Forums » Newbie Central » Read Thread

I have created this thread to ask questions about anything in general related to CYS. This is of course the Newbie Central, and if you're a noob feel free to ask your own questions here. To start,

Can only more recognised figures like mystic, endmaster, MHD, ect have events? If you start a thread for a game and aren't a recognised figure, is it likely everyone will ignore it (this is assuming it's an actually fun game and not trash) and therefore it is not worth it?

     These are some questions I saw when going through other Newbie Central threads. Keep in mind, some of these are pretty old.

 

1. I am an English teacher and I am looking for a simple and short choose your own adventure story for a class next week Tuesday! Our unit topic is natural disasters and survivor stories and the kids are 11-14 years old (so please no age inappropriate stories). (Lyrosa56) Ok yeah this is awfully specific, but I don't know if this site has any stories on that, but if there is it'd be in the edutuainment section. If you don't know, the way to get to the edutainment section is if you click on storygames on the left, than click on edutainment.

        Since it's short, I would offer to quickly write something up but I have other stories going but maybe someone else would be willing or you could try.

        And yeah you can ask questions in this thread that's what I made it for.

2. As a person just getting started here, what are 3 stories you’d recommend? (Amanderin_Oranges) I would recommend The Price of Freedom: Innocence Lost, Eternal, and Tower of Riddles. I would also just recommend anything by endmaster in general, Tower of Riddles is a series of puzzles so not that if you just want to read. Of course, different people are likely to suggest different stories.

        Speaking of people liking different stories, because people have different preferences you could try looking for the kind of story you like. If you for some reason didn't notice, there's a sort of menu kind of thing on the left. If you click on story games, there's different genre options you can click on.

        There's also the search option, where you can not only search titles but also tags. I don't really know how seriously people take tags, it depends on the person, but you could give it a shot. Also when you go into a genre, there's fiters for maturity and length and rating (you rate a game after reading it, so if it has a high rating it's likely good) as well as other things.

        If you just want the best stuff, there's a top rated section and there's a section for the newest games. Although if you're looking for the newest ones.

        There's also a most in need section on the home page, I don't know how it calculates what's most in need but all those stories need more ratings.

3. Which story here made you think the most, or gave you the hardest choices? (Amanderin_Oranges) Tower of Riddles, there may be a harder one I missed but this one is great for thinking. Another really good one for this is A Hunted and Haunted Halloween.
4. Do you enjoy stories with clear ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ choices, or more ambiguous ones? (Amanderin_Oranges) I prefer ambiguous ones, it usually leaves more room for improvement more easily so people can leave longer reviews and hopefully get them featured and also for the actual improvement of the author's writing ability. I also prefer it because it's more thought-provoking.

5. Hey, I'm new here and I was just wondering how you get points and how that works and stuff. (CrazyCatLady) Points are earned from contributing to the site. You can get points from reading and rating stories (which the authors appreciate!... hopefully), from making your own stories and publishing them, and from admins. There are two ways to get points from admins, either they give you points directly for whatever reason or they commend you. You can get commended on your forum posts and from getting your stories or reviews on stories commended. When you get one commendation, it gives you 3 points as your commendation of the day. If you get more commendations than the other people in your order (Sage, Architect, Marauder, and Warden. Visible on the right of your profile) than you get 10 points for most commended and have the Avon title for 24 hours. Although, maybe for the 10 points it's just two and not more than others I'm not sure. For more info on titles and commendations, go here.

6. I'm new here and I been wondering about the history of this website. Like how it started and what general events led to what chooseyourstory is today. This may be directed to some of the more longtime members of the community but if anyone has something, I'd really like to hear and understand it. (Nadromeda) This is the official site history, and this is endmaster's thread about the site's history.

7. Hello everybody, im new here, can u giv me tips about this site, if yes ty (The_Shy_Guy) This one is pretty old, 4 months, and first of all I understand not caring too much for spelling and grammer in forums but FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT WRITING IS THAT. If you didn't notice, there's a Help & Info tab on the left that's quite helpful. The titles of the articles will tell you what they're telling you about.

8. I keep getting lots of duel requests and i have no idea what they are someone help me out and explain :( (ApexShell8495) Duels are basically luck for points. One person checks a box or doesn't check it, the other has to guess if they checked it or not. For a lot more in depth detail, look here.

9. Hey, I read the article saying what an Order was, but I still don't really get it. Are there competitions between Orders? Is it just a thing on your profile? Not a super important question, but I was just wondering. (Liminal) They do not have contests, and it's almost just something on your profile. I say almost because people talk about orders in the sense of teams a lot and say things like "ew, another sage" or "wardens are the best" or whatever. It's not a competition. Notice: I'm not sure about this last part . Also, the order with the most commendations as a whole (for the day?) has its members' names appear red on forums instead of blue, but sorry if I got that wrong.

10. Does anyone have any storygame recommendations for the horror genre specifically? I tend to like psychological more than gory, but if the premise is interesting enough I'll put up with it. Thanks in advance! (Liminal) I suck in this area because I haven't really read many of the horror stories, so here's the thread.

11. I'm a proper idiot I've never used this website before at all help me (Venusasagirl) The title of this thread was hi guys please HOW DO I MAKE STORY GAMES PROPERLY. There's plenty of articles for that is Help & Info, but as it doesn't have everything I would link the thread as well but the replies aren't very helpful except Anthraxus linking to the articles, and I'm not sure exactly how to answer this because there's lots of layers. The genre, what you mean by "make it properly", ect.

     There was also a bunch of stuff asking for recommendations. I looked at every thread that was available without pressing the older threads button at the bottom. If there's a bug, there's a Bugs and Problems forums area and the Wishing Well is where to go if you have suggestions on something to add to the site. I hope this helps someone :D

     Also, if there's random spamming of random stuff just ignore it the admins will handle it. Spammers get banned. You'll also want to keep that in mind and not spam yourself (I know a lot of you know this, this is for the noobs! Even though I'm technically one too...)

     I have now looked at the next page of newbie threads.

