Nature's secret ultimate cleanse review
Plantation, FL
2019.07.11 02:40 godrestsinreason Plantation, FL
Plantation, FL is a city in Broward County, FL on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale. All about living and visiting Plantation, FL.
2016.10.26 02:24 enliST_CS 'Tis the Season
Welcome to /TheSeason, a place for everyone to get into the holiday spirit!
2012.11.18 15:10 accountt1234 my own subreddit
This is my message to the world, That never wrote to me. go to rintrah.nl, this subreddit is no longer maintained
2023.03.26 10:14 DykarDyksson Hiesenbrug
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2023.03.26 10:13 WillIeverfindtheway Chapter 14. Volume 1.
By means of these various discussions it is hoped that both the difference and the relation between the process of knowledge that belongs to the reason, rational knowledge, the concept on the one hand, and the direct knowledge in purely sensuous, mathematical intuition or perception, and apprehension by the understanding on the other hand, has been clearly brought out. This remarkable relation of our kinds of knowledge led us almost inevitably to give, in passing, explanations of feeling and of laughter, but from all this we now turn back to the further consideration of science as the third great benefit which reason confers on man, the other two being speech and deliberate action. The general discussion of science which now devolves upon us, will be concerned partly with its form, partly with the foundation of its judgments, and lastly with its content. We have seen that, with the exception of the basis of pure logic, rational knowledge in general has not its source in the reason itself; but having been otherwise obtained as knowledge of perception, it is stored up in the reason, for through reason it has entirely changed its character, and has become abstract knowledge. All rational knowledge, that is, knowledge that has been raised to consciousness in the abstract, is related to science strictly so called, as a fragment to the whole. Every one has gained a rational knowledge of many different things through experience, through consideration of the individual objects presented to him, but only he who sets himself the task of acquiring a complete knowledge in the abstract of a particular class of objects, strives after science. This class can only be marked off by means of a concept; therefore, at the beginning of every science there stands a concept, and by means of it the class of objects concerning which this science promises a complete knowledge in the abstract, is separated in thought from the whole world of things. For example, the concept of space-relations, or of the action of unorganised bodies upon each other, or of the nature of plants, or of animals, or of the successive changes of the surface of the globe, or of the changes of the human race as a whole, or of the construction of a language, and so forth. If science sought to obtain the knowledge of its object, by investigating each individual thing that is thought through the concept, till by degrees it had learned the whole, no human memory would be equal to the task, and no certainty of completeness would be obtainable. Therefore, it makes use of that property of concept-spheres explained above, that they include each other, and it concerns itself mainly with the wider spheres which lie within the concept of its object in general. When the relations of these spheres to each other have been determined, all that is thought in them is also generally determined, and can now be more and more accurately determined by the separation of smaller and smaller concept-spheres. In this way it is possible for a science to comprehend its object completely. This path which it follows to knowledge, the path from the general to the particular, distinguishes it from ordinary rational knowledge; therefore, systematic form is an essential and characteristic feature of science. The combination of the most general concept-spheres of every science, that is, the knowledge of its first principles, is the indispensable condition of mastering it; how far we advance from these to the more special propositions is a matter of choice, and does not increase the thoroughness but only the extent of our knowledge of the science. The number of the first principles to which all the rest are subordinated, varies greatly in the different sciences, so that in some there is more subordination, in others more co-ordination; and in this respect, the former make greater claims upon the judgment, the latter upon the memory. It was known to the schoolmen, that, as the syllogism requires two premises, no science can proceed from a single first principle which cannot be the subject of further deduction, but must have several, at least two. The specially classifying sciences: Zoology, Botany, and also Physics and Chemistry, inasmuch as they refer all inorganic action to a few fundamental forces, have most subordination; history, on the other hand, has really none at all; for the general in it consists merely in the survey of the principal periods, from which, however, the particular events cannot be deduced, and are only subordinated to them according to time, but according to the concept are co-ordinate with them. Therefore, history, strictly speaking, is certainly rational knowledge, but is not science. In mathematics, according to Euclid's treatment, the axioms alone are indemonstrable first principles, and all demonstrations are in gradation strictly subordinated to them. But this method of treatment is not essential to mathematics, and in fact each proposition introduces quite a new space construction, which in itself is independent of those which precede it, and indeed can be completely comprehended from itself, quite independently of them, in the pure intuition or perception of space, in which the most complicated construction is just as directly evident as the axiom; but of this more fully hereafter. Meanwhile every mathematical proposition remains always a universal truth, which is valid for innumerable particular cases; and a graduated process from the simple to the complicated propositions which are to be deduced from them, is also essential to mathematics; therefore, in every respect mathematics is a science. The completeness of a science as such, that is, in respect of form, consists in there being as much subordination and as little co-ordination of the principles as possible. Scientific talent in general is, therefore, the faculty of subordinating the concept-spheres according to their different determinations, so that, as Plato repeatedly counsels, a science shall not be constituted by a general concept and an indefinite multiplicity immediately under it, but that knowledge shall descend by degrees from the general to the particular, through intermediate concepts and divisions, according to closer and closer definitions. In Kantian language this is called satisfying equally the law of homogeneity and that of specification. It arises from this peculiar nature of scientific completeness, that the aim of science is not greater certainty—for certainty may be possessed in just as high a degree by the most disconnected particular knowledge—but its aim is rather the facilitating of rational knowledge by means of its form, and the possibility of the completeness of rational knowledge which this form affords. It is therefore a very prevalent but perverted opinion that the scientific character of knowledge consists in its greater certainty, and just as false is the conclusion following from this, that, strictly speaking, the only sciences are mathematics and logic, because only in them, on account of their purely a priori character, is there unassailable certainty of knowledge. This advantage cannot be denied them, but it gives them no special claim to be regarded as sciences; for the special characteristic of science does not lie in certainty but in the systematic form of knowledge, based on the gradual descent from the general to the particular. The process of knowledge from the general to the particular, which is peculiar to the sciences, involves the necessity that in the sciences much should be established by deduction from preceding propositions, that is to say, by demonstration; and this has given rise to the old mistake that only what has been demonstrated is absolutely true, and that every truth requires a demonstration; whereas, on the contrary, every demonstration requires an undemonstrated truth, which ultimately supports it, or it may be, its own demonstration. Therefore a directly established truth is as much to be preferred to a truth established by demonstration as water from the spring is to water from the aqueduct. Perception, partly pure a priori, as it forms the basis of mathematics, partly empirical a posteriori, as it forms the basis of all the other sciences, is the source of all truth and the foundation of all science. (Logic alone is to be excepted, which is not founded upon perception but yet upon direct knowledge by the reason of its own laws.) Not the demonstrated judgments nor their demonstrations, but judgments which are created directly out of perception, and founded upon it rather than on any demonstrations, are to science what the sun is to the world; for all light proceeds from them, and lighted by their light the others give light also. To establish the truth of such primary judgments directly from perception, to raise such strongholds of science from the innumerable multitude of real objects, that is the work of the faculty of judgment, which consists in the power of rightly and accurately carrying over into abstract consciousness what is known in perception, and judgment is consequently the mediator between understanding and reason. Only extraordinary and exceptional strength of judgment in the individual can actually advance science; but every one who is possessed of a healthy reason is able to deduce propositions from propositions, to demonstrate, to draw conclusions. To lay down and make permanent for reflection, in suitable concepts, what is known through perception, so that, on the one hand, what is common to many real objects is thought through one concept, and, on the other hand, their points of difference are each thought through one concept, so that the different shall be known and thought as different in spite of a partial agreement, and the identical shall be known and thought as identical in spite of a partial difference, all in accordance with the end and intention which in each case is in view; all this is done by the faculty of judgment. Deficiency in judgment is silliness. The silly man fails to grasp, now the partial or relative difference of concepts which in one aspect are identical, now the identity of concepts which are relatively or partially different. To this explanation of the faculty of judgment, moreover, Kant's division of it into reflecting and subsuming judgment may be applied, according as it passes from the perceived objects to the concepts, or from the latter to the former; in both cases always mediating between empirical knowledge of the understanding and the reflective knowledge of the reason. There can be no truth which could be brought out by means of syllogisms alone; and the necessity of establishing truth by means of syllogisms is merely relative, indeed subjective. Since all demonstration is syllogistic, in the case of a new truth we must first seek, not for a demonstration, but for direct evidence, and only in the absence of such evidence is a demonstration to be temporarily made use of. No science is susceptible of demonstration throughout any more than a building can stand in the air; all its demonstrations must ultimately rest upon what is perceived, and consequently cannot be demonstrated, for the whole world of reflection rests upon and is rooted in the world of perception. All primal, that is, original, evidence is a perception, as the word itself indicates. Therefore it is either empirical or founded upon the perception a priori of the conditions of possible experience. In both cases it affords only immanent, not transcendent knowledge. Every concept has its worth and its existence only in its relation, sometimes very indirect, to an idea of perception; what is true of the concepts is also true of the judgments constructed out of them, and of all science. Therefore it must in some way be possible to know directly without demonstrations or syllogisms every truth that is arrived at through syllogisms and communicated by demonstrations. This is most difficult in the case of certain complicated mathematical propositions at which we only arrive by chains of syllogisms; for example, the calculation of the chords and tangents to all arcs by deduction from the proposition of Pythagoras. But even such a truth as this cannot essentially and solely rest upon abstract principles, and the space-relations which lie at its foundation also must be capable of being so presented a priori in pure intuition or perception that the truth of their abstract expression is directly established. But of mathematical demonstration we shall speak more fully shortly. It is true we often hear men speak in a lofty strain of sciences which rest entirely upon correct conclusions drawn from sure premises, and which are consequently unassailable. But through pure logical reasoning, however true the premises may be, we shall never receive more than an articulate expression and exposition of what lies already complete in the premises; thus we shall only explicitly expound what was already implicitly understood. The esteemed sciences referred to are, however, specially the mathematical sciences, particularly astronomy. But the certainty of astronomy arises from the fact that it has for its basis the intuition or perception of space, which is given a priori, and is therefore infallible. All space-relations, however, follow from each other with a necessity (ground of being) which affords a priori certainty, and they can therefore be safely deduced from each other. To these mathematical properties we have only to add one force of nature, gravity, which acts precisely in relation to the masses and the square of the distance; and, lastly, the law of inertia, which follows from the law of causality and is therefore true a priori, and with it the empirical datum of the motion impressed, once for all, upon each of these masses. This is the whole material of astronomy, which both by its simplicity and its certainty leads to definite results, which are highly interesting on account of the vastness and importance of the objects. For example, if I know the mass of a planet and the distance of its satellite from it, I can tell with certainty the period of the revolution of the latter according to Kepler's second law. But the ground of this law is, that with this distance only this velocity will both chain the satellite to the planet and prevent it from falling into it. Thus it is only upon such a geometrical basis, that is, by means of an intuition or perception a priori, and also under the application of a law of nature, that much can be arrived at by means of syllogisms, for here they are merely like bridges from one sensuous apprehension to others; but it is not so with mere pure syllogistic reasoning in the exclusively logical method. The source of the first fundamental truths of astronomy is, however, properly induction, that is, the comprehension of what is given in many perceptions in one true and directly founded judgment. From this, hypotheses are afterwards constructed, and their confirmation by experience, as induction approaching to completeness, affords the proof of the first judgment. For example, the apparent motion of the planets is known empirically; after many false hypotheses with regard to the spacial connection of this motion (planetary course) the right one was at last found, then the laws which it obeyed (the laws of Kepler), and, lastly, the cause of these laws (universal gravitation), and the empirically known agreement of all observed cases with the whole of the hypotheses, and with their consequences, that is to say, induction, established them with complete certainty. The invention of the hypotheses was the work of the judgment, which rightly comprehended the given facts and expressed them accordingly; but induction, that is, a multitude of perceptions, confirmed their truth. But their truth could also be known directly, and by a single empirical perception, if we could pass freely through space and had telescopic eyes. Therefore, here also syllogisms are not the essential and only source of knowledge, but really only a makeshift. As a third example taken from a different sphere we may mention that the so-called metaphysical truths, that is, such truths as those to which Kant assigns the position of the metaphysical first principles of natural science, do not owe their evidence to demonstration. What is a priori certain we know directly; as the form of all knowledge, it is known to us with the most complete necessity. For example, that matter is permanent, that is, can neither come into being nor pass away, we know directly as negative truth; for our pure intuition or perception of space and time gives the possibility of motion; in the law of causality the understanding affords us the possibility of change of form and quality, but we lack powers of the imagination for conceiving the coming into being or passing away of matter. Therefore that truth has at all times been evident to all men everywhere, nor has it ever been seriously doubted; and this could not be the case if it had no other ground of knowledge than the abstruse and exceedingly subtle proof of Kant. But besides this, I have found Kant's proof to be false (as is explained in the Appendix), and have shown above that the permanence of matter is to be deduced, not from the share which time has in the possibility of experience, but from the share which belongs to space. The true foundation of all truths which in this sense are called metaphysical, that is, abstract expressions of the necessary and universal forms of knowledge, cannot itself lie in abstract principles; but only in the immediate consciousness of the forms of the idea communicating itself in apodictic assertions a priori, and fearing no refutation. But if we yet desire to give a proof of them, it can only consist in showing that what is to be proved is contained in some truth about which there is no doubt, either as a part of it or as a presupposition. Thus, for example, I have shown that all empirical perception implies the application of the law of causality, the knowledge of which is hence a condition of all experience, and therefore cannot be first given and conditioned through experience as Hume thought. Demonstrations in general are not so much for those who wish to learn as for those who wish to dispute. Such persons stubbornly deny directly established insight; now only the truth can be consistent in all directions, and therefore we must show such persons that they admit under one form and indirectly, what they deny under another form and directly; that is, the logically necessary connection between what is denied and what is admitted. It is also a consequence of the scientific form, the subordination of everything particular under a general, and so on always to what is more general, that the truth of many propositions is only logically proved,—that is, through their dependence upon other propositions, through syllogisms, which at the same time appear as proofs. But we must never forget that this whole form of science is merely a means of rendering knowledge more easy, not a means to greater certainty. It is easier to discover the nature of an animal, by means of the species to which it belongs, and so on through the genus, family, order, and class, than to examine on every occasion the animal presented to us: but the truth of all propositions arrived at syllogistically is always conditioned by and ultimately dependent upon some truth which rests not upon reasoning but upon perception. If this perception were always as much within our reach as a deduction through syllogisms, then it would be in every respect preferable. For every deduction from concepts is exposed to great danger of error, on account of the fact we have considered above, that so many spheres lie partly within each other, and that their content is often vague or uncertain. This is illustrated by a multitude of demonstrations of false doctrines and sophisms of every kind. Syllogisms are indeed perfectly certain as regards form, but they are very uncertain on account of their matter, the concepts. For, on the one hand, the spheres of these are not sufficiently sharply defined, and, on the other hand, they intersect each other in so many ways that one sphere is in part contained in many others, and we may pass at will from it to one or another of these, and from this sphere again to others, as we have already shown. Or, in other words, the minor term and also the middle can always be subordinated to different concepts, from which we may choose at will the major and the middle, and the nature of the conclusion depends on this choice. Consequently immediate evidence is always much to be preferred to reasoned truth, and the latter is only to be accepted when the former is too remote, and not when it is as near or indeed nearer than the latter. Accordingly we saw above that, as a matter of fact, in the case of logic, in which the immediate knowledge in each individual case lies nearer to hand than deduced scientific knowledge, we always conduct our thought according to our immediate knowledge of the laws of thought, and leave logic unused.
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2023.03.26 10:11 MrMeditate77 Man’s EGO Is The Devil
The EGO is defined as “A consciousness of Identity, Individuality and a person sense of SELF importance” —— An EGO is WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE…
The EGO is the FATHER of all LIES. It is a LIE to begin with, for your EGO is not real and does not exist. This is your adversary, your enemy that is trying to devour you. Your EGO is prince of this world (ruler of your lusts). Your EGO is the one that condemns you, blames you, and tries to destroy you. YOU EGO will lie to you, steal from you, and ultimately destroy you… IF YOU DON’T RESIST your EGO. So resist your EGO and your EGO will depart. But be on your guard, because your EGO can come disguised as an ANGEL of LIGHT. Your EGO is the one who KILLED your TRUE NATURE (Gods child). Your EGO was a murderer from the BEGINNING. Because when you believed YOUR EGO was YOU, your TRUE NATURE was put to death (killed in your mind-Golgatha).
The Carnal Ego of man is the beast that is and is not and yet is… It is the devil that is written about in scripture. ————– THE DEVIL spelled backwards is LIVED! Indeed, it is your past experience that FORMED this DEVIL of an idea of who you are. But you aren’t your past, you aren’t an addict, an abuser, a victim, a fool, a glutton, or anything else your past has tried to convince you, you are.
……YOU ARE MORE than the life you LIVED/DEVIL. This “DEVIL” of an identity was formed out of the DUST/LIES of your past. Your PAST IDENTITY, or the life you lived/devil that you IDENTIFY WITH is YOUR ENEMY!
……The DEVIL is the accuser of the brethren! This past IDEA of who you think you are was formed out of the life you LIVED/DEVIL and is always there to remind you how to judge people and circumstances. And by following after the past you continue to relive the past by making the same ignorant mistakes, based on the lies of the past and hang ups that aren’t real to begin with. …..The DEVIL (Life you LIVED) is a LIAR! The past is a LIE because it does not exist anymore. So to make your decisions based on past experiences is to not judge things as they are in the moment. To LIVE IN THE PAST is to DIE IN THE PRESENT. This is why so many have “baggage” because they carry this DEVIL (life they have lived) everywhere with them. And because of this they continue to suffer.
….. You PAST does not dictate your future, unless you decide to allow it. You are more than you know. Just as you created your past experience you have the choice to create your present however you would like it. You are not the LIFE YOU LIVED/DEVIL — THE DEVIL is only the sum of your past experiences that you have allowed to RULE YOU in this age. This is why the DEVIL is called the god of this world. People are ruled by their past experiences, past beliefs, and their past traditions.
….. However, this is not who you are, you are whoever you decide yourself to be, YOU CAN CREATE who you are in each moment. Don’t let the sad life your LIVED/DEVIL dictate your present experience.
…… RESIST the lying voice of your past experience and it will flee from you. RESIST your past destructive behaviors, triggers, and ill informed notions and YOUR ENEMY the DEVIL (the condemning voice of your past idea of who you are) will flee!
…….This DEVIL is the carnal EGO of man. This is the enemy hiding in plain sight. It is the YOU, you think you are but are not. Now not everyone is ready to hear this. Most believe there is an enemy outside of them working hard to ruin their lives, but this is another lie of man’s carnal ego. The Ego of mankind always wants to blame everyone and everything else as opposed to dealing in truth. And many can’t see this because they simply can’t hear this truth yet.
The SERPENT (Carnal EGO of Man) has always been within man. Just as the Brain Stem (Reptilian Brain) has always been within man, controlling his basest desires (fight/flight/lust/rage/etc)
Those who choose the HIGHER WAY, the TRUTH will depart from the evil of the EGO.
submitted by MrMeditate77 to EscapingPrisonPlanet [link] [comments]
The EGO is the FATHER of all LIES. It is a LIE to begin with, for your EGO is not real and does not exist. This is your adversary, your enemy that is trying to devour you. Your EGO is prince of this world (ruler of your lusts). Your EGO is the one that condemns you, blames you, and tries to destroy you. YOU EGO will lie to you, steal from you, and ultimately destroy you… IF YOU DON’T RESIST your EGO. So resist your EGO and your EGO will depart. But be on your guard, because your EGO can come disguised as an ANGEL of LIGHT. Your EGO is the one who KILLED your TRUE NATURE (Gods child). Your EGO was a murderer from the BEGINNING. Because when you believed YOUR EGO was YOU, your TRUE NATURE was put to death (killed in your mind-Golgatha).
The Carnal Ego of man is the beast that is and is not and yet is… It is the devil that is written about in scripture. ————– THE DEVIL spelled backwards is LIVED! Indeed, it is your past experience that FORMED this DEVIL of an idea of who you are. But you aren’t your past, you aren’t an addict, an abuser, a victim, a fool, a glutton, or anything else your past has tried to convince you, you are.
……YOU ARE MORE than the life you LIVED/DEVIL. This “DEVIL” of an identity was formed out of the DUST/LIES of your past. Your PAST IDENTITY, or the life you lived/devil that you IDENTIFY WITH is YOUR ENEMY!
……The DEVIL is the accuser of the brethren! This past IDEA of who you think you are was formed out of the life you LIVED/DEVIL and is always there to remind you how to judge people and circumstances. And by following after the past you continue to relive the past by making the same ignorant mistakes, based on the lies of the past and hang ups that aren’t real to begin with. …..The DEVIL (Life you LIVED) is a LIAR! The past is a LIE because it does not exist anymore. So to make your decisions based on past experiences is to not judge things as they are in the moment. To LIVE IN THE PAST is to DIE IN THE PRESENT. This is why so many have “baggage” because they carry this DEVIL (life they have lived) everywhere with them. And because of this they continue to suffer.
….. You PAST does not dictate your future, unless you decide to allow it. You are more than you know. Just as you created your past experience you have the choice to create your present however you would like it. You are not the LIFE YOU LIVED/DEVIL — THE DEVIL is only the sum of your past experiences that you have allowed to RULE YOU in this age. This is why the DEVIL is called the god of this world. People are ruled by their past experiences, past beliefs, and their past traditions.
….. However, this is not who you are, you are whoever you decide yourself to be, YOU CAN CREATE who you are in each moment. Don’t let the sad life your LIVED/DEVIL dictate your present experience.
…… RESIST the lying voice of your past experience and it will flee from you. RESIST your past destructive behaviors, triggers, and ill informed notions and YOUR ENEMY the DEVIL (the condemning voice of your past idea of who you are) will flee!
…….This DEVIL is the carnal EGO of man. This is the enemy hiding in plain sight. It is the YOU, you think you are but are not. Now not everyone is ready to hear this. Most believe there is an enemy outside of them working hard to ruin their lives, but this is another lie of man’s carnal ego. The Ego of mankind always wants to blame everyone and everything else as opposed to dealing in truth. And many can’t see this because they simply can’t hear this truth yet.
The SERPENT (Carnal EGO of Man) has always been within man. Just as the Brain Stem (Reptilian Brain) has always been within man, controlling his basest desires (fight/flight/lust/rage/etc)
Those who choose the HIGHER WAY, the TRUTH will depart from the evil of the EGO.
