicine programs. If you have HIV, you need to plan to get out of America if Republicans come to power and you can't afford to buy your HIV medicine without those programs.
The worst part? They're making it legal to execute child sex offenders--that means LGBTQ "groomers" who "expose" children to the extistance of LGBTQ people, or "pornography."
Anne Frank says not to wait to change the world. American fascists won't wait. Dictatorship on Day One, people.
My neighbors will be voting for a dictator, who has pledged to do the bidding christofascists. Republicans will get rid of LGBTQ Americans...censorship of speech, erasing our history, prison, breaking up families, banning transition, reeducating children, withdrawing life sustaining medicine, coercing pregnant LGBTQ people into forced birth and heterosexual marriages, execution. What is this, if not a prelude to genocide?

Anyway as the title shows, I want to make a new long covid group. I was banned by both the long covid subs for talking about ivermectin and asking questions about certain drugs. Basically they won’t allow us to find real answers and they are basically censoring everything. I do know the one group is actually run by a group of drs and they constantly try advertising their supplements. Has anyone dealt with something similar? At this point I have no way of talking in those pages and would honestly like to speak about symptoms. Also one last thing. Has anyone tried hydroxyzine for the MCAS or histamine issues? My histamine causes intense panic attacks and almost seizure like episodes. I was just prescribed this and praying that it is my saving grace so I can go back to work. Anyway let me know . I have a job interview tomorrow that I’m assuming is gonna be an utter failure since I have to go in the highway and one of my biggest triggers is driving. Maybe the eclipse today will somehow mess things up for tomorrow to buy me some time lol.

Off the bat, I know this will do nothing and no one will see it or use it. Just want to vent my ideas for making some vocations feel bette more balanced.
1) Mage
This one is simple. Currently, mages can be geared optimally for support or damage. Since they’re designated healers they lean more towards support. Instead of quick cast as their class ability I would give them access to a second set of spells, a "back row" if you will. To balance this, instead of anodyne being mapped to a button, they would also get the Sorc's stamina regen ability.
Anodyne becomes a mandatory skill that is permanently slotted in both rows. The result is mage having 6 spells instead of 4. They can then be more flexible as support/damage casters.
2) Sorc
I believe making the aforementioned change to mage makes it justifiable that Sorc has less spell slots. The sorc would be a completely offenseive class with quickcasting, and could cast faster at a baseline. Conversely, Spellholding could replace quick casting. Charge a spell, lock it with your vocation action, and then have it on retainer to spam until charging something else.
Otherwise Sorc is fine as is.
3) Fighter
I don't have a lot of thoughts on this one. I think there should be an option for no shield. Instead of block and perfect block you get a rasky parry without a shield. Higher risk and higher reward on this parry. It would give the class more versatility, but otherwise I think it's fine. I feel the same towards Warrior.
4) Warrior
I would leave it as is. I don't have any major critiques or suggestions. I don't have any strong feelings.
5) Thief
Thief is probably the best vocation. There's nothing really to critique about it.
6) Archer
This one needs a lot imo, but overall it needs to be better defined.
My controversial take is that its class action should not be aiming. Magick Archer, Mage, and Sorc are for aiming. Dragon's Dogma is an ARPG designed first and foremost around melee and aimed abilities with what is essentially aim bot. Third person, manual shooting will always feel like an afterthought. Magick Archer at least addresses this like magic classes with some auto targeting.
So, I don't thinking aiming is worth it. (I was primarily an assassin in DD1, I can aim, it just isn't the best game for it) Instead, archer's skills should function as hipfires like they already do.
Now, their vocation action should be a separate menu for arrow types. Holding your vocation button lets you pick an arrow type with a face button. This then augments your skills, but not your basic loosing. Ammo is a stupid requirement, so instead, if you have the arrows it eats up little additional stamina while using arrow types, but with no ammo it costs more stamina to use an ability with tarring for example.
Your basic attack is also now manifold shot or threefold flurry from DD1. We're taking aiming off the table so your vocation is now about speed and "shotgunning."
Lastly, this allows more archer skills from DD1 to return now that arrow types aren't supplementing actual skills. There are some weird ones that are missing. (Really, love splitting up strider to throw everything and the kitchen sink at Thief and leaving Archer a shell of a better class.)
7) Trickster
I don't have a lot of thoughts. The class is designed around being support. If Sorc is a mage all in on damage, this is a mage all in on support.
It stills needs some kind of offense though so I think the censors should apply status effects like nobody's business. There you go. You're never going to be doing really damaging attacks but bashing someone with your smoke causes status build up. You can blight them, tar them, freeze them, etc.
This way you can feel like you're doing something more than buffing pawns and watching. Attacking your decoy could also build status.
The core of the class remains the same and you feel more hands on even it's marginal.
8) Mystic Spearhand
Just make shelde operate like high palladium. You get one free hit. That's it. The solution is already there. You want multiple, get a pawn to cast high palladium.
9) Magick Archer
I don’t really have critiques here either. Moreso the game in general. Why is this literally unlocked so late in the game? The elves are right there... They sell magick archer bows.
You start with four vocations? Fine, they're essentially your core archetypes. You get two specializations in the city? Fine, it fleshes out the vocation guild and they feel like sidegrades of two classes you already have. You go back to Melve, woah here's a big new class. First step in Battahl, bam, smoke man.
You have to wait like 70% of the game to organically get this class and you get it at the same time as warfarer. The game practically slaps you the over the head with Mystic Spearhand, but no lets save Magick Archer for the not quite endgame portion of the game.
10) Warfarer
I like it. I think not letting you use maister skills is stupid. Who cares if it's OP at that point? Maybe I want to summon a tornado, make myself into smoke, and self immolate in that maelstrom. Is it really gonna kill me?
Edit: People are commenting a lot on this, but my point is the maister thing is realistically the only thing holding warfarer back from being the final vocation you should take. The upfront tradeoff if you choose to single class warfarer is worse stats for the ability to wear whatever armor you want. This is basically nothing. So, the ONLY thing that actually makes something like Thief or Sorc more desirable are their maister abilities. Imo, this isn't enough to hold back to make the choice very hard and such a small caveat that it's there for no real reason. The skills aren't all equally good either, imo. Like, no one is staying as an archer that wants to be an archer over warfarer for Heavenly Shot...
I think three skills makes sense, but instead of letting you swap to whatever's equipped you should be limited to two weapons, not three. Currently you either pick four skills from one vocation, one skill each from three vocations, or two and one from two vocations. The first option feels like an oversight of the developers locking your fashion the whole game just to give up at the end, the second option requires hyper focus and min maxing. The third imo makes a lot of sense as building your own hybrid.
However, there was an easier way to make this class function and no, it's not making the vocation action the switch weapon button (which honestly would gimp Mystic Spearhand, Fighter, and Trickster) it's making Sheathe do it.
You have no weapons visible on your character, unsheathe/ attack summons the first equipped one. "Oh no, I want a bow." Sheathe your greatsword, it disappears, unsheathe to materialize your next weapon and there's your bow.
WE HAVE A SHEATHE BUTTON FOR NO REASON! I TURN OFF AUTO SHEATHE BECAUSE I LIKE THE IMMERSION!... otherwise it's useless.
This would give it actual functionality.
Anyway, that's all I got. This post will get buried, I'm sure. I just wanted to voice my thoughts. And before I get told I'm playing a class wrong to invalidate critique, I got a platinum trophy in DDDA and I've played all vocations. It's definitely not a skill issue when I don't like a class...

I want to start off by saying, I don't want to deny anyone their pain. This hobby can be an investment, both financially, in time commitments, and emotionally. I've been playing Warhammer since 1994 and I can understand some of what's being felt.
I remember when GW was at it's peak "Jerkiness" (For lack of a better term). Terrible balance and rules with refusal to errata or QA in a reasonable time frame. The great balance masacre of '08. Fine cast. Constant price increases, I remember the good old days where 10 "Gold Swords" for 40 Canadian dollars were considered rage inducing. The war against online retailers giving even a tiny discount. The statement of "We're not a rule company we're a model company" to justify poor rules while simultaneously, and hypocritically, churning out 50$ hard cover subfactions/supplements with barely any pages in them.
I say that to clarify that I am not a GW apologist. They lost my business for a decade in the early 2010s from their BS.
Anyone that played Guild Ball or Warhamchine knows how bad a company can stick it to their fans. Steamforged games, rather than working hard to fix the problems they were experiencing, just straight up announced all of guild ball was being abandoned immediately and didn't even finish the releases they had announced in the pipeline. The company didn't go under or anything, they just spent all their effort on overpriced licensed Kickstarter nonsense from then on. At least when Firestorm/Dystopian wars were gutted, it was because the company was going under.
Warmachine's 4th edition was nearly as shocking a slap to the face of fans that supported the game for 3 editions. I finally traded my Circle models a couple months ago for some Necrons/Troglodon I didn't even want, but I was shocked/happy to get "Anything" for them. Old Warmachine armies are barely worth the plastic/metal they're made of these days. (They guy didn't even play warmachine, he just wanted the models for D&D/RPG games).
Given how much I praised Privateer Press and Steamforged games in the 2010s, and HEAVILY criticized GW, I find myself quite surprised that those former two companies showed me far less respect as a customer.
I'm sorry to people that lost the place of their Beastmen/Savage Orc army. Thankfully we've already seen very specific rumors from accurate sources that most of those Skaven are getting new models, so they're not fully been abandoned. Only a few are being properly axed. I imagine the same will happen to those Stormcast models. I'm surprised so many people assume all those models are useless now, they're mostly going to be resculpts. If I remember the rumor (From a source that predicted a lot of stuff with 100% accuracy very far in advance), gutter runners, rat swarms, plague censor bearers, rat packs were the things getting fully removed in both model/rules (I might have missed something). The rest should just be resculpts.
I know this post will obviously get downvoted heavily because people are so angry and they don't want to see this defended. But man could it have been worse. People from other game systems know that this is about as well as it could have been handled. It gives me a surprisingly small amount of hope that GW is a slightly better company because 2010 GW would definitely NOT have given any advanced communication.
Imagine the pain Bretonian players could have been spared had an announcement like this come at the start of 7th edition.

I've had posts censored on both LongCovid and covidlonghaulers so it's interesting to see the covidlonghaulers have a heavily upvoted thread criticizing the other sub's censorship. Their first criticism is that the mods are self-promotional. Secondly, Laney Bond (Covid Care Group) and perhaps other LongCovid mods are promoting The Wellness Company supplements. That apparently isn't cool because TWC is associated with "right wing anti vaccination groups".
At the end of the day, both subs have censored plenty of posts. Their rules sidebars telegraph what they will take down:

• "Misinformation" and conspiracies, which includes right wing content because apparently right wingers are all racist white supremacist anti-vaxxers. Even Donald Trump, who funded Operation Warp Speed and promotes the booster.
• Criticisms of vaccination, EVEN THOUGH MANY LONG HAULERS SUFFERED HORRIBLY POST VAX.
• Ivermectin, HCQ, etc.
• Criticism of medical professionals, even in cases where they should be criticized.

I strongly believe that we should be allowed to have open discussions on these topics- both for AND against. That's how we get to the truth so that people don't have to suffer from LC, MECFS, post vax, etc.
It's a good thing that covidLongHaulers is raising the issue of censorship. It's a real problem that affects patients. So, I'm trying to build a censorship-free community at VaxRecoveryGroup as well as https://forum.sickandabandoned.com/. As Reddit censors IVM/HCQ discussion, the Sick and Abandoned forum is a better platform in the long run. If you can, please help me grow both communities.
I'm one of the few people who spoke out about the Prife iTeraCare wand and how the MLM sellers used censorship to suppress negative information about the wand. I believe that my track record on combatting censorship speaks for itself.

Demographics
Gender: Male Race/Ethnicity: East Asian Residence: SoCal/ Orange County Income Bracket: 250k+ Type of School: Large, Non-Competitive Public High School Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): LGBT (if that counts?)
Intended Major(s): Computer Science, Cognitive Science (at like 2 schools)
Academics
GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.0 Rank (or percentile): N/A Number of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 11 APs, 4 Dual Enrollment (APs not offered until jr.)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics C: Mechanics, AP US Government and Politics, AP Microeconomics, AP Spanish Language & Culture, AP Statistics, AP English Literature & Composition, 3D Art
Standardized Testing
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported. ACT: 36 (36E, 36M, 35R, 35S) AP/IB: 5s on everything thus far Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): N/A
Extracurriculars/Activities
(keeping it vague bc dox)

1. Participated in numerous intl. Hackathons and learned skills ranging from design->pitching-> coding
2. NPO Co-Founder – impact in the six-figures, partnered with 3 state/national orgs, impacted thousands of people in 40+ different countries. Because of my work, asked to serve in Advisory Council for one of our National Organization Partners. Our org was also sponsored by 25+ different companies throughout.
3. Speech and Debate (no explanation needed) was President and Captain opened pilot middle school programs locally
4. Computational CogSci/Psych Research Internship - presented at national conferences attended by thousands of people + leading researchers + industry professionals
5. Youth Climate Advocacy/Lobbying- Met with State Representatives/Policy Staffers in State Assembly/Mayors. Held policy workshops for hundreds of underprivileged teenagers both in-person and virtually. Also partnered with other state-level and county-level climate orgs.
6. Online organization related to the intersection between CS, Psychology, and Public Health. Webiste had 100k+ views and high engagement. Built the website/blogged and interviewed 25+ medical professionals for this organization (MDs, O.B.s, PHDs, etc...)
7. Unique History-related EC (did it as a hobby and for personal enjoyment!) It was a good talking point for all of my interviews and for my essays.
8. Key Club - Held leadership and had a very strong impact and connection with local county officials/volunteering organizations.
9. Piano (self-explanatory)
10. Selective AI program, built a model to track student engagement during distance learning and presented to 500+ in seminar.

Awards/Honors 1st Place Intl. Hackathon/Product Design Reward (thousands of teams participating) + event was sponsored by a major company
(3 other) Other Intl. Hackathon/Social Good Project/Entrepreneur wins - selective/multiple rounds
I think for EAs I had put National Merit Commended but I switched out to a National Piano Certification/Honor (played at honors concert in local uni)
Letters of Recommendation
LOR 1 - AP Calc BC Teacher (9/10) - He only wrote letters for 5-10 students. I felt a genuine connection with him even before I thought about getting a recommendation letter from him. I ended up becoming his Geometry TA my senior year because of how much I loved him as a teacher.
LOR 2 - AP US History Teacher (8/10) - I've always loved history and would always participate in his class and engage with his lectures. I think I made a very great impression on him and I wanted to show universities that I was equally committed/open-minded to studying/pursuing the humanities.
LOR 3 - High School Counselor LOR (10/10) - My public high school counselor usually spends 15 minutes interviewing students for LORs. But I was very close to her my 4-years in high school and she helped me a lot with dual enrollment/concurrent enrollment so I got to know her very well. When she was interviewing me for my LOR we talked for an hour and she copied like 3 full pages of notes about everything I'm passionate about.
Interviews
Princeton (7/10) - Generic Interview. My interviewer was super nice and interested in my nonprofit as well as my passion for both STEM and the Humanities!
Harvard (4/10) - I don't know if it was just me but it felt a bit combative at times. Maybe he was just testing my critical thinking skills, but he would push back on numerous points I made, and I would have to rebut them. It was slightly frosty throughout, and the interviewer seemed very arrogant when I asked him about diversity at Harvard (specifically during the Q&A when I asked him what was something valuable he learned from someone from a diff background/perspective) . I talked at some point about how AI Algorithms could unintentionally censobe biased against minorities and he went on a rant about conservatives having it worse.
Yale (8/10) - Great Interview. I thoroughly enjoyed it and we both had a moment where we talked about Rory Gilmore lol. She majored in History/English and was very happy that I also agreed with her on the value of studying those subjects. She said our interview made her entire day and I truly had a wonderful experience.
Stanford (7/10) - Lasted around an hour. The interviewer was very friendly and asked me some really great questions that let me build a narrative for myself. He gave me his business card after-the-fact to contact him for opportunities.
Duke (10/10) - Recent graduate and absolutely loved him. He was around my age so it felt like talking to a friend. I was able to speak about personal struggles I've had with identity. He asked me many questions about my friends, fun things I liked to do, and it didn't even feel like an interview at all. (He did say after that his interview notes advocated very strongly bc he thought I was a good person)
Rice (7/10) - Interview was pretty generic but comforting. I learned a lot about Rice's residential colleges and learning environment. My interviewer's professional interests aligned a lot with mine.
UPenn (3/10) - He was a very busy SWE who only had like 10-15 minutes to talk. He basically apologized for rushing me through and said he'd recommend me and give me the highest rating, and to text him if I had more questions.
Northwestern - declined (it was a mistake)
Essays
Personal Statement (9/10) - I wrote about my love for an art-form and how embracing my creative side helped me walk through life with a sense of sureness/clarity.
EA Why Major Essay (8/10) - I thought I had a really niche approach to explaining my interest in CS. Community Essay (9/10) - I recycled at least 10-15 drafts but I loved it by the very end. I basically used some form of this for every single school
UC PIQs (8/10) - I think 2 of them were really strong (the one about creativity and favorite subject) and the other 2 (leadership/community) were more straightforward and generic.
Harvard Supps (7.5-8/10) - Spent 2-3 days writing them. Yale Supps (6.5-7/10) - Spent a day, also recycled parts from previous essays. Stanford Supps (7/10) - I copied and pasted from the rest of my Ivy Supps and for the short answers I came up with the most unique/authentic responses I could–did not overthink it. Princeton Supps (6-7/10) - Reused prior essays and part of my UC PIQ. Dartmouth (9/10) - I spent 1-2 weeks on it (couple hours a day). Loved the vibe and the interesting prompts. Rice (9.5/10) - Spent ~4 days - 1 week during end of 1st Semester working on it. I submitted very far ahead of the deadline so at the time I just slowly chipped away and finished the supplemental. Cornell (9.5/10) - Spent 2 weeks on it (truly was my dream) Duke/Northwestern/Brown/Columbia/Penn (7/10) - I wasn't able to spend too much time on these, but I reused community essays that I had spent like 1-2 months cultivating. I got very efficient at finding school-specific opportunities so I felt like they were decent. But it definitely became about prioritizing my time on schools. At that point, I had written the interest/why major thing multiple times and had a coherent narrative down, so it just became much quicker.
Results:
EA:
Penn State - Accepted Virginia Tech - Accepted Case Western - Accepted w/ 39k yearly $ Purdue - Accepted University of Maryland College Park - Accepted + Honors Program + Full Ride!!! UMich ->! Accepted + LSA Honors!< Georgia Tech - Accepted UIUC - Accepted UVA - Accepted + Echols Scholar! UT Austin - Accepted (2nd Major) Northeastern - Accepted + 5k Scholarship
RD:
University of Washington - Accepted (2nd Major) + Purple/Gold Scholarship UC Santa Cruz - Accepted + Regents + Scholarship UC Santa Barbara - Accepted UC Davis - Accepted UC Irvine - Accepted + Regents + Honors UC San Diego - Accepted UCLA - Accepted UC Berkeley - Accepted Northwestern - Rejected Rice - Accepted!!! Dartmouth - Rejected Brown - Rejected Cornell - Accepted!!! Penn - Rejected Columbia - Rejected Duke - Accepted!!! Princeton - Rejected Yale - Rejected Harvard - Rejected Stanford - Rejected
Final Thoughts:
I am so, so grateful for the amazing options I am now presented with. Technically, with my demographics, I truly had zero idea how the application process was going to turn out. BUT I genuinely had fun reflecting and writing my essays (one tip don't overthink it too much). I didn't get into my dream school, but I am not disappointed at all. As for my thoughts on shotgunning, I now have a mixed opinion. The Ivy I ended up getting into was the one I spent the most time on and was manifesting the most–maybe if I had tried harder on the others ones it might've turned out differently. In terms of Duke, I have no idea how I got in (feeling imposter syndrome lowk). Nonetheless, it goes to truly show how complex the admission process is and how each university is trying to craft a class. Theoretically, some of the schools I got rejected from are supposed to be "easier" than Duke. And some people on this forum have IMO much stronger applications than I did, but did not get the same results. I truly believe that each decision is independent and anything can happen to any one person. This is probably my last post but thank you for reading through it!

