The forest scene in As You Like It where Orlando places poems of love all over the trees speaking of Rosalind. The image of trees filled with these little notes.
Titus Andronicus and that foul banquet.
The bear that exits. What?

When I was a child, there was a story about a dragon becoming a cat called the Dragon Tamers by Edith Nesbit, so here it is.
There was once an old, old castle--it was so old that its walls and towers and turrets and gateways and arches had crumbled to ruins, and of all its old splendor there were only two little rooms left; and it was here that John the blacksmith had set up his forge. He was too poor to live in a proper house, and no one asked any rent for the rooms in the ruin, because all the lords of the castle were dead and gone this many a year. So there John blew his bellows and hammered his iron and did all the work which came his way. This was not much, because most of the trade went to the mayor of the town, who was also a blacksmith in quite a large way of business, and had his huge forge facing the square of the town, and had twelve apprentices, all hammering like a nest of woodpeckers, and twelve journeymen to order the apprentices about, and a patent forge and a self-acting hammer and electric bellows, and all things handsome about him. So of course the townspeople, whenever they wanted a horse shod or a shaft mended, went to the mayor. John the blacksmith struggled on as best he could, with a few odd jobs from travelers and strangers who did not know what a superior forge the mayor's was. The two rooms were warm and weather-tight, but not very large; so the blacksmith got into the way of keeping his old iron, his odds and ends, his fagots, and his twopence worth of coal in the great dungeon down under the castle. It was a very fine dungeon indeed, with a handsome vaulted roof and big iron rings whose staples were built into the wall, very strong and convenient for tying captives to, and at one end was a broken flight of wide steps leading down no one knew where. Even the lords of the castle in the good old times had never known where those steps led to, but every now and then they would kick a prisoner down the steps in their lighthearted, hopeful way, and sure enough, the prisoners never came back. The blacksmith had never dared to go beyond the seventh step, and no more have I--so I know no more than he did what was at the bottom of those stairs.
John the blacksmith had a wife and a little baby. When his wife was not doing the housework she used to nurse the baby and cry, remembering the happy days when she lived with her father, who kept seventeen cows and lived quite in the country, and when John used to come courting her in the summer evenings, as smart as smart, with a posy in his buttonhole. And now John's hair was getting gray, and there was hardly ever enough to eat.
As for the baby, it cried a good deal at odd times; but at night, when its mother had settled down to sleep, it would always begin to cry, quite as a matter of course, so that she hardly got any rest at all. This made her very tired.
The baby could make up for its bad nights during the day if it liked, but the poor mother couldn't. So whenever she had nothing to do she used to sit and cry, because she was tired out with work and worry.
One evening the blacksmith was busy with his forge. He was making a goat-shoe for the goat of a very rich lady, who wished to see how the goat liked being shod, and also whether the shoe would come to fivepence or sevenpence before she ordered the whole set. This was the only order John had had that week. And as he worked his wife sat and nursed the baby, who, for a wonder, was not crying.
Presently, over the noise of the bellows and over the clank of the iron, there came another sound. The blacksmith and his wife looked at each other.
"I heard nothing," said he.
"Neither did I," said she.
But the noise grew louder--and the two were so anxious not to hear it that he hammered away at the goat-shoe harder than he had ever hammered in his life, and she began to sing to the baby--a thing she had not had the heart to do for weeks.
But through the blowing and hammering and singing the noise came louder and louder, and the more they tried not to hear it, the more they had to. It was like the noise of some great creature purring, purring, purring--and the reason they did not want to believe they really heard it was that it came from the great dungeon down below, where the old iron was, and the firewood and the twopence worth of coal, and the broken steps that went down into the dark and ended no one knew where.
"It can't be anything in the dungeon," said the blacksmith, wiping his face. "Why, I shall have to go down there after more coals in a minute."
"There isn't anything there, of course. How could there be?" said his wife. And they tried so hard to believe that there could be nothing there that presently they very nearly did believe it.
Then the blacksmith took his shovel in one hand and his riveting hammer in the other, and hung the old stable lantern on his little finger, and went down to get the coals.
"I am not taking the hammer because I think there is something there," said he, "but it is handy for breaking the large lumps of coal."
"I quite understand," said his wife, who had brought the coal home in her apron that very afternoon, and knew that it was all coal dust.
So he went down the winding stairs to the dungeon and stood at the bottom of the steps, holding the lantern above his head just to see that the dungeon really was empty, as usual. Half of it was empty as usual, except for the old iron and odds and ends, and the firewood and the coals. But the other side was not empty. It was quite full, and what it was full of was Dragon.
"It must have come up those nasty broken steps from goodness knows where," said the blacksmith to himself, trembling all over, as he tried to creep back up the winding stairs.
But the dragon was too quick for him--it put out a great claw and caught him by the leg, and as it moved it rattled like a great bunch of keys, or like the sheet iron they make thunder out of in pantomimes.
"No you don't," said the dragon in a spluttering voice, like a damp squib.
"Deary, deary me," said poor John, trembling more than ever in the claw of the dragon. "Here's a nice end for a respectable blacksmith!"
The dragon seemed very much struck by this remark.
"Do you mind saying that again?" said he, quite politely.
So John said again, very distinctly: "Here--is--a--nice--end--for--a--respectable--blacksmith."
"I didn't know," said the dragon. "Fancy now! You're the very man I wanted."
"So I understood you to say before," said John, his teeth chattering.
"Oh, I don't mean what you mean," said the dragon, "but I should like you to do a job for me. One of my wings has got some of the rivets out of it just above the joint. Could you put that to rights?"
"I might, sir," said John, politely, for you must always be polite to a possible customer, even if he be a dragon.
"A master craftsman--you are a master, of course?--can see in a minute what's wrong," the dragon went on. "Just come around here and feel my plates, will you?"
John timidly went around when the dragon took his claw away; and sure enough, the dragon's wing was hanging loose, and several of the plates near the joint certainly wanted riveting.
The dragon seemed to be made almost entirely of iron armor--a sort of tawny, red-rust color it was; from damp, no doubt--and under it he seemed to be covered with something furry.
All the blacksmith welled up in John's heart, and he felt more at ease.
"You could certainly do with a rivet or two, sir," said he. "In fact, you want a good many."
"Well, get to work, then," said the dragon. "You mend my wing, and then I'll go out and eat up all the town, and if you make a really smart job of it I'll eat you last. There!"
"I don't want to be eaten last, sir," said John.
"Well then, I'll eat you first," said the dragon.
"I don't want that, sir, either," said John.
"Go on with you, you silly man," said the dragon, "you don't know your own silly mind. Come, set to work."
"I don't like the job, sir," said John, "and that's the truth. I know how easily accidents happen. It's all fair and smooth, and 'Please rivet me, and I'll eat you last'--and then you get to work and you give a gentleman a bit of a nip or a dig under his rivets--and then it's fire and smoke, and no apologies will meet the case."
"Upon my word of honor as a dragon," said the other.
"I know you wouldn't do it on purpose, sir," said John, "but any gentleman will give a jump and a sniff if he's nipped, and one of your sniffs would be enough for me. Now, if you'd just let me fasten you up?"
"It would be so undignified," objected the dragon.
"We always fasten a horse up," said John, "and he's the 'noble animal.'"
"It's all very well," said the dragon, "but how do I know you'd untie me again when you'd riveted me? Give me something in pledge. What do you value most?"
"My hammer," said John. "A blacksmith is nothing without a hammer."
"But you'd want that for riveting me. You must think of something else, and at once, or I'll eat you first."
At this moment the baby in the room above began to scream. Its mother had been so quiet that it thought she had settled down for the night, and that it was time to begin.
"Whatever's that?" said the dragon, starting so that every plate on his body rattled.
"It's only the baby," said John.
"What's that?" asked the dragon. "Something you value?"
"Well, yes, sir, rather," said the blacksmith.
"Then bring it here," said the dragon, "and I'll take care of it till you've done riveting me, and you shall tie me up."
"All right, sir," said John, "but I ought to warn you. Babies are poison to dragons, so I don't deceive you. It's all right to touch--but don't you go putting it into your mouth. I shouldn't like to see any harm come to a nice-looking gentleman like you."
The dragon purred at this compliment and said: "All right, I'll be careful. Now go and fetch the thing, whatever it is."
So John ran up the steps as quickly as he could, for he knew that if the dragon got impatient before it was fastened, it could heave up the roof of the dungeon with one heave of its back, and kill them all in the ruins. His wife was asleep, in spite of the baby's cries; and John picked up the baby and took it down and put it between the dragon's front paws.
"You just purr to it, sir," he said, "and it'll be as good as gold."
So the dragon purred, and his purring pleased the baby so much that it stopped crying.
Then John rummaged among the heap of old iron and found there some heavy chains and a great collar that had been made in the days when men sang over their work and put their hearts into it, so that the things they made were strong enough to bear the weight of a thousand years, let alone a dragon.
John fastened the dragon up with the collar and the chains, and when he had padlocked them all on safely he set to work to find out how many rivets would be needed.
"Six, eight, ten--twenty, forty," said he. "I haven't half enough rivets in the shop. If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll step around to another forge and get a few dozen. I won't be a minute."
And off he went, leaving the baby between the dragon's fore-paws, laughing and crowing with pleasure at the very large purr of it.
John ran as hard as he could into the town, and found the mayor and corporation.
"There's a dragon in my dungeon," he said; "I've chained him up. Now come and help to get my baby away."
And he told them all about it.
But they all happened to have engagements for that evening; so they praised John's cleverness, and said they were quite content to leave the matter in his hands.
"But what about my baby?" said John.
"Oh, well," said the mayor, "if anything should happen, you will always be able to remember that your baby perished in a good cause."
So John went home again, and told his wife some of the tale.
"You've given the baby to the dragon!" she cried. "Oh, you unnatural parent!"
"Hush," said John, and he told her some more. "Now," he said, "I'm going down. After I've been down you can go, and if you keep your head the boy will be all right."
So down went the blacksmith, and there was the dragon purring away with all his might to keep the baby quiet.
"Hurry up, can't you?" he said. "I can't keep up this noise all night."
"I'm very sorry, sir," said the blacksmith, "but all the shops are shut. The job must wait till the morning. And don't forget you've promised to take care of that baby. You'll find it a little wearing, I'm afraid. Good night, sir."
The dragon had purred till he was quite out of breath--so now he stopped, and as soon as everything was quiet the baby thought everyone must have settled for the night, and that it was time to begin to scream. So it began.
"Oh, dear," said the dragon, "this is awful." He patted the baby with his claw, but it screamed more than ever.
"And I am so tired too," said the dragon. "I did so hope I should have a good night."
The baby went on screaming.
"There'll be no peace for me after this," said the dragon. "It's enough to ruin one's nerves. Hush, then--did 'ums, then." And he tried to quiet the baby as if it had been a young dragon. But when he began to sing "Hush-a-by, Dragon," the baby screamed more and more and more. "I can't keep it quiet," said the dragon; and then suddenly he saw a woman sitting on the steps. "Here, I say," said he, "do you know anything about babies?"
"I do, a little," said the mother.
"Then I wish you'd take this one, and let me get some sleep," said the dragon, yawning. "You can bring it back in the morning before the blacksmith comes."
So the mother picked up the baby and took it upstairs and told her husband, and they went to bed happy, for they had caught the dragon and saved the baby.
And next day John went down and explained carefully to the dragon exactly how matters stood, and he got an iron gate with a grating to it and set it up at the foot of the steps, and the dragon mewed furiously for days and days, but when he found it was no good he was quiet.
So now John went to the mayor, and said: "I've got the dragon and I've saved the town."
"Noble preserver," cried the mayor, "we will get up a subscription for you, and crown you in public with a laurel wreath."
So the mayor put his name down for five pounds, and the corporation each gave three, and other people gave their guineas and half guineas and half crowns and crowns, and while the subscription was being made the mayor ordered three poems at his own expense from the town poet to celebrate the occasion. The poems were very much more admired, especially by the mayor and corporation.
The first poem dealt with the noble conduct of the mayor in arranging to have the dragon tied up. The second described the splendid assistance rendered by the corporation. And the third expressed the pride and joy of the poet in being permitted to sing such deeds, beside which the actions of St. George must appear quite commonplace to all with a feeling heart or a well-balanced brain.
When the subscription was finished there was a thousand pounds, and a committee was formed to settle what should be done with it. A third of it went to pay for a banquet to the mayor and corporation; another third was spent in buying a gold collar with a dragon on it for the mayor and gold medals with dragons on them for the corporation; and what was left went in committee expenses.
So there was nothing for the blacksmith except the laurel wreath and the knowledge that it really was he who had saved the town. But after this things went a little better with the blacksmith. To begin with, the baby did not cry so much as it had before. Then the rich lady who owned the goat was so touched by John's noble action that she ordered a complete set of shoes at 2 shillings, 4 pence, and even made it up to 2 shillings, 6 pence, in grateful recognition of his public-spirited conduct. Then tourists used to come in breaks from quite a long way off, and pay twopence each to go down the steps and peep through the iron grating at the rusty dragon in the dungeon--and it was threepence extra for each party if the blacksmith let off colored fire to see it by, which, as the fire was extremely short, was twopence-halfpenny clear profit every time. And the blacksmith's wife used to provide teas at ninepence a head, and altogether things grew brighter week by week.
The baby--named John, after his father, and called Johnnie for short--began presently to grow up. He was great friends with Tina, the daughter of the whitesmith, who lived nearly opposite. She was a dear little girl with yellow pigtails and blue eyes, and she was tired of hearing the story of how Johnnie, when he was a baby, had been minded by a real dragon.
The two children used to go together to peep through the iron grating at the dragon, and sometimes they would hear him mew piteously. And they would light a halfpenny's worth of colored fire to look at him by. And they grew older and wiser.
At last one day the mayor and corporation, hunting the hare in their gold gowns, came screaming back to the town gates with the news that a lame, humpy giant, as big as a tin church, was coming over the marshes toward the town.
"We're lost," said the mayor. "I'd give a thousand pounds to anyone who could keep that giant out of the town. I know what he eats--by his teeth."
No one seemed to know what to do. But Johnnie and Tina were listening, and they looked at each other, and ran off as fast as their boots would carry them.
They ran through the forge, and down the dungeon steps, and knocked at the iron door. "Who's there?" said the dragon. "It's only us," said the children.
And the dragon was so dull from having been alone for ten years that he said: "Come in, dears."
"You won't hurt us, or breathe fire at us or anything?" asked Tina.
And the dragon said, "Not for worlds."
So they went in and talked to him, and told him what the weather was like outside, and what there was in the papers, and at last Johnnie said: "There's a lame giant in the town. He wants you."
"Does he?" said the dragon, showing his teeth. "If only I were out of this!"
"If we let you loose you might manage to run away before he could catch you."
"Yes, I might," answered the dragon, "but then again I mightn't."
"Why--you'd never fight him?" said Tina.
"No," said the dragon; "I'm all for peace, I am. You let me out, and you'll see."
So the children loosed the dragon from the chains and the collar, and he broke down one end of the dungeon and went out--only pausing at the forge door to get the blacksmith to rivet his wing.
He met the lame giant at the gate of the town, and the giant banged on the dragon with his club as if he were banging an iron foundry, and the dragon behaved like a smelting works--all fire and smoke. It was a fearful sight, and people watched it from a distance, falling off their legs with the shock of every bang, but always getting up to look again.
At last the dragon won, and the giant sneaked away across the marshes, and the dragon, who was very tired, went home to sleep, announcing his intention of eating the town in the morning. He went back into his old dungeon because he was a stranger in the town, and he did not know of any other respectable lodging. Then Tina and Johnnie went to the mayor and corporation and said, "The giant is settled. Please give us the thousand pounds reward."
But the mayor said: "No, no, my boy. It is not you who have settled the giant, it is the dragon. I suppose you have chained him up again? When he comes to claim the reward he shall have it."
"He isn't chained up yet," said Johnnie. "Shall I send him to claim the reward?"
But the mayor said he need not trouble; and now he offered a thousand pounds to anyone who would get the dragon chained up again.
"I don't trust you," said Johnnie. "Look how you treated my father when he chained up the dragon."
But the people who were listening at the door interrupted, and said that if Johnnie could fasten up the dragon again they would turn out the mayor and let Johnnie be mayor in his place. For they had been dissatisfied with the mayor for some time, and thought they would like a change.
So Johnnie said, "Done," and off he went, hand in hand with Tina, and they called on all their little friends and said: "Will you help us to save the town?"
And all the children said: "Yes, of course we will. What fun!"
"Well, then," said Tina, "you must all bring your basins of bread and milk to the forge tomorrow at breakfast time."
"And if ever I am mayor," said Johnnie, "I will give a banquet, and you shall be invited. And we'll have nothing but sweet things from beginning to end."
All the children promised, and next morning Tina and Johnnie rolled their big washing tub down the winding stair.
"What's that noise?" asked the dragon.
"It's only a big giant breathing," said Tina, "He's gone by now."
Then, when all the town children brought their bread and milk, Tina emptied it into the wash tub, and when the tub was full Tina knocked at the iron door with the grating in it and said: "May we come in?"
"Oh, yes," said the dragon, "it's very dull here."
So they went in, and with the help of nine other children they lifted the washing tub in and set it down by the dragon. Then all the other children went away, and Tina and Johnnie sat down and cried.
"What's this?" asked the dragon. "And what's the matter?"
"This is bread and milk," said Johnnie; "it's our breakfast--all of it."
"Well," said the dragon, "I don't see what you want with breakfast. I'm going to eat everyone in the town as soon as I've rested a little."
"Dear Mr. Dragon," said Tina, "I wish you wouldn't eat us. How would you like to be eaten yourself?"
"Not at all," the dragon confessed, "but nobody will eat me."
"I don't know," said Johnnie, "there's a giant--"
"I know. I fought with him, and licked him."
"Yes, but there's another come now--the one you fought was only this one's little boy. This one is half as big again."
"He's seven times as big," said Tina.
"No, nine times," said Johnnie. "He's bigger than the steeple."
"Oh, dear," said the dragon. "I never expected this."
"And the mayor has told him where you are," Tina went on, "and he is coming to eat you as soon as he has sharpened his big knife. The mayor told him you were a wild dragon--but he didn't mind. He said he only ate wild dragons--with bread sauce."
"That's tiresome," said the dragon. "And I suppose this sloppy stuff in the tub is the bread sauce?"
The children said it was. "Of course," they added, "bread sauce is only served with wild dragons. Tame ones are served with apple sauce and onion stuffing. What a pity you're not a tame one: He'd never look at you then," they said. "Good-bye, poor dragon, we shall never see you again, and now you'll know what it's like to be eaten." And they began to cry again.
"Well, but look here," said the dragon, "couldn't you pretend I was a tame dragon? Tell the giant that I'm just a poor little timid tame dragon that you kept for a pet."
"He'd never believe it," said Johnnie. "If you were our tame dragon we should keep you tied up, you know. We shouldn't like to risk losing such a dear, pretty pet."
Then the dragon begged them to fasten him up at once, and they did so: with the collar and chains that were made years ago--in the days when men sang over their work and made it strong enough to bear any strain.
And then they went away and told the people what they had done, and Johnnie was made mayor, and had a glorious feast exactly as he had said he would--with nothing in it but sweet things. It began with Turkish delight and halfpenny buns, and went on with oranges, toffee, coconut ice, peppermints, jam puffs, raspberry-noyeau, ice creams, and meringues, and ended with bull's-eyes and gingerbread and acid drops.
This was all very well for Johnnie and Tina; but if you are kind children with feeling hearts you will perhaps feel sorry for the poor deceived, deluded dragon--chained up in the dull dungeon, with nothing to do but to think over the shocking untruths that Johnnie had told him.
When he thought how he had been tricked, the poor captive dragon began to weep--and the large tears fell down over his rusty plates. And presently he began to feel faint, as people sometimes do when they have been crying, especially if they have not had anything to eat for ten years or so.
And then the poor creature dried his eyes and looked about him, and there he saw the tub of bread and milk. So he thought, "If giants like this damp, white stuff, perhaps I should like it too," and he tasted a little, and liked it so much that he ate it all up.
And the next time the tourists came, and Johnnie let off the colored fire, the dragon said shyly: "Excuse my troubling you, but could you bring me a little more bread and milk?"
So Johnnie arranged that people should go around with carts every day to collect the children's bread and milk for the dragon. The children were fed at the town's expense--on whatever they liked; and they ate nothing but cake and buns and sweet things, and they said the poor dragon was very welcome to their bread and milk.
Now, when Johnnie had been mayor ten years or so he married Tina, and on their wedding morning they went to see the dragon. He had grown quite tame, and his rusty plates had fallen off in places, and underneath he was soft and furry to stroke. So now they stroked him.
And he said, "I don't know how I could ever have liked eating anything but bread and milk. I am a tame dragon now, aren't I?" And when they said that yes, he was, the dragon said: "I am so tame, won't you undo me?" And some people would have been afraid to trust him, but Johnnie and Tina were so happy on their wedding day that they could not believe any harm of anyone in the world. So they loosened the chains, and the dragon said: "Excuse me a moment, there are one or two little things I should like to fetch," and he moved off to those mysterious steps and went down them, out of sight into the darkness. And as he moved, more and more of his rusty plates fell off.
In a few minutes they heard him clanking up the steps. He brought something in his mouth--it was a bag of gold.
"It's no good to me," he said. "Perhaps you might find it useful." So they thanked him very kindly.
"More where that came from," said he, and fetched more and more and more, till they told him to stop. So now they were rich, and so were their fathers and mothers. Indeed, everyone was rich, and there were no more poor people in the town. And they all got rich without working, which is very wrong; but the dragon had never been to school, as you have, so he knew no better.
And as the dragon came out of the dungeon, following Johnnie and Tina into the bright gold and blue of their wedding day, he blinked his eyes as a cat does in the sunshine, and he shook himself, and the last of his plates dropped off, and his wings with them, and he was just like a very, very extra-sized cat. And from that day he grew furrier and furrier, and he was the beginning of all cats. Nothing of the dragon remained except the claws, which all cats have still, as you can easily ascertain.
And I hope you see now how important it is to feed your cat with bread and milk. If you were to let it have nothing to eat but mice and birds it might grow larger and fiercer, and scalier and tailier, and get wings and turn into the beginning of dragons. And then there would be all the bother over again.

