Trutharchivist

My view is that those are two separate things; the secret projects are meant - optionally - to be read blindly, without previous knowledge of the books. This is something I want to try once. Doesn't mean that I have to do it with SA, too.

Yep. He also asked to reserve the surprise, but no one seems to honor that anyway. And it's an hour minus one second. Kind of annoying for me, as somewhat of a perfectionist, to see it.

No. But I'm like onions. Though I don't like them. TPBM is found as confusing by the people around them.

Shhh! You'll blow my cover! Really, though, I usually take the time to explain stuff about the cookies, but generally, you should remember what was written on the thread of the CIA. Handing over cookies is fine as long as you're not overly excessive with that. Besides, TUBA still kind of exists, I think. I'm not completely sure what it stands for, but it's something about bakers, I believe. There are trustworthy baked goods on the Shard, if you go in a well lit alley. TPBM's native language isn't Indo-European.

I actually meant much more recent, inner developments - the Zionists and their effects on Sephardic Olim at the time the state of Israel was funded, probably going back only as far as the enlightenment's effect on Judaism... But full history of the Jewish people (at least, around the last thousand years or so) may be somewhat called for too. I'm not completely sure. I assume you thought I meant the latter from other things you said on your post, I might be mistaken. Also, for some reason I just thought about it now, but I know a Christian Sharder that I think would like to answer your question and does not belong to the LDS (far shorter, don't you think?). @Ixthos, are you interested?

Hard to say, really. I've been religious my entire life, and I do consider it a large part of who I am. My education system was different from other non-religious people here. I sometimes find that my religion creates something of a gap between me and other Sharders, though that could most definitely be just me. The book that I kind of want to write is essentially about a religious Jewish boy finding himself in a fantasy world, and it's going to make it hard to share it with anyone from around here, if and when I'll actually write it. In conclusion... Well, I can't say that much. Most of the non-religious people that I meet in my day-to-day life are not really atheists, they just were born to families that don't practice Judaism anymore (maybe their grandparents were/are atheists, maybe they just were raised by atheists. I can tutor you in Jewish history, let's not do it here), but they still kind of believe. I don't really know how they view me, though I know of a few common opinions about religious Jews in Israel. The thing is, since in Israel we don't separate religion from the state, being a religious Jew here is also somewhat of a political statement (oh dear. But it kind of is), and there are also different kinds of religious Jews that agree about most of the things except for relations with the state. Long story short, being a religious Jew in Israel can be... weird. Though Nathrangking might disagree with me.

Oh dear. Can I go to Wikipedia? Though I'll give some interesting note. The grand pyramid was built by a bunch of Egyptian slaves of king Khofu (Is that how this name is spelled?) I should be embarrassed. Egypt borders my home country, yet I don't know as much of it's history as I should. Also the Aztecs built pyramids too, I think? Anyway, at least here in Israel, there's a common misconception that when the Hebrews (us!) were enslaved in Egypt, they built pyramids. This, of course, is wrong. They built cities, which were used for purposes other than burying the dead. My question: do you know anything about the history of a country other than your own? If so, how much? If not, do you know much about the history of where you live aside from your ancestors' presence there?

Skyward reference? Didn't read it, maybe I'll try one day. And no. I'm not a hivemind of spaceships, either. Or suffering an existential crisis, for all that matters. Who cares if we happen to have two identical forum games? Now we get to stupidly and irrationally compete, just like tLT and tLPW! TPBM watched Brother Bear 2 this week, or at least knows why I did.

Topic: socialization on the Shard. Sub-topic: different forum sections. To clarify: the thread has been inactive, and the questions seemed to lead nowhere, so I'm going to try a different take. 1. Do you comment more on one section of the Shard? 2. If so, What section of the Shard you find you comment on most: 17th Shard, Brandon Sanderson, the Cosmere, Non-cosmere Works, Related Works or (here!) Community? 3. In addition, do you find yourself interacting with a relatively small group of people, with limited variation, or with a varying group? 4. In case you comment on multiple sections: are there people you know who comment a lot in one section but not on any other that you think have a lot to contribute to another section?