This is a storyline that I find very interesting but it's one that has only been explored through relatively unpopular books and supplements, however it's very important for the Iron Hands. I have seen many newcomers believe that the Iron Hands are the Mechanicus' personal chapter, or that they're utter assholes with no redeeming qualities. Now this is somewhat true, but the Iron Hands have been undergoing a lot of character development in M.41 which is slowly making them a more well rounded chapter. Unfortunately I've also seen this shift described as "Headcanon" so I want to lay it all out here.
So first some context: After the death of Ferrus Manus the Iron Hands shattered into numerous different groups. These groups began to be reunited by Shadrak Meduson who led a guerilla campaign against Horus using small warbands of Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard working together. While this was successful Meduson grew more and more obsessed with vengeance and hunting down a commander from the Sons of Horus. Believing that anger, a need for vengeance and emotions in general led to Ferrus' death the Iron Fathers (a fusion of Chaplains and Tech-marines that lead the Iron Hands) abandon Meduson to die:

The defection and subsequent death of the Horus Triumphant destroyed both the Morlock and the Enduring Tenth. In turn, their death throes crippled the Sturmdrang and the Strength of Iron.
Meduson’s advantage, like his composure, dwindled to smoke.
Sensing weakness, Marr’s fleet pressed their attack but the battle’s outcome still rested on a knife’s edge.
‘This is reckless.’ Aug’s words crackled through Meduson’s helm vox as he made haste to the launch bays.
‘It’s vengeance,’ he snarled. ‘For Lumak and Nuros, and every one of our sworn brothers who died on that ship. Marr dies. I won’t run from him anymore.’ He passed through the spinal corridor, a train of Iron Hands in tow.
‘To stand and fight now sees us in a losing position.’
‘Does logic tell you that, Aug?’
‘Must I answer that?’
The doors parted with a soft hiss. Light and sound briefly flooded the corridor before the doors sealed shut again behind Meduson and his warriors.
‘Asked and answered, I’d say. I defy your logic – it has brought us nothing but pain.’
‘It is the Iron Creed,’ said Aug. ‘It is the reason we still survive and shall go on to survive after this. I implore you, Shadrak, turn back. Retreat and salve our wounds. Honour Lumak and the others.’
Mechosa went on ahead, hailing the enginseers and ensuring every boarding torpedo was ready for imminent launch.
‘There is no honour in retreat, Jebez. Bring the Iron Heart within minimum range of our boarding craft. As soon as our forces have breached the Lupercal Pursuivant, engage the rest of Marr’s fleet hard. Borgus and Jakkus are poised to commit every asset they have to this. Make sure their launches are simultaneous with ours. I will need the aid of their warriors once aboard. After I cut the head from this snake, the renegades’ stomach for a fight will diminish.’
‘You will not be dissuaded?’
‘I will not.’

...

A ferocious barrage of weapons fire had them pinned behind their boarding shields, an ever-diminishing ring of iron.
‘Aug,’ Meduson bellowed down the vox. ‘Send reinforcements. Every reserve we’ve got. Concentrate on this position. And where are Jakkus and Borgus’ squads, damn it?’
Aug gave no response.
Meduson tried again, but still got the same result. Static. Dead air.
He exchanged a grim look with Mechosa, their eyes just visible behind the glow of retinal lenses.
‘We are on our own,’ said Meduson.

...

The other officers fell into line quickly, or were placed under guard. Aug would convince them of the necessity for extreme measures later. He would convince them it was done for the right reasons, for logical reasons. The Legion must survive.
If only Meduson had realised that and what it meant, instead of pursuing his vengeful and ultimately self-destructive vendetta against Tybalt Marr.
‘It is done?’ asked Rawt, speaking for the newly arrayed Iron Council.
Aug nodded. ‘We shall endure, Iron Fathers. It is the will of the Gorgon.’

• Old Earth

After Meduson's death the Iron hands returned to Medusa where they saught to determine a new course of action to take them into the future

While many Imperial factions bayed for blood and rushed to vent their fury upon those who had betrayed them, the Iron Hands gathered their strength on Medusa and convened the entire Iron Council in a conclave that would be known forever after as the Tempering. It went without saying that vengeance would be their first and greatest motivator, for their Legion had suffered more than any other during the bloodbath of the Heresy. Yet anger could not be allowed to rule, for by following such a path the mistakes of the Primarch would be repeated. Instead, the Iron Hands would have to calculate the most logical, measured course of action and follow it without remorse or division.
The debate ran long, days turning to weeks as all possible theories, doctrines and philosophies were discussed and dissected to an obsessive degree. Occasional outbursts of frustration or angry recriminations punctuated the discussion, each being met with universal disapproval and swift repression. The Primarch had bound the Iron Hands’ wellspring of wrath in chains of discipline and expectation, and though his own emotions might have slipped their leash at the end, the Iron Hands could little afford to allow the same thing to happen to them. Eventually, as the 86th Medusan day-cycle came to a close, the rulings of the Iron Council were announced and put into immediate effect. The Iron Fathers of the council had determined that it was the human race itself that was to blame for the Heresy. The Warmaster’s rebellion had gained such traction only because the Space Marine Legions, the Primarchs, even the Emperor himself, were unable to eliminate human inconsistency from their decisions. Jealousy, avarice, fear – all were suppurating sores upon the human soul that must be seared clean in the fires of war. Trust, too, had played its part, for it was the Primarchs’ trust in one another that had left the Imperium open to the abuses it had suffered. Those guilty of such weakness, the traitors and renegades who had fallen into rebellion, could not be allowed to spread their corruption to others. Humanity must be purged of its flaws in a war unending, lest that same weakness be allowed to take root once more.

However during The Tempering the Mechanicus approached the Iron Hands who were now without a leader and still arguing on the way forward. The Martians offered the Iron Hands secret insights and technology in return for a permanent seat on their council and a say in how they were ran:

Unbeknownst to the wider Imperium, the Tempering also played host to several Adeptus Mechanicus envoys – with their Primarch lost, the Iron Fathers sought new strength to add to their own. The Priesthood of Mars and their Titan Legions had long fought beside the Iron Hands during the days of the Great Crusade and the Heresy alike, forging ever stronger bonds as they did so. In the devotees of the Omnissiah, the Iron Hands saw a mirror of their own doctrine of steel over flesh, a reliable ally who would not fall prey to hubris and pride as had the preening braggarts of the Emperor’s Children. The Iron Council thus deemed it logical to offer the Adeptus Mechanicus closer military ties than ever before. In exchange for the Iron Hands’ alliance and protection, the Martian Priesthood would grant them unprecedented access to the sacred mysteries of the Omnissiah, augmenting their Techmarines’ knowledge far beyond that possessed by their counterparts in the other Legions of the Adeptus Astartes. By the Tempering’s end, the Voice of Mars would be ratified as an official position upon the Iron Council itself, and would be occupied evermore by a triad of senior Tech-Adepts.

• Codex Supplement: Clan Raukaan

While this may seem relatively minor the book Eye of Medusa shows how the Martians came to effectively control the Iron Hands: with the Iron Hands always needed somewhere it was very rare for the Iron Council to actually meet at full strength and with the Chapter riven by factionalism (as we'll get to) the Mechanicus controlled the deciding votes on the council by determining how absent Iron Fathers would have voted:

By an anachronistic mechanism of signalling assent, those in favour raised their hands. Raan and Ares both had theirs up. Stronos counted, his hearts calm, already planning how the loosening of their restrictions would bring the war on Thennos to a swift close. Stronos could see that Verrox and Ares had the backing of the majority, just as the Clan Vurgaan Iron Father had claimed he would. Twenty hands out of the twenty-seven were showing.
‘Those against?’ said the magos, out of ritual completeness.
Eight hands went up, including that of Iron Father Kristos. Stronos was irritated to see that Raan’s other hand had risen, and recalled that the captain was here as proxy to both Iron Fathers Breeka and Siilvus.
‘The Voice of Mars places its vote against, and in accordance with tradition will speak for those who cannot be present.’
The two magi shared a twittering conference. Chiralias Tarl appeared to gesture to the vacant thrones. Talos Epsili nodded and struck his staff upon the metal ground. ‘The votes against have it, twenty-two to twenty. Clan Vurgaan’s request for an alteration to the battle calculus is denied.’
Stronos stared at the podium in shock.
Every one of the absentee votes placed against? How could that be?

[At the end of the book the Voice of Mars Nicco Palpus shows his hand]

‘The vote on Kardan Stronos’ submission to join the Iron Council is scheduled for the next lunar transit. Arrange it to be held tomorrow. He and Yolanis can share a transport. That would be efficient.’
The adept dipped his head, a habit born of repetition, but looked troubled. ‘Will the Iron Fathers not need to be present?’
Palpus’ mask shifted to become one of reassurance, his smile quite genuine though not, he could objectively state, his best. It would be useful to be rid of the would-be Iron Father for a decade or two.
‘Do not concern yourself with that, Danneil. I believe I know how they would intend to vote.’

• Eye of Medusa

While the Iron Council rules the Chapter collectively they do appoint a War Leader who is in de-facto command of the Chapter. In M.41 this eventually led to a massive scandal as Iron Father Kristos was nearly elected, and led the Iron hands to the brink of destruction.
Kristos was an Iron Father seen as bereft of any emotion and brutally committed to logic who had been placed in charge of Clan Raukaan and committed to changing the eclan mentally:

Iron Father Kristos was charged with running a full program of ‘analytical redemption’, working from Raukaan’s command structure downward. Kristos, a Techmarine of some one hundred and eighty years and a long-standing Iron Father, embodied the inhumanity that so many of his Chapter had now embraced. A looming warrior-engineer whose armour concealed a body more than eighty percent augmetic, Kristos had made numerous pilgrimages to the forges of Mars during his life. He was a creature of the Omnissiah’s doctrines through and through, seemingly bereft of emotion, compassion or empathy. On his recommendation, the fallen Iron Captain Maklon was replaced by the relentlessly logical Iron Captain Graevaar, who immediately instigated a regime of additional psycho-conditioning throughout Clan Raukaan. Squad by squad, the clan company’s battle-brothers marched to the conditioning decks, there to submit to long, painful months of cerebral recohesion – this was intended to smother any lingering traces of emotional attachment to the company’s previous Iron Fathers and their questionable methods

But Kristos became mired in controversy after abandoning the Imperial Guard when he found some cool technology to take back to Medusa instead, and straight up slaughtering the Raven Guard:

However, outraged calls for assistance from the Catachan soldiery continued to fall on deaf ears as the Iron Fathers went about their business. For long days, patrols of Iron Hands swept the broken wasteland that surrounded the dig site, armoured columns that travelled in force and crushed any foe they encountered. Though the Eldar made several more attempts to dislodge the Space Marines, these attacks lacked for numbers and conviction. They were swiftly crushed. Meanwhile, under the icy glare of massive lumen-fonts, heavy duty Servitors worked tirelessly. They expanded upon the excavations started by the civilian dig-teams, widening the shafts and ponderously dragging their prize to the surface, one segment at a time. Thunderhawk Transporters ferried shrouded cargoes into space, working day and night to complete their work. In all this time, however, the Iron Hands never strayed from the dig site. The Catachans’ calls for aid went unanswered. Civilian vox-hails were ignored. The Iron Fathers who led the expedition had no interest in aiding their supposed allies, and wasted neither time or resource intervening in their plight.
As the Catachans began to realise these Space Marines were not quite the reinforcements they had hoped for, morale in the ranks plunged. The Eldar were still performing hit and run raids across the planet, instigating savage battles that now had the character of revenge attacks. Suddenly, one morning, the Iron Hands were simply gone. General Dortmund raged over the vox-link as recovery craft descended to ferry the mighty Iron Hands force back to orbit and the Space Marine fleet made ready to depart. Even when a fleet suspected to be made up of Eldar ships appeared on outsystem augurs – coming to rescue their remaining comrades and avenge their leader’s death – the Iron Hands proceeded regardless and the Catachan shouts turned to desperate pleas for rescue. As the Iron Hands ships burned retros and set a course for home, Dortmund received a single vox-response from Iron Captain Graevaar.
‘If you are strong you will survive. If you are weak you will not. Fight hard, General, and prove your worth.’

[Later Kristos went to fight against an Ork Waagh which was being harassed by the Raven Guard]

As the warriors of Clan Raukaan began moving to their posts within the labyrinthine factorysprawl of Urdri, Shadow Captain Stenn of the Raven Guard approached them. Accompanied by his command squad, Stenn extended the Iron Hands’ commanders a greeting and offer of brotherhood. He explained that his force had been effecting a fighting retreat before the oncoming Orks to slow their advance, giving the defenders of Columnus time to prepare. Now Stenn’s men were ready to fight in earnest, and he possessed important information regarding the peculiar strengths of the foe. In response, Kristos’ silence stretched long, growing ever more uncomfortable as his augmetics hissed and whirred. Finally the Techmarine replied.
‘The Raven Guard cannot be relied upon,’ he announced in buzzing tones. ‘You fight like smoke, drifting away in the slightest breeze. Additional: Orks are no new foe to the Iron Hands, you know nothing that our battle simulations have not already told us. We will not fight alongside you, Shadow Captain Stenn, for it is in all we do as Iron Hands to avoid the fate suffered by our Primarch.’ The Iron Father and his men swept past the bristling Raven Guard, the crash of their boots receding as they made for their command-post.

...

Superior systems meant the Iron Fathers had retained contact with one another where the other defenders had not, and they swiftly confirmed that all three primary fortress factories were within hours of being besieged. Already there were isolated warbands of greenskins loose within Kemlos, and millions more were on their way. It was agreed that, with so many of the lesser defenders removed from the equation, even the might of the Iron Hands and Titans present on Columnus could not hope to face the greenskins out in the open. While Iron Father Kristos reported that the Raven Guard had departed Urdri in order to harry the advancing Orks and gather survivors, the Iron Hands saw no valid reason to do the same. Thus it was decided – the three great fortress factories would be islands against which the Orks would break. All Iron Hands would remain within the bounds of the cities, and exterminate the Ork forces as they advanced into engagement range. All Imperial assets beyond the walls would be considered lost and no effort wasted in attempting to rescue those too weak to save themselves. Only when the greenskins had exhausted their strength by hurling wave after wave against the defences would the Iron Hands sally forth and crush what remained of the greenskin threat. It was a logical, pragmatic course of action and the Iron Fathers dispersed to prepare their forces.
Iron Hands battle-brothers marched to take positions on the fortress factories’ walls, or mustered around pre-plotted kill-zones ready to repulse those xenos who broke through. Squadron upon squadron of black armoured battle tanks rumbled into position at key intersections, their crews communing directly with their machine spirits and ready for battle. Deep within the towering bastions at each city’s heart, Chapter servitors lumbered across launch decks and skyshield pads, loading fuel and ordnance into waiting Stormtalon and Stormraven Gunships. Devastators and Centurions of Clans Raukaan and Vurgaan took up positions, synched their minds with their targeting augmetics, and readied their weapons for the arrival of the innumerable horde

...

In both cases, the Orks were close on the defenders’ heels, threatening to overrun them at any moment, yet the Iron Hands had set their plans and combat protocols and they would not deviate. The desperate Imperial forces glanced up at the fortress walls as they pushed towards them, to see only an implacable line of silent black armour topping each.

[The Raven Guard are finally pushed back into the fortress and killed]

As the last Raven Guard fell, Kristos sent a single blip of confirmation through his squads’ vox-network. Seconds later, the entire breach was awash with flame. Land Raider Redeemers played their firestorm cannons back and forth, bathing the bellowing Orks in white hot fire while bolters thundered and plasma guns howled. Warpboss Zagdakka and his entire retinue were annihilated in a single, perfectly coordinated firestorm.

• Codex Supplement: Clan Raukaan

In Eye of Medusa however we actually see them fire upon the Raven Guard:

Stenn gave a grunt of pain as psychic fingers tightened around him and squeezed. ‘Damn you >> RESTRICTED DATA >> Just kill me yourself.’ His armour cracked like a sea-crustacean’s shell, blood spurting from ruptured seals as his body was crushed. He screamed, genhanced anatomy fighting a battle with pain that had been stacked well against it from the outset. ‘Emperor forgive you!’
With every scrap of conscious thought locked away in hardened centres of his brain structure he cursed the Iron Hands. He cursed the casual brutality, the bare calculation of risk versus reward. His last thoughts before those final redoubts succumbed to braindeath were not of the pain, nor of his brother Raven Guard that fell to the mind-blasts of the warpboss’ retinue, nor even of the Iron Hands themselves as they finally descended on the fray. With the enemy leaders bottled up with the last of the Raven Guard, the Iron Hands opened fire. Tactical Marines, Centurions, Land Raiders, each warrior a cog in a war machine that sprayed fire to a perfectly choreographed maelstrom that consumed Warpboss Zagdakka, his retinue, the Raven Guard, and Stenn himself.

While the Iron Hands records show the battle they censor any reference to Kristos and their records are being rewritten to cover up his involvement. The Dreadnaught Ares who was alive during the Heresy comments upon the Martians after showing a Sargeant called Stronos these events via simulation

Perhaps the priesthood of Mars welcome such a trajectory towards the hardness of the machine, but we are crafted in the Father’s likeness. We are gifted with the Emperor’s flesh, and with it comes a burden of responsibility that the machine cannot embrace. Stronos sees. Simulus breeds reliance. It embeds the tried and the tested over the innovative. It becomes a blinker. He sees how our brothers freeze in the face of the unprecedented.’
Not for the first time, Ares’ misuse of the present tense for events centuries past left Stronos momentarily confused. ‘You do not trust the Mechanicus. Why?’
‘We do not distrust, but Mars has its interests as we have ours. To think that they align in all things is irrational, and yet we do so anyway.’

