Hi Everyone!
This is my first write-up of any kind of unresolved mystery, on any platform, so I apologize for any formatting errors and my storytelling ability. Today I would like to hear your thoughts on the very mysterious death of Noah Presgrove, a 19 year old from Comanche Oklahoma. I have tried to be as thorough as possible with the details, but there is a great deal of conflicting information in the news reports, so I primarily used facts stated by Noah's family in interviews. With that said, let's begin...
Noah Presgrove was a handsome, athletic 19 year old from Comanche Oklahoma, which is located just south of Oklahoma City in the middle of the state. Noah had recently graduated high school in the spring of 2023 and was waiting for his cousin to do the same the following year so they both could enlist in the Marine Corp together and serve our country. By all accounts Noah was a ladies man, standing at 6'2" with an athletic build, in high school he was a 4-sport athlete with American Football and Wrestling among them. His family also says he was adventurous, kind and very much a jokester who would happily play pranks on his family. Last Labor Day weekend, the first weekend of September 2023, Noah was deciding between attending Rocklahoma, an annual 3-day hard rock and metal festival held in Pryor, Oklahoma, with family members or attending a 4-day Labor Day weekend bash/22nd birthday party of a friend. Noah considered going to Rocklahoma, but changed his mind when the family members he'd be attending with said they didn't think it was a good idea for Noah's 16 year old friend to join them there, since they didn't know this friend's family and Rocklahoma is big for consuming alcohol. With that, everyone went their own way to celebrate the holiday weekend.
The Labor Day/Birthday party was for a female friend of Noah's who was turning 22. It had been advertised on Snapchat, even containing the address, so quite a few people were expected to attend. Noah drove himself to the party on Saturday and by all accounts enjoyed himself. He did text his family member who was at Rocklahoma and express regret at not going with them, but it doesn't appear that this put too much of a damper on his attitude at the house party. After spending Saturday at the birthday girl's house, Noah returned home Sunday, probably to freshen up and take care of any outstanding errands or just check in with his grandmother, with whom he lived. Also, Noah's car was leaking from the oil pan, so it sounds like part of the reason to return home was to leave it there so he wouldn't have to worry about it. There are two stories about what happened next: The first is that one of Noah's friends picked him up from his house on Sunday, but took him to a truck stop so he could grab some food from the Sonic there. Oddly, the friend who took him there says he left him there and Noah was then given a ride to the party by the birthday girl, who had to come pick him up. The other story is that his best friend picked him up from his house and took him directly to the party, leaving him in the driveway. Either way, Noah was back at the party on Sunday and according to those present, was very much enjoying himself. There were videos from the party showing Noah and his friends doing "guy things" like the Slap Game, where two people try to slap each other across the face as hard as they can. Just "macho" drunken teenage guy things. There was also video from the party of the guests playing "classic" party games such as beer pong.
With all the drinking going on, some issues were bound to arise. A confrontation happened between Noah and his best friend. Noah had been in a corner with his best friend's girlfriend and apparently they had their backs to everyone else while talking. The best friend took exception to this and an argument ensued. Luckily, it did not become physical and they made up shortly after, but this event with the best friend and his girlfriend is important for later. A second confrontation occurred between Noah and a 16 year old guest that did become physical. The 16 year old accused Noah of hiding his phone, although the reasons why he thought Noah did it have not been stated. During the argument the kid "fishhooked" Noah and Noah returned the favor by biting his finger. It seems like the other people there were able to diffuse the situation and the kid's phone was found underneath another guest who was sleeping on a couch. As the day went on, things continued to become crazier as the people at the party drank more and more. At one point girls at the party started signing their names on Noah's torso and buttocks, writing things such as "Noah's hot!" and drawing a cartoon penis on his rear-end. Noah and the best friend he had the argument with even drove a John Deere "Gator" UTV "Side by Side" around the property, but stopped when Noah scrapped his hand almost flipping it over. Some people even say that Noah was tossed from the UTV, but he was checked out by a nurse at the party and she said he had nothing to worry about. Another event worth mentioning is that the birthday girl seemed to have a crush on Noah. Noah realized this, or was told this, and while talking to her about it called her a "fat, nasty b*tch". I assume that they were close friends and this is just a drunken teen being a drunken teen. An odd thing to mention is that this girl's mother, who also lives in the home, had told Noah's family that she believed Noah wanted her sexually. Whether this is true or not, I have no clue, but it seems a very weird thing to say to the family of a 19 year old your daughter is friends with.
So here's where the mystery comes in. Early Monday morning (September 4th, 2023), after 2:00am, the guests say that Noah was upset about something and that it might have had to do with sleeping in either the birthday girl's or her mother's bed. One of them either heard, or saw, Noah attempting to sleep in their bed and demanded that he go on the floor. This apparently upset Noah so much that he said he needed to go out for a walk, completely drunk, very early in the morning. The guests say Noah was wearing his best friend's shorts (we'll get to his clothes later) and could only find one of his shoes, so he grabbed another shoe lying around the house and took off out the front door. The house had a 1/2 mile long driveway that then went out to US-81, a major North-South highway that runs for 1,200+ miles through the central US. At 3:41am, a friend of Noah's posted a weird Snapchat: a photo of a girl at the party smiling, with the caption "well, Noah's missing". This was the last Snapchat posted by any of the partygoers after days of constant videos and pics. Around 5:00am, a semi-truck driving along US-81 saw something he believed to be a body lying on the shoulder of the road. After driving past, he became concerned and turned around to confirm what he saw. By the time he got back, two other vehicles had stopped in front of the lifeless body of Noah on the shoulder. He was completely naked wearing only 2 mismatched shoes and curled up in a fetal position. He appeared to have blunt force trauma to the back of his head. He had small scrapes on his left shoulder and left hip and his fingertips on both hands were reported as being "shredded", down to the bone. Noah's front top and bottom teeth had also been knocked out and they were found scattered at the scene. There was no blood found at the scene, other than a small amount around Noah's injuries. Very concerning was the fact that there was no writing on his body anywhere. Not on his torso and not on his buttocks. The shorts Noah was wearing were found folded up next him. The people at the party said "They must've been knocked off when he was hit.", which obviously does not make sense.
Around 6:00am, with the police already notified by the people who found Noah, all Snapchat's/social media from people at the party was deleted. His friends and acquaintances at the party say they have no idea what led up to his death and they were unaware of it. The police did not search the house because they said: "Noah wasn't found there.". They did eventually conduct a "mass" interview with all the partygoers. During this interview, Noah's best friend's girlfriend, the one that led to his first confrontation, told police she had never met Noah. She had wiped her phone so completely that even her boyfriend's number had been deleted. When the guests were asked about Noah being naked, the girls said they gave Noah a "shower", but Noah's mental state at the time, whether mildly drunk or completely inebriated, has been an area of dispute among the guests. Some say he was joking around and being himself while being showered, other accounts state that he was barely conscious. Noah's clothing he wore to the party that night has never been located. Police were told that after Noah showered his clothes were dirty, so he wore his friend's shorts. There is a rumor that his best friend's father found Noah's shirt from the party, which was then cut-up and distributed to the party attendees as a "memento". In addition to this event with his shirt, there is also information that his best friend's father had some of Noah's teeth in his pocket. He stated he "accidentally" picked them up from the crime scene. It's worth stating that this particular individual has been on Noah's family's Facebook memorial page for months, arguing with others on there. Just very odd behavior from an adult father who's son's best friend died mysteriously. But, on this same topic, NONE of the partygoers or their families have ever visited Noah's family to express their condolences. Never once.
Since Noah's friends and others at the party said they didn't know what happened, the police had their work cut out for them. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol obtained a "geofence" warrant covering a 1-1/2 mile radius around the party house. What they found was a bit disturbing. Around the time it is believed Noah died, 2 phones were traced as having left the house, heading to the location of his body. After briefly staying there, the two phones returned to the house. People at the party told a private investigator hired by Noah's family that they went out looking for Noah in the UTV/Gator that Noah and his friend had been on earlier. If they had really done this, they would have found him since the phones were at the spot Noah was found. It has not been released who exactly this was. Also revealed when police searched phones was a video of the birthday girl and her sister on their front porch, screaming at each other about Noah leaving the party. It is believed that this could be relevant. The Texas Rangers also became involved, due to the fact that two men at the party were from Texas. It is not known if these men are persons of interest. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol also quietly issued a warrant for a "black pick-up truck" believed to have been used to dump his body, but it is unknown why they are looking for this particular vehicle. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has unequivocally stated that this was 100% NOT a hit-and-run. They have now also said that this is NOT a murder investigation. The Medical Examiner's report released on Monday, May 13th 2024 stated that Noah died from "Multiple Blunt Force injuries", but list the manner in which this happened as "unknown". His report also detailed extensive injuries to the teen's upper body, including 10 broken ribs, serious skull, neck, and spine fractures, internal bleeding, brain and organ damage, and cuts and grazes all over his body. The autopsy also revealed air in both his cranial cavity and spinal cord, extremely rare conditions only caused by massive head trauma. The family has heard rumors that a golf club from the set in his best friend's truck may have been involved, but nothing else has come of this.
The family has engaged with a private investigator, who did uncover previously unknown information, and gave that to the police. They have also said that there is much more which has not been publicly released and that the search of the phones did uncover good information. Also according to the family, some evidence has been covered-up or lost and that the day after the party, the birthday girl's house and property reeked of bleach. Despite this, his family says good things are going on behind the scenes.
So, with all of the above information, it doesn't seem to be a stretch to say that someone from the party knows something. It is my personal belief that this case will be resolved, but I think three things will have to happen: Time, Pressure and Guilt. At some point in the future, someone from the party will feel guilty, or media pressure will get to them and they will talk. Unfortunately, it may take some time unless the police uncover new evidence sooner. Thank you very much for reading this, but please let me know your thoughts on this case and feel free to ask questions.
Sources:
Podcast (Interview w/ Noah's family): https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jimny-carpenteepisodes/The-Suspicious-Murder-Of-Noah-Presgrove-Part-1-e2dchac
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13421341/Oklahoma-teen-Noah-Presgrove-beaten-death-gang-doctor-claims.html
https://kfor.com/news/local/m-e-releases-more-details-in-19-year-olds-death/
https://www.foxnews.com/us/oklahoma-teen-military-hopefuls-family-cant-imagine-was-murdered-offers-theory-about-last-hours

