I'm a 19 F and has recently lost all my high school friends just because I moved a lot during school and I've been really craving friendships nowadays. Preferably females but i guess males work as well. I love writing stories, (rarely but) love doing art, LOVE BG3 (Baldurs Gate 3 (astarion forever)) and just games in general on my xbox but mostly been playing that for the past few weeks. If you all want to be friends please message me!

In the field of psychology, advocacy is often as important as therapy itself. This is particularly true when it comes to supporting marginalized communities such as the LGBTQ+ population. One psychologist who has made significant strides in this area is Dr. Cassia Mosdell.
Dr. Mosdell, a licensed psychologist with over two decades of experience, has been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ students. Her work in this area has not only provided support for these students but has also sparked important conversations about inclusivity and acceptance in educational settings.
One of the most notable instances of Dr. Mosdell’s advocacy work occurred during her tenure at Shore Middle School in Piscataway. Here, she organized an LGBTQ+ awareness event and championed an inclusive curriculum. These initiatives were designed to create a safe and supportive environment for LGBTQ+ students, promoting understanding and acceptance among all students.
However, these efforts were met with resistance. Dr. Mosdell was allegedly fired from her position for her advocacy work. This incident highlighted the challenges faced by advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, particularly in conservative or traditional environments.
Despite these challenges, Dr. Mosdell’s work has had a profound impact. Her advocacy has brought attention to the unique struggles faced by LGBTQ+ students, highlighting the need for inclusive education and support services. Her story has inspired others to take up the cause, leading to increased awareness and understanding of LGBTQ+ issues in schools.
Furthermore, Dr. Mosdell’s work has underscored the important role that psychologists can play in advocating for marginalized communities. Psychologists are uniquely positioned to understand and address the mental health challenges faced by these communities. By advocating for their rights and needs, psychologists like Dr. Mosdell can help to create a more inclusive and supportive society.
In conclusion, Dr. Cassia Mosdell’s advocacy for LGBTQ+ students serves as a powerful example of the impact that psychologists can have beyond the therapy room. Her work has sparked important conversations, challenged prejudices, and paved the way for greater inclusivity in schools. While she has faced challenges along the way, her unwavering commitment to her cause is a testament to her dedication and passion.

To clarify, I’m not religious, just want a good book and people really like the Bible so, here I am!
What’s the best version of the Bible? As in cohesiveness, storytelling, and good old fashioned prose. I think I have a copy of the New Testament around, I read it back in middle school and didn’t care much for it. Is that version any good or should I go with a different version?

Age: 17
Demographics: female, (south) asian, public high, sweden
Hooks: none..
Intended Major: physics, mathematics but if it doesn't work out then classics
UW/W GPA and Rank: school doesn't do gpa's or ranks, but i recieved highest grade qualification for senior years (we have 2 senior years)
Coursework: we don't do aps/honours/ibs or anything of the like, but i take 5 subjects, 2 scholarship subjects, + received online certificates in various physics and maths courses (not sure if this counts??)

• maths, statistics, english (advanced), geography, biology, chemistry, physics, history
• highest grade (basically a+) on all assignments for my all subjects including certificates received

Awards: none..
Extracurriculars:

1. co-created, and leader of project at school that works to create conversational/informal english learning plans for ESL/migrant students, reached about 80 migrant students in school within a month
2. member of student leadership council, developing and overseeing all programs in school such as cultural share days, fundraisers, ramadan nights and a lot more. also worked to develop school spirit week, implementing various fun activities for students
3. volunteer tutomentor for junior students in maths, english and science, helping 20 or more students weekly
4. co-president of the literature society, creating first school magazine, hosting writing competitions, holding open mics and organising trips to literature festivals
5. received bronze medal for volunteering for various things (making food for the homeless, pest control, tree planting etc.)
6. volunteer at charity store that raises money for animal welfare, volunteering 11 hours weekly, serving up to 100 customers per day
7. member of volunteering club at school, hosting and aiding the development of activities for children at local library (weekly), and implementing english language activities and lessons for migrant students at local elementary
8. published blog, i write my own blog on physics (astronomy) and literature
9. gymnastics for 4 years, performed at some small competitions
10. piano for 4 years, nothing major but performed at family events like birthdays, anniversaries etc.

Essays/LORs/Other: i've got good essays, standing at 8-9/10 currently, i'm getting feedback from teacher at school who graduated columbia

• form teacher: 7/10, my physics teacher and we had good convos about this
• english (columbia) teacher: 9/10, i help her out a lot with activities
• charity shop manager: 9/10, i'm her first student volunteer and we regularly converse

Schools (in no specific order):

1. vassar
2. bowdoin
3. bates
4. williams
5. bard
6. middlebury
7. boston college
8. wesleyan
9. (not liberal arts) university of vermont

thank you, sorry for the messiness

(First post on reddit so this should be fun) Does anyone else ever struggle with feeling? I really don’t know how to describe it but it feels like all my emotions are kinda dulled so whenever I hear about people having these intense emotions I feel like I’m missing out on something important. The last I ever crushed on someone was middle school, the last time I ever really felt sad was when a close family member passed a couple years ago, nowadays I’m perpetually bored outside of the small feeling of satisfaction/annoyance I get whenever I game and whenever I’m not gaming I have music blasting through my earbuds/headphones because I hate the lack of anything going on in my life. I don’t really have any friends irl except for one I met in elementary school and the other in middle school, neither of which I really visit irl and I have a hard time taking care of myself so trying to meet new people feels like a chore especially with my low social battery. I should probably talk to my father about seeing a psychiatrist but I always just end up discarding the thought, and even if I do what if I get told I’m healthy? I doubt I am but if they told me that I really wouldn’t know what to do because I don’t feel healthy. I don’t feel like I experience things how people should and that makes me feel like an outlier. Idk. I don’t know where to drag this rant at this point since I’ve kind of just been mindlessly tapping away but overall im just tired of feeling like I’m abnormal. I should probably sleep since I did an all-nighter but I’ll probably be lurking or responding to other posts.

so far, I talked about the main idol, the sanctum, the sunken base, and the outlet for water to drain. also talked about his general posture, feet, and overall dimensions.
note: avoiding puranas, vedas and mantras is intentional on my part. I just want to first establish what is simply seen with our own eyes.
I will talk about the entire scriptural authenticity, as well as his actual Puja method in seperate posts.
from previous discussions , we know he is now standing in a small sunken box in the sanctum.
this is a source for rumors to emerge , that he is a Shaiva Murthy, because it looks like the Panavatta ( the base or somasutra ) of a shiva linga. there are also additional reasons for Shaiva debate, but this is one of them. I urge the reader to take note, as this will come up again later on.
what do the AGAMAS actually say about a devata idol ?
both Vaikhanasa and Pancharatra agamas agree nearly 90% here, with only diferences in terms.
a vishnu idol is of 3 types - standing, sitting and reclining. ( POSTURE BASED )
4 types based on countenance, ornaments, and surrounding structures or other deities ( BHOGA, VIRA, YOGA, AND ABHICHARIKA )
3 types based on surrounding structures ( ADHAMA, MADHYAMA, UTTAMA ) inferior, medium and superior types.
Based on above , we get a total of 36 combinations. all male deities, Pan-india, in every temple fall under one of those categories.
Sri Venkateswara does NOT. the Dhurva Beram cannot be definitively stated to belong to any one category.
he is standing - STHANAKA
he is having royal ornaments, and the crown of an emperor of supreme status - BHOGA ... but wait ?
there are no accompanying deities, and bhoga has one vital requirement. to be in the middle of a human settlement. he is standing alone in a dense mountain-terrain forest. so not completely BHOGA.
A YOGA Murthy would be installed on hills, near water bodies, away from regular family life. a yoga Murthy would have simple ornaments, and would have a matted-hair crown. JATA -makuta.
Sri Venkateswara is NOT HAVING A JATA MAKUTA. the ornaments are all rich and exuberant.
A VIRA Murthy is placed on borders of kingdoms, for destruction of enemies. generally the posture is aggressive and multiple weapons are seen. but here , the lord is very pleasantly smiling, seemingly in a good mood. he has 4 strongly built arms, but no weapons ( seperate topic coming up )
SO NOT BHOGA YOGA OR VIRA.
Abhicharika Murthys have inauspicious features upon them, such as the yagnopaveeta missing or in reverse (apasavya ) and also, upturned eyes