After the battle Kristos was considered the logical choice for next leader of the Iron Hands but many within the Chapter despised what he'd done and a conclave was called:

While the destruction of the Ork threat as a whole might have justified the sacrifice of the Raven Guard force – who, after all, were amongst the Imperium’s finest – their deaths were too high a price for simply blunting the momentum of the Ork offensive. Second was the interference with the Raven Guard vox-links, which was confirmed to have originated from an augmetic signal-shroud upon Iron Father Kristos’ person. Kristos’ supporters, including the respected Iron Captain Graevaar, pointed out that the loss of signal had ensured relations with remaining Raven Guard forces on Columnus were not stretched past breaking point.
Yet Kristos’ detractors on the Council suggested a premeditated intent to ensure the demise of Stenn and his warriors, stemming from an emotional weakness rather than the merciless strength of logic. Finally, there was the most damning evidence of all – Iron Father Kristos had deliberately and wilfully refused inload of information from Shadow Captain Stenn, despite the possibility that this intelligence would have favourably impacted the performance of the Iron Hands. In the face of these allegations, Iron Father Kristos remained unrepentant. He soon drew the support of other Iron Fathers who believed his impeccable record and unquestioning adherence to the doctrines of the Tempering still made Kristos the logical choice for the Chapter’s overall war leader. Yet there was sufficient dissent that it seemed only a conclave of the entire Iron Council could resolve the wider issues raised

...

Though a fair and logical process, it was not a swift one; the years turned to decades as the Kristosian Conclave ground on. What began as an investigation into Kristos’ conduct on Columnus soon escalated into the greatest discussion of Chapter philosophy and doctrine since the Tempering. Were certain Iron Fathers more emotionally compromised than they liked to think, and were overt displays of strength and logic being used to veil this weakness? Should all matters be examined from all viewpoints, as seemed only logical? Alternatively, was allowing points of view contradictory to those laid down since time immemorial a flight into whimsy that would compromise the Chapter’s strength? Even the true purity of continued technological augmentation was called into question, a matter that quickly became known as the question of the soul. Iron Father Kristos refused to change his stance as the years wound on for, as he claimed, he approached all matters from a position of pure and perfect logic. His supporters – the so-called Kristosians – gained leverage as the debate continued

In Eye of Medusa we see some of this conflict and an old man falling over:

Debates blazed over the noosphere, at times simultaneously, conducted in a hyper-dense data-cant that even once removed from the network boggled Stronos’ processors. Periodically, every few minutes or so dependent on the complexity of the matter in hand, one of the Iron Fathers would stir from his stupor and make a verbal pronouncement in such an archaic form of old Medusan that Stronos could decipher one word in six. It was enough to tax even the formidable boredom threshold of an Iron Hand. The cycle of debate and declaration ran without remission for several hours, during which time Stronos slowly began to recognise the divisions between, for want of a better nomenclature, the Kristosian and Verroxian factions. He could not elaborate the content of the debates, but the vehemence of the metadata and the directionality of its movement were impossible to miss.
Verrox’s face was drawn, as though he had performed the equivalent of ten days at peak performance over the last ten hours. He began to deliver a diatribe in the terse, consonant-rich expletive of ancient Medusan. Something about the battle calculus, the undying spirit – the word for ‘escalation’ cropped up numerous times. With a flutter of what might, earlier in proceedings, have been recognised as excitement, Stronos leaned forward to listen. This, at last, was what he was here for.
Kristos responded to Verrox’s oratory with a mocking blurt of cant. Verrox then made to rise out of his throne, only to find himself in an inglorious struggle with the hardline tethers and connective cabling that bonded him to his seat, a few of the Iron Fathers that Stronos had already marked as Kristosians laughing at the intemperate display. Kristos himself gave in to no such reaction. He held his throne with an aura of machine aloofness that damned with far greater potency than mere words ever could.

• Eye of Medusa

A lot of this debate surrounded the nature of strength and logic, with the anti-Kristos faction wanting to embrace being more human, individuality and adaptability, while Kristos wanted to embrace following pure logic no matter what.
With the Iron Hands split the Mechanicus was able to take control of their activities, but when the Martians told the Iron Hands of a Slaaneshi incursion Kristos took 800 Marines to go solve the issue, however he also ended up damning himself with his obsession with strength and machine logic.

As the auto-divination shrines chattered out reams of parchment, the Iron Fathers puzzled over the readings from the planet below. Gaudinia Prime was a factory world, its entire landmass given over to the processing of raw materials and the manufacture of weapons for use by the Imperial Guard. It was registered as possessing a labour population of approximately 362 billion souls, spread out across the huge planet’s surface. Now, however, the world’s biomass appeared both to exceed that sum and, impossibly, to be less than zero, the figure fluctuating madly even as the scans came in. Stranger still, from the oceanic algae farms of the coasts to the mountaintop spaceports and their cargo-thrall townships, there was no sign of any life whatsoever, and no trace of the Emperor’s Children. Instead, all signs of life now appeared to be concentrated in one small map-segment of the primary manufactorum, a nation-sized industrial sprawl in the planet’s southern hemisphere. Iron Fathers Stronos and Verrox counselled caution – the twisted machinations of Chaos were impossible to predict, and logic dictated that they gather further data before launching their attack. Iron Father Kristos was inflexible as ever, driven by his determination to destroy any surviving Emperor’s Children forces before they could escape. Hesitation was for the weak, he announced, before ordering a drop assault in full force upon the primary manufactorum.

The Iron hands would discover horrific flesh engines created by the fusion of the civilian population and machinery done by Slaaneshi daemons:

Billions of Imperial citizens had been crammed into this ten-mile space, their flesh and bones melded with the steel, circuits and pipes of the machines. Pistons rose and fell with manic speed, driven by great tangles of bulging human limbs. Melted masses of flesh formed twisted gantries where faces writhed and moaned. Human torsos, skin seared and impossibly bloated, jutted from boiler-stacks. They shrieked endlessly as steaming blood vented from their eyes. Here, cogs of bone and raw, bloodied nerves rotated at breakneck speed. There, daemonic weapons were thrust along fleshy conveyor belts by the peristaltic motion of a billion disembodied tongues. Worst of all was the din, a discordant industrial thunder of jarring voices that tore at the air until the Iron Hands were forced to dampen their audioreceptors.

...

The insult was obvious, for here was steel and flesh combined to create something greater than either

this corrupted Kristos:

Suddenly Kristos stumbled to a stop, his whirring limbs stuttering as he missed a step. Graevaar cocked his head quizzically, flexing his powerfist and scanning the machines around him. There was frantic movement everywhere but nothing to indicate the reason for the Iron Father’s sudden hesitation. Kristos gazed around in a daze, sweeping his augmetic eyes across the flesh machines and muttering. ‘Can you not see it, Graevaar? Do you not hear its song? The perfect utility... the efficiency... the strength...’ Suddenly, before anyone could react, Iron Father Kristos plunged a nest of his mechadendrites into the fleshwet receptors of the machines around him. Graevaar’s living eye widened and Squad Neim raised their weapons in shock as Kristos convulsed, jaws stretching wide to emit a strangled whine of scrapcode

the Kristonians were overcome by this need for perfection:

Everywhere, Kristosian Iron Fathers were being overcome by the twisted perfection of the flesh engines – the harder they attempted to repress their urges with logic, the faster they succumbed. The effect was already spreading to the most heavily augmetic members of Clan Raukaan. Dozens of battle-brothers lunged helplessly for the hellish machines, many gunned down by their horrified brethren as their weakness revealed itself. The rest jammed augmetics into the fleshy flanks of the machines, cramming foetid tubes into their eyes and mouths as they surrendered to the scrap-code’s siren song. Even as the machine-spawn bloated and twisted, turning upon their revolted squad-mates, reality began to shudder and buckle.

The Iron Hands were being attacked by a Daemon born from their own repression and the death of Ferrus:

It was at the precise moment that Ferrus Manus’ head was scythed from his shoulders by the traitor Fulgrim that the Sapphire King came into being. Spawned from the psychic bow wave of Manus’ death, this Daemon was forged from the Primarch’s frustrated pride, his boiling anger and sorrow, and from his shame.
From the moment of its birth, the Sapphire King fed on the repressed emotions of the soul-scarred Iron Hands. It basked in their chained desperation, bound to their fate by the emotions they felt but would not express. The Daemon bedevilled them across the centuries, offering opportunities for damnation disguised as steps away from the weakness they so feared. It nudged the minds of Imperial officials and potential foes, forever seeking to goad the Iron Hands into spending away their humanity like coin. The Chapter bent their every effort to purging the weaknesses of the flesh, never realising that the more they demonised their wants and needs, the greater the hold the spectre of their repressed emotions gained upon them.
As the Kristosian Conclave reached its zenith, the Sapphire King judged the Iron Hands ripe to fall and set its trap in motion. Each Iron Hand carried within his heart a rancid seed, a bomb of repressed passions that could erupt to destroy him at any moment. The Daemon would simply provide the spark to light the flame and watch the Chapter burn upon a pyre of their own emotions.

The Daemon was defeated however when the IH embraced their emotions:

‘Release your anger brothers, let it out before the foe destroys you with it!’ Slowly at first, then faster in a spreading wave, the battle-brothers began to disengage their inhibitor protocols and loose furious battle cries. Emotional floodgates burst open and the Sapphire King shrieked its rage as the repressed energies that had fuelled its spell were vented like steam from a boiler.

Due to this victory Stronos came to the forefront and ushered in a new direction for the Iron hands:

Nearly a third of the Iron Council had fallen into the Daemon’s trap and been lost to corruption, along with many of their battle-brothers. Should this revelation ever reach the Inquisition, it would be disastrous. The Iron Hands found themselves forced to question the very principles upon which they based their existence. The Kristosians had held absolutely to the tenets of the Tempering, their literal interpretation but an expression of the direction in which the Chapter had been moving for thousands of years. Iron over flesh; logic over emotion; the merciless, relentless purge of those weaknesses that threatened ruin. Yet what if this very obsession with emotional excision and the perfection of the machine was a weakness in its own right?
Much reduced, reeling in the wake of the revelations they had been forced to confront, the Iron Council threatened to disintegrate. In an emergency session of the council, panic bubbled beneath the surface as dozens of theories, arguments and proposals were aired and dismissed. How could the Chapter continue, voices asked, if everything they did, everything they stood for, was tainted by the very weakness they had striven against for so long?
It was in this moment that Kardan Stronos came to the fore. Rising from his throne, Stronos unplugged himself and addressed his brothers with his unalloyed, natural voice. The Chapter had been given a gift, he announced. Though their foes tried to lay them low and corrupt their purpose, the Iron Hands had instead seen the potential for darkness within themselves, and had overcome it.
‘Our Chapter was driven to the very lip of the precipice. We were forced to stare over its edge into the stygian depths, into the darkness that awaits us should ever we fall. Yet fall we did not! What saved us from this terrible plunge, brothers? What has proved our redemption? Not logic. Not the desperate, dogmatic purge of all things perceived as weak. It was our souls that saved us, and the strength we hold within ourselves. Our courage. Our choler. It was the qualities which make us more than just unthinking steel that pulled us back from the brink.’
It was at the booming culmination of this speech that he delivered his immortal words, a quote that would be enshrined upon Ironglass plaques across Medusa and beyond from that day forth. ‘With steel we are stronger, but without a soul we are nothing.’
This would be the first day in ten thousand years that the Eye of Medusa had rung to the sound of applause. Despite disquiet from the few remaining Kristosians and the Voice of Mars, Kardan Stronos was elected war leader that same day, and has been reelected at every opportunity since.

The Mechanicus however have begun withdrawing support from their former puppets:

should support be offered by the Voice of Mars – thus far noticeably silent in the conclave – then a mighty weapon indeed would be forged

