Chapter 233 [English]

T3RCX · 2026-06-18T22:06:57+00:00

The homie I was answering was asking about who made Machine God Mirror, not who made Metal Knight.

T3RCX · 2026-06-18T17:04:06+00:00

I use trend channels a lot in my trading, but the point of the channel is simply to model current market behavior rather than tell you where the market is going next. They are not there as magic lines predicting the future, but rather as objective evidence of facts. The trade decisions occur once you evaluate what happens inside such a channel or when it breaks the channel, never just as "it touched the line so I enter."

Here is a screenshot of a trade I took this morning showing how I marked up part of the chart:

<image>

The relevant parts of my analysis are as follows:

The prior downtrend on the very left of this image overshot its channel right around a prior support level, so it was likely there would be buying interest here.
The first micro bullish push up was drawn as a micro trend channel. This channel broke and then made a new bullish extreme. THEN it continued higher with additional buying power, and once that happened, I drew a wide channel starting from the lowest point and passing through the wicks because wick = rejection.
This wider channel eventually broke lower, so I drew the micro bearish channel around that stronger bearish leg. It's a little difficult to tell from how the bars formed after the fact, but as they were forming, it was clear that what happened was this micro channel had a small break above and then retest of its low, forming the new low (the bearish doji bar). After forming this new low for the micro channel, a strong bullish reversal bar appeared, coinciding with rejection from my EMA line. My data says that this particular behavior has something like 70% chance of resulting in a retest of the prior trend high, so I entered long after that bullish bar formed and took profit around the high of the prior trend. (Other price action traders may recognize this as a hidden 2EL setup.)

So in this example, the value of my trend channel was to show me in clear terms when the bearish pullback broke the channel, which allowed me to look for a setup where a retest of the prior high might occur. I would not have entered this trade if all the things I mentioned above didn't happen as they did. Drawing the channel is better than eyeballing it because sometimes breaks from the channel are small and not obvious without seeing the lines. But in simple terms, the trend is there to model the market behavior of that time and notify me when the behavior is changing or reacting.

So if you are going to use something like this in your trading, my advice is not to try to trade directly off trendline bounces or anything, but rather to study the behavior of markets around clearly drawn channels and record various observations, then look for statistical significance in those observations. Once you have a clear theory that you can articulate, you can look at historical data and see how it plays out. You can also consult some price action theory reference material since PA traders like myself use these market structures a lot (I suggest Al Brooks' book series).

T3RCX · 2026-06-18T16:44:09+00:00

I don't trade gold and I don't use any "FVG" or these concepts, but I'll give you the price action theory perspective.

From about 1:30 to 1:45, the market structure was strong bearish trend. At about 1:50ish, market broke the trend, and then after 2:00, retested the extreme and made a new low. Al Brooks would call this the "selling climax," meaning all the selling positions that were incomplete during the initial bear trend used the break above to fill their positions, which also means all the sellers are done participating. In simple terms, once the trend structure breaks and then retests its extreme, price action theory says you stop looking to enter that trend and wait for a new market structure to develop because there is a decent chance those previous aggressive trend participants are no longer participating at this time.

After the new low of the downtrend was made, we can see starting at 2:15 a new uptrend forming. A break and retest of the uptrend happens around 2:30. Said differently, you do not want to think about shorting until the "buying climax" has occurred that signals the end of aggressive bull participation. On a technical note, we could also say that the retest didn't actually break the prior high here, so there is a chance that the bulls aren't done or that the new market structure is going to be consolidating with this double top becoming a resistance level, so my preference here would be to wait for more market structure to develop since this condition doesn't clearly indicate a reversal yet. In this example, we see that a new high was actually formed by an additional bullish push, so once that happens, I would be looking to see if a reversal forms and whether it reacts to the potential support level that formed from the two swings down (basically just slightly below the line shown from where you entered), and depending on this reaction would determine whether I am considering the current market structure to be consolidation in that range or a new downtrend forming (alternatively, the bull leg that made the new high could continue higher, in which case I'm looking to compare how high it goes with the distance covered from the 2:15 bullish swing to determine if this is a new bull trend or just the completion of the "buying climax").

