I’m excited to share a tradition that’s run in our family for generations!
Every year, my parents always make big batches of Nian Gao, a semi sweet, chewy cake of deliciousness. They learned the recipe from my grandparents, who used to make even bigger batches of Nian Gao for my parents back in China.
In Cantonese, it’s known as “nìhn gōu 年糕”, and this is a must-have for Lunar New Year and a delicious snack that my parents make year-round.
What you'll be learning:

My family’s spin on this traditional recipe!
Context on the key ingredients, and the equipment you'll need to make this dish (+ alternatives)
The various idioms and meanings behind Nian Gao and all of its various toppings

Here are a few pictures of what the recipe looks like if you want a visual :)

Flavor Profile

If you've never had Nian Gao before, it's a chewy, sticky, semi-sweet bite of deliciousness. It's a lot like a Japanese mochi, and my family's addition of red beans gives it a sort of Snickers bar texture with less crunch and without the chocolate taste.
It's absolutely delicious. If you pan fry them in oil, which is also optional, it's made even more delicious with a subtle soft & crispy contrast.

Reaching New Heights

Nian Gao (nìhn gōu in Cantonese) roughly translates to "New Year Cake", and it's a sticky rice cake with thousands of years of history and thousands more variations all across Asia.
Technically, lots of cakes (taro cake, turnip cake, sponge cake, etc) qualify as a "New Year Cake", but this is the recipe that comes to mind when people speak of Nian Gao.
My family makes Nian Gao year-round, but it’s a must during Lunar New Year. In Cantonese, the word for "cake 糕” shares the same sound as “high 高”, gōu, so cake is intertwined with many sayings and symbols of good luck.
There are several sayings that tie into the cake/high connection, such as:

bouh bouh gōu sīng 步步高升 - climb step by step, rise steadily
faai gōu jéung daaih 快高長大 - wishes for children to grow taller and bigger quickly

On Red Beans

In Cantonese, red beans are called “hùhng dáu 红豆”. These are formally known as adzuki or azuki (アズキ) beans, which means “small bean” in Japanese.
Azuki beans started appearing in the wild around 50000 years ago, and started being domesticated in Asia around 3000 years ago. We talk about this in our video, but my dad actually used to grow his own beans in his old village in Toisan.
They’re extremely nutritious and have become a staple ingredient in a bunch of Asian desserts and sweets. However, the red bean itself actually isn’t sweet, and is usually combined with sugar and turned into red bean paste.

On Rice Flour

Also known as glutinous rice or sweet rice, sticky rice is used in a lot of Asian desserts and dishes, and is a staple of Southeast Asian cuisine.

Compared to regular rice, sticky rice has a shorter grain, and is missing one of the two main molecular components of starch.
- Starch typically contains amylose and amylopectin. Sticky rice is missing amylose.
This makes it easier to break down in hot water, and gives the rice its namesake.
Also, even though it’s called glutinous rice, it’s completely gluten-free.

Equipment Needed

There are a few things you’ll need: a steamer, a cake pan, parchment paper, and a food scale.
For steaming, it’s best to use a dedicated steamer, but you might be able to get away with using a wok with a steamer rack.
For the cake pan, you can use whatever you might have at home, but it’ll make your life easier to use one with a removable base and/or a springform buckle. You’ll also want parchment paper to line the base with.
With a food scale, you’re able to be much more precise and create a smaller mess than you would with measuring cups. Measuring cups are based on volume, which can vary significantly depending on how you scoop, the density of the ingredient, and etcetera.

The Recipe

Prep Time: 15 min
Total Time: 720 min
Yield: 4 servings

Main Ingredients

8 oz brown sugar
8 oz glutinous rice flour
2 oz regular rice flour
6 oz water (for cake batter)
1 tbsp olive oil
7 oz red bean (optional)
2 cups water (for red bean)
2 tbsp coconut milk

Decorations

5 red dates (aka jujubes)
5 walnuts
roasted sesame seeds

Step 1 - Soak & cook red beans

The first thing we'll want to do is prepare our red beans (7 oz).

Soak the red beans in water (room temperature) for 6-8 hours
Wash the beans by rinsing and massaging in water for 20-30 seconds
Pour the beans into a pot and add cold water (2 cups)
Bring the pot to a boil on high heat
Once boiling, adjust to low heat and simmer for 1-2 hours.

You'll know when the beans are done when the water is fully absorbed, and the beans turn into a mush when you squeeze them with your fingers.
The red beans are totally optional but very delicious. This recipe does not change at all if you decide to skip on red beans.

Step 2 - Create cake batter

When the red bean is just about ready, we'll start creating our cake batter in several bowls. Like we mentioned before, I highly recommend using / getting a food scale for this.
I don't think you necessarily need to do it this way but my dad used several bowls in the process:

Bowl 1 - Add brown sugar (8 oz) and boiling water (6 oz), stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Bowl 2 - Add glutinous rice flour (8 oz), regular rice flour (2 oz), coconut milk (2 tbsp) (optional), olive oil (1 tbsp)

Combine bowls 1 and 2, and stir until there are no white clumps of flour remaining. The mix should be creamy and smooth, so you may need to add splashes of water if it's not there.
Next, we'll pour in the boiled red bean, and continue stirring. My dad employs a technique where he uses his left hand to turn the bowl in the opposite direction of his stirring (right) hand.
Let the batter sit for 5-10 minutes.

Step 3 - Oil cake pan, load steamer

Fill the steamer with water, about 0.5 - 1" below where the cake pan will be sitting. Bring the steamer to a boil on high heat.
A pot designed for steaming (metal or bamboo are both fine) is the most ideal, but a wok or a pot with a lid & steamer rack works as well. The main concern is just to avoid having water splash onto the cake as the steaming occurs.
To make the cake easier to remove later, drizzle some oil on the interior of the cake pan's rim, and spread it around with your finger.
We'll also line the bottom of the pan with some parchment paper, cut to size.
Once the steamer has come to a boil, set the cake pan in the steamer, and pour the batter into the pan. Cover the steamer with its lid.

Step 4 - Steam cake

Steam the cake for 30 minutes on high heat, and 30 minutes on medium heat.
Once the time is up, we can check if it's done cooking by poking a chopstick into the cake. If the cake doesn't stick to the chopstick, then it's done.

Step 5 - Decorate the cake

This is all optional, but my parents like to decorate their nian gao with various toppings, each with their own endearing symbolism.
Some of these are meant for newlyweds (at the time of writing, my wife and I were recently married, and my sister recently got engaged!), and some are more general wishes of prosperity.

red dates (hùhng jóu 红枣)
- we wish you'll have kids soon! (jóu sāang gwai jí 早生贵子)
walnuts (hahp tòuh 合桃)
- a lifetime (literally, 100 years) of a happy marriage (baak nìhn hóu hahp 百年好合)
sesame seeds (jī màh 芝麻)
- steadily improve your life, career, studies, etc. (jī màh hōi fā jit jit gōu 芝麻开花节节髙)
- this is analagous to how sesame plants flower, bit by bit, taller and taller.

Red dates are the most common decor (and also, the color red is a symbol of good luck), along with sesame seeds or coconut flakes.
I've also heard that some people will write out an auspicious phrase with their toppings.

Step 6 - Cool overnight

Before we get to eat the cake, we need to let it cool down to room temperature, and then place it in the refrigerator overnight, ideally for at least 12 hours.
This allows the cake to harden and to be cut into slices.
It's important NOT to place it in the refrigerator immediately, as my parents warn that it can ruin your fridge.

Step 7 - Remove from pan, slice cake, pan fry

Once the cake has cooled, carefully remove it from the cake pan, and slice them up however you'd like.
Pan-frying: optional but recommended
This is optional, but you can slice up the cake into thin 0.5" rectangular slices (see the video for an example of how my dad does this with a circular cake).
Heat up a pan with oil, and load up the pan just enough so that each individual slice is able to touch the surface of the pan. Pan fry for 2-3 minutes on each side.

Gifting these to friends / family

It's pretty common to make these for friends and family! Some notes:

You can use disposable aluminum cake pans, with the same exact recipe timing.
If you're gifting this during Lunar New Year and following Chinese tradition, it's ideal to gift a whole entire cake, not a portion of one that you made. My parents don't always follow this, but having a complete cake (or fish, or chicken, or etc.) is considered "yùhn méih 完美", which means perfect, consummate.
If you're making a smaller / bigger batches as a gift, you can use our ingredients section on the website to scale up / down the recipe, and adjust the steaming time accordingly.

-----

Our why

I've always wanted to honor my parents and capture the hundreds of recipes that my dad's perfected over 50 years as a Chinese chef. I want to celebrate their legacy and epic journey of making something of themselves here in America, and pass it down to our kids.
Thanks for reading! Hope you all love the recipes :)

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Proof and Pics
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In honor of the upcoming episode, I thought it would be fun to talk about the creature Kirinmaru is based off - the kirin. And man are they great - the my little pony - unicorn - dragon - chimera of the eastern pantheon of magical creatures.
There's lots of different variations of kirin in art. But most depictions of the Japanese kirin (as opposed to the Chinese qilin) are of a deer-like creature with one or two horns or antlers. Probably the most famous representation in pop culture is the Forest Spirit (Shishigami) in Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke. In the classic imagery, kirin also have dragon-like scales - usually green or rainbow colored - and luxurious manes made of red or yellow holy fire (hence Kirinmaru's luscious locks).
Kirin are gentle, benevolent creatures that avoid harming others. They're said to walk on water or air in order to avoid trampling even a blade of grass. Their faces are the picture of utter serenity (notably, Kirinmaru's face is covered by a mask). They're quiet, solitary beings.
Seeing a kirin is a good omen. One of the few stories of kirin (or qilin) that I've seen (in English) is of the qilin that appeared around the time of Confucius' birth and death. Because of that story, qilin and kirin are associated with sages (Kirinmaru is bookish) and just rulers and leaders. They're also symbols of good fortune (the green rainbow pearl brings good luck).
Probably the most interesting part of the mythology around the kirin is their ability to peer into a person's heart and judge their moral character. Kirin are symbols of justice and are believed to uphold certain moral standards. They do not harm good and pure souls, but will attack when threatened. If a kirin does attack, it can be very dangerous. (Kirin are ranked as the most powerful and and sacred of the Japanese mythical beasts.)
A kirin on the attack will stand down when someone acts with bravery and kindness. This is, more or less, what happens in Princess Mononoke, and it could be what happens in Yashahime (most likely, Towa's big moment). Once a kirin is appeased, it will make amends for its destructive rampage (i.e., everyone gets a happy ending).
All in all, Kirinmaru has the potential to be extremely interesting. And if Riku is his son, then he too also has the potential to be extremely interesting.