2023.03.26 10:07 tcvyxcksya 😘👉👌 IF YOU TAP YOU WILL CUM 🍆💦
 | submitted by tcvyxcksya to u9i1gwcx8e [link] [comments] IF YOU TAP HERE YOU WILL CUMIF YOU TAP HERE YOU WILL CUMIF YOU TAP HERE YOU WILL CUMhttps://i.redd.it/vzsjxg81k1qa1.gifRobert and Chelsea had a hard time keeping from laughing when they all came out and saw her laying there. The way they came to a sudden stop with their mouths hanging open was just hilarious. Especially since everyone of them had been around Chelsea constantly at school and obviously couldn't recognize it was her that they were looking at. Even the three girls in the group were at a loss for who "that hot chick hanging out with Robert"(Their exact words) was. Even more funny was the way they were too intimidated by Chelsea's beauty to come that close to them. I came three times that night. I’d actually stolen an old margarine container and put my own stash of Vaseline in my bedside drawer. The third time, especially, was the beautiful agony you hear about. There wasn’t much cum left in me by then, but I kept myself on the edge for about an hour before that final load dribbled out. "Almost done," I reply, kinda down. As she opened her eyes and looked down, Jennifer was amazed to see that Ryan's cock was completely buried inside her. She looked up at Ryan, who leaned down and planted a tender kiss on her lips as he started to slowly slide his long cock back out of her. My sister Carmen was crying at that point and so too was I. For 5 minutes we consoled each other. I held my older sister in my arms as she rested her head on me. I kissed her forehead gently and then she raised her head up to the sparkling discolored sky. "Is there anything you wish you had done Josh?" “I’m okay.” "Christie, can I put it inside you?" Jane continued to talk to Edith “They are certainly good looking boys and that was a lovely experience, how on earth did you manage not to come yourself?” "I just got a call from the police to inform me your father is dead," she said. He could hear the tears in her voice and her voice caught in her throat with a sob when she said 'dead'. I said nothing but drew back the blankets to invite her into my bed which she wasted no time sliding in closely beside me. Replacing the blankets and taking her tightly into my arms, I kissed her deeply to show her how much I was enjoying finally having her in bed with me. “I would think that you still have left, but I don’t, that is why I’m running away” “Until I ask you to stop. You will stop when I ask you to, won’t you?” Finally, she lowered her hand down his chest, across his belly, and began swirling around his belly button with her fingers, teasing him. It wasn’t quite enough to start turning him on yet, as he was still in his cuddling mindset, but she started moving her hand just inside the top of his pants, and that quickly brought him into a much warmer mindset. “Will you be my girlfriend?” Nick asked. “Haven’t you had enough Ashley?” “Look son” he began in a deep gruff voice. “I could easily pull you both down to the station and book you.” huge cock, 9" or so. He placed his cock to her freshly fucked ass and “That’s fine, dear. Thank you!” Dottie said. “David, are you going to let Jack fuck her ass, or not?” She turned the vibrator on low, and began giving herself a gentle pussy massage. Tracy sat on the other chair and slipped out the other vibrator she had hidden in her other hand. She spread her legs and began playing and watching too. “I know” I smiled. “Thanks to you” I looked down, and to my shock, my hardon was outside my shorts. It had raised the material, now it was outside, standing straight up. Before I could react, I felt two hard nipples being pressed into my back, as Mrs. Davis's hands reached around me, on each side. One hand pressed into my stomach, while the other suddenly sent sparks through my throbbing erection. "What is this, young man, you seem to have something sticking out, down here." Mrs. Davis, whispering those words into my ear, made my hormones go crazy. I forgot what I had promised myself. “What it do, girl?” I couldn’t help but smirk when I saw their fridge. They had one of those rich suburban family fridges with the water tap in it. I quickly found a glass and helped myself to their water, opting for the ‘cool’ tap, since the fridge was kind enough to ask. Unfortunately, I nearly choked on it when someone turned the corner. One of the girls whispers to the others, "I bet she's playing with herself again." “Why is he looking at me?” She did as I asked but still trying to talk me out of what I had planned as she sat first on the bed and just lay back with her legs hanging over the edge. She kept her legs closed. Almost immediately I dropped off to sleep. A sleep that was deep and dreamless. In the morning I woke clear headed and rested. I showered to freshen up before going down stairs. I still wore the oversized black t-shirt but with nothing else. Adam - oh god that spot i think I feel it. "Actually, I don't think I do. No," she answers. As a response, some of the tension in Daniel's body goes away. Chloe can feel it. Samantha yelled after us, “Have fun!” "Oh, yeah. That's it," Freddy unintentionally remarked to himself under his breath, accidentally dropping his outwardly-stern demeanor for just a moment, as his fingers felt Bea's already-moist pussy crack become noticeably wetter. And he was proud of himself, because he realized that he had just caused Bea to orgasm. And that was something that he had never done to a girl before, although he had read several books that had described in detail how girls masturbate. Freddy also breathed a big sigh or relief, because he knew that Bea most likely wasn't going to do anything from this point onward to try to stop him from having sex with her. Wide eyed, Danni watched him stroking, fascinated at watching another boy jerking off. His hand slapped his balls with each stroke. He arched his back and pushed out his crotch, holding it over Danni’s head. With a guttural moan, he came. Danni watched his hot, white cum blasting out of his cock and falling onto her naked body, coating her breasts and stomach with his cum. Rick leant over her and kissed her, savored his sister’s kiss as the clean scent of her hair filled his nostrils. She was passionate like her mother and her body writhed as his tongue explored her mouth. His kisses flowed like warm water over her throat as he sucked and licked her soft skin. His lips slowly explored her bare shoulders, licking each pore on his way to lightly lick around her perfectly formed breasts as her chest lifted, hands holding him lightly to her body as his tongue tip circled her nipples, breath wafting over them like a warm summer breeze, kissing them with its gentle touch as they throbbed stiffly erect. She moaned her disappointment as his laving caresses moved lower, tongue laving flatly along her rib cage til her stomach sucked in as he licked her there. Her skin felt so soft against his cheek as he lay his face upon her and savored the scent of her arousement. Rick felt an intense love for his sister as his head lay upon her while listening to the rapid beat of her heart. Her warmth warmed him inside as her arousement scent intoxicated and drove his mouthing lower on her groin. How many times had he imagined doing this as he stroked his dick, never for a second believing his sister would want him to in real life. Now here she was writhing beneath his touches and gentle kisses. His tongue explored the gentle valleys of her groin and thighs, licking slowly along each of them until his lips sucked at the soft skin above the throbbing, tautly swollen torment she felt. He wanted to just ram his dick in her and fuck her hard and relieve his own tormented need deep inside her. But this was his little sis and he needed to savor every inch of her in case it never happened again. He wanted to commit to memory every pore of her body, its taste and feel beneath his fingertips and his tongue. He sucked at the skin surrounding her intense need, sucked hard directly beside it as her moans became desperate. He watched her clit swell and grow until it throbbed visibly beneath the breath he blew over it. Jenny’s smile did not waver. “Come on, just one picture.” Read 4932 times I was confused so I picked up my clothes and threw them on and walked quickly out of the room. I liked having sex with him, but I felt like he didn't like it. The rest of the night I felt so awkward and used. At the same time I felt accomplished and excited. Kayla always treated me like a little kid and thought she was better than me, but I had sex before her. He was so cute and nice, but now he seemed like he hated me. I didn't know how to feel so I slept. “I'm sorry.” He pulled her to her feet and hugged her. "I wasn't thinking. I should have warned you or—" maddy69Report “Well, I… Morgan huffed. “Yeah, I’ve gotten blueballed like seven times tonight. Sue me.” Me: So…are you going to want a ride with us this morning? With my whole body shaking, I grabbed her hips, lifted her up, and forced my cock into the lips of her pussy. She gave high-pitched moan and gripped my shoulders as I penetrated her, and my eyes nearly rolled all the way back into my head from the feeling of her soft wet cunt gripping the shaft and head. She began rocking back and forth, riding my erect phallus as if it were one of those coin-operated rides outside of superstores. With each passing second, she became more and more energized, bouncing on my lap. Happier than ever before in my life, I held out my tongue and licked her tits as they bounced in my face. "Oh no, now is it where the fun all starts." Vicky clapped her hands. "Rise and shine. And boys and girls.. No need to get dressed. It's not like we haven't seen it all now, is it?" 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2023.03.26 10:00 SaxoGrammaticus1970 [DA2 Spoilers] [DAO Spoilers] I just finished my DA2 playthrough. Here are my thoughts/review.
Disclaimer: I tried to write this as spoiler-free as possible. If you feel there are spoilers below, please tell me and I'll make my best effort to remove such. However, please feel free to put any DAO or DA2 spoilers in your comments if you deem it convenient. Thanks in advance.
I just finished playing DA2, with both story DLCs (Legacy and Mark of the Assassin), and it took me about 87 hours for this playthrough. I played on Easy/Casual difficulty. My Hawke was a male warrior. I played DA2 straight after finishing my first playthrough of DAO, where I also played a male warrior.
A large part of this review is lifted from a comment I made here.
I've read lots of comments and reviews that said that DA2 is not that great of a game in comparison to DA:O and DA:I. As for the lattter, I have no opinion, of course; but after playing both Origins and 2, I sincerely think that DA2 is a great game on its own right, and provides great entertaiment. Given that reportedly developers had just one year to finish it, the extent of their achievement is nothing short of amazing. They really pulled it off.
The combat feels more streamlined and easier to manage than Origin. As a casual player, I never got tactics in Origins, and I still didn't get them in DA2; but given my difficulty level I could manage without them.
The story seems generally very well written, and there are some really good moments. However, there are some plot details that only could pass muster in a rushed game. This was especially apparent in the main plot quests which finished Act 2, and the polarizing event at the start of the endgame. The writers could perhaps achieve something similar but with more believable plot points. But then, they had little time and maybe they had to rush in this area, too... Some parts really shone through, such as the poignant Legacy epilogue, for example.
The banter amoung your party members is nice, and sometimes downright hilarious; that was definitely a plus for me.
People say that locations are reused, and yes, they are, but I don't feel that as detracting. This is because most locations are really well designed for the most part and thus, reusing a good thing is not that much of a problem, at least for me
The romance options feel a little bit limited, at least if you're a straight guy playing a straight dude Hawke (as I did). But they are nice. The brothel stuff also felt useless. Why go there and spend coin just for the privilege of seeing Hawke on his back, zipping his pants? And, echoing the complaint about limited romance options, there's just so few ladies at the brothel (and don't mention the details of a somewhat surprising worker there...)
My biggest criticisms would be the stupid inventory limit (even lower than DAO). I'm tired of managing inventory. The dialogue wheel seemed nice, but there are no documented keyboard shortcuts for the dialogue wheel: I had to use the mouse for that. Also, some dialogue options completely different to what Hawke really says or intends to.
The game starts quite strong; but, as the game progresses, the gameplay becomes repetitive; there are some quests where you just have to go from point A to point B, and you have to fight enemies on the way.
Technically speaking, there is the enormous flaw that this game is the first in the series that forced me to install that evil stupid EA Launcher in order to play it (I played Origins after I purchased it from GOG, so no DRM for it).
You have the option to use either DX9 or DX11 as the rendering engines. DX9 had the broadest compatibility; I was able to duplicate my screen into a giant-screen TV in DX9, but I ran into various problems doing that in DX11; the downside was that the game was much more crash-prone. On the other hand, if I just played on my laptop screen, DX11 worked much better and was more stable; but the game still crashed on me sometimes.
Also, it should be noted that I was able to play it on 1080p with reasonably good framerate on High settings, even though my PC is technically a glorified potato (good specs but Intel UHD 620 integrated GPU).
The soundtrack was really nice. I'd have liked to get it, even though looks like the Ultimate Edition on Steam doesn't offer it.
Finally, I drooled over Bethany 😍 (please don't kill me!).
As you might guess, the balance is positive and if you like Dragon Age: Origins, or a good old action RPG, you should like DA2. Getting it would be money well spent.
submitted by SaxoGrammaticus1970 to dragonage [link] [comments]
I just finished playing DA2, with both story DLCs (Legacy and Mark of the Assassin), and it took me about 87 hours for this playthrough. I played on Easy/Casual difficulty. My Hawke was a male warrior. I played DA2 straight after finishing my first playthrough of DAO, where I also played a male warrior.
A large part of this review is lifted from a comment I made here.
I've read lots of comments and reviews that said that DA2 is not that great of a game in comparison to DA:O and DA:I. As for the lattter, I have no opinion, of course; but after playing both Origins and 2, I sincerely think that DA2 is a great game on its own right, and provides great entertaiment. Given that reportedly developers had just one year to finish it, the extent of their achievement is nothing short of amazing. They really pulled it off.
The combat feels more streamlined and easier to manage than Origin. As a casual player, I never got tactics in Origins, and I still didn't get them in DA2; but given my difficulty level I could manage without them.
The story seems generally very well written, and there are some really good moments. However, there are some plot details that only could pass muster in a rushed game. This was especially apparent in the main plot quests which finished Act 2, and the polarizing event at the start of the endgame. The writers could perhaps achieve something similar but with more believable plot points. But then, they had little time and maybe they had to rush in this area, too... Some parts really shone through, such as the poignant Legacy epilogue, for example.
The banter amoung your party members is nice, and sometimes downright hilarious; that was definitely a plus for me.
People say that locations are reused, and yes, they are, but I don't feel that as detracting. This is because most locations are really well designed for the most part and thus, reusing a good thing is not that much of a problem, at least for me
The romance options feel a little bit limited, at least if you're a straight guy playing a straight dude Hawke (as I did). But they are nice. The brothel stuff also felt useless. Why go there and spend coin just for the privilege of seeing Hawke on his back, zipping his pants? And, echoing the complaint about limited romance options, there's just so few ladies at the brothel (and don't mention the details of a somewhat surprising worker there...)
My biggest criticisms would be the stupid inventory limit (even lower than DAO). I'm tired of managing inventory. The dialogue wheel seemed nice, but there are no documented keyboard shortcuts for the dialogue wheel: I had to use the mouse for that. Also, some dialogue options completely different to what Hawke really says or intends to.
The game starts quite strong; but, as the game progresses, the gameplay becomes repetitive; there are some quests where you just have to go from point A to point B, and you have to fight enemies on the way.
Technically speaking, there is the enormous flaw that this game is the first in the series that forced me to install that evil stupid EA Launcher in order to play it (I played Origins after I purchased it from GOG, so no DRM for it).
You have the option to use either DX9 or DX11 as the rendering engines. DX9 had the broadest compatibility; I was able to duplicate my screen into a giant-screen TV in DX9, but I ran into various problems doing that in DX11; the downside was that the game was much more crash-prone. On the other hand, if I just played on my laptop screen, DX11 worked much better and was more stable; but the game still crashed on me sometimes.
Also, it should be noted that I was able to play it on 1080p with reasonably good framerate on High settings, even though my PC is technically a glorified potato (good specs but Intel UHD 620 integrated GPU).
The soundtrack was really nice. I'd have liked to get it, even though looks like the Ultimate Edition on Steam doesn't offer it.
Finally, I drooled over Bethany 😍 (please don't kill me!).
As you might guess, the balance is positive and if you like Dragon Age: Origins, or a good old action RPG, you should like DA2. Getting it would be money well spent.
2023.03.26 09:47 AutoModerator Charisma University by Charisma On Command (The Course)
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submitted by AutoModerator to CharismaAndCommand [link] [comments]
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2023.03.26 09:45 -something_something journey of absurdism and Everything everywhere all at once.
Recently I was re-watching Everything everywhere all at once and it re-ignited the questions I wanted answered: If the world was meaningless, could our individual lives still hold value?
Albert Camus the og absurdist argued all people were born with a shared human nature that bonded them toward common goals. One such goal was to seek out meaning despite the world’s arbitrary cruelty. Camus viewed humanity’s desire for meaning and the universe’s silent indifference as two incompatible puzzle pieces and considered trying to fit them together to be fundamentally absurd.
The multiversal movie captures the randomness of life through its absurdist style and explores the relevant themes of gender, race, sexuality, generational divide, and the search for meaning. There is a method to its madness, and even though it might seem fast-paced and chaotic, it gives time to permit philosophical pondering.
Many of Camus’ contemporaries were exploring similar questions under the banner of a new philosophy called existentialism. Existentialists believed people were born as blank slates, each responsible for creating their life’s meaning amidst a chaotic world. But Camus rejected their school of thought. This tension became the heart of Camus’ Philosophy of the Absurd, which argued that life is inherently futile. Exploring how to live without meaning became the guiding question behind Camus’ early work, which he called his “cycle of the absurd.”
Albert Camus grew up surrounded by violence. His homeland of Algeria was mired in conflict between native Algerians and colonizing French Europeans. He lost his father in the First World War and was deemed unfit to fight in the second. Battling tuberculosis in France and confronting the war's devastation as a resistance journalist, Camus grew despondent. He couldn’t fathom any meaning behind all this endless bloodshed and suffering.
Camus continued producing works that explored the value of life amidst absurdity many of which circled back to the same philosophical question: if life is truly meaningless, is committing suicide the only rational response?
Camus’ answer was an emphatic “no.”
The basic beliefs of absurdism and nihilism are the same, but absurdism differs from the latter because it goes beyond nihilistic hopelessness and proposes a solution - acceptance. Absurdists do not try to find or give life meaning. By accepting that life is meaningless, they continue to live it nevertheless, seeing their continued existence in the world as an act of rebellion against the human urge to look for meaning in everything. They live in the moment instead of thinking about the what-ifs.
Evelyn embraces absurdism when she chooses the ordinary life she’s leading in her universe over the better lives of Evelyns in other universes, because she acknowledges the ultimate lack of meaning in everything, everywhere, and hence chooses her form of meaninglessness to exist in.
Jobu Tupaki’s nihilistic worldview is answered and overcome by Evelyn’s existentialist stance. The movie’s aim seems to be to reject nihilism and promote absurdism. Because life is meaningless, we have the power to make whatever we want out of it.
There may not be any explanation for our unjust world, but choosing to live regardless is the deepest expression of our genuine freedom. Camus explains this in one of his most famous essays which centers on the Greek myth of Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was a king who cheated the gods and was condemned to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill. The cruelty of his punishment lies in its singular futility, but Camus argues all of humanity is in the same position. And only when we accept the meaninglessness of our lives can we face the absurd with our heads held high. As Camus says, when the king chooses to begin his relentless task once more, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
submitted by -something_something to summerized [link] [comments]
Albert Camus the og absurdist argued all people were born with a shared human nature that bonded them toward common goals. One such goal was to seek out meaning despite the world’s arbitrary cruelty. Camus viewed humanity’s desire for meaning and the universe’s silent indifference as two incompatible puzzle pieces and considered trying to fit them together to be fundamentally absurd.
The multiversal movie captures the randomness of life through its absurdist style and explores the relevant themes of gender, race, sexuality, generational divide, and the search for meaning. There is a method to its madness, and even though it might seem fast-paced and chaotic, it gives time to permit philosophical pondering.
Many of Camus’ contemporaries were exploring similar questions under the banner of a new philosophy called existentialism. Existentialists believed people were born as blank slates, each responsible for creating their life’s meaning amidst a chaotic world. But Camus rejected their school of thought. This tension became the heart of Camus’ Philosophy of the Absurd, which argued that life is inherently futile. Exploring how to live without meaning became the guiding question behind Camus’ early work, which he called his “cycle of the absurd.”
Albert Camus grew up surrounded by violence. His homeland of Algeria was mired in conflict between native Algerians and colonizing French Europeans. He lost his father in the First World War and was deemed unfit to fight in the second. Battling tuberculosis in France and confronting the war's devastation as a resistance journalist, Camus grew despondent. He couldn’t fathom any meaning behind all this endless bloodshed and suffering.
Camus continued producing works that explored the value of life amidst absurdity many of which circled back to the same philosophical question: if life is truly meaningless, is committing suicide the only rational response?
Camus’ answer was an emphatic “no.”
The basic beliefs of absurdism and nihilism are the same, but absurdism differs from the latter because it goes beyond nihilistic hopelessness and proposes a solution - acceptance. Absurdists do not try to find or give life meaning. By accepting that life is meaningless, they continue to live it nevertheless, seeing their continued existence in the world as an act of rebellion against the human urge to look for meaning in everything. They live in the moment instead of thinking about the what-ifs.
Evelyn embraces absurdism when she chooses the ordinary life she’s leading in her universe over the better lives of Evelyns in other universes, because she acknowledges the ultimate lack of meaning in everything, everywhere, and hence chooses her form of meaninglessness to exist in.
Jobu Tupaki’s nihilistic worldview is answered and overcome by Evelyn’s existentialist stance. The movie’s aim seems to be to reject nihilism and promote absurdism. Because life is meaningless, we have the power to make whatever we want out of it.
There may not be any explanation for our unjust world, but choosing to live regardless is the deepest expression of our genuine freedom. Camus explains this in one of his most famous essays which centers on the Greek myth of Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was a king who cheated the gods and was condemned to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill. The cruelty of his punishment lies in its singular futility, but Camus argues all of humanity is in the same position. And only when we accept the meaninglessness of our lives can we face the absurd with our heads held high. As Camus says, when the king chooses to begin his relentless task once more, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
2023.03.26 09:40 Mido128 Elements of the Gods in TWW
This post was inspired after watching these two videos about the dungeons of TWW: https://youtu.be/Y7ydu5xtB4Q, https://youtu.be/fnu0lgpDXAw. Check them out!
The Rito and Koroks tribes, from The Wind Waker, each have two dungeons connected to them in the game. Both tribes began their current existence as a result of the Great Flood, adapting to their new environment. But their histories go back much further, to the ancient Kingdom of Hyrule, when they were the Zora and Kokiri tribes respectively. One of the two dungeons connected to each of the tribes is linked to their current existence on the Great Sea, whereas the other dungeon is connected through a Sage to their ancient past. Both of the two dungeons connected with each of the tribes are linked thematically.
As already mentioned, Dragon Roost is a volcano, and [the interior Cavern is full of pools of magma. Therefore, it would be easy to say that this dungeon’s elemental theme is Fire. However, that is not necessarily the case. While the Fire Temple in Ocarina of Time is found within the volcanic Death Mountain, in Skyward Sword the second dungeon is also a series of caverns within a volcano, but it is called the Earth Temple, not the Fire Temple. The heart of the earth is hot and volcanic. Both Dragon Roost Cavern and the Earth Temple from SS are very natural structures. They are the natural caverns inside of a volcano, instead of intricately designed structures. As such, they reflect the primal nature of the earth.
But, this leads us to the second dungeon connected to the Rito’s ancient past, which is also called the Earth Temple, but which is most definitely not a natural structure. Medli’s ancestor, the Zora Sage Laruto, serves within this temple. The Earth Temple in TWW is essentially a tomb or crypt, and it is ornately decorated and designed, in contrast with the natural Dragon Roost Cavern. Link must bring light to the darkness deep under the ground. In another contrast, the temple has no real significance to the Rito living on the Great Sea. But, in the ancient Kingdom of Hyrule, this temple was an important structure where a Sage prayed for the gods to power the Master Sword.
Despite their differences, what connects Dragon Roost Cavern and the Earth Temple is their common elemental theme – Earth. We see two sides of the Earth Element. The primordial power inside of a volcano, and the dark resting place of the dead. One is natural, and the other constructed.
Do we see these contrasting sides of a shared elemental theme within the two dungeons connected with the Korok tribe? Yes!
The Korok tribe lives on Forest Haven island with their guardian deity, the Great Deku Tree. Forest Haven has a sister island nearby, named the Forbidden Woods. Both islands are again natural structures that seem to exist within the trunks of massive trees. While the Deku Tree currently forbids the Koroks from travelling to the nearby island, its interior features the Kokiri symbol, which indicates that the tribe lived or visited the island in their past. As for the Element associated with the Forbidden Woods, it’s clearly the Forest Element.
But, what about the second dungeon connected with the Koroks?
Makar’s ancestor is the Kokiri Sage Fado, who serves in the Wind Temple. On face value, this dungeon seems to have a completely different elemental theme to the Forbidden Woods. However, in the Zelda series, the Elements of Forest and Wind are strongly tied together. As that link highlights, this connection is highlighted in multiple games, both before and after TWW. In the Wind Temple itself, Makar is used to grow trees within the temple. But, just as with the contrast between the previous two dungeons we discussed, the Wind Temple is much more of a designed and constructed building than the Forbidden Woods. It is full of mechanical traps and machines designed to create wind drafts. Therefore, in a curious way we again see the two sides of the featured Element, both the natural and the constructed. Forest/Wind can be a wild forest, but it can also be advanced technology.
As we can see, these pairings of dungeons with the same elemental theme help us to see that an individual Element can encompass a range of attributes and properties, some natural and some not.
But, there’s something more that these dungeons, in particular the Earth and Wind Temples, can teach us about the nature of the Light World, and about the gods who created it.
The King of Red Lions tells us:
Laruto says:
Who are the Earth God and the Wind God?
While it’s true that Zephos is a god of winds, is he really the Wind God of the Wind Temple? Remember, that the Element of the Wind Temple is Forest/Wind, and Zephos has no discernible connection to Forest throughout the game. Also, the song used to call Zephos is the Wind’s Requiem (Song of Wind in Japanese), not the Wind God’s Aria.
Thankfully, I don’t have to argue the case that Zephos isn’t the Wind God of the Wind Temple, because the game straight up tells us who it is:
This makes sense with everything we know throughout the series. Farore is associated with Forest. The forest regions of Faron are named after her. It’s Farore’s Pearl that is obtained from the Great Deku Tree in Forest Haven. She is also associated with Wind. A spell in OoT is called Farore’s Wind. Forest/Wind is the Element most closely associated with Farore. This is further emphasised when we consider that Forest/Wind is the Element most strongly linked to Life, and Farore is the Golden Goddess who breathed life into the Light World.
Farore is the Goddess of Courage. Farore is the Goddess of Forest/Wind. And, Farore is the Goddess of Life.
What about the Earth God?
Well, if the Wind God is Farore, then the Earth God must be one of the other two Golden Goddesses.
Out of Din and Nayru, I think it’s fairly obvious that the Earth God must be Din. She is the Goddess of Power.
Din is the Goddess of Power. Din is the Goddess of Fire/Earth. And, Din is the Goddess of…
If we are following the pattern above for Farore, she was also the Goddess of Life. Therefore, that would mean that Din is the Goddess of… Death? Is that even possible?
I think the answer is clear when we look at the Earth Temple. Her temple.
Remember, the Earth Temple is essentially a tomb or crypt. This is one of the varied aspects of Earth that it reflects. Thanks to Zeltik’s latest video, I now understand what the large statue in the Earth Temple represents, something that had previously eluded me. As Zeltik points out, it’s essentially the image of a Redead. But it’s not exactly the same. This one appears to perhaps wear a crown. Is it possible that this large statue isn’t just a representation of a regular Redead? In a temple all about Death, is it possible that this statue represents Death? Or the God of Death?
Interestingly, the eyes of this statue are a symbol combining the sun and moon, reflecting the light and darkness that are key to this temple. The statue itself reflects this dual nature. When no light is shining on its eyes, it is grey and dark like the Moon. But when light is reflected into its eyes, it shines brightly like the Sun. The fiery Sun, a fitting symbol for Din. But so it seems, is also the cold darkness of death.
You might be wondering, can that really be so? Isn’t death associated with evil? Could Din really be the God of Death?
As I have done in the past, I think it would be helpful to look at some real world religions for comparison. Let’s as always begin with the religion of Japan, Shintoism. How is death introduced in its creation myth?
You may know by now that the chief god of the Shinto religion is Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess and progenitor of Japan’s Imperial Family. She is the obvious analogue for Hylia. But just like Hylia, she is not the creator god of Japan. Amaterasu is the daughter of of two gods who created the land (who are themselves the creation of higher creator gods). These two gods were a male and a female, Izanagi and Izanami. The two descended to the land they had created and had children. Unfortunately, Izanami died while giving birth to a god of fire.
The myth then follows:
When looking at other religions for parallels, I believe that those of Meso/South-America are appropriate for TWW. The Tower of the Gods is closely linked to the Golden Goddesses, and the visual design of that dungeon and its boss (and the Rito culture) are clearly partly influenced by Meso/South-American design.
In the Aztec religion, there are the twin gods Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl. Quetzalcoatl is the feathered serpent god of the Sun, wind, wisdom, and life. Xolotl is the dog-headed god of fire, lightning, and a soul-guide for the dead. Twin gods that encompass both life and death. Interestingly another Aztec god, Mictlāntēcutli, who is the god of the dead and king of the Underworld, looks very reminiscent of a Redead.
This is only two examples from real world religions, but I think it clearly illustrates that there should be no theological objection to Din being one of the creator gods, the Earth God, and the God of Death.
I have previously highlighted how in the beta version of OoT Din was the god worshipped in the Gerudo’s Spirit Temple. That temple has many clear connections with death and the afterlife that I have thoroughly explored previously. While the beta version is not canon, there is nothing to contradict Din still being the God of Death in the Light World.
This all leads to one final, and obvious, question: What about Nayru?
We know the central god would have been Nayru. She is the Goddess of Wisdom. She is also the Goddess of Magic. What Element does she represent? The most obvious answer is Water. From OoT, the Mark of Nayru has been similar to the Crest of the Zora, the Water tribe. Therefore, it’s likely that there would have been a Water Temple and Sage. This feels thematically correct next to Earth and Wind, for a game set on the Great Sea.
It’s possible that there may have been a dual aspect to the elemental theme, as there was with the other two pairs of dungeons. The most likely candidate is Ice. In the beta version of OoT, the Water Medallion was originally the Ice Medallion, just as the Forest Medallion was originally the Wind Medallion. Taking into consideration Aonuma’s comments about aspects of these two cut dungeons being incorporated into the dungeons of later games, I wonder if some of the ideas ended up in Lakebed Temple, or Snowpeak Ruins from TP. Or maybe the Temple of Ice from PH?
On the other hand, instead of Ice perhaps Water is paired with something else, like Lightning. That Element is associated with Nayru in SS, through the Lanayru region. Perhaps the Sandship dungeon from that game includes elements that would have originally appeared in a dungeon from TWW. There’s no real way of knowing, but it’s fun to speculate. It’s also not clear what tribe would have been associated with her in the present day. The obvious answer would be the Zora, but that might have involved changing the history of the Rito. We will probably never know.
Lastly, if Farore is the God of Life, and Din is the God of Death, what does that make Nayru? How could there be a third aspect to a pair of clear polar opposites? I think the answer is hinted at in TWW, and it’s something that has become a greater feature of the world-building in the Zelda series over time: Artificial Life.
In the Tower of the Gods, we see automatons such as the Servants of the Tower and Gohdan itself. Living constructs. In SS, we have the Ancient Robots, who were created by the dragon Lanayru. And in BotW, the Ancient Sheikah, a tribe associated with Wisdom, are responsible for the creation of the Guardians, and the Divine Beasts. Nayru is the Goddess of Wisdom and Magic, so it makes sense that she would also be the God of Artificial Life.
submitted by Mido128 to truezelda [link] [comments]
Multifaceted Elements
Let’s start with the Rito tribe, who used to be the Zora tribe in the ancient past. The Rito live on Dragon Roost Island, and the dungeon linked to their current existence is Dragon Roost Cavern. The guardian deity of the Rito is the dragon Valoo, who lives on the peak of the volcanic Dragon Roost. To again the ability to fly, each young Rito performs a coming-of-age ceremony, which involves journeying through the Cavern in order to reach Valoo, and receive one of his scales. Therefore, it’s easy to see how this dungeon is strongly tied to the tribe’s current existence.As already mentioned, Dragon Roost is a volcano, and [the interior Cavern is full of pools of magma. Therefore, it would be easy to say that this dungeon’s elemental theme is Fire. However, that is not necessarily the case. While the Fire Temple in Ocarina of Time is found within the volcanic Death Mountain, in Skyward Sword the second dungeon is also a series of caverns within a volcano, but it is called the Earth Temple, not the Fire Temple. The heart of the earth is hot and volcanic. Both Dragon Roost Cavern and the Earth Temple from SS are very natural structures. They are the natural caverns inside of a volcano, instead of intricately designed structures. As such, they reflect the primal nature of the earth.
But, this leads us to the second dungeon connected to the Rito’s ancient past, which is also called the Earth Temple, but which is most definitely not a natural structure. Medli’s ancestor, the Zora Sage Laruto, serves within this temple. The Earth Temple in TWW is essentially a tomb or crypt, and it is ornately decorated and designed, in contrast with the natural Dragon Roost Cavern. Link must bring light to the darkness deep under the ground. In another contrast, the temple has no real significance to the Rito living on the Great Sea. But, in the ancient Kingdom of Hyrule, this temple was an important structure where a Sage prayed for the gods to power the Master Sword.
Despite their differences, what connects Dragon Roost Cavern and the Earth Temple is their common elemental theme – Earth. We see two sides of the Earth Element. The primordial power inside of a volcano, and the dark resting place of the dead. One is natural, and the other constructed.
Do we see these contrasting sides of a shared elemental theme within the two dungeons connected with the Korok tribe? Yes!
The Korok tribe lives on Forest Haven island with their guardian deity, the Great Deku Tree. Forest Haven has a sister island nearby, named the Forbidden Woods. Both islands are again natural structures that seem to exist within the trunks of massive trees. While the Deku Tree currently forbids the Koroks from travelling to the nearby island, its interior features the Kokiri symbol, which indicates that the tribe lived or visited the island in their past. As for the Element associated with the Forbidden Woods, it’s clearly the Forest Element.
But, what about the second dungeon connected with the Koroks?
Makar’s ancestor is the Kokiri Sage Fado, who serves in the Wind Temple. On face value, this dungeon seems to have a completely different elemental theme to the Forbidden Woods. However, in the Zelda series, the Elements of Forest and Wind are strongly tied together. As that link highlights, this connection is highlighted in multiple games, both before and after TWW. In the Wind Temple itself, Makar is used to grow trees within the temple. But, just as with the contrast between the previous two dungeons we discussed, the Wind Temple is much more of a designed and constructed building than the Forbidden Woods. It is full of mechanical traps and machines designed to create wind drafts. Therefore, in a curious way we again see the two sides of the featured Element, both the natural and the constructed. Forest/Wind can be a wild forest, but it can also be advanced technology.
As we can see, these pairings of dungeons with the same elemental theme help us to see that an individual Element can encompass a range of attributes and properties, some natural and some not.
But, there’s something more that these dungeons, in particular the Earth and Wind Temples, can teach us about the nature of the Light World, and about the gods who created it.
Multifaceted Gods
What is the purpose of the Earth and Wind Temples, and the Sages who serve there?The King of Red Lions tells us:
マスターソードが退魔の力を失ったのは 剣に神の力を注ぎ込んだ 賢者たちの身に 何か起きたという表れだThe Sages pray to the gods in the Earth and Wind Temples so that the Master Sword can have the power to repel demons/evil. How exactly do the Sages pray to the gods?
It seems that something has happened to the sages that imbue the Master Sword with the power of the gods so that it has lost its anti-demon power.
賢者は、このハイラルの北にある風の神殿と 南にある大地の神殿で それぞれに、神への祈りをささげているはず
The sages should be lifting up prayers to the gods in the Wind Temple in north Hyrule and the Earth Temple in south Hyrule.
お前は、その２つの神殿におもむき 賢者の身に何が起こったのかを調べ 再び剣に退魔の力を蘇らせるのだ
You must go to those two temples and find out what has happened to the sages so that the anti-demon power can be restored to the sword.
Laruto says:
退魔の力を蘇らせるには 私に代わり この神殿で 神に祈りを捧げる者が 必要なのですAnd Fado says:
In order to restore the anti-demon power to the blade, someone to pray in this temple in my stead is needed.
私の 血を引き、この聖なる楽器を持つ者
The person to do this is the one descended from me, the one who possesses this sacred instrument.
アナタが今、指揮した曲は その者に神への祈りの曲を思い出させ 賢者として目覚めさせるためのモノなのです
The song you just directed will cause that person to remember the song used to pray to the gods and awaken them as a sage.
その剣に、力を取り戻したいんだろ？The prayer to the gods was in the form of a song, played on the sacred instrument. And, we know which songs they were: The Earth God’s Lyric and the Wind God’s Aria (just called the Earth God’s Song and the Wind God’s Song in Japanese). As the names suggest these are the gods of the temples. The Earth God is worshipped in the Earth Temple, and the Wind God is worshipped in the Wind Temple.
You want to return power to that blade, right?
それだったら、オイラと同じ この楽器を持っているヤツを探して さっきの曲を教えてあげな
To do so you need to find the guy who has the same instrument as I do and teach him that song.
オマエの持ってるタクトは 昔、オイラたち賢者を指揮して 神様を呼ぶ曲を演奏する時に使われてたんだ
In ancient times, that baton you have was used to conduct us sages when we were playing the song to call the gods.
Who are the Earth God and the Wind God?
The name's Zephos. I'm the god of winds.Case closed for the Wind God, right? Well, not exactly.
While it’s true that Zephos is a god of winds, is he really the Wind God of the Wind Temple? Remember, that the Element of the Wind Temple is Forest/Wind, and Zephos has no discernible connection to Forest throughout the game. Also, the song used to call Zephos is the Wind’s Requiem (Song of Wind in Japanese), not the Wind God’s Aria.
Thankfully, I don’t have to argue the case that Zephos isn’t the Wind God of the Wind Temple, because the game straight up tells us who it is:
Outset Island was said to be blessed by Farore, the Goddess of Wind. -Tingle (Tingle Tuner)This dialogue is easy to miss because it’s only seen when using the Tingle Tuner mechanic. Also, I don’t have the Japanese, so I can’t check exactly what it says there, but the word for god(s) can be translated as goddess(es) depending on the context, which has precedent in the Zelda series. Either way, Farore is the Wind God.
This makes sense with everything we know throughout the series. Farore is associated with Forest. The forest regions of Faron are named after her. It’s Farore’s Pearl that is obtained from the Great Deku Tree in Forest Haven. She is also associated with Wind. A spell in OoT is called Farore’s Wind. Forest/Wind is the Element most closely associated with Farore. This is further emphasised when we consider that Forest/Wind is the Element most strongly linked to Life, and Farore is the Golden Goddess who breathed life into the Light World.
Farore is the Goddess of Courage. Farore is the Goddess of Forest/Wind. And, Farore is the Goddess of Life.
What about the Earth God?
Well, if the Wind God is Farore, then the Earth God must be one of the other two Golden Goddesses.
Out of Din and Nayru, I think it’s fairly obvious that the Earth God must be Din. She is the Goddess of Power.
その たくましき 炎の腕を もって、地を耕し、赤き大地を 創る。When looking at the raw power found within Dragon Roost Cavern, we see a reflection of Din’s Power. It’s true that in OoT there is a spell called Din’s Fire, not Din’s Earth. And, the quote above does mention her arms of flame. We could well think that Din is the Fire God, and whose to say that she isn’t? Dragon Roost Cavern highlights the strong connection between Fire and Earth, so this could very well be a parallel of the thematic tie between Forest and Wind. Either way, Link receives Din’s Pearl from the Rito, and it is a Rito who must be the Sage of Earth.
With her strong arms of flame, she cultivated the land and created the red earth.
Din is the Goddess of Power. Din is the Goddess of Fire/Earth. And, Din is the Goddess of…
If we are following the pattern above for Farore, she was also the Goddess of Life. Therefore, that would mean that Din is the Goddess of… Death? Is that even possible?
I think the answer is clear when we look at the Earth Temple. Her temple.
Remember, the Earth Temple is essentially a tomb or crypt. This is one of the varied aspects of Earth that it reflects. Thanks to Zeltik’s latest video, I now understand what the large statue in the Earth Temple represents, something that had previously eluded me. As Zeltik points out, it’s essentially the image of a Redead. But it’s not exactly the same. This one appears to perhaps wear a crown. Is it possible that this large statue isn’t just a representation of a regular Redead? In a temple all about Death, is it possible that this statue represents Death? Or the God of Death?
Interestingly, the eyes of this statue are a symbol combining the sun and moon, reflecting the light and darkness that are key to this temple. The statue itself reflects this dual nature. When no light is shining on its eyes, it is grey and dark like the Moon. But when light is reflected into its eyes, it shines brightly like the Sun. The fiery Sun, a fitting symbol for Din. But so it seems, is also the cold darkness of death.
You might be wondering, can that really be so? Isn’t death associated with evil? Could Din really be the God of Death?
Gods of Life and Death
First of all, Darkness (what Shadow is called in Japanese) is one of the Elements. It’s a fundamental part of the world the Golden Goddesses created. So is death. The creation myth of Hyrule doesn’t mention anything about life originally being immortal, or death being introduced later. All the creation of the Light World, including the gods on it, can die. Most are mortal. Therefore, death and the afterlife are part of the creation of the Golden Goddesses. Death in itself has nothing to do with evil, Malice, or demons. That is something else entirely. In fact, Malice and demons are the result of refusing to accept death and move on to the afterlife. They are contrary to the Order established by the Golden Goddesses.As I have done in the past, I think it would be helpful to look at some real world religions for comparison. Let’s as always begin with the religion of Japan, Shintoism. How is death introduced in its creation myth?
You may know by now that the chief god of the Shinto religion is Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess and progenitor of Japan’s Imperial Family. She is the obvious analogue for Hylia. But just like Hylia, she is not the creator god of Japan. Amaterasu is the daughter of of two gods who created the land (who are themselves the creation of higher creator gods). These two gods were a male and a female, Izanagi and Izanami. The two descended to the land they had created and had children. Unfortunately, Izanami died while giving birth to a god of fire.
The myth then follows:
Izanagi lamented the death of Izanami and undertook a journey to Yomi ("the shadowy land of the dead"). He searched for Izanami and found her. At first, Izanagi could not see her for the shadows hid her appearance. He asked her to return with him. Izanami informed Izanagi that he was too late. She had already eaten the food of the underworld and was now one with the land of the dead. She could no longer return to the living but would try to ask for permission to leave.Therefore, Izanagi is a god of both creation and life, and Izanami is a god of both creation and death. This husband and wife pair of creator deities encompass both life and death.
The news shocked Izanagi, but he refused to leave her in Yomi. While Izanami was sleeping, he took the comb that bound his long hair and set it alight as a torch. Under the sudden burst of light, he saw the horrid form of the once beautiful and graceful Izanami. She was now a rotting form of flesh with maggots and foul creatures running over her ravaged body.
Crying out loud, Izanagi could no longer control his fear and started to run, intending to return to the living and abandon his death-ridden wife. Izanami woke up, shrieking and indignant, and chased after him. She also sent Yakusa-no-ikazuchi-no-kami (Raijin) and shikome (foul women) to hunt for Izanagi and bring him back to Yomi.
Izanagi burst out of the entrance and pushed a boulder in the mouth of the Yomotsuhirasaka (黄泉津平坂; cavern that was the entrance of Yomi) to create a separation between the world of the living and the world of the dead, as well as separating Izanagi from Izanami.
Izanami screamed from behind this impenetrable barricade and told Izanagi that if he left her she would destroy 1,000 residents of the living every day. He furiously replied he would give life to 1,500 residents.
Izanagi is said to have performed ritualistic cleansing, harai, after witnessing the decomposing body of his wife. This is the traditional explanation for the purification rituals often performed at Shinto shrines in Japanese religion, where shrine-goers wash themselves with water before entering the sacred space. While he bathed, Izanagi gave birth to the sun goddess, Amaterasu, from his left eye, the moon god, Tsukuyomi, from his right eye, and the storm god, Susanoo, from his nose.
When looking at other religions for parallels, I believe that those of Meso/South-America are appropriate for TWW. The Tower of the Gods is closely linked to the Golden Goddesses, and the visual design of that dungeon and its boss (and the Rito culture) are clearly partly influenced by Meso/South-American design.
In the Aztec religion, there are the twin gods Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl. Quetzalcoatl is the feathered serpent god of the Sun, wind, wisdom, and life. Xolotl is the dog-headed god of fire, lightning, and a soul-guide for the dead. Twin gods that encompass both life and death. Interestingly another Aztec god, Mictlāntēcutli, who is the god of the dead and king of the Underworld, looks very reminiscent of a Redead.
This is only two examples from real world religions, but I think it clearly illustrates that there should be no theological objection to Din being one of the creator gods, the Earth God, and the God of Death.
I have previously highlighted how in the beta version of OoT Din was the god worshipped in the Gerudo’s Spirit Temple. That temple has many clear connections with death and the afterlife that I have thoroughly explored previously. While the beta version is not canon, there is nothing to contradict Din still being the God of Death in the Light World.
This all leads to one final, and obvious, question: What about Nayru?
Life, Death, And…?
It’s well known that the developers of TWW had to cut two dungeons from the game in order to make the deadline for release. Aonuma commented on those two dungeons while promoting TWW HD version:“I’m aware that lots of users wanted those two missing dungeons to be implemented in Wind Waker HD. But to be honest, we’ve already used those two dungeons for other titles after Wind Waker already,” says Aonuma, laughing. “So right now, technically, they don’t really exist anymore…”If the developers had been able to include those two dungeons, it’s very likely that they would have been paired thematically like the other two pairs. It’s very probable that the first dungeon would have been completed in order to obtain Nayru’s Pearl. And, the second dungeon would have been linked to another Sage and their temple. There would then have been three pairs of dungeons, just like in SS. By looking at the existing two pairs, we can speculate about what the last pair may have involved.
“We didn’t exactly use them as-is and implement them into another game,” clarifies Aonuma. “We’d add some [of their] features to other dungeons. So they’re in different dungeons now.”
We know the central god would have been Nayru. She is the Goddess of Wisdom. She is also the Goddess of Magic. What Element does she represent? The most obvious answer is Water. From OoT, the Mark of Nayru has been similar to the Crest of the Zora, the Water tribe. Therefore, it’s likely that there would have been a Water Temple and Sage. This feels thematically correct next to Earth and Wind, for a game set on the Great Sea.
It’s possible that there may have been a dual aspect to the elemental theme, as there was with the other two pairs of dungeons. The most likely candidate is Ice. In the beta version of OoT, the Water Medallion was originally the Ice Medallion, just as the Forest Medallion was originally the Wind Medallion. Taking into consideration Aonuma’s comments about aspects of these two cut dungeons being incorporated into the dungeons of later games, I wonder if some of the ideas ended up in Lakebed Temple, or Snowpeak Ruins from TP. Or maybe the Temple of Ice from PH?
On the other hand, instead of Ice perhaps Water is paired with something else, like Lightning. That Element is associated with Nayru in SS, through the Lanayru region. Perhaps the Sandship dungeon from that game includes elements that would have originally appeared in a dungeon from TWW. There’s no real way of knowing, but it’s fun to speculate. It’s also not clear what tribe would have been associated with her in the present day. The obvious answer would be the Zora, but that might have involved changing the history of the Rito. We will probably never know.
Lastly, if Farore is the God of Life, and Din is the God of Death, what does that make Nayru? How could there be a third aspect to a pair of clear polar opposites? I think the answer is hinted at in TWW, and it’s something that has become a greater feature of the world-building in the Zelda series over time: Artificial Life.
In the Tower of the Gods, we see automatons such as the Servants of the Tower and Gohdan itself. Living constructs. In SS, we have the Ancient Robots, who were created by the dragon Lanayru. And in BotW, the Ancient Sheikah, a tribe associated with Wisdom, are responsible for the creation of the Guardians, and the Divine Beasts. Nayru is the Goddess of Wisdom and Magic, so it makes sense that she would also be the God of Artificial Life.
Unstable Elements
While it has been fun to learn about Din’s role as the God of Death, and the wider range that the Elements can encompass. It’s important to realise that none of this is set in stone. Just as with real world mythologies, things can change over time. Attributes and qualities can be, shared, removed, or swapped between entities. Just because something is true in one game, doesn’t mean it can’t be changed in a future game. For instance, why is Faron, and not Lanayru, the Water Dragon in SS? Still, I hope you have enjoyed this exploration of the expanded role that the gods and elements can take within the world of Zelda.2023.03.26 09:39 Delicious-Brief-6183 What to do if ur sister is dating a toxic pick me?
There’s this gurl that my sister has been dating for 4 months and at first she’s quiet, but then as my sister keeps driving her home I see her more and more. So naturally we talked more, but recently especially this month. I noticed a lot of things she does that pisses me off.
1/ she wants to keep their relationship a secret so their friends won’t bother them if they break up (again). They broke up two months in or so and got back together. So I was like “ok” not like anyone’s gonna ask me right? But this gurl comes up to my lunch group and leans close to my ear but speaks loudly “hi~” and she does this at least once a week. I thought u wanted to keep it a secret? So y would u approach ur “ex’s” sister in front of her friends??? Who KNOWS I’m her sister and that I barely talk to this girl??
2/ Lecturing me on the same thing she does. Ex: I beg my sister to buy me boba or other snacks and she gets on my ass about it, but I see her eating meals from Chinese restaurants that my sister pay for? Ex: joke about throwing me out of the car, when it’s my sisters car and my mom pay the gas?? For you to get free rides on everyday😃?
3/ Fake asf. She acts totally different in front of her friends vs when we hangout. In her friends presences she’s like mature and cool but in front of us she whines about the littlest things. This one time I was sitting in the back seat and apparently my sister held her hand too hard, and she goes in her baby voice like “OW ur hurting me!!” I wish I was lying but I wanted to throw up ngl…
4/ Always moody and has an attitude. This one time we hangout for my birthday. Not only did she not wake up at all she took over 40 minutes to come down with my sister in her apartment. My cousin who was waiting for us was waiting for an hour in the cold, I wasn’t even the one that made the hangout plans, it’s just their excuse for a date. The worse part is the whole hangout she was so moody and basically ruined the whole atmosphere. She even started crying and left the cafe we were at. After almost an hour she came back and told my cousin that her friend sent a picture of her holding a snake becuz she has a fear of snakes. I’m sorry but crying an hour over a normal picture? Phobias or not I think that’s way too much, it’s not even a creepy one.
5/ Hit my head. Yes this gurl who I do not have any classes with, came to my class to hit my head with a bag of chips. Then she went and hug the friend next to me and they laughed cuz “omg the different lol” and she left without a word. Like wtf? All that for what? I can’t believe people actually go out of their way to piss u off. As she left I got so mad I called her a “btch” and the friend heard and was defending her 😐. Ya u don’t know what she’s like outside of school, and if u were the one she hit and left I know u wouldn’t be laughing. Great I lost a friend thx to a toxic pick me🙃. I didn’t even try to fight back other than saying that she’s annoying. But ik my sister won’t break up with her anyway cuz they’re both red flags.
I’m planning on ignoring her for now but my sister just told me that apparently that gurl hates me but didn’t say why but my sister doesn’t want drama between her gf and sister so she told me to calm down.
What do u guys think I should do? Everyone told me to ignore them but that gurl approaches me???
submitted by Delicious-Brief-6183 to ToxicFriends [link] [comments]
1/ she wants to keep their relationship a secret so their friends won’t bother them if they break up (again). They broke up two months in or so and got back together. So I was like “ok” not like anyone’s gonna ask me right? But this gurl comes up to my lunch group and leans close to my ear but speaks loudly “hi~” and she does this at least once a week. I thought u wanted to keep it a secret? So y would u approach ur “ex’s” sister in front of her friends??? Who KNOWS I’m her sister and that I barely talk to this girl??
2/ Lecturing me on the same thing she does. Ex: I beg my sister to buy me boba or other snacks and she gets on my ass about it, but I see her eating meals from Chinese restaurants that my sister pay for? Ex: joke about throwing me out of the car, when it’s my sisters car and my mom pay the gas?? For you to get free rides on everyday😃?
3/ Fake asf. She acts totally different in front of her friends vs when we hangout. In her friends presences she’s like mature and cool but in front of us she whines about the littlest things. This one time I was sitting in the back seat and apparently my sister held her hand too hard, and she goes in her baby voice like “OW ur hurting me!!” I wish I was lying but I wanted to throw up ngl…
4/ Always moody and has an attitude. This one time we hangout for my birthday. Not only did she not wake up at all she took over 40 minutes to come down with my sister in her apartment. My cousin who was waiting for us was waiting for an hour in the cold, I wasn’t even the one that made the hangout plans, it’s just their excuse for a date. The worse part is the whole hangout she was so moody and basically ruined the whole atmosphere. She even started crying and left the cafe we were at. After almost an hour she came back and told my cousin that her friend sent a picture of her holding a snake becuz she has a fear of snakes. I’m sorry but crying an hour over a normal picture? Phobias or not I think that’s way too much, it’s not even a creepy one.
5/ Hit my head. Yes this gurl who I do not have any classes with, came to my class to hit my head with a bag of chips. Then she went and hug the friend next to me and they laughed cuz “omg the different lol” and she left without a word. Like wtf? All that for what? I can’t believe people actually go out of their way to piss u off. As she left I got so mad I called her a “btch” and the friend heard and was defending her 😐. Ya u don’t know what she’s like outside of school, and if u were the one she hit and left I know u wouldn’t be laughing. Great I lost a friend thx to a toxic pick me🙃. I didn’t even try to fight back other than saying that she’s annoying. But ik my sister won’t break up with her anyway cuz they’re both red flags.
I’m planning on ignoring her for now but my sister just told me that apparently that gurl hates me but didn’t say why but my sister doesn’t want drama between her gf and sister so she told me to calm down.
What do u guys think I should do? Everyone told me to ignore them but that gurl approaches me???
2023.03.26 09:39 sluggishbanana So, I beat Star Ocean 3/Till the end of time.
No amount of, or combination of words, could possibly get across even half of the insanity present in this game. Nothing could even remotely match the experience of bearing witness to the scale of events in this game, even more so beholding the utterly absurd gameplay balance or lack thereof. On all accounts, this is a video game that wants you to suffer before you get a moment of relief, and stumble around in the darkness for hours before you get some sort of light that makes things legible to you. It's a playable form of untangling hundreds of cables behind a TV stand, if all the cables were covered in barbed wire coated in lemon juice. If you've ever tried to untangle multiple sets of composite cables from one another, you've essentially played Star Ocean 3.
And you know what? I think I absolutely loved it for exactly those reasons.
I'm going to spoil it rotten in this post, so please, be cautious.
I need to address the elephant first. Yes, I thought the plot twist was... an interesting direction to go in. I'll be approaching this entirely from the lens of this game alone, and not the franchise as a whole. I can't make much of an argument in the way of defending how it affects the other games. Execution wise, it was quite poor. I believe there was missed potential in utilizing the concept of an entire universe being contained within a digital space, beyond having it be threatened to be deleted or having crazy ass creatures suddenly start roaming around. I thought the executioners and convictors were all really well designed, especially the former, but again, there was a lot of missed potential. I feel their introduction was WAY too close to their true origin being revealed. It was built up pretty interestingly, especially having people in the Sphere refer to them as gods. But, ultimately, they don't make proper use of this entire concept until the exact very end, where the characters seem to suddenly care about the fact they're all just digital programs. There seriously wasn't enough recognition from the main cast after being told they're all just artificial. It's like they care for one second, the entirety of disc 2 goes by, and then they care again at the end. There's hardly any emotional distraught, second guessing, or basically anything natural of what you'd expect from someone who just found out about something like that. I hate to say it, but it makes what could otherwise be a really interesting dilemma paired with good characters seem extremely paper-thin. But, in all honesty, it's not like I came to this game to be wowed by a super philosophical look into existence or get pulled into some real Xenogears tier shit. I just wanted a dumb game to enjoy at a surface level, and you know what? It did exactly that very well. The main plot outside of all this, despite being pretty generic up until the twist, was strung along well enough. I was compelled enough to make it through the gameplay, but ultimately, I'm not left wanting to sing it's praises beyond saying yeah, it's alright. Cliff is my man, though. Nothing will erase that.
How is that gameplay, though? Well, to put it bluntly, I have never played a game that so outwardly hates the player in my life, and yet, it seems to beg you to break it. Let's get it straight. I highly, highly doubt most people beat this game without spending significant time guiding themselves into making the best possible weapons they could've got. Personally? I broke it out of spite. The gameplay was really not clicking with me for the first few hours despite how much I enjoyed the atmosphere and pacing, so I said screw it. I got myself a million regeneration symbols in the aqueducts, farmed the black knights when I could, spammed the HELL out of blazing sword, and got the holy sword + gatling gauntlets ASAP. Before all this, though? Oh, it was a horror show. Imagine a game where sometimes, the AI is genuinely better off standing still and doing nothing. You think I'm joking, but no, I'm dead serious. Standing still is how you block light attacks in this game. The AI will not, and most likely can not, keep themselves alive. Even with gear from the depths of heaven, and levels out the wazoo, a normal encounter could see any of my AI party members dead or soon to be. There's two reasons for this. One, the lesser, is that running out of MP kills you. This is good for you if you want to kill some bosses in literally two hits, but terrible for you in every other possible way. Two, the greater, ENEMIES HURT. It does not matter how hard you try to break the game, it does not matter how hard you grind, enemies will absolutely hurt you. One on one, most can be dealt with easily. But in any more than one on one, you will find that this game loves to see you stagger in place. The AI does not compute with this. In a game where your best strategy is to be as aggressive as possible, your best bet is to stunlock the enemy before they stunlock you, and the AI simply does not understand this. At their worst, they prioritize spamming attacks until their fury is gone, and then just sit there right in front of the enemy until it regenerates. In the case of magic users, they have no situational awareness. They will cast magic that heals enemies due to elemental affinities and never learn from this. Your only shot is to manually disable their casting of that spell BEFORE the fight. Oh, and did I mention the micromanagement you have to do? Healing is not at all viable to be left in the hands of the AI, due to a bad combination of both their own poor actions and the often incredibly rough casting times (which is different per character and actually makes Albel the best healer, if I remember correctly). If you want to heal as actively as the AI can in other games, your best bet is to manually switch to the healer and do it yourself in a dire situation, assuming they aren't already in a lengthy cast animation. Which, again, sadly leads back into the strategy of literally just letting them sit there and do nothing as a safety precaution. This is all rendered a moot point if you're killing enemies fast enough to not even take any damage, but to get there, you kinda have to... Y'know, break the game first. Which requires playing the game. At a base level, the buttons are often unresponsive and chaining can sometimes be a pain, but you eventually get used to it. There are unintended combos of normal attacks that the game doesn't inform you about, like Fayt being able to do two long-range heavy attacks, which leaves the enemy airborne, only to follow up with a standard light attack, which will be rendered as an anti-air and naturally flow into a third hit. The AI literally cannot do this. The intricacies of each character and their attack style having player-only gimmicks makes each one worth controlling for yourself at least a little bit, so I'll give them that. Although, there's another big issue, and that's attacks simply missing enemies a lot of the time. Oh man, nothing caused me more strife in learning this game than handling the fact your attacks will often just, not hit. Not because of a fickle hit chance, but the hitboxes being weird and the attacks not properly adjusting their angle once they start, making the startup time once you get close enough often put you in a situation where you're guaranteed to miss. On low or flying enemies... Just imagine it. I'll save myself the pain of remembering. As for battle skills, it's a lot like what I expected out of Star Ocean as I know it from my limited experience. Some are bad, but some are good, and the ones that are good, ABUSE THEM. Fayt will learn a skill early on called side kick. Set this to your light and heavy close-range slots. Cancel it into itself repeatedly. The abundance of I-frames will render you a force even the stat-checking enemies in this game will shudder at the thought of. Even better, Cliff learns hammer of might. Spam this even harder than side kick. You will win. But, because of this, I often found myself using only the skills that were good, and not even bothering trying to make the lesser ones work. The only time I ever genuinely changed my strategy of side kick into side kick was when I got dimension door, upon which I set it to my long range attack and used it as a chance to... get close and spam side kick. You see the problem, right? Characters like Adray also simply have no good battle skills that deal damage without exposing them to an easy stagger. There's a clear line between good and unusable in this game, and that's just sad.
As for the raw balance itself, imagine this. I spent several hours gearing up to break this game from hour 10. As soon as I could, I got the proper inventors needed to create orichalcum, the item that breaks the game wide open. In short, proper usage of this item allows any weapon to receive 8 copies of an attribute that raises its attack by 500. For comparison, the best weapon you can buy from a shop in this game has no more than 900 flat damage. Cliff, by the end, was close to 5000 total damage in his status screen, and my team of Cliff, Fayt, and Adray went into the final boss all with similar enough stats. My defense values were closer to 400-500, as armor is much harder to break. Cliff was level 70, Fayt was 69, Adray somewhere in the 64-68 range. So, how did it go?
The final dungeon's enemies were draining Adray's MP significantly due to their health pools, Cliff died about 5 times total going up to the final boss, and Fayt was the only one who didn't die once on account of being who I was controlling. Each encounter was 30 seconds minimum, which you probably wouldn't expect from a party full of weapons with absurdly overblown damage. Oh, that must be a fluke, surely. How did the final boss go?
He party wiped me with one attack after a 10 minute attempt.
There it is. The epitome of this game's balance. No matter how high you get, no matter how stupid you become, if you don't DEDICATE yourself to the grind, you will be squashed. It was after getting wiped that I learned the final boss, in his second phase, is level 120. There is no level scaling in this game, but it should go without saying that a level 120 boss versus a level 70 character is a significant power difference. And this was with my, in total, 10-15 hours of grinding across my 35 hour play time. Most of that was spent turbo'ing encounters that dropped unusually high XP and the eventual grind to perfect my weapons. And still, it was just barely enough. It was a damn fun experience to break the game wide open from hour 10 to 30, but once I reached that cutoff point around the revisit to the shrine of kaddan, I realized just how genuinely screwed up this game's balance really is. I'm making an effort to avoid my issues with the late game dungeon design, as I had the power of savestates with me so my input would be lessened in value, but it only furthered my belief that this game was made as an experiment in frustration for players. Do you like one way doors? Tri-Ace hopes you like one way doors. After a certain while, you literally see the same four enemies copied and pasted repeatedly in the final few dungeons, and they're all boring as hell once you fight them for the 10th time. Even more so when you're sometimes forced into encountering them due to the tight corridor design or literally teleporting into them with no chance to get away. If you're looking for an exercise in your patience, by all means, try out this game's endgame.
So, I'm cutting out A LOT of this game and focusing only on what really sets it apart. So far, it may sound like this game is an offense to god and that I believe it should be burned and thrown into a landfill. But... No. I don't. I actually find myself really, really wanting to play it again in the future. Not for any feigned sense of enjoyment, but out of the genuine enjoyment I had in actually achieving what I did. The game spited me, and so, I bit back. In doing so, I was treated to a surprisingly interesting experience that truly tested me and forced me to git gud at the end, in spite of all my hard work. Like the final attempt of a master attempting to outdo his student, only for the student, despite all the hardship, to finally manage to outdo his master in the end. Yes, it's a painful experience not many would sign up for. But god damn does it feel liberating. You have to run off spite and motivation to see the game through, otherwise you probably won't make it. None of this makes the game good suddenly, oh, far from it. I'm not gonna be telling any of my friends to try out this "underrated masterpiece". But what it did do, is make me understand it a little bit more.
Let's say that something like Persona 5 is the base line of the scale of "casual to hardcore" JRPGs. Anyone can pick it up, even non-fans of the genre, and get through it just fine. A 1 out of 10 in terms of hardcore nature. Let's go on to say that something like SMT: Nocturne is where I'd place the middle of the post. Yes, this game is hard as nails, and it will test veterans and newbies alike, but ultimately anyone can still pick it up, understand it, and conquer it without giving up, be it a painful journey or a swift one. And, in the process, players will be made much more used to the high difficulty nature of the game, which will help out significantly if they were to try out similarly challenging or harder games. 5 out of 10 on the scale. Star Ocean 3, finally, is where I'd place the very end of the hardcore scale at. It is not placed there of raw difficulty, but rather, entirely in how the game is executed. This is not a game anyone can casually pick up without issues, newbie or veteran of the genre. You will understand some concepts, but fail to grasp others without dedicated research into this particular game. The game wants you to LEARN it, make a game plan on how to approach it, and THEN play it. Then, once you've finally gotten a proper handle on it, it'll yank you around from corner to corner without stopping for a second. Whether you fall off and get back on, or fall off and call it quits, depends entirely on if you're motivated to work with the game. You really do have to want to improve if you're going to actually improve. Is that even worth it? That depends on your opinions. Not everyone enjoys having to work entirely off of spite to finish a game. So, uh, to keep it short, 10 out of 10 on the scale.
To summarize my incredibly long and bloated spiel on this weird game: Did I enjoy my time with it? Very much. Would I play it again? Totally. Do I want to recommend it to other people? No. I respect this game, but I do not think it is misunderstood or overhated. People are well within their right to call it bad and not worth playing. But, in spite of it all, I can't help but be fascinated with how this game turned out. If my ramblings on that spurs someone else to try it out of curiosity and have a good time, I'd be happy, but I wouldn't use it as an excuse to try and paint it as misunderstood. I don't think we'll ever see a game like this again, where the end product is so perplexingly torn apart, that people like me end up making walls of text like this trying to say I enjoyed it despite how objectively bad it is. Hell, I won't make fun of people who praise every part of it for a second. Everyone likes different things, and anyone can love anything. But I never expected myself to love something I hate so much like this.
As a final note, this game contains easily some of the best works Motoi Sakuraba has ever produced for a soundtrack. I love this guy's work so much, and the fact I had never heard more of this game's soundtrack shocked me. It was the highlight of the whole thing for me, where everything else faltered at times, the soundtrack literally never let up. Even that weird disc 2 boss theme with the sampled rap lyrics? Yeah, I dig it hard. I cannot believe this was done months before his work on Tales of Symphonia, what I had previously held as my favorite of his work prior. It's like the guy switches his brain into different modes for different franchises. What a legend, honestly. That's finally all I have to say on this game, a few hours after beating it. I enjoyed spilling my thoughts about it on here, even if it'll cause me to be branded a heretic for one reason or another. I'd love to discuss it some more with others, be it positively or negatively.
Glory to Airyglehh, by the way.
submitted by sluggishbanana to JRPG [link] [comments]
And you know what? I think I absolutely loved it for exactly those reasons.
I'm going to spoil it rotten in this post, so please, be cautious.
I need to address the elephant first. Yes, I thought the plot twist was... an interesting direction to go in. I'll be approaching this entirely from the lens of this game alone, and not the franchise as a whole. I can't make much of an argument in the way of defending how it affects the other games. Execution wise, it was quite poor. I believe there was missed potential in utilizing the concept of an entire universe being contained within a digital space, beyond having it be threatened to be deleted or having crazy ass creatures suddenly start roaming around. I thought the executioners and convictors were all really well designed, especially the former, but again, there was a lot of missed potential. I feel their introduction was WAY too close to their true origin being revealed. It was built up pretty interestingly, especially having people in the Sphere refer to them as gods. But, ultimately, they don't make proper use of this entire concept until the exact very end, where the characters seem to suddenly care about the fact they're all just digital programs. There seriously wasn't enough recognition from the main cast after being told they're all just artificial. It's like they care for one second, the entirety of disc 2 goes by, and then they care again at the end. There's hardly any emotional distraught, second guessing, or basically anything natural of what you'd expect from someone who just found out about something like that. I hate to say it, but it makes what could otherwise be a really interesting dilemma paired with good characters seem extremely paper-thin. But, in all honesty, it's not like I came to this game to be wowed by a super philosophical look into existence or get pulled into some real Xenogears tier shit. I just wanted a dumb game to enjoy at a surface level, and you know what? It did exactly that very well. The main plot outside of all this, despite being pretty generic up until the twist, was strung along well enough. I was compelled enough to make it through the gameplay, but ultimately, I'm not left wanting to sing it's praises beyond saying yeah, it's alright. Cliff is my man, though. Nothing will erase that.
How is that gameplay, though? Well, to put it bluntly, I have never played a game that so outwardly hates the player in my life, and yet, it seems to beg you to break it. Let's get it straight. I highly, highly doubt most people beat this game without spending significant time guiding themselves into making the best possible weapons they could've got. Personally? I broke it out of spite. The gameplay was really not clicking with me for the first few hours despite how much I enjoyed the atmosphere and pacing, so I said screw it. I got myself a million regeneration symbols in the aqueducts, farmed the black knights when I could, spammed the HELL out of blazing sword, and got the holy sword + gatling gauntlets ASAP. Before all this, though? Oh, it was a horror show. Imagine a game where sometimes, the AI is genuinely better off standing still and doing nothing. You think I'm joking, but no, I'm dead serious. Standing still is how you block light attacks in this game. The AI will not, and most likely can not, keep themselves alive. Even with gear from the depths of heaven, and levels out the wazoo, a normal encounter could see any of my AI party members dead or soon to be. There's two reasons for this. One, the lesser, is that running out of MP kills you. This is good for you if you want to kill some bosses in literally two hits, but terrible for you in every other possible way. Two, the greater, ENEMIES HURT. It does not matter how hard you try to break the game, it does not matter how hard you grind, enemies will absolutely hurt you. One on one, most can be dealt with easily. But in any more than one on one, you will find that this game loves to see you stagger in place. The AI does not compute with this. In a game where your best strategy is to be as aggressive as possible, your best bet is to stunlock the enemy before they stunlock you, and the AI simply does not understand this. At their worst, they prioritize spamming attacks until their fury is gone, and then just sit there right in front of the enemy until it regenerates. In the case of magic users, they have no situational awareness. They will cast magic that heals enemies due to elemental affinities and never learn from this. Your only shot is to manually disable their casting of that spell BEFORE the fight. Oh, and did I mention the micromanagement you have to do? Healing is not at all viable to be left in the hands of the AI, due to a bad combination of both their own poor actions and the often incredibly rough casting times (which is different per character and actually makes Albel the best healer, if I remember correctly). If you want to heal as actively as the AI can in other games, your best bet is to manually switch to the healer and do it yourself in a dire situation, assuming they aren't already in a lengthy cast animation. Which, again, sadly leads back into the strategy of literally just letting them sit there and do nothing as a safety precaution. This is all rendered a moot point if you're killing enemies fast enough to not even take any damage, but to get there, you kinda have to... Y'know, break the game first. Which requires playing the game. At a base level, the buttons are often unresponsive and chaining can sometimes be a pain, but you eventually get used to it. There are unintended combos of normal attacks that the game doesn't inform you about, like Fayt being able to do two long-range heavy attacks, which leaves the enemy airborne, only to follow up with a standard light attack, which will be rendered as an anti-air and naturally flow into a third hit. The AI literally cannot do this. The intricacies of each character and their attack style having player-only gimmicks makes each one worth controlling for yourself at least a little bit, so I'll give them that. Although, there's another big issue, and that's attacks simply missing enemies a lot of the time. Oh man, nothing caused me more strife in learning this game than handling the fact your attacks will often just, not hit. Not because of a fickle hit chance, but the hitboxes being weird and the attacks not properly adjusting their angle once they start, making the startup time once you get close enough often put you in a situation where you're guaranteed to miss. On low or flying enemies... Just imagine it. I'll save myself the pain of remembering. As for battle skills, it's a lot like what I expected out of Star Ocean as I know it from my limited experience. Some are bad, but some are good, and the ones that are good, ABUSE THEM. Fayt will learn a skill early on called side kick. Set this to your light and heavy close-range slots. Cancel it into itself repeatedly. The abundance of I-frames will render you a force even the stat-checking enemies in this game will shudder at the thought of. Even better, Cliff learns hammer of might. Spam this even harder than side kick. You will win. But, because of this, I often found myself using only the skills that were good, and not even bothering trying to make the lesser ones work. The only time I ever genuinely changed my strategy of side kick into side kick was when I got dimension door, upon which I set it to my long range attack and used it as a chance to... get close and spam side kick. You see the problem, right? Characters like Adray also simply have no good battle skills that deal damage without exposing them to an easy stagger. There's a clear line between good and unusable in this game, and that's just sad.
As for the raw balance itself, imagine this. I spent several hours gearing up to break this game from hour 10. As soon as I could, I got the proper inventors needed to create orichalcum, the item that breaks the game wide open. In short, proper usage of this item allows any weapon to receive 8 copies of an attribute that raises its attack by 500. For comparison, the best weapon you can buy from a shop in this game has no more than 900 flat damage. Cliff, by the end, was close to 5000 total damage in his status screen, and my team of Cliff, Fayt, and Adray went into the final boss all with similar enough stats. My defense values were closer to 400-500, as armor is much harder to break. Cliff was level 70, Fayt was 69, Adray somewhere in the 64-68 range. So, how did it go?
The final dungeon's enemies were draining Adray's MP significantly due to their health pools, Cliff died about 5 times total going up to the final boss, and Fayt was the only one who didn't die once on account of being who I was controlling. Each encounter was 30 seconds minimum, which you probably wouldn't expect from a party full of weapons with absurdly overblown damage. Oh, that must be a fluke, surely. How did the final boss go?
He party wiped me with one attack after a 10 minute attempt.
There it is. The epitome of this game's balance. No matter how high you get, no matter how stupid you become, if you don't DEDICATE yourself to the grind, you will be squashed. It was after getting wiped that I learned the final boss, in his second phase, is level 120. There is no level scaling in this game, but it should go without saying that a level 120 boss versus a level 70 character is a significant power difference. And this was with my, in total, 10-15 hours of grinding across my 35 hour play time. Most of that was spent turbo'ing encounters that dropped unusually high XP and the eventual grind to perfect my weapons. And still, it was just barely enough. It was a damn fun experience to break the game wide open from hour 10 to 30, but once I reached that cutoff point around the revisit to the shrine of kaddan, I realized just how genuinely screwed up this game's balance really is. I'm making an effort to avoid my issues with the late game dungeon design, as I had the power of savestates with me so my input would be lessened in value, but it only furthered my belief that this game was made as an experiment in frustration for players. Do you like one way doors? Tri-Ace hopes you like one way doors. After a certain while, you literally see the same four enemies copied and pasted repeatedly in the final few dungeons, and they're all boring as hell once you fight them for the 10th time. Even more so when you're sometimes forced into encountering them due to the tight corridor design or literally teleporting into them with no chance to get away. If you're looking for an exercise in your patience, by all means, try out this game's endgame.
So, I'm cutting out A LOT of this game and focusing only on what really sets it apart. So far, it may sound like this game is an offense to god and that I believe it should be burned and thrown into a landfill. But... No. I don't. I actually find myself really, really wanting to play it again in the future. Not for any feigned sense of enjoyment, but out of the genuine enjoyment I had in actually achieving what I did. The game spited me, and so, I bit back. In doing so, I was treated to a surprisingly interesting experience that truly tested me and forced me to git gud at the end, in spite of all my hard work. Like the final attempt of a master attempting to outdo his student, only for the student, despite all the hardship, to finally manage to outdo his master in the end. Yes, it's a painful experience not many would sign up for. But god damn does it feel liberating. You have to run off spite and motivation to see the game through, otherwise you probably won't make it. None of this makes the game good suddenly, oh, far from it. I'm not gonna be telling any of my friends to try out this "underrated masterpiece". But what it did do, is make me understand it a little bit more.
Let's say that something like Persona 5 is the base line of the scale of "casual to hardcore" JRPGs. Anyone can pick it up, even non-fans of the genre, and get through it just fine. A 1 out of 10 in terms of hardcore nature. Let's go on to say that something like SMT: Nocturne is where I'd place the middle of the post. Yes, this game is hard as nails, and it will test veterans and newbies alike, but ultimately anyone can still pick it up, understand it, and conquer it without giving up, be it a painful journey or a swift one. And, in the process, players will be made much more used to the high difficulty nature of the game, which will help out significantly if they were to try out similarly challenging or harder games. 5 out of 10 on the scale. Star Ocean 3, finally, is where I'd place the very end of the hardcore scale at. It is not placed there of raw difficulty, but rather, entirely in how the game is executed. This is not a game anyone can casually pick up without issues, newbie or veteran of the genre. You will understand some concepts, but fail to grasp others without dedicated research into this particular game. The game wants you to LEARN it, make a game plan on how to approach it, and THEN play it. Then, once you've finally gotten a proper handle on it, it'll yank you around from corner to corner without stopping for a second. Whether you fall off and get back on, or fall off and call it quits, depends entirely on if you're motivated to work with the game. You really do have to want to improve if you're going to actually improve. Is that even worth it? That depends on your opinions. Not everyone enjoys having to work entirely off of spite to finish a game. So, uh, to keep it short, 10 out of 10 on the scale.
To summarize my incredibly long and bloated spiel on this weird game: Did I enjoy my time with it? Very much. Would I play it again? Totally. Do I want to recommend it to other people? No. I respect this game, but I do not think it is misunderstood or overhated. People are well within their right to call it bad and not worth playing. But, in spite of it all, I can't help but be fascinated with how this game turned out. If my ramblings on that spurs someone else to try it out of curiosity and have a good time, I'd be happy, but I wouldn't use it as an excuse to try and paint it as misunderstood. I don't think we'll ever see a game like this again, where the end product is so perplexingly torn apart, that people like me end up making walls of text like this trying to say I enjoyed it despite how objectively bad it is. Hell, I won't make fun of people who praise every part of it for a second. Everyone likes different things, and anyone can love anything. But I never expected myself to love something I hate so much like this.
As a final note, this game contains easily some of the best works Motoi Sakuraba has ever produced for a soundtrack. I love this guy's work so much, and the fact I had never heard more of this game's soundtrack shocked me. It was the highlight of the whole thing for me, where everything else faltered at times, the soundtrack literally never let up. Even that weird disc 2 boss theme with the sampled rap lyrics? Yeah, I dig it hard. I cannot believe this was done months before his work on Tales of Symphonia, what I had previously held as my favorite of his work prior. It's like the guy switches his brain into different modes for different franchises. What a legend, honestly. That's finally all I have to say on this game, a few hours after beating it. I enjoyed spilling my thoughts about it on here, even if it'll cause me to be branded a heretic for one reason or another. I'd love to discuss it some more with others, be it positively or negatively.
Glory to Airyglehh, by the way.
2023.03.26 09:38 Ethereal_Stars_7 Flight of the War Witch: Part 016: Lived in a Hole
Our worldlost 15m tall cyborg meets a halfling with a ring.
[Previous] Part 015 [Next]
<==--------===-=-===--------==>
/- - Flight of the War Witch - -\
\ =>>>>><0> 016 <0><<<<<= /
\ - - - - Lived in a Hole - - - - - -/
The others gathered at Valkyria's side as she was examining the body they had recovered from the Jellied Tesseract. A body that was apparently not as deceased as they had assumed from being inside the slime monster without air or other means for who knew how long. "No way this is a fellow dungeon delver. I think this is your thing that all the traps were meant to prevent escaping, Roscida." she stated. "As improbable as that is. I am getting very faint vital signs. I am going to deploy emergency resuscitation. That is unless one of you has a better idea?" she asked.
Clade glanced at the small figure laid out and gasped. "You are right. That is no child! That is a Deep One!"
"Whoah? We scored a Halfling? Cool!" declared the War Witch as she ran some diagnostics on the patient. "huh? Amphibious. Biology though is not too different from your own. So anything safe for a dragon should be safe for them." she informed the others. "Heartbeat is weak though. As cliche as this might sound. I am going to try administering some adrenaline and running an electric current through to try and jump start vitals."
Roscida shook her head. "I used up most of my reserve of vraja healing myself. Most I can do now is assist a little with what I have left."
Valkyria nodded and then pulled a scaled up hypo from her emergency medical fabricator and then ran fast calculations for the proper dosage. "This is about the best I can do with what I have. I'd need a Rescue Regalia with all the medical fabricators for anything more than advanced first aid. Here goes..." Checking vitals again she rested her cybernetic hands on either of where the heart was according to her scans. Then she ran a charge between. The body arched on the floor and then sank back. "Heart is still weak." and ran a charge through again. This time the chest began to rise and fall slowly. "Vitals are starting to climb. No idea what is normal for one of them." she declared and all breathed a sigh of relief.
Roscida used up the last of her reserves to speed up recovery of the small amphibian. "I'm out of juice now. The rest is up to them." The Ki-rin knelled at the Deep One's side and rubbed the arms and legs to get the blood flowing.
A few minutes later the large eyes fluttered open and for a moment panic was in those emerald orbs. Then relaxing as they saw that those gathered were not their captor. "Finally! Thank thee for saving this one. But thou must beware! For this tis the abode of a most horrible woman!" The voice was male with a cute little croaking chirping lilt to it.
Roscida smiled as the amphibian spoke similar to her mentor when she was being theatrical, or really angry. "ah. Her. Yeah. We sort of dealt with her already. Permanently. Well mostly she did. But we helped!" said while pointing at the armored dragoness while helping the Deep One sit up. "Never seen a Salamandra before. When you feel up to it we'd love to hear how you ended up down here."
The Deep One nodded and waved a webbed hand. He was bright red with yellow from chin down the front then under to a stub of a tail. "aye m'lady. I am certes feeling my vitality returning after so long trapped within yon quivering horror."
"About that. Just how did you end up inside that thing? Trying to escape?" asked the white and gold cyborg. "Oh and introductions." Which each gave in turn.
The Deep One finally took note of Valkyria's strange nature and sat up straighter. "Thou art some manner of artificial life art thou not?"
"Close. I am part alive and part machine."
"Certes? A cybernetic organism? I did not think the land folk had advanced so far in so short a time?" he asked her curiously.
The term he used came across clear to Valkyria and her black eyelids narrowed. "I am not from... these parts."
"Verily? I am not familiar with much more than the coastal provinces." he admitted. "I wouldst be most interested in hearing of a land where thou tall folk hast made such advancements." He stood up and formally introduced himself. "I am Argen'tea Lingua Gur'gite of the Subsea City of R'lyah - Metall'um Opus District - SeaWalker Technician Third Class. Thanks unto thee once again for rescuing me."
Clade bowed to the Deep One half her height and pointed down the other hallway. "We were about to investigate the other path when we inadvertently attracted the Jelly trap. Do you know what lies down there?"
"Aye m'lady. Yon way lies a most primitive laboratory of the creature that dwelt here. And where I twas held."
"Let me guess. She wanted to dissect you too to learn about your voice?" asked Valkyria while absently rubbing her long plated neck.
The newt-like being nodded. "Aye, tis a sad truth of it indeed. But she twas also after the secret of water-voicing. Our ability to speak while submerged. Which is most assuredly not in our throats. But she could not guess the way of it and thusly devised a most vile means unto which she might torment the words from me."
The War Witch tap-tapped the bridge of her nose. "Did not think to look higher did she?"
Argen'tea's large eyes tried to bug out of his skull at that. He sputtered and croaked much to the cyborg's amusement. "h-h-how? How canst thou know of that which we hast never divulged unto the surface folk?" Said while waving his warms around cutely in consternation.
"Well that is where -my- sonar is?" she stated in totally feigned innocence.
Now the small red amphibian's eyes were near to launching themselves from his skull. "T-T-THEE hast as WATER-VOICE?" Looking as if he were about to explode. "Water-voicing machinery is too bulky! A speaker doth be the size of me!" Waving his hands around as if she had just told him that things without wings can fly.
The War Witch smirked. "That is a story for another day. So crazy in a blue dress tossed you into the Jellied Tesseract to loosen your tongue." she prompted.
He was looking at the mechanical dragoness now the way the Techs back on earth looked at her. But then after a deep breath he did resume his tale. "Aye. She placed two rings upon me to ensure death twould not claim me any time soon. "A Ring of Death's Door to preventeth me slipping too deep by healing me just enough. And a Ring of Fasting so I twould not starve to death. She pulled me out now and then to see if I was ready to talk. But I knew if I did she would vivisect me forthwith thereafter. Then she did leave upon business and did thereafter never return. I endured, but after days upon days of torment by the acids I slipped into a death trance and could only hope to outlast. To offer prayer for succor. And here thou art!"
Clade nodded grimly. "What a monster! Well small consolation. But she is indeed ended in a most permanent and satisfying way. Which is why we are here. To claim this place and turn it from a house of horror into a dwelling of joy by repurposing her own hoard."
"Then the fact that she is brought low is balm enough to me." he chirped wistfully. "I twould most assuredly have liked to see that moment!"
Makrys patted his shoulder. "Valkyria here recorded it all so when we are quit of this place perhaps she can show you."
The white and gold visitor nodded to the Gorgon. "Sure."
The Deep One's shoulders sank a little "ahh. A written report tis not quite the same."
Makrys grinned. "Oh no no! This is so much better. You get to see it all!"
"Oh? Thou didst commit the events unto a viewing orb?"
Roscida grinned too. "No. Like seeing apparitions play. But so real!"
This got the tech staring at the smugly grinning cyborg. "Do not tell me thou hast a Holo-Caster hidden in that frame as well?"
The War Witch resisted the urge to laugh. This was great! She was confounding a being from a more advanced civilization. One who thought her to be some mere mundane construction.
"Nah. Nothing so... Primitive." she teased, snickering as the 'Halfling' looked like he was fit to explode.
<==--------===-=-===--------==>
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[Previous] Part 015 [Next]
<==--------===-=-===--------==>
/- - Flight of the War Witch - -\
\ =>>>>><0> 016 <0><<<<<= /
\ - - - - Lived in a Hole - - - - - -/
The others gathered at Valkyria's side as she was examining the body they had recovered from the Jellied Tesseract. A body that was apparently not as deceased as they had assumed from being inside the slime monster without air or other means for who knew how long. "No way this is a fellow dungeon delver. I think this is your thing that all the traps were meant to prevent escaping, Roscida." she stated. "As improbable as that is. I am getting very faint vital signs. I am going to deploy emergency resuscitation. That is unless one of you has a better idea?" she asked.
Clade glanced at the small figure laid out and gasped. "You are right. That is no child! That is a Deep One!"
"Whoah? We scored a Halfling? Cool!" declared the War Witch as she ran some diagnostics on the patient. "huh? Amphibious. Biology though is not too different from your own. So anything safe for a dragon should be safe for them." she informed the others. "Heartbeat is weak though. As cliche as this might sound. I am going to try administering some adrenaline and running an electric current through to try and jump start vitals."
Roscida shook her head. "I used up most of my reserve of vraja healing myself. Most I can do now is assist a little with what I have left."
Valkyria nodded and then pulled a scaled up hypo from her emergency medical fabricator and then ran fast calculations for the proper dosage. "This is about the best I can do with what I have. I'd need a Rescue Regalia with all the medical fabricators for anything more than advanced first aid. Here goes..." Checking vitals again she rested her cybernetic hands on either of where the heart was according to her scans. Then she ran a charge between. The body arched on the floor and then sank back. "Heart is still weak." and ran a charge through again. This time the chest began to rise and fall slowly. "Vitals are starting to climb. No idea what is normal for one of them." she declared and all breathed a sigh of relief.
Roscida used up the last of her reserves to speed up recovery of the small amphibian. "I'm out of juice now. The rest is up to them." The Ki-rin knelled at the Deep One's side and rubbed the arms and legs to get the blood flowing.
A few minutes later the large eyes fluttered open and for a moment panic was in those emerald orbs. Then relaxing as they saw that those gathered were not their captor. "Finally! Thank thee for saving this one. But thou must beware! For this tis the abode of a most horrible woman!" The voice was male with a cute little croaking chirping lilt to it.
Roscida smiled as the amphibian spoke similar to her mentor when she was being theatrical, or really angry. "ah. Her. Yeah. We sort of dealt with her already. Permanently. Well mostly she did. But we helped!" said while pointing at the armored dragoness while helping the Deep One sit up. "Never seen a Salamandra before. When you feel up to it we'd love to hear how you ended up down here."
The Deep One nodded and waved a webbed hand. He was bright red with yellow from chin down the front then under to a stub of a tail. "aye m'lady. I am certes feeling my vitality returning after so long trapped within yon quivering horror."
"About that. Just how did you end up inside that thing? Trying to escape?" asked the white and gold cyborg. "Oh and introductions." Which each gave in turn.
The Deep One finally took note of Valkyria's strange nature and sat up straighter. "Thou art some manner of artificial life art thou not?"
"Close. I am part alive and part machine."
"Certes? A cybernetic organism? I did not think the land folk had advanced so far in so short a time?" he asked her curiously.
The term he used came across clear to Valkyria and her black eyelids narrowed. "I am not from... these parts."
"Verily? I am not familiar with much more than the coastal provinces." he admitted. "I wouldst be most interested in hearing of a land where thou tall folk hast made such advancements." He stood up and formally introduced himself. "I am Argen'tea Lingua Gur'gite of the Subsea City of R'lyah - Metall'um Opus District - SeaWalker Technician Third Class. Thanks unto thee once again for rescuing me."
Clade bowed to the Deep One half her height and pointed down the other hallway. "We were about to investigate the other path when we inadvertently attracted the Jelly trap. Do you know what lies down there?"
"Aye m'lady. Yon way lies a most primitive laboratory of the creature that dwelt here. And where I twas held."
"Let me guess. She wanted to dissect you too to learn about your voice?" asked Valkyria while absently rubbing her long plated neck.
The newt-like being nodded. "Aye, tis a sad truth of it indeed. But she twas also after the secret of water-voicing. Our ability to speak while submerged. Which is most assuredly not in our throats. But she could not guess the way of it and thusly devised a most vile means unto which she might torment the words from me."
The War Witch tap-tapped the bridge of her nose. "Did not think to look higher did she?"
Argen'tea's large eyes tried to bug out of his skull at that. He sputtered and croaked much to the cyborg's amusement. "h-h-how? How canst thou know of that which we hast never divulged unto the surface folk?" Said while waving his warms around cutely in consternation.
"Well that is where -my- sonar is?" she stated in totally feigned innocence.
Now the small red amphibian's eyes were near to launching themselves from his skull. "T-T-THEE hast as WATER-VOICE?" Looking as if he were about to explode. "Water-voicing machinery is too bulky! A speaker doth be the size of me!" Waving his hands around as if she had just told him that things without wings can fly.
The War Witch smirked. "That is a story for another day. So crazy in a blue dress tossed you into the Jellied Tesseract to loosen your tongue." she prompted.
He was looking at the mechanical dragoness now the way the Techs back on earth looked at her. But then after a deep breath he did resume his tale. "Aye. She placed two rings upon me to ensure death twould not claim me any time soon. "A Ring of Death's Door to preventeth me slipping too deep by healing me just enough. And a Ring of Fasting so I twould not starve to death. She pulled me out now and then to see if I was ready to talk. But I knew if I did she would vivisect me forthwith thereafter. Then she did leave upon business and did thereafter never return. I endured, but after days upon days of torment by the acids I slipped into a death trance and could only hope to outlast. To offer prayer for succor. And here thou art!"
Clade nodded grimly. "What a monster! Well small consolation. But she is indeed ended in a most permanent and satisfying way. Which is why we are here. To claim this place and turn it from a house of horror into a dwelling of joy by repurposing her own hoard."
"Then the fact that she is brought low is balm enough to me." he chirped wistfully. "I twould most assuredly have liked to see that moment!"
Makrys patted his shoulder. "Valkyria here recorded it all so when we are quit of this place perhaps she can show you."
The white and gold visitor nodded to the Gorgon. "Sure."
The Deep One's shoulders sank a little "ahh. A written report tis not quite the same."
Makrys grinned. "Oh no no! This is so much better. You get to see it all!"
"Oh? Thou didst commit the events unto a viewing orb?"
Roscida grinned too. "No. Like seeing apparitions play. But so real!"
This got the tech staring at the smugly grinning cyborg. "Do not tell me thou hast a Holo-Caster hidden in that frame as well?"
The War Witch resisted the urge to laugh. This was great! She was confounding a being from a more advanced civilization. One who thought her to be some mere mundane construction.
"Nah. Nothing so... Primitive." she teased, snickering as the 'Halfling' looked like he was fit to explode.
<==--------===-=-===--------==>
2023.03.26 09:36 aquariumdesire Best Fish Tank Fish for Beginners Aquarium Desire
 | Welcome to Aquarium Desire, knowing what types of fish to choose and how to properly maintain them for optimal health is key. In this blog, we'll explore the best aquarium fish for beginners, including what types are suitable for a 5-gallon tank and a 10-gallon tank, as well as considerations for choosing the right fish and maintenance requirements for different species. With the right information, anyone can create a thriving aquarium that is enjoyable to maintain and beautiful to behold. submitted by aquariumdesire to Aquariums [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/829zpgcce1qa1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75fb3043018ed823aa844171436fbf24586f8d78 Fish Suitable for a 5 Gallon TankWhen deciding on what type of fish to put in a 5 gallon fish tank, it is important to choose species that do not require too much space or too much filtration. Generally, it is recommended that only one fish be kept in a 5 gallon tank. Good choices for a 5 gallon tank include bettas, guppies, danios, and small tetras. It is important to avoid larger fish or those that require a lot of swimming space. While 10 gallon tanks can provide enough space for more than one fish, it is still important to select species that are not too large or that require a lot of filtration. Good choices for a 10 gallon tank include small schooling fish, such as tetras, rasboras, and barbs. It is important to research the specific species to ensure that they are appropriate for the size of the tank.Types of Fish Suitable for a 10 Gallon TankWhen deciding which types of fish to keep in a 10 gallon tank, it is important to consider the size, temperament, and diet of the fish. Some of the most commonly kept fish in 10 gallon tanks include guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies, tetras, and danios. These fish are all relatively small, peaceful, and omnivorous, making them ideal for a 10 gallon tank. It is also important to remember that the stocking density of a tank should not exceed one inch of fish per gallon of water, so it is important to plan ahead and ensure the tank won't become overcrowded. When selecting the best fish for a 10 gallon tank, research is key to ensure that the tank is properly stocked, and the fish are compatible with each other.Considerations for Beginners When Choosing FishWhen it comes to selecting fish for your aquarium, there are many considerations to keep in mind. If you're a beginner, there are even more factors to consider. Depending on the size of your tank, there are certain types of fish that may be better suited for you. For example, a 5-gallon tank is ideal for one or two small tropical fish, such as guppies, tetras, or mollies. If you have a 10-gallon tank, you can house larger fish, such as gouramis, angelfish, or cichlids. It's important to research the fish you are interested in and to understand their care requirements before purchasing them. Some fish also require specific water parameters, so make sure to check those as well. Ultimately, the most important factor to keep in mind when selecting fish is compatibility. Make sure to choose fish that can live harmoniously together.Maintenance Requirements for Different FishMaintaining a healthy and thriving fish tank requires careful consideration and knowledge of the fish species you plan to keep. For a 5 gallon tank, small fish that do not require a lot of swimming space are best. Popular options include bettas, guppies, and tetras. For a 10 gallon tank, there are a wider variety of fish that can be kept due to the increased water volume. Fish such as angelfish, gourami, and barbs are popular choices. Regardless of the size of your tank, it is important to research the specific needs of the fish and to follow the necessary tank maintenance requirements to ensure a healthy and thriving tank.Summary of the Best Aquarium Fish for BeginnersAquariums are a great way to bring a little bit of nature into the home, and for beginners looking to get started, there are some great fish out there to choose from. When starting an aquarium, it is important to consider the size of the tank. For 5 gallon tanks, popular fish include bettas, guppies, and corydoras. For 10 gallon fish tanks, options include mollies, platies, and dwarf gouramis. It is important to keep in mind that some fish prefer to school or be kept in pairs, so research should be done to ensure that the fish are compatible. With the right care and regular maintenance, these fish can bring years of enjoyment to any aquarium.ConclusionWhen you are a beginner in setting up an aquarium, it is important to do your research in order to choose the best fish for your tank. Researching types of fish suitable for a 5-gallon tank and a 10 gallon tank, 10-gallons the maintenance requirements for different fish is essential. Additionally, it is important to consider the temperament of the fish and ensure that the fish can peacefully coexist in the same tank. By taking these factors into consideration and making an informed decision, you can enjoy the hobby of aquarium keeping for years to come. |
2023.03.26 09:32 WillIeverfindtheway Chapter 13. Volume 1.
All these discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of the application of reason are intended to show, that although abstract rational knowledge is the reflex of ideas of perception, and is founded on them, it is by no means in such entire congruity with them that it could everywhere take their place: indeed it never corresponds to them quite accurately. And thus, as we have seen, many human actions can only be performed by the help of reason and deliberation, and yet there are some which are better performed without its assistance. This very incongruity of sensuous and abstract knowledge, on account of which the latter always merely approximates to the former, as mosaic approximates to painting, is the cause of a very remarkable phenomenon which, like reason itself, is peculiar to human nature, and of which the explanations that have ever anew been attempted, are insufficient: I mean laughter. On account of the source of this phenomenon, we cannot avoid giving the explanation of it here, though it again interrupts the course of our work to do so. The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity. It often occurs in this way: two or more real objects are thought through one concept, and the identity of the concept is transferred to the objects; it then becomes strikingly apparent from the entire difference of the objects in other respects, that the concept was only applicable to them from a one-sided point of view. It occurs just as often, however, that the incongruity between a single real object and the concept under which, from one point of view, it has rightly been subsumed, is suddenly felt. Now the more correct the subsumption of such objects under a concept may be from one point of view, and the greater and more glaring their incongruity with it, from another point of view, the greater is the ludicrous effect which is produced by this contrast. All laughter then is occasioned by a paradox, and therefore by unexpected subsumption, whether this is expressed in words or in actions. This, briefly stated, is the true explanation of the ludicrous. I shall not pause here to relate anecdotes as examples to illustrate my theory; for it is so simple and comprehensible that it does not require them, and everything ludicrous which the reader may remember is equally valuable as a proof of it. But the theory is confirmed and illustrated by distinguishing two species into which the ludicrous is divided, and which result from the theory. Either, we have previously known two or more very different real objects, ideas of sense-perception, and have intentionally identified them through the unity of a concept which comprehends them both; this species of the ludicrous is called wit. Or, conversely, the concept is first present in knowledge, and we pass from it to reality, and to operation upon it, to action: objects which in other respects are fundamentally different, but which are all thought in that one concept, are now regarded and treated in the same way, till, to the surprise and astonishment of the person acting, the great difference of their other aspects appears: this species of the ludicrous is called folly. Therefore everything ludicrous is either a flash of wit or a foolish action, according as the procedure has been from the discrepancy of the objects to the identity of the concept, or the converse; the former always intentional, the latter always unintentional, and from without. To seem to reverse the starting-point, and to conceal wit with the mask of folly, is the art of the jester and the clown. Being quite aware of the diversity of the objects, the jester unites them, with secret wit, under one concept, and then starting from this concept he receives from the subsequently discovered diversity of the objects the surprise which he himself prepared. It follows from this short but sufficient theory of the ludicrous, that, if we set aside the last case, that of the jester, wit must always show itself in words, folly generally in actions, though also in words, when it only expresses an intention and does not actually carry it out, or when it shows itself merely in judgments and opinions. Pedantry is a form of folly. It arises in this way: a man lacks confidence in his own understanding, and, therefore, does not wish to trust to it, to recognise what is right directly in the particular case. He, therefore, puts it entirely under the control of the reason, and seeks to be guided by reason in everything; that is to say, he tries always to proceed from general concepts, rules, and maxims, and to confine himself strictly to them in life, in art, and even in moral conduct. Hence that clinging to the form, to the manner, to the expression and word which is characteristic of pedantry, and which with it takes the place of the real nature of the matter. The incongruity then between the concept and reality soon shows itself here, and it becomes evident that the former never condescends to the particular case, and that with its generality and rigid definiteness it can never accurately apply to the fine distinctions of difference and innumerable modifications of the actual. Therefore, the pedant, with his general maxims, almost always misses the mark in life, shows himself to be foolish, awkward, useless. In art, in which the concept is unfruitful, he produces lifeless, stiff, abortive mannerisms. Even with regard to ethics, the purpose to act rightly or nobly cannot always be carried out in accordance with abstract maxims; for in many cases the excessively nice distinctions in the nature of the circumstances necessitate a choice of the right proceeding directly from the character; for the application of mere abstract maxims sometimes gives false results, because the maxims only half apply; and sometimes cannot be carried out, because they are foreign to the individual character of the actor, and this never allows itself to be entirely discovered; therefore, inconsistencies arise. Since then Kant makes it a condition of the moral worth of an action, that it shall proceed from pure rational abstract maxims, without any inclination or momentary emotion, we cannot entirely absolve him from the reproach of encouraging moral pedantry. This reproach is the significance of Schiller's epigram, entitled “Scruples of Conscience.” When we speak, especially in connection with politics, of doctrinaires, theorists, savants, and so forth, we mean pedants, that is, persons who know the things well in the abstract, but not in the concrete. Abstraction consists in thinking away the less general predicates; but it is precisely upon these that so much depends in practice. To complete our theory it remains for us to mention a spurious kind of wit, the play upon words, the calembourg, the pun, to which may be added the equivocation, the double entendre, the chief use of which is the expression of what is obscene. Just as the witticism brings two very different real objects under one concept, the pun brings two different concepts, by the assistance of accident, under one word. The same contrast appears, only familiar and more superficial, because it does not spring from the nature of things, but merely from the accident of nomenclature. In the case of the witticism the identity is in the concept, the difference in the reality, but in the case of the pun the difference is in the concepts and the identity in the reality, for the terminology is here the reality. It would only be a somewhat far-fetched comparison if we were to say that the pun is related to the witticism as the parabola of the upper inverted cone to that of the lower. The misunderstanding of the word or the quid pro quo is the unintentional pun, and is related to it exactly as folly is to wit. Thus the deaf man often affords occasion for laughter, just as much as the fool, and inferior writers of comedy often use the former for the latter to raise a laugh. I have treated laughter here only from the psychical side; with regard to the physical side, I refer to what is said on the subject in the “Parerga,” vol. II. ch. vi., § 98.18.
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2023.03.26 09:25 TheTelegraph Martin Lewis: The money-saving expert on his mental health struggles, obscene work focus and the secret to ‘ultimate empowerment’
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2023.03.26 09:23 AutoModerator [Complete] Charisma University by Charlie Houpert
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2023.03.26 09:19 Crafty_Current_9745 SQE1 Exam Sharing
Since the launch of SQE1 in November 2021, 3 rounds of exams were held. There are limited posts and sharings given the novelty of the exams so I guess that it would be helpful to share my experience with the January 2023 cohort.
Background
I am working as a full time lawyer with 8+ pqe and admitted in a non-US common law jurisdiction with a double degree in accounting and law. My first langauge is NOT English. I completed a master of law in a UK university around 10 years ago. I pass the SQE1 in the first attempt in the January 2023 diet and acheive 80%+ for both FLK1 and FLK2.
Prep School
The first common question is whether you need a prep school. The views expressed below are entirely personal opinions since each person would have their own studying methods and preferences.
In my view, prep school is essential if
(a) you have not completed your legal qualification (such as LLB/GDL/PGDL) in the UK; or
(b) you have graduated for some time and you have forgotten large chunks of laws back in your study; or
(c) you work full time (be it a lawyer or a house taker or whatever) and you do not have sufficent resources to research and locate the study material.
The second common question is which prep school you should choose. I formed a study group with a few friends. In order to maximize our resources, we have each subscribed different prep schools and compared the materials (Barbri / QLTS / OUP / UoL). DISCLAIMER: all comments are personal and each user would have different feelings on the course providers.
Based on the table, one would probably agree that each prep school has its strengths and weaknesses. Further, the comments would very much depend on personal preferences. In choosing a prep school, I would recommend you trying the free session of each prep school first.
Studying for the Exam
After selecting the proper prep school, it is time for you to study. So, the third question is how much time you need to prepare for the exam.
Again, it depends a lot of the circumstances. In my view, the following two elements would be of significant weight: (a) a common law background; and (b) your practice area.
If you have a common law background, for tort, contract, criminal, trust and business law, you should already have a basic, if not sound foundation on these topics. One may just simply flip through the relevant chapters in the prep school manuals and then start doing the practice questions.
The other topics are more tricky and this is when your practice area is relevant. If you are a litigator, you may find civil procedure very easy. If you work as a criminal defender, no doubt criminal procedure (and some of the public law topics) would be at your finger tips but you probably would like to spend more time on other areas.
For people who do not complete a UK law degree: land law and property practice are big problems and they contribute around 35% of questions in FLK2. You should be prepared to spend a lot of time on these two areas since the UK land law is very different from other common law jurisdictions. I would suggest that anyone who has issues with land law to buy a copy of Concentrate Land Law from OUP. I find that if you know this book inside out, you probably will master at least half of the questions related to land law and property practice in FLK2.
Personally, I prepared the exam for 8 months. I rarely studied in weekdays due to work commitment (except for the last month before the exam) and I spent around 5 to 6 hours each day on Saturdays and Sundays. I took around 10 days off before the exam and spent around 6 hours a day to revise. Instead of reading books, I spent a lot of time doing practice questions and reviewed the explanations. I completed all the practice questions and the 30 mock exams in QLTS package. On balance, 65% of my time were on FLK2 topics while the remaining on FLK1 topics.
Speific topics: Ethics, financial services, solicitor accounts and tax
Many candidates are uncomfortable in these topics.
However, in the real exam, for ethics, the fact patterns are relatively straight forward and are covered in most prep school manuals. These are easy marks which one could get without difficulties.
The topic of financial services only appears in FLK1. It is NOT NECESSARY for you to memorize the complex rules (as found in QLTS books). In the examination, they only test you basic concepts (such as when authorizations and exemptions apply, note the special rules for insurance). The UoL books in my view better reflect what are examinable for this topic.
The topic of solicitor accounts is painful to some candidates. It is only tested in FLK2. As someone with accounting background, I only spend 30 minutes to read through the relevant rules on the SRA website and then start doing the practice questions. If you know the underlying concepts, the question is simply a formality. Again, I would recommend UoL books for those who are struggling with this topic.
Tax is a headache to most candidates. However, given the structure of the exam, one would probably safe to conclude that inheritance tax and stamp duty land tax would normally be found in FLK2 whereas income tax is usually in FLK1. In the real examination, I recall that there are only 2 or 3 questions which involve very simple calculation. So there is simply no need to worry if you are weak at maths. Further, the questions test on major topics (such as business relief exemption, captial gain exemption for own residence or small sum relief for inheritance tax). You do not need to learn very specialized rules (they are for accountants). If you do not have enough time, giving up tax topics is possible.
Passing the Examination
The exam adopts a multiple choice style and you need to choose the best answer from 5 options. You are required to answer 180 questions for each FLK.
Naturally, controversial or developing topics cannot be tested (although you will find them to be the major components in your law school exam questions), for example: whether detriment is needed for promissory estoppel to arise; whether a book debt could be the subject of a fixed charge; whether remedial constructive trust exists in law; whether you need an actual knowledge or constructive knowledge in a knowing receipt claim etc..
In my experience, out of 180 questions for each FLK,
(a) around 20% are simple factual recall or book work question in very familiar fact patterns (examples: effect of a contract under misrepresentation: a voidable contract as opposed to a void contract; transfer of equitable interest of a property: when the contract is signed);
(b) another 30% are less familar fact scenario questions which you need to apply the relevant laws;
(c) another 30% are advanced questions where the correct legal principles are stayed in 2 or 3 options but only one is applicable to the specific facts. You would need to use the method of elimination; and
(d) the remaining 20% questions test on very uncommon topics or very specialized issues (example: extended period of professional indemnity insurance if the original insurance is expired: the 30 + 60 days model). This 20% can be fairly ignored since most candidates would not be able to answer.
submitted by Crafty_Current_9745 to uklaw [link] [comments]
Background
I am working as a full time lawyer with 8+ pqe and admitted in a non-US common law jurisdiction with a double degree in accounting and law. My first langauge is NOT English. I completed a master of law in a UK university around 10 years ago. I pass the SQE1 in the first attempt in the January 2023 diet and acheive 80%+ for both FLK1 and FLK2.
Prep School
The first common question is whether you need a prep school. The views expressed below are entirely personal opinions since each person would have their own studying methods and preferences.
In my view, prep school is essential if
(a) you have not completed your legal qualification (such as LLB/GDL/PGDL) in the UK; or
(b) you have graduated for some time and you have forgotten large chunks of laws back in your study; or
(c) you work full time (be it a lawyer or a house taker or whatever) and you do not have sufficent resources to research and locate the study material.
The second common question is which prep school you should choose. I formed a study group with a few friends. In order to maximize our resources, we have each subscribed different prep schools and compared the materials (Barbri / QLTS / OUP / UoL). DISCLAIMER: all comments are personal and each user would have different feelings on the course providers.
| Course Provider (in alphabetical order) | Barbri | QLTS | OUP | UoL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pros | - the textbook is very concise and is easy to read - the video lecture is comprehensive and explains the laws clearly | - the practice tests and mock exams are very comprehensive (in fact I recall that some of the questions in the real exam are very similar, if not identical to the mock) | - the course material is cheap | - it has the best textbooks out of the 4 prep schools, sufficient in content (cf Barbri) but not excessive (cf with QLTS) - the difficulty of the mock exam is similar to the real exam |
| Cons | - the practice question is much easier than the real exam (the real exam contains questions which are quite tricky) - a concise textbook would suggest that some of the examinable contents are missed (I would say that the book covers 85% of examinable content so you would still obtain a pass if you study the book well) | - there are 16 books and the details in the books well exceed what you need in exam - some of the content in the books and the questions are incorrect or outdated (around 5%) - the practice questions in geneal are more difficult than the real exam | - the material is not in good quality since it does not cover enough for core llb topics - the practice question is poorly designed | - very expensive, double the price of Barbri and QLTS |
Studying for the Exam
After selecting the proper prep school, it is time for you to study. So, the third question is how much time you need to prepare for the exam.
Again, it depends a lot of the circumstances. In my view, the following two elements would be of significant weight: (a) a common law background; and (b) your practice area.
If you have a common law background, for tort, contract, criminal, trust and business law, you should already have a basic, if not sound foundation on these topics. One may just simply flip through the relevant chapters in the prep school manuals and then start doing the practice questions.
The other topics are more tricky and this is when your practice area is relevant. If you are a litigator, you may find civil procedure very easy. If you work as a criminal defender, no doubt criminal procedure (and some of the public law topics) would be at your finger tips but you probably would like to spend more time on other areas.
For people who do not complete a UK law degree: land law and property practice are big problems and they contribute around 35% of questions in FLK2. You should be prepared to spend a lot of time on these two areas since the UK land law is very different from other common law jurisdictions. I would suggest that anyone who has issues with land law to buy a copy of Concentrate Land Law from OUP. I find that if you know this book inside out, you probably will master at least half of the questions related to land law and property practice in FLK2.
Personally, I prepared the exam for 8 months. I rarely studied in weekdays due to work commitment (except for the last month before the exam) and I spent around 5 to 6 hours each day on Saturdays and Sundays. I took around 10 days off before the exam and spent around 6 hours a day to revise. Instead of reading books, I spent a lot of time doing practice questions and reviewed the explanations. I completed all the practice questions and the 30 mock exams in QLTS package. On balance, 65% of my time were on FLK2 topics while the remaining on FLK1 topics.
Speific topics: Ethics, financial services, solicitor accounts and tax
Many candidates are uncomfortable in these topics.
However, in the real exam, for ethics, the fact patterns are relatively straight forward and are covered in most prep school manuals. These are easy marks which one could get without difficulties.
The topic of financial services only appears in FLK1. It is NOT NECESSARY for you to memorize the complex rules (as found in QLTS books). In the examination, they only test you basic concepts (such as when authorizations and exemptions apply, note the special rules for insurance). The UoL books in my view better reflect what are examinable for this topic.
The topic of solicitor accounts is painful to some candidates. It is only tested in FLK2. As someone with accounting background, I only spend 30 minutes to read through the relevant rules on the SRA website and then start doing the practice questions. If you know the underlying concepts, the question is simply a formality. Again, I would recommend UoL books for those who are struggling with this topic.
Tax is a headache to most candidates. However, given the structure of the exam, one would probably safe to conclude that inheritance tax and stamp duty land tax would normally be found in FLK2 whereas income tax is usually in FLK1. In the real examination, I recall that there are only 2 or 3 questions which involve very simple calculation. So there is simply no need to worry if you are weak at maths. Further, the questions test on major topics (such as business relief exemption, captial gain exemption for own residence or small sum relief for inheritance tax). You do not need to learn very specialized rules (they are for accountants). If you do not have enough time, giving up tax topics is possible.
Passing the Examination
The exam adopts a multiple choice style and you need to choose the best answer from 5 options. You are required to answer 180 questions for each FLK.
Naturally, controversial or developing topics cannot be tested (although you will find them to be the major components in your law school exam questions), for example: whether detriment is needed for promissory estoppel to arise; whether a book debt could be the subject of a fixed charge; whether remedial constructive trust exists in law; whether you need an actual knowledge or constructive knowledge in a knowing receipt claim etc..
In my experience, out of 180 questions for each FLK,
(a) around 20% are simple factual recall or book work question in very familiar fact patterns (examples: effect of a contract under misrepresentation: a voidable contract as opposed to a void contract; transfer of equitable interest of a property: when the contract is signed);
(b) another 30% are less familar fact scenario questions which you need to apply the relevant laws;
(c) another 30% are advanced questions where the correct legal principles are stayed in 2 or 3 options but only one is applicable to the specific facts. You would need to use the method of elimination; and
(d) the remaining 20% questions test on very uncommon topics or very specialized issues (example: extended period of professional indemnity insurance if the original insurance is expired: the 30 + 60 days model). This 20% can be fairly ignored since most candidates would not be able to answer.
2023.03.26 09:15 AutoModerator Charlie Houpert - Charisma University (Updated Course)
Contact me on (+44) 7593880762 on Telegram/WhatsApp if you have interest in Charilie Houpert - Charisma University course.
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Contact us today if you are interested in Charisma University in one of the following ways:
Reddit DM to u/RequestCourseAccess
WhatApp/Telegram: (+44) 7593880762
**Email: silverlakestore//@//yandex.com (remove the brackets).
submitted by AutoModerator to ItsCharlieHouperts [link] [comments]
Charisma University by Charlie Houpert is the ultimate tool for mastering the art of charm and making lasting impressions. With Charisma University, you will:
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Contact us today if you are interested in Charisma University in one of the following ways:
Reddit DM to u/RequestCourseAccess
WhatApp/Telegram: (+44) 7593880762
**Email: silverlakestore//@//yandex.com (remove the brackets).
2023.03.26 09:06 marniesus My ex thinks his house is haunted, and wants me to investigate. The "Ghost Experiments" videos he sent me are... terrifying.
I hadn't thought about Jared for five, six years, until yesterday. The only memento I have of our entire relationship is a polaroid photo of the two of us, buried in a box in my closet, somewhere.
As I put my socks away, my mind flashed to Jared, who always stuffed his socks between the bed and the nightstand. One of those cute, weird little memories you have of someone you were in a relationship with. Moments later, my phone buzzed from the nearby dresser. It was an email from Jared.
Wow, that's serendipitous, I thought, before scanning the subject line:
The Ghost Experiments. [HELP!]
Spooky! Or at least, it would be, if I didn't get loads of emails with variations on the word 'ghost' in the subject line. Let me give you some background before I dive in to the content of the email:
To make a long story short, Jared asked me out for coffee one day after class, and we ended up dating for about a year. We were both quite logical people, and suited each other well. We both enjoyed our own spaces too much to ever live together, but we were happy for a while. Things ended when Jared had to report for RCMP training in Regina, Saskatchewan, whereas I remained in BC to finish up my studies. Jared wasn't sure where he would get posted after graduation, so it was reasonable to end things. In retrospect, Jared was the kindest, most level-headed man I've ever dated. Though I haven't exactly been pining for him all these years since. Relationships come and go, and I started my career shortly afterwards. Six months after college I got a job as a Forensic Imaging Technician in a small private lab. I toiled away as a technician for years before getting promoted to Image Analyst. Analysts are the ones that perform things like image authentication, and photogrammetry. They also get all the best software, and coolest toys.
Aside from seeing the absolute horrors of mankind on a regular basis, I enjoyed my job. The work was fulfilling, my hours weren't too bad, and my coworkers ranged from tolerable to excellent. In my findings that is above average for a workplace. One month after my promotion to Analyst, I woke up to an email telling me that I got laid off and no longer had a job. I felt gutted. YEARS of hard work down the drain. I'm still bitter about it, if I'm being honest. Even worse still, there were no comparable jobs anywhere in my area. I hated the idea of leaving the Vancouver area, expensive as it may be, so I got a full-time gig as a server in a restaurant. I found a smaller apartment with my new coworker Sara, and things were starting to look up. Despite that, depression was kicking my ass, and I was sad I wasn't doing lab work anymore. After wallowing in sadness, I did what any over-educated, broke millennial would do: I started a YouTube channel.
I made videos on forensic imaging techniques, and spotting common photography tricks. I'm proud of my videos, but nothing exactly paid my rent or broke the algorithm. That is until one October, Sara encouraged me to do something spooky for Halloween. I've always enjoyed ghost stories, but I'm an absolute skeptic, which I wanted to make very clear. I released a video debunking "paranormal" or "ghost" footage. Taking five different videos of "paranormal activity", I broke down their rational explanations. There were a lot of strings pulling doors, or drawers. Plenty of poor quality cameras make 'ghosts' for various reasons. Certain cameras have low shutter speeds, or poor quality codecs that cause all manner of aberrations. Spotting computer generated imagery (CGI) can be tricky, but there are plenty of tells if you know where to look. Sometimes, 'ghosts' were actually dust near the camera lens, and so on. Frankly, this was my least-technical, lowest effort video on the entire channel... so of course this was the video that blew up and got loads of views. Getting ad revenue and sponsorships was exciting, so I decided to make a few similar videos. I could have kept making those videos, but ghosts weren't something I was passionate about. I went back to making my regular content in November, and the well dried up quick. The whole ordeal left me feeling depressed once again. I had no lines on another lab job, my channel was dying, and I was going through the motions in my day-to-day life. Until the email.
(I've removed some identifying information, but otherwise will preserve as much content as possible.)
Subject line: The Ghost Experiments [HELP!]
Hey Marnie,
It's Jared, from our days at [College name], I hope you're keeping well. I heard what happened to your lab last year, sorry to hear about that.
The reason I'm writing is we've had some unusual things happening in our home. I've set up cameras and audio recorders to try to figure it what's going on, but I'm working such long hours these days. I don't have as much time to look into this as I would like.
I've attached an explanation video, and all the raw files in a Google Drive for you to review at your earliest convenience. If you're interested, we would pay you $2000 to come over to our place in [town] on Vancouver Island for a few days. You can run whatever experiments you see fit, and use the content for your channel as long as you don't show our faces. We have a guest room and plenty of space for you to work in. Our second baby is on the way, and I'm willing to do anything to reduce our stress.
We're really scared.
If I don't hear from you in the next two weeks, I'll assume you're not interested and I won't bother you again.
Warmly, Cpl. Jared [REDACTED]
P.S Apologies for the dramatic subject line, I thought it might get your attention.
---------------------------------
I have to admit my initial thoughts focused on the wrong things: Wife? Second baby on the way?! Clearly I hadn't creeped him enough on social media over the last few years... Bad thoughts, Marnie. Put those away! I definitely didn't know what to make of the fact that they were scared. Was he pranking me? I had to admit the proposal was interesting, though. $2000 in Vancouver was... well, one month's rent. But getting one month of rent for a few days of work and some fodder for another video was tempting.
I opened up the attached Google Drive. I was surprised to see over 70 gigabytes of content in the drive. In the main folder was a video labeled "EDITED_EXPLANATION.mp4", followed by folders labeled "RAW FOOTAGE", "AUDIO RECORDINGS", "HOUSE", "RECORDS" and "FINDINGS". If this was a prank, it was an elaborate one. To determine if any of this was even worth my time, I clicked on the explanation video first.
"Hey Marnie." Jared was smiling, but he sounds tired, "I'm recording this because there's some unusual stuff going on in my house. Jenny's really freaked out, and I... I don't know. If you had asked me 2 months ago if I thought ghosts were real, I would have said 'No'. No way. But now I'm so sleep deprived I'm not even sure anyway. I saw your ghost debunking videos and I'm hoping you can be a voice of reason here. I need help to figure out what exactly this is."
Jared cleared his throat. "Okay, I'll start from the beginning. We moved into this place here in [town] two months ago, super nice home, brand new development. The very first night, we woke up to a loud banging noise at exactly 3:24am. I shot out of bed, grabbed my sidearm, and cleared each room. Nobody was inside or outside our property, and there was no sign of an intruder. No forced entry or anything like that. I grabbed Simon -- that's my son, Simon, he's 11 months old now, so 9 months old at the time -- from the nursery and came back to bed. We weren't sure what it was, but we went back to bed after I was certain there was no immediate threat to my family."
"Then it happened again the next night. The exact same time, 3:24am. Bang bang bang!" Jared made a knocking gesture in the air, "Simon was co-sleeping with us that night. I cleared the house again, I checked the yard, I walked around the property. Nothing. Now it was a pattern, and after two shitty sleeps in a row, I decided to leave my phone recording all night. I'll play the clip now."
The screen cut to black, only the date and the timestamp was visible. 3:24am, like before, followed by a startling loud noise. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. Two sets of five knocks. I jumped in my chair at the volume of the noise, cursing under my breath. You can hear baby Simon start to cry and the commotion of his parents getting startled awake. The video cuts back to Jared in the kitchen.
"I'll spare you more of this, but if you check the audio recordings you can find 19 individual recordings. All loud bangs, two sets of five knocks at exactly 3:24 in the morning. There would be more, but, we got kind of... numb to it after a while, and, well, you'll see."
At this point I started wondering, why me? I'm an imaging specialist, not an audio expert. Much to my annoyance, video-Jared seemed to read my thoughts:
"Now I know you're more of a video expert, but if you do have any contacts in forensic audio feel free to send those along." You presumptuous bastard... I do have a friend like that. "I haven't told anyone at work about what's going on... Not sure how I'd even begin explaining this. After 3 days of these noises, I picked up a bunch of home security cameras that do night vision, and audio. I put them all over the house: Interior and exterior. Aside from the bathroom, the only room I didn't put a camera in was Jen's studio. She's a professional seamstress and didn't like the idea of a camera staring at her while she worked. She caved and you'll notice in the recordings that footage from her studio pops up around day 24. to catch anyone creeping around, I had large motion sensor lights installed outside. Oh, and I put some small motion sensors in the hallways."
The camera cuts to the kitchen, the master bedroom, nursery, two hallways, guest bedroom, garage, front yard, and back yard.. One thing was clear to me: This house was nice. Like, 'how on earth does a Corporal and a seamstress afford this' level nice. Does Jen come from money? Jared certainly doesn't, it would take me years to save up for a place like this with my old analyst salary.
"After installing the cameras, I managed to capture something the very first night." The video cuts to several exterior night shots, the motion lights are off, all is still. 'Day 3' displays on the screen, and the timestamp is visible in the corner. In the hallway closest to the bedroom, the clock now reads 3:23am. The motion light turns on, illuminating the hall, but no one is in frame. The hallway is silent. As the clock changes to 3:24am, the sensor light switches off. A pause, then two sets of five knocks. My ears ring at the sheer volume of the knocks. On the footage, Jared springs out of bed and comes out into the hallway in a t-shirt and boxers, his gun drawn. The hallway motion light turns on as Jared yells for anyone to make themselves known. The video follows him as he searches through the various rooms of the house. Jen stays in the bedroom, clutching their baby to her chest. The video cuts back to Jared narrating in the kitchen.
"As you can see, right before the knocking sounds, something set off our motion sensors in the hallway. I scanned every scrap of surveillance footage from that day, and I can tell you, no one's entered our house. All the footage is there on the drive if you want to review it for yourself. Now I know what you're thinking: It could be a faulty motion sensor. I thought the same, so I replaced [brand X] motion sensor light with [brand Y] the very next day to be sure."
The video cuts to Day 4, 3:23am. The new [brand Y] motion light is in view. Jared sits awake in an uncomfortable looking wooden chair in the hallway, phone and gun in hand. The light in the hallway is off as another set of loud pounding noises go off as the time changes to 3:24am. The noise sounds further away now, distant. Jared springs out of the chair and whirls around with his gun, trying to discern the source of the sound. The camera angle switches to Hallway 2, closer to the guest bedroom. At 3:23am, the new motion light turns on, and the guest door starts shaking with the knocks at 3:24am.
"So here's the thing..." Kitchen-Narrator Jared continues, "the knocking noise comes from a different spot every night. The noise happens at a consistent enough time that this could a hoax with a wireless speaker. But the fact it moves from room to room without anyone getting caught on camera is perplexing. You can confirm this with the attached raw surveillance footage. My phone's audio recordings have similar results if you check those out in the google drive. Some nights the knocking's loud, other times we can barely hear it. We're actually starting to sleep through it, now..." His voice was weary, almost resigned to this fact. In that moment I felt bad for Jared, though I wasn't sure how I could help.
"I wish I could say we were only dealing with loud noises in the middle of the night, but here's where you come in. On Day 14, I captured this." We cut away from Jared and are now watching Jen playing with baby Simon in the kitchen, the timestamp reads 10:35am. It's the middle of the day, light is pouring in from the beautiful framed windows. The house looks serene like this, much less spooky than the previous few nights worth of footage.
Behind Jen, the utensil drawer slides open on its own. I've seen plenty of shots like this in fake paranormal videos. I leaned in, hoping to spot an obvious sign of a hoax. Usually they put one string on the drawer, and one string on a utensil, then pull on it hard. This rips the object across the room and makes a little jump scare. What happened instead took me by surprise.
A silver spoon gently floats out of the drawer, twirling upwards into the air. It rotates, spinning in a few different directions - not impossible to fake with strings, but quite difficult. This could be CG, but it seems real at first glance. The levitating spoon spins higher into the air, and baby Simon starts grabbing towards it. You can hear him giggle on the tape, he's excited by the flying spoon. Jen turns her head over her shoulder to see what Simon's looking at. Exactly the moment she does that, the spoon drops back down into the drawer with a loud CRASH. Jen startles at the noise, and gets up to look at the utensil drawer. She seems confused. We're then brought back to Jared in the kitchen.
"If you check the footage, you'll see I had left for work hours before, and Jen was with Simon all morning." For a moment, video cuts to Jared walking out the door in full police gear at 4:45am. "The spoon's on the raw footage too, in case you think we did that with computers or whatever."
I found myself annoyed at how well Jared was predicting my reactions. Was this an elaborate prank? Why would a family man want to get one over on his ex from college? It's not like we had a falling out, in fact, he ended things with me! It didn't make any sense. Before my thoughts could catch up to my feelings, the video carried on:
"Loud noises and floating silverware are one thing, but this next clip is the real reason I--we wanted your expertise." Interesting Freudian slip there, Jared. The video takes us to night vision footage of the nursery, with "Day 35" and the timestamp of 2:13am. Little Simon stirs from his sleep, and wakes up in his crib. He makes a few cooing noises as he gets up and tries to prop himself up on the sides of his crib. His lets out a little giggle, looking in the direction of the closet.
Then, rising up from the ground, a shadowy figure emerges from the floor. The shape gets taller, and taller, until it looms over Simon's crib. It's in the rough shape of a man, has no distinguishable features, and is semi-transparent. My immediate reaction is this has to be CG, but the effect looks…good. The shadowy figure’s hand reaches out towards Simon, and holds its arm in position. Simon laughs and makes grasping motions towards the figure's "hand". The figure remains motionless for a moment, and Simon bobs up and down with excitement.
The other arm reaches out towards Simon. Both hands are now inching closer to the baby, who seems thrilled with his dark visitor. Long black figures grasp Simon’s sides, like how any parent would pick up their baby. The figure starts to slowly lift little Simon off the ground, his toes no longer touching the crib. Suddenly, Simon winces and lets out a sharp cry of pain. I recoil at the noise.
The figure stops lifting Simon, and holds him motionless, arms stretched in front. If the being had a face, I’d say it was staring at him.
Simon starts squirming in the figure’s hands. I fight the urge to look away from the screen…
Then the door opens.
Light bursts in from the hallway. The instant that happens, the shadowy figure drops into the floor, disappearing completely. Simon drops almost a foot down into the crib, stumbling. Jen rushes over to the crib and inspects Simon. She picks him up, and takes him out of the room.
Skeptic though I may be, it's hard to describe how unsettling that moment was. I found myself peering over my shoulder to make sure no one was behind me. Nothing but my empty apartment, still, had to check. The video comes back to Jared in the kitchen one last time.
“There’s something you should see.” Jared’s face looks strained, intense.
Two pictures appear on screen. Both photos are of baby Simon, his pyjama shirt pulled up. He’s bruised across his chest, sides and back. Dark bruises, in the shape of hand prints with long, slender fingers.
"I don't even have words." Same, Jared. Same. "Simon’s staying over at Jen’s sister’s place for now. We rushed him to the hospital right after this. Doctor says he’ll be fine, I’m hoping he doesn’t call CPS on us.”
Jared stares off into space, and there’s a pregnant pause. I catch myself impatiently moving my mouse to skip over the moment of silence, but it’s not needed. Jared speaks again.
“If you want to analyze this footage, and give me a rational explanation for this, PLEASE do… Please. If you go through the drive, you can see I've tried to track down every explanation I can think of. I even bought an EMF meter (No idea how this thing works, to be honest). I downloaded the original plans for the house, every permit relating to this property, the history of the land, everything! It's all there in the drive. There's nowhere in our house someone could be hiding. I've checked the attic, the crawlspace, and the ventilation system. I even checked to make sure our house wasn't on sacred [local Indigenous tribe] land. I confirmed no recorded murders have ever happened here, and we're the first people to ever live here. I've tried to summarize everything into the 'FINDINGS' folder but honestly... I don't have any concrete findings, at all. "
"You might laugh at this, but... We're really scared, Marn. Scared for Simon. Jen wants to cleanse our house with white sage and crystals, and I'm ready to call a priest. We've sunk all our savings into this house, and the market sucks right now. We won't be able to move for a few years, at least. You know me, I'm a rational person, but this has shaken me to my core. We'll pay you for your time, and get you any equipment you need." Jared pauses, searching for anything else to say. "I guess that's it. Thanks, Marn. Please get back to me once you get this. Please."
The video ends. I stare at the screen, reeling. I'm not sure how long I sat there for, exactly. All I know is I jumped out of my skin when my roommate Sara opened our front door. After she finished laughing at my expense, I told Sara about Jared and showed the video. When she got to the clip of the shadowy figure playing with baby Simon, she gasped and covered her mouth. we remained silent by the video's end.
"Are you going to help him?" Sara asked.
"Maybe." I said. That's the best answer I had.
"Do you think this is a hoax?"
"Maybe! No. I don't know. I'm going to look over the drive first."
Sara agreed that was a good idea, and left me to it.
I also reviewed the house documents, and the history of the place. This wasn't my area of expertise, but with some Google-Fu I was able to determine the documents were legitimate. Jared even made a map of cell tower coverage in his area, in an attempt to track electromagnetic interference. His home had cell coverage, but not an unusual amount of towers nor traffic. I also reviewed most of the audio files recorded from his phone. The knocks were audible in all of them. I bundled up those files, and sent them to my friend who specializes in Forensic Audio Analysis. If nothing else, he should be able to give me a rough idea of what could be making the sound. Hopefully he'll get back to me sooner or later.
A hot shower was exactly what I needed. It felt like all the fear and uncertainty washed right off me, and went down the drain. I decided I would take the job, and confidently marched out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel to hit send on the email. Then I stopped in my tracks.
Resting on my laptop's keyboard was a polaroid photograph. The photograph that had gotten buried in a box somewhere. The photograph that wasn't there when I left to take a shower.
The photograph of Jared and I from college.
submitted by marniesus to nosleep [link] [comments]
As I put my socks away, my mind flashed to Jared, who always stuffed his socks between the bed and the nightstand. One of those cute, weird little memories you have of someone you were in a relationship with. Moments later, my phone buzzed from the nearby dresser. It was an email from Jared.
Wow, that's serendipitous, I thought, before scanning the subject line:
The Ghost Experiments. [HELP!]
Spooky! Or at least, it would be, if I didn't get loads of emails with variations on the word 'ghost' in the subject line. Let me give you some background before I dive in to the content of the email:
Background
Jared and I met back in college in our school's tiny Forensic Investigation program. He wanted to join the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is like Canada's FBI), and I wanted to join a Forensic Image Analysis lab. I was passionate about two things: Photography, and True Crime. Forensic Imaging seemed like the perfect fit. When we met, I was in my early 20s, Jared in his late 20s. He had been volunteering as a firefighter and EMT for a few years before going back to school. He thought a Bachelor's degree would look better on his RCMP application. It took me a while to realize he had any interest in me: the quiet woman that kept to herself. Jared always said my sense of humour is what he first noticed, though I never tried to be funny. My friends suggest that my bluntness can be charming. Perhaps that was it.To make a long story short, Jared asked me out for coffee one day after class, and we ended up dating for about a year. We were both quite logical people, and suited each other well. We both enjoyed our own spaces too much to ever live together, but we were happy for a while. Things ended when Jared had to report for RCMP training in Regina, Saskatchewan, whereas I remained in BC to finish up my studies. Jared wasn't sure where he would get posted after graduation, so it was reasonable to end things. In retrospect, Jared was the kindest, most level-headed man I've ever dated. Though I haven't exactly been pining for him all these years since. Relationships come and go, and I started my career shortly afterwards. Six months after college I got a job as a Forensic Imaging Technician in a small private lab. I toiled away as a technician for years before getting promoted to Image Analyst. Analysts are the ones that perform things like image authentication, and photogrammetry. They also get all the best software, and coolest toys.
Aside from seeing the absolute horrors of mankind on a regular basis, I enjoyed my job. The work was fulfilling, my hours weren't too bad, and my coworkers ranged from tolerable to excellent. In my findings that is above average for a workplace. One month after my promotion to Analyst, I woke up to an email telling me that I got laid off and no longer had a job. I felt gutted. YEARS of hard work down the drain. I'm still bitter about it, if I'm being honest. Even worse still, there were no comparable jobs anywhere in my area. I hated the idea of leaving the Vancouver area, expensive as it may be, so I got a full-time gig as a server in a restaurant. I found a smaller apartment with my new coworker Sara, and things were starting to look up. Despite that, depression was kicking my ass, and I was sad I wasn't doing lab work anymore. After wallowing in sadness, I did what any over-educated, broke millennial would do: I started a YouTube channel.
I made videos on forensic imaging techniques, and spotting common photography tricks. I'm proud of my videos, but nothing exactly paid my rent or broke the algorithm. That is until one October, Sara encouraged me to do something spooky for Halloween. I've always enjoyed ghost stories, but I'm an absolute skeptic, which I wanted to make very clear. I released a video debunking "paranormal" or "ghost" footage. Taking five different videos of "paranormal activity", I broke down their rational explanations. There were a lot of strings pulling doors, or drawers. Plenty of poor quality cameras make 'ghosts' for various reasons. Certain cameras have low shutter speeds, or poor quality codecs that cause all manner of aberrations. Spotting computer generated imagery (CGI) can be tricky, but there are plenty of tells if you know where to look. Sometimes, 'ghosts' were actually dust near the camera lens, and so on. Frankly, this was my least-technical, lowest effort video on the entire channel... so of course this was the video that blew up and got loads of views. Getting ad revenue and sponsorships was exciting, so I decided to make a few similar videos. I could have kept making those videos, but ghosts weren't something I was passionate about. I went back to making my regular content in November, and the well dried up quick. The whole ordeal left me feeling depressed once again. I had no lines on another lab job, my channel was dying, and I was going through the motions in my day-to-day life. Until the email.
(I've removed some identifying information, but otherwise will preserve as much content as possible.)
The Email
To: Marnie [REDACTED] From: Jared [REDACTED]Subject line: The Ghost Experiments [HELP!]
Hey Marnie,
It's Jared, from our days at [College name], I hope you're keeping well. I heard what happened to your lab last year, sorry to hear about that.
The reason I'm writing is we've had some unusual things happening in our home. I've set up cameras and audio recorders to try to figure it what's going on, but I'm working such long hours these days. I don't have as much time to look into this as I would like.
I've attached an explanation video, and all the raw files in a Google Drive for you to review at your earliest convenience. If you're interested, we would pay you $2000 to come over to our place in [town] on Vancouver Island for a few days. You can run whatever experiments you see fit, and use the content for your channel as long as you don't show our faces. We have a guest room and plenty of space for you to work in. Our second baby is on the way, and I'm willing to do anything to reduce our stress.
We're really scared.
If I don't hear from you in the next two weeks, I'll assume you're not interested and I won't bother you again.
Warmly, Cpl. Jared [REDACTED]
P.S Apologies for the dramatic subject line, I thought it might get your attention.
---------------------------------
I have to admit my initial thoughts focused on the wrong things: Wife? Second baby on the way?! Clearly I hadn't creeped him enough on social media over the last few years... Bad thoughts, Marnie. Put those away! I definitely didn't know what to make of the fact that they were scared. Was he pranking me? I had to admit the proposal was interesting, though. $2000 in Vancouver was... well, one month's rent. But getting one month of rent for a few days of work and some fodder for another video was tempting.
I opened up the attached Google Drive. I was surprised to see over 70 gigabytes of content in the drive. In the main folder was a video labeled "EDITED_EXPLANATION.mp4", followed by folders labeled "RAW FOOTAGE", "AUDIO RECORDINGS", "HOUSE", "RECORDS" and "FINDINGS". If this was a prank, it was an elaborate one. To determine if any of this was even worth my time, I clicked on the explanation video first.
The Video
I let out a small gasp when I saw Jared's face. He was talking at the camera from the middle of a kitchen island in a modern, fancy looking house. The years had been kind to Jared, his shoulders were more broad than I remembered, and his stubble had grown in. His facial hair used to be a lot more patchy, he kept it clean-shaven back in college. The video buffered for a second, and then started playing."Hey Marnie." Jared was smiling, but he sounds tired, "I'm recording this because there's some unusual stuff going on in my house. Jenny's really freaked out, and I... I don't know. If you had asked me 2 months ago if I thought ghosts were real, I would have said 'No'. No way. But now I'm so sleep deprived I'm not even sure anyway. I saw your ghost debunking videos and I'm hoping you can be a voice of reason here. I need help to figure out what exactly this is."
Jared cleared his throat. "Okay, I'll start from the beginning. We moved into this place here in [town] two months ago, super nice home, brand new development. The very first night, we woke up to a loud banging noise at exactly 3:24am. I shot out of bed, grabbed my sidearm, and cleared each room. Nobody was inside or outside our property, and there was no sign of an intruder. No forced entry or anything like that. I grabbed Simon -- that's my son, Simon, he's 11 months old now, so 9 months old at the time -- from the nursery and came back to bed. We weren't sure what it was, but we went back to bed after I was certain there was no immediate threat to my family."
"Then it happened again the next night. The exact same time, 3:24am. Bang bang bang!" Jared made a knocking gesture in the air, "Simon was co-sleeping with us that night. I cleared the house again, I checked the yard, I walked around the property. Nothing. Now it was a pattern, and after two shitty sleeps in a row, I decided to leave my phone recording all night. I'll play the clip now."
The screen cut to black, only the date and the timestamp was visible. 3:24am, like before, followed by a startling loud noise. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. Two sets of five knocks. I jumped in my chair at the volume of the noise, cursing under my breath. You can hear baby Simon start to cry and the commotion of his parents getting startled awake. The video cuts back to Jared in the kitchen.
"I'll spare you more of this, but if you check the audio recordings you can find 19 individual recordings. All loud bangs, two sets of five knocks at exactly 3:24 in the morning. There would be more, but, we got kind of... numb to it after a while, and, well, you'll see."
At this point I started wondering, why me? I'm an imaging specialist, not an audio expert. Much to my annoyance, video-Jared seemed to read my thoughts:
"Now I know you're more of a video expert, but if you do have any contacts in forensic audio feel free to send those along." You presumptuous bastard... I do have a friend like that. "I haven't told anyone at work about what's going on... Not sure how I'd even begin explaining this. After 3 days of these noises, I picked up a bunch of home security cameras that do night vision, and audio. I put them all over the house: Interior and exterior. Aside from the bathroom, the only room I didn't put a camera in was Jen's studio. She's a professional seamstress and didn't like the idea of a camera staring at her while she worked. She caved and you'll notice in the recordings that footage from her studio pops up around day 24. to catch anyone creeping around, I had large motion sensor lights installed outside. Oh, and I put some small motion sensors in the hallways."
The camera cuts to the kitchen, the master bedroom, nursery, two hallways, guest bedroom, garage, front yard, and back yard.. One thing was clear to me: This house was nice. Like, 'how on earth does a Corporal and a seamstress afford this' level nice. Does Jen come from money? Jared certainly doesn't, it would take me years to save up for a place like this with my old analyst salary.
"After installing the cameras, I managed to capture something the very first night." The video cuts to several exterior night shots, the motion lights are off, all is still. 'Day 3' displays on the screen, and the timestamp is visible in the corner. In the hallway closest to the bedroom, the clock now reads 3:23am. The motion light turns on, illuminating the hall, but no one is in frame. The hallway is silent. As the clock changes to 3:24am, the sensor light switches off. A pause, then two sets of five knocks. My ears ring at the sheer volume of the knocks. On the footage, Jared springs out of bed and comes out into the hallway in a t-shirt and boxers, his gun drawn. The hallway motion light turns on as Jared yells for anyone to make themselves known. The video follows him as he searches through the various rooms of the house. Jen stays in the bedroom, clutching their baby to her chest. The video cuts back to Jared narrating in the kitchen.
"As you can see, right before the knocking sounds, something set off our motion sensors in the hallway. I scanned every scrap of surveillance footage from that day, and I can tell you, no one's entered our house. All the footage is there on the drive if you want to review it for yourself. Now I know what you're thinking: It could be a faulty motion sensor. I thought the same, so I replaced [brand X] motion sensor light with [brand Y] the very next day to be sure."
The video cuts to Day 4, 3:23am. The new [brand Y] motion light is in view. Jared sits awake in an uncomfortable looking wooden chair in the hallway, phone and gun in hand. The light in the hallway is off as another set of loud pounding noises go off as the time changes to 3:24am. The noise sounds further away now, distant. Jared springs out of the chair and whirls around with his gun, trying to discern the source of the sound. The camera angle switches to Hallway 2, closer to the guest bedroom. At 3:23am, the new motion light turns on, and the guest door starts shaking with the knocks at 3:24am.
"So here's the thing..." Kitchen-Narrator Jared continues, "the knocking noise comes from a different spot every night. The noise happens at a consistent enough time that this could a hoax with a wireless speaker. But the fact it moves from room to room without anyone getting caught on camera is perplexing. You can confirm this with the attached raw surveillance footage. My phone's audio recordings have similar results if you check those out in the google drive. Some nights the knocking's loud, other times we can barely hear it. We're actually starting to sleep through it, now..." His voice was weary, almost resigned to this fact. In that moment I felt bad for Jared, though I wasn't sure how I could help.
"I wish I could say we were only dealing with loud noises in the middle of the night, but here's where you come in. On Day 14, I captured this." We cut away from Jared and are now watching Jen playing with baby Simon in the kitchen, the timestamp reads 10:35am. It's the middle of the day, light is pouring in from the beautiful framed windows. The house looks serene like this, much less spooky than the previous few nights worth of footage.
Behind Jen, the utensil drawer slides open on its own. I've seen plenty of shots like this in fake paranormal videos. I leaned in, hoping to spot an obvious sign of a hoax. Usually they put one string on the drawer, and one string on a utensil, then pull on it hard. This rips the object across the room and makes a little jump scare. What happened instead took me by surprise.