I'm honestly at a loss of what to do. Until half a year ago I was engaged and had everything I never thought I would have until she decided she was no longer happy. It's been more than a few years since I was in the dating market, but things have drastically changed for me due to a horrible incident that occurred a while back. A bit of backstory, and I'll included a TlDr at the end.
Several years back there was a hobby group I used to regularly attend, and one day this woman who had only started showing up recently took an interest in me. I'd just gotten out of a pretty bad relationship a few months before that, so when she made a move on me, I took her up on it to see where things would go. I wasn't use to a woman actually making the first move, so I took it as a good sign. We saw each other for the next few weeks and in that time we had gotten physical a few times, with her making the first move on that as well. Fast forward to the end of our time together when I found out she had a boyfriend the entire time and was cheating on him with me. I broke it off with her because I didn't want to be "the other guy" to some poor sap, and she wasn't pleased with me for finding out. Her boyfriend had nearly caught her cheating, so what did she do? She threw me under the bus and told him I was "just some creep who wouldn't leave her alone". Hilarious, because I had chat logs that showed nothing but positive interactions between us and call logs showing we would spend several hours a week on the phone together. I block her on everything and move on with my life.
Fast forward several years later, I'm engaged and in a happy relationship, and a gal pal of mine DM's me to tell me she saw a post about me in a group on FB. She sent me live updates on the post as well. I guess these groups called "Are We Dating The Same Guy" popped up seemingly everywhere, and our local group had nearly 50,000 local women in it at that time. Considering I live in what's generally called a "small city", this was extremely concerning. The poster was the woman from the hobby shop, and she uploaded my full name and multiple photos of me. In the post she said that I "violently rxped" her, was a "woman beater", and called me a "dangerous predator". I felt sick to my stomach. Worse than that, at least 15 different women were commenting on the post verifying it was "all true". Only 1 woman tried to defend me, a woman I used to work with, and within minutes her comments were deleted and she was banned from the group. As for all the other women commenting, half of them were women I hadn't seen since literally high school and never spoke to because I was a quiet nerdy kid who stuck to his friends. One of them even said she had "first hand experience", but I had never even spoken one word to her in my life. The other women commenting, I didn't recognize their names or faces at all and was certain I'd never met or spoken to any of them. Comments ranged from saying things like I "stalked them home", "assaulted them at a club" (I don't drink or go to bars), and one even said that I "forcefully penetrated her" in her own home, despite not even knowing who she is.
I spent that entire day having a panic attack and was on the phone with the mental health crisis line for a good while. When I went to work the next day, female co-workers who were normally friendly and cheerful towards me looked at me with disgust or walked in the other direction when they saw me coming. I went home early that day after taking another panic attack in the bathroom. Later that night I had a missed phone call from our local police. Called back, hoping it was just a prank call, but it wasn't. An officer actually wanted to speak with me about some grave accusations that were brought to him. It turns out the hobby shop woman and other she knew collectively called in "anonymous tips" about me, but in those tips I wasn't a "violent rxpist". Instead, these tips included where I worked and told the police I was "dangerous to children". I remember nearly passing out on the phone from panicking again. Turns out the officer I was spoking to already suspected it was BS, because these groups were generating hundreds of "anonymous tips" a day for them. The investigation was closed and branded as "malicious gossip" and I never heard from the police again.
Despite that, my reputation was ruined forever. My partner at the time actually had my back and was a huge pillar of support, but I was still a wreck. I became a recluse and started going to therapy every couple of weeks. In our local group, old posts of guys are "bumped" all the time whenever a guy is found on a dating site or women remember he exists. The group has nearly doubled in size since then too. Posts aren't even about dangerous people, but I'll see posts all the time like "This guy just matched with me and hasn't messaged me yet, any tea??" and even random creep shots of guys at the gym saying things like "This guy is super cute, any tea or red flags??" I see nothing to do with "safety" and actual dangerous dudes I've known over the years haven't appeared there at all. Old classmate kidnapped and nearly beat his partner to death? No post. Dude admits to mxlesting his partners toddler? No post. Guy doesn't buy a gal a gift after a date? He's a monster and must be posted about. It was easy enough to get in there with a dummy account to make sure I wasn't caught off guard again.
---Fast forward to today. I unfortunately find myself single when I never thought I would be again. I'm still somewhat of a recluse, don't keep any photos of my name on social media, nor do I use my real name. I've disappeared as much as possible. I'm still terrified that someone there will remember I exist and post about me again, as I see happen to other men daily. Dating websites are just asking for trouble, as most posts in this group are screenshots of guys profiles. If I dare take a photo of myself and put it in a dating website, odds are very good I'd be posted and would have to suffer through the same ordeal yet again. I can't afford (nor could I back then) the several thousands of dollars to take someone to court for slandelibel, and Facebook says these posts aren't against their "community standards". Even then, that's like cutting a single head off of a hydra knowing that more will take it's place. Meeting people IRL just doesn't happen anymore and it's frowned upon to try to meet women in public settings as opposed to online dating where they can screen everyone beforehand. Online dating is no longer safe for me. How am I to ever be with someone again if OLD is off the table and I have a destroyed reputation?
**TlDr: Woman cheated on boyfriend with me several years ago and didn't like me finding out. Woman in question decides to publicly slander me to nearly 50,000 local women several years later. Slander works and my reputation has been destroyed and people think I'm some kind of monster. I delete all presence of my name and face online that I can, but now that I'm single again, I have no idea how to ever date again with OLD being off the table and having a tarnished reputation.**