I sat with a vacant expression on my face, staring out the window, as Sheriff Farrar and Richard drove me back to my Cabin. I watched the trees gently pass as the vehicle made its way carefully down the main trail. I looked into each crevasse of darkness, each pocket of black abyss, wondering how such a place of natural wonder could harbour such evil. I really thought I had it all figured out. And like always, I got it utterly and completely wrong.
‘Are you ok, James? I’m not a robot, I know It is a lot to take in.’ Richard asked as he looked at me, over his left shoulder, peering through the gap between his seat and the car exterior. I simply nodded, if you could call it a nod. I wasn’t really in much of a talking mood. I wouldn’t know what to say, even if I was.
‘Were going to need a more definitive answer, son. We need to know you understood everything we told you, before we let you out this car.’ The Sheriff’s warning was stern.
‘For your own good, as much as anyone else's.’ It seemed Richard was playing good cop.
‘At least now, you can see we aren’t the bad guys.’ The sheriff said in huff, clearly still offended.
The vehicle pulled up, outside the cabin. Both men leaned over their seats to look through to me in the back. I gave them my attention.
‘So, James, are we going to have a problem?’ Richard asked, wanting confirmation.
I brought my chin up and their gaze fully. Letting them know I was engaged fully. ‘I understand. You won’t have a problem.’
The two men, turned to face each other, as if to gauge in a non-verbal manner, whether they believed me. They nodded to one another in satisfaction.
‘Ok, so what are you going to do?’ Richard asked, wanting me to show him that I had listened.
‘I am going to never talk, or think heavily, about Edward Keller between the hours of 10.25pm and 8.00pm.’ I stated.
‘Good...’ Richard replied.
‘I am going to burn that stack of newspapers and anything else that bares Edward Kellers name.’
‘Yeah... and finally...’ Richard asked.
‘I will memorize the 5 steps.’ I said.
Richard cocked his head, as if I missed something.
I smiled. ‘But, only between 8pm and 10.25pm.’
‘Well, Bob. I think he has got it.’ Richard said to the sheriff, with a smug smile on his face. The sheriff didn’t seem too convinced, though.
‘Yeah, well we will see. I think this is a mistake personally. We’ve protected this town for too long Ri-’
‘Bob! I said we are giving James a chance. This all came from a place of wanting to protect the people of this town. I don’t think he is going to let us down.’
I sat there, watching Richard literally talk the towns sheriff down from wanting to kill me. It was a surreal moment, I won’t lie, but I did mean what I said.
I got out of the vehicle, thanking Richard and Bob for the ride. They both gave me one last reminder that this was my one and only chance to quote ‘Play Ball’. I once again did my best to convince them I would.
I entered the cabin, watching Bob Farrar’s police issued Chevrolet carefully reverse back on to the trail, as I closed the door behind me. I checked the time. 10.02pm. I didn’t have much time. I grabbed the newspaper articles from the side of the bed and dragged them out on to my cabins back porch, where I had a burn barrel.
I tossed in every tabloid, doused in lighter fluid and threw in a match. The flames felt lovely and warm against my chilled skin. I prepared myself a coffee, pulled up a seat next to the fire and I reminisced about the revelation of what is really going on here at Wolf Lake.
The entire glass of whiskey began to swish up each side of my stomach. The relaxing, calming effect of the alcohol beginning to reach my extremities, taking the edge of the intense atmosphere.
‘There. Entire glass, gone.’ I said as I slammed the glass, bottom down.
‘Get him another, please, Phil.’ Richard didn’t look satisfied.
‘What the hell! What is this? Pre-drinks?! Will someone just tell me what is going on?!’ I said, growing impatient.
‘James... Just take the drink. Believe me, you’ll need it.’ Phil interjected, placing a friendly hand on my back, as he placed another glass of whiskey in front of me, in an attempt to put me at ease.
‘Can someone just tell me what is going on?’ I asked, using the calmest voice I had produced all evening.
Richard looked satisfied with my demeanour. He looked at Sheriff Farrar and as if on cue, he produced a file and handed it to Richard. He passed me the documents and invited me to read it by gently nodding his head forward.
I opened up the binder. A picture of a man greeted me. A man matching the description of Edward Kellers mugshot was hanging from a tree. A rope was around his neck, the muscle tissue around the noose had torn and was bruised in a bad way. His eyes were open, wild and the scariest thing was he was smiling. However, he was dead. Very dead.
There were other factors that made this whole event extremely questionable. First of all, he was naked. Not a single item of clothing was on his body and second, there was a symbol painted on his torso. The ink looked to be a brown shade of red and was extremely thick.
The tree was huge, a towering Oak that looked a main staple point of the forest. The thick branch, that bore the noose, was at lease 20ft off the ground. The rope was fed through a fork in the branch, with one end hanging to make the noose and the other end travelling down and was anchored to the base of another tree.
I studying the pictures while the Sheriff explained what I was looking at.
‘That is Edward Keller. As you can see, he’s dead as dead can be. You were right, though. We did cover something up. We painted it as a suicide. We told the public that Keller hung himself to avoid trial and prison but, as you can see... it wasn’t a suicide. It was a murder.’
I was stunned. My gaze began to switch from the photos to Sheriff Farrar and back again, looking for more input. He obliged.
‘The way the rope has been tied, and the height of the branch, it could have only been done with help.’
‘What is the symbol on his torso? What does that mean??’ My question, along with my vision was aimed at anyone who could answer me. The sheriff looked at Richard, as if deeming him more qualified to answer this line of questioning.
‘Ok, I will field this one. That drawing on the chest that you are looking at. That is the symbol of ‘The Cult of Kettle Moraine’. They are a clandestine satanic church, who the FBI have been investigating since the mid 1970s, but the groups history goes back all the way to Pagan times. A little bit of background about the group; They worship an ancient woodland god, known as The Cthonic Black Goat. A lot of research has gone into the groups beliefs and among other twisted views about the links between the woods and the roots of trees being a direct gateway to the underworld, they also apparently claim to have summoned ‘The Goatman’ and ‘The Beast of Bray Road’, but most people just write them off as religious nuts.
They are a dangerous bunch, though, and are actually, still wanted for murder back in 1993, in the state of Wisconsin for 3 extremely violent, sacrificial rituals. Three missing girls aged 11-14 were kidnapped from near their homes in Madison. They were found to have been sacrificed in a forest, just off Goat Man Road in Kewaskum. That symbol was on each of the victim's torsos.’
I started to neck the rest of the whiskey, as advised by Phil. ‘So, what have these guys got to do with Edward Keller?’
‘Well, like I said, this whole ‘We summoned the Goatman and every other forest demon crap’ was just written off as biblical nonsense. But... the things we have seen, may suggest otherwise.’
I didn’t need probe anymore, as Richard jumped in to field this next section of information.
‘That is where Hazard Control comes in. You think Wolf Lake is the only national park we handle? (scoff) The Hazard Control Department has been deployed across every national park, ever since the 1940s. Me and Bob first began working together on the night of Edward Kellers suicide. They had tracked him in to the park, so they obviously needed our guidance and presence, in order to find him safely. I was the Park Representative at the time and was sent by the Agency.
At this point, Hazard Control wasn’t a factor in Wolf Lake. There had been deaths, but all perfectly natural and exactly what you might expect in this environment. As soon as I saw the symbol, though and I forwarded this on to Hazard Control, they immediately promoted me to be the Hazard Control Rep for Wolf Lake and instructed me to liaise with Sheriff Farrar.’
‘Liaise about what?? What happened with Edward Keller??’ Richard had stalled, a little lost for how to explain the situation, so I jumped in.
‘Edward Keller was sacrificed by The Cult of Kettle Moraine. We believe they heard of the Manhunt for this horrible, horrible child murderer. End of the day, when it comes to pledging your loyalty to Satan, there is no bigger pledge than taking the life of a child. They are the most beautiful gift from God that you can receive. And Edward Keller did things to children, that should never happen to anyone. He took everything from them. He would take their safety, take their innocence, he would take their flesh and finally, he would take their life.
The Cult of Kettle Moraine offered Edward Keller a way he could not only avoid capture, but continue to wreck the lives of the children of Wolf Lake. We think he grabbed the offer with both hands. Or, his neck, should we say.
So, while his flesh and bones may sit as ash in an urn somewhere; his spirit roams the trees of Wolf Lake.’
I looked at each man, waiting for them to burst into a fit of laughter and claim they couldn’t do it anymore. Or some sort of hidden camera show presenter bursting into the tower, telling me that I had been ‘Punk’d’. But no such luck. The faces of each man, were all deadly serious. Phil was already on hand with a third whiskey. A Large one. I threw it down neck and let the alcohol take its effect on my nerves.
‘Jesus... So... Oh God, I don’t even know what to say.’ I was lost.
‘It’s ok, son. Take your time. I was exactly the same, last night. It is a lot to take in.’ Phil said. The fatherly manner, deliberate.
‘That’s right. Phil got a little heated with me, last night. I had come to get a statement on the Robertson Family. I know none of you are stupid and can see there is something extremely wrong. But there’s a reason we have covered it up for so long.’ Richard said.
‘Billy ain’t in Virginia.’ Phil said, tears in his eyes, lump in his throat. My heart began to race.
‘Jesus, you killed him, didn’t you?’ I said, looking in Richard and the Sheriffs direction.
‘ARE YOU GOD DAMN KIDDING ME WITH THIS SH-’ The Sheriff exploded towards to me, only for Richard and Phil to get in his way. Richard advised the Sheriff to go grab a cigarette on the walkway. He obliged.
‘They have never killed anyone, James. But we have lost two Rangers, now, because we didn’t know the full situation. You won't know him but Jim Beckett, who was a veteran Ranger here. Just before you joined, he just got up and left one day. Didn’t tell us where he was going, just handed his notice in, and left. He was acting extremely strange, beforehand. Talking about some man in the woods, a man who would cook and eat flesh. He said he could smell the burning meat on a night and then he would have horrible dreams. He started sleepwalking and we would find him in random places in the park. He was an old man and we just assumed the stress of this job was taking its toll, so no one really battered an eyelid when he left. We just assumed he had retired.’
Richard was pouring himself another Whiskey. ‘Assumed?’ I questioned.
Richard sat down and took a gulp. He took two items out of his briefcase and slid them across the table. One was a polaroid photo of what looked like a crime scene photo. It was of a man, aged 65, I would guess. He was flopped forward on a kitchen table. He had a revolver in his right hand, very serious bullet wound in his temple.
‘He never came to collect his final wage slip, so we went to deliver it to him, and we will be honest, his behaviour before he left, gave us cause a lot for concern. We needed to see him. Found him, like that.’
I was speechless. I didn’t know this man, but I couldn’t help wonder what on earth got so badly into his head that made him do this. I started to feel sick, when I realised that I had also smelt burning flesh and had nightmares. Was this going to be me? I put the photo down and picked up the 2nd item that Richard had handed over. It was a scrap piece of paper, with a list of 5 bullet points. They were in ball point blue ink and we’re written in almost frantic handwriting. There was dried blood on the paper. I assume the man wrote this list before he shot himself. I read the note in its entirety out loud:
To whom it may concern,
I wish to apologise to who may find me, but you must know, this was for the greater good. Every word, every Chinese whisper, every single ounce of fear we create for him – he grows. If he grows, he will soon walk the earth again. HE MUST NOT WALK THIS EARTH. He is in my head, I can’t unsee what I saw that night in the woods. I did not follow Rule 1. I can’t un see that thing and those poor children. I do this to cut his power. With my death, he must find a new victim to spread his message. This will no longer be me. However, if it is you, he seeks out next, please don’t make the mistakes of others. Follow these rules and you may be rid of him.
Goodbye,
Jim.
The 5 rules to survive the man in the woods.
Rule 1. if at any point, between the first 2 hours of nightfall, you smell burning, then whatever you do, don't follow the smell. If you do, you will see something so horrible and so diabolical, that you will never be able to forget what you’ve seen. It will haunt you for the rest of your days. Trust me.
Rule. 2 The more you walk away from the source, the smell will change and begin to get worse. You will be start to smell burning flesh, if you smell this, then hold your breath and run away from the smell. Get to higher ground or a large clearing, where you are away from the trees.
If you do not do this quick enough or you don’t hold your breath, you will become lightheaded and start to feel extremely drowsy. Every part of you will try to sleep but whatever you do, fight the urge to sleep. Drink some strong coffee and this should pass in 10-15 mins, depending on how well you executed Rule 2.
If you don't, you will fall asleep and you will sleep walk deep in to the forest. You will wake up in the darkest corner of the woods and you won't be alone. You will feel something watching you.
Rule 3. If this happens, don't ever scream for help and you mustn’t draw attention to yourself and carefully start to move north, no matter where you wake up. Rule 1 still applies, except that if you smell burning rotten meat, he's too close. As long as you don’t make a sound and head north only, then you should be ok.
Rule 4. If you encounter him, he will stare at you, he will smile with excitement. Whatever you do, don't make a noise and never break eye contact. If you try to scream for help, you will find your voice to be muted. He will snatch your leg and begin to drag you into the woods.
At this point, there is nothing much you can do.
Rule 5. If you have a vivid nightmare about Children being pursued by a menacing presence and you wake up between the hours of 3 and 4am. You will find that one of your windows are open, even if you remember locking it. If you notice this, grab whatever belongings you can and leave the cabin. Never look behind you, no matter what you hear. Do never turn around, you will wish you were dead.
I looked up at everyone. ‘What the hell is this? Sounds like the ramblings of a suicidal lunatic.’
Richard cleared his throat. ‘We had some experts from the University of Columbia examine the ritual surrounding Edward Keller. They described it as a Timorbios Sacrificial Ritual. Which was an ancient pagan tradition for ways of keeping the spirit of a person, on earth. The more the love and worship shown, the more power the spirit had. It was a way of immortalizing high commanding people in to god like figures. However, this ritual had been performed, praying to a darker power and given he was hung from the oldest, biggest tree in the park, we believe the Shaman was summoning more evil forces through the earth and the roots of the tree. So, instead of feeding off Love and Worship; If this ritual was successful, then the entity would thrive off pain, suffering and fear. The more people knew about it, the more they would fear it and then the entity would increase in power and influence.’
I was speechless, I was so hell bent this was a human murderer but as crazy as this all was, it actually all made sense now. I thought back to every weird thing since I came here, like how the interview reacted when she slipped up with the word ‘Them’, at this point she would have just assumed Jim Beckett had left. But Billy was obviously not so straight forward.
‘So where is Billy? If he’s not in Virginia and you didn’t kill him.’ I asked.
They didn’t answer, immediately, they both looked out of the tower windows, and into the Forest.
‘That thing took him, didn’t it?’ I probed.
Richard didn’t confirm, nor deny. I could tell, though, by Phil’s face that Billy was somewhere horrible. Billy obviously meant a lot to Phil, as I’m sure I will one day, and the gutted look on his face as he pictured all the heinous things potentially been done to Billy, was all the answer that I needed.
‘Important thing to know, James. We need to keep any knowledge of this thing to a bare minimum. It can NEVER leave this park. Here, we can control it! Limit the damage that it does.’ Richard said, this was the most absolute statement he’d said all evening. I let him continue.
‘Think of it, like a virus. Right now, the park is in quarantine. While no one is talking about It, or obsessing about it, it’s presence will be at a minimum. This is where it was lash out. Danny Waldren snatched on the anniversary of Edward Kellers death; do you think that is a coincidence? Or Thomas Kayes Father been torn to pieces in his tent, while he vanishes into the woods, never to be seen again, all on the anniversary of Marcus Devlin been carved into the shreds while he slept, and his son, Connor, being kidnapped. Just another creepy coincidence? What do you think leaving the kids underwear in the ground is all about, humm?
I’ll tell you. It’s a message. It’s planting seeds in people’s minds. Seeds that grow through people's nightmares. It spreads like a virus, if the true details got out into the town, it will not take long for people to do what you did and join the dots. Soon everyone starts using Edward Kellers ghost story as an urban legend to scare their children in to behaving... Soon, we have a pandemic. He would be able to hurt, kill and feast on whoever he wanted. Jim Beckett obviously did what he did because he was too obsessed, the entity had its claws in deep with him. He wanted to cut off the creature's power. Luckily for us, he was so involved with the creature, he learned a few ways to beat it. Those rules you have in front of you.’
‘So, what happened to Billy, then?’ I asked, necking my 6 glass of whiskey. The edge still refusing to come off.
‘Well, Jim became obsessed after a couple were slaughtered, 4 years ago. Their child has never been found. They made a distress call right before the incident.’ Richard said, pulling his laptop out of his briefcase and opening it up. He opened up a file named ‘CLASSIFIED’ and double clicked a file named ‘9-10-16 999 Call’ it was 17 seconds long. And the audio file was of a woman, voiced panicked and in abject terror.
‘PLEASE, SOMEONE, WE ARE ON THE CAMP SITE 21 MILES NORTH OF THE VISITOR CENTRE, ITS CATHERINE TRE- OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT? -- PLEASE SOMEONE JUST HELP US, THERE IS SOMEONE OUTSIDE OUR- ARGH--'
The audio cut off, just as the start of a blood curdling scream began to explode through the speaker. I noticed that the clip wasn’t over though, and you could hear the sound of fabric tearing and something been dragged violently away from the phone. I was confused about what I was meant to be listening to, until I remembered the list.
Rule 4. If you encounter him, he will stare at you, he will smile with excitement. Whatever you do, don't make a noise and never break eye contact. If you try to scream for help, you will find your voice to be muted. He will snatch your leg and begin to drag you into the woods.
‘So, this was ‘It’?’ I asked, with a heavy heart. Thinking about the evil bestowed upon the family.
‘Yeah. This is what made Jim Beckett begin to connect the dots. He lived in your cabin; those newspapers are his. Began to collect them, and print out historic copies from the internet. He became enthralled with the reincarnation of Edward Keller. We never told him how right he was. That would have just fuelled him and so when he turned a gun on himself, the creature needed another person who could spread the fear.’
‘Billy...’ I guessed.
‘Jim told Billy what he had seen and what he thought about the incidents here at Wolf Lake.’ Richard said. Phil came over, whiskey in hand.
‘Billy started to talk about some dark figure in the woods. He would have nightmares about children and this horrible man approaching them. He said he would smell burning and one night, he went looking for the smell. He said he found a camp site. There was a tent, torn to shreds. There was a log laid by the fire, sat on the log was a figure. The figure had its back to Bill, but it looked like it was giggling. But that wasn’t the worst thing. It looked like it was eating something. Or should I say, someone.’ Phil took a break, swallowed some more whiskey and tried to find the words for what came next.
‘He told me and Alan, that the figure, when it became aware of his presence, it stood up. When it turned, he could see the figure was mainly a black mass. But its eyes and teeth were white as white can be. Almost cartoonish in their appearance. It had an infant's arm in its hand, with the bone snapped off at the elbow joint, flesh torn, blood splattered. Skin caught between the figure's teeth. He said the figure began to giggle uncontrollably. Billy turned and ran. He turned up at my cabin and started spouting it all to me, but... I just thought he had a bit of Cabin Fever. STUPID OLD MAN.’ Phil slapped himself in his head as the frustration...and the whiskey, began to hit him.’
Richard jumped in.
‘Two weeks ago, we found Billys window wide open, and there were scratch marks made from his bed to the window, which continued into the clearing, outside his cabin and then, they went into the woods. The scratches showed signs of blood with broken fingernail fragments and wood splinters. They were made by someone clinging on for dear life. The marks become more and more frantic as they approach the woods.’
‘So why are you telling me?’ I asked.
‘Because the last two people who this thing was infecting, we kept in the dark. Now, they are both dead. Last night, I came here to talk to Phil about the Robertsons. He mentioned that you and him had a little chat and you mentioned Danny Waldren and strange nightmares. I’ve kept the Rangers in the dark about this long enough so I decided enough was enough and I needed to make a different approach. So, I told Phil everything. Edward Keller, The cult, Jim Beckett, Everything. I also told him what really happened with Billy. Things, understandably, got extremely heated when he heard what had come of his protégé. I told him to invite you here tonight, because you needed to know what was going on...Because, James, it’s coming for you. You need to be ready.’
I felt sick. The feeling of violation washing over me. ‘What do you mean it’s coming for me?’
‘First, Jim. Then, Billy. Now, you. Phil mentioned you had an episode right before we showed up.’ Richard leant forward, like a counsellor trying to help a patient.
‘Yeah, I just felt really light headed and wanted to sleep, but Phil got me inside.’ I said, while Richard nodded along.
‘And, can you remember what triggered it?’ He probed.
‘Erm, I was walking to the tower when I smelt something... It was...It was...’ I struggled to remember what the smell was but when I remembered, my face and my heart both dropped.
‘It was what?’ Richard pushed.
‘Burning flesh.’ I gulped and confessed.
Richard and Phil shared a concerned look.
‘Do you see? It starts by making you know about it. You’ll notice it everywhere, TV, Radio, Newspapers. Then, once you know about it, you will think about it. That’s when it gets in your dreams. That’s when you tell your co-workers, friends, family. Plant more seeds in other people. Then it turns up the pressure, makes you smell it, see it in the woods, then when it's taken over everything. It will come for you.’ Richard said.
I just sat there, trying to find holes in the story. Praying it was joke but everything now made sense.
‘It feasts on fear. The experts at the Uni say that pagan legend states these types of entities will induce fear, much like a chef stuffing a pig to eat, then it will devour them. Right now, you’re doing everything it wants, you’re running round the park talking about Edward Keller and the horrible stuff he did. Now it’s trying to lure you into seeing it. Which is why, you need that list, son.’
I picked up the note, studying the list of rules written by Jim Beckett, just before he committed suicide. Was I going to need these? Now I knew what was happening, I wouldn’t be paying it an attention.
‘Right, I think this is enough for one night. Besides there is no more whiskey. Come on James, we will take you back to your cabin.’ Richard said.
‘Oh, and one more thing! According to the anthropologist, the Pagan ritual used on Edward Keller has a ‘blind spot’. The sacrifice was done when he died from the hanging, but the ritual wasn’t completed until the rope was cut and his body hit the earth. So, our coroner clocked Kellers time of death at 7.55-8.00pm and we cut his body down at 10.25pm. So, between these two times, he has no influence or power. You can roam the woods, speak and dream freely, you’ll be perfectly safe.’
I took out a pen and wrote ‘Rule 6. Never speak about Edward Keller, or anything regarding him, between the hours of 10.25pm and 8.00pm.’ while Richard continued.
‘James, you’re not a robot. It’s 10.12pm right now, there's no way you’re going to be able to put this out of your mind in the next 13 minutes. So, keep that list close and if you find yourself in trouble, follow it to the letter. Here...’ Richard threw a piece of metal at me, which after I caught it and inspected it, I saw it was a compass.
‘North.’ Richard said with a wink.
‘North.’ I repeated back to him, with a nod.
Sheriff Farrar came back into the tower and barked at Richard. ‘Come on, Richard. It’s nearly 10.25.’
Richard nodded to the sheriff. ‘Coming, Bob. You go get the car started, Me and James will be right down.’
The sheriff rolled his eyes. He clearly wasn’t fond of me. I didn’t blame him in all honesty, I accused him of being a murderer and aiding abetting a paedophile. Oops. He stormed off down the stairs.
‘Well, Gentleman. I think eventually when we are facing evil, and losing, we need to try a different plan of attack. I’ve tried keeping it quiet but this thing finds a way of getting around. So, I'm trying a different approach, by letting you know what you’re up against.’ Richard said, as we finished our glasses of whiskey in unison. A symbol of our new found team work against this dark force.
‘But, James, Phil... Please, don’t make me regret this. I will not hesitate to think of the bigger picture if I feel either of you are becoming a liability.’ Richard said, back to his harsh dark tone. Not an ounce of budge in his seriousness.
I didn’t know what to say. I just turned and shook the hand of Phil, then grabbed my belongings from the couch while Phil and Richard shook hands. We exited the cabin.
I walked out on to the tower balcony. Richard was nowhere to be seen. I was confused, he was literally right in front of me. I turned back to see Phils tower plunged into darkness. The tower looked like it had never been lived in before. I started to feel lightheaded, again.
I stumbled down the tower steps. When I got to the bottom, there was still no Richard. A 100-yard walk down the trail, however, and I could see the Sheriffs car. It was parked up, engine running and the driver side door was wide open.
I approached closer, noticing a large amount of blood on the door's interior, dripping on to the dirt trail. A red stained drag mark disturbed the earth, which led into the woods. My heart began to beat faster and harder. I began to follow the blood train and drag marks into the woods.
I was stepping over logs and branches, ducking under branches, until I came to a clearing. Sheriff Farrar sat in the middle of the clearing, in the clutches of a dark figure. The figure had its two razor sharp fingers plunged into Bob Farrars eye sockets, right down to the knuckles. The other three figners clamping around his neck. Its other hand was tearing into his torso, pulling out his insides and holding them up to its face, where its giggling, excited smile began to gorge on the fleshy organs. The sheriff reached a hand out for me, begging me to help him. Pleading in pure turmoil.
I stood in horror, watching the extreme violence unfold, when something pulled at my trouser leg. I turned to my left and saw nothing. But then I heard a voice. It was a child's voice. It said, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Can you help me find my mummy and daddy? I don’t know where they are...’
I looked down to see the child and that’s when I saw what was asking me for help. It was a young boy, who stood there; but his skin had been removed; his body burnt. His left arm, both his eyes and the left side of his torso were all missing, having been clearly removed with frenzied violence.
The horror made me snap upright. I was sweating and hyperventilating. I had laid on my bed, reminiscing about the meeting with Phil and Richard, and all the horrific tales they had told me, that I hadn’t even realised that I had drifted off. Then all of a sudden, I panicked. I remembered one of the rules.
Rule 5. If you have a vivid nightmare about Children being pursued or even, hurt by a menacing presence and you wake up between the hours of 3 and 4am. You will find that one of your windows are open, even if you remember locking it. If you notice this, grab whatever belongings you can and leave the cabin. Never look behind you, no matter what you hear. Do never turn around, you will wish you were dead.
I jumped up and checked the time. 2.59am. Just outside the time frame the rule spoke about. I checked the window anyway. I looked out the window and in to the dark, menacing forest, wondering if it was watching me. I couldn’t see anything so I decided to double check the window and go back to bed.
Thankfully, the window was locked... This time.