Um. Well. I'm definitely far from being the biggest Tolkien fan, but I do like LotR. I probably first read it when I was in elementary school, and I read it again a couple of times. I'm currently in the middle of another reread - this time in English (all the other times were in Hebrew...). I read along with a friend of mine, who sends commentary on each chapter. We're currently in the Tom Bombadil chapters. I didn't read most of the additional books - only the Children of Hurin, the Silmarilion, Beren and Luthien and maybe the Fall of Gondolin? I can't recall. If I could choose to belong to one of middle earth races it'd be hobbits. They lead such peaceful lives, and they're amazing! Also, your opinion may vary, but I believe no Tolkien imitation ever actually took the good old-fashioned hobbits. They usually take the Tooks and their likeness, maybe.

Well, I can't judge, since I'm not impartial on that. I made it myself, with much help from my sister (more like she did, and I was around...) I read some Discworld books, but I'm sad to say that I still didn't know what you meant and had to Google it. And I actually did read Going Postal. It was translated though, so I might have an excuse. Then again, as far as I know, you read it in Chinese... IRL, though, GNU stands for Gnu, Not Unix. I don't really know that we'll what that is. I know random things like that mostly because both my parents work with computers. TPBM has been falsely promised snow this year (technically I've seen snow this year, but I expected much more snow where I currently am).

I guess. Though I don't play many video games. You know what RPG stands for, right? If you open it, the sentence sounds... A little weird. TPBM knows what GNU stands for.

Good luck! Are you doing the Seder alone? That'd be kind of weird, if so. To ease your start in Israel, your first holiday was arranged to still be eight days. Though in case you're Ashkenazi you can eat kitniyos at the last day. Plus, you have one more day of Chol Ha'moed! I'd have liked using a new Haggadah, and we have heaps of them at my house, but I'll probably use one I already used once. I don't think I got to read all the peirushim there. Congratulations! I actually have no idea what else to say. Never been a mother with a newborn child during Pesach. Neither lived with one - my siblings and I were born either months before or a little after Pesach.

Edit: this topic started as Pesach discussion, but now it's a general place for Jew! Feel lonely with all the Goyim around? Want to enjoy some old-fashioned Jewish chat, dotted with Hebrew and Yiddish words? This is the place for you! The original message: Since Pesach is right around the corner, and since I'm a little bored and think that it might be interesting to discuss some stuff here, I decided to start a thread. We can discuss here on how we're preparing for Pesach without clogging the TPBM thread like we did last year! And other random people that might be interested can come in too. I'll tag here the few people I remember that are Jews. Anyway, random things: a. I, personally, am going to miss all the cleanings in my home, since I currently serve in the IDF. There'll be some cleaning here, too, though, and from what my brother told me, there wouldn't be chametz to eat for two weeks before Pesach. It might be somewhat annoying. But on the bright side, I don't have to go over the fridge with bleach, so yay! b. I thought I might just as well recommend a book for preparation for Pesach. One of the most interesting books I've read about Pesach is the Exodus You Almost Passed Over by rabbi David Fohrman, I recommend it. I'd have tried the books recommended to me by other Sharders, but I'm not sure that I want to wait for the books to come from abroad. What's nice about tEYAPO is that I can obtain it through kindle. The ones recommended then, to those who wish to know, were Let My Nation Go by Yosef Deutsch (recommended by @Bejardin1250) and Moses and the Path to Leadership by Rav Zvi Grumet (recommended by @Nathrangking). What do you have to say? @Kingsdaughter613, @Silva

You could say that public reaction in Scadrial to Soothing and Rioting partly covers that, I think. Though not all. Some of the books I mentioned ignore it with the excuse that most people don't know about that - though in Animorphs some of those issues are faced. The heroes can trust no one, for example. Weirdly (spoiler alert for the last book in this series) I guess, though, that I don't really know of any book that deals with a whole world that has to knowingly deal with such abilities. I'm sorry for my belated and not very complete response. Truth is, I just randomly started a thread on this subject, even though it's my worst fear and I pretty much literally had panic attacks because of one of the series I mentioned when I was in elementary school.

It appears I do. I can confirm that I have less tabs. Because I have specific ones I keep open all the time. TPBM had panic attacks at least once because of something in a book.