Mead is a drink widely considered to have been discovered prior to the advent of both agriculture and ceramic pottery in the Neolithic, due to the prevalence of naturally occurring fermentation and the distribution of eusocial honey-producing insects worldwide; as a result, it is hard to pinpoint the exact historical origin of mead given the possibility of multiple discovery or potential knowledge transfer between early humans prior to recorded history. In Europe, mead is first described from residual samples found in ceramics of the Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800–1800 BCE). With the eventual rise of ceramic pottery and increasing use of fermentation in food processing to preserve surplus agricultural crops, evidence of mead begins to show up in the archaeological record more clearly, with pottery vessels from northern China dating from at least 7000 BCE discovered containing chemical signatures consistent with the presence of honey, rice, and organic compounds associated with fermentation.
The earliest surviving written record of mead is possibly the soma mentioned in the hymns of the Rigveda, one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BCE. The Rigveda predates the Indo-Iranian separation, dated to roughly 2000 BCE, so this mention may originate from the Western Steppe or Eastern Europe. The Abri, a northern subgroup of the Taulantii, were known to the ancient Greek writers for their technique of preparing mead from honey. During the Golden Age of ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) discussed mead made in Illiria in his Meteorologica and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) called mead militites in his Naturalis Historia and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead. The Hispanic-Roman naturalist Columella gave a recipe for mead in De re rustica, about 60 CE:
Take rainwater kept for several years, and mix a sextarius of this water with a [Roman] pound of honey. For a weaker mead, mix a sextarius of water with nine ounces of honey. The whole is exposed to the sun for 40 days and then left on a shelf near the fire. If you have no rain water, then boil spring;
Ancient Greek writer Pytheas described a grain and honey drink similar to mead that he encountered while travelling in Thule. According to James Henry Ramsay this was an earlier version of Welsh metheglin. When 12-year-old Prince Charles II visited Wales in 1642 Welsh metheglin was served at the feast as a symbol of Welsh presence in the emerging British identity in the years between the Union of the Crowns in 1603 and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.
There is a poem attributed to the Welsh bard Taliesin, who lived around 550 CE, called the Kanu y med or "Song of Mead" (Cân y medd). The legendary drinking, feasting, and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the mead hall Din Eidyn (modern-day Edinburgh) as depicted in the poem Y Gododdin, attributed to the poet Aneirin who would have been a contemporary of Taliesin. In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, the Danish warriors drank mead. In both Insular Celtic and Germanic poetry, mead was the primary heroic or divine drink, see Mead of poetry.
Mead (Old Irish mid) was a popular drink in medieval Ireland. Beekeeping was brought around the 5th century, traditionally attributed to Modomnoc, and mead came with it. A banquet hall on the Hill of Tara was known as Tech Mid Chuarda ("house of the circling of mead"). Mead was often infused with hazelnuts. Many other legends of saints mention mead, as does that of the Children of Lir.
Later, taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently. Some monasteries kept up the traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown.

Go North, Friend!

Day 1

Day 1 - About the Climate in the Arctic

" ... That's right, you will be loving here! During one single year, there are over a hundred days with bright sunshine, while other hundred days being deep dark ... Sorry but, you're scared? Hah, it's just your own imagination terrifying you!"
"We live here, work here. Neither the howling cold wind nor the boundless ice and snow can stop us from building our own homeland. Welcome to here -- and have a look around this place!"
Day 2

Day 2 - Speech from the Winner of the Swimming Competition

" ... That's it. After listening to my teacher, I mustered up my courage once again."
" And I thought, yeah! How can I be terrified by hardship and failure, in here, in this swimming pool? Think about it -- The frozen tundras did not deter workers; they conquered this land with iron and steel. The raging ocean didn't stop them either; the giant wheel brought us resources and supplies. As I'm thinking of it, a warm current suddenly flows my heart, which makes me full of pride and will to fight ... "
Day 3

Day 3 - Menu for This Week

Monday: Borscht & Borodinsky bread
[Scribbled Handwriting] Don't forget the soured cream again, Comrade Patriki!
Tuesday: Pirog Pie with Potato Filling
Wednesday: Pelmeni with Potato & Cheese Filling
[Scribbled Handwriting] "Friendship (Дружба)" brand cheese, hooray!
Thursday: Stewed Fish with Potatoes
[Scribbled Handwriting] Thank you to all comrades, for the fishery harvesting from the sea.
Friday: Kasha & Mushrooms
Day 4

Day 4 - Tales Collection About Ice and Snow

" ... The brave little Sasha found that creature's eyes were shining red. Oh my! It was never a reindeer at all, but a sneaky monster who can transform its body!"
"The monster said, as it displayed its deadly fangs and claws, 'I will take you to the icefield, where there is nothing but boundless white snow! You will be blinded by the snow, and lose your way to home!' "
"But our brave little Sasha was not afraid at all. After a quick thought, he then started to chat with the monster ... "
Day 5

Day 5 - Resources in Rayashki

" ... With its energy density and stability being extraordinary, it is convenient enough to be transported across long distance, or stored for a long time. Therefore, the conclusion can be easily reached that the Rune Ores are the best fuel choice for current arcanum vehicles -- especially for those military used."
"Look at those towering derricks, those people digging with a smile on their faces! Undoubtedly, this small town has seized its own bright future ...."

Reference (Thanks to Wiki

There are over a hundred days with bright sunshine, while other hundred days being deep dark ...

Due to the Earth's revolution and its own axis inclination, regions north of 66 ° N can experience midnight sun and polar night phenomena. Midnight sun refers to the phenomenon where the sun remains above the horizon all day long, while polar night is just the opposite. Starting from 66°54' N to the North Pole, the number of days where midnight sun can be observed increases from 1 day to about 182 days. The North Pole has exactly 50/50 days of midnight sun and polar night.
Rayashki is a town on an island near the North Pole. I'm not sure if this paragraph is describing the geographical location of Rayashki, or it's just an description of the polar circle, but Russia does have territories within that range, and the island closest to the North Pole seems to be Franz Josef Land (although there is no permanent population living here actually). The northernmost inhabited island is New Siberian Islands (2 people), while Novaya Zemlya, slightly south, has a population of nearly 2,000.
I suddenly realized that I should not only focus on the map of Russia, but also compare the maps of the entire Soviet Union during its heyday. Therefore, I have finally located the Pyramiden (Пирами́да), which could be the prototype of Rayashki.
Pyramiden is an abandoned Soviet coal mining settlement on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. It was founded by Sweden in 1910 and sold to the Soviet Union later in 1927. It used to be the busiest town of Soviet Union within the Arctic Circle. There were over 1,000 residents living here, and the quality of life of its residents even surpassed some cities in the mainland of Soviet Union. The town had a cultural center with a theater, library, art and music studios, a sports complex, and a primary school.
Pyramiden used to rely on coal mining for a living, but due to difficulties in mining and low coal quality, it was almost never profitable. The town mainly rely on government subsidies to maintain operations. From 1955 to 1998, as much as nine million tonnes of coal were extracted from the mine.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the economy of this small town plummeted, and it is said that the depletion of mineral veins was the reason why people eventually decided to leave here. Starting from March 3, 1998, local residents began to migrate, and on October 10, the last resident left, making it becomes a so called "ghost town".
Due to the cold climate, the buildings here have been well preserved. Since 2007, the Arctic Travel Company Grumant has been trying to make it a tourist attraction and reopened its hotels in 2013. The storage room of Pyramiden preserves over 1,000 Soviet film archives, and the world's northernmost film festival was held here on August 27, 2019, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Soviet cinema.

After listening to my teacher, I mustered up my courage once again.

In the town Pryamiden, there is a "world's northernmost swimming pool" here. I guess this is also a testimony to it being the prototype of Rayashki.
And just a guess. Could this teacher possibly be Vila? After all, in the trailer, we saw her standing out to encourage people.

Borscht & Rye Bread

Borscht (Борщ) is a kind of sour soup, made with meat stock, vegetables and seasonings, common in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. The name ultimately derives from the word "борщ", which is common to East Slavic languages. Common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) was the soup's principal ingredient before it was replaced with other vegetables, notably beetroot in the Ukrainian version. The dominant tastes in borscht are sweet and sour, which is the result of red beetroots being one of the main ingredients. The dish shows a distinctive red color due to the same reason.
There seems to be some controversy over the origin of borscht. According to Wikipedia, this dish originated in Ukraine and has developed numerous variant formulas with different ingredients added. During the Soviet Union era, this dish was more widely spread and cooked within its territory.
Rye bread is a type of bread made with various proportions of flour from rye grain. The exact color depends on the type of flour used, and the addition of coloring agents during making processes. The world's largest exporter of rye bread is Poland. Borodinsky bread (бородинский хлеб), or borodino bread, is a dark brown sourdough rye bread of Russian origin. It is traditionally sweetened with molasses and flavored with coriander and caraway seeds.
The name of this bread most probably first appeared after the October Revolution (1917), as no mention of this name was made before 1920. In fact, the modern recipe did not appear in print before 1933, first in internal memos of a Moscow baking plant. However, in the literature of breadbaking of the end of 19th century, a number of similar recipes exist, though caraway seeds were usually used instead of coriander.

Pirog Pie with Potato Filling

Pirog (пиро́г) is a baked case of dough with either sweet or savory filling. The name is derived from the ancient Proto-Slavic word pir, meaning "banquet" or "festivity". Pirogi come in different shapes and forms: often being oblong with tapering ends, but can also be circular or rectangular; they can be closed or open-faced with no crust on top.
In Russian cuisines, pirogi with a savory filling are traditionally served as an accompaniment with borscht, broth (a kind of savory liquid made of water, meat, fish or vegetables), or consommé (a type of clear soup made from richly flavoured stock or broth).

Pelmeni with Potato & Cheese Filling

Pelmeni (пельмени) are dumplings of Russian cuisine that consist of a filling wrapped in thin, unleavened dough. In Siberia, pelmeni are traditionally frozen outdoors in the winter, and treated as preserved food. Hunters or explorers heading into the taiga would carry sacks of frozen pelmeni with their provisions since they can be stored frozen for a long time and are easily cooked.

"Friendship (Дружба)" brand cheese, hooray!

In the Soviet Union, the production of soft cheese began in 1934, when the first cheese factory (now known as the "Cheese Karat (Карат)") was built in Moscow. Soviet citizens could only purchase "No.1 Cheese" which was produced based on Swiss technology and it was not until 1964 that the famous "Friendship (Дружба)" brand cheese was produced. The laboratory led by M. Kuleshova developed its formula. This type of cheese can make "everything" -- from cheese soup for lunch to snacks for dinner.

Thursday: Stewed Fish with Potatoes

From the menu above, it can be seen that potatoes are a frequent customer on the dining table. This is mainly because potatoes are suitable for growing in environments with poor soil, low nighttime temperatures, dryness, and short sunshine hours. In the natural environment of the Soviet Union at that time, potatoes were easier to grow, and the harvest was significantly higher than other crops. On the other hand, growing potatoes does not require that much manpower.

Kasha & Mushrooms

Kasha (каша) is one of the Russian national dishes, together with shchi (a kind of Russian-style cabbage soup). This fact is commemorated in the Russian saying, "щи да каша – пища наша", which literally translates as "shchi and kasha are our food" or "cabbage soup and porridge are what we eat". The expression has an implied figurative meaning of "it is enough to eat those two meals to live" or "it doesn't matter what happens in Russia at large, we still live the same way."
The most popular kasha recipe in Russia is that of crumbly cooked buckwheat seasoned with butter. Buckwheat kasha can be eaten at any time of the day, either as a separate dish or as a side dish.

The brave little Sasha found that creature's eyes were shining red.

I haven't found any Slavic tales related to the name Sasha, after all, this name should be considered a very popular name in the local area (I think that's why it was chosen as the protagonist's name for this fairy tale). But Devs has provided a picture of the monster here which we will encounter in the patch 1.8. Perhaps this is a hint of the monster's characteristic abilities, about shapeshifting?

The Rune Ores are the best fuel choice for current arcanum vehicles -- especially for those military used.

A Rune is a letter in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised purposes thereafter. In addition to representing a sound value (a phoneme), runes can be used to represent the concepts after which they are named (ideographs).
The name rune itself, taken to mean "secret, something hidden", seems to indicate that knowledge of the runes was originally considered esoteric, or restricted to an elite. Although some say the runes were used for divination, there is no direct evidence to suggest they were ever used in this way. There are at least three sources on divination with rather vague descriptions that may, or may not, refer to runes: Tacitus's 1st-century Germania, Snorri Sturluson's 13th-century Ynglinga saga, and Rimbert's 9th-century Vita Ansgari.
In the hero legend Saga and the poem Ada, the runic script is used to cast magic. For example, in the chapter Sigrdrífumál, Valkyrie Brynhildur (Brunhild) teaches the hero Sigurðr (Sigurd) to engrave the rune containing victory magic on his sword, which could help him to win every battle. The wave rune will be engraved on the rudder of the ship, and the word rune will be used before a person is about to speak during gatherings. So in the worldview of Reverse 1999, rune ore should exist as a mineral that contains a large amount of mana. The reason why Zeno, as a military institution, wants it is also obvious.

It has to be said that I really enjoy the cultural background contained in these preview activities, especially when I was investigating the history of each cuisine based on Wednesday's menu. Although compared to the information provided in 1.7 previews, it is difficult to make any predictions about the plot from the information provided this time. The only obvious conclusion is that Zeno desires the rune ores that exist in Rayashki as an energy source, which is the reason why Dr. Windsong was sent here. Zeno only needs a new mineral vein to be discovered, but obviously Windsong has her own ideas for Rayashki's future.
Anyway, the new story will be revealed on Thursday (UTC+8). I can't wait to pull Avgust anymore!

I have just finished Joy of Life and I have a couple of questions. Does anyone know,

1. When Fan attends the banquet, gets drunk, and takes the challenge of the elderly poet >! Are the 100 poems he recites and amazes everyone with, famous Chinese poems written at a later period from when the drama is set?!<
   
2. The Emperor of Northern Qi Why does it not get revealed that it is actually a woman dressed as a man?
   

I have just finished Joy of Life and I have a couple of questions, I wonder if anyone knows the Answers.

1. When Fan attends the banquet, gets drunk and dictates the 100 poems and amazes the guests including the poet who challenged him, are the poems actually famous Chinese poems written after the drama was set?
   
2. Why was in not revealed that the Emperor of Northern Qi Was actually a woman dressed as a man?
   

Thanks in advance.