1. Newbie here. I've gone through most of the Help & Info articles, but I can't find a tutorial on how to give the player the option to set their own name to be used throughout the game. Is it even possible? Any help is much appreciated! (ikan2) This was 6 months old, so maybe the article explaining this wasn't posted yet? Anyway, here's the article. If you're getting frustrated with it, maybe leave it alone and make story games without player made names for a while then come back to it. If you go to Help & Info and don't click on the article then look under the name, it's labeled expert so don't be too mad you can't figure it out if you're new.
2. There's a flood of questions from UD, so I'm going to skip that also because you can find all the answers in the Help & Info section except for AI. He asked about rules on AI, there are technically no "rules" but this site is pretty heavily anti-AI and if you want people here to respect you don't use AI. Even if it was allowed, you shouldn't use it.
3. Hi.I am a newbie writing my first story. It has 3 main branches with smaller choices in each and I just want to know what word count I should aim for. (jarethflash17) This answer is from DBNB and it's quoted from the thread, this is not from me: "Since this is not an article or assignment that is word count specific, you should aim to use enough words to properly develop and tell your story. There are plenty of stories here that have lower word counts with well written and developed characters and plots.  It would not be beneficial to your story to pick a word count and then pad your sentences and paragraphs with unnecessary words simply to hit that goal.  Focus on producing quality writing and the word count will take care of itself." -DBNB

There is more on this page and past this page, but I've gone through a lot of threads. Hope this is handy to newbies. 

These are dumb questions that apparently some idiots need told to their face:

Is AI allowed here? Absolutely not.

Blah blah blah, tons of questions You'll find there's an awful lot of answers here.

NOTE: Do not say anything bad about EndMaster. Ever. It's the last thing you'll ever do. Don't insult Mizal, either. Or Sherbet. Or... you know what, here's the mod list (scroll down a bit).

Why do I keep getting banned? I didn't do anything wrong. You did something wrong. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what that is.

What do I do? ... this is a reading and writing site... figure it out.

I hate my username. This one isn't really stupid like earlier ones, but still if you're not a pain the mods are pretty nice and you can ask for a soul transfer. Basically, you just make a new account and points are transferred.

I'm being abused by mods. No you aren't. And even if you are, there's a pinned thread in Newbie Central literally called Admin Abuse? Call now!

NOTE: This site has a pretty dark history with Warrior Cats. If you're a wc (warrior cat(s)) fan, don't mention it or make a story about it because you'll likely be attacked. This is not because the site members are mean, they're pretty nice (most of them), this is generally because of the site's history with wc. Also they might become suspicious or wary if you try to make a role play thread, although that isn't too unheard of here so if you just build a reputation of not being a creep it should be fine.

     - Note: Warrior cats is banned from the site, stories will get taken down and god know's how badly they'd react to posts about it. Maybe they're nice and tell you not to do that again, maybe they burn you at the stake.

Why is everyone here so mean? They're not, most of them. If you're actually talking to a mean person, it's best to stop engaging. They're not mean a lot of the time you think they are, it's just that you need to get a spine. There's tons of newbies who think they're bullied, most leaving and some even getting banned for spamming.

NOTE: The last one reminds me, don't revive old threads if you don't have a really good reason to. There's this one noob who did that, I think her username was psycho kage or something like that and she was banned pretty darn fast. No one wants that. Also there's spamming, try not to post to much because there's lots of people who don't want the flood of notifications.

Wow, if you're still reading, maybe you can try rating a story on this site! Lots of noobs abandon the site fast because they don't actually read which is pretty core for a reading and writing site. Or maybe you just scrolled down and saw this, in that case I suggest you read from the top.

NOTE: Freedom of speech is allowed here. Not only does this mean you can say almost whatever you want, but others can say whatever they want to too. This also goes with the 'mean' thing, people here swear a lot sometimes but this doesn't mean they're actually being racist or bullying you or whatever. For example, fag is like saying hi here (not exactly, don't go around using fag in place of hi). Although, I said almost because if you don't want to get banned it's best if you don't actually mean the meaning of the words, and that you don't mention anything... too explicit. This was a major issue with wc, and why it's banned from the site.

NOTE: Want to make a demo/troll game? BAD IDEA. Especially if it's a troll game, unless by some miracle it's actually good it's getting torn down. If it's you complaining about mods, you ranting about your problems, typing your thinking about human nature, ect. it will likely get torn down and it's a wast of effort.

NOTE: For tons of writing mistakes that apparently are common enough to get compiled into a story game, this story is perfect. And this link is good if you want a more direct route and are fine with it converted into a tab.

NOTE: This is more directed at a few specific people. About the worst thing you could ever do is repeatedly making alts, over, and over, and over. Especially with super patient mods like Mizal trying to work with you and you're the one making things difficult! And as I forget who pointed out, with the now huge mod team they've covered pretty much all time zones. Not good for anyone trying to mess with the mods. So please, act like a normal person (this link mentions some things I talked about earlier in this post). Also, other things that should be common sense.

NOTE: Don't post tons of threads.

There's some questions I was going to answer here, but it's already explained here.

OH. MY. GOD. YOU MUST BE KIDDING. question is 450 word ok for a first story game (jordan17) No! Of course not! We accept shorter stories on the site, but even the thunderdomes which are about as short as you get are usually just under 10k. And those aren't entire story games, thunderdomes are posts used to compare which author is better! Makes sense his story was torn down.

If you have an idea for an event or game you want to run, you should PM a mod with a detailed description. They will let you know if the idea is appropriate, well timed, and should go forward.

Thanks :D

      I was just wondering, isn't a guillotine that medieval execution thingy where you put your head so your neck is in a large wooden rectangle thing with a overly large metal blade at the top and they drop something or let go of something or whatever and the thing at the top drops down and decapitates the person? Here's an image of what I'm talking about (from google):

Yep! Surprisingly enough, it was last used in 1977, one month before Star Wars came out. 

Today's edition of What Do Words Mean? with your host Avo, now upgraded to three syllables!

She's still one syllable away from learning what a dictionary is

No, it was not medieval.  It was invented in the eighteenth century.  