https://preview.redd.it/fisfft82g2b61.png?width=989&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b502c6eca317efbc3c17d3cef0f2d95b5f40702
Today we will discover what's a locket charm (in a Pandora style).
In this way, we need to explain a couple of things.
We'll additionally view the redesigned keen necklace for ashes from different brands.
First of all, we need to figure out:

WHAT'S A LOCKET CHARM?

A locket charm is typically a little bit of silver adornments globule that you can put inside drifting pendants.
These pendants have glass covers on the two sides that permit you to see the locket charms.
Brands like Pandora presented these locket charms in 2018. Pandora's coasting lockets can hold up to 5 charms.
What's the historical background of locket charms?
Customary lockets are pendants normally worn around the neck, however may likewise come as an armband, ring, and many others.
While stuff about notions, seances, and voodoo appears to just exist in anecdotal books and movies, charms are as yet clearing their path through the hearts and brains of the new age.
All things considered, materials that should bring the best of luck stay popular.
Probably the most sought after locket charms incorporate with horseshoes, wishbones, gemstones, and some Chinese adornments like the Bagua or Pa Kua.
Aside from the conviction that charms welcome best of luck, early individuals, as per legends, they utilized these articles for assurance or for pushing off wickedness.
The dread of dark reviles and being hideously disturbed by evil spirits anyplace caused them to implant these charms in their weapons and even gems.
What's A Locket Charm Made Of?
The charms from prior occasions come from shells, creature bones, wood carvings, and stones.
Later on, individuals started to accept that they could perform rituals among the charm to make a more effective and enduring impact.
As of not long ago, individuals keep on rehearsing this belief by wearing locket charms. Because of this creation, anybody can advantageously bring their necklace for ashes UK any place they proceed to have a sense of security.

WHAT'S THE ORIGIN OF LOCKETS AND CHARMS?

There was a confidential data about the source of lockets, yet was discovered during the Victorian Era when Queen Elizabeth wore it on numerous events.
Many individuals appreciated her so much that they started to embrace her sense for style.
A good old locket has sufficient space inside for keeping a photograph or other little things, for example, letters and locks of hair.
At first, individuals utilized lockets for different purposes like conveying drugs, aromas, and different articles.
Before long, lockets came in numerous shapes and sizes. Also, they were made up of valuable metals, for example, gold or silver.
Lockets and charms mean more than other adornments.
Individuals can pick any plan they need since it represents something personal. Individuals by and large don't wear it haphazardly.
For instance, a heart locket represents love, while a supplication box holds a slide of paper containing the wearer's petitions or wishes.
Locket charms are adjustable.
These appealing decorations represent different things, some even believed that they bring favourable luck.
Up to this point, the most current gems piece ever made is a locket charm pandora, otherwise called a gliding locket.
Until evermée showed up.
Yet, we'll get to our imaginative gems later.

WHAT IS A FLOATING LOCKET?

A locket charm Pandora style or coasting locket is a cutting edge locket variant of charm wristbands.
Until a couple of years back, everyone just knew Pandora as the brand that delivered armbands.
Today, the global brand additionally has lockets with a glass cover.
That is uplifting news for every individual who loves accessories more than armbands or rings.
Pandora's style of neckband is a reserved line of adornments made with chains and a tempered steel pendant exhibiting a reasonable glass on the two sides.
You can stack their dots as beautification and put the charms inside the locket rather than a photograph.
At Pandora, there are various sizes of coasting lockets. The little to medium ones can fit up to 3 - 5 charms, while the enormous ones can fit up to 15 locket charms (pandora style).
The little keepsake picture necklaces charms are called dainty locket charm.
Individuals are attracted to these kinds of silver dots on the grounds that there are a lot of plans to browse, for example, birthstone/gemstones, symbols, initials, and practically any image you can consider.
These charms make the locket remarkable, yet not really close to home.
For What Reason Do People Use a Locket Charm?
In more antiquated occasions, lockets were covertly worn as remembrance adornments.
They advanced into something different during the World War when fighters utilized it as a relic.
In the present time, individuals use locket charms to recount stories, represent connections, and think back excursions and recollections of their lives.
For instance, a typical event is blessing a child with a locket for her graduation.
It lets individuals communicate without saying anything to anybody.
Utilizing locket charms is their method of showing adoration, kinship, fortune, profession, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Simultaneously, it marks remembering and to grieve.
Locket charms offer individuals a window to their past, a bit of thing to recollect the individuals who passed.
As such, these extras are remembrances and collectables that are associated with individual recollections.

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES TO LOCKET CHARMS?

Individuals accept that charms draw in karma and that they are ideal decorations to hold and channel recollections.
Organizations made a phenomenal showing of persuading the market that a locket charm would really bring back the past. Actually, in any case, standard lockets don't give a visual vibe to fulfil that aching inclination.
Thus, a few people have begun looking for something different and found a couple of options in contrast to locket charms.
The most current option of all being evermée lockets.
Deliberately created to convey and serve memories of the past, evermée lockets are stylish embellishments bringing you into the world of fond memories.
Inconspicuously consolidating complex design with a spot of a modern touch, it shockingly does the unfathomable.
The shrouded technology today allows you to fuse a valuable photograph in the lovely locket, which you can remotely interface with your cell phone.
With simply a delicate tap to your gems, the screen will show genuine photograph recollections that you transferred in the locket.
This makes it a great blessing to somebody extraordinary to you.
This kind of adornment is an ideal venture for individuals who collects rare gemstones — Green Malachite, Black Pearl, Pink Opal, Red Jasper, Turquoise, and then some.
The pendant is made of 18-carat gold vermeil or 925 Sterling silver and may come in full or half-moon designs.
In the event that you can't find that extraordinary present for an exceptional somebody, why not make that blessing yourself and ensure it's an endless present?

I was raised as a Jehovahs witness and I remember being taught that the dragon in the Bible is also the Devil. Later I asked them about is the dragon in the Bible and Revelation and the cultural Chinese Dragon. I got the answer that the Dragon was a symbol for the Chinese emperor but now it is just a symbol for good luck. Apperantly the asian chinese cultural dragon has no connection to the devil-dragon in the Bible. But I clearly remember being taught in childhood that the Devil is also a Dragon.
http://truthabouttaiwan.blogspot.com/2010/08/chinese-culture-is-satanic.html
I have to admit my JW upbringing legit convinced me as a child that chinese culture is kind of satanic.
The Kpop artist G-Dragon legit rubs me to this day the wrong way and make me feel strange.
Plus the fact that the dragon is a symbol among asian mafia in tattoos and amwf porn (which makes
me feel at the same time cringe as f and mildly irritated)
When I read Wild Swans by Jung Chang where she basically wrote her mother had an abortion because she felt she could better serve the Communist Chinese government. That moment I got
"child sacrifice for Communist Party" vibes. And I remembered all the stories from the Old Testament about the caananites sacrificed their children to their gods.
Being raised as a JW by former atheist parent from communist countries as refuges and immigrants
in Sweden , and reading the whole Bible legit fucked me up.
Because according to JWs fetus=child.
My parents were atheist raised during Communism. They only got into Jws after coming to Sweden after my birth because they both studied in Moscow.
But our life did not turn out good and I legit think the JWs are an organization to hunt down communists around the world and reeducate communists children into christianity.
My parents got threathened by social services and mm and my mother fled to Russia.
I still think all of this happened only because of my grandfather being a cuban diplomat in North Korea. My father also never baptised himself into the Jws unlike my mother.
Yes I have read the book by Yeonmi Park "To be able to live" and I can sympathise with her.
But what concerns me more is my grandfather who lives very poor in Cuba and despite being on pension he continues to work. No matter how much I sympathise with Yeonmi Park I am more concerned about Cuba and Russia and why the main population is so poor there.
I am also concerned with the artificial milk-producing companies invading republics not so far from my mothers republic only employing chinese from the mainland and producing crap unhealthy products to sell in Russia.

I remember the JWs literature having the focus on prozelyting "worldly" people especially Chinese in China.
I remember the literature where we were encouraged to "take the step over to Macedonia" where two girls prozelyted to two chinese.
I especially think of this when I discovered the book and movie The Bitter Tea of General Yen.
I also think of it when Jws get jailed for prozelyting in China.
Also I remember in the book "What does the Bible really learn?" there was this picture with an asian woman reading the Bible.
I feel that I have a weird relationship to Asians even thought I am half asian myself. I am half Cuban ,half Tatar. Tatars ara considered minority asians in Russia.
It started with when my blonde best swedish friend Hulda (fake name) father got divorced (the family were JWs) to his swedish wife and married a Thai woman. The swedish wife married an african refugee.
That legit made me start feeling doubt in my religion.
I used to go with my famly to a chinese traditional doctor who was very kind who gave my parents a traditional chinese cooking utensil.
My mother is best friend with a woman from Tajikistan that is Uzbek who was a wealthy woman during communist regime. We also know another woman from Kazakhstan whose dad was a politican but
who seems to have gotten some grudge against my mum. She also did a really mean joke after my fathers death about him being behind the Chernobyl accident just for being a nuclear engineer who worked there at one point.
Only after my fathers death have I seen really how nasty Huldas mother really is when she claimed my mother did wrong by escaping from social services with me to Russia. I told her she was bullshitting and lying. I also hate the posh polish JW woman who claimed I stole her daughters jacket in childhood. Now they just ignore us. I am really disappointed with the Jws and legit think they contacted our family
only to destroy my dad and make his daughter anti-communist.
I also really hate how poorly my parents got treated here despite their higher educations

My parents used to help a Vietnamese family with documents and helping them not getting scammed into laundering money . They were very kind but shortly abrupted our relationship and talking after the wifes vietnamese friend started talking about JWs being bad.
But I remember going to a school where a filipina girl hated me and used to put dirty water in my water drinking bottle. She was in love with a swedish boy from a nationalistic swedish party and was jealous because he showed interest in me. Btw the boy said he was a satanist when I told him I was JW.
Once I tried to make friend s with a Thai boy at school but it did not work out.
When I heard a higher educated russian man on Youtube complain about the asians and their cliques
and how we russians and cenral asians dont have our cliques the same way and how the west hates us russians I have to agree. I relly recommend everybody to listen to the Youtubers Revengestar, Vovan Japan 0.2 and Nazar Ilishev.
I some time read the manga Rosario Vampire with the vampire girl Moka Akashiya and when the russian youtuber Ashiya popped up with the same name it made me feel weird.

I was also really into Vampire knight but then I stumbled upon the website NihongoNews where
they exposed the dark side of Japan and all the red sun flag dark history so I remember when waiting outside a grocery store alone for my mother in Russia I saw an asian dude walking past me with red sun tattoos it made my stomach churn in discomfort. I also remember when I was lying in the hospital in Russia I got harassed for taking communist books from the hospital library to read.
There was this asian dude laughing at me for being shy and not used to talking to guys there.
Also once I got submitted into a psychiatric hospital alone and some asian girl and dude had sex behind a sliding wall while I was tied to bed. I am still angry on my mum for focing me in psychiatic hospitals 2 times just because I could not sleep at night. At the hospital there was also an asian nurse forcing a pill that fell to the floor into my mouth by force.
Also at the endocrinological hospital there was an really gruff , rough, hoarse main doctor without one finger (yakuza sign anybody?) that was really rude to my mum.
These are the 4 weird asians I cant forget. The one with the red sun tattoo ,the rude one ,the one behind the sliding wall and the one missing finger doctor. Watching japanese visual kei videos with the red rising flag makes me SO uncomfortable. I constantly remeber that guy who walked past me when I see that.
Also I got an operation on my stomach. While I was lying in the endocrinological part of the hospital I overheard old babushkas talking about the main doctor and his daugher ruling the hospital being very affluent poeple making the hard working babushkas pretty salty. They also insiniated I had had an abortion even thought I explained it was only the appendix that got removed.
I confronted my mum about it but she stands by that it only was the appendix.
Later I got maredreams and strange thoughts if maybe I was raped during sleep in the other hospital because I remember one day waking up and seeing a weird condom lying in the corridor (I slept in the corridor) and the asian guy quickly moving out after that. I also remember the nurses choosing especially him to once deliver me some pills I had to swallow.
But the most horrifiying memory I have is when the asian guy rolled me in a wheel chair and I remember him whispering some strange words I dont fully remember (dont be afraid?) when they transferred me from hospital to hospital.
I also read about Japan and China and the yakuza from books in the library while I was in my mothers hometown but later strangely these books disappeared.
I also I remember the constant flower kiosk named Sakura and tokyoflower in my city the sudokus selled in every kiosk and after reading all those horrible things about what the japanese did ww2 it just puts bad taste in my mouth.
I really find visual kei intersting with how they portray themselves as demons and its interesting to me that all the foreign visual kei arists are thai swedish, english and from the western world.
Especially SekimaII and their "demons" concept. They remember me of the female russian band U-kei.
I have been watching Kazakh pop the latest years and its unsettling to watch them don kimonos.
I have even seen tatar musicians do it.
I may be revealing to much of my life. But the internet has opened my eyes to how asian diasporas absorb everything around themselves. Reading asian supremacist subreddits here on reddit makes me even more uncomfortable. But my biggest beef that I have is when I read that chinese hate europeans and central asians but then I remembered the traditional chinese doctor named Pan who was so kind
and dismissed it.But there is tons of anti-asian ,anti-chinese info on russian Youtube.
But it is true that ex-communist immigrant dont support and band together judging by all the chinese shops,thai massage salons, indian resturants in my swedish town but no russian or central asian resturants. Even in Cuba I saw a Chinese resturant and saw the stories of the chinese residents in Cuba and the store selling asian, anime and K-dramas in Havana. Also the new Crazy Rich Asians and Mulan movie compared to the Borat movie reminded everyone that the new Han Chinese supremacist narrative is being pushed.
I was always so amused by the fact that Cinderella called the cat Lucifer in the cartoon and the pet dragon in Mulan and speculated over Disneys satanism.
My question is with the chinese dragon in the Bible.
My second question is with contemporary Israel and why is lbgt and femenism and abortion so accepted there if it is prohibited in the Bible. Like doesnt it bother anyone at all that the non-israelite people in the book of Joshua worship the sun and to me they SO much wakes up associations of the red rising sun flag to me ?
Because of this seeing the jewish star in japanese visual kei videos also makes me feel strange.
My father always had a negative opinion on Japan and Israel.
My second is when I saw the music video Ai-dolls -Ai-dolls (kyrgyz pop). Ai means moon in kyrgyz but means love in japanese so that reminded me of the manga Princess Ai and made me uncomfortable.
My cousin studies in China but refuses to tell me how he has it. He had a chinese girlfriend but broke up with her.
His father had a company named Thanks (Rahmat) Tea but his son got brutally murdered so the company died but strangely enough some weird product with the same name started selling while I lived with my mother in Russia. My mothers last name consists of the word Thanks (Rahmat).
My uncle got a sexual disease while flying to buy Indian Tea in India so that really got me thinking.
I dont shame Indian people ,my mother is friends with one.

But I clearly see that chinese culture is anti-Bible. I remember watching the tv-series Empress of China.
There Wu Ruyi (Meiniang) kills a girl named Gaoyang. Later I watched an Youtube video of a chinese man claim that the god in the Bible is the same as the ancient chinese God and he said that Gaoyang means lamb. It felt like deja vu.
I also remember watching a japanese Youtuber in russian talking about japanese mythology that it goes like this: The Japanese god fell in love and procreated with humans and from there went all people. I had biblical deja vu when I heard of this and remembered the band Seikima II.
The thing is: I remember a russian girl magazine adverising the Hinamatsuri , Japanese girl fashion and "The land of the rising Soul" to russian young girls I cannot phantom the sneaky evilness of the japanese people propagating and advertising their culture to young girls only for the young girls to fly to Japan only to realize that Japan is like Saudi Arabia only more advertised and pink.
And I know that japanese culture is actively advertised in Russia.
I remember liking anime ,Sailor Moon and manga and wanting to translate manga into minority language in Russia but when I understood how dark and twistedly obsessed the japanese are with demons it made me think twice. Also 4chan anyone?
Some Youtuber said that if you learn japanese and start reading 4chan you will regret you learned japanese.
What I have learned from the russian Youtuber VovanJapan is 1:Japanese people love themselves very much. I have read traditional japanese poetry and I think it is true judging by the poem "Loving Oneself" I read.
Also remember reading the japanese poem wher the man tells the women "Dont think you cant be replaced and are unique". That kind of attitude also is a turn-off to me.
And asian people reading this and hating me:I dont care.
My uncle was very kind and always gave left-over food to his north koran servants while being a diplomat.
But I really hate all the toxic, hating and bullying by asian and especially japanese people online.
I really dislike their feudalistic ,passive-agressive hating on the Internet.
Just look at all the hate Blinchik in Japan , lolcow farm, pretty ugly little liars , Yoo Lana and other
pretty non-asian ,non-japanese females get. It is sickening.
It is also sickening seeing how russian-speaking men praise japanese women and shit on russian women under Sergey Kuvaevs videos.
I just dont think rasistic, imperialistic, rising red sun-wearing tattooed asians should be walking around in my mothers home town and make innocent girls like me feel unsafe.
I see VovanJapans YT channel get taken down and it makes me think he speaks the truth.
The film Interdevochka also got a price in Japan I think that talks about something.
You can read my post as fiction from planet X.
I have read beutiful japanese traditional poetry and japanese mythology.
But I have also read ugly japanese comment hidden by anonimity on the internet and it makes me disgusted.
Like the only thing I can think of is the son Katoosha by AKB4.
But I have read russians saying it is very had to talk to japanese people because they are so quiet
and you have to force words out of them.
I think Japan is like the dentist clinic in Sailor Moon :Kawaii -Hawaii on the outside but horrifying on the inside.VovanJapan said that they do medical experiments on foreigners in Japan. I always think of Viagras music video Anti.-Geisha where a japanese girls shoots at you throught the TV.Or In-Yans music video Kamikaze.
I saw japanese hair salons and a sushi shop in my mother russian hometown.
I know a mongolian woman that works in a sushi shop here in sweden that has two married mongolian relatives living in japan working for a japanese car company.
Why do we russians celebrate the Victory over Germany , but not over Japan?
Why is there a monument remembering the japanese soliders in Russia?
Why do we Russians allow this to happen?
Why do we russians not stand up for ourselves?
I have watched DenTV and they tell about how the japanese think we russian dropped the bombs on them.It makes me sick.
I think that in japanese culture the concept conscience does not exist. At least judging y russian DenTV that is the case. They have shame culture but dont have the concept of sincere regret.
Of course I have never met japanese people in real life.
But I dont intend to try to Skype to a silent robot and try to force words out of them forcefully.
If any japanese think otherwise they can comment below.
I probably wont comment anyway as I am sick of seeing americans shit on Cuba and Russia in general.
So I am preparing for the communist haters!
I have teo questions:
1.Did the japanese ask forgiveness from Russia for their war crimes occuping Russia up tot the Uralic Mountains?
2.If not , What do they want from us crating Youtube channels saying they are proud of their forefathers who were soliders doing their duty in (Tatarstan) and marrying russian women?
Showing the monument commerating japanese soliders?
But the think making me most angry is when DenTV said japanese spies create anime communities in russian on the internet telling russian youth to commit suicide. That is the definition of going over all
limits!

The japanese really are Jorogumos on the World Wide Web searching for naive innocent flie-like russian youths to ensnare and push to sucide!

First of all i want to point it's my personal opinion just to be on safe side :)And i'm sure as it's not really one of these "positive" posts, lot of people will be upset like always but i hope at least you actually give it a thought or two before voting or commenting (and i hope some of you can even add to this something constructive! <3)
As probably most of you already now, if not all, we were blessed with announce of first Yamato class ships (yay!) and even if i'm scared of upcoming event and i'll be happy with getting her before guaranteed pull with my luck... i'm also equally excited for it, but for now, i would like to talk about her design.
To be honest i like her design... As you could read it in some post, it's pretty obvious her design reffers to japanese mythology, exactly to god called Tsukyomi ( Tsukuyomi no Mikoto - 月読命, God of the Moon / God who summon moons (second translation that can be found in mythology, i'm guessing reason of the way how they presented her here)). As a person who knows thing or 2 about japanese mythology, it was pretty obvious to me. He has also sister Amaterasu (Amaterasu no Mikoto - 天照大神, Godness of the Sun) and brother Susanoo (Susanoo no Mikoto - 須佐之男命, God of wind (but much more likely you will find his name written in katakana)). Because of what they did it's more than obvious what they are going for and we can assume Yamato will be based on Amaterasu. It is said that imperal family comes from her and as Yamato was built to show Imperial Japan's power and to extend their territories, it's pretty straightforward and... good?
I still like it (even just for fact she is kitsune <3) and afterall it looks like they thought this true.... but i must say it does't feel like this and the problem i have with the design and idea is how simple it is. By that i mean that it's so common thing that in japanese games/mangas/animes and everything else, to make it 'cool' they add some mythology reference. Which itself would be really great!... if only it wouldn't end on these 3 gods (especially that their mythology has lot of cool and interesting myths and gods (eg. you can learn how they explain the reason why 'sun and moon can never meet' which happend because of Amaterasu while being angry at him, she ordered him to go away and never come back)). I can bet money a lot of you already heard some of these names thanks to animes like Naruto as Kishimoto, creator, really enjoyed using them.
The real reason why i think Yostar didn't really think this trough more than anyone else is because it's too common phenomenon and right now most japanese has no clue about anyone else but these 3 gods (and especially some of young ones have problem with even Amaterasu herself) and it's not unfounded opinion but something based on personal expierience as i had opportunity to travel around Japan and was doing speeches/workshops about mythology, current knowledge of society, intersting parts, Yaoyorozu no kami (八百万の神 - 8 million gods, it is said that there are 8 millions gods you can find literally anywhere in the nature no matter if it's under rock, behind tree or anywhere else :) ) etc.. Saying further, they actually used one of more boring characters from mythology and if you try to analize it, they just went with common image presented in books of him with swords (i try to remember anything but i think he has nothing to do with them) and the moons which are the only detail that really positivly suprises me but again i wonder if this was thanks to the meaning you can find in books, again Naruto where you could see simillar thing or if it was just 'the idea' for her. (Maybe someone knows what flowers she has on her boots? Doesn't look like "moonflowers")
But where i'm going with it? How i said it is not bad, but for finally having first Yamato class in game, it feels like they could a little more. But i wonder if someone knows if Yostar actually gives artists the main idea and they make it or if they just throw name and wait for what artist will come up with. Either way for some people it might be cool and they will move on without overthinking it, but in my eyes, anyone responsible for that didn't care enough.
The second picture is Shinano, one of 3 designs of all Yamato class ships which are stunning in my opinion and look like the artist (mighty "dishwasher1910") really did great job with all the details and ideas. (I'll leave all links on the bottom).
Eg. If you look on his Shinano design. (which i have to say is least favourite if i had to order them but nonetheless it's still stunning). As we are also dealing with CV, a little less in upper body parts is nice detail which i'm sure would add to spoken lines with comparation to her sisters. Beautiful design of clothes with historic like images. Actual symbols of Yamato class (can't find them on 'original' one) newer look of rigging compared to older ships and thing i love the most which is old japanese instrument called Koto which she holds like ramp for planes (which could be use like one) (if you actually think about it, there are not many ships with unique weapon like Enterprise). All these things and small details just fits together so well because of what i feel amazed by it even more. I'm not sure why they didn't use this one (as far i know artist is even chinese), was it because it never got to them? or what... but i do feel these (or this at least so far) are so much more clever design which deserves to be in game. I'm sure people would feel even bigger urge to go for these in gatcha ;)
Anyway if you read that, thanks in advance and hope to hear your thoughts :)(picture of art is taken from google and for original one and in better quality you have to hit author's page)
LINKS:Shinano: here
Dishwasher1910FB: here ArtStation: here DevianArt: here
Yamato: hereMusashi: here
All Three: here
(But really you should check him out as many arts you can see here are made by him.I'm (saddly :( ) not paid, don't worry ;) )

(Warning, contains some spoilers, so read on your own risk! Oh, also long af)
So, I've been thinking... What would happen if another (or even different) tournament between Gods and Humans took place? The answer is - we probably won't know anytime soon, since the author of the series won't make similar series/another tournament after current one is done (just an assumption though, let's hope for the best). So I decided to create a tournament myself, 13 Gods vs 13 persumably strongest humans in history. I know this kind of post was on this sub for sure, but why not try? Here's my roster (with a quick explenation why I chose these characters present) :
Gods :

Hermes - Greek, he isn't on the original list, but he seems like he could put up a better fight than some other Gods we saw, so I'm going with him.
Tsukuyomi - Japanese moon god, we actually didn't have to see many japanese gods in series so far, except 7 Lucky Gods and Susanoo-no-Mikoto (who haven't fought yet), so that's my choice.
Chernobog - Let's give Slavic mythology some attention, shall we? Of all slavic deities he's propably the most recognizable of all, so for that sole reason I put him on the list. For those wondering, Chernobog is the god of misfortune and bad luck (according to uncle google at least).
Baldr - Norse god, son of Odin, brother of Thor, recognizable... For me at least, he seems the most suitable among other norse gods to be put on this list. According to wiki, he was the "favorite of the gods", so I guess making him a bit arrogant, with insane, even overwhelming (for humans ofc) amount of supporters would be nice to see.
Hades - Well, well, well, who do we have here? Last of the three brothers that unfortunately didn't make his appearance in series. Yet. God of the dead, persumably as strong as Zeus and Poseidon, maybe somehow stronger (he's the oldest brother, after all) would make a perfect fighter for me, change my mind.
Ra - Egyptian god of the sun, creator of universe, seems good, huh? Only egyptian god in actual roster is Anubis, but we haven't seen him yet. Since egyptian mythology is really extensive, with interesting gods, I decided to give them some love :3
Indra - An ancient deity in Hinduism. We had an ocassion to see him in recent chapter, but considering he's been beaten by Shiva and Rudra, I can't really measure his strenght if he were to fight 1v1, so I'm curious how would it turn out.
Horus - Another egyptian deity on the list, pretty popular I daresay. Originally I intended to put Osiris on the list, but since Hades is here, we wouldn't want to have two gods of the dead, now would we? Other than that... well... I just like him, ok?
Sun Wukong - Good ol' Monkey King, a Chinese trickster god (correct me if I'm wrong, some sites present him as god, while others as just a legendary character). Often pictured as funny, kind of mean god (meaning his playfulness here), a fun addition to the roster, nonetheless still one of the deities I'd love to see fighting c:
Týr - One of the more recognizable Norse deities, god of war, honour and justice (once again, according to wiki). I don't recall seeing him in the series yet (maybe he'll show up in Loki or Odin story/fight, who knows) so I gave him a chance here.
Rudra - Yeeeah, now we're getting somewhat controversial. As we know, he lost to Shiva, so he's certainly weaker than him (unless he undergone some hellish training session of which we don't know). The reason I put him here will sound stupid, but... I just kinda imagined Shiva (only if he wins against Raiden ofc) asking him to fight for gods' side, knowing his strenght first-hand.
Jade Emperor - Another Chinese god, ruler of heaven, very first chinese emperor (according to wiki some more). Not many chinese gods (if any) appeared in the series so, along with Sun Wukong, I'd like to see his appearance.
Ishtar (Inanna) - A pleasant surprise I believe, a first goddess to fight in tournament :3 I actually found it weird that no female charatcer was taking part in fights, so I decided to put her on the roster. She is the Mesapotamian goddess of justice, war and sex. I know, I know, same as Tyr but without sex, yet i still put here because of sole reason of no woman participating, and Mesapotamian mythology is really good, but a bit forgotten in the series it seems... As for her opponent, y'all know when you read on c:

That's it for the gods! Now, before you ask, I didn't put Jesus/Yahweh on the list, 'cause I thought it may offend some people :( still, hope you all like the roster :)
Now for humans... Oh boy, those were some hard choices alright, but let's get to it!

Hannibal - A famous Carthaginian general indeed, in my opinion perfectly fit to represent humans. Known mainly for Second Punic War (read 'bout it, good stuff) and the Battle of Cannae, when he defeated probably the largest army Rome created.
King Arthur - Let's get a bit fictional, shall we? The arthurian legends are globally well-known. Though we don't know for sure if he lived or not, what we do know is that he certainly was one hell of a man. With his trusted Excalibur, he can for sure stir things up in the tournament (um, I don't know how the whole Excalibur thing would be solved since Volund is a thing, but I'll write about it in a quick summary).
Yue Fei - One of the most popular Chinese generals. An unparalled symbol of loyalty, a person who won a Battle of Yancheng, where while in command of merely 500 cavalrymen, he defeated Jin army counting about 100,000 people. So for me, he's making it to the list.
Suleiman the Magnificent - Most popular Sultan of Ottoman Empire I believe (reigning 1520-1566). Brilliant leader who transformed Ottoman Empire into excellent powerhouse, be it economically or militarily. Works for me well.
Genghis Khan - Guess i don't have to introduce this chad, right? Tell me I wasn't the only one who was surprised he didn't make it to original roster, please. Great emperor of the Mongol Empire, largest empire in history. I see no reason why he wouldn't make it.
Robin Hood - A bit fictional again, I present you the legendary character of none other than Robin Hood! Highly skilled swordsman, and even better archer. Like Arthur, it's hard to confirm if he really lived, but... let's hope so, for the sake of tournament at least.
Alexander the Great - Let's go folks, the Alexander III of Macedon has arrived to kick some of these gods, um, you know. Inherited Macedonia at the age of 20, expanded Macedonian territory on a large scale, was never defeated in battle, and even conquered a city in India and named it after his horse. Giga Chad.
Blackbeard - One of the greatest pirates of his times, certainly an interesting choice for this list. Plundered many ships, made the famous blockade of Charleston Harbor, a quaint fellow indeed. I think that making a pirate fight for humanity is a reckless, yet exciting move in its own way.
Atilla the Hun - Ruler of Huns, one of the most feared personas in Europe during his reign. Not the best human in terms of character (since he was so brutal and stuff), but certainly a good material for fighter.
Ragnar Lothbrok - Legendary Danish and Swedish king, as well as one of the greatest vikings in history. Just like you may imagine, he lived the way vikings did. Sailing across seas, oppressing victims... this kind of stuff. Defeated the Franks and got really rich. Good.
Richard the Lionheart - Or simply Richard I, pick the one that suits you best. King of England, exceptionally courageous man that won many wars. Rebelled against his father, fought Saladin during the Crusades, ya know.
Oda Nobunaga - Another controversial pick for me (and you too probably). Regarded as the first Great Unifier of Japan. By many called the hero, and by many called the devil. Nevertheless, a very good ruler and solid warrior, that's for sure.
Jeanne d'Arc - You saw that coming, right? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) The Maid of Orléans, national heroine of France which led the French army to victory over English at, well, Orléans. Second and last female character in whole roster, fighting against Ishtar (well, at least I want to see this). Very popular character, in my opinion perfectly suited to represent humanity.

Aaaaand I'm done. Of course, of course, I know that there are many gods and humans that would perhaps fit better than what i wrote, but hey, it's just how I would like it to be. The thing that kinda doesn't fit is Volund. Since valkyries dies along with humans they forged a bond, it just... wouldn't be enough for second tournament. So my crazy idea was that remaining valkyries would cooperate with, let's say, greek muses (just a fancy thinking though). I'd love to hear your opinion, so please tell me what do you think about it, be it roster or "alternate" Volunds! Thanks for reading!

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Welcome to part 2 of the General tips and tricks for the Average player. For part 1 go here. Since part 1 has an introduction already let's cut to the chase.
Index

VII. Mirrors

- Who does the AI target first?
- What if the opponent evades my attacks?
- Always go for the weak enemies
- What about that lonely Yozuru/Homura/Other girl?
- Do not be deceived by the info on screen
- Stick to an idea but don't be afraid to experiment

VIII. Support

- Identifying Whales (Formerly Whale Watching)
- Whale hunting
- I have too many friends!

IX. Battles and Bosses

- Not all bosses are created equal
- Gimmick bosses
- Magical girls bosses are cheap
- Kimochi bosses
- Sometimes getting to the boss is the hardest part
- Often times though...

X. Device limitations

- Transfer code
- Potato Phones
- Crashes

Afterword
About the author

VII. Mirrors
Mirrors are a mostly optional thing, unless you want those 10 monthly gacha tickets that is. You are pitted against other players who are controlled by an AI, this works to our advantage as the AI is quite predictable so we can exploit that.

Who does the AI target first?
It looks for elemental weaknesses first. So if you have a Homura, a Summer Kyoko and a Kaede and the opponent has a Tart, it will make a beeline for that Homura while ignoring the other two. Of course you can exploit this, in this particular case just use Homura's SE Skill to gain Evade that turn. The enemy will waste all of its attacks trying to hit Homura (unless it has anti-evade of course). In case there are no elemental weaknesses it will go for the member of your party with the highest attack, so let's say it was Summer Kyoko. In this case Summer Kyoko doesn't have an evasion skill like Homura but you have Kaede who's skill can blind an opponent, so just blind tart. It won't work as well as Homura's evasion, specially since the AI has this miraculously knack for hitting you if the chance is above 0%. But with some luck it won't kill your Summer Kyoko and will give you a chance to retaliate next turn. All of this said, that is only if, for some reason, you weren't able to kill 1 Tart on the first turn. After all, you always go first on mirrors. This is highly advantageous and if you happen to land a girl like Cool Homura or the after mentioned Yozuru who can basically decimate most team in turn 1, specially the later who was basically tailor made for mirrors.
What if the opponent evades my attacks?
Indeed, some girls are either equipped with evasion memorias or have abilities/skills that increase their evade chance. If the AI has the chance to evade, even if it's just 10% it won't let it go to waste. It goes hand in hand with that miraculously knack for hitting you that I mentioned on the last point, it's very annoying. Just equip memoria with anti-evade abilities (the blue memorias in case you are confused).
Always go for the weak enemies
Most people have strong mirror teams. In most cases you will battle a lot of samey battles against teams of limited girls who hit hard. Then you have people like us, Average Joes that have maybe 1 or 2 limited girls at most or teams entirely composed of welfare girls. This doesn't mean the later group can't kick your ass, because it can so keep that in mind. But no, when I say weak enemies I don't mean either of those groups. I mean the teams that are composed by only 1 low level girl (usually a Kuro who's max level is 40) it dies in 1 hit and you get your reward, easy peasy.

Always go for this

The only but I could think of is if it has an evasion memoria as I mentioned on my last point, but you can always just counter that or keep trying to hit her until she dies. After all, Kuro doesn't hit for much at all. Some people just like to put their favorite girl on a team of 1 and let her get slaughtered by other players (or maybe it's their least favorite girl, who knows?)

Never go for this, only Whales do that.

Of course, you won't always find a lone Kuro, is not that common after all. Consider her a free win.
What about that lonely Yozuru/Homura/Other girl?
That's just bait and you will probably die against them unless you come prepared.

Easy peasy ...right?

These are technically "easy" if you know what you are doing but sometimes it's too much busy work. I'll leave that to you to decide. I'll just explain what to do but first let's set the stage. Ok, so this is a lone unit, a level 100 lone unit. You start the battle and attack, only to discover that she had an evade ability. Alright then, let's suppose that you miraculously managed to land 2 hits and she's on the ropes, easy, that means you just gotta wait for next turn to finish her off right? It's only 1 lousy girl, it can't be dangerous, correct? Wrong. Here's how Yozuru's turn will go (other players won't let me lie). She will use her SE ability "Cower Guard: [VII]Defense Down [VII / 35%] (All / 1 turn)" debuffing your own girls, then she do a blast combo (she's a blast gorrilla after all) and every hit will do about 40k to 50k of damage one shooting all of your girls, the end. Sound annoying right? Well it's because it is, Cool Homura is almost the same but Yozuru was tailor made for that. What you need to do is something I already mentioned before. Equip anti evade memoria or use a girl which SE ability allows you to anti-evade (like Nanaka) and go to town on them. They are very frail so I can guarantee they will go down before they have a chance to five finger palm of death you. If you click on that anti evade memoria link you will find the list of girls and memorias that share that particular effect. A lot of girls receive a skill to passively have a 35% chance to ignore the Evade and land a hit. But if you really wanna be sure, just equip a memoria with a 100% chance or close. I use "The Ace is a Southpaw" which gives me 85% chance but also gives me a critical hit chance so I think it's a good tradeoff.

This is a guaranteed victory unless your potato phone crashes o3o

As you can see from this pic, I got a Blast Combo with Nanaka. That's it', that's my victory condition against trolly units like Yozuru who have evade memoria. All I need to do now I activate my SE ability which gives Nanaka crit 100% Anti-evade for 1 turn. Even without a blast combo I would still have a chance if I got at least 2 Nanaka disks on my disk tray. If Nanaka wasn't a water type and had slightly more attack she would be top tier in mirrors. Yozuru died on my second blast hit if you are wondering.
Do not be deceived by the info shown on screen
Sometimes we fall into this false sense of security by looking at the opponents info screen in mirrors. This is actually something that just happened to me so I am gonna include it as an example. Look at this screenshot and let's analyze it:

https://preview.redd.it/xl41gtjvgph51.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8777ba7d6cfbb967451140f543bbc26613df4c0
First we have their Rank, Rank 100, well it's a little below my own Rank which is 110. And they only have A-1 Rank in mirrors (the golden A icon to the left of their Rank). I am Rank B-3 I think, so we are really close to each other. If we look at the numbers, their team power is 183,058, I just reached 190,000 myself. And then we have the bonus multiplier which is actually below 1.0 meaning the game deems this team to be of lower quality than mine, hence the lower multiplier. Also they have 2 aqua and 1 fire unit while I use 2 light and 1 aqua, I have the elemental advantage on at least 1 instance. All of this, in paper, seems like an easy win! In practice though...
Did ...did she just one shot my Ult. Madoka with her magia?!

I got decimated, while I managed to eventually kill Karin, it was already too late. Asuka keep intercepting my hits and she was quite bulky. Karin herself was too, the only hits I managed to land only helped her charge her magia faster which then was used against my Ult. Madoka. Remember, since there was no one with an Elemental weakness to fire, she went for the girl with the highest attack on my team. I lost, that was that. In the end all of that info meant nothing for a number of reasons:

I didn't know what memorias they had equipped. This is what makes mirrors so hard, you are going in blind.
Ditto for SE. Not that idk what kind of SE they have, just that you don't know if they have SE in the first place. Although there is a way of guessing. Before SE came into play, teams of 3 had at best 160,000 of team power. A little bit more in the case of premium teams. Two welfare girls and a premium girl should not total more than that without SE. Keep that in mind. Think about it this way: each girl provides about 50,000 to 60,000 points of team power before SE. So if you multiple 50K by the number of girls in any given team you should get the amount of team power they should have without SE. If they have more than that you can bet they have SE.
I got cocky and tried to take Karin out first thinking she was the major threat when in reality killing Yachiyo on my first turn should've been a priority. By not killing her when I had the chance she activated her 70% damage cut to self basically becoming extremely bulky and impossible to kill on the second turn. Also killing someone else before Yachiyo just increases her ATK and DEF due to SE.

Never get into a situation like that, learn from my mistakes.
Stick to an idea but don't be afraid to experiment
By that I mean, you need to decide if you are gonna use a big team, a small team, a single unit. Is it gonna be about blast? (really common) accele? (quite uncommon) or just a random mismatch of girls? (this is the most common one). I used to just put whatever girls were the strongest ones I had in a team of 5. While there is strength in numbers, these teams don't work so well on mirror for a number of reasons. The most prominent being you can't use your memorias right away. They have a cooldown at the start, and as such they can't pick your slack for having so many girls. So just stick to a maximum of 3 girls to have more consistency. Unless you somehow adquired a bunch of premium units like our friend here.

This team will kick your ass. Puella combos be damned

I used to run a Blast Aqua team (the team posted some pics ago) but eventually I found it a little boring (also there were a lot of forest girls and it became annoying). So I changed up my strategy for something more generic, imitation is the best form of flattery as some say. And imitate I did, I started to notice this tendency on teams. They have an attacker, a defender and a misc girl (it can be another attacker, a defender or something in between). So I decided to copy that, I took my bulkiest girl (Sana) and two of my best attackers (Nanaka and Ult. Madoka, my only limited girl with 4 slots and also has bulk). It kind of worked, by using Assistant Instructor of the Ryuushin Style and The Stories (Rumors) Also Know on Sana I can use her to draw in some attacks while keeping my other two units safe while I do my plays. Of course a strategy like this has the drawback of getting Sana disks on your attacks. She can't do much by herself. Also she's very susceptible to fire, high defense or not. Then there is the fact that those memorias are not always gonna activate so in some turns Sana will just stand there while the enemy girls kill your other girls. Eventually I swapped Sana for Kokoro. My Kokoro has only 3 slots but being light attribute, having better stats and ability make her league better than Sana and that also makes up for that missing slot. At first I was hesitant about this change because of the 3 slots. But eventually I came to realize Kokoro is just that good, being a natural 4 star unit has its advantages. No team is gonna win you all the battles (not even Whale teams win all the battles, they win most of them though) but you gotta experiment to see what you like. Once you are comfortable with an strategy, try to see how you can improve on it. But if you find a better one, just go for it!

VIII. Supports
Supports have been a staple of magia record since like forever. As previously mentioned, unlike other games where you have to send friend requests to other players and wait for the to reply in order to use other units, Magia record just let's you add them without them accepting.

Identifying Whales (Formerly Whale Watching)
How many supports do you have? 50? 70? 100? How many of those are whales? Hopefully your answer is "most of them". Whale supports are the second best type of support in the game. The first best type is whales who follow you back o3o. Yes, having people following you back is great since you gain SP (Support points) each time they use your girls as their support. But SP is not something you are really starving for if you've been following this guide. So I recommend just adding whales whenever you find them. I already defined a whale in the Glossary section on part 1. But here's a visual aid:

The Moby-Dick of Mobyle Gaming o3o.

You will immediately notice a few things. The S-3 Mirrors Rank, being followed by 5 times the amount of players one can add, and finally the fact that this Whale has, not 1, not 2, not even 4 but a full team of 6 limited girls. This is who I am referring to when I say "Whale mansion". But let us not drop our panties yet, let us check the stats and memorias of the girls by pressing that cream colored button on the lower right corner of the screen right above the Ren-Rika christmas duo.

Jackpot

Just look at those girls. Look at them I say! All memoria slots, fully equipped and they clearly have most of if not all of their SE unlocked. Heck, you can tell even their oldest unit (Ult. Madoka) is well taken care of. By looking at those stats you can tell she had her SE. May I remind you that she received her SE unlock just yesterday (Monday, August 17th NA time) as the time of this writing?. This person is not only a whale, but also an avid player. Their S-3 Rank is not just for show, this person is dedicated to the game as much as any F2P who doesn't have the money to roll for all of those girls. This is who you want of you side. The Mami Tomoe to your Madoka Kaname. Of course, this is an ideal situation.
Whale hunting
These Whales are not easy to come by. But there are lists of whale players for you to add on the internet. Where? idk, look for them. If I find any I'll post it in this section or in the comments. More often than not you will end up adding more casual Whales, those are the ones that have the girls but usually forget to put them their team and only change around the ALL support to the girl featured on the most recent gacha. I mean it still works, but nothing beats the powerful Moby-Dick. Whales are our friends and abusing their power is the key to many victories. Another way to add whales is just looking at your random Supports. These are the supports you an see at the very bottom of your support select screen before entering any stage. The best way to tell who's a whale is by waiting for an event. If you recall, during events you need special memoria to collect event currency more efficiently. They provide you with bonus currency as such. Now, the game does give you a 3 star memoria which increases your drops by like 5 points. But there is also more powerful 4 star versions which give you more points, these are usually walled behind the gacha. Most F2P just stick to the 3 star memorias in their supports. This is where the whales come in. Being P2P mean they will almost always have the 4 star memoria on their Support units along with the 3 star ones for maximum farming efficiency. Not only that but said memoria will be at max level and hopefully equipped to the event's featured girl with all of her memoria slots already unlocked. That's a whale right there.

The second Support is obviously a whale. You can tell because of it's S-3 Mirror Rank and the use of not only this event's bonus memorias but also ones from other events like it. That's a Whale flexing on you o3o.

But if you really wanna make sure this is indeed a Whale and not an F2P who has been saving all year long for that event all you need to do is: select them for battle, once the battle is over your will be brought to the "add support" screen, this screen will show you all the info you need to know and give you the option to add them (pink button) or not (the cream colored button). On that same screen you can click on their other girls and it will show you what memorias they have equipped. You are looking for not only teams of good girls (what good is a support if they only have a Final Tart as their main support while the other girls are under leveled welfare?) but also girls with all their slots unlock and max level memorias. I was gonna place an image here but I can't find it so you'll have to excuse me for that. If you are a long time player you will know what I am talking about. Once you add them, that's it, they are yours to keep. If you add multiple of them during an event you will have a much better time farming. They can actually help you decrease your deficit of AP potions in the long run by making you not farm the events stages as much. Go whales, go!
I have too many friends!
Yes, as an avid Gacha player this is a way too common problem. We are just that likable and sociable. You will find yourself in this situation more often than not. Specially if you haven't reach the 100 friends cap. I myself I am at 96 and I really need more space for friends. You want to add those whales but you don't know who to delete because everything is in japanese?. Don't worry fam, I got you covered. All you need to do is memorize 2 or 3 symbols!

Last login:.2 hours? Probably asleep. 10 days? On vacation. 13 months?! Probably trapped under a pile of old news papers and surviving on food rations, send help.

This is the second tab of your Support menu found in settings. This particular tab shows you the people following you. That pink button right there is so you can follow them back! Very useful stuff (as long as they have good supports that is). You can always find the people who you deleted from your support list here (as long as they were following you back. Do not delete the whales that aren't following you). Check your Support list (the first tab on the vertical menu to your left on this screen). The game will tell you for how long they haven't been playing (so, their last login). Just compared the symbols I circled in red. The ones you are looking for are either the 2nd or the 3rd (Days and Months). I usually give my support a leeway of 30 or so days to log back in. Not every person is like me who logins every day to at least do dailies. Life gets in the way sometimes. But after that time is up it's time to say good bye and make more space. To delete someone you have to press the cream colored button to the right of their name and it will lead you to this screen:

Last connection: 28 days ago. Not even solid support aside from Homura, see you later alligator.

Now all you need to do is press the button on the followers section of this screen. So the cream colored button with the blue icon above. That's it, that deletes the friend, it doesn't ask you if you are sure, it just does it. So keep that in mind before deleting someone. Having Whales is great and all, but even the best whale won't be much to talk about in a couple of months of not login in. So makes as much space as possible for new whales!

IX. Battles and Bosses

Not all battles are created equal
And by this I mean, take the difficulty number of each stage as a mere suggestion. Doubly so if that number is 95. Yes, some event bosses have a difficulty of 95, but so do the Ex Stages, so which one is it F4 Samurai?. If you are long time player, the event bosses are usually a cakewalk. Ex Stages though? They are the definition of cheap. Having said that, Ex Stages are just for people who want to challenge themselves and only give a modest reward so you can disregard them if they are too difficult. I only left 2 Ex stages without a clear in my whole magia record career. And that's ok, they were just too difficult for me to do with what I had available at the time. I am looking at you Christmas Ex Boss 5.

Those question marks aren't just for show. They still owe me those 10 gems. I am going back for them!

If you keep losing, by trying the battle a couple more times you should be able to tell if you the boss is beatable with your current team or not.
Gimmick bosses
Gimmick bosses have always been a part of Magia Record. Although the gimmicks have been getting progressively more annoying as time goes on. Some of them, like the Rumor of the nameless Artificial Intelligence are quite easy to figure out since the game just shows you. She only attacks once per turn for negligible damage. But every 3rd turn she will up her crit and hit you like a truck. If you don't have anti-crit equipped she will most likely kill one of your girls. This easy to tell patterns usually come with regular bosses. Nothing hard, just adds to the challenge. Then you have Ex Bosses and some event Bosses that require a little more of your attention. Take this image for example:

I was just trying to tickle the boss it seems

Yeah, no, something's off,. How come I am only dealing any significant damage in the middle? This was from an Ex Boss battle 5 some events ago. This is a relatively new gimmick (compared to others) in which the enemy only receives normal damage on a particular space. If you are playing on x2 speed and just trying to wail at the boss you may miss on this fact. Happened to me until my eyes caught those numbers. Then I reduced the speed back to x1 and took that screenshot. This boss was bait, being a big boss the first thing you will think of is bringing a blast team or a magia team with AoE magias. What you were meant to do is bring a magia team with girls who only attack a single area or if they use AoE make sure they hit hard enough. That's what I ended up doing, I brought Kako and Madoka with a side of Madoka support and spammed their magias and doppels until the boss died. While Madoka is not really a hard hitting unit and her attacks are AoE she picks up the slack with the fact that she can draw accele disks with her personal memoria and her magia/doppel recover MP. I call it "The Madoka Method" I didn't invented the strategy or anything, I just like calling it that way, it rolls off the tongue o3o.

An example of the Madoka Method. My own Madoka only has 1 slot but that's more than enough to spam some magias! Also Ult. Madoka is just here for support, she's not part of the Madoka Method despite being a Madoka o3o.

Some other bosses can only be damage by either magias, regular attacks or status conditions. You have to experiment and see for yourself. Or you can always wait for someone to post about it. Let's move to the next section.
Magical girls bosses are cheap
If you thought Rumors/Witches were annoying you are in for a rude awakening. I present to you, magical girl bosses. At first glance, they look easy, after all, mirrors has magical girls too and they are on the same level as me right? Indeed, in mirrors they are. But this is not mirrors, this is an event boss. What makes these types of bosses really annoying is that they can use the same skill as you. I am sorry, did I said the same? I meant a way better version of your own skills. Silly me, I got confused for a second there. Yes, they can boost themselves with only the best buffs, debuff you with the worse the game has to offer and on top of that place status conditions on you if you didn't come prepared for them. I mean, RumoWitch bosses can do all of those things too, but they are also big punching bags with a big bullseye stapled unto them. Also there is the itty bitty tiny fact that RumoWitch bosses are only 1 unit so you only need to worry about 1 element. As you can see in the following picture:

And this isn't even the hardest boss I've face by a long shot. It's just a screenshot I had in archive.

This elemental composition is all over the place. Light/Dark/Fire/Void, who do I target first? do I bring other elements to counter them?. As you can see I only brought light and Dark. You may be lure into bringing a whole team of 5 girls thinking that should even the playing field. But no, it never does, it just counterproductive. They have advantages you don't have as a big team. The most glaring one being that the enemy doesn't get a bunch of random disks each turn. It just picks a girl and attacks your with her. They don't need to stuff like Puella combos, they already hit hard enough. So don't be baited into using big teams unless you have a strategy with said team. The best thing you can do is try to nuke the enemy with magias. This was a little before I discovered the wonders of the Madoka Method so I tried to get lucky and used Rika/Ren instead. I mean, I managed to kill them so I guess yay me (?). Overall, aside from 1 or two bosses (like that annoying christmas Ex boss) I say magical girl bosses are more dangerous. Side note: In some special cases, some girls are just there to support the boss team.

In this ase Yozuru was just buffing the other two and couldn't attack.

Once the other are out of the picture they literally just sit there and buff themselves until you kill them.

Not so fearsome out of mirror, huh?!

Kimochi bosses
Kimochi bosses are a sort of mini event. Usually running along with other, bigger event. They pop in from time to time so be on the lookout for them. They are a banner event, or at least used to be, now they have become a button on your home screen. The aim of these bosses is not to be defeated, just for you to make a lot of points by damaging them. Magias are the favored method of damaging this boss. The more damage you do, the more rank you get and the higher the rank you get equals better prizes. There is not much I can tell you about Kimochi bosses aside from some general tips.
A) Always aim for magia-centric team. Remember, in this event you don't get to use Supports, so you are on your own. The previously mentioned Madoka Method is highly recommended. Units who can be used for this are: Madoka, Kako, New Year Mitama and Karin. If you have any of those, bring them along.

This is how my regular Kimochi run looked like. All thanks to the Madoka Method!

B) While keeping in mind the elemental weakness of the boss that is. Unlike other bosses the Kimochi boss doesn't take neutral damage. This means that an Aqua Kimochi will resist all elements except Forest and only take neutral damage from Void. In this case Kako is a must of course, you can bring Madoka and Mitama too, but if you ask me, 3 Accele drawing units is a bit too much. But this is only because the boss had an elemental resistance to everyone else aside from Kako and Mitama (Void is neutral after all). On any other situation you could bring all of them along with a Madoka support and go to town. But for now Kako and another girl should suffice while filling the other slots with Forest girls. In my case I brought along Holy Mami, Kaede and Meru while making sure I equipped MP increasing memorias. I reached Rank S-3 on the 3rd day of the event. That's the max rank. I also managed to land a place among the top 30 players on my division for a day. Everyone else above me was using the same strategy or a variation of it btw.
C) Your MP is conserved between battles. This is super useful for using the Madoka Method. Your total MP is placed in a pool and then spread across all of your girls evenly at the end of the battle. So if you ended your battle with Madoka having a 100 MP remaining that means that MP will be divided by 5 (or the number of girls in your team). So when you start your next battle everyone will start with 20 MP. This is before applying any modifiers, like those of girls who received a fixed amount of MP at the start of battle. Kako is a good example ( Fast Mana Up/ MP Gauge Increased On Battle Start [15% full] ). Just be sure to use the most MP possible before the end of the 3rd battle (you can only battle the kimochi boss 3 times per day). The MP doesn't transfer to the next day, just between battles during the same day. But there are ways to make extra MP.
D) You are placed in a "division" or "block" if you will during the kimochi event . To quote the wiki: "After the initial ranking period, players will be divided into teams based on ranks. Teams will gain points based on the total number of opponents repelled, rather than damage dealt." Repelled meaning "killing" the boss. You can send some free MP to these people by using the Kimochi menu.

Just pick your favorite and click that purple button to send some free MP and receive a little bit of extra MP back!

By doing so you also receive a little bit of MP for being a good samaritan. And if you are lucky enough someone gift you MP too. Keep it in mind but don't count of it considering the staggering amount of players in a single block. I always try to send MP to players who were on the lower end of the rank and still had tries against the boss, but that's just me.
E) You can practice in mock battles. Since you can only battle the real Kimochi 3 times a day the devs were kind enough to offer an option to battle a simulation of the boss. It's the same boss but the battle doesn't count towards your daily battles and your MP is not conserved between battles (it would be super cheesy if it could). This is a great way check if your strategies work and how much damage you do on average to the boss. Speaking of the boss.
F) Don't afraid of it. The boss is just a giant damage sponge. It is more scared you than you are scared of it. If you bring the right status ailments protections the boss is really harmless. Even its special attack doesn't hit for much. If you have regen that should be enough to keep the boss at bay damage wise. Depending on the difficulty, the boss will use its special attack once or twice, that's it, it's regular attacks barely damage your girls. I am of course talking about lv 100 girls. Don't be bringing your Kuro to this battle o3o. (Note to self, bring Kuro to a mock battle during the next kimochi to check how much she can do to the boss).
Sometimes getting to the boss is the hardest part
So far I've been over selling the bosses. But what about the minions? Most of the time they are just fodder that can be dealt with a blast combo. But other times they are a pain in the butt. Some minions are placed right before the boss not just to pad the battle's length but to debuff you or give you status conditions. Basically they are softening you for the boss to just swoop in and kill you. So keep that in mind.
Often times though...
Some minions can be harder than the boss for the same reason a boss magical girl team is more dangerous tan a big boss. There is an advantage to numbers and elemental variety. Girls like Madoka can protect your whole party against debuffs and Ult. Madoka can give you a small blanket of protection against all status ailments with her Ex Skill. These kinds of situation happen mostly on Ex battles but always keep your guard up. You never know when a minion is gotta throw you off your game.

X. Device limitations
Not all phones/tablets are created equally and Magia Record is notoriously picky about what kind of device you can play it on. This is because the game is quite resource heavy. All of those pretty Live 2D models and animations come at a price. So if you have a potato phone you may wanna keep reading.

Transfer code
I cannot stress this enough. Always have a copy of your transfer code. I won't get into detail on how to get it since that can be easily found here on reddit and the wiki. But the code is unique, it never changes, so it doesn't hurt to have it stored in a safe place. If something happens to your device you can always transfer your data to another one with that string of characters. It's quite magical.
Potato phones
I've played Magia record on a number of devices at this point. None of them are supported by the game. In most cases the devices were just hand me downs or older models. As such, I've been forced to install the game by using unconventional methods. There are multiple methods for installing Magia Record on unsupported devices. And again, you can check all of that info in here or the wiki. Personally I just install a modified APK I got from a chinese website (which not many people recommend since, well, chinese website) but I am willing to take the risk for the sake of commodity. Right now I am running Magia record on my Fire Tablet. it's the most recent (as of this writing) model. You would think that despite being unsupported it would run the game better than my Samsung J7 phone. But nope, they run about the same, maybe a little better. The main problem is the screen resolution. Despite having better hardware, the screen is big so the game has to take that into a account and it takes more resources from my tablet. It's important to learn all the kinks of your device so you can plan ahead of time. Slow downs are one of the things that happen to me. They usually happen when I am on the menus (home screen, mirrors, stage select, etc). And it usually means I have to close the game and open it again. If I don't...
Crashes
Yeah, it crashes, although it rarely crashes during regular battles. And even if it does you can just retry it. No, the annoying crashes are in mirrors. In my case the game slows down in mirrors if you play it for more than a few minutes at a time. There is something about mirrors that my device doesn't like. Usually it crashes after I finish a battle so it's no big deal. I just restart the game and continue with the next battle. But there are some times were it crashes right in the middle on them. Those are very annoying to say the least. Specially in ranked mirrors. It has happened multiple times in the span of all the mirror events on multiple devices. There is something about mirrors that just crashes the game. From my own experience, I've noticed that the slowdown precedes the crashes so when I start noticing them it's time to close the game. Pay attention to when does your game crash and make a mental note of it. You will be surprised to find there are patterns to this. Also, this should go without saying, but if you have a potato phone, turn off notifications while you play, ditto for chat bubbles. In my case they contribute to the crashes, specially in mirrors.

Afterword
Thank you for reading this "guide" for a lack of a better word. As I mentioned before I just wrote this as I went along so there are things that I may've missed. I can't promise you I'll put them on later or anything but hey, this should be more than enough, right?. Maybe just correct one or two grammar mistakes if I find them. Writing something like this has been on the back of my head ever since the first year anniversary. It took 2 years, but I think all the accumulated experience was a good trade off o3o. The 3rd year anniversary is upon us, I wish you all luck and may you get the girl you are rolling for!
About the author
Non-stop Magia Record player for 3 years now. Playing on a potato phone for most of that time at that. Not my first gacha game but the most lasting one. Homura fan, potato aficionado and Kazumi enthusiast.

Summary: Fighting immortals is a sweetheart job for someone obsessed with the afterlife. Dying on the job, however, is cutting it too close. However, Julian's curiosity with the great beyond pushes him a little too far, back to the land of the living and cursed with a damned soul, just like the immortals he's sworn to fight...
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The next time Julian came to, he was more prepared. He stayed quiet, he didn’t move or open his eyes, he tried to keep his breathing as slow as possible. He just listened to the deafening whud whud whud of what must’ve been a helicopter. Admittedly, going from his rocking, dipping afterlife boat to the stomach-dropping plunge of returning to life and now to a swaying, bobbing helicopter had been a nausea-inducing trip. The nausea was aided swiftly by the growing sense of dread over what had transpired. Upsilon being invaded. His teammates killed. Had the attackers freed Lady Helga? Was he in their grasps now?
He had to regulate his breathing or they’d—
“He’s alive again.” Through the pounding of the helicopter blades, he could hear the woman’s voice, as commanding as it had been on the floor of the ruined Upsilon base. “Jha, Xing, on him. Alright, Blake. You’re going to do what I say, when I say, and nothing more than I say. Otherwise, you get another bullet and we wait until your brain knits itself back together, hopefully enough to follow orders.” Her voice was accented, Indian if he wasn’t mistaken, probably a specific regional accent but he wasn’t about to make a guess. His heart sank. It was possible that they were North American agents, but between the accent and names, there was compelling evidence that this was Iota Group, the Southeast Asian division. If Iota Group had been called in to respond to the attack on Upsilon, then had the North American group truly been wiped?
“Alright. We have an ID card with your photo on it, stating your name as Julian Blake. Is this correct? Have you gone by any other names in the past? Speak succinctly and clearly.”
“Yes. No.”
“Alright.” He heard the blarp of a radio and the woman spoke again. “Laghari to Omicron. Prisoner has confirmed his identity as Julian Blake. Continue running the visual for matches, see if you can’t find something.”
Ah, yes, it made a little more sense. He was an immortal, their sworn enemy. The scourge of the Earth. The reborn, the everliving, the blight. Julian had never entirely understood why the organization had cast such a damning light over every immortal. The ones they’d IDed, well, their actions spoke for themselves but Julian always wondered if a ‘good’ immortal couldn’t exist, one who was simply scared of dying. However, since his own experience, the peace and tranquility, the acceptance of death, he understood it now. Only someone with the intent to defile that sacredness could truly turn back their boat.
Or someone as stupidly curious as Julian. In the past, the only people who sought the image of the bridge were those who wanted to escape it. Now with a well funded, scientific and militarized organization dedicated to defeating the immortals, it was only natural that an imaging of the river would fall into the hands of someone who was simply curious. And also probably just simple. Julian had really screwed up.
“What was your position within Upsilon?” Laghari asked.
Was. That wasn’t a good sign. “R&D. Researching methods to kill the immortals.”
She gave a long sigh. “And yet you are immortal yourself.”
Did that count as a question?
“That was a question.”
Ah. “That’s new.”
“So you are newly immortal? Were you part of the destruction of the Upsilon Group?”
His heart finally sank the last few inches it could. Destruction, not attack. Upsilon was no more.
“Yes, newly immortal. No, not part of the attack.”
By now Julian’s senses were fully about him. There was a cloth over his eyes, so even if he opened them, he’d be blind. His hands and ankles were cuffed behind him, rendering him completely immobile.
“Alright. Video will confirm that. Jha, thoughts?”
A new voice, also Indian but male, spoke up. “He was shot in the head. Preliminary video recovery shows him speaking to Lady Helga’s agent for some time before turning his back on her. That’s all we have so far. His fingerprints were all over the computers. However his phone was in the final stages of initiating Protocol Lockdown.”
The report was clipped and professional. Julian couldn’t tell a thing about what Jha actually thought of him.
“Is it possible he was stopping anyone else from initiating the protocol?” Laghari asked. “Took the phone?”
“His credentials were entered in. And from the video… no, it doesn’t look likely, Colonel.”
“Very well. Xing, take his mask off. I have a few images to ask him about.”
Let there be light. Julian squinted into the surprising bright interior of the helicopter. For some reason, he’d pictured a tiny stealth chopper, slinking through the night, not the rather large interior of a military transport helicopter.
The woman who’d taken his mask off was a young, blank faced Chinese soldier. Her uniform was emblazoned with a looping letter ‘I’, the symbol of the Iota Group. As she backed away, Julian got his first glimpse of the Colonel, a broad shouldered, dark skinned woman who looked maybe his age, mid 30s. A scar ran across her cheek, distorting her upper lip slightly. Her dark eyes pierced him as she pulled out a tablet.
“Identify the following.”
The identification game was the hardest task Julian had ever undertaken. Identifying his coworkers by the various pictures taken of them at death put to shame any all-nighter, any thesis, any test, anything. Some of them he didn’t know by name and watching the Colonel swipe their pictures away, as casually as a teenage girl on a dating app, boiled his blood. Each name grew harder in his throat. He never wanted to see Zack, the receptionist, crumpled like that. Never wanted to see Jenny from Surveillance’s face so pale, so bloodless. If he hadn’t worked with Clark, he may have misidentified him, what with half his head blown away. As each face was swiped past, a little spark of hope extinguished. Rahul’s face, the blood shoddily wiped away. Corks’ mouth dropped open in a shout or a command or a scream. Finally, Annie’s face, eyes closed, face screwed up. Her glasses were still on her face, slid down her nose.
Julian wanted to push them back up but his hands were cuffed and it was just a picture and she was dead anyway. They all were. He should have been.
“You’re crying.” The Colonel’s voice was unfeeling.
“Those were my coworkers. My friends.” He tried to sniff back the tears that were about to spill but no amount of will could stop them. What did it matter anyway? “What happened?”
She regarded him. “If you must know, the followers of Lady Helga launched an attack on Upsilon Group headquarters. They infiltrated the furnace rooms, took out the technicians, superheated as many of the furnaces as they could to get them to shut down, suppressing the alarms.” The Colonel looked down at her tablet. “Apparently you had a protocol to prevent more than four from shutting down?”
“Yes. Two had to stay active.” It had seemed so foolproof.
“So then you entered furnace room F3 and booted up one of the furnaces, thereby triggering the system to register three active furnaces and allowing another to be deactivated?”
“They were suppressing the alarms! I didn’t know that there were others that had shut down and the technician had a reasonable excuse for why hers was shut down.” His head hurt. They had forced his body into a sitting position on one of the seats, but he’d been clamped so harshly in place that the floor would probably be more comfortable. At least he could stretch out.
“What was her excuse? I assume that, by the technician, you’re referring to this woman?” The Colonel pushed her tablet back in front of his face again, this time showing a zoomed in picture of the harried brunette who had shot him in the head.
“Monica. I mean, probably not Monica. I should have asked for her ID but I didn’t think about it. You just don’t think about that.”
Her eyebrow slowly arched up, giving him a generous three seconds to amend his statement before reaching the brim of her cap. “You just don’t think about that?”
Sure, in the militaristic divisions, maybe they asked every Dick, Tom, or Harry to show a badge every time they did anything. Maybe they did. But that just wasn’t how office work functioned.
“No. You don’t. You get an alert from the furnace saying a vent is being funny. With five to spare, you don’t think to card everyone you run into just in case one of the oldest immortals on the planet is launching an attack.” He clamped his eyes shut, but was greeted by the swimming faces of his coworkers. “That’s just not—It should be but it’s not what we expected. It was our two year anniversary.”
Before she could answer, her radio chattered. “Omicron HQ to Laghari.”
She pulled it to her lips. “Laghari, go.”
“We’re rerouting you to Omicron Fleur. The coordinates have already been sent to Officer Schmidt.”
Her heavy eyebrows furrowed and Julian’s was sure his looked similar, if not a fair deal paler and less intimidating. Omicron was the European group. Why had a bunch of Iota agents responded to the burning Upsilon Group, only to be rerouted to Omicron? And not even Omicron HQ but rather Omicron Fleur, likely a satellite office.
“Why are we going to Omicron?”
“I didn’t ask you to speak. Do we need to gag you?” She stalked past him to the back of the helicopter, out of his vision. “Lapinsky, have you spotted anything?”
“You would be the first to know, I’m sure.” This new voice was affected with a slight accent, but unlike most of the various asian accents he’d heard, this one sounded eastern European.
“I want to know if we’re being followed. What do you know about Fleur?”
“Research facility but it has a backup holding cell on the very extreme chance that Omicron ever got another immortal.” The voice was quiet and Julian strained to make it out over the noise of the helicopter. “I suppose it could function if any group got more than one. We just seem to be bad at that. We get this one, we lose Lady Helga.”
So he was going to lockdown. To a cell. A ‘holding cell’. His skin grew damp with sweat. What did it feel like to have your soul starved out? His second death had passed a lot quicker; he’d just rowed his boat straight off the side. What would happen if he fell but his body couldn’t reconstruct? Did he just fall forever? For years? Or was it black. Would he be able to breath? He’d never felt bad for the immortals in holding cells because they’d chosen that life but suddenly the idea of ‘living’ forever in half death terrified him more than anything.
“No.”
“What was that?” The Colonel swooped down, eyes fixated on him. “What did you say?”
“I said, no.” The word wasn’t as forceful or brave as Julian thought it would be when he first formed it with his lips. No, it was a quiet little sound, full of trembles and barely biting back a sob. “Please.” This word, at least, he’d had no delusions over how it would sound in his mouth. It was a beg.
“No?”
“I don’t know what that’s like. I’d never thought of it, I—” How could he convince her not to put him in a cell? It was more than his life at stake here. “I never should have been immortal. I should have died, I should have died with the rest of them.”
Her heavy eyebrows arched dangerously downward. “So you’re officially claiming that you only achieved immortality at the destruction of the Upsilon Group?”
“That’s it. Yes. That. I’m R&D. We’re supposed to be finding a way to kill the immortals so we created a hypothesis on how the afterlife looked.” His words tripped over themselves in a waterfall of desperate confusion and wheedling so piteous that even Julian would have given himself an eyebrow raise. “I just… I died. I got curious. I came back. I’m stupid, I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s that easy.” She wasn’t having it.
“Well you have to know, you know?” Despite himself, Julian’s heart picked up at the idea of an audience genuinely interested in his work. “So most souls drift based on instinct. You lie and just wait until you’re assigned to the great… whatever, right?”
“Sure.”
“Right, but if you know what you’re going to find, that sort of knowledge can pre-prepare you. It’s a phenomenon you can study in most people. If I were to show you a patterned rug or wallpaper, you really wouldn’t consider it. On instinct most people would pass it by.” There was the distinct possibility that he was going too far with his analogy, but he had to try to explain this. “But if I tell you, before you even go into the hotel, ‘the names of the residents of each room is detailed on the carpet and wallpaper outside their rooms’ suddenly you’d pay attention. It’s important to note, you don’t necessarily need to want to break into a room to pay attention to the pattern. You just have to be curious.”
“So the afterlife is a hotel.”
“It’s a river. A waterfall.” For a moment, he felt the peace of being surrounded by the mist that hovered over the flowing water, and a poorly timed smile crossed his face. Her glare shot the smile back into the recess of his face. “Right. It’s a river. And I knew it would be so when I saw I was right, I kinda—” He stopped himself before saying ‘had a nerdgasm’. That language may have passed with Annie but wouldn’t here. His energy deflated slightly as he pictured her jamming her glasses up her nose and admonishing him for ‘geeking out’ and diluting his point. “I got excited. And curious. And I explored a bit and accidentally fell off the river.”
There appeared to be a half dozen potential lines of question floating beneath the surface of the Colonel’s face, fighting for oxygen. Finally she narrowed her eyes. “The others on your team all died. We have empirical evidence that they are still dead. Why did you survive? Were the other scientists not curious?”
Julian winced. “They were. They were some of the most curious, inquisitive people I know. But they were curious as to what lay beyond.”
“Beyond life?”
“Beyond the waterfall. The edge of the river. If they sat up in their boats and looked around, they’d have raced the other boats to the end, to the—” The tears swimming in his voice finally broke him. “I bet they did. I couldn’t have held them back if I’d wanted to. I was just a lot more concerned with that bridge. From the moment of death to the beginning of forever. That was my specialty back in Upsilon.”
There in her eyes, for a second, he saw the slightest shine. Maybe part of what he’d said had gotten through. It certainly had gotten through to him. If this helicopter crashed right here, right now, the Colonel, the soldiers, the pilot, they’d all be moments from wherever Annie, Clark, and Rahul were. Julian would just wake up, broken, a few hours later.
“There will be time for further interrogation at Omicron Fleur. For now, just stay still.” She stood up, inhaling deeply.
“I’m too tied up to do anything but,” he muttered.
The others in the helicopter must have been more attuned distinguishing voices over the roar. While he barely heard his own voice, he could see Xing, the chinese agent, roll her eyes and he heard Lapinsky, the european agent, snicker.
“Enough from all of you,” snapped the Colonel, not missing a thing. “Do not let your guards down.”
The helicopter traveled for some infinite amount of time. An ex had once bought him a helicopter tour of the city but they’d been weathered out and she broke up with him a few weeks later, skipping town with the voucher. That had been his closest encounter with a helicopter before now. He couldn’t help but think that that trip may have been more pleasant.
The Colonel held up a hand after what felt like forever and pressed into her headset. “Alright, we’re approaching Fleur. Prepare for landing.”
Julian heard a soft ‘aww’ from behind him, ostensibly from the European agent.
“Matti,” murmured the Indian agent, eyeing the Colonel apprehensively.
But she didn’t miss a thing. “Were you hoping we’d be shot down, Lapinsky? Flying with the most newly discovered Immortal isn’t exciting enough?”
“Perfectly exciting, ma’am. Just would have given us some additional intel if we’d been followed. The absence of a tail doesn’t say much.”
“Hmm. Well, our luck is sure to fail eventually, so you may get to see your attack party yet. Fasten in for landing and keep your eyes peeled.”
“Like an apple.”
The Colonel winced at this and turned to ensuring Julian’s straps were secure before posturing herself next to him and holding tight to a rail.
Julian braced for the airplane-style landing he’d, understandably, come to associate with any aircraft landing. His whole body had remained tense, perhaps a bit much so but he had plentiful reasons to be tense, for several minutes, before the thudding of blades stopped. For a moment, he expected the aircraft to plunge, but instead, a broad shouldered man stuck his head back from the cockpit.
“We’re ready to disembark, Colonel.” His accent was so German, it was almost comical. “Major Vicci is en route with an armed squadron to escort the prisoner to his cell.” These words erased any comedy from the situation and Julian’s shoulders sagged.
“Copy that, Officer.” She tapped her headset. “Laghari to Vicci, we’re standing by for escort.”
Julian was pretty sure he’d be shaking if he had a spare inch to move. If they brought him straight to a true Immortal holding cell, he’d never wake up. No one would save him, he didn’t have any rabid followers like the other Immortals, and they’d have no reason to ever free him. Maybe the base would become overrun or shut down or climate change would melt the entire mountain range and he’d finally come back to life in a desolate, lonely post apocalyptic world, joined only by the other psychopathic Immortals, who would battle over the ashes of Earth until the sun ate it.
If he could just have a moment or two of their time, for some kind of interview, some Q&A bit, anything, he could try to plead his case.
“Colonel,” he said. His wavering voice confirmed that he should, in fact, be trembling, and he knew his clothes were drenched in sweat despite the chill air.
“You’ll have time to speak when we bring you to an interrogation chamber.” There was something behind her eyes other than cold apathy. Something even more than hard intellect, though both were there. Something that made him think maybe he had a chance. He just needed to hold his tongue and they’d hear him out.
“Alright. Alright. I swear, I didn’t attack Upsilon. I didn’t plan that. I didn’t order that. I’d have had no reason to. Those were my coworkers, my friends. Annie and I were supposed to grab drinks Friday with Lea and Coswell from S&E.” His voice broke a bit and he cursed himself for the blabbing but he couldn’t keep his thoughts straight. Everyone around him was some top tier military personnel, used to being in the line of fire, used to keeping cool, used to interrogations. Julian got nervous playing trivia at the bar.
Everyone grew tense at his bit of verbal vomit, clutching weapons.
The Colonel got up in his face, her face warped into a heavy frown. “You speak when spoken to. We understand your situation and your claims. Shut up until we get you to iso.” She paused and Julian could just barely hear the radio chatter from her headset. Then she stood up. “Major’s here. Move out.”
Chapter one ||| Information on the derby
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