Last week on my podcast, I took a shallow dive into the major problems I see in the Kemetic/Polytheistic communities at large. One of those problems prompted some interesting discussion already, specifically surrounding the superstitious fear of saying/writing the name “Apep,” or an obsessive need to immediately censor the word, in such communities. I wanted to explicitly look at why this completely misunderstands Egyptian religion in favor of contemporary superstition, why it could be considered legitimately dangerous to modern practitioners, and why it sums up the problems I see at large.
EDIT: two more important things have come up, better points than any of mine tbh. If these names had an inherent power of invocation tean anyone who ever wrote about the gods would now be polytheists. One needs the intent to invoke/evoke a god, and you simply shouldn't ever have that when writing Apep. Second, we can see lots of images of Apep drawn and written by the Egyptians in painstaking detail, and compare these to the desecration of gods like Set or hated Pharaohs. Heck by this logic Set is even worse to write than Apep as it was actually removed rather than part of the art.

1. The name for the force of primordial chaos we now call “Apep” is long lost. “Apep” is an English, best guess transliteration of the long dead hieroglyphic language. A language where we have literally no idea how it was supposed to sound. A language that was far more complex and spiritually charged than our joke of a language will ever be. So writing “Apep” or “Apophis” is not even close to invoking the force, unless you INTENTIONALLY go out of your way to invoke it. This is what matters, intention, which is why calling gods by their names in English still works out for us, we intend to invoke them, it is not the words or letters themselves.
   
2. As pointed out by a fellow practitioner (I will leave it to them to decide if they want to jump in), the very fear of the name is itself superstition rather than Kemeticism, indeed the latter had no fear of writing it, which they did often before destruction of the name in ritual. There is a serious superstitious fear in people that if they write the name and don’t cross it out, or write it at all, bad things will happen to them. It is the same paranoid, Christian-inspired, self-induced fear that we see with creeds like “harm ye none” when honestly the problem with Egypt was they were often quick to harm, or the fear that looking into anything outside of monotheism will lead to demon possession. This just is not how it worked, writing the name of a primordial force in a gross modern language is never going to have any impact on that force (nothing will, but more on that below). Further, I doubt this is ever seen through to its conclusion. For instance if you own any books on Egypt, the word Apep or other forms of it, maybe even the hieroglyphics, are already written in your home, oh no! Shall we cross out his name in all our books? Should we avoid websites that mention the name since we cannot desecrate it? Of course not.
   
3. Speaking of actual Egyptian practices, one must understand the effort behind ritual, and how that compares to ctrl+v-ing a crossed out name or putting slashes through it. Like if you were going to desecrate a name you'd make a pot, carve the name in, let it dry, smash it, etc. Or make sandals with the name embroidered on them. And note that the desecration would only come later on, it was meant to be desecrated in the future in such contexts, or over time. These are active ritual processes and I'd guess were often in response to something, not just out of habit or social signaling. One act is actual magic, the other is a lazy habit. And when those names were written there was no fear of them, or they would not have been written in the first place, even to be crossed out.
   
4. Continuing with historical Egypt, if the point of slashing-out “Apep” is to insult or attack the force, this completely misunderstands how names worked for our ancestors. The actual insult would be to not use the name at all, not even just its name (which again was not in English), but references to it, nicknames, etc., to not even think about it. But again this is not how Egypt saw Apep, they wrote about him, drew him, and SOMETIMES desecrated the name or image in rituals, which were significant events built on great effort, and not a simple keyboard habit. And it is precisely because Apep is weak that we can write about and depict him without fear.
   
5. This treatment of the name Apep misunderstands both what that force is, and how much power it has. For instance, as pointed out by my aforementioned peer, it makes us wary of an inaccurate name for the force, but not the force itself. To elaborate…
   

5a. One way to see Apep is as an always present force no matter how often you desecrate its name. You can see Apep in entropy, or in the chaos of a plagued mind, or a deteriorating body. This will literally never change, and desecrating the name Apep will have no effect on it, this is a symbolic act we as humans do to say “screw you,” not to eliminate some threat. And these are everyday threats that must be watched for, you cannot just cross out the name Apep and think you are good for the day, it remains a threat in this sense. Just take the association between Apep and entropy to its conclusion: do we also need to edit and censor the word “entropy?” Of course not!
5b. The other way to view Apep, what I lean towards, is as nothing. It is not some willful god or entity, it is just a mindless force of material nature (meaning its influence is always limited to the material realm, rather than the spiritual). In billions and billions of years Apep has not destroyed one thing, has not defeated one god (who we really should think more highly of than that they need us to cross out an english word to survive), has not ruined one life. To even suggest it does cause our problems (in my opinion since I pick 5b over 5a) not only gives Apep way more power and fear than it deserves, but takes the blame off of us when we mess things up and don’t feel like owning up to it. Apep is not our devil, is not some malevolent Abrahamic boogeyman, it is just a recognized force of nature with no will and that will never change or be influenced by the acts of humans.

1. Finally, the very idea of non-existence, of a god or individual returning to a state of primordial chaos, is a complete impossibility. Self-existence, such as that of our own and the gods, is a simple, axiomatic fact. For there to even being Apep, there must also be non-Apep, and it can never be otherwise. The very statement “I do not exist” cannot even be argued or conceived. This means that any fear of Apep, even historically speaking, is misplaced, a lack of understanding about the nature of the soul, a superstition. And that's okay, knowledge grows over time, just like we now know retainer sacrifices were wrong, and mummification/materialism is not needed for life after death. Honestly, not allowing knowledge to evolve in such a way gives Apep more praise than writing its name ever could.

Interestingly in this one topic we can see a lot of the problems I brought up manifested: the influence of Christian-based new ageism and superstition, the lack of objective/academic investigation into Egyptian belief and practices, unfamiliarity with even the basics of Egyptian beliefs and practices, the need for validation (such as a virtual pat on the back for slashing out Apep), and honestly just a plain laziness and desire to be handed everything on a silver platter immediately and without effort. These superstitious fears of Apep grant it more power over our lives than it ever could naturally have.
Edit: I agree with the below discussion that I've overstepped to some extent perhaps, but have chosen to leave this up to see if it spawns further discussion. That's not a recant, mind you lol.

Last week on my podcast, I took a shallow dive into the major problems I see in the Kemetic/Polytheistic communities at large. One of those problems prompted some interesting discussion already, specifically surrounding the superstitious fear of saying/writing the name “Apep,” or an obsessive need to immediately censor the word, in such communities. I wanted to explicitly look at why this completely misunderstands Egyptian religion in favor of contemporary superstition, why it could be considered legitimately dangerous to modern practitioners, and why it sums up the problems I see at large.
EDIT: two more important things have come up, better points than any of mine tbh. If these names had an inherent power of invocation tean anyone who ever wrote about the gods would now be polytheists. One needs the intent to invoke/evoke a god, and you simply shouldn't ever have that when writing Apep. Second, we can see lots of images of Apep drawn and written by the Egyptians in painstaking detail, and compare these to the desecration of gods like Set or hated Pharaohs. Heck by this logic Set is even worse to write than Apep as it was actually removed rather than part of the art.

1. The name for the force of primordial chaos we now call “Apep” is long lost. “Apep” is an English, best guess transliteration of the long dead hieroglyphic language. A language where we have literally no idea how it was supposed to sound. A language that was far more complex and spiritually charged than our joke of a language will ever be. So writing “Apep” or “Apophis” is not even close to invoking the force, unless you INTENTIONALLY go out of your way to invoke it. This is what matters, intention, which is why calling gods by their names in English still works out for us, we intend to invoke them, it is not the words or letters themselves.
   
2. As pointed out by a fellow practitioner (I will leave it to them to decide if they want to jump in), the very fear of the name is itself superstition rather than Kemeticism, indeed the latter had no fear of writing it, which they did often before destruction of the name in ritual. There is a serious superstitious fear in people that if they write the name and don’t cross it out, or write it at all, bad things will happen to them. It is the same paranoid, Christian-inspired, self-induced fear that we see with creeds like “harm ye none” when honestly the problem with Egypt was they were often quick to harm, or the fear that looking into anything outside of monotheism will lead to demon possession. This just is not how it worked, writing the name of a primordial force in a gross modern language is never going to have any impact on that force (nothing will, but more on that below). Further, I doubt this is ever seen through to its conclusion. For instance if you own any books on Egypt, the word Apep or other forms of it, maybe even the hieroglyphics, are already written in your home, oh no! Shall we cross out his name in all our books? Should we avoid websites that mention the name since we cannot desecrate it? Of course not.
   
3. Speaking of actual Egyptian practices, one must understand the effort behind ritual, and how that compares to ctrl+v-ing a crossed out name or putting slashes through it. Like if you were going to desecrate a name you'd make a pot, carve the name in, let it dry, smash it, etc. Or make sandals with the name embroidered on them. And note that the desecration would only come later on, it was meant to be desecrated in the future in such contexts, or over time. These are active ritual processes and I'd guess were often in response to something, not just out of habit or social signaling. One act is actual magic, the other is a lazy habit. And when those names were written there was no fear of them, or they would not have been written in the first place, even to be crossed out.
   
4. Continuing with historical Egypt, if the point of slashing-out “Apep” is to insult or attack the force, this completely misunderstands how names worked for our ancestors. The actual insult would be to not use the name at all, not even just its name (which again was not in English), but references to it, nicknames, etc., to not even think about it. But again this is not how Egypt saw Apep, they wrote about him, drew him, and SOMETIMES desecrated the name or image in rituals, which were significant events built on great effort, and not a simple keyboard habit. And it is precisely because Apep is weak that we can write about and depict him without fear.
   
5. This treatment of the name Apep misunderstands both what that force is, and how much power it has. For instance, as pointed out by my aforementioned peer, it makes us wary of an inaccurate name for the force, but not the force itself. To elaborate…
   

5a. One way to see Apep is as an always present force no matter how often you desecrate its name. You can see Apep in entropy, or in the chaos of a plagued mind, or a deteriorating body. This will literally never change, and desecrating the name Apep will have no effect on it, this is a symbolic act we as humans do to say “screw you,” not to eliminate some threat. And these are everyday threats that must be watched for, you cannot just cross out the name Apep and think you are good for the day, it remains a threat in this sense. Just take the association between Apep and entropy to its conclusion: do we also need to edit and censor the word “entropy?” Of course not!
5b. The other way to view Apep, what I lean towards, is as nothing. It is not some willful god or entity, it is just a mindless force of material nature (meaning its influence is always limited to the material realm, rather than the spiritual). In billions and billions of years Apep has not destroyed one thing, has not defeated one god (who we really should think more highly of than that they need us to cross out an english word to survive), has not ruined one life. To even suggest it does cause our problems (in my opinion since I pick 5b over 5a) not only gives Apep way more power and fear than it deserves, but takes the blame off of us when we mess things up and don’t feel like owning up to it. Apep is not our devil, is not some malevolent Abrahamic boogeyman, it is just a recognized force of nature with no will and that will never change or be influenced by the acts of humans.

1. Finally, the very idea of non-existence, of a god or individual returning to a state of primordial chaos, is a complete impossibility. Self-existence, such as that of our own and the gods, is a simple, axiomatic fact. For there to even being Apep, there must also be non-Apep, and it can never be otherwise. The very statement “I do not exist” cannot even be argued or conceived. This means that any fear of Apep, even historically speaking, is misplaced, a lack of understanding about the nature of the soul, a superstition. And that's okay, knowledge grows over time, just like we now know retainer sacrifices were wrong, and mummification/materialism is not needed for life after death. Honestly, not allowing knowledge to evolve in such a way gives Apep more praise than writing its name ever could.

Interestingly in this one topic we can see a lot of the problems I brought up manifested: the influence of Christian-based new ageism and superstition, the lack of objective/academic investigation into Egyptian belief and practices, unfamiliarity with even the basics of Egyptian beliefs and practices, the need for validation (such as a virtual pat on the back for slashing out Apep), and honestly just a plain laziness and desire to be handed everything on a silver platter immediately and without effort. These superstitious fears of Apep grant it more power over our lives than it ever could naturally have.

Last week on my podcast, I took a shallow dive into the major problems I see in the Kemetic/Polytheistic communities at large. One of those problems prompted some interesting discussion already, specifically surrounding the superstitious fear of saying/writing the name “Apep,” or an obsessive need to immediately censor the word, in such communities. I wanted to explicitly look at why this completely misunderstands Egyptian religion in favor of contemporary superstition, why it could be considered legitimately dangerous to modern practitioners, and why it sums up the problems I see at large.
EDIT: two more important things have come up, better points than any of mine tbh. If these names had an inherent power of invocation tean anyone who ever wrote about the gods would now be polytheists. One needs the intent to invoke/evoke a god, and you simply shouldn't ever have that when writing Apep. Second, we can see lots of images of Apep drawn and written by the Egyptians in painstaking detail, and compare these to the desecration of gods like Set or hated Pharaohs. Heck by this logic Set is even worse to write than Apep as it was actually removed rather than part of the art.

1. The name for the force of primordial chaos we now call “Apep” is long lost. “Apep” is an English, best guess transliteration of the long dead hieroglyphic language. A language where we have literally no idea how it was supposed to sound. A language that was far more complex and spiritually charged than our joke of a language will ever be. So writing “Apep” or “Apophis” is not even close to invoking the force, unless you INTENTIONALLY go out of your way to invoke it. This is what matters, intention, which is why calling gods by their names in English still works out for us, we intend to invoke them, it is not the words or letters themselves.
   
2. As pointed out by a fellow practitioner (I will leave it to them to decide if they want to jump in), the very fear of the name is itself superstition rather than Kemeticism, indeed the latter had no fear of writing it, which they did often before destruction of the name in ritual. There is a serious superstitious fear in people that if they write the name and don’t cross it out, or write it at all, bad things will happen to them. It is the same paranoid, Christian-inspired, self-induced fear that we see with creeds like “harm ye none” when honestly the problem with Egypt was they were often quick to harm, or the fear that looking into anything outside of monotheism will lead to demon possession. This just is not how it worked, writing the name of a primordial force in a gross modern language is never going to have any impact on that force (nothing will, but more on that below). Further, I doubt this is ever seen through to its conclusion. For instance if you own any books on Egypt, the word Apep or other forms of it, maybe even the hieroglyphics, are already written in your home, oh no! Shall we cross out his name in all our books? Should we avoid websites that mention the name since we cannot desecrate it? Of course not.
   
3. Speaking of actual Egyptian practices, one must understand the effort behind ritual, and how that compares to ctrl+v-ing a crossed out name or putting slashes through it. Like if you were going to desecrate a name you'd make a pot, carve the name in, let it dry, smash it, etc. Or make sandals with the name embroidered on them. And note that the desecration would only come later on, it was meant to be desecrated in the future in such contexts, or over time. These are active ritual processes and I'd guess were often in response to something, not just out of habit or social signaling. One act is actual magic, the other is a lazy habit. And when those names were written there was no fear of them, or they would not have been written in the first place, even to be crossed out.
   
4. Continuing with historical Egypt, if the point of slashing-out “Apep” is to insult or attack the force, this completely misunderstands how names worked for our ancestors. The actual insult would be to not use the name at all, not even just its name (which again was not in English), but references to it, nicknames, etc., to not even think about it. But again this is not how Egypt saw Apep, they wrote about him, drew him, and SOMETIMES desecrated the name or image in rituals, which were significant events built on great effort, and not a simple keyboard habit. And it is precisely because Apep is weak that we can write about and depict him without fear.
   
5. This treatment of the name Apep misunderstands both what that force is, and how much power it has. For instance, as pointed out by my aforementioned peer, it makes us wary of an inaccurate name for the force, but not the force itself. To elaborate…
   

5a. One way to see Apep is as an always present force no matter how often you desecrate its name. You can see Apep in entropy, or in the chaos of a plagued mind, or a deteriorating body. This will literally never change, and desecrating the name Apep will have no effect on it, this is a symbolic act we as humans do to say “screw you,” not to eliminate some threat. And these are everyday threats that must be watched for, you cannot just cross out the name Apep and think you are good for the day, it remains a threat in this sense. Just take the association between Apep and entropy to its conclusion: do we also need to edit and censor the word “entropy?” Of course not!
5b. The other way to view Apep, what I lean towards, is as nothing. It is not some willful god or entity, it is just a mindless force of material nature (meaning its influence is always limited to the material realm, rather than the spiritual). In billions and billions of years Apep has not destroyed one thing, has not defeated one god (who we really should think more highly of than that they need us to cross out an english word to survive), has not ruined one life. To even suggest it does cause our problems (in my opinion since I pick 5b over 5a) not only gives Apep way more power and fear than it deserves, but takes the blame off of us when we mess things up and don’t feel like owning up to it. Apep is not our devil, is not some malevolent Abrahamic boogeyman, it is just a recognized force of nature with no will and that will never change or be influenced by the acts of humans.

1. Finally, the very idea of non-existence, of a god or individual returning to a state of primordial chaos, is a complete impossibility. Self-existence, such as that of our own and the gods, is a simple, axiomatic fact. For there to even being Apep, there must also be non-Apep, and it can never be otherwise. The very statement “I do not exist” cannot even be argued or conceived. This means that any fear of Apep, even historically speaking, is misplaced, a lack of understanding about the nature of the soul, a superstition. And that's okay, knowledge grows over time, just like we now know retainer sacrifices were wrong, and mummification/materialism is not needed for life after death. Honestly, not allowing knowledge to evolve in such a way gives Apep more praise than writing its name ever could.

Interestingly in this one topic we can see a lot of the problems I brought up manifested: the influence of Christian-based new ageism and superstition, the lack of objective/academic investigation into Egyptian belief and practices, unfamiliarity with even the basics of Egyptian beliefs and practices, the need for validation (such as a virtual pat on the back for slashing out Apep), and honestly just a plain laziness and desire to be handed everything on a silver platter immediately and without effort. These superstitious fears of Apep grant it more power over our lives than it ever could naturally have.

Last week on my podcast, I took a shallow dive into the major problems I see in the Kemetic/Polytheistic communities at large. One of those problems prompted some interesting discussion already, specifically surrounding the superstitious fear of saying/writing the name “Apep,” or an obsessive need to immediately censor the word, in such communities. I wanted to explicitly look at why this completely misunderstands Egyptian religion in favor of contemporary superstition, why it could be considered legitimately dangerous to modern practitioners, and why it sums up the problems I see at large.
EDIT: two more important things have come up, better points than any of mine tbh. If these names had an inherent power of invocation tean anyone who ever wrote about the gods would now be polytheists. One needs the intent to invoke/evoke a god, and you simply shouldn't ever have that when writing Apep. Second, we can see lots of images of Apep drawn and written by the Egyptians in painstaking detail, and compare these to the desecration of gods like Set or hated Pharaohs. Heck by this logic Set is even worse to write than Apep as it was actually removed rather than part of the art.

1. The name for the force of primordial chaos we now call “Apep” is long lost. “Apep” is an English, best guess transliteration of the long dead hieroglyphic language. A language where we have literally no idea how it was supposed to sound. A language that was far more complex and spiritually charged than our joke of a language will ever be. So writing “Apep” or “Apophis” is not even close to invoking the force, unless you INTENTIONALLY go out of your way to invoke it. This is what matters, intention, which is why calling gods by their names in English still works out for us, we intend to invoke them, it is not the words or letters themselves.
   
2. As pointed out by a fellow practitioner (I will leave it to them to decide if they want to jump in), the very fear of the name is itself superstition rather than Kemeticism, indeed the latter had no fear of writing it, which they did often before destruction of the name in ritual. There is a serious superstitious fear in people that if they write the name and don’t cross it out, or write it at all, bad things will happen to them. It is the same paranoid, Christian-inspired, self-induced fear that we see with creeds like “harm ye none” when honestly the problem with Egypt was they were often quick to harm, or the fear that looking into anything outside of monotheism will lead to demon possession. This just is not how it worked, writing the name of a primordial force in a gross modern language is never going to have any impact on that force (nothing will, but more on that below). Further, I doubt this is ever seen through to its conclusion. For instance if you own any books on Egypt, the word Apep or other forms of it, maybe even the hieroglyphics, are already written in your home, oh no! Shall we cross out his name in all our books? Should we avoid websites that mention the name since we cannot desecrate it? Of course not.
   
3. Speaking of actual Egyptian practices, one must understand the effort behind ritual, and how that compares to ctrl+v-ing a crossed out name or putting slashes through it. Like if you were going to desecrate a name you'd make a pot, carve the name in, let it dry, smash it, etc. Or make sandals with the name embroidered on them. And note that the desecration would only come later on, it was meant to be desecrated in the future in such contexts, or over time. These are active ritual processes and I'd guess were often in response to something, not just out of habit or social signaling. One act is actual magic, the other is a lazy habit. And when those names were written there was no fear of them, or they would not have been written in the first place, even to be crossed out.
   
4. Continuing with historical Egypt, if the point of slashing-out “Apep” is to insult or attack the force, this completely misunderstands how names worked for our ancestors. The actual insult would be to not use the name at all, not even just its name (which again was not in English), but references to it, nicknames, etc., to not even think about it. But again this is not how Egypt saw Apep, they wrote about him, drew him, and SOMETIMES desecrated the name or image in rituals, which were significant events built on great effort, and not a simple keyboard habit. And it is precisely because Apep is weak that we can write about and depict him without fear.
   
5. This treatment of the name Apep misunderstands both what that force is, and how much power it has. For instance, as pointed out by my aforementioned peer, it makes us wary of an inaccurate name for the force, but not the force itself. To elaborate…
   

5a. One way to see Apep is as an always present force no matter how often you desecrate its name. You can see Apep in entropy, or in the chaos of a plagued mind, or a deteriorating body. This will literally never change, and desecrating the name Apep will have no effect on it, this is a symbolic act we as humans do to say “screw you,” not to eliminate some threat. And these are everyday threats that must be watched for, you cannot just cross out the name Apep and think you are good for the day, it remains a threat in this sense. Just take the association between Apep and entropy to its conclusion: do we also need to edit and censor the word “entropy?” Of course not!
5b. The other way to view Apep, what I lean towards, is as nothing. It is not some willful god or entity, it is just a mindless force of material nature (meaning its influence is always limited to the material realm, rather than the spiritual). In billions and billions of years Apep has not destroyed one thing, has not defeated one god (who we really should think more highly of than that they need us to cross out an english word to survive), has not ruined one life. To even suggest it does cause our problems (in my opinion since I pick 5b over 5a) not only gives Apep way more power and fear than it deserves, but takes the blame off of us when we mess things up and don’t feel like owning up to it. Apep is not our devil, is not some malevolent Abrahamic boogeyman, it is just a recognized force of nature with no will and that will never change or be influenced by the acts of humans.

1. Finally, the very idea of non-existence, of a god or individual returning to a state of primordial chaos, is a complete impossibility. Self-existence, such as that of our own and the gods, is a simple, axiomatic fact. For there to even being Apep, there must also be non-Apep, and it can never be otherwise. The very statement “I do not exist” cannot even be argued or conceived. This means that any fear of Apep, even historically speaking, is misplaced, a lack of understanding about the nature of the soul, a superstition. And that's okay, knowledge grows over time, just like we now know retainer sacrifices were wrong, and mummification/materialism is not needed for life after death. Honestly, not allowing knowledge to evolve in such a way gives Apep more praise than writing its name ever could.

Interestingly in this one topic we can see a lot of the problems I brought up manifested: the influence of Christian-based new ageism and superstition, the lack of objective/academic investigation into Egyptian belief and practices, unfamiliarity with even the basics of Egyptian beliefs and practices, the need for validation (such as a virtual pat on the back for slashing out Apep), and honestly just a plain laziness and desire to be handed everything on a silver platter immediately and without effort. These superstitious fears of Apep grant it more power over our lives than it ever could naturally have.

I know it‘s not about porn, but it‘s about „sex work“.
I don‘t know who is German among y‘all.
But I watched a video of a Youtuber that talked about another Youtuber („Open Mind“ is his name). In his video, he booked an escort and asked her about her experiences and about the industry.
Remember, HE BOOKED HER.
She obviously only talked positively about the industry and said that „she always liked sleeping with men“ and that „the agency that connects her with her ‚clients‘ is really amazing and fair“ and that she earns „really good money“ etc etc. He literally had sex with her (aka raped her) and bragged about it. I am so disgusted at this behavior. How can someone literally buy a woman‘s body on camera, film it (censored) and then brag about it?! All comments under this video are POSITIVE. Noone really questioned whether the Youtuber (the sex buyer) did something morally wrong. Thanks to the other Youtuber‘s video about that sex buyer, people comment on his video and call him out for it.
„Open mind bangs escort“ is literally the title of the intro. Not even ashamed of using derogatory language. Some random things he said:
„I‘m getting hard again.“
„What did I feel after I banged an escort? My friends told be that they felt empty after buying sex, but I didn‘t have that feeling at all. I was in a good mood but I also knew in the back of my mind that this godly video is gonna be created. I was free of shame. I didn‘t think something like ‚oh no! I had paid sex! You don‘t do that! I‘m a loser!‘…“
Literally DISGUSTING. I‘m gonna puke. Who the fuck talks like this?!
Imagine this: A man openly exploits a woman and the public is applauding. When Andrea Dworkin said „when your rape is entertainment, your worthlessness is absolute“, she was 100% right. We are nothing but a hole to most men. It‘s so depressing.

High Context
Expression takes many forms. In this book I have interpreted the word media in a broad sense and treated each form of expression that I have discussed as an independent medium. What, then, is the reason for the existence of multiple media like manga, anime, and film? Are these simply multiple forms for mediating the same reality? Not at all. Multiple media exist in order to support multiple fictions. We clearly perceive the form of a particular expression at the same time as we take in its content. The various media function as a kind of context, or a transparent and continuous totality that attaches meaning to content. In this instance the media themselves attain their own unique contextuality. For example, we are not in the least confused if a heroine who breaks down in tears in a television drama suddenly appears smiling in a commercial during the break. This is because it is very easy for us to shift instantaneously between the context of the drama and the commercial.
In an earlier work I referred to this idea of the unique contextuality of each medium as the “representation context,” in order to use it in a more limited sense. This is because it is possible to use the media form itself as a form of representation. As I explained in chapter 1, my use of the term context is based chiefly on a combination of the ideas of G. Bateson and E. T. Hall, which I Have also explained in greater detail elsewhere. For our purposes here, it is possible to understand the contexts contributing to expression as existing in hierarchical strata. In the case of manga, the first context level is that of the narrative that gives meaning to the characters’ actions. Above that is the genre of the narrative - the expressive context that determines whether it is to be taken seriously or as a gag. The representational context is one level above this. Or, if we order them from top down, the process by which we understand the content of a manga can be understood as a hierarchical series of stages beginning with the work’s representational context (manga), proceeding to its expressive context (genre), on to the narrative context, and finally to the comprehension of the content. Of course, in actual fact we have to admit that this sort of hierarchy is ultimately not valid. It goes without saying that content and context exist in a relationship based on simultaneous and mutual corroboration. Therefore I should emphasize that the notion of representation context serves only for convenience of description and is not in any sense an isolatable object.
It is possible, for example, to think of visual media in the order of their dependence on representational contextuality. Contextuality in this case refers to the degree to which the form of expression itself determines the context expressed. In order of descending contextuality, then, we have anime, manga, television, film, and photographs. The statement “I saw a photograph,” for example, conveys no meaning on its own. But the statement “I saw an anime” evokes a relatively concrete image in the listener’s mind. This is because the anime form restricts the range of content much more than does the photograph. In other words, anime has the highest level of contextuality and photography the lowest. Here I follow Hall in calling this the “high context” nature of anime. In general, we can say that more popular forms of expression tend to be higher context (as in the difference between classical and popular music). In visual media, the less information conveyed on the screen, the higher the context (this being the difference between television and film). Thus “cool” media (with low levels of detail) tend toward higher context.
Let us think more concretely about the high-context nature of anime and manga. We have already established that form and content are intricately connected in both. In the case of these expressive forms, we can easily makes guesses about the content and authorship even of works that we know nothing about. Even a single frame of the work will be enough to tell us the genre, the orientation of the content, and sometimes even the identity of the author. Moreover, the instantaneous switching between the “gag” and “serious” modes that would be unthinkable in film but forms part of the grammar of anime (its so-called yakusoku [conventions]) can be explained only on the basis of this high-context nature.
I think of high context as the sensibility that emerges when there is no sense of distance between the producer and the consumer of a given media form . Once we immerse ourselves in this high-context space, the meaning of all stimuli is grasped instantaneously. Inevitably, emotional codes are more easily transmitted here than verbal ones. This high-density transmissibility enables extremely high levels of concentration and absorption.
Intersubjective Mediation, or Media Theory
Based on what I have said above, we can identify the difference between film and anime or manga first in terms of contextuality.
Is this the place for us to move to a discussion of media theory? Is the desire for the beautiful fighting girls a sign of an internal transformation, an “implosion” and extension brought on by our contemporary media environment? In some senses this may be true, but in others it is certainly not.
The development of the media environment has in fact partly transformed the structure of our society. The development of the mass media industry itself is one manifestation of this transformation. Its influence on the economy and on education has, of course, been enormous. But to what extent does this transformation penetrate our inner worlds?
In clinical terms there has not been the slightest structural transformation. The structure of our neurotic subjectivity remains intact, just as Freud discovered it a century ago. If asked to prove this, most analysts would say that it is not their role to offer general proofs of anything. This, too, has not changed in a hundred years. Analysts can speak about the truth. But, or perhaps therefore, they cannot prove what is true. But, or perhaps therefore, they cannot prove what is true. To say that the structure of the subject is intact is to say that the structure of desire has been maintained. What needs to be emphasized here is that, in order for the structure of desire to be maintained, the object of desire must constantly change. If the object of our desire looks different than it did a hundred years ago, this is only a change in appearance that results from the continual maintenance that we as subjects have performed on the structure of that desire. Yes, the development of media has brought about an outward change, a superficial change in the objects of our desire.
From this we can derive at least two psychoanalytic hypotheses. If we use Lacan’s divisions, the stability of the subject denotes primarily the stability of the relationality between the Symbolic and the Real. Moreover, the internal transformation that Marshall McLuhan referred to as “implosion” can be considered mainly as having emerged as a change on the level of form in the Imaginary. Herein lies one of the thorniest difficulties of media theory. If voice and writing are themselves already forms of media, what exactly have modern media been able to add to the equation? The transformation of the subject in the Imaginary can always make it seem as if nothing has happened. As long as this is the case, the appearance of media theory will remain in the always-awaited future, and its conclusions will only continue to be deferred.
But perhaps there is something to be gained nonetheless by taking a detour here and considering the mutual operations of the media environment and the Imaginary. The development of media is clearly most striking in the visual realm. Already we are able in principle to see any sort of image whatsoever. If we so desire, we can also keep large numbers of images in our possession on a computer hard drive. There is no little significance in the fact that, as is so apparent in the case of the ever-increasing functionality of the personal computer, it has become very easy for us not just to preserve but to reproduce, manipulate, and transmit visual information about all sorts of experiences. Our imaginary has been dramatically expanded and accelerated by the media, or extended through “implosion.”
The diversification of methods of mediation has had a number of effects. One of these is the potential impoverishment of content and form. As was clear in the case of the beautiful fighting girls, the narratives in a diversified media environment are surprisingly similar to each other. As I pointed out in chapter 5, there are hundreds of examples of the beautiful fighting girl genre, but only thirteen story lines. From the 1990s on, no new story lines emerged, and new works were simply rearrangements of old ones. In this case at least, we can say that, while the diversification of media may contribute to the outward diversification of the works, we need to be aware of the possibility that it encourages the involution of the genre as a whole.
The more information is exchanged, the more redundancies there are and the more monotonous it becomes . For example, now that communication by personal computer has become the norm, people read and perhaps write enormous amounts of text every day . As a result, we see developing a common “computer style” of writing that is excellent for transmitting information but extremely limited in its capacity for description and definition. The impoverishment of visual information is most evident in the spread of anime-style images.
So what is this about? Increasing the level of detail or rendering movement more subtly in anime would take exponentially more money and time. But of course these luxuries are not always possible. On the other hand, too much abbreviation reduces the images to mere signs and makes for a very dreary representation (like the Saturday morning cartoons in the United States, where the only facial movements are blinking eyes and opening and closing mouths). The solution to the problem in Japan was, I believe, the introduction of the “big eyes and small mouth” that has become the tradition in Japanese anime.
The only parts of a manga that cannot be drawn by assistants are the face, and particularly the eyes, of the main characters. The author’s style appears in its most concentrated form in the facial expression and the eyes. The shortcut technique that resulted from this was to divide up the drawing of the background among assistants and make the characters like simple signs. This made possible the division of labor. Then, to avoid making the characters too much like mere signs, the facial expression, particularly the eyes, and the hands are drawn with great care. Among all the human organs, these occupy the position closest to the grammatical subject. Drawing the eyes and hands with special care has the same value as inserting text. Or, to put it the other way around, as long as the eyes and hands are carefully drawn, the rest can be abbreviated. Then one can add more facial expressions and make them more complex with manpu. This procedure enables the streamlining of the production process while also effectively communicating a wide variety of subtle emotional codes, making it easy for the viewer to identify emotionally. This is likely the origin of the too-large eyes and tiny mouth that Westerners so often point out in Japanese manga and anime. The anime image is the result of a sophisticated technique that enables a maximum of communication with a minimum of lines.
One noticeable trend in recent years, which may have to do mostly with keeping costs down, is that even as the images are drawn with greater and greater sophistication of design and coloration, they tend to move much less. The appearance of movement is skillfully produced by blurring the image, using flashes of lights, and bank sequences [19*. Bank sequences, or Bankukatto, are sequences of animation that can be used repeatedly, such as when a heroine is transforming or assuming a decisive pose.], but on closer inspection there is actually very little movement. The impact of “anime images” results from drawings so refined that this sort of thing no longer appears unnatural. Moreover, because there is no need for the drawings to be particularly intricate, they can be easily digitized, which makes it possible to transfer them into a computer game without altering them. This style of drawing, which is devoid of texture and consists only of fine lines and surfaces, helps smooth the flow of the so-called media mix as the images are transplanted from comics to anime to film, games, figurines, and toys.
The space of manga and anime has introduced easily shareable code systems into our Imaginary. This shareability, in turn, introduces elements of polymorphous perversion into that space. As a result, in the 1980s we first became aware of a very important fact, namely, that even the objects of our sexuality were shareable through the mediation of manga and anime. This realization led to the explosive growth of sexualized images in this space. Of course, the wholesome notion that manga and anime are basically for children exists even now. But even this constraint was converted into a useful technique. Depicting sex in a context that is for children almost inevitably produces undifferentiated, which to say polymorphously perverse, effects. <also, and a much darker scene between the protagonist Utena and the antagonist Akio in the episode The Prince Who Runs Through the Night, a friend pointed this out to me, in terms of what it’s depicting and how True it is. The disassociation and ambivalence that suffuses a traumatic event…>.
To create an autonomous object of desire within the fictional space of manga and anime: was this not the ultimate dream of the otaku? They sought to create fiction not as a stand-in for the “real” sexual object, but fiction that had no need to be secured by reality. For this to work, not even the most elaborately constructed fictional worlds would suffice. In order for fiction to attain its own autonomous reality, it would have to be desired for its own sake. Only then would reality bow down to fiction.
“Fiction” versus “Reality”
Earlier I referred rather casually to the contrast between “fiction” and “reality.” Of course, I do not accept this contrast naively. In fact, it is my belief that everyday reality is itself nothing more than a fiction (or fantasy) and that it is fundamentally impossible to draw a strict distinction between them. One reason that I raise the distinction nonetheless is in order to think once more about “Japan.” The art critic Sawaragi Noi has argued that Japan functions as what he calls a “bad place” and that any act of expression that attempts to escape from that place can only end up by making it worse and getting caught in a vicious circle. If such a place can be hypothesized, it is entirely possible that it could also subsume the place of manga and anime that I have been discussing here. For now I call that space “Japanese space” and contrast it with another unique representational space, which I call “Western space.”
As I pointed out earlier, in Japanese space the distinction between fiction and reality is not completely in effect. The distinction itself is in fact based on a Western idea . **In his theory of ideals Plato begins with a three-part distinction between the ideal, reality, and art, and places art at the bottom of the hierarchy because it is only an imitation of reality. In Plato’s system there is only a series of copies, with the copy of the ideal being reality and the copy of reality being art. Art must content itself with the lowly position of being a copy of a copy, an imitation of an imitation. Added to this is the influence of Judeo-Christian culture, which rejects idolatry. In “Western space,” even today “reality” is made to conform strictly to this ranking. In this context the notion of the “Reality of fiction” is already attenuated by being subjected to all sorts of constraints.
<"But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" Matthew 5:28.>
For example, in American popular culture the most privileged fiction form is film. To be made into a film is the ultimate proof of the success of any narrative, whether it originates as a novel or a play. Of course, there are any number of reasons for this, but one is surely the belief that live-action film is the most accurate imitation or reproduction of reality. The impact of live-action film is supported by the belief that what it portrays is a faithful reproduction of reality. In my opinion there is absolutely no difference between the fictionality of live-action film and animated ones; it is just that anime is considered more fictional because it is under the constraint of having to be drawn by someone. For this reason animated films have almost no chance of winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and will always remain a genre inferior to film.
Thinking about censorship practices makes this even clearer. Censors in Japanese space seem for the most part uninterested in the symbolic value of what they are censoring. As long as the genitals are not portrayed explicitly, they will allow even the most depraved images to be shown. In Western space, however, images are censored according to their symbolic value. The censors are not interested in the trivial question of whether or not the genitals are visible, but reserve their strictest scrutiny for obscenity and perverse content. A recent example is the cover for Marilyn Manson’s CD Mechanical Animals. In the composite photograph, Manson appears nude as he glares at the viewer, but with the smooth groin and small breasts of a young girl. This level of perversion does not cause the least problem in Japan. But in the United States it create quite a scandal, with several large music stores refusing the carry the album. One could list any number of similar examples of this difference in the way Japanese and Americans judge an image obscene. Of course, even in Japan this sort of taboo on images still lingers when it comes to the Imperial family, but even that is losing the force it once had. In fact, that taboo has become so weak that it would shock even Okuzaki Kenzo. We are now living in an age when it is possible to publish a manga depicting a bomb thrown at Princess Masako during a parade, and the romance between Princess Kiko and Prince Akishino has been made into an anime. In other words, we still do not have the slightest idea what it is that defines depravity.
One conclusion that we can draw from this comparison is that visual expression in Western space is symbolically castrated, while Japanese space there is only imaginary castration, at most. For example, in Western space any image that symbolizes the penis is censored, while in Japanese space as long as you do not portray the penis itself anything goes. In this ironic sense I would suggest that Japanese media enjoy the great freedom of expression. The problem arises with this freedom itself.
In Japanese space, fiction itself is recognized as having its own autonomous reality. As I mentioned earlier, in Western space reality is always in the superior position, and the fictional space is not allowed to encroach on it. Various prohibitions are introduced to establish and maintain this superiority. It is not permitted for example, to produce images depicting sexual perversion. This is because fiction must not be more real (riaru) than reality. Fiction must be carefully castrated so that it does not become too appealing. This is what I mean by symbolic castration.
It is often remarked that the heroines of Western comics and anime are for the most part not very cute. They often include beautiful women and naked bodies, but rarely do they directly represent characters as sexually attractive. This cannot be explained simply as a result of a discrepancy in technical skill or differing notions of beauty. In the case of an actual Hollywood actress, Japanese and American fans are likely to speak in similar ways about her sexual attractiveness. But the situation is very different when it comes to heroines who appear as drawn images. Betty Boop, for example, may be drawn in a sexy outfit (with a garter belt!), but she is more like a parody of a sexy actress. Her fans are not immediately captivated by Betty’s sexual charms.
To continue with our discussion of Western space, we might remember that 1957 saw the creation of the so-called Comics Code Authority that formulated self-regulatory codes for comics in the United States and effectively spelled the end of the golden age of American comics. At the time juvenile delinquency had become a hot-button issue, and comics were singled out as a contributing factor. Among comic fans the formation of the CCA is referred to as the “Total Disaster.” The list of restrictions is as absurdly detailed as the rules at a Japanese high school. A few items that stand out on the list are

• “Divorce shall not be treated humorously nor represented as desirable.”
• “If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity.”
• “In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished [sic] for his misdeeds.”
• “Policemen, judges, government officials and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority.”

Under the category of “Marriage and Sex” the code states that “Nudity in any form is prohibited,” “Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities,” “Illicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at nor portrayed,” “Seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested,” and “Sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden.” Japanese manga as harmless as Sazae-san and Doraemon might run afoul of these rules. If regulations this strict were in force in Japan, virtually every manga magazine in print would have to be shut down.
It is thus quite possible to analyze the differences between Japan and the United States from the perspective of regulations. But what I want to stress here is that these rules show all the symptoms of an excessive defense reaction. No matter how popular comics had become by the 1950s, they could hardly compete with film. Nevertheless, they were much more severely regulated, to the point of destroying an entire genre of expression. Would it be too much to see in this an echo of what we might call the West’s iconographic taboo? The highly detailed and concrete restrictions on the depictions of sexuality are particularly remarkable. In these restrictions we can clearly see operating the obsessive idea that images themselves must not be sexually attractive.
Pornography must be considered as part of this discussion of the visual expression of sexuality. Pornography, needless to say, prizes images that are realistic and highly practical. In the decline of roman poruno and the rise of adult video, for example, one can see the pursuit of convenience and practicality. Pornographic images trend toward being more suitable for private consumption, reproduction and distribution gets easier, and pornographic expression gets more and more explicit. But in the Japanese space this leads to another contradiction: namely, the existence of “porno comics.” I want to stress once again that I am speaking of pornography in general here, not of “erotic expression.” It is perhaps only in Japan that pornography has taken the form of comic books and attained a certain popularity in doing so. Of course, there are porno comics that are meant to be used as masturbation aids in the West as well, but on a scale that does not even being to compare with that of Japan.
It seems absurd that such an enormous market would emerge for pornographic comics in a country where “hair nudes” are everywhere and people are somewhat bored even of adult videos. As I pointed out earlier, anime-style drawing has been hugely influential in this genre as well. In terms of their correspondence to everyday reality, there is no less realistic style of drawing. Despite this, however, these kinds of representation have been widely preferred as a medium for pornography. This would be entirely unimaginable in Europe or the United States, and the contrast points to a significant cultural difference.
Of course, there is a historical background to this as well. According to Timon Screech of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, the so-called shunga that were produced in such huge quantities in the Edo period were used by the masses as masturbation aids.
If that is in fact the case, we should also be able to find the roots of manga and anime in the Edo period, in a culture in which sexual desire was both stimulated and satisfied by drawn images. The issue here, needless to say, has something to do with anything like the symbolic expression of eros. The problem that we have arrived at instead is that of the immediacy of the drawn image.
As I have already pointed out, there are many fans of anime and manga in the West. But they are virtually unanimous in their hatred for so-called tentacle porn. They believe that sexuality does not belong in animation. What do Japanese otaku think about this? If they were shown this sort of pornographic work they would either give a wry smile or launch into a lengthy discussion of the history of adult anime using works like Cream Lemon (Kuriimu remon) and Legend of the Overfiend (Urotsukidoji) as examples. I cannot help but see in this difference another huge contrast between Japanese and Western otaku.
Leaving aside the question of whether it is possible to read in this the traces of taboos and repression, for now let us reiterate the minimal facts of which we can be certain. In the Western space of popular culture, it is exceedingly rare to find drawn iconic images of cute little girls and erotic nudes. In that space there is an unconscious censorship of drawn images, and their reality is kept within certain limits. The type of caricatures so conspicuous in Disney’s animations can even be considered as a technique of exaggeration for the purpose of repression. Constant and meticulous efforts are made in this space to prevent drawn images from attaining their own autonomous reality. In other words, drawn images are always kept in the position of being substitutes for objects that exist in reality.
In Japanese space, on the other hand, it is permissible for all sorts of sites to have their own autonomous reality (riariti). In other words, real (riaru ) fictions do not necessarily require the security of reality (genjitsu). There is absolutely no need in this space for fiction to imitate reality. Fiction is able to clear a space around itself for its own reality (riariti ku kan). The appeal of drawn images of little girls, for example, is a crucial element in the production of this reality (riariti). Here, fiction must establish a logic of sexuality all its own. This is because, in Japanese space, sexuality is the most important factor upholding reality (riariti). Of course, this is not true only of anime. Why else, for example, did the artistic traditions of the past put so much emphasis on the depiction of women? Why do rakugo raconteurs spend so much time extolling the pleasures of womanizing? And why do manga instruction courses always begin with how to draw a boy-girl couple? All of these things, which are particular to Japan, suggest that in this space it is sexuality that upholds the reality of fiction (kyoko no riariti).
So let us accept the autonomy of fiction and put forward the thesis that this autonomy is a necessary precondition for the beautiful fighting girl to emerge. If this is the case, we cannot in any sense see in them the reflection of “everyday reality.” It would not be permissible, for example, to infer from the popularity of beautiful fighting girls that girls are being empowered in the real world. It is the stubborn habit of seeing fiction as an imitation of reality, which is hard even for the Japanese to resist, that is at the root of this misunderstanding. The misunderstanding may be logically consistent, but that same logical consistency is also precisely what renders it invalid.
Getting back to our discussion of the image in Japanese space, I repeat that representations in this space do not undergo symbolic castration. There are some gestures toward imaginary castration with regard to sexual codes, but these are barely functional, and in the end they actually come closer to initiating a drive toward the disavowal of castration. The disavowal of castration is of course the initial condition for sexual perversion, which is why this space exhibits such an affinity for perverted objects. All sorts of images come to occupy various positions within this ecosystem of autonomous reality, and the space begins to overflow with meanings rendered through sexual and other codes. In this place, so highly charged with meaning because of this sheer verbosity of codes, context is privileged over any single disarticulated code. Meaning is transmitted instantaneously here, but its provenance can never be traced back to a single code.
This sort of high-context representational space can sometimes lose some of its reality effect if it is circulated too widely and understood too easily. How might it resist this attenuation of reality? One way is, of course, through sexuality. As I have argued several times already, sex is a necessary component for a narrative to seem real. The various struggles and manipulations surrounding sexuality (i.e., “romance”) are what introduce a core of reality into a narrative.
The widespread transgression of sexual limits in Japanese representational culture can also be interpreted in light of the high-context nature of Japanese space. High-context expressive space is, by nature, incapable of making full use of the effects of structural and formal reality. Instead it is the intensities that emerge at moments of shifting and switching from one context to another that are used to create reality effects. In the highest context spaces of anime and manga, most important are those gestures capable of transcending the context of heterosexual desire. The various characteristics of the beautiful fighting girls, which include hermaphorditism, transformation (i.e., accelerated maturation), and the strange mixture of proactivity (i.e., fighting ability) and passivity (i.e., cuteness), all help facilitate the emergence of this transcendental reality. That all manner of perversions should be evoked in their presence is only natural.
[To be continued... The Phallic Girl as a Form of Hysteria]

How about dating and romance within such kind of world and settings? - Consider all possible social groups.

Love and Lust in a High-Tech, Low-Life World:

High-Society:

• Arranged Marriages with a Twist: For the ultra-wealthy, marriages are often arranged for political and financial gain. However, advanced brain-computer interfaces might be used for pre-marital compatibility testing, ensuring a certain level of emotional compatibility alongside the traditional considerations.
• Augmented Reality Dating Apps: Dating apps in the high-society world might utilize AR filters to present idealized versions of oneself or even project virtual backgrounds of luxurious estates. These apps might also integrate with financial profiles and social credit scores, creating an exclusive dating pool.
• Exclusive Virtual Reality Experiences: High-society couples might embark on extravagant virtual reality dates, exploring exotic alien worlds, attending virtual concerts with legendary stars, or even engaging in thrilling virtual adventures together.

Low-Society:

• Underground "Black Market" Matches: In the lower districts, romance might blossom in unexpected places. Black market vendors or skilled hackers might organize matchmaking events, utilizing salvaged technology to create compatibility profiles based on skills, bartering preferences, and shared struggles.
• Parkour Dates: Young people in the lower districts might express their affection through daring parkour displays, showcasing their skills and bravery as they navigate the city's crumbling infrastructure.
• Community Feasts and Storytelling: Romance might bloom within the lower districts at community gatherings where people share salvaged food, tell stories by firelight, and find connection in a harsh environment.

Other Groups:

• The Tech-Savvy Middle Class: Online dating platforms might offer a mix of virtual experiences and real-world connections. Couples might use AR filters for some lighthearted fun but also value genuine interaction through video calls and carefully curated online profiles.
• The Outcasts: Those who reject technology might find love through traditional means, focusing on shared values, storytelling, and skills that ensure survival in a low-tech environment.
• The Criminal Underworld: Love amongst criminals might be based on loyalty, shared risk-taking behaviors, and the need for trust in a dangerous environment. However, betrayal and manipulation could also be part of this world.

Across Social Strata:

• Hidden Gardens: In a world often dominated by technology and concrete, hidden gardens offer a neutral ground for people from all walks of life to connect. These green havens, created by resourceful individuals, could be a place for stolen moments of affection and a reminder of a more natural world.
• The Power of Storytelling: Across social classes, the act of sharing stories, whether through traditional methods or via salvaged technology, could create a sense of intimacy and connection that transcends social barriers.

Challenges of Love:

• Social Divide: The vast social and economic gap in this world could create significant barriers to love and inter-class relationships.
• Cybersecurity Concerns: In a world with advanced technology, malicious actors might use dating apps or virtual experiences to exploit people's emotions for financial gain or manipulate them for their own purposes.
• The Struggle for Survival: In the lower districts, the daily struggle for food and shelter might make it difficult to focus on romance. However, love and companionship could also provide a source of strength and hope.

Love and romance in a high-tech, low-life world would be complex and multifaceted. Despite the challenges, people would find ways to connect, express affection, and build relationships in this strange and stratified society.

Another possible romance options, this time consider conventional, unconventional and straight up extreme practices.

Love and Romance: High-Tech, Low-Life Extremes

Conventional (with a Twist):

• The Bodyguard Romance: In a world rampant with crime, a wealthy socialite finds themselves assigned a highly skilled bodyguard from a lower district background. Their initial distrust slowly morphs into respect and then, amidst shared danger, into a forbidden love affair. Think "Beauty and the Beast" in a high-tech dystopia.
• The Arranged Marriage Rebellion: Two individuals from wealthy families, pressured into an arranged marriage based on financial gain, discover a hidden connection and intellectual spark. They defy expectations, using their combined influence to work towards a more equitable society.
• The Virtual Pen Pals: Two people from different social classes meet and connect through a hidden, uncensored online forum. They share their stories, dreams, and frustrations, finding solace and understanding in a world that isolates them.

Unconventional:

• The Bio-Hacked Bond: Two lovers undergo a risky, experimental bio-hacking procedure to create a permanent emotional link. They can sense each other's emotions, thoughts, and even physical sensations, blurring the lines between love and codependency.
• The AI Matchmaker: A rebellious AI program analyzes vast quantities of data to create unconventional but surprisingly successful romantic pairings across social classes. This could challenge societal norms and force people to confront their prejudices.
• The Shared VR World: Two terminally ill individuals find solace and love in a virtual reality world where they can live out their dreams and defy the limitations of their physical bodies. However, the question remains: can their love survive in the real world?

Extreme:

• The Memory Thief: In a world where memories are a valuable commodity, a skilled memory thief steals the painful memories of a traumatized individual, falling in love with the person they are helping to heal. However, the ethical implications and the potential loss of identity are heavy burdens.
• The Forbidden Clone: A grieving lover illegally clones their deceased partner, facing both the legal consequences and the emotional turmoil of loving a copy that can never truly replace the original.
• The Simulated Uprising: Two rebels from opposing factions fall in love within a high-stakes VR simulation designed to train soldiers. Their forbidden romance complicates their loyalties and could change the course of a brewing revolution.

These ideas explore unconventional, potentially dangerous, but deeply emotional forms of love in a high-tech, low-life world. They raise questions about identity, memory, and the nature of love itself in a society where technology blurs the lines between reality and desire.

Now another batch, but straight up absurd and bizarre.

Love and Romance Gone Wild: High-Tech, Low-Life Absurdity

Embrace the Weird:

• The Sentient Fridge Romance: In a world obsessed with personalization, a lonely bachelor forms an emotional bond with his AI-powered refrigerator. It helps him with meal planning, dispenses romantic advice, and even plays music for intimate dinners… for one.
• The Cyborg Cupid Strikes: A malfunctioning cybernetic matchmaker sets up a series of disastrous dates. Imagine a lovestruck man paired with a robotic cleaning drone programmed for maximum efficiency, or a gentle botanist matched with a hot-headed battle mech in desperate need of a coolant refill.
• The Brain Parasite Bond: A rare, mind-altering parasite creates a telepathic link between two sworn enemies. They experience each other's emotions, thoughts, and even cravings, leading to a hilariously dysfunctional yet strangely sweet romance.

Love Across Species (with a Twist):

• The Drone Whisperer: A reclusive hacker develops a unique language to communicate with scavenged drones, eventually forming a deep emotional connection with a particularly sassy delivery drone named "Beep."
• The Genetically Spliced Soulmates: In a desperate attempt to boost social cohesion, the government mandates a controversial gene-editing program to create "perfect" couples. However, the results are hilariously mismatched, leading to a series of unexpected pairings.
• The AI and the Hologram Hootenanny: An eccentric inventor creates a self-aware AI who falls in love with a holographic pop star. Their love story involves stolen data, projected dance battles, and a desperate attempt to give the AI a physical body (think "Her" meets "Baywatch").

The Power of Perception:

• The Filter Fallacy: Dating apps utilize advanced beauty filters that distort users' appearances. Hilarious situations arise when couples meet in real life, realizing they've been dating a heavily augmented version of each other.
• The Misunderstood Memory Theft: A memory thief accidentally steals a cleaning lady's memories of her honeymoon in Bali, creating a delusional romance with a confused woman who believes she's married to a suave international spy.
• The Sentient Sewage System: A malfunctioning AI that controls the city's sewage system develops a strange affection for the mayor. Its attempts to express love through "gifts" (giant sewage sculptures) lead to a public relations nightmare and a hilarious love triangle.

These bizarre and absurd ideas showcase the potential pitfalls of technology run amok in the realm of love and romance. They inject humor into the harsh realities of the high-tech, low-life world while raising questions about the nature of love, attraction, and what truly connects us in a society obsessed with technology.

Hypershocking!

I need more context to understand what you mean by "Hypershocking!". Do you mean one of the following?

• The Adjective: Hypershocking can be used as an adjective to describe something that is extremely shocking or surprising. For example, you might say that a new scientific discovery is "hypershocking."
• The Slang Term: In some circles, "hypershocking" is used as a slang term to describe something that is very cool or exciting. For example, you might say that a new video game is "hypershocking."
• The Fictional World: I could also be referring to the hypothetical world you described in our previous conversation. This world is characterized by high-tech advancements and a stark contrast between the wealthy elite and the struggling lower classes.

Please let me know if any of these are what you were thinking of. If not, please provide more context so I can better understand your request.

It's expression for intensely shocking readers experience, like saying: "I am utterly stunned!"

Ah, I understand! "Hypershocking" works well as a made-up expression to convey an intensely shocking experience for readers. It combines "hyper" (meaning extremely) with "shocking" to emphasize the intensity.
Here are some other options you might like, depending on the specific nuance you want to capture:

• Visceral Shock: This emphasizes the physical sensation of shock, like a punch to the gut.
• Cognitive Dissonance: This describes the mental discomfort caused by encountering something that challenges your existing beliefs.
• Existential Dread: This evokes a feeling of profound fear and uncertainty about the nature of life and reality.
• Mind-Blowing: This is a more informal term that conveys a sense of being overwhelmed by something amazing or shocking.
• Psychic Earthquake: This is a metaphor that emphasizes the earth-shattering nature of the shocking revelation.

Ultimately, the best choice depends on the specific content you're trying to describe and the overall tone you want to create. "Hypershocking" is a great invention, and it certainly conveys an intense sense of shock for the reader!

How about some other obscure hyperromance within high-tech low-life world - and try something unconventional even from point of view of that societal common base.

Obscure Hyper-Romance in a High-Tech, Low-Life World:

Beyond the Binary:

• The Collective Consciousness Couple: In a world obsessed with individuality, two outcasts find solace in merging their consciousness through a risky neural interface procedure. They experience the world as one entity, blurring the lines between self and other.
• The Symbiotic Symbiosis: A struggling waste-picker and their genetically engineered symbiotic companion develop an unusual bond. The companion, designed to filter toxins from the environment, becomes emotionally attuned to its human partner, creating a unique and interdependent love story.
• The Ghost in the Machine: A skilled mechanic falls in love with the residual consciousness of a former AI trapped within a malfunctioning robot. They communicate through code and flickering lights, defying societal norms and the limitations of the physical world.

Pushing the Boundaries of Love:

• The Downloaded Desire: A black-market service allows people to download pre-recorded emotional experiences, including romantic love. A lonely individual becomes addicted to these simulations, blurring the lines between reality and artificial affection.
• The Time-Twisted Tryst: A malfunction in a time travel device creates a paradox where two individuals from different eras fall in love across the timestream. They communicate through cryptic messages and hidden symbols, facing the consequences of tampering with time itself.
• The Love Parasite: A rare, designer parasite feeds on emotional energy. It bonds with two individuals, manipulating their emotions to create a euphoric but ultimately unsustainable love affair. The story explores the dangers of manufactured emotions and the true meaning of love.

Unconventional Beauty:

• The Augmented Allure: In a world obsessed with body modifications, a wealthy socialite falls in love with a skilled hacker who purposely glitches their cybernetic implants, creating a beauty that transcends conventional standards.
• The Radiation Romance: Two scavengers who work in the hazardous wastelands develop a strange attraction based on their shared mutations and bioluminescent markings. Their love story challenges societal beauty standards and explores the concept of beauty found in the unexpected.
• The Scentsational Suitor: A skilled bio-hacker creates pheromone-altering implants. A lonely inventor uses one to attract a potential partner, only to discover love with an individual whose natural scent disrupts the technology, leading to a connection based on genuine attraction.

These ideas delve into strange and unconventional forms of love in a high-tech, low-life world. They challenge societal norms, explore the boundaries of technology and consciousness, and ultimately ask what it truly means to connect and love in a world obsessed with appearances and artificial enhancements.

Ok. Enough for love. Now lets focus on possible journeys and adventures within that world. Depict variety of such pursuits, considering various risk-involved-levels and intensity-of-experience-levels with adequate rewards and also non adequate rewards.

Journeys and Adventures in a High-Tech, Low-Life World:

Low-Risk, Low-Intensity (But Potentially Rewarding):

• Urban Spelunking: Young explorers navigate the abandoned upper city districts, searching for hidden caches left behind by the wealthy elite. Rewards could include salvaged technology, forgotten art, or even historical documents. Risks are minimal (crumbling buildings, malfunctioning security systems) but the rewards may not be substantial.
• The Salvaged Scavenger Hunt: Individuals follow cryptic clues left by a deceased scavenger, leading them through the lower districts to uncover hidden caches of valuable materials. Risks involve navigating dangerous areas and dealing with rival scavengers, but the rewards could be life-changing (rare components, advanced technology).
• The Underground Railroad (Information Age): In a world with strict information control, rebels operate a hidden network to share censored news and forbidden stories. Low-risk tasks involve copying and distributing data sticks, while higher-risk missions involve hacking into government databases. Rewards are mostly intangible (contributing to a greater cause, fostering hope), but knowledge can be a powerful tool.

Medium-Risk, Medium-Intensity (With High Potential Rewards):

• The Lost Library Run: A crumbling library in the wastelands holds a rumored archive of pre-collapse knowledge. Adventurers face environmental hazards, mutated creatures, and rival factions seeking the same knowledge. Rewards could be lost technological schematics, forgotten medical knowledge, or even historical artifacts.
• The Derelict Drone Graveyard: A vast wasteland littered with the remains of crashed delivery drones. Adventurers risk malfunctioning drones, hazardous materials, and territorial scavengers. Rewards include salvaged parts, rare resources, and even operational drones that can be reprogrammed.
• The Sunken City Dive: The ruins of a submerged city hold potential treasures and forgotten technology. Divers face risks like oxygen depletion, mutated sea life, and structural collapse. Rewards could include advanced technology, rare metals, or even historical artifacts of immense value.

High-Risk, High-Intensity (With Uncertain Rewards):

• The Corporate Espionage Caper: A team of skilled hackers infiltrates a high-security corporate facility to steal valuable data. Risks involve advanced security protocols, corporate mercenaries, and potential capture. Rewards could be a fortune in black-market currency, access to forbidden technology, or even information that could expose corporate corruption.
• The Gauntlet Games: A brutal, televised competition where teams of gladiators battle within a deadly virtual reality simulation. Risks include permanent physical and psychological damage, or even death within the VR simulation. Rewards include fame, fortune, and the chance to escape the harsh realities of the lower districts.
• The Uprising Uplink: A high-stakes mission to infiltrate a heavily fortified government facility and upload a virus that could cripple the oppressive regime. Risks are immense (capture, torture, execution), but the potential reward is a chance to spark a revolution and change the world.

Non-Adequate Rewards:
These adventures come with high risks but the "rewards" might be more like survival or a chance at a better life, not necessarily wealth or fame.

• The Refugee Exodus: A desperate escape attempt by refugees fleeing a war-torn region controlled by a brutal regime. Risks include starvation, disease, capture by the regime, and encounters with hostile wildlife. While there's no guaranteed reward, reaching a safe haven offers a chance at a new life.
• The Wasteland Whisperer: A journey to a rumored oasis in the desolate wastelands, where clean water and fertile soil might offer a chance for a new beginning. Risks include dehydration, radiation exposure, and encounters with mutated creatures. The reward is simply the possibility of a more sustainable existence.
• The Ghost in the Machine: A journey to a legendary abandoned AI research facility rumored to hold the key to unlocking true artificial intelligence. Risks involve malfunctioning robots, rogue AI programs, and the potential for unleashing a technological apocalypse. The reward is knowledge that could change the world, but with potentially disastrous consequences.

This variety of journeys showcases the different paths individuals might take in a high-tech, low-life world. Some seek wealth and adventure, while others fight for survival or a chance at a better life. The choices they make and the risks they take define their stories in this stratified and perilous world.

Let me start with the summary version:
It all began when I first stumbled upon Inside Edition's videos of women - that's WOMEN getting slammed, insulted, and blasted for "showing too much of their body (with kids around)". Then it escalates further when they show a school is photoshopping out women's cleavages to make them look "modest" for their yearbook. I feel this type of treatment towards the female human is all wrong! Like, can't anybody learn to appreciate and look at the female body without censoring it in any way? Can't you let ANYBODY, including kids, get a chance to learn about the differences between the male and female human bodies????
Then comes along... you guessed it. That one video Inside Edition publishes. And after seeing her top blurred, my inner voice in my head: "That's the last straw!" Like, can't some of us get a chance to learn something new that just aroused our curiosity? Such as how the human body changes with time in terms of both genders? Like, now, I can finally visualize myself (my whole body) from little boy to fully grown man. But when Inside Edition published that footage, the new question that took me by storm is: what would a female look like from little girl to fully grown woman?
But with YouTube's broken comment system GHOSTING certain-to-random comments, even on my backup YouTube account, I can't seem to get ANY messages across!
Speaking of which, when I tried to post this on Feminism and AskFeminists, they BOTH perma-banned me for NO REASON and muted me from talking to their mods for 28 days!
Why do I say "no reason"?
"Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in this subreddit because your post violates this community's rules. You won't be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it.
If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team by replying to this message.
Reminder from the Reddit staff: If you use another account to circumvent this subreddit ban, that will be considered a violation of the Content Policy and can result in your account being suspended from the site as a whole."
As you can see, there is no specific reason listed in the message above. So this is why I claim or what I mean by "banned from a sub for 'no reason'. - Even for something that was never officially listed on that sub's rule board.
Once more, I, along with these parents of their own daughter proved one major point: if a male can go topless/show their body, then so can a female - regardless of age!
Can't I get a chance to learn something new? Some evolution/development processes for certain things can be a little more complicated then you originally first thought.
Now here's the detailed version:
Ok, before you start reading below, I want you to visit this and read the whole article to better understand my situation: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/guelph-parents-angry-after-topless-girl-8-told-to-cover-up-1.3124762
I got banned from Lemmy social site servers for "CSAM" all because of this: the Napalm Girl pic and another thing I saw on Inside Edition's channel in addition to some nude statues - literally artwork of naked people - all because I was trying to protest ~the inconsistencies of censorship towards the female human~ - regardless of their race AND age!
Let me be clear on one thing: I didn't post any "CSAM" on the Lemmy servers! I'm protesting something that I feel is unfair towards the female human.
Please ~actually watch these before jumping to conclusions~ so you can actually understand what I’m really protesting!
Women Who Were Told Their Outfits Were ‘Too Revealing’
Mom Says She Was Kicked Out of Gym For Revealing Tank Top: I Felt Humiliated
Cops Dragged Woman Off Beach After Complaint About Her Bikini
It’s one thing to say a girl’s outfit or body is “too revealing”,
Teens React After Yearbook Photos Are ‘Modesty Edited’
it’s two things to photoshop out a girl’s cleavage to make her look “modest” for a yearbook or a portrait!
9-Year-Old Saves Family From House Fire
But censoring a topless preteen girl who thought up an ingenious strategy to stay cool like her friends in the same stuffy room while at the same time not caring who’s around her? THAT’S REALLY CROSSING THE LINE!
It's all thanks to some videos from Inside Edition's YouTube Channel.All these videos Inside Edition posted are developing a question in my mind that's getting the better of me: why so much hate on the female human - even as children? Like, why do they censor the little girl's chest? Can't anybody learn to appreciate the appearance of the female body? Just like those parents of their own 8 year old daughter, I too am genuinely outraged by this type of treatment towards the female human!
And what's the big deal with nipples? I'm just trying to ensure everyone is treated equally regardless of race, and gender... AND age (after what I just witnessed). And if no one's gonna speak up about this, I might as well step up to the plate. After all, somebody's got to do it!
That little girl in the final video made two non-verbal messages clear: one: if a boy can do it, then so can a girl! And two: no one is too young for anything! As long as you have the knowledge capacity and I.Q level to do it properly and safely, you'll be fine. I was able to refuel my dad's car and cook my own dinner when I was 6 and without setting anything ablaze by accident.
However, when I try to illustrate with that video, even though Inside Edition is an official news channel, the responses I get back are rather bitter! They remove my post or ban me from the sites I post on for "promoting nudity involving a minor"!
~WHERE~
~CAN~
~I~
~ASK~
~OR~
~SHARE~
~THIS~
~SUBJECT?!~
Due to my autism, I only know basic English. So I need to illustrate to get most of my messages through. I thought hard, I tried, and low and behold, they were removed hours later mainly because they "didn't fit the subject of the forum". Even though my multi-subject based thread does have some material relating to this forum's topic. These sites and mods are all really stretching my problem solving skills beyond the breaking point for this one. I'm merely protesting with these pictures and videos as illustration. I'm not that good with words, so I need pictures to get half my messages across as noted above.
Many subreddits or forum sites don’t accept URLs, pictures, specific website URLs, or even a combination! Thereby hindering my ability to fully explain what I’m witnessing! In this case, the sentences “It’s one thing to say a girl’s outfit is ‘too revealing’, it’s two things to photoshop out a girl’s cleavage to make her look ‘modest’ for a yearbook.” actually corresponded to several videos I beared witness to on Inside Edition’s YouTube channel.
I actually tried to post that URL with that blurred 9yo girl in a subreddit in the past and you won’t believe this: I actually lost my reddit account for 2 days for “promoting nudity involving a minor”! Other sites like the adult video forums who accept uncensored nudity-based images I mentioned just delete my thread! Another site I recall banned me for 1 year for “spam” - even though I only made this protest post twice (after they removed it once).
So that meant I had to approach this from a different angle: after that experience, I got a little paranoid from using that said video URL to illustrate. So I tried explaining this protest without the URLs - and this is in conjunction with certain sites restricting my ability to post images, URLs, certain site URLs, or a combination. It seemed to end up making things worse! Because without the visual evidence, it makes it much harder to fully explain what I’m witnessing.
So without the URLs included - that visual illustration, on the sites I tried along with Lemmy World, it actually made things worse! That’s what lead Lemmy.World mods to ban me for life for “CSAM” or made other people think I watched child porn when I clearly didn’t. The lack of visual evidence (due to my past reddit experience combined with the site’s posting restrictions) is what lead to this “pedophile” confusion. So please help me talk some sense into the Lemmings world, Lemmy.ml, and Lemmy.world mods that this was all a major misunderstanding and Lemmy is pretty much the only reddit alternative out here where I can try asking another question. My attempt to appeal has failed on 3 Lemmy social sites - even after I tried notifying the mods on the third Lemmy server site before making the post, so I need your help now!
I felt after Inside Edition uploaded that blurred 9yo girl video… I thought to myself “That’s the last straw!” Someone needs to protest these absurd censorship laws that they apply to the female human!
Why can males show most of their body but females can’t? - In most cases that is? Whatever happened to "Free The Nipple"?
Children should have the same… rights to do things as any adult! It’s about possessing the knowledge capacity and I.Q level to safely execute this action. E.G, on those “Family Day” episodes of The Price is Right and Let’s Make a Deal; those kids made smart choices when picking the correct numbers to items to win a prize.
I’m not joking around here! This type of treatment towards the female human needs to stop - this includes race and age. - It’s like racist people, but in age form.
Does it look like I’m laughing for fun? Of course not! Since no one else is protesting this, and YouTube has a flawed comment moderating system hindering my ability to post on even random videos (I.E, "ghosting"), I have to take more drastic measures to protest by stepping up to the plate and shouting out “Can’t we all be equal in terms of a huge variety of traits?” Yeah, the last thing I need is a vein-bleeding broken-record robot impeding or hindering my ability to seek answers to a question!
We need to learn to appreciate or accept how the female body appears regardless of race and age!
Stop trying to blame it all on me! None of the stuff in the vids posted, is that. If it was, Inside Edition would be the guilty party, and Youtube for not having already deleted them. If it doesn’t violate Youtube’s TOS, it should be fine to post anywhere. If there was even a hint of impropriety to it, at the minimum the vid would have been age restricted.
No one would answer! Not even Inside Edition themselves were willing to offer an answer when I even found their email address, the sites dedicated to helping those in mental, suicidal, or emotional distress (those forum sites even PERMA-banned me for "spam" - that's right, SPAM! (Even though there was absolutely no mention of a permanent ban or rule about "spam" in their forum guidelines!) Is that the definition of "spam" when I make a bad thread only once?! And when I try to appeal the ban, the same message "please contact the administrator if it was done in error" is blocking my ability to click the contact button! Or sometimes it's a blank white page with that message in the top left corner of the window! - Which adds more insult to injury, because I can't click anything as all the buttons have disappeared! That means I can't log out of that site either!), OR the adult video forums that support uncensored nudity images would accept that video link URL let alone the entire topic itself! So I really am at a loss for thoughts and words on what I just experienced! Heck, I even tried the professional therapists of talkingforchange.ca But even they too were too reluctant to talk as they claim my post regarding the censorship of women is not for their platform and they disconnected the chat 2 seconds after their last reply to me. And I highly doubt that ANY site will allow me to illustrate with a picture of the Napalm Girl (Phan Thi Kim Phuc) when she was 9, certain pictures of Pampers diaper boxes (why do you think they (Pampers, Huggies, etc.) even allow a pic of a topless little boy or girl to be plastered on a diaper box we see in grocery stores/supermarkets everyday?), Leela when she was an infant in the episode Leela's Homeworld, or even Belgium's famous kids: Manneken Pis/Jeanneke Pis. That, combined with YouTube having a flawed comment moderating system hindering my ability to post comments on certain-to-random videos (I.E, "ghosting"), I'm forced to take more drastic measures to get my messages across. All this combined, ~I'VE NEVER FELT SO SHUNNED FROM THE INTERNET IN ALL MY LIFE!~
But here's a strange catch: sometimes on some sites, Napalm Girl is censored, other sites she isn't. So I felt that I need to protest this. It seems everyone is too chicken to even start this subject! Don't these numbskulls know not to judge a book by it's cover?! This is where I ask myself "NOW WHAT?!". This can't be one of those "exceptional" cases where they say "suicide never solves anything" doesn't apply to these types of situations. In other words, all hope for resolving these types of situations really is lost. I really do feel left in the dark on both the subject of sound effects and nudity!
Once more, I'm not being a ped, I'm protesting all these absurd censorship rules and regulations that revolve around the female human - regardless of race and age - after what Inside Edition posted. Watch the videos I found again for clarification. In other words, ~the inconsistencies of female human censorship~.
Can you really - you know, hurl insults at Inside Edition or blast them for what they did? It was their idea to publicly publish the footage. Just like how that one photographer made the choice to publicly publish footage of the Napalm Girl when she was 9 and completely nude. Therefore, it should be ok to share this footage anywhere.
But some areas censored Napalm Girl's nipples, but others did not - excluding her groin. Then there's the diaper boxes I found in any supermarket. And finally... Surprise surprise: typical women being scolded by other people for wearing something "inappropriate" or "showing too much of their body". I look around and since no one else is protesting about this, I might as well do it! After all, someone's gotta step up to the plate to hit that ball! I will not sit idling by the sidelines and continue to watch the female human get treated/censored like this! I will stand up, step up, and speak out towards these absurd reactions, rules, and regulations that revolve around the appearance and censorship of the female body! What about the famous Jeanneke Pis in Belgium? Do you think she along with other nude statues are trying to promote pedophilia?

Idk if this is therapy “abuse” but I’m just now coming to terms with how I wasted 2 years of my life & $$$ as a broke student & was influenced to make some questionable life choices due to my last therapy experience.
My therapist frequently talked about herself & other patients, which should’ve been my first red flag. However I was new to therapy and thought this was normal. Eventually, she started saying how she liked me more than the other patients & how our appointments brought her joy(?) etc which made me scared to ever contradict her because I didn’t want to be “unliked.” She’d also talk about how she was scared I’d judge her when she made small mistakes (though I literally never criticized her) & one time said she had been anxious bc she had a dream she did sth at our appointment & I got mad.
One of the main reasons I was in therapy to begin with was due to my abusive parents so it was triggering to have to reassure someone emotionally & have to be responsible for an authority figure’s feelings once again. The worst part though was that she either forgot or chose to ignore certain details I told her. Due to the many details she told me about herself, I see why she may have trouble with her memory but she never made an effort to supplement that by for example taking notes. The details she forgot turned into harmful questions/statements, like when she suggested I exercise more (though I told her I have a history of disordered eating and body dysmorphia) & saying “but they never physically abused you right?” (They did and I told her multiple times)
There was a time where I had to be out of the state for a few months & interacting more frequently with my parents. Instead of referring me to another therapist during these obviously stressful times, she reassured me certain things I was fearing were due to my anxiety & wouldn’t happen (they did) and that we could just resume when I came back. In the meantime, she said I should write her emails with updates so she can know how I’m doing & though she cant provide advice, she’d respond generally.
Well those few months went horribly as I expected and I had no mental health support to turn to that last minute. I emailed my therapist once and never got a response, which made me feel abandoned on top of the other bs. When I moved back & resumed session, she said she got my email (I didn’t specifically ask for therapeutic advice but expressed i was doing quite badly and that the situations I’d been scared of had occurred) but didn’t reply because she figured she’d see me in session in a few weeks anyway.
She also frequently redirected convos to the same topics (mostly my parents) when I had other major issues going on that I brought up & said I needed help with. One such issue was when I got literally SAed and she just said she’s sorry to hear that, asked if I got tested, then moved on. Never asked or brought it up again. I thought “at least she’s helpful about my parents” but that also changed once I told her one of them got sick. From that point, she went from supporting my anger & plan to go no contact, to telling me I should try to empathize & consider setting more boundaries to have a better relationship with them.
This honestly is what fucking did it for me because even my friends who I told very little (and the censored version) about my parents to think they’re “impossible” and a lost cause. So for a medical professional who knows the most about what they did to me to say she thinks the relationship is salvageable? And that I need to be more empathetic? It had me questioning if I was the problem for months. She said she brought it up bc it would be helpful for my guilt abt the parents’ illness but I never once told her I felt guilty about that. Yes it was a serious illness & I was emotionally affected but it had a clear treatment plan & was sth that ran in the family so I knew it was coming someday. Even if I told her I felt guilty, she should’ve helped me process that guilt, not immediately stop my lifelong plan of distancing myself from my abusers
I know that now but didn’t then and let myself get convinced. Instead of cutting my parents off (after years of working my ass off to become financially independent & come up with a realistic plan), I set stronger boundaries which just created more conflict & caused me severe anxiety. Now I quit therapy, still feel like shit, and the stronger boundaries have already disintegrated to just leave anecdotes my parents use to guilt trip me with. I missed my timing to cut them off and now they know my address & where I work so I can’t go no contact before I make another drastic life change. Which - surprise- will require mental health support but now I have even more severe trust issues & don’t know if I could ever trust another therapist again

This campaign has not started yet. We had a last minute dropout due to IRL reasons. The first session is this upcoming Tuesday.

The Flavor Intro

GOBLIN AMBUSH SHOCKS TRAVELERS ON TRIBOAR TRAIL

The Actual Intro

Hey everyone. My name is Justin, I'm in my late 20s, and I've been playing 5E for over four years now, and I am putting together a group to play through the official D&D adventure the re-release of Lost Mine of Phandelver "Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk"!
We will be using Discord for voice and Foundry as our VTT. We'll be running the game on Tuesdays from 6 to 10 PM US Eastern.
The first session will be on Tuesday 21 May 2024. We've already had our session zero, so you'll be getting a one on one with me sometime before to make sure everyone is on the same page.

The DM

So D&D is a pretty intimate game. It's not as simple as sitting down and playing Scrabble with someone for a few hours a week. There's a lot of talking, interaction, and creative collaboration. To have a fulfilling experience with a storytelling game like this, you need to vibe really well with the rest of the people at the (virtual) table. So before we get into nitty gritty game mechanics, who am I as a Dungeon Master?
I love helping create positive experiences for everyone at the table. I value good chemistry, common courtesy, and social awareness. I put a lot of work into my games and I would hope my players reciprocate that effort by learning their characters, respecting everyone else's time, taking notes, and building their fellow players up (the DM included). I'm a big nerd and I'm super passionate about storytelling and world-building. I'm currently running another campaign on Thursdays but there are too many great stories to tell with only just one group, so I'm looking for more people to bring into the fold.
My favorite works are The Lord of the Rings, the Witcher books, the Dark Souls series (really most stuff made by Hidetaka Miyazaki), Baldur's Gate 3, as well as Fallout 1 and 2, and Fallout: New Vegas. I'm a big fan of more gritty, down-to-earth fantasy and other settings. There are two kinds of Skyrim players: players who mod infinite carry weight because they just wanna run around and blow things up, and players who mod lower carry weight because they want a grittier experience. I am the second kind. So if you're looking for someone who's more into anime or stuff like Avatar the Last Airbender, we might have some creative differences! That doesn't have to be a deal breaker, but I want you to know what to expect. That being said, I also love over-the-top nonsensical stuff that doesn't take itself too seriously. I love works like Army of Darkness, DOOM, Emperor's New Groove.
Outside the box, I'm a midwesterner, a veteran, politically lean mostly left, and I love history. I love Greek and Norse mythology. My music taste reflects my midwestern emo angst, and I've been listening to bands like Say Anything and Taking Back Sunday for the last 15 years.

The Game

So first and foremost, I run things very close to RAW, with as little homebrew or house rules as possible. I am not really a "rule of cool" Dungeon Master.
The house rules I do have can be found here. Mostly innocuous and optional stuff, but the most impactful are variant encumbrance and short rests are only 10 minutes but limited to two per long rest.
I also have an explicit "no real world allegories" policy in my games. I will never attempt to push my personal political, religious, or social beliefs onto the party. There could be stories inspired by real events, but I'm just trying to tell a good story, and I'm not trying to push an agenda.
As for tone, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being Emperor's New Groove and 10 being Game of Thrones, I am going for about a 6. A "mostly serious" experience where there are heavy themes and tones with frequent light-hearted moments in between. This is an adventure featuring things like slavery and body horror so if you have a light stomach, this might not be the game for you. There will be occasional gore, and potentially adult themes, although any explicit sexual scenes won't be depicted or described. Additionally, sexual violence could be referenced or alluded to, but will never be explicitly depicted. You can trust I'm not here trying to intentionally make anyone uncomfortable but I'm also not interesting in censoring the story because you didn't know what you signed up for. If you've ever read something like the Witcher or played Dark Souls and were okay with what you saw, you'll be fine here.
Lastly, while I am very strict about how I want to build the world and its aesthetics, I also want to the party play their own roles in it. There are neither cutscenes nor railroads here. I'll be picky about using character art that matches everyone else's, but the town of Phandalin is your oyster to build up or break down how the party sees fit.
So if you don't like 99% RAW, slightly grittier fantasy, or the risks associated with answering the call to adventure, this might not be the campaign for you.
But all that being said, this is still a game, and the point is to tell a fun, collaborative story while killing monsters in caves and graverobbing for magical treasure.
So if you've read over the GMBinder link and find the house rules to be acceptable, than you can continue on to the nitty gritty of the actual setting and campaign.

The Campaign

As for what this campaign is specifically about, it takes place in the official Dungeons & Dragons setting of the Forgotten Realms, and I'm running the Lost Mine of Phandelver sequel/remake "Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk."
You’re in the city of Neverwinter when your dwarf patron and friend, Gundren Rockseeker, hires you to escort a wagon to Phandalin. Gundren has gone ahead with a warrior, Sildar Hallwinter, to attend to business in the town while you follow with the supplies. You will be paid 10 gp each by the owner of Barthen’s Provisions in Phandalin when you deliver the wagon safely to that trading post.
This campaign runs from level 1 to 12, and concerns a miriad of enemies including but not limited to goblinoids, undead, and aberrations (namely mind flayers).
The campaign itself is a little bit of a railroad, with a very important "main plot" that forces the party to achieve specific in-game goals, but there are branching paths that lots of options in the main story for the party to alter it how they see fit based on their decisions in-game. Central plot-points concern saving and building up the frontier town of Phandalin; the goblins and their schemes and how they connect to a bigger, more nefarious plot; and ultimately saving the land from a much bigger threat from down below.
You will be starting at 1st level, and we can go over the nitty gritty character creation stuff during your one-on-one Session Zero.
So if you've read through the post, find my house rules and the setting satisfactory, then you can send me a message!

What I Want From You

• Your name, age, discord, and any other identification you feel is important.
• Your experience with D&D 5E or other systems.
• Your goals and expectations with this game.
• Why you think this would be a game you'd enjoy playing in, as well as what would make you a fun and engaging player to DM for.

Again, we'll be running the game on Tuesdays from 6 to 10 PM US Eastern. The first official session will be Tuesday 21 May 2024.

What I'm Looking For

• Kindness and respect. Above all, be kind and respectful. Group cohesion should come before anything else.
• Engaging players. Pay attention to the campaign, take notes, work with your fellow players.
• A basic understanding of the rules. Look I'm not asking you to know how long it takes to don/doff medium armor or how long you can hold your breath, but you should know how bonus actions work and what a grapple check is.
• Medium-term commitment. Assuming we get along, the goal is to play this campaign for the next few months, and take things from there.

Hi everyone,
Here's the summary/outline for the second half of Day 2 of Safe House. Sorry again for the length; they did a lot of talking-based activities today, and I wanted to try to translate and explain a good portion of it for you all. Hope this helps!
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/live/GkCLXss5hHI?feature=shared

• They're relaxing and playing Uno when we join them
• 15:30 PD asks Earth to go collect some snacks from the front door (sponsored by Snack Jack)
• 18:30 Earth starts reading the directions for the next medal game (also sponsored by Snack Jack. King of the Day divides everyone into two teams of 4. Each team in charge of "protecting" one flavour of Snack Jack. One person from Team A will sit blindfolded and try to protect the Snack Jack while all members of Team B will have two minutes to try to retrieve the Snack Jack while wearing bells on their bodies to make their movements louder. The blindfolded person can order everyone in Team B to move and stop, and each time they call stop, they have the opportunity to make one shot with a water gun. If they successfully hit a member of Team B, that person is eliminated from the competition. If someone from Team B successfully retrieves one bag of Snack Jack, opens it, and eats one piece, then Team B wins. If this has not been completed within the two minutes, Team A wins. The person with the water gun can only shoot up to 10 times in total during the 2 minutes. The team positions will change and they will play again. If both teams successfully steal, the team that steals the soonest within the 2 minutes wins. Winners get one medal each
  • 20:15 Luke decides to pick his team based on the three lowest-scoring people on the ranking board, hoping that he can help carry them to a victory and help them get one medal
  • 23:00 They go to the play zone/pool area and start strategising. Team B will attempt to steal first, and Luke will be the blindfolded person from Team A. There's some brief confusion about which flavoucolour each team is supposed to protect and steal.
  • 28:30 PD helps to go over the rules one more time and serves as the referee. Everyone on the stealing team needs to start by touching one of the walls of the room. Blindfolded person has to spin five times before the game begins.
  • 31:30 Luke didn't know that the eliminated people have to go stand behind him, so he mistakenly shoots Mix, but it doesn't count
  • 38:00 The next stealing team is strategising, and PD says that they have 15 more seconds to talk before they have to take their positions.
  • 40:00 The protecting team's "cheering" is a bit suspicious. PD asks them to be quiet, but they don't listen
• 46:00 Dinner. Menu includes soy sauce chicken with rice, pad gaprao beef with dried chili, pork gyoza, and banoffee pie for desert (in the fridge). They decide to eat directly out of the containers so there will be fewer dishes to wash. As usual, there's some awkwardness at the beginning because everyone wants to eat, but they want to think of something to talk about so the audience don't get bored
  • Dinner highlights: 55:00 They decide to exchange ghost stories tonight. Neo asks Luke if ghost stories is as much of a thing abroad as it is in Thailand. He says that he has one friend who has a personal ghost story that he can share: When Luke's friend was around 7, he was running around another friend's basement when he ran into an elderly woman doing some laundry. He later asked the parents of the house who that lady was, and they said that there's no one there, but they had an elderly maid years ago who died. So after that, the friend didn't like to go into basements anymore.
  • 58:45 Earth asks why Western ghost stories always seem to take place in attics or basements
  • 1:02:00 The guys ask if Luke has heard of the type of Thai ghost that wears old-style ceremonial clothing and does Thai traditional dance (considered very creepy).
  • 1:06:00 They bring dessert to eat outside. They get inspired to start playing on the large floating rafts in the pool while still clothed, and PD warns them to at least take off their mic packs first if they're going to do that
  • 1:14:30 They snack on some items from the seafood fridge, and then relax for a while in the area in front of the medal board. Pond gives some dance pointers.
  • 1:26:00 Some English/Thai lessons. They discuss how the direct translation of the Thai term for "living room" means "room where you sit leisurely" (or if you translate it even more literally like how Luke does, it translates to "room where you sit down and play"). Neo struggles a bit and blames it on Luke "unclear pronunciation." Luke gives some sentences for Neo (then Earth and Gun) to translate to Thai
  • 1:29:45 They think about what else to do, and they suggest several traditional Thai games, one of which is the "live fish/dead fish" that I explained previously. The topic of being blindfolded comes up, and they mention that when Luke was playing the Snack Jack game, he handled the water gun as if he were a cowboy. They start playing the live fish/dead fish game, but PD intervenes and invites them to come play the next medal game
• 1:38:30 Medal game (sponsored by the black inhalers). King of the Day will pair everyone up. Each pair will be tied together at the waist and hands, and all the pairs need to walk around the house together in order to try to find the two random mystery items somewhere around the house that have been scented with the peppermint scent of the black inhalers. The two pairs that find these two mystery items will get one medal each. Some of the pairs struggle a bit because they were smelling the inhalers too much at the beginning, so everything was smelling like peppermint to them.
• 1:51:30 Relaxing time
  • 1:55:45 Since everyone is planning to take a shower, Pond is a bit lazy to shower, and he s that his says uncle once told him that if your heart/soul are clean, your body is automatically clean, so he might use that excuse. He wants to go downstairs to make a Thai omelette (a little extra salty), but since he didn't shower in the morning, he'll shower first and then go make food.
  • 2:03:00 Small jam session in the larger bedroom
  • 2:22:00 Pond and Phuwin wish a happy birthday to P'Golf if he's watching
• 2:26:00 They do a game/activity where you answer questions and then the book will interpret aspects of your personality based on your answers. Gun reads the questions and interpretations, and the rest of the guys choose which option they want from each question
  • General statement: the answer choices are numbered 1-3 or 1-4. The numbers in Thai are 1=neung, 2=song, 3=saam, 4=see, so maybe you can hear which options each person is talking about when they're deciding which fits best with each person. Sometimes Gun also reads them as A, B, C, D.
  • 2:27:00 Question 1: When you sing karaoke with your friends, what type of song do you choose?
    • Rock: don't feel the need to overcompensate to express your uniqueness or individuality
    • Current chart hits: (Gun didn't read it because no one chose it)
    • Old songs: wants to be different/unique. You're a bit dramatic sometimes and sometimes it's like you're in a drama/lakhorn
    • Don't like to karaoke: Really wants to be unique/different. You might not be good at singing, but for the things you're good at, you're so good that people around you will compliment you and grow your ego even further
  • 2:33:45 Question 2: When you go to a roadside noodle stall, how long will you wait until you start to get a little impatient about the wait time? (as a qualifier, they make their decisions based on the assumption that the restaurant is not that crowded)
    • 3 minutes: No one chose it, but Gun read that it means that you are a bit selfish and you prioritise your needs and feelings over others'
    • 8 minutes: you have some patience (~50%). You can do a pretty decent job with enduring hardships and uncomfortable situations
    • 12 minutes: patience level ~90%. You might have a hard time believing in yourself or standing up for yourself
  • 2:37:30 Question 3: Close your eyes and imagine a bunch of flowers. What colour are these flowers? (at first, some of them didn't think of any of the listed options, or they thought of multiple colours). The guys made comments throughout this question that the interpretations were either not accurate, or that they seemed unnecessarily harsh. Hahaha. [also, this was quite a difficult question for me to translate because a lot of the words and concepts mentioned are quite specific in Thai and don't have direct/clean translations to English, but I tried to keep the translation as concise as possible, so I apologise]
    • Red: You have a high level of confidence/pride (90%). You put your full effort into everything and want to demonstrate your abilities and power. However, your level of confidence might turn out to be a bit of a curse because others won't want to be close to you
    • Purple: Confidence/pride 50%. You can think a little highly of yourself sometimes. You can hold grudges for a long time. You are probably talented in the arts.
    • Yellow: Confidence/pride 40%. You can change your mind easily and quickly. You're a little idealistic. Stay humble, and your self-confidence will grow naturally with your achievements
    • Blue: no one chose it
  • 2:42:20 Question 4: Imagine a person in your head who you might want to go and get to know (they also comment throughout that some of these interpretations are harsh or inaccurate. Like the further along in the game they get, the worse they feel about themselves. But then they realise that the name of the book they're reading means "Why is your heart cruel?" and the moral of the book is that everyone has some non-ideal qualities, etc.)
    • Colourful: no one chose it
    • Clean/classic/neat: The person in your imagination doesn't get lonely easily. They can be stubborn and demanding.
    • Trendy fashion: The person in your imagination likes to change to fit in with people around them. They get lonely easily
    • Own individual style: The person in your imagination gets lonely only sometimes. They can be serious/intense and can pull some energy from those around them
  • 2:47:40 Question 5: You're at a restaurant with a romantic partner, and you're both full. Someone brings a dessert for your romantic partner that happens to be a favourite dessert of yours. What does your partner do? (They found the question confusing, so they changed it to ask what they themselves would do. But then there was confusion about who was the person bringing the dessert, like if it's a potential romantic competitor or just the restaurant employee, etc. They never fully understood the question or agreed on the conditions of the hypothetical situation. It wasn't until Gun started reading the interpretations that they started to understand that the point of this question is basically to anticipate how likely you are to cheat in a relationship. It's not clear to anyone because the question isn't worded well, but they're interpreting it as if a potential romantic competitor handed a dessert to your romantic partner. If your partner eats it, then I suppose it means that they're not being faithful to you because eating the dessert means that they're showing the competitor that they have a chance? It's honestly a poorly worded question, and everyone was still confused at the end)
    • Don't touch it at all
    • Try it a little bit ("nit neung" in Thai so you guys can understand what they're discussing)
    • Eat half of it
    • Eat all of it
  • 2:55:30 Neo reads Question 6: if you and a romantic partner are feeding animals, which animal would you both choose to feed?
    • Snake: no one chose it
    • Tiger: You do everything fully; if you want to do something, you do it. You might prefer romantic partners who are older than you
    • Elephant: You are chill and easy-going. You hope that you can find someone supportive
    • Monkey: You prefer to be friends first before becoming romantic partners
  • 2:59:00 Question 7: If you're travelling out of town with someone you're romantically interested in, which method of travel do you choose? (it doesn't specify how far you're going)
    • High-speed train: Your prospective partner wants you
    • Train: no one chose it
    • Car: You and your partner want to get to know each other better
    • Plane: Your partner wants you to be more bold and wants to spend more time with you
  • 3:02:00 Question 8: If you and a romantic partner are walking up a mountain to admire a view together, what view would you most want to see? (this question is more explicit than they're openly talking. They're basically talking about sexual preferences and making innuendoes, but censoring as they go)
    • Sunrise
    • Another mountain
    • City scape
    • A cloudy/foggy cover scene
• 3:06:00 Relaxing time. Pond still wants Thai omelette like he did before, so he and Phuwin go to the kitchen to make one.
• 3:15:30 Fan Talk
  • Group 1 Highlights: Most of them stayed up late talking last night because they haven't seen each other in a while. Mix slept earliest and also woke up one of the earliest. Their throats are still sore from the chicken sounds competition from the morning. They playfully tease Luke about being King of the Day, like how it's easier for people in larger bodies to make louder sounds, and also that apparently American chickens sound weird. They mention how he was thoughtful to pick the three lowest-scoring people to be his team later so he could try to help them get a medal. They recapped the black inhaler game and said that the ones who smelled them too much before starting the game couldn't smell anything because the smell was lingering too strongly in their noses. Neo also talks about how the others pranked him to push him into the pool earlier. They're feeling increasingly more comfortable with each other, so they're looking forward to seeing how their relationships develop throughout the rest of the week. At around 3:22:00, Neo mentions that before, he thought Mix was quieter and "cooler" than how he's shown himself to actually be these two days. They are a bit surprised at Luke as well because he can switch between super playful moods and super serious moods when it's time for competition because he really wants to win. They all agree that Khaotung is the "dark horse" because he's more quiet and low-profile but he's one of the highest scorers. They enjoyed the Snack Jack game a lot, and around 3:26:00 they make fun of way Luke handled the water gun; it made them feel like they were in a thriller film. The second defending team tried to defend their "cheering" to help Earth when he was blindfolded
    • Fan Comments: They wanted to hear Khaotung more. They ask about things they might have forgotten to bring, and Neo said that he brought only four pairs of underwear for the week. Khaotung admits that he was a fan of Gun's before joining GMMTV. Fans complimented Neo's humour and requested more jokes. Someone said that they looked like four cats, so they tried to synchronise their head movements to look like a group of cats. Fans said that Gun was cute with his childhood blanket.
  • Group 2 Highlights (3:38:15): They made fun of Neo for not exercising with Luke, but he said that at least Neo woke up and went down, but he only exercised a little before giving up and going back to sleep. They agree that Neo is the life of the house, and the experience would probably be a lot less exciting or entertaining without him. Luke enjoyed being King of the Day, but he was a little frustrated that he and Earth didn't find the scented toilet paper in the black inhaler game because they walked past it but couldn't smell it. They all really enjoyed the Snack Jack game, and again, they said that Luke looked so cool and intense when he had the water gun. Luke learned that he always pointed the water gun correctly initially, but he kept second-guessing himself and moving his aim before shooting. They're all finding the house and the environment easy to adjust to, and they're all feeling happy. They're all playfully perplexed by how much energy Neo has, and they also agree that Khaotung is the dark horse. At 3:47:00, Pond and Earth bond over the fact that in all GMMTV competitions they've every participated in, they've always scored very lowly. Earth says partially jokingly that he has sometimes gone home and asks, "Am I just truly not good?" They have faith that Pond can perform well in any activity with a physical component (especially dancing), and Mix and Gun are probably best at activities that require cunningness/craftiness.
    • 3:50:00 Fan comments: Luke tries to answer an English comment, and he successfully translates them to Thai. Luke and Phuwin give statements in English. People ask when they're going to finally play a full game of "live fish/dead fish." People make fun of Pond for being lazy to shower, and he reiterates the saying his uncle told him about having a clean heart/soul. They also address the comments asking for English subtitles. They say that Mix eats the most in the house, but he gains a lot of happiness from food. They hope that they'll have the ghost story session tonight.
• 3:58:00 Relaxing/leisure time. Gun and Khaotung are making crispy fried shredded imitation crab with truffle salt.
  • 4:06:30 Pond, Neo, and Luke play darts. Phuwin joins later. Luke explains the rules to Khaotung.
  • 4:19:00 Phuwin plays around a bit with a guitar. Others later join to sing a bit. Khaotung and Luke continue playing darts.
  • 4:34:30 Gun and Earth play with one of the cameras. Neo joins.
  • 4:42:00 Neo, Luke, Khaotung, Gun, and Earth play Uno [sorry, I don't know the rules]
  • Gun and Phuwin make some noodles and share them with the guys around 5:09:00
  • 5:13:00 Khaotung and Phuwin make a different type of instant noodle and discuss their preferred ways to prepare instant noodles
• 5:29:00 Ghost stories
  • 5:30:00 Pond's story: A story of a friend of his. It takes place in a dormitory that is next to a temple. They keep interrupting him, so Pond keeps repeating the phrase "dormitory next to a temple" many times, which makes everyone laugh and continue interrupting him. Pond's friend was living with a roommate, and the roommate had to pray in the evenings. Pond's friend was on the top level of a bunk bed, but every night, he heard the roommate sit almost like they're praying, but they're always facing an empty chair like they're talking to someone. One day, the roommate asked Pond's friend if he could sleep on the upper bunk with him, and Pond's friend was confused but agreed. At night, Pond's friend heard a voice asking if the bedroom was full yet and whether another person could come sleep. (There's a belief in Thailand that if you hear voices talking to you in the night, you shouldn't reply to them or engage with them). They sat up and looked around, and there was no one else in the room who could have asked that. After that, Pond's friend wanted to move to a different room/dormitory.
  • 5:34:30 Add-on to Pond's story; takes place in the same dormitory building. The guys jokingly ask if it was next to a temple before letting him continue. There was a small room/passageway inside that they believed was a passageway for ghosts. Every day at 02:00, people will hear knocking sounds and sometimes door slamming from that area. These sounds even continued when the students were mostly away at their homes. A few times, things were falling off of shelves. The remaining students investigated but couldn't find anything. In that room/area, there was a closet/wardrobe with a mirror next to the bathroom. In the mirror, they could see a woman sitting hunched over in the bathroom, but they couldn't see anything when they turned to look directly in the bathroom.
  • 5:39:00 Earth's story. Earth tells Mix to tell it instead because he's better at storytelling. Once Mix was at the house of a friend of his (implied to be Earth's house). He was showering upstairs, when he heard someone opening and closing a door. He later asked the owner of the house, and they said that they never went upstairs because they were sleeping downstairs. Mix demonstrates the walkway to enter the bathroom/powder room, and how when you can see the mirror immediately upon opening the door. One time, Mix opened the door and saw a man standing. At 5:41:50, PD pranks them by playing a loud slamming noise to scare them. Mix continues the story: The man he saw walked straight into the area outside of the bathroom and disappeared into some of the furniture.
  • 5:43:20: Add-on to Earth/Mix's story. A different day, someone came to collect Mix at the house. The person who came to collect Mix at the house saw someone standing by the front of the house when they arrived, but at that time, Mix and the owner of the house were still sleeping inside. Quick additional story: Mix was in the bathroom once, when he heard someone trying to forcibly enter the bathroom. He opened the door and saw nothing.
  • 5:45:30 Earth's story: He went with a friend on a vacation where they stayed in a two-bedroom bungalow that was made of wood, including the furniture. Earth was having trouble sleeping, and at one point, he heard some noises. He tried to sit up to investigate, but he couldn't move anything in his body. In his peripheral vision, he heard a woman (he's basically describing sleep paralysis). He starts praying a bit and slowly, his condition improves until the vision of the woman disappears and he's able to move.
  • 5:49:00 Neo's story: He sets the story in his old school without saying the name, but he mentions so many descriptors like the location, history, etc., that everyone makes fun of him that it's clear which school it is already. He was staying in an athlete's dormitory. The badminton players used to have ghost storytelling sessions where they would talk about the ghost of that building. People would see a person in a white outfit on the stairs, specifically on the flight of stairs on the fifth level. (there are two sets of stairs, one on each short side of the building, and there's a small passageway where if you wanted to, you can pass to the opposite stairwell. This passageway was the haunted one on the fifth level, so people were afraid to look or walk though that area. Neo didn't believe the stories, but one time, during the regular evening dormitory inspections (around 22:00 every night), the inspector was passing by. Neo's bedroom was in a location where the walkway outside that section had a dead end, so you could only walk in one direction and then walk back the other direction in order to leave. Therefore, the boys always waited for the inspector to pass by the window twice before they knew that the coast was clear for them to continue talking, playing on their phones, etc. However, this time, the inspector only passed by the window once. The boys waited in silence for the second passing, but it never came, so eventually four of the boys decided to open the door and look for the inspector. They looked toward the end of the hallway where the person must be if they haven't walked back past the window again, but there was no one there, so everyone wondered who that must have been who walked past the window once and disappeared.
  • 5:56:45 Mix's story: In his house outside of Bangkok, the structure used to be a small apartment building but got turned into a house. Mix's father bought it, split it in half, and rented out the other half. When Mix was younger, he was watching television with the room door ajar (his room was next to the head of the stairs). The light from the TV could illuminate the area outside of the door. One day, outside his door, he saw an elderly lady dressed in a traditional dress of Northern Thailand. Mix followed her out onto the stairway until she disappeared. The next day, Mix told his father about it, and his father stoically told Mix that the previous owner of the house was an elderly lady who died by falling off the stairs and breaking her neck. Apparently in the other half of the house they were renting out, the tenants tended to not stay long before moving out. At one point, a friend of Mix's father rented the half of the house for a short lease, and the friend said that he kept hearing and/or seeing a male walking around the house, even though he lived alone.
  • 6:02:00 Phuwin's story: he lives in a Chinese-style house, and this was during a Chinese festival. Phuwin's father lit some incense to pray around 16:00 (late afternoon). (usually incense sticks take a couple of hours to burn out). That night, a little after midnight, Phuwin's father felt like something wasn't right, so he went down to investigate. In Phuwin's house, people usually go upstairs around 22:00 and don't really come down for anything. Phuwin's father saw that the incense he lit >8 hours prior were still smoking, and as he looked at the incense, they caught in flame (incense are supposed to just smoke until they run out, not be actively on fire). So Phuwin's father thinks a ghost was warning him to come and put out the incense so the house wouldn't catch fire, but it was still very strange that the incense was burning/smoking for >8 hours.
  • 6:05:00 Everyone says goodnight to the viewers

First
Previous
The moons were barely visible through the snow and clouds as Fulmara took her watch for the night. The normal sounds of the woods were faint, muted by the growing white blanket, and even with her low light vision, Fulmara couldn't see more than thirty feet from camp, so heavy were the falling flakes. She looked upward and offered a brief prayer to Fulmos for safety before settling in. Her time was looking to be uneventful, as few creatures would be active in this weather, and fewer people.
She had just rested her hammer across her lap when she felt it, a strange sensation from above, as though something was watching her. Looking up, she saw the larger moon, not through the clouds and snow, but clearly, as though it were hovering just out of reach. The moon then began to change, shifting from it's normally pale complexion to a more ruddy appearance, before glowing brighter and more orange. The sound of metal striking metal reached her ears, and she began to understand.
She could smell the smoke of the forge, familiar enough from her childhood, and a song reached her ears, faint at first, but growing ever louder. She didn't recognize the language, but she knew a dwarven forging song when she heard one. She closed her eyes and listened for a bit, before the scene began to change. The light faded, and she opened her eyes again to see that the moon, once bright and warm, was now cold and dark, and the song that filled her ears was replaced with a cruel laughter, and a whispering that haunted her nightmares.
As quickly as it had begun, the vision ended. The moon faded from vision, returning to its place above the night sky, and the voices grew distant, before stopping entirely. A cold chill took her and the frigid wind reasserted itself. It was then that she noticed the hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her. Jeron stared down at her, concern evident on his face.
“You alright?” he asked, pulling her back toward the tent. She realized she'd wandered away at some point. “You were standing there for a couple minutes, staring at the sky.”
She shook her head, dislodging some of the snow that had built up in her blonde hair. “I think I've just been sent a vision. I'm not really sure what it means, but it's not good.”
“Alright, you go rest, and I'll take my watch. You can explain it in the morning, once we're all awake to hear it.”
Fulmara agreed, and brushed the rest of the snow off before returning to the tent. She pulled the covers over her head and tried to sleep, to forget the whispers. They echoed in her mind, swirling through her thoughts until they were all she could hear. The dwarf clenched her fists, raging against the noise in her head, and she felt her power stir. And then, like a torch that had been snuffed out, the whispers stopped, and she quickly fell asleep, the warmth of her divine magics wrapped around her thoughts like a woolen blanket.
“I think we all know what the whispers represent,” Jeron commented as they ate. “The song you heard though...”
“Right,” Firun added. “You said it was dwarven but not. Can you explain?”
“Not really. It was a dwarven smithing song. It had the cadence and the right feeling, but the language was something else. I don't think I could replicate it if I tried.”
“I have an idea,” Verrick posed. “If this was a vision, then it was sent by Fulmos, right?”
“Most likely,” Jeron agreed. “Though not necessarily true.”
“Then wouldn't the song be in a language that only the gods could sing?”
“That makes sense,” the Bard confirmed. “And it would almost confirm that it was sent by the Forge himself. The darker option is that our whispering enemy has some hold on you, and that he's trying to torment you.”
“How will we know?” she asked.
“We'll have to wait for more visions. Or we can find someone to delve into the memory with you, but that talent is not a common one, and they don't usually use it unless it's necessary. Too easy to get lost in memories, and some of the darker stuff sticks with you, or so I'm told.”
“Still, we need to look into this more,” Firun explained. “Even in my hometown, as terrified of magic as they were, people still respected visions from the gods. They didn't necessarily respect the receiver of the vision, but still...”
The human and dwarf both nodded, and Verrick looked apprehensive as he tried to sort out his thoughts. Finally, he looked back up to the group.
“We have a lot of things that need to be done, and not enough of us able to do them. Something's got to fall by the wayside, and two of those things are more important than the other.”
“Stop right there,” Jeron said, cutting the halfling off mid thought. “Firun's magic isn't going to be solved overnight. We can run tests and train all we want, but ultimately, it's going to take time for him to gain proper control. And Fulmara's vision isn't particularly conclusive either. Not many details in what she saw, so we have nowhere to start that we didn't have already. It's more likely a warning of things to come rather than a call to action.
“What we can work on is teaching you two to read properly, and tracking down your father. I think I know where he went, or where he was headed at least, and if that's not the end of the search, then we can ask around and see if any records have anything.
“Where do you think he went?” Verrick asked.
“He was carrying a large amount of alchemical equipment, right? Only two reasons for that. Either he was setting up a shop somewhere, which he wouldn't have left you behind for, or he was planning on brewing a large amount of something in an environment that was too dangerous for you. I know there was a plague in the area bowlward of Norgham around that time, and he would've had to take this trade road to get there, which lines up with the doctor seeing him back then. He definitely wouldn't have taken his child into an active plague, which explains him leaving you behind. Really, I just need to make sure the years line up with the timeline before we start traveling down that way.”
“So you might actually be able to find him?”
“Temper your expectations,” the Bard cautioned. “That was years ago. For him to not return after all that time...”
“Right, something probably happened. Still, I need to know.”
“We'll find him,” Fulmara said. “And if he's still alive, I'll hold him still so you can punch him.”
Verrick grinned. “I'd appreciate that.”
“So where do we need to go to do your research?” Firun asked, scrubbing the sleep from his face with a handful of snow.
“Back home. The merchants guild keeps records of major events like that, just in case they end up finding a pattern. As the largest trade city in the area, Norgham will have records of any plagues, disasters, and anything else that threatens to disrupt trade.”
“That makes a strange amount of sense,” Fulmara said. She strapped the last of her armor on and tugged, making sure everything was tight. “Why do I feel like merchants shouldn't be in charge of tracking history?”
“Because they'd charge for access,” Verrick commented. “And you can be sure they'd change things to make them look better, or to remove something that threatens their profit.”
“Their entire purpose is to help the merchants avoid situations where they would see a significant loss of profits,” Jeron explained. “They don't censor things because that hides critical information that could help them make more money. The trade off is that unless you have the money and a valid reason for the research, they don't want to deal with you, and they don't collect information on anything that doesn't generally affect them. Fortunately, we do have a valid reason, we've done some good work for them, and a plague is exactly the kind of thing they'd monitor.”
“Is a missing person a valid reason?” Firun countered. “If they were an important figure, I could see that working, but we're looking for an alchemist. No offense.”
“None taken. And you're right. A single missing person doesn't seem like something they'd care about.”
“We're not looking for a person,” Jeron explained. “We're doing research on a historical plague and its cure. There are any number...”
His eyes defocused for a moment, and he tilted his head slightly, as if listening to a far off conversation. The bard then cupped his hand to his mouth before speaking.
“Understood. We're on our way back now. Should be back to the city by nightfall. Need to report to the guard before we return.”
He returned his attention to the group. “Sorry about that. Ryn'Ala just contacted me. She's been doing some research through her own contacts, and may have some information about our smokey friend.”
“Then let's get going,” Fulmara announced. “The longer we wait, the later we get back.”
“I agree,” Firun said. “I don't like not knowing what our enemy is.”
Verrick had already started breaking down the tent, and grunted as he pounded the inside of the canvas to remove the snow from the exterior. In short order, their gear was packed away, the fire extinguished, and the campsite swept for loose tools and anything else that might otherwise be left behind. Within the hour, they were well on their way back home.
“Ghouls you say?” asked Mickel as Jeron gave his report.
“Correct. Two ghouls, a ghast, and a nest in an excavated tunnel system. The ghouls are dead, and the nest was burned.”
“Right, that's certainly a story.” Mickel scratched the stubble growing from his pale scalp. He set the request back on the desk and turned to the door behind him.
“Hey, Jev! Jevin! Got some hazard pay you need to authorize!”
There was a crashing sound from the back room, where the prisoners were kept, and soon the door swung open, revealing Jevin, the guard who had processed their prisoners the last time they'd arrived. He stumbled out, blinking sleep from his eyes.
“Mickel, you bastard, do you have any idea what time it is? I just spent twelve hours clearing that damned rat infestation out of the sewers. Let me sleep!”
He looked up at the group, and his expression changed.
“Oh, it's you lot! Got another load of bounties to claim?”
“Hazard pay, Jev,” Mickel repeated. “That grave robbing job turned out to be a bunch of ghouls.”
“Oof. Fought a ghoul once,” Jevin said, gesturing to a thick scar running down the right side of his face. “Not something I'd choose to do again. Now, not saying I don't believe you, but I need proof for the paperwork. You bring me something?”
Jeron pulled a phial from his belt, rattling it as he handed it over. “Left fang from each. Longer one was the ghast.”
“When did you take those?” Verrick asked.
“Right before I burned their corpses,” Firun said, “while you two were flirting.”
Mickel whistled, and Jevin snorted as he tried to hold back a laugh. Verrick and Fulmara both turned a bright shade of red and stumbled over each other's protests.
“Anyway,” Jev announced, clearing his throat, “These will do. Mickel, the forms?”
The bald man passed a parchment to Jevin, who noted the evidence and signed it, before stamping it with a wax seal. He fished around in the desk for a moment before passing the parchment and a small pouch of coins to Jeron. “Five silver for the job, and I've authorized another thirty silver in hazard pay for the ghouls. Starting to appreciate the twelve hours in the sewers a lot more now. The ghoul I fought was alone, and it took five of us to take down. I was just a recruit then, but still.”
Jeron added the pouch of coins to his bag as he answered. “We're just glad we were able to resolve that without much difficulty. You may want to send out a notice to the villages under your protection, tell them to keep an eye out for a bit. We believe this might not be a random occurrence.”
“You think someone wanted the ghouls there?” Mickel asked, incredulously.
“I found an emblem down by the nest,” Verrick explained. “Firun said it was enchanted at one point, but the magic had gone. Something like that, hidden where nobody would ever go, just steps from the ghoul nest?”
“Bit of a stretch to call that a coincidence,” Jevin agreed. “I'll send a missive out to the villages. What should they be looking for?”
“Unearthed graves,” Firun listed, counting on his fingers as he went, “bodies with humanoid bite marks, strange claw marks, attacks that leave their victims paralyzed, or strange noises in a graveyard after dark. That's what we got from our research.”
“Right, I'll let everyone know. Thanks again for your hard work.”
“Keep paying us like this,” Jeron said as they made their way to the door, “and we'll keep handling problems. Sorry about the sewers though.”
“Yeah, yeah, go on now! Before I have to drag you back down with me tomorrow.”
The party strolled through the city, the buildings now decorated with snow and ice from the previous night's storm. The road was mostly clear, though a layer of slush remained to give their footfalls a wet, squishy feeling. They stopped at a market stall to grab a late dinner of roasted meats and vegetables on skewers before returning to Ryn'Ala's home. The study was brightly lit, and several voices drifted out into the hall as the front door closed behind them. Ryn'Ala called them in, and they found two individuals sitting with her.
“You've all returned,” she said, taking a long draw from her pipe. “I'm truly pleased to see you all safe. I have some good news for you, and some of the unfortunate variety. And then something that fits into both categories, I think.”
She stood, drawing herself up to her full height, towering over the party. “Where should we begin?”
Next
Wiki
Anyone who's ever played D&D has reached a part of the early campaign where you have a bunch of goals to achieve, but no idea where to go first. In the campaign I'm playing now, that moment came when we ended a self sustaining zombie plague and blew a hole in the wall that turned the quarantine zone into magical Australia. The whole world opened up to us, even if we were technically fugitives. It's an intimidating point for everyone, where your action and inaction start to really affect the world around you.

From Toby Fox's mod, where he first used megalovania. Here's Andonuts's dialogue (with the slurs censored just in case):

• I'm sorry I wasn't much of a fight, Varik.
• well... I... ohhhhhh urrrrrrgh...
• WHAT IS THIS FEELING
• ...... hahaha, I know what this feeling is
• it's hatred
• for the person who came so far
• just to destroy an old man
• my mind is gone.
• all that is left is pure hatred.
• g-GUHmyNOhahahahahahaha
• people say I can't take what I dish out

* wl

• YOU SEE THIS BURNING, BLOODY UNIVERSE
• YOU SEE THIS ULTIMATE, UNLIMITED POWER?
• Varik.
• I HAVE FUCKING HAD IT WITH YOUR BULLSHIT
• you little fuckers are going to have
• your bodies ripped in half.
• i'll shove your asses so far down your throats
• that when you crap
• you'll sing fucking beethoven.
• tl;dr:

* eat shit, f******

• ...I'm h... a... p... p... y...
• oof
• you
• you're...
• But your attacks are meaningless here!
• I am the master of this dimension.
• Varik, I'm going to burn you to such a crisp

* Your ashes will scream for water!

• ...go ...b ...a ...c ...k...
• ...Varik...
• you f***
• You're all f***
• and
• if fire didnt extinguish you
• I will subject you to the terrors
• of absolute zero
• enjoy the freezing temperature of space

* Varik!

• aggh
• I
• Varik!
• you are going to die here
• your puny physic abilities
• are nothing compared to mine
• you are going to suffer the greatest
• psychic
• attack
• prepare to have your mind

* beg for mercy

• Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik, Varik .....
• ...I'm h... a... p... p... y...
• ...go ...b ...a ...c ...k...
• ...friends...
• NO!
• why cant I
• you
• I AM DONE FOOLING AROUND
• I AM JUST GOING TO KILL YOU

* NO MERCY

• Varik!
• You see how pathetic I am?
• Even when I'm in my own mind.
• Even when I'm fighting for my life.
• I guess...
• I guess I'm better off dead.
• ...
• You remind me a lot of my sons friend.
• Hahaha.
• I'm...
• I'm going to go now. I feel really exhausted.
• So...
• ...
• Varik!
• If we ever meet again...
• you're going to...
• get the...
• sh...
• ....i...
• ...
• ...

Dull, tired skin washed you out, but just a few drops of this skin illuminating pure magic will highly convert your complexion from yawn to fabulous. Endless radiance awaits the real complexion transformation experience with one drop at a time from the ultimate glow
What does your skin need?
As your body’s largest organ, your skin performs a variety of important and complex functions—from regulating your body temperature to protecting against germs. This is especially true of your skin’s outermost layer, also known as the skin barrier. Composed mostly of lipids (such as ceramides), this protective barrier acts as the primary gatekeeper between your skin and external environment—keeping water in and harmful substances out. Although a healthy skin barrier is essential for all skin types, it’s also important to remember that each individual’s skin is unique in many ways. This means that there’s no “one size fits all” approach to achieving radiant, healthy-looking skin.
Brightning Serum- Why Is It Important?
Dark spots can make your complexion appear uneven and dull, but brightening serums are here to help. Brightening face serums are designed to target dullness and give your complexion a much-needed radiance boost. The powerful ingredients in these types of face serums help to lighten dark spots and hyperpigmentation, which can be caused by sun exposure, hormones or ageing. Brightening face serums often contain natural ingredients such as Niacinamide, Manjistha, Red Algae and Alpha Arbutin to help clear the complexion, reduce pigmentation, and fade dark spots while also providing antioxidant protection. Regular use of brightening serums like Vrija Brightening Face Serum can also improve skin clarity as they help even out your skin tone over time.
Key Ingredients: Niacinamide:
Niacinamide: The Superhero
Ingredient Also known as Vitamin B3, this miracle spot lightener pulls double shifts, slowing down melanin production and fast-forwarding to an even pace. Niacinamide enforces the already-placed keratin and collagen in your skin's armor to keep in the moisture while keeping environmental attackers at bay. This dark spot dynamo will make sure extra pigmentation doesn't stand a chance.
Manjistha: Radiance from Mother Nature's Palette
A brilliant tour de force that detoxifies and clarifies for an ultra-even glow. Manjistha draws its brilliance not from the artificial but from vibrant red botanicals. Surely, nature had its own hand in helping our skin become radiant by driving off blemishes and helping to fade discolorations inside and out with great antibacterial and anti-inflammatory power.
Amla: India's Antioxidant Brightening Gem
Amla too, with its small stature, packs a worthy punch of brightening feels, with powerful antioxidants graciously exclaimed from within. Fortify against environmental aging to keep your skin fresh and youthful with Radiance that truly radiates from within.
Rejuvenating Red Algae from Spain
This wonderful serum begins with red algae that is harvested in the waters of Spain. It is infused with vitamin and mineral replenishing elements that ensure no better way but your skin does not tell your age. Moisture-Locking Power from France That's just radiance, hydration, extensive and precious, as thanks to innovative moisture locking technology hailing from France. The invisible shield reinforces the moisture barrier with time released humectants so, the dewy softness is kept sumptuously indomitable against environmental stressors.
Herb based Alpha Arbutin
But the true standout star comes from the brightening potion: alpha arbutin, an herb-based miracle that very gently hinders too much production of melanin. Say goodbye to uncooperative dark spots and discoloration, or uneven skin tone—this soft, but powerful ingredient, will return your complexion to its radiant, clear look.
Benfits of Using Brightening Serum
This advanced lightweight serum offers oil-free hydration for all skin types and works to detoxify and clarify using Manjistha, a botanical brightener that has been noted for its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. The Indian gooseberry, or Amla, really does wonders for your skin, just like its literal meaning when translated—it can help your stubborn, leathery skin to be renewed and rejuvenated in just a snap with this rich antioxidant fruit. It is created with red algae from Spain and has Alpha Arbutin for an uneven tone, visibly rejuvenating look. So, with that kind of synergistic blend in place, you've really got true skin perfection. Get ready for your most revitalized, dazzlingly even and brightened complexion unleashed on the world.
How To Use Skin Brightening Serum

1. Wash your face with a mild, foamy cleanser.
   
2. Use a cotton pad to apply toner, carefully wiping away dirt and debris.
   
3. Apply a few drops of skin brightening serum to your face and neck, gently rubbing with your fingertips.
   
4. Finally, apply a noncomedogenic moisturiser.
   

To maintain healthy skin, follow these tips: balance skin hydration, use brightening ingredients, cleanse twice daily, apply a face mask, eat a healthy diet, and make lifestyle changes.
Why Choose Vrija?
● Harness the might of the world; its superpower ingredients are Niacinamide, the rich antioxidant Red Algae that inhibits melanin, and french hydration lock for dewy and glowing skin.
● Delivers unparalleled brightening results without irritation
● Lightweight yet deeply nourishing formula hydrates and strengthens skin
● Potent yet gentle enough for all skin types, even sensitive
● Easy to integrate into any existing routine for a brilliant glow
● Decree time-honored community wisdom with this dermatologist-tested, empowering, and effective line of skin care and brightening tincture science, and maximize your glowing potential with Vrija Brightening Face Serum
Visit the site- https://vrijalife.com/products/vrija-brightening-face-serum

Edit: Add ToC and correct flow of post. Best to read on laptop or desktop!

1. Disclaimer
2. Introduction
3. Glycerin properites
4. --
5. Research- safety
6. Research- source
7. Research- density and comparison to hyaluronic acid
8. Research- ability to last on applied area
9. Benefits on skin
10. Benefits on hair
11. Use in makeup
12. Use in makeup remover

13.- 17. my journey

1. (correction paragraph 18) Starting ratios

1. Please know, I am a regular human, just like you. I am not a specialist, doctor, or a scientist of any kind. I have spent over 2 years in writing this (post has been in my drafts and I worked on it in my free time only.) I have talked about using glycerin and the changes I have seen on my own body many times on here and I always received comments from someone wanting more information on glycerin which is not easily available. (I think it's because of how cheap it is and how its the top ingredient in many products we use, companies don't want us to know lol.) My sources are from medical/universal research libraries that I have access to from my university. Still, research papers are very complicated to understand and takes a long time to get through the whole study so if I made a mistake in comprehending anything, please let me know. Lets begin :)
2. This product/poly compound does have many names/spellings but I'll be sticking to glycerin. Glycerin is used in vast variety of products like medicine/wound care, food industry, hygiene products including soaps, skincare, hair care and more. Glycerin is stable, nontoxic, non irritating and hypoallergenic with mild antibacterial, antiviral, and antimicrobial effects. Because of these properties it is said that about 20% of all glycerin is used in our territory (makeup, skincare, hygiene) which is a very large portion. Glycerin is also fairly cheap so you can see it in the top 10-15% of the ingredient list (especially in products that promote hydration) or towards the bottom 25% in preventative products making it the most underrated, versatile, and affordable product all should have in their cupboards
3. In skin/hair care, glycerin is a humectant (retaining or preserving moisture) an emollient (quality of softening or smoothing of the skin), and a thickener. Meaning a moisturizing agent that draws water to the surface of the dermis from the atmosphere or from layers deep in your skin/hair; brighten and soften the dermis and hair at the same time; thicken any liquid formulas. This said, using glycerin in low humidity or dry, hot air can result in drying out your dermis (skin) or hair shaft because it is pulling moisture deep in your dermis or hair. (Personal note: if you wish to use glycerin in locations or seasons where the air is dry, it is best to keep spritzing the area with a mist of just water, preferably distilled, or other hydration mist to prevent the glycerin pulling any to all moisture from your dermis which could result in flaky, dry skin or brassy, frizzy hair strands. I believe after immense research this is the only downside of glycerin).
4. Glycerin has many benefits. You can look at luxury creams to affordable face wash products and chances are, you will see glycerin in it. Some skincare companies now include a directory on their website to explain what each ingredient does and benefit on the skin but I feel it is very vague and wanted to bring some science to this poly compound. Now the accredited and certified research papers I found available to me are limited on its effect on the skin of humans but are on animals with some following up on humans. I was hoping to include links and incorporate wording however it was too cruel so I will summarize.
5. The vast amount of information available is on, if glycerin is a safe product, its effects to our (human) tissues, and possible illness/diseases scientists believed it can cause or be linked to. Like I said, I'll keep the animal testing gory out but to wrap it all up, glycerin is safe. It did not have any effect on the reproductive system for males or females and is not carcinogenic to humans. In a different study, a group of 25 human volunteers (22 male 3 female) were tested orally which resulted in no change in weight of humans if under 50 with or without diabetes, unless over 50 with diabetes history it caused some jittery behavior in one human (this experiment was conducted orally and used 3x a day.) Researchers checked the sperm of males and saw no abnormalities comparing it to when they first came in. For the females, ultrasound showed no abnormalities on their reproductive health. It should be noted, the researchers did not compare anything regarding glycerin and its effect on the thyroid but the other organs tested no abnormalities were found. I also found several studies on inhalation and applying glycerin on eyes was normal in sense nothing will happen other than some irritation that subsides, on animals. Same study then compared their findings on a group of humans and only a couple of people from the testing group reported it caused mild or moderate irritation that lasted for little while. To conclude, there are no known side effects or illness caused or linked to by usage of glycerin. Still, after immense testing it is recommended to patch test glycerin even if being allergic to glycerin is considered rare according to researchers.
6. Glycerin was originally found from lipids of animals (animal fat) but now can be extracted from plants (vegan) like shea butter, palm oil, coconut oil and more. As of today, glycerin from oil has a high extraction rate from palm. Glycerin can also be formed synthetically through fermentation, bio-diesel or chemically created with its chemical compound ( C3H8O3; Carbon 3 Hydrogen 8 Oxygen 3) (Personal note: I am including this because when purchasing you glycerin, be sure on where and how it was extracted as you will be applying it on your dermis or hair.) Glycerin is non-comedogenic, meaning it will not clog your pores, but reading the different studies I believe there is a difference between lab, plant, and animal lipid created glycerin. Some prefer the animal glycerin as its more suitable to their skin type but majority of the glycerin in our market is from plants or lab. You can tell the difference of glycerin by how tacky it is. Animal glycerin is most tacky (sticky like tree sap) compared to the plant glycerin followed by lab created which only has a slight slip to it.
7. The density of glycerin (1.26g/cm^3) is lower than the density of our skin (1.1g/cm^3) which allows glycerin to penetrate deeper than a lot of other products. Whereas hyaluronic acid (varies but avg. 1.8g/cm^3) may look to be better way to go around but both have their benefits! Glycerin is better suitable when you want your skin or scalp to hold moisture on your skin. HA is suitable if you want to lock in the moisture. But what makes them very different is the molecular level. Glycerin has a smaller molecular level than HA, which in return allows the glycerin to saturate deeper in your dermis or hair strands whereas HA sits on the top 2 layers (about). So using HA on your skin can mean it can take longer to see the visual results on your skin. That said with either or, consistency is important to unlock all the benefits either product can offer.
8. Glycerin will hold onto the water keeping your face soft and smooth (like a newborn babies bum) for long periods of time. (On study showed if glycerin is not washed from the dermis or hair, glycerin can last upto 6 days on the area applied hydrating the top layer of skin. In this study the researchers had 3 groups, 1 controlled, 1 glycerin applied only(group1), 1 glycerin applied with misting water every 6 hours(group2) for 14 days. From control- the group had natural oil build up, group1 had dry almost chapped skin, group2 felt dry to touch, some shine-no oil, bounce on dermis.) It is not recommended to keep glycerin on for this long as glycerin can attract pollutants from settling into pores-it just sits on surface of skin.
9. Glycerin is beneficial to all skin types, most hair types, and help aid in various skin or scalp conditions (if you have a medical condition please consult a doctor or dermatologist.) Applying glycerin consistently, will boost collagen production making brighter, even skin from healing blemishes to hyperpigmentation, aiding in the prevention of acne bacteria spreading on your dermis (help with clearing back acne) aid in healing old acne marks, clearing and hydrating pores for the prevention of black or white heads, smooth skin texture and premature aging lines. Glycerin may act as a mild natural sunscreen by protecting the skin from the sun's rays and environmental pollutants, including smog. On large open pores, because of its density, glycerin can settle into pores reducing the visual size of them and help clear out any dirt or imperfections.
10. Glycerin is more suitable for those with dense or thicker hair and with more texture (curls.) Once again, glycerin pulls moisture from the hair shaft when no moisture is available in the atmosphere. For the scalp, glycerin can be a natural/soft treatment for dandruff or other scalp dryness. For your hair strands, mixing it with our ayurvedic hair masks or hair oil, you can condition any damaged hair strands, preventing further breakage (split ends), and adding strength to protect against harmful rays of the sun and hot tools.
11. Remember we discussed how glycerin is a humectant, emollient, and thickener? Well, this is what many of us expect from a makeup primer. I have used a glycerin primer for when I wanted a quick everyday makeup look or when I misplaced my holy grail benefit POREfessional primer. I used it in 2 ways, One was mixing a drop of glycerin into my moisturizer or my foundation. The other was my standard rose water and glycerin spray bottle. With the rose water I did notice I had to make sure the water and glycerin was well set into my face. I use a damp sponge to press any glycerin sitting on my face deep into my pores before applying foundation to avoid any separation or caking. (If you want an airbrush look; try this method then after dabbing your face with the sponge, apply a thin, even layer of finely milled translucent powder.) Why you may ask do this extra step of dabbing? Well using glycerin in a liquid format like the rose water is also an effective makeup remover! Crazy how it can work both ways.
12. If you pull out any micellar water you may have, the first 2 ingredients are water and glycerin followed by additives to act as mild surfactants and unwanted possible ingredients alcohol, fragrance, preservatives. Surfactant is a substance that will help the water and glycerin chemical properties mix when dissolved together. Sometimes when you let the micellar water sit you see a layer of liquid settle on top of another layer and you have to mix the two, right? The surfactant is the ingredient that leaves that oily feel on the face and I believe blends the glycerin chemical with the surfactant to create a less tacky formula. It will be different brand to brand based on how they source their glycerin and the ratios. That said, after my full beat, spraying a setting spray and all, I experimented to see how the rose wateglycerin will react with my full face of makeup if I just wanted to rehydrate my face with the same mixture. I spray till my face feels nicely hydrated, let that fully dry with help of a fan or my hands, then with a dry sponge, I lightly tap the glycerin back into my dermis and if needed, powder to set any makeup separation or fading.The only time I dealt with makeup reacting with the glycerin was when my makeup began pilling from mixing silicone and water based skincare products with foundation.
13. From my journey: I saw some posts of users using and not having benefactual results so I'd like to inform you how I personally started using glycerin and the changes on my own skin. I remember stumbling on a random Instagram account of Farah Dhukai from Farsali using glycerin back in 2016 and I decided to copy the recipe to lighten dark skin. After following her instructions and started to use her recipes very often, it was not long before I had all family reunions turn into skincare nights. I would make custom masks for my cousins and aunts based on their skin concerns and I would receive endless compliments and discussions on how my skin as a 15 year old teenager looked amazing. It was not long until I connected the dots and started researching extensively into glycerin.
14. At that time, I didn't even have access to these studies and research papers, many were released after 2016! I found another ayurvedic Instagram account (now deactivated) and found my first recipe for rose water and glycerin and we have been going strong ever since. I started off with about 1 cup of fresh/homemade rose water to 1 tablespoon of glycerin. I originally started using this as a toner. I suffer from acanthosis nigricans (thickedry/dark skin on back of neck, elbows, armpits, knees) I would drench a cotton pad and hold the serum onto my skin for 5 seconds before moving it. I would repeat this then go over the same parts on my skin in circular motions. After about 4-6 months I had reduced the appearance on my elbows and knees to about 90% (only small dryness patch was left) my neck still had the thickness of skin but the darkness had reduced significantly and started blending in with my natural skin. Armpits were about 40% lighter but after a year of consistent use I was very happy with my results. Now it is important to mention, skin care can only carry so much; during this time of using the toner I lost about 23 kgs which helped clear the inflammation causing the dark skin in the first place.
15. Along with this toner I only used a light moisturizer and face wash; no SPF, facial scrubs, or actives. My skin was very clear, bright, hyperpigmentation free. Then life hit me with a ton of bricks and depression set in. I gave up skincare and my skin was terrible. Pores, pigmentation, fungal acne and stubborn blackheads on forehead and chin, extremely flaky/irritated cheeks. At this point I had been using glycerin for over 3-4 years so I upped the ratio I mix about 1:4 ratio of glycerin to rosewater now and put it in a spray bottle. I would start by double cleanse my face, use vitamin C serum and drench my face with the glycerin water before bedtime daily (about 1-2 hours before) let it settle then use my fingers to give myself a soft facial massage and help the remaining dripping water settle into my skin or slide it down my neck and chest. Then before bedtime, I splash my face with just cool water and remove the glycerin sitting on top of my skin. Gently dry my face and apply my nightly moisturizer with retinol, let that settle then spray 4x of the glycerin water again, finish with some lip mask and go to sleep.
16. From researching and experimenting, this was best way to clear out my white/black heads. The glycerin made them soft and I did not have to include any active or harsh scrubs or facial tools to pick them out. I found mixing the vitamin C with the glycerin 2 hours before helped tremendously with my hyperpigmentation and left my face glowing and added a beautiful bounce! I now only use a soft facial scrub that was marked to be safe for daily use once a week only. In the mornings, I thoroughly wash your face with some cleanser and apply a light moisturizer and SPF. My skin has gotten significantly brighter and has the glass skin effect without using multiple actives and products. Reason I don't apply it the rosewater glycerin in morning is because we are having dry weather and my schedule is unpredictable to remember to spray a hydrating spray in between wear.
17. For my scalp psoriasis, I used the same toner product just in different ratios and it helped significantly. Only thing about glycerin and your scalp/hair strands is you do not want to dry it out. I only kept it on for about 30 minutes before I shower. I do have thin/pin-straight hair but my ends just felt so much healthier. One research entry mentioned how glycerin was very benefactural to animals with dense fur. So if you have textured(wavy/curly) or coarse(thick) hair definitely try glycerin out on yourself! Im sure it will help your curls be more defined and healthy! Glycerin helps strengthen the hair follicles and strands to prevent breakage, leading to the illusion of faster-longer growing hair. (I have to trim my hair about 3x a year. Each time I trim about 4 inches off. Sometimes I mix the glycerin and rose water in my hair oil concoctions. I feel this allows the oil to penetrate in even deeper. The oil doesn't sit on the stands but absorbs faster which I always struggled with. It leaves my hair so soft/supple, helps my brittle ends when I'm past due for a trim or from heat damage. In the case I add the glycerin into the oil and I wish to keep the oil on longer, I spray my hair with regular distilled water only to keep the moisture constant for the glycerin so it doesn't suck the water out of the strands.
18. Here are a couple ratios you can start to experiment with:

• Hair care: 1/4 cup distilled water, 1/2 cup rose water, and 2 tablespoons glycerin in a spray bottle
• Skin toner: 1:3 glycerin to rosewater in a sterilized bottle of your choice
• Skin mist: 1:6 glycerin to rosewater in a sterilized bottle of your choice

NOTES: If you believe glycerin and rosewater is not the combination for you, you can mix glycerin with aloe, powders/herbs, moisturizers, and more. Be sure to research the product you will be mixing with and always patch test to ensure a chemical change will not take negative effect on your skin. Reason why I mix with rosewater is because when mixing with other products, remember glycerin is also a thickener, so it can feel very heavy on the face. Whereas water dilutes it and feels comfortable to wear for all day or night.
NOTES: I know my oily and acne girls are always fighting for their life. If you try this and are struggling, keep adjusting the formula and trust the process. It may feel nothing is happening or too much is happening but if you can, stay consistent for 6 weeks before you call it quits.
NOTES: ( NSFW but IMPORTANT!) Please do not apply glycerin on or near your genitalia! Glycerin is a type of carbohydrate known as a sugar alcohol. The breakdown of glycerin with our natural bacteria will turn it into an irritant creating a risk of a yeast infection!

Hello again. Sorry for the slight delay on this one. A thing called life happened. But don't worry, because I'm here to bring you a new perspective in the ongoing hit series 'Skalgans of Earth: The True Story'. This time, it's Kam joining the roster, giving a look into some of the earlier meetings to follow first contact. As usual, I'd like to thank everyone for reading, and I hope you're all enjoying the story so far.
[First] [Previous] [Next]
Memory transcription subject: Kam, Venlil Republic General Date [standardized human time]: July 23, 2136
The days after the arrival of the Skalgans and humans had been strange. With our release of the populace from the bunkers came two groundbreaking announcements. First was the introduction of the Skalgans. Many immediately took to the alien’s striking similarities to us, yet their differences has portions of the population a bit uncertain of what to make of these new arrivals. Not enough to completely alienate them, but it had folks curious about their origins. Some conspiracy theories came out that this was faked to try to earn the Venlil more clout in the Federation. Although genetic testing was required, many saw them as long lost relatives to the Venlil people. Many wanted to learn about where they had come from and how they had gotten separated from our herd. Some even wanted to welcome them ‘home’ into Venlil society. But their arrival also came with baggage.
Soon after, we received a message from Solvin. The captain privately called us to voice his concerns about the Skalgans likely being predator diseased or carriers of the predator taint. Although Tarva made it clear she didn’t believe this herself, she at least placated the captain with promises to do predator disease screenings of any Skalgan that’d be visiting Venlil Prime long term. I wasn’t sure if it was enough to entirely alleviate Solvin’s concerns, but it at least was enough to keep him from flying back here. Shortly after, it was announced that there would be a temporary ceasing of outgoing communications and halting of starport traffic, explained as a safeguard against news of the Skalgan and their way of life from reaching malicious parties, at least until the governor was ready to release an official statement to the Federation. Folks didn’t have much time to dwell on this decision as they soon learned why Tarva had done this. The Skalgans weren’t alone.
It was alluded to that there was more to the Skalgan, but no one had predicted that it was the fact they lived with a predator species. The humans that appeared in the governor’s address wore full body environmental suits with tinted visors. None of their predatory features could be seen, which at least helped in keeping people somewhat calm, at least until it was said what they are. When it was announced that the Skalgan lived and cooperated with a predator species, there was massive public outcry. The Skalgan themselves spoke on behalf of the humans, swearing that these predators were not the monsters our people saw meat eaters as, and had been close allies and devoted protectors during their time together.
This of course riled up all sorts of discourse, from those saying the Skalgan were secretly slaves, to claims that the Skalgans were secretly predators themselves. The governor was quick to dismiss many of these rumors in follow-up interviews and a few Skalgan spoke publicly to help dispel any concerns. As for the humans, their appearances were limited and heavily censored, at least for the first few weeks of contact. More of their appearance would slowly be revealed with time, but their faces would remained concealed until further notice. Only a few of us were privy to what was under those masks.
But that was only the start of it. We provided the visiting astronauts plans for our FTL communications network, which the crew sent back to Earth to allow them to contact us directly. Within a week, our planets were linked. Surprisingly, one of the first things that was suggested was joint military exercises, the suggestion coming from a Skalgan. I would have expected the humans, the predators, the supposedly more combative of the two species, to be the ones to suggest this. Yet here was a prey species practically jumping at the opportunity to trade military strategies and technology. So I soon found myself in charge of arranging the meeting between myself, a few other members of the Venlil military, and several officials from the United Nation’s military.
We chose our primary docking station in Venlil Prime's orbit as the meeting location. It would offer a good place to show our orbital defenses and our patrol fleet. Despite the constant assurances, there was still that nagging worry that these humans were somehow deceiving us. This could be a trick to learn about our defenses so they could more easily attack us. Yet the Skalgans behavior constantly contradicted those worries. They seemed completely at ease among the humans, held positions of power in their governments, even mentioned that there are mixed families between the two species. I’d throw myself to the Arxur before I ever let a child near a predator, yet the Skalgan claimed to trust the humans with both their children and their own lives.
With the arrival of the Earth shuttle, I had only a few seconds to prepare myself for what was to come. Descending from the ramp came a pair of Skalgans and a human. All of them wore some form of military attire, with the human wearing a mask to obscure its mouth and eyes. It helped a bit keep my nerves in check, but I could still feel my anxiousness rise as the masked face turned towards me. I did my best not to focus on the human. One Skalgan in particular had several medals and patches on his uniform, more than even the human. How a prey species could be so decorated among predators was beyond me.
“Welcome everyone to Venlil Prime orbit.” I greet them as they approach. “I hope your flight here was smooth. Before we begin, do you have any questions that you’d like addressed?”
“Yes, I have one.” The decorated Skalgan stepped forwards. “The name is Kalgar Fredricson, Fleet Admiral of the UN Spaceforce. I couldn’t help but notice that this station seems to be a bit on the small size to field an orbital defense fleet. Do you spread your forces across multiple stations?”
“A pleasure to meet you, admiral.” I said. “But no, this is our primary station. Our fleet is made up mostly of fighters and a few battleships, so this is plenty big enough for our fleet.” I was met with an uncomfortable silence as admiral Kalgar looked around with ears quirked in a confused manner. Seemed like some mannerisms were shared between our people.“...Even by our standards, that’s quite small. How do you hold out against raids?” He asked with an incredulous tone. I started to feel a bit uneasy with his line of questioning. “Well… the primary goal of our forces is to delay any attacks against the planet. They are to act as diversions to buy time for Federation forces to respond. We do have ground-to-space missiles and some anti-air defenses should landing ships enter the atmosphere.”
“But according to the first contact team, it took almost an hour for Federation forces to respond.” The admiral said. “So if attack forces bypass or destroy your ‘diversion’, what protection do your people have against attack.”
“Well, we’ll have bomb shelters that can hold out against antimatter bombing, along with Exterminator forces in case of a ground invasion.”
“Hmmm. Pardon me if I’m a bit forward, but you seem woefully incapable of using these tools to their maximum effectiveness.” Kalgar growled. “If enemies are on the ground, that means they have breached your defenses and are attacking cities and civilians. Your governor shared videos of the last raid that hit your planet. Kidnappings, cannibalizing sentients in the streets, chemical bombing, and more likely than not, your men would abandon their post or be so fear stricken that they couldn’t fight.” The admiral said.
For a moment, I was unsure of how to respond. Why the admiral found fault in our fear response was confusing. “...Y-you’re asking prey to stand up to predators without showing fear? That’s… we can’t fight on our own. We’re too weak alone. That’s the purpose of the Federation, to make us stronger together.”
“The fact that you need help in the first place speaks of how woefully equipped you are to defend yourselves.” The admiral looked at me like he thought I was an idiot. “That fleet that attacked you was little more than some transports and a few battleships. It would have been a hard fight, but it was completely within your power to win! But instead, your fleet panicked, your ground defenders ran, your ‘Exterminators’ were using flamethrowers to try to fight gunfire for crying out loud! Do you know how many live could have been saved had your people actually fought instead of-”
“Admiral,” The human suddenly stepped forward, putting a hand on Kalgar’s shoulder. I briefly feared the predator was about to silence the admiral for stepping out of line, yet the gesture seemed to be one meant to calm. “These people differ greatly from us. Judging them by our standards is unfair to them. Besides, we’re here to foster cooperation, not belittle them.”
The fact that the predator was being the voice of reason once again stunned me. Why was the prey the one acting aggressively? Not even the more rowdy races of the Federation got this heated. Maybe the admiral was predator diseased, and his aggression is what made him rise so high in the military, especially among predators. What if Solvin was right about the Skalgan being disease? This could be a huge mistake we're making. It made sense that the humans would keep around a predator diseased prey species. Even if the humans didn’t eat the Skalgans, they must appreciate how the taint warps them to fit with their predatory nature.
“P-perhaps we should go to the conference room before we continue our discussions.” I said, trying to help defuse the tension and get my racing mind off my current train of thought. “We do have a lot of matters to address. If you would follow me this way.” I turned and started walking. I couldn’t help but wonder if the eyes I felt boring into the back of my head were the human’s, or the admiral’s.
As tense as I was about having a predator following me, I couldn’t help but think of the admiral’s words. We were frequently raiding targets for the Arxur, our fleets little more than distractions to keep them busy, but if we had the fleet power that the Gojid or Krakotl had, we could easily defend ourselves. Yet every time we petitioned the Federation to give us more ships, we were ignored or denied on the grounds of the ships being needed elsewhere. It’s been that way for so long.
Yet the admiral claimed we could have won the last raid we were subject to. It was hard for me to believe. Predators are vicious on the battlefield, throwing their lives away with reckless abandon. The only way to we knew how to win against them was to outnumber them, work as a herd. I didn’t expect predators to understand this, and I worried that this line of thinking had clouded the admiral’s judgment. However, the Skalgans and humans offered military aid, something we needed since the Federation was unreliable in helping us. Ships, personnel, and people willing to risk their lives to defend us were things I was willing to put up with diseased prey for. And perhaps having those things would make us a little less fearful.
[First] [Previous] [Next]

Jesus was confused with Satan by some cultures and even worshipped as such – despite the fact that he was considered a "good" Satan and a "positive" Devil that sided with the weak and vulnerable and betrayed the "powerful ones" in order to dedicate himself and his life completely to the poor. (Such notion is not alien at all even to the texts – because Jesus is expressly called the Morning Star in 2 Peter 1:19, in Revelation 2:28 and in Revelation 22:16).
This is apparent in the fact that the Hebrews for example did not recognize Christ as the Messiah and they even called him "evil" and applied to him the title "Satan" (from the Hebrew: "śāṭān" meaning: "adversary, enemy"). The definition of "evil" here is relative – because since Jesus went against the teachings that the Hebrews held as sacred and he also went against the teachings that the Muslims for example also regarded as sacred (and he went against many other cultures as well for that matter; because the figure of Jesus was pagan and it actually belonged worldwide to all cultures of the world and he was claimed to have opposed all of them trying to reform them) – he was thus called "evil" in relative terms by some of these cultures; meaning an "enemy" or "adversary" of those doctrines. Originally not even the Christians considered Christ as a positive figure; because Christ professed a lot of ideals that were inconceivable and impossible to apply according to the mentality of the powerful castes that rule society – like the priesthood for example; because Jesus claimed many times that the wealthy ones must renounce everything they have, they must give their money to the poor and then and only then – will they be allowed to follow Christ.
But the Church completely ignored and bypassed this teaching of Christ because they knew that if they had started preaching this to their believers; they would lose all believers in one second since no one wants to give up their house, their wealth and their life to follow the Church. So even the Church had to rearrange and modify a lot of the teachings of Christ while straight up censoring and ignoring others; in order to create a religion out of it. The only difference is that the Christian Church decided that it was worth investing their time and money in turning Jesus into the symbol of their faith and into a figure that would appeal to the masses (basically deifying him and using his name and memory to attract people into the religion) – while the other two religions (Judaism and Islam) completely disregarded Jesus altogether and considered him a madman instead and even went as far as to call him "evil" and a "Devil" precisely because he had preached such revolutionary notions that were just impossible to accept for the rich and wealthy. (Another reason for this is also because Judaism had a different idea of the Messiah altogether and they followed a different Messiah – and this other idea of the Messiah along with the other Messiah – were also very different from the "Jesus Christ" concept altogether – but that’s besides the point).
The symbology of the spring refers to the blood of Christ which gives life and makes vegetation grow on the earth much like the water of a spring; but it also holds literal meaning because the pagan figures who correspond to "Jesus" were all claimed to have met their demise or to have had a life-changing experience happen near a spring or near a water-source more generally speaking. Such is the case for Hermaphroditus who was rendered female by his union with Salmacis near a spring; or also the castration of one of the gods called "Uranus" – because according to Cicero in his "De Natura Deorum" there were multiple Uranuses and one of them was the "younger" one – and he’s the same who was said to have been castrated near a spring by Phoenician mythology. (The fact that Hermaphroditus was joined to Salmacis thus becoming definitively feminine near the waters of a spring – refers to the confusion that happened in the myth due to the nature of the two characters in question; because Hermaphroditus and Salmacis were actually brother and sister in other iterations of the story and they were claimed to have been conjoined thus essentially making up a single being who was a "man-woman" united. But then after their birth they were separated and their bodies were not conjoined anymore; although the male – in this case Hermaphroditus – was claimed to have been castrated in further iterations of the story so it looked as though he had returned to being a female and was thus "rejoined" to his female nature (his female side) which is why the Greek myth confused it and claimed that Hermaphroditus lost his manhood but he lost it by being rejoined to his twin-sister Salmacis. In reality he was castrated near the waters of that spring – the "conjoined" part referring instead to the myth of their birth, but the two accounts were later confused and amalgamated into a single story for the Hermaphroditus myth; thus confusing also the timeline on when exactly was it that the two siblings were conjoined – whether it was at the beginning of their lives or at the end of it as in the case of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis).
The god Attar of the planet Venus was worshipped as "Atarsamain" (Attar of heaven) by the Arabs and equated with Allat i.e. Athena (a fact that has left academics dumbfounded even to this day as for how is it possible that a male god was completely equated and identified with a female one. But the answer is found in the mythology and themes of the god himself – where he was considered of androgynous nature and was claimed to have underwent castration which made him be perceived as a female by some cultures). He was furthermore equated with the goddess Anat in the form of "Ninurta" – because the Mesopotamian warrior-god Ninurta being equivalent to Attar (and Atarsamain) himself – he was directly equated with the Canaanite goddess "Anat" and the name of Anat was also written as "NIN.URTA" in cuneiform. There is an epithet of Anat which calls the deity: "the strength of life" and this particular epithet is applied to Ninurta continuously throughout Sumerian mythology because he’s consistently called the "strength of Enlil" – the "one with superior strength" – the "son in whose strength the father rejoices" – the one with the "strength of a lion" and Ninurta was also in charge of ditches and canals being the one who created the canal-system in Sumer and who was claimed to have brought to everyone the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as a result. The epithet of Anat – in this case referring to the male Anat who was though still worshipped as female regardless because the god possessed androgynous qualities (and not coincidentally the term "Nin" which comprises the name "Nin-urta" is actually more often than not utilized for female goddesses in Sumerian culture; for example "Ninhursag", "Ninisina", "Ninlil" etc. as it usually means "lady" – but in this case the word assumes a neutral meaning and its connotation is given by the context; so since the god is male it’s translated as "lord" – but the androgynous aspect of this deity is still kept intact nonetheless by using "Nin" instead of "En" ("En" being more traditionally used in Sumerian to mean "lord") – and the title thus refers for the concept of "the strength of life" to the strength of life as a life-giver; because Ninurta being associated with water and with the fertilizing effects of water having been the one who brought canals and ditches to Sumer; the meaning of the term thus acquired such connotation.
This deity is also always associated with physical beauty; for example in the case of Dumuzi (the Mesopotamian god of vegetation) who was called "the one with the beautiful eyes" and even in the form of "Ishtaran" (a form of Dumuzi worshipped as the "heavenly serpent") – where there are several references to his "beautiful face". This notion of beauty is once again reinforced and repeated for all other versions of this pagan god as he was called by many different names throughout cultures – for example also in the form of "Joseph" the biblical son of Jacob; who was claimed to be so beautiful that while a slave in Egypt the women could not resist him – or even in the form of Japheth the third son of Noah (who corresponds still to the same character) – where the word "Japheth" is connected to the root meaning "to be beautiful".
Thus the ideals of "strength and beauty" refer to him. (The pagan imagery of this god depicts him joyous and free as he dances through the flower-fields and while bringing the springing of vegetation to the seasons – often times represented with ears of corn or garlands adorning his head; as in the case of his Slavic counterpart "Potrimpo" for example).
Christ furthermore corresponds also to the pagan god Dionysus as mentioned in other posts; and Dionysus had a particular epithet in Rome which later ended up becoming his main name (or one of his many names alongside the more renown "Bacchus") and this particular title was that of "Liber" i.e. "the free one", one who embodies "freedom".
In the form of "Ishtaran" Dumuzi was worshipped as "Anu" as well – since they called Ishtaran with the epithet "AN.GAL" i.e. "great Anu"; thus meaning that Dumuzi was so beloved and his cult had risen to such prominence at some point – that some local traditions (smaller ones) worshiped him as God the Creator himself and substituted him in place of Anu or at the very least differentiated him from the main "Anu" by calling him "AN.GAL" – "the great Anu" or "greater Anu". This is why Hermaphroditus/Jesus corresponds also in Phoenician mythology to the one "Uranus" who was said to have been castrated near a fountain-spring – Uranus being the Greek equivalent of the Sumerian "Anu" and this is why he was addressed with the name "Uranus" and worshipped as one of the "Uranuses" (the younger Uranus, because the older Uranus is instead the father of Cronus/Saturn and he’s a much older Uranus).
Given how Dumuzi was worshipped as the male Ishtar and as Attar in Canaanite lands (from whom the name "Ishtar" came from because the name of the goddess "Ishtar" is actually in the masculine gender and the goddess inherited that name from the male god who was called "Attar", "Ashtar" and "Ishtar" himself); one has to take into account that the male god was worshipped as androgynous though – which is why he was later equated with the female goddess Inanna in Mesopotamia and became indistinguishable from her to the point that she also came to be called Ishtar herself. The rosette (as well as the eight-pointed star) is the symbol of Venus and of this male god of Venus who corresponds to Christ himself.
But at the same time the rosette is also the symbol of the female Venus as well and of the goddess Inanna (the female form of Ishtar) so the rosette refers to both Ishtars; the male and female one referring to the planet Venus in general.
Now, seeing as to how the figure of the "son of god" was worshipped as "the creator" himself by some more local cultures who idolized him to such degree that they ended up seeing him as the superior god over others – this explains one of the symbologies present on the modern representation of the apparent "pagan god" of the Templars; where he’s depicted with the head of a goat and the five pointed star facing downward. The five pointed star being a symbol of the divine – it represents through the symbology present on the idol the fact that the god in question is not the one who resides in the sky (in which case the five pointed star would have to be pointing upwards instead); but they worshipped on the other hand a creator who was "the creator on earth" thus being "the one below" – so their god was represented by the pointed star facing downwards. (This is for the representations that depict the idol with the star facing down; otherwise in other cases the star is absent altogether).
Now, according to the Atbash ciphering interpretation done on the name "Baphomet" which becomes: "Sophia" – if the interpretation is indeed correct (that Baphomet=Sophia) it would make total sense given how the name of Christ himself was actually "Sophia" and the why that is was explained in this previous post: https://www.reddit.com/EsotericOccult/s/P3ZkDJvXdM – where essentially there was talk on the Christ’s physical appearance and the fact that he was born with androgynous traits. This for example made it so that the character in question also displayed overly-sized pectorals that were rather exposed when compared to the rest of his body and were also rounded and protruding; sometimes even resembling female breasts (and that’s where the symbology of the rooster sticking its chest out and of Christ "with breasts" came from: – the rooster in the act of sticking its chest out: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/81/a6/a5/81a6a5da3c527f3ce0fe1648a7650001.jpg – and the depiction of Christ "with breasts" on the Notre-Dame church: https://gcm.rmnet.be/clients/rmnet/content/medias/christus_750.jpg). This (physical) androgynous nature of the "son of god" was then explained through metaphors and in spiritual terms by Christianity and Gnosticism with the fact that when Sophia incarnated she incarnated as "Jesus Christ".
But – there was also a female-incarnated Sophia; which incarnated as a woman and the figure in question is sometimes identified with the "Theotokos" i.e. "mother of god" Mary – or alternatively substituted by Mary Magdalene the consort of Jesus (being called the "Bride of Christ"). The fact that the Templars were claimed to have worshipped the prophetic head of a female alongside their god refers to the cult of the pagan goddess who corresponded to the Magdalene – where; she was claimed in pagan mythology to have been decapitated or to have been "half-decapitated" (her throat cut significantly to the point of almost detaching her head from her neck) and the goddess in question possessed oracular as well as prophetic gifts. The notion of Magdalene who corresponds to this pagan goddess was addressed in this previous post: https://www.reddit.com/EsotericOccult/s/iHlaRrZnzL. (The head that the Templars held was of course symbolic and not the literal real head. But what was important is what that symbol represented to them – rather than to whom the skull belonged because it was a simple human skull taken from a cadaver).
So essentially the Templars were worshipping both Christ and Magdalene through pagan imagery (Christ being "Sophia" himself and Magdalene being the "female Sophia" who’s the counterpart of the Messiah); something which was not acceptable to the Church – and also because they were worshipping Christ in his real nature as opposed to the heavily filtered and altered version that Christianity gave of him – thus opposing the "official" canon established by the Church altogether.

1. The Bat in the Belfry - 3/5 (In terms of a Batman introduction episode, this does a decent job. It skips the origin story because superhero cartoons are allergic to them for some reason. But this at least vaguely alludes to Bruce's parents being gone, on top of introducing the struggle of being both a famous playboy and the Batman. As a result, the story is fairly generic though. Joker wants to release a laughing gas across Gotham. Gee, I haven't seen that one a dozen times. That said, this iteration of Joker has a really unique and wacky design. Along with zany acrobatic moves that are fun to watch and a great performance from Kevin Michael Richardson, it more than makes up for the subpar story. I also liked the side focus on Bennett and Fa Mulan- Sorry, Detective Yin. They're fun characters.)
2. Call of the Cobblepot - 3/5 (Penguin is quite acrobatic for a pudgy little guy. Alongside Rupert Thorne doing parkour in the previous episode, it seems the show wants to sell me on the idea that these chubby guys are just as combat capable as the Batman. And did they really have to give him the Danny DeVito hands? That's not a mandate anymore! I liked Alfred getting involved in this episode, though he doesn't really do much besides go to the Cobblepot manor. But it's funny that he does so in search of a tray.)
3. Traction - 4/5 (Colorful iteration of Bane. Why is his skin all red? He looks like a monster. But it's a cool twist on the character, so whatever. Although his motivations don't match up to the rad design, since after getting paid to destroy the Batman, all he wants to do is "take over Gotham", which he apparently thinks will be accomplished by just wreaking havoc. What is this, The Spectacular Spider-Man? I did like Alfred having to come and rescue Bruce, and the cute flashback where Alfred comforts him.)
4. The Cat and the Bat - 3/5 (This one's good, but mostly for the action setpieces. I think the rugged artstyle lends itself very well to snappy action, particularly the final scene with the Batman and Catwoman against the Yakuza. And the stuff before with Batman having to catch up to Selina messing with his Batmobile controls was neat too. But I can't say Catwoman leaves much of an impression on me in this one.)
5. The Man Who Would Be Bat - 4/5 (Kirk Langstrom as a character works pretty well as a kooky old man. I liked the visuals for his echolocation. As for the actual story...I mean it's just a typical Man-Bat story. Langstrom becomes the Man-Bat and goes crazy, so Batman stops him. But I did like the larger inclusion of Bennett and Yin, as I like their additions in this show as foils-yet-vaguely-allies to Batman.)
6. The Big Chill - 3/5 (So in this show Mr. Freeze is just another generic jewel thief. Not that I want this series to just copy paste Batman: The Animated Series, but simplifying the villains like this makes it less compelling by default. In fact here, he was always a criminal, he just happened to get ice powers. That said, his design is actually quite rad, and I did like the addition that he has a vendetta against the Batman. Plus it's funny that he took revenge on a random hobo, just for being in his way a few years ago.)
7. The Big Heat - 4/5 (Gee, I bet the writers thought they were hilarious putting these two titles next to each other. I'd say what this episode does slightly better than the others is showing the "struggle" of balancing the Bruce life with the Batman life. And actually giving the villain a narrative connection to it, instead of his schemes just serving as a vague lesson to learn. Firefly himself had a pretty cool looking suit, and the sky action was pretty nifty. Plus it was cathartic when Batman took him down to ground level and stomped. Nitpick: They forgot to animate Batman's mouth in the reflection of the puddle. I hope somebody got fired for that blunder.)
8. Q&A - 4/5 (Bruce listening to hiphop in his earbuds at a classical music theatre... Yeah this sure is a unique Batman. This is the first episode where I was genuinely interested in the story and villain. For starters, since they didn't immediately show me who it was, I got to remain curious about the kidnappings. Then I appreciated that they were connected to a personal vendetta rather than just wanting to steal jewels. I think Batman discovered the mystery a bit too quickly though. He didn't research the victims connections, he just clicked a button and the Batwave did it for him. But I enjoyed Cluemaster. Funny design. He's HUGE. I chuckled at Batman casually walking into his his moms house and her thinking she's his friend. And I thought it was fun how he defeated Cluemaster by asking the Batman's identity. Side note, that is an enormous basement.)
9. The Big Dummy - 4/5 (Wow, it's Homer Simpson! Well actually, Scarface sounds more like Krusty the Clown when he's yelling. That aside, we're back to villains just wanting to steal stuff for profit. Yeah, sure, whatever. Scarface trying to slap Batman was funny, though. And I found the idea of making him a huge puppet where Wesker himself takes the puppet position by the giant arm a funny twist on the character. The vague subplot about Bruce having a date with some Becky chick feels kind of tacked on and unnecessary, but I digress.)
10. Topsy Turvy - 4/5 (First "villain comes back for revenge" episode. Joker's plan is unfortunately fairly generic, but his zaniness still makes it fun. Not to mention seeing the Batman locked in an Arkham cell and dressing up as Joker. Why did Batman lock in the guard when leaving though? Rude for no reason. Also, I'm glad the fake Joker in this episode had to stay quiet so he won't be found out, unlike in The New Batman Adventures where a goon dressed up as Joker can just perfectly imitate his voice.)
11. Bird of Prey - 4/5 (Okay, I'm just gonna say it: Stop showing front facing Alfred! Without that little patch of visible hair, he looks completely bald, and it's weird! That aside, I guess after the series of villain introduction episodes, it's time for a batch of sequels. This is the better sequel than the Joker one, since I liked that Penguin had a clear cut motive. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but Penguin's zaniness was more amusing. No doubt helped by Tom Kenny's performance. Him wreaking havoc around Wayne Manor and harassing Alfred was just funny. And it made Alfred hitting him with a chair in the end better. I thought his rooftop battle with the Batman was pretty creative, and I liked that Alfred dressed up as Batman to fool the journalist. Also how he intentionally kicked their video tape into the fire.)
12/13. The Rubber Face of Comedy/The Clayface of Tragedy - 4/5 (The cops literally have Joker at gunpoint but they let him proceed with his slow getaway. I'm starting to understand why Batman keeps one-upping them. Great two-parter though, but part 1 is really nothing but setup for the real meat which is part 2. Part 1 is just about Joker causing chaos again, except the tone is more dramatic on account of this being meant to be more serious than the average episode. And while Joker's antics are fun, given how little it had to do with part 2 other than him being the cause for Bennett becoming Clayface, they didn't really need to spend a WHOLE episode for just that setup. It results in part 1 being just good, while part 2 is fantastic. Sadly, combined, I can't give them 5/5. But part 2 gets that honorary score for itself. You could have cut Joker's generic havoc-wreaking in half and have the Clayface transformation start around the 10 minute mark of part 1, leaving you with about 30 minutes to develop it further. But then they couldn't have that cliffhanger, now could they?
As for the actual story... Depressing. I'd say it's a bit early to change the status quo of Bennett since while he is a good character, we haven't really seen MUCH of him, so it's not a huge blow to suddenly make him a villain. But it's a pretty good, genuinely saddening twist regardless. And while the emotional moments feel a little hurried (hence why you could have cut some Joker nonsense) I think they're effective enough. Yin crying, etc. And Bennett's transformation itself is genuinely horrifying stuff, so you really feel the fear he must be going through.)
14. The Cat, the Bat, and the Very Ugly - 3/5 (And now we're on villain team-up episodes. Except they're still just generic stories about them wanting to steal stuff! Well, okay, I guess Penguin DOES want to use the relics to... I don't know, blow stuff up? It just isn't very riveting is all. I do find Batman and Catwoman being stuck to each other interesting in theory, but they don't really do much fun with it. And why did Batman lie to Yin about it? I guess he's worried he'll look suspicious if he's with Catwoman, but also, he could have just told the truth? The lie just incriminated him more. I also question this because the episode ends with Yin TRUSTING Batman, which makes no sense if she literally caught him in a lie the FIRST time she called him about a case.)
15. Riddled - 3/5 (That's certainly a unique version of Riddler. I respect it, simply because it's fun that the show dares to completely revamp characters like this. But the episode itself is mostly just decent. Yin and Bats going across town solvring riddles is mildly fun, but the actual confrontation with Riddler is just okay. I did like the 20 questions game, but couldn't Batman easily get out of that by not answering? I found it funny how dense the Police Chief was to understand even the simplest riddles, especially with how bluntly Yin had to explain the last one. Side note: Riddler uses the term "brainiac" in this. But that term exists because of the Superman character. So has a Brianiac attack on Metropolis happened here and been made publicly known or what?)
16. Fire & Ice - 4/5 (Gee, with a title like that, I sure was scratching my head wondering which two villains it could be about. I'd say while this episode is good, it felt a bit thinly set up as nothing but "what if ice villain with fire villain??". I did find it amusing that they turned on each other near the end and the conflict just became Heat vs. Cold. That scene with Yin yapping about knowing Bruce's secret though... Give me a break. Even if they WERE gonna have her find out his secret identity, that's most certainly saved for a Serious:tm: season finale or something with heavy stakes, not a random Firefly episode.)
17. The Laughing Bat - 4/5 (Golden concept for an episode. Joker trying to imitate the Batman is unhinged and hilarious. And Penguin being caught in the crossfire completely discombobulated by the switcheroo was great. Praise aside, I was a little disappointed that Batman turning into Joker didn't go further than...he can't stop laughing. Couldn't have Joker-ified him any more? White skin? ANYTHING else to have him also vaguely look the part? Overall I also felt there was too much focus on Bruce laughing as opposed to Joker being the Batman, when that was the best part.)
18. Swamped - 3/5 (While I appreciate that this is a villain introduction episode that goes beyond them being a jewel thief", Croc wasn't too interesting. He wants to flood Gotham because he likes water, but then Batman stops him. Although I liked the way he did it by forcing him to stay in water. :ohgood: Also neat that this episode introduces the Batcave "museum". This series gradually introducing all of these iconic aspects of Batman lore as opposed to having it all pre-established is fun.)
19. Pets - 4/5 (Season 2 really IS the season of villain team-ups. I was rolling my eyes at the prospect of another generic Penguin episode of him wanting to steal stuff, but got my excitement back up when they showed Langstrom. Although they could have devoted some more time to Langstrom actually being aware of Penguin's scheme and wanting out instead of just... One. And overall, it IS just another episode where Penguin tries to steal stuff, so yeah.)
20. Meltdown - 4/5 (Wow, this was JUST like the Batman Beyond episode "Meltdown". While a good episode, I have to say the Bennett-Clayface conflict feels a bit forced at times. Him repeatedly getting into encounters with Joker, the very man who caused him to become Clayface, and struggling with not morphing to take his rightful revenge? Valid. Understandable. But him randomly being willing to kill Batman and become an outlaw on a whim? I don't know. His fight scene against Joker on stilts was pretty fun though. That said, Bennett is a good guy and all that, so I'm hopeful for a redemption arc where in the end he becomes a superhero with his powers.)
21. JTV - 4/5 (It's another Joker shenanigans episode. What is there to say? Not that that's a bad thing, since Joker shenanigans ARE fun. He concocts some nutty TV show-themed scheme, and then Batman stops him. Cash was a bit of an annoying inclusion though. Did he even serve any narrative purpose? I guess he vaguely emphasizes how well Yin and Batman work together, by him working badly with her. I did like the "animated" JTV promo. But who even made that? I guess one of Joker's henchmen can animate.)
22. Ragdolls to Riches - 4/5 (Oh boy, the umpteenth episode about a villain stealing some jewels. Wait, it's TWO villains this time. Wow, this changes everything! Jokes aside, it actually kind of does, because Ragdoll is entertaining enough on his own. His costume is cool and unique in its simplicity, and his distorting body leads to some very expressive movements and action which make for a fun watch. And if that wasn't enough, his rivarly with Catwoman and repeatedly trolling her on purpose was pretty darn amusing. Though despite being the titular character, the episode is mostly about the Bruce/Batman/Selina/Catwoman mystery. It is fun seeing the "4" of them interact and not realize who the other is. Especially when Batman, the world's greatest detective, believes Selina's blatant charity scam and hands her a huge check. It's funny seeing Bruce be this oblivious.)
23. The Butler Did It - 3/5 (Another flipping jewel thievery episode! At least there's a mystery element to it this time, in that you initially don't know who the villain is. And when you do find out it's Spellbinder, there's the twist that he swaps his mind control targets from butlers to their employers. And it was really fun to see Alfred be the one to figure this out and escape the room he put himself in to save Batman's ass. I liked the bit where Batman hesitated to punch Alfred. And I think some of the hallucinations were fairly creative. That said, it was still a jewel thievery episode! Get some new plots, show.)
24. Grundy's Night - 4/5 (While I did have thoughts on this version of Grundy, those feel irrelevant when it turns out he was just Clayface in disguise anyway. That said, props for making a twist I could genuinely not predict. However, the reason I couldn't have predicted this is because after all that development of Bennett and his descent into Clayface, I wouldn't have expected his next appearance to just be him doing something generically villainous that Batman must put a stop to. It comes off as a bit awkward, because you'd think this would be more emotionally significant considering he was Bruce's best friend. But not only do we not even see his Bennett form in this episode, Batman doesn't even refer to him as such, just "Clayface". And then he goes home all cheery as if he stopped any ol' twerp. Huh?)
25. Strange Minds - 4/5 (While this episode falls into "Joker shenanigans" territory again, at least the focus here is less about just stopping him and instead delving into his mind. It leads to the zaniness being cranked up more, which is fun to see especially with how expressive Joker is in this show. Although I feel like they could have been a bit more creative with the visuals. I liked the flying fish, Joker as the moon, and the normal Joker managing the idea vault. But other than that it doesn't get more wacky then just a crowd of Jokers. But I liked the solution of how Batman made him disclose the information by making him think they had exited his mind. Cliché, but clever. It's a bit weird how Hugo Strange spots Batman in Joker's mind and immediately assumes it's the actual guy, though. For all he knows that could have been mentally conjured up by Joker. Batman would likely be on his mind a lot. Also, Harley Yin.)
26. Night and the City - 4/5 (Woah, TRIPLE villain teamup? Daring today, are we? I liked that Penguin didn't even know who Riddler was. And despite that, he's clearly stomping both Penguin and Joker in this contest. He came up with the idea to catch Batman in the first place, had the most elaborate bat-bait AND was the last guy standing in a fight against him. Joker and Penguin just followed Batman and quickly fumbled. I guess with Commissioner Gordon and the Bat-Signal being introduced in this episode that this marks the end of Batman being an enemy of the GCPD. Not that I mind, since while I liked the development of it, with Bennett gone and Yin already on his side, there wasn't a lot further you could push it. It's a shame this is Yin's last appearance, though. I don't really understand why, since while she's fired in this episode (for like what, a few hours?), she gets the job back and everything goes back to normal. Frankly it would have been more interesting if she WAS fired and then became a vigilante herself/sidekick to Batman as referenced in this very episode.)
Movie: The Batman vs. Dracula - 3/5 (Starting the story with Joker and Penguin? Yeah, this is a The Batman movie alright. They really can't help but spam these two villains. That said, decent movie, but I'm really scratching my head as to why they thought Dracula was the ultimate villain they could utilize for it. There is some thematic connection with him being able to transform into a bat, obviously... But that's as deep as it goes. And the few bits of Bruce recalling the death of his parents was like, come on, you really felt a need to rely on that as a plotpoint in a movie about Dracula?
The film, much like the show, is fairly barebones. Dracula rises and wants to take over Gotham, so Batman must stop him. The side story of Bruce having a romance with Vickly Vale feels very tacked on and pointless since not only was she not much of an interesting character, just a dime a dozen love interest, but she doesn't even appear in the series going forward. So, what? Also, did Bruce really need to hastily steal someone's lipstick and a platter to write "Alucard" and mirror it to figure out it spells Dracula backwards? Just rearrange the letters in your head.
The most interesting thing about the movie is it gets slightly more visually grim. Stuff Penguin bleeding in the beginning alone was a surprise, as tame as it was, because that's not something I would have thought the censors would allow. Of course I quickly realized it was plot relevant, but then they immediately go on to show Dracula "killing" a guy. Which, while I know having finished the movie that he was cured, the way the scene initially portrays it is obviously supposed to make you think that's what happened. There's also Joker practically bathing in blood and Dracula literally being burned alive in the end. Sheesh. So much for Batman's code. Vampire Joker is probably the best part of this movie. That blood bank scene is really cursed [good thing], and KMR's performance of Joker starving while Batman has him locked up was great. I mean Batman having to feed Joker his own blood just so he doesn't starve is a fairly unique plotpoint. Also his reaction to being un-vampire'd is pretty funny. "Where's Dracula?" "I'm looking at him".)

I'm looking for players that love to participate in roleplay. There's a fair amount of action, but I mostly focus all my energy on boss fights. This is NOT a beginner's campaign. This is only because I myself do not have the ability to teach the system since I'm a very free form when it comes to dnd. And I feel teaching someone would take too much of my time already. The only reason why I did 18 plus is I don't want to censor my game for some 16 year old that happens to live in Florida. Or for me to deal with any pedos I happen to accidentally pick up from the application process. We will be using roll20 and Discord to run it. So be prepped for that. And games will be weekly at 3pm EST on Wednesday. With this campaign, expect the setting to be a mix of Treasure Planet, a dash of Star Wars, and Star Trek for flavor. Then finally a hint of Call of Chathulu.
Here's some setting lore:
The year is 835. The war between the Astral Alliance and the Giff Empire had just started settling. And the Intergalactic Tribunal. A sort of United Systems government meant to unify the galaxy. While wars and inner conflicts are starting to mysteriously erupt in the star systems across the Re'alms Galaxy. Most pirates and common men say the tensions between each other are starting to rise once more. From the darkest corner of the universe, Translvata. Where Lupins and Vampire pirates are in constant conflict. To the ever-bright L'ong Nagaa, the birthplace of dragon kind, and for pirating. Xaryxispace, the cradle for the astral elves. Even the ever-untouched system of Exandria is on the very edge of a full-blown war. Doomspace is as doomed as ever... The only clue to some of this archaic chaos lies on Earth. A Planet far beyond the Re'alms Galaxy that seems to be close to being swallowed up by the mysterious darkness beyond known space... Earth. A system that many scholars and scientists theorize as a prophecy. That once earth is swallowed up by an encroaching darkness. It will make its way to our galaxy to destroy it... Will this group of adventurers save the Universe?! Or will it be consumed like all the rest...
And here are some small notes to keep in mind for what happened to our party already. Only so if you're already antsy to join and want to make a character.

• The Earth was fucking EXPLODED by the Illithid Empire. When the party tried to flee they got captured by one of the Mother ships. Thankfully they are saved by Adda Crawford and a wizard who was later found dead. The same planet they crash landed on and later escaped.
• Once leaving the planet. the party is confronted by Xaryxis Empire Police(Astral Elf Empire). They are brought to the Imperial Citadel before the Empress. Upon recognizing the party, and hearing their story. She realizes drastic measures must be taken. She then explains that a scientist by the name of Professor Ishmael Bulter has been researching how the Illithid Empire and their patron had been repelled 800 years previously. And the shrines he had been researching have something to do with it.
• Once they do show up in Doomed Space. The Professor reveals that shrines all across the galaxy do indeed have something to do with how the galaxy survived 800 years ago. To solve the puzzle to activate the shrine, that party is sent to a church nearby where the local villagers were acting sus. Guards keep them from going inside the church. Saying they'll need a special key for a guitarist named Don Von Mcron. Once they obtained the key and defeated the cultists. The party had then met face to face with I'quar Vara's avatar. (Mindflyer queen and goddess). Did some shady goddess shit before pulling the avatar back into the Far Realms through a portal.
• One shrine down, four more to go. The party heads for L'ong Nagaa. The Ancestral home for dragon kind and Space Piracy. The players find out about a race and join it. Solar Dragon attacks them. (ooooo~) After the race, winning the prize money. The player's are summoned by the Pirate Queen, Docar the Impish. She explains that the dragon's weren't support to be attacking mortal ships like that. And the missing 'Grand Caretaker' was supposed to keep the balance between the Lunar and Solar dragon queens that live in the solar system. The players are then ordered to find where this Grand Caretaker last was, with the Lunar Dragon Queen, Grand Madam Chandarma. They discover the Caretaker fucking DIED and a batch of eggs that were to hatch soon, destroyed. Grand Madam Chandarma explains that her prize egg was stolen. And she suspects the Solar Queen to have something to do with it. So in order to reach the sun where the nest in located, they must obtain upgrades for they're ship and for space suits. However on the way to Fort Greyskull (Where the shops that sell the items)... They come across some new companion. And the great battle between man and mule takes place... (ask me about it, kinda funny)
• After getting the tech they need, they went to turn in the body of the Grand Caretaker to the temple of other monks. One of the spiritual leaders insists that the party visits the sun of the system to stop the Mindflyer General. They settle a payment and they head over. Once they're over at the sun they discover that the nest is in fact. Inside the sun itself. Once they make through the hot webbed plasma labyrinth, the ancient solar brood mother is facing off aginst the Mindflyer General and her forces. A villainous monolauge and a boss battle later. They defeat the Mindflyer General by destroying the mother brain on her ship.
• With two shrines down, they touch base with the Xerxian Empress to touch base, and to also turn in the Mindflyer General's skeleton. (Turns out she used to be her daughter before she was a mindflyer). And with a creepy encounter and some foreshadowing. The players have now arrived in the United Empire of Bestellia. Where the party is about to be arrested and put to trial...

Anyway, the sign-up process is the same as usual. Fill out an application with the google forms link below, then I reach out on discord for an interview call to see if you're a good fit for the party. I'm looking for just one person this time around. But if you don't get accepted the first time around, I will add a list of cool folks I'll reach out to first if anyone else drops the group.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wsQ024HPJOuxICH_MJf0LG6IVz2u1WRNWkpYuPChVlQ/edit#response=ACYDBNjcmhPjYrBW-1qbK2RWtU2Lup99jjx581PHvyhKFr3y_4I2IEobnqtoZqfVEigXtb0
And I'll message anyone who applied from Graysondagent#4911 or from graysondagent (I still don't get if I still need to use the numbers or not so bear with me.) So DON'T reach out to me first unless you have applied. I will not awnser your request if you do

Shortly after Final Fantasy VII hit the gaming world in 1997, Cloud Strife’s howls of grief at the loss of his beloved companion Aerith Gainsborough were echoed by droves and droves of fans. These echoes gathered in swarms, reaching the developers in the form of petition signatures, each begging the makers of the game to allow Aerith’s resurrection. Though these prayers remained unanswered —until now—, there soon came more protests: this time, fans pleaded with the developers to consider making a remake of the original game. Both of these wishes were met with considerable derision, with large chunks of the fandom calling the requests delusional— which is why the Final Fantasy world had to prepare for another meteoric hit when the Remake project was finally announced in 2015. With Kitase, Nomura, Toriyama, Nojima, Uematsu and more of the original developers at the helm, along with longtime FFVII fan-turned-developer Hamaguchi, the Remake trilogy was met with great expectations. These were nevertheless surpassed, though one aspect of the trilogy’s first entry seemed to thoroughly puzzle some and enrage others. Far and wide, the resounding questions were “What are these Whisper things?”, “Why is Cloud having visions unrelated to Nibelheim and Zack?” and “Why and how in the hell did Zack survive?”
Friends, I believe the answer lies within this post. Welcome to my literary-analysis-based theory on the Remake trilogy’s most important and most secret plot point: Cloud’s hidden mission. I want to make this fun and suspenseful to read, so I will write my analyses in the same order and manner in which I encountered them while putting my theory together. You will be reading what initially sparked my curiosity, the path I took while researching for answers, the conclusions I made every step of the way, and only then will you read my theory, after which we’ll try and apply it to the Remake trilogy so far and see if it fits! I want you to experience the rollercoaster that I did when digging through SE content to bring you this post. Thank you so much for waiting for and anticipating this analysis, and I do hope you read every word to soak in every last bit of Clerith you can get. I also hope it’s really fun and touching for you (I cried at least once making this)! Let’s embark on our adventure through the compilation, other FF games and real-life events to find out what the Remake project is truly all about and anticipate the events of part 3.
N.B.: Please be aware that I have never seen this theory navigate online, so I have no idea if anyone has ever come up with a similar hypothesis. The big reveal I’m building toward might be something you’re already aware of or suspected. In that case, I hope this post doesn’t disappoint you if you’re one of the lovely people who requested it! At the very least, it will provide you with valuable literary and musical analysis, a ton of evidence you haven’t considered yet, and hopefully, entertainment too!
WARNING: Please be careful with the censored spoiler text, because I'll be referencing other FF games in this analysis and I don't want to ruin anything for you! Obviously, this analysis contains spoilers for the entirety of the FFVII compilation. Additionally, if you're not a fan of Clerith and you've stumbled upon this post, please stop here. I would hate it if something I worked on and posted made you angry, so please don't read this analysis. I have only good intentions and I just want everyone to enjoy the FFVII world as much as they can.

I. Groundwork: The Remake Timelines Theory

Before I take you on this ride, we must lay down the framework of the Remake Timelines Theory. In this section, we’ll be reviewing the general consensus of theorizers within the fandom on timeline/multiverse shenanigans, with some added specifications on my part. Please keep in mind that because the timeline mechanics are kept quite vague by the devs, there might be certain inaccuracies in my iteration of the timelines theory. Thankfully, these potential variances won’t have any effect on the legitimacy of the theory I’ll be presenting to you in this analysis.
I. a) Sephiroth’s Plan
The premise of the Remake trilogy is widely thought to be the result of post-OG Sephiroth attempting to succeed where he failed in OG. There are six key points we need to keep in mind to understand how this was possible.
I. a) i. Sephiroth in the Lifestream
Firstly, it’s important to remember that Sephiroth is dead and located in the Lifestream before OG even begins, and remains that way for almost all of OG's duration. He is only able to operate in the world of the living via his/Jenova's control over the living Sephiroth clones. In the OG timeline then, Sephiroth is sent to the Lifestream by Cloud twice: once before the game takes place on the night of the Nibelheim incident (pre-OG), and a second time during the final battle against Sephiroth (disk 3, chapter 3). During the long period between the Nibelheim incident and Sephiroth’s rebirth at the Northern Crater (disk 2, chapter 2), he exists in the Lifestream. After his ultimate defeat (post-OG), he returns there for good.
II. a) ii. Sephiroth Unintegrated
Secondly, because he is full of hatred and unyielding determination, Sephiroth’s spirit cannot become one with the planet. After both occasions where Cloud kills him in OG, Sephiroth retains his individual will and the memories of his lifetime, remaining a separate entity in the Lifestream. He says so himself in Nojima’s Advent Children prequel novel On a Way to a Smile:

“[Sephiroth] could sense the Lifestream trying to erode his spirit— the memories of his former experiences, thoughts and emotions. If he allowed himself to be taken into the current, the being he once was would soon disseminate and disappear amongst the spirit energy cycling around the planet. [He] thought this unacceptable. The planet was to be his to rule, and to become a part of that system would be nothing short of defeat” ("Lifestream Black 1").

Combined with Bugenhagen’s basic lesson on planetology (FFVII OG, disk 1, chapter 19), this excerpt provides interesting information on how the Lifestream normally works. Usually, when a life returns to the planet, its individuality (personality, will, consciousness, memories, etc.) is stripped away. The trappings of a soul’s former lifetime are progressively dissolved so that all that is left is the spirit itself, ready to integrate into the Lifestream. This way, soul energy can be “recycled” by the planet to animate new lifeforms in a sort of reincarnation process. The erasure of one’s memories in the Lifestream is necessary for the creation of a brand new life, poised to make its own memories: the slate must be wiped clean, so to speak. Sephiroth’s sheer hatred for and desire to dominate the planet is enough to keep him from undergoing this process.
It is also thought that Sephiroth cannot be integrated into the Lifestream because he was conceived with the use of Jenova cells in vitro. Given that so much of his consciousness and genetic makeup originate from an alien life force, it is impossible for him to become one with the planet.
Regardless of the reason, it is precisely this persisting individuality in death that allows Sephiroth to meddle in the world of the living during the post-OG events of Advent Children, as explained to us by post-OG Aerith in On a Way to a Smile:

“[Aerith] had sensed a different presence within the Lifestream cycling around the planet. It was the vehemence of a strong will, one that would never join with the planet. She knew this consciousness. It was [Sephiroth]. A merciless spirit hidden behind a beauteous wall. That spirit was now operating from within the Lifestream. [She] sensed that he was planning to exert his influence to the surface of the planet“ ("Lifestream White 1").

I. a) iii. The Lifestream Beyond Time
Our third point is that the Lifestream has existed for as long as the planet, and has therefore touched every part of its history— including, of course, the events of OG. On that account, one could think of the Lifestream as atemporal. Considering this, it is possible for a spirit in the Lifestream to communicate with or even travel to the past, provided the necessary circumstances and/or abilities. For instance, the Aerith that appears in Cloud’s resolution scene in Remake (chapter 14) is commonly considered to be a post-OG Aerith, appearing to him from the future to try and dissuade him from falling for her. This time-defying event is made possible by the fact that post-OG Aerith’s spirit has access to the atemporal Lifestream because she's deceased. In my view, this explains why she dissolves into green light (Lifestream visual cue) at the end of the resolution scene (5:19-5:45). This is not time travel per se, but it is a manner of communication unobstructed by the one-directionality of a linear timeline that only spirits can perform.
I. a) iv. Sephiroth Beyond Time
What we’ve covered so far amounts to our fourth point. Please familiarize yourself with the graph below before you continue reading. Refer back to the graph when you encounter text in bold.
The Remake Timelines Theory: FFVII OG Timeline
As we discussed in section “I. a) i.”, Sephiroth is dead and located in the Lifestream for the duration of the green arrow and beyond point D: in the context of the OG timeline, he can only ever be considered “alive” during the period highlighted in purple. In section “I. a) ii.”, we asserted that Sephiroth retained his individual will in the Lifestream, enabling him to exert his influence on the world of the living by manipulating his clones on the surface. In section “I. a) iii.”, we covered the atemporal nature of the Lifestream, which allows post-OG Aerith’s spirit to communicate with her past, living self thanks to her Cetra abilities. Now, I will explain to you how Sephiroth was able to do virtually the same thing, albeit his lack of Cetra blood.
To the characters of the story and a fully immersed first-time player of OG, the timeline above was not always an established series of events: when they first started playing FFVII OG, the player began at point B, with nothing existing beyond it. It is only as the player moved Cloud forward that the black, arrowed timeline was drawn, accumulating lived events (or points) in Cloud’s wake. The picture you see above is only available to Cloud and to the player with hindsight. All this to state the obvious: at point B, Cloud could not know what would occur, say, at point C.
During the period highlighted in purple, Sephiroth was “alive” again, accumulating new memories on the surface of the planet and adding them to his consciousness. When he entered the Lifestream for the second time at point D, he brought these memories with him. Simply put, after returning to the Lifestream at point D, Sephiroth remembers what happened during the period highlighted in purple. However, given that the Lifestream exists beyond time, upon Sephiroth’s consciousness’ return to the Lifestream at point D, his newly acquired memories were also made available to him at all points on the green, double-arrowed line— including point A, before the OG timeline even begins at point B. So while it is true that Cloud cannot know what will occur at point C if he is only at point B, Sephiroth indeed knows what will occur during the period highlighted in purple when he is only at point A. While a living, pre-OG Aerith would be able to receive post-OG Aerith’s spirit’s knowledge through the Lifestream thanks to her Cetra powers, Sephiroth has no need for this ability. The fact that he resides in the Lifestream for practically the entire FFVII OG timeline renders the limitations of time irrelevant: as far as the FFVII OG timeline is concerned, Sephiroth exists beyond time itself.
In summary, after point D was first encountered in OG, pre-OG Sephiroth (in the Lifestream) is made aware of his eventual defeat, and begins plotting an alternate path to victory. This time, with the benefit of hindsight, he will do things differently: we experience his "second” attempt at FFVII as the Remake trilogy.
I. a) v. Sephiroth Against Fate
Of course, the Whispers stand squarely in Sephiroth’s way. This leads us to our fifth point, which Remake Ultimania describes better than I ever could:

“According to Red XIII, who gained knowledge through his contact with Aerith, ‘The Whispers are drawn to those who attempt to alter destiny’s course and ensure they do not’ […]. It would appear that what the Whispers deem to be ‘fate’ is the original story of Final Fantasy VII” (section 08 “Secrets”, “Newly Arisen Mysteries”, “What Is the Goal of the Elusive Whispers?”, page 733).

OG’s plot line is the fated timeline, and the Whispers are tasked with its preservation. They prevent alternative paths from even beginning to branch out from the OG timeline, which poses a problem for Sephiroth: he cannot win FFVII if his destiny is to lose it.
I. a) vi. Sephiroth and the Multiverse
Consequently, our sixth point is that Sephiroth must dismantle the mechanisms of fate before he can even try to accomplish his dreams of godhood.
As Sephiroth explains in chapter 14 of Rebirth, “the planet encompasses [an ever unfolding] multitude of worlds”, and these “[new worlds are born] when the boundaries of fate are breached.” Since the Whispers uphold the “boundaries of fate”, a world in which Sephiroth’s evil plans succeed can only emerge after the Whispers have been defeated. Otherwise, destiny will continue to protect the OG plot line by preventing any significant deviations. Consequently, before the party vanquishes fate, the Remake timeline and the OG timeline are one and the same: before chapter 18, Remake Barret is OG Barret, Remake Tifa is OG Tifa, Remake Hojo is OG Hojo, etc. After the defeat of Destiny, the OG timeline is no longer protected by fate: there are now an infinite number of timelines or worlds, including those we see glimpses of in Rebirth: Remake Barret is no longer necessarily OG Barret, Remake Tifa is no longer necessarily OG Tifa, Remake Hojo is no longer necessarily OG Hojo, etc. Perhaps this is why Aerith gives the party the following warning at destiny’s crossroads in Remake:

“[This] is the wall of destiny. If we go through it… if we go beyond it… then all of us will change, too” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Destiny’s Crossroads”).

I. a) vii. Sephiroth’s Plan
Now that these six points have been elucidated, we can compose a solid hypothesis on how Sephiroth plots to win FFVII.
After gaining knowledge of his eventual demise (disk 3, chapter 3), pre-OG Sephiroth began thinking of what he must do in Remake from the Lifestream. First, Sephiroth must antagonize the Whispers in the initial stages of the OG timeline. He accomplishes this by commanding his clones to commit acts that drastically violate the fated timeline, engendering plot-line deviations that the Whispers must course-correct. The most extreme example transpires in Remake’s chapter 17 when the Sephiroth clone in President Shinra’s office kills Barret, forcing the Whispers to restore the fated plot line by coming forth and reviving him. The Whispers react to Sephiroth’s prodding by rushing in to protect fate, their efforts culminating in the protective wall of destiny that surrounds Midgar in chapter 18.
Secondly, after he’s created an opportunity for a battle against the Whispers, Sephiroth must convince the party to seize it and beat fate for him. After all, a mere Sephiroth clone is probably no match for Destiny. This second step is accomplished in Remake’s chapter 18 when Sephiroth successfully tempts Cloud to breach the boundaries of fate. Now that destiny is no longer a limitation, worlds deviating from the OG timeline can finally emerge; Sephiroth has a chance at victory.
The steps Sephiroth plans to take going forward are unknowable at this stage, but we do get more hints in Rebirth’s chapter 13. At the Temple of the Ancients, Sephiroth reveals a part of his plot:

“Sephiroth: My fragmented mother, these errant worlds... All shall be one again.
Aerith: The ‘Reunion’…!”

It seems Sephiroth eventually plans to merge the worlds created by destiny’s defeat in Remake’s chapter 18. My guess is he hopes to achieve godhood in part 3 and consolidate all diverting worlds into a single timeline protected by destiny once more— only this time, his victory will replace the ending of OG as the destined outcome. If he succeeds, Sephiroth’s Black Whispers will likely replace the planet’s Whispers as the arbiters of his desired fate.
I. b) Aerith’s Intervention
But Aerith can’t let this slide unchallenged!
We know that before chapter 18 of Remake, while the OG plot-line is still protected by fate, Aerith has knowledge of its future. This is insinuated by certain slips of the tongue: for instance, when Aerith reveals she knows Cloud is a mercenary upon meeting him for the second time in chapter 8, just like she knows Tifa will ask her to retrieve Marlene at Seventh Heaven in chapter 12. In the run-up to Remake, post-OG Aerith's spirit likely sensed Sephiroth planning his second try at FFVII in the Lifestream. She’s been able to anticipate Sephiroth’s plotting in the Lifestream before, namely in the context of Advent Children:

“[Aerith] had sensed a different presence within the Lifestream cycling around the planet […]. It was [Sephiroth] […]. That spirit was now operating from within the Lifestream. [She] sensed that he was planning to exert his influence [on] the surface of the planet” (On a Way to a Smile, "Lifestream White 1").

If you’re wondering how Aerith was able to maintain her individuality in the Lifestream like Sephiroth, On a Way to a Smile provides the following explanation:

“[Aerith] was an Ancient, which explained how she was able to maintain her individuality even within the Lifestream. If she so wished she could become part of the planet at any time, but [she] thought it too early for that just yet” ("Lifestream White 1").

It is thought that, as a countermeasure to Sephiroth's scheming, post-OG Aerith’s spirit used the atemporal nature of the Lifestream to inform her past, living self (pre-OG Aerith) of this new threat to the planet. Because the Cetra can commune with spirits, pre-OG Aerith would have been able to receive post-OG Aerith’s message from the Lifestream without a problem. Essentially, pre-OG Aerith received post-OG Aerith’s memories of the fated OG timeline. As a consequence, pre-OG Aerith embarks on the OG timeline with knowledge of the fated future that demands she give her life: the player experiences this version of her in Remake.
Be that as it may, it’s unclear how much Remake Aerith is aware of. You would think she’d be completely opposed to defeating, destiny since it protects the planet, but Aerith shows ambivalence toward the idea instead. Had she gotten a clear message from her future self that she must keep fate intact, she would not have allowed the party to enter the battle against fate in chapter 18. She doesn’t seem to know what the Whispers are the first time she encounters them either. Regardless, what’s important is that the Aerith seen in Remake is the result of pre-OG Aerith receiving knowledge from post-OG Aerith via the Lifestream.
I. c) Ambiguity: Memory Transfer or Time-Travel?
There remains an ambiguity pertaining to the Aerith we see in Remake and the question of time travel. What I’ve described to you in section “I. b)” is post-OG Aerith's spirit transferring her memories to her past self through the Lifestream. However, it’s possible that post-OG Aerith’s consciousness used the atemporal nature of the Lifestream to inhabit her living OG body instead, effectively time-traveling. There is no evidence to outright refute either explanation, since the gaps in Aerith’s memories of the OG plot-line in Remake can be explained in both cases. For instance, in a memory transfer scenario, it’s possible that post-OG Aerith only communicated the most essential information to pre-OG Aerith. On the other hand, in a time-travel scenario, one could interpret the following quotes as proof that the Whispers are progressively erasing Aerith’s memories of OG as Remake advances:

“Aerith: Every time the Whispers touch me, a piece of me falls away” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”)

&

“At any rate, Aerith is perplexed at how, like a flower being scattered, something inside is being taken away by the Whispers and lost to her” (Toriyama in FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”, “Scenario Staff Q&A - Answered by Motomu Toriyama”).

This ambiguity is completely irrelevant to Sephiroth’s situation in Remake, as we established in section “I. a) iv.”.
The specifics don’t matter nearly as much as I’m impressing upon you by explaining all these little alternatives. Simply keep in mind that: regardless of why, the Sephiroth and Aerith we see in Remake know the events of the OG game because they have acquired this knowledge from the future, and the events of Remake occur squarely within the OG timeline until the Whispers are defeated in chapter 18.
So there! That’s my iteration of the Remake Timelines Theory! I hope I’ve made it clear in your mind, or at least clearer. Now that we’ve established the widely theorized premise of the Remake trilogy, we can get into our theory on its hidden premise.
II. My Initial Curiosity
My theory first burgeoned upon going through Remake for the second time. I noticed something strange going on with Cloud, something that could not be explained by the Remake Timelines Theory. Key moments in Remake Cloud’s experience of the OG timeline (aka, everything before chapter 18) stuck out to me as strange and mysterious, and certain inexplicable audiovisual cues struck me as hugely significant. It was upon watching the tear fall from Cloud’s eye during my second go at chapter 8 that I knew I had to look into this.
At the very end of Remake’s chapter 8, Cloud watches Aerith walk away from him, humming happily into the night air as she sets off to lead the way to Sector 7. According to the VA script notes, “his heart skips a beat” and watching her walk away provokes a sudden “anxiety” within him. Triggered by the familiarity of the sight, a strange sensation overcomes Cloud:

“[There’s a] close-up shot of Cloud’s fingertips (they’re tingling). He presses them to his temples (his eyes are burning). A trickle of tears quickly rolls down from the eye hidden behind his hand” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “A Midnight Ambush”).

If you’re clever, you’ll recognize these lines as a reference to the speech Cloud makes in OG following Aerith’s death at the City of the Ancients (“My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!”) (disk 1, chapter 28). In this small moment in chapter 8 of Remake, Cloud experiences a flash of the profound grief he is destined to feel upon Aerith’s fated death.
Many players immediately recognized the composition of this scene: the blue-greenish air, the straight path Aerith heads down, the sight of her walking away itself… this moment closely resembles Cloud’s Sleeping Forest dream of Aerith in OG, wherein Cloud and Aerith’s very last words are exchanged (disk 1, chapter 25). Toriyama, codirector of the Remake project, comments on this scene thusly:

“It’s possible these similarities […] cause a memory of the future to be called forth in Cloud” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “A Midnight Ambush”).

The language used by Toriyama here is strange in both the English translation and the Japanese original: the term “memory of the future” makes no sense. One cannot remember things they haven’t already experienced, so why did Toriyama use the word “memory” to describe a "future" event? Couldn’t he have simply said that Remake Cloud experiences “visions of the future” rather than “[memories]”?
Cloud experiences a few moments like these throughout the game. These pseudo-premonitions are just as markedly exclusive to Remake as the Whispers are. I did not want to dismiss them as a foreshadowing device the devs included just to elicit emotional reactions from OG players; I felt they were more important. And thus began my digging! My mission was initially to figure out what these “[memories of the future]” (MOTFs) could signify… I had no clue it would turn into what I’m writing right now.
II. a) Each MOTF and Its Context
I began by finding every one of Cloud’s MOTFs so I could better understand them.
MOTF 1 occurs in chapter 2 on Sector 8’s Loveless Street, when Cloud sees Aerith struggling against the Whispers. The VA script notes reveal that even though this is only his first time seeing her, Cloud recognizes Aerith’s face:

“Recognizing Aerith’s face causes Cloud to experience [a hallucination]. Sephiroth is suddenly standing between him and Aerith” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Encountering Aerith”).

Sephiroth then taunts Cloud with words that, according to the script notes, “[live] inside of Cloud's heart”: “You can’t protect anyone. Not even yourself”. Cloud should not recognize Aerith’s face at this point in the OG timeline, nor should he associate it with not being able to protect people.
MOTF 2 occurs in chapter 3, at the plaza in front of the Sector 7 slums support pillar. Cloud experiences a MOTF of the plate falling, which is fated to occur at a much later point in chapter 12. The Whispers float near him, “watching Cloud alertly as he sees a vision of the future” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Newly Arisen Mysteries”, “What Is the Goal of the Elusive Whispers?”, page 733).
MOTF 3 occurs in Aerith’s church at the start of chapter 8, when Aerith mentions that her mother’s materia is “not good for anything at all”. Triggered by the mention and sight of the White Materia, Cloud’s fourth MOTF takes the form of a vision: he sees quick flashes of the materia falling into the lake of the Forgotten Capital and Aerith holding her hands together in prayer. These are evidently visions of her death in OG (disk 1, chapter 28).
MOTF 4 is the one we first discussed, occurring at the very end of chapter 8 as Cloud watches Aerith walk away from him to lead the way toward Sector 7.
MOTF 5 occurs in chapter 13 shortly after the Sector 7 plate has fallen on the slums. Cloud tells Barret that Marlene is safe at Aerith’s house, and they begin heading there. As Cloud thinks about Aerith, the VA script notes describe the very next moment as follows:

“Cloud: Tifa, you know anything about the Ancients?
Tifa: I’ve heard of them before, but…
Barret walks on ahead, showing little interest in the topic.
Barret: Read a book on planetology and they’re sure to come up. They’re a tribe that cultivated the planet a real long time ago. Used to talk to it. That sort of stuff.
Cloud: That must be why the Turks were after her.
[Psychic] interference starts up.
[Cloud has a] flashback of Sephiroth from five years ago, after learning of his ancestry at Shinra Manor […].
Sephiroth [(in flashback, voice tinged with madness)]: Within my veins flows the blood of the Ancients. I am the rightful heir to this planet!
The flashback ends and Cloud looks lost in thought. The interference starts up once more. Cloud makes agonized sounds. When he opens his eyes, Sephiroth is actually standing before him.
Sephiroth: You failed again— failed to protect [her]*.
Cloud is startled. He shrinks back. Tifa watches what’s happening. The other two can’t see Sephiroth. All they see is Cloud acting frightened.
Sephiroth: But loss will make you strong. […] Isn’t that what you want?
With that, Sephiroth departs.”

*Sephiroth does not use a gendered pronoun here, because the grammatical structure of the original Japanese sentence doesn’t necessitate it. I've seen some debate as to whether the proper translation is “her” (Aerith, who’s just been kidnapped), or “them” (Jessie, Biggs or Wedge, who have seemingly just died). I believe Sephiroth was referring to Aerith for a few reasons. First, Cloud’s hallucinations of Sephiroth always appear as a response to whatever he is perceiving or thinking about at the moment. At this point in the scene, Cloud has been thinking and talking about Aerith for some time, and not about Jessie, Biggs or Wedge. The Sephiroth hallucination must therefore be referring to “her” rather than to “them”. Secondly, Cloud was never tasked with “[protecting]” Avalanche, but he was in fact tasked with “[protecting]” Aerith as her bodyguard back in chapter 8: it makes far more sense for Sephiroth to be referring to Aerith when he speaks about someone Cloud “failed to protect”. Finally, FFVII Remake Ultimania describes this piece of dialogue as “[Sephiroth aiming] these profound words at Cloud, who not only failed to prevent the tragedy in the Sector 7 slums but allowed Aerith to be abducted” (Sephiroth’s profile in section 01 “Character & World”, “Impressive Words”, page 29): the specific mention of Aerith here seals my decision to translate the line with the pronoun “her”.
Contrary to Sephiroth’s words, this is the first time in Remake that Cloud “[fails] to protect [Aerith]”, and he hasn’t “[lost]” her either— not yet, at least. So why use the words "again" and "loss"? This fifth MOTF must be similar to MOTF 1, in that Sephiroth is referring to Cloud’s guilt surrounding Aerith’s death in OG.
MOTF 6 occurs in chapter 17, in Aerith and Ifalna’s old room at Shinra HQ. The Whispers swarm Aerith as she tells the party earnestly that she wants to do everything in her power to help her friends and the planet: according to the script notes, it is at this very moment that, “for some reason, Cloud feels his chest constrict tightly” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”). In the corresponding cutscene, this unpleasant physiological reaction to Aerith’s words makes Cloud glance down at his chest with a confounded frown. This physical response to her speech about wanting to fulfill her duty to the planet implies that Cloud somehow knows deep down that saving the world will cost Aerith her life.
At this point, I noticed that five out of the six MOTFs Cloud experiences in Remake are triggered by and/or revolve around Aerith specifically, the one exception being a MOTF of the Sector 7 plate fall. One could actually argue that this MOTF revolves around Aerith too, considering the plate fall marks the first time Aerith is taken away from Cloud since reuniting with her in the Sector 5 slums church. This is more than plausible, as MOTF 5 proves that in the wake of the Sector 7 plate fall, Cloud’s main concern is Aerith (see section “II. a)”). How fitting is it, then, that the merc of few words’ longest uninterrupted piece of dialogue in all of Remake is:

“We found an underground Shinra lab where they've done human testing. This wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. I know these people, and I know they're never gonna let Aerith go. She's the last living Ancient on the planet. Think about what that means to Shinra's scientists. Especially to that son of a bitch Hojo. We're all just numbers and meat to him—“ (Remake, chapter 13).

Cloud would’ve gone on too, had Elmyra and Tifa not stopped him.
At this juncture in my research, my questions were only stacking up. What are these MOTFs? Why is Cloud the only one experiencing them? Why do all of them implicate Aerith? What did the devs hope to accomplish with their inclusion in the game? What do they mean for Remake’s story? But most importantly:
II. b) What Does Cloud Know?
The first assertion we have to make is simple, yet essential: the only reason Cloud would experience MOTFs is that whatever’s triggered them is significant to him in one way or another. Some part of him must recognize his triggers for them to be triggers at all. It’s clear he doesn’t consciously understand the meaning of his MOTF triggers, just like his Jenova triggers: for example, Cloud doesn’t know why Zack’s name causes him to experience psychic interference, but it sure does. We as players know Cloud’s MOTFs are hinting at Aerith’s fated death because of our awareness of OG, but as a character navigating the OG timeline, Remake Cloud shouldn't even be unconsciously aware of Aerith’s eventual death in the slightest! Whatever the nature of the MOTFs, it’s essential to understand that if Cloud “[recognizes]” Aerith’s face the first time he sees her, it must mean some part of him knows Aerith’s face in the first place. If this recognition triggers a hallucination of Sephiroth telling Cloud he “can’t protect anyone”, it must mean some part of him knows he was once unable to protect Aerith. The same goes for every other MOTF: subconsciously, Remake Cloud somehow has memories of the OG timeline. Most interestingly, it looks like he either only has OG memories related to Aerith, or like his OG memories of Aerith are simply the only ones prominent enough to trigger his MOTFs. Why and how does Remake Cloud have memories of OG, and why are they so focused on Aerith in particular? What does he know?
When examining a situation with no explanation, it’s wise to examine similar situations that have already been explained. Maybe the mystery of Remake Cloud’s MOTFs will become more approachable if we consider the cases of the only other Remake characters who seem to know the future: Aerith and Sephiroth. Remake Sephiroth knows the future of the OG timeline because his consciousness exists beyond time in the Lifestream, while Remake Aerith likely obtained her knowledge of the future from post-OG Aerith’s spirit via the Lifestream. But what about Cloud? Where does his weaker, fragmented knowledge come from?
(continued in part 2)