The earliest designs of a guillotine-like device can be found in High History of the Holy Grail from 1210, and there are functional examples of similar devices, such as the Halifax Gibbet, may have been used for executions as early as 1280, but certainly by 1532 where one is shown in a woodcut being used to commit an execution. There is a very recognizably guillotine like device called The Maiden that was built in 1564 and used until 1716 on display in the National Museum of Scotland. The term guillotine of course didn't come into use until the 18th century, but the concept and practical usage has been around since the medieval period.

Within these three openings are the hallows set for them. And behold what I would do to them if their three heads were therein ... She setteth her hand toward the openings and draweth forth a pin that was fastened into the wall, and a cutting blade of steel droppeth down, of steel sharper than any razor, and closeth up the three openings. "Even thus will I cut off their heads when they shall set them into those three openings thinking to adore the hallows that are beyond."

Anyone can clearly see that that is not a guillotine, but a trap made by a particularly annoying gamemaster who is sick and tired of their game and just wants to kill the whole party.

     I'm taking Gower's side on this one. Sorry for my mistake. I'm pretty sure Gower is a teacher, right? So what he's saying is more likely accurate.

Gower is quoting from one of the sources Anthrax mentioned.

But yes, assuming he knows what he's talking about in most things is smart.

I have another question (I hope no one minds), this one's about grammer. How do you know when to use were or where?

It's spelled grammar.

Anyway, "were" is the plural past tense of "is"

"Where" is what I believe is called a interrogative pronoun, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it indicates or asks about a location. Ex. I know where you live. Where are your vital organs?

Thanks :D

     Earlier and just now too, I was looking at who was on CYS out of boredom and noticed someone by the username PurpleFlyProductions. I took a look at their profile, and I noticed multiple of their story game's descriptions said it's just a test. Bad idea. Make a serious attempt or that story is likely gonna get torn down. Plus, if you're doing it to get better it'll be more effective to make a story you put more time and effort into anyway.

I know this isn't exactly an important question... but how the heck did Mizal get such a cool title on her profile page?!?! I want rainbow color changing text :(

I swear if someone says you have to be an admin to get that my head's going to explode.

Mizal has years of dedication to this site. With notable story games, thorough reviews, and constant site activity - she has clawed her way into Modhood and has been award rainbow text.

Glory to CYStia

It'll take me years to get rainbow text if I ever do :(

Is rainbow text the only thing or can mods pretty much mess with their profile in tons of ways? I noticed custom titles like Malks.

Oh you silly noob. CYS is not so advanced we'd have such features.

The rainbow text, the capital M in her name (unless it was updated through SQL at some point), and the custom titles are all straight from the code, done manually by the code monkeys (if any are still alive).

...that is, unless things changed since a year or so ago.

If you call me silly one more time I'll find a way to carve your eyes out.

So silly. What a goof.

*sounds of anthraxus's door creaking open*

*sounds of my four dogs all growling welcome to the intruder*
"Silly, silly noob"

*Sounds of me raising my fully loaded gun and pointing it at the dogs*

And don't get smart with me, it isn't broken, it won't malfunction when used, we're not placed in such a way the I'm pointing at a wall, I'm not unable to use the gun in anyway, I'm not imobile, such and such. And the door doesn't close on me and break my neck, I hate when people pull that on me.

*Shoots you* Why waste time talking? That is a silly move.

I respawn because I had... a clone in an alternate dimension waiting to jump in? Out of my pocket I pull out a massive bazooka and let loose destruction while also using white out on the sign calling me silly and writing "This is definitly not anger issues." on it.

I would do more, but I don't know the layout of your imaginary house and don't want to assume or shape how it is with my actions when it's YOUR imaginary house so I'll leave it at that.

This has gotten too silly for me. You obviously want it more, so you win. You've out sillied me. Good job.

>:(

What remains of Anthraxus isn't pretty after I run out of amo.

     The only story in the newley created section I haven't read and rated is Shadow of a God-King (that's the title, right?) but I'm too young too read it!!!  X(

     Anyways, I was wondering about proofreading, how many people do you suggest getting a story proofread by? I read it, a few others did, and I know it's good to get insight from multiple people with fresh eyes. I haven't exactly seen tons of profiles saying "I can proofread!" and my proofread thread only got gryphon to read it, Liminal never read it or if he did never PMed me or posted in the thread his review ._.

     I thought google wouldn't be good for a question like this. In poems, I noticed multiple using "so" (or So) in a way that confused me, do poems use so in a different way?

Can you give an example of a couple that confused you?

     I forget the exact poem, about gold not lasting or something. Two lines started with so, and one said "So Eden sank to grief" (I don't remember if it ended with a period or comma, which is why there's no punctuation).

'Nothing Gold Can Stay' by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour. - This so references the prior line, indicating that the flower-like state of the earliest leaves as they turn from green to gold is very brief.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief, - Speculation of course, but I believe that Frost is drawing a comparison between the shift of golden leaves to brown and dead and the fall of grace in man represented by the eviction from Eden.
So dawn goes down to day. - Indicating the further passage of time as the golden leaves, like the golden dawn, pass on to less special states.
Nothing gold can stay.

In this case it is a conjunction, indicating "for this reason, therefore" -
adverb
1. to such a great extent.
"the words tumbled out so fast that I could barely hear them"
2. to the same extent (used in comparisons).
"he isn't so bad as you'd think"
conjunction
1. and for this reason; therefore.
"it was still painful so I went to see a specialist"
2. with the aim that; in order that.
"they whisper to each other so that no one else can hear"

Thanks.

Now go read The Outsiders

      I am for a school thing, which is why I know about the poem. I'm not allowed to read ahead, we're on chapter 5 and we're not going to be reading any more until 2 weeks later. :(

Oh, nice! I loved that book. Your class may be Gen Alpha's last chance at a literate society.

      Lol. Half the teachers, for the first time, seem to be throwing in their own stuff with the curriculum. One even gives us candy! We just have to act when the principle or a vice principle checks in and play dumb if they ask about it. Probably one of my first rule breaking experiences, now that I think about it.