We return to the question. Why disavow Heidegger’s Nietzsche? Perhaps because Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche makes BAP’s totally superfluous, subsuming BAP’s project. Utterly spoiling it in the process.
Heidegger’s Nietzsche is a Metaphysical or Speculative one. The psychological, the moral, and by extension the political… become subsidiary to this metaphysical project. This engenders a ‘have it your way’ approach to Nietzsche. Obviously being metaphysical one simply need meet Nietzsche at the metaphor. Surely there is probably a number of aphorisms we can draw from to support the apolitical Nietzsche. The 20th century criticisms of Nietzsche that had honed in on this undeniably Aristocratic and (in a general sense-) reactionary, in short, Rightwing base… can be cast away as examples of Hegelian-Arboralist influenced Marxist Totalitarian dogmatism. The New Left hoovered all the Nietzsche they could. For the proliferation of a Nietzsche friendly to Progressivism and the formation of a “Post-Marxist” Euro and Anglo-American Left or Modern Liberalism, we can thank not only Gilles Deleuze’s virulent “interpretation” or Walter Kauffman’s selective translation, but also Martin Heidegger who gives to us a purely philosophical Nietzsche. Defanged and de-clawed.
In The Word of Nietzsche Heidegger writes the following,
"Into the position of the vanished authority of God and of the teaching office of the Church steps the authority of conscience, obstrudes the authority of reason. Against these the social instinct rises up. The flight from the world into the suprasensory is replaced by historical progress. The otherworldly goal of everlasting bliss is transformed into the earthly happiness of the greatest number. The careful maintenance of the cult of religion is relaxed through enthusiasm for the creating of a culture or the spreading of civilization. Creativity, previously the unique property of the biblical god, becomes the distinctive mark of human activity. Human creativity finally passes over into business enterprise."
Can't have one without the other and without the gap that exists between them.
Consider the Centralized State as Metaphor. It is an Ethic. Recall the centrality of Transvaluation or Revaluation in Nietzsche's project. Like all States and like all Ethics, its disclosure is its own Substance. Poetry. Without this poetry, Nietzsche is bloodless. You're just using big magic to reanimate his corpse. An animatronic that is fed, and which then proceeds to regurgitate, aphorisms.
Have to go at it with a hammer and a tuning fork.
The difference between the Values of Nietzsche's Strong Pessimism and the Weak Pessimism of Schopenhauer rests on the question of Will. Of life. As you pointed out, politically both Left and Right, are constituted by living beings. Aliveness is Will and to Will is to Strive. This is where we locate the aperture or the schism.
The distinction between one and the other.
From Heidegger's The Word of Nietzsche,
"Preservation and enhancement mark the fundamental tendencies of life, tendencies that belong intrinsically together. To the essence of life belongs the will to grow, enhancement. Every instance of life-preservation stands at the service of life-enhancement. Every life that restricts itself to mere preservation is already in decline. The guaranteeing of space in which to live, for example, is never the goal for whatever is alive, but is only a means of life-enhancement."
and
"Values, as points-of-view, guide seeing "with respect to complex forms." This seeing is at any given time a seeing on behalf of a view-to-life that rules completely in everything that lives. In that it posits the aims that are in view for whatever is alive, life in its essence, proves to be value-positing (cf. Will to Power, Aph. 556, 1885-86)"
I don't think you can really engage with Nietzsche without taking seriously the question of generations, of breeding, and of the Construction (re-construction, it is the same but it is different) and Transmission of Values to the Coming Generations. Homo Superior. Perhaps this is why the Metaphor should never be assumed from the outset. Underdeveloped it’s a literal-literary abstraction. We have to develop the courage to take people at their word and judge. Only then can we begin the process of coming to the Concrete Metaphor.
And why does it even matter? Why should Nietzsche be recognized as a Man of the Right?
Removing the Aristocratic element of Nietzsche's thought reduces him into the Philosopher of Cope, of the Lovelorn and the Suffering, is to treat Nietzsche as a pitiful thing. Sympathetic at his expense. Can't have Nietzsche without Agonism. Can't have Self-Overcoming without Agony. That a baby is born covered in blood, crying. Can't have the One without the Other. Have to be able to tell the difference. That's God-Building 101.
As it relates to Nietzsche’s project. What is the son of a Lutheran pastor to do after Humanity has murdered God?
If you are the child of a fisherman you'd likely do well simply being a fisherman. Your values are the product of your environment, of your struggles, of your relationship with your tools and your setting. Generations of fisherman produces exemplar fisherman. This transmission of value is in the most concrete sense the Genesis of his Fate. Generations of serfs begets future serfs and a continuation of the morality of serfs. "Turn the other cheek, keep your head down, God is on our side... simply wait, that your Lord will receive you into his House when the time comes by virtue of simply believing in Him. No you don't have to die violently. Martyrdom is an option, if you want to kill yourself, martyrdom is the sanctioned method. Remember also, the only thing you can ever truly hope to control is your reaction to things, consider that maybe you are the cause of your own suffering." This is the morality of serfs or slaves. Nietzsche doesn't consider the workers or the peasants as capable of producing a healthy guiding Value (or Ethic) for Society. Let the shopkeeper be a shopkeeper, the fisherman be a fisherman, the baker be a baker, to cobbler a cobbler, the soldier a soldier, etc... let people do what they have always done. That they've learned how to dwell in it. New generations come into existence. The inheritors of our will. Of our pneuma, the fiery breath. We conspire with generations past. By noticing the disparity, by noticing the lack in our Present Value and looking at the still surface of fountain, we communicate with the Past. In striving we bring about the Future.
Now what is the son of a Pastor to do? In a World where God is Dead? Which is to say, a World which is no longer a World, which has instead taken the character of the decay corpse of a suicide, dangling by its own logic, not yet discovered? What is to be Done?
The casual response now is, "be what you want to be. Follow your Star." This I think is too American (contrasting Nietzsche with Emerson). No many will have to toil in their particular form of suffering. Nietzsche absolutely views it of the upmost importance that many remain slaves in order for few to remain artists and those who try to be anything other than what they had been born into, should by Nietzsche’s estimation, be repressed. They deserve it, as Nature has ordained it.
Nietzsche is not pro-Social Mobility. And is even less so sympathetic to Socialism, on principle, because Socialism seeks to alleviate suffering. Make no mistake, Nietzsche isn’t arguing that many should suffer so that a few might avoid suffering but rather that suffering varies, different peoples are bred for different kinds of suffering. Again we return to Schopenhauer’s Aesthetics. Only a genius is capable of recognizing the Idea of Beauty in Nature and the genius is always in the minority and the perquisite for the genius’ recognition is the genius’ suffering. Nietzscheanism is at its core sadomasochistic.
Both the Historical Left and Right can be broadly understood as "Post-Napoleonic". Emerging out of the dust kicked up by the passage of the World-Spirit mounted on a white charger. In whose wake the French Revolution was transmuted into La Grand Armée. The French Republic transmuted into Universal Empire and the remnant patchwork of Latin Feudal-Christendom, bitterly divided along the lines of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, transmuted into Modern European Nation-States. After the fracturing and sublation of the old Feudal Relations of Production into the newer Capitalist one. To speak of Property is to speak of the Means of Production, in terms of what you own and what you don't own and who ultimately has a Natural (read Divine) claim over it. The Left upholding the Ideal of Universal Recognition or to be more precise, of Universal Citizenship and Democracy. Regardless of Class (Race), regardless of origin. The son of a pig farmer or of a fisherman can become a high-ranking military officer, or hold a high-ranking government position. Everyone either has the right or is granted by Virtue of being a Citizen of the Revolutionary State, to an education and healthcare and access to other common goods, and to own Property (read also, their Means of Production or Sustenance). Everyone has, in legal terms, Equal Representation. What applies to one, applies to all. This Revolutionary State is the Universal and Homogenous State. The Right on the other hand emphasizes inequality/disparity, hierarchy and inheritance. Central to this is the Metaphysical and Jurisprudential question of Property and of Administration. Liberal we share a common cultus. Common consensus. The same Metaphysical or Jurisprudential base, that being the Natural Right of Property. At this point in the conversation we cannot escape Liberalism. Bonapartism and the responses to it, constitute Actual Existing Liberalism.
It should hopefully become clear why we need to establish "the Left-Right dichotomy". Obvious. What sort of Society would you like to see come into existence? What is beyond Left or Right in terms of "Will to Power" from this perspective, is the Act of Revolution itself. But what comes after the Revolution?
Taken from a certain perspective, we might go so far as to posit that Nietzsche’s formulation of Ressentiment is meant to contaminate the individual’s self-consciousness, our little narcissistic loop, by amplifying this self-consciousness, making us acutely aware of it, becoming fixated on our subjectivity and the proceeding disavowal aka becoming fixated on the other’s fantasy and the other’s motives and the other’s subjectivity. How do you refute an eye disease? Obviously they’re envious and seething. Taken this way Nietzsche’s concept of Ressentiment is like a parasitic elemental. Anyone capable of love, gestates ressentiment. Obviously, you think about the object of your love, over and over and over again, and you feel. The trick with the Ressentiment Mind Virus, is that it’s a lot like the hashtag, think of BLM. Consider how this hashtag was manufactured and used as a virtual receptacle for growing social antagonism, how it spread, how it was legally registered and utilized by NPOs-NGOs in conjunction with crafty politicians and real estate developers and large corporations, lots of people made lots of money, and how any shady bullshit on their part was covered over by… “Well listen I’m not a piece of shit, I think Black Lives Matter is a sentiment worth affirming given the recent public executions we’ve all been witnessing, I’m against racial prejudice, against public executions of anyone by law enforcement, and pro- letting a segment of the population know that their lives matter. And maybe you just have some unexamined hatred of Black People, which leads you to react as viciously and cynically as you’re reacting. Oh No Lives Matter how quaint and stylish and nihilistic you miserable fuck, I bet you feel super satisfied. I bet your asshole puckered when you uttered that statement you pseud. Unlike you I’m not stuck in a hyper-liberal coastal media bubble, I get to see in real time how utterly vile the racial animosity is and how many actual White Supremacist organizations are very obviously using this as an opportunity to gain influence and gain a following amongst subclinical autistic White and off-White teenagers. And yes it’s obvious that those actual organizations are run by Feds I’m under zero illusions. Also, I’m sorry for not taking it as a given, that the historical black neighbors in my city that haven’t been gentrified look like post-apocalyptic war zones, because... ‘that’s just how black people are’…. ah you have some graphs to show me, cool you’re impressed by graphs and feel a mixture of intellectual superiority and narcissistic rage when morality is rhetorically deployed…because at the end the day you’re a piece of shit who wants the conversation to gravitate around you while simultaneously realizing how bad it looks that your knee jerk response to a video of a public execution performed by a cop is to immediately make it about yourself by adopting a contrarian ‘amoral ur-moralizing’ stance, and you know it but still obviously feel profound narcissistic injury when it’s even so much as implied. Hey sorry I’m not a 160 IQ autist. Ah cool…you’re wanting to debate me on every Facebook post, and if it isn’t a debate it’s a pithy statement, and you only ever deign to communicate with me over this subject. Nice, let me guess, in order to assert the validity of your current stance, you’ve provoked a ton of people online into tell you a bunch of wretched dehumanizing shit, you get the Double Affirmation right you wretched pervert? At once, you get to feel vindicated in your stance through this social media martyrdom AND you get to reinforce your feeling that those other people who don’t agree with you are evil sociopathic pieces of shit which justifies your own cruelty towards people who fall in that camp. So now I’m the placeholder for that. You’re obviously sub-tweeting me. Because you feel like shit you have to go to work to let me know that I am shit… listen go fuck yourself.” It’s wild the kind of repercussions this can have, at like a professional and social level. Can make a strong case that a concept like Ressentiment operates in this manner. On a very rudimentary level, it speaks to common anxieties surrounding Envy. An understanding of envy’s destructive potential is nigh universal. Any and all attempts at revolutionary transformation or even simple Reforms are for Nietzsche the result of ressentiment and how convenient… ressentiment is always what your political opponents are animated by. The low who hate the high, the ugly who resent the beautiful. Don’t these people know that suffering is actually great and ennobling, that one must love suffering, love Fate? BAP’s use of the concept is a little subtler than a Jordan Peterson’s for instance. But it’s more or less the same bullshit. It's a gorgoneion. How about this, I am in fact incredibly resentful. This element of Nietzscheanism has been utterly diffused in public discourse. The truth of it is that it deflates Politics altogether. Encourages you to speculate and give-in to subjective motives and the fantasy of the other’s fantasy. While ignoring the objective material conditions. Given the choice to gossip about another’s devious interior motives and shove your head up your own ass for a good bout of self-reflection and self-loathing OR address objective socioeconomic and political conditions, most won’t even hear the latter option, the latter option is far too painful…. Ah…
“Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.” Thus Spake Zarathustra
How do we bring the New Man into Existence?
BAP in his Red Scare appearance recommends Genealogy of Morals... At no point in that text, does Nietzsche argue that the issues of his time are the result of economic factors or economic exploitation or the unjust inequality of man which must be addressed for justice’s sake. Instead Nietzsche speaks in biological terms. Nietzsche speaks of illness. People living in climates that they shouldn't be living in. Different races have mixed and this is a vital point to keep in mind, for Nietzsche class difference are a matter of race. Those born into a higher class are the descendants of conquerors and they had once received the values of those conquering ancestors, while those born into the lower classes are the descendants of the conquered. The Middle Class or Bourgeoisie (the shopkeeper) are Hybrids... this hybridity is an issue.
Performing another act of bibliomancy, this time with the Basic Writings of Nietzsche I come to this passage from Genealogy of Morals.
"The "well-born" felt themselves to be the "happy"; they did not have to establish their happiness artificially by examining their enemies, or to persuade themselves, deceive themselves, that they were happy (as all men of ressentiment are in the habit of doing); and they likewise knew, as rounded men replete with energy and therefore necessarily active, that happiness should not be sundered from action - being active was with them necessarily a part of happiness (whence eu pratein <*11. To do well in the sense of faring well> takes its origin) - all very much the opposite of "happiness" at the level of the impotent, the oppressed, and those in whom poisonous and inimical feelings are festering, with whom it appears as essentially narcotic, drug, rest, peace, "sabbath," slackening of tension and relaxing of limbs, in short passively.
While the noble man lives in trust and openness with himself (gennaois "of noble descent" underlines the nuance "upright" and probably also "naïve"), the man of ressentiment is neither upright nor naïve, nor honest and straightforward with himself. His soul squints; his spirit loves hiding places, secret paths, and back doors, everything covert entices him as his world, his security, his refreshment; he understands how to keep silent, how not to forget, how to wait, how to be provisionally self-deprecating and humble."
The Aristocratic element matters. You can't have Nietzsche's Opus without it. You cannot Overcome it if you do not acknowledge it and treat it, not as a metaphor, but as a bit of speculative literalism. As it relates to BAP, I like this because he begins at the source and converses with Nietzsche rather than consulting Nietzsche's commentators. He sets about the task of re-visioning Nietzsche, restating Nietzsche in his own terms, in order to break from Nietzsche and assert his own autonomy and the originality of his own Project. As the student of Nietzsche is compelled to do. You can't hope to do this with the Nietzsche filtered through Bataille and Deleuze on the Left or Evola and Strauss on the Right. Heidegger famously said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that the highest compliment one can pay a thinker is to think with them. To think of someone. To be fascinated by them. Seduced by them. To misunderstand them... is to ensoul the world.
Nietzsche is Aristocratic. Nietzsche is Rightwing in so far as Nietzsche affirms Inheritance. By that alone he is Rightwing and he was recognized as such. The Historical position of the Left totally discards Inheritance in favor of Universal Recognition. Nietzsche stands alongside a whole host of other thinkers who'd been recognized as Rightwing before WWII, and who were either de-fanged and re-packaged or totally buried, especially if they were German (how many people in the Anglophone world know about Ludwig Klages? Ludwig Klages who would be considered the worst nightmare of any American Christian Republican, more so even than a Nietzsche).
BAP is the death-knell of Modern American Conservatism. Rejoice. You should be afraid.
Again there is a Philosophy informing Bronze Age Mindset, but I'm not sure the text itself is attempting to "sell" that philosophy though it appears to be profoundly informed by it. Not in any spooky sense. I think the "fascism" of Bronze Age Mindset is anything but crypto, it's explicit. The pelt of the Nemean Lion wrapped around the vascular and well-sculpted frame of the Hero. The Philosophy itself isn't that wild or arousing. Conservative insofar as it advocates for and defends moderation. By virtue of its moderate and ennobling character, it's best for it to remain "Esoteric" seeing as BAP isn't presented as an old sage, but as something youthful and timeless and demonic. It's supposed to be frightening but also comical. Like a masquerade dancer in some old festival, mantled by a lascivious and mischievous sylvan devil.
According to this tradition of philosophy, the tyrant is understood to be a fallen philosopher who had decided to enact their philosophical conclusions through the sphere of politics. Philosophy politically enacted and imposed can and will produce tyranny. It answers Marx's proclamation in the 11th Thesis on Feuerbach, "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it" in the negative.
Instead the Philosopher is compelled to defend the Tradition of Philosophy itself.
"...the philosopher as such is concerned with nothing but the quest for wisdom and kindling or nourishing the love of wisdom in those who are by nature capable of it... insofar as the philosopher...becomes concerned with being recognized by others, he ceases to be a philosopher... the concern of recognition detracts from the singleness of purpose which is characteristic of the philosopher. It blurs his vision. This fact is not a variance with the other fact that high ambition is frequently a sign by which one can recognize the potential philosopher. But to the extent to which high ambition is not transformed into full devotion to the quest for wisdom, and to the pleasures which accompany that quest, he will not become an actual philosopher."- Leo Strauss, On Tyranny
Not everyone is meant to be a philosopher and that's fine. The philosopher isn't just a rando who occasionally reads about philosophical texts. The philosopher is engaged, fully, with a Tradition. With a Way of Being that has a Canon and a Continuity. Philosophy should exist. Its need is never exhausted but we are confronted by the sense that it is in fact, dead, and in need of reviving.
We begin at the body. At the recognition of the Beauty in the Body. This recognition is premised upon the realization that we aren’t looking the way we’d like to look. We look at our reflection and see something undesirable but perceive something beautiful hidden within the flabs. In the gymnasium we suffer. In a visceral manner. It’s difficult to seethe like Schopenhauer seethed. Wordceling, being an inherently plebeian and feminizing activity, invites feminine and plebeian ressentiment. Left to the devices of our own fantasies we can’t help but appraise others with a mix of pity and envy or outright hate. It’s harder to do this with physical activity. BAP points out in his Red Scare that fat is visible. Being visible it’s something that you’re immediately confronted by in the mirror, you can delude yourself regarding fatness, but perhaps you feel terrible because you yourself consider fatness to be something unattractive and rather than psychically torturing yourself by grappling with this “interiorized fatphobia” you might instead go on a dietary and exercise regiment. Lose weight and then gain muscle. Capable of effecting change in accordance with some ideal-erotic ideal of self. And unlike the agony generated by thinking, the anguish brought about by physical activity tends to elicit a compensatory biochemical response. Exercise increases norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. Effectively banishes low-grade malaise and misery. And you become more attractive. Likewise you open yourself up to admiring the attractiveness of others and appreciating their own commitment to suffering in order to bring into Reality an Ideal and if you’re particularly contemplative and clever you’ll note the connection between the erotic fantasy and the philosophical ideal. The well-sculpted and skillful Other as an Eroticized, Aestheticized, and Idealized Object. Gain a special insight on the Ladder of Love. Working out also shifts the emphasis from a narcissistic fixation on the ugliness of past to a potential future, a Beauty yearning to be brought-forth. And it isn’t a “discarding” of the past, you look to the past for examples of Beauty, which is explicitly not you and not about you. This requires an ability to recognize and revere, rather than engage in knee-jerk ironic or satirical deconstruction, sacrificing the effort, the sacrifice, and the suffering implicit in the Exceptional in order to engage in delusional and unsustainable self-affirmation. Let desirous admiration overcome ruinous enviousness. From the past to the present. You aren’t perpetually condemned to the judgment. The judgment (for instance; other people are automatically disgusted by your body and perhaps charisma can assuage that disgust but generally such a body only produces quietly miserable, villainous little actors. Narcissists who ruminate and seethe, that double-chin contains venom glands) is a call to action. There is an erotic, aesthetic, and ideal object concealed within the biomass and perhaps you recognize it and recognizing it you should act in service of it. You become a Work of Art. This operation requires and cultivates Self-Love. Nietzsche in Daybreak writes, “Seducing into love. - We have cause to fear him who hates himself, for we shall be the victims of his wrath and his revenge. Let us therefore see if we cannot seduce him into loving himself!” Remember, there is necessarily a gap between the Ideal and the Reality. You cannot have the Love of Wisdom, without Love and without Life. The precondition of Philosophy is Nature. Vibrant and alive and terrifying. Writing in Bronze Age Mindset,
"Many of the mathematical models for how a trait will spread in a population have failed—they don’t tell you this. No, I don’t talk about miracles, whatever words you put them under. And the “design” is there, but it is by no means benevolent or intelligent, nor comprehensible. You see in the spider’s web a creature of rudimentary nervous system and little intelligence “design” something beautiful and complex, and this is key to understanding also all of nature. There is an inherent “intelligence” inside things, uncanny, silent and demonic. Its workings and aims are obscure to us."
This precondition asserts that there are Sacred Things without delving into Moralism, something can be Monstrous and Maliciously predisposed towards us and still be Sacred. This outlook is Pagan. Bring back a Warrior Spirit. Obviously it's a Simulacrum, but why do you have to be such a dower cynical little bitch about it in public? Why not commit to the bit? Not just for your own sake (you have to fake it till you make it, that's the American Way) but for the sake of others. Valorizing "What is Beautiful is Healthy what is Healthy is Good and what is Good is True." Is good for Society. Better than incentivizing people to identify as victims and encouraging people to be Haters.
One might then cultivate the innate ability to recognize the Beautiful in others, in whom that Beauty might otherwise be concealed. As Alcibiades recognizes in Socrates and Achilles recognized in Patroclus. And perhaps in this activity one meets others engaging in similar pursuit, in cultivating these Values. And there is through rivalry and proximity and witnessing, the cultivation of Fraternity. Where you look at another and see in them their suffering and the Beauty arising out of it and you cannot help but feel a great deal of admiration and affection.
Turn again to Heidegger’s Language in his engaging with Georg Trakl’s poem A Winter Evening,
“The two lines start with the word “golden.” So that we may hear more clearly this word and what it calls, let us recollect a poem of Pindar’s: Isthmians V. At the beginning of this ode the poet calls gold periosion panton, that which above all shines through everything, panta, shines through each thing present all around. The splendor of gold keeps and holds everything present in the unconcealedness of its appearing.
…
But what is pain? Pain rends. It is the rift. But it does not tear apart into dispersive fragments. Pain indeed tears asunder, it separates, yet so that at the same time it draws everything to itself. Its tending, as a separating that gathers, is at the same time that drawing which, like the pen-drawing of a plan or sketch, draws and joins together what is held apart in separation. Pain is the joining agent in the rending that divides and gathers. Pain is the joining of the rift. The joining is the threshold. It settles the between, the middle of the two that are separated in it. Pain joins the rift of the difference. Pain is the dif-ference itself.
Pain has turned the threshold to stone.
The verse calls the dif-ference, but it neither thinks it specifically nor does it call its nature by this name. The verse calls the separation of the between does it call its nature by this name. The verse calls the separation of the between, the gathering middle, in whose intimacy the bearing of things and the granting of world pervade one another.
Then would the intimacy of the dif-ference for world and thing be pain? Certainly. But we should not imagine pain anthropologically as a sensation that makes us feel afflicted. We should not think of the intimacy psychologically as the sort in which sentimentality makes a nest for itself.
Pain has turned the threshold to stone.
Pain has already fitted the threshold into its bearing. The difference presences already as the collected presence, from which the carrying out of world and thing appropriatingly takes place. How so?
There lie, in limpid brightness shown,
Upon the table bread and wine.”
Fraternitas is powerful.
Feel like I've witnessed a lot of psyoping on that end. I don't know, there are always difficulties and insecurities and even betrayals... but the kind of affection developed between dudes in the appropriate settings, with an awareness of and celebration of, the differences between us. Critique and Eulogy and Competition and Collaboration.
To talk with someone for hours on end, to embrace them and be embraced, in confidence and conspiring. It is necessary I think for us to experience this. Lest we become severely stunted. With all affection collapsing into a libidinal singularity. Easy to forget that not everyone has experienced these sort of healthy relationships, have to remember that. We can be alone together and for a moment know Paradise.
The Progression of the Progressive Right is not that we are entering into a Dark Age but rather that we are emerging out of one and into a Golden Age.
So what is the task of the Oracle? To dynamically receive the demands and sacrificial instructions from a god? To appease the gods and the dead and the daemons through said sacrificial rites? To perform rituals in order to ward off catastrophes and to divine the cause for on-going catastrophes (regardless of scale)? Transmitting the sacrificial technologies, including the correct ways to butcher an animal, distribute its parts, and treat its materia? Is the oracle confined to the transmission and conservation of rote fetishism?
Or is the oracle task to guide Humanity into something Higher. To the fulfillment of a collective destiny? A Great Work?
The question was not stupid.
On the issue of recognition and cultivation BAP observes the following in Bronze Age Mindset,
“If an impish deity of the lower kind, with which the world is full, some purple goblin with a wicked face showed itself to a pedant in a white coat, the scientist would convince himself he was hallucinating - and in any case, without being available for study, for resting, for experiments that can be seen by others (this stand has been abandoned for many fields lately), its existence would not fall within the power of "science" at all. No, and what do you say to ancient accounts that such creatures showed themselves to men before, and maybe still do? Why would they show themselves to you? The weakness and spinelessness of modern man - no god would show himself to such creatures to be jeered at!
...
If a god showed himself today to you, in a dream, would you have the inner energy and power to honor him and do his bidding in the world? Or would you, neutered by the modern pervasive hivemind of the slave, dismiss it, and yourself as unreal or unworthy, when it is the modern bugman and his blabbering that lacks reality. But I want you to be intoxicated with the highest enthusiasm and ready to receive these greatest blessings with great confidence!
When I think of the bugman and engage in bibliomantic practice with a copy of Houllebecq's The Elementary Particles this passage appears:
“He was less interested in television. Every week, however, his heart in his mouth, he watched The Animal Kingdom. Graceful animals like gazelles and antelopes spent their days in abject terror while lions and panthers lived out their lives in listless imbecility punctuated by explosive bursts of cruelty. They slaughtered weaker animals, dismembered and devoured the sick and the old before falling back into a brutish sleep where the only activity was that of the parasites feeding on them from within. Some of these parasites were hosts to smaller parasites, which in turn were a breeding ground for viruses. Snakes moved among the trees, their fangs bared, ready to strike at bird or mammal, only to be ripped apart by hawks. The pompous, half-witted voice of Claude Darget, filled with awe and unjustifiable admiration, narrated these atrocities. Michel trembled with indignation. But as he watched, the unshakable conviction grew that nature, taken as a whole, was a repulsive cesspit. All in all, nature deserved to be wiped out in a holocaust - and man’s mission on earth was probably to do just that.”
Returning to BAP and his appearance on Red Scare, recall the compliment BAP recalled a friend having made to him, that he did not merely copy-and-paste Nietzsche but had managed to truly restate the prophet and improve upon him... he acknowledges the Centralized Aristocratic Regime in Nietzsche, and proceeds to acknowledge that we don't have one. There is no political vehicle for the transmission of any of these Values. We're instead forced to return to the Question of Aesthetics and Art and the Artist as Philosopher. My impression is that for BAP, every Centralized State ultimately reverts to the same thing, Eugenics or Biopolitics. Controlling how people breed. Controlling how people love. Gatekeeping utopia and banishing grace.
I think BAP emphasizes this dimension of Aristocratic politicized eugenics in Nietzsche so that he can overcome it (I think this involves a Return to Schopenhauer and Aesthetics). His most coherent politics amount to an Art Project. You can't overcome something you are in denial of. You know... careful when fighting monsters lest you become one. I think every Jewish-American is forced to confront these contradictions on the daily.
Despite all attempts to engage in Romantic and Liberal Nation-Building or in the Construction of International Communism or some other approach we can refer to as "the Construction of Socialism"...
Zarathustra emulates himself. Zarathustra immolates himself.
Recall the question of Value. What Values emerge from the gap, between the Individual and Consensus?
Enter Schopenhauer. Enter Houellebecq.
We exist in the worst of all possible worlds. Everything is the same but slightly worse.
Have we become the Universal Humanity, wherein everyone has become equal in terms of Self-Consciousness? A World of Philosophers at the End of History?
Perhaps but this is not necessarily a good thing. People remain people and the human condition is horrible. There is an absolute negativity, an essential negativity that can't be overcome through consumption or revolution. If we give ourselves over for a moment, to nostalgia, we might imagine (resonating with the Marxist reading of Social Relations under the Feudal Mode of Production) that the fundamental unit of Society, the family and by extension the community of families gathered around sacred institutions and their sacred calendars and carnivals, embodied a kind of organic unity or solidarity that helped assuage and sublimate individual melancholy (the proper melancholic being a melancholic due to some astrological-geographical melding, in a sense being destined to be a melancholic) allowing the average person to have a slightly more balanced humoral constitution.
Here in this now, we find ourselves naked and shivering. Perhaps we shouldn't be able to relate as much as we do with this condition. Yet we might also say with equal conviction that this "alienation" is in fact more genuine to our innate condition.
123 years since Nietzsche died. Where are the Heroes?
Where is the Soviet New Man? Where is Jabotinsky's Hebrew?
In the present day, at the End of History we have witnessed the Mass Production of Melancholy Perverts. At best Michel Houellebecq. At worst Jeffrey Epstein. With a bunch of stunted and traumatized people in-between. Behold the Bugman.
We recognize it as Alienation. We are Alone Together. What is the cause of this Alienation? This Split-Consciousness between Myself and the Other? Perhaps I can philosophize away my Alienation. Perhaps I can by seizing the Means of Production and establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Constructing Socialism, that the socialization of production should "cure" Alienation. Returning to a Harmonious Totality. What BAP calls Yeast-life.
Or we recognize this Separation for what it is. Emancipation. That what defines the Hero is precisely this Separation. What distinguishes the Morality of the Slave from that of the Master. As Leo Strauss puts it in his lecture series Natural Right and History, "Man can guarantee the actualization of wisdom, not in spite of, but because of, the fact that the universe is unintelligible. Man can be sovereign only because there is no cosmic support for his humanity. He can be sovereign only because he is absolutely a stranger in the universe. He can be sovereign only because he is forced to be sovereign. Since the universe is unintelligible and since control of nature does not require understanding of nature, there are no knowable limits to his conquest of nature."
Naively perhaps, I read the frightening-personae of BAP, advocating for things like Eugenics-based Regimes as an act of Sincerony. His manner of highlighting the dangers of a potential philosopher (a bugman) attempting to control Humanity and Nature. It can and will only ever produce Regimes which either explicitly or implicitly, monitor and control us at the level of Breeding. In order to breed out undesirable traits and breed up desirable traits. A Regime which attempts to replace Nature with itself. Regardless of Ideology, it tends towards the same genocidal program.
Fake and Gay? Listen, I’m not the one dressed in green tights, playing a flute, promising a great banquet to the bewitched children, only to then reveal once inside the cave, that there is no Thielbucks, and that they’re actually being initiated into a Gnostic sect called the Coprophagians who eat shit in order to spite their fathers and sully his reputation or something. Literally says this on the pod.
“Indeed, I counsel you to go away from me,
Leave me and defend against Zarathustra,
And even better: be ashamed of him!
Perhaps he deceived you.”
[To be Continued]

