Redness around front of throat and pain

Ethereum

2013.12.14 17:15 vbuterin Ethereum

Next-generation platform for decentralised applications. Dive in at ethereum.org
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2011.08.17 13:55 Bringing the web out of 2007 since 2013.

/frontend is a subreddit for front end web developers who want to move the web forward or want to learn how. If you're looking to find or share the latest and greatest tips, links, thoughts, and discussions on the world of front web development, this is the place to do it.
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2015.05.21 11:33 TheRiverRunsRed Got eye inflammation?

A place to discuss Ocular Inflammation Disease.
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2024.05.14 11:12 Fangyuan___ New indian mythology novel Dropped. Check it now. Help this senior...

Novel - PEACE IS WHAT I WANT
Author note:-
How should i start. Lets say.
I am just a student[19 M]
And today i am going to start a writing a novel.
Well...
...its always good to start a new work.
Enthusiasm...
thats what i am now feeling.
I can't describe it in words.
I can say that my grammar is bad.
Umm so bad.
English is my second language.
But i am going to try.
I am going to persevere.
I am starting a novel on indian mythology. Well like indian sects.
Months ago.
I am just scrolling reddit. Seeing the memes on fy. And laughing my ass off.
unknowingly i stumbled on a comment and the comment is-
just think how if a cultivation novel based on indian mythology. Like There are 28 states in india. So.
We can make 28 sects and like this. And india is also a sacred country.
Just think there are so many mystery like kailash parvat( Kangrinboqe Peak).
So many mystries...
I was just staring at the comment something was rising in me.
Like this is my destiny.
I am going to be a great writer.
I will make millions of money.
So i procrastinated this idea.
Well i am a good procrastinater..
Months later today at 1 am on night while wasting my time on scrolling reddit.
I am suddenly feeling something.
I am feeling like i have to do something productive.
i have to make money
So i thought to write a novel.
Well its not going to the level of RI or Lotm.
But i can try to make it good.
I will daily use my 4 hours in this work.
I know i am not going to make any money on this.
But i am atleast trying to make something new.
I am not good in studies.
No no no.
Its like i had never focus on studies.
From 2 years daily minimum 5 hours. I am reading novels.
Just novels. To cultivation to progression fantasy. Just novel.
But the idea of writing novel I always procrastinated that.
But today i am feeling so much enthusiasm i am going to start it now.
Special note-
If anyone wants to be a part of this journey. join me in this wonderful journey.
Well its going to be not paid.
Its like internship.
You will learn something.
Like i need a editor.
If any of you who is interested in this journey.
You can dm me.
Lets start.
I am clarify now this first chapter is something i am just writing it to describe. What is my potential.
Like it will be my first novel and there are so many challenges i am going to face it.
I am human.
I will going to make mistakes obviously. Day by day my writing will just going to improve.
Just adjust a bit.
You will definitely going to enjoy.
Chapter 1 - ITS STARTING
Hahahahah.
This is hilarious I have just wrote that I am going to make a wonderful novel
and see I can't even type anything on my keyboard.
As i am seeing on my laptop.
My frustration is increasing.
How should i start.
My patience is dropping.
What should i do.
Lets make a boy first
Indeed hes going to be a poor and orphan. Wait.
Its going to same cliche novel.
I have to make something new.
Something like Fang yuan.
First chapter of REVEREND INSANITY is goated
Hes just standing hes hair floating and his clothes are in blood.
He is smiling.
A cold smile.
And then sac and boom
Explosion
....
Wait wait wait.
This is going to be edgy.
I have not any experience
i have not any talent.
How can i make a sacred novel like RI This is my first novel.
I have to start with good mc.
.. **My mood is swinging.
I am feeling frustrated.
How can anyone will going to read this garbage.
I had not even make a world building.
I had not even decide the name of the novel. Stupid so stupid.
As i am staring on the screen.
My patience paid off.**
I turned off my laptop
I stand up from my chair. And saw the time.
Its 1 am.
If my father found about that i am wasting my time in these things instead of studying.
Than raj you just say goodbye to your writing passion.
I am just a average person.
Your average who got always average marks . Average look
Average talking skill.
Average money.
Well i am going to make it.
But HOW.
...as i am thinking what to do How to write something great . Suddenly my electricity gone. Its rare.
Well where i am living i had never seen electricity gone.
Because i am living in a hostel. College hostel.
And it is very expensive. So when electricity goes out generator works
Glad part about its.
All of my study expenses is on loan.
I am belonging from a middle class family.
But my father agreed for my private college as i convinced him that i will pay.
I will pay everything believe in me last time. ...
I opened my room gate and went to the main hall while adjusting my torch light.
I can hear students are shouting.
Well it is because human always find fun in everything
so many of students always wait when will the electricity goes and they will shout loudly.
Its a fun thing.
Really.
its first time that electricity gone.
So students are shouting too loudly.
Make it more fun.
Well i also join them.
And also start shouting at high pitch.
Suddenly i stopped.
Staring at the wall.
No no.
I am staring at the void.
In front of my eyes.
There was a blue screen.
 『Welcome to the gods heir』 
It was so unrealistic.
I thought that this is my dream.
I touched the screen with my limb.
But the funny part is.
My limb goes through it.
Like it is a hologram.
My thoughts are spinning.
**How can this happen.
Its utterly impossible.**
I had read so many webnovel i had already assumed so many scenarios like this.
That there will be screen come from nowhere in front of you and you will say status and-
**Wait status
How can i forget this.**
In my rough voice i said - "status"
And i am believing that there will be a status screen will come.
And my life will take a 180. Degree turn But to my surprise there is no screen came.
1 sec...
2 sec...
Sudden a somber expression appeared on my face.
A kid who always growed up while reading novel.
A system is always his dream.
3 sec...
3.4 sec-
And than
A voice heared in my mind.
 『 STATUS Name- Raj aggarwal Level- 1 Class- homo sapiens Sub class- None Stats/skills/shop/?¿? 』 
As i stared at the screen.
My lips raised upwardly.
This is what i want
This is like my dream
I always wanted a magical world.
A rpg type world where gods and demons are fighting. I will increase my level while fighting monsters.
What..What is there any chance of my being alive in this scenario.
This world is going to change.
I have to change.
I have to protect my family.
Family...
**Shit.. shit..
My family lives 100 miles from here..
If this system is real and everyone can see it.
Then soon chaos is going to erupting.
What should i do now..
Take a bus or metro.
No no ..
Think think..
Well lets call them first..**
.
I opened my phone screen and saw the
battery.
Shit..
8 percent. It can work for few minutes or one hour max
I called on my moms number.
**Ring...
Ring...**
My heartbeat is increasing
*Ring... *
A women voice heared in my ear
-"Hlo, raj are you fine.
What.. what is this screen.
Everyone can see it.
Everyone is panicking.
You have to hurry....
come home as soon as possible".
I am glad that my mom answered my phone. While I staring at my screen i answered-"
don't worry mom.
There is nothing as panicking . Calm down.
Just prepare some weapons like your knife, baseball
And locked the house.
Do not open the door.
And tell my little brother that i am coming. Theres nothing to worry.
Everything is fine."
I convinced my mom that there is nothing. But a gloomy senstation was felting in my body.
I has to hurry.
As i glanced to the main hostel reception. A men with black beared.
Brown skin.
Black eyes and in red shirt and black pant is standing there
My warden was also in the state of shock. I went to him.
Seeing me his eyes became focus. He called my name.
" RAJ CAN YOU SEE THE SCREEN ALSO"
He remembered my name indeed worthy of warden position
I nodded.
"Well its strange-he said to me while looking at the main gate.
The gate was big and transparent Made of glass.
I also see outside.
Utter Darkness
Worrying if any type of dragon come here and just make this college campus in ashes. I glanced to other direction.
More and more students came from there room.
Many were studying in their room.
Many were gaming in their room.
But i don't care because i don't have any friends.
. But what i am doing here...
When a sytem comes to the world
You will granted with many powers.
But what i have to do.
As i thinking.
I stepped out on a ant.
Well its there problem being a short and came under my limb.
...The words on my screen crazily gone and swapped by a another words
 『 You are 137th one to killed a living being. 』 『 you got 5 true points』 
A crazy expression came on my face.
Here is the link of webnovel site - https://m.webnovel.com/book/peace-is-what-i-want_29563366708313205
submitted by Fangyuan___ to MartialMemes [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:11 Sweet-Count2557 Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA

Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA
Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA
Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street: A Historic Haven in the Heart of New York City
Price Level: $$$$
Hotel Class: 3.5
If you're a lover of history, culture, and iconic architecture, then Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street is the perfect choice for your stay in New York City. Located on the corner of Wall and Water Streets, this brand new hotel is situated in the heart of the renowned Financial District. Designed by the accomplished New York firm Gene Kaufman, Architect, P.C., the hotel's distinctive décor pays homage to the lively history of the District. With 127 modern-designed rooms, including 11 with walk-out balconies, you'll have a comfortable and stylish retreat during your visit. The hotel also offers a 24-hour business and fitness center, ensuring you have everything you need for a productive and enjoyable stay. After exploring the inspiring art, buildings, and shops in the area, you can indulge in delicious food and drink at one of the hotel's restaurants or the 24/7 Market Place. And for a truly unforgettable experience, don't miss the rooftop bar, where you can unwind and enjoy a bird's-eye view of the iconic architecture that New York City is famous for.
Amenities of Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA
Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA offers a wide range of amenities to ensure a comfortable and convenient stay for its guests. The hotel provides wheelchair access and accessible rooms for those with mobility needs. Pets are allowed, making it a great choice for pet owners. The non-smoking rooms and non-smoking hotel ensure a clean and fresh environment for all guests. The business center is equipped with all the necessary facilities for business travelers, while the fitness center allows guests to stay active during their stay. The hotel also offers a safe in each room for added security. Guests can enjoy entertainment on the flatscreen TV and relax on their private balcony. Facilities for disabled guests are available, and housekeeping services ensure a clean and tidy room. Blackout curtains provide a peaceful sleep environment, and bottled water is provided for guests' convenience. Cable/satellite TV, 24-hour check-in, and express check-in/check-out are additional amenities offered. Each room is equipped with a desk, and English-speaking staff are available to assist guests. Complimentary toiletries are provided, and free WiFi is available in the business center. The 24-hour front desk ensures assistance is available at any time. Other amenities include a hairdryer, newspaper, private bathrooms, paid public parking nearby, a seating area, soundproof rooms, Spanish-speaking staff, telephone, wake-up service/alarm clock, walk-in shower, and a wardrobe/closet. With these amenities, Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street provides a comfortable and enjoyable stay for all guests.
Contact of Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA
18886802531
120 Water St # 122, New York City, NY 10005
kemoldixon@inwallst.com
https://www.ihg.com/hotelindigo/hotels/us/en/new-york/nycgo/hoteldetail
Location of Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA
Pictures of Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA
Tips for Staying in Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street
Black Fox Coffee is around the corner--a great place for breakfast & coffee!Room 301 (and possibly all rooms on all floors in same location) have a noisy fan outside the room.Just book it, you will thank yourself later!Central location easily accessible to several subway lines. Perfect spot.Stay on a lower floor to avoid exorbitant elevator delays.
Reviews of Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street in New York City, USA
Book Hotel Indigo NYC Downtown - Wall Street Now !!!
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submitted by Sweet-Count2557 to worldkidstravel [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:10 Suspicious-Brain5807 AITA for telling a girl to 'go back to the kitchen'?

I (23M) have been dating my boyfriend Jake (22M) for a good 6 years now, so I'm well acquaintanced with his family. The girl woman I said this to was his sister, Amelia.
I was raised by a single mum who worked 2 jobs to support us. So I grew up doing a lot of housework and in her free-time, my mum taught me to cook. I like to think I'm pretty damn good at cooking, I cook for myself, for my boyfriend and sometimes his family. I have sensory issues and my boyfriend is allergic to a few things so I'm pretty good at finding work-arounds to accommodate people, including Amelia, so she's well aware that I can cook.
Anyway, she came over yesterday and sat down at the island(?) in the kitchen, I don't quite quite know how to describe it but basically she was on the other side, and I was in at the counter, back turned to her, making some lasagna. My specialty, so I turned around to ask if she would like something and she promptly burst out laughing. I was confused and she just kinda pointed at my apron. I was more confused, my apron was pretty normal, plain blue.
She then told me she'd never have thought I was the girl of the relationship. I assume this was a reference to my physicality, I'm pretty tall and do a lot of sports. I dithered, confused, and she 'explained' that I was cooking. I just continue staring, not quite sure what she meant. She then explained, as though I was a toddler, that cooking is for girls and the apron made me look like a 90s housewife.
The funny part about all of this is that Amelia CANNOT cook. I told her if cooking is for girls maybe she should go back to the kitchen so she could learn. I would be more than willing to teach her. She went red in the face and stormed off, calling me an asshole for saying that.
I went back to my cooking.
This morning quite a few of my friends have contacted me telling me I, of all people, should know better than to perpetuate gender stereotypes, and that Amelia was hurt by what I had said. Some of them agreed with me after hearing the context (which amelia did not tell them) but others said I did not need to sink to her level.
IMO, I thought that would show her how weird it was to perpetuate gender roles when she herself doesn't fit within them. But maybe I could have tried explaining first, AITA?
(Reposted from AmItheAsshole bc it got take down and a few people wanted updates)
submitted by Suspicious-Brain5807 to AITAH [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:09 Hot_Lychee_6575 Period irregularities

I'm 19 years old and for the past year (almost) I've been experiencing very irregular periods. I've noticed I usually bleed for about 3 weeks every month and only get a few days to a week where I'm not bleeding, a lot of the time it is extremely heavy aswell. There is no pain but I constantly feel weak and tired and recently I've begun oversleeping and overeating a lot more.
I've been to the doctors about this and was put on a waiting list for an ultrasound 6 or 7 months ago but haven't had it yet, I was also prescribed iron tablets because from blood tests they found I had low iron which is what they thought the cause of my irregular periods was but despite taking these tablets for around 6/7 months now there has been no change.
Has anyone experienced anything similar or know any conditions I could look into before I manage to get myself another appointment with the doctor? I thought perhaps it could be PCOS but I am not entirely sure
(Other than iron tablets, I do not take anything else, I do not smoke, I do not drink. I live in the UK. I am 5'10 and unsure of my weight as I dont have access to a scale right now)
submitted by Hot_Lychee_6575 to AskDocs [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:09 rck36 Bail Act (NSW) /DV: Academics will fix it. Pls just fuck off.

DV bail changes make a big difference, but Minns missed one big red flag
My comment :
"Rosalind, these are simply words. For context you need to spend a month in various Local Courts around regional NSW to understand the time pressures on LC magistrates, police prosecutors, Legal Aid and ALS. The Bail Act is law. Magistrates and practioners apply and are bound by law. Change the law if you like but Portugal, US, and Spain are so far removed from the NSW LC experience as to be a pipe dream of an academic"
That is just uni lecturer wanking. I see that Minns has walked it back.
submitted by rck36 to auslaw [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:07 Xadlin60 StarWatch

I had a dream yesterday about our world, but Starwars was made in Bollywood instead of Hollywood. It was named Starwatch.
It had a young Luke skywalker, that looked about 17 years old with freckles and very curly hair.
Han Solo was a big, fat Very brown Indian man who acted as a very famous Bollywood action star aka always squinting, doing martial arts and having long luscious hair waving in the wind.
Chewie looked the same, but his fur was dark red brown and had long luscious hair as well.
Princess Leia was just a kidnapped princess in a castle, where she looked anxious and sometimes danced her cares away.
Obi wan was a old, frail guru, with long white hair and a body that looked like it hadn’t eaten for years.
Darth Vader was a Japanese Oni demon, with bloodshot eyes, big front row teeths coming out his mouth and dressed in black clad samurai heavy armor.
Lightsabers were literally just rapiers, small and thin and only used with one hand, but obi wan and Vader were fighting flying through the air, like they were on wires aka hidden tiger Crouching dragon style.
Wierd dream
submitted by Xadlin60 to StarWars [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:06 anoneigh DJS & MSE gap

So prior to DJS, I had the MSE in. It got taken out about a month before my surgery. I’m a few days shy of 6 weeks post-op and I’ve been noticing the gap between my front teeth coming and going. It’s currently the biggest it’s been though over the past few days which isn’t saying much because the gap is minuscule
Part of it might be that I’ve also got space on either side of my front teeth (I will likely be getting veneers for my lateral incisors because I guess they’re smaller than most people’s). The spaces allow my canines to be where they’re supposed to be.
This is something that I occasionally experienced when the MSE was in as well after they closed the gap.
I’m just curious if others who had MSE prior to surgery experienced this post-op at all?
[Also, the general tooth feeling is bizarre because I think most (definitely not all though) of my teeth were numb and their feeling is coming back I guess. It just feels like a lot of pressure and throbbing though and throws me off; not painful, but just…there]
submitted by anoneigh to jawsurgery [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:06 absmotorskorea Used cars for sale in Korea

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submitted by absmotorskorea to u/absmotorskorea [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:06 greydorothy A brief discussion of violence in Fire Emblem

Intro

It’s not much of a stretch to say that violence is the primary form of interaction in video games. With a handful of exceptions, most video games involve guys whacking other guys, with varying degrees of brutality. Even chill games fall into this - Stardew Valley has sections with combat in them! Considering the pervasiveness of violence in video games, there has been a ton of amateur and academic commentary on the topic. However, while this is a well-established school of thought, I haven’t seen people try to apply this to Fire Emblem specifically.
So, let’s do that now! In this post, I’ll be exploring how violence in Fire Emblem is implemented - what limitations are placed on violence, how it warps wider game and narrative design, and what it implicitly says and does not say. I hope this post doesn’t come off as too early-2010s “makes you think”-y, but I do think there are multiple interesting things worth talking about here!
Despite the length of this post, "a brief discussion" is an appropriate title, as we won't be able to go into depth on everything. After all, video games are holistic works, so the attitude towards violence is relevant to every aspect of their design. However, I have managed to wrangle some of these threads into the following structure: first a discussion on the fundamental mode of interaction in Fire Emblem, then how stories are constructed with regards to violence, and ending with the aesthetics of violence and how they relate to characters. Also, as FE is a huge series, be aware that I am gonna be making some broad statements which may not apply to each individual plot point of every game. I actually planned to write 3 case studies around Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses (which have the most interesting attitudes to violence in the series IMO) which point out these deviations, but this post is way too long and full of tangents already. If people are interested, I’ll make a followup to this post which goes into them in more detail. Also also, because of the nature of this post, I’ll actually give a useful TL;DR for once:
TL;DR: Nintendo games must be fun mechanically, and they can’t be too uncomfortable narratively. If you try to provide a counterpoint by saying “oh this Kirby final boss is super dark it eats 100 morbillion galaxies”, you do not deserve rights. IntSys has to keep to this as a 2nd party publisher, but they also have to deal with the fact that their games are at least nominally about ‘war’ (or at least they put their toes into that particular thematic pool). This conflict between making a fun video game for children/teens and the wider framing of the narrative leads to interesting narrative and aesthetic tensions. also fun is cringe, misery is based

“Do you like hurting other people?” (or The Fundamental Mode of Interaction)

OK LISTEN I KNOW I LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO COME ACROSS AS A EARLY 2010s “VIOLENCE IN VIDYA BAD :O????” PERSON BUT I SWEAR I’M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS
The best place to start when talking about violence in video games is to think about the primary form of interaction in said game. In the case of Fire Emblem, this is in the in-chapter gameplay. Sure, in objective terms the player moves arbitrary objects across a 2D grid which perform subtraction on arbitrary objects controlled by the computer, but this is always framed as controlling a squad of soldiers to engage in (typically lethal) combat with enemies (who are normally also soldiers). When you’re not doing this in-chapter gameplay, you are preparing for the next chapter of combat. This involves surveying the area of combat, preparing weapon loadouts, etc, however more recent entries also include light life-sim-esque elements. To summarize, Fire Emblem’s interactivity involves ordering violence as well as the preparations to order said violence.
For players, this strategic thinking is extremely fun and is the primary draw of the series! You have all these tier lists of who’s better at killing, discussion of the maps where you do the killing, complaints about the length of gameplay sections where you don’t do killing, etc. This is by design, as while I don’t know the core brand tenets of Nintendo, I imagine the Reggie quote “If it isn’t fun, why bother?” is carved into a solid gold statue of Mario in the office lobby. This then is enforced on all associated studios, including IntSys and so Fire Emblem. While I would disagree with that Reggie quote (especially the bit where he says “If it’s not a battle, where’s the fun?” which is a wild statement to make about an entire medium), this approach to making games is ultimately fine, and so IntSys tailored the strategic gameplay to be satisfying to your dopamine receptors. You could analyse what the normalisation of violence even in ‘just for fun’ games says about wider gaming culture, but I won’t get into that here. In any case, let’s dig into a few specifics of FE’s interactivity.
One thing that’s interesting with regard to strategy games is the detached perspective of the player. You order units and observe the resulting violence, but it’s not tactile, you don’t directly swing the sword or shoot the bow or cast the spell like with action games. This adds a layer of separation between the player and what fundamentally happens, at least within the framing that the game provides. It’s not like Call of Duty, where your relationship to the violence is very visceral, where you view everything down the barrel of a gun. OK, I probably shouldn’t use a series that I have very little personal experience with (I only listen to the supplementary lore material, so let’s talk about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While you’re not directly in the driver’s seat, John Sekiro reacts to your every input with extreme responsiveness, so overcoming the game’s challenges i.e. stabbing people is incredibly visceral and satisfying. While this violence is fantastical in nature, there is sufficient blood and explicit sword-action to clearly say “oh yeah you are violently killing all of those bozos with a katana”. Coming back to FE, not only are you far more detached from the violence, it is presented in an extremely cartoony manner… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we’ll get to the aesthetics later. Point is, Fire Emblem gives the viewpoint of a stoic commander, who Does What Needs To Be Done™, and not the viewpoint of an actual soldier who has to do the actual killing.
Now let’s view the player’s perspective on violence from a different angle. Fire Emblem intends for its combat to be relatively relaxed on the player side of things - the turn-based nature allows the player to calmly think through all of their moves, and you typically have perfect information on the enemies. The only exceptions to this are Fog of WaSame Turn Reinforcements, which are rare and typically unpopular amongst the fanbase. This leans into ‘combat as sport’, where (going back to the Reggie quote) you have a fun time picking apart a puzzle with the tools you have, and we all collectively enjoy this! This is a valid way of designing strategy games, and I like what IntSys has done. However, it’s not the only way of making these games - for example, in Total War you have to juggle all your battalions in real time whilst the enemy is bearing down on you, and the XCOM games always have Fog of War and limited information on the enemies, with you never knowing what kind of awful new monster is going to suddenly charge at you. Don’t get me wrong, neither of these follow ‘combat as war’, the principle that violence should properly mimic the stress, tension and unfairness of actual conflict. Hell, neither of them are particularly mature either - Total War is the strategy game equivalent of smashing action figures together, and XCOM emulates a pulp sci-fi alien invasion story. However, the additional pressures these games have make them hew slightly closer to actual conflict, putting you more in that mindset in a way that the clean fun Fire Emblem doesn’t really do. Again, I want to say FE’s approach to violence in in-map gameplay is fine, but when all three of these franchises have an explicit narrative framing of ‘warfare’, it does make Fire Emblem’s narrative a little more… stretched.
Finally, I want to briefly mention the maps. To steal from a brilliant Jacob Geller video, these are Worlds Designed For Violence. At least outside of the Kaga games, the maps you fight on are primarily designed around how the player interacts with them, i.e. fights on them. While I imagine the narrative designers and artists at IntSys are involved throughout the map design process, the gameplay flow probably takes precedence most of the time. Maps are not designed to resemble realistic places that you have to fight through, they are instead designed primarily to provide fun gameplay experiences before being dressed up by the artists to look realistic/fit the specific story beat. This is a more consistently entertaining approach to map design - heaven knows we have a lot of Kaga castle assault maps which are as fun as actually assaulting an entrenched position IRL - but this lack of friction could potentially take the bite out of the intended vibe, neuter any commentary on violence throughout the story.
You may have noticed that we’ve only talked about the “in-map” gameplay for now, when there’s an entire second half of these games, i.e. all the gameplay between the maps. Don’t worry, we’ll get to all of that, but this may fit better in:

Something something “ludonarrative” something something (or Narrative Implications)

(To clarify, here I’m going to talk about the wider plots and narrative structure as opposed to characterisation, as that fits more into the aesthetics of the series)
It’s not bold to say that the narratives of games have to warp around the core gameplay structure. Especially in AAA video game production, the narrative designers usually have to take a back seat to the systems and level designers, at least outside of the initial rough outline they provide in the original game pitch. In this case, the job of the writer is to form vaguely coherent connective tissue between individual levels, setpieces and expensive pre-rendered cutscenes. This must be a very difficult job, and is probably the reason why most video game stories are the way they are. I am not privy to IntSys internal meetings, but I imagine they abide by this paradigm, trying to give a reason for why you fight 20 battles which roughly align with plot beats that were decided years ago.
Put another way, the writers of Fire Emblem must contrive a reason why the characters fight a vast number of violent battles in a strategic manner. This has a pretty easy solution - war! We have found something it’s good for, as whenever the gameplay designers decide that an extra map is required, the writers can just insert “oh no there’s a blockade of enemy soldiers in the way, guess you gotta kill them all”. This is the case for almost all the games and is a fair enough narrative choice, as it’s frankly one of the few scenarios where you could reasonably contrive so many battles, but it’s worth examining this in a bit more detail.
Even in the framing of warfare, there are still a lot of skirmishes, which sometimes the narrative or tone fails to support - or at least, their presence means that violence isn’t taken that seriously. Let’s take an example from early in Awakening: Emmeryn sends the Shepherds to negotiate an alliance with Regna Ferox. On the way, they are ambushed by Risen on the Northroad (1), have to fight the border guards who think Chrom is a bandit I think??? (2), and then after arriving they need to take part in Regna Ferox’s ritual combat to secure their alliance (3). These beats aren’t necessarily bad, and I actually think Awakening uses these opportunities quite well: the Risen are established as a constant threat to the world (except not really in the main story but that’s a whole other thing), “Marth'' gets more development, we set up Regna Ferox as fighty people who like to fight, and while the middle encounter is very tenuous it does set up a funny joke in Cynthia’s paralogue. However, I want to communicate that if the map/encounter designers need X maps between plot points A and B - in this case, needing low-stakes trials in the tutorial period - then there’s gonna be a fair bit of narrative filler. That is to say, there must be multiple combat encounters that kinda just happen, which makes violence a lot more casual in the narrative. See also the myriad examples of “oh shit random bandits attack!”, used to have a lower stakes map, with bandits appearing and vanishing as needed. This works fine enough in the context of ‘combat as sport’, allowing your favourite scrunglo to build up a triple-digit body count, but this casual attitude circumvents potentially interesting ideas with regards violence. Taking the example further, banditry and its causes are never seriously explored, as bandits are just treated as a filler enemy (except in Based As Hell Thracia 776).
Another narrative consequence of needing so many fights is that… you need to fight. That is to say, any anti-war sentiment or appeal to diplomacy in the series is fundamentally undercut by a) strategic combat being a core appeal of the series and b) narrative beats needing to be structured around fighting enemies. It’s a struggle to have moments of diplomacy and reconciliation when you had a fight within 3 minutes of said moment, lest some people start screaming that things are getting boring. This also makes any appeals to pacifism kinda moot. Xander’s quote about “war bad” in Conquest is utter bullshit, as a huge part of the marketing around that route focuses on the coolness of the tactical combat and its challenge. Eirika and Ephraim can never be equal, because Ephraim’s “fighting is fucken awesome” is encouraged by the gameplay, and Eirika can NEVER save 11037 because we need a final boss and no-one else fits the bill.
Speaking of, in video games it’s best practice to have a big bad guy you fight at the end of the story, the toughest mechanical challenge coinciding with the narrative climax. In Fire Emblem, you have one grand final battle which decides the fate of the war and/or world, before cutting to a brief wrap-up and then credits. This is an attempt to make these games satisfying, which is fine, but this is at odds with an anti-war message (which FE often gestures towards) - that is, actual wars tend to be deeply unsatisfying in a narrative sense! Oftentimes, after a decisive battle, things just kinda keep going for a little while afterwards with casualties continuing to pile up until peace terms are agreed. In the few cases where there is a final battle, it’s more of a formality as the decisive moment occurred months ago. See World War 1 and… World War 2 for examples of each, not to mention a whole host of war-related books and films. The problem with doing this in a video game is that it would require having multiple one-sided fights past the most climatic fight, which would be unfun, and we return to that fucking Reggie quote again. While video games can effectively explore this anti-war narrative space - This War of Mine is a fantastic example - it just doesn’t gel with the fun games that IntSys wants to make. I bring this up in the context of FE because Fire Emblem has such an aesthetic focus on warfare compared to other video games, so it sticks out even further. Even in FE6/FE9 where the war is effectively over in the final few maps, the enemies still remain extremely challenging, because if they didn’t things would be boring.
A few minor things that didn’t fit in above before we wrap up this section. First of all, in making an action packed story, Fire Emblem neglects an important aspect of army life in warfare - the “hurrying up and waiting”. In the majority of cases, the breaks between fights is under 10 minutes, it’s just glossed over. Fire Emblem Three Houses is the exception to this, but there it’s more framed as school life. Some people may say “what’s the point in having large amounts of timewasting where nothing happens in my game about war” and to that I would say fuck you, I want to play Jarhead Emblem. Next, Fire Emblem involves fighting people AND monsters, but these targets are typically given equal narrative weight, outside of maybe a funny line of dialogue about someone being afraid of monsters. In 99% of cases, enemy soldiers you fight have no more humanity than literal monsters. The death of any of your beloved soldiers is a tragedy with big sad death quotes, the death of those poor fuckers is quite literally a statistic which is proudly used to rank how well your guys have done at the end of the game. Finally, the limited scope of the violence the series can show limits the potential impact of scenes. In some cases, this is good as the implication is enough, e.g. the ‘Monica’ scene in Sacred Stones is wonderfully grim and would be weakened by anything explicit. However, a number of other scenes are neutered by the limitations on violence. This fundamentally relates to the aesthetics of the series:

insert prozd tweet/skit here (or Aesthetics, Tone, and Characters)

I’ve been talking a lot about ‘the violence committed’, and this might have seemed a bit weird to you. It’s a true statement, but because the violence is mostly cartoony and abstracted - bad guys disappear into nothingness, there’s no blood, etc - it’s hard to think of it in that way. It’s basically impossible to place Fire Emblem in the same artistic sphere as, say, All Quiet on the Western Front. This aesthetic sense was partially tech-limited in the early NES and SNES games, which was grandfathered into the more graphically complex titles, but it’s also related to how the aesthetics unavoidably warp the tone of the work. IntSys needs their games to be relatively lighthearted and unconcerned with the consequences of its violence, as one of the core appeals of these games is the charming cast of characters. As you would expect, it would be a lot harder to appreciate your goofy blorbos and their lighthearted chats about nothing if you could see the brutal consequences of their triple digit body counts. If violence was more realistic, there would be a lot less “ooh I like training and/or this one hyperspecific food” or “I like peace, but I guess violence may be possibly needed sometimes” and there would have to be a lot more trauma and dourness. There are also age rating concerns, as you can’t exactly sell Come And See Emblem to pre-teens. And once more, to clarify: Fire Emblem as it exists now is fine! I like the lighthearted tone of this series, and I like the characters that reside within it. However, a few problems do arise from IntSys’s approach to violence, as occasionally they brush up against darker ideas but (due to similar reasons to the above) they can never commit to them, which neuters their potential impact. This is especially troublesome with regards to characterisation, as the little dudes are a core appeal, so if something is off that could cause problems. In a sense, at points we have severe aesthetic tension.
A fairly useful case study to see how this affects characterisation is with Mozu in Fire Emblem Fates. Mozu is a charming character, a genial country bumpkin with a bit of an edge at times, who has fond memories of her hometown. This lines up with the lighthearted tone of her recruitment paralogue, where (checks notes) her entire village gets massacred by inhuman monsters, with her mother literally being murdered right in front of her, and she joins up with Corrin’s party because there is literally nothing left of her old life. I understand that people who experience extreme trauma do still manage to live meaningful lives, and that IntSys wouldn’t want to have a character who is a barely functional traumatised mess for 90% of the campaign. However, this doesn’t explain the sheer dissonance between the relatively normal and well-adjusted Mozu who quietly remembers her lost loved ones, and the fact that her village got My Lai’d a handful of weeks ago in the game’s timeline. IMO this would work a lot better if there were a few survivors (instead of literally everyone else dying), with Mozu actively choosing to leave her old life to help others instead of being forced to leave by circumstance. This reduction in scope would mitigate the dissonance between the character and what actually happens to her. This is by far the most extreme example in the series, however I’m sure you can think of others. My issue here is not with having ‘normal’ characters, or with them suffering tragedies, my issue is the dissonance between the two when viewing the scope of said tragedies. This is just one way the series wants to get into darker territory, then swiftly backing off instead of delving into the consequences.
This aesthetic restriction also affects the potential impact of dramatic scenes in the main story, limiting what the focus of these scenes can actually be. This little bit will involve heavy spoilers for Genealogy of the Holy War and Spec Ops: The Line (I KNOW THESE GAMES ARE VERY DIFFERENT WITH VERY DIFFERENT INTENDED DEMOGRAPHICS IN VERY DIFFERENT CULTURAL CONTEXTS, SHUT UP). Both have a very important narrative moment around their midpoints, involving fire magic/white phosphorus respectively. In each game, the deaths that occur are utterly horrific when you think about them. In FE4 the focus is on the drama of the plot twist and effects on the characters, with the actual effects of the violence being left to implication. We don’t know if this was the original intent of Kaga and the team, or if this was enforced by various tech- and publisher-related restrictions, but in either case we do not see anything explicit. In any case, in Spec Ops: The Line, the horror and graphic nature of the violence is completely inescapable, and therefore forms the core of the turning point of the story. The specifics of the violence itself are crucial - the game does not work if you don’t see the consequences of the white phosphorus - and it leads beautifully to the complete descent of its endgame. You may be saying “of course you couldn’t show that violence in FE, it’s a kids game” which is true, and in any case the scene in Genealogy is very good, even without showing the violence. I imagine if we get a remake in the year 202X we wouldn’t see anything explicit anyway, partially due to the publisher but also because the scene doesn’t necessarily need it. The point I am trying to make is that the aesthetics form a limitation on what Fire Emblem can explore, narrative space that the series fundamentally cannot reach.
One more thing, and this isn’t really about the games themselves but the impressions leading into them, and how the aesthetics can affect that. Do you guys remember when the intro cutscene of Three Houses was released a few weeks before release? I do, and I also remember the collective shock of the community when seeing the early previews. It was so drastically different to everything that had come before, and consequently was really intriguing - you can see a lot of speculation in the above comments. To clarify, I don’t want to pretend that 3H is some kind of super mature ultra gritty war story, or that blood = good game, but that beginning cutscene gave one hell of a first impression. Even though the game isn’t that much darker than any other FE game, the sheer unexpectedness put people off-kilter in a kinda awesome way. Does the game actually deliver? YMMV, but I think this (and some of the later cutscenes, such as the mid-game Dimitri one) work quite well. Sometimes, a little injection of harsher violence can go a long way.

Conclusion

Frankly I don’t really have a conclusion, sorry. As you can see, there are so many disparate strands, I can’t possibly make one grand thesis statement. Maybe the inherent contradictions of having warfare in a family friendly video game weakens the potential end result? I guess, but I don’t want to imply that what we have now is bad, as it is pretty good tbh. So, uhh…

OK, if I had to say something, it’s more about the process of making this. Having to try and think about how violence intersects with a video game you like takes you in a number of different directions. Ultimately, this process was really fulfilling for me, and I would recommend that you do the same (for FE or anything else)! Trying to analyse something you enjoy from a perspective not usually applied is pretty neat. If you guys have any thoughts (on the points above or your own), I’d be very interested to hear them!
Also, if people are interested, I’ll try to make a few case studies. I would focus on Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses, as (when thinking on this topic) I found that these games were consistently the most intriguing, with the most interesting relationships to violence. This would probably take a while though, as I am gonna be very busy in June, and I probably won’t have time this month either.
submitted by greydorothy to fireemblem [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:05 False_Profezzor A weird childhood dream

I sometimes reminisce about this vivid dream I had as a child of 3 or younger. It is very peculiar. In this dream, I was an adult woman. I couldn't see my own face, but I had red hair. It started out with me opening the door to a house and stepping out into the driveway. It was a 2 or 3 storied bungalow type house. There was a blue car (maybe from the 80's or 70's? Definitely not modern) parked. A man (maybe in his 30's, blond) sat in the driver's seat waiting. There were two kids playing on a swing tied in a tree. The dream would then cut to us driving near some ind of fence while a some song played on the radio. We would park by a short metallic gate which would swing open with a nice loud creek. I grabbed the kids (two boys) from the backseat and we would all walk to a gravestone and the man would lay down some flowers at its foot. He would them step back and put his arm around me and kiss me and the dream would end.
Now here's the weird thing about this dream. I grew up in India and had no idea about graveyards and other western things at that time. I couldn't have heard of it from anywhere because, we never watched english movies or shows or anything. I didn't even have youtube then. I didn't even know people could have skin that white or that they could have red/ blond hair. The whole dream was from the actual perspective of an adult woman who was definitely taller than I am even now. I didn't know english at that point, but all the conversations in the dream were in english, and only later in life when having that dream became a regular thing did I start to understand what was going on. Another thing that was quite bewildering was that the whole scenery seemed pretty typical to some country like the US. I have always lived in a flat, and the house in the dream was a bungalow, which I think are somewhat common in the west. The man in the dream who I am assuming was my husband was very affectionate with me. My parents had an arranged marriage, they were never affectionate with each other. I didn't know people who were married loved each other and expressed it physically at that point.
I had this dream very often as a child (almost every day at some point). I am 17 now and still have this dream sometimes. Sometimes I see it in 3rd person. It has been bugging me for a while now, but I can never seem to catch a glimpse of my own face in the dream. Now that I know somethings about the world, I am starting to recognize more and more weird things such as the midwestern accent. It was there when I had the dream for the first time and every other time, but I have only recently recognized. A friend of mine thinks its some kind of past life memory but honestly I don't believe this. Can anyone try and make sense of it?
submitted by False_Profezzor to Dreams [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:03 vng3222 It used to be fun

So I recently just came back to the game after 9 months... Like said the sub feels like ghost town while the game itself...
  1. They (EA) tried so hard to eliminate complains from previous season which occasionally people would say that there's nothing to play, but this time around there are too much boring things to go through, bot matches, skill games, everything is time consuming and boring.
  2. Animations. Yes, it's one of the thing that I hate the most since forever, while every point rewards has pack animation, every quest completed needed to go through pack. It's just mesmerizing, I've said it before that I wish there's a "Claim all" thingy. So imagine you spending time opening nothing just to go through boring animation, again time consuming and boring.
  3. Team building, yeah like said in the Beta of FC Mobile that I've posted before. You have a choice to build your low OVR player so that eliminates the need of chasing OVR unlike previous season. But, rank up is a pain while training is another type of pain. At least if you have some coin resources just buying a 5 ranked up card is a no brainer but buying all those small cards to do the training is pure pain, and yeah if you want to maximize your training XP you better buy same junk card and rank them up to 2... Which again ANIMATION, time consuming and boring.
  4. H2H, it's still playable but I notice that since after this global server thingy has becomes a thing unlike previous season where we got regional servers, things has becomes slow, even the connection is good but when your opponent has a crappy connection... it's just painful to play. Cross spamming is not a thing anymore, skill spamming is dead, both are good things TBH. Tactic in H2H playing still works flawlessly which is good but provided the server is junk... it still very boring. SCRIPT? RGN? Yeah still there.
  5. VSA, WHAT?
  6. MM, com'on who cares.
  7. Market... Well, it's very very very meaningless.
Overall BORING, thanks EA.
submitted by vng3222 to FUTMobile [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:02 Moonberry_Cake Learned over time that I have a spiritual veil/buffer over my psychic abilities during the years, it affects my chakras; Help, please?

I have asked this before in the past over the last four years and only now I have learned enough about this to where it is no longer a complete mystery to me, and now that I partially know what it is, I am hoping to figure out a plan and a path to help me with my healing journey and learn how to uplift the veil/buffer that prevents me from feeling anything with my gifts, and to an extent, feeling normal in my heart chakra center.
Long story short, this is what happened that led to this veil be upon me. I had long awaited for my psychic abilities, and in turn my chakras, to fully awaken and begin to experience what life is like as a psychic and feel the world around me. I was unsure of when it would happen until I was told by a guide that they would awaken after I had turned 22 in 2020. After a lot of patience, that came true, and was unexpected to attract an unwarranted amount of spirits around me. They made me confused and anxious while I was just beginning to detect sounds and auras with my abilities coming out. And somehow, after all of this, I had only known a brief glimpse of a white, wispy silhouette of a male spirit walking away from my direction past what looked like a drawer, and then suddenly saw nothing. In short, that time in 2020 was the only time I could decently experience my abilities like I had hoped and could not find an explanation to why I couldn't have my gifts awaken without and interruptions or strange paranormal occurrences. In that year, I had felt rips and tears in my aura that felt a little draining, and as I can surmise, that contributed to my journey to recovery.
What had first started my healing and recovery journey was not only the strange attacks on my aura and the austere confusion that sullied my foretold, patient awakening, yet also a shut-off in my mind that I had later discovered from a reiki healer was in fact an energy blockage in my Third Eye, which he healed and helped me walk the first steps to growth and transformation. I have no certainty of when the veil was first put on me, but throughout the entire time afterwards, I was saddened and disappointed that I could no longer feel the healing energy of my crystals, the auras of spirit being or physical people, hear the voices and thoughts of the spirit beings, and the fact that I could no longer feel like I could daydream, know my dreams, know when I'm in a Zen state when meditating or even get a sense on how to astral project correctly. Every day since the closing of my Third Eye and the end of 2020, I felt soft, faint, numb, unfeeling and unaware of anything that used to make me feel the highs and lows of life and went about my days thinking that I had lost my sense of wonder and excitement in my heart. Scary videos and movies no longer shake or startle me, love feels/felt distant and unstirring, I could not experience bliss and excitement shared with a lover or on my own, and my artistic hobbies lost their spark. All of this simply made me feel more alien to my family and people around me while I was having reiki sessions and looking for ways to feel centered, balanced, grounded, and normal again. Although, this was considering after the fact that I had a spiritual awakening once my DNA activated my dormant psychic abilities.
All throughout this time, sometimes various spirit beings popped up and I could hardly even tell who they were or if they were even of divine love and light at all, so while this was happening, those very beings just made things more difficult to comprehend and allow myself to understand the reasoning of my family's help. Fast forward to this year after a long, austere, and oddly eventful four years since my 22nd birthday, I had in total 6 hospital visits, 2 stays at recovery centers for behavioral rehab, an absurd amount of medical debt, and an embarrassing amount of times I had argued with my family over a simple fantasy game that was a part of this four year-long story that I will not mention the name of; all of which for the same reasons that first manifested from my psychic awakening and circumstances that absolutely no nurse or doctor could even help or pinpoint. The only help I had ever received that gave me any progress was the reiki healings, medium sessions with my guardian angels and spirit guides, the crystals I owned to help with my chakras, and the cathartic realization that I was actually a starseed going through a really odd awakening.
I was sad, I was upset, I was overwhelmed, and I was simply itching for a logical, metaphysical answer that could help me further understand my internal circumstances and walk away from the chaos of trying to figure out how to even re-learn how to meditate, daydream, visualize anything, and even have a substantial certainty that I could have a trustworthy conversation with my true spirit team without any false beings intruding and confusing me. Since this journey started, I have grown a lot and had some progress in this, and in summary, I have finally found a happier ending. Yet was has perplexed me and eluded me was that I could not tell was was still keeping me from re-sensitizing myself to my abilities and feel more aware and connected throughout my body, just so that I could feel more normal within my new sense of self. What helped the most was not any doctor giving me a nasty pill for BPD or Schizophrenia, but talking with my guardian angels and them telling me that they put a veil/buffer on me to keep me safe from overstimulation and unnecessary encounters from low-vibrational beings (although from my personal perspective, it would have been helpful to not have this psychic problem with not even telling the difference between my spirit team and anyone else- thus, the great itch to remove it), and that it is very much possible to fully remove it since that it's temporary. I had even learned the real names of my angels and starseed family, and that I had a large team of angels watching over me. This helped me find progress and some peace in my heart.
And so, in the epilogue era of my life, I am still in search of the same, tangible connection with that spark of wonder and feeling comfortable and grounded within my body, as I have learned from attempting to meditate again is that there is something with my heart and mind that makes me feel so unaware, soft, and faint to the energies around me and feeling anything at all with my own body, most likely in my heart and crown chakras that could hold more answers to fulfilling my wishes. I have completely foregone the need to use a pendulum at all for spiritual communication and is not solely used for crystal energy repair and spell-work, so now I have to really use my senses to channel any information from my spirit team and feel confident enough that I can still try to get the same, transformative results that the more emotionally aware people know when they feel their breath and prana while meditating, getting a healing, and having spiritual journeys like other psychics and starseeds do. I have been feeling quite unconfident and doubtful of myself with reattuning to my senses, body, and emotions again, as now I am having encouragement from my spirit medium and my spirit team that I should endeavor into reiki practice, automatic writing, and do spirit channeling myself. Whatever is going on with my heart and how the veil/buffer affects me, its quite discouraging to even try when I couldn't even tell what's happening in my dreams at night. I do not even write down my dreams anymore ever since the end of 2020 when I had first noticed that they all felt blurry, faint, fuzzy, and distant from my usual experiences, and now, I don't even bother to try to see if I can recall any visitations or conversations with my guides and angels at night.
I am in a better position now than I was back then, yet my journey is not over. I do not know anyone that has felt like this or had known their abilities better than I did, and I would like to ask if there is anyone who knows what a veil/buffer like this is for and how I can prepare myself to be ready enough to fully remove it myself, and my angels said that I could indeed do that, although I could guess that it would have to be through some kind of spiritual journey into the self/subconscious self that I could uplift it from the inside. You can try to imagine what that would be like, with meditation, in turn, feeling as soft, faint, dark, and distant like I said.
I have noticed lately, that I can still feel sadness and joy enough to substantially make me cry a little, and I enjoy that actually, it feels more close to home of how it used to feel before I had the odd spiritual attacks and all of the other said factors of my recovery; yet nowadays, I still do not jump at a thing that would usually scare or startle me (like horror game playthroughs) or even feel a natural laugh coming on when I hear or see something that previously makes me giggle and laugh. So, I try to coax myself to smile and nod at the funny things or even fake at laughing to appear more normal in front of my family or friends. Bliss and pleasure definitely feel soft and faint as well, so I know that intimacy or romantic affection does not rouse me enough anymore. I pretty much have to encourage acting out my emotions and pretend a little, which I would rather restore the excitement and tangibility of instead of feeling low and calm all of the time.
I have no spirit beings affecting me anymore, and my life is now more steady and stable now. Yet, I know that I would still have to find a way to establish a safe and effective method to spiritually visit and talk with my spirit team so that they can help me understand my life, sense of self, and what I can do to learn more about my starseed mission and why I reincarnated into this world.
What else can I do to help further the progress I have made? What kind of modalities should I try out and help heal my heart, mind and body, to heal myself like my spirit team wanted? What kinds of advice and tips can help with a soul like me who feels somewhat "aphantasic" to formerly strong and tangible senses and feelings? What exercises and practices should I take up to help balance myself and feel and know the peace between thoughts during meditation? Perhaps more reiki is needed? Could learning reiki and other types of energy healing help me with healing and opening up my heart (where I think that most of the problem is)?
What can I do to bring more empathic awareness and start to feel normal again?
Happen to know anyone who knows what it's like to have a special veil on one's spiritual senses or had something similar to having a healing journey like this? Maybe a DNA activation or healing may help with this? Whatever it is, I would love what any of you in the spiritual community have to say, as this whole journey and how it started came as one heck of a shock and surprise to me. I never had this happen to me before. I have tried to find out if Qigong or regression hypnosis therapy would help, but if you can figure this, it was definitely not easy to even tell what kind of energy shifts were going on within me or around me, so that couldn't have helped me at the time. Neurotherapy brain scans did nothing for me, in case anyone wonders that. Any feedback on this would be great, as I don't think that it is just this veil/buffer that is the sole cause of my issue. Who else can explain this besides me? Atheist scientists cannot, priests cannot, so who else would know? Please do message me, I yearn to get closer to feeling the love and light of the universe again.
Who knows? Maybe it has something to do with a subconscious thing with my Inner Child that triggered this feeling? My former Reiki healer, Chris, did say that I had "shut off" my powers and that I had regressed inwards, so, let's see if that still holds true?
submitted by Moonberry_Cake to Chakras [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 11:01 Tiny_Parsley Full body joint burning joint pain? What helps you?

So I'm diagnosed with MCAS and experience quite often full body joint pain.
Toes, ankles, knees, elbows, wrists, fingers. There's no swelling and redness and it usually disappears during the day so I think it's highly inflammatory and linked to MCAS
If you have the same what helps you?
Last time I tried to take an ibuprofen my throat/tongue felt like it started to swell so I don't want to take that anymore...
submitted by Tiny_Parsley to MCAS [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 10:59 Rietnet Seeking advice: Upgrading My HPE ProLiant Server for Better Game Server Hosting and General Use

I'm currently looking to upgrade the CPUs in my HPE ProLiant server. My current server specs are:
I'd like to upgrade to the Intel Xeon E5-2690 v2 CPU (since I have a dual CPU setup, I need to buy 2 CPUs). This upgrade will help improve the performance and capabilities of my server, which I plan to use for hosting game servers and other general server applications.
The official retail price for these CPUs is around 80+ euros each. However, I've found them listed on AliExpress for around 15 euros. This significant price difference has me concerned about the legitimacy and reliability of the AliExpress listings.
I'm not sure if I can trust these AliExpress sellers or if the CPUs they're offering are genuine. I want to make sure I get authentic, high-quality CPUs that will be compatible and reliable in my server, as the stability and performance of my game servers and other applications are crucial.
Can anyone provide advice or insights on purchasing CPUs from AliExpress? Are there any red flags I should be aware of or steps I can take to ensure I'm getting legitimate, reliable parts? I want to make sure I make a wise decision that won't compromise the performance or stability of my server, as it's crucial for my game server hosting and other server applications.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!
Note: This post was translated with the assistance of AI.
submitted by Rietnet to HomeServer [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 10:59 Sensual_Resolve_461 Body count anxiety

I went though a year of promiscuity after a breakup that destroyed me at the age of 23, leading to full self sabotage mode. I had 6 one night stands in that year, I was drunk every single time and admittedly regret my actions and have learnt from them. I know that I was seeking validation because of the pain of the breakup, but I devalued and shamed myself all because of a broken heart.
Ended up getting back with the ex which was another huge mistake. It was a toxic relationship but we lived together until end of 2020. (kind of relieved we did get back together because the trajectory of the path I was on wasn't looking good. Needed the lesson I learnt from being with him)
Then next time I was sexually involved with some one was in 2022 and he has been the only one since and I slept with him because I really wanted to and we were developing a relationship that never got off the ground and I'm still grieving it. But I definitely learnt from my past that sleeping around won't make me feel better.
But I am so resentful towards myself for taking those actions when I was younger. I see so much content that shames women for their body count. It has made me feel worthless and like I have no value. My body count is now 10 and I was hoping that the most recent would be my last as I really fell for that man but now I clearly need to move on as he doesn't want the same kind of relationship as I do.
Please could someone offer any advice. Any women in my position that have felt similarly to me and how you find peace within?
I still cringe internally and feel discomfort with my past and I feel like I need to make peace with it but I'm struggling.
submitted by Sensual_Resolve_461 to RedPillWomen [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 10:54 purple-posie16 Freaking out about recovery

I'm (44f) scheduled for a microdisectomy and hemilaminectomy in the morning for L5S1 and I'm seriously stressing about the recovery. It's 430am and I can't sleep from pain but also just so nervous.
Been trying to prepare myself as much as possible: did some rearranging of my things to prevent any bending or twisting or lifting, watched several videos on how to log roll in and out of bed, use the bathroom, etc. And I know walking will be key.
However, sleeping has me panicked. I keep reading how many people are sleeping on their side after surgery, which is what I've been doing the past 9 months with my pain and sciatica. Literally been sleeping on the same side in the same position for all this time because anything else is too painful, even back sleeping. The advice is to sleep with a pillow between your knees, while also maybe hugging a pillow and also putting a pillow behind you if sleeping on side.
My question is: how the hell do you log roll into this position? I've been practicing and cannot do it. I can get onto my back, but have trouble getting to the other side of my body and getting into place to hug the pillow/put pillow between my knees without doing a bunch of readjusting which I know I can't be doing post surgery. And then how do you put the pillow behind you if no twisting is allowed? And how do you put your covers on once situated? Are people just sleeping with no covers for the recovery period?? I'm going to be miserable if that's the issue.
And same with back sleeping: how do you put the pillow under your knees? How do you log roll out of that position? Or do you always need someone to assist you?
And I've read sitting is limited, that it should be laying down, or walking, for the most part. I have a TV at the foot of my bed. If I have to lay flat on my back or flat on my side, I can't watch tv. Is it ok to be propped up a bit? If so, again, how do you log roll in and out of this position? Are you allowed to scoot around and/or prop yourself up with your hands/elbows to lift your head/shoulders/torso up a bit to get into position? And then how do you remove the pillow to log roll out without twisting?
I don't have a spouse or partner to assist me in and out of bed. My parents will be helping me during recovery, but I cannot expect them to "tuck me in" every single night for 6 weeks during the physical restrictions. Also I often have to pee in the middle of the night? How do I get resituated then if it's expected that someone should ideally be assisting me in and out of bed?
I've also read a lot of people use those pregnancy pillows during recovery which initially seemed like a good idea, but again, how do you log roll in and out of a U-shaped pillow? Without twisting to move the back part of the pillow?
Sorry if I'm rambling or overthinking this, but I'm so stressed out about this. I'm terrified of messing it all up within minutes of coming home. I also have two dogs, one of which is a large 70 lb 1 yr old puppy who is pretty rowdy. My parents and I actually live in the same house so they are more than willing to help me with everything and the dogs. They are in their late 60s and mid 70s. They are pretty healthy for the most part and are mobile (my dad still works) but like any older person they have physical issues. They know the first few days are going to be the hardest so if they have to help that much at first its fine, but i cannot expect them to help me in and out of bed any time i need to get up, like in the middle of the night.
If you read this far, thank you. Any suggestions and advice is welcome.
submitted by purple-posie16 to Microdiscectomy [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 10:54 Previous_Book_6245 I think I'm becoming like my dad

My dad is abusive, not physically but he has crushed me mentally. He's the sole earner in our family so we have to keep up with it. He has anger issues and drinking issues. Every day he drinks at night and keep verbally abusing my mom, me or my brother. Up until I was 15 I used to stay quite and accept my fate but then as I grew older I started speaking up to him, we all did. We even talked to him when he used to be sober during the day, still do. And no matter how many times I try to talk to him, he never changed. In front of others he pretend that he's the nicest person in the world and would do anything for us. So our relatives doesn't believe us. He even was in an extra martial affair and we begged him to leave us but he didn't. Its like he's a sadist person and enjoys seeing us in pain. I'm from India so no one will support us if my mom leaves him. Now I just want to get a job after graduation and take my mom and brother away from him. But lately I've realized I am becoming short tempered like him. Snapping on someone or being angry very easily. I'm in a very happy relationship from many years n now I don't want to ruin it because of my anger. He has always supported me but i dont want to hurt him with my behaviour. I don't know how to control it anymore. Every day when I get home seeing my dad's face brings the rage in me. Every word he speaks hurts me in some or the other way and im not able to ignore it. Earlier I used to not pay attention to him but now it's unbearable to do. I don't wanna be like him, I wanna be a good person but don't know how. Can anyone please help me understand how to deal with it?
submitted by Previous_Book_6245 to mentalhealth [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 10:53 SuddenBag7701 Please I’m spiraling advice needed ASAP

33 y.o male 6 2” , 244 , non smoker I have a cytoscope Tomorrow and I can’t stop crying in fear …. for what happened with symptoms overnight end of March from a health scare and being upset form another unrelated issue . Started with constipation and diarrhea.. then that night decided to fap. And woke up twice to pee and had slight burning afterwards… then k rush to urologist who tells me it’s that I’m drinking alot of liquid before bed , seltzer or tea(drank tea around 8 that night ) and be irritants , but they also ordered me a urinalysis that I dropped off sample in morning, results came in which were clear no blood , white blood cells etc. and they prescribed me antibiotics and told me to take them for 30 days but I only took for like 14 days cause they were not working cause they thought my symptoms sounded like prostatitis or pelvic floor symptoms but I’m freaking out cause although it’s getting better prob from antibiotic inflammatory response and pelvic floor exercises it’s not really going away.. so I also ask for a PSA test with was 0.38 and then they ordered me a CT Urogram with contrast and without contrast and cytoscope with is on May 15… they also ordered me Kidney , Metabolic Function and a complete blood count .. all which came back fine . The CT urogram with and without contrast showed nothing wrong with my bladder , kidneys or uterers.. after I got that news my symptoms felt better but I still woke up to pee at night .. around this time the pain after urination went away but still having to go frequently, in between this time I also had another health scare with my gums in my teeth that was just gingival overgrowth but I though that was mouth c word. So my urinary issues started to get better and I didn’t even notice them 2 weeks ago end of April , but now I have this upcoming test and it’s all I’m hyper fixated on , I’m urinating a lot more and paying attention to what my urine looks like making sure I don’t see blood .. I messaged. My doctors probably 10 times and asking if the CT scan would have picked up anything in my Bladder , my doctors said that the CT scan looked inside my bladder , outside my bladder and around jt , it saw everything and nothing was wrong. but the Cytoscope will also look as well and I was reading stories and articles and stuff how the cytoscope will detect stuff on wall or whatever, but then again I also read that there would be wall thickening on CT scan with contrast… I have been crying off and on these past few days , not able to sleep well, having to get up to urinate , hyper fixation on my urine and stream , start time , post void dribble all of that.. and idk if it’s my stress making it worse or if that’s an actual issues I have going on … I’m so afraid.
submitted by SuddenBag7701 to AskDocs [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 10:52 Most-Ad7547 Player Arrival - WBA (H)

Date - Friday 17th May Time - 6pm Location - Ted Bates statue
We’re going to greet the players at they step off the coach at the Ted Bates statue (arrival approx 6:15pm).
To greet them, there will be a sea of Red & White, including flags, banners, shirts and there are rumours of a few hot red/white things also.
There will also be discounts on food/drink around the stadium in the lead-up to KO, alongside entertainment in multiple areas around the ground also.
Come along and show the lads that we’re all behind them, whilst also making it as hostile as possible for the WBA players arrival (no criminal damage or violence please)
submitted by Most-Ad7547 to SaintsFC [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 10:50 KangarooAromatic2139 Looking for some proofreading on a crossover fanfiction.

Hi there everyone, I kind of curious, I have been writing a crossover fanfic in the style of Super Robot Wars storylines. One of the Franchises I want to add is RWBY, however, I never really got into the series until playing Blazblue Cross Tag Battle and during his time I started read up on the series on various wiki pages.
So, if I'm wrong on any details or something does seem to match the character's personalities, please tell me!
In this point of the fanfic, it took place after my idea of an ending to the series, so here goes nothing!
The white haired huntress explained why she feels this is the case, telling them the story of her younger brother and his road for redemption.
For the longest of times, Whitley had nothing but hatred for his older sisters and saw the hunters and huntresses as below him, mocking Weiss every moment he had while she was under house arrest. Escaping from this sham of a home, she swore the boy and their father were nothing but monsters and for their actions were things that she never could forgive. That is until it was after the arrest of their father and their manor being invaded by Grimms that cracks were showing in his facade of pettiness.
"During that fight, Whitley wanted nothing but to run off, until he saw our mother fighting against the Grimm before falling from the underuse of her Semblance when he knew he needed to help."
After saving Willow and learning from their mother that Whitley was as much of a victim as anyone else that the middle child chose to mend their damaged relationship. During the fall of their home Kingdom of Atlas, he continued to help by having all the SDC Saircrafts to save anyone and everyone to relocate the people to Vacuo. When the Team RWBY and Jaune return from Ever After, he became part of the attacking forces as a commander to help defeat Salem's forces.
In the final battle, He was present to witness Ruby Rose and Kairi sparing the now depowered and mortal Salem, who was told to simply live with reminders of her sins haunting her until the day she died, as this was her last life. "While we watch Salem leaving to parts unknown, I thought Whitley was going to say something foolish, but to my surprise, he only watched.
In the four weeks after Salem's defeat, Whitley began his new life but it was something to adjusted to as he worked a part time job and began to start classes in that first week The heir of whatever remained of the SDC let his hair grow out slightly, he may have been inspired by a picture of Jaune's appearance during his time in Mistral but still kept a very clean appearance.
It wasn't until a week ago that there were some Jacques' old associates from Vacuo wanted to give Whitley the position of CEO of a new company, one named Phoenix Ash.
"At first, I thought he just wanted to go back to his old ways of life when he agreed to the deal, Asked from me was to trust him about this..."
Out of the blue, The new CEO of the Phoenix Ash Group called for a Public Announcement. Weiss and Winter were watching on a monitor in an aircraft outside of the city. Fearing for the worst, that he would be making empty promises to make a postive public image, the boy spoke of ending the practices of abusing Fanuas workers. This was a lie that their father made to the press when he was alive, before the young CEO spoke of his new idea.
When questioned by the Press, Whitley told the world that he his idea was to start finding better sources than just Dust to rely on, so he would put his own Lien that he held on since childhood to fund this research. If this research was successful, then he would personally see to the closure of all Dust Mines under the Pheonix Ash banter but threaten that if any of the Fanuas workers were harmed during his time as CEO, that under his leadership that he personally see it that the abusers' paychecks would go to their victims and repeated offenders would be fired as quickly as possible. The two sisters begin to noticed that four of The Board Members who hired him were in shaking in their boots.
"Young Sir, please think of the words you speak..." one of Jacques' remaining associates on the board begged to hopefully conviced the boy to reconsider these ideas
"I am fully aware of the words coming from my mouth as much as you were aware of letting my father's actions slide so you can make more Lien. So, to be quite blunt, SHUT IT OR FIND NEW JOBS!" This wasn't like the boy they once knew while Jacques was thriving, he was a new Whitley Schnee that wouldn't be swayed by the idea of making Lien in dishonest ways and wouldn't allow anyone under his leadership to harm the Faunus workers.
"DAMNED BLEEDING HEART BRAT, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE JACQUES, THE REAL HEIR OF THE NAME OF SCHNEE!"
The oldest board member, a muscular bald man of over fourty who was still extremely loyal to the deceased CEO of SDC, charged at the youth with a knife! The youngest of the Schnee clan knew there would be risks, but didn't have any fighting experience to counter this attack.
"WHITLEY!" Weiss cried out as she knew she wouldn't be able to stop the would be killer's attempt of assassination, however, a certain green eyed Faunus, who's loyalites to Robyn Hill last to this day, arrived in enough time to stopped the youth's would be killer.
"You really think that Fiona Thyme would let you kill your new boss? As IF!"
Within a mere set of seconds, the man of three hundred and something pounds was on the ground, each insult that was aimed at the girl was countered with his former boss nodding for the girl to wack the creep across his bald head. This last for a couple of minutes until the police to take his sorry ass to jail as well as charging the Faunus with a minor crime. The girl knew that there would no way to escape but chose not to surrender as she put her hands behind her head much to the cheers of some in the crowd.
However, In those five seconds before the cuffs closed on her hands, The CEO jumped off of the platform and stood in between the messy haired Faunus girl and the arresting officer, slapping the cuff out of the man's hands to the shock of the world. When asked to step aside, the boy's answer to this was something everyone in Remnant, who were either in the crowd or watched from afar from their scrolls, never expected.
"You're really asking me to step aside, so you could take away a war hero's future? I choose to refuse for we all know these charges against her are nothing but baseless. She fought on the side of various heroes! Heroes ] from the Battle of Beacon, like the Teams: RWBY, JNPR, SSSN, FNKI, ABRN and CFVY, the heroes without teams like Lady Kairi, Qrow Branwen, and Taiyang Xiao Long, Heroes like Ilia Amitola and the Belladonna clan who were once White Fang members but left before the assassination of Sienna Khan and return to fight to stop the once peaceful group when they saw what it became under the command of Adam Taurus, heroes like the remaining members of the Ace Operatives, who fought their own feelings of sadness when they lost Clover Ebi and came together after they realized James Ironwood was in the wrong, after the man fell into despair because of how the upper class saw the innocent victims in Remnant and used Atlas as a ram to prevent the Grimm from gaining another advantage point. These groups of heroic and wonderful people came together to save the world from the forces of Salem, so why can't we, the civilains they protected, do the same?!"
There were some mutters from the civilians that watch on the ground level before one of the rich members of the crowd, a man named Harry Marigold, brought up that Weiss may have saved the world but of her crime of summoning the Grimm at the charity event at Schnee Manor should be held accountable before the youth counter with.
"The crime that night was one in justified anger when you, Harry Marigold, who ignored her sadness and only wanted my sister's attention for bragging rights, that damnable trophy wife, her weak minded shell of a husband, the former CEO of the SDC, myself and many others of the Upper Class chose to cruely mocked the recently deceased of Vale and proudly laughing about the deaths of the many innocents of the fallen Kingdom who had nothing to do with the fighting. fates we claimed that civilains deserved!? If anything, she didn't summoned the Grimm to harm anyone but wanted us demons to understand that life is not to be taken as a joke or anything to not to be take lightly. The real crime that night was that the Grimm didn't caused more damages to Schnee manor and not having the monster hurt any of us because of our cruelity to the dead! But because the CEO of SDC cared for nothing but his public image, when she confronted that scumbag for our actions and for using her as a prize toy for everyone to see, his only reaction was to slapped my sister across her face and denied her Birthright!
This made the rich members of the crowd uneasy, as they knew that they were being put in their places. They wanted the youth to be silenced but he continued, angry and filled with something that he should've had a long time ago, a frightful sense of Justice.
"For too damn long, I was blinded by my family's name, not knowing it was nothing but an evil curse and if it wasn't for my sister's actions that night and the night her team and the remaining members of team JNPR saved the lives of my poor mother and the sorry shell of a person. I, too, would've remained under the very same spell of ignorance that the old fool relished in to keep us in line. So, for you to order me around, to use my sister justified attempt on the upper class to see her honorable view on life so who could silence my words, and to force this maiden, who has fought harder than anyone here because fearful paranoia bigots using unjust hatred of every Faunus to make her life a living torture device, for her to rot in a prison cell without a fair trial, just for saving my life? That command is UNFORGIVABLE!" The boy screamed loudly and in pure rage so everyone could hear his plea.
Fiona was in shock, she heard from various communities of the Faunus that the SDC and clan of Schnee were nothing but monsters, worse than any of Salem's Grimms. Even after meeting the huntresses of Team RWBY, she believed Weiss was the only one of the family who wanted to set things right in the world.
Even through she hated the idea to keep an eye on the Schnee heir, even if it was a jobn from her trusted leader. His father and the fellow members of the Board in the SDC saw the Faunus and wanted nothing but for them to be trapped in cages without futures, But to see with her eyes, the very son made to follow in these footsteps of selfish desires, meaning every single word that left his mouth, these words that were filled with a justified desire to save the young girl from an unfair fate, was so unreal.
"If anything, it was the wicked ideas of greed that the deceased CEO held dear tt were one of the many factors that broke our world, Jacques Sc..." The boy stopped for less than a second before continuing in anger.
"....Actually no, I refuse to allow that bastard to my family's name any longer, even in death! Jacques Gélé was never a father, he was nothing but an unredeemable thief without a sense honor, who used dirty lies to trick my dying grandfather into his once humble life, the honorable man that should've had the right to lived long enough to prevent the future Gélé wanted, Nicholas Schnee!"
"Who used my recently deceased mother's, Willow Schnee, love and trust to steal a company he was never worthy to rule over from underneath her. When she learned of his deception and his lies in their sham of a relationship, the once loving and carring mother only means to escape from his wicked virus was to drink her sorrows away and seclude herself from the world!
"His sickness was something that their three children were not immuned to as he saw nothing from us but to be used as pawns so he could gain more power! It wasn't until we learned better ways to live by others, others who actually cared, that we actually became good people!"
"The first of us was to learn this lesson was The Soldier who proven herself time and time again, who enlisted in the Atlas military to get away from the sickness that Gélé took pleasure in, who leaders knocked the views of hatred for the Faunus and the usage of cheap tricks out of her, my oldest sister, Commander Winter Schnee!
"My second oldest sister, Huntress Weiss Schnee, who learn of the shame that her family name carried at her time in Beacon, who was forced to leave after the battle by Gélé for supposed safety only to be paraded around as a prize trophy daughter for his friends in the upper class, who felt the sting of venom when that man refused to accept her heroic heart, forcing her to escape his maddess so she could continued helping those who were suffering!"
"And then there's myself, Whitley Schnee, the boy who was so scared with the various changes to his home life that he chose to follow in that thief's footsteps, who once mocked the dead of Beacon along with the others in the Upper Class, who has never fought for anything and even in that last battle, was so powerless to prevent more tragedies for befall those he commanded to fight on his behalf! The boy who's heart is filled with so much regret because of his idiotic choices in life but is now filled a newly found sense of Justice, who only goal now is to find a cure for the poison, so he could, no! will make our world a better place than it was in the past!"
The crowd was stunned thar they couldn't help but to stay silent.
"Gélé has cause so much suffering to the Faunus and to many other communities. That suffering spread in the Kingdoms like wildfire. When my grandfather died, so did the fairness and honor that the Schnee name held on to....but not anymore! MY DREAM is to stop the suffering that Gélé relished in so he could live like a damn lazy king!
Whitley then put his hands behind his head and told the world.
"So if this girl goes to prison, so will I! All I asked of those listening is not to cheer no matter what the outcome is, not to cry for this foolish boy who has fought for nothing, but to simply think about his words and the weight they pull!" Whitley's blood was boiling as The puppet CEO's bight blue eyes widden to show everyone that his dream was one that the boy will work for through his pain.
After this decree was finished, everything was slient before the officer asked. "Would you die for that dream..?"
Whitley, answered with all seriousness. "If I die, then I would gladly die with a hundred stabs to my heart and soul to make damn sure that my dream becomes reality." The officer waved to another cop to bring in a second set of handcuffs, much to both cops dismay.
"Alright, I'm sorry. Whitley Schnee for disobeying a officer of the law, you have to come with us."
Whitley said not a word as the cuffs latched onto his hands. As if to respect the boy's wishes, There were no one in the crowd, maybe even in Remnant, cheering about the arrest of these two, even though the boy said he had nothing but hatred of those that surround Gélé mocking those that died in Beacon, none of the them wanted nor could cheer, for to celebrate this would be nothing but hallowed.
On route to the department to put the two in the holding cells until they could make bond, the two talked, mostly it was Whitley asking the girl a thousands questions of the culture of the Faunus, the life she lived before becoming a war hero and so on. The poor girl was shaking with overwhelmingness but snapped out of it when Whitley explained something to her.
"This is the second time you saved me from the door of death, thank you, Lady Thyme."
Fiona was slightly confused before slowly piecing together that in the final battle she rushed to the location of downed aircraft, where a gravely injured woman layed under some debris being protected by her white haired son with a mere wooded stick he found on the ground screaming. "GET AWAY! YOU GRIMMS!" before being knocked backwards and then being held by his throat.
"HEY FANG FACES, I'M MORE OF A CHALLENGE THAN THOSE TWO!" The Fanaus screamed while the Grimm let the boy go to blocked her attack.
"KID! TAKE YOUR MOM AND GET OUTTA HERE, I CAN'T HOLD THIS GUY OFF FOREVER!"The boy nodded as he grabbed his mother and ran off, not knowing that he would plan to thank the maiden the next time they meet.
"No freaking way, you're that boy?"
"Yeah...but I'm not proud to admit that I'm not one for fighting." Whitley smiled as this surprised the girl.
To think, the meek boy she saved that one time and the guy who wanted to help others despite his family's reputation were the same person? How would this day become more of a weird fever dream?
"Hey you two, I hate to burst this bubble but ready for a fight, there was another vehicle besides ours that was on their way to the department." A male's voice explained when they noticed a man in a grey cloak sitting in the darkest corner of the vehicle.
"Before you asked, I've been here for the entire trip."
"Why is that important?" The only woman of the three thought while the Schnee youth figured it out.
"That ghoul of a Board Member?"
"'Faid so, he was taken in sometime before your speech and there are only two holding cells in the department, one for men and the other for women." The man explained.
"I could use my semblance to hold him in a..." Fiona was stopped when the mystery man continued.
"...And to prevent any escapes, the cells and those cuffs on your hands are laced with anti-semblance tech."
Fiona screamed. "OH CRAP!"
Whitley was shaken but kept cool as he thought. "I guess as this is a smaller scale city, I should've figured as much."
"Are you actually prepared to die for your ideas?" The man asked the boy, but his answer was simple.
"I'm not planning to back down now, to betray those words I spoke earlier, would be a wicked sin."
Meanwhile in an aircraft a little ways off. Both Weiss and Winter were dumbfounded by their brother's speech and actions. "He has changed so much since weeks ago." The middle child thought before Winter demanded the pilot to land that at the port nearest to the city.
Yang, Kairi, Jaune, Ruby, and Blake were on the aircraft but was confused by the sudden change of directions, before the commander explained. "The Board member that tried to killed our brother was sent to the holding cell in the department before Whitley's speech."
"OH CRAP!" Ruby and Weiss screamed as they thought in dismay that the boy was going to be in an one sided fight against a heavier opponent.
"Please hold on for a bit longer, Younger Brother..." Winter quietly whispered as the Aircraft was going as fast as possible to their destination.
Upon arriving and being settle in the two holding cells, it was when the guards left the redeemer was being used as a punching bag for the man's humiliation.
"DAMN BRATTY ASSED PUNK!"
"UGHHH!" Whitley groaned, being punched for a hour, his clothing became ragged and bloody.
"LEAVE WHITLEY ALONE!" Fiona cried out at the tallest in the men's holding cell, she was in the womens' holding cell that was across the room, luckly for her, she was alone in the women's side but not for Whitley, making things worse is that the guards were sent out on an emergency call, as their thinning numbers were sent out because of a few bomb threats elsewhere in the city.
"SHUT IT, SHEEPIE! I GOING KEEP BEATING THIS BRAT UNTIL HE UNDERSTANDS HIS PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE!"
"..." The man in the hood remained quiet as he watched this uneven fight. "You should stay down..."
"...As if I would..." The Schnee boy rose back to his feet through he knew nothing of throwing punches he refused to surrender just to spite the former Board Member of Phoenix Ash.
"HEH, for a skinny brat, you're stubborn, be a good little boy and admit that you're nothing but a puppet then I'll quit your rightly deserved beatings!"
Whitley regained his balance before flipping a bird claiming. "You...really...think this..puppet would let some smug ass with no respect for anyone but those in the Upper Class to order me around? SCREW....YOU!" The boy yelled spiting blood onto the man's ghoulish face to annoy the monster in human flesh.
"...WHY YOU LITTLE MAGGOT!" The man was even more enraged now, as he punched the stomach of the younger male causing the boy fall onto the cold floor.
Fiona was horrified as she witness the former spoiled prince rose back to his feet.
"Still standing boy?"
The youth was still standing to a point, until the man pulled a dirty shiv he found in the holding cell while waiting for this very moment. The two youths' eyes widden when they saw the makeshift weapon of sharpen hard plastic.
"...A weapon!?" Fiona cried out in dismay.
"Some poor sap must have made this sometime ago, makes me wonder where he could be now, anywho while I am slicing into your flesh, Whitley, I'm going tell what I thought of those pretty little ideas of yours."
The Faunus was in a state of fear for the young puppet CEO as the shiv user quickly sliced into the white haired youth's shoulder, with this the first time being cut, Whitley scream in pain.
"AHHHHGNN!"
"FIRST, YOU WANT TO FREE THE ANIMALS FROM OUR CAGES, THEY HAVE NO RIGHTS TO A FUTURE IN OUR SOCIETY!
The next was a stab on his left upper leg, luckly not hitting anything vitals as makeshift blade of sharp hard plastic was pulled out and blood dripped onto the flooring The boy's screams of pain echoing through the empty department.
"NEXT, WE CAN'T MAKE ANY LIEN IF BLEEDING HEARTS, LIKE WHAT YOU'VE BECOME, ARE IN CHARGE OF THINGS!"
The attacker then sliced the right side of Whitley's face leaving a scar under his eye.
"THE FACE OF THE BOY WITH A NAME THAT NOWS MEANS NOTHING TOTHE WORLD, USING TRUTHS TO PISS ON THE LEGACY THAT JACQUES BUILT, JUST SO HIS SON COULD REBUILD THE HONOR THAT IT HELD WHEN THAT WINDBAG WAS STILL KICKING! WHAT FREAKIN DRIVEL!"
then a slash across his chest.
"THAT BLEEDING HEART OF YOURS WANTING REDEMPTION SO HE COULD HAVE SOME ATTENTION BUT GUESS WHAT THERE'S NO SUCH THING IN THE BUSINESS WORLD OR IN THE REMAINING KINGDOMS OF REMNANT AS REDEMPTION!"
Then the right hand of the boy, the one Whitley pull in front of his body in an poor attempt to grabbed the makeshift Shiv.
"THESE HANDS OF A SOFT SPOILED LITTLE BOY WHO, EVEN IN THE LAST BATTLE AGAINST THE GRIMM FORCES, NEVER THREW A PUNCH OR SLAP ANYONE, ARE SUPPOSED TO CHANGE THE WORLD, ALL YOU HAVE DONE IN THAT BATTLE WERE ORDERING SOLDIERS TO FIGHT FOR YOU, SOLDIERS WHO SHOULD HAVE SEEN WHAT YOU'VE BECOME!"
Finishing this rant with a punch to the gut, and mocking his braverly. "TELL ME THIS, BOY? WHEN THIS SPINE OF YOURS GREW, DID YOUR STUPIDITY DOUBLED, BECAUSE COMPARED TO YOUR DAD, YOU'RE SUCH AN DOLT TO BELIEVE YOUR OWN CRAP!"
"WHITLEY! STOP, YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" Fiona screamed as the man got on top of the boy's body and punch the white haired youth's face twice before the monster yelled at the girl.
"I SAID SHUT IT SHEEP! YOU MAYBE A WAR HERO THAT I CAN'T PUT MY HANDS ON BUT YOU'RE GOING TO WATCH AS THE HOPES OF THIS BOY DIES ALONG WITH HIS BODY!"
Getting off of the beaten body of the Schnee, the man let Whitley try to get up before the boy fell on his stomach and the man grabbed the white hairs of his his head and pulled his face up, so the redeemer would look into Fiona's green eyes for a last time, one filled with tears.
"ACTUALLY, IT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE OF HER STATUS AS A WAR HERO, THE SHEEP WILL GET OUT IN THE END OF THE DAY AND BE ON HER WAY HOME, BUT YOU JUST HAD TO PLAY HERO AND FOR WHAT, WHITLEY SCHNEE?! FOR YOUR REMAINS TO BE MY PUNCHING BAG UNTIL I TRANSFER TO PRISON?....IT'S SO FREAKING SAD THAT I'M LAUGHING MY ASS OFF!"
The redeemer, who's face full of buises, forgotten that this is the case for minor first time offenders but didn't care at all. Ever since Fiona saved his and his mother's lives that day, he would've happily be arrested and be beaten, time after time, so he could thank her. He wanted to smile, to show his savior that he was happy with this outcome, even this meant that his life ended today, but could barely move his face but the only could wheezingly chuckled as tears as swell from his eyes
Before the man could finished Whitley off, a small blackout happened as the doors of the cells opened, Fiona ran to the boy who risked his life just so he could to talk to her. "WHY?!" Fiona cried she held the youth in her arms. "WHY CAN'T MONSTERS LIKE YOU SEE THAT THIS A NEW WORLD, THAT WE CAN BECOME BETTER THAN WE ONCE WERE." The green eyed girl demanded anwers but the man just mocked to anwered the Fuanus.
"Do you think animals like you could understand that only the strong and the Upper Cass are the only ones who have the right to control Remnant. He could have been one of those in control and still have enough Lien to be someone important but he chose to ally with the lower class, and for little lamb he paying for it, dearly."
Putting the boy's head gently on the floor wiping the tears on her sleeve, to hopefully keep friend she made safe for a bit longer, she attempted to use Pocket Demisions to rid the world of this demon, only to realize in the middle of her attack, the power returned and because she ran to help the youth, that she was in the men's holding cell with the real beast.
"....No!" She wimpered.
"Looks like there's some of my fellow board members of Phoenix Ash are still on my side." He smiled wickening as he began to explain their plans. "You see, little Sheep, we figured the boy has a bleeding heart, so to get rid of those childish wishes to loosen our hold, we decided yesterday to make up a plan, the one that you had to prevent. So during that little speech of his, we made a second one on the fly." He continued as he put his hand on an earpiece. "...That one being the threats to distract the guards and that little blackout. Plus thanks to this little device, my semblance to increase my strength with every attack I give, still remains."
"This can't be...." She was scared, as this man that she could taken down a few mere hours ago, was telling the truth when every step he made while approaching Fiona made small cracks in the flooring.
"Damn it, We going need to cause another..." A voice explained though the earpiece before he turned off the equipment's sound option.
"Now, since you annoyed me so much, you're going be my replacement, lamb chops!" The upsuper yelled in bliss as he pulled his fist to punch her small body. She dodged the attack but his second punch connected and sent her flying into the force field door.
"AUHHGGG!" She cried out, recoiling in the pain from her back before noticing the man was coming for her, managing to get up but unable to dodge it completely in this cramped arena. She felt the punch connected with her left arm, braking the bones in the limb, Then a kick to her gut. Knocking her a few inches near Whitley's body.
"....No...."
The youngest of the Schnee clan could only watch in despair through one eye, the two were being broken by a scummy excuse of a human, and the young redeemer of his name could do nothing but watched as his attempt to prove to the world his words were real go down in flames.
"...Leave...her...alone..." These words spit out ignoring the pain as much as he could while rising back to his feet and limping to get in between the Faunus woman and her attacker.
"So, the boy still has some fighting spirit...The boy that has never fought for anything in his life, I am certain that you're doing this for everyone's attention."
The man was right on a few things, Whitley was never a fighter or some ground troop, and it may have been that he wanted attention when he first started to go down this road but Winter quickly knocked that idea out of his head, but the man is wrong on others, for Whitley realize that all he wanted to do in life is to help in anyway, even he'll be happy as a sideliner act to the main heroes.
But one can't always stay in that role and hoped to change the world, for a long time he stood by as a witness to to his father's crimes, for longer his thoughts of heroism being dismissed by that bogus excuse of a father and as far as he remembered, Whitley had others fight for him. But no more!
"In this world, money and power pull the strings, and yet you choose death for a flithy animal? How more times are you going to PISS M-!" The man was interrupted while talking by, to the surprise of all, the white haired boy headbutting his taller foe, knocking the man onto his ass!
"...WHAT!?" The man screamed in horror as he started to bleed from his now broken nose, this was the first time the business man has ever seen his own blood.
"...I've...told...the world...I...would die for my dream....even if I die today....I'll be happy to die...hundred times over again..." The boy's body was mostly broken, each word he spoke caused more pain than his body could stand but the young man still had one part of his body to fight with, his hard head!
The next thing they all knew, Whitley continued headbutting his enemy, causing the man to gain a reality check, his ability were increasing his attacks but at a certain cost, The sole major weak point on his body, the one that held the brain to think of ways to screwed others over, the one with the eyes that saw everyone else as beneath him and the one with the mouth with a booming voice he used to make threats and promises to ruin his foes, his face weaken over time with every punch or kick he gave to the two.
"NONONONONO!" The man screamed with a bloodied and bruised face, before feeling the same despair he installed into his two victims just mere minutes ago. In a desperate attempt to stop these attacks, he grabbed the man in the cloak as a hostage, with the shiv he used on the boy still in his possession.
"You-ou wouldn't w-wan...me to stab some r-random person that had nuthing to do with this, uh?!" These ragged words were like the man himself, desperate and scummy, but was enough to stop the boy from getting closer.
The foe laughed thinking he has the upper hand. "I admired your old man's talent in making a profit, but he was just like you to a certain point, he was no killer, so now I advise we wait until they let us out or I'll be plunging..."
"Tsk...This old fart really been pissing me off since we got here!"
The cloaked man yelled as he stepped on the foot of his captor along with a gunshot ringing though the air. "W-WHAT!?" The man screamed in pain as he released his hold to grabbed his now bleeding foot. "DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!" The larger man screamed before realizing why his leg strength wasn't up to snuff. While being headbutted by his Whitley, the earpiece fell out and was behind his two victims!
"No way this is happening...." He groaned in pain before the cloaked male took off his hood, just to make things worse for the would be assassin.
"...and here I thought I would have a peaceful life in prison..." The man sighed as he revealed himself to be a fomer ally of Salem, one who wanted nothing more but to rot in prisons for the remaining of his life.
"M-Mercury B-B-Black, why is a war criminal here?!" The man screamed, fearing for his life even more than before.
"I was supposed to transfer into the next city, mostly for some good behavior BS..." Mercury turned his attention to the white haired boy.
"Hey kid, you're the brother to that girl Weiss, right?"
"....." Whitley wanted to say something but really couldn't, with those last few headbutts, if he tried to speak now, he will surely faint.
"Man, the geezer really did a number on you, huh?" Mercury asked before = one of the guards and Whitley's sisters ran in.
"Holy...CRAP! WHITLEY!!"
"Why is our brother and Miss Thyme in the same cell as these two?!" Winter demanded answers before Mercury explained for panicing guard while pulling the earpiece from the ground.
"Whitley was being used by lord lard ass as a punching bag until few people from Pheonix Ash caused a short blackout, the girl ran in to stopped the beatings but was attacked as well until your little bro figuring out the buzzard's weakness by headbutting the man in his freakin' face. After that, The creep tried to use me as levelage but yeah, you can see how that worked out."
"DAMNED BRATS...." The man groaned as the two Schnee women got Whitley and Fiona out of this cell but froze in fear when he saw Winter staring down at the man.
"I figured that your group would pulled something like this when Whitley told me of the CEO position, so I looked into yours and the rest of the board's backgrounds...It was just as Black said, You and your three friends in the board of eight have more than just attempted assassination to worry about now."
This decree was worrying enough before Mercury Black turned his attention back to the older man."I guess I'm going to have a kicking dummy for a roommate now!"
"Please have mercy!" The man turned deathly pale before Fiona yelled.
"Like the mercy you shown to me and Whitley because he called out your sorry butt, I would think not!"
Weiss was next to insult the man for his behavior. "...If anything you deserve nothing but a fate in a cage, like the various futures you took away!"
"Looks like you're going to rot in a cell for the rest of your sad existence." Winter finished before the guards were told by the military commander to take her younger brother out of the room and to take his would be assassin to the other cell.
Before leaving, Winter asked the former ally of Salem.
"Mercury Black...Your sentence for your war crimes have been over with for a couple of months now, yet, you still choose to remain in prison, may I ask why?"
"Since Cinder died in the fight against our former partner and Salem's redemption attempt, I really don't have much else left. Besides it's like I've said during that battle with the hammerhead and her pretty boy lover, I have been forced to fight since I was born by a drunk abusive excuse of a dad, so even if I could be let back into society, I don't think I could be happy."
"You could've joined the military..." The eldest member of the Schnee replied before the younger male countered
"Yeah, but I hate following and giving orders, besides you've seen what this old bastard done to your brother, creeps like him and worse are everywhere in prison. So as long as I can beat them senseless, I'm freaking happy to serve more time for each brawl I get my ass into."
This silenced Winter for a couple of seconds before asking for two simple demands. "Just tell Em that I'm okay with how things ended between us, and tell her just to be happy with her new life, if she can do that, then that would give me some sort of peace."
A couple of hours later at the medical bay on the airship.
Kairi used the healing spell Curaga on both the boy and Fiona. "Thank you, Lady Kairi." Fiona bowed while still having her arm in a cast after Whitley opened his eyes, being healed.
"Hey, it's not a problem, but please, just call me Kairi for now on, okay, Fiona?"
"Ughh, what...Fiona..are you alright?" The redeemer asked his friend.
"Yes, but you took the blunt of the beating, please relax, Whitley." The Fanuas explained before the boy asked.
"Who payed for our bails? I doubt it was my sisters, our situation isn't as it once was."
At that moment, Weiss and Blake came in, the disowned heiress of the destroyed SDC was proud at the fact that her former enemy of a brother fought for what's right, explaining. "It those three you poined out from that charity that payed for your and Fiona's bonds."
"Huh?!" Fiona was taken back in surprise by this before the middle child of the Schnee family theorized
"My guess is, either your speech or being outed as horrible people that made those three pay with their own Lien to post bond. I only wished we got there quicker but the airport was on the other side of the city."
"That's good but I can only hope that the others in the crowd took my words to heart and none of the people recording that day alter the video."
...We can check for video or audio interferances later on today but something tells me those who heard your speech that they're going be thinking about it for a long time." Blake's words made the youngest member of the Schnee children a little more eased.
"If only mother lived to see her son became someone to be proud of." Weiss thought to herself that day before their last mission in Remnant before her universe was wiped from existence.
In the Hangar of the doomed Wunder, Weiss had a thought of what could've been the futures of the new CEO of Pheonix Ash and his loyal bodyguard could have been if their universe just lasted a little bit longer.
"Hey, Bozos I'm about to take the Eva-unit 02 F off of the ship, before figuring out a plan to stop Misato."
"Alright.." Aqua answered as the red-head walked towards the console before seeing something strange.
"You guys were here for the last hour right?"
"Yeah?" Duo answered before Asuka added.
"And no one else came in or tried anything funny right?"
"We've been here the entire time, what's with the questions, Langley?" Viral countered.
"...There's two signals of heat in the cockpit...."
"Umm what?" Jaune exclaimed as the console showing the statistics of the bulky armored version of Unit 02, showing two bodies of heat in the entry plug.
Before anything else was said in the group. A young male's voice came through the console. "Umm Hello? Can someone get us out of this thing?"
No one but the Schnee huntress recognize the youth's voice. "Whitley!?"
"Sis, can you hear me?"
Asuka spoke next, "How long were you two in the Evangelion for?"
"I think for three hours, oh right, Fi wanted to asked if there's any males in the area."
"Fiona's in there too?!" Wiess inner thoughts were of panic that were made worse after Jaune's answer.
"Yeah, there's four guys here, why?" Jaunne asked before Fiona screamed in embrassament.
"PLEASE GO TO THE OTHER ROOM OR SOMETHING, I CAN'T GO OUT LIKE THIS!"
"Fi, please relax..."
"RELAX!? YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE IN THIS THING WITH CLOTHES ON!" The girl whined while crying from embarrassment.
"Umm, could anyone bring clothing for Miss Thyme."
Duo began to smirked before being dragged by Viral into the next room. "Keep your dirty thoughts to yourself, Duo Maxwell..."
"Killjoy!" Duo screamed as Jonathan conviced Jaune to followed.
"Sir Arc, we should leave as well, as it is knights' honor to..."
"Already way ahead of you, Mr. Joestar. We'll see you all later when we come up with that plan!"
As this was all happening, an snore echoed out from behind the crates. "Is someone sleeping over there?" Aqua asked while checking to see who it might be.
There, Chibodee Crocket, of all people was in deep slumber, much to everyone's surprise.
"...We should wake him up..." Asuka sighed while Weiss went looking for any of the female members of the crew for some clothing.
But to the surprise of the two, he just walked into the next room while sleeping the entire time. "That...worked out way to well..."
submitted by KangarooAromatic2139 to RWBY [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 10:50 The_Way358 Essential Teachings: The Meaning and Purpose of Life

The Purpose of Life for Man

One of the most direct verses on the subject of "the meaning (or purpose) of (human) life" in the Bible can be found in Revelation:
"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."-Revelation 4:11
This, of course, should prompt us to ask what exactly does God take pleasure in?
Conversely, what doesn't He take pleasure in?
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"-Micah 6:6-8
God does not take pleasure in mere outward religiosity and ritual, but rather finds honest acts of love towards Him and others as more important when pertaining to our fulfillment of what God expects from us as His creation. God takes great pleasure in us doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him. This is what He requires of us. In other words...
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."-Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
The Book of Ecclesiastes is an existential treatise on the futility of finding any meaning or fulfillment in life apart from God. In it, "the Preacher" (or "Teacher" in some translations) explores the limits of human experiences which may provide meaning or fulfillment in this life before the author of the book inevitably concludes that the only thing we can do that has any kind of meaning or permanence in the end is fearing God and keeping His commandments. The reason for this is because the march of time and our own mortality effectively make most human endeavors hevel. The Hebrew word "hevel" is translated as vanity in the King James.
The following is taken from BibleProject:
In Hebrew, hevel literally refers to “vapor” or “smoke.” The teacher uses this word 38 times throughout the book of Ecclesiastes as a metaphor to describe how life is temporary and fleeting, like a wisp of smoke, but also how life is an enigma or paradox. Smoke appears solid, but when you try to grab it, it’s like nothing is there.
[...]
The author’s basic goal is to target all of the ways we try to build meaning and purpose in life apart from God and then let the teacher deconstruct them. The author thinks that people spend most of their time investing energy and emotion in things that ultimately have no lasting meaning or significance. And so he allows the teacher to give us a reality check.
The Preacher gives us a "reality check" by demonstrating how time and death effectively make things like scientific and artistic discovery (1:10-11), mirth (2:1), alcohol (2:3), architecture (2:4), amassing property (2:7-8), and luxury (2:8) all hevel. Materialism and hedonism fail to fulfill, and though wisdom and righteousness are acknowledged by the preacher to be advantageous, the righteous and wise are still often victims of injustice and unfairness in the world while the wicked get to prosper and have longevity at times (1:13-18). Generally, your life will probably be better by living in the wisdom given in Proverbs (Ecc. 7:11-12; 9:13-18), but it's no guarantee that you will have a good life as bad things still happen to good people, and good things still happen to bad people. This isn't entirely "hevel" but it's confusing and disorienting because things don't always work out the way we think they should in this life.
Again, from BibleProject:
So what’s the way forward in the midst of all this hevel? Paradoxically, the teacher discovers that the key to truly enjoying life is accepting hevel, acknowledging that everything in your life is totally out of your control. About six different times, at the bleakest moments in his dialogue, the teacher suddenly talks about “the gift of God,” which is the enjoyment of the simple, good things in life such as friendship, family, a good meal, or a sunny day.
You and I can’t control the most important things in our lives. Nothing is guaranteed, and, strangely, that’s the beauty of it. When I adopt a posture of complete trust in God, it frees me to simply enjoy life as I actually experience it and not as I think it ought to be. In the end, even my expectations about life, my hopes and dreams, are all “hevel, hevel. Everything under the sun is hevel.”
The teacher’s words come to an end, and the author takes over, bringing the book to a close. He says that it is very important to hear what the teacher has to say. He likens the teacher’s words to a shepherd’s staff with a goad, a pointy end that will hurt when it pokes you. But that pain can ultimately steer you in the right direction towards greater wisdom.
The author warns us not to take the teacher’s words too far. You can spend your entire life buried in books trying to answer the existential puzzles of human life. Don’t exhaust yourself, he says. You’ll never get there. Instead, the author offers his own conclusion that we should “fear God and keep his commands; this is the whole duty of humans. For God will bring every deed into judgment, every hidden thing, whether good or evil” (Ec. 12:13-14).
Fearing the Lord doesn’t guarantee success in this life, but it is the right thing to do, and ultimately God will clear the "hevel" and bring His justice on all we have done. Therefore, we ought to keep God's commandments.
Through Jesus, we see the Bible clearing the confusion many have, and still have, about God's commandments and what exactly they are (in essence, at least):
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."-Matthew 22:37-40
The apostle Paul puts it like this:
"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."-Galatians 5:14
The apostle John, like this:
"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."-1 John 4:16
In other words, the first and second greatest commandments can be seen as inextricably intertwined, as one cannot truly love God without loving their fellow man, and vice versa.
So, to put it bluntly, the meaning, or purpose, of (human) life according to the Bible is simply love.

"What Does It Mean to Love Biblically?"

But, what exactly is love anyway? We know that, according to the apostle John, God is love. But, what does that mean exactly?
The ancient Greeks had anywhere between four and eight different words for love (depending on the source):
The word translated as "charity" in the KJV's rendering of 1st Corinthians 13 is agape. A more accurate translation of the word would be "love," more specifically, the love of God. In this passage, Paul talks about the importance of having this kind of love for others compared to all the things we might typically obsess over concerning the things of God. Even things like charity to the poor itself, if not motivated by agape, does not impress God! Our motivations and heart matter to God just as much, if not more, than our actions themselves.
This is what the Bible defines as true love, or at least, is the kind of love it's most concerned about.
In order to demonstrate to another that we love them, we sacrifice something. For God, He sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins (John 3:16). For Jesus, he sacrificed himself to save us from our sins:
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."-John 15:13
In essence, true love is self-sacrifice. Putting others before ourselves is the greatest kind of sacrifice.
God didn't have to send His Son, but He did. Jesus didn't have to accept the mission, but he did.
God loves you, and Jesus loves you.
We demonstrate to others that we love them by sacrificing our wants and desires for them. These sacrifices can range from really small, to really big. Loving others is a daily practice of making greater and greater sacrifices.
“You can will to love people. Love is not a feeling. Love is a willing, and the Lord says to love people. He did not mean [to merely] feel love for them” — A.W. Tozer
A stumbling block for many in their walk with God is the inability to love one's enemies and to love unlovable people as Jesus did. It’s difficult for us to show love to people we don’t feel love for; to people we despise or dislike. We also tend to struggle with extending grace and mercy to those who’ve hurt us. I myself often wonder whether I am even capable of loving everyone the way Jesus does.
As I grow in my faith, I realize it’s not that I’m incapable of loving like Jesus; I’m just not always willing to. My unwillingness to love indicates that I am unwittingly adopting the worldly view of love, which is based on feelings and merit. I am choosing not to love people I feel are underserving of my love. The more I study Scripture, though, the more I realize Biblical love is not a feeling or an emotion; it’s a decision. It is an action, and it’s sacrificial. It’s not something you feel; it is, again, something you practice.
“Biblical love is a choice to do good for another person regardless of what we feel. It is a decision to compassionately and righteously pursue the betterment of another person. This is why you can even love your enemies according to Christ’s command.” — Tony Evans
Jesus commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30). He also said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). Since the Lord commands us to love, that means it is within our power to do so; therefore, love is a decision we make. Although feelings will accompany love, it’s not an emotion; it’s the decision to love regardless of how we feel.
As believers, we’re taught to love our enemies, and do good to those who hate us, and if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, "turn to him the other also" (Matt. 5:39). It’s not easy to do; hating our enemies comes naturally to us because of our evil nature. It is impossible to love our enemies on our own strength; we need the help of the Spirit of God.
The decision to love your enemies arises from the decision to obey the will of God and the desire to be Christlike. We choose to love our enemies because God said so and loved us first. Jesus said we are to love as he loved us.
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”-Romans 5:8
So Biblical love is sacrificial love. It is not a feeling but an act of will; the desire to put the welfare of others above your own. This type of love is not a love based on affection or emotion. Instead, it’s agape love, a love that is not concerned with self but is concerned more with the good of others.
We are not going to like everyone, nor are we called to; we are called to love everyone regardless of how we feel about them. It’s possible to love someone without feeling love for them when we decide to love everyone the way God loves us. The more we love through our actions, the decision to love will become a choice the heart is more willing to make.
Again, this doesn’t mean you will like or feel love for everyone, but when you put your trust in the Lord and pursue wisdom and holiness through prayer and Scripture, you will naturally develop a love for others.
To put it succinctly: Biblical love seeks the best interests of others, even our enemies, often to the detriment of ourselves. "Best interests" here doesn't necessarily mean what the other person thinks are their own best interests. It just means we do for them what we know or believe is best for them, and what we know or believe is best for them should be informed by an active participation with the Spirit of God and by His Word (the Bible) itself. Feelings may or may not accompany this, but how we feel towards the other is not what determines whether or not we're exhibiting the love of God, in the view of Jesus and the apostles. In their view, it's about whether or not we can still decide to seek the best interests of those who might harm us, or who we might not even like.

What the Real Heavenly Treasure Is

Now, this all brings us to an important question that needs to be answered: Is it wrong to love God and others while making a reward the objective for doing so?
We must ask this question, because all throughout Scripture we are told that the faithful followers of God will be "rewarded" some day for everything they've done to merit this. Giving an exhaustive list of passages that proves this point would be endless, but here are some examples of just a few:
"Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."-Luke 14:12-14
"I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."-Acts 20:35
"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil."-Luke 6:35
The answer to this question depends on what we define as "rewards." Most will typically adopt some vague idea of material possesions that await the believer when they get to heaven as one's reward for faithfulness towards God, or that the reward is simply an escape from punishment for one's own sins, or perhaps even some combination of these things both.
However, none of these are the "rewards" the Lord is promising to those who obey the first and second commandments. If they were, our motivation to love God and others would ultimately be selfish. Think about it. Our motivation for rewards would inherently be me-centered, and not other-centered.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ gives the following command:
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."-Matthew 6:19-21
We know there are heavenly treasures, because Jesus says so, but what are they? The issue of heavenly treasures or eternal rewards is riddled with question marks. It’s a subject that has been abused by some (“Store up treasure by giving to my ministry”) and left in the too-hard basket by others.
But the answer here is simple, and two-fold. One of our rewards are God Himself:
"After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward."-Genesis 15:1
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."-Hevrews 11:6
What is the reward of the seeker but to find that which is sought? If you are searching for God, you will find Him and He will be your very great reward.
Now, if you are the newest believer or the eleventh-hour worker, you will be as richly blessed as the oldest, most faithful saint. Eternity will not be divided into the haves and have-nots, for we are all one in the New Jerusalem.
But we can distinguish God our reward from the heavenly treasure that Jesus said can be stored up. You cannot "store up" more of God, after all.
So what are heavenly treasures? The answer may surprise you, but it’s people.
"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."-Psalm 127:3
What is the only thing you can take with you? People, a.k.a. eternal friends, a.k.a. spiritual offspring. This Psalm is not just talking about biological children. God has bigger plans for you and they involve spiritual children. Lots of them. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Don’t limit God.
So much time and effort is spent debating heavenly treasures as though they were some great mystery. What are they? Jesus makes it plain: it's people.
God's heart cries, “I treasure children. The more, the better!” In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus introduces God as our heavenly Father. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says God is a Father who rewards us. And what is a father’s reward?
It is children.
“Sounds great, but I am no evangelist.” You don’t need to be an evangelist to win eternal friends. Believers can live such godly lives that unbelievers will be won to the kingdom (1 Pet. 2:12; Matt. 5:16).
God's desire is to grow the world’s largest family and He treats people like treasure. This is obvious once you see it. Indeed, it’s a theme that runs throughout Scripture:
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth."-Deuteronomy 7:6
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth."-Deuteronomy 14:2
"And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments;"-Deuteronomy 26:18
"To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;"-1 Peter 2:4-9
Like Jesus, Paul eagerly gave to the poor (Gal. 2:10). He did not give out of religious duty or to put a shine on his reputation. He did it because he loved people and wanted to share the love of God with as many as possible (1 Cor. 13:3).
Life is a gift that is easily wasted. We can waste it running after inferior rewards that rust, or we can do what Jesus and Paul did and invest ourselves in the only reward that lasts: people.

God Is Faithful

Someone once asked me, "Why would God be concerned as to whether or not we 'have trust and confidence in him' when He's judging us and when He determines what our fate will be?"
Having trust and confidence in God, according to the Biblical authors, is required for us to fulfill His commandment that we love Him, and thus also love others. (See Hebrews 11.)
As with a spouse, you cannot truly love them if you do not have some level of trust or confidence in them, and vice versa. All relationships require trust, from both parties. God wants us to trust Him that He will keep His promises towards those of us who love and follow Him. He also wants to trust us that we will enter the kingdom of heaven with a righteous and loving character. He doesn't want another rebellion in paradise, so He's trying to see if we truly love righteousness for righteousness' sake. A truly righteous person wouldn't want to rebel against Him when the time comes that they enter the kingdom of God themselves, because a person with a righteous character wouldn't ever do such a thing.
As Open Theists, we believe we're being consistent in our belief that God, at times, puts trials before us to test whether or not we will remain trustworthy enough in our character to be deemed worthy of entrance into His kingdom. The Classical Theist doesn't have the luxury of being consistent if they have this same belief.
In the Book of Job, Satan makes an accusation towards someone God has deemed as truly righteous: Job.
Satan assails God’s wisdom and character in running the world by alleging that people only serve Him because of what they get out of it. God protects them from disaster and blesses them in other ways. Their obedience, he is suggesting, isn’t really a free choice. "There is no genuine virtue in the world," Satan is claiming. "There are only self-serving bargains, and obedience for the sake of being protected and blessed is one of them. Hence, true holiness and virtuous obedience are an illusion." "Take away a person’s protection," Satan insists, "and let me have my way with people, and they will stop living for God" (Job 1:9-11; 2:4-5).
God has so much faith in Job that he will not succumb to proving the false accusations being levied towards him and God's way of running things in general that He ends up accepting the challenge. For God, this is as much a test of His faith towards His servant as it is for Job for his Lord. The adversary, we see, was assailing God’s integrity and wisdom in overseeing the creation. Satan was, in effect, accusing God of being a Machiavellian ruler. In the context of this narrative, it was an assault that could only be refuted by being put to the test.
Had God simply forced Satan into silence, without proving him wrong, it would have simply confirmed the accuracy of Satan’s charge. It would have shown that there is no integrity or wisdom in how God runs the world after all. "There is only the exercise of power, used to manipulate beings into obeying Him. People serve God only as a bargain, not out of genuine love."
No, the challenge had to be answered by having it put to the test. The most righteous man on the earth was thus chosen to be tested. If Job failed, the narrative suggests, then Satan will have made his point. If he succeeded, however, then God’s wisdom and integrity in running the cosmos will have been vindicated. Hence, the protective fence around Job is removed and Satan is allowed to afflict him.
In the end, Job proves faithful to God and is even referenced in the New Testament as an example of the kind of faithfulness He expected of first century believers facing persecution and trials:
"Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."-James 5:11
While most of us aren't dealing with the life-threatening kind of persecution that believers faced in the first century, for the very fact that the eschatological end of physical Israel and the Old Covenant system was fastly approaching for them (and already has approached), we still each face our own trials that God puts in our lives as individuals to see if we truly love Him. Job is simply the ultimate example of one who loved God because they chose to, not because God forced them to.
After all, you never know if your love is pure if it isn't tested...
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2024.05.14 10:49 DieBohne [Discussion] Seeing PS4 remasters with no online trophies for PS3 games is hurting.

Darksiders 2, Red Dead Redemption 1, Assassin‘s Creed, Uncharted.
I would love to have the Platinum for those games, since many of them I played years ago and hold good memories, but the servers have shutdown and the Platinums are unobtainable. And I don‘t want to start games (PS4), I have unfinished versions (PS3) for in my collection.
So many PS3 games have unnecessary online modes. Far Cry 2 comes to mind.
Is it just me or do you feel the pain, too?
submitted by DieBohne to Trophies [link] [comments]


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