     This isn't 6th grade or elementary school, I like these teachers a lot more. And they don't feel like robots without a personality following a formula for an "engaging class".

     In poetry, when do you know to end one stanza and start another? I've just kinda been doing it where it feels right-ish. I write poetry mostly as a hobby and because it gets my emotions out and is calming, but I also want to get better at it.

It all depends on what kind of poem you're trying to make. Most commonly you'll see a 4 line stanza, usually following a ABAB pattern. I'm pretty sure I was also learning some of Shakespear's sonnets at your age. I'd recommend looking into the different types and try your hand at a couple different ones. There are a lot of different rules for each kind but if that feels daunting there's no harm in doing whatever and calling your poem 'free-verse.'

Thanks :D

What Surana said basically, there are so many different kinds of poems there is no one answer there.

Depending on the type they'd be formatted using different rhyme scheme layouts, different numbers of lines, different numbers of syllables per line... and then there's the whole concept of meter and flow, which some people have a natural ear for and some are just going to struggle with. It's what makes them sound awesome when spoken out loud though.

To begin with though, it's hard to go wrong with four lines of alternating rhyme, and aim for going back and forth between eight and six syllables--look at some of the classic Christmas songs for a simple demonstration. (O Little Town of Bethlehem if you need something specific to search for, assuming your filter even lets you look at Google results.)

Or haikus are always fun: just 3 lines with 5-7-5 syllables, and it should have some kind of observation to do with nature.

Relevant to the site:

“A Poppy Blooms” by Katsushika Hokusai

I write, erase, rewrite
Erase again, and then
A poppy blooms.

(Okay, I lied, that's not 5-7-5, but those numbers are just the English rules--haikus are Japanese and they don't translate across in a 1 for 1 way like that because of hope different the languages are.)

      Thanks! And I can't look at most music, but there's one youtuber I'm subscibed to who I can see like half of her piano covers.

PS. Wait - was I supposed to say the second part replying to your first post?

     If you're making a page where one link can go to different pages, how can I change a variable? And it can't be the same for all possible results because it's a fight with different outcomes.

Hm, your question is a bit general (though, tbf we are in a thread called General Questions so yeah...) and difficult to answer but I'll have a crack at it. First, check the Help and Info section to see if there are any useful articles there - there are plenty of advanced articles about Variables and Scripting but I could have sworn we used to have an article explaining what Variables are and how to use for them beginners and if it's been deleted or only ever existed in my imagination we sure could do with a beginner's guide written by someone who knows what they're talking about. I dp have a tentative understanding of variables though and will try to help.

First, on the main Storygame Properties page make sure you've got Variables turned on to Advanced under the Editor Options setting. Then, on your page links to other pages click the Modify Variables button next to the link (it looks like a blue plus sign with a line under it) and this allows you to change previously-created Variables. If you've going for fighting you might want one that subtracts Health from your reader's Health variable (on the variable you can have a setting that if it falls below 1 - i.e. to 0 - the player has died and is sent to a specific page titled "Sucks to be you" or something similar). You might want to deduct health from an enemy too, with a similar page to be sent to if you vanquish them (this variable you would probably not want to be visible for players).

That's probably a good starting point for you but if you have any more queries of a more technical nature the Advanced Editor Forums where wiser and more technologically skilled members can provide more advice. Mainly the best way to learn is the way I learned: play around with different settings, save and exit, play through the story and see what happens, what things work and what things don't. Hope this helps :)

     Thanks, but that's on the link so it'll apply to any page it sends you to. Maybe I wasn't clear enough or I'm misunderstanding, but if I did that no matter what page the reader got sent to it'd be the same change in variable. I know the modify variable thing, I'm using script so it sends the player to a random page from a given list and each page would have different changes in variables.

Just set the variable to change to the desired result as part of the same criteria that triggers $DEST.

You can use BEGIN and END to bookend code blocks if that helps you keep them organized.

Thanks :D

     Is there some requirement to writing an article? I just want to write an article on some things that I thought pretty much everyone knew that surprisingly Blister needed a lecture on.

We're going to have to start getting pickier about articles soon, lots of members seem to want to write them just because, but there aren't too many subjects left that really require a whole article to explain.

If this is about some basic grammatical thing anyhow, Blister can learn that anywhere on the internet if he cared to look it up. We don't really need to cater to alt spamming lurkers here, you've surely got better uses of your time.

It's about infodumps and time lapsing (he was skipping too much time) mostly but I might run into more stuff. This is excluding stiff that I thought were more basic.

and writing articles just because makes sense considering the points it gives.

That sounds like it could be a good thread in the Writing Workshop.

Write up your article and post it in a thread. People will tell you if it is article worthy.

I was wondering, is there some kind of translator? I would hate to keep pasting things into google translate...

I'm not sure what the context is here, but if you're reading a foreign language game your browser or at least the one on your phone should offer to translate automatically.

It did once but the option has vanished... ah well. Thanks anyway.

Close the window and restart it?

This isn't for one story. It's been like this for about a month now. I can't read the non-english stories without way too much effort  >.<

That's okay, non English speakers have never done anything of importance.

Well there is Finali Incantatum. Sure it's a fan fic, but it is still sizable and pretty well written.

You forgot the sarcasm tag. How are we supposed to understand. ;)

Oh, Fabrikant is still alive.

Questionable. But, active. Was on a bit of a mission in summer. But will have more time again till the end of the year.

For some phones/browsers, you might be able to click the three vertical dots next to the tabs button at the top of your screen, which has an option for translating text. If you're on a laptop, right click and the option to translate the page should pop up.

Oh yeah, thanks! :D

Sorry, I know this is a random question, but if something's a reply to the first thing in a thread than I think it's 212 characters long before you go into another line, and if that's the case if you want to center something that's 4 characters than you put 104 spaces before it, right?

there is? How... do I do that? I can't fine a certering thing at the moment... and it's for my thunderdome entry, if that complicates anything.

I use HTML, I can't speak for the RTE using subclass.

