Glossary

Christians, being the dominant culture of the Millennial Kingdom, do not make much use of slang, but missionary organizations -- especially youth-oriented ones like Children of the Tribulation -- have developed a shorthand to foster group cohesion.

Armor-Bearer: A personal assistant to a traveling minister. Sometimes literal, in that the position also requires bodyguard duty.

Authority, the: A collective term for the New Jerusalem government. It can refer to Jesus, one of the apostles, or simply the bureaucracy formed by Biblical figures. Used when it's not known from whom an edict originated. Not disrespectful, but somewhat informal.

BTR: Stands for "Bachelor till the Rapture". Since the Rapture has already happened, it means somebody who is just not interested in matters of love or sexuality. Using this to imply that someone has deviant sexual tendencies is quite rude, but it happens.

Church: Has taken to meaning the building almost exclusively, rather than "the greater community of believers", for which Ekklesia is used.

Cooties: A situation in which a member of a Christian ministry is romantically attracted to a TOL member, or more commonly the other way round. This happens often enough that there's a slang term for it, which is shared with TOL. A serious enough case of the cooties has prevented or even stopped fights in the past. In these cases, the ministry puts other things on the backburner and works together to ensure salvation of the TOL half of the equation, if the relationship is otherwise acceptable.

Courting: Formal, generally chaperoned dating; the preferred alternative to dating.

D&A: Pronounced DNA like the molecule, it stands for "Dopers and Alkies", young people who are interested in TOL or similar groups mainly because they want a party scene. Ministries are encouraged to provide wholesome alternatives, and try to appeal to these undecideds' better nature.

Kairos!: From "kairos time", it has come to mean "carpe diem", "get a move on", "the moment is favorable. Used as an alternative to "Good luck" before starting the time-sensitive part of a project.

Knee-mail, arrow prayer: Asking the Lord's advice directly (and quickly).

Ministry: Any one organization within the Church; most are bottom-up, but there are a few sanctioned ministries, in which case, the term has blended with the British usage of "ministry" to mean "cabinet-level executive office". Thanks to the lobbying efforts of what was left of the Anglican denomination, there is a formal ban on naming any organization a Ministry of Love, Truth, Peace and Plenty.

Minority World: Areas in which the unsaved are a significant part of the population; the mission field. Derived from pre-Rapture expression "Majority world", except the numbers have flipped since then.

Morning Star: Lucifer. Although he's bound in the lake of fire for 1000 years, the very concept of Satan is still drawing people away from the Light.

Nartex: A space in a church, usually a large anteroom, which may be used for non-worship activities such as community events.

Pew Potato: A churchgoer who is generally uninvolved in church activities; a person whose participation in church does not extend beyond sitting in the pew on Sunday mornings.

Purpling: The fraternization of boys and girls, especially at a church event such as a retreat or camp-out. Generally tolerated within narrow limits.

Put out a fleece, place a fleece: To invoke God’s help in making a decision indirectly, by calling for God to show a designated sign. Considered harmless by some, and dangerously close to pagan divination by others.

Redeem the time: Exhortation for a Christian to do something worthwhile during a period of time rather than allowing that time to be wasted in idleness or frivolous pursuits.

Scanlation: Mechanically translating a document from its original language to Standard Hebrew without checking for Scriptural accuracy.

Slacktivist: an anonymous agitator known primarily for writing a widely-distributed essay series online in which s/he advocates for anarchy, heresy and human ego, and who is occasionally linked to terrorist activity in reality. The Slacktivist's true identity, gender and location is unknown. Notably, the Slacktivist has blasphemously argued that the Messiah in the Temple at Jerusalem is not the true Jesus of Christianity, but an inhuman imposter. Occasionally the Slacktivist uses a clipart picture of a grinning male face smoking a pipe as a sort of signature. Early on, an anonymous vandal, perhaps the Slacktivist him- or herself, nailed a sheaf of dot-matrix printer paper containing 95 carefully-reasoned, concise bullet points explaining their position to the front door of New Hope Church in Chicago. Additional missives have appeared in the years since then.

Soul tie: A spiritual connection between two people who have had an intense physical, emotional or spiritual association or relationship. When such a connection is considered to be unhealthful and destructive in the life of the Christian, it can be removed using prayer and spiritual warfare. The term is otherwise neutral.

Zed: A scare story about a zone supposedly outside of YHWH's control and populated by monsters, into which one might fall through carefully hidden and masked trapdoors. Possibly an interdimensional Shangri-La, possibly a parallel reality.

Being a counterculture, The Other Light has generated its own slang, like every human counterculture before it. Some is even coopted from missionary shorthand.

5150: Thought to mean "locked up in the loony bin" pre-Event, the number has been repurposed to mean the number of weeks at which dropping out of TOL and looking into converting is considered self-preservation, rather than betrayal. Also indicates someone who most likely won't be with TOL for long one way or the other.

Amped Out: Fatigued after having been on amphetamines, MDMA, or other uppers. Common after a rave or a crunch run. From the Cyberpunk 2013 roleplaying game.

Authority, the: A collective term for "adults", the Glorified, and the entire hierarchy of mainstream society, all the way up to Turbo-Jesus himself. Often used just to refer to the upper echelons of said society.

Back Shop: The part of the haunt that is open to TOL members only.

Bagged and Tagged: Sentenced to death or long-term confinement (long-term in that any parole would happen after aging to 100) in a way that did not imply Divine intervention.

Birbat, to birbat: To insist on something incredibly asinine. Rust City-specific slang, owing to a particularly annoying fox who was kicked out of the local haunt. The slang's stuck, even ten years later.

BRA: Battle-Ready Armor. Given the amount of Divine intervention in firefights in which the Glorified are involved, a BRA has to be lightning-proof and include a transcutaneous pacing system to prevent heart attacks. For much of TOL's history, this technology was theoretical. Pronounced "bra" with all the amount of puns and immature jokes that it entails.

Bronze: Non-derogative term for law enforcement officials. From the movie Mad Max by way of the Cyberpunk RPG. Can be used to indicate respect for a LEO who enforces civil law rather than local mores.

Casual: A TOLer who's involved in more than the party culture, but is largely uninvolved in the day-to-day operations of TOL. Contrasted with a styler. There are cells that encourage this kind of distinction and argue that being anything less than a styler is somehow a betrayal of principle, and there are cells that counter that stylers are mythical beasts anyway and it's better to take care of yourself. The argument goes round and round. No one ever wins.

Cooties: A situation in which a TOL member is romantically attracted to an under-100 person in a Christian workgroup, or vice versa. Comes from the Children of the Tribulation workgroup. This happens often enough that there's a slang term for it.

Crew: On a larger scale, a TOL workgroup that has no emotional bonds.

Cuddle puddle: Often confused for polyamory by Christians, a cuddle puddle is private time in which a group of friends share in physical but nonsexual intimacy. A known way to decompress after a run.

D&A: Pronounced DNA like the molecule, it stands for "Dopers and Alkies", young people who are interested in TOL mainly or exclusively as a party scene. Potential raw material. Unscrupulous TOL cells use them as a source of income, scrupulous TOL cells try to help them grow out of this phase. Co-opted from Christian workgroup shorthand.

Eighty-sixed, Decommissioned: Converted at end of life. Said of someone who converts close to their 100th birthday, in which case it's not a pejorative.

Evening Star: Lucifer. Since the Morning and Evening Star are, astronomically, both the planet Venus, Lucifer is generally referred to in his capacity of herald of the night, rather than the new day, being as there hasn't been a proper night since the Quake.

Face: The member of a wing who's best at interacting with figures outside the wing, be they other members of TOL, unaffiliated gray-marketeers and dealers, mungos, or salties.

Fairyheading: Indulging in excessive escapism, whether it be drugs, partying, videogames or fiction. A somewhat common problem with TOL recruits. Known to happen to Christians, albeit more rarely.

Foreman: The person in charge of a TOL haunt. The term is gender-neutral. From a legend about someone who almost succeeded in stopping the Glorious Appearing.

Fox: A Christian who wants to set up shop inside a haunt to provide a "fair and balanced" counterpoint. Current TOL policy is to allow this in most public haunts, to the limit of "one fox per henhouse".

Friendleader: The primary decision-maker of a wing; usually not an official position, it's just something that happens.

Front Shop: The part of the haunt that's open to TOL, unaffiliated, and (depending on how the haunt supports itself financially) even Christians.

Ghostbusters: TOL personnel who specialize in fighting or capturing Glorifieds and other supernatural agents. They are trained in the proper tactical use of BRA armor and K-Switch weapons and gear.

Got Ended: Killed by direct Divine intervention. Occasionally used metaphorically, e.g. to mean a raid in which a haunt was completely razed.

Haunt: The local TOL base of operation. Sometimes it's a disused warehouse, occasionally it's a library or a planetarium, usually it's a pub if the group can afford it.

Hawking Day: a feast day celebrated by TOL members in honor of the birth and life of Stephen Hawking, traditionally held on January 8. The births of Albert Einstein, Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin, Alan Turing, Niels Bohr, Carl Sagan, Nikola Tesla and Neil deGrasse Tyson, among others, are also holidays celebrated by many TOL members as exemplars of human intellect, will and achievement. As Isaac Newton was both devout (arguably) and an alchemist, celebrations held on his birthday are somewhat controversial, but he is generally grandfathered in as the father of modern physics. Also known as "Sadie Hawking Day", in that female participants (TOL or unaffiliated) ask male participants for a date or a dance, opposite to traditional courting.

International Blog: While most of the post-Appearing internet is Web-based and follows a client-server architecture, TOL's communication system resembles Usenet in that it has no centralization. An "international blog" is an intentionally nonsensical term to indicate a web-based usenet gateway.

K-switch: An automated system that can be turned on or off nondeterministically, to avoid a direct causal link between the user and the system's effect. From "kosher switch". One of the few ways to conduct a non-suicide hostile action against a Glorified. Due to how K-switches work, there is no way to control their activation timing, making them very unpredictable and somewhat unreliable.

Last Rite: An oath that is sworn by TOL members who are about to be decommissioned, in which they pledge to never actively attack TOL operations in their new life. Whether the oath works or not is debatable, but a former TOLer violating the Last Rite has a big target on their back.

Lifestyler/styler: a TOLer who's devoted every scrap of their time and energy to TOL. Contrasted with a casual.

Mourningtide, Mourning Eve: the day TOL members ritually mourn the complete destruction of Earth's natural features at the end of the Tribulation by Christ. TOL members sometimes travel to the places where mountain ranges, notable peaks, and other natural features such as rainforests, ice caps, glaciers and canyons once stood and hold remembrance ceremonies there. Traditionally held on the former winter solstice, a traditional pagan day of celebration.

Mungo: Anyone older than 100, a "grown up".

Muppet: Glorified individual. Might be from the old TV show, or from "meat puppet". Derogatory.

Nintendium: Slang for anything that's super durable, due to the fact that Nintendo consoles are often, if maintained properly, still functional.

Niven Syndrome: a dissociative disorder related to, but separate from, "Pining for the Fjords." In Niven Syndrome, due to the radical, unnatural paradigm shift in the basic nature of the world around them in the years since the Glorious Appearing, the subject comes to believe with utter conviction that the reality in which they reside is not, in fact, "real." Wild mood swings and erratic behavior are extremely common. In extreme cases, the subject may come to believe that they are the only real thing in existence, or that their actions are completely divorced from any kind of personal responsibility whatsoever. Sufferers may even come to believe that the real world exists and is going on somewhere just out of the range of their senses, and that somehow, it may even be possible to travel there.

Noah, to do a Noah: to do something stupid, by mistake or on purpose; to induce schadenfreude in someone. After an incident wherein the prophet Noah tripped on live TV.

Nodders: Internal name for The Only Light, a militant subculture of TOL that focuses on military buildup and somehow does not believe in YHWH at all. Pejorative in that Nodders are widely considered to be fanatics, idiots, or both.

Outies: Internal name for The Outer Light, a generally peaceful subculture of TOL that focuses on restoring access to space. In other contexts, euphemism for either breasts, or other parts.

Pining for the Fjords: A peculiar form of flash depression and feeling of helplessness brought about by consumption of pre-Appearing media in which the Earth's natural beauty is evident. From the Monty Python sketch, although the term is never used in jest anymore. The sufferer will curl up and play dead. Chemical treatment exists, but the best remedy is physical contact with a loved one.

Phi: Almost but not quite pronounced "fie", used to refer to someone without making assumptions about their gender or status. Probably from "philo", as in friend.

Poke: A small-scale chat client, something like AIM, that some members of the younger generations use to talk to each other; the latest Poke program is a standard part of The Packet. TOL discourages discussion of important business through Poke, because it'd be rather easy for a tag hag to save the relevant logs. It's intensely slow, balky, and buggy, and not really usable outside of metropolitan areas where it's easier to get enough bandwidth to avoid ping drops. Poke piggybacks on the ICMP ping and trace protocols, which makes it insecure (spoofing is trivial) but practically impossible to block.

Quaker: Depending on the haunt, this has different meanings. 1: A person who makes video games. So-called because many, many games use the Quake engine. (Non-shooter games include text adventures and some very, very primitive JRPGs.) 2: A pacifist; someone who refuses to use violence, even against TML, Glorified, and other such beasts. They think there's some way of reasoning with the Authority, and are willing to die to prove it.

Revenant, Rev: Someone who, after converting to TML, comes back to the local haunt, either to try and preach, or just to hang out. Those who try to preach are sometimes called "banshees" and those who want to reconnect are sometimes called "zombos".

Saltie: Derogatory term for law and morality enforcement officials, specifically vice cops. Sometimes spelled "Psalty", or variations.

Sandwich: Generally pronounced with a mock-Russian accent ("saandvich"). An oblique way to refer to LGBT issues where it's not safe to do so directly. Derived from "lettuce, guacamole, bacon, tomato". LGBT-friendly food establishments are known to offer the actual dish on the menu, or have it available as an option, as a signal. "Sandwich stuffer" has become a derogatory term for a LGBT individual among the sections of TOL that disapprove of sexual diversity.

Slacktivist: an anonymous philosopher known primarily for writing a widely-distributed essay series online in which s/he advocates for freedom, free will and human self-determination, and who is occasionally linked to resistance activity in reality. The Slacktivist's true identity, gender and location is unknown. Notably, the Slacktivist has argued that the supernatural entity in the Temple at Jerusalem is not the true Jesus of Christianity, but an inhuman imposter. Occasionally the Slacktivist uses a clipart picture of a grinning male face smoking a pipe as a sort of signature.

Shadow Library: One of TOL's long term projects has been scanning and pirating print media, originally to preserve pre-Event print media and translating them into Standard Hebrew. A Shadow Library is a piece of equipment (usually a self-contained microfilm reader or a computer) containing a reasonably current copy of the master archive. This extends to TOL-produced writing that was rejected for publication.

South Carolina Products, LTD: a TOL research group (with many names) which aims to understand and characterize the biological, chemical and physical nature of Glorifieds and other supernatural entities with an eye toward containing and neutralizing them. Named in honor of an extremely obscure, possibly entirely legendary, pre-Tribulation organization which supposedly cataloged and isolated threats and artifacts of an "anomalous" nature. Also known as Scanner Combination Printers, Sales Consultant Pioneers, et al.

Tag hag: A Christian who feigns interest in some TOL work, such as philosophy classes, in order to find an excuse to call a raid. The stereotype is that most tag hags are female, hence the name, but it's not particularly accurate. Tag-hagging is to engage in such behavior. Revenants who tag-hag their former haunt are rare, dangerous, and hated.

The Packet: TOL binary file transfer is generally accomplished via sneakernet, due to bandwidth constraints. The Packet is a large collection of files that makes the rounds by CD, USB stick, or semiremovable hard drive. Normally it contains programs, music and video, since text can be distributed via wire. There is speculation that particular files in each Packet are used as one-time pads for encrypted communication; a recent Packet may have some intelligence value beyond being a handy repository of utilities.

Throng: The total membership of a TOL haunt, including nonaffiliated people who show up for parties or events.

TML: Too Much Light. Occasionally used to mean Christianity or in general the cult of YHWH. Sarcastic.

Tool Shed: A haunt that isn't very well established, due to being new or having been recently raided (see below).

Tool: Self-deprecating for a TOL member (from TOLer). Occasionally used as a response to "I'm a fool for Christ".

Tribe: The total membership of a TOL haunt, including only pledged members who actively advance the agenda.

Turbo-Jesus/TJ: Slang obvious in meaning.

Underground Monorail: a secret TOL network that exists to ferry LGBT people (as well as others) whose lives are threatened by the reigning moral Flipside authorities out of communities where their lives are in danger to places of safety. Most Monorail members are TOL, for obvious reasons. The network is organized into cells, anonymity is required and stations and safehouses move frequently. Members may recognize each other with alliterative passphrases involving the letter "m," and safehouses and stations along the routes are often marked with some form of stylized "m" or a train.

Went/Gone to Carb: Said of a member that had the means, tech, and gumption to be cryogenically frozen before (or in some cases right after) their untimely demise, rather than eighty-sixing. Comes from the fictional material "carbonite".

Wing: On a small scale, TOL workgroups tend to self-organize on personal friendship lines; one's wing is one such group of close friends on a mission. "You need two wings to fly" is common advice to remind someone that they should not hyperfocus over one group of friends (see other people) or one project (don't obsess).

Zed: An urban legend about a "free zone" outside of YHWH's control, supposedly accessible via carefully guarded and masked portals. Possibly an interdimensional Shangri-La, possibly a parallel reality.