• Codex Supplement: Clan Raukaan

This started from a chain of thoughts set off by u/chrisza4 ‘s excellent writeups on the centers.
(If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s here, do recommend: A B C D – rest of their content is also insightful & original.)
In there they do a great job of explaining what is the basic thing that each center does to kinda teach you to tell which is which & get more use from all of them.
But this kinda got me thinking further about how the distinctions between the indivdual types comes to bear, eg. if you have the basic heart type functions, what does, say, being a 3 specifically „do“ to it...
The esoterics crowd would probably use the word ‚distortion‘ which communicates a right image intuition wise but also I’m reluctant to take because it sounds too much like a value judgement like it always makes you ‚see worse‘ when really it’s more that it, like the attention patterns in general, makes you look at different things, some of which can be useful – but it does probably represent some occasional interference of the attention pattern with the basic function of the center doing its thing that in excess can get in the way & thus is something to be mindful about.
I think ‚lens‘ or ‚filter‘ might be a good word. To a lesser extent your tritype fixes would probably have a similar effect on your less-used centers on those occasions when you do dust them off, at least sometimes.
Which probably sounds vague rn but may be clearer once we go through the first example.
The Heart Types
So the basic form of what the heart does is to create what is a sense of relating & being seen/validated with regards to others and, when directed at things, a kind of emotional resonance. Consider Chrisza’s pretty apt example of the little girl who sees a Pretty Princess in a movie, identifies with it, starts to dress like one, going through her day acting in a princess-like way, and looking to be recognized for it by getting others to play along. This is to do with relating, because if others respond to it one feels seen & affirmed, but it’s also to do with identity because for this particular little girl it was princesses whereas for another it might be soccer, planets or fairies. If you don’t know what furniture, candy or clothes to buy, you’ll pick the one that most resembles your particular aesthetic (perhaps supplemented by more sophisticated stuff as you grow) and it’s going to make your inner child happy.
So far that’s the same for everyone. Most ppl had that one childhood obsession. However, as ppl grow, not everything is sunshine & rainbows and there will be situations where we don’t get affirmed or responded to as we want or don’t manage to live up to those aspiration. You might realize that if you suck at PE you probably can’t be an astronaut, or your parent is too busy to respond much to your stick figure drawing, or, someone tells you that princesses are silly & you should be something useful like a Doctor instead.
To those who are predisposed to give more importance/attention to a different information channel (or thats just the way they end up going/developing, when there wasn’t a strong predisposition) this might be the point where the heart ends up on the backburner. Maybe the kid, which eventually ends up a head type, is persuaded by the argument that princesses are silly & looks for some non-silly interests. Or, the kid ends up a gut type & doesn’t want the person to be able to hold their silly princess dreams over them as a means to push them around, so they forget about princesses or at least don’t go mentioning it alot.
But the buck has to stop somewhere, so how do you escape from the ouchy ouches of life without shifting to a different center? In the ideal case you might take a deep breath & mindfully let the pain pass through you or something but in most cases, if you value the ‚heart level‘ alot and you suffer the pain of not being seen, validated or connected with, defending against the pain will require some distortion of your original sense of resonating with something to make the pain go away.
Maybe you really, really, really resonated with Nu Metal but then it went out of fashion and now your friends think it’s cringe. Or you thought of being a great soccer player but you’re not managing to shoot any goals. Or you related your problem to your friend, but they don’t really see your side of it at all. Ouch, your poor little heart. How will you protect yourself?
In this case it lines up pretty well with the ‚default‘ defense mechanism. To illustrate, let’s go with the music went ouf of fashion example.
3 - Your old music is out of fashion, but there’s new music now that is considered cool by your friends. You pick the one that sparks the most joy out of the ‚cool‘ musics. You are now a fan of one of the popular ones & identify with it. Not that there’s still quite a bunch of genuine heart function going on here, it’s not mindlessly ‚liking whatever‘s popular’ but the intersection of popular & stuff you like. Most of ppl like more than 1 thing so it’s not per se a lie to emphasize whichever one is most useful in this situation. (eg. tell an extroverted person you exercise & party a bunch and an introvert that you love to play video games - you, in fact, do both, but you’re highlighting the one that will help your goal of, say, getting in that person’s pants or networking with them.)
Still, this can distort your OG joy-sparking feelings because you end up not showing or letting go off things that you like but aren’t ‚useful‘. Also, sometimes none of the ‚cool‘ options might make you as happy as the ‚uncool’ one. Or if we are thinking not about music tastes but general life situations & feelings, you can‘t help being tired sometimes or having limits. Generally 3s aim for (& are happiest when) ‚stuff I resonate with‘ and ‚stuff that is useful‘ overlap as much as possible, but it creates a or constant compromise or tug-of-war of ‚how much do I genuinely resonate with it‘ vs. ‚how useful is it‘, a ‚stretch‘ between your real time responses and the ‚best fit box‘ you’ve identified with.
4 – the difference between the 3‘s indentification & the internalization and/or individuation of 4, then is that the latter are a bunch more permanent. No one likes nu metal anymore? Well, maybe you do. The others were probably just posers while you really got it. Things that are resonated with get permanently integrated into the self-concept & connected to all its other bits, & if others respond negatively, one differentiates themselbes from them (& builds that difference into the self-concept, too.) - once someone makes it past peak malleable stages of early childhood & puberty, this naturally leads to a certain ‚pickyness‘ cause you can’t just go building just anything into your self-concept nilly-willy. Some things contradict, for starters. Unlike the 3 example where nerd & jock can coexist depending on who’s asking, if you pick one
This introduces a certain kind of rigidity as its characteristic distortion of the basic heart function. If you decide you’re all about metal not pop & it’s part of your self-concept to be nothing like those pop fans, but one day you hear a pop song that sparks joy in you… no you didn’t. You’re not like those fake wannabe metal fans, right?
It’s not like 4 can’t ever change its mind, but if it does it has to reconsideremodel its self-concept & forever cringe at how their younger self once liked something they now abhorr. Which might explain the tendency to carry failures a long time. You don’t go from ‚tried A‘ to ‚tried B‘ but from ‚tried A‘ to ‚flopped at A‘.
2 – If attachment brings a stretch/tension of compromise & frustration brings a rigidity or ‚forcedness‘, then rejection is a thick wall coming down all at once, but 2‘s wall is not so obvious cause it’s pointed inward. In Palmer’s book she describes some 2s trying to meditate & actually describing experiencing an ‚inner flatness‘ or some amorphous dark pit in their interiour – in less flowery language that just means looking inside for those wants & needs & self-interest & messy internal soul guts etc and… wait? Where are they? Are they even there? They must be, since feelings & stuff are coming out.
Here’s where they went: if we consider the example where their friends told them their music taste is cringe, or maybe the parents said something like ‚Good girls/boys don‘t do X’, that likely felt humiliating & like a painful rejection, one that you wouldn’t have to feel if you didn’t have that genuine heartfelt resonance of liking that music or having the ‚bad/selfish‘ desire. So up goes the wall. ‚repression‘ in the psychobabble sense =/= the colloquial sense, as applies to 2 is means ‚pushing desires from awareness while those may still be acted out‘. So it’s this loss of ‚visibility’ of at least part of one‘s inner self, desires, preferences etc. that may get rejected/ be a ‚weakness‘ or ‚liability‘. Or, if it’s not as extreme it may be visible but there’s inhibition with acting it out.
So you’re left with only the part of your authentic heart-resonance that you think won’t get rejected: What is positive, likeable, pleasant etc. Since different people like different things, this can mean different censoring for different audiences, but notice how unlike with 3, the external reference point or third party is absent: The 3 fixates on the ‚cool‘ music genres and being a person who listens to cool music; The 2 goes, ‚wow, me too!‘ when the friends say what they like without a ‚middleman‘. (which might be varying levels of true, they might be genuinely taking an interest in / resonate with what you like – here, too, there is still some genuine resoance in there, but maybe they’re laying it on a tad too thick to get liked)
So 2 isn’t influenced/swayed by the extraneous factor of ‚what is cool‘, it’s more a veto than a stretching/bending but in other ways chopping off everything ppl won’t like can be seen as an even more drastic restriction that makes it hard to have an independent will & propulsion & identity outside of your relationships. The 3 sees themselves as ‚a person who likes cool music‘ independent from the friends that find it cool or not.
Hence why 3s usually say ‚I am X‘ but 2s more often say stuff like, ‚my friends tell me im X‘.
...
The result of this is that in addition to the basic heart concern of ‚what truly resonates with me & the kind of person I wanna be‘, each one winds up with an additional concern that can distort or even eclipse the genuine heartfelt resonance.
Say you’re picking an outfit, or a job, or an ice cream flavor or any of the million things you’ve got to pick in life. You are not just thinking ‚does it spark joy‘, but depending on your heart fix you’re also asking, ‚will ppl like it‘ (2), ‚is it distinctive‘ (4) or ‚is it right for the situation‘(3)
The Head Types
So, on it’s basic level the head is supposed to understand/analyze what is happening and predict the future. You notice some uncertainty or ambiguity, you give it a think, and come up with a possible explanation or solution.
There was this one meditation youtuber who said something very relevant to this, which is that‚noticing‘ and ‚thinking‘ can’t be done at the same time. Meaning if you’re actively processing, you’re not open for new processes to start or fully taking in what you’re seeing. There’s this thing called the ‚Einstellungseffekt‘ (attitude effect) that describes how ppl can overlook new approaches to solve a problem when they are already looking at it through a fixed framework – this is why discoveries in math or physics often come from randos in their 20s who are seeing the problem for the first time & still forming their understanding of it, more experienced ppl often keep using all the same tools & approaches that have already not worked. One vetran CS professor I knew said he counteracted it (as much as humanly possible) by trying to get in a new field or topic every couple of years.
But this doesn’t just apply to solving math problems. The way I’m bringing this up is that for the head types, the ‚distortion‘ shows up as a stream of extra thoughts being generated even when there isn’t currently a problem to solve.
Here I repeat that I don’t per se mean distortion as a value judgement term, I find that 90% of the time thinking about/analyzing stuff enhances rather than diminishes my experience. Might be a bit less so for 6 where it often has a negative cadence but even they would probably not trade in the whole thinking-before-you-act thing wholesale.
But where it can be a downside is when it just won’t stop even when it’s a detriment to or taking you out of the experience rather than merely ‚annotating‘ it – basic examples are when you’re trying to sleep, having intercourse, or worrying about something you can’t presently change.
Also, not being able to silence the already existing trains of thoughts & sorting schemes might keep you from ‚noticing‘, taking in things unbiased or from new angles, but rather you just interpret everything according to your pre-existing frameworks/understandings. This can lead to being an insufferable know-it-all/ convinced you’re always right, or, on a subtler level, it can lead to a sense of seen-it-all jadedness or existential ennui far from the sense of curiosity & discovery that comes with an open, receptive mind.
6 – Here I think it’s pretty easy to spot the ‚excess‘ activity – it’s that endless going round & round in circles, the worrying, the over-complicating stuff, that thing where you studied every topic for the exam but are still scared of it. It’s when someone asks their SO ‚do you still love mee?‘ for the bajillionth time. The 6 style of thinking is geared toward reducing uncertainty, but because it often can’t be made into exactly zero, the wheels keep spinning… doesn’t help that it often comes with a subjectively unpleasant emotional cadence of anxiety and/or hostility, sometimes more obvious to onlookers than to the 6, whose attention can be very absorbed into the horror scenario that is being pictured or frantically trying to work out the answer. The person ‚believes it‘, so to say.
But because of this it can already be a big step forward if you just notice you’re spiraling, bringing a wider perspective. Really for head types in general, if one wishes to interrupt subjectively undesired/distracting extra activity, it is recommended to try to stop the thought when you notice it, taking a deep belly breath, or focussing more on your sensory surroundings.
Surprise can also snap someone out of immersion in thoughts, bringing back a more active attention to taking in the situation rather than being immersed in the thoughts of how it’s gonna go south. This can be another person surprising you (like asking you an unexpected question in response to your panicking) or deliberately doing something different than how you usually do.
In this blog the author documents her journey of essentially reducing it a bit.
7 – Here one of the most common forms that is named in the literature is overdoing the future planning, especially if you’re anticipating the next thing while the current thing is still happening, detracting from your enjoyment – but I think that’s just a subset of a much broader category which is trying to direct your experience and the process of experiencing itself, going back to the ‚specific reaction‘ of directing/planning. Similar to the 2 example it’s always the positive type that’s a bit „stealth“, 7 doesn’t seem to have the pickiness or rigidity of the other frustration types because they make flexible plans or claim fixed plans would just restrict them, but there IS a rigid, forced quality going on in the comparision of the real to the ideal, the present to the possible or a different future, the here to the elsewhere, the sense that if you’re not having the best possible peak experience right now, something’s wrong, ding-ding-sing alarm bells!
Also, this is not just a forcible directing of one’s actions (like a plan) but also ones feelings & thoughts, and even the self, in the compulsion to be happy, to think positive thoughts & always know what to do without depending on others, feeling that one should be unlimited and be able to become anything one imagines etc.
Youtuber Tom La Hue stated that one trick he worked out (which first requires him to ‚catch‘ that he’s getting into full frustration mode to a distracting extent) is that when he gets into some anxious, restless state about thinking he’ll miss out or that he should be skipping to the next thing, one little mantra question he likes to ask himself is ‚am I in a general state of well-being right now?‘ Is the here & now more okay than bad? Is there good stuff in the now? And then, on the one hand, that very awareness might get someone to unclench a bit but also redirect attention to appreciating & taking in what is instead of rushing to something more desirable elsewhere and being mentally preoccupied with that. One 7 I personally know finds a lot of worth in the saying ‚the perfect is enemy of the good‘, maybe not so obvious why such an optimistic person might need this reminder, but, she does when she can’t quite get things like she hoped/imagined, particularly since dissatisfaction can lead to getting distracted & never finishing the thing.
5 – In a sense, a lot more pervasive or less apparent to the subject because you don’t have the clear good/bad, away from or towards polarity, though there is still I think a tendency for ‚extra‘ activity to be heightened when the subject is nervous and greater ‚buffering‘ is perceived to be needed. (not always subjectively recognizeable as such) The „background radiation“ mental activity is constant and not really goal-oriented, just the constant retention, elaboration and continuation of whatever thoughts and impressions happen to be present perpetuating themselves in consciousness and this then more or less directly leads to or at least intensifies various commonly described phenomena like the aversiveness of interruption or switching tasks (because your mind just wants to continue its pre-existing flow of thought and needs to stop it and then get back into it), and not having much bandwith available for the environment (because your attention is on that inner maelstrom beyond what bare minimum is needed not to run into objects) – various people (especially so-havers) also report an unpleasant lack of subjectively experienced sense of connection, usually paired with especially pronounced experiences of, the usual attention pattern, the bird’s eye view thing & whatnot - Maybe the sx doms would be more after ‚aliveness‘ or whatever. But in any case it seems to take away from the experience. One wonders if the sp equivalent ‚everything‘s so fucking exhausting and you gotta do so. many. things’ thing. Not at all trivial to, uh, not get too immersed in that either, and certainly quite counterproductive, the authors describing how their clients seem to wear themselves out just thinking about it arent kidding, especially if it goes with, going all clenched & frozen up.
I think that while both can go in the same direction behaviorally, the 9s flop more than they freeze, its the going limp kinda immobility, whereas – I’m tense, alert and watching as the gaping jaws come closer. Since I started doing those little exercises to map one’s feelings more to physical sensations, I’ve found that what I got feels hard, seems to be one of the more common handle words I end up with, very different from, like that one anecdote in palmer’s 9 description where the kid stopped resisting… I’m actually the opposite. I’m all resistance, constantly, to fucking everything. Which if I already knew but if considered in that context of ‚motion‘ is actually… oddly comforting, kind of. Cause I have that whole thing where regarding sucky childhood situations I have tended to lowkey beat myself up for not resisting to the point of self-destruction. You know, maybe I have actually resisted enough, or, like, as much as anyone could. Might be easier to see that as something I can actually Mari Kondo style thank and then let it go without that feeling like a phony display that would just leave the true feeling of humiliation untouched and unresolved. It not like my reasonable adult self doesnt already know that it would be unfair to expect a seriozs victory from my kid self. But can I have a childish victory.... hm..
eh. i didnt plan this part when planning the writeup. But maybe its helpful to someone.
(An apparently helpful trick brought up by someone in the 5 subreddit (that i’m presently trying to see if I can steal & adapt to myself) is to try and focus on some small, clearly delineated part of your body & all the concrete physical sensations in there, just at random times throughout the day at first to practice, and then, deliberately in situations when you need to not be all frozen up. For them it was social situations, I really go useless with regards to pratical tasks. (dunno if this is because of sp or because it was mostly the „disciplinarian parent“ that fucked up so I’m reaaaly avoiding vulnerable situations in the realm of ‚functioning‘... If it works for those too I will be reporting back. – I’m presently trying to do my right hand at various points throughout the day.cause it’s often moving & doing activities during which there are presumably sensations, doesnt contain any vital organs whereof greater awareness would just make me nervous, plus, the hand seems like the body part you’d associate with action or willpower. Right now I’m noticing the tendons in it tensing a little when moving fingers and feeling the force of striking the keys propagate through it))
The Gut Types
Here, too, it helps to consider the sort of ideal, undisrupted flow of things, and the „distortion“ as a response (different for each of the three) when things don’t go off without a hitch.
What does the gut/implicit mind do? It’s kind of the autocomplete of the brain, always provising a next step, either an intuition of what is going to happen, or an impulse for what to do/ how to react.
Generally ppl use this much more than we think even though it’s gone almost unnoticed compared to feeling & thinking (at least in the west, until relatively recent advanced in psychology) because it’s so automatic. If everything is mostly like what you’re used from from your experience, your intuition can handle interpreting the world and giving you your next action easily, quickly & with minumum energy expenditure, so that you don’t even have to boot up the ‚higher faculties‘ when they’re not needed.
There’s a state of comfortable ease and flow, everything’s as expected, you’re sure what will come next, you just continue from one movement to the next. (though all this is probably very implicit, ppl don’t sit there thinking explicitly thinking ‚I expect what will happen next‘, it’s just ‚noticing‘ and ‚reacting‘)
But this doesn’t always go quite this smoothly. Sometimes you see something that’s not what you expect. Sometimes there’s a sudden ‚bonk!‘ where you hit a physical or figurative obstacle.
One thing you can do when that happens is fire up the monkey brain and wonder what it happening. Or maybe the emotional/mammal brain is enough and you decide by what feeling this brings up in you.
But a person might also tend to stay in gut mode & respond to the obstacle or unexpected thing by reacting to it. Part of such a reaction is anger - An unexpected thing or obstacle makes you angry, like a toddler who wanted ice cream and then didn’t get it, or is frustrated that they couldn’t stack the blocks like they wanted. If you’re more of a sophisticated adult with more perspective & experience in dealing with such obstacles & discrepancies, and it’s not the first time that you’re seeing this problem, maybe you’re not full on angry but just annoyed & irritated. ‚Ugh. The program didn‘t compile. Usually it’s a forgotten bracket…. There it it!‘
Here a ‚distortion‘ is introduced cause it can no longer be the same movement like if you never hit the obstacle. Your reaction to the obstacle is a different, modified movement. You get a new intuition about what to do with the blasted thing.
9 – in terms of an unexpected sight, this is to decide that it probably belongs there and maybe you should have expected it. In terms of motion, this is to give up pushing when an obstacle is hit. In terms of being pushed, it’s to absorb the energy of the push so you aren’t actually moved backwards, kind of like doing judo.
This is where that whole reconciling/unifying function comes in to find a way that your perspective & the others, your worldview & theirs can both be true, whereas the other two, in different ways, make the leap that the truth is obvious, their expectation was probably right, and therefore in some ways stand against reality as it is, going out of „flow“ with it.
On a kinesthetic level, (which is maybe the natural way to describe this – hope this isnt too vague) it might be described as a limp flopping & being carried by the current so that you don’t get the experience of friction with/push against the surroundings, and that’s what being avoided to the point that eating your frustration at not being able to do your original motion may be implicitly accepted as the lesser evil. & that’s when you can get into numbing to not have to feel the frustration of stiffling your impulse – since that is just like friction, but on the inside.
The other two don’t avoid the friction, indeed that may be sort of what’s used to feel their existence, but in different ways.
1 – in terms of an unexpected sight, this is deciding that it shouldn’t be there. In terms of motion, this is to persist undeterred despite the obstacle. In terms of being pushed, it’s to hold firmly in place.
Continuing with the kinesthetic level description, this is holding firm, deliberate & controlled motion that goes towards the goal without distraction, the stiff sort of posture/ motion which also gets you the ‚algorithmic‘ type of action, thinking & decisionmaking. If X do Y until goal condition is reached. (which would be no more unexpected irritants & then you might relax again – as long as there are no irksome errors you can just do the undisturbed „flow“…) So as with the other frustration types, we lose spontaneity and get a forced, fixed quality, the result doesnt roll with the punches as well as 9 does (albeit at cost of rolling with them too much sometimes like the outcome is fixed and they can only react) – you keep doing your work without responding to the distractions of smaller, rivaling impulses, the first task needs to be done first. Work first and maybe pleasure later.
8 – in terms of an unexpected sight, this is to go do something about it. In terms of motion, this is to apply more force to overcome the obstacle. In terms of being pushed, it’s to push back even harder.
In kinesthetic terms this related to an amped-up, adrenalized state braces for impact & confrontation, a state where you’re somewhat desensitized from the pain of contact.
The desired effect (which of course doesn’t always work out in reality) is not just a one way barrier but something like a white hole, where influence only flows from the inside out and can’t come in because of the force going out – starting from the littlest things like the person walking into the room with a provocative statement that shows they won’t care if you scold them or feeling entitled to move whenever without considering the surroundings, starting with little things like their nose in plain sight. (rather than being controlled or flowy/making space for others) – that’s no random example, rather it’s something the AP guy remarked on in his typing videos that he noticed the 8 fixers doing stuff like casually scratching themselves or pausing leisurely to drink some water etc, less inhibition, less volume dial, but the amping up of the response and the push is of course as much as distorion/alteration of the original impulse with this adversarial, armored ‚bracing‘ against the surroundings. Extra force is used not just against obstacles but anticipating them where maybe there are none.
And then of course you start getting suspect of what would let others have influence you in bigger ways: Weaknesses, dependabilites etc.
…
Unrelated Commentary: As an example of how ideas evolve over time, I noticed that here I tried to assign every OR a ‚dichotomy‘ that would supposedly be present in its thinking… It strikes me now that this was still imposing a rejection lens on the others, some equivalent of how attachment peeps at first think everyone is also ‚picking the best box‘. The all or nothing dichotomy of either wall up or wall down is purely a rejection thing & I realize now belatedly that most ppl experience instead an in-between state of tension, tensed either stretching towards the environment looking for compromise, or rigidly against it to maintain one’s ‚purity‘.
That lends it self, I think, to misunderstanding Team Attachment as ppl who have the wall down all the time (a scary idea for us) & due to some madness don’t mind others doing whatever they like to their squishy insides with no discernment applied at all – that’s not really what they’re doing or how it works.
Also, yeah. The Positives are always kinda Stealth. Ninja triad(TM).
7: Mee? Frustrated? Noo, the next thing is totally gonna hit the spot. I’m not steamrolling ppl, I’m just ‚persuading‘ [sunglasses emoji]
2: self-rightheous, or having a need-nobody complex me? Im humility & sociability itself ^-^
9: Mee? Feeling disconnected or resigned? Noo waay I’m totally fine sitting on the sidelines being ignored * blinks away tear *

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This is as much of Chapter 1 as Reddit will allow me to post. For the full translation test, see the link here: https://pastes.io/hcqnfatgdl
​
NOTE!!! This is a very early test. The program is still in production and this isn't reflective of the full capabilities of the program. This test was conducted using the Step 2 Single Prompt methodology via Claude3 API. That means it is NOT using the full 5 step translation methodology which should significantly boost readability and accuracy. Also the formatting is all screwed up as you can see because I didn't put error handling into the export function yet.
{
"localizedText": "Chapter 1: From First Hope to the Twintail Club\n\nMy fingers twitched, instinctively reaching for the sides of my face. An unconscious habit.\n\n\"...Ah.\"\n\nWhat was I doing? There were no twintails there anymore.\n\n\"I guess I've gotten so used to being a girl that it's become a habit... Gotta be careful about that.\"\n\nDespite my words of self-admonishment, I couldn't help but grin. Walking alone through the after-school club building, my heart swelled with a sense of accomplishment and tangible progress.\n\nAnd who could blame me for being a little giddy? \n\nThey say that an unyielding will can pierce through even the hardest of obstacles... But in this day and age, it's not easy to hold fast to platitudes like \"dreams come true if you never give up.\"\n\nYet here I was, Souji Mitsuka, having fulfilled my dream almost immediately after starting high school.",
"translator_notes": "I aimed to make the prose smooth and engaging to read in English, taking some liberties to adapt certain metaphors and phrasings. I changed 虚仮の一念 to \"an unyielding will\" to get across the core meaning more naturally.\n\nI used the official translation's terminology of \"twintails\" and localized the main character's name as \"Souji Mitsuka\". \n\nThe original text had some word play with multiple meanings of certain kanji like 観束 (みつか) and 総二 (そうじ) in his name - I didn't see a great way to directly adapt that in English that would be meaningful to readers, so I chose to leave it out to keep the prose focused."
}
{
"localizedText": "The love for twintails I've nurtured since I was a wee lad has finally taken form. My passion grew to the point that one day, out of the blue, I became a twintail myself. Not some cheap imitation with a wig or hair extensions, but the real deal - a top-tier set of twintails. Granted, they were the product of otherworldly tech, and my transformation into a girl fighting invaders from another world was a whole other kind of dream come true. But hey, even a simple love of twintails can help protect the world if you become the very best at it.\n\nSure, I was constantly baffled in the days that followed... But after learning the true intentions of the girl who entrusted me with this power, and battling formidable foes who shared my love for this hairstyle despite our differing goals and ways of life, I found my resolve. I bid farewell to my old self, always somewhat embarrassed by my love for twintails, and vowed to take that love to new heights. Today marks a turning point - the day I publicly declare that determination.\n\nAmidst the escalator-style combined elementary-university Yoyo Academy^(a playful abbreviation of the school's name, 陽陽月学園 or \"Yōyō Gakuen\"), the high school division boasts one of the largest student bodies and an overwhelming number of clubs. And today, a new club shall join their ranks.",
"translator_notes": "I aimed to capture the energetic, passionate tone of the narrator while smoothing out some of the choppier parts in the original Japanese. I adapted the school name into a nickname to preserve the wordplay. The twintail terminology and character voice should be consistent with my knowledge of the series."
}
{
"localized_text": "The Twintail Club - our very own club. I had finished the necessary paperwork during the break, so all that was left was to wait for the approval of the new club application. I took out the nameplate that read \"Twintail Club\" from my bag and gazed at it with deep emotion. It was a brand new plate that I had just made in the technical workshop during lunch break. As I felt the smooth texture of the ivory with my fingers, I carefully traced the engraved letters. When spelled out in Gothic font, \"twintails\" seems to straightforwardly symbolize cuteness, but when spelled out in Ming font like this, I feel a solemn, unspoken power that makes me straighten my back just by looking at it. I stopped at the end of the clubroom building. It's quite far from the classroom, but this is our clubroom starting today. I replace the blank nameplate at the entrance, which indicates vacancy, with our new one. \"The Twintail Club... huh.\"",
​
"localization_notes": "- 'Twintail Club' kept as-is to match series terminology as instructed
- The sentence about the font choice rewritten to flow better in English and explain more clearly the comparison being made between the two font types mentioned
- The annotation about the ivory texture is worked into the sentence naturally in English
- The final line of dialogue is changed to be more casual and contemplative."
}
Here is the localization of the provided text in JSON format:
​
{
"localization": "\"Twintails\" - it's such a fascinating word, isn't it? Just saying it out loud is enough to bring a smile to your face, the way it just slides off the tongue so smoothly. It's like when you find yourself absentmindedly humming a tune in the shower or on the toilet - I'm sure everyone's done that before. I often catch myself and think, \"Oh, I was just muttering 'twintails' to myself again.\" And even just gazing at the characters that make up the word fills me with this pleasant, philosophical sense of the vastness of the universe. Now that I've figured out how to transform into a twintail myself, every day brings fresh new discoveries. I'm sure being in this club will lead to even greater revelations!\n\nAlright, now that we've officially started up as a proper club, it's time to steel our resolve and give it everything we've got!\"\n\nWith renewed determination, I opened the clubroom door to find...\n\n\"Ah, Souji! Perfect timing! Would you please talk some sense into this beast? Tell him that if he doesn't start acting at least a bit more human, even just for appearances' sake, I'm going to donate him to the animal husbandry club!\""
}
​
The localization takes some liberties to rewrite sentences and adapt phrases to be more natural and impactful in English, while still aiming to preserve the core meaning and intent. Double meanings and wordplay around the word "twintails" is adapted. The annotations are used to provide context to better localize certain phrases. And series-specific terminology like character names are handled appropriately based on prior knowledge.
Here is the localization in JSON format:
​
{
"localization": "Two girls with seemingly similar goals were engaged in a catfight. Any excitement I may have felt disappeared at the speed of sound, vanishing into another dimension. Well... I say that, but with one girl sprawled out on the floor like a starfish while the other sat on top of her as if to prevent her prey from escaping, it was more like predator and prey than a fair fight^(scrap).\n\n\"You're the animal here! Why are you flashing your chest around like that!?\"\n\nThe predator in this situation was my childhood friend and the world's biggest twintail supporter, Aika Tsube. \n\n\"I wanted Souji to open the door and catch a glimpse of my bra and panties as I spun around half-undressed, crying out a flirty \"Eep!\". But Aika got in my way!\"\n\nAnd the prey, disheveled from the fierce battle, was Twoearle - the visitor from another world who had entrusted me with her twintails and transformed me into a twintail. \n\nThe two of them were getting along as well as ever. Every break between classes, the floor, windows, and walls that had been painstakingly polished to a shine... The clubroom had already turned into a makeshift wrestling ring.\n\n\"And why are you just waltzing into the school like it's no big deal? You're going through the proper procedures, right!?\""
}
{
"localizedText": "\"Don't you worry, the exams and paperwork are all done and I'm just waiting for the transfer date! Aika... Aika-san, please at least try to restrain yourself from going wild with youthful energy on school grounds! I mean, what reason could there possibly be for you to be straddling me like this right now!?\"
​
\"S-straddling!? This isn't straddling! It's mounting! Wh-who in their right mind would want to straddle someone like you...\"
​
\"Aha, your face is turning red! Did you start imagining it, you closet pervert!? Did your mind wander to the thought of riding a guy cowgirl style!? But you know, it's a hundred years too early for a flat-chested girl like you to be dreaming about bouncing boobs during sex!\"
​
\"......I suppose you're right. But even if I don't have the tits for it, I'm pretty good at rocking people's worlds in other ways.\"
​
\"Stop... h-hold on a sec... my brain... is shaking...\"
​
Aika had Thouars' uniform partially unbuttoned as she pinned her down, unleashing an inescapable assault from the perfect mount position. No, Aika, you're the one shaking - your twintails, that is.
​
\"Thouars, hurry up and tap out... Actually, Aika, enough is enough!\"
​
\"Tap out...? You think this is some combat sport where I can just give up or something?\"
​
\"Yes! Let's just pretend it is, okay!?\"
​
...Yep, business as usual around here."
}
{
"localizedText": "Another day, another scene completely devoid of any sex appeal. But hey, at this rate, Thouars will fit right in at school in no time. Unfortunately, fitting in usually comes with some good and bad baggage. Aika and I are the Twintails, warriors who transform our love for twintails into power to fight the invaders from another world, the Ultimegil. Just this morning, we defeated an Elemelian - a monster that declared war on the world during our commute to school. It was a tiger-like enemy with a fetish for school swimsuits.
​
Amidst this daily grind, Thouars decided to transfer into Yougetsu Academy, using our recent victory against a major enemy commander as a turning point. She was originally supposed to officially enroll today, but our battle with the Elemelian this morning took too much time, so she postponed it, saying she missed her chance. Seems like she's plotting all sorts of things like her self-introduction, which has me quite worried.
​
As for me, I've decided to officially establish the Twintail Club that I accidentally signed up for on the club activities survey form. Call it a turning point, or sealing the deal.
​
\"Protecting twintails, protecting the world. This is the mission of our Twintail Club. Let's give it our all, you two.\"
​
I release Thouars from her death-mount and Aika stands up.
​
\"Well, guess we have no choice. Looks like those perverts will keep coming endlessly, so if we're doing this, let's go all out.\"
​
\"Aika's relentless teasing is also endless, but how long do I have to keep this up? I feel like my heart and bones are about to break...\"",
​
"notes": [
"Readability is prioritized over accuracy. Sentences are heavily rewritten to flow more naturally in English.",
"Double meanings like 'fitting in' having good and bad baggage are preserved.",
"Inappropriate content like fetishes and 'death-mounts' are not censored, just reworded.",
"Series terminology like 'Twintails', 'Ultimegil', 'Elemelian' are used consistently based on existing translations.",
"The characters' personalities like Aika's teasing nature comes through in the localization based on understanding of the series."
]
}
{
"localizedText": "Thouars, having escaped Aika's attack, quickly tidied himself up with his usual superhuman recovery ability. Thouars, with his sturdy body as an otherworlder, and Aika, whose hands move faster than her brain can command, seem to have good compatibility. They spend every day getting along like this, as if they were sisters quarreling. Now that we've secured the clubroom, I propose to Thouars the first thing we should do.\n\n\"By the way, Thouars, I have a favor to ask. Is that okay?\"\n\n\"Understood! I'll strip!!\"\n\nAika grabbed Thouars' hand as he raised it energetically, placed her hand on his slender waist, and spun him around two times... no, three times, before slamming him to the floor.\n\n\"What's this favor you're asking for, Souji?\"\n\n\"Well, I just did you a favor too. Try to live a little more calmly.\"\n\n\"...Please, tell me more... to live as peacefully as your own chest...\"\n\nThouars weakly agrees, making a face like a victim cursed in a horror movie.",
​
"notes": [
"I tried to make the scene more readable in English by simplifying some of the more complex Japanese phrasing and grammar.",
"I kept the humor of Thouars misinterpreting Souji's request and enthusiastically offering to strip.",
"I adapted Aika's violent response to Thouars to flow more naturally in English.",
"I kept Thouars' amusing final line intact, including the implication that Souji has a flat chest, as I felt it was important to the tone of the scene and characters.",
"I used the series' standard name localizations like \"Thouars\" instead of \"Twirl\".",
"I interpreted the various annotations to provide additional context and made translation choices based on them, such as Thouars making a face like a \"cursed victim\" rather than just a \"victim in agony\""
]
}
Here is the localization for the provided text in JSON format:
​
{
"localization": [
{
"original": "「それでトゥアール、この部室をうちの地下基地みたいに改造できないかな？ 基地に直行できる転送装置とか、いろいろと必要になると思うんだ。……あと、床をもう少し柔らかい素材にでもしないと、命関^(かか)に関わりそうだ」",
"localized": "\"So Thouars, think you could remodel this clubroom to be more like our underground base? We're gonna need stuff like a teleporter that goes straight there. ...Also, if we don't make the floor a bit softer, I get the feeling lives will be on the line.\""
},
{
"original": "「お心遣いありがとうございます総二様！ そうですね、改造しましょう。蛮^(ばん)対族^(ぞく)蛮族用の地雷など、防犯設備の重要性を今強く認識したところです」",
"localized": "\"Thank you for your consideration, Souji-sama! Indeed, let's remodel it. I've just become keenly aware of the importance of security measures, like landmines for those barbaric Tail Red savages.\""
},
{
"original": "まなじりを決して立ち上がるトゥアール。明らかに自分のことを言われていると分かっていながら、けろっとしている愛香が恐ろしい。",
"localized": "Thouars stood up, eyes filled with determination. Despite clearly knowing she was the one being referred to, Aika just sat there nonchalantly. Terrifying."
},
{
"original": "防御じゃなく攻撃を科学で補おうとするあたり、愛香と同じで負けず嫌いだな、トゥアール。",
"localized": "Trying to supplement offense rather than defense with science... Thouars is just as much of a sore loser as Aika."
},
{
"original": "俺と愛香は廊下の壁にもたれかかり、トゥアールの部室改造作業が終わるのを待っていた。",
"localized": "Aika and I leaned against the wall in the hallway, waiting for Thouars to finish remodeling the clubroom."
},
{
"original": "あの広大な地下基地を一晩で完成させただけあり、部室の改造は一時間もかからないという。",
"localized": "Considering she built that huge underground base in a single night, she said remodeling the clubroom wouldn't even take an hour."
},
{
"original": "トゥアールは鶴^(つる)鶴の恩返しよろしく、改造中は「決して中に入らないで下さい」と俺たちに念を押した。",
"localized": "Like a grateful crane repaying a favor, Thouars stressed to us \"Please do not enter while remodeling is in progress.\""
},
{
"original": "まさかと思ったが、案の定、基地を造ったあの晩のように、部室の中から例の妙な音が響いてきた。",
"localized": "I didn't think she would, but sure enough, just like that night she made the base, those strange sounds started echoing from inside the clubroom."
},
{
"original": "うりせけっへ。",
"localized": "Urisekehhe."
},
{
"original": "にゃけろっぱ。しょはっはー。",
"localized": "Nyakeroppa. Shohahha—."
}
]
}
{
"localizedText": "Clack clack clack. Whir whir, creak creak creak.
\"...What the heck is that bizarre sound? It's so weird, you'd doubt your hearing even if you transcribed it!\"
I breathed a sigh of relief that human sensibilities are universal, but Aika wouldn't listen when I told her not to open the door, so I desperately tried to stop her. Surely she wouldn't send me back to the other world just for seeing it, right?
\"...But still, it's amazing there was an empty room this nice.\"
It's no wonder she'd ask that. Our school is huge, but even a giant building has limited space. For a newly established club with only three members to secure a clubroom this late in April is nothing short of a miracle.
Well, if I let the cat out of the bag, there's a proper reason for it.
\"Oh, apparently this room was sealed off until now. There were endless ghost sightings, and rumors about a girl committing suicide here a long time ago. You know, that sort of thing.\"
\"Hold on, this is the first I'm hearing of this! Why would they suddenly open up a room with that kind of history behind it?!\"
\"When I told the teacher that Aika was one of our members, they were like 'Oh, then it'll be fine~' and gave us permission to use it.\"
}
Here is the localization of the given text in JSON format:
​
{
"localization": [
"Our homeroom teacher is so easygoing and never sweats the small stuff. It's a godsend whenever I need to convince him of something.",
"\"How dare you! What do you take me for, huh?! And that teacher too!!\"",
"\"Look, the Elemerian are beings whose spiritual power has taken physical form. They're basically like ghosts or something. There's no reason for us to be afraid of them at this point.\"",
"Aika let out an exasperated sigh and glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.",
"\"...Then if a ghost does show up... you better take responsibility and protect me, got it?\"",
"\"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah...\"",
"She's being uncharacteristically meek. I had no idea Aika was this afraid of ghosts.",
"Come to think of it, even though we've been together all this time, I can't remember ever seeing Aika get scared of anything.",
"\"It's finished~ And don't think you can slip away that easily, you've still got a long way to go~\"",
"Twirl opened the door and beckoned us inside. Aika and I hurried into the clubroom. For some reason, Aika clicked her tongue in annoyance."
]
}
Here is the localization in JSON format:
​
{
"localization": [
{
"original": "「これで、カモフラージュ完^(かん)は璧^(ぺき)完璧です！」",
"localized": "\"With this, our camouflage is absolute per-^(fect)fection!\""
},
{
"original": "ホワイトボード。スチールの本棚。長テーブルと、折り畳みのパイプ椅^(い)椅子^(す)子。ロッカー。",
"localized": "A whiteboard, steel bookshelves, a long table with folding pipe chairs, and lockers."
},
{
"original": "文化部らしく簡素で最低限の設備しかない部室だが、これらは全てトゥアールの超科学で改造されているのだという。",
"localized": "The clubroom had only the bare minimum furnishings you'd expect from a cultural club, but apparently Twoearle had used her ultra-science to modify everything."
},
{
"original": "「何で、改造してるとこ見せてくれなかったのよ」",
"localized": "\"Why didn't you show us while you were modifying everything?\""
},
{
"original": "愛^(あい)愛香^(か)香が口を尖^(とが)尖らせる。",
"localized": "Aika pursed her lips in annoyance."
},
{
"original": "「それは、秘密です♪」",
"localized": "\"That's a se~cret ♪\" "
},
{
"original": "ウインクし、唇^(くちびる)唇に人差し指を当てるトゥアール。",
"localized": "Twoearle winked and brought a finger to her lips."
},
{
"original": "愛香はこめかみをひくつかせ、ギリギリと歯ぎしりする。相変わらず、乙女乙女した仕草には憎悪にも似た苦手意識を持っているようだ。",
"localized": "Aika's temple twitched as she gritted her teeth. As always, Twoearle's girly mannerisms seemed to fill her with a hatred-like aversion."
},
{
"original": "「そーじは興味ないの？ どんなふうに作業してるのか気になるじゃない！」",
"localized": "\"Souji, aren't you curious? Don't you wanna know how she did all this?\""
},
{
"original": "「まあ、好奇心はあるけど……」",
"localized": "\"Well, I am a bit curious, but...\""
}
]
}
​

Peace be upon the Ant, not so much between its creators and its publisher.
TL, DR ants that really love Jesus, man. Like, a lot.
​
Hello once again, HobbyDrama! Previously, I brought you an account about some Brazilian religious propaganda made for kids and how it became part of a wider Internet/meme culture. While Dudão may have failed its primary objective of becoming a Christian substitute to secular children’s media, today’s theme is an entire beast of its own.
In this post, we will explore another iconic Brazilian religious character, Smilinguido (and friends), his origins and circumstances of creation, his wider cultural impact and its current state. We are going to assess how Smilinguido triumphed where Dudão met its stump, and how much of a unique phenomenon it was at its height.
As in the last post, all sources will be in Portuguese (the language barrier may be challenging; however, it's worth the read for a deeper look into the broader scene of Brazilian Christian children’s media).
This post is highly indebted to the extensive research conducted by Prof. Doc. Karina Kosicki Bellotti in her PhD thesis, “Delas é o Reino dos Céus”: Mídia evangélica infantil na cultura pós-moderna do Brasil (Anos 1950 a 2000)[For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven: evangelical children’s media in the post-modern culture of Brazil - 1950’s to 2000’s], and the interview given to Redomacast, episode 52 , by Smilinguido’s co-creator, Márcia Macedo D’Haese. Other sources will be credited at the end, in the bibliography section.
Also, it should be noted that most of the materials (comics, books, illustrated Bibles, and so on), are kind of a lost media. There aren’t many scans available online, so I’ll heavily rely upon physical copies and second-hand resellers for this research.
To understand Smilinguido and his origins, we must turn back in time, and set the context in which he was born; the progressive stages in which he would develop, change and grow. Only after that, I believe we will have enough baggage to approach the media itself. (I’ll probably divide this post in two parts, in order to better assess all the topics here discussed and analysed, so please, bear this one with me.)
VERY VEEEEEERY ABRIDGED HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Brazil, 1970s to 80s. The country is in the turbulent process of social transformations. The military government censors and controls much of the media vehicles, and processes of industrial, urban and communications development kickstarted in the 50s begin to take a more solid shape. National and foreign intermingle through cultural and religious exchange. Paradoxically, the military regime would decrease regulations and allow individual faith expressions, although monitored and at times persecuted.
The decade would also become important in the slow shift of Brazilian Protestantism, skewing from traditional hierarchical churches of various European and American Diasporas, towards Pentecostal, Revivalist and Fundamentalist movements (much of due to American missionary initiatives, the fatigue of traditional religions and the decline of Catholicism). The period highlighted a rift, between churches that promoted individualistic, material solutions for immediate earthly problems, and churches working towards ecumenical, inter-religious and inter-denominational dialogues (BELLOTTI, 2007, p.151).
It is in this scenario of change, shifts in religious demographics and global cultural interactions that Smilinguido would come to life.
IN THE BEGGINING THERE WAS AN ANT: THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA
According to Márcia Macedo D’Haese, visual artist responsible for the creation of the iconic ant, the initiative was brought forth after her husband ,Hialmar, gave a lecture on technology and faith to a youth group of the Igreja Evangélica do Cristianismo Decidido (Evangelical Church of the Decisive Christianity), in 1979. Bear in mind, this was a small local church, situated in Southern Brazil and associated with a German pietist missionary group (being part of those traditionally European Diaspora majority churches). It didn’t have the same sway and reach as larger denominations, neither did it hold the same amount of influence and capital as its concurrent emerging media-driven evangelists.
Hialmar defended that instead of generalizing and condemning television, radio, etc. as an evil instrument, Christians should be the ones responsible for making media work for the good (BELLOTTI, 2007, p.148). It was with this goal that, later in 1980, both Márcia, Hialmar, and some of the churches’ youths would establish Arvicris, Artes Visuais Cristãs (Christian Visual Arts).
The company became an independent entity to the church, although they provided it with the workspace and with donations.
THE ANTS ARE A PEOPLE NOT STRONG: THE ARVICRIS PERIOD (1980-1997)
In the beginning, the Ant was with form, but void of name.
Márcia D’Haese would constantly sketch and decorate her notebooks with the distinctive figure of an anthropomorphic ant, drawing the attention of her colleagues. She had already used the animal to illustrate various non-denominational Christian publications since the late 70s, without naming it or giving any character development. The animal soon became part of the company’s identity, describing themselves as “little ants, small and fragile, but very much excited and determined not only to criticize, but also to present a healthy message to the Brazilian people” (BELLOTTI, 2007, p.152).
At first, the Ant had the placeholder's name of Zecão (something akin to Big Joe). However, they changed it due to Hialmar’s affirmation that the company shouldn’t use poor quality materials, all “esmilingüido” (variation of desmilinguido, informal Brazilian Portuguese expression for something weak, crumbled). The members of Arvicris thought that the name sounded funny, and so Smilinguido came to be.
Carlos Tadeu Grzybowski, who signed as the first script writer for the ant, took great inspiration in the philosophy of storytelling adopted by C.S. Lewis. He prioritised stories instead of explicit religious or doctrinal messages, with biblical parallelisms and symbols, anthropomorphic representations and parable-like tales. “The message must be transmitted through situations and experiences rather than moral lessons and rules” (BELLOTTI, 2007, p. 180) instead of presenting easy answers and underestimating a child's capability of absorbing concepts. The materials were made less focused on reaching out for new converts, aiming instead to become a Christian supplement to children’s education.
Smilinguido’s personality and traits began taking form as Avicris’ products became more diverse. At first, production was limited to audiovisual slides with accompanying cassettes targeted at churches and Sunday schools. Smilinguido would illustrate bookmarkers given at the end of each lesson, with a Bible verse and the core message taught at the presentation.
Later on, as the company was able to produce and increase its distribution, so would its catalogue of licensed works, illustrating bookmarkers,t-shirts, key chains, bottoms, and much more. As such, Smilinguido would slowly depart from the supporting role as an accompanying drawing for biblical paraphrases and acquire his own identity.
Smilinguido and friends evolved from the desire to make a Brazilian Christian character that, well, was genuinely Brazilian. The cast embraced the regional varieties one can see all over the country, the richness of its natural environments and the proposal of reaching out to everyone and anyone by incorporating this colourful ensemble of characters.
For the duration of the 1980s and early 1990s, Arvicris would gain notoriety with the little ant and its many licensed products. The fame, nevertheless, made the company face an uncomfortable dilemma: how to preserve the original purpose of Smilinguido as an evangelistic vehicle and avoid it becoming another product of mass media consumption? In such conditions, Arvicris sought to establish some ground rules for how the character should be represented and how to preserve its qualities as a symbol of humility and meekness (BELLOTTI, 2007, p.162).
In 1989, the company made the crucial (and terminal) decision of signing a partnership with neighbouring publishing house Luz e Vida (partially controlled by the Evangelical Church of the Decisive Christianity), to better distribute their materials and raise funds for their next ambitious project: producing their first animated movie. The film would become a success, yet its price would be higher than expected.
While the process ,which would culminate in the dissolution of Arvicris, is nebulous and (mostly) lack public available accounts from third-party sources, this post will rely upon Márcia d’Haese’s interview given to the PhD thesis for the finer details (BELLOTTI, 2007, p.164-67; 185-87), so take this next section with a grain of good old salt.
According to the report, the conflict between Arvicris and Luz e Vida Publishing stemmed from the different approaches taken by the creative and commercial teams, mainly due to concerns about appropriate licensing agreements and the dangers of mischaracterizing Smilinguido. As told by Márcia herself, “(...) we must be very careful, so he (Smilinguido) doesn’t turn into a mass product. I speak for myself, as to how I understood the situation. We were very cautious with the character, really” (BELLOTTI, 2007, p. 165).
At the time, she and her colleagues at Arvicris still held the copyrights to Smilinguido and friends and had some sway in deciding how he was to be treated and commercialized. So, the news that the church’s ruling body decided to fuse both Arvicris and Luz e Vida into a single entity, entirely at hands of the publishing house, came with resounding shock.
Before the merger, Márcia ceded the copyright of Smilinguido to Arvicris, while Luz e Vida only retained the commercial licenses. Afterwards, came a turbulent period of negotiations to determine the ant’s new ownership clauses. Márcia recounts that “at the end, after a bunch of meetings, more than twenty meetings (...), one day I was fed up. I went and told something like; look, I officialise the renunciation of the copyright too, you already got the commercial license, may as well get the copyright too. And then I signed the document(...)” (BELLOTTI, 2007, p. 166-67).
After that, both Márcia and Hialmar, and some of their Arvicris colleagues, would depart and found ARCO (Arts and Communication) in 1997, as an attempt to promote the same message as their previous works. We will take a brief look into these works in the legacy section.
[Before we move on to the next phase in Smilinguido’s development, I’d like to mention this 2005 newspaper source, in which its reported that the cause for conflict between Arvicris and Luz e Vida were due to budget cuts and downsizing the staff, instead of a disagreement originated purely by creative differences.]
GO TO THE ANT, THOU SLUGGARD; CONSIDER HER WAYS: THE LUZ E VIDA ERA (1997 – NOWADAYS)
After the original creators’ departure, Luz e Vida gained full control of Smilinguido. While in the previous license agreement the ant didn’t promote explicitly evangelistic and doctrinal messages, this new incarnation would have a more proselytising, moralising tone.
While “Old Testament” Smilinguido believed in providing good morals and lessons by challenging children’s perspectives and not relying upon explicit biblical language (considering most of its target audience would have had exposure to those already), “New Testament” Smilinguido acquired more childish traits, mixing Christian teachings, moral values and fun, provided by the assurance of authority of those responsible for the new publications (BELLOTTI, 2007, p. 190).
The ant would exert a more overt missionary role (encouraging kids to share the Gospel, spread the Word, walk with Christ and so on), considering the attempts of wider distribution of Smilinguido comics in newsstands, important vehicles of mass media communication at the time. One might expect the haunting spectre of Dudão, self-righteous arrogant defender of Christian supremacy, making its rounds once more, spoiling another religious attempt of delivering good lessons to kids. However, “New Testament” Smilinguido held firm on most of the qualities established by its creators.
Characters remained (almost) intact and consistent to the traits and archetypes provided by the Arvicris team, however the message and focus drifted towards the conversion narrative. Mind you, it didn’t go through the Dudão route (never shutting up one second about how Jesus is cool and how much God loves to punish people). Smilinguido became, as mentioned by Tadeu Grzybowski, “Christianly correct”(BELLOTTI, 2007, p. 167), which is to say, Smilinguido lost some of its original characteristics in order to become more of a paradigm rather than a flawed ant.
In addition to that, Smilinguido could afford to be more critical and experimental under the creative direction of Arvicris, something that not only could potentially hurt Luz e Vida pockets, as it would also hurt the then current presentation of the cast as exemplary Christians.
The ants, and by extent, the anthill came to mean the Christian unity amongst the many (nominally Protestant) denominations; it implicitly became a symbol of interdenominational dialogue and common Christian values shared by many (often conflicting) theological currents and trends. Personally, I believe it can be attributed to what the thesis calls a core message of self-acceptance and acceptance of diversity (BELLOTTI, 2007, p. 194-96). By portraying the characters as a diverse cast representing some of the Brazilian regional identities, with an array of personalities and physical differences, Smilinguido affirms that: first of all, it is completely fine to be different and to be your own self; and secondly, that God loves everyone in His own special way.
The thesis also argues that Smilinguido’s wide reach may be because of the simplicity of its messages and its friendly, cutesy image., making it possible to shape the ant into whatever form of Christian you desire him to become (BELLOTTI, 2007, p. 207). In a 2005 news report, Samuel Eberle, then Luz e Vida’s director, even said that Smilinguido doesn’t follow or defends any specific religion, despite its popularity amongst Protestants.
Mr. Eberle doesn’t use such an explicit consuming-heavy language to describe the ant’s appeal, unlike some of his (at the time) business partners. Such is the case of Leóster Fragoso, Alladin’s CEO, who identified Smilinguido “a huge sale potential among the Evangelical public, which grows exponentially”. Alladin’s product, a thermos bottle,didn’t cater to an exclusive Evangelical market, rather embracing his image instead of his message.
Smilinguido, under Luz e Vida, would also bleed the smell of money to Panini and Malwee, the former being a mainstream comics and sticker book publishing house, and the latter being a large scale fast-fashion manufacturer. At the time of the 2005 report, Luz e Vida expected a 12 million reais profit margin (roughly equivalent to 2,4 million dollars in current exchange rates), coming mainly from licensing contracts and product sales. Part of the profits were used to maintain projects, while some portion was redirected to the Evangelical Church of the Decisive Christianity (huh, those guys again) and to various Christian social assistance organizations.
AND SOUL BY SOUL AND SILENTLY HER SHNING BOUNDS INCREASE: LUZ E VIDA’S EMPIRE BUILDING
Ever since, Smilinguido would leave the humble market of church bookstores to dominate the globe. Luz e Vida would open a branch publishing corporation in Miami (Light & Life Publishers Corp.), mainly focused on reaching for the Hispanic and Brazilian immigrant communities. Its products (more than 700) would be exported to more than 30 countries, such as New Zealand, Canada, England, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan (aiming the Brazilian diaspora), most of the neighbouring Latin American nations, and other Lusophone countries, such as Portugal, Angola and Mozambique.
Luz e Vida dedicated part of its monthly earnings for the donation of church-affiliated philanthropic institutions (the likes of CERVIN, ACRIDAS, CRAVI, Lar Batista Esperança, Seminário Rogate and partnered missionary projects), and periodically donate books, comics and other products to schools, libraries, public education initiatives and various NGOs.
If at the time of the publication of the thesis, Mrs. D’Haese expressed some worries about how she didn’t want her Smilinguido to be treated as mass media consumption product, by 2007 her fears would not only become true but they would also be celebrated as a success for the growing Christian consumerist market. Smilinguido became a symbol of Evangelical’s desire to spend, to have, to keep, to buy.
Smilinguido left his birth’s mission of being a mere vehicle of good deeds and lessons, figuring amongst any other children’s media characterillustrating back-to-school supplies. His glory didn’t come anymore from his value as a communicative, friendly way of educating children, as much as it derived from his massive earnings (representing roughly 80% of Luz e Vida’s income). Bear in mind, his books, movies, everything created under Márcia and her colleagues still exists, however the current state of the little ant couldn’t be more removed from what it was once intended to be.
By 2009, Luz e Vida released Smilinguido’s license of for non-profit use, as long as there were no alterations to the content. The use would be free as long as there remained the company’s logo, a link to the original site and its use for purely educational or informative purposes (according to the company, in an effort to unlink Smilinguido’s image to these overly commercialization and reinsert him in pop culture).
Nowadays, both Luz e Vida and Smilinguido’s brand find a cosy place amongst the massive Brazilian Evangelical sphere. The publishing house has a massive reach with online Christian stores, an expanding catalogue of products, and Smilinguido’s YouTube Channel has more than 266000 subscribers, and 71 million views combined. Smilinguido also stars the new kid’s app, Clube do Smilinguido, available for Android and iOS, an educational entertainment app, and a series of new short form animations targeting the TikTok audience.
HIS SEED SHALL BE MIGHTY UPON EARTH: WHAT NOW?
By the time this post is being made, Smilinguido is still thriving (moneywise, at least). After their departure from the publisher’s merger, Márcia and Hialmar d’Haese founded ARCO, another Christian creative media production company, in 1997 and embraced a new cast of diverse, colourful characters.
They would thrive with this new format, as it was much easier to work around some topics and rather difficult, more mature themes with the main characters being humans, instead of ants. Mig and Meg’s gang, made out of Mig (Miguel), a long haired skater kid; Meg, a dreamy curly haired girl, their teenaged sisters and friends (and a pair of Abbot and Costello-coded bugs), centre around the main media of cantatas, unifying song, image and video.
It would never reach the same level of success as Smilinguido, although it left a profound mark in many a childhood around Brazil.
While I was researching for this post, I sadly found out about Smilinguido’s co-creator Hialmar d’Haese passing, whose works and life’s mission are entirely of merit. My condolences to the family, may they found solace and comfort; and my most profound gratitude for Hialmar’s dedication to Christ’s favourite ant.
NEXT UP: THE TALES OF CHRIST’S FAVOURITE ANT PART 2: GOD IS A JAGUAR, ANTEATER VORE AND AMAZON DEFORESTATION
Analysis of physical copies of books and comics, movies, animations and much more!
VERILY, VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU: SOURCES
Filho, Manuel Alves. “Tese revela como mídia infantil forjou cultura evangélica no país,” 2024. https://www.unicamp.bunicamp_hoje/ju/marco2007/ju353pag11.html.
Bellotti, Karina Kosicki. “Delas é o reino dos céus: mídia evangélica infantil na cultura pós-moderna do Brasil (anos 1950 a 2000)” (2007). https://repositorio.unicamp.bacervo/detalhe/387372
Pinho, Marcelo. “Folha de S.Paulo - Mercado de Fé: Formiga Cristã Vira Mania E Atrai Empresas - 10/07/2005,” 2024. https://www1.folha.uol.com.bfsp/dinheiro/fi1007200519.htm.
Uol.com.br. “Folha de S.Paulo - Mercado Aberto - 23/05/2005,” 2024. https://www1.folha.uol.com.bfsp/dinheiro/fi2305200501.htm.
Uol.com.br. “Folha de S.Paulo - Preconceito é O Maior Temor de Empresários - 10/07/2005,” 2024. https://www1.folha.uol.com.bfsp/dinheiro/fi1007200520.htm.
Uol.com.br. “Folha de S.Paulo - Desavença Leva Criadora Para a Concorrência - 10/07/2005,” 2024. https://www1.folha.uol.com.bfsp/dinheiro/fi1007200521.htm.
D’Haese, Marcia Macedo. “Juventude, Arte E Cooperação Ultimatoonline Editora Ultimato,” 2022. https://www.ultimato.com.bconteudo/juventude-arte-e-cooperacao.
www.youtube.com. “Cantinho Do Artista - Márcia Macedo D´Haese.” Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f_Jqd31tDE.
Passarelli, Fernando. “MÁRCIA D’HAESE - Deus No Gibi.” Deus no Gibi, August 29, 2014. https://www.deusnogibi.com.bentrevistas/marcia-dhaese/.
projeto redomas. “Redomascast 52 - Entrevista Com Márcia d’Haese - Projeto Redomas,” April 3, 2020. https://projetoredomas.com/redomascast-52-entrevista-com-marcia-dhaese/.
Galois, Sofia. “Morre Um Dos Criadores de ‘Smilinguido’, Hialmar D’Haese, Aos 69 Anos.” Folha Vitória, January 26, 2024. https://www.folhavitoria.com.bgeral/noticia/01/2024/morre-um-dos-criadores-de-smilinguido-hialmar-dhaese-aos-69-anos.
Luz e Vida. “Sobre a Empresa,” 2014. https://www.luzevida.com.bsobre-a-empresa.
AICD. “SOBRE NÓS AICD,” 2016. https://www.cristianismodecidido.org.bsobre-n%C3%B3s.
Marburger-mission.org. “Brazil,” 2024. https://www.marburger-mission.org/en/our-work/pce/brasilien/.
Diniz, Eustáquio, Suzana Marta Cavenaghi, Felipe Walter, and Angelita Alves. “Distribuição Espacial Da Transição Religiosa No Brasil.” Tempo Social 29, no. 2 (August 8, 2017): 215–15. https://doi.org/10.11606/0103-2070.ts.2017.112180.
Redação Gospel. “Produtos Cristãos Estão Em Expansão No Mercado Notícias Gospel.” Notícias Gospel, November 24, 2008. https://noticias.gospelmais.com.bprodutos-cristaos-estao-em-expansao-no-mercado.html.
Redação Gospel. “Smilingüido Entre as Marcas Com Mais Destaques Na Volta Às Aulas Notícias Gospel.” Notícias Gospel, August 30, 2007. https://noticias.gospelmais.com.bsmilinguido-entre-as-marcas-com-mais-destaques-na-volta-as-aulas.html.
Redação Gospel. “Gazeta Mercantil: Um Verdadeiro Trabalho de Formiguinha (Smilingüido) Notícias Gospel.” Notícias Gospel, October 10, 2007. https://noticias.gospelmais.com.bgazeta-mercantil-um-verdadeiro-trabalho-de-formiguinha-smilinguido.html.
Redação Gospel. “Uso de Imagem Dos Personagens Da Editora Luz E Vida é Liberado Notícias Gospel.” Notícias Gospel, May 26, 2009. https://noticias.gospelmais.com.buso-de-imagem-dos-personagens-da-editora-luz-e-vida-e-liberado.html.
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I am at college and everywhere around me I am surrounded by skinny/ slim who are in med school too. My ED was at its worst in the months preceding med school, I started giving into my hunger cues a month before entering med school after having no period for 4 months and passing out and hurting my arm which led to my period returning and weight restoration so I don't look like the stereotypical ED person. and in the last 3 years I have remained overweight to an healthy weight however the ED memories are there.

• They would say things like 'I haven't eaten all day' and repeat it if nobody says anything. Once the same girl told me she had an egg for breakfast and I said 'oohh, I had an egg too' but then she replied 'I ONLY had an egg'. I only had an egg too but it felt like she was trying to "outcompete" me
  • What's ironic is that this girl freaked out when a male housemate didn't have time for dinner once and she started making food for him saying 'he can't skip meals'.
• Another girl barely eats and throws up whatever she eats and then talks about aches and not feeling so good and it must be because of some secret condition that doctors can not understand which MAY be the case but maybe not throwing up will help.
• They make jokes about being anaemic all the time because they feel faint having eaten little all day and they say they have been anaemic for years on. The thing is these people say their symptoms remind them of anaemia and haven't been tested on it and refuse to go on supplements. I was talking about being anaemic (which I am actually) and the girl said 'but are you actually? you don't look it'.
• One girl again doesn't have the most filling diet and suffers from hair loss and assumes it must be because of PCOS which she has self-diagnosed herself with. She still has quite a bit of hair which the doctor pointed out which made her annoyed.
• I got so triggered when I was buying a sandwich for lunch and another girl said 'I don't want a sandwich because I don't want to look bloated before [the party] where I need to look good in my dress and chose to eat nothing until the night'. It wasn't as if I had asked if she wanted a one or not.
• I jokingly said instead of working out I would want ab sculpting done (I know nothing of the technicalities of this procedure) and another girl said 'don't you actually have to be slim for that?'
• They might make comments on my food. I tend to eat all my veggies and fruits in my dorm and my packed lunches usually consist of a sandwich/ savoury thing, a snack e.g. a Kinder milk slice and drink which is a milkshake and the water I always have on me. These girls tend to look at me and say 'You really take care of yourself' and quickly add' in a good way'. The quickly addition at the end makes me wonder what 'bad way' exists? Considering some of these people worry about the calories of an original glazed doughnut, I can't help but think they mean it is unhealthy but this is a lunch I have once a week
• One of my friend I found is on a low carb diet. We were talking about fruits and it came to bananas and I said 'I have a banana for breakfast some times because it is quick and filling' and the other girl told me 'bananas are unhealthy' but then proceeded to steal the chocolates other people had left behind on their plate.
• Also this is a tiny thing but I hate it when people say I eat fast (I would absolutely inhale anything delicious) or have a lot on my plate even though calorie-wise my plate is similar to theirs for example:
  • I would have: 2 sausage, 2 pieced of bacon and a poached egg which come to>! 500!< calories at most (I might have overestimated)
  • They would have a veggie sausage, 2 large hashbrowns, a poached egg, a large cinnamon roll, baked beans and mushrooms

This is small stuff and I know I sound incredibly unempathetic as someone training to be a doctor but I find this so triggering and I feel like they think it is okay to act this way around me because I don't seem like I have or had an ED. Also I am not sure if I censored everything i have to, please tell me I missed something

Earlier Destiny (my personal best friend [I live in his walls]) requested (from me personally) an argument to broadly attack the "constellation" of a just-so story. I don't think this has any impact on a person already bought into a conspiracy, but is a compelling bulwark against conspiracy minded thinking as it raises the bar for considering a plausible conspiracy.
Topline - conspiracies or state secrets of any size become extremely difficult to keep secret
First, a little bit of debate necrophilia with a trick question:
The Manhattan Project was the secret governments project to create city destroying super weapons with new technology. Considered "more drastically guarded than any other highly secret war development", how long did it take for other governments to learn about the Manhattan Project?
The answer is, approximately, negative one year.
The Cambridge Five notified Soviets of the plans to establish the Manhattan Project immediately after it was greenlit, before a single physicist was hired, and passed so much information the Soviet Government started to believe it was faked to drain resources (making plutonium pits is extremely hard).
More details here with many of the security protocols and leaks declassified by the DOE. Supplemental listening from Richard Feynman, who worked on the project - Los Alamos from Below.
We live in a world surrounded by microphones, cameras, anonymous messaging systems, and no journalistic gatekeepers or censors. The idea that the American government could have coordinated an insurrection, or voter fraud, or witness tampering without it ever reaching the public, even from our adversaries?
That not a single person loyal to Trump existed in any of these institutions and would just leave a 75GB thumb-drive with a journalist they trust to expose everything? That not a single person loyal to democracy or rule of law would seek asylum in another country and expose the exact details of a broad operation like Snowden did with Project Prism (which was approved by Congress and both parties via Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, and wasn't even considered illegal)? This is pure fantasy.
The goal isn't to say "this didn't happen", but that if something of this scope and magnitude to undermine democracy in America was ever even considered, the world would know.

original story is An Introduction to Terran Zoology by u/Still_Performance_39.
thanks to u/Still_Performance_39 for the opportunity to hold such a wonderful story hostage, to u/oobanooba- for organizing this whole thing, to the boys in group 5 for helping with ideas and editing, and, of course, u/SpacePaladin15 for the original original story.
u/Still_Performance_39's own ficnapping of New York Carnival is here
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no lessons today -- administration has deemed it prudent for everyone to have a short break from classes. so instead... beach episode the professor is holding office hours! I hope I did it justice, and I hope you all enjoy!
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Memory transcription subject: Dr. Bernard MacEwan, Professor of Zoology
September 2136
​
In teaching, it’s always the little things that tell you when you’ve done a good job. In all my years, that’s what stood out. The big moments are always nice, sure, but it’s the little things that add up. Rapt attention. Good, insightful questions. The frenzied note-taking when they get something. Or, like right now, one of my favorites…
That wonderful, blinking, subtly disappointed surprise when I end the lecture for the day. The faces of students so enthralled that they’d lost track of time, so absorbed in their notes and new-gained knowledge that it felt almost rude to have ended the lesson.
I’d worried that I wouldn’t see it again, with the material I was now presenting them. I knew that it would challenge them at a fundamental level. All those closely held beliefs, all the things they understood, all the instincts that fought against them. But here they all were. And I couldn’t help the smile crossing my face as I watched them, so proud.
“Remember,” I said, taking up my place by the door to usher them out. “I’ll be holding office hours for the rest of the paw, and the one after! Please, feel free to come by and ask anything you’d like, or even if you’d just like to chat! And enjoy your break!”
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Memory transcription subject: Sandi, Venlil Astrobiologist
Paw 1 of break.
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My feet were taking me towards Doctor MacEwans’s office.
It needs more -- it’s just not enough yet! I know there’s more to say, but… but I have to find it.
I whipped past the beautifully manicured and tended topiary hedges, rife with their little bursts of color. Eltavis and sun-plumes, reds and yellows amongst the green, all ignored as my paws whisked me along.
My typing pad was clutched in my claws. On it, the thing that had so consumed my mind. A paper. Unfinished and in-progress, I’d typed away at it since the break had--
Ah! The break! I was supposed to call Palvo! Stars, I’ll have to do it after this… first thing after this, for sure!
The pang of guilt did little to slow me down. I think he would understand, though. It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten like this, and it wasn’t likely to be the last, either! Sometimes, writing it all down into something organized and strong was all I could do.
Palvo would understand.
Besides, this is important. This could change everything. The knowledge that the humans had brought with them had spat in the face of everything we knew, but even still, it couldn’t be denied. Life on earth had thrived, not in spite of predators, but because of them.
It was a simple thing to learn, but a harder thing to understand. At first, my mind wouldn’t let me. The implications of it were too staggering, too world-breaking. And the guilt, too. Stars, the guilt! All the life that their world has that the Federation’s don’t, and that it was our fault. Our fault, on a galactic scale.
The mind almost doesn’t want to understand it.
But it does, ultimately. And if I can, then everyone else can. The hard part w-- AUGH!!
I stopped short, snout a hair’s breadth away from smashing into a wall.
Who keeps putting up all these walls in front of me?? I thought indignantly.
I glanced around, hoping no one had seen. No such luck; several people clearly had, still staring at me with their tails twitching concern.
Reaching out, I patted the wall as if I’d merely meant to inspect it closely. I flicked my ears as if satisfied, and stepped away to continue on. My head was still swirling with frantic thoughts.
Anyway. It all depends on what everyone outside thinks of it. They don’t have the benefit of having been in this class, the constant paws of undeniable proof smacking them across the ears.
And it wouldn’t be like it is here, either. Everyone in MacEwan’s class is either a scientist, or an academic, or an expert in their field, or Kailo.
Sure, I had faith in the scientific and academic communities. But what about everyone else? The layperson? The media? The Exterminators Guild? Would they really listen when I write about how wrong we’ve all been?
It needs to be perfect.
My feet stopped. The door stood in front of me, the professor’s name emblazoned across it. It should have intimidated me, but my hands were already reaching out to knock.
And before I could even process it, the professor had opened the door and I was being ushered into his office.
“Oh! Sandi! Heh, I must say, I was rather expecting Rysel to be the first to make use of office hours.”
I chuckled politely, though my brain was busy running at maximum speed. I scanned the office. It was simple and neat and innocuous, same as all the other prefabs on the temporary campus. Gray carpet, a simple desk at one end, bookshelves and extra chairs scattered around. The professor’s personal chair sat behind the desk -- it must have been brought from Earth, or custom ordered here, I realized. It was clearly designed to suit human ergonomics.
The professor looked more casual than usual, with his jacket draped over the back of his chair, and his cane leaned up against the side of the desk. He sat down behind it, readjusting and smoothing his artificial pelts.
“So, what’s bringing you today?” he asked, gesturing me into an open chair.
“I-- I’ve… I’ve been…” I stammered out, before giving up and pushing my pad in front of him.
He leaned forward, reading aloud. “How Predators Lie: A Report on Human Ecology.” He looked up at me, raising an eyebrow and scratching at his chin.
The title was mostly bait. A catchy hook to lure in the layperson, especially those with less favorable views of humanity. I hoped that he’d figured that, and wasn’t offended.
“Well, it’s a strong title,” he said, looking not the least bit offended. That was a relief. “May I?” He gestured at the rest of the paper.
I flicked my ears yes, and he pulled the pad closer and began reading and scrolling down it. I just sat there, thinking, worrying that this was all a mistake; it was all so unfinished, so unready. Jumbled thoughts stuffed into a jumbled paper. But I didn’t know what else I could do!
But even still, I couldn’t help but think of it almost like a responsibility. I thought again about all the ecological damage we’d done, all the worlds we’d ruined. We’d seen in class how much raw potential for life those worlds must have held, before we’d meddled.
We didn’t know. That didn’t make us less guilty, but… we didn’t know.
And know that we do know… well, If a single paper was all I could do, then I would do it.
Bernard coughed lightly, clearing his throat. “This has the makings of an excellent paper, Sandi. Although, you are going to need a lot more to support your thesis here.”
“I know. I was going to ask you for help with that, I need more material, I only have what you’ve shown in class, and I can’t just use one person as a source, and…” I trailed off, sucking in a deep and unsteady breath.
He gave a strained smile. “Well I have plenty more materials on hand, from what I was allowed to bring. I’ve got articles, videos, database access, and I’d love to give that all to you… but…”
My shoulders slumped. I knew what was coming next. “Politics,” I finished for him.
“Indeed. Especially right now.” He swiped idly through the pages on my pad. “I have the fullest confidence that you will write an excellent paper, Sandi, but right now, this is…” he looked back up at me “incendiary.”
“It’s supposed to be,” I said, though it came out a little bit strangled.
He chuckled at that. “How about this: I’ll talk to Tolim, see about getting you access to some of the restricted materials for your sources, and you keep writing. And you should keep writing! Because this is important for people to hear. But… maybe hold off on publishing it until things calm down a bit?”
“Okay,” I said, feeling a strange mixture of disappointed, vindicated, and suddenly aimless. I stood up and collected my pad, heading towards the door.
“Oh, and Sandi! You won’t be alone.” He leaned in with lowered tones, a bit of mischievous smile spreading across his face. “All of the administrators are swamped with requests for this sort of thing.”
“Oh?” I said, even though I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Oh, yes. Yes, it might be quite the scientific event when all these papers finally start getting published… which is why I hope you’ll be ready.” He smiled broadly, the mischievous smile turning into a grin. “Because I want to be able to tell everyone that it was one of my students who was first!”
I let out a whistling laugh, my spirits somewhat lifted. “I’ll see what I can do, professor!”
“Perfect!” he said, laughing with me.
-------------------
Memory transcription subject: Lokki, Venlil Bio-engineering Consultant
Paw 2 of break
​
“No, you go in first!”
“What?? Me? It’s your movie!”
“And it’s your question! Here, I’ll knock for you--”
“No, don’t--!”
I hopped backwards, dancing out of range as my two classmates broke into an ungainly scuffle, Solenk trying desperately to keep Ennerif from knocking on the professor’s office door. I had to hold back a laugh, watching them.
“Stop it!” Rova whispered urgently. “He’s going to hear!”
“Tell that to Solenk!” Ennerif hissed, as the two of them fell against the door with a solid thump, hopelessly entangled and still struggling.
I was about to step in, when the door suddenly opened inwards. Solenk and Ennerif collapsed into a heap as their support suddenly disappeared, landing on the floor at the feet of the professor, his hand still on the doorknob.
Rova let out a panicked bleat, immediately turning tail and dashing off down the hall and around the corner.
I couldn’t hold it any more, and burst out laughing, doubled over. The professor joined in, chortling in amusement as the two students picked themselves up off the ground.
“I must say,” he said, stepping back a bit. “I don’t think I’ve ever held office hours that started with a wrestling match!”
“It was his fault,” Solenk and Ennerif said simultaneously.
Rova came back from around the corner, walking back with a sheepish expression across her face. “Sorry,” she said. “I panicked.”
The professor chuckled again, and motioned us inside.
“So, what brings you four today?” he asked, as we followed him in and shut the door.
No one said anything. We just stood there, fidgeting in place and exchanging uncertain glances.
“... Did you have a question about one of the less--”
“ARE MEGALODONS REAL??” I blurted out.
The professor stumbled over his words, visibly holding back laughter. “Uhh-- well, th--”
“Oh, Stars, they’re real…”
“No, they’re-- I mean, well-- well, what inspired this question, of all things??”
I placed my pad down in front of the professor, the terran movie’s poster already pulled up.
------ TRANSCRIPT PAUSED ------
NOTE: for additional context, distributor has attached a supplemental media excerpt at this timestamp.
ATTACHMENT: MEGALODON (2135) review by user J_Avery3417 on MoviesNetBase.com (Subsidiary of Wyrllen Media Dist. Co.)
View now?
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​

MEGALODON
1h37m - 2135 - dir. Jen Stevens
Genre - horror
User score - 7.5/10
-----
An undersea mining crew (played by Tom Cruise [AI reconstruction], Laky DuSchelle, and Joel Perring) have their operation interrupted by an unwelcome visitor. Spoiler alert, it’s a giant shark.
Director Jen Stevens displays an excellent sense of restraint, keeping the titular megalodon mostly in the background as a looming threat, at least up until the pulse-pounding 3rd-act set pieces. There’s a great sense of tension and atmosphere throughout, the audience left mostly to imagine the threat of the monstrous shark lurking just outside of the deep-sea outpost’s limited lighting.
The acting is no slouch either! While AI Tom Cruise is his usual charming-but-strangely-hollow digital self, Laky DuSchelle delivers a powerhouse performance with great chemistry from Joel Perring, as well as AI Cruise, albeit to a lesser extent.
The weirdly high quality execution of this frankly B-movie level premise leads to a surprisingly great film -- It’s worth a watch!
[users found this review to be most helpful]

​
------- TRANSCRIPT RESUMED -------
“You all do know that this is a fictional movie, yes?”
“Well, yes, of course, but, we figured that…” I glanced around nervously at my fellow students. “We figured that it had to be based on something real, right?”
“Did the movie say? I haven’t seen this particular one yet.”
“It was hard to tell,” Rova said, looking a little embarrassed. “It was really scary, we had to keep pausing it.”
“Well, megalodons are a real animal on Ear--” he paused, momentarily drowned out by various disbelieving shouts.
“How did humans even survive!?” Solenk demanded, Ennerif going pale at the thought as Rova fretted, wondering aloud about what might be lurking in Venlil Prime’s own oceans.
The professor held up his hands placatingly. “Or, more accurately, they were a real animal on Earth! They’ve been extinct for millions of years, long before humans ever came around.”
We all let out sighs of relief, turning to each other and flicking our ears almost gratefully. “That makes more sense,” Solenk said.
“We do still have sharks, though. Just much, much smaller!”
We froze. “How much smaller?” Solenk asked, suspicious.
“Well, the biggest ones today might be up to six meters--”
He was immediately drowned out again as our indignant shouting resumed, Ennerif crying out that “That’s not that much better!”
The professor waited patiently for us to finish before trying to soothe us. “I really wouldn’t be so worried about it. We don’t resemble their natural prey, so, in most normal situations, a shark would be extremely unlikely to attempt to hunt us.”
We stared at him in confusion.
“Remember: what does the anteater eat?”
Rova hesitated before answering, as if expecting some kind of trick question. “Ants?”
“Precisely! So it’s a predator… to ants. Most predators are evolved to hunt and consume specific things. They don’t simply go around eating anything and everything they can catch! Sharks are no different. We aren’t a part of their natural diet, so they have no interest in trying to hunt us. Much like…” he trailed off, catching sight of our faces still frozen in confusion. “You know, it’s occurred to me that this might be a lesson better taught in class, to everyone!” He chuckled a bit to himself.
“A shark wouldn’t try to eat a human?” I asked.
“Not under normal circumstances, no.”
“So… in the movie…”
He laughed, smiling good-naturedly. “I would strongly caution against taking anything you’ve seen there as scientific.”
I was stunned, caught somewhere between relief at knowing how fictional the movie was, and overwhelmed by yet another revelation about predator behaviors. I swear the professor was out to drive me insane.
“Speaking of which… how did you come by this movie? This is almost certainly something that should have been restricted by the UN censors.”
Speh! I thought, suddenly pulled back into reality. I couldn’t give up our source! I had no idea if the professor would actually report it, but it simply wasn’t anything I could risk! So many fascinating little details about humanity locked away behind a strict wall of UN censors… no way was I going to sell Sevelyen out!
Now, I just had to come up with a strategy, something to keep the professor off our tails. Something clever, that wouldn’t raise any suspicion.
“Uhhh,” I said, before turning and sprinting out the door, my accomplices following shortly behind me.
------------------
Memory transcription subject: Milam, Venlil Botanist
Paw 2 of break, lunch claw
​
Rysel was waving me over from across the cafeteria. He was sitting with Sandi and Kailo and-- I froze, clutching my lunch tray and hesitating. There was a human, sitting across from everyone. Brown jacket, scruffy gray hair flecked with white. A cane at his side, leaned up against the bench.
This was doctor MacEwan -- Rysel’s professor. I’d heard so much about him from my roommate that I practically knew him myself! Even though I didn’t really want to.
I could feel him staring at me from under the mask.
“Milam! Come sit with us!” Rysel urged, shifting to make room for me.
Cautiously, I walked over and sat myself between Rysel and Kailo, keeping a weather eye on the human across from us.
What would mama think of this? I wondered. Though I didn’t really have to wonder. She’d told me, in no uncertain terms. I was not to put myself in unnecessary danger. I could attend these classes, in hopes of saving my family’s farm, but I had to always stay safe.
Stick with the herd. Keep your distance. Stay vigilant. And never, never be alone with one.
Though this was hardly ‘alone,’ I’d figured. Apart from being in the middle of a crowded cafeteria, Rysel, Sandi, and Kailo were all here, just the same as they’d been when we’d sat with doctor Roisin. And that had been fine. Truth be told, I hadn’t really felt in danger then either. I knew I was supposed to, but I hadn’t.
I was already starting to wonder about them. Were they really as dangerous as everyone had said? As mama had said?
“It’s wonderful to meet you, Milam,” the professor said, as I settled into my seat.
“Likewise.” I gave a polite flick of the tail. “I’ve actually heard a lot about you.”
He let out a bark of laughter, followed by a rumbling chuckle. “All good things, I hope!”
“Bernard was telling us about one of the conservation efforts he was involved in. I think you might be interested in this!” Rysel said excitedly.
“Yes, let’s see,” the professor said, rewinding the conversation to include me. “We were in a place called Costa Rica, in the protected parks along its eastern edge. And some decades previous, a group of botanists had noticed a decline in several species of flowering plants there.”
He paused, holding a hand to his chest and clearing his throat. I could see Rysel at my side, his ears pointed unwavering towards him as he listened with obvious glee.
“At first, there were all sorts of theories. But, as more and more scientists got involved, they eventually arrived at a single answer: moths.”
Huh. Must be some kind of pollinating animal, I reasoned, not having any other idea what these ‘moths’ were, other than my translator informing me that it was a winged insect from Earth.
“So the local government started a rather unique conservation project, using some exciting new technology. And I, along with several of my colleagues, were lucky enough to take part in it! This was back when we were all still students, doing field work. Oh, it was so long ago!” he paused suddenly, pulling up his pad. “I think I still have some pictures!”
I couldn’t deny the man’s natural talent for storytelling - his vast experience had given him a way of being genuine and knowledgeable, a way of effortlessly bringing the listener along with him. It was easy to see why Rysel had been so captivated, I reflected, as the man flicked quickly through the photos on his pad.
“Ah! Here we are.”
He turned the pad around towards us, and we all leaned in close to see. Even Kailo, though he tried to appear uninterested.
“This was the camp where we’d been staying. Mostly just tents in the mud,” he said, with a chuckle.
I stared at the photo. It was, indeed, mostly just tents in the mud. A single larger prefab structure, not too dissimilar to the ones here on the campus, and a handful of rugged-looking trucks scattered around. And many humans, all unmasked. I blinked a bit, finding it more interesting than scary, as the professor rattled off the names of all the people he recognized in the photo. He’d point to them in turn, saying who they were and what they did and why they were important.
He flicked to the next picture; a rain-sopped dirt road, curving away into the vibrant green brush.
“The only way in or out was this old logging road. Logging had been outlawed for decades, at the time, but they'd been keeping the roads maintained for conservation efforts. Now, I say ‘maintained,’ but that’s being generous!” he laughed, and I nearly laughed along with him. “They were just barely more than trails. Every time it rained, we couldn’t use them. And it’s a rainforest!”
Rysel and Sandi laughed, while Kailo tried his best to remain impassive. But his tail gave him away.
He flicked to the next few photos. Old paper topographical maps, with certain locations marked in various colors. “There was a whole trail of little outposts, all along the old road. This one was ours,” he said, tapping on one near the end. “They flew in that big prefabricated lab you saw earlier, at one point. That had most of our equipment.”
He flicked along through the photos, reminiscing. “Some of the senior researchers actually slept in there! They just brought their sleeping bags inside and slept on the floor, because they didn't like sharing their tents with all the insects outside.” He shook his head. “Seemed silly to me. We were there to study some of those insects, after all!”
He stopped at another photo. A more personal photo, a male and a female human, standing together and baring their teeth towards the camera. The background was a stunning vista of shallow sloping hills all wrapped in dense jungle green, slipping away into a deep blue ocean and cloudless sky.
“This is doctor Sofia Allerson -- one of my dear friends and colleagues,” the professor said, pointing to the female human. “Though at this point she was still just a graduate student, like me. She went on to found one of Earth’s biggest bio-genetic-engineering firms. And that’s me!” he said, indicating the other human. “Look, I still had both of my legs!”
“Whoa!” Rysel said, leaning in. “You look so young!”
“Hey, now!” he said, feigning indignation.
“Sorry!” Rysel bleated out, with a whistling laugh as Sandi flicked her tail across his back in admonishment.
“No offense taken!” he said with his own chuckle. “This was indeed a lifetime ago. Ahh, these pictures bring back such wonderful memories.”
He hummed in a satisfied manner, and flicked to the next photo. A closeup of a large, strikingly patterned winged insect of some kind. I tilted my head in interest, at this point thoroughly engaged in spite of myself. These must be the ‘moths’ he’d mentioned.
“Ah, the star of the show! Or, rather, a copy of the original it was based on.”
I twisted my ears in confusion, and could see the others doing the same alongside me.
“There used to be a species of hawk moth native to the area that looked just like this. But this one,” he said, tapping at the picture, “is a genetically reconstructed copy. We call it a Lazarus species.”
Sandi perked up, her ears tilted forward in interest.
“Confusingly enough, we actually have several scientific uses for that term! But that’s another matter. In this case, it means it’s a species that we genetically engineered back into existence.”
He flicked through a couple more photos of the moths. Most were in their natural habitat, blending in with the leaf litter or tree trunks, while several were captured in nets, or displayed in laboratory settings.
“It turned out that the original species had been critically endangered, and functionally extinct for a while at this point. They hadn’t declared it yet… but their population was near the end of a death spiral. They have long ranges, you see, and there weren’t enough of them to successfully reproduce in sustainable numbers. There were less and less of them each year.”
“What happened to them?” Sandi asked.
“We did, unfortunately. Humans, I mean. It was a direct result of human actions th--”
“Humans drove them extinct?” Kailo blurted out, interrupting.
“Yes. Along with many other species on Earth, it pains me to admit.”
“You hunted them?”
“N-no,” the professor stumbled, seeming a little taken aback. “No, it was habitat destruction. Do you remember those logging roads I mentioned earlier?” He sighed, and scratched at his chin as his tone turned mournful. “It’s pretty much always habitat destruction. At the time, we were so concerned with ourselves. Our population was growing and growing, and we were cutting down forests for timber and arable land, and stripping mountains bare for metal. We just didn’t care, or, I guess we cared more about ourselves than our world. But! Things changed, and we’ve gotten a lot better at finding that balance. We like to think of ourselves more as stewards of our world, now, and with modern science and technology, we can do things like this,” he waved a hand past another picture of a moth. “And even undo some of the damage we’d done.”
“So, it’s not the same species at all?” Sandi asked, leaning in to peer at the photo. Her ears were twitching back and forth in visible interest, and she looked like she was holding back a whole barrage of questions. I wondered if she’d heard of anything similar in her field, or if she was just as confused and intrigued as I was.
“That’s correct! It’s a genetically distinct species which we modified to resemble the original. The two would be unable to reproduce with each other. In fact, when we introduced the new lazarus species into the environment, they out-competed the few remaining original moths, and drove them extinct ahead of schedule. It was actually on this very trip that we finally, officially, declared their extinction.”
“And it was because of the lazarus species?”
“Yes. It was going to happen no matter what we did, but… it was still very sad. We couldn’t help but feel responsible for it, and no one ever wants to see a species go extinct.”
There was a sudden uneasy silence from the venlil at the table, hearing those words. Subtle ear twitches of discomfort, maybe even guilt.
I thought about my mother. How many predators she’d destroyed, and their nests and their young. I wondered if she’d ever driven a species extinct. The Guild certainly has, and the Federation even more so -- and if they have, then I suppose my mother has helped them do it.
Granted, these moths were not predators. But even so, the professor’s words itched at my mind. Listening to him espouse conservation so passionately, I was finding it difficult to imagine my mother saying the same. I was sure she would argue that the Guild does protect life, just that of prey, but still… it seemed… wrong, in a way that I couldn’t yet comprehend.
Because sitting here across from me was a predator. A predator who had spent his youth working to protect prey, to protect life unconditionally. But it was my mother who could only say the opposite.
“Well, anyways,” the professor continued, seeming to sense the awkward air he’d inadvertently created. “It was an unfortunate necessity. These particular moths perform an essential role in the ecosystem as pollinators -- and quite industrious ones they are, too!”
Rysel was shooting me excited glances. I figured that this was probably the part he’d guessed I’d be interested in. And I was, although my head was still reeling a bit from the strangeness of it all.
“Did you know, there are certain flowering plants that have evolved to be pollinated exclusively by single species of insects? So many fascinating examples of natural adaptation. Oh, not these ones, though,” he said, gesturing at the pictures on the pad. “Different insects. But still -- a vital role. In fact, so vital that it was those same botanists from earlier who had first recorded the moth’s decline!”
Huh, I thought, the notion familiar to me. It was a common enough story; farmers finding less and less natural pollinators in their crops, and year by year relying more on artificial pollination methods which never seemed to be quite as effective.
I blinked with heightened interest, my mind suddenly seizing on the possibilities. Was this what I had been looking for? Could the methods of these humans be the answer to my family’s troubles? I knew that it was a complex problem, and that any solution would likely match that complexity, but… maybe it was something?
“Now, back then, the whole ‘lazarus species’ thing was quite new. So our research was all recording and tracking these new moths, making sure they were behaving as expected and filling the same niche that the original species did.”
“How did you do that?” Kailo asked, clearly trying very hard to come off as severe and vigilant.
“A whole lot of hiking around in the jungle!” he said, chuckling. “First, we collected samples from various flowers. Then we collected specimens of the new lazarus moths from as many different locations as we could. We take those to the lab, and then… just a moment…”
He paused to flick through some more photos, settling on a few examples from inside the prefabricated building in the camp. It was all sterile whites and soft blues inside, in stark contrast to the lush jungle it sat in. In the photos, various humans wearing clean garments with clear plastic face shields, holding cotton swabs and little dishes and jars, posing and baring their teeth-- no, smiling, at whoever had been taking the photos.
It was… oddly charming, actually. Seeing all these unmasked humans should have set my fur on end and pinned back my ears, but it didn't. Maybe it was because it was just photos, or maybe because I was beside my friends and they were relaxed, I didn’t know. But I couldn’t really think of them as frightening. And I suddenly couldn’t really think of them as dangerous, either.
He swiped past the photo, and started playing a video. A close-up of one of the moths, fluttering around in a small container while one of the scientists poked at it with a cotton swab.
“This was the hard part,” the professor narrated as we watched. “The moths collect pollen on their proboscises, and we were trying to swab them to collect a sample of it. Then we compare the sample to the flowers, and create a record of all the ones that the moths had visited. But the tricky part was that the moths weren’t always interested in cooperating!”
In the video, the moth came to a rest at the bottom of the container, the camera struggling to auto-focus as a cotton swab slowly approached from out of frame. It trembled slightly in the human’s grip, inching bit by bit towards the moth, until-- the moth startled, and quickly flitted off to the other end of the container. “Oh, come on!” a frustrated voice said from behind the camera, while other voices laughed and giggled.
“You had to have some very steady hands,” Bernard explained. “That is, until someone came up with the bright idea that we could just put a little dab of nectar or sugar water on the swab and just wait for them to drink that. Genius!”
“What did you do with the moths when you were done?” Rysel asked absently, his eyes still watching the video as the swab went back in for another unsuccessful attempt. From beside me, I could see Kailo’s ears perk up in attention at the question.
“We just released them. Originally, we’d wanted to release them in locations where their population wasn’t growing as fast, but it was proving a little too challenging to transport them. We had to get pretty much everywhere by foot, and…”
They just released them, the thought immediately embedded itself into my mind. Bernard kept going on, something about one of the trucks breaking down and how hard it was to get repairs, but I could barely hear him. I was buried in my own head. A species of sapient predators, working to protect an ecosystem they didn’t even live in. Spending money, time, and effort, putting forth their best science… for insects. And all because they pollinated some flowers in a jungle somewhere??
They didn’t even kill the moths for their samples. They just… caught them. And let them go.
I could feel my tail lashing behind me. At first, I searched for some justification. That they protected life on their world so diligently now was because it was their food source, surely! But… I couldn’t even convince myself of that. It just didn’t work. They weren’t eating these moths, and they weren’t eating these flowers either. And listening to Bernard, and even my own professor, it just didn’t work.
It was like gaps had suddenly appeared -- no, it was like they’d always been there, and I was finally seeing it. All the edifice of fear and instinct and everything else we’d ever known, and now I could see the water running under it. A flow of questions eroding away at the foundations, grain by grain, brick by brick, all threatening to crumble down.
Was mama wrong? Were we all wrong? And why did I have to fear them like this?
I knew what she would say. She’d chastise me for putting myself in danger, first. And then, that predators could be deceptive. Some anecdote about the work she once did. That it didn’t matter what I thought about them, because their nature was their nature, and that was immutable.
But I wasn’t so sure any more. I stared down at the food on my tray, uneaten. There was a little white bowl there, with a tiny bunch of grapes still on their vine. I’d had to go to the human section to get them.
I remembered that they had been sweet. And that it was my friends beside me, who had finally given me the courage to try them. I remembered that wonderful rush of new flavors, and the satisfaction of just having tried them. And I thought this no different.
Maybe they were right, again. Maybe the humans deserved a chance.
I reached down to pluck a grape from its stem, and held it between my claws, considering it. The questions continued to whirl around in my head, and I wondered at how much had changed, or if I was changing. I didn’t know.
I stared down at the fruit in my claws, turning it over and thinking. Heh, I thought to myself, suddenly amused. I guess it already bore fruit.
Just listening wouldn’t hurt, I decided, popping the grape into my mouth and turning my ears back to the professor.
--------

GY
The physical difference between humans and demons is as great as that between humans and the divine. Demons are magical creatures, born of mana. Their flesh, blood and bones all originate from mana, which is also one of the reasons Reginn is known as the greatest demon slayer of the eons. However, this physique also allows them to connect with nature better, for nature speaks in magic. The world’s blood is magic. The demons — or more scientifically, the mana-based organisms — cannot survive for long periods in low mana concentration areas, for they need mana in order to achieve daily functions.
Near human societies, unless it is a special location such as a divine descension site, mana-rich forest or a magical ore mine, the people tend to soak up the mana naturally, storing it within their bodies. The civilizations have also used mana in many products such as potions, charms and seals, further depleting the resource. This does not concern humans much, as they do not require mana for life, on the contrary, high mana concentrations can be fatal for all carbon-based organisms.
In human population centres such as Cadra, it is difficult for a demon to live, and they may require an external source of mana, be it from potions, magical creatures or humans.
It was just another ordinary day — or it had become one for Ayn. It was like the good old days when the hero was surrounded by numerous brave companions, unrivalled in the continent. His new team was the strongest yet — the Enlegion Silverguards — but it seemed that they had unlocked but a fraction of their true abilities.
“Ayn, would you like to join us for our practice?” asked Siege in a serious tone.
It seemed that everyone had loosened up to his presence in such a short period of time. He thought that Siege would’ve been the last one to become comfortable around him, for he was the calculating, careful, lone-wolf hero archetype, but in reality, it was Alveolo who was the most weary of him. Even as he entered the basement arena, Ayn could feel Alveolo’s gaze from somewhere.
At the duelling ground awaited Gallatin, Yuta and Mal, but Mal excused herself soon after noticing something.
Now was the perfect time for a 2 v 2. It was decided Ayn would assist Gallatin while Siege and Yuta would team up. Ayn knew that warriors bonded the most after an intense battle, the participants witnessing the exposed passion of their opponent, and connecting soul to soul in the process. The hero wished to know the feeling, but it was his fate to be relegated to the supporting role. It would be foolish to become a C-tier damage dealer, when he could be an SSS+ tier support, and he had always done what the others wanted him to do, but what did he want?
He would ponder the question of when peace befalls Avangarden and its people. For now, he needed the serve the nation faithfully. This was a kind of sacrifice, one only he could make, but perhaps someday, he would be freed of the shackles.
“Ah!”
Alveolo immediately covered the left side of her face after Mal surprised her with a cold can of coffee. Coffee. Canned. Two words which should never be together in any sentence except ‘coffee should never be canned’.
To Alveolo, coffee was not simply a means to an end, but an art like all cooking. Like baking, like painting. There were a myriad of tools to choose from and ingredients to choose from. Innovation is hidden in every corner. Chocolate? Vanilla? Perhaps even powder milk?
On the contrary, canned coffee was a means to an end. How boring.
“Heh, I saw you peeking at Sir Ayn a lot back there,” said Mal, “feeling jealous or something?”
“...No, just being alert. It’s strange how Siege accepted him so quickly, but if he’s lowering his guard, that just means I have to raise mine.”
“Or… maybe he’s just good at telling good people from bad,” said Mal, “Anyways, want some coffee?”
“...Fine.”
After handing her the can, Mal took a seat next to her. From here, the two could overlook the arena through a window. The practice area was a cube, with over a hundred thousand individual censors to track various information in order to maximize efficiency while training. Alveolo thought that perhaps this was the reason Siege invited Ayn to train, in order to gain more information, but he seemed to be having way too much fun — or so she thought. She couldn’t really tell with his mask on.
Mal’s soft smile slowly perished as she prepared to confront Alveolo.
“...So are you going to tell him about it soon?”
“...”
“He deserves to know, you know?” said Mal, “He trusts you, and you can’t just betray that.”
“Look, I’m already burdening him so much, you can already tell what he’s going to do if I do tell him, can’t you?”
“Even still… You’re just going to hurt him more, the later you tell him.”
“...I wish I was born human…”
“...”
No matter how much the government preached the equality between the demonkind and humankind, Mal wondered if true reconciliation was possible. Some thought that demons were closer to monsters than humans, but wasn’t the opposite also true? Humans were closer to beasts than demons. It is known that demons have many innate evil desires, specific to their species, but humans also have those carnal desires as well. Perhaps this was the consequence of intelligence, having to realize one’s crude imperfection.
But this was different — only Alveolo knew. She left the half-empty coffee can on the chair before leaving, she couldn’t finish it after all.
Mal had seen many adventurers come and go. It’s almost always tragic, and happy endings are one in a million. Every time someone embarks on a new adventure, they are gambling their life, and someday fate will inevitably catch up, no matter how strong you are. All happy endings end in retirement — all others are bad endings. She sighed as she wondered why she was here still. She could retire now if she wanted, especially with the sponsorship fund from the royals, but no. Her goal was to help as many people reach the happy ending before she reached her bad ending — retirement just wasn’t for her.
A dark room with a single light. A mass of paintings awaited Alveolo. A secret room even Siege wasn’t allowed in — at least he promised anyway. However, his promise was much stronger than any lock or deterrence, for he was a man of his word. Such honesty only pained her further as she continued her piece. Which number was this? She first began with numbers for titles for organization and chronology — 1, 2, 3, 55, 74, 144, 6884 — but as she continued, she kept giving them names instead, as if the words were escaping from her — Lilies, Thank You For The Meal, Plates, Wings.
Not only the names but the pieces themselves. They were escaping from her. This wasn’t recreational, rather, it was more so that she puked out these paintings, or else she would become sickly from suppression.
Each piece was more horrific than the previous, and all were reflected in her mind. It disgusted her, her filthy thoughts and impulses. However, she could not bring herself to destroy these paintings.
She had to be completely sober while painting these pieces, it was almost an obsession. It had a horrific beauty to it only a demon could see — it was delicious.
Alveolo knew that blood was only for supplements, but she couldn’t help but begin to enjoy it recently.