I use HTML too, just not when I don't need to because RTE is easier.

Are there glitches with commenting? I'm asking because I commented on a story and it put it there twice.

Which story is it? I could help delete the duplicate. 

Edit: Done :)

It's Dreams of Plague by megzahill

EDIT: thanks :D

I know this is a bit random, but how many stories are in CYS (aka when will I run out of things to read)?

If you total up the number of stories in each category it is 1083.

I know RK gave me a list of a ton of sources, so I was going to look at those and discovered I couldn't find them. Does anyone know where it is? I think it's buried somewhere in "Avo doesn't like Ogre" (not true!) but I'm not sure.

EDIT: Found it, sorry. Entirley different thread.

When you have RTE enabled, does HTML not work?

<i>Testing</i>

Yeah no, why not?

Aw... :(

     Another question about RTE, when you click the source button there's tons of stuff that looks confusing at first glance (or maybe that's just me bolding and italicizing and stuff so much) but is this what you would put in if it didn't have RTE for the same text?

     Oh wait I just tried putting the source in for my profile to test this but I have RTE enabled and I dunno what happens if I disable it with so much RTE application... could someone without RTE test it if they don't mind? It's a bit long, but this is the source.

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<strong>Hi, and welcome to my profile.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Hi, I&#39;m V__V by username but please call me Avo. I like to read, write, and draw. If you&#39;re a noob (or not!) I&#39;m ok with proofreading stories and if you are a noob and haven&#39;t already, I highly suggest reading&nbsp;<a href="https://chooseyourstory.com/story/The-Price-of-Freedom~3a-Innocence-Lost">The Price of Freedom: Innocence Lost</a>.</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Some of my preferences: I like&nbsp;</span><strong><span style="color:#8e44ad">purple</span></strong><span style="color:#000000">,</span><strong><span style="color:#8e44ad">&nbsp;</span></strong><span style="color:#000000">I really like&nbsp;</span><span style="color:#c0392b"><strong>r</strong></span><strong><span style="color:#f39c12">a</span><span style="color:#f1c40f">i</span><span style="color:#27ae60">n</span><span style="color:#2980b9">b</span></strong><strong><span style="color:#8e44ad">o</span></strong><strong><span style="color:#c0392b">w</span></strong><span style="color:#000000">, I like chinese cuisine, I have 3 siblings (I&#39;m one of two middle children), some other stuff, and in general I really like anything shiny and anything&nbsp;</span><strong><span style="color:#c0392b">c</span><span style="color:#d35400">o</span><span style="color:#f1c40f">l</span><span style="color:#27ae60">o</span><span style="color:#2980b9">r</span><span style="color:#8e44ad">f</span><span style="color:#16a085">u</span><span style="color:#c0392b">l</span><span style="color:#f1c40f">,&nbsp;</span></strong><span style="color:#000000">and I&#39;m a music fan.</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;I like to write choose your stories more than normal stories, because they offer stories that you can explore multiple times instead of reading it once than it collects dust. And, even if you finished it you can come back and add more options to it. And the reader gets to influence how the story goes.</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;You might notice you can&#39;t duel with me, that&#39;s because I disabled it because I don&#39;t like it. I&#39;m here to write.</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#c0392b"><strong>A</strong></span><span style="color:#f39c12"><strong>l</strong></span><span style="color:#f1c40f"><strong>s</strong></span><span style="color:#27ae60"><strong>o</strong></span><span style="color:#2980b9"><strong>,</strong></span><span style="color:#000000"><strong> </strong></span><span style="color:#8e44ad"><strong>m</strong></span><span style="color:#c0392b"><strong>y</strong></span><span style="color:#000000"><strong> </strong></span><span style="color:#d35400"><strong>p</strong></span><span style="color:#f1c40f"><strong>r</strong></span><span style="color:#16a085"><strong>o</strong></span><span style="color:#2980b9"><strong>f</strong></span><span style="color:#8e44ad"><strong>i</strong></span><span style="color:#c0392b"><strong>l</strong></span><span style="color:#f39c12"><strong>e</strong></span><span style="color:#000000"><strong> </strong></span><span style="color:#f1c40f"><strong>p</strong></span><span style="color:#27ae60"><strong>i</strong></span><span style="color:#2980b9"><strong>c</strong></span><span style="color:#8e44ad"><strong>t</strong></span><span style="color:#c0392b"><strong>u</strong></span><span style="color:#d35400"><strong>r</strong></span><span style="color:#f1c40f"><strong>e</strong></span><span style="color:#000000"><strong> </strong></span><span style="color:#16a085"><strong>w</strong></span><span style="color:#2980b9"><strong>a</strong></span><span style="color:#8e44ad"><strong>s</strong></span><span style="color:#000000"><strong> </strong></span><span style="color:#c0392b"><strong>d</strong></span><span style="color:#f39c12"><strong>r</strong></span><span style="color:#f1c40f"><strong>a</strong></span><span style="color:#16a085"><strong>w</strong></span><span style="color:#2980b9"><strong>n</strong></span><span style="color:#000000"><strong> </strong></span><span style="color:#8e44ad"><strong>b</strong></span><span style="color:#c0392b"><strong>y</strong></span><span style="color:#000000"><strong> <span style="font-size:16px">Liminal</span>! </strong></span><span style="color:#8e44ad"><strong>:D&nbsp;</strong></span><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; That&#39;s why it says I lost 5 duels on the right, I paid him in points.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size:16px">Thunderdome presence:</span></p>

<ul>
    <li><a href="https://chooseyourstory.com/forums/creative-corner/message/30734">Avo vs. Blister</a>&nbsp;(won) [side note, Blister has been banned]</li>
    <li><a href="https://chooseyourstory.com/forums/creative-corner/message/30836">Avo vs. Cavus vs. RK</a>&nbsp;<strong>(lost)</strong></li>
</ul>

<p><span style="color:#000000"><span style="font-size:16px">Goals:</span></span></p>