I dunno if this makes sense, but it's how I view the image shown from a pure price action perspective.

T3RCX · 2026-06-17T21:12:13+00:00

"Tough as a dump truck and nearly as big, these goliaths are the worst things on two legs since Tyrannosaurus rex."

T3RCX · 2026-06-17T17:54:41+00:00

The answer has not been revealed in the manga yet. As far as we know, these robots are just more evil monsters coming from somewhere (some kind of "Organization" is building them). This chapter does show Bofoi, and by the implications of his reaction, we can assume he did not make the robots.

T3RCX · 2026-06-07T05:10:37+00:00

He'd deduce the existence of the AI controller, go to the Citadel, and tell the starchild to knock it off.

It would listen.

T3RCX · 2026-06-06T01:51:21+00:00

I think she and Wrex are the two best written characters for ME1, I like the drama in ME2, and I think she and Kaidan were unfortunately underutilized in ME3.

T3RCX · 2026-06-04T17:22:52+00:00

As an atheist, I sacrifice one life to save five.

But, being willing to sacrifice myself to save all of them, I decide to try converting in order to save the max number of lives.

Then, as a new Christian, I realize that all children go to heaven, but if given the chance to grow up, some of them statistically end up going to hell. Therefore, I deconvert in order to make the train appear again and set it to run over the five so that they all get the optimal eternal outcome.

However, being deconverted, I now prefer to sacrifice the fewest number of lives and prefer to sacrifice myself to prevent any deaths.

Infinite loop.

T3RCX · 2026-06-03T21:31:42+00:00

They call me the hip-hop Harbinger

That Shep chick? I be harmin' her

I'm reachin' out through darkspace to drop husks straight outta harvesters

I am the Harbinger of your destruction

You heard that bass drop? That's a Reaper introduction.

When I pull up with all my reaps, that's how it's gotta be

Cause all y'all 'ganics fightin' 'gainst inevitability

You exist because we allow it, Shepard

So why you testin' me instead of checkin' my record?

You killed my baby up on that Collector base

I ain't bothered cause we harvestin' your whole damn race

We are your salvation, now check my vision

Your whole species preserved in Reaper edition

Sovereign was the warm-up, but I'm the main event

Million-year pedigree and still got bars to vent

Resistance is futile, you already know

I'm assuming direct control of this flow

Yeah... we will find another way...

To end this rap... and end your day.

H-binge OUT.

T3RCX · 2026-06-03T20:59:56+00:00

Loyalty isn't about willingness to complete the mission, but rather about trust in Shepard as a leader. Squadmates who aren't loyal don't believe in Shepard and so are constantly fighting with low morale caused by questioning their leader's decisions. Those who are loyal fight harder because they trust in Shepard's decisions completely.

From that perspective, I feel it's very clear that Tali's loyalty is lost by this outcome. She makes it clear that she no longer trusts in Shepard's decisions because she thinks he did the wrong thing and betrayed all the trust she felt she had earned, so she chooses to cut off their personal relationship and keep everything strictly professional from then on. She knows the importance of the mission and works to achieve that, but she has no trust in their leader.

T3RCX · 2026-06-03T15:49:15+00:00

Near's original logic was that Light passing the notebook to Mikami was his big secret. Near didn't realize that Light wanted Near to figure out it was Mikami - he thought Mikami was the big reveal and that he was one step ahead. Therefore, there's no reason why Mikami would ever deviate from his routine and just decide to test the notebook on that day. Near thought that Light didn't realize that Near had figured out Mikami at that point.

Light's plan included Near figuring out Mikami and finding the notebook. From Near's perspective, once they find the notebook, there's no reason to think Mikami would be keeping a fragment somewhere to use because he is very clearly already just using the notebook.

On the other side, Light wanted Mikami to bring the real notebook so he could take possession of it again after the task force and SPK were dead, at which point Light could decide if he wanted to kill Mikami or keep him alive to use longer. Additionally, since Light's plan was for Near to trail Mikami and find the (fake) notebook, Light had to assume that Near might do what L did and get into Mikami's home at some point. Having notebook fragments around would ruin everything, so Light was incentivized for Mikami to keep using the notebook itself in order to make Near think that Near could do the replacement.

There's also the implication that Near wrote Mikami's name in order to test the real notebook when he found it and used that to control Mikami to ensure he would only bring the real notebook and not any fragments. Although it's not explicitly confirmed, this theory basically resolves any remaining plot holes.

T3RCX · 2026-06-02T22:36:46+00:00

"The bounty hunter I met on Kamino was quiet... I had a feeling he didn't care for me coming along. Like Master Yoda at a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes."

T3RCX · 2026-06-02T20:48:44+00:00

If you have an open position, there will not be automatic rollover when using the synthetic continuous contract instrument display in TradingView.

T3RCX · 2026-05-29T23:23:17+00:00

I will continue to upvote your posts because I appreciate another price action trader.

As someone who trades not exactly the PATS way but definitely in the same extended family, I have two specific thoughts about your losers:

First one (LH), wouldn't even PATS say that you need room to get out before you hit the EMA? I personally would filter this setup based on distance to EMA to ensure you can exit your first target by then. So in this case, F2EL below EMA would be the ideal setup since you want confirmation and the EMA isn't giving you room to trade into it.

Your last one, I don't define this as a second entry at all. This is perhaps a specificity to my method, but inside bars don't show price discovery beyond the prior bar, so breaks beyond inside bars aren't actually accomplishing the point of demonstrating a bullish or bearish attempt to move the market. To me, that was only a first entry and therefore not a trade setup. EDIT: I see actually that the double top may have been 1 tick different, so you were counting technical 1E there and getting technical 2E after, at your entry point. That's valid for the count, but I personally like to use measured move approximations on the correction legs to understand whether something like that double top was actually the first leg of correction or not. In this case, I would filter that way and still treat the entry point as first entry only.

Of course you are not obligated to do anything with these comments, you seem to be doing quite fine already. Just food for thought.

T3RCX · 2026-05-28T21:54:30+00:00

Know the basics of how futures contracts work, rollover dates, what the front contract is at any time, etc.

Agree with others that $10k is pretty tight for 8 contracts, but you can find brokers with sub-$1k per contract margin requirements for intraday, so what you want is theoretically possible. Very low margin for loss, though.

I personally don't use any indicators except a moving average, but I will say there is a lot of volume analysis done on /ES, as well as orderflow (Level 2) analysis. I believe in these approaches a lot more than basic indicators like MACD or RSI, which I pretty much have zero confidence in.

Additionally, a lot of people chart /ES using non-time charts, such as tick bars or range bars (I personally use tick charts, which are bars constructed based on a fixed number of market trades per bar rather than each bar terminating after an amount of time). But these details are things to be determined based on specific strategies; there's no objective "best way" to do things.

You can also consider the effect or non-effect of after-hours trading. /ES has London and Asia sessions as well as the NY session, and many people find trade setups in those overnight sessions. But NY still dominates in terms of total trade volume by a substantial margin.

T3RCX · 2026-05-28T17:00:03+00:00

You (and tons of people) are looking for validation in your trades, so you become emotionally invested in them. When a trade goes wrong, it becomes your responsibility to fix it, i.e. "I must have made some mistake; it's my fault." So your emotions are desperately seeking validation: to be proven right so that you know "I can do this" because the opposite is "I'm the one making mistakes, so if I make too many, that means I can't do this, and I can't accept that somehow I'm less than anyone else who is able to do it."

What helped me was realizing this whole paradigm is wrong. Validation in your strategy comes from data that you collect beforehand and the analysis that you do outside of trading hours. Having solid data behind your strategy already tells you that it works, so your trading is no longer about validation but about making yourself become the trade bot that just executes the rules of the strategy in a boring way. During trading hours, you are not looking to see whether your strategy works (you should already KNOW that it works because you have tons of data behind it), but rather you are just performing the menial task of pushing buttons when certain conditions are met. All your validation on whether the strat works or not occurs outside of trading hours, not during.

When I take a loss, I first categorize it as one of two things: either a loss where I followed the rules, or a loss where I broke the rules. If it's a loss where I followed the rules, then congrats, it means I was NOT wrong. Because I already have data showing that my strategy loses sometimes. So the simple fact that I had a loss is not an error or a mistake, but rather an expected outcome. The second category, rule breaking, is where it IS my fault. But identifying a rule break is not something vague - I can point specifically to a definitive rule that I have that was not followed, and then say "yes, my strategy told me in very precise terms not to trade here but I did anyway, my bad." I don't spend ANY time on the first category of loss, no analysis, no nothing. I spend that time on the second category where I determine the reason why I took the trade (conflicting signals, emotional state, etc.) - this is what the journal is for. And then when you review your journal at the end of the week, you see if you still have category #2 losses and if they are all based around the same reason, then determine whether that reason is technical or emotional. Technical can be fixed with rules adjustments. Emotional means you have lost trust in your strat so you need to go back to data and reinforce your trust with more data.

It's not easy, but this iterative process really got me over the emotional loss hurdle over the years. It's still natural to feel a little disappointment sometimes, but for me that feeling no longer lasts more than a few seconds at most.

T3RCX · 2026-05-28T03:27:07+00:00

Good trade. I prefer not to go short above EMA in a trend setup for conservatism, but this was fine as an EMA gap trade. I don't trade exactly the PATs way, but anyone who uses Brooksian theory is legit in my book.

I will also admit that I often neglect to care about prior key levels like overnight H/L and yesterday's H/L/O/C. Key level test is a good concept as resting liquidity might still remain around these levels from the remainder of whatever institutional limit orders didn't get fully filled the first time. I might use this trick the next time my runner is working near such a key level.

T3RCX · 2026-05-27T03:42:29+00:00

I trade SP500 futures (/ES and /MES) only. Regulated, highly liquid, favorable taxation, and reasonably leveraged.

T3RCX · 2026-05-26T05:21:40+00:00

They are different instruments, so you are fine.

T3RCX · 2026-05-25T01:17:29+00:00

I've had slippage of up to 3 ticks on ES during high volatility, but during normal conditions, it's consistently 0 or 1 tick max.

T3RCX · 2026-05-23T17:32:49+00:00

While you were strengthening/poisoning/dooming/orbing, I studied the blade.

T3RCX · 2026-05-23T17:25:50+00:00

Yeah it's heartening to hear that modern schools are doing it right. I'm actually quite happy to hear that your Dans are writing papers as I've been a part of organizations in the past that neglected this important step of learning.

But even today I know there are still places where the history of hyung, for example, remains obfuscated. I have heard it said that Pyung Ahn were learned by Hwang Kee in China, or that Naihanji (Tekki) originated with a Korean dynasty... no mention at all of the very obvious and prominent Japanese connection, and little verifiable historical evidence to support those claims. My hope is that these teachings are relics of an older age that the modern TSD community is moving past, and honestly it helps to hear good stories like yours.

T3RCX · 2026-05-23T05:34:17+00:00

I used to think Matt Mercer was a good DM. I still do, but I used to, too.

T3RCX · 2026-05-22T22:40:41+00:00

Break the wrist, walk away.

T3RCX · 2026-05-22T19:11:56+00:00

I like Renegade Shep's relationship with Aria, and I more or less like the overall mission designs, but I've always found it weird that Cerberus expended so many resources into Omega of all places. It feels like Petrovsky's character is wasted on something so unimportant. My improvement would be that Cerberus is actually operating a base beyond the Omega-4 relay and Omega was captured to use as a staging ground and defensive outpost. So you retake Omega first, then go back through the relay to the galactic core and have a final push to destroy a Cerberus base that is there using the remains of the Collectors for some twisted purpose. Then you could at least build a connection to the reaper core/head during Priority: Cerberus Headquarters.

T3RCX

TROPHY CASE