One of the most interesting parts of the story is the legends of ren zhu.
Even now, we don't fully know why ren zhu created it (how is also somewhat of a mystery).
But it's most likely linked to one of the biggest secrets of the gu world.
Not just that but also ren zhu's arrangements and the possibility of his revival.
A big reveal in the story was the fact that everything that happened was part of the venerable's scheme to destroy fate gu.
I wouldn't be surprised if even venerables were being schemed against by ren zhu with some massive plot to fulfill ren zhu's ambitions.
We know that ren zhu wanted the destruction of fate gu which did happen in the story so everything could be a massive scheme
This is further supported by the fact that ren zhu's plan to destroy fate gu relied on his wisdom (a human's strength isn't enough to destroy fate).
So the idea that he succeeded and created this massive plan to achieve his desires does make some sense.
In that case what is ren zhu's ultimate goal. Obviously the three wishes that were mentioned in the legends of ren zhu. (check out chapter 1960).
Ren Zu said: He wanted freedom and to get rid of fate's shackles. After that, he could go wherever he wanted to go, and be with whoever he wanted to with forever.
Ren Zu said: I want freedom and to get rid of fate's shackles. I will possess countless delicacies and wines, endless wealth, and all kinds of comfortable and beautiful clothes.
Ren Zu said: I want freedom and to get rid of fate's shackles. I will breathe freely and live on forever, I want eternal life!
Why can't a human be together forever with their loved ones?
Why can't a human live life without worries and have endless wealth?
Why can't a human have eternal life?
So we know that ren zhu wants eternal life. Confirmed by the author to be related to the refinement of eternal gu. It's possible that even fang yuan was apart of this scheme to destroy fate and refine eternal gu.
But that's not ren zhu's only wish though.
He also wants endless wealth. This is definitely linked to the refinement of rank 9 (10?) wealth gu.
Finally, he wants to be together with his loved ones.
This is clearly linked to his 10 children. (and there are conveniently 10 venerables)
If ren zhu does revive (one way or another) this is makes sense that one of his goals is to revive his children children.
This would explain why he used to their corpses to create the human race. This is part of his plan to destroy fate gu and achieve his three wishes (after all he can only revive with the destruction of fate gu).
This means that this entire story is part of his master plan that he created by taking a bite of wisdom gu through self gu.
Also since wang xio er has self gu, it's possible that he could be related to ren zhu's revival in some way.
We know that the extreme physiques are related to his children so a rank 9 extreme physique (of which there are several) could allow for his children to revive.
It also makes sense why humans were the first race to become venerables (this was part of ren zhu's plan to achieve his desires). He knew that heaven's will would favor the weakest race which would allow him to establish human dominance and eventually enact his plan.
Even star constellation merging with heaven's will was part of his plan. After all, Ren Zhu is the most knowledgeable person when it comes to human nature.
What's even crazier is that 8 of the 10 venerables have direct connection to ren zhu's 10 children.
Star Constellation has the carefree wisdom heart and Reckless Savage was rumored to have the great strength true martial physique.
Not just that but the 9th and 10th children are related to earth and rule path respectively which is related to paradise earth and limitless
Genesis Lotus is obviously related to boundless samsara while the desolate ancient yin physique is related to time which incriminates Red Lotus.
Northern Ice Dark Soul is related to soul path which incriminates spectral soul.
Verdant Great Sun might be a space path physique which might be linked to thieving heaven but I'd relate that to giant sun. (plus giant sun and verdant great sun do have similar appearances).
Thieving heaven and primordial origin are a stretch but theft path is related to wealth so maybe wondrous gold but I have no connection to primordial origin and blazing lightning brilliance though.
Ren Zhu doesn't just want to refine eternal gu, he also wants wealth gu and the revival of his children.
It was speculated that eternal life is linked to rank 10.
Considering the way gu were used in real life, I speculated that a rank 10 being might be the result of several rank 9s devouring each other. (Kind of like the last legend of ren zhu).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu_(poison))
The traditional preparation of gu poison involved sealing several venomous creatures (e.g., centipede, snake, scorpion) inside a closed container, where they devoured one another and allegedly concentrated their toxins into a single survivor, whose body would be fed upon by larvae until consumed. The last surviving larva held the complex poison
This is probably Ren Zhu's master plan. After all he said that he wanted to be with his loved ones forever.
So it doesn't have simple as just reviving his children, I think he wants to fuse their consciousness into some rank 10 being that has eternal life.
I do wonder if the refinement of eternal gu is related to wealth gu in some way.
After all, wealth gu can be used to substitute for any immortal material. So even if eternal gu required materials that weren't available, wealth gu could substitute.
Eternal gu probably also requires ren zhu's children as the hairy man tried to sacrifice verdant great sun to create it.
So Ren Zhu probably orchestrated the entire plot to destroy fate, achieve his desires, and become a rank 10 being with eternal life.
That being said, fang yuan might be able to take his place like what he did with spectral soul. Of course, even if he does it will most likely end with his death (in some ways anyway).
But what do you guys think? What's Ren Zhu's role in this story? How do you his scheme would interact with fang yuan?
And how much of my theory is reasonable or am I reading too much into things?

Okay, honestly. I’m writing this because I am chronically on Reddit, and today I saw a thread about an insecure wife. She was 30 years old and would get extremely angry with her husband for not turning off a show or a movie that had female nudity in it. ALL, and I mean all of the comments were saying that she is extremely insecure, and that she is projecting into her partner by behaving that way, and that nudity is all around us now a days. They were saying that at that point she would be insecure about him even going to a pool or a beach because he might see a half naked woman. I definitely agree with the comments.
I’m 22, and I’ve had my insecurities. I’m also an extremely self aware person, and not even joking this thread was very eye-opening to me. Because holy fuck, do I not want to be that person in the future. I’m with my boyfriend now, I’ve known him a long time but we’ve been dating for about 6 months, just graduated college together. I’ve dated in the past, but this relationship is so different because I now know that I was never in love with my exes the way I am with him. It’s real, and healthy, and frankly, I think it has been uncovering the unresolved insecurities and traumas that I have not dealt with yet.
But I definitely for the first time in my relationship life would get insecure when we’d watch a movie with a lot of nudity, and I’d want him to look away. I’d play it off as a joke, but I’d be like wanting to throw up inside lmao. He’s 6’4 and very attractive, and frankly all my exes were usually more normal- attractive and reserved, so they didn’t have a ton of girl friends. My boyfriend now, has a ton of girl friends, and when we were on campus together he’d constantly be having girls run into him and hug him and say they missed him. Had several girls come up to us and say hi to him and not even acknowledge that I was there. He put boundaries in place without me even asking, to not hug girls anymore if they came up to him, he’d just fist bump them. And I’d do the same with my guy friends. I really appreciated that he did that for me.
But my boyfriend even for the way he looks, and his personality is a lot more insecure than he leads on, and it was kind of a difficult talking stage because he’s been cheated on in 3 relationships, and I think he’d assume I’d do the same to him. I had to reassure him so much about it, which I didn’t mind doing, but. He wanted me to cut off so many male friends to the point where I felt defensive and controlled, and expected that he then cut off his girl friends. Which I’ve never cared about in the previous relationships. As long as the girls weren’t crossing boundaries, why should I have cared. There are so many more things that bother me in this relationship that never have before. I just don’t like the way that I’ve been acting.
Moral of the story, it’s gotten bad to the point where I don’t even want him seeing celebrity posts, or having girls on Instagram with a lot of bikini posts, etc. Also, quite literally DID get uncomfortable going to the pool with him because we were in Arizona, and every girl was tanning ass up in a thong bikini LMAO. But again, they should be able to do that, he should be able to see it, and there should be zero issues. But because I am not the controlling type of person, genuinely, and do not like telling other adults what they’re allowed or not allowed to do, I just snap at him sometimes and say I’m fine, when he knows I’ve gone quiet and am in my head, and get really sad and don’t communicate because I don’t want to tell him that it makes me insecure. Because I know that it shouldn’t.
I literally don’t know if this just because his insecurity is projecting into my insecurities, or if this is actually a healthy relationship that has problems being worked through and I just need to overcome my own insecurities. How do I get over this? To be honest this behavior is way below me, and I’m tired of letting it control me. I feel like calling him and apologizing right now for being insecure and controlling lmao.

It just showed up at my Shoppers Drug Mart (Canadian) and I really liked the packaging of the products and the promised deep pigment so I bought a lip oil and shadow. OMG I love it so much!? I originally wandered over because it was advertising being vegan and that's a thing for me but it seemed like it came out of nowhere one day. Brief research shows me that it is Lorde's brand and I know next to nothing about Halsey but it's funny that I keep getting attracted to makeup lines from celebrities I don't really care about (Rare Beauty, Fenty, now this). It's everything I wanted rem beauty to be but isn't.
Anyone feeling the same? What should I buy next? Was thinking the mascara because a good vegan mascara is always hard to find but the before and after photos of the mascara turned me off it—I like volume not clumpiness. But I really want every single lip product especially nearly all the shades of the oils.

https://gomiblog.com/news/liz-joy-is-just-like-a-fancy-french-person-now/
Lizzie's in Paris now living her best Marea life and being a real BAD GIRL posting a smug ciggy photo. u/gomiblog is doing the lord's work with her recaps!!

Hello everyone! As always, thank you for your upvotes and comments on my last post about the Sussex County Jane Doe- I hope that her identity will be given back to her soon.
Today I'd like to highlight a Doe case from a neighbouring state.
TRIGGER WARNING: This case involves a young child (3-5) whose body was found in a gruesome state. There are no graphic images for this case, but there will be descriptions and speculation, so proceed at your own risk.
DISCOVERY
On the 5th of February, a 47-year old nurse, Cecilia Davis, has been walking her dog with a friend at Rockaway Beach (specifically near Beach 112th Street) in New York City, New York, USA, around 4:55 PM. When she was collecting seashells, she noticed a bedsheet with a pattern of letters and Disney characters Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck, which was tangled in seaweed, tattered and mixed in with debris and horseshoe crabs. Intrigued, she came closer, only to discover that a body of a young child was wrapped in the fabric- she called out "This is a child!" to her friend, after which the two women called the authorities. The boy was nicknamed "John Valentine" as the investigators tried to find his identity.
When Davis managed to catch a glimpse of the body from shoulders down when she found the bundle, she assumed that the child was a girl, about a year old, whose skin had the color of "aged yellow foam"- after a proper medical examination, it turned out that it was actually a boy, and aged 3-5 at that. One of the child's knees was bent, with his foot tucked under his body.
The boy was determined to be white and/or Hispanic. He was 3'0" (36 inch / 91 cm), and his weight couldn't be estimated. He had brown, slightly wavy hair, and his eye color was unknown. His foot was size children's 5. Several bones in his torso were broken- I'm not sure, however, if it happened post-mortem or if it could've been a sign of abuse in life (but I have to say, it would be quite likely that he was abused). The body was headless, but it wasn't cut off- it likely detached during the decomposition and got washed away and eaten by marine life. His cause of death is unknown.
The sheet John was found in was called a "blanket", but it would appear that it is actually a crib sheet. The pattern could've been dated back to the 70s, so there's a possibility that it was a hand-me-down or thrifted. It was also mass-produced, so tracking it down was impossible. The body and the sheet were found inside a duffle bag, which was described as "yellow plasticized canvas duffle bag with one side pocket with a snap enclosure. There are multiple grommets for top closure of the duffle bag. No string is present. The bottom of the duffle bag is made of a heavy white canvas. There are 2 approximately 2” wide canvas straps attached to and surrounding the duffle bag. The duffle bag is approximately 30” tall with a top circumference of 34”. The side pocket measures 10 inches wide and 8 inches tall". It was also described as "nautical-style" and was wrapped with duct tape, and might've had a drawstring on top at some point. No known photos of the bag are available, but there are ones of the crib sheet. I'm assuming that the bag must've opened in the water or deteriorated enough to open, revealing the contents.
Due to a lack of leads, police theorized that the boy might've been thrown into the ocean from a boat or overseas and washed up in New York. A local on websleuths theorizes that the child might've been dropped from Atlantic Beach Bridge by Beach 2nd St and taken to Beach 112th St- Apparently, a lot of people drown in the area, and their bodies are taken up to 169th St (Marine Parkway Bridge).
CONCLUSION
Discovering the body of John Valentine has impacted everyone involved. The precinct involved in the investigation collected funds to sponsor the boy's funeral, so that he wouldn't wind up in a Potter's Field. The Children of Hope Foundation also contributed, and now John is resting at the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, L.I, in a section called Island of Hope, with (at the time) 80 infants who have been found abandoned or murdered by their mothers at birth. John was one of the older children buried there.
Cecilia Davis, the woman who found John's body at the beach, has passed away from cancer sometime before 2013. According to her sister-in-law, Emilia Arvai, it has impacted Cecilia twice as much, as she wasn't able to have children. She was allegedly never the same after that incident. According to Arvai, Davis would say "How could someone be so cruel to throw a baby away like that when there’s people around the world who can’t have a baby. (...) There’s a million people who would take that baby."
I think that it's pretty much a given that some kind of violence was involved in this case- why else would someone throw away the body of a child? John wasn't an infant or a newborn, he was as old as five, so it wasn't a case of post-partum psychosis or someone giving birth unexpectedly and panicking. The broken bones made my eyebrow raise- if he really was thrown into the water from a high place like a bridge, then I can see bones breaking on impact, but they could've also been a result of physical abuse; We don't really know much about this detail. It's unfortunate that John's head wasn't recovered- it would probably tell us more about him, maybe a bust or a sketch could've been made and circulated and maybe someone would recognize him.
People on websleuths speculated that John might've been Jesus Alvarado Martinez, a four year old who was probably abducted by his father after he killed his mother in Texas in October of 2004. The age and ethnicity fit, as does height, plus Jesus vanished shortly before John was discovered. There is a lot of distance between Texas and New Jersey, but it is technically possible that Jesus' father could get there in the few months between October and February.
There are no dentals available of John (of course), no fingerprints (which might've been erased due to prolonged exposure to water and decomposition) and, suprisingly, no DNA. This case is relatively recent (forensic development-wise)- I'm suprised that no DNA was taken. Perhaps the investigators expected that it will be solved soon? Still, there are good news- thanks to the department's care over the boy, he was buried (and not cremated), and we even know where he is. Digging up the coffin, taking a sample and performing genetic genealogy on it seems to be very possible, and only needing the funds and public interest to re-open the case. I think that if someone like Othram will take the case in, John being identified is a case of "when" and not "if". I have high hopes for young John Valentine getting his name back at some time in the future and, hopefully, that justice will be served to anyone who took his life and discarded his body in the ocean almost 20 years ago.
If you believe you have any info about John Valentine's case, contact the Office of Chief Medical Examiner New York City at (212) 447-2030 (case number Q05-00731).
SORCES:

1. NamUS.gov (includes photos of the crib sheet)
2. doenetwork.org
3. nydailynews.com (paywalled)

John Valentine's websleuths.com thread

In the five years before Death Note, Jump had Hunter x Hunter, Prince of Tennis, Naruto, Bleach, Gintama, release. In the five years after My Hero, Jump has had Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen. I'd like to throw Chainsaw Man in there but for now let's keep it at 50 million+
But in that decade between Death Note/Gintama (2003) and My Hero Academia (2014) it seems like nothing HUGE came out of those years.
Other than Haikyuu of course. And maybe Kuroko?
There were definitely series with successful 200 chapter runs but nothing that seem like game changers. And I wonder why that was the case.

Oh mother
This may or may not be an "all hands on deck" kinda post, we'll maybe for me it is.
Buckle up reddit friends, I'm going to take you on a brief emotional journey (for me at least)
The facts: Born to an alholic pill addicted father from a wealthy family (the kind of family that cause real trouble if they wanted). My mother from a modest, liberal and pretty rigid family. She has her own traumas. I won't deny that.
My biological father tried to to kill me 2x and on one seriate occasion my mother too. During one of his post rehab binge stints.
My mother had the guts to leave after 2 years. This left her, undoubtedly traumatized with special kind of PTSD (along with her upbringing)
I, became the "parent" from as young as I can remember I had to always ensure my mother was happy, safe and "ok". She met my stepfather (let's call him E for brevity) when I was still a toddler. He had 2 kids of his own. A boy and a girl (will refer to them as that from here on out). Girl was his bosulte favourite. She literally could do no wrong in his eyes. I remember as early as 6 years old knowing I wasn't as loved. A special kind of ache because 'no dad really loved me'. Boy was so loved because he was the eldest and well a boy (and as the years passed, the heir of this his father's throne)
It's hard not to take too many side roads on this story but, for tonight I will keep it as "Mother".
Mother worked hard in an intensive and thankless industry. Naturally she was tired and emotionally spent every day and didn't want to talk to me, help me with homework (I was a straight A+ kid btw, lest I disappoint mother). When I tried to talk to her she would give me the silent treatment and make no effort to hide the disdain she had for having to care for another human being. When I was in the 3rd grade, I was involved in an attribution (the victim of bullies because of my terrible haircut and being overweight). I was devastating. I never cried infront of any one. Ever. But that day I broke down. [I don't remember what was said because the events that followed devastated me a million times more]
My mother, who worked at the same school as me, had heard what had happened and chosen to give me the silent treatment all the way home (my teacher had explained what had happened - how embarrassing for my mother). We got home and I made myself lunch as usual, offered to make her a sandwich too. She sneered and walked away into her bedroom. Shutting the door.
I knew what this meant but, for some reason all this emotion wanted to flow out of me and never stop. I knocked on the door. "What?!" ... "Ma, I'm still very sad about today". My mother visibly annoyed by the fact that I belonged to her and had u comfortable and inconvenient emotions responded with a tight "we all have problems". In shock I started crying and in all the emotional awareness I possessed as an 8y/o I yelled "why don't you love me, why don't you like me?!".
The retaliation was brutal. She threw her work down and screamed at me as if it would be followed by a hiding. "You are too much. You take up too much space. You make me tired".
And that folks I've kept in my little heart all these years. Fir any one with a psych or similar background I don't need to list my laundry list of "issues" here.
Now, fast foward almost 30 years later, E has passed and and Boy and Girl and mother are sitting pretty.
I moved in with Mother to help her out and support her ... be a good daughter, you know?
And in no less that 3 months she has managed to give me the silent treatment x2 for over 48 hours. She vasilcilates between being a needy vulnerable child to this unforgiving, icy women who refused to take any accountability without crying out that I always victimize her.
I wanted to add context here: When E got sick it was me who moved in to take care of him. To change his diapers, hand feed him and bathe him. I am the "child" who gave up their life to support for and care for (every one else). Boy do I feel stupid.
This won't be my last post but, after everything that's happened with E's death, the boy and Girl and mother I'm just a little raw.

Obviously aside from fighting that draws blood etc.
I was in the middle of introducing 3 more rats to my current mischief of 4 via the carrier method and everything was calm until suddenly the youngest of the new rats started scuffling with my eldest boy. It sounded really rough and there was a lot of tumbling/screaming inside of the carrier but when I checked them over they were fine so I'm wondering if I've jumped the gun too quickly or should I just try again next week? There's no real rush to introduce them I'm just wondering how much is too much when it comes to fighting and screaming during intros because the youngest rat literally sounded like he was getting mauled to death even though he wasn't🫠

Photo matching does not suffice. Confirmation of someone's university, job, criminal history, credit score, and so on. Even options for dating safety, dating education. Why pay for a Premium service that cannot even guarantee this? If anyone knows any real, legitimate matchmaking apps, please let me know. All these dating apps are currently like playing Russian Roulette.

last month i ended things with my bf. ive been having such a hard time feeling like i dont know who i am or what i want. i cant envision my future without feeling so depressed and pessimistic. i miss him so much. im 21 hes 29 and we’ve still been talking and he wants us to still be together and so do i but i dont know what to do i feel so lost. i know theres a pretty age gap but i honestly dont feel like thats ever been an issue between us but i always read so much hate online about these kinds of relationships and it makes me feel horrible. part of me wants to stay with him because he is my comfort and my home, then another part of me tells me i have to be alone because i need to grow and figure out what i want in life. then i tell myself thats bullshit and that i love him and theres no good in throwing that away because im scared. im scared that it wont work out and ill regret ‘wasting my youth’. most of my fears are irrational. I see these posts on reddit talking about how you need to love yourself before you can love someone else and you need to have the strength to walk away if you aren’t 100% sure about your relationship and that makes me feel so shitty but at the same time i also feel shitty letting random people on social media dictate how i should run my life. i dont know what to do. when i picture my life without him i feel lost and bawl non stop. when i picture my life with him i feel safe but i feel shame that i am so dependent on someone for happiness. i know if i cut contact completely and make it real that i WILL find it in myself to be happy again but i dont know if i want that and if i want to lose him completely just to figure out that he is what i want and need and by then its too late. he told me he’ll wait however long i need him to if i need weeks months years hes there. but i feel like hes just saying that because everything is so fresh. i know i cant expect him to seriously wait for me. i dont even understand why i feel the way i do or why im so scared of everything right now its been happening for months i dont know why. i feel like everyone around me is moving on with their lives and im stuck here not knowing where to go or what to do. i dont know why i let so many external factors influence how i feel about myself and my relationship and my life i wish i didnt. i want to be someone who is sure of the decisions they make i want to be someone who doesn’t FEEL so much. i have these crazy weird thoughts like if i looked better and met beauty standards would i even have these issues? i would have more friends and probably a different relationship history maybe i’d be stronger and more confident. but at the same time i feel like that doesnt matter because i try to like who i am and the close knit circle of friends i have. but at the same time i dont really have anybody i can open up to because what am i opening up about? nothing really. my boyfriend was my person i love him to death but im scared my guard is too let down and im just weak independently. what is wrong with me.
i know this entire rant probably doesnt make any sense im bawling as i type im just trying to get out what i can because im so tired.

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I'm getting married in late July (35F) and for various reasons we did our engagement pictures fairly late (April of this year). We just got our engagement pictures back, and I'm really struggling with my self esteem after seeing them.
They're objectively amazing photos - I chose our photographer for his documentary, romantic style and he was a dream to work with. But I was completely shellshocked seeing them because of how bad I looked. I was only able to find one picture I was willing to put on our website.
For background, I've struggled with my weight my whole life but was about 70 lbs thinner a few years ago, but the pandemic and family deaths lead to me slowly gaining weight. I had lost about 25 lbs since getting engaged so I think I had some body dysmorphia thinking I looked a lot better. I was absolutely stunned seeing how huge I looked in these pictures.
It wasn't just my weight - I always thought I was fairly pretty, but I've never looked as bad as I do in these pictures. All these little things I thought were just in my head are so blatant - crooked nose, double chin, gums showing when I smile, looking older, etc. I was astonished, the person in those photos is not what I look like in my head.
My fiance obviously tried to make me feel better, but did admit a lot of them weren't very flattering. It doesn't help that I've had insecurities in my relationship because of my weight that we've talked about in couples' therapy, I know he'd like for me to be thinner again too.
It's honestly taken so much joy out of thinking about my wedding over the past several days. I've thought about cancelling the photographer for our wedding (I know that's ridiculous) and I'm dreading my upcoming dress fitting for my dream dress - I just want to crawl in a corner and hide.
I'm putting planning on hold for a couple of days to try to move past this and get excited again, but I'm just emotionally devastated. I have a little time to try to lose weight, but I just have to accept I'm going to look just like that on my wedding day and that's really hard. Thanks for reading, and if anyone has had a similar experience I'd appreciate hearing how you got past it.

I dropped off of following the continuity after Death Metal/Infinite Frontier. I'm trying to catch up and am confused about Power Girl. Here is my understanding:
Golden Age Power Girl was one of the non-Earth-One survivors of CoIE to live on New Earth and (Watsonian, not Doylean) had a spell cast on her causing her to forget her Kryptonian origin until Psycho Pirate repaired her memories for Infinite Crisis. She and the JSA, from the perspective of New Earth (soon to become Earth 0), are eventually given the Wally West treatment by Dr. Manhattan and are scrubbed from existence for his New 52 experiment, post-Flashpoint.
Here's where it gets fun! iirc the last panels of the Convergence event hints that the New 52 Earth 2 heroes are the "reincarnations" of the pre-Flashpoint JSA so, taking that into account (which now seems to be wrong?), Kara Zor-L was put back on Earth 2 and was its Supergirl until a Boom Tube displaced her and Helena Wayne/Robin onto Earth 0 (main New 52 Earth). They have their adventures there, becoming Power Girl and Huntress respectively, before eventually returning to Earth 2 (leaving Tanya Spears and Helena Bertinelli of Earth 0 to take over those mantles, again respectively). Kara and Helena soon gain a new planet in their Earth 2 universe and seemingly live happily ever after, with Helena Wayne dropping the Huntress alias to become Batman while the comic insinuates that Kara returned to having "Super" in her name due to her updated costume.
Around the time they were wrapping this up Rebirth happened, with Wally West returning and slowly beginning the restoration of pre-Flashpoint memories and revealing that Earth 0 is actually a manipulated New Earth (with events like Superman Reborn and Milk Wars further warping this universe, inching it more and more to be like it was pre-New 52). During this time, Deathstroke created a short-lived Teen Titans alternative team (Defiance) that included Tanya Spears. The last issue of this team showed Tanya getting her consciousness stuck in another plane of existence with... a Kara/Power Girl. Perplexingly, she is wearing her pre-Flashpoint costume but the two seem to recognize each other.
All versions of Power Girl are then in limbo until Doomsday Clock. Dr. Manhattan during this arc is shown the light by Superman's goodness and undoes the final pieces of his universe manipulation, restoring the JSA... including Kara (I did not remember Huntress being in the mix). This leads the reader (at least me) to wonder if this is a return of the pre-Flashpoint Power Girl, or if these are the New 52 Earth 2 heroes placed "back" on Earth 0 with their "real" identities restored. This latter interpretation is an attempt to bring in that Convergence panel mentioned earlier, but as I write this I recall how Jay Garrick was able to burst through the Speed Force during "The Button" to try and anchor himself back on Earth 0/New Earth (though it doesn't work). This seems to be strong evidence that pre-Flashpoint Jay Garrick and New 52 Jay Garrick are, indeed, two different people and that the Convergence panel was either stating they are "in spirit" the reincarnations of their former selves, or they misunderstood what Geoff Johns had planned, or things changed behind the scenes (leaning toward the latter).
For Kara, this is heavily insinuates to me that the Doomsday Clock version of her is the actual pre-Flashpoint version and that her New 52 Earth 2 counterpart is just a separate "variant". The Kara from Doomsday Clock is then thrust into action during various events, including Infinite Frontier & Dark Crisis. This leads to her... interesting... interpretation (from what I've seen so far) in Dawn of DC that acknowledges her entire story arc pre-Flashpoint... but then has her acting more like Cartoon Network Starfire, sooo...?
I haven't gotten this far yet in the readings - apparently Dawn of DC Power Girl meets a Helena Wayne for Johns' JSA revival... For those who have read this, due to this Helena being from a potential future timeline, this is not the same Helena Wayne from New 52 Earth 2, correct? I can only guess that those versions are still out there because I heard that New 52 Earth 2 Val Zod appears in an early Dawn of DC Superman issue, so this causes me more confusion because Dawn of DC Power Girl #1 states that Kara Zor-L's current origin maintains her status being from Earth 2... does this mean there are two Earth 2s now?
I'm guessing they haven't directly addressed this, but I'm reaching out here to see if anyone knows because they've read more issues than someone should and they found hidden hints that help rectify all of this.
Here's a summary of sticking points for me:
1) New 52 Earth 2 Kara seemingly appears in a void wearing her pre-Flashpoint costume even though last we saw her very recently donning a "Super" costume so it is unclear which version of Kara we saw (perhaps Tanya thought it was "her" Kara?)
2) Pre-Flashpoint Kara seemingly returning as a separate character, leaving the status of the 2 other Power Girls shown post-Flashpoint up in the air
3) Evidence points to current Earth 2 still being the one shown in Multiversity and New 52, causing issues with current Power Girl stating she originated on Earth 2... so did they merge the two characters or are there now two Earth 2s?
I know the easy answer is "writers messed up", but I'd like to see if we can either find evidence of them knowing what they're doing or, if not, fancraft an answer.

I've been talking to a girl in my class throughout the past semester, and we usually get food/study together after class. She's currently studying abroad (Jan-Dec 2024) and we got along very well. She knows my friends/vice versa and we've gotten pretty close. I was waiting for the semester to start to end before taking things further so we could get closeavoid any awkwardness if she rejected me.
Due to this, I never got around to asking for her social media (we usually talked through text) until the end of the semester. When I got her instagram, I saw on her highlights a birthday story with candles for '17' on the cake with the caption 'dancing queen, 17!' The post was from June 2023, which made me thing she's still 17. I was so confused, because I didn't think a 17 year old could study abroad or even graduate high school yet.
In class, I asked her if she's 17 and she laughed and basically said "no, haha. I was scared to be 20 so I celebrated my 20th birthday with 17's candles. If I start lying about my age sooner it will help me when I get older haha." She even showed me her id which showed her birthday to be in June but her age as 20. I laughed it off, but when I asked her friends, they all thought she was 17 (due to instagram) and had never talked about her age with her before.
I get not wanting to get older at like 30 but I found it super weird to do a whole birthday and instagram story about it. Wouldn't it be weird for the people who already know her real age? This whole thing is confusing, weird and really changed the way I see her. We both really seem to like each other but I don't know if this one thing is enough to feel weirded out. I feel pretty disappointed because it really made me second guess everything and I'm not sure if I want to pursue this further.

One of the fascinating aspects of outsider reports and analysis is what they see. Given that at this point (1992) the internet was not yet widely available/accessible, this sort of thing would have been difficult to find. And of course SGI wasn't ever going to tell us the truth!
This will show you that SGI-USA (then called "NSA") was failing in recruiting far earlier than perhaps most of us in the US realized. SGI in the USA was basically a flash in the pan; it fizzled fast; and now it's just that rank stale smoke smell that lingers long after the fire's been put out.
This comes from Cults and Nonconventional Religious Groups: A Collection of Outstanding Dissertations and Monographs, "Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism and the Soka Gakkai in America: The Ethos of a New Religious Movement", Jane Hurst, 1992, pp. 150-151. Jane Hurst has some interesting research out there; while she tends toward being uncritically supportive of SGI, anyone who is making statistics available is a big help.

NSA members in the 1960s and 1970s were young (52% below age 30), more than half female (59%), and from a variety of occupations and social classes.

The Baby Boom generation were at most age 19 in, say, 1965 and at most age 24 in 1970.
This youthfulness is largely reflected in the early organization's origins in the American servicemen who returned from being stationed in Japan with their Japanese war-brides - those servicemen tended to be young and from a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds, as the draft was still in effect during that time period (ended March 1975). In addition, the first General Director of the US organization, Masayasu Sadanaga, initially targeted college campuses for recruitment by offering lectures on Buddhism. Sadanaga changed his name to George M. Williams in 1972, in obedience to the (short-lived) direction back then of Japanese leaders adopting American-sounding names (first AND last) in order to appeal more broadly to non-Japanese Americans.

The percentage of Oriental members steadily decreased as more and more white and black Americans joined NSA as seen in Figure 10, above.

Figure 10 (I'll get to that line in another post.)
Most of the original "Oriental members" were those Japanese war-brides, whose first efforts to recruit new SGI members were directed toward other Japanese individuals.

NSA members came from the major religious traditions of Protestantism (30%), Catholicism (30%), and Judaism (6%). At the time these 1971 statistics were compiled, all areas of American society. By 1983, the age span was even more broad, with 11% of the members age 50 and above, 62% ages 30-49, 24% ages 20-29, and 3% below age 19.

For reference, here are the age ranges for the existing generations in 1983:

• Greatest: Ages 59-82
• Silent: Ages 38-58
• Baby Boomers: Ages 19-37
• Generation X: Ages 4-18
• Generation Y (Millennials): Age 3 or younger.

While these 1983 statistics aren't broken down by generation, here's what is clear:

• 11% of the SGI-USA membership was MUCH OLDER than Baby Boomers
• 62% was either Baby Boom generation or older (though younger than that oldest group)
• 24% was Baby Boomers
• 3% was younger than Baby Boomers.

This means that 97% of the membership of SGI-USA was Baby Boom generation OR OLDER!

IN 1983!!

Notice how this affirms the demographic estimate from this other research: "Soka Gakkai in America": Little appeal/interest outside of Baby Boom generation

Take a look at Table 4.
Specifically, the Age cohort (%) category.
For the Converts, 26% are older than Baby Boomers; 61% are Baby Boomers. That makes 87% Boomer and older. Only 14% are younger than Boomers.
No wonder SGI-USA is aging and dying, with these kinds of numbers!
We are seeing, like, 90% Baby Boomers in the group photos we've looked at.
The pictures back this up.
Also, this comment by an SGI-USA leader a few years ago during Minoru Harada's visit (anyone know what year that was?):

They [top SGI-USA leaders] then went off on how when we create these big-ass meetings, we shouldn't have to look into the crowd and see, and I quote, "A bunch of old-ass motherfuckers" The words of my "superiors", not mine. I think this is when they brought up the idea of 50K to my co-leaders and me. Source

"Old-ass motherfuckers" is all they have. How 'bout showing a little of that appreciation and gratitude SGI bangs on about??
Worse, "old-ass motherfuckers" is all SGI-USA can get.
Further, again referring to Table 4, SGI-USA's membership is solidly 2/3 women. That means it's going to be very difficult for women in SGI-USA to find mates to marry, which means childlessness will be more of a norm than an exception. Child-free is a valid and respect-worthy decision, don't get me wrong, but a religion's most reliable source of younger members is its own membership's children. Since SGI-USA's female members don't feel any responsibility or obligation to bear multiple children (like those poor, stupid Mormon sheepwomen do), there won't be any next generation to take over.
There's a reason so many religions have traditionally exhorted their membership to have lots of babies, why they condemn birth control and abortion. A big part of it is to keep their own numbers up! Source

It's the same problem happening in Japan within the Soka Gakkai:

On the other hand, aging is relentless. In terms of the Soka Gakkai's membership demographics, the "volume zone" where most members fall is the baby boomer generation who joined by the 1960s. They are now late elderly. In the past, the management of centers in various places was handled by the "Gajokai" consisting of Young Men's Division members, but it is no longer possible to secure personnel. Instead, in 2009, the Soka Gakkai launched the "Ojokai'' consisting of "middle-aged divisions,'' scolding them as "young people in their 50s'' and rushing to mobilize them. Source

GOOD LUCK!

For perspective, note that SGI-USA was managing to recruit just "1,000 per YEAR" - including all ages - between 1991 and 1999. Eight years of only 1,000 members added per year, with no accounting for the deaths or defections. Were the years after that more successful, recruiting-wise? I doubt it.

[Then-SGI-USA's public-relations director for the East Coast Bill] Aiken says SGI-USA has attracted about 1000 new members per year for the past eight years. - from 1999. Only 1,000 new members - across the ENTIRE 360+ million-person strong USA - in an ENTIRE year. And this extremely low level of success for EIGHT YEARS IN A ROW!! Source

From 2018:

In recent years, the number of young Soka Gakkai members has been decreasing rapidly . Looking at the participants in the simultaneous broadcasts and roundtable discussions, the majority are of the grandparents' generation, with only a small number of young people in their 20s and 30s, and the number of teenage boys and girls is almost an endangered species .
Therefore, what I am interested in is the population of Soka Gakkai by age group. This time, I would like to estimate the current population of Soka Gakkai by age , based on information I have personally seen and heard and verification from others . Please note that this estimate is very rough.
First, the largest number of Soka Gakkai members are baby boomers (born between 1947 and 1949 [Japan's Baby Boom]). This seems almost certain considering the history of the development of Soka Gakkai .
Also, the total number of members has already been verified by many people, and is estimated to be around 3 to 5 million people. This time we assume about 4 million people .
And this is what I heard directly from a staff member at headquarters last year, who said , `` The number of activists decreases by about 1/3 with each generation.'' I think this is a reasonable rate of decline that can be felt by looking at participants in simultaneous broadcasts and roundtable discussions. It seems that members who have stopped being activists are less likely to have their children join, so this time we will use a value of 1/3 per generation as the member decline rate .
Also, regarding the number of years it takes for generational change, the average age for men and women to give birth to their first child is currently 30 years old. Considering that the average age of childbearing for both men and women when the baby boomer generation was born was 24 years old, and that there are cases where not only the first child but also the second and third children are born, the generational shift will take 30 years. Let's calculate it as if it would take a year . In that case, the annual membership attrition rate would be (1/3)^1/30 = 0.964, or 3.6% .
It is unclear when this trend of declining membership started, but this time we will assume that it started in the year following the baby boom generation (1950). Source

And "Soka Gakkai is like an old people's club":

Regarding the problem of a decline in Komeito votes, or in other words, a decline in active Soka Gakkai members, many people concerned point out that the primary cause is the aging of Soka Gakkai members. The enthusiastic members of the generation who supported the growth of the society along with charismatic Honorary President Daisaku Ikeda are now elderly across the board. Most of the current new members are second- or third-generation members who join because their parents are members of Soka Gakkai, and they are not very enthusiastic about Soka Gakkai's activities. Today, many of Soka Gakkai's daily events are even derided by insiders as "like an old people's party."

And a more recent report (this year):

Back about 20 years ago a good friend and good guy, now deceased, from ChiTown, was commissioned by SGI Central Command to survey every contactable member of SGI in every district in America. The number he came up with was 5% of the number of Gohonzon passed out since, I guess whenever Gohonzon started to be passed out. The total number was about a million give or take, 20 years ago. These were contactable people, not practicing members. I remember going through lists of people we had on the books and trying to see if they could be reached. So the number we came up with was reported. Hearing nothing about it, I happened to run into my friend at some event at Soka U. He mentioned that he did the survey, and gave me the results. I believe he told me the facts. (Not everyone who practiced was a lying asshole.) So about 20 years ago SGI had about 50,000 “contactable“ people who had received Gohonzon. My estimate that about half of that number had zero interest in SGI. Thus 20 years ago, SGI had about 25,000 members still interested in SGI in some capacity. I think it’s the same number today. (2500 districts x 10=25,000.) Like I said before I went to FNCC twice last year, and everyone, including me, were old zany seniors. Neither conference was for old people. Conclusion: SGI is a senior citizen support group. When I joined in1969, we were all hippie ish, rejecting all the old shit, looking for something new and hip. Now SGI looks like old shit. Source

And another (this year or last):

When I joined 50+ years ago the ratio of youth to MD and WD was about 80:20. Now it's the reverse. Our goal is to move steadily back to a youth focus again. Source

Except it's obvious that SGI-USA doesn't HAVE "20% youth":

Youth? They've got to be fooling themselves!!! When I was still with the SGI last February (2023), I went to the kosen-rufu gongyo meeting at the center in my area. Mind you, the state I live in closed its center in 2021 for undisclosed reasons. That aside, the one I went to was in another state, and at that meeting, they had no byakuren, Gajokai, or Soka Group in attendance. Additionally, the only youth at the meeting were a few small children. Source
I feel that SGI is out of touch with anyone who’s younger than 60. The leaders are retired, have a lot of time on their hands and completely disregard the fact that people may work or have families. For young people it’s the old people taking nonsense. Source

The PROBLEM was already evident in 1983 - and none of the SGI-USA's big "Recruit-Youth-A-Thons", like "Victory over Violence" and "Rock The Ego Era" and "50K Liars of Just-Us" (everybody wants to forget the epic fail that was the "Gandhi, King, Ikeda" exhibit), has made the slightest difference in this demographic disaster. In fact, preparing for the 2018 "50K" event, SGI-USA likely had only 2,451 members in the 12-35 (or perhaps 11-39) age group, just 9% of the most generous SGI-USA active membership total (~30,000).

Ikeda could have preserved a "youthful" Soka Gakkai by passing the Presidency to a younger candidate, but Ikeda refused, because Ikeda was too focused on and obsessed with HIMSELF - his power, his prestige, his wealth, his status, his fame, his renown, HIM becoming leader of the world, his PERMANENCY, and his legacy. He refused to let anyone else come anywhere CLOSE to the power and control - he greedily, selfishly clutched it all tightly to himself and refused to share.
THAT is why the Ikeda cult Soka Gakkai/SGI is aging and dying. It's ALL Ikeda's fault, Ikeda's responsibility. IKEDA DID THAT.
Some "mentor". Source

SGI-USA has never managed to recover from that demographic bottleneck that happened no later than 1983.

Everything happens for a reason; doesn’t it?
That’s what I seem to say when things go wrong at least. Is it just me or is it much easier to look for signs from the universe when things go tits up and thank skill otherwise? Anyway.
What I’m saying is that there must be cosmic power out there doing everything it can to prevent me from getting my hands on some Glastonbury festival tickets.
But that’s not the real problem; lots of people miss out on Glastonbury tickets every year. No, the real problem is that the same celestial being that is blocking my chances has also planted the deepest desire any human has ever had for it in my soul.
Now you see the problem?
Nice, well let me tell you how this rather irrelevant problem in the grand scheme of things led to some of the greatest moments of my life.
Before I jump in, you may be wondering what the point in this post is. Well, there are two reasons.

1. To inspire people who have repeatedly missed out on Glastonbury festival tickets too.
2. Perhaps putting this out there will play with those cosmic forces and direct me towards something as magical as the things I’m about to tell you about.

I’ll do my best not to make this sound like a LinkedIn post; loosely tying major events to some business mindset.
But here we go. Here’s how repeatedly missing out on Glastonbury festival tickets has made some unbelievable stories, and how being backed into a corner with nothing but desire can create yours too.

It begins on our fifth year of missing out on Glastonbury tickets

It should have been sooner, really, but there was a lack of confidence back then.
There was this realisation that it’s likely we could never go.
That time keeps ploughing forward and we retain our high score of being denied access.
It’s then that something kicked in. Have you felt it before?
It’s that burst of adrenaline that hits you like a kiss. You suddenly become a visionary. You’ve gone from being in a pit with no exit to becoming a library of ideas and possibilities. There’s this sense of eternal optimism and possibility.
Do you know how to get there?
By sitting on your problem for long enough that it starts to feel comfortable.
Y’see, it’s not what you have that brings you victory, it’s how you use it. When you have less you are naturally more inventive.
And when you’ve been battered repeatedly, you either get creative or die.
Here’s how the stars aligned themselves for us.
It was October 2019 when we missed out.
“There HAS to be another way?!”
After trawling through the Glastonbury festival website, we stumbled upon a third release of tickets. A set number of tickets that are released for the press and media outlets. This. This is it. This is our way in.
I remember it as clear as day.
I jumped on the phone and pitched the idea to the gang. Hesitant at first, but the energy made the sale.
No Taste was born. The reason you’re reading this now.
We spun up the website in days. Reached out for volunteers to help create content by reviewing gigs and going out ourselves most nights of the week. We had press and professional photo passes within weeks of starting and were churning out high-quality content at a rate that had us lined up for the media release in February.
Honestly, I’ve never felt more alive.
Here I was navigating a media site, with no real idea of the etiquette or any idea of how to do anything in this space for that matter.
Just weeks before I was slumped in bed after another failed attempt to buy tickets. Now we have something as big as Glastonbury, at least in my mind.
We had the logo tattooed on our chest to ink it into existence. (In the same place, which, of course, we later came to regret when going on holiday together.)
In February 2020, we submitted our press application.
In March 2020, everyone had No Taste and COVID-19 closed down the UK, cancelling the Glastonbury festival. For about two years, there was no live music and the festival that ignited No Taste paused.
No Taste still lives on, evidently, and I still get that buzz each time we review a show.
We’re yet to get in as press but watch this space.

And that’s not it. It gets better.

We missed out on tickets in 2023 as well — obviously. It should be fairly clear that fate doesn’t let me buy tickets.
But we were going and we were telling everyone that we were going.
“Oh lucky, you managed to get tickets”, people would say.
“Ahh…, we’re actually missing that part”, we’d confidently return.
There’d be an awkward, confused silence.
We’d then explain how we’re going to be there, we just don’t know how. And people just believed us.
It’s that conviction you get from having a clear vision. A visceral desire.
People might be sceptical, but they’re still going to watch.
And you just have this infectious vitality that opens up things you’ve never even dreamt of.
I’d watched a video beforehand that mentioned ‘throwing your bag over the fence’. It meant more metaphorically, but it works in reality in this context too. Essentially it’s saying that if you throw your bag over the fence, you’ve no other choice but to scale it to get it back.
On the big day, we set off with our packed bags and not one iota of an idea of how we’re getting in.
There’s a long, insanely serendipitous story of how we managed to walk in here, but that’s exactly what happened.
We just… walked in.
It may have taken us over ten hours, but we did it.
And it was easily one of the greatest moments of my life, all from being unable to buy tickets.
So not all is lost if you were also unable to get tickets. Hopefully, there’s been some inspiration in here.

• Find a problem you’re willing to stare at, head-on until the vision takes over you, don’t use AI as a shortcut to solving it.
• Throw your bag over the fence and go all in on it at least once.

Sometimes the ‘airy-fairy’, coincidental stuff hits you too hard to brush off. Trust persistence.
And guess what, it’s 2024 and that’s right, we missed out again.
We've already spent the same amount as the tickets on Tony's Chocolonely, started drinking at random times of the day with Brothers cider and lost half my friends by spamming them with instagram tags to no avail.
Sneaking in is off the cards as that was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but it hasn’t stopped the scheming and plotting.
In fact, as mentioned, this is part of the plot.
Maybe you, or someone you know, can help us this year? Or help us spread the word at least?
If not, follow us to find out what we get up to this year.

First
While the first few weeks were pretty eventless, Mor had this bad feeling that the peace would not last. He excels at magic theory and can hold his own on applied beginner magic, still, he had a dower outlook as he was unable to make a single friend.
But when, after the lessons, he found a little letter slipped discreetly below the door of his dorm room, it changed his outlook in an instant. So as he opened the envelope slightly smelling of flowers, Mor read the elegantly written letter inside, a dopey smile growing on his face.
"I don´t know how to start this letter, but I admire your smarts and think you are really cute. I would like to meet you tomorrow after the lessons behind the training center where we could have a talk and get to know each other some more.
Zaletha Angelith"
As he went to class the next day, his head in the clouds, he finally felt that everything would be alright it was his popular phase now. While he dreamily sat through the lessons his imagination ran wild and sometimes threw a shy glance toward the girl who wrote him the letter. His heart fluttered a little as she noticed him and smiled brightly. Mor could not await the end of lessons and finally was released from his torment. He was almost rushing to the meeting spot not wanting to let this opportunity go, and he would not be made to wait long. A few minutes after he arrived at the meeting spot the sparkling form of Zaletha walked up to him smiling brightly and instantly going for a hug, which set Mor´s brain into a state of shock and exhilaration.
He was instantly thrown into a dreamy dopey state and did not notice the other visitors who intruded on the intimacy of the two to be lovebirds.
"Look at that, the princess and the peasant!" One of them exclaimed and the other two snickered.
"Maybe you should rather get yourself, someone of your status, like a little beggar girl. You magicless looser"
And while those words were hurtful to Mor he just ignored those idiots, but then his view fell onto the face of Zaletha. He saw her fear of those bullies and instantly a cold furry began to burn in his chest. Turning around furious he began to channel his magic, glowering at the three other boys
"Fuck off Ruby, and take your flunkies with you, or I will beat you up!" He shouted and all three just smiled at him. The leader called Ruby raised an eyebrow at Mor.
"You would attack someone from royalty? Know your place trash. I Ranbor Ruby, am the most talented flame caster of this school and can burn you to cinders if I wish!"
A slight bout of fear manifested inside of Mor´s conscience but as his view flickered to Zaletha clinging fearfully at his back it was quickly squashed. His rage reached new heights and he unleashed a bolt of pure arcane power which instantly was stopped by a magic barrier cast by one of the flunkies.
Mor was instantly caught in a whirling wall of fire, burning away his flesh, hurting like nothing ever hurt before, he would die, right here right now but at least he could protect Zaletha. Smiling like an idiot he embraced death, just as with the snip of fingers the flames disappeared, along with something, and a feminine giggle started behind him.
There he was standing looking like an idiot, his actions finally catching up with his brain and draining all color from his face. He slowly mechanically turned to look at Zaletha, but his admiration for her was completely gone, and she just laughed at him.
"He really fell for it, that lowly peasant thought he could have a chance with me!"
And now he understood, with his longing for friends, for someone to have social connections his hope for that letter to be real, Mor was caught in an illusion magic. Forming his thoughts, giving him fake feelings, and making him make a stupid mistake, as it is against school rules to use magic against another student. So here he stands four people laughing at his idiocy and he has no witness of his own to change the narrative, he was caught and would now be expelled.
"Well, well, well peasant. You are really in a sticky situation here, aren´t you?" Ranbor gloated.
"But don´t fear, we won´t tattle on you, but let's say for our understanding and silence you need to grant us a few small favors, nothing too bad, so don´t fear. How about you do our homework for today? That seems fair, for the scare you caused."
With that, Mor knew his bad feelings had been right and he would be at the mercy of those bullies. Because who would believe a low-born over the statement of a group of nobles? His school life of dread would really kick off now.
While his grades stayed good, as he would from this point on, always did the homework for 5 people, and secluded himself as often as possible in his room while they had free time so he could evade his tormentors, every time they would cross paths they would torment him with illusions if no teacher was nearby and be all buddy while a teacher was watching. It drained him and let his magic control waver, because of this his applied magic training got worse and worse.
Mor would often think to write a letter to his parents about his dismay, but could not bring himself to disappoint them, so he would lie about how he made a lot of friends and how great everything was. Sometimes he would try to trip up the lies of his bullies in front of a teacher, but his attempts were always seen as "friendly" rivalry between the generous nobles, who took on the peasant recluse and tried to get him to socialize against his will.
As soon as the teacher was out of sight, he would pay for his insolence with illusory pain, and anything to hurt him, that would not leave any marks. It was plain hell and as his thoughts went to quitting everything more and more, another desperate plan formed in his brain.
Maybe if he could be strong enough if he could get specialized magic he could fight back show those bullies he can not be taken lightly and finally break this abusive cycle.
He would do something forbidden, a once-in-a-lifetime ritual, designed to join the souls of two soul-kin together, a ritual designed as bonding with your soulmate and lifelong partner joining your magic pool and affinities together and enhancing both. In some children story´s a lone hero would often use this ritual to fuse his soul not with kin but a mighty elemental force and become far more powerful than any kin, with the cost of staying alone forever, never having a "true" soulbond.
In the deep night, Mor began to draw the required magic circles, using his blood and earth from the gardens as a medium for an earth elemental force and with a last bit of exertion he funneled all his magic into the ritual, falling unconscious at the same time.
In the same moment, fate called, or perhaps it was just chance, when a pick struck something that should never been rediscovered, and something was awakened that should have died in eternal slumber.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Second try because something went wrong.