<ul>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><s>Write my first story (it got unpublished for being trash)</s>&nbsp;<strong>I forget when I published it, a while ago</strong></span></li>
    <li><s><span style="color:#000000">Read and rate 20 stories that are in need of more ratings: 176/</span><span style="color:#000000">20</span></s><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp;<strong>finished&nbsp;</strong><strong>10/12/2025</strong></span>
    <ul>
        <li><s><span style="color:#000000">Updated to a new more ambitious goal! Same thing, more ratings: 176/100</span></s><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp;<strong>finished 11/4/2025</strong></span></li>
        <li><span style="color:#000000">Updated again!: 176/500</span></li>
    </ul>
    </li>
    <li><s><span style="color:#000000">Read and rate 100 stories: 240/100</span></s><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp;<strong>finished 10/24/2025</strong></span>
    <ul>
        <li><span style="color:#000000">Updated to a new more ambitious goal! Same thing, more ratings: 240/500</span></li>
    </ul>
    </li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000">Make at least one rated at least 5 story: 0/1</span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><s>Win a thunderdome: 1/1</s>&nbsp;<strong>finished&nbsp;</strong><strong>9/30/2025</strong></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000">Understand all the available mechanics to making a story game: I don&#39;t know how far I am, but I&#39;m not done</span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000">Read all of the articles in Help &amp; Info: 20/37</span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000">Get as many point based trophies as I can</span></li>
</ul>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; - <s>100 point trophy</s>&nbsp;Obtained</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;- 500 point trophy</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;- 1000 point trophy</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;- 5000 point trophy</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;- <s>infinite&nbsp;point trophy</s>&nbsp;Unobtainable</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">One of the stories (maybe more?) got unpublished since I&#39;ve read them. <strong>This was last updated 11/27/2025</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">Also, is there a way to change your rating on a story? Any way, here&#39;s my count for how many stories I rated lower (on accident) than I meant to: 7</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">This is my favorite image (so far, and obviously I didn&#39;t make it):</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000"><img alt="Kine" src="https://chooseyourstory.com/resources/images/user/61542" style="margin:5px" />&nbsp;<img alt="OGRE FOREVER!!!" src="https://chooseyourstory.com/resources/images/user/61482" />Also why not I picked up this ogre dancing thing... somewhere?</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">My favorite music (these specific versions):&nbsp;</span></p>

<ul>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHKa83UZbgU">Avengers</a></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@LyricWulf">Yes, this is a YouTuber, but I couldn&#39;t get a link to specifically the song it plays without you clicking on anything</a></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Rousseau">Her music is pretty good but not my favorite</a></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTPXwbDtIpA">Harry Potter!!!</a></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmKurapML4BF9Bjtj4RbvXw">Just these guys in general, before I start flooding you with their videos</a></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgovv8jWETM">Peponi, this is my favorite of all my favorites</a></span>
    <ul>
        <li><span style="color:#000000">I can really geek out about music, I know a lot in this field. This is&nbsp;<em>my&nbsp;</em>profile, but I&#39;m still going to minimize what I say here. Like most of their songs, there&#39;s lots of body language that I just really like but with the lead singer there&#39;s much more than usual. Also, this piano player and cello player are in most or all of their videos and they make what they&#39;re playing look easy but I&#39;ve played both instruments for years and from their hand movements alone without seeing the sheet music I can tell what they&#39;re playing is hard as heck.</span></li>
    </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCaH-qqTWpk">Kung Fu panda!</a>
    <ul>
        <li><span style="color:#000000">This one is of more minimal difficulty&nbsp;but it&#39;s still really good. Just a bit in the cello gets significantly harder, with the rapid plucking being so fast. Just after this too the difficulty on the piano also increases a ton as there&#39;s more unstacked piano layers. By unstacked, I mean they aren&#39;t recorded separately and stacked. This is also when they start layering some other instruments in.</span></li>
    </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeQnXe6DLtM">A Million Dreams</a>
    <ul>
        <li><span style="color:#000000">There&#39;s a bit of an intro like opening at the start before the actual music. I don&#39;t know anyone else&#39;s thoughts on this, but I found it strange that they decided to take the top part of the piano off. I wonder why they used a different piano player before bringing the first one back in. I think they&#39;re trying to tell a story of the pianist and cellist as kids before they became a popular YouTube channel?</span></li>
    </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dakd7EIgBE">Let it go! Sure, the movie&#39;s childish, but I still like it a lot</a>
    <ul>
        <li><span style="color:#000000">Maybe I&#39;m wrong in this respect, but later in the song I think they&#39;re layering multiple cello recordings&nbsp;at once to make a harmony but not for long. There&#39;s also a bit more motion in this one, you can see the cellist...&nbsp;---hit sounds like the wrong word---&nbsp;his cello sometimes to the beat.</span></li>
    </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOO5qRjVFLw">Fight song</a>
    <ul>
        <li><span style="color:#000000">This used to be my favorite song, but not anymore. It&#39;s still good, and I thought I&#39;d put it in here but I prefer the original version to this one. I wonder if they hired actual drummers or just put the audio in and edited people in. The piano part in this is also quite layered and complex at a quick pace, I noticed they tend to do that often.</span></li>
    </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3cBZ5X-eGw">The Jungle Book</a>
    <ul>
        <li><span style="color:#000000">This song has more tension, but I&#39;m too lazy to try and tell if they&#39;re using&nbsp;diminished or augmented to add tension but I think they&#39;re using augmented because my experience with diminished is more like it sounding creepy than strained. The tension isn&#39;t there the entire time but it&#39;s quite present.</span></li>
    </ul>
    </li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxMXGpzgbmg">Unstoppable</a></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIBbMUgn6FY">someone to you</a></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLgU2-f1j2U">Anyone</a></span></li>
    <li><span style="color:#000000"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=potyb1caezg">As It Was</a></span></li>
    <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrHFg47Mopk&amp;list=RDyxMXGpzgbmg&amp;index=6">A Sky Full of Stars</a></li>
    <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZd1GsRHVts&amp;list=RDyxMXGpzgbmg&amp;index=7">Something Just Like This</a></li>
</ul>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;The music I listen to heavily affects a lot of things I do. For example, it greatly impacts my creativity. If I&#39;ve just been listening to music and stop, I tend to enter that state of mind where my creativity runs dry and I can sit in front of a blank screen for a couple of hours before my head gets going.</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;If I&#39;m writing while listening to music which I hardly ever don&#39;t do, it&#39;s greatly reflected. I started writing Demon Doll with the intention to make it a gut wrenching dystopia with no happy endings as I was listening to sad defeated music but later I came back to it with happy music going, and made it... a bit softer and less </span><span style="color:#000000">descriptive</span><span style="color:#000000"> in gory elements.</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;It impacts my writing, my mood, my reactions to things, how productive I am, ect. Sadly, I listen to the music I enjoy and not necessarily the music that maximizes my productivity or produces less violent writing. For example, I left my profile alone except to update my goals for at least a month now yet now I&#39;m listening to Peponi after a while and have decided to add a bit to my profile.</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">Why not... gif!</span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000"><img alt="pattern.gif" src="https://chooseyourstory.com/resources/images/user/61700" style="height:100px; margin:5px; width:100px" /></span></p>