I don't think BAP's project can be reduced to a joke done at the expense of his father. There is something to this, but it's vulgar. The Oedipal element is obvious.
One tweet by Michael Millerman appeared a months ago, without context beyond the context of what I needed to know and when I needed to know it. Thinking about you performer. A cross between Larry David and Charles Bukowski. Millerman's own review of Bronze Age Mindset, is one I've enjoyed going back and forth with.
Also I draw heavily from BAP's appearance on the Red Scare podcast.
Principled and magnanimous I refuse to dox or levy false accusation. It is obvious, he refuses to formally self-dox as of the time of this writing, specifically to vex me, to text my moral constitution.
I'm not particularly happy with the discovery of a BAP outside of the quippy dismissal. That he should exist independent of it.
If BAP is in fact Costin Vlad Alamariu, then what he does to Nietzsche... of reading through Nietzsche's antagonism into Schopenhauer through Nietzsche… perhaps the same can be done with him and Strauss. It is here that BAP shines as an original thinker. Truly. In his turn to Aesthetics via Schopenhauer as an antidote to the malaise of Strauss' Political Philosophy.
We'll return to this.
It feels like I found someone who I share too much with and who has more years of life and learning under his belt. I don't how my gaze meets his work, how it concretizes into something recognizable.
Tingling. I find myself drawing in a great breath. Teeth, behold these teeth of mine. What rapturous joy. Like the foam outlining the rounded stone poking out of the waters surface. Grab and squeeze. I am the first to see you.
Your father will have to pay a ransom.
Really not a ransom.
More of a thank you.
To salvage your reputation and rescue your lot.
Clearly. Trembling behind the reeds. I admit, the shrieking was disconcerting and frightening at first. Keeping distance. Salivating. What a great discovery.
I've developed quite the ruinous admiration for this man.
"Nietzsche-lite"
or
As I read one person put it and I'm paraphrasing, "BAP doesn't pretend to be smarter than Schopenhauer, nor does he pretend to be moving 'beyond' Schopenhauer, so just read Schopenhauer."
Sure. Read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. BAP did an even more frustrating thing during his appearance on Red Scare. He honored Leo Strauss without mentioning Leo Strauss. I didn't take it to be false humility on his part when affirmed that he is indeed content with a simple restatement of Nietzsche. Popularizer of Nietzsche. The task of recognition is left to others.
Honestly it was Dasha who got me to genuinely revisit Nietzsche. So "BAP got me to reevaluate Nietzsche" kind of falls flat. Though he has been a great conversationalist. An incredible guest at the after-party. No.
He didn't cause me to revisit Schopenhauer either. At least not directly. I can instead thank a user on the Redscarepodcast subreddit for that, specifically for recommending Houellebecq's commentaries on Schopenhauer.
No. BAP to me is BAP. Beginning, middle, and end.
RUINOUS.
This guy is a ((((((((((((Star)))))))))))))).
I'd like to bite his nose off.
How do I regard BAP as a thinker and as an artist? This fascination is ruinous. At times I have portrayed him in my writings as a desiccated corpse or as a geriatric with plate-like maroon nipples wearing bedazzled Ed Hardy t-shirt. As Grizabella from Cats. As a woman. As Regina Spektor.
In pitch-black room, I hold up the bow, breath is choppy and shallow, palms clammy. I tremble. I can feel him. I can hear his heavy breathing. Loosening a bolt I yell with cracking voice, "you're the nymph!"
Having snickered as others shared a picture of Maxim Gorky in response to BAP tweeting out a passage by Schopenhauer wherein Schopenhauer refers to women as "Unaesthetic"... drawing attention to the way in which Schopenhauer distinguished between the Aesthetic or Metaphysical and the Erotic or Physical. That in effect, the act of collapsing the two into a singular attractive mush, suddenly disqualifies many observations from polite conversation, lends a certain perverseness or suspicion of perversity in an otherwise innocuous observation or in an exulted gesture. Can these feelings be disentangled? I think the difference between the One and the Other is akin to the relationship between the Bog and the Will O' Wisp. Will and Representation.
Then I found my fascination transformed into affection as he proceeded to utilize this in defense of Dasha and I found myself feeling a great and terrible thing as I beheld antlers sprouting from his head and the whining and crying of hounds. I witnessed the Actaeon. The hunter who stumbled upon the great goddess Diana bathing in a spring. Transformed by her into a stag, his hunting dogs proceeding to tear him apart.
BAP took a major risk. He decided to openly defend a woman who embodies everything the cryptid Incel despises about women. A striver. Social climber. Sexually-active from a young age. Who attained viral celebrity as "Sailor Socialism". Who in drunken enthusiasm commanded the listeners of her pod to register as Democrats and vote for Marianne Williamson. There he was. Transformed into a magnificent beast. Willing to sacrifice it all.
His hounds recognized him.
If his task was in part, educational, at that moment he had proven himself an educator. Obscure reader of Plato. And my heart brimmed and I felt like seizing him and whispering, "what are you doing you old fool?" Planting a kiss on cheek. Suddenly the man who'd made intimate friendships and cultivated long-time correspondences with, self-described National Socialists and anti-Semites and this or that... Came out as being half-Jewish (meaning All-Jewish) and a Progressive.
Who is willing to test themselves this way? To potentially lose everything in defense of a woman without guarantee of reciprocity or protection. Willing to sacrifice his whole "brand" in potlach-esque act. Or perhaps, in keeping with the theme of Actaeon, in something approaching the Esoteric Buddhist practice of Chöd. Wherein the meditator dismembers himself with mantra and visualization and proceeds to offer his body parts to all sentient beings. To appease the hunger and thirst of ghosts and demons and other fey-beings.
It felt at the time, as if I had just watched someone leap into a Volcano. From fascination, to affection, to admiration. A Sympathetic Cord.
Perhaps the difference. The great difference between the High and the Low, in terms of Values. Is whether or not one feels compelled to labor on or whether one feels utterly dejected in the presence of something like this. Fucking off into nothing becoming a description of damnation. Bitter, condemning someone else to have to deal with my obscure tragical spirit. "What's the point?" Over and over and over again. A bitter note. Too stupid and matter-bound, lacking in perquisite wickedness, to recognize emancipation as anything other than a bark. Everything I have done has been for nothing. Another has already done it. Mine is but a shadow of a shadow. My sacrifices pale in comparison.
Frustration and dejection, the affect that pollutes the offering and makes it rot before reaching the altar. Admiration and serenity transforms a single grain of wheat into a Cosmic Banquet.
"It has been accomplished."
Expose. Expose what?
You think me a mere minstrel led by the whims of women?
So what exactly is the issue with Heidegger’s Nietzsche? My impression is that Heidegger’s commentary risks spoiling the developing intimacy between the prospect and Nietzsche. How? By asserting (revealing?) that Nietzsche’s project is ultimately a metaphysical one. Metaphysical insofar as it constitutes a work of creative psychology or psychological creativity. It’s not at as if this reading is particularly novel or esoteric. Nietzsche is rather explicit about this. A thinker of masks and performance and artifice and cruelty, in short, of femininity. With Nietzsche and after, all great philosophy is a work of autofiction (recall Girard’s privileging of literature as a site of psychological insights superior to the clinic and the lab). Which brings me back brief but bitter to BAP’s assaults against Heidegger and the little game he plays on his acolytes. BAP quotes Schopenhauer’s pithy charges against Hegel and Hegel-inspired philosophers of his time who would write in arcane formulae. Replacing insight with neologisms. To use meme-tongue, accusing everyone besides himself of being a pseud and a wordcel who hide their mediocre intellects behind complex phrases. This little trick exposes us, exposes the Twitter flunky, one day people will become wise to his oriental perfidiousness. If they did then perhaps they’d realize that stylistically Heidegger has nothing in common with the crop of philosophers Schopenhauer was critiquing, perhaps one might without missing a beat respond… "ah but moron, it is the espirit of the criticism which applies to Heidegger.” But the one who does this is fumbling, pulling up their jeans attempting to cover their face, coated in fluids, the shameful condition resulting from their lust, lit up and exposed in polaroid flash. Trust that even in such wretchedness the earthly Eros, this kakodaemon, plays a vital role in the Great Work. You wouldn’t be the first. Nor the last.
Schopenhauer shits on the highly technical prose characteristic of German Philosophy at the time, tediously technical giving some impression of gnostic requirement, a thing one must be properly initiated into. The Doctor laying hands on the crown of the prostrating neophyte, transmitting the fluidic grace needed to reveal a SparkNotes version of the tome. If you don’t get it you won’t. Might as well value clarity of expression. After all what’s the purpose of philosophy? For Schopenhauer it’s simple. To help others recognize Beauty. Most lack the faculties to recognize Beauty, to recognize the Idea, in Nature. They can only come to an approximation of Beauty through a representational form. Through the artwork aka a copy of a copy. For Schopenhauer this was the fundamental inequality of man, that if beauty was a dog, it would’ve bitten you. You lack the excess needed to recognize it in raw expression, funnily enough, your lack is a result of your proximity. You’re too close to nature. Somnabulized by base desires. The philosopher who is ideally also an artist or the artist who is naturally a philosopher, is a mutant imbued with the excess of intellect needed to not only recognize Beauty radiating through the objects, but of employing the necessary artifice to make Beauty intelligible to others.
The philosopher’s task is to transmit the recognition of Beauty. Teach it to those who lack the philosopher’s excess and who lack it for good reason after all they’re busy going about their day-to-day tasks, handling their affairs, their suffering is different, it’s a suffering which directs their development away from the philosopher’s genius. They work and working they make some money and fuck and romance and get married and provide for a household. They suffer differently. The genius reifies Beauty in the artwork. The compassionate act is making this beauty accessible to others. That they might have some consolation and that in the recognition of beauty, they might learn or strive at the very least, to preserve it. To recognize beauty is to recognize the sacred. The importance of it and the need to protect it and those who recognize and care for it. Again for Schopenhauer, aesthetics is genuine metaphysics. The regimes of care that come in recognition and inspirations wake is everything else. Religion and the State and the ritualized ways we interact with and conserve Beauty; morality. Here there is a need for snobbery, for the distinction between form and content.
The way Schopenhauer writes about women is the way Schopenhauer understands the World. How he understands life. How he understands the Object upon which we project or cast our Subjectivity. When Schopenhauer writes about the unaesthetic sex, he is in a sense calling Reality itself unaesthetic. She exists independent of the ectoplasmic emulsion of the Philosopher's Subjectivity. Woman does(not) Exist. Compare Schopenhauer's writings about women to his perspective on life. "Life presents itself as a continual deception, in small matters as well as in great. If it has promised, it does not keep its word, unless to show how little desirable the desired object was; hence we are deluded now by hope, now by what was hoped for. If it has given, it did so in order to take. The enchantment of distance shows us paradises that vanish like optical illusions, when we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by them. Accordingly, happiness lies always in the future, or else in the past, and the present may be compared to a small dark cloud driven by the wind over the sunny plain; in front of and behind the cloud everything is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow. Consequently, the present is always inadequate, but the future is uncertain, and the past irrecoverable.”
He writes of woman without the ardency of the lover’s gaze. In circumstance as a type, refracted from the unifying and oppressive field, of convention and its totalizing or homogenizing character. This lack which begets the lucid cruelty. The philosopher’s idiosyncratic desires. To speak of what he does not perceive in one, to see and speak of this object free from the ecstatic poesies of love and the mechanical or fetishistic habit of custom received, preserved, and transmitted. It is a lonely consciousness needed to access audacious insights. To view a woman without this congealing force that transforms her into the aestheticized object.
(There is a twisting and turning here. Can this “realist” appraisal, not be considered a kind of aestheticization? This comb, this tooth, this nail, this shoe, this constipation, this menstruation, this decay, this betrayal? Not the whole, there is something else perceived, beckoning extraction. The pervert with switchblade and flask or tuning fork and hammer. Why do you love me?)
Schopenhauer confronts us, causes us to question our interests. Question convention. This is Schopenhauer’s rebellion against Hegel his Absolutist. What begets the Awareness of Beauty, the Reality of this Fiction, and Beauty itself? This Subjective element, this pneumatic bolt, constitutes a radical disruption. No wonder it elicits the nervous clicking of mandibles simulating laughter. That it should provoke to appearance a great cruelty. One which is sanctioned if not outright mandated.
I recoil at the awareness of how dumb and brutal and callous I can be by default.
There are numerous things, that elicit strange feelings in my person. Easily seduced. My brows furrow knowing that this disreputable character is such a great admirer of the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico. I also really like him. Giorgio de Chirico is a master precisely because his works attain completion the moment another views it and proclaims, “this is incomplete.” It engages the observer and invites an awareness of this engagement. De Chirico, for me, discloses through his artwork the Platonic Realm of Forms. It can only be revealed through Art. De Chirico writes that, “Every object has two aspects: The common aspect, which is the one we generally see and which is seen by everyone, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals see at moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical meditation. A work of art must relate something that does not appear in its visible form.”
Recall a dream. Walking through a crowded city, I gained lucidity. The hue changed and the asymmetries grew sharper. I was alone. I found myself overwhelmed by the desire to connect with someone, anyone, I couldn’t stand the loneliness. Lone figures, disparate, up ahead. All of them with their backs turned, I try to catch up to one they turned a corner and disappeared. I rushed towards another but the same thing happened. In my despair I continue chasing after the fleeting figures. A female voice tells me that this loneliness is a result of my lucidity. I chose then to sacrifice my lucidity in order to not feel so lonely.
Light-drenched space and distant buildings, inhabited by composite mannequins. This is the Real. This is the World exorcised of Phantoms. Does he reveal to us a Loveless Cosmos? A World Unveiled. A World that ceases to be a World. I perceive the figures populating de Chirico’s paintings and recognize them as Commodities. A collection of disparate commodities occupying the spaces between buildings. The commodity exists within the eye of the one who perceives it. What commodity? What use? They simply are, things discarded into the Art-World. A World and Things gathered together. The Artist’s work is complete when another views it and proclaims, “this is incomplete.” This is Everything.
Schopenhauer writes in The World as Will and Representation,
"It is the subject of willing, that is to say, his own will, which fills the consciousness of the lyrical author, often as a free and satisfied willing (joy), but much more often as a frustrated willing (sadness), and always as an emotion, a passion, a state of mind. Yet, alongside and at the same time as this state, the glances that the poet casts on the nature all around him make him aware of himself as a pure subject of knowledge, independent of willing, whose imperturbable spiritual peace contrasts with the desires of the ever-pressured, ever-greedy will: the feeling of this contrast, of this alternation, is expressed in the genre of lyric poems, and constitutes in short the lyrical state of mind. In this state, pure knowledge comes to us to deliver us from willing and its torments: we surrender ourselves to it, but only for a moment; ever and again the will, and the memory of our personal goals, comes to tear us away from peaceful contemplation; but again and again the beauty of our surroundings, through which a knowledge liberated from willing is offered to us, comes to seduce us. That is why, in song and lyrical inspiration, the will (self-interested and personal views) and the pure intuiting of our surroundings are admirably mixed: reconciliations between the two are sought out and imagined; the subjective disposition of mind, the affection of willing, plays a part in the intuition of the surrounding world, and reciprocally lends its colours to it: the true lyric poem is the imprint of these mixed and shared states of mind."
Schopenhauer's work celebrates renunciation, an ascetic life dedicated to aesthetic contemplation, realizing that all our attempts to grasp unto anything, will lead to disappointment. To desire is to suffer. Schopenhauer is a Revolting Philosopher, from East to West back East. His insights are in keeping with Silenus' wisdom. This is Asiatic or Communitarian. It has always been a part of who we are, because it constitutes the most complex-rudimentary form of social organization. I recall BAP mentioning that reading just a bit of Schopenhauer totally neutralized Marx for him. For BAP, Schopenhauer is a superior Asiatic thinker. A better Materialist since his Materialism wasn't mediated by Economism which like all sciences proves a lesser school of knowledge being mired in particularity, but rather through Aesthetics. And a better stylist because he discarded the ornately grotesque particularities of Philosophy treated with the nibbling bourgeois character of the lesser sciences.
Returning to the question of style, the arcane and mystifying character of philosophical discourse occults the banality of the philosopher employing it. Wielding the discomfiting gorgon-like discourse of philosophy to assert and reinforce their status as Scholars, while concealing the reality of their individual stupidity… When challenged to clarify or even just summarize their statements they can’t. They can’t because their commitment is to the reproduction of philosophical discourse itself. Or they won’t, because if they did, it would ruin the mystique of philosophy. Risking exposure and humiliation. Schopenhauer for his part employs a clearer though no-less technical style; a logic or motivated reasoning dutifully received from Kant, set in motion. Reason a secure enough vessel. Got the impression while reading Schopenhauer, of a making German more English, in service of legibility. Stream-line design of the vessel, minimalist and sleek, in the Spirit of the Reformation revved up towards a style and conclusion resonate (or which was perceived of as resonating…) with the somber and soberness (Apollonian) of Dharmic scriptures received from the East.
Not particularly into Schopenhauer, find he meanders. Perceive an insecure creature frustrated over the limits of his own intellect, sweating and dry sobbing and pounding the mat, assigning a great deal of personal self-worth to being recognized as a genius and a desire to overcome this pettiness.
Elevated by Nietzsche’s devotion to him, in light of Nietzsche, who redeems Schopenhauer’s decades long devotion to being better than someone else and being dull. I gather that what makes Schopenhauer an object of reverence for some modernist artists is his explicit elevation of the artist. He feeds into the artist’s ego, more so than a Hegel for instance (who seemingly elevates the philosopher and the jurist in relation to the Idea’s progressive-historical revelation, above the artist). Nietzsche wouldn’t be Nietzsche without Schopenhauer’s theory of aesthetics. Schopenhauer, like Nietzsche, presents his insights in an accessible manner. You don’t need secondary materials, commentaries, guides. Further breaking away from the Catholic. Though perhaps the need of revelation remains, remains and is in fact necessitated. A Ray of Divine Light to pierce your sternum and ignite the fires of your heart the resulting illumination, eyes glowing, allows you to receive the correct interpretation, the wisdom encrypted in the arcane text laying before you… no.
Anyways any literate 20th century European aristocrat could pick it up.
Recall also that Nietzsche’s training was in philology. He was a scholar of language, the historical development and interpenetration of languages through historical texts, etymology was his jumping off point. Recall also Nietzsche’s self-critique of The Birth of Tragedy, a work that still resonates today, he was 24 when he wrote and published it. Nietzsche wrote it in a state of youthful melancholia and enthusiasm, wrote it with artists (not academic philosophers) in mind. Artists and women. Artists and the women capable of appreciating what Nietzsche appreciated. Fellow fans of Wagner. Perhaps it’s a testament to Nietzsche’s genius. Might also say that Nietzsche, unlike Schopenhauer, wasn’t professionally bound to a particular stylistic convention. And seemingly unlike Schopenhauer he maintained lively, horny and heady, correspondences with women who weren’t his mother. Schopenhauer didn’t have, as far as I know a Salome. Nor, as far as I know, did Schopenhauer ever commit himself to another the way Nietzsche would, with the fervor and devotion and enthusiasm to another. Reading biographical accounts of Nietzsche one gets the impression of someone who’d become utterly enraptured in whoever happened to earn his reverence. Nietzsche had Schopenhauer, who did Schopenhauer have? Did Schopenhauer ever write of Kant with the same intensity Nietzsche wrote of Schopenhauer?
Might make the case that Schopenhauer’s “Schopenhauer” was in fact Hegel and Fichte. Those he railed against. And this spitefulness lacking the initial passionate reverence characteristic of Nietzsche, is redeemed in Nietzsche’s thinking. Provided context.
Morons are often people who type things like, “I’m in the Schopenhauer camp when it comes to Hegel and his ilk.” In a series of Beeps-and-Boops they copy-and-paste Schopenhauer’s loathing without any of Schopenhauer’s substance (which would require actually engaging with Schopenhauer and Hegel) instead these Thinkers exists as little framed photos on a candle covered shrine in Geocities. Even if they’re correct they’re still wrong and worthy of immediate scorn and derision. We must express the most profound sense of Christian Pity and Charity at the sight of their nakedness.
It’s easy to spiral on this particular subject but unbecoming, revealing, even damning. What they don’t seem to process, is that the seethe and the scolding and the tantrums are in their manner the highest form of compliment either philosopher could muster. That the younger Schopenhauer’s response to Hegel’s semantic blunder should be a kind of ecstatic fury that propelled his career as a philosopher. That Schopenhauer is endearing when he puts pen to paper and writes:
“May Hegel's philosophy of absolute nonsense - three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies - continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare's words: "Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not," or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: mea caligine tutus. - May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour." - For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course.”
Tempestuous little man. Without Hegel’s error what would’ve become of Schopenhauer? Would he have attempted to actively compete against Hegel? Hegel as the Phantom of Eric Roberts in the Killers Miss Atomic Bomb music video? The Other-Ghost, Hegel’s Smirking Geist cucking Schopenhauer, Sophia in his arms, Schopenhauer casts the wedding ring to the ground and runs away. As was the case in respect to Kierkegaard. Cucked out of marriage by the Ghost & Machine. “And it’s all in my head, but she’s touching his chest now, he takes off her dress now, LET ME GO. And I just can’t look it’s killing me. And taking control.”
An error is a wound is the possibility of grace.
Nietzsche’s work as a philologist also permitted Nietzsche to immerse himself in Ancient Greek, setting the ground for startling insights. He could read Pindar and engage with the pre-Socratic philosophers in the original, in a manner most likely couldn’t. Dwelling in the Language. In a before and as such beyond Plato.
He could approach philosophy in a creative manner. Seductively.
How can you know seduction if you’ve never been seduced? Allowed yourself to be seduced? Allowed yourself to believe that you are allowing the seduction.
​

Autistic son is sunnier after encountering Buddhism (自闭症)
Gratitude to Namo Sakyamuni Buddha!
Gratitude to the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva!
Gratitude to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas from ten directions and three periods of time!
Gratitude to the Dharma protectors!
Gratitude to the benefactor and benevolent father Master Jun Hong Lu!
Gratitude to my fellow Dharma practitioners!
The reason I practice Buddhism is because of my son. He was a severely autistic child. Before his birth, I always felt my life was going well. After his birth, my life was stuck.
When he was 2-3 years old, he still could not initiate speech. He was examined at the local hospital and diagnosed as autistic. I remember looking up information online. The more I read, the more I couldn't accept it. How come a good child needs a lifetime of rehabilitation and can't be cured? When he was born, everything was normal, completely in accordance with growth and development laws. In the developmental status column of the pediatric examination data book, it was often written: middle to upper. When he was 7-8 months old, he babbled and made sounds, was very active, liked to climb high and low, and was particularly energetic. From waking up in the morning he stayed active until the evening.
A long road of medical rehabilitation, special school, sensory therapy, and sand tray followed. Although the money was spent, the effect was minimal. He occasionally made simple sounds. However, he would not open his mouth if not practiced for a period of time. He forgot what we had taught him after a while. He has cognitive impairment, learning disabilities, and no imitation ability. His eyes can be right on ours for only a few seconds. He seemed to have problems all over his body to me. Sometimes he cried wildly for no reason. How pitiful he was! I could not help him. I did not know why he cried. I did not know how to coax him to calm down. It is mental torture to care for such a type of child. I once thought of leaving this world with him because it was too painful and difficult. I often asked myself why I had to give birth to such a child when I hadn't done anything bad in my life.
In the 6 months before I encountered the Dharma, I was especially helpless, desperate and anxious about the future. During that time, I was also traveling to a brain hospital. Initially, I thought my child's autism was a joke from heaven. He was >5 years old but had no language or cognition. Nevertheless, I didn't realize that what came along with it was even more unbearable. He had epilepsy and even had a shadow on his brain. The doctor said the shadow might be a tumor or a brain lesion. I was unable to accept the fact but could only tear silently and helplessly. I am grateful to the Bodhisattva! The final examination revealed that the shadow on his brain was just scar tissue.
One day, I received a message from a parent: “Dear, do you believe in Buddhism?” Since then, my child's destiny and mine have completely changed. Through studying Buddhism, I slowly found the answer that everything is karma.
When I was pregnant with my child, I ate fish soup almost every day to enhance nutrition. After giving birth, I stewed chicken and fish soups to promote breast milk secretion. When the child was one month old, according to Guangdong (southeast of China) customs, we invited guests to a large banquet. We served 60-70 tables of live fish and seafood to the guests. My mother worked on a pigeon farm when she was young. She helped slaughter pigeons to provide for restaurants every day. A few years ago, she opened a small farm. Every day, she killed animals for guests. It is all the result of our delusions, ignorance, and unknowledge of the law of karma. We have committed so many killings. The karma was retributed to my son. We hereby repent of the beings we have harmed, and we are really sorry. Killing karma is really a matter of retribution for three generations.
In January 2019, I began reciting the Little House. On September 19th of the lunar calendar, I made a vow to release 100,000 living creatures. In February 2020, I made a vow to become a full vegetarian for life.
Because the child's symptoms are particularly numerous, I have eliminated his karma generally. As a way of repaying his karmic creditors, I didn't focus on his specific symptoms. Now, let me briefly describe the changes in the child over the past 3 years:

1. Following my practice of Buddhism, he was able to mimic the teacher's movements to complete simple movements along with the song. This had never happened before.
   
2. Previously, he didn't want to turn off the water after taking a shower, which caused me headaches. He would play with the water for a long time until he had played enough. He would cry loudly if forced to leave. Suddenly one day when I had practiced Buddhism for 3 months, he turned off the water after showering by following our directions. At first, I thought it was strange how he was so well-behaved that day. I found that he was able to end up happily in the bath afterward.
   
3. Six months after I practiced Buddhism, he switched to another rehab >10 minutes from home. In the new rehab, he was able to pronounce simple syllables and personal nouns steadily in just 3 months, "Dad," "Mom," "Hello Auntie!" etc. In the following 3 months, one afternoon, his teacher sent me a short video. He imitated the teacher and said, "Mommy, I love you!" Watching this video, I cried and moved to tears. I waited for this “I love you” for 6 whole years. In this life, I did not expect to be able to hear such a wonderful language. Things for others’ children can simply be learned, but how much effort and cost do we have to pay for such a short few words? I believe that only those families with such a child at home can understand this hardship.
   
4. Since age 4, I have been scared and panicked whenever he had a fever. During the fever, he would appear briefly in seizure convulsions, roll his eyes, and instantly turn his lips purple. The doctor recommended sedative medication. The drug caused him to become inexplicably excited. As his excitement reached its peak, he became exhausted and fell asleep. As a result, we could not sleep when he was feverish. Before his fever went down, we dared not let him sleep because each time the convulsions attacked when he was sleepy. However, since 2019 when I began practicing Buddhism, he has not taken a single sedative pill. Only one time his fever was too high and rose too quickly. We took him to the hospital for observation. He fell asleep and did not have a seizure even when he was 38 degrees. Every time the child had a fever, I silently asked Guan Yin Bodhisattva to bless him and recover smoothly. Additionally, I vowed to recite Little Houses for his karmic creditors and release the fish that were being slaughtered. In this way, we have survived these 3 years. Guan Yin Bodhisattva is so compassionate! Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door is really effective and true.
   

Over the past 3 years, I have witnessed so many efficacious events and miracles. The child I miscarried has ascended. Whether big or small, I have passed calamities by making vows, reciting Buddhist scriptures, or releasing fish. I am grateful for the compassionate enlightenment I received through my dreams from the Bodhisattva.
Now my son is a capable, sunny and handsome boy. His language is getting richer and richer. He can sing children's songs, memorize poems and recite mantras. In addition to being a warm boy at home, he helps with chores around the house. Moreover, studying Buddhism has enabled us to meet many kind and patient teachers and coaches, so that my child can make gains in all major physical sports. Once again, I am grateful to the Bodhisattva for Her compassionate blessing on my child.
Finally, I would like to share my own feelings for the past 3 years. I know that my karmic obstacles are deep and heavy. At the beginning of my Buddhism study, my husband said that I was too addicted, my father-in-law advised that I was too young to be a vegetarian, and my mother told me to let it be, but I was firm in my choice. I even ate a bowl of white rice for every meal at my in-laws' house and felt very content. There was no material thing to exchange for my child's healthy growth. With my own perseverance and by reciting the Heart Sutra and the Mantra to Untie Karmic Knots to them, my husband, though disagreeing with my Buddhist studies, would help me to cook vegetarian dishes, my father-in-law would occasionally order a vegetarian dish for me, and my mother would invite me to go to release lives.
At the beginning, I was half-hearted about Buddhism. However, autism and epilepsy are medical problems, and Buddhism is the last straw I can grab. In the first year of practicing Buddhism, at special times of the year, the child cried a lot for no reason. This was a very challenging test for me. I would have a doubtful heart. I was really sorry for the Bodhisattva. Once, I hoped to look for so-called scientific intervention methods. It was really too ignorant and foolish. I had forgotten that the Master had said that the success of an event lies in destiny and not in ability. I had forgotten that the words "Virtue is not worthy of a position". If I don't accumulate virtue and blessings, how can I deserve a healthy child? I had forgotten, that once attached to affliction, the child would enter into a karmic destiny, and ultimately can not be liberated.
Heaven has given each of us, each day, 24 hours. The Bodhisattva gives each of us, the same Dharma Gems.
One's destiny lies in one's own choices. No matter what difficulties or obstacles you encounter, treat them as a test. You just have to hold on to your belief that I want to learn Buddhism and recite Buddhist scriptures. It was this belief that made me persevere at the beginning. Then, I can see my child's progress today, bit by bit. In the past 3 years, no matter when I encountered karma, situations, or demons, it was the wisdom of Master Lu's Dharma in Plain Terms that allowed me to overcome everything time and time again. So, we must learn more and read more about Dharma in Plain Terms.
My son was retributed in this life, the karmic obstacles on his body must be very heavy. Three feet of ice are not formed by a day's cold, so it is impossible to eliminate his karma in a short period. If one year is not enough, then two, three, or five years. The miracle lies in the accumulation of efforts every second and minute. Finally, quantitative changes reach qualitative changes. Now the days are very full, very happy. I am grateful to have met such an excellent Dharma!
If there is anything that is not rational or in line with the truth in the presentation, I pray for forgiveness from Namo Sakyamuni Buddha, Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva, all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the Dharma protectors, and Master Jun Hong Lu. I would appreciate my fellow practitioners' critique and correction!
I, not my fellow practitioners, will be responsible for my own karma!
Presenter: Dharma Practitioner QingJingXin
Posted: 2023-05-28 Sunday at 17:28
From: Master Lu’s Blog
Translator: Frank
Published: 2023-09-08
STATEMENT BY TRANSLATOR
The story was translated from Chinese into English by meaning, not word by word. If there is anything that is not rational or in line with the true meaning of the Chinese version, I pray for forgiveness from Namo Sakyamuni Buddha, Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva, all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the Dharma protectors, and Master Jun Hong Lu.
Propagation
It would be greatly appreciated if you would forward this presentation to all sentient beings you know, sick or healthy. You will accumulate immeasurable merits and virtues. Saving a life is more meritorious than building a seven-floor pagoda！
Would you like to change your destiny?
We will show you how to do the five golden Buddhist practices of Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door: (1) making vows, (2) reciting Buddhist scriptures (sutras and mantras), (3) performing life liberation, (4) reading Buddhism in Plain Terms, and (5) repenting. You will personally witness how you and your family can achieve physical and mental stability, relief from illness and grievances, wisdom growth, academic progress, career advancement, and family happiness through Dharma.
For more information, please contact fellow practitioner: Lily
Email：sunnypurplelily@gmail.com
WeChat: HanJing20210820
原文如下：
遇见佛法，自闭症孩子越来越阳光
感恩南无释迦牟尼佛
感恩南无大慈大悲救苦救难广大灵感观世音菩萨摩诃萨！
感恩十方三世一切诸佛菩萨！
感恩龙天护法菩萨！
感恩恩师慈父！
感恩师兄们！
我学佛的缘由是因为我的儿子，我的儿子是一个重度自闭症的孩子，在没有孩子之前，一直觉得自己的人生过得还不错，人生的卡点偏偏出现在孩子这里。
因为在孩子2岁多快3岁时仍不会主动说话，在当地医院检查，说是自闭症。记得当时上网查了很多资料，越看越无法接受，怎么好好的孩子就需要一生康复，无法治愈呢？孩子出生后一切正常，完全按照生长发育规律成长，记得在儿检资料本的发育状态栏还经常写着：中上。孩子7、8个月时该咿呀学语时也有发声，儿子还很好动，喜欢爬高爬低，精力特别旺盛，早上起来后一直活跃到晚上才消停下来。随后我们也开始了漫长的医学康复之路，上特校，上感统、上沙盘，这几年的努力，效果也是反反复复，钱花了不说，而且收效甚微，偶尔能发简单的音，但是不练一段时间就不说，教的东西过段时间又会忘掉，认知障碍，学习障碍，没有模仿能力，眼神能对视就几秒，很飘，感觉全身上下都是问题。而且有时候孩子无名的大哭，看着可怜可是自己却无能为力，不懂得他为什么哭，有时候怎么哄都不行。带着这样的孩子简直就是精神折磨。也曾经想过带着孩子离开这个人世间，觉得太苦了，太难了，常常自问此生没做什么恶事，怎么就摊上这么一个孩子呢？
在我遇见佛法前的半年，我特别的无助、绝望，对未来充满焦虑。那段期间还奔波在脑科医院。本身以为孩子是自闭症已经是上天跟我开的玩笑，5岁多了还没有语言，没有认知，却没想到随之而来的还有更让人承受不住的，就是孩子伴随着癫痫疾病，甚至脑部有阴影，医生当时诊断阴影部分可能是肿瘤、甚至可能是脑部病变。当时的自己从无法接受默默流泪非常无助。也感恩菩萨！最后的检查结果孩子脑部的阴影只是瘢痕组织。
当时，一位家长的一条信息：亲，您信佛吗？改变了我和孩子的命运。通过学习佛法，慢慢找到了答案，一切都是因果报应。
怀孩子的时候，几乎每天的鱼汤补充营养，生完孩子后各种炖鸡汤鱼汤给下奶，孩子满月时，广东这边的习俗就是大摆宴席请客，六七十桌的活鱼活海鲜，而且我的妈妈年轻时在鸽子场上班，每天需要帮忙宰杀鸽子提供给酒楼，前几年还开了一个小农庄，每天都是活物，都是我们的愚痴、无知，不懂因果，犯下了这么多的杀业，报在孩子的身上，在此向我们伤害过的众生忏悔，真的对不起。因果报应，杀业真的报三代。
我是在2019年1月份开始念经文组合的，并在农历9月19日许愿放生10万条活物，在2020年2月许愿终身吃全素。
因为孩子的症状特别多，我都是一直泛泛地念经消业，没有针对某些问题行为去念组合，现在简单说说三年来孩子的变化：
1、在初学念经没多久，发现孩子在机构里能跟着音乐老师模仿简单的动作，完成一首简单的歌曲动作，以前从来没有过。
2、在念经后的三个月内，之前让我们头疼的问题就是儿子洗澡不愿关水不愿离开，要一直玩水玩很久，基本每次强制性让他离开就大哭，玩够了才离开，突然有一天，洗完澡后让孩子关水，就这样安静地执行了。一开始也觉得奇怪，那天怎么这么乖，但是发现之后洗澡时都能愉快结束。
3、在念经后的半年，儿子换了新的机构，离家十多分钟的车程，儿子在短短三个月内能稳定地发简单的音节和人称名词，“爸爸”“妈妈”“啊姨好”等等，之后的三个月里，记得某一天的下午，老师发来一个短视频：视频里孩子模仿老师说：妈妈，我爱你！看着这视频里的孩子，我哭了，感动地哭了，等这一句我爱你，足足等了六年，一开始以为此生都无法听到这么美妙的语言，人家孩子简单就能学会的，我们得付出多少的努力和代价才能换取这么短短的几个字，我相信只有家里有这么一个孩子才能体会到这种艰难。
4、在学佛这三年间孩子偶尔会生病发烧，也许对于其他孩子是正常不过的事情，但是我儿子一发烧我就怕，我就慌，因为从孩子4岁开始，孩子发烧会出现短暂的大发作抽搐，只要经历过，永远忘不了那种恐惧，翻白眼、嘴唇瞬间全紫，而你只能在恐慌中不知所措，特别害怕失去这么个孩子，一旦发烧，医生都建议吃镇静药，别说药物有多大伤害，吃完药物首先让他莫名兴奋，嗨到极点后就累趴睡着了。看着孩子这样真的很可怜，孩子发烧的时候，烧不退下来我们不敢让他睡，因为每次的抽搐都是刚睡迷糊时发作的。在这么一个大前提下，从2019年学佛念经开始，孩子没有吃过一次镇静药，只是有一次发烧太高温度升得太快，我们就住院观察，但孩子在38度多时睡着也没有发作。孩子每一次发烧，我都默默求观世音菩萨妈妈保佑孩子可以平安顺利度过，许愿经文组合和放生刀下鱼。就这样我们平安走过了这三个年头，菩萨妈妈就是这么的慈悲！心灵法门真的灵验无比，真实不虚。
三年多来，见证了太多的灵验和神奇，不仅超度了自己流产的孩子，无论有一些大劫小劫，菩萨慈悲通过梦境点化，让我可以提前通过许愿、念经、放生去化解。
现在的儿子已经是一个能干、阳光的帅小伙，语言越来越丰富，能唱唱儿歌、背背诗词、能念一些小咒，在家也是妈妈的小暖男，帮忙干家务活，而且学佛让我们遇见很多善良有耐心的老师和教练，让孩子在各大体能运动都可以有所收获。再一次感恩菩萨慈悲加持孩子。
最后分享一下自己在三年多的感悟，我自知业障深重，所以在学佛初期，家里先生说我中毒太深，公公劝说太年轻了，让我别吃素，妈妈让我随缘，但是我坚定自己的选择，虽然没有获得支持，但是却没有太大的阻碍。甚至在婆家吃饭每顿吃一碗白饭我也觉得很知足，没有任何的物质可以换来孩子健康的成长。随着自己的坚持，而且不断帮助家人每天念7遍《心经》和解结咒，先生虽不认同我学佛，但是会帮忙做素菜，公公外出吃饭偶尔也会专门点一个素菜，而妈妈会邀约我去放生。
一开始自己学佛也是半信半疑，但是自闭症、癫痫都是医学难题，佛法就是我能抓住的最后一根救命稻草。在学佛第一年，在特别的时节，孩子无名哭闹得厉害，确实对自己内心很大的考验，会生出质疑的心，真的很对不起菩萨，还希望去寻找所谓科学的干预方法，真的太无知愚痴，我忘了，師父说过一件事情能不能成功在缘而不在于能，我忘了，德不配位这四个字，我们不去积德积福，怎么配拥有一个健康的孩子，我忘了，一旦执着孩子就是进入了这个业力的缘分当中，最终还是无法解脱。
上天给予我们每个人，每一天，都是24小时。菩萨给予我们每个人，也是一样的法宝。
人的命运，在于自己的选择。无论遇到什么困难，什么阻碍，当作是一个考验，您只要心中坚持自己的一个信念：我就是要学佛念经。当初就是这么一个信念让我坚持下来，看到孩子今天一点一滴的进步。在这三年多，无论遇到业力、对境、心魔来时，都是師父的白话佛法的智慧让我一次次战胜一切，所以一定要多学多看。
我知道，儿子此生受报，身上的业障肯定很重的，冰冻三尺非一日之寒，所以不可能短时间内就能消除，一年不行就两年，三年，五年，奇迹都是在于每天的每一分每一秒的努力坚持累积出来的，量变达到质变。现在的日子过得很充实，很欢喜。感恩遇见这么好的佛法！
我的分享结束了，分享中如有不如理不如法的地方，请南无释迦牟尼佛慈悲原谅，请南无大慈大悲观世音菩萨慈悲原谅，请十方三世一切诸佛菩萨和龙天护法菩萨慈悲原谅，请恩师慈悲原谅，请师兄们批评指正。我自己的业障自己背！不让师兄们背！
分享人：清净心师兄
2023年5月28日 周日 17:28
来自师父的博客
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我们手把手传授您观世音菩萨的心灵法门五大法宝：“许愿”、“放生”、“念经”、“读《白话佛法》、大忏悔”。您将亲自见证如何通过佛法让自己及家人获得身心安定、病苦解除、冤结化解、智慧增长、学业进步、事业提升、家庭幸福。
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Disclaimer of Liability
The contents of the presentation and answers, including text, images, and other information obtained from Dharma practitioners, are provided strictly for reference purposes. Due to the unique nature of individual karma, results similar to those experienced by the authors may not be replicated. The experiences and advice shared should not be construed as medical advice or a diagnosis.
In the event of an emergency, it is crucial to promptly contact your doctor or emergency services by dialing 911. Relying on any information found in the answers is done solely at your own risk. The translator and answerer bear no responsibility for the consequences. By using or misusing the contents, you accept liability for any personal injury, including death. It is imperative to exercise caution and seek professional medical guidance for health-related concerns.

A Collection of Mishima's Novels

Recently, I signed on as a mod here and someone had asked about Mishima's novels that have/have not been translated into English. I did a bit of collecting and wanted to share the list that I've compiled. They also asked for a brief description so I added those as well. I'm sure I have errors, but I've done my best to consolidate the information and provided a general explanation of the plots of the novels.
Bold indicates an English translation.
I'm sure there are errors, so please let me know if anything needs to be updated/changed. I've done my best!

Yukio Mishima's Novels

Thieves (盗賊), 1948: Mishima’s first novel. A man and a woman decide to commit suidide after being abandoned and hurt by the person they love.
Confessions of a Mask(仮面の告白), 1949: A weak, homosexual boy struggles to fit into society. Considered to be autobiographical.
Thirst for Love(愛の渇き), 1950: A woman falls in love with a gardener when she is entrusted to her deceased husband’s father.
Pure White Nights (純白の夜), 1950: A romance novel that depicts the love between a married couple and the conflict between them.
The Age of Blue (青の時代), 1950: Based on the Hikari club incident (a University of Tokyo student started a black-finance business and was arrested by the police).
Natsuko's Adventure (夏子の冒険), 1951: A beautiful woman leaves her city and travels to Hokkaido with a young man who is looking to kill a bear and avenge his dead girlfriend.
Made in Japan (につぽん製), 1952-1953: A love story between a fashion designer and a young man who does Judo.
Forbidden Colors(禁色): An aging writer plots revenge against woman by using a handsome gay man who is incapable of loving women.
The Capital of Love (恋の都), 1954: A love story about a jazz band manager whose boyfriend commits seppuku after the war. A sandlewood fan delivered to her changes her fate.
The Sound of Waves (潮騒), 1954: Two island lovers must overcome many obstacles to have their love fulfilled.
Goddesss (女神), 1954-1955: A father pursues the ideal of feminine beauty and educates his daughter to become the embodiment of beauty.
The Sunken Waterfall (沈める滝), 1955: A dam designer who doesn’t believe in love.
The S.S. Happiness Sets Sail (幸福号出帆), 1955: A mixed-race italian is involved in smuggling with his Japanese half-sister. They go on a journey of escape, overcoming romance and unusual complications.
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion(金閣寺), 1956: A physically weak boy with a stutter struggles with expressing himself. He is obsessed with the beauty of Kinkakuji Temple.
Too Much of Spring (永すぎた春 Too Much of Spring), 1956: A novel that explores the twists, turns, and crises between a man and woman during their long engagement.
The Misstepping of Virtue (美徳のよろめき), 1957: Explores the adultery of a woman.
Kyoko's House (鏡子の家), 1959: Explores the nihilism of 5 young people who are living in the post war period.
After the Banquet (宴のあと), 1960: A wealthy middle-aged propietress of an upscale Japanese restaurant marries a politician who is running for office.
The Mademoiselle (お嬢さん), 1960: The daughter of a wealthy man is presented suitors, and becomes interested in one of the men who is promiscuous.
The Frolic of the Beasts(獣の戯れ), 1961: A tragic love triangle set in a beautiful backdrop.
Beautiful Star(美しい星), 1962: A science fiction-esque novel about a family of aliens who wish to save Earth from extinction.
Dash of Love (愛の疾走), 1963: A pure love between a simple fisherman and an innocent girl who works at a camera factory across the lake.
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea(午後の曳航), 1963: An adolescent boy becomes obsessed with a sailor that his mother has fallen in love with.
The School of Flesh (肉体の学校), 1963: A love story about a former noble who breaks away from her unhappy marriage after the war and pursues a wild and pure Japanese man.
Silk and Insight(絹と明察), 1964: A silk spinning company president’s son begins a labor dispute.
The Music (音楽), 1964: A psychoanalyst explores the mysteries of a female patient and her lack of sexual desire.
That Complicated Guy (複雑な彼), 1966: A young woman falls in love with a flight attendant with a complicated background.
Evening Dress (夜会服), 1967: A dignified girl who is a member of the Imperial riding club who becomes engaged to a man who hates his mother’s social life.
Letters-Yukio Mishima's Letter Lessons (三島由紀夫レター教室), 1967-1968: A collection of letters between characters. The trouble of 5 men and women with different backgrounds.
Life for Sale(命売ります), 1968: A man who fails his suicide and puts an ad up that says, “Life for Sale.”
Spring Snow(春の雪), 1965-1967: A coming of age tale featuring an elite youth caught up in an unexpected romance.
Runaway Horses(奔馬), 1967-1968: The sequel of Spring Snow featuring a possible reincarnation of the previous novel’s protagonist.
The Temple of Dawn(暁の寺), 1968-1970: Part 3 in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy. A Thai princess is thought to be the second reincarnation of Spring Snow’s protagonist.
The Decay of the Angel(天人五衰), 1970-1971: Yukio Mishima’s final work that is a conclusion of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy. The, now 80 year old, former friend of Spring Snow’s protagonist, Kiyoaki, meets what he thinks to be the next reincarnation of his friend.

Notes

Some works have been translated into other languages, made into movies, or have unofficial translations, so any additions to this list are absolutely welcome.
I'd like to compile a list of short stories, essays, poems, and plays, but this is what I have for now. Let me know what you think and if you'd want more content like this. :)

Occasionally, dreams about the ocean still creep in through the gaps in the blinds... I dream of those golden ships rising from the waves, with Fernanda leaning on the icon on the bow. She was still as radiant as when she went to sea, and her black ear feathers were flapping in the sea breeze...and the good young men from the shipyard and the old man who watched the lighthouse, all came back without leaving a trace...
Mateo Martínez Alvo runs a modest Iberian restaurant on the beachfront in Siesta, and the cold soup he sells is not at all the Iberian flavor I remember. After learning that I had visited the golden Iberia of the 1020s and 1030s many times, he admitted to me that he had long forgotten what real Iberian cuisine tasted like. After the Profound Silence, he followed the church to cook relief porridge for more than ten years. The porridge was mixed with crushed seaweed and bark, as well as sand dug out from abandoned factories and mixed with industrial saccharin...
The bowl of soup in front of me, which is indistinguishable from Colombian to Victorian, is already the best taste he can make.
I tried to learn more about Iberia from him. He talked a lot and was silent for a long time. Finally, he turned to me and asked: "What is Iberia? ...Where is Iberia?"
Overview
After the decline of Sargon's empire, the second country that compared its land and fortresses to gold was Iberia. Long ago, its vast territory stretched southward into lands that no longer exist. If you squint your eyes on the embankment and look into the distance, you can see the lights and sails connected in a line. That is the Iberian coastline. When the warehouses and halls of the palace could no longer hold any more treasures brought by development, the king of Iberia set up display cabinets in the streets and alleys so that everyone who set foot in the port city could admire the wealth of Iberia.
In the year 1038 of the Terra Calendar, a disaster from the ocean came to Iberia, causing the lighthouse to lose its light and the palace to sink into the ocean. After the Profound Silence, Iberia was silent under the blockade of the Inquisition. Even the Iberians could not tell whether it was a continuation of the past glory or a sign of its end. But they all know that Iberia's struggle is far from over.
Official language: Iberian
Main ethnic group: Liberi
Official currency: Dobloon
History
Distant song
The founding kings of Iberia may have admired the virtues symbolized by the Lateran saints ; But hundreds of years later, in the era of Iberia's vigorous development and expansion, the royal family no longer regarded virtuousness and wisdom as the most important virtues. The king hopes to see persistence in seeking and conquering in his children. If a crown prince behaves humbly, kindly, and uncontested from a young age, his legal inheritance may soon flow out of his palm like fine sand.
Correspondingly, people with pioneering ambitions and visions often receive funding and support from the royal family. When the explorer De Leon spoke endlessly to the king about his ambitions, everyone in the palace was moved. Eventually, he represented Iberia's westward expansion, with the royal emblem embroidered on every sail of his fleet. De León took the water route to avoid Victoria's blockade, and persuaded Sargon's pasha to build a trade route for him. He finally discovered the fertile Bolivar Plain in the northwest of the earth, and continuously sent wealth back to Iberia. The king happily awarded him the title of "Conqueror" and made him the governor of the Viceroyalty of Bolivar.
Iberia's expansion has made many neighboring countries fearful. The new Pasha tore up the previous agreement and cut off Iberia's trade route to Bolivar; Victoria, Gaul, Letania and other countries jointly exerted pressure to try to cut off the connection between Iberia and the interior of Terra. . But when the Viceroyalty of Bolivar was forced to declare independence from Iberia, the Iberians had found new paths elsewhere - independent settlements and city-states scattered along the coast either submitted to Iberia or sought cooperation with it , a prosperous confederation of trading city-states sprang up along Terra's southern coastline.
Last echo
In 913 of the Terra Calendar, Iberia welcomed the first group of immigrants from the ocean. These aegir people, known as "islanders", hoped to settle on Iberian land. The aegir people who had just landed did not know the court etiquette of Iberia. Facing the throne made of red gold, they neither kowtowed or spoke sweet words, but the artistic and technological products they brought amazed the Iberians. When he saw the crystalline trickles flowing regularly on the surface of the exquisite compass, indicating the direction of the ocean currents in the entire sea, the king of Iberia ignited unprecedented ambitions.
The water pulse meter commonly used by the aegir people can monitor the real-time flow direction of ocean currents. After getting a water pulse meter from the islanders, the Iberian king no longer wore a watch: "I don't need to check the time at any time, time does not belong to anyone; but I have to check the ocean at any time, it is my ocean."
After the islanders came ashore, Iberia achieved unprecedented prosperity. Most Iberians today call this period the "golden age." Represented by Chief Ship Designer Bree Ogan, many aegir Islanders are still wary of threats from the ocean, and they try to prepare before disaster strikes . Their efforts greatly promoted Iberia's economic and technological development.
The royal family and nobles can always find ways to use the scientific research and technological achievements of the islanders to gain wealth and power. When the arrogant golden fleet was finally completed, it did not sail into the open sea in the south to perform scientific research functions as Breoghan expected, but instead crossed the strait in a mighty way , Cruise along the coast of the Inland Sea under the astonished gaze of Duke Victoria and Sargon Pasha.
During the years when the Golden Fleet was cruising in the inland sea, the court artists held never-ending banquets on the flagship and endlessly composed poems praising Iberia . Until every component on every ship is loaded with layers of symbolic meaning. Those who could memorize and clarify the symbolic meanings of all these were rewarded with large sums of money and became honorary officers of the flagship with the title of "Witness of Glory".
When the survivors after the Profound Silence huddled in cold and damp temporary houses to reminisce about their past lives, they might be able to understand the meaning of the "Golden Age" more deeply than the people of the Golden Age.
Before the Profound Silence, Iberia was already filled with confusion, and praise for the Golden Age was overwhelming. However, the reality of life that people faced was not always as glorious as the carols. Irrefutable values drove all Iberians to be unconventional: by the beginning of the eleventh century, more and more people were leaving behind their inherited property and family fortunes and blindly stepping into completely unknown territories.
Looking for a new path worthy of the "spirit of the golden age". Practicality and responsibility have become the characteristics of losers and laggards. The glory of Iberia is inseparable from the sweat of workers and farmers. These bottom workers will hear harsh voices when they go to the streets . rebuking them for their lack of enterprising attitude has tarnished the reputation of the Golden Age. The excess productivity created by the technology of the islanders temporarily concealed many of the cracks in society, but without the Profound Silence, would these cracks have gradually emerged, causing the glorious face of Iberia to collapse?
Signature of recorder: Kal’tsit
As early as hundreds of years ago, the Iberians discovered strange creatures that looked like scales but not scales when they went out to sea. At that time, the Iberians did not know what Seaborn were, but their strange shapes greatly evoked Iberian interest. For a long time, the Iberians were keen on collecting various forms of fish and making them into luxury jewelry. Of course, the term "phore fish" did not exist in Iberia before the Great Silence. People gave them all kinds of strange names based on their shapes and characteristics.
After the islanders came ashore, the Church of the Deep, which worshiped the life forms of Heir, really appeared in Iberia. In the following more than a hundred years, while other aegirians worked diligently in scientific research and technical positions, the Church of the Deep had sown the seeds of disaster in the ideological, cultural and social life of Iberia.
the Church of the Deep spread various legends about sea Seaborn in Iberia: Some say that all dinosaurs come from a huge tree in the middle of the ocean that carries the sun. If the fruits of the giant tree fall into the sea, they will grow into dinosaurs. Fish; some say that there are primitive species of chaos that were born with the world sleeping on the seabed. The sun has carved these primitive species from different angles over the long years, turning them into different forms of fish.
Decades before the Profound Silence, when dinofish appeared more and more frequently on Iberian shores, Iberia was experiencing a boom in the consumption of "ocean curiosities". Children living on the seaside played with toys with the image of fishes, and the king spent a lot of money to find a large five-meter-tall fish shell, hoping to use it to carve a statue symbolizing royal power... It is true that among the islanders, those who do not belong to the Church of the Deep Most of the Gor people hate and fear the Seaborn, but their serious warnings are far less attractive in the eyes of the Iberians than the mysterious legends fabricated by the Church of the Deep.
"People who live tomorrow"
In 1032, in a tavern by the sea, worker Juan Gomez Castro described to me the “golden age” he saw:
When young people reach the age where they need to find their own way out, their minds are filled with nothing more than scientific research, creation, and adventure. This is Iberia. You can only stand out if you create new technological breakthroughs, develop new art forms, and find new places of wealth.
My father was born with a dream of getting ahead, and he spent the rest of his life trying to atone for that dream. When he was young, he ignored his grandmother's wishes and wanted to learn the supreme art. In the end, apart from twisting his wrists, which became red and swollen, he made no achievements in the path of swordsmanship. The night his grandmother died, he suffered for the first time the heart palpitations that would plague him for years to come. Until I was born and raised, he was still taking money from the family to participate in the research projects that his grandmother originally wanted him to participate in...My mother tried to make him accept mediocrity, but my mother was not a mediocre person. At the end of the quarrel, his mother took away all his experimental materials in anger and nailed them together to make paper sculptures. This paper sculpture was well received at the Hong Kong Art Exhibition that year and was praised as "a work that breaks the stereotypes"... I grew up watching these things, so when I stole my parents' savings of more than ten years , when I went to buy a boat and recruit people to go to sea, I didn’t feel that there was anything wrong with what I did.
To be honest, we didn’t have a good time at sea, but we didn’t question the times. Although every time I go out to sea, I can only catch some stinky scales and rotten shells, but I always feel that the golden age does not refer to what we already have, but what we can achieve, discover, and create. At that time, there was a good girl named Fernanda in the fleet. She always led us to sing the hopeful boat song, "The golden age is tomorrow"...
But when "tomorrow" comes, I won't be able to take out a single coin. I had to sell the boat to pay my crew. I am no longer a captain, I am just an ordinary worker now, and this is the end of my life. Fernanda went to a good fleet, and I heard that she did some great things at sea that could go down in history... I was happy for her from the bottom of my heart, and I didn't delay her because of my cowardice. What I feel sorry for is another matter. Why did she marry a cook with no ambition...
After finishing speaking, he hummed the barcarolle:
…There is a golden glow on the horizon of tomorrow;
The blue giant tree holds up the sun, which is the beacon that watches over Terra;
The branches will bear countless treasures, and the ocean will protect Iberia...
Silence
Disasters from the sea destroyed Iberia's splendor. The golden fleet disappeared silently into the sea, and the Eyes of Iberia were extinguished one after another. The music in the palace and the noise on the dock lost their voices, and people moved their lips vigorously in the absolute silence. The disaster struck in such silence, and no one can fully tell what happened after that. This disaster, known as the "Profound Silence" by later generations, caused most of Iberia to sink to the bottom of the sea. When the sea receded, the remaining land was fragmented, and the once fertile cultivated land became barren salt-alkali land. As the land disappeared, the economic foundation of the manorial system and the political foundation of the fiefdom system also collapsed. The royal family and nobles no longer had the resources to support their armies, and there were no more fields for farmers to cultivate. After looting the manor's granary, the surviving civilians lost their last reason to stay in their homeland. After the disaster, Iberia was torn apart by famine and riots.
"People who live inside"
Intermittently, Mr. Martinez told what he saw, heard and thought when he fled:
We followed the church people to a manor that once belonged to an unknown noble. There was a shriveled corpse lying in the kitchen of the manor, wrapped in a black and gold velvet cloak, tightly holding a pile of red gold, its teeth embedded in the gold bars... No one said anything, but we were all afraid. If even the nobles starve to death, then does this country have no food left at all?
In those days I didn't add salt to anything I cooked because there were white salt stains everywhere. Everyone's mouth tastes bitter, and they feel sick when they see salt. But we still try to control those white saline-alkali lands. There was an aegir girl traveling with us. She figured out how to make crops grow on the pale soil. We followed her every day to dig ditches and rake the ground to loosen the soil. She always reminds me of Fernanda…
I had long since given up hope that Fernanda would come back. She was still at sea when the disaster happened. They say that people who die at sea will turn into ichthyosaurs, but I think that's all nonsense. Fernanda was a smart person, and I believe she died a happy death, and I was the one in the mess. I often think, why am I alive? Is it just to cook porridge mixed with bark every day, and then watch people drink it and spit it out?
Communications were paralyzed and the landscape changed dramatically. Post-disaster Iberia felt strange. People are walking aimlessly on the wasteland, unable to see familiar roads and buildings, and unable to hear familiar broadcasts and sermons. The smoke that occasionally rises in the darkness may come from bandits, and the rustling that occasionally sounds in the silence often comes from fish. People were confused and couldn't believe that the land beneath their feet was Iberia.
Some surviving members of the Church attempted to reshape Iberia's image from the grassroots up. Iberia was once described as an arrogant conqueror who needed people to spread its branches and open up a wider territory for it; but now Iberia is interpreted as a holy person who illuminates the darkness,
People need to unite to protect its cleanliness and virtue. The Lateran classics were based on laws and virtues and embellished with anecdotes from saints, but the Iberian Church rewrote them to serve as a guide to the life of the Iberian people after the disaster. In an era of total value collapse, this approach may indeed be effective. According to the preaching of the priests, value does not need to rely on material products, and people can practice virtue even in the empty wasteland.
The church not only tries to provide people with spiritual support, but also tries to restore basic social order and even manage food resources in a planned way. Although there are desperate people who step over the corpses of priests to grab food, there are also desperate people who regard faith as a life-saving straw and hope that they can obtain salvation by following the teachings.
Perhaps in the eyes of the Church, it is better to pray in a dark and dilapidated chapel than to miss the royal nobles who have been buried under the sea. Of course, no one wants the chapel to be dark and dilapidated. The devout believers wipe the windows diligently every day, but the windows are always covered with white dust floating from the sea, and they cannot be wiped clean or finished.
The royal family has fallen into silence, but the people are still seeking protection and salvation. People even began to pray to the founding kings of Iberia, asking the bones that have been buried for many years to protect them...
Many high-ranking members of the Church were eager to install a pope who would capture the people's desire for salvation and establish new authority in Iberia. But Saint Carmen repeatedly rejected proposals to make him pope. Under his auspices, nine archbishops of the Church gave up their original surnames, adopted the surname Iberia, and added the names of saints, becoming leaders of Iberia in another form.
"Saint" does not seem to be an ideal title for someone who is eager to establish his or her governing authority. "Saints" may represent pioneers and guides, but they lack the meaning of rulers - the ancient books of Lateran record that the first generation of saints built their homes with their hands . They practice their faith with both feet, but they are not said to be exercising their ruling power condescendingly.
But Carmen's almost stubborn persistence was not without reason - the prospect of becoming a pope was tempting, but the price of failure was unbearable. It means putting all the Iberians' hopes for salvation on the shoulders of one person. Once that person is unable to shoulder this important task, the fragmented Iberia may forever lose the opportunity to unify. Without its ruler, Iberia struggled blindly in riots and famine. It could hardly be called a country anymore, but it faced disasters beyond the scope of human understanding. Under such a burden, the power in the hands of the majority will change from a convenient tool to a weak bait. After all, even the most mediocre monarchs will be portrayed as wise and mighty in their portraits. They often hide behind this illusion woven by power and spend their entire lives mediocre. It is conceivable that Carmen and several other Saints may not be willing or dare to put themselves through such a test.
Kal’tsit: From Iberia’s retribution to aegir’s conspiracy, from the wrath of the earth to the resentment of the sea—when the Iberians after the Profound Silence talked about disasters, their stories often varied. People who have experienced the catastrophe try to understand what happened to them, but most people can only blindly grope for answers in the dark. The first answers many confused and frightened survivors heard came from the Church of the Deep. In the argument promoted by the Deep Church, the destruction of Iberia is both punishment and salvation, and the survivors will abandon the burden of sin, regain human possibility, and pave the way for a transcendent existence. The fanatical deep-sea cultists even threw themselves into the ocean and became nourishment for the sea Seaborn. Whether they "choose" such life forms to be completely autonomous is probably hard to tell.
After being canonized as a saint, Carmen y Iberia gathered his supporters, completely reorganized the state church, and renamed it the "Inquisition of Iberia". The reorganized Inquisition is not only a religious organization, but also a governing body. The victims were gathered together and put into labor under the guidance of the law. Starting from a grassroots operating model, order in Iberia was gradually reestablished.
There are still many people who criticize this new institution, believing that the moral judgments presupposed by "punishment" and "trial" are too arbitrary. According to the accounts of some Iberians who have experienced post-disaster reconstruction, the rule of the Inquisition was indeed more harsh than that of the royal family before the Silence.
But it was indeed the Inquisition that finally reunited the divided Iberia into one country. We should think about, in an era of comprehensive collapse of values, do people still have the energy to enjoy an open and inclusive environment? Can clear guidance and ready-made answers better touch people’s confused and tired hearts?
"People who live in yesterday"
Talking about post-disaster reconstruction, Mr. Martinez talked about a group of workers he met during the escape who voluntarily devoted themselves to reconstruction:
We were drawn there by the music. After all, there were no signals for radios and televisions at that time, and no one was willing to flee with record players and speakers on their backs. Everyone’s ears were scratched by the wind in the wilderness, and hearing the music of the golden age was like a dream.
In the pile of bricks and stones is a group of people in work clothes, banging to the beat of the music, as if they are building a house. Compared to the gold-inlaid record player produced by Great Silence next to the door beam, what they built inevitably seemed a bit crude. But it can still be seen from the rough carvings on the beams that they are rebuilding it according to the style of the Golden Age.
These people all say that their surname is Iberia, this one is called Iberia, and that one is also called Iberia... Isn't it strange? Sounds like the saints of the later Inquisition. But the saints did this because they were loved. What reason did these workers have to be so attached to Iberia? They were the most disliked people in Iberia...
At that time, a construction worker stopped what he was doing and explained to Mr. Martinez:
I know that in those days, people really looked down on us. People like me who move bricks and people like you who cook soup are all people who are not enterprising in their eyes. But that's their problem, not Iberia's. The noble gentlemen originally had their own ideals and pursuits - research, exploration, martial arts, and arts... Even if Iberia was gone, they would still have something to do. But what about us? Day after day, all we live is building Iberia in the factory. If Iberia is gone, what will we have left?
During that time, many people no longer wanted to live. It was old Juan who rescued us. After the whole city stopped working, Old Juan was the first person to enter the factory. The factory owner ran away a long time ago, and no one gave him wages to start working. Moreover, without fuel and raw materials, the production line cannot run at all. But old Juan didn't care, he just hammered away in the dark factory building every day. Later, more and more people followed him to work, even if they couldn't make anything decent. In fact, everyone was hungry, but no one stopped. For no other reason than to live like a human being.
Your noble lord will not rebuild Iberia, but we will. We are Iberia.
Geography
Iberia once sat on a fertile peninsula in the south of the earth and controlled the canals connecting the inland sea to the open sea. After the Profound Silence, not a single bustling port city remained along the southern coast. The survivors fled north and huddled on the once remote inland border. Today's Iberia consists of several long and narrow deltas, with low and flat terrain, and some hilly terrain in the central and northern inland areas.
The present coastline of Iberia was newly formed during the Great Silence. Generations of surveyors measured Iberia's wounds with their feet, sketching out the contours of the new coastline. Today, there are still Iberians setting up thin sails, trying to find and recover the remaining land, but most of their hometowns lost in the sea have become nests of fish.
Economy
Iberia had a solid economic foundation long before the islanders came ashore. Thanks to the fertile land and developed water system, Iberia's planting and fishing industries are highly developed. Every Iberian chef before the Great Silence had to master hundreds of seafood cooking methods before he could start his career. Iberia's industrial level is also leading among the countries in the core circle. When Lateran City was transformed into a mobile city, a large number of heavy industrial products needed were imported from Iberia. The introduction of islanders' technology once caused overproduction in certain areas of Iberia, and luxury became prevalent in society.
After the Profound Silence, a large amount of advanced technology was abandoned. With neither energy and material supply nor corresponding consumer demand, the factory that once roared all day long fell into silence. Most of the islanders' research projects were halted by the Inquisition, and their results rotted in filing cabinets at the Bastion of Saints. It was only in recent years that the Inquisition gradually began to open its doors to the original aegir technical personnel and invited them to return to Iberia to restart research.
In addition, the land is infiltrated by salt and alkaline, the ocean is occupied by fish, and Iberia's planting and fishing industries have almost come to a standstill. Iberia experienced a breakdown in market order before people rediscovered reliable sources of food. When a cart full of red gold could not be exchanged for a bag of grain, people began to regard currency and precious metals as burdens on the road to escape. Rogue bandits in the wasteland would loot food and clothing, but leave silver coins and gold bars in pools of blood. Economic activity in many areas regressed back to barter.
The Inquisition tried to organize the people to return to production, and unified management and distribution of the results of production. The planned economic model became dominant in post-disaster Iberia. To this day, most industries in Iberia are still under the control of the Inquisition's plans.
Lost technology
The aegir technology in the sea and the Originium power on land achieved an exquisite combination in Iberia. From daily necessities to production machinery, even in the eyes of today's most daring industrial designers, the technological products of Iberia during the Golden Age can be described as whimsical.
The most representative of them is a series of technological wonders related to navigation: golden ships are dotted on the ocean, the Eye of Iberia penetrates layers of clouds, and the dazzling glow forms a line in the sea fog. But the king was not content with decorating the sea with dots and lines, he wanted to drive the land of Iberia into the sea. Along the long coastline of Iberia, a number of amphibious mobile cities have been constructed with great fanfare. Most of these cities were lost in silence before they were even completed. Due to the drastic changes in the coastline, only a few ruins of amphibious mobile cities have been preserved to this day. They may provide shelter for displaced victims at some point, but for these people, the magnificent keel structure above their heads no longer means anything. .
Politics and military
Inquisition
Today Iberia is ruled by the Inquisition, formerly the Iberian State Church. Under the leadership of Saint Carmen, the Church has undergone a comprehensive reorganization. The once complicated high-level structure was abandoned and replaced by a three-level central structure of Saint-Grand Inquisitor-Inquisitor. The grassroots structures in various places that can still function normally have been brought under the framework of the tribunal.
The people who are called "bishops" or "priests" in Iberia today are more like the grassroots civil workers of the Inquisition than clergy. Many times, preaching in churches is not only to provide spiritual comfort, but also to provide specific guidance for people's production and life in an infectious way. The Inquisition unified the teachings and scriptures adapted by the previous Church of the Kingdom and expanded and perfected them. Today, these heavy scrolls play a variety of roles in Iberian life: they are sacred and the foundation of faith ; It is instructive and serves as a reference for life; it is also binding and serves as the basis for law enforcement.
Inquisitors are the backbone of the Iberian Inquisition, and their scope of responsibilities is as broad as the application of the scriptures: an inquisitor needs to fulfill the duties of a spiritual leader and calm the fears and doubts of the people; It is necessary to monitor all things that may pose a threat to Iberia; it is also necessary to perform the duties of a military commander, leading the disciplinary forces to patrol the coast, observe changes in the ocean, and curb the spread of fish.
It is undeniable that the rule of the Iberian Tribunal has shown many characteristics that have been criticized, such as a serious lack of procedures and highly forceful methods. However, as the final means to deal with problems in a state of emergency, these phenomena are not incomprehensible. Whether the above factors have caused substantial abuse of power and management chaos remains to be verified.

After gathering firewood in the mountains
I returned to my hut
And found pickled plums and potatoes
Left beneath my window by a visitor.
The plums were wrapped in paper,
The potatoes in green grass,
And a scrap of paper bore the donor’s name.
Deep in the mountains the food is tasteless—
Mostly turnips and greens—
So I quickly boiled the treat with soya paste and salt.
I filled my usually empty stomach
With three big bowls.
If my poet friend had left some rice wine
It would have been a real banquet.
I savored about a fifth of the gift and stored the rest;
Patting my full belly,
I went back to my chores.
Buddha’s Enlightenment Day will be here in six days
And I did not know what to offer
But now I have become rich—
Buddha will feast on plums and delicious potato gruel.