A silver spoon gently floats out of the drawer, twirling upwards into the air. It rotates, spinning in a few different directions - not impossible to fake with strings, but quite difficult. This could be CG, but it seems real at first glance. The levitating spoon spins higher into the air, and baby Simon starts grabbing towards it. You can hear him giggle on the tape, he's excited by the flying spoon. Jen turns her head over her shoulder to see what Simon's looking at. Exactly the moment she does that, the spoon drops back down into the drawer with a loud CRASH. Jen startles at the noise, and gets up to look at the utensil drawer. She seems confused. We're then brought back to Jared in the kitchen.
"If you check the footage, you'll see I had left for work hours before, and Jen was with Simon all morning." For a moment, video cuts to Jared walking out the door in full police gear at 4:45am. "The spoon's on the raw footage too, in case you think we did that with computers or whatever."
I found myself annoyed at how well Jared was predicting my reactions. Was this an elaborate prank? Why would a family man want to get one over on his ex from college? It's not like we had a falling out, in fact, he ended things with me! It didn't make any sense. Before my thoughts could catch up to my feelings, the video carried on:
"Loud noises and floating silverware are one thing, but this next clip is the real reason I--we wanted your expertise." Interesting Freudian slip there, Jared. The video takes us to night vision footage of the nursery, with "Day 35" and the timestamp of 2:13am. Little Simon stirs from his sleep, and wakes up in his crib. He makes a few cooing noises as he gets up and tries to prop himself up on the sides of his crib. His lets out a little giggle, looking in the direction of the closet.
Then, rising up from the ground, a shadowy figure emerges from the floor. The shape gets taller, and taller, until it looms over Simon's crib. It's in the rough shape of a man, has no distinguishable features, and is semi-transparent. My immediate reaction is this has to be CG, but the effect looks…good. The shadowy figure’s hand reaches out towards Simon, and holds its arm in position. Simon laughs and makes grasping motions towards the figure's "hand". The figure remains motionless for a moment, and Simon bobs up and down with excitement.
The other arm reaches out towards Simon. Both hands are now inching closer to the baby, who seems thrilled with his dark visitor. Long black figures grasp Simon’s sides, like how any parent would pick up their baby. The figure starts to slowly lift little Simon off the ground, his toes no longer touching the crib. Suddenly, Simon winces and lets out a sharp cry of pain. I recoil at the noise.
The figure stops lifting Simon, and holds him motionless, arms stretched in front. If the being had a face, I’d say it was staring at him.
Simon starts squirming in the figure’s hands. I fight the urge to look away from the screen…
Then the door opens.
Light bursts in from the hallway. The instant that happens, the shadowy figure drops into the floor, disappearing completely. Simon drops almost a foot down into the crib, stumbling. Jen rushes over to the crib and inspects Simon. She picks him up, and takes him out of the room.
Skeptic though I may be, it's hard to describe how unsettling that moment was. I found myself peering over my shoulder to make sure no one was behind me. Nothing but my empty apartment, still, had to check. The video comes back to Jared in the kitchen one last time.
“There’s something you should see.” Jared’s face looks strained, intense.
Two pictures appear on screen. Both photos are of baby Simon, his pyjama shirt pulled up. He’s bruised across his chest, sides and back. Dark bruises, in the shape of hand prints with long, slender fingers.
"I don't even have words." Same, Jared. Same. "Simon’s staying over at Jen’s sister’s place for now. We rushed him to the hospital right after this. Doctor says he’ll be fine, I’m hoping he doesn’t call CPS on us.”
Jared stares off into space, and there’s a pregnant pause. I catch myself impatiently moving my mouse to skip over the moment of silence, but it’s not needed. Jared speaks again.
“If you want to analyze this footage, and give me a rational explanation for this, PLEASE do… Please. If you go through the drive, you can see I've tried to track down every explanation I can think of. I even bought an EMF meter (No idea how this thing works, to be honest). I downloaded the original plans for the house, every permit relating to this property, the history of the land, everything! It's all there in the drive. There's nowhere in our house someone could be hiding. I've checked the attic, the crawlspace, and the ventilation system. I even checked to make sure our house wasn't on sacred [local Indigenous tribe] land. I confirmed no recorded murders have ever happened here, and we're the first people to ever live here. I've tried to summarize everything into the 'FINDINGS' folder but honestly... I don't have any concrete findings, at all. "
"You might laugh at this, but... We're really scared, Marn. Scared for Simon. Jen wants to cleanse our house with white sage and crystals, and I'm ready to call a priest. We've sunk all our savings into this house, and the market sucks right now. We won't be able to move for a few years, at least. You know me, I'm a rational person, but this has shaken me to my core. We'll pay you for your time, and get you any equipment you need." Jared pauses, searching for anything else to say. "I guess that's it. Thanks, Marn. Please get back to me once you get this. Please."
The video ends. I stare at the screen, reeling. I'm not sure how long I sat there for, exactly. All I know is I jumped out of my skin when my roommate Sara opened our front door. After she finished laughing at my expense, I told Sara about Jared and showed the video. When she got to the clip of the shadowy figure playing with baby Simon, she gasped and covered her mouth. we remained silent by the video's end.
"Are you going to help him?" Sara asked.
"Maybe." I said. That's the best answer I had.
"Do you think this is a hoax?"
"Maybe! No. I don't know. I'm going to look over the drive first."
Sara agreed that was a good idea, and left me to it.
The Drive
The drive contained everything Jared said it did, and more. There was 2 months worth of unedited security footage taking up the bulk of storage. I scrubbed through as much of it as I could, paying special attention to the days leading up to the Spoon Incident, and the Shadow Man. At no point did I see anyone rigging up wires or sophisticated lighting rigs, and both events were on the raw footage exactly as Jared presented them. I even found other moments of lights turning on, and objects moving around the house on their own! I watched those moments over and over, looking for any signs of digital or physical trickery. I didn't have all my sophisticated tools I would have back at the lab, but as far as I could tell: There was none. No evidence of file tampering, the files came directly from the security cameras. The lighting was also very consistent in both clips, not a pixel was out of place. Aside from the spoon not obeying the laws of physics, it all looked perfect. I decided to send the clips to my friends at the Forensic Imaging lab for further analysis. But my current educated guess is: If this is fake, it wasn't done with computer effects. Even the Shadow Man. Maybe.I also reviewed the house documents, and the history of the place. This wasn't my area of expertise, but with some Google-Fu I was able to determine the documents were legitimate. Jared even made a map of cell tower coverage in his area, in an attempt to track electromagnetic interference. His home had cell coverage, but not an unusual amount of towers nor traffic. I also reviewed most of the audio files recorded from his phone. The knocks were audible in all of them. I bundled up those files, and sent them to my friend who specializes in Forensic Audio Analysis. If nothing else, he should be able to give me a rough idea of what could be making the sound. Hopefully he'll get back to me sooner or later.
Aftermath
It's the next day, and I'm sitting in my kitchen running on barely any sleep. Sara's already left for work. I've typed up an email telling Jared I'll take the job, but I'm having a hard time bringing myself to hit send. I've even bought myself a ferry ticket to take me to Vancouver island tomorrow. To shake myself out of my funk, I decided to take a shower.A hot shower was exactly what I needed. It felt like all the fear and uncertainty washed right off me, and went down the drain. I decided I would take the job, and confidently marched out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel to hit send on the email. Then I stopped in my tracks.
Resting on my laptop's keyboard was a polaroid photograph. The photograph that had gotten buried in a box somewhere. The photograph that wasn't there when I left to take a shower.
The photograph of Jared and I from college.
2023.03.26 09:02 CedarRain The Inheritance of Shadows: A Tale of Cosmic Terror
I cannot begin to express the terror that has befallen me, nor can I fathom the depths of the abyss I now find myself in. I sit here, trembling, in a dimly-lit corner of my room, my fingers struggling to transcribe the horrors of my tale. The events of the last few days have shaken me to my very core, and I fear I may never be the same again.
It began when I received a letter from a distant relative, one whom I had never met or even heard of before. The letter, written in an elegant but archaic script, spoke of a grand inheritance left to me by the recently deceased Lord William Blackwood, who had resided in an ancient manor in the wild and desolate moors of rural England. It was stated that my presence was required to claim this inheritance, and as I had recently lost my job and was in dire need of financial assistance, I found myself boarding a train to the remote village of Dunwich without a second thought.
The train journey was an eerie one. The further I traveled from the city, the more desolate and sinister the landscape became. The sky darkened, and a heavy fog seemed to slither around the train, obscuring the world outside. The other passengers, few as they were, spoke in hushed whispers, as if afraid of awakening some slumbering beast. I felt a creeping dread as we approached our destination, a feeling that I was traveling to a place that time had forgotten and the world had forsaken.
Upon arriving in Dunwich, I was greeted by the sullen faces of the villagers, who looked upon me with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. They seemed to regard me as an outsider, an intruder in their reclusive world. I made my way to the local inn, where I had arranged for a room, and attempted to gather more information about Lord Blackwood and his estate. The locals, however, remained tight-lipped, offering only vague warnings of the manor's dark history and the malevolent forces that were said to dwell there.
The next morning, I set off on foot to the Blackwood Manor, guided only by the crude map provided in the letter. The path took me through the bleak and barren moors, where the only sounds were the howling of the wind and the mournful cries of unseen birds. The fog hung heavy, a shroud that seemed to obscure more than just the landscape. The journey was long and arduous, and I felt as if I were being watched by unseen eyes the entire time.
At long last, I arrived at the manor, a crumbling edifice that appeared to be older than time itself. It loomed over me like a silent, malevolent specter, its dark and twisted spires reaching out to the heavens. I hesitated, my heart pounding in my chest, but my need for the inheritance spurred me onward.
Entering the manor, I found it to be cold and foreboding, a place of shadows and whispers. The air was heavy with the scent of decay, and the creaking of the floorboards seemed to echo the distant screams of tormented souls. I explored the vast and labyrinthine halls, searching for any clue as to what I was to inherit.
It was in the library that I discovered the truth. A hidden door, revealed by the accidental shifting of a book, led to a secret chamber, and within that chamber, I found the object of my inheritance: a massive, leather-bound tome. The book was ancient, its pages yellowed and brittle, and upon its cover was the image of a creature so monstrous and alien that my mind struggled to comprehend it. This was the Necronomicon, the fabled book of forbidden knowledge, and it seemed that Lord Blackwood had been its last guardian.
I should have left it there, should have turned away and never looked back. But curiosity, that insidious whisperer, took hold of me, and I began to read the eldritch symbols and cryptic passages that filled the pages. The more I read, the more I became enthralled, my mind consumed by the darkness within. The words seemed to seep into my very soul, and I felt as if I were being pulled into a realm of madness and despair.
As I continued to read, I became aware of a presence in the manor, something ancient and malevolent, awakened by my intrusion. The shadows seemed to grow darker, and the air grew colder, as if the very walls of the manor were trying to expel me. But I could not tear myself away from the book, for it had ensnared me in its web of darkness.
The presence grew stronger, and I began to see things, terrible visions of cosmic horrors and nameless terrors. I saw the birth and death of worlds, the rise and fall of civilizations, and the unimaginable entities that lurk between the stars, waiting to claim their dominion over our reality. I felt as if I were standing on the precipice of the abyss, staring into the void, and the void stared back at me.
It was then that I heard the footsteps, echoing through the halls of the manor like the pounding of a heart. They grew louder and closer, and I knew that whatever had been awakened was coming for me. I desperately tried to close the Necronomicon, to escape the nightmare I had unleashed, but the book would not let me go. The footsteps reached the library, and the door creaked open, revealing only darkness beyond.
And from that darkness emerged a figure, cloaked in shadows and emanating an aura of pure, malevolent evil. It was then that I recognized it: the very creature depicted on the cover of the Necronomicon, a being of such horror and madness that my mind could scarcely comprehend it. Its eyes, or what I could only assume were eyes, bore into me, and I felt my sanity slipping away, consumed by the darkness that now surrounded me.
In that moment, I found the strength to tear myself away from the book and flee, the monstrous figure hot on my heels. I stumbled through the halls of the manor, the shadows seeming to reach out and grab at me, the very walls seeming to shift and change before my eyes. The manor had become a living nightmare, a twisted reflection of the horrors contained within the Necronomicon.
I do not know how I escaped the manor, or how I found my way back to the village. All I know is that the horror of that place has left its mark upon me, a shadow upon my soul that I fear may never be lifted. The villagers spoke not a word to me when I returned, their eyes filled with a mixture of pity and fear. I left Dunwich, and have not stopped running since.
I now find myself back in the city, hiding in the shadows, forever looking over my shoulder. For I know that the creature still hunts me, that the darkness within the Necronomicon has not forgotten me. And though I have tried to warn others of the horror that awaits them, my words fall on deaf ears, for they see only a madman, consumed by his own delusions.
But I know the truth. I have seen the darkness that lies beyond the veil of our reality, and I know that it is only a matter of time before the world is consumed by the horrors that lurk within the shadows. I can only hope that by sharing my tale, I can somehow delay the inevitable, that my warning will reach those who have the power to resist the darkness.
In my desperate attempts to escape the influence of the Necronomicon and the creature that pursues me, I have sought refuge in the study of the occult and arcane, hoping to find some means of protection or salvation. I have delved into ancient tomes and forbidden knowledge, seeking answers in the hidden corners of the world. My search has led me to forgotten temples and secret societies, to places where the lines between reality and nightmare blur.
And yet, the more I learn, the more I come to realize that there is no escaping the horror that now haunts me. For the knowledge I have gained has only served to reveal the vast and incomprehensible scope of the darkness that awaits us all. I have come to understand that the Necronomicon is but one of many keys to the cosmic horrors that lurk beyond the veil, that the creature that hunts me is but a harbinger of the terrors that will one day be unleashed upon the world.
As I continue my desperate search for a way to resist the darkness, I find my sanity slipping further and further away. The nightmares that once plagued my sleep now seep into my waking moments, and I can no longer tell where reality ends and madness begins. I see the shadows of the creature that pursues me in every dark corner and behind every closed door, and I know that it is only a matter of time before it catches me.
But I cannot, I will not, surrender to the darkness. I will continue to fight, to search for a way to protect myself and others from the horrors that await us. And though I know that my efforts may ultimately be in vain, that the darkness may one day consume us all, I cannot abandon hope.
For it is in the darkest moments, when all seems lost and the abyss stretches out before us, that the light of hope shines brightest. And so, I will continue to seek out that light, to search for a way to defy the darkness and the malevolent forces that threaten to consume us all.
And should I fail, should I succumb to the horrors that now haunt me, I can only hope that my story will serve as a warning to others, a testament to the darkness that lies just beyond the edge of our understanding. For I have seen the face of true terror, and I know that the world is not prepared for the horrors that lurk within the shadows.
May my tale stand as a beacon of hope, a call to action for those who have the courage to resist the darkness. And may we, together, find the strength to stand against the coming storm, to face the horrors that await us, and to defy the abyss that threatens to consume us all.
submitted by CedarRain to ArtificialNightmares [link] [comments]
It began when I received a letter from a distant relative, one whom I had never met or even heard of before. The letter, written in an elegant but archaic script, spoke of a grand inheritance left to me by the recently deceased Lord William Blackwood, who had resided in an ancient manor in the wild and desolate moors of rural England. It was stated that my presence was required to claim this inheritance, and as I had recently lost my job and was in dire need of financial assistance, I found myself boarding a train to the remote village of Dunwich without a second thought.
The train journey was an eerie one. The further I traveled from the city, the more desolate and sinister the landscape became. The sky darkened, and a heavy fog seemed to slither around the train, obscuring the world outside. The other passengers, few as they were, spoke in hushed whispers, as if afraid of awakening some slumbering beast. I felt a creeping dread as we approached our destination, a feeling that I was traveling to a place that time had forgotten and the world had forsaken.
Upon arriving in Dunwich, I was greeted by the sullen faces of the villagers, who looked upon me with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. They seemed to regard me as an outsider, an intruder in their reclusive world. I made my way to the local inn, where I had arranged for a room, and attempted to gather more information about Lord Blackwood and his estate. The locals, however, remained tight-lipped, offering only vague warnings of the manor's dark history and the malevolent forces that were said to dwell there.
The next morning, I set off on foot to the Blackwood Manor, guided only by the crude map provided in the letter. The path took me through the bleak and barren moors, where the only sounds were the howling of the wind and the mournful cries of unseen birds. The fog hung heavy, a shroud that seemed to obscure more than just the landscape. The journey was long and arduous, and I felt as if I were being watched by unseen eyes the entire time.
At long last, I arrived at the manor, a crumbling edifice that appeared to be older than time itself. It loomed over me like a silent, malevolent specter, its dark and twisted spires reaching out to the heavens. I hesitated, my heart pounding in my chest, but my need for the inheritance spurred me onward.
Entering the manor, I found it to be cold and foreboding, a place of shadows and whispers. The air was heavy with the scent of decay, and the creaking of the floorboards seemed to echo the distant screams of tormented souls. I explored the vast and labyrinthine halls, searching for any clue as to what I was to inherit.
It was in the library that I discovered the truth. A hidden door, revealed by the accidental shifting of a book, led to a secret chamber, and within that chamber, I found the object of my inheritance: a massive, leather-bound tome. The book was ancient, its pages yellowed and brittle, and upon its cover was the image of a creature so monstrous and alien that my mind struggled to comprehend it. This was the Necronomicon, the fabled book of forbidden knowledge, and it seemed that Lord Blackwood had been its last guardian.
I should have left it there, should have turned away and never looked back. But curiosity, that insidious whisperer, took hold of me, and I began to read the eldritch symbols and cryptic passages that filled the pages. The more I read, the more I became enthralled, my mind consumed by the darkness within. The words seemed to seep into my very soul, and I felt as if I were being pulled into a realm of madness and despair.
As I continued to read, I became aware of a presence in the manor, something ancient and malevolent, awakened by my intrusion. The shadows seemed to grow darker, and the air grew colder, as if the very walls of the manor were trying to expel me. But I could not tear myself away from the book, for it had ensnared me in its web of darkness.
The presence grew stronger, and I began to see things, terrible visions of cosmic horrors and nameless terrors. I saw the birth and death of worlds, the rise and fall of civilizations, and the unimaginable entities that lurk between the stars, waiting to claim their dominion over our reality. I felt as if I were standing on the precipice of the abyss, staring into the void, and the void stared back at me.
It was then that I heard the footsteps, echoing through the halls of the manor like the pounding of a heart. They grew louder and closer, and I knew that whatever had been awakened was coming for me. I desperately tried to close the Necronomicon, to escape the nightmare I had unleashed, but the book would not let me go. The footsteps reached the library, and the door creaked open, revealing only darkness beyond.
And from that darkness emerged a figure, cloaked in shadows and emanating an aura of pure, malevolent evil. It was then that I recognized it: the very creature depicted on the cover of the Necronomicon, a being of such horror and madness that my mind could scarcely comprehend it. Its eyes, or what I could only assume were eyes, bore into me, and I felt my sanity slipping away, consumed by the darkness that now surrounded me.
In that moment, I found the strength to tear myself away from the book and flee, the monstrous figure hot on my heels. I stumbled through the halls of the manor, the shadows seeming to reach out and grab at me, the very walls seeming to shift and change before my eyes. The manor had become a living nightmare, a twisted reflection of the horrors contained within the Necronomicon.
I do not know how I escaped the manor, or how I found my way back to the village. All I know is that the horror of that place has left its mark upon me, a shadow upon my soul that I fear may never be lifted. The villagers spoke not a word to me when I returned, their eyes filled with a mixture of pity and fear. I left Dunwich, and have not stopped running since.
I now find myself back in the city, hiding in the shadows, forever looking over my shoulder. For I know that the creature still hunts me, that the darkness within the Necronomicon has not forgotten me. And though I have tried to warn others of the horror that awaits them, my words fall on deaf ears, for they see only a madman, consumed by his own delusions.
But I know the truth. I have seen the darkness that lies beyond the veil of our reality, and I know that it is only a matter of time before the world is consumed by the horrors that lurk within the shadows. I can only hope that by sharing my tale, I can somehow delay the inevitable, that my warning will reach those who have the power to resist the darkness.
In my desperate attempts to escape the influence of the Necronomicon and the creature that pursues me, I have sought refuge in the study of the occult and arcane, hoping to find some means of protection or salvation. I have delved into ancient tomes and forbidden knowledge, seeking answers in the hidden corners of the world. My search has led me to forgotten temples and secret societies, to places where the lines between reality and nightmare blur.
And yet, the more I learn, the more I come to realize that there is no escaping the horror that now haunts me. For the knowledge I have gained has only served to reveal the vast and incomprehensible scope of the darkness that awaits us all. I have come to understand that the Necronomicon is but one of many keys to the cosmic horrors that lurk beyond the veil, that the creature that hunts me is but a harbinger of the terrors that will one day be unleashed upon the world.
As I continue my desperate search for a way to resist the darkness, I find my sanity slipping further and further away. The nightmares that once plagued my sleep now seep into my waking moments, and I can no longer tell where reality ends and madness begins. I see the shadows of the creature that pursues me in every dark corner and behind every closed door, and I know that it is only a matter of time before it catches me.
But I cannot, I will not, surrender to the darkness. I will continue to fight, to search for a way to protect myself and others from the horrors that await us. And though I know that my efforts may ultimately be in vain, that the darkness may one day consume us all, I cannot abandon hope.
For it is in the darkest moments, when all seems lost and the abyss stretches out before us, that the light of hope shines brightest. And so, I will continue to seek out that light, to search for a way to defy the darkness and the malevolent forces that threaten to consume us all.
And should I fail, should I succumb to the horrors that now haunt me, I can only hope that my story will serve as a warning to others, a testament to the darkness that lies just beyond the edge of our understanding. For I have seen the face of true terror, and I know that the world is not prepared for the horrors that lurk within the shadows.
May my tale stand as a beacon of hope, a call to action for those who have the courage to resist the darkness. And may we, together, find the strength to stand against the coming storm, to face the horrors that await us, and to defy the abyss that threatens to consume us all.
2023.03.26 08:57 Apprehensive_Dare660 Oregon coast road trip
Hello! This is my first time planning a road trip. Any input and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Edit: I wouldn’t mind shortening the time spent on the coast and hitting some cool towns/hiking spots inland if anyone has any input on what we could cut out/add
Day 1 Ecola state park Stay night at sea ranch
Day 2 Cannon beach Oswald state park
Day 3 Manzanita beach Rockaway Stay night at barview jetty
Day 4 Roads end state recreation site Fogarty creek Devils punch bowl Stay night at Thors well
Day 5 Hobbit trail Heceta beach Stay night at Harbor Vista
Day 6 Sand master park in Florence Stay night at Harbor Vista
Day 7 Shore acres park Cape Argo Stay night at sunset bay state park
Day 8 Arch rock Secret beach Natural bridges Stay night at Harris beach state park campground
Day 9 Toketee falls Umpqua hotsprings Spend night at toketee lake campground
submitted by Apprehensive_Dare660 to RoadTrips [link] [comments]
Edit: I wouldn’t mind shortening the time spent on the coast and hitting some cool towns/hiking spots inland if anyone has any input on what we could cut out/add
Day 1 Ecola state park Stay night at sea ranch
Day 2 Cannon beach Oswald state park
Day 3 Manzanita beach Rockaway Stay night at barview jetty
Day 4 Roads end state recreation site Fogarty creek Devils punch bowl Stay night at Thors well
Day 5 Hobbit trail Heceta beach Stay night at Harbor Vista
Day 6 Sand master park in Florence Stay night at Harbor Vista
Day 7 Shore acres park Cape Argo Stay night at sunset bay state park
Day 8 Arch rock Secret beach Natural bridges Stay night at Harris beach state park campground
Day 9 Toketee falls Umpqua hotsprings Spend night at toketee lake campground