<p><span style="color:#000000">Story banners:</span></p>

<p><img alt="tower badge" src="https://chooseyourstory.com/resources/images/user/21129" /></p>

<p>01001001 00100000 01101101 01100001 01111001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01110000 01100101 01101111 01110000 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001101 01100001 01111001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01100100 01101101 01101001 01101110 00101110</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>01000001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01101110 01101111 01111001 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110000 01100101 01101111 01110000 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110110 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001110 01001111 01010111</p>

Yeah, pretty much. that is inline HTML styling.

Pretty sure she's asking what the user would put in. Which would be exactly none of that.

Not sure it was necessary to paste all that, but unless you have some super special formatting, generally you have an empty box and then you type your story in it. This is called plain text, you're looking at it. All the rest is part of the source code for the site, the poster does not interact with it. (You already know this because when you made your account the RTE was off by default until you went in and selected it manually.)

RTE inserts a huge amount of unnecessary crap to get the exact same effect. Like wrapping every single line with style tags for ordinary black text with no special font? Paragraph breaks for every line? Special characters for spaces and apostrophes end quptation marks instead of just using the actual ones? It's so ugly and that's what would break new user's game scripts half the time.


You already typed an italics tag above. That's all you have to do when you want italics inside your game, the letter I inside angle brackets, and you never have to worry about anything else. (Except on the description page, where you need to add line breaks.)


Edit: I seem to have skimmed past the second paragraph asking about your profile upon being confronted with multiple screenfuls of gibberish, but you still wouldn't need that amount of coding, much of that was inserted by the RTE simply because it's the RTE.

But anyway, it shows up fine and still would even if you switched, people not using the RTE can still see the effects of the RTE, just like people using the RTE can still see the effects of HTML. It wouldn't make much sense to have both options otherwise.

Thanks!

Also, just so you know every time I see that much RTE crud at once I get so angry that I go out, I find a pure, innocent kitten, and I RIP ITS HEAD OFF.

I didn't do it last night because I had to work really early, but paste responsibly.

Oh... sorry T-T

When you add a link if you didn't already save what you wrote it's deleted?! WHY DID I NEVER KNOW THIS?!?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH T-T

That was 3K WORDS DELETED... I don't feel like retyping that... T-T

There's no autosave feature, Avo. If you reload the page, click a different link, close the page then open it, the site won't store what you wrote unless you specifically click the save button.

My recommendation is to make it a conscious habit to save your work at regular intervals, or work on google docs, then copy paste it into the editor, and save.

Sorry you lost your work Avo, my best recommendation is to try and recollect as much of it as you can and write it. You still may be able to write down as much as you can remember, but as a future lesson, always back your work up.

I know that, I meant I was adding a link to that page.

EDIT: Thanks anyway. :D

Adding a link reloads the page though.

Sucks you lost your work. 3k is a lot for just one page though, how were you tracking the word count?

Anyway, not sure what the situation was there but that's several times more than someone would've usually lost in that situation so that's especially rough. Just take a little break from it if you need to though and it might be even better in the second draft.

That sucks :( My recommendation is to write your story first in Microsoft Word and then copy and paste into the stories (that's what I do) and that way you always have the original if something goes wrong with the page, site or internet connection, which sometimes happens. 3,000 is a lot for a single page (some stories on here aren't even that long) so perhaps if you can remember the main points of your writing and could rewrite them up more briefly? Sometimes when I've deleted something then gone back to it I've thought of a better way to write it more effectively with fewer words, more interesting details and develop it in a better direction. Hope this helps a bit :)

Avo, who's the admin that annoys you and should leave? Is it me?

I figure it's me, it usually is since traditionally I'm the one that bothers to interact with the awkward or more insufferable noobs and especially the child noobs while they go through their various baffling stages on the way to learning to be human, instead of just disdaining them in silence while laughing at them on Discord. Or instead of just banning them without bothering to interact.

If it isn't you, it's gotta be me. Though I haven't interacted with her nearly as much as everyone else has on here.

Unless noobs start out with praising Eternal there's usually only one way they find out you've noticed them, and they tend to blame it on me lol.

... why... do you think I'd hate you? You're not that bad. No where near it.

?

Oh right sorry, I'm not supposed to just put a question mark. Why the puppy?

While that's a powerful question, it is countered by an equally powerful one: why not the puppy?

Because it doesn't seem to fit context.

Sure it does, you said something particularly wholesome so you got the wholesome pom.

Oh, ok. I'm stupid ><

     Wdym? From the binary code on my profile? Ugh, that was a bad idea... listen, it doesn't matter. Also the annoy people leave thing was meant separately, but for some reason put in a translator it puts them together that was not the intended message. Not exactly.

     The second line was supposed to be to any noobs who took the time to translate that, although if they went to that much effort they're likely better than the trolls who constantly come in.

     Also, Mizal you're so helpful why would I ever want you to go? You're really nice to people who aren't a total pain!