•
All these Poems are taken from Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf translated by John Stevens.
Daily Ryōkan Poem #44

Most summaries ignore the last bit. It's a pity, it's quite drily funny in many parts.
----
So there's a storm, and Kongming, great guy that he is, avoids human sacrifice by inventing the mantou. The river spirits are angry at all the people he killed, but apparently satisfied with goat and ox flesh in flour paste instead of human heads, and he is able to return safely.
Cao Rui manages to shame Cao Pi into letting him succeed by crying over Bambi. I wonder how the movie was received in China; seems like someone would make the connection. Sima Yi makes his first grab for power and fails, exciting Kongming.
Zhao Yun does the whole 'one last campaign' thing and manages to take a few cities, though Kongming sends Deng Zhi with him to keep an eye on him. (If I had a business background, I would write an airport book for businessmen with the title 'Betray the World: Management Strategies from Romance of the Three Kingdoms'. I am sure some clever Chinese has already done so.) Kongming also manages to recruit Jiang Wei and kill Wang Lang with nasty words (and I thought Vicious Mockery was a D&D invention!). But Ma Su blows it, and Kongming has to save the day by playing the zither in front of an empty fort and betting Sima Yi is going to go, "This must be a trick." It works.
The takeaway here is the importance of knowing your opponent. A simpler opponent would just go "haha! empty fort! attack!" But Kongming knows Sima Yi's a rival chessmaster and is going to assume there's a trick and refuse to proceed. Ma Su blows it, though, and Kongming has him put to death, though he feels bad about it. This was a little surprising to me, as Kongming's been much less bloodthirsty than most of the other leaders in this book on average. But, of course, this is a 14th-century Ming novel; the idea is you have to show there are consequences for bad behavior. (Excess laxity has been shown to be a problem before, and will again.) And it's not like he tried his best and failed; he disobeyed orders in a war.
Kongming keeps going, and even gets Jiang Wei into the deception game, obviously grooming a successor. He raids Chencang (I'm told this is one of the 36 stratagems, so I'm sure the allusion is intentional), pretends to be a god to fool Sima Yi, and makes wooden robots to trap Sima Yi, but his firetrap gets rained out, and the guy gets sick and dies from working too hard.
We see his star fall. I remember this from Cowboy Bebop; I guess this is the origin of the trope. He gets lots of poetry to mark his passing, which I'm sure is much better in Mandarin. Even when dead he can scare Sima Yi, and leaves plans for Jiang Wei. Again, sound management technique: make sure there are plans in order for your succession. Wu almost attacks Shu, but doesn't.
Meanwhile government in Wei is going from bad to worse. Cao Rui tries to build fancy buildings and make immortality potions. (From what I understand of Chinese history, while emperors in China, like everywhere else, like to build Monuments to Me, immortality potions are a particularly local indication you're headed for a fall.)
Cao Rui starts seeing the ghosts of the people they've killed and realizes he's on his way to join them, and appoints his (adopted) son, Cao Fang, as successor, and tells him to listen to Sima Yi...but Cao Shuang's going to be regent. Aw, another power struggle? Sima Yi plays sick when Cao Shuang goes to meet him, then launches a coup when Cao Shuang's out hunting...but like Cao Cao, Sima Yi doesn't take formal power. But he sends Zhong Hui and Ah Deng to take Shu. Jiang Wei has some success fighting them for a while, using Kongming's contraptions. Sima Yi finally gets sick and dies and elevates his sons Sima Shi and Sima Zhao to high positions in his place.
Over in Wu, Sun Quan (green eyes, red beard...what does this mean in China? I don't think he was Irish) leaves the kingdom to his son Sun Liang with Zhuge Ke as regent, and is posthumously named Sun Quan the Great Emperor, which I am told is a VTuber meme. The Simas decide to go after Wu, and Zhuge Ke chases them off at Dongxing, but loses in Hefei. He turns into such a tyrant Sun Liang's brother Sun Jun decides to get rid of him at yet another murderous banquet. He tries to get out of it and won't even drink the wine, but Sun Jun attacks him with a sword and gets to be Prime Minister.
Jiang Wei almost gets Sima Zhao by dressing like the enemy, but Sima Zhao escapes, and the Simas go back to the capital and finally make Cao Fang abdicate...for yet another puppet emperor, Cao Mao, the great Cao Cao's great-grandson.
Of course, they still aren't emperor, and after putting down another rebellion Sima Shi dies after eye surgery, leaving Sima Zhao in charge. The emperor naturally tries to tell Sima Zhao to remain in place at Xuchang, but Sima Zhao, egged on by Zhong Hui, ignores him and goes back to Capital Luoyang anyway, getting into the old family business of being power behind the throne.
Jiang Wei figures this is the perfect time for an attack, and chases off the enemy general. He wants to go after him in Didao, but his advisor tells him this is adding legs to a perfectly good drawing of a snake. (Anyone remember Trogdor, the Burninator?) With metaphors like that you know he's going to be outplayed by Deng Ai, and he is. They each give five reasons beforehand why they're going to win, but Deng Ai figures out Jiang Wei's trick of filling an empty camp with a few soldiers moving around a lot, and defeats him with another ambush.
In the stories I'm used to, if there's trickery, you have one guy who's stupid or straightforward and the other guy who tricks him. Nah, here everyone is trying to trick everyone else and it's luck and whoever makes a mistake.
Sima Zhao decides he wants to be emperor for real and sends Jia Chong to try the idea out on Zhuge Dan (Kongming's cousin); he hates the idea and launches his own rebellion. Over in Wu, Sun Jun's brother Sun Chen is prime minister, and is apparently a jerk and controls the real emperor, Sun Liang (so what else is new?), and Zhuge Dan gets his support. But Sima Zhao defeats Zhuge Dan, who holes up in Shouchun. Zhong Hui tells him to attack every way except south, whereupon Sima Zhao strokes his back and goes, "You're my Zhang Liang." Sun Chen quits and goes back to Wu, and almost everyone deserts Zhuge Dan as he turns into a tyrant. The guy in charge of the north gate opens it and he dies in the city. Zhong Hui convinces Sima Zhao not to massacre the remaining Wu soldiers, and he agrees.
Jiang Wei decides it's time for another attack, but the Shu court is run by eunuchs (again) and Qiao Zhou tries to dissuade him with a lengthy essay. (The essay is full of weird digressions, and seems to me similar to the 'eight-legged essays' people trying to become civil servants wrote in Ming China. I wonder if LGZ is making fun of them.) Jiang Wei ignores him.
Sun Liang tries to get rid of Sun Chen, but his henchman Quan Ji blabs to his dad, who blabs to his wife, and...gets demoted and all his allies killed. Choose your conspirators carefully. Sun Chen then puts Sun Quan's sixth son Sun Xiu on the throne, and Sun Liang tries again with Ding Feng on his side...and pulls it off! He promptly tries to get Shu on his side, and out goes Jiang Wei again.
Jiang Wei meets Deng Ai, then engages in a nerd pissing contest with him over how many battle formations each of them knows. They then actually fight, and Deng Ai loses, where he runs into Sima Wang (Sima Zhao's cousin; family names are quite useful here, unless they're Zhang).
"You have another battle plan?"
"What do you think this is, Outlaws of the Water Margin? We're bribing the Shu emperor's favorite eunuch to get Jiang Wei recalled."
It works, and Jiang Wei gets recalled. Jiang Wei goes and hides in Hanzhong. Sima Zhao finally decides to take official power from Cao Mao, so he has Jia Chong kill him, with the actual hitman Cheng Ji killed later. Of course he has to pretend he's not interested in the throne, so he puts Cao Huang (Cao Cao's grandson) on instead.
Jiang Wei decides to try again, getting help from Wu this time, which presumably has fewer eunuchs. Working for Deng Ai, Wang Guan tries the fake desertion trick, but Jiang Wei sees through it and sets another firetrap. Wang Guan dies in the river, and Deng Ai gets caught in it and flees back to Wei, where Sima Zhao...forgives him.
Jiang Wei decides to try again, feinting to Taozhan while having Zhang Yi attack Qishan, but he loses his strategist Xiahou Ba to another Deng Ai trick, and Deng Ai sees through his plot and drives off Zhang Yi. But Jiang Wei comes and surrounds Deng Ai...just as the eunuchs recall him again. Jiang Wei goes to kill the eunuch, but they stop him and he goes off to hide on a farm in Tazhong.
Sima Zhao is of course upset and decides to send Deng Ai and Zhong Hui...separately...into Shu. Zhong Hui pretends he's going after Wu and builds lots of ships. Sima Zhao figures he'll stab him in the back, but will be too busy occupying Shu to do anything. Deng Ai has prophetic dreams (one of many in this book) telling him he won't return...and Liu Shi says the same about him and Zhong Hui. The use of prophetic dreams for foreshadowing is interesting...obviously it was a believable thing in LGZ's day.
Jiang Wei doesn't fall asleep on the job, and tells the emperor he's being invaded. But Liu Shan is, as usual, 'amusing himself with his favorite Huang Hao'. (Are they feasting on pork buns and wine, or is there the implication of some yaoi, ah, 'passions of the cut sleeve' action here?) Huang Hao tells him not to worry, and goes to the only genuinely incompetent medium we've seen in a while...'Within a few years the land of Wei shall come under you, wherefore you need not be sorrowful'. Is this one of these 'exact words' prophecy bits where he'll be physically 'over' the land of Wei as a useless lackey in Sima Zhao's court, or is she just outright lying?
Zhong Hui gets some defenders to surrender, and gets to a mountain with creepy clouds, and gets by it by sacrificing to...Kongming, whose ghost just tells him in a dream to spare the people of Shu, and Zhong Hui agrees. It's interesting everyone gets praised for resisting unto death, but Kongming gets off despite not hitting Zhong Hui with a lightning bolt or something. From what I can tell the point is he's trying to defend his people even after death...do your obligations change after you die? The argument could be made he is loyal to the people rather than their dissolute leader, which endears him to this 21st-century Westerner, but I wonder what LGZ's readers would have made of all this.
Jiang Wei keeps fighting even as the kingdom is overrun. He does a U-turn, fooling Zhuge Xu, and makes for Saber Pass, where he wins another victory. Zhong Hui and Deng Ai are both invading Shu, and like good Wei generals they start plotting against each other. Deng Ai goes for Chengdu and Zhong Hui for Saber Pass. Much like Zhong Hui, Deng Ai runs into Kongming (sorta) in the form of a stone saying him and his rival will pass but will die. Unlike Zhong Hui he doesn't get a courtesy visit in his dreams, but he does get over Heaven's Cliffs by rolling himself and his soldiers in blankets.
The commander at Jiangyou hears the emperor's too busy playing around with eunuchs and just gives up. Finally Liu Shan can't ignore the problem anymore and calls in...Kongming's son, Zhuge Zhan, who despite being of excellent parentage (his mom, Lady Huang, is 'singularly plain and extraordinarily talented', and 'studied everything, including strategy and magic') is kind of a dud, though maybe he couldn't get ahead with the eunuchs in charge. He impersonates his dad, fooling B-villains Deng Zhong and Shi Zhuan, but not Deng Ai, who insults Zhuge Zhan in a letter, who then falls for the 'pretend to be retreating' trick and gets surrounded. He does get some support from Wu, but they don't arrive in time, and he...falls for the 'pretend to be retreating' trick AGAIN and gets wounded, killing himself. His son Zhuge Shang dies in battle.
(Seriously! You're fricking KONGMING's son and you fall for traps like that? Well, so much for genetics. At least Kongming and his wife probably got to enjoy some romantic dinners discussing the Wuzi. Maybe Zhuge Zhan was too busy playing Dilao & Long. "Hey, you little rotten egg, I made your favorite goat and ox buns and your mother made a whole presentation for you on the Six Secret Teachings and what are you doing? Pay attention! What is this crap you're reading? 'Seventh-level Taoist fighter with crossbow+2'? Heaven above, what's going to happen to this kingdom?")
Liu Shan surrenders, with only his son, Liu Chan, having any of the old spirit and telling him to resist. Liu Chan's consort kills herself, and then he kills his sons and then himself. (I actually think Liu Shan, with all his numerous flaws, is being rational here; he can't beat the kingdom of Wei at this point and the ethical choice would be to surrender and spare your people future suffering.) Deng Ai takes over and finally gets rid of the eunuch. We get a very extensive accounting of the assets of the kingdom, which shows why the conquerors of China always kept the bureaucracy around.
The surrender order finally reaches Jiang Wei...who has a plan. He decides to become bros with Zhong Hui, which naturally enrages Deng Ai, who writes a snooty letter to Sima Zhao. Sima Zhao naturally thinks Deng Ai is going to doublecross him, and declines to let him keep ruling there. Deng Ai says it's perfectly acceptable for a commanding general to ignore his emperor, and so Sima (advised by Jia Chong) decides to use Zhong Hui to keep an eye on him, and puts Wei Guan over both of them.
Sima gives Zhong Hui a smaller reward than Deng Ai, so Zhong Hui (with Jiang Wei's encouragement) intercepts Deng Ai's letters and makes them extra-cocky. Sima then sends Zhong Hui to arrest Deng Ai (hoping to get them both killed), and goes on the march with Cao Huang, his latest puppet emperor. Of course Zhong Hui's suspicious at this point, so he sends Wei Guan to arrest him. Now Wei Guan knows this is Romance of the Three Kingdoms and not The Book of Virtues, so he writes a whole bunch of letters saying nobody other than Deng Ai will be harmed if they surrender. They quickly give in and take Deng Ai and his son prisoner.
Zhong Hui's got a nice big army, having absorbed Deng Ai's, and Jiang Wei tells him to quit while he's ahead and go become a Taoist hermit. Zhong Hui says, nah, I'm going for the big job. Jiang Wei, with more loyalty than sense, writes a secret letter to Liu Shan saying "Han isn't dead yet!"
All of a sudden Sima Zhao writes them a letter to come to Changan to discuss state matters. Zhong and Jiang both figure they're going to get killed, so they plan to forge a letter from the old Empress accusing Sima Zhao of trying to take the throne, then hold a banquet for the officers and kill those who aren't with them. They do have the banquet and accuse Sima Zhao, and take the officers prisoner, but one of them gets a letter out to a relative, and they get surrounded. Zhong and Jiang both die in the fight (Jiang after a few heart attacks). The soldiers hack Jiang to death, where his gallbladder's huge (what does that mean?) The soldiers want to rescue Deng Ai, but Wei Guan figures he's dead if that happens. His ally Tian Xu tracks Deng and his son down afte they escaped the cages they had them in and kills them. Jia Chong (one of the few still left alive) leaves Wei Guan in charge of Chengdu and send Liu Shan to Luoyang.
Wu pulls back its soldiers. Sun Xiu knows his days are numbered with Shu down, so he sends a spy to see how Liu Shan's doing in captivity. Turns out they keep him distracted with banquets and he doesn't give a rat's behind about his old kingdom.
Sima Zhao gets promoted to prince. He has two kids, the big Sima Yan and the sensitive Sima You; under pressure from courtiers he names Sima Yan as his successor. They try to get him to make himself actual emperor, but he dies of a stroke before he can. Sima Yan then gets Cao Huang to abdicate, declaring the new Jin dynasty.
Wu falls in one chapter. Sun Xiu names Sun Wan heir, but he's young and Sun Hao gets in instead. He turns out to be a tyrant, taxing people heavily, throwing huge parties, and building new palaces. Wei's general, Yang Hu, plays nice with his Wu counterpart, Lu Kang, sending wine and medicine back and forth, and encourages desertions from Wu. Once Lu Kang's out of the way...Yang Hu dies, so he recommends Du Yu to take up the banner. Du Yu's a nice guy as generals go, and Sun Hao gets worse and worse, flaying and enucleating people for not partying hardy enough. Wang Jun pulls out the ships they made seven years ago (remember those?) and sends them into the harbor as Du Yu invades--in a somewhat comical echo of Red Cliffs, they defeat chains and hammers left as traps for invading ships by sending rafts piled with burning material on them. (The chains and hammers weren't a terrible strategy, but they were invented by a eunuch, so you know they're not going to work.) Du Yu is clever enough to let the conquered county people live. The Wu soldiers surrender before the Jin army and navy. The courtiers blame the eunuch (who actually had a reasonable plan this time) and kill him.
Sun Hao: "Come on, what can a eunuch do to the state?"
Courtiers: "Have you been paying attention for the past 119 chapters?" (Actually they just mention Huang Hao in Shu.)
Sun Hao hears Liu Shan's living it up in exile and gives up. We get an accounting of the assets of Wu, including five thousand persons in the women's quarters of the palace. (There's some backstory innuendo here I'm missing.) Sun Hao gets a small title; the Jin officers are rewarded.
And, the empire, long united, must divide; the empire, long divided, must unite. The final poem rolls, and the three kingdoms are one.
---
I was a teenager during the 'canon wars' of the 90s when everyone was arguing over whether the Great Books of the West (Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, etc.) should continue to be taught. Well, so goes my encounter with one of the Great Books of the East. I had read Three Kingdoms, in addition to being extremely influential, was famous for its schemers, and I'm kind of naive, so I figured maybe I'd learn something. I wanted to encounter the text for myself (albeit in translation), without relying on our 'cultural interpreters' to tell me what they wanted me to hear.
And it was what I expected, being long, the product of a distant land and time, and more convoluted than Machiavelli could ever dream of. It was interesting in terms of 'what if everyone in a plot was actually smart'? Swap out the bamboo for oak, the rice for bread, and the breastplate for platemail and there are parts that would be recognizable in a Western medieval romance (or modern fantasy story), though the thought of Gandalf sending letters to get Sauron to open the gates of Mordor is pretty funny. It really is Great Literature, that's clear. We meet 'honor above practicality' Liu Bei and Guan Yu, 'practicality above honor' Zhuge Liang, 'practicality without morality' Cao Cao, 'no practicality or morality' Yuan Shu, and 'I'm good until I get drunk and beat my subordinates' Zhang Fei.
We see people struggling with loyalty to lord and family, deciding whether to keep fighting when all is lost, and we see the question of whether it's better to give up and keep living or stay loyal to a likely-dead lord and die with him. We see the difficulty of building anything that lasts after you, and of picking an heir. Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei swore brotherhood, but couldn't take back the kingdom. (Though Liu Bei shouldn't have tossed his kid.) Zhuge Liang may have contravened the standards of his time and picked brains over beauty, but he still couldn't pass any strategic acumen to his kids. For all of Cao Cao's conniving, he still couldn't keep from having his descendants outschemed themselves.
Meritocracy (Wei), loyalty (Shu), or family (Wu)? How do you build an empire? None are reliable, though meritocracy seems to work best in the long run. Just don't expect it to be yours in any meaningful sense. They all get undone by their own principles, with the Cao family hoist with their own petard as the Simas gradually Cao Cao the Caos, Liu Bei throwing away much of his kingdom in a quixotic attempt to avenge Guan Yu (and ruining his legacy by throwing away his baby), and the Suns never quite building the deep bench of talent to beat Wei.
Did I get an insight into Chinese culture? I don't know. I certainly learned a lot of history reading up on everyone. I have a funny story to chuckle over every time I eat a bao. Am I going to look less stupid in Beijing if I ever go there? Probably not, for that I'd actually have to learn Mandarin. I do want to see everything in the National Museum of China (you know, if the international situation improves).
Reading literature in translation is like watching a movie in black and white with the sound off. I suppose with a Germanic or Romance language like German or Spanish cognates could be found, but there are no words the same between Mandarin and English except for loanwords absent in a historical novel. You're thus forced to focus on plot and character to the exclusion of language. I've read Cao Cao's dragon speech is quite beautiful in Mandarin; I was able to see only the aspect of it where he's feeling out Liu Bei.
I'm probably going to try this again with the Moss Roberts translation, a chapter at a time, making full use of a map. Or maybe move on to Water Margin or Journey to the West.
Thanks everyone for explaining this and helping me understand this complex and absorbing story.

I started my non-dual journey about 3 years ago when I first read the Dao de Jing. I didn't really start taking it seriously until 2-3 months ago. Since then; I read, I meditate and journal basically every night. Journaling was great at first but I now find it hard to find things to write about. I recently discovered the poetry of Rumi and its inspired me to start writing my own spiritual poetry. I find it a much better outlet for my thoughts and ideas than journaling.
My spiritual endeavors have been super fruitful to this point. But, I haven't really had anyone in my life to share it with. I want to talk to people about my beliefs but all of my friends are Christian and my family is atheist and super dismissive of religion/spirituality. So, I thought I'd share some of my poems here. They're probably not very good. But I wanted to share nonetheless, in the small chance it helps someone or inspires them to do their own poetry. Thanks y'all
​

Death is Not My Final Chapter

death is not my final chapter
this body is not my timeless form
beyond my human body
my soul is forever warm
​
i once feared death
my life i must prolong
now i hear the melody
i am creations song
​
though i am dead
i am still on course
that tune lives forever
when you return to the source
​
my melody plays on
my energy transferred
my body now a banquet
my song is still heard
​

Through the Senses

through sight
i see a world shrouded by fog
i long to gaze upon its unbridled beauty
​
through touch
i feel a world draped by shadow
i long to caress its naked figure
​
through sound
i hear a world muted by confusion
i long to listen to its roaring melody
​
through taste
i taste a world diluted by bitterness
i long to indulge in its intoxicating sweetness
​
through smell
i smell a world masked by pollution
i long to breathe in its aromatic freshness
​
through the senses
i experience a world of illusion
i will escape
​

On the Journey for Truth

on your journey for truth
you are the captain
come forth and take charge!
for no man can lead you through this fight
​
on your journey for truth
you will be faced with darkness
press on and seek it!
for there is darkness, only because there is light
​
you cannot know light
without knowing dark
​
you only know of night
when you hear that morning lark
​
your mind is filled with lies
your reality is presupposed
​
how can you open your eyes
when you didnt know they were closed?
​

Disclaimer: I'm aware that the game just got released and shouldn't expect anything other than the basics and a few key features, I'm in no way insulting the game as I'm not a developer nor have any knowledge behind the mechanics of game development. These are a simply my suggestions for a game that I'm enjoying and it's the choice of the developer to add/altedismiss my suggestions
-Fixing the mentor bug where an assigned mentor dies and it messes up the education page.
-Add death notifications if a family member dies(it only notifies a family member's death if that family member is an advisor)
-Family surnames. Only male characters get to pass on their surnames at this point in time, (let's say that you are the queen and you marry a random noble, your dynasty name has to continue instead of his and if you marry a landed noble that is your vassal there has to be a choice which child inherits which dynasty name. The firstborn can be the successor to the throne but has to take the queen's dynasty name and the second will inherit the father's title and land therefore the man's dynasty gets to continue as well.)
-Marriage alliances. You already can marry a vassal but you should be able to propose marriage between vassals and siblings/children not just yourself (the ability to arrange marriage between your family members and neighboring leaders should also be considered) Also the family member that marries to a neighboring territory should function as an ambassador to his/hers spouse's territory and bettemaintain the relationship between the two families and territories. The children produced from this marriage should also be the other territory's jurisdiction so the player doesn't have a hundred heirs to educate nor maintain relationships with. The married off person's profile will preferably be grayed out and the player can click on it for more details and it will show the spouse and the children between them.(The heirs in question can either have the skillset of the married off family member or the neighboring ruler)
-Titles. Titles such as queen/prince consort prince/princess for the royal children and lord/lady for noble children should be added. Another thing about titles, you can grant a title to your spare courtiers or family members so they get off your back(Different thing from advisors)
•Lord/Lady knight •Lord/Lady Mayor •Minstrel/Jester •Lady in waiting •DoctoPhysician •Guard Commander Granting these roles can cost a little prestige or a few coins(Spend 15 coins for a doctor or 5 prestige for a Lady in waiting) These roles can function internally in the player's dynasty (The Jester can cheer a family member up, i.e increasing happiness/relationships and the doctor can increase fertility and try to prevent heirs from dying young).
-Residence (spending money). The character should have an ancestral house/seat and it can be upgraded from a lowly county manokeep to a imperial city as the lineage progresses. For example: •County Keep/Fort of [REDACTED] •Duchy Castle/Manor of [REDACTED] •Royal Palace/House of [REDACTED] •Imperial Palace/City of [REDACTED]
-The ancestral house can be functional too. You can add ballrooms, gardens even banquet halls. Example: •County Keep -Main Hall -Armory -Tower
•Duchy Castle -Ballroom -Library -Private study
•Royal Palace -Gardens -Throne room - Banquet room
•Imperial Palace -Amphitheater -Grand statue
The amenities can also produce small amounts of prestige so it can be easier for the player and its balanced out
-Church. The archbishop is a member of the court and the position can function as a meditatior between the player and the church. Another function of the church is to get more faith. That can be done by these actions: •Attend Mass(10 Points) •Donation to the church (20 Ponts) •Give a child to the church to be raised(10 Points) •Theological discussion with priest/cardinal/Pope(50 Points) •Pray(5 Point)
Piety poinst can be spend as well
•Weaken the church's power and influence (40 Points) •Tax the church (100 Points) •Create a new religion/faith (100 Points) •Influence the church (50 Points)
-Decisions. It's a great feature and it can get even better.
•Write an epic, probably the most used feature in my game. Adding Write a poem, write a play and write a biography would be great features. •Find a mistress/lover can also be a good addition instead of waiting for a random noble to seduce the player. •Institute a royal/Imperial harem if the player has approved the law of polygamy
-Realm laws. •Crime and justice laws, where a menu appears listing a few crimes and the player has to choose a punishment.
Example: The crime of treason is death. The crime of murder is torture and release The crime of stealing is imprisonment
-Provinces are great but limited. Instead of just getting the money from the development function (which I presume is taxes) you can get much more. Building amenities/buildings in your province can be a good way to earn money and ensure that you are not always broke.
•Trading centeMarket/Port (Gold and Prestige Points) •Academy/Hospital/Orphanage (Prestige Points) •Barracks/Walls (Army Points) •Church/Temple (Piety Points) •Farm/Fields (Army Points and Money)
Those buildings can be built by using money.

Hello, I am a DM doing Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and I wanted to share this in case anyone else wanted to use it. I used ChatGPT to develop an entire library at Yarnspinner’s Scriptorium in Fablerise (Thither - Sort of). If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out the DMs Guild expansion by Dan Kahn. My players spent about 3 hours exploring this library, reading books, learning SO MUCH about the Feywild, including important events and NPCs related to the story and their backstories. I wanted to share it with anyone who might also want to use these. The bolded books are ones that were relevant in my party’s story. I included how it was relevant to the campaign or backstories. Enjoy!

General (Books on the “Returns” shelf in the back room)

1. "The Enchanted Woods: A Guide to Feywild Flora"

- This book details the whimsical and magical plants that thrive in the Feywild, providing information on their properties and uses. Used with various plants and fungi that are found in the module.

1. "A Midsummer Knight's Dream"

- A playful parody of Shakespeare's classic, this book tells the tale of a mischievous fey's attempt to weave love and chaos in the Feywild.
3. "Gnomes and Gardens: A History of Feywild Dwellings"
- Explore the curious architecture of fey creatures' homes, from mushroom cottages to treetop palaces, in this illustrated guide. Perhaps this is used to give players insight on structures they will visit in the Feywild, such as Bavlorna’s cottage.

1. "Whispers of the Pixies: Mysteries of the Feywild"

- An anthology of cryptic riddles, poems, and secrets penned by pixies, promising insight into the hidden wonders of the Feywild.

1. "The Timeless Dance: Feywild's Eternal Celebrations"

- Learn about the dazzling fey festivals and revelries that never end, and how to partake in them without losing track of time.
6. "Through the Looking Glasspool"
- A surreal journey into a Feywild reflection of reality, where players must navigate mirrored landscapes and encounters. Maybe connect this to the mirror portals that lead back to the Hall of Illusions.

1. "Chronicles of the Blinking King: Feywild's Trickster Monarch"

- Delve into the misadventures of the Blinking King, a capricious fey ruler known for his ever-changing whims.

1. "Songs of the Sylvan Bards: Music of the Feywild"

- This musical tome contains enchanted sheet music that, when played, can invoke the magic of the Feywild's seasons.

1. "Feywild Fables: Lessons in Wonderland"

- A collection of moral tales disguised as whimsical stories, filled with lessons learned from encounters with Feywild creatures.

1. "Lord of the Fairy Rings"

- Discover the legends and quests that beckon adventurers deeper into the heart of the Feywild, where secrets and treasures await.

Cookbooks

1. "Culinary Conjurations: Recipes from the Feywild"

- This cookbook reveals recipes that utilize magical ingredients from the Feywild, resulting in dishes that are as enchanting as they are delicious.

1. "Fey Delights and Fairy Feasts"

- Explore the culinary traditions of the fey creatures, with recipes for ethereal dishes like shimmering nectar soup and ambrosia-filled pastries.

1. "Cooking with Pixie Dust: A Dash of Magic in Every Bite"

- Learn how to infuse ordinary recipes with a touch of pixie dust to create extraordinary, levitating, and shimmering dishes.

1. "Feasts of the Seasons: A Feywild Cookbook"

- This cookbook is divided into sections dedicated to the four seasons of the Feywild, with recipes that capture the unique flavors and ingredients of each.

1. "Mystical Mushrooms and Fey Fungi"

- Discover the diverse world of Feywild mushrooms and fungi, along with recipes that turn them into delectable dishes, from dream stews to enchanted salads.

1. "Baking with Blink Dogs: Pastries that Disappear"

- Unearth the secrets of baking with the help of blink dogs, creating pastries that seem to vanish right off the plate.

1. "Sylvan Sweets: Desserts from the Feywild Glades"

- Indulge in desserts inspired by the sweet wonders of the Feywild, including honeyed moonbeam tarts and petal-frosted cakes.
8. "Brewing with Boggles: Potions, Elixirs, and Fey Brews"
- Learn the art of potion-making and alchemy from the mischievous boggles, and create magical concoctions that can have unexpected effects. An extension on the boggle oil quest with Squirt the Oilcan.
9. "Feywild Fusion: Cross-Realm Cuisine"
- This cookbook combines flavors from the Material Plane with Feywild ingredients, resulting in fusion dishes that bridge the gap between realms. Have your players impress some fey with a meal from the best ingredients from both worlds.

1. "Eternal Banquets: Feasting for Eternity in the Feywild"

- Explore feasts that never end and dishes that perpetually replenish themselves, perfect for celebrations in the timeless Feywild.

Self-help

1. "Finding Your Inner Satyr: Embracing Wild Joy"
- This book guides readers on a journey to reconnect with their inner child and embrace the untamed joy that resides within, just like the mischievous satyrs of the Feywild. Some insight to Vansyl, the Satyr.

1. "Balance in the Feywild: Harmony Amid Chaos"

- Explore the secrets of maintaining equilibrium in a realm of ever-shifting whims, offering practical advice on achieving balance and serenity.

1. "Fey Fitness: Enchanted Workouts for a Radiant You"

- Discover exercise routines infused with Feywild magic that promise to enhance strength, agility, and overall well-being.

1. "Confidence from the Dryads: Empowering Your Inner Tree"

- Learn self-confidence and self-empowerment techniques inspired by the serene and steadfast dryads of the Feywild.

1. "Dreamwalking for Beginners: Navigating Your Subconscious"

- Delve into the art of dreamwalking, a practice common in the Feywild, and harness your dreams for self-discovery and growth.

1. "The Feywild Guide to Mindful Magick"

- Find enlightenment through the teachings of mindfulness and meditation, infused with the mystical energies of the Feywild.

1. "From Lost to Found: Navigating the Labyrinth of Self"

- Drawing inspiration from the winding Feywild labyrinths, this book offers guidance on self-discovery and finding one's true path.

1. "The Art of Enchantment: Crafting Your Ideal Reality"

- Explore the principles of Feywild-style enchantment to manifest your desires and create a more magical life.

1. "The Feywild Philosopher's Path to Wisdom"

- Gain insight into life's deepest questions through the philosophical wisdom of Feywild scholars and sages.

1. "Embracing the Unpredictable: Thriving in Everchanging Realms"

- Learn to embrace change and uncertainty with the help of Feywild philosophies and adaptability techniques.

Nonfiction

1. "The Ecology of the Feywild: A Naturalist's Journal"
- This comprehensive guide documents the diverse flora and fauna of the Feywild, offering insights into their behaviors and unique adaptations.

1. "Realms Beyond the Veil: A Feywild Travelogue"

- Join an intrepid explorer's firsthand account of traversing the border between realms and encountering the mysteries of the Feywild.
3. "The Feywild Star Chart: Navigating Celestial Realms"
- Learn about the Feywild's unique constellations, moon cycles, and celestial phenomena, as observed by Feywild astronomers. Connect to the Astronomer’s Throne in Yon. Information about Mazikoth.
4. "Feywild Politics and Power Structures"
- Gain an understanding of the complex political landscape of the Feywild, from the courts of archfey to the struggles for influence among its denizens. This one gave my players some information about how the unseelie hags always seem to want to one-up their sisters.

1. "Feywild History Unveiled: Chronicles of an Eternal Realm"

- Explore the ancient history and legends of the Feywild, shedding light on the origins of its magical beings and realms.

1. "Faerie Courts: An In-Depth Analysis"

- This scholarly work dissects the intricate hierarchies, alliances, and rivalries within the Feywild's various courts, from Seelie to Unseelie.
7. "Astral Phenomena and Planar Conjunctions in the Feywild"
- Discover how the Feywild's unique position in the multiverse leads to extraordinary astral events and planar alignments. Connect to the Astronomer’s Throne in Yon. Information about Mazikoth.

1. "Feywild Geography: Realms, Portals, and Ley Lines"

- A detailed atlas of the Feywild, providing maps of its realms, the locations of powerful portals, and the mystical ley lines that crisscross its landscape.

1. "Feywild Ethnography: An Anthropologist's Study"

- This book delves into the cultures and societies of Feywild creatures, offering insights into their customs, traditions, and way of life.
10. "The Enigma of the Feywild: A Scholar's Quest for Understanding"
- Join a passionate scholar on a quest for knowledge as they uncover the mysteries and enigmas of the Feywild, from its elusive inhabitants to its hidden secrets.

Horror

1. "Whispers of the Lost Souls: Hauntings in the Feywild"

- This chilling collection of stories recounts encounters with vengeful spirits and lingering echoes of tragedy in the Feywild.
2. "The Feywild's Dark Secret: Unveiling the Shadowfell Connection"
- Explore the unsettling ties between the Feywild and the Shadowfell, where the borderlands blur and nightmarish creatures lurk. I used this one a lot, my campaign is having some Shadowfel bleed into the game, and I am hoping to transition it into a closure of the Curse of Strahd campaign that died off two years ago.

1. "Cursed Fey Artifacts: Portals to Madness"

- Delve into the malevolent artifacts of the Feywild, objects that can drive even the bravest adventurers to the brink of insanity.

1. "Feywild Folk Horror: Tales of Isolated Hamlets"

- Discover tales of isolated Feywild hamlets where strange rituals, eerie traditions, and unnatural horrors await those who venture too close.

1. "The Enchanted Labyrinth: Where No One Returns"

- Read about the terrifying labyrinthine realms of the Feywild, where travelers become hopelessly lost and face unimaginable horrors.
6. "Eyes in the Shadows: Feywild Stalkers and Malevolent Beings"
- Uncover the lore surrounding predatory creatures and shadowy entities that lurk in the dark corners of the Feywild. My players learned all about Oni in this one, and were on edge about why I would teach them about them. The players didn’t know what Oni were, so this helped a lot when the big reveal came in Loomlurch.

1. "The Silent Forest: Where Sounds Go to Die"

- Learn about the haunted, soundless woods of the Feywild, where an oppressive silence can drive intruders to madness.

1. "Beneath the Feywild: Tunnels to the Abyss"

- Explore the nightmarish subterranean depths of the Feywild, where abyssal horrors threaten to break through into the realm.
9. "Feywild Night Terrors: Dreams Turned Nightmares"
- Discover accounts of dreams that take a sinister turn in the Feywild, where dreamscapes become waking nightmares. My players learned all about Oni in this one, and were on edge about why I would teach them about them. The players didn’t know what Oni were, so this helped a lot when the big reveal came in Loomlurch.

1. "The Feywild Curse: When Beauty Hides Malevolence"

- Unmask the dark side of Feywild glamour and unearth the gruesome consequences of bargains made with beguiling fey beings.

Children's Books

1. "The Adventures of Alfie the Elfling"
- Follow the enchanting escapades of Elara, a young elfling, as she explores the wonders of the Feywild, meeting quirky creatures and solving magical mysteries. From the Inn at the End of the Road expansion, I have a child elf who was captured by Granny Nightshade. This book was written for early readers. This is the whole book: “Alfie loves Granny. Alfie loves to make toys. Alfie loves to sew. Alfie loves to play. Alfie loves her friends. Alfie loves Granny.” This one was pretty creepy when my players read it.

1. "The Tale of the Moonlit Fox: A Feywild Fable"

- This heartwarming story teaches valuable life lessons through the friendship between a mischievous fox and a kind-hearted sprite in the Feywild.

1. "The Magical Menagerie: Creatures of the Feywild"

- A beautifully illustrated book that introduces young readers to the charming and fantastical creatures that call the Feywild home.
4. "Fey Tea Party: A Whimsical Wonderland Adventure"
- Join a group of young adventurers on their journey to a whimsical tea party in the heart of the Feywild, filled with talking animals and enchanted treats. Maybe this is related to the tea party happening with the animals in front of the palace.

1. "The Great Feywild Bake-Off"

- A delightful story where young bakers compete in a magical cooking contest, featuring fey ingredients and wacky surprises.

1. "Rainbow Wings: A Pixie's First Flight"

- Follow the enchanting tale of a young pixie's quest to earn her rainbow wings and explore the skies of the Feywild.

1. "The Little Faun's Garden: A Tale of Growth and Friendship"

- Discover the heartwarming story of a young faun who tends to a magical garden and learns the value of patience, nurturing, and friendship.

1. "Whiskerwings: The Adventures of Tiny Mouse Knights"

- Join a group of brave mouse knights on their miniature quests and battles in the Feywild's tiny but daring world.
9. "Starlight Dreams: Bedtime Stories from the Feywild"
- I played a YouTube video of the actual book, Goodnight Moon, for my players. They were convinced that it was riddled with clues to solve Yarnspinner’s Riddle (Fablerise, Thither expansion).
10. "Feywild ABCs: Learning the Alphabet with Magical Creatures"
- A fun and educational book that teaches children the alphabet while introducing them to the charming creatures of the Feywild. My group has a character who is learning how to read. A - Atomie, B - Blink Dog, C - Cat Sith, D - Dryad, E - Eladrin, F - Faerie Dragon, G - Grig, H - Huldra, I - Invisible Stalker, J - Jackalope, K - Korred, L - Leprechaun, M - Myconids, N - Nymph, O - Owlbear ,P - Pixie, Q - Quickling, R - Redcap, S - Satyr, T - Treant, U - Unicorn, V - Vegepygmy, W - Will-o'-Wisp, X - Xorn, Y - Yeti, Z - Zaratan

Biographies

1. "The Tale of Titania: Queen of the Seelie Court"

- A comprehensive biography of Titania, the enigmatic and regal queen of the Seelie Court, revealing her life, accomplishments, and challenges.

1. "Archfey Chronicles: The Mysterious Life of Lord Oberon"

- Explore the intriguing life of Lord Oberon, a powerful archfey known for his unpredictable nature and deep connection to the Feywild.

1. "Beneath the Mask: The Secrets of Puck"

- Delve into the enigmatic life of Puck, the notorious trickster and shape-shifter of the Feywild, whose true nature remains a mystery.
4. "Feywild Matriarchs: The Legacy of ____________"
- Learn about the life and legacy of Lady Nightshade, Lady Moongrave, Lady Blightstraw. In my campaign, mine was Lady Nightshade, and I gave a little background about her love for children and fears of the dangers of society, such as drugs and guns.

1. "Bardic Chronicles: The Extraordinary Life of Melody Moonshadow"

- Follow the musical journey of Melody Moonshadow, a renowned fey bard whose melodies have enchanted the hearts of many throughout the ages.

1. "Sorcery and Stardust: The Feywild Adventures of Arcanis Starcaster"

- Discover the remarkable life of Arcanis Starcaster, a powerful fey sorcerer whose magic defied the boundaries of the natural world.

1. "The Unseelie Enigma: Shadows of Lord Malachite"

- Uncover the mysterious and shadowy life of Lord Malachite, a formidable figure in the Unseelie Court with a web of intrigue surrounding him.
8. "Eternal Guardian: The Tale of Sir Talavar"
- Explore the valiant life of Sir Talavar, a gallant knight sworn to protect the Feywild's most sacred places and inhabitants.

1. "Feywild Diplomacy: The Artistry of Ambassador Elowen"

- Follow the diplomatic career of Ambassador Eltowen, a skilled negotiator who forged alliances between fey courts and other realms.
10. "From Mortal to Fey: The Transformation of Zyblina" -Minerva Clementine
- This biography recounts the extraordinary journey of a mortal who became a powerful archfey, showcasing the trials and triumphs of her transformation.
This story, written by the missing mother of a PC, gives some information about Zybilna’s transformation from the perspective of an adventurer.

Romance

1. "Enchanted Hearts: A Feywild Love Affair"
- Follow the passionate romance between a young elven bard and a mysterious fey creature as they navigate the challenges of love in the Feywild.

1. "Star-Crossed Fates: A Tale of Seelie and Unseelie Love"

- Explore the forbidden love between a Seelie Court noble and an Unseelie Court outcast, as they defy societal expectations for the sake of their hearts.

1. "Moonlit Whispers: Love Letters Across the Feywild"

- A collection of love letters exchanged between two lovers who are separated by the realms of the Feywild, each letter filled with longing and devotion.

1. "Beneath the Twilight Trees: A Romantic Encounter"

- Experience the blossoming romance between two adventurers who meet beneath the captivating twilight trees of the Feywild, igniting a deep and magical connection.

1. "Eternal Love's Embrace: A Feywild Reunion"

- A tale of lost love and second chances as two souls separated by time and circumstance are reunited in the enchanting heart of the Feywild.

1. "Whispers of the Heart: A Feywild Secret Admirer"

- Join the protagonist in uncovering the identity of a mysterious secret admirer who leaves enchanting gifts and messages in the moonlit glades.

1. "Feywild Serenade: A Bard's Ode to Romance"

- This novel tells the story of a talented bard who serenades their beloved through music and poetry, capturing the essence of love in every note.

1. "Love's Enchantment: A Feywild Potion Maker's Tale"

- Follow the heartwarming journey of a potion maker who uses her magical brews to inspire love and passion among the fey creatures of the realm.
9. "The Eternal Dance: Love and Courtship in the Feywild"
- Explore the courtship rituals and romantic traditions of the Feywild's various courts, from Seelie to Unseelie, and the complexities of love in their world. Maybe have some information about love in the feywild, to normalize the love triangle of the Cyclops, the Queen Bee, and Amidor the Dandelion

1. "Feywild Wedding Bells: A Magical Matrimony"

- Join in the enchanting celebrations of a Feywild wedding, where love and magic intertwine to create a day of unforgettable romance.

Mystery

1. "The Enchanted Heist: A Feywild Caper"

- Follow a group of clever investigators as they unravel the mystery behind a daring theft of a priceless fey artifact, leading them through a web of magical clues.

1. "Moonlit Murmurs: Whispers of a Feywild Crime"

- Join a skilled detective on a journey to solve a perplexing murder that occurred under the eerie glow of the Feywild's moon, with suspects ranging from pixies to archfey.

1. "The Lost Labyrinth: A Feywild Puzzle"

- Enter a labyrinthine realm hidden within the Feywild and accompany adventurers as they decipher cryptic riddles and unravel the labyrinth's mysteries.
4. "The Humblest of Tales: A Boring Story with Not Much To Tell. "
- Secret Entrance: Try to keep this one hidden for a while. I put it in the last section that they investigated.

1. "Feywild Enigma: The Vanishing Village"

- Delve into the perplexing disappearance of an entire Feywild village, where adventurers must uncover the secrets of an ancient curse to solve the mystery.

1. "The Ephemeral Echo: A Feywild Ghost Story"

- Follow a paranormal investigator as they uncover the haunting history of a Feywild mansion and attempt to lay restless spirits to rest.

1. "Mystic Masquerade: Unmasking Feywild Deceit"

- Attend a grand masquerade ball in the Feywild where intrigue and deception run rampant, and join in the investigation to reveal hidden motives and identities.

1. "The Feywild Codex: Secrets of Lost Lore"

- A tale of scholars and adventurers piecing together a fragmented Feywild codex that holds the key to unlocking a forgotten secret of immense power.

1. "The Veil of Illusions: A Feywild Conspiracy"

- Unravel a complex web of political intrigue and deceit among the fey courts, as a group of investigators seeks to expose a conspiracy that threatens the balance of the realm.

1. "Feywild Chronicles: The Case of the Perpetual Winter"

- Join a team of detectives as they endeavor to uncover the source of an unending winter that has gripped a portion of the Feywild, uncovering hidden motives and dark magic.

Sci Fi

1. "The Feywild Paradox: A Time-Traveling Adventure"

- Explore the intersection of magic and science as adventurers stumble upon a Feywild portal that leads to alternate dimensions and timelines.
2. "Clockwork Fey: Mechanical Wonders of the Feywild"
- Discover a hidden corner of the Feywild where fey beings have combined magic and clockwork technology to create fantastical contraptions. This one has information about some of the clockwork toys and soldiers of Granny Nightshade. Maybe there is some mention of Golmo the Architect in Yon.
3. "Astronomical Dreams: Feywild's Celestial Wonders"
- Unveil the Feywild's connection to other realms and space exploration, with tales of fey astronauts and cosmic adventures. Connect to the Astronomer’s Throne in Yon. Information about Mazikoth.

1. "Technomancy Unleashed: Feywild's Fusion of Magic and Machines"

- Explore a Feywild realm where powerful technomancers blend arcane spells with advanced machinery, creating a realm of futuristic enchantment.

1. "The Feywild Nexus: Portals to Otherworldly Realms"

- Investigate the mysterious appearance of interdimensional rifts in the Feywild, leading to encounters with alien beings and advanced technologies.

1. "Clockwork Conspiracies: A Feywild Sci-Fi Mystery"

- Follow a group of investigators as they uncover a nefarious plot involving clockwork automatons and secret societies hidden deep within the Feywild.

1. "Feywild Quantum Mechanics: Beyond the Veil of Reality"

- Dive into the quantum mysteries of the Feywild, where adventurers grapple with paradoxes, alternate dimensions, and the true nature of existence.

1. "Alien Alchemy: Feywild's Encounter with Extraterrestrial Life"

- Chronicle the Feywild's astonishing discovery of life from beyond the stars, as fey creatures encounter and interact with advanced alien civilizations.

1. "Cosmic Chronicles: Feywild's Exploration of the Multiverse"

- Join a group of adventurers who embark on daring journeys through Feywild portals to explore distant galaxies, encountering strange new worlds and species.

1. "Feywild Cyberspace: A Digital Adventure"

- Step into a digital realm within the Feywild, where adventurers must navigate virtual landscapes, solve cybernetic puzzles, and thwart digital threats.