Care to elaborate? I can try to figure out your meaning, but I'm not sure that I quite understand. I didn't watch any of those shows and still read the spoilers... Well, that's completely my issue. I might watch the first one, though. From the sound of it, the second is similar to what I called FPR in the OP. Spoiler alert: Inheritance Cycle and Archer's Goon (both relatively minor), some Owl House, Mistborn and Inception mentions. Nothing all too elaborate. Now, to somewhat continue what I started in the OP (though I'll try making it shorter): we have a couple of directly invasive methods. The first of which immediately overpowers the will of the patient, which is kind of weird. The second is more subtly manipulative - probably because it's a little weaker. There's another method that should be added to the first category, that is just as forceful yet less powerful: pitting will against will. It's exemplified in the Inheritance Cycle - wizards' duels there basically work like that, IIRC - and in Archer's Goon, where it's described as mental arm-wrestling. Now, I just want to mention: for every forceful method, there could be ways to use it more slyly and subtly. Surprisingly, it's true for pitting will against will; if the patient has no idea what you're doing, it might very well feel like it's you thinking that. Actually, as far as I know, every inner debate I had was with a malicious entity external to me that's trying to control my actions. Oh, well. Anyway, I think memory alteration can be something of a middle ground - not all too subtle, but not too forceful and not necessarily directly invasive. The more subtle methods are also somewhat less effective - it's hard to completely control one's actions without applying raw force. They mainly consist of subconscious planting - hypnosis is one of the more forceful ones, idea planting from Inception is the more subtle. Soothing and Rioting can be somewhat in the middle ground, too, like memory alteration, but the way Breeze uses it it's far more subtle than hypnosis. I might've missed a few methods, and though I wanted to orderly classify them I'm not sure that I can right now. Anyway, that's it for now, thank you for reading.

So, this is my 800th post! I saw that I got to this point and thought that I might as well utilize it for something I considered doing. I'll see how this works and act accordingly in the future. My reason for doing this is that I sometimes randomly come up with a topic that I want to ramble - and discuss - about. I tried writing the ramblings as status updates, but it didn't produce any discussion. Perhaps here it'll end up similarly. Perhaps I should try writing shorter posts, or try something else, like a YouTube channel or a blog. Anyway, without further ado, let's start talking about the actual topic. I came out with this topic after realizing that a relatively surprising amount of fictional works I touched lately - be it books (mostly) or a TV series (just this one, when I come to think of it... but I wanted to include it) - included some kind of manipulation that might be awfully close to mind control. I thought of sorting the types of manipulation on a scale from most forceful to most subtle. So, let's begin. Spoiler alerts: first paragraph - extremely minor Animorphs, some InterWorld near the end. Second through forth paragraph - the Conch Bearer. Near the end of the forth paragraph - Divergent. Fifth paragraph - references to the Owl House, Mistborn and Inception. First and foremost (and not much spoilery, I'm glad to say): the most forceful method of mind control I can currently think of is the Yeerks from the book series Animorphs (K. A. Applegate). Those are slug-like sapient alien parasites that enter the head of other sapient beings through the ear canals (yeah, it doesn't really work. Ignore it for the moment), and take control of their bodies by detaching the nervous system from the brain and attaching it to themselves. In addition, they wrap the whole brain and can read the mind of the victim at will. The victims themselves are prisoners in their own mind, unable to do anything but scream inside their heads. In this method, the Controller basically pushes the controlled aside. Technically, it can't be called mind control, since the mind is still intact; yet, I think it deserves a mention here. It should be mentioned that there were occasions, throughout the series, that a controlled person regained some control of his/her body, but it happens rarely and isn't referred to as much of an option. In addition, the heroes of the series, who have the power to acquire and morph any living creature with a DNA, sometimes consider morphing into sapient beings as mind control, which is basically just as forceful. I, personally, disagree with their point, but I digress. A method just as forceful, though enacted differently, is present in the book InterWorld (Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves), when Lady Indigo bewitches people to follow her every order. This method basically pushes the original personality to the corner and places instead an infinitely loyal to the witch personality. Thus, I believe it belongs to the same class as the Yeerks: forceful personality repression, or FPR (acronyms!). If the most forceful method was overpowering the existing personality, the next one will be having a different personality in your head that don't necessarily overpower the existing one; namely, the method used in the Conch Bearer (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni). Now, it's been a while since I've read this book, so please forgive me if I misremember a thing or two. I was randomly reminded of it lately, and considering the fact that this kind of manipulation appeared there, I think it deserves a mention. In the book, the antagonist, Surbhanu, gets to have a few moments alone with the protagonists, Anand and Nisha, and as he says later in the book, builds a nest inside their minds. He tries to use it on Anand to trick him into killing his mentor, Abhaydatta, but Anand succeeds to overpower him and throw him out, with some help from the titular Conch (IIRC). Nisha, though, serves Surbhanu - up until he harms her pet, which actually was Abhaydatta all along... But never mind that. As it seems to me, this type of manipulation consists of putting a representation of the controller in the controlled mind, and suggesting actions from there - perhaps by simulating situations that'll cause the controlled to act the way you wish him/her to. Kind of reminds me of Divergent (Veronica Roth) and the way I assume the simulations worked there, though this method is probably more subtle. This'd be forceful suggestive alteration, or FSA, I guess. I'm writing it all messy, in case someone bothers reading this far and comment - help'd be appreciated. And, you know what? I'll stop here, for now. I intend to talk about a couple of other thing, like memory alteration (which I believe was used in the recent episode of the Owl House), emotional manipulation (allomancy, which I see as relatively forceful, though Breeze uses it with amazing subtlety) and subconscious suggestion (hypnosis, plus inseption from the film Inception) and perhaps some other stuff that I might think of later. If you can think of a book/movie/TV series that touches this topic - feel free to mention it. Perhaps you'd better write inside spoilers in such cases - I don't have the willpower to do it here. Sorry if it's a little messy. I'm not completely concentrated on this while typing, so that might explain that. Maybe I'll do better another day. Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed it (at least a little)! Happy Equinox! (I don't celebrate it, not do I know of anyone who does, but it still is a special occasion!)