      I'm confused. So first I had seen that shifter has 6 rating and now has 5, but I dismissed it as me remembering the number. Now I've read, rated, and reviewed Cat's Shades of Fear but it appears that my rating isn't there and my comment/review never added, and I reloaded it a few times. Still, nothing.

     And a crazy thing is that the site claims Shifter has 5 ratings, but it literally says 6 site members rated it if you click on it, which isn't possible!

     Is this just me?

EDIT: Ok well I see my rating there now but my review isn't there.

     Sorry, I know this thread is technically dead, but I have two questions.

1. Are you allowed to unpublish and revise contest story games? I don't like the rushed mess Shifter is right now.

2. Is it ok to revive threads like this one and my drawing thread?

1. yeah, just wait until judging is over. Now that the results have been published, you can take your story down and edit it.

2. yeah sure, just try not to spam too much and you'll be fine

Thanks! :D

     My Global Studies class is finaly having a Holocaust unit. Glad I learned what that was, saved me a lot of embarresment as everyone else already knew. For a long time.

     You made the holocaust sound like a sad lost puppy compared to what it actually is. Not saying it's inaccurate, just a lot less brutal.

     Anyway, is there a way to make links go away entirely? I know you can disable them if the user lacks something, but I want it to go away instead of turning black and not working.

In the link restriction menue, there is an option "visible when inactive." If that isn't checked, it will be invisible when the conditions are not met. It might need "advanced scripting" to be enabled to show up.

Thanks! :D

It was mostly RK that explained it to you wasn't it? Not surprised he didn't delve too deep into the details. Glad your school is finally catching up though. Are you guys going to read Anne Frank's diary too?

Don't know. What's that?

It's possible even Wikipedia is blocked by her filters (because her parents are insane. )

But here's a photo of Anne Frank I sized down and uploaded to the site, maybe Avo has actually seen it before without realizing, since it's pretty famous.

Yeah, I've seen this a couple times.

It's a diary that this Jewish girl wrote while hiding out from the Nazi with her whole family in an attic. Usually one of the books read in high school English class.

We read it in middle school, although it might have been an abridged version.

In English class? Not history?

It's a bit of a literary classic too.

Yes, but not even an English one. I would have thought English class would focus on originals, not translations.

"English class" is really just literature in general.

Ironically, in Germany you usually start learning about these things with an English book "When Hitler stole the pink rabbit."

Nah, read it just before 9th grade (and High school in general) with 3 other books since it was sort of explained during the school's new student orientation that those books were going to be gone over in English class.

As it turned out only 2 of the 4 really were and I don't even think we spent much time on Anne Frank meaning I'd wasted all that time reading books like a sucker.

Anne Frank was a teenage girl who, along with her father, went into hiding from the Nazis. She hid in an attic for 2 years before she and everyone she was with were captured. But while she was in hiding, she kept a detailed diary describing her life, her thoughts, and feelings. Later, her father escaped, found it, and published it.

Also, I probably made the Holocaust sound a lot less horrifying than it was not to downplay it, but just because I didn't want to tell a 12 year old about gas chambers, burnt corpses, and some other gruesome details you'll probably learn soon. Glad you're learning about it at school, and that you have a head start because of us.

And make sure you're good at math while reading about the holocaust.

To add a little more detail, they were with her mother and sister too, and they had another family with them too. It was a pretty crowded situation and they spent I believe two years up there with the people who were hiding them smuggling them whatever extra food they could manage to get during the strict wartime rationing.

Eventually they were found out (I'm not sure anyone knows exactly how) and arrested. The diary itself ends right before that of course, but we know that from there they were sent to the death camps, one for men and one for women. The father was the only one who ultimately survived until he was freed at the end of the war. The diary was preserved through one of the women who was helping them taking it and hiding it at the time of their arrest.

Her father eventually released it for publishing to share her story, though early on I think he censored the more private and "problematic" parts--she was about middle school aged while all this was going on and of course had a lot of emotions to deal with on top of the stress, and really resented her mother for a long time while being cooped up in the same couple of rooms which I think was a part of it. But it really is an invaluable thing for us to know now what was going on in an ordinary person's head while experiencing all that.

     Oh wait, I've heard of this! There's a short picture book about the dad finding the book but that was years ago and I didn't know they were Jewish. 0.0

I actually read it on my own way earlier when I was homeschooled, lol. I remember how unreal it all sounded at the time; someone having to hide just because they practiced a certain religion. Sadly, it is now something that I can imagine rather easily.

There were people put in the same situation not even over religion but their ethnicity, sexuality, disabilities, political disagreements, etc. The majority of victims were Jewish but it really was a catchall thing done to anyone deemed undesireable to the grand vision.

Not sure if you've ever come across it but The Hiding Place by Corrie Tenboom is another great autobiography by a woman in the Netherlands who was arrested with her father and sister for helping hide Jews in their shop

I haven't heard of that book; I'll try to read it sometime.

Jewishness isn't just a religion. It's an ethnoreligious group, with shared genetic ancestry. There is genetic overlap with ALL the groups there—Mizrahi Jews, who remained in the Levant and Middle East, Lebanese Christians,, Palestinian Christians, Druze, Palestinian Muslims, other mostly Arab groups, followed by Sephardic Jews, then Ashkenazi Jews. All share ancestry.

But there certainly is also strong genetic overlap between all groups of Jews, which signals it's more than just a religion.

There are some some studies on the topic of religion playing a role in causing slight genetic branching: "Our results show recent genetic stratifications in the Levant are driven by the religious affiliations of the populations within the region." (from the abstract)

But that doesn't mean it's "just a religion."

Bottom line: You can see that the rest of the world knew Jews were more than just a religion at the time, based on racist art showing the stereotypical big noses, as well as the words of Adolf Hitler and others (one image shown below).

The conspiracy theorist in me believes that teaching students that Jewishness is simply a religion is a propaganda technique to delegitimize them as a people.

EDIT: tried to make this wall of text shorter, and yet it's STILL huge. It's an interesting topic.

tl;dr: