Hays county animal control phone number

english is not my first language so excuse my grammatical errors
so to start with i have social anxiety ever since i started noticing girls(yes only around girls my age group not around men. i turn into extrovert around people are older and kids also people i know from childhood) im 21 now decided to go to college then go abroad to complete masters and settle there (i live in india) i didn't not to go to college after graduating high school when i was 17 cause of bullying even tho im 5"11"(tall for indian man cause average here is 5.6 and i never encountered anyone taller than me) my mom wanted me to go to college and was fully gonna fund me(i live with her she has a terrible disease dont know i should tell it but she is always weak and sick) but i said no.besides i got a small online work at home job right after high school with decent pay these past 4 years were okayish i did whatever i want bought my fav consoles,games,built a pc cause i dont have to pay for anything my mom earns a lot she does all the paying and she still treats me like a kid which really bothers me whenever i ask her to take me dentist for bracers that i will pay it with my own money she says something like "nah its alright you look great my intertsomeworkername's son has worst teeth i have ever seen its normal it will cover up when you get into your 30s"(it was 20s when im a teenager) and i cant deal with anxiety with going outside alone to a hospital getting appointment and explaining doctor about my teeth so stopped asking her carried on doing what i do.but these past 2-3 months i keep feeling really alone and miserable like something is missing in my life(it started with a dream i had early morning was so good felt very real)games doesn't feel entertaining anymore.
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reality check:
i ran into my classmate 22M last month in who is about to graduate college he was never my friend just a casual at times made fun of me and played along when someone bullied but i can tell he matured and moved on from high school phase we were greeting each other he was with his 3 years relationship girlfriend she was complaining they have gotten to city at 5:30 am been waiting for her license and that she is hungry for breakfast so i took them to a coffee shop nearby we were having breakfast he paid for it we are catching up about our lives that made me realize how much of idiot i am laid back in outside world stuff, he was talking about all this taxes, political stance,government plans,laws etc i was agreeing with as i no idea most of it that he noticed it and changed the topic and started treating like a kid(not in a insulting way) explaining everything in more detailed way started asking questions about games asked me if im still playing Skyrim and it was a great game i felt so embarrassed said no(but i do) he said something like "dude are you like 7ft or something how many you been with" he said while laughing he is 5.7 i didn't pluck up the courage tell him i haven't even kissed a girl yet so i said 3 girls,his girlfriend was into this and started asking details about breakups and meetups and kept laughing at scenarios im saying about these imaginary girlfriends. my friend smile disappeared kept awkwardly smirking not because i was flirting with his girlfriend or anything he picked it right off the bat i making these up she kept pressing me i panicked said i had my first girlfriend in 10th grade but i studied till 12th with him i never talked with girl in my class ever he knows it.while leaving he never confronted me about anything about lying maybe felt bad about me then started telling how he approached his girlfriend and made moves in the most detailed way possible almost like telling me how to get a girlfriend he asked for my Instagram(guess what i don't have one cause people use Instagram post pictures of themselves and i dont rate myself as good looking person)and said we should hangout sometime he took my number then we said goodbye went our ways.
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my childhood
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ever since this conversation i felt like the biggest loser of all time. i have a hard time eating,sleeping,working and my depression got worse . i had traumatic cheating parents childhood involving AP's sidechick(yes not his wife and he lied to my mom being single) beating the living hell out of my mom and stomping her face on the ground infront of 9 year old me and in laws allowing and encouraging giving ap wife full support against my mom for cheating on my sick dad, my grandma has big castle type house all her children live together they kicked us out of house after my dad died my mom got my dad's job according Indian rules thought everything was going great until she contracted HIV we still have no idea how it happened as she only had affair with 1 guy my mom keeps telling someone planned against her could be in laws or AP's wife and the're totally capable of doing it.i know what you people might be thinking my mom but she is not that type of person she is the most caring and generous person i ever known goes out help homeless people,animals. even though i completely agree cheating is wrong any situation this is only time i can justify as my dad is completely selfish passive aggressive person beating my mom is common thing for him i used see it as kid sometimes he used yell most vulger dirtiest insults at her loudly that everyone around us can hear it(we lived separately when my dad was healthier) my mother told me he cheated on her multiple times(could be true but i didnt believe as i was not born yet i only believe what i see)she also told me beat her infront of my uncle(her brother)when she said got a job and going to do it even after they are married( i asked my uncle and few people around they told me its true) she put with this for 7 years before he got sick running away is not an options as we live in india and she is jobless and wives leave husbands are shamed.she did all these sacrifices and put up with him cause she loved him when he got both his kidneys failed she took real care him he cant even walk without holding someone and became deaf 1 year after the condition 2nd year they took something out his body idk what and placed a machine he cant pee they used do something called dialysis to remove waste from his body so their sexual relationship is dead so she cheated on him (which is still wrong )leaving him would worsen him all alone no one to take care.when he found he got pissed called my uncle(his brother) he came insulted my mom took us and dad home to grandma grandparents and all in laws started making me and my sister hate my mom telling us insult her and we did when she use to call i was pissed at that time watching someone else in my dad's position.three days we realized all in laws taking care of their children(cousins) no one actually making breakfast lunch or anything for us everyone kept ignoring our needs so i called mom so she sent her brother we went back to her. my dad needs dialysis his brothers kept delaying it saying they are busy its been weeks so he called mom she came picked him up took him to hospital it takes like entire day he died few years later. we moved in with grandma where she tortured daily verbally and used like maid but we dont have anywhere else stay then found out her ap had 1 wife and 1 affair his wife left him. mom distanced herself from him my mom is 4 ft ap's affair beat her so many times cause my uncles and aunts kept calling her they hated her so much idk why. we moved out she got aids i have panic attack when someone makes an aids joke. as kid i dont know what it is or why my mom kept crying holding the reports or why she distanced herself from us and kept her seperate plates glasses has her own seperate bathroom stopped us from kissing her i thought its just a random sickness then searched about it google back in 2019 it said they only live between 9-15 years and its already been 13 years she is getting skinner everyday her blood count dropped to 4 i been having nightmares recently about her i wake up cant sleep anymore and start getting emotional start praying all this things fucked my mind up when someone even says the word cheating or aids my heart starts beating and i have panic attack
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fixing myself
i did my best ignoring it went with other hobbies like playing games and lot of daydreaming fantasy stuff like me present in lord of rings being Aragorn and it worked infact daydreaming is my favorite thing i lock my room walk around thinking about these cool stuff it makes so happy takes me into a place where everything happens according to my favor i control everything.but after conversation with my friend i wanted fix my life bought a motorcycle started going out for groceries got my bracers(went with mom tho) started going to gym(its been 1month by tomorrow) nervous at start thought people would stare at me but no one did there were more skinny and shorter guys than me applied to college starting next month. want to be in a relationship but it comes with cheating(not all don't get triggered but could be the one i gotten myself into)so i went reddit to see how people do post infidelity to prepare myself mentally if i ever get cheated and oh boy this is the biggest mistake of my life the things i 've read till now i always thought some personality traits makes someone loyal but everything is a lie and the way people got fucked over even after years after marriage and the stories i read im really empathic to the people got cheated on i feel like it happened to me and get emotional idk what to do im depressed and overthinking too much about something that never happened to me that i decided im done with this shit should just face the very own thing i fear and talk to actual girls rather than reading online about them
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to the point
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im going to college this is where i most likely find any relationship since im working on myself i feel i have a chance if im confident.i have been practising interactions with strangers getting motorcycle really helped as everyone kept asking for a ride picked like 4 people in the past week(noticed they all start conversation and keep talking) for them it might be free ride and i lose petrol but interactions helped .so to the point like 2 hours ago 10pm i went out buy my energy drink and some medicines for mom's headache saw this women lives in the same apartment started buying medicines i talked with her like 3 times i call her aunty. my mom is not social either she talked with her like 4 times this women has parlor few weeks ago in elevator she asked my mom is she wants her hair done she agreed gave appointment next day(sunday).next day she came but my mom didnt go she said she will come later but she never did or talked to her after.i had feeling she is pissed at my mom thought it would make it worse and make me look like a jerk if i let her walk at 10pm while there are so many drunks around when im actually going to the same place i thought it wouldn't hurt give her ride home asked her if she is going home she said yes i told her i could give her ride she said no need there is my husband. when i turn around there is her husband on motorcycle with kids he gave me an angry look asked her who is it then she said boy from 3rd floor i came back home did i do anything wrong in here i am making up all these scenarios that he will confront me tomorrow. i told my mom she got pissed she is angry recently about me giving lifts random people wasting fuel.dont help anyone unless they ask. she said i didnt do anything wrong she told this women's husband is controlling and they are in toxic relationship they always fight(there's always screams and fights in our apartment i dont know who is who even tho i live here) and he is really suspicious of her i should apologize if he confronts.or forgot it like never happened.given everything im going through this is the last thing i need

Another update for Roam Studio is live in your Roam Depot, bringing a lot of more significant and minor enhancements to your favorite tool for thoughts.

• Additional options to customize page links, external links, reference links, and block links now include the lightness of the color you want.
• New navigation for collapsing and expanding blocks on mobile.
• New buttons for embedded tweets.
• Dynamic PDF Size, where the width adjusts to the available space.
• Additional Roam elements like the search block or the slider are now themed.
• Various fixes for minor issues.

If you haven't heard of Roam Studio, it is a complete theming solution for Roam Research.

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• Completely themed and customizable Roam Research experience, including dialogs, settings, and help
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In the beginning, u/SpacePaladin15 created the Nature of Predators. The Nature of Predators was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the screen; and the Spirit of Spacepaladin15 was moving over the face of the paragraphs. And Spacepaladin15 said, "Let there be carnivores"; and there were carnivores. And Spacepaladin15 saw that the carnivores were good; and Spacepaladin15 separated the carnivores from the herbivores. Spacepaladin called the carnivores Predators, and the herbivores he called Prey. And there were packs and there were herds, one chapter.
CW: Literally Space Hitler + xeno slavery
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Memory transcription subject: Führer Erik Von Koch of the Menschenreich
Date [standardized human time]: May 6, 2142
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I opened my eyes as the definitive clacking of heels grew ever closer to the threshold of my dressing room. Looking straight ahead, I silently observed the untertier-servants in the mirror while they prepared me for the long day ahead of me. The declawed gojid filing my right hand dedicated itself to its work, most likely to intentionally avoid eye contact. To my left, a violet-colored krakotl with a liberally clipped beak brushed the tangles out of my long golden hair while shivering slightly upon noticing my gaze in the reflection. Below me crouched in front of my seat underneath the table was my servant-pet, Jeko, shining my boots. The young little venlil noticed me looking down at him and began beaming with obvious enjoyment, his tail wagging and ears twitching adorably. Unlike the others, this animal did not fear me, for I had been raising him since he was just a little mewling pup.
"Am I doing a good job, master? Are your boots shiny enough?" he asked with an innocent head tilt.
Looking down at my boots, I could see a glint in the glossy surface, even whilst concealed by the poor lighting. I couldn't help but respond with a slight smile and reach down with my free hand to stroke his creamy fur. he pushed his head back against the touch with his bestial eyes closed.
"You've done such a great job, my little lamb-chop! You're already becoming such a good little helper, aren't you?"
Reko merely giggled, as the other servants continued their work with what seemed to be a newfound sense of morbid awkwardness. It was obvious that the other untertiere found the concept of pets to be quite disturbing. Why this is, exactly, very few knew the truth. Some like to theorize it stems from some form of contempt for the beasts who willingly fawn to their superiors, resulting in some crude sense of pride being wounded in the process of watching one of their own gleefully lower themself to such a level. But I personally think that gives them a bit too much credit and pertain to a different explanation; that it is a sense of envy rather than contempt that jars them so. Perhaps they look upon those blissfully ignorant eyes and wish they too could experience such shameless joy. Or perhaps they simply notice the obvious preferential treatment given to them by their masters and feel envious. Either way, I've always found it quite amusing, which is why I had begun letting Jeko chip in during my morning routine.
"My Führer, you've been personally requested at your office in the Volkshalle with due haste... It's the hotline," my secretary informed me at the door.
I looked up at the short-haired woman with a momentary surprise. "Already? But I haven't even had breakfast yet. Shit... Alright, alright... I'll be out in a second... Wrap it up, you animals!"
I should've expected this much. After what I had.. ahem, failed to notice what Jägermeister Wilson just did in this latest campaign on the spur-distal front, I knew it was only a matter of time before I had Chief President Calamari Killjoy crawling up my ass. swivelling my chair around I promptly stood up, taking one last peak in the mirror to adjust my uniform and inspect the work of my servants. Seeing that it was adequate enough for the rushed job, I shooed the creatures away to their other tasks while bounding towards the hall. Reaching the end of my living quarters, two guards on the other side of the double doors greeted me in salute as I pushed the doors open. Continuing past them, I marched through the dark cryptoporticus lined with even more saluting guards until the hallway opened up into the ever-impressive dome of the Volkshalle, a sight that never grew old. I couldn't help but stop and stare at and admire the massive hall yet again for a few seconds of my valuable time before I continued on my way. A flight of beautifully detailed marbled stairs and a couple more turns later and I found myself pushing past the guards of the Führer's office before they could even properly salute me. Quickly closing the door behind me and locking it shut, I scanned the perimeter of the office, and noticing I was entirely alone and there was nothing out of place, I took a deep breath and calmly walked over to the holo screen waiting for me at the end of the massive table. Sitting myself down at the head of the table, the iconic crimson insignia of the Menschenreich and two golden statues of the great eagle clutching its talons upon the globe stood gloriously behind my visage. Steeling myself, I let out a sigh and pushed the "accept" button on the video chat. The screen lit up and momentarily flashed with white before a fuzzy image of an all too familiar hideous blue beast buffered and cleared up.
"Von Koch? Von Koch? There you are!" Gurgled out the oversized amphibian-mollusk thing. Her bulbous protruding eyes squinted with irritation and her generous width was hugged by crossed tentacles. "Have you any idea how long I've been waiting for you to stalk your way out of your lair!?"
Instead of yelling back, I politely bore my teeth at her, being sure to show off my slightly larger than average canines. "And a good morning to you too, Miss Universe. Or is it evening on your hemisphere of Aafa? Anyway, long time no see! Tell me, how have things been faring on the.. fairer side of space?"
Chief Lellaete scoffed at my nonchalant demeanor and begin rapidly flicking through her screen with a tendril. "You tell me."
Eventually, video footage of the glorious fall of the dossur homeworld, the triumphant victory of mankind over the foul krakotl-led defense fleet that tried to vainly defend it, and finally live feed of the beginning stages of the glassing of the planet all appeared before me.
"What's the problem? Just looks like business as usual to me..." I smirked.
Gritting her teeth, her blue face seemed to take a hue of purple, which was both impressive and horrifying as I never realized kolshians could do that. "The problem is that you've overextended by tens of lightyears more than we agreed to! You said this campaign would just be a 'little expansion of necessity.' This does not look very 'little' to me!"
"Oh come on, thirty light-years can't be that big. Not for you guys, at least. Our territory is still nowhere near a single core world. I think you're blowing this a bit out of proportion. What value did the dossur ever offer to the Federation, anyways?"
"One of your hunter misers or whatever the hell you call them just bombed four more homeworlds into shambles within the last eight months! You predators are out of line! This wasn't part of the agreement! Back off now or you will face the wrath of Aafa in full strength!"
Wincing and sucking in air between my teeth, I held out my arms and presented my palms in a surrendering manner. "Alright, alright... Listen, you know how human nature is. We sometimes get a bit ahead of ourselves. Moreover, keeping up morale is very important for us, and out of all my Jägermeisters, Wilson knows this best. That's just how he is. Always going for the moral victory and whatnot..."
I trailed off as I noticed Lellaete's face was somehow an even more violet shade of purple than it was before. Seeking to defuse the situation before she blew her gasket, I continued just before she could open her wide mouth.
"That being said, I realize he has been perhaps a bit.. too zealous in his duties. So all you have to do is send an extermination fleet or two to the other side of the front and I'll have the perfect reason to pull him off and tell him to defend. Now isn't that awfully convenient for the little rodents? Then, we can allll take a deep breath and settle down for some more casual cattle raiding and predator exterminations for the next few years with our campaign declared a partial success and your extermination fleets celebrating another sobering pyrrhic victory to put the fear of predators into them. How does that sound to you, Chief?"
The kolshian bowed her head and squinted her eyes at me in tense silence before straightening back up with a sudden calm that was a bit unnerving even to me. "Very well. But we will also be taking back the Sethmokin homeworld."
dammit, that was the one I wanted to keep!
The unusually low gravity of the Sethmokin homeworld Ithilus combined with its mild temperature and mineral-rich crust made it an ideal place for a space elevator supported industrial megacenter. The kolshians clearly knew this too, as evidenced by Chief Lellaete singling it out and prying it from my hands with no hint of subtly whatsoever. Unfortunately, they seem to be slowly catching on to my gradual ramping up of industry. Not wanting to push my luck any further, I had no choice but to concede with what I had already gotten, lest the "predator-prey agreement" falls apart.
"Excellent!" I beamed at the frowning slimy herbivore as the pads of my digits pressed together. "I'm glad we could settle this issue peacefully."
"Stay in line, Von Koch. We never had to use the hotline with your predecessors nearly as much as with you. We can't have things looking too dire, or too relaxed. The Federation needs a predator, just as you need prey."
"Yes, yes, I understand, the Ewigkeitskrieg must continue forever and all that..."
"Hmph! Good to know even a beast as unruly as yourself can see reason."
I bite my tongue, instead shutting my eyes and spotting a closed-mouth smile in an exaggeratedly polite manner before reaching over to terminate the call. If I had to spend one more moment speaking to this detestable thing I might just pop a cyanide pill into my mouth. At the very least, nothing too problematic or convoluted happened to complicate future plans.
"Well, if that will be all then, don't hesitate to call again, Chief! After all, I know how you herd animals can get rather needy after all soo.." I chirped at my greatest adversary and accomplice.
"Wait. There is one more thing I need to tell you."
My finger which hovered over the "end" button strained and slowly curled into a white-knuckled fist.
Now what could it possibly be, my ectolan friend?" I answered, still smiling with my clenched fist above the holo pad surface.
"You humans are no longer alone. There's another predator race in the galaxy."
The awkward smile slowly dissipated from my face and my eyes opened up to gaze at the kolshian. I had to be sure I was hearing things right.
"What?"
"You heard me. We believe there is now a second predator race in the galaxy. One that is even more carnivorous than you, in fact, and they have just developed faster-than-light travel."
"How?" Was all I could croak out of my slacked jaw.
"My, such a prey-like look on your face!" snickered Chief Lellaete. "But if you must know, it was... Well, we are equally shocked, really. The farsul discovered them and spent decades observing them, as they usually do with primitives. They told us they destroyed themselves in their world's fourth world war after developing the atomic bomb about three hundred years ago. But it seems they either somehow survived nuclear armageddon or the armageddon part never happened in the first place. And before you ask, yes, that is all the Farsul States will tell us. A simple, careless error on their part for failing to confirm their extinction..."
I sat there completely stunned into silence.
Is it really true? After all these years of being alone, there is finally a second race of predators? Of people? Of übertiere?
The kolshian took my silence as an invitation to continue elaborating. "They call themselves the arxur, and their existence has already begun muddying up the waters."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"What I mean is that they have only been spacefaring for two months, and already they have allied with the thafki and convinced them to seemingly betray the Federation.
"Th-they allied with the prey!?"
"It's disgusting, I know, but it seems to be the truth. Our kinds are meant to be in eternal opposition. No one was around to give them the memo, apparently." Lellaete answered monotonously.
Bringing a palm to my temple and resting the elbow on the armrest, my mind began racing before a far more pressing matter revealed itself. "And why are you telling me all this, exactly?" My eyes narrowed.
"Because I don't trust a single cube in your icebox, Von Koch. I'm telling you right now so that when your kind inevitably encounters them, you can't pull anything funny and try to feign ignorance, as you already seem to be in the habit of doing. All I'm asking is that you let the Federation handle this for now. We will get them to the right way of thinking after we get them under control. Then you can finally have your first official ally once you 'save' them from us. Or eat them. Or throw them into gas chambers. We don't really care at that point; you can do whatever you want with them. Congratulations to mankind for finally finding a species as corrupted and ghastly as yourself."
I simply stared at the kolshian unabated. "And what will happen if they do not come to see 'our way', exactly?"
The Federation leader leaned in, and a strange glint seemed to catch in her large, horizontally pupiled eyes that made me want to shutter. "I think you know very well the answer to that question, Führer."
I scoffed. "What an awfully predatory look on your face... Fine, I can see you already have the reins on the situation then, but the same goes for you as well; mess things up and it will ruin everything!"
The kolshian narrowed her eyes with conceit. "Heh. Perhaps we aren't so different from each other after all."
Terminating the call before I could rebuke that heinous conjecture, I finally let my arms slump down into my sides. This is why I despised the herbivores so much, and the kolshians seventy seven fold.
"Filthy untertier..."
Getting up from my chair, I slowly meandered over to the Wall of Führers, and starting from my own portrait, I gazed at each and every one, mostly lost in my own thoughts, until finally I rested my eyes directly upon the first and stopped.
Surely this isn't what he wanted the Reich to become.
Although it was true that I along with every other previous Führer after the Founder was a willing accomplice to the Ewigkeitskrieg between the Federation and the Menschenreich, deep down, it truly made me sick to my stomach working with those squid-frogs. Supposedly, the Founder despised the xenos and their intervention of Earth from the moment they made first contact, purely on principle, and this was rightfully so. For the sapient herbivore is nothing more than a husk, a mindless creature that can act only upon instinct. Their so-called 'higher intelligence' is nothing more than a mere slave to these impulses, and thus does the herbivore-folk seek to do nothing but destroy and defile the ecosystem that gave life to them by burning away any trace of predation or aggression in sight. Feeling safe at last from the natural order they so despise, they begin to scour their planets like a ravenous locust swarm. They proceed to breed profusely until their numbers swell into innumerable hordes and then, upon reaching and overshooting the carrying capacity of their planet, the herd moves on to new worlds, so that they might do the same there. Even beasts who wallow in the mud at the very least know how to live in harmony with nature and the universe at large, but the herbivore xeno is incapable of this. This is why they are less than animals. This is why they are the untertier. And out of all the hideously vile and contemptible untertiere which corrupt this galaxy like a foulest cancer, none are so hypocritical, deceitful, and subversive as the kolshian scum. Chillingly intelligent and calculating, they ofttimes liken themselves to true persons, perhaps to the point of deceiving even themselves. But truly, one needs only to look upon their 'works' to see that in the end, they too are nothing but slaves to the urges of the untertier. Chief Lellaete, she, no, it is but a puppet master of the lesser untertiere with it itself gleefully serving the master that is fear and cowardice.
But these new predators, if things are true as the kolshians say, are different. They may finally be the second known race of übertiere in the entire galaxy. And here are the ectolan scum, already conspiring against them. They have always been meddling in everything, long before they irrevocably ruined the Earth with their tampering, and if something is not done about it, they will continue to do so long after we are gone. That is why I want more for the Menschenreich than this eternal conspiracy. Why I want an end to the Ewigkeitskrieg. My predecessors were wise, and knowing that directly going against the will of the Federation was suicide, began the Ewigkeitskrieg with them. But sometime during this war without an end, they grew weak. Cowardly. Complacent. But I hunger for more! For what is the meaning behind a thousand-year Reich if nothing is ever accomplished in that millennium? How can mankind ever call itself the übertier if it does nothing but sit in eternal stagnation? No, the eternity we have is but a farce. But one day, this will change, for I will bring about the end of eternity, and in its wake, I shall construct a true eternity, one of prosperity, glory, and pride for all of humanity forever! And this advent of a second race of predators may yet prove an opportunity! This could be the stir in the pot I've been waiting for! The universe has presented me with a grand question concerning the kolshian-puppeted Federation, and I have the final solution!
Do you hear that, Chief Lellaete? I will continue to play your little "predator and prey" game for the time being... But soon, very soon, with the help of these "arxur", I shall finally bring about the Viecherdämmerung! And just as the Founding Führer once united the Earth and cleansed it of all the degenerate, savage, and subversive untermensch, so too will I cleanse the galaxy of the untertier, so that the glory of the Menschenreich shall spread to every star, shining like a beacon in the darkness of the void of space for ten thousand years!

The Cast:
Cheer the Boisterous, Tabaxi Monk: Cheer is a small Tabaxi with white fur and mismatched blue and green eyes. She is always seen in the company of her brother, Charles, and together, the two of them haunt the alleys outside the Al Walab Jeweler Guild, keeping other thieves away from their "territory."
Charles the Butcher, Tabaxi Rogue: Charles is a small Tabaxi with smoky black fur and mismatched blue and green eyes. He is always accompanied by his sister, Cheer, and together, the two of them haunt the alleys outside the Al Walab Jeweler Guild, keeping other thieves away from their "territory."
Calina St. Clair, Fire Genasi Wizard: Calina is the third child of the St. Clair merchants, an influential family of wealthy nobles in Al Walab. With her inheritance looking less and less likely with each passing year, she expanded her interests into arcane magic and cartography, hoping to find her own fortune in the world.
Honu Chorba, Tortle Ranger: Honu is a seasoned desert traveler who has spent much of his long life among the dunes. He joined the group to assist them in their journeys out of the belief that they would all get lost and die without him.
Reed Ha'saan, Human (Rashed) Artificer: Reed is a Rashed, nomads who wander the desert wastes. He's a tinker and a jeweler who is loosely affiliated with the Jeweler Guild of Al Walab, serving as a member in the (much looser and less prestigious) offshoot of the Guild among the Rashed. He's accompanied by a mechanical crab machine that he built.
Previous Session
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Story: Upon returning to Al Walab, the group found themselves stopped at the gates, as the guards claimed that their previous "exempt from all charges" writ from the Sultan was no longer valid. Fortunately, they were able to intimidate the guards into letting them pass anyways.
Once in the city proper, the group immediately headed to Nafay Sabat's home to speak with Fatima. Once there, they removed her corpse from Reed's bag of holding and handed it over to the undying sorceress, much to her delight. She rewarded them with a box full of high-potency healing potions, as well as a blackened bone dagger that instantly killed and drained the life from anyone it rendered unconscious. Charles quickly claimed the knife, and then he and Cheer also claimed the box that everything had come in.
Fatima caught them up on current events in the city: apparently, her former advisor, Zeera, had found her way into the city and had been trying to seize control of the Thieves' Guild, and the battles between the two factions had spilled out onto the streets. Under the guise of restoring order, the Sultan had moved to seize the property of "collaborators," a thinly-veiled attempt to consolidate his power among the noble houses.
To capitalize upon the discord and unrest in the city, Fatima intended to have the group - under the illusionary guise of the sultan's guards - attack three beloved temples, those of Commerce, Love, and Mercy. While this was happening, Fatima planned to attack the Sultan's advisors, killing his most competent one while framing the second-most, ensuring that the Sultan's only advisor would be an idiot. This, in her opinion, would further destabilize the city and help convince the people that it was time for a new regime.
The group complimented her on the plan, then, once they had left Nafay's home, began to discuss whether or not they were actually on board with attacking three different temples of seemingly friendly priests. The discussion went back and forth, with neither of the Tabaxi particularly caring about the long-term fallout given that they only had about ten years of their short lives left. Honu, staring down a few centuries, was more concerned. Eventually, they decided that the risks of upsetting Fatima were too great to back out at this point, and they decided to visit the marketplace to do some shopping and restock on supplies.
At the market, they discovered that Avani, the Tabaxi they had rescued from the desert many months earlier, had taken Calina's initial investment in his business and turned it into a thriving travel emporium. He had driven many of his competitors out of business and had been cutting most of his rations with catnip, which was really driving product among the city's Tabaxi.
The group swung by the Aydeewa Academy so that Calina could purchase some spell components, only to discover that it now had guards, which were put in place by its new headmistress, Jasmine Musad. They were only allowing current students, faculty, and alumni inside, so Calina headed in alone, with Charles sneaking in alongside her. She was able to obtain from the spell components, but learned that Jasmine Musad had tightened regulations considerably and was running things with severe punishments in place for those who defied her authority.
After getting the components she needed, the group went to Calina's home, where they found a letter waiting for her. It bore the traces of magic, so she gave it to Charles to open outside under the suspicion that it would explode... which it did, raking lightning bolts everywhere. He was fortunately able to avoid them all with his quick reflexes. The group assumed that the letter had been sent by Saleel Arif and once again vowed to make him pay.
Calina then settled in to scribe some new spells into her book while the others scouted out the three temples they would be attacking earlier. The temple of Ishbal, the God of Commerce, was well defended by hired guards and priests wearing armor made from metal coins, while the temples of Hartema, Goddess of Mercy, and Rehema, Goddess of Love, seemed like softer targets, with only a few armored guards at the former and none at the latter.
Finally, Cheer, Charles, and Honu paid a visit to the dive bar in the slums that had serves as a meeting place for the Thieves' Guild to check in on things, only to discover that the crowd seemed to be people they hadn't seen before, all of them shifty and giving suspicious looks at the two Tabaxi. They managed to avoid getting attacked thanks to Honu's large presence and made a hasty retreat.
On their way back to Calina's estate, the three of them were stopped by an old man calling himself Devdan, who wanted to hire them to help investigate the Halls of Aldalla, a long-abandoned arcane school in the western desert. The group was suspicious of him, believing that he could be Saleel Arif in disguise, and set up a meeting with him in three days at a nearby fountain.
They returned to Calina's home to meet up with the others, and Cheer and Charles (the latter of whom was still banned from Calina's estate) spent the night sleeping outside the gate in their newly-acquired box.
In the morning, they paid Fatima another visit to discover her in her original body once more, now evidently restored to life. With her dark skin, long black hair, and green eyes peeking out from behind her black silk mask, she certainly overwhelmed the room with her presence. She cast a spell that cloaked the group in an illusion of the sultan's guards and set them loose to attack the indicated temples while she turned her attention to the sultan's advisors.
At this point, the group decided to split up so that they could quickly cut through the "undefended" temples and then regroup to focus their efforts on the temple of commerce. Calina and Cheer attacked the Temple of Rehema, the love goddess, but were surprised to find their former companion, Rivaan, among their number. Their initial assault killed a few of the unclothed priests, but when one of the worshipers transformed into a large snake with rainbow-colored wings, the battle began to turn against them. Calina ended up caught in the serpent's coils, and with the priests healing more damage than they were dealing, Cheer fled in search of assistance, leaving Calina behind.
Meanwhile, at the temple of mercy, Charles, Reed, and Honu came up with a plan to use poison to render one of the two guards unconscious and blind a second. The plan worked well... at first, until it was revealed that the guards were paladins who were capable of removing poisons from their bodies by laying hands upon themselves. Worse yet, the high priest called out to his goddess, Hartema, and animated four of the statues within the temple, providing additional warriors. With numbers against them, the group retreated to seek help... and soon encountered Cheer, who was doing the same.
Since Calina had been taken prisoner, the group returned to the temple of love, where the priests had healed many of their wounds and clad themselves in clothes and armor. Still in their illusionary disguises, the group fought with the priests, eventually killing them despite the numerous healing spells the priests used to tend to their wounds. Rivaan moved between the group, viciously attacking anyone who threatened his friends with the sunsword and poisoned dagger he had recovered months earlier. Eventually, the priests were killed and Rivaan was knocked unconscious. The winged snake attempted to grab Rivaan and fly to safety, but the group killed him at range with surprising spite for someone who had once been their friend.
The second battle at the temple had not gone unnoticed, however, and as the group frantically searched the temple for Calina's things, a mob of angry townsfolk surged into the temple grounds and pressed against its main gates. Honu held the door shut as Calina's spellbook, wand, and other items were eventually discovered, and they fled through a back window as the crowd pelted them with rocks and stones.
With their resources pushed to the limit and many of them wounded, the group pulled back to Calina's estate to rest and tend to their wounds. Only one of the temples had been slaughtered as Fatima had requested, and the group was torn between their doubts that they could take out the other two temples and their fears about what Fatima wound do to them if they failed her.

"Great Days And Glorious Victory! My Name is Spifflemonk aaand welcome to my Letsplay! Today we will be celebrating the recent release of many games to the open market by Humans with a game that was recommended to me many times by my work colleague. Hats off to you Jerry! Today we will start with a game called: Factorio. Okay... Apparently it is a resource management and automation game with a simple graphics component. Let's check some of the reviews."
*Spifflemonk looks at some of the reviews for the game and grows disturbed and confused.*
"Erm.. hmm... Is this a human thing? These reviews are all positive but... all of them say the same thing. The last maybe two hundred reviews all say a different iteration of the same thing. Is this a joke or... am I getting into something bad here?"
*Spiffles screen displays a short scroll of the latest reviews. All of them say something along the lines of: THE FACTORY MUST GROW*
"Well, okay then. I know this game does have mods, I looked earlier to test my game settings and recording software. I will be ignoring all of that for now and focusing only on the 'vanilla' experience, is what the humans call it? I think... Okay well lets get started erm... New Game... Sandbox... oh... this looks complicated. Just go default settings and start."
*The game screen loads fast and the introduction sequence plays, starting with the sound of explosions and a bleep noise, explaining how to win the game. Victory is achieved by launching a rocket with either a satellite or the player in it.*
"So... from what I can tell here, the player, that's this little guy here, needs to build a factory to make rockets to get back into space after crash landing. Okay, how hard can that be?"
*The following hour of gameplay takes place with Spifflemonk learning the controls of the game, getting used to the graphics and doing some exploring. Eventually he actually gets to work, placing his first miner down, and putting his first stone smelter next to it. He spends a few minutes clearing boulders and trees in his crash site and slowly accumulates resources enough to add more miners, eventually setting up his first belt line and assembler after the first hour.*
"Right then! That's good uh... According to this I need to do research by making Science Packs? Okay so... I need to automate red science because hand crafting is.... very slow. Very very slow. Okay then uhh... Iron Gears and Copper plates? That's easy! I will just..."
*Another twenty minutes pass by, seemingly a bit too fast as he finishes hand crafting the first fifty Red Science. Depositing a few of them into a science lab and looking at what research is available.*
"Hmmm... Automation. That's going first, I can build assemblers now. After that maybe... Logistics? What's this? Belt Splitters, Underground Belts and Inserters? Oh look, power generation, that will be needed! I will start with...."
*Two hours pass without Spifflemonks notice as he upgrades and improves, adding production lines to automate the construction of Red Science packs. Finally unlocking Green Science packs.*
"Oohhh this gets a LOT more complicated... I need a mix of multiple resources to make these. Iron Gears, Copper Plates, Iron Plates... Green Circuits?! Where do I get those?! Oh... So... this goes here and that can go..."
*A further forty minutes pass when SpiffleMonk begins to panic as a red triangle with an exclamation point appears on his screen, indicating his factory is taking damage.*
"What? WHAT!? What's that red thing, is that some kind of alarm!? Okay uhh... let me just go see what it is then."
*Spifflemonk hastily runs towards the noise to find the games enemies: the Bug Hives of Nauvis attacking his Copper mines.*
"What are those things? AAHH STOP EATING MY MINERS!!! Oh gods oh gods where.. do i have a weapon or... I do have a gun! Okay uhhh... Shoot!"
*Spiffle fumbles but eventually finds the shoot button, and three of the six aliens chewing on his base get killed. He does however run out of ammunition for his simple pistol, and the aliens redirect their attention to his character.*
"What? Why isn't it firi-I'm out of bullets? This needs bullets?! Wait, wait NO-"
*A group of six aliens attack him and kill his character, resulting in a game over screen. The game automatically deletes his save file, as the difficulty is set to hardcore.*
"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
*His channel outro plays.*
TOP COMMENT: "THE FACTORY MUST GROW."
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"Great Days And Glorious Victory! My Name is Spifflemonk aaand welcome to my Letsplay! Today we are going to try Factorio out again. Last time did not go well. BUT I have a better knowledge about the game and one of the first things I know to do is make ammunition! I know Im not alone here this time so I can prepare for it. Lets play!"
*Game starts with the same settings as the previous time, Spifflemonk wastes no time and clears the local area of trees and rocks and immediately starts automation as quickly as he can. Within two hours, he is roughly close to where he was when he got killed last time.*
"Right! I looked more at the research options and found better gun, better bullets and automated ammo production. As you can see, its green science, red science and as you can see, the first few bits of Military science are just coming off the assembly line. I was told from the last comments... aside from the crazy chanting... I needed to get walls, gun turrets and other things, and try not to pick a fight."
*Spifflemonk continues gameplay for a further hour or so before that all too familiar signal blares, the red triangle with an exclamation mark appears.*
"AHA!!! Now we will see who's the boss in this factory! Have at thee!"
*Spifflemonk heads towards the target and encounters a group of eight enemies, who he easily deals with. After replacing tw destroyed miners, he resumes working and begins to automate oil processing.*
"What is oil in this game? Is it like balm oil or something? Do humans use handwashing agents as industrial machinery? What is oil in this... hold on let me see something..."
*Spifflemonk pauses his gameplay and reads out an article on crude oil and fossil fuel industry, then a follow up article on plastic.*
"Plastic... and petroleum. Well thats... okay. Well we have something similar but we generally used hydrogen and stuff. I don't even know if my homeworld has the same... we never needed it. We mostly use ceramics and stuff as well as silicon based industry so... we don't have plastic in our industry. Wood and a sort of bitumen substance is the closest we have to your human coal and we have no crude oil processing at all so... no plastic. Is that why human circuitry processing is so cheap? Plastics?"
*Spifflemonk makes a note to do some research later on and carries on with automation. Eventually about an hour or so after starting to produce plastic bars, the alert sound rings ut again and Spifflemonk charges out to meet the new enemy.*
"Okay let's go! I'm still making bullets and guns so I should be HOLY CRAP!"
*Spifflemonk arrives and is swarmed by an army of around three dozen or so enemies, and is killed while attempting to run away. Once again, his save is still in hardcore mode, so he dies, a game over screen occurs, and his save is deleted.*
"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
*The gameplay ends and Spiffles outro plays out as normal. However it seems as though the audio wasn't properly edited and a number of seriously bad curse words and slurs can be faintly heard in the background.*
TOP COMMENT: "Hardcore mode? I think you should turn it off in your gameplay settings dude. Hardcore mode is something players of only like maybe 150 hours or more would attempt. In any case, good effort! Build walls, turrets, get secured asap next time. Subbed and liked!"
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"Great Days And Glorious Victory! My Name is Spifflemonk aaand welcome to my Letsplay! Today it's going to be Factorio again!"
*The channel intro plays and the screen cuts to a factory that seems already built.*
"On the recommendation of some of my subscribers, thank you all by the way, I have turned hardcore mode off and started building walls and defenses. This game looked so stupidly simple I had no idea just how... intricate it really is. So this time instead of taking you all through the long and boring i have pre buit my base and as you can see I have started producing the first batches of Blue Science, and have here something humans have in real life apparently: Trains!"
*A quick overview of the base is shown, followed by a short montage of the bases construction. A blueprint is outlined for later construction that produces Purple Science and logistics robots, along with a side factory that makes various other things such as belts and assemblers. The factory however, is a mess made of spaghetti, with obvious bottlenecks and mishmashes of belts.*
"I think i'm getting the hang of this game! Okay so, let's go see what we can do. And before you ask, yes I have already died twice while building this place."
*An hour or so of gameplay follows, with Spiffle checking and rechecking his factory, adding bits here and there, putting more belts in, and having a short pseudo aneurysm while figuring out the intricacies of the blueprint upgrader before finally arriving at his newly built train.*
"According to humans and the Factorio guide, trains are a long term, long range logistics solution that replaces belts across long distances. Humans apparently had these things for hundreds of years, in real life. They still operate today apparently, you can find a few of these 'railway networks' on Earth and other colonies. This will be the first time we use one. I had no idea how to automate this so I had to watch a guide so, don't judge me. So... let's go!"
*Spifflemonk enters the train and opens the UI to start the automation sequence. The train spools up then charges round corners at breakneck speeds and arrives at a train stop for a Stone Mine several miles away from his main base. As instructed in the guide, the train loads up on stone and once full, charges back at blistering speed back to his main base. He is a little bit too giddy at the result."
"WHY DON'T WE HAVE THESE!? That was amazing! No seriously, Council of Elders, ask the humans if we can borrow some of their trains. This would have solved SO many problems back in the day! SO many problems! Look how much this thing can carry!"
*Gameplay stops, Spifflemonks Outro plays. The next video he releases is a two and a half hour long video essay entitled: "Why we need to beg humans for trains' and receives nearly half a billion views.*
TOP COMMENT: "Seriously? You guys dont have trains? I'd love to know how that actually worked for you guys to get to space or do mass transit. I can recommend a few games if you want."
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"Great Days And Glorious Victory! My Name is Spifflemonk aaand welcome to my Letsplay! Today we are back with: You guessed it, Factorio! Last time was a solid... month I think between that episode and my last upload. That was because I was trying out a train for myself! I went to the human colony of Epsilon Eridani nearby and tried a train. Best thing ever. Why don't we have those? Anyway, today on Factorio it's time for expansion!"
*Spifflemonks intro plays and a further overview of the factory is played, showing a separated train network with multiple railway sections with up to 30 trains running at once. Further advancements have been made, with a series of blueprints laid out and half completed for the production of yellow science.*
"As you can see I did some off camera work here. I do read your comments, I will try to make my videos, especially on these games, slightly shorter. And also, I checked the reviews again. I'm starting to understand where you are coming from. Factory must grow. From players with upwards of two thousand hours. With how short lived humans are you'd expect the to not spend two thousand hours playing a game, now would you."
*Sheepishly displays his own time of one hundred and thirty four hours, before returning to the game*
"So anyway. Today, as far as I can tell from the research queue, is the last day we will play as I am not that far off from-"
*Spifflemonk is interrupted by several attack alerts, noticing on his map that there are several attacks going at once across his frontline. Spiffle assumes all is well and ignores it. A minute later, he starts noticing that Copper production has stopped, and looks up again at his mining outpost to notice there is a truly MASSIVE biter army overwhelming and obliterating everything there. He panics and subsequently dies six times trying to take the biters out.*
*In the ensuing chaos Spifflemonks base is seriously damaged with Green circuits and Blue circuit factories being destroyed, part of his ammo production line is cut and four of his trains destroyed too. The entire north and north east face of his base is completely destroyed. The equivalent of twelve hours of work lost, to the tune of maybe another thirty minutes to an hour of replacing everything the biters destroyed.*
"Thats... thats just plain evil! How am... how am I supposed to beat that!? There were thousands of them! Okay, screw this, I am reloading a save!"
*Spifflemonk reloads the save and tries again. He redirects his attention to strengthening his defenses, doubling the number of turrets and strengthening his defensive line. The biters attack again, and this time Spiffle barely, very barely, makes it out with no major losses.*
"This is insane... absolutely insane! Okay... I get it. I need more guns. The rocket will have to wait I guess. So what do i- Flamethrower turret? What's a flamethrower?"
*Spifflemonk looks up the concept, unfortunately clicking on the wrong link and showing what flamethrowers were used for in the Vietnam war and World War Two. He has a slight panic attack and ends the video there.*
TOP COMMENT: Save Scumming is a legitimate tactic when you are a new guy. No issues dude, fight on. And flamethrowers? Yeah... did you know there's a thing called Incendiary Bombs? That's fun!
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"Great Days And Glorious Victory! My Name is Spifflemonk aaand welcome to my Letsplay! Today we are back in Factorio. I have sent a special message to the Council about… Flamethrowers… and yes they scare me too. So today its more Factorio. I have done some off camera work so we can skip straight to the point. Seventeen hours later… I am starting to understand why some people have upwards of a thousand hours in this game. Why does it seem to… Anyway.”
*The channel intro plays and an overview of the factory is shown, with the last shot ending with Spifflemonk standing next to the Launch Silo for the endgame rocket. It isn't ready for launch yet, but it appears all the components are where they need to be.*
“Okay then, uhh… here we go!”
*Spifflemonk connects the last belt line to where it needs to be and resources begin to flow. He follows the connection to a series of a dozen assemblers, oil refineries, chemical processors and explains as he goes to tell the viewer what each machine set does. After a few minutes, the first Rocket Control Components have been made and the progress on the silo goes up.*
“It is a little slow but thats okay, room to expand and grow! In any case, this should be done shortly. OOhhh look at that!”
*Spifflemonk watches with the depression of a kid in a candy store with an unlimited budget as the animation plays of the rocket emerging from its silo.*
“Well… uhh… I assume I enter it just like the train I guess…”
*Spiffle enters and launches the rocket. The endgame scene plays, and Spiffle earns some steam achievements for the game.*
“YES!!! YES BY THE GODS YES!!! Finally! I am finished! OH… how long did it take to finish my first - A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FOUR HOURS!? How… How is it possible this game took so much of my attention?!Uhh… Wow. So.. I guess mods are next. Any suggestions in the comments? Thanks for watching!”
*The channel outro plays as Spiffle stares blankly at the screen showing his playtime with the game.*
TOP COMMENT: Only a hundred and eighty hours? Dude, rookie numbers. You should try mods next time. Just quality of life stuff like stack sizes or Supersonic Trains. Then, after you've launched a couple more rockets - go for broke and install the Space Exploration modpack. THAT… that modpack is pure agony.

Posts in the series

• First: Here
• Second: Here
• Third: Here
• Fourth: Here (Unplanned)
• Fifth: Here
• Sixth: Here
• Seventh: Here
• Eighth: This

Brief recap

In the previous post, we continued our analysis with a second round of eliminations of more religions that cannot reasonably be from a judging and fair God. At this point, only the Abrahamic religions remain to be analyzed, which we will do below.
--
The reason I wanted to analyze the Abrahamic religions together last is because they have many similarities. For one, they reference the same God and agree on many details: similar people, similar places, similar events and for the most part, even originated in the same region. In addition, two of them are the biggest religions in the world today, far ahead of all other religions in terms of adoption, nearly accounting for half of the people on the planet! The fact that they are spread out in time and that they reference each other, can at least in theory, represent a pattern of recurring communication. It's also possible that they're just copying from each others. Let's see!
The timeline of appearance of the Abrahamic religions from old to new is as follows:
Judaism

• Year of inception: 3500 years ago, approximately
• Location of inception: Middle East (Modern day Palestine)
• Messenger: Moses
• Referenced prophets: Adam, Noah, Abraham...

Christianity

• Year of inception: 2000 years ago, approximately
• Location of inception: Middle East (Modern day Palestine)
• Messenger: Jesus
• Referenced prophets: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses & other prophets.

Islam

• Year of inception: 1400 years ago, approximately
• Location of inception: Middle East (Modern day Saudi Arabia)
• Messenger: Muhammad
• Referenced prophets: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus & other prophets.

Druze

• Year of inception: 1000 years ago, approximately
• Location of inception: Middle East (Egypt)
• Messenger: Hamza Ibn Ali Ibn Ahmad
• Referenced prophets: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad & other prophets.

Mormonism

• Year of inception: 200 years ago, approximately
• Location of inception: New York, United States of America
• Messenger: Joseph Smith
• Referenced prophets: Moses & Jesus. Does NOT reference Muhammad (Islam) nor Hamza (Druze)

Baha’i Faith

• Year of inception: 200 years ago, approximately
• Location of inception: Middle East (Modern day Iran)
• Messenger: Baháʼu'lláh
• Referenced prophets: Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha...

Can the Abrahamic religions be instances of communication from their common God? It’s possible, however some issues surface:

• Issue 1: The Druze faith stands out with its secretive nature as it is intentionally restricted. This not only opposes the intention of communication, but also contrasts with the other Abrahamic religions that are all open.
• Issue 2: Mormonism and Baha’i Faith both start nearly 200 years ago in different places while not being compatible with each other. They cannot be both instances of communication. One of them isn’t, or both aren’t.
• Issue 3: Mormonism doesn’t accept Islam nor Druze, while Baha’i Faith accepts all major religions, even Buddhism, which is incompatible with Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Let’s keep the issues above in mind and apply the same criteria to the Abrahamic religions in the same way we did to all of the others. We will analyze them in the chronological order of their appearance.

Judaism

Let's analyze the message of Judaism.

• Criterion 1 (Living religion): PASS
• Criterion 2 (Warning of judgement): PASS. Judaism warns of judgment day and explains the conditions for success and failure. This makes it unsafe to dismiss! It's the first religion to pass this criteria.
• Criterion 3 (Universality): FAIL. While anyone can technically convert to Judaism, it seems like it was specifically destined for Hebrew people, who later became the Israelites. Many prophets after Moses were specific to the Israelites it seems. The beliefs themselves are universal, in that they don’t have anything in particular that caters to a specific group. Still, it seems restricted to the ethnic Jewish group.
• Criterion 4 (Past reference): PASS. Judaism references previous prophets of monotheism who were supposedly sent by the same God. Prophets like Noah and Abraham. This means that before Judaism came along, there were previous instances of communication, which is necessary for a judging and fair God.
• Criterion 5 (Alignment with reality): PASS. The idea that a God created everything and is testing humanity here on Earth is plausible and does align with the reality we are living. Almost all humans share a common life track: birth, weakness with need of care, strength and autonomy, weakness with need of care again, then death. Moreover, all humans have a certain level of free will. While no absolute free will of action exists, the free will to think and accept or reject ideas is guaranteed. This makes the judgment of such free will possible.

Now let's analyze Moses, the founder of Judaism.

• Criterion 1 (Impeccable social reputation): PASS. He was a leader to his people, the Hebrews. He saved them from the oppression they were living in under the Egyptians (1). He was known for his sense of justice and courage (2). Many of his stories are told in the Bible as well as in the Qur’an.
• Criterion 2 (Non-involvement rule): PASS. Moses is the first to pass this criterion. Every single founder of religion who was mentioned previously, was publicly involved with either an existing religion that served as a launch pad or had a profession or interest that prepared the terrain for their claim. Moses was raised by the Egyptians, but never adopted their religion, nor was he involved in any other religion that he publicly taught or engaged in. He also wasn’t known to have any profession where he produced thought or knowledge.
• Criterion 3 (Sudden self-produced life direction change): PASS. Moses killed an Egyptian who was mistreating one of his people. According to Britannica, Moses voluntarily killed the Egyptian after making sure that no one was looking (3). However, according to the Qur’an, Moses killed the Egyptian by accident after hitting him, and was instantly regretful asking God for forgiveness (4). Regardless of which version of the story is true, Moses fled because he feared for his life. Now here’s the sudden life direction change, he came back after a while by his own volition claiming to be sent by some God who was unknown to the Egyptians, then confronted the Pharaoh himself!!! No sane man would do such a thing! And not just that, he survived everything and won in the end!!!
• Criterion 4 (Complete devotion): PASS. Moses came back to a place where he feared for his life, put forward the exceptional claim that he was sent by a God he wasn't involved with when he left, confronted the ruler, and succeeded against incredible odds!
• Criterion 5 (Wide reach of message): PASS. The message of Moses had and still has a big influence on this very day! There probably aren’t many people in the world today who don’t know who Moses is, regardless of their beliefs. He is one of the most important prophets in many major religions. His legacy is still a part of the Bible as the Old Testament.

If there is a judging and fair God, Moses is highly likely to be one of his messengers. He passes all the criteria while explicitly making the claim of being sent by a God. If he was a fraud, he would have had an existing history of it, and he wouldn’t have dared to come back to a place where he killed someone and feared for his life, then challenge its ruler and win! If he was a deluded self-appointed leader to his people, that delusion would have been his demise. He would have been killed, as other religious founders have. Instead, he and his people, although an oppressed minority without any military power, were able to escape their oppressors and defeat them! This is impossible without some powerful external assistance.
One can reasonably claim that the story of Moses is just a myth that is made to look impressive. That would be fair, except it had more impact than what a myth can fathom. That being said, even if we accept that it’s all a myth, or at least a heavily augmented truth, it is still told by other Abrahamic prophets who happen to have had similar or more impact than Moses did. This makes his story as valid as theirs can be. So, let’s continue our analysis.
Sources:
(1) From Britannica: Moses... Hebrew prophet, teacher, and leader who, in the 13th century bce... delivered his people from Egyptian slavery...
(2) From Britannica: ...When he found an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew, probably to death, he could control his sense of justice no longer...
(3) From Britannica: ...After checking to make sure that no one was in sight, he killed the tough Egyptian overlord...
(4) From the Qur’an (translation): ˹One day˺ he entered the city unnoticed by its people. There he found two men fighting: one of his own people, and the other of his enemies. The man from his people called to him for help against his foe. So Moses punched him, causing his death. Moses cried, “This is from Satan’s handiwork. He is certainly a sworn, misleading enemy.” He pleaded, “My Lord! I have definitely wronged my soul, so forgive me.” So He forgave him, ˹for˺ He is indeed the All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Christianity

Let's analyze the message of Christianity.

• Criterion 1 (Living religion): PASS
• Criterion 2 (Warning of judgement): PASS. It does warn of an upcoming judgment and details the conditions of success and failure. This makes it unsafe to dismiss.
• Criterion 3 (Universality): PASS. It is definitely universal. Anyone can be a Christian, and it’s easy to find Christians from different countries, different ethnicities speaking different languages. It doesn’t get as universal as this!
• Criterion 4 (Past reference): PASS. It references previous religions and prophets, like Noah, Abraham, Moses, and many others. All of them being sent by the same God.
• Criterion 5 (Alignment with reality): FAIL. Some concepts in Christianity don’t align with reality well. Christians view Jesus as the son of God, but also as a part of God. God being three different entities, but still one: God the father, the holy spirit and the son. A concept called the trinity. Christians believe that God sacrificed his son in order to absolve humans from their sins. This doesn’t quite make sense for many reasons:

1: If God sacrificed his son in order to absolve us of our sins, judgment wouldn’t make sense. Also, why does a God have a son? Mortals have children to continue the species and to provide for them when they grow weak. A God doesn’t need a son...

1. If God sacrificed his son, also a part of himself, it should have been the final act of life here on Earth. Instead, he let Muhammad come after and be so successful in reversing this idea, all while claiming to be sent by him!!! And what about the people who died a long time ago and never knew about this important sacrifice?
   
2. The idea that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving doesn’t stand for a judging God. It simply isn’t possible for him to have these 3 attributes at the same time. If he is all-knowing, then he knows that many humans will fail his judgment and be severely punished. Consequently, if he is also all-powerful, being all-loving would have him not resort to judgment and not punish anyone. Since he insists on judgment with a heaven and hell, then he isn’t all-loving. Muhammad also happens to correct this idea.
   
3. The conditions of success and failure in the upcoming judgment are not particularly fair. It’s not about what actions one does during their life, rather, it’s about accepting Jesus as savior. One can be the most ruthless killer, then just accept Jesus as savior in order to be absolved of all wrongdoing. Also, what about all the people who lived and died before Jesus was even born? They didn’t know Jesus; how can they accept him as savior? Haven’t they spent their lives following other rules? Isn’t that unfair to them?
   

Now let's analyze Jesus, the founder of Christianity.

• Criterion 1 (Impeccable social reputation): PASS. Jesus had a notoriously flawless social reputation and was known for his noble morals.
• Criterion 2 (Non-involvement rule): PASS. He was raised Jewish, however he wasn’t particularly involved in any public religious activity, nor did he engage in any activity that produced thought or knowledge. He was a carpenter by trade (1), until his mission started. After which, and this is critical, he was immediately at odds with the existing Jewish teachings to the point of being in danger!
• Criterion 3 (Sudden self-produced life direction change): PASS. He was known to be a carpenter, then he suddenly turned into an itinerant preacher at odds with the established teachings (2). If he had been publicly learning or teaching Judaism before his claim, he would have failed this criterion, as almost all others have. However, it’s not the case, and the transformation is self-produced and puzzling! How does a carpenter who isn’t involved with religious matters nor any knowledge or thought producing profession, suddenly become an itinerant preacher with enough difference to the established faith to become a threat and a target?
• Criterion 4 (Complete devotion): PASS. He died for his mission (the Christian version is in contrast with the Islamic version here). There is no better test of devotion. He also was at odds with the established Jewish religion, which made him a target. Most of the founders of religion that we have seen, never entered in conflict with the existing religions at the beginning, rather, they built upon them and benefited from their involvement with them.
• Criterion 5 (Wide reach of message): PASS. Christianity is the biggest religion today! Nearly 25% of humans are Christians, and the rest know or have heard of Jesus. Now this, is communication!!!

Similar to Moses, if there is a judging and fair God, Jesus is highly likely to be one of his messengers. His feat is even more impressive than that of Moses. His mission and success in correcting and complementing the existing Jewish faith against incredible odds, adds more credibility to his claim. Jesus changed the world and continues to do so today!
Sources:
(1) From Britannica: ...Joseph is said to have been a carpenter (Matthew 13:55)—that is, a craftsman who worked with his hands—and, according to Mark 6:3, Jesus also became a carpenter...
(2) From Britannica: ...As a young adult, he went to be baptized by the prophet John the Baptist and shortly thereafter became an itinerant preacher and healer (Mark 1:2–28). In his mid-30s Jesus had a short public career, lasting perhaps less than one year, during which he attracted considerable attention...

Islam

Let's analyze the message of Islam.

• Criterion 1 (Living religion): PASS
• Criterion 2 (Warning of judgement): PASS. Islam clearly warns of an upcoming judgment and details the conditions of success and failure. Consequently, it’s not safe to dismiss.
• Criterion 3 (Universality): PASS. Islam is universal. Anyone can be a Muslim, and it’s quite easy to find two Muslims who are from different countries, ethnicities and don’t share the same language. The yearly pilgrimage where millions of Muslims gather is proof to how diverse Muslims can be.
• Criterion 4 (Past reference): PASS. Islam references many past prophets (25 in total), including but not limited to: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, David, Jacob, Jonas, Moses, Jesus... It clearly states that God has been communicating since the beginning out of fairness, so that people wouldn’t find any excuse when judgment comes!
• Criterion 5 (Alignment with reality): PASS. Islam insists on monotheism, and clearly reverses the trinity concept that has gotten into Christianity, as well as the idea that God is all-loving, on top of being all-knowing and all-powerful.

It aligns with reality well by describing reality as a test of free will. Life is neither the suffering Buddhism makes it out to be (which it isn’t), nor is it the joyous life Tenrikyo claims it should be (which again, isn’t). Every single human is continuously tested through good and bad. When it is something bad, it is their patience and acceptance that is tested. When it is something good, it is their capacity of being thankful and generous that is tested. Everyone’s life is a mix of good and bad. Exceptions exist and are accounted for.
Islam states that God has been sending prophets since the beginning in order to remind people that judgment is coming. It states that people who didn’t get the message will be tested again. Those who got the message of the prophet of their time, accepted it and followed its guidelines, shall pass the judgment. Those who rejected the message after receiving it clearly shall fail.
Now let's analyze Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

• Criterion 1 (Impeccable social reputation): PASS. Prior to his claim, Muhammad was highly regarded by his community and known for his trustworthiness (1).
• Criterion 2 (Non-involvement rule): PASS. Again here, Muhammad was not involved in the pagan polytheist religion of his community, even though it was popular, nor was he involved in any other religion. He was a successful merchant (2) and notoriously illiterate (3). He didn’t have any profession or interest that produced thought or knowledge.
• Criterion 3 (Sudden self-produced life direction change): PASS. Muhammad’s life changed drastically after he supposedly received revelation. The first contact shocked him greatly (4). After telling his wife what happened, she took him to her cousin who was knowledgeable about the Jewish faith. He told Muhammad that what happened to him was similar to Moses, and that a day will come when his community chases him away.
• Criterion 4 (Complete devotion): PASS. Muhammad suffered a lot for his claim and was under constant threat of death (5). He used to request to be guarded at night, however upon receiving revelation that God will protect him from people, he sent the guards away from that moment on (6). He was never harmed even while having many enemies who wanted to kill him.
• Criterion 5 (Wide reach of message): PASS. Muhammad, an illiterate person living in a remote desert, without any special means or skills, was able to spread his message everywhere, and he predicted it from the start (7). He created a civilization that would change the world in just 23 years. Like Christianity, Islam is found almost everywhere, and almost everyone has heard of him and his religion. It’s not by chance that the most popular male first name in the world today is “Muhammad” (8).

If a judging and fair God exists, Muhammad is highly likely to be one of his messengers. He was leading a normal and regular life in a polytheistic society for 40 years, then suddenly started preaching monotheism, suffering for it and even going to war for it.
Sources:
(1) From Wikipedia: ...Due to his upright character he acquired the nickname "al-Amin" (Arabic: الامين), meaning "faithful, trustworthy" and "al-Sadiq" meaning "truthful" and was sought out as an impartial arbitrator. His reputation attracted a proposal in 595 from Khadijah, a successful businesswoman. Muhammad consented to the marriage, which by all accounts was a happy one...
(2) From Wikipedia: ... It is known that he became a merchant and "was involved in trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
(3) From Wikipedia: ... Because he could not read and write himself...
(4) From Wikipedia: ...Muhammad was deeply distressed upon receiving his first revelations. After returning home, Muhammad was consoled and reassured by Khadijah and her Christian [sic] cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal. He also feared that others would dismiss his claims as being possessed...
(5) From Wikipedia: ...Regardless, several attempts were made at Muhammad's life...
(6) From Qur’an. Aisha said: "The Prophet was being guarded until this verse وَاللَّهُ يَعْصِمُكَ مِنَ النَّاسِ (Allah will protect you from mankind) was revealed." She added; "The Prophet raised his head from the room and said; «يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ انْصَرِفُوا فَقَدْ عَصَمَنِي اللهُ عَزَّ وَجَل» (O people! Go away, for Allah will protect me)"
(7) From Sunnah: Miqdad reported that he heard God’s messenger say, “There will not remain on the face of the earth a mud-brick house or a camel’s hair tent which God will not cause the confession of Islam to enter bringing both mighty honour and abject abasement. God will either honour the occupants and put them among its adherents, or will humiliate them and they will be subject to it.” Miqdad said, “God will then receive complete obedience.”
(8) https://www.thebump.com/b/muhammad-baby-name

Druze

Let’s analyze the Druze faith!

• Criterion 1 (Living religion): FAIL. It’s not an extinct religion, but it is intentionally restricted and doesn’t accept conversions to it. How can this be a communication from a judging and fair God if the people being judged cannot have access to the material they need to succeed? If it stated that only a specific audience was targeted, that might have worked, but it doesn't say that, at least not when it started.
• Criterion 2 (Warning of judgement): PASS. Since Druze references other Abrahamic religions, I’m giving it a pass here, even though it’s not clear what the Druze actually believe.
• Criterion 3 (Universality): FAIL. It’s far from being universal. It doesn’t want to be, and it’s not.
• Criterion 4 (Past reference): PASS. It does reference other religions, even though it’s not clear in what capacity. Are the previous religions considered as previous instances of communication? Or does it complete its worldview with their knowledge? I’ll give it a pass.
• Criterion 5 (Alignment with reality): FAIL. Its closed nature makes it impossible for it to align with reality.

Now let's analyze Hamza Ibn Ali, the founder of Druze.

• Criterion 1 (Impeccable social reputation): FAIL. The Druze faith was named after Al-Darzi, who might have been either a disciple or a teacher of Hamza. A rivalry appeared between the two. Al-Darzi disputed the role of Hamza as the leader of the movement. They were both acquiring followers and engaged in regular brawls (1). So in summary, God supposedly sent Hamza as a messenger preaching that the current ruler was the embodiment of said God (If God is the embodiment of the ruler, why need Hamza at all?!!), then another man entered in competition with this messenger, who was also tolerated by the ruler, and even ended up giving his name to the movement, all the while the followers of each man fought each other. Then after said ruler was killed, the movement disappeared from its place of inception, but survived elsewhere and became a restricted religion. This doesn’t show anyone involved in a good light, especially not Hamza.
• Criterion 2 (Non-involvement rule): FAIL. There isn’t enough information about Hamza Ibn Ali before he entered Egypt in 1017. However, he fails the non-involvement rule, as he was appointed as a preacher in his own mosque before he started claiming that the reigning caliph was the embodiment of God (2). Rather convenient since that granted him support and favors (3).
• Criterion 3 (Sudden self-produced life direction change): FAIL. He supposedly received revelation, however that didn’t seem to cause any change in his life whatsoever. Receiving an unexpected contact from some God is supposed to cause a noticeable drastic change in one’s life, unless such revelation was expected or planned. Suffice it to say that he was already a preacher before supposedly receiving revelation.
• Criterion 4 (Complete devotion): PASS. Hamza definitely feared for his life but continued with his claim. He went into hiding, which seems a little bit cowardly for a prophet. In contrast, Moses came back to a place where he feared for his life, because he believed there was a God protecting him. The same happened with Muhammad who confidently sent guards away after revelation. However, since Hamza continued with his claim, considering this as a pass seems fair.
• Criterion 5 (Wide reach of message): FAIL. Hamza Ibn Ali failed to spread his message even though he initially set out to (4). If one is to say that the message couldn’t spread because of persecution, well, the same persecution occurred for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and yet, these messages spread everywhere despite everything.

It’s extremely unlikely that the Druze faith is a communication from a judging and fair God. Its founder fails a combination of some important criteria.
Sources:
(1) From Wikipedia: ...Indeed, in his epistles, Hamza is critical of his colleague, both for al-Darzi's disputing Hamza's role as the leader of their movement, as well as for his followers' over-zealous, extremist and provocative actions, which revealed the movement's ideas prematurely and placed it under danger of attack... During this time, the followers of the rival leaders engaged in regular brawls in the streets of Cairo, cursing one another as infidels.
(2) From Britannica: ...Almost nothing is known of his life before he entered Egypt in 1017. He became a spokesman for the religious convictions of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Ḥākim (the Fāṭimids were the ruling dynasty in Egypt), who was already accorded the position of imām, a divinely appointed and authoritative spokesman for Islam...
(3) From Wikipedia: ...According to the medieval chroniclers, he too enjoyed signs of favour from al-Hakim: when he complained to the Caliph that his life was in danger, he was given weapons, which he demonstratively hung on every entrance to the Raydan Mosque...
(4) From Britannica: ...Considerable resistance to these doctrines appeared when they were first preached in 1017, and Ḥamzah went into hiding until 1019, when al-Ḥākim was able to move vigorously to support the new religious movement... Ḥamzah claimed to be representing not just another sect but rather an independent religion, one that superseded traditional Islam. Al-Ḥākim disappeared in mysterious circumstances in 1021, and, much persecuted, the Druze cult all but ceased to exist in Egypt...

Mormonism

Let’s analyze Mormonism:

• Criterion 1 (Living religion): PASS.
• Criterion 2 (Warning of judgement): PASS. Mormonism is built on top of Christianity and Judaism, to which it delegates a vast chunk of knowledge. Consequently, I’ll give it a pass here.
• Criterion 3 (Universality): FAIL. It is far from being universal. If it was God’s way to bring Christianity to its rightful state, the least we can say is that it didn’t happen. Most of Mormons are still in Utah (U.S state), where they went after Smith was killed.
• Criterion 4 (Past reference): PASS. Mormonism references both Christianity and Judaism. This makes it pass this criterion, however, the fact that it doesn’t reference Islam is problematic for its worldview.
• Criterion 5 (Alignment with reality): FAIL. Being based on Christianity, Mormonism inherits some of the same issues. It corrects some, but also introduces some of its own. For example, Mormonism states that there are three separate divine entities, God the father, Jesus Christ and the holy spirit. They’re not three in one, as Christianity says. This doesn’t solve the issue of sacrificing one divine entity for the sins of humans while still judging them. It only adds complexity. Are these Gods equal? What if they don’t agree on something? This also goes against Judaism, which Mormonism references, and with Judaism comes the whole legacy of monotheism! Mormonism corrects the idea that salvation only depends on accepting Jesus as savior. It adds the fact that deeds play a role, which is fair.

Now let's analyze Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.

• Criterion 1 (Impeccable social reputation): FAIL. Smith’s reputation was less than stellar (1). His treasure hunting profession isn’t exactly the most honest of professions. Also, eloping to marry his wife, attempting to marry already married women, escaping justice, dying in a shoot-out with the mob...
• Criterion 2 (Non-involvement rule): FAIL. He fails the non-involvement rule on many accounts. He was heavily involved with public religious activity and even magic, in a place and time where religious revivalism thrived (2).
• Criterion 3 (Sudden self-produced life direction change): FAIL. Supposedly receiving revelation in 1823 via the angel he called Moroni, didn’t surprise him, nor seemed to have much effect on his life direction. He continued treasure seeking using questionable methods and leading the same life.
• Criterion 4 (Complete devotion): PASS. Smith was extremely devoted to his cause. He never gave up until the end!
• Criterion 5 (Wide reach of message): FAIL. If Mormonism was God’s way to bring back Christianity to its rightful state, then the mission simply failed. It seems like Christianity enjoys far more universality than Mormonism. In this regard, Smith failed his mission, as most of the followers of the religion are still based where their ancestors ended up after the death of Smith.

Sources:
(1) From Wikipedia: ...Meanwhile, the Smith family faced financial hardship... Family members supplemented their meager farm income by hiring out for odd jobs and working as treasure seekers, a type of magical supernaturalism common during the period. Smith was said to have an ability to locate lost items by looking into a seer stone, which he also used in treasure hunting, including, beginning in 1825, several unsuccessful attempts to find buried treasure sponsored by Josiah Stowell, a wealthy farmer in Chenango County, New York. In 1826, Smith was brought before a Chenango County court for "glass-looking", or pretending to find lost treasure; Stowell's relatives accused Smith of tricking Stowell and faking an ability to perceive hidden treasure... Although Smith had abandoned treasure hunting, his former associates believed he had double crossed them and had taken the golden plates for himself, property they believed should be jointly shared. After they ransacked places where they believed the plates might be hidden, Smith decided to leave Palmyra
(2) From Wikipedia: The region was a hotbed of religious enthusiasm during the Second Great Awakening. Between 1817 and 1825, there were several camp meetings and revivals in the Palmyra area… Smith said that he became interested in religion by age 12… With other family members, Smith also engaged in religious folk magic, which was a relatively common practice in that time and place…

Baha'i Faith

• Criterion 1 (Living religion): PASS.
• Criterion 2 (Warning of judgement): UNKNOWN. Baha’i Faith claims to be a unification of all the major religions. The issue is that some of the religions it references speak of judgment, like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, while others don’t, like Buddhism and Hinduism. While Baha’i Faith speaks of a day of judgment, it doesn’t seem to view it in the same way. It speaks of deeds being judged, but not according to each religion’s standards, rather, according to Baha’i Faith’s standards, which I have failed to find after multiple searches. If the conditions of success and failure aren’t clear, the God of Baha’i Faith cannot possibly be fair. I’ll mark this as unknown, but it’s actually closer to a failure.
• Criterion 3 (Universality): FAIL. In theory, Baha’i Faith should be universal, as it calls for the unification of all the major religions. It attempts to please everyone, but even while doing so, its numbers remain low, and is mostly unknown.
• Criterion 4 (Past reference): FAIL. Baha’i Faith references all major religions, but not as past instances of communication. It essentially claims that there is only one religion, and that the major religions were manifestations of God, but don’t necessarily represent said unique religion correctly. It references all major religions only to change their core beliefs in order to achieve unification. Said another way, this One God, has left people to be duped by false religions since the start, and only thanks to Baháʼu'lláh in the 1800s, did he think to show the truth to people. What about those who died long before Baháʼu'lláh was even born, and who followed Buddhism for example without ever believing a God existed?
• Criterion 5 (Alignment with reality): FAIL. This is a big failure. Baha’i Faith doesn’t make much sense, to the point of being revolting, to me at least! It attempts to be everything to everyone. Its founder claims to be Christ returned for Christians, the second coming of Jesus for Sunni Muslims, the Imam Husayn for Shi’a Muslims, the reincarnation of Krishna for Hindus, and the fifth Buddha for Buddhists. Never mind what each one of these symbols means in the context of its own religion, it just takes the concept and runs with it. It disregards most of what is associated with these symbols, it only needs its acknowledged existence. Let’s not forget that most of these religions do not agree with each other! It attempts to reconcile worldviews that are incompatible with each other. It picks and chooses what it wants from each major religion and disregards the rest.

Now let's analyze Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of Baha'i Faith.

• Criterion 1 (Impeccable social reputation): PASS. Coming from a wealthy family, he was known to give considerable amounts of time and money to charity.
• Criterion 2 (Non-involvement rule): FAIL. The founder of Baha’i Faith, Baháʼu'lláh, as well as the founder of Bábism, Siyyid Ali Muhammad, known as the Báb, and who laid the foundation for Baha’i Faith, both fail the non-involvement rule. They were both heavily involved in public religious matters before and at the time of their claims (1) (2). We are not talking about regular religious people going about their day, then making an exceptional claim out of nowhere, no! It’s practically the same scenario every time: a person is deeply involved with religious matters, or actively pursuing a profession or an interest, which leads them either by opportunity or by delusion to their claim. It’s the same here!
• Criterion 3 (Sudden self-produced life direction change): FAIL. Baháʼu'lláh had already set the course of his life and was already deeply involved in religious matters before he supposedly received his first divine revelation, which was in prison. From then on, not much had changed.
• Criterion 4 (Complete devotion): PASS. He stood by his claim and spent most of his life in prison. It’s important to note though that he wasn’t initially imprisoned because of his claim. Rather, it was because of his involvement with Bábism.
• Criterion 5 (Wide reach of message): FAIL. If Baháʼu'lláh was sent by the one and only God in order to unify all major religions, such unification hasn’t happened successfully.

It's highly unlikely that Baha'i Faith is a communication from a judging and fair God.
Sources:
(1) From Wikipedia: Some of his earlier writings suggest that he did not enjoy the business and instead applied himself to the study of religious literature… He was constantly absorbed in his own thoughts, and was preoccupied with repetition of his prayers and verses… In 1841 the Báb went on pilgrimage to Iraq, and for seven months stayed mostly in and around Karbala. There he attended lectures of Kazim Rashti and became his follower… As of his death in December 1843, Kazim Rashti counseled his followers to leave their homes to seek the Mahdi, who, according to his prophecies, would soon appear. One of these followers, Mullá Husayn, after keeping vigil for 40 days in a mosque, traveled to Shiraz, where he met the Báb…
(2) From Wikipedia: Soon after declaring his spiritual mission to Mullá Husayn, the Báb sent him to Tehran to deliver a special tablet to one whom God would guide him to. After learning about Baháʼu'lláh through an acquaintance, Mullá Husayn felt compelled to arrange for Baháʼu'lláh to receive the tablet—this news brought great joy to the Báb when Mullá Husayn wrote to him about it…

Summary

After analyzing all the religions, the ones that are highly likely to be communications from a judging and fair God if one exists, are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are the only religions that satisfy most of the criteria. In fact, their founders are the ONLY ones who satisfy all the criteria, specifically the criterion of non-involvement prior to their claim of a contact with a God. All the other founders were involved in one way or another, making their claim a possible result of either fraud or delusion.
It is important to note though: we haven't proven that a judging and fair God exists, and we haven't proven that these religions are actually communications from him, not at all. All we did was to reasonably prove that if a judging and fair God exists, then Judaism, Christianity and Islam are highly likely to be communications from him.
In the next post, we will continue our research and see how we can reasonably prove that a judging and fair God exists.
Until next time!

Hi, I've completed my Falmer revival by reuniting Skyrim under the name of Falmeris - focused on slow and meticulous rise from a one-county island through mostly stewardship.
Now I want to try myself in a Dwemeri culture run, but I seem to fail within around 10-15 years due to not being able to get myself off the ground early enough so that surrounding rulers (or my own liege) don't conquer me through sheer numbers.
At this point I tried 3 locations - all of them are one-counrt starts - north/south Morrowind and the island that belongs to the Daggerfell duchy (close to Hammerfell which in lore is closely connected to the Dwemer) and in all of them I get conquered early and the game simply ends.
The biggest issue seems to be the early focus on learning - sure, the quickly progressing development seems nice, but it leaves you at max 400-500 men in your army while AI focuses on sheer numbers, so no matter the advantage or commander skills - they just overpower me.
Another issue would be the complete randomness of the councillors you get at the start. One time I even got a chancellor with 8 diplomacy and he GAVE a neighboring ruler a Cassus Belli on my poor little island. One slip-up and suddenly your only holding gets random -20 control and you're left making 0.3 gold per month
Any tips? I don't want to start the game as a duchy or anything - not only isnt it lore friendly, but also the game gets too easy too fast.
Another thing is that with the decision to play Dwemer revival, I also started playing Ironman for the first time, so it also has a huge impact on how I play and, more importantly, how I lose

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/06/02/trump-georgia-election-investigation-fulton-county/
An Atlanta-area investigation of alleged election interference by President Donald Trump and his allies has broadened to include activities in D.C. and several states, according to two people with knowledge of the probe — a fresh sign that prosecutors may be building a sprawling case under Georgia’s racketeering laws.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) launched an investigation more than two years ago to examine efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his narrow 2020 defeat in Georgia. Along the way, she has signaled publicly that she may use Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to allege that these efforts amounted to a far-reaching criminal scheme.
In recent days, Willis has sought information related to the Trump campaign hiring two firms to find voter fraud across the United States and then burying their findings when they did not find it, allegations that reach beyond Georgia’s borders, said the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about the investigation. At least one of the firms has been subpoenaed by Fulton County investigators.
Willis’s investigation is separate from the one at the Justice Department being led by special counsel Jack Smith, but the two probes have covered some of the same ground. Willis has said she plans to make a charging decision this summer, and she has indicated that such an announcement could come in early August. She has faced stiff criticism from Republicans for investigating the former president, and the ever-widening scope suggests just how ambitious her plans may be.
The state’s RICO statute is among the most expansive in the nation, allowing prosecutors to build racketeering cases around violations of both state and federal laws — and even activities in other states. If Willis does allege a multistate racketeering scheme with Trump at its center, the case could test the bounds of the controversial law and make history in the process. The statute calls for penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
“Georgia’s RICO statute is basically two specified criminal acts that have to be part of a pattern of behavior done with the same intent or to achieve a common result or that have distinguishing characteristics,” said John Malcolm, a former Atlanta-based federal prosecutor who is now a constitutional scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “That’s it. It’s very broad. That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to charge a former president, but that also doesn’t mean she can’t do it or won’t do it.”
Among Willis’s latest areas of scrutiny is the Trump campaign’s expenditure of more than $1 million on two firms to study whether electoral fraud occurred in the 2020 election, the two individuals said. The Post first reported earlier this year that the work was carried out in the final weeks of 2020, and that the campaign never released the findings because the firms, Simpatico Software Systems and Berkeley Research Group, disputed many of Trump’s theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election.
In recent days, Willis’s office has asked both firms for information — not only about Georgia but about other states as well. Trump contested the 2020 election results in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Ken Block, the CEO of Simpatico Software Systems, declined to comment on what he has turned over to investigators. A lawyer for the Berkeley Research Group also declined to comment. A spokesman for Willis declined to comment on the investigation. Lawyers for Trump also declined to comment.
It is unclear if Willis will seek indictments of people for alleged actions that occurred outside Georgia, such as those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. RICO experts say it’s unlikely she will do so. But, these experts said, the law allows Willis to build a sweeping narrative of an alleged pattern of behavior to overturn the 2020 election, with Georgia as just one piece. Evidence and actions outside the state, such as Trump’s statements from Washington that inspired some of the rioters and the parallel efforts to overturn other states’ results, could be presented as additional evidence that helps establish that pattern.
“The Georgia statute is broadly written” to allow the inclusion of violations of federal law as well as some other states’ laws, said Morgan Cloud, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta and expert on the state’s RICO law. “For example, acts to obstruct justice committed in Arizona might be relevant if the goal of the enterprise, of the racketeering activity, was to overturn the 2020 presidential election nationally, as well as in Georgia.”
Cloud added that prosecutors in Georgia must prove only that two racketeering crimes occurred under the state RICO statute, but that other facts could be used to explain the breadth of an alleged scheme.
An ambitious prosecution
Willis’s investigation has already come under scrutiny as a test of applying state criminal laws to actions that revolved around a federal election — and that in many instances resembled constitutionally protected speech. The probe has prompted a debate, even among those who believe Trump’s efforts were improper, as to whether prosecutors will be able to prove that Georgia crimes were committed.
Her potentially sweeping application of Georgia’s RICO statute could amplify those questions. RICO allows prosecutors to target leaders of alleged criminal enterprises who in previous generations eluded convictions. In Georgia, it can be applied to many patterns of activity that are crimes under state or federal law, such as dogfighting or drug dealing, obstruction or conspiracy — going far beyond its origins as a tool to fight organized crime.
Several legal experts said they expect Willis to home in on possible false statements by Trump and his allies to government officials — one of the crimes that can be prosecuted under Georgia’s RICO statute.
In 2015, Willis attracted national attention as a deputy district attorney by using RICO to prosecute a massive cheating scandal in Atlanta’s public schools that sent eight teachers and administrators to prison.
Prosecutors in Georgia have obtained RICO convictions where the pattern of racketeering activity included actions in other states. In one notable case, prosecutors in Richmond County got convictions for several men they accused of kidnapping a Sam’s Club manager in a robbery scheme in 1998, stuffing him into the trunk of a car, driving to South Carolina and killing him by setting the car on fire.
In the Trump case, Willis has said she is focused on the phone calls Trump made to multiple Georgia officials seeking to reverse his defeat, his campaign’s efforts to persuade the Georgia legislature to declare Trump the winner, the gathering of Trump’s electors to cast electoral college votes for Trump after Joe Biden had been declared the winner in the state, and the Trump campaign’s potential involvement in an unauthorized breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County, Ga.
Dozens of people participated in those efforts, according to reams of emails, texts and deposition transcripts from the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack: Trump lawyers such as Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, Ray Smith and John Eastman; senior advisers including then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; Jeffrey Clark, then a senior official at the Justice Department; and Georgia GOP leaders including the party chairman, David Shafer, and its then finance chairman, Shawn Still.
Multiple legal experts have said persuading a jury that those actions broke the law could prove difficult. The debate reflects the unprecedented nature of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. While the effort immediately prompted calls to hold him and others criminally responsible, identifying laws that apply to such a scenario has proved challenging — and could help explain why Willis’s investigation is in its third year. That dynamic applies both to the Georgia investigation as well as the special counsel’s federal probe.
Most of those scrutinized in the Willis investigation have maintained that they did nothing wrong. They had every right to pursue claims of anomalies, many have said, particularly given how close Biden’s margin of victory was in Georgia, two-tenths of 1 percent.
“There’s not a single thing that I did in pursuit of election integrity that I have any regret or concern about,” Shafer said in a recent GOP address.
“It’s dangerous,” said Malcolm, the Heritage scholar, referring to the investigation in Georgia of contingent electors. “What you’re doing is tainting political activists who are trying to play a part in an election, who are trying to help their candidate, and all of a sudden you’re launching a criminal investigation.”
Norm Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House of Representatives’ first impeachment of Trump, over his pressure campaign with Ukraine, cautioned that it’s too soon to judge the investigation, but said he believes the overall case is a “strong one.”
“Either skepticism or belief is premature because we are not privy to all the evidence that the district attorney has amassed at this point,” said Eisen, a criminal defense attorney and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It just depends on the evidence.”
Eisen was among the authors of a lengthy examination of the applicable law in the Fulton investigation, concluding that possible crimes, besides racketeering, included making false statements and conspiracy to commit election fraud.
Malcolm said he agrees with the report’s conclusion that Trump is at substantial risk of being charged. But he said he believes much of its analysis is “slanted and misguided.”
Trump’s call to Georgia
Willis launched her probe shortly after Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), during which Trump said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes.” That number would have given Trump exactly the votes he needed to reverse Biden’s victory.
While Trump has been widely rebuked for that comment and others during the roughly one-hour call, it’s unclear to some legal analysts if uttering those words broke the law.
Trump did not spell out that he wanted Raffensperger to break the law; nor did he directly ask the state official to find the votes, which might have given Willis a clearer path to seek a felony charge against him, such as solicitation to commit election fraud. Instead, the comment could be interpreted as the president simply spelling out the math that would allow him to reverse Biden’s victory.
Trump may have hurt himself, however, in his appearance last month at a town hall broadcast by CNN, during which he explained that he called Raffensperger to tell him, “You owe me votes because the election was rigged.” Willis could offer the statement as evidence of Trump’s intent for Raffensperger to switch votes, several legal experts said.
“Subjects of criminal investigation aren’t usually reckless enough to go on national television and admit their corrupt intent,” Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University, wrote on Twitter after the appearance. “But Donald Trump just handed Fani Willis a new piece of evidence and tied a bow on it.”
Willis has also investigated appearances by Giuliani and other Trump allies before Georgia lawmakers in the days immediately after the 2020 election, during which they described fantastical conspiracies of voting machines swapping Trump votes for Biden votes and poll workers in Atlanta triple-counting suitcases full of ballots.
It’s a felony in Georgia to make a false statement in a government matter, but Willis must prove that Giuliani and the others knew that what they were saying was false. Giuliani was not speaking under oath, so there is no exposure for perjury charges, and some legal experts say he might also be protected under the First Amendment.
Willis may also examine the actions of Clark, then the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, who wanted to send a letter to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and state legislative leaders falsely claiming that the department was investigating “significant concerns” in the 2020 election, and urging them to call a special session of the General Assembly to appoint Trump’s electors to cast Georgia’s electoral college votes. Senior Justice Department officials blocked Clark from sending the draft.
Whether the Republican electors who convened to cast electoral college votes for Trump on Dec. 14, 2020, broke the law is perhaps even murkier.
Georgia was among seven states where the Trump campaign and local GOP officials arranged for alternate electors to convene with the stated purpose of preserving legal recourse while an election challenge made its way through the courts. Willis has offered some form of immunity to 12 of the 16 electors, according to three individuals with knowledge of the investigation. Not counted among those with immunity are Still, now a Georgia state senator, and Shafer.
Shafer helped organize the meeting and presided over it. Still has been described in news reports as having blocked members of the media from entering the room before the meeting started. Prosecutors have apparently focused on those activities in their questions to various witnesses, according to three other people with knowledge of the interviews. Prosecutors have also inquired about who mailed the electoral certificates to Washington, they said.
One of Shafer’s lawyers, Holly Pierson, wrote in a letter to Willis that Shafer had no knowledge that Trump allies would propose, later in December, to use the alternate elector certificates to block the counting of electoral votes for Biden in the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. It is not even clear if the plan to thwart the joint session had been hatched by Dec. 14, 2020, the day the electors met. The House committee did not refer Shafer or Still to the Justice Department for federal prosecution. Pierson declined to comment.
As the nation waits to see what, if any, charges Willis will seek, one key question is what evidence she has gathered that Trump, his campaign or allies knew about all the different efforts to reverse Biden’s victory. And that’s just the first step — getting to trial and persuading a jury may present even more formidable challenges.
“Proving all this beyond a reasonable doubt,” Kreis said, “that’s going to be the hard part.”

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
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• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
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Let's go!
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• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

Sorry for the long post, but I am grateful for a place to vent.
By way of short background: my elderly dad has had short-term memory issues since suffering a TIA while sick with COVID last summer, but is otherwise in good shape and has been told he has mild cognitive impairment/short term memory issues. Nevertheless, my toxic mother and several of my six brothers and sisters decided he has dementia and are doing everything they can to get him committed to a nursing home, which would kill him. They've taken away his car, refuse to give him a ride anywhere, and treat him like a potted plant in his own home. A month ago I went and brought him to my house for a scheduled doctor's appointment near me (150 miles from where he lives with my mother). He begged me to let him stay and of course I said yes. My mother, who had complained constantly about being a "caregiver" to him, is now on the warpath to "get him back" and my siblings are mercilessly attacking me for saying he's welcome to stay with me as long as he likes.
Just by way of comparison, when one of my toxic siblings (KF) had dad stay with her for a week while Mom went on a "retreat" with another toxic sibling, the toxic sibs all called KF a "hero" and a trooper for putting up with dad for a week. But since I don't agree with their plan to institutionalize him, I'm a kidnapper.
Since he has been here they have accused me of all kinds of horrible things, including stealing from him though I haven't even let him pay for anything while he's been here. They repeatedly email, text etc., copying the extended family like aunts, uncles etc., with more toxic accusations and gaslighting - salivating for a response from me that even hints that they've upset me - which makes their day. Even though they've made it all up, it's incredibly debilitating to read this constant barrage from my own family members. Yesterday my mother and siblings called from her house to gaslight my dad as usual and after they thought they had hung up the landline we could still hear them talking to each other. My toxic siblings were telling Mom the steps they're taking to "protect" her from me and to regain control of dad and then they actually gave her a champagne toast when she agreed with everything they said.
Only one of my siblings, a sister, is on the side of my dad and I. She says the champagne and all the accolades for our mother are "love bombs" that keep mom on the toxic siblings' side. She calls the toxic five the "flying monkeys." And we all agree the whole thing is about money. The flying monkeys have identified our mother as likely to survive dad and now they're trying to whittle down the number of siblings that she will leave $$ in her will. Needless to say, I don't expect to be in her will and I don't care. I want to tell my mother and her flying monkeys to go to hell, but my dad still has hope the situation can be salvaged and our wildly dysfunctional family will be healed. Fat chance. Except for my one sister and my dad, the rest are dead to me. I just wish there was something I could actually do to block them from my life - I've already blocked them from my phone etc. But it seems like as long as there's a way to get to me, they will continue their bull... I wouldn't want them to know, but I find myself crying uncontrollably every day now while trying to hide it from my dad.

Somewhere in my neighborhood resides a rooster who is very vocal at 6am. I'm far enough away I can only hear it with the windows open but a friend who lives a few blocks away says its so loud. I dug through the county site and its cage/coop can't be 50 feet from another residence and can't disturb the peace. There is a formal complaint page on the animal control site, but you have to know the address. I only have a general area. Has anyone else been in this situation?

There are various reasons why Verizon calls fail and provide practical solutions to troubleshoot and resolve the issue.
Check for Signal Coverage:
Poor signal coverage can hinder your ability to make and receive calls. Factors such as being in remote areas, being far from a cell tower, or being in enclosed spaces can contribute to signal disruption. Additionally, network congestion or local regulations can also affect connectivity. Ensure you are in an area with good signal coverage or consider moving to a different location for better reception.
Check if Verizon is Facing a Service Outage:
Verizon network outages can occur due to severe weather conditions or technical issues with their infrastructure. You can visit the Verizon Service Outage page or use the Verizon Troubleshooter to check for any outages in your area. You can also refer to external resources like the DownDetector Outage Map or reach out to Verizon Support for further assistance.
Check for Pending Payments on Your Verizon Account:
Unpaid bills or outstanding payments on your Verizon account can lead to service disruptions, including failed calls. Make sure to check your account status, and scheduled payments, and verify if any pending invoices need to be addressed. You can do this through your My Verizon account or by contacting Verizon Support.
Verify Your Verizon Bill for Service Changes:
In some cases, changes to your service codes or features on your Verizon account can inadvertently affect your ability to make or receive calls. Ensure that no service features have been disabled or removed without your knowledge. If you notice any issues, contact Verizon support for assistance in restoring the necessary services.
Restrictions on Verizon Smart Family:
If your line is part of a Verizon Smart Family account, call limitations and parental controls may be in place, which could impact your ability to make or receive calls. Check if any restrictions have been set by the account manager and contact them to ensure your calls are not blocked unintentionally.
Wait for New Ported Phone to Activate:
If you recently switched to Verizon and ported your phone number, it may take some time for the number to activate in Verizon's systems. This process can take up to three days for cellular carrier transfers or up to 10 business days for landline transfers. During this period, temporary numbers may be assigned, and full functionality may not be available until the transfer is complete.
Deactivate 'Do Not Disturb' Mode on Verizon:
Ensure that 'Do Not Disturb' mode is not activated on your device, as it can prevent incoming calls. Adjust the settings in the 'Sounds and Vibrations' or 'Phone' section of your device's settings to disable this feature. If necessary, perform a complete reset of your device settings to eliminate any lingering issues.
Restart Your Phone:
A simple but effective solution is to restart your phone. This helps clear memory, close background applications, and resolve minor glitches or bugs that may be affecting your device's calling functionality. Press and hold the power and volume down buttons simultaneously for a few seconds to initiate a restart.
Remove and Reinsert Your SIM Card:
Incorrectly inserted or loose SIM cards can lead to calling failures. Power off your phone, remove the SIM card, wait a few minutes, and reinsert it properly. Power on your phone again and check if the issue is resolved.
Turn On 'Airplane' Mode and Turn it Off:
Enabling 'Airplane' mode temporarily and then disabling it can help establish a connection with your service provider. This action forces your device.
Final Words:
This troubleshooting guide addresses Verizon call failures. It covers checking signal coverage, verifying service outages, ensuring bill payments, reviewing service changes, managing restrictions, waiting for number activation, disabling "Do Not Disturb" mode, restarting the phone, and reinserting the SIM card for resolving call-related issues.
Source: Why does my phone calls keep saying call failed on Verizon?

Welcome to Camp Redwood! The feel-good camp for ALL AGES.
We toast marshmallows around the fire, tell spooky ghost stories, and hide in random secret military bunkers under the campgrounds! Because SOMETHING IS HERE WITH US.
Camp Redwood is the PERFECT PLACE for a summer getaway where we start EVERY DAY with a CAMP REDWOOD SMILE. Where our counselors disappear every five minutes, and our campers disembowel us for funsies! Did I forget to mention our littles aren’t actually eight years old, but fully grown adults?
We hope you enjoy your fucking stay!
We are also not responsible for any counselors revealing they are not who they said they are—and not who they appear to be.
...
So. There’s a LOT to tell you and not a lot of time to tell it.
Right now, I suppose you could say we are under lockdown—if that is the word. I want to go over the last several days to get you up to date. That’s all I can do right now. I can hope and pray the thing with Teddy’s voice does not get in here, and once again cry out for help—that I know is not coming. Not from the authorities, at least. But hey, if any of you fancy coming to rescue us, we’re in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. The closest rest-stop is maybe three fucking hours away. So have fun. Has it really almost been a week since I posted? Well, we’re still here!
And surprise, surprise, help is not coming. So, please excuse the salt. I am seventeen years old and I have been abandoned by the adults who were supposed to be looking after us.
Who were supposed to act under protocol if something like this happened. I know they were waiting for it—there are specific fucking guidelines on an emergency evacuation for counselors if this ever happened. But then the little shits took over before we could do anything. I guess I’ll start by letting you know that there are two of us left. (three, if we count Rowan, but I’m not). What I thought was going to be a quiet summer getaway with kids my age has turned into a nightmare.
For one, we have been cornered inside the head counselor’s underground secret bunker. If you want to know why she has a secret military bunker, I guess you should keep reading.
Because shit gets weirder than animal crackers having the power to turn adults into kids, and vice versa. When I made my first post, I thought that was it for us. I thought for sure there must have been a self-destruct somewhere—which meant whoever was running this camp was waiting for something like this. I was sure we were going to die, so after making the post, I have to admit with ya’ll—I just slept. I curled up, tried to ignore Harry and Carmel calling our names through childish laugher, and went to sleep with the thought in my head that I was completely at peace with what I had done with my life.
Sure, I was young. Seventeen years old is too young to be ripped apart by littles who are in fact grown adults. But as I was falling into slumber and allowing myself to fall, with my head resting in my lap, my head turned towards a separate pile of files on the other side of the room—I realized I really wanted to know how this was possible. There was so much I needed to know. Why did eight-year-old Eleanor Summers have a file where here birthday dated back to 1979? Why had supposedly innocent sugary snacks turned our adorable littles into mini psychopaths?
These kids were not kids, somehow. But how? How was that even possible? Could it be that the files were wrong?
1979 was definitely 45.
But Eleanor Summers couldn’t be 45 years old. I knew what 45 looked like. I knew that they thought like. They spent half of their time on Facebook laughing at outdated memes, and the other half… I don’t know, working? They have job’s! They’re happily married with kids, maybe soon grandkids! That was not Eleanor Summers. Because Eleanor Summers was most definitely eight years old. I had played several rounds of teddy-bears picnic, and spent hours reassuring her that Harry's ghost stories were in fact not real, enough times for me to know that this little kid was little—and a kid.
But something was bothering me. More than the secret military bunker, and magic age-regressing animal crackers. When I first signed up to Camp Redwood, one of the tag-lines to gain attraction had been, “Solve mysteries in the woods in the dead of night, with nothing but a flashlight and your fellow campers!” I had no idea I would be solving this thing on my own, trapped inside a bunker.
“What are you doing?” Rowan, who was still looking through Allison’s dinosaur laptop, turned to me with half lidded eyes, when I slowly got to my feet, careful not to make too much noise, and crept over to the pile of separate files which seemed to be crumbling apart from age. He kept his voice low, but it sounded almost like a whine. He could have been scared, but from the way he was sitting, cross-legged with a frowny face, I figured something must have been going on with him. The guy looked tired. More tired than normal.
The bags under his eyes were practically shadowing his face, and were an odd contrast to unusually ashy colored cheeks and slightly dilated eyes. Still though, Rowan refused to look vulnerable. I caught glimpse of Harry’s raybans sitting on his head, pinning back thick dark brown curls from falling in front of sleepy eyes. Maybe he was finally losing his cool and breaking out of the well-constructed façade he had been hiding behind since Teddy disappeared.
We had just narrowly escaped a crowd of psycho littles high on age-regressing sugary snacks who were doing who-the-fuck knows to the other counselors who had been captured, so I didn’t blame him looking like that. I guess he couldn’t look me in the eye, because in Rowan’s mind, he was the reason why this happened. He was the leader, and the camp had fallen to psychopathic little eight year olds who had taken half of the counselors hostage, and the other half—most likely taken apart in the physical sense, after what we had witnessed in Cassie’s cabin. Still though, it wasn’t Rowan’s fault. He could sit there and pull a face all he wanted, it’s not like I was going to blow up at him for getting us stuck down here. He actually saved us.
And trapped us, judging from the footsteps upstairs, Carmel and Harry still bouncing around looking for us.
It was a game in their heads. The little’s thought it was cat and mouse. Harry and Carmel were the oblivious cats prowling, while we were the mice, hoping to fucking GOD we weren’t caught and eaten. Ignoring Rowan, I glimpsed what looked like a box full of DVD’S—all of which were labelled with dates and names. I saw familiar ones, my heart racing into my throat. Phoebe. Eli. Cassandra.
Each DVD had one of the kid’s names scribbled on the front, as well as a date.
I found Eleanor’s right at the back of the box.
Eleanor Summers.
08/05/2021. (PM)
Before I could hesitate and think what I was doing, I slid the DVD into the portable player attached to the MacBook. Rowan, to my surprise, didn’t move. But he did make an acknowledging noise when the screen flickered to what looked like video footage. Peering at the screen, I found myself staring at a small white room. There was no door. Only a wooden desk and a chair, and sitting on it was a middle aged woman with dark blonde curls tied into a strict ponytail. She was wearing what looked like a prison jumpsuit.
Her eyes were eerily glued to the camera, unblinking. Her wrists were cuffed in front of her. Though from the look on her face, she saw the restraints as a game. Her eyes lit up with intrigue and I could practically see the cogs in her mind starting to turn as she struggled with them.
As soon as I saw this woman, I felt all of my nerve endings set alight. I wanted to turn the screen off, or look away. But once I was looking at the screen, I couldn’t bring myself to tear my eyes away. “Let’s try this again.” There was a woman offscreen. She sounded young. Too young to be in that kind of authority. I figured there was no way teenagers were being hired as special ops agents, but I guessed I was wrong. She cleared her throat. “It is 4:35 exactly. August 5th 2021. My name is Agent Lemrac,” she stated. “I am asking once again for you to comply with us. As I have said several times, the court are willing to lessen your sentence if you plead guilty with insanity.”
The woman surprised me with a snorting laugh. She seemed to come alive, leaning forward with animated features, her brow reaching her hairline. She was acting like a child, bouncing up and down in the seat, her lips stretching into a wider grin. “What did you just say?”
There was a pause. I could tell the woman was intentionally antagonising the interviewer.
“It means you have been legally declared insane,” the interviewer stumbled over her words slightly. “Mrs Summers, it would be in your best interest to work with us to lessen your current sentence which at the moment is standing at,” the sounds of shuffling paper crackled through the speakers. The interviewer cleared her throat again rustling paper. “Thirty six years. Without parole.”
The woman didn’t speak, only continued to smile—and the interviewer delved further into the sentence. “If you do in fact plead guilty with declared insanity, you will be sentenced to a program which is in the process of supporting and rehabilitating people with your…” she caught herself for a moment. I could tell this interviewer had a biased opinion and it was definitely showing through her interviewing style. I could hear the rapid intakes of her breath as she hurried through what seemed to be a script she was reading from. “Conditions.” She finished. “The Redwood program aims to help people exactly like you.”
Redwood? I thought.
Like… Camp Redwood?
Rowan whistled behind me. I guess I could call that a reaction. The guy was probably still in shock after seeing Café de Teddy splattered all over little Cassie’s cabin floor. I should have fucking know those little bitches weren’t playing Operation for eight hours straight. Turning my attention from Rowan and back to the screen, the woman in the jumpsuit appeared to have changed tactics. Her expression twisted into nonchalance. She leaned back in her chair. “I am not pleading insane because I am not insane.”
“Mrs Summers—”
The woman cut her off. “I am not crazy.” She raised her hands “I am doing what needs to be done.” She leaned forward. “Humanity suffers in the skin. We age and die— and how is that fair? What if we want to see the next millennium? And the next two millennia after that? Why should our bodies dictate our lifespan? Why should we sit here and wait to rot and wither and die when we have the intelligence and mindset to do it? If nobody else is willing to throw ethics aside to take a step forwards in human evolution, I should do it myself.” She folded her arms across her chest, again, like a child. “I did what was to be done.”
“Dr. Summers.” The interviewer’s tone grew stiff. “You and your colleagues conducted illegal and unethical procedures on your family and friends—as well as four other victims.”
The woman inclined her head. “You have a daughter, am I correct? I have a son.”
“A child you killed, Dr Summers.” The interviewer retorted in a hiss which was definitely expressing emotion. She ignored the mention of her daughter, but I could tell it had rattled her to her core. Her voice had cracked. This case was close to her.
That was obvious. Without seeing the interviewer herself, I could sense how uncomfortable she was, shuffling in the chair. Every so often I would hear the sound of her rubbing her hands on her knees and tapping her shoe against the chair leg. She oozed anxiety, not just from her tone of voice, but the way the frame seemed to move with her. “Dr. Summers, you used your son in your research, along with several of his friends. This was not science.” Her voice shook. I heard her sharp inhale. Unprofessional, but very human. Instead of staying stoic and keeping to script, this agent was cracking apart. “It was murder.”
“Agent Lemrac, concentrate on the interview only.” An official voice crackled through what sounded like an intercom on screen.
“Got it.” She spoke through her teeth.
The woman was finding wounds and pressing on them. She was scanning the interviewer for vulnerabilities and preying on every insecurity. She leaned back speaking through a sigh. “Without my son’s sacrifice we wouldn’t have created an answer to death. To growing old and dying, and leaving loved ones behind.” Her voice softened into a murmur, but I didn’t trust it.
After identifying the shattering pieces of this interviewer which were very clear visible in her view, the woman was taking advantage.
“Agent Lemrac, you have a daughter. Am I correct in saying her name is Mari?
“That… that is not relevant.”
“Glioblastoma.” Dr. Summers lips curved into a sickening smile hidden behind mocking sympathy. “A sickness of the brain--which, unfortunately, I cannot fix. If your daughter’s brain was in my hands, I would try. However, not even a brand new body would help her. One which would never age or grow sick. And for that, I am deeply, deeply sorry.” She reached her cuffed hands forwards. “My condolences, Agent Lemrac. Honestly. I have to hand it to you. You are incredibly brave for coming here today and talking to me while abandoning your sick child.” She shook her head.
“Your daughter is dying of an incurable illness, suffering inside fragile skin which will break and fall apart and be unable to keep her standing for much longer. While my son will live on forever. He will see every millennia, a planet which will crumble and build itself back together. And maybe the end of the universe itself.” There was a twitch in her expression and a glitter in her eye I did not recognise. Insanity.
She was fucking insane. I was seeing the pure of it, the depraved and disgusting gleam in eyes empty of remorse and regret. This woman did not care what she had done. I could tell from the look on her face. If she had the chance, she would do this again.
But there was no way they were trying to say her cruelty and complete disregard for her son’s life was due to insanity.
“You are sick, Dr. Summers.” The interviewer said after a moment of gathering herself.
The woman shook her head with a chuckle. “I told you. I am not sick--”
“Sick in the head!” The interviewer’s voice exploded through the speakers in a shriek—a terrified cry she had been trying to hold in. I finally saw her—or at least the back of her. She was a young woman with light blonde hair falling loose on her shoulders. She was trembling. Slamming her hands down on the table, she screamed at the orange jumpsuit woman.
“You are psychologically fucked in the head! You psycho bitch! That is my sister!” She spoke through strangled sobs rattling her whole body. “Mari is my little sister. She is not my child.”
Her breaths were strangled and harboured. I noticed figures looming in the background, but she was continuing. “You killed your own fucking son,” she spat. “You are not legally insane, you are sick!” she shrieked. “You planned and put this together! You sit there and you talk about your son like he’s a… like he’s a tool! You deserve to rot. Do you hear me?” I noticed the orange jumpsuit woman was still smiling, satisfied with the interview’s reaction. Her words were spoken in a vicious poison as she leaned forward and spat directly in orange jumpsuit’s face.
“Agent Lemrac!” Whoever her superiors were—were panicking. “I told you not to turn it off. I knew this was going to happen. Can we stop the demonstration, please? Human emotions present inside an Aceville soldier are too powerful—"
Voices were murmuring in the background, and Agent Lemrac raised her hands. “I want to stop.” She choked out, her hands trembling. She spoke like she still had control over the situation and wasn’t being apprehended. “I want to stop. Do you hear me?” The interviewer was crying, I realized. “Stop the recording! I can’t do this. Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick—”
When the footage ended in a burst of static, I found myself backing away, something slimy creeping its way up my throat.
The woman in the orange jumpsuit who had murdered her son and countless others in what sounded like an attempt at playing god, was Eleanor Summers. I thought back to Teddy’s corpse, and the surgical precision of every organ’s removal. The young interviewer had mentioned colleagues of Eleanor.
Was it possible that Camp Redwood was in fact nothing more than a rehabilitation camp for murderous criminals? There was a loud bang from above, and I was torn from my thoughts.
I turned to Rowan, who had been unusually quiet. And I realized why, when I twisted around to find him three inches from my face, his laboured breath tickling my cheek.
The boy jumped back with a chuckle—like me noticing him was some kind of game, before diving back into the chair. I did notice something odd, as my thoughts spiralled. Rowan couldn’t sit still. Slumped in the leather spinning chair, he fingers tapped a rhythm on the armrests while his feet jumped up and down. In the dim light of the bunker, I glimpsed a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead and the flesh of his neck. He looked to be… feverish—and now that I was looking at him properly, all of my attention on the boy, I noticed small things which seemed… off about him.
For one, he wasn’t coming up with a plan. Rowan always had a plan. Even if he wasn’t completely sure of it, or was completely winging it. This time though, he was strangely quiet. I found my voice when he stuck out his tongue at me. “What are you looking at?”
“Rowan.” I spoke softly, careful not to garner attention from above us where Harry and Carmel were still clamouring around, playing games. “Are you… feeling okay?” I asked, when he turned back to the laptop, manically biting his fingernails.
“I dunnnooooo, Josie! Am I feeeeeeling okaaaaaayyyyy?” He surprised me with an uncharacteristic laugh.
But I did know it.
I knew it from earlier when he reacted to Allison’s bunker and I had been too freaked out to realize that I was dragging along the enemy with me.
Because the fucking idiot had consumed animal crackers. I had seen him for myself earlier, pouring a pack into his mouth for a snack. Which meant either the ‘kids’ had intentionally dosed him with mind altering sugary snacks, or the more likely, he could not resist those preservatives which was the equivalent of caffeine. It’s not like I could blame him when he harboured the weight of an entire camp, but come on, did he really have to sacrifice his own fucking mind to keep himself awake?
Rowan wasn’t just biting. His nails. He was gnawing. Which he previously thought was a filthy habit. He had yelled at a camper for chewing on her nails a few days earlier.
Now that I was noticing it, I couldn’t… stop noticing it. The boy’s whole demeanour had changed; the way he was sinking into the chair, instead of sitting up straight like usual—- I used to call it having a stick up his ass. The boy started typing on the laptop, ignoring me. But when I watched the pattern of his fingers, he was just typing gibberish. Footsteps pounded above us, Harry and Carmel acting as the kid’s’ brainwashed foot-soldiers. Or, more likely somehow, if the animal crackers had caused the littles, or I guess, the fully grown forty year old criminals, to relapse in age-- then maybe it was possible for the same thing to happen to us. To Rowan.
I could feel myself starting to back away, but there was nowhere to run. I just slammed into a cupboard. My gaze flicked to Rowan again, who was tapping a beat on the laptop tracking pad, swaying back and forth, his eyes elsewhere before his gaze found mine. “Marcoooooo!” Harry shouted from above, giggling with Carmel.
I had to guess their mental age had to be at least 8-10 years old. Which meant I wasn’t just dealing with a camp full of forty-year-old psycho’s, I was also dealing with mentally relapsed counselors acting like toddlers.
Rowan seemed to jolt in the chair, twisting his head around, his eyes suddenly incredibly childlike and playful, and very Un-Rowan, were finding the ceiling, his mouth stretching into a smile, like he was seeing butterflies. His eyes flashed to me, and I caught a twitch in his lip. I knew that look. It was the look on my seven year old sister, who knew mom was mad at me, and wanted to make it even worse.
His cheeks were starting to blossom scarlet from what must have been the overwhelming urge to laugh. Rowan pressed his lips together and held in a breath like a hamster, and the asshole was fucking with me. waiting for me to beat him to it by accident. Kids were fucking ruthless, but there was something terrifying about an 18 year old with a little kid’s mind.
I lifted my index to my lips, miming for him not to even try, but the boy just mimicked me, bugging out his eyes and pressing his finger to his grinning mouth. “Don’t you fucking dare.” I managed to whisper. The boy was definitely playing his own game, moving in twitching movements, baiting me. When he cupped his mouth, I almost let out a cry, but then he dropped his arms with a giggle, as if to say, “I’m just kidding!”
Slowly, I turned around, grabbed the salt I’d found in Allison’s cupboard, and a flat can of soda. Without making too much movement, I poured a handful of salt into the can. But Rowan seemed to know exactly what I was doing. Because in the time it was taking me to advance towards him, with the can of salty soda, one arm shakily ready to grab hold of him, and put him into a headlock, he was cupping his mouth, all logic and everything adult, everything he had been as our leader, igniting in playful eyes, leaving me the last one standing.
“Pollloooooo!”
By the time Rowan had managed to reveal our hiding place in a spluttered laugh, I had hold of the squirming boy, one arm wrapped around his neck, my other forcing the can of soda into his mouth. I had definitely miscalculated his strength. During camp Redwood activities, he was always the last one to come back from the trail, holding his knees and panting. I figured he was unfit. However, I was wrong. Underneath his shirt, the guy had some serious muscles.
It was like attacking a brick wall. However, Rowan was mentally a kid. So, I had my intelligence and logic on my side. When it became obvious I wasn’t going to get anywhere with brute strength, I resorted to tickling him, which made him squirming, squeaking out a laugh. When he opened his mouth to yell at me to stop, I took my chance, thrusting the can into his lips and holding his nose so he swallowed it down.
“No!” His laughter turned into muffled yelling, as he batted his fists at my chest. “No, no, no! Get off, get off!”
His body convulsed as the salt did its job, causing the boy to lurch to his knees and choke up forbidden animal crackers in a gooish sludge which turned my stomach. By the time Rowan seemed half himself and half not, still kneeling, his head pressed against the floor, Harry was poking his head through the door with a goonish grin. “Found you!” He giggled, before forcing the door open, allowing Carmel and Callen, freshly caught mentally turned into littles, to advance down the stairs with equally terrifying grins. There was something wrong with Harry’s face, and I only realized it when the guy himself was hauling me from the bunker, Carmel dragging a barely responsive Rowan. There was nothing in Harry’s expression, only blind childish excitement at winning the game. When he dragged me out of Allison’s cabin and threw me to the ground, I realized he too had insane strength I had not been expecting. But that thought quickly retracted when I was seeing his face in the light of a crescent moon lighting up the sky an eerie glow. Harry’s cheeks were puffy and swollen, his right eye way bigger than it should have been.
When he spoke, his voice was more of a lisp. This was something far more realistic than magical animal crackers fucking with his brain.
“He needs help!” I managed to choke out when Carmel wrapped jump-rope around my wrists. Next to me, Rowan was refusing to get up, still choking up salty soda, groaning into his hands. Every time Callen tried to restrain him, he hissed out like an animal.
“Do you hear me?!” I struggled violently. “Harry needs—”
BANG.
Is what it felt like. The feeling of something—what felt and sounded like a toy car—colliding with my temples, sent me onto the ground, my head spinning itself off of its axis. I remember lying on my back and frowning at the moon which almost looked like it was getting closer to me, blurring into a white ball of light—before reality sunk in, and it was in fact Carmel’s converse coming down to finish me off. I didn’t stay knocked out for long. But I did dream.
I think you can call it a dream? I was lying in bed at home; my room drowned in the dark. I was cosy, curled up in my blankets, when a clammy hand slammed over my mouth, rousing me from slumber. There were two figures in my room. They didn’t have faces. They just existed as shadows, silhouettes. Before one of them raised something above their head, and… impact.
It was the same impact as the toy car hitting me, snapping me back to that night. It wasn’t a dream. Because I remembered his clammy fingers over my mouth, and his hisses for me to shut up as he dragged me from my room.
My parents stood in front of me with expressions of sympathy. Basked in warm light, my mom and dad looked almost otherworldly. “For the best.” Was what they mouthed when my own phantom screams slammed into me, I asked them why, and they didn’t reply, allowing him to pull me further and further from what I knew, from my life as I knew it. But.. that couldn’t be real. I had memories of getting on the bus to camp Redwood. I could recall the whole journey. So, why… why was my tangled mind saying otherwise?
When I gathered myself, the first thing I realized was I was sitting down. I was outside, cool night air grazing my bare arms. There was something attached to me, jerking violently, And it took me several disorientating blinks to understand that I was tied back to back with Rowan. My head pounded, and something wet and warm dripped down my temple. Great. I could add head injury to the long list of things to worry about.
“Let me go you little fucking witch.”
Rowan was back to himself, though from the muffled hissing and the sound of choking—I had to guess he was being force-fed animal crackers.
“Let me—mpphmmm. little…. fucking… mphmmphhmhppmm!”
“Rowan.” I managed to get out in a croak. Through flickering eyes, I caught glimpse of a familiar figure dancing around us. Shivers rocketed down my spine, and I wrenched at the jump-rope restraints, but they did a surprisingly job of restraining my arms behind my back.
Eleanor was with Rowan, while Eli was knelt in front of me. Looking at him, the boy had definitely aged in the face—and I couldn’t help wondering what exactly he had done as a forty something year old to be sent to this place.
“Josie!” Rowan responded in a wail. “Josie. Wake the FUCK up.”
“Stop swearing.”
Eleanor spoke with the cold tone of her actual age.
“Oh, yeah?” Rowan spluttered. “Fuck you.” The boy’s laugh was still rough from almost vomiting his insides out from too much salt intake. “I’m sorry, you were a fucking boomer all along?!” He wriggled in the restraints, lunging forwards, which sent me backwards.
“Stop swearing, Rowan.” Was all the girl responded with calmly.
“Like I’m going to listen to you!” He sneered. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fucking fuck!” What are you going to do, huh? Bite me with your false teeth?” The sound of saliva hitting skin made me wince. He was pissed. I had no doubt his completely rational anger was going to get us killed. Rowan was also somehow getting mixed up between forty and eighty. Though he was unwillingly snacking on mind bending sugary goodness.
“Fudge, Rowan.” Eleanor spoke in a giggle.
“What?!”
“Say fudge. Not fuck.”
“No.”
His hiss of pain caught me off guard. I don’t know what she was doing to him, but it was hurting him.
“You fudging fudge! I’m going to fudging kill you when I get out of these fudging ropes—“ his manic cursing became a muffled yell.
“Say fudge,” Eleanor hummed, followed by his hiss when the palm of her hand skinned his cheek. “Fuck is a bad word. You even said so yourself and you’re my favourite counselor.”
He heaved out a breath.
“You fudge,” Rowan spat. “When I get out of this, I am going to fudging kill you, you fudging—” His manic ranting morphed, once again, into muffled yelling, after another fistful of animal crackers were forced into his mouth. When I risked twisting around, I could see his rebellion slowly starting to simmer out as he relaxed slightly. I wanted to yell at him to keep a clear head before cold fingers were dipping under my chin and forcing my head around where I found myself face to face with Eli.
“I like you, Josie,” he said, before untying me and pulling me to my feet. Now at the age of nine or ten, he was a lot stronger. When I tried to pull away, the cruel blade of a knife grazed my gut. I caught his grin. “But we don’t need you.” Eli pointed to Rowan.
“We just want them.”
I followed his pointer finger which went from Rowan to Harry and Carmel, who were just standing there like fucking idiots, probably awaiting the next game. Harry’s face was getting redder. It looked like he was suffocating, and yet his grin was growing wider and wider, splitting his lips apart. “Rowan Atlas.” Eleanor said, dragging him to his feet. Something was stapled to his forehead head, which caused him to howl in pain, hissing another strangled line of “Fudge”. but I couldn’t read what it was.
“Camp leader. Intelligent, and problem solving skills.”
“Harry Carlisle.” Eli nodded his head with a smile. “Quick thinker. Strong minded.”
“Carmel Locke.” Cassie spoke behind me. She had her arms folded, a wry smile on her lips. “Smarter than she makes out—- an independent learner, and can work well under pressure.”
Looking at these kids, I felt sick to my stomach. They were planning something—and had the intelligence of renowned scientists, which was what I gathered from the footage on the MacBook. “What?” was all I could hiss out, as Eli prodded the blade of the knife into my back, ushering me to walk. “What are you talking about?”
“Duh.” He spoke in a more tweeny giggle. “Like I said, Miss Josie. You’re my favorite counselor but we don’t need you, so I’m going to use you for parts.” He laughed when a shiver spiderwebbed down my spine. “See! I told you I was going to show you my collection!”
“But… what do you need them for?”
Eli pressed his index finger to his lips with a laugh before forcing me to face forwards. “That’s a secret!”
When I didn’t, or couldn’t move, he shoved me into a stumbling power-walk, and I managed to turn my head quickly, making feverish eye contact with Rowan.
“Rowan.” I said calmly through the gutter in my throat. “Get…. Get help.”
If I was going to die, I needed him to get a hold of himself and somehow alert the outside world what was going on.
“From whom, Josie?!” He wailed back—and as I was dragged away, I could once again sense the childish undertones in his voice.
I had no choice but to obey Eli’s orders. If I didn’t want a knife in my back. He took me to the main lunch cabin, which, when I set foot inside, almost sent me to my knees.
Something lurched inside me, and I was screaming with no voice, staggering backwards, only to be shoved onto my face. In front of me was what had been the lunch hall, fully converted into the beginning of a laboratory.
What had been cafeteria tables were fashioned into makeshift gurney’s and beds, and I was looking at all of the missing counselors. Yuri and Noah had been skinned completely, their faces laid out on a makeshift surgical table. Joey had been ripped open, his heart and brain removed, a glittering metallic substance creeping its way across his forehead. It was then when I remembered Eleanor Summers words.
She wanted to prevent death and preserve the human mind. Looking at what was in front of me, this was the start of it. There was equipment I had never seen before. Lily’s body was empty, carved out completely, tubes forced inside her. When I glimpsed her fingers move and begin to ball into a fist, I saw red. I saw fucking red. The exit was so close and yet Eli, fucking Eli, wielded his knife. I think that is when part of me gave up. My brain just stopped. It short circuited. Seeing my friends murdered and yet somehow being kept alive through playing god, my body slumped to the ground. I was numb. Completely numb.
I’m not sure what would have happened if those bloody saws and instruments which had been used on my friends were used on me too.
Luckily, that did not happen. Before Eli could get his slimy hands on me, he crumpled to the ground in an almost cartoon-like fashion, and standing over me was Harry. Who was looking better. When he grasped hold of me and helped me up, I only had one word. “Out.” And he was nodding, his eyes glistening as he drunk in our friends’ fate.
“How?” I managed to sputter out, when we made it out of the cabin, ducking behind a tree. Harry turned to me, motioning for me to shut up. There was a group of now ten to eleven year olds already running around, searching for what I guessed was him.
“I’m allergic to peanut butter,” Harry murmured, his grasp tightening on my wrist as he led me across the camp, the two of us stumbling.
“What, and you just magically healed?”
He didn’t respond to that, which bothered me.
“The bunker is our best shot,” I hissed out. “I think we can get in contact with someone down there.” I paused, unable to stop myself. “What makes you so important?”
“Dunno. Maybe I’m their favorite.”
When we found Allison’s cabin, which was more of a safehouse (an exposed safehouse) I found Rowan sitting on the wooden porch with his legs swinging over the side. “Rowan!” Harry groaned. I found it hard to believe their roles had been switched. Now he was the one yelling at the camp-leader. “I told you to stay inside!”
He ushered the boy inside, before barricading the door with some hefty looking equipment. I could tell from the grin on his face that our so-called leader was once again no longer himself.
I had to bite back a groan. “You’re kidding.” I said, pointing to Rowan, who buried his head in his knees and blew a raspberry. “Does he look and act like our leader right now?!”
“It’s Rowan, Josie.”
“He’s a liability.”
“He’s our friend! Wouldn’t Rowan do the same?”
Yes, he would. But. He would also realize we’re lost causes.
“Gag him with something.” I said. “If he makes any more noise, we’re dumping him.”
“He’s a kid!”
“Just the mind of one.”
I don’t know how animal crackers worked, but his age seemed to be progressively younger. This time he just sat with wide eyes watching us.
Harry almost tore apart the place looking for means of communication, before an old fashioned ringing sound made me jump.
“What was that?” Harry turned to me with his lip curled.
“How am I supposed to know?!” I hissed. “Keep looking!” But when I ducked under the table, my hands crawled under the desk, finding a wire—and attached to that, an ancient looking phone which looked straight out of a 1940’s movie, a bright green rotary phone.
Hesitantly, I answered it, lifting the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Did you awaken the subjects, Agent Salta?"
The voice on the other end was a woman, an oldish sounding woman with the tinge of a British accent.
“What?” I shot a look at Harry before shaking my head. “No. My name is Josie Greenfield. We’re at Camp Redwood, and we need help.”
The woman paused.
“Where is Agent Salta?” She cleared her throat. “This line is reserved for communication with agents only.”
“I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about!" I squeaked out. “My name is Josie, and whatever is happening here, we need help!”
“Josie. Did you awaken the subjects?”
I paused after a moment, shooting Harry a look when he tried to take the phone off of me. “Yes.”
“And… are our agents unavailable?”
“I don’t understand.”
“When a health and safety breach is activated, our agents are awakened to deal with the Project Spearhead subjects if they were to ever go rogue, or become conscious enough to think. Josie, can you tell me what is in front of you? Describe it to me.”
I held my breath. Next to the hidden phone under the desk was what looked like mismatched wires, all of which had been severed. I lowered myself slowly, poking at mess. “Wires. I see… cut up wires.” I whispered. “Does this mean they know about you?”
She hummed. “Ah…That makes sense. The only way to activate our sleeper handlers would be to send out the signal. You appear to have been sabotaged. Unless activated manually, our agents cannot help you. I am sorry. They are your problem now.” The woman paused.
“If I were you, I would hope and pray they have not sabotaged the self-destruct. If you find that, then you may be able to save yourselves and find peace.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you for your service, Josie Greenfield.”
“Wait.” I managed to get out. “Wait, no! You can’t just… you can’t leave us! We need help!”
I found myself yelling at nothing when the phone went dead. The dull tone of the dead ringtone was clanging in my ears before footsteps from up above. “Fuck this.” Harry picked up a lead pipe. “They’re still little kids, right? I mean, their head must still be partly kids—- so let’s fucking beat their heads in.”
He noticed something, then, starting forwards towards the mess of files I had left earlier. Harry knelt on the ground and picked up Eli’s file, his eyes wide. But he wasn’t staring at the dates confirming the little boy’s age.
Instead, Harry pointed at the bottom of the file. “I don’t want to freak you out, Josie,” he whispered. Initially, I didn’t know what he was trying to show before I glimpsed notes scrawled at the bottom of the file, followed by a signature. “But I’m pretty sure that is my fucking writing.”
Harry was right.
I pulled the paperwork off of him, flicking through each file before turning my eyes to him. “Who the fuck are you?”
A clanging sound from above broke the tension, and whatever Harry was about to reply with was strangled in his throat. He slammed a hand over his mouth.
“Guys?”
The voice twisted me up inside, threatening to release a shriek from my mouth I had managed to clamp shut.
Teddy.
“Are you down here?” His voice was strained, and had an odd tone to it. “I can’t… I can’t see you.”
…
Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?! It’s been a blur of a week. We’ve managed to stay down here, surviving off of Allison’s rations. Rowan isn’t getting any better. He seems to have stopped mentally de-ageing at the age of maybe six. Harry has spent the last few days trying to get in contact with anyone, but it’s like they are IGNORING US.
I’ve been looking through everything I can find on Project Spearhead, but nothing points to Harry being involved. So. How is his signature all over the files? How is it possible that two friends I thought I knew several days ago, are now complete strangers?
Teddy keeps coming back.
He’s crying out to us.
I think he’s… in pain.
My god, I can’t stand this anymore. Please. CAMP REDWOOD NEEDS HELP.

Hey there, fellow card slingers and RPG lovers!
We've got some hot updates and QOL improvments rolling out for Dfiance that we think you're going to absolutely love. This isn't just about playing a game. It's about creating your unique gaming experience. It's time to take the driver's seat in your Dfiance journey.
Feel free to share your thoughts, experiences, and deck creations. After all, we're all here to game and have fun!
What's new:
- Gaming Avatars: Ever wanted to truly immerse yourself into the game and feel the power of your deck not just in your cards but also in your personality and style? Now you can! We're introducing customizable avatars for you to choose and play with. From a celestial sorcerer to an infernal warlord, you get to pick your game face that vibes with the deck style that you fancy.
- Deck Personalization: Remember when we said 'your deck, your rules'? We meant it! You now have the power to personalize your deck. Get creative with how your deck looks and feels. It's all about creating a unique gameplay experience that is truly centered around you and your personality.
-Gameplay Enhancements: We're always working hard improve your overall gameplay experience as much as possible. So we've made some tweaks and enhancements to make gameplay smoother, faster, and overall more enjoyable. Expect less latency, more intuitive controls and quicker loading times.
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Bug fixes and QOL changes:
- Fixed level filter options in deckbuilder
- Fixed score bubbles on endgame screen to fit 3-digit numbers
- Fixed cheat panel to play against Bot (checkbox is added)
- Fixed popups' background and placement
- Fixed margins and scrollbar at deckbuilder to fit all required info
- Fixed faction description while creating a deck
- Fixed an issue which allowed players to buy more than 1 copy of card at marketplace
- Fixed marketplace not to refresh cards after each match
- Fixed game restore corner cases
- Fixed battleground effect animation
- Fixed score counter animation to play once during turn change
- Fixed flank animation
- Fixed spell application
- Fixed 'mind control' ability application
- Fixed total resource amount with wager placement (decrease accordingly)
- Fixed card image preview at deckbuilder and before match
- Fixed flank's limit for an amount of cards on it
- Fixed cards interaction during match
- Fixed metamask authorization
- Updated loading bar animation
- Changed card placement visualization (selected card moved to right and available rows are highlighted)
- Adjusted SFX volume levels
- Implemented in-game wager increment possibility
- Changed endgame screen
- Added 'finding opponent' animation
- Added possibility to cancel search for a match
- Added toggle to enable playing against Bot
- Removed excessive battle log messages caused by flank competition calculation
- Added all faction cards at marketplace (with filter for factions)
- Added all faction avatars for leader
- Changed and properly positioned 'bug' button on the main page
- Changed energizer
- Added possibility to burn card copies for an upgrade in energizer
- Added in-game SFX for Celestial's cards placement
- Changed card detailed info popup in energizer
- Changed active abilities application (now allowed to make reselection of a card)
- Changed 'Dispel' logic (now cannot be dispelled)
- Improved card log to show rejected effects and Hero immunity note
- Added spines cache refresh
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That is all for now! Stay tuned for more updates and keep slinging those cards!

Hitting the road today. I’ve been away from home since my birthday. Making a stop up North to visit my lovely friend and her new man before I head home on Sunday. I love the bus ride from Bellingham to Seattle; I equally love the Ride from Seattle to Olympia. I like to listen to music and think about nothing. It makes me feel the way that I feel in airports…. I exist, but barely. No one knows me. No one know about my messes or my past. For a few hours I don’t feel quite so heavy. Anyway, I’m packed up and I’m dressed. Makeup is on and my hair is still wet. It’s going to be wet for awhile. I can hear the babies squeaking like little dinosaurs in the other room. #1 and I snuggled, watched some weird dinosaur movie on Netflix and ate popcorn while bestie did homework last night. #1 and I were playing a game where we had to whisper because the dinosaurs were going to eat us. I loved it. It made my mommy heart not hurt so bad.
Bestie gave me a hug after she finished her homework “…thank you for being my best friend; tonight I realized I really, really have a best friend and it made me so happy”. Hurt girls never feel truly safe no matter how intensely they love.
Earlier in the week other bestie had a panic attack when she thought I might not make the trek up north. I haven’t been feeling well and my shoulder pain is a 10. I considered not going but when I heard the panic in her voice I knew that she needed me to meet this guy. I bought the tickets and told her I’d be there on Saturday night. She cried with relief when I told her and it reminded me that hurt girls don’t trust other people’s word.
I think this is probably why I have such ferocious bonds with these women. Sometimes I think they like me a little too much. I’m not quite sure what they like about me but I won’t question it too loudly lest they realize I’m not so great. I’m grateful for their unconditional love. Bestie held me until 2am while I cried last night, and then moments later we talked about how Jesus could be a schizophrenic alien and how maybe schizophrenics are the divine ones. We laughed until we cried some more; at 3am I wiped away my tears and I fell asleep with a heart that didn’t hurt quite as deeply as it did before. Sometimes I think that if this is the lasting love that was set apart for me…. Then I am truly lucky. I never imagined I’d have such precious women in my life.
In other news, my mama heart is broken. My own #1 is struggling deeply. He reminds me of me at that age and I so wish I could dig him out. He cried “mama mama mama” over and over again yesterday. It took all of my self control to not buy a ticket back to Columbus. What mother let’s her son hurt like this? Deep in my core I know he has to go through it. It occurred to me for the first time that my child might die before me and I am truly scared for his life. He called my evil ex for help. I’m grateful that my ex is kind to my son. I’m grateful that he is going to help him even though it scares me. Potato says that when my ex asks about me, he tells him he never talks to me. It reinforces the narrative that I’m a piece of shit and that’s okay because I am. I bet helping my lost boy in my absence really gives that narcissist a gigantic boner. But you know what, if my boy gets help then I don’t care what Narcissist thinks. And that’s how it is with my kids.
Chef guy told Bestie to tell me “goodbye. I’m in love with you🤪😜😝”. Which was pretty funny. He tried really hard to get my attention but I was pretty cold. (Bitter. Vindictive. Drunk. Ice Queen. Two cunt.) (I kinda like the ice Queen one though…. Makes me feel less fragile). I’m not interested in being vulnerable again. I concede. When I found out chef guy had a crush on me I was flattered, but when I look at him I think “how are you going to hurt me?”. I haven’t been dating or talking to anyone but different dudes have approached me at different times. Bellingham guy got the picture and I added his number to the graveyard. English Bus guy asked me out so many times I had to take a picture of his phone number so he would believe me when I told him I would call him. I didn’t. And I won’t. Bitter. I can’t see anyone without wondering what it feels like to have my heart broken by them. It makes my stomach churn. I’ll do it alone, thanks.
My boss has been incredibly tender and kind. I had record sales (for myself) last month and got a kudo email for some sales pitches he was cc’d in. He checks on me and asks me if I’m okay; “remember your worth”. It’s nice to be thought of and while I don’t necessarily need to be handled with satin gloves, I like that he does. Makes me feel like I’m not trash. Even though I am. (Two cunts)
When I get home, I have a lot of plans for myself and my alone time. Hopefully the ghosts are gone now. I need a bigger sketchbook, new poscas and better colored pencils. I have a lot of ideas but I’m scared that I won’t commit. I haven’t bought food in a month and I know the apartment is trashed. If sports guy from the bar texts, I’m gonna ignore him. Work Bestie and I start our routine on Monday. It will be nice to have a routine commitment. Still scouring the net for a puppie pie. I want a King Charles cavalier- I’m going to name it “sterling”, after that town in Alaska. I tried to adopt Sherman but when he attacked my feet and made me bleed I decided against it. Poor Sherman. He had been beaten his whole life. I kinda get it. I don’t want anyone fucking with me anymore either. I need to start looking for costumes for comic con. Since we will be there for the whole weekend, I can wear the vest costume on Friday and the ball gown on Saturday. Drink and draw after 8pm with that one comic book artist with Dark Horse. Something to look forward to.
Anyway, it’s time to hit the road. More later I suppose.

I have a three week old iphone 14 pro running ios 16.5.
A book I bought on iphone 14 pro max photography has several inaccuracies not found or found differently on my iphone. This book is so terrible I rated it a 1 on Amazon and wrote asking for my money back. But the thing is that I found two of the features described the same way elsewhere. That they were sometimes described elsewhere in identical wording adds to my grievance with that book.

1. The depth control, not in the camera app, but in the photos app. Portrait mode images may be done using the depth control slider. After selecting edit, go to the top of the screen and choose the depth adjustment option. Below the picture is where you'll find the slider. To alter the degree to which the backdrop is blurred, drag the slider to the left or right. TO save your changes tap the Done button. I actually found the same instructions - verbatim, the author of this book simply copied it - on support.apple.com. There there are helpful pictures of the icons, and the depth control button is supposed to be a letter f.

There is no such feature in my photos app, in which I opened a photo taken in portrait mode and got into edit.

1. Adjusting several photographs (with the same settings)

To apply the changes you made to one photo or video, and paste them onto another photo, a group of phots, or all photos at once, choose the image or video that includes the modifications you want to duplicate by clicking it, click the option labeled "more Options" then choose "Copy edits", then use the back icon to get back to your library, pick the select button, then click the thumnbnails of the photos you want to paste the adjustments, or opena single photo or movie, tap the option labeled more options, then choose paste edits.
Two of quite a number of weaknesses of the book are leaving out some of the instructions, and failure to include images with labels or arrows so you can find what you are talking about. But I found the same instructions on Lifewire, this one with screenshots showing what they are talking about.
It explicitly says the same instructions apply to all iphones running ios 16.5, even an iphone 14 or 11 (my old iphone 11 ran ios 16.5).
This is all supposed to be in the more options in the edit screen. On my phone, copy edits is not there. In fact, a number of the more options shown in the Lifewire article are not there.
Eventually I found the copy edits and paste edits options, alone with no other options available, in more options while editing a photo taken in portrait mode. But both the book and the article explicitly say this can be done with all photos AND videos.
Actually when I found the same thing in an article on new features in ios 16, I realized that this feature might logically only become available on photos where you've made changes. The book didn't mention that and neither did the article. So I made some changes in a photo taken in ordinary mode and not portrait mode. I closed it. Then I opened it again. Now when I open that photo and click edit and then more, copy changes and paste changes appears AND NOTHING ELSE APPEARS - which is precisely not what the article shows. In the screenshot in the article those two options appear along with all of the other more options. So it is still true something must have changed.

1. My phone consistently uses an icon with three interlinked circles to get to the filters for tint and warmth vs cool, in the photo app and the camera app. The book has some of them in a different location with a different icon. He also confusingly calls this feature atleast three different things.

Allegedly the iphone 14 series has always run iOS 16. It didn't initially come with iphone 15.
The book was published in 2022, soon after the iphone 14 series came out.
I am running an iphone 14 pro, and the book says it's for iphone 14 pro max. However, those two iphones have identical photography hardware. The camera and photos apps are apparently a feature of iOS 16.
Why specifically are these features different on my phone?
Thanks!

In my sci-fi/cosmic horror story, an anomaly gives many people abilities. My working name for them is the altered but I’m open to changing it if anyone has suggestions. While some were given preferable powers and changes many of these came with downsides. Any questions or suggestions on this group are appreciated.
Altered powers range from being able to control energy to communicating with animals. Abilities can be more abstract like the power to induce madness or communicating with space. One trait the altered all share is the power to combine their abilities into a singular skill. Deemed “resonance” this can allow any number of altered to blend powers as long as they have synergy. An example controls fire and another ice working together to form electricity.
Many powers come with downsides as a side effect of how they work. Someone who can fly for example creates a personal gravity field that negates the surrounding force. While you can fly you can’t touch the ground without using something to weigh yourself like special shoes. Some energy powers require you to exude that same energy cause you can’t just pull that out of nowhere thanks to physics. Someone who controls fire may be perpetually on fire and need heat-resistant clothing. While some may have the same power the way it manifests would dictate whether or not you could have a side-effect.
Another issue is the matter of physiology changes. Some altered have different looks which can range from green skin to animal-like attributes. This physiology switch can range from needing to breathe carbon monoxide or having a different diet. Someone given the quality of a koala now can only eat plants as meat could be lethal. Another problem that comes from this is body dysmorphia. Having your appearance changed can result in many not liking the result. One of my characters is currently struggling to reconcile his self-worth with his pangolin-like appearance.
As the world struggles to deal with the changes caused by the Anomaly like monsters and strange phenomena the altered have been forced to deal with added weight. From getting treatment to managing their powers or therapy to process the change things have been shaky so far.

This week was packed with small but impactful AI developments.

• NVIDIA uses AI to bring NPCs to life- NVIDIA has announced the NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for Games. This cloud-based service provides developers access to various AI models, including natural language processing (NLP) models, facial animation models, and motion capture models.- ACE for Games can create NPCs that can have intelligent, unscripted, and dynamic conversations with players, express emotions, and realistically react to their surroundings.- It can help developers in many ways:

1. To create more realistic and believable NPCs with more natural and engaging conversations with players.
2. To save time and money by providing them access to various AI models.

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• BiomedGPT: The most sophisticated AI medical model?- BiomedGPT is a unified and generalist Biomedical Generative Pre-trained Transformer model.- BiomedGPT utilizes self-supervision on diverse datasets to handle multi-modal inputs and perform various downstream tasks.- Extensive experiments show that BiomedGPT surpasses most previous state-of-the-art models in performance across 5 distinct tasks with 20 public datasets spanning over 15 biomedical modalities.- The study also demonstrates the effectiveness of the multi-modal and multi-task pretraining approach in transferring knowledge to previously unseen data.
• Break-A-Scene: AI breaks down single image into multiple concepts- If given a photo of a ceramic artwork depicting a creature seated on a bowl, humans can effortlessly imagine the same creature in various poses and locations or envision the same bowl in a new setting. However, today's generative models struggle to do this type of task.- This research from Google (and others) introduces a new approach to textual scene decomposition. Given a single image of a scene that may contain multiple concepts of different kinds, it extracts a dedicated text token for each concept (handles) and enables fine-grained control over the generated scenes. The approach uses textual prompts in natural language for creating novel images featuring individual concepts or combinations of multiple concepts.
• Roop: 1 click AI face swap software with no dataset & trainingRoop is a 1 click, deepfake face-swapping software. It allows you to replace the face in a video with the face of your choice. You only need one image of the desired face and that’s it- no dataset or training is needed.In the future, they are aiming to:- Improve the quality of faces in results- Replace a selective face throughout the video- Support for replacing multiple faces

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• Voyager: First LLM lifelong learning agent that can continuously explore worlds- Voyager is the first LLM-powered lifelong learning agent in Minecraft that uses advanced learning techniques to explore, learn skills, and make discoveries without human input.It consists of 3 key components:

1. Automatic curriculum for exploration.
2. Ever-growing skill library of executable code for storing and retrieving complex behaviors.
3. Iterative prompting mechanism for incorporating environment feedback, execution errors, & program improvement.- Voyager interacts with GPT-4 through blackbox queries, bypassing the need for fine-tuning. It demonstrates strong lifelong learning abilities and performs exceptionally well in Minecraft.- Voyager rapidly becomes a seasoned explorer. In Minecraft, it obtains 3.3× more unique items, travels 2.3× longer distances, and unlocks key tech tree milestones up to 15.3× faster than prior methods & they have open-sourced everything!

• LaVIN, for cheap and quick vision-language adaptation in LLMs- New research from Xiamen University has proposed a novel and cost-effective for adapting LLMs to vision-language (VL) instruction tuning called Mixture-of-Modality Adaptation (MMA).- MMA uses lightweight adapters, allowing joint optimization of an entire multimodal LLM with a small number of parameters. This saves more than thousand times of storage overhead compared with existing solutions. It can also obtain a quick shift between text-only and image-text instructions to preserve the NLP capability of LLMs.- Based on MMA, a large vision-language instructed model called LaVIN was developed, enabling cheap and quick adaptations on VL tasks without requiring another large-scale pre-training. On conducting experiments on ScienceQA, LaVIN showed on-par performance with the advanced multimodal LLMs, with training time reduced by up to 71.4% and storage costs by 99.9%.
• Top AI scientists and experts sign statement urging safe AI- In a bid to facilitate open discussions about the severe risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence (AI), a concise statement has been released, urging the global community to prioritize mitigating the risk of AI-induced extinction.- The statement highlights the importance of addressing this issue on par with other societal-scale risks like pandemics and nuclear war. The call has garnered support from a growing number of AI scientists and notable figures from various fields, including Sam Altman CEO-OpenAI, Dario Amodei CEO-Anthropic, Demis Hassabis CEO-Google DeepMind, and many more.
• Falcon topples LLaMA: Top open-source LM- Falcon 40B, UAE’s leading large-scale open-source AI model from Technology Innovation Institute (TII), is now royalty-free for commercial and research use. Previously, it was released under a license requiring commercial royalty payments of 10%.- The model has been updated to Apache 2.0 software license, under which end-users have access to any patent covered by the software in question. TII has also provided access to the model’s weights to allow researchers and developers to use it to bring their innovative ideas to life.- Ranked #1 globally on Hugging Face’s Open LLM leaderboard, Falcon 40B outperforms competitors like Meta’s LLaMA, Stability AI’s StableLM, and RedPajama from Together.
• Open AI’s latest idea can help models do math with 78% accuracy- Even SoTA models today are prone to hallucinations, which can be particularly problematic in domains that require multi-step reasoning. To train more reliable models, OpenAI trained a model by rewarding each correct step of reasoning (“process supervision”) instead of simply rewarding the correct final answer (“outcome supervision”).- It was found that process supervision significantly outperforms outcome supervision for training models to solve problems from challenging MATH datasets. The model in the experiment solved 78% of problems from a representative subset of the MATH test set.- Additionally, process supervision also has an important alignment benefit: it directly trains the model to produce a chain-of-thought that is endorsed by humans.
• Neuralangelo, NVIDIA’s new AI model, turns 2D video into 3D structures- NVIDIA Research has introduced a new AI model for 3D reconstruction called Neuralangelo. It uses neural networks to turn 2D video clips from any device– cell phone to drone capture– into detailed 3D structures, generating lifelike virtual replicas of buildings, sculptures, and other real-world objects.- Neuralangelo’s ability to translate the textures of complex materials — including roof shingles, panes of glass, and smooth marble — from 2D videos to 3D assets significantly surpasses prior methods. The high fidelity makes its 3D reconstructions easier for developers and creative professionals to rapidly create usable virtual objects for their projects using footage captured by smartphones.
• Google’s retrieval-augmented model addresses the challenge of pre-training- Large-scale models like T5, GPT-3, PaLM, Flamingo, and PaLI have shown impressive knowledge storage abilities but require massive amounts of data and computational resources. Retrieval-augmented models in natural language processing (RETRO, REALM) and computer vision (KAT) aim to overcome these challenges by leveraging retrieval techniques. And researchers have attempted to address these challenges using retrieval-augmented models.- This model, “REVEAL: Retrieval-Augmented Visual-Language Pre-Training with Multi-Source Multimodal Knowledge Memory,” can provide up-to-date information and improve efficiency by retrieving relevant information instead of relying solely on pre-training.- It learns to utilize a multi-source multi-modal “memory” to answer knowledge-intensive queries & allows the model parameters to focus on reasoning about the query rather than being dedicated to memorization.
  
• And there was more…. - JPMorgan developing a ChatGPT-like service to provide investment advice to customers - AI to help scientists predict whether breast cancer spread risk - IBM consulting launches generative AI center of excellence - PandaGPT: The all-in-one model for instruction-following - NVIDIA, MediaTek team up to bring AI-powered infotainment to cars - American Express will experiment cautiously with generative AI for fintech - BMW has begun experimenting with AI in designing - ChatGPT iOS app has been made accessible in 152 countries worldwide. - Vectara ensures the absence of hallucinations in Generative AI. - UAE rolls out AI chatbot 'U-Ask' in Arabic & English - Amazon trains AI to weed out damaged goods - Snapchat launches new generative AI feature, ‘My AI Snaps’ - Instacart launches in-app AI search tool powered by ChatGPT - SnapFusion enables a text-to-image diffusion model on mobile devices within 2 secs. - Accenture strengthens AI and ML Engineering through Nextira acquisition - Alibaba reveals its first LLM just like ChatGPT
  

More details, breakdown and links to the news sources in the full edition of the newsletter (Link in the profile).