Here's my answer, apparently. It seems that I got the spike of Avren's necromancy abilities. I have no idea how, since I didn't murder him. Anyway, a question: what would a random person to do, if he knows your command? (Mwahahahaha! I was bored enough to read ancient threads and find a time when you answered this question!)

Yep, that'd be me. Sorry. Also, just wanted to clarify: I don't really hate you that much for being Thaidakar. But I was reminded lately that you watched the Peter Pan animated film before reading the book... JK, it's fine. People don't really appreciate the book much anyway. TPBM writes short posts.

Welcome to the Shard! Take the cookies at your own peril, don't spoil things outside the designated areas and don't double post. Hope you still have your soul, it won't be the same after the cookies anyway. You may or may not be invited to cults, offered as sacrifice and/or be warmly welcomed. Actually, the last one is practically granted for most of the forum. The other ones don't get any more comments. I'm sorry if my massage was a bit weird - I have a peculiar sense of humor.

No, not really. Just referring to some posts on the previous pages - if you wait for Doors of Stone to come out you're up for a long wait. I didn't read a Song of Ice and Fire, but I suspect that waiting for Winds of Winter might be similar. TPBM likes acronyms (it's been a while since I did this one! Somewhere near the beginning of this thread. I think I did it, anyway.) Also, I'm still not sure that I feel like a seasoned Sharder. Then again, I'm here for much less time than Eluvianii.

NO. It will never happen, not as long as I, Trutharchivist, am standing. That is my oath. (Lucky for you, since it's night where I live, and I'm going to go to sleep in the near-y future.) Also, it's somewhere between 41 and 45. One of your subordinates, Kingsdaughter, was a part of it. TPBM has never interacted with me outside of this thread.

No, I don't work for you. Go seek for employees somewhere else. TPBM remembers that time when a bunch of Jews (like me!) clogged this thread with Pesach references. (A little more than a Christian year ago, about a month less than a Jewish year ago.)

Wow. Sorry for reviving this thread, it's just that I participated in said RP. I don't know if Kingsdaughter sent you a link, but maybe we can discuss with Random Bystander and continue/restart that RP. It died all too quickly, I think. And it was an amazing idea. I'd have replied in another place if I could think of one, I see that this is not very related to the original topic. @Rashek's PR Manager, you remember your dreams far better than I do mine. Though I have no idea how you could possibly convince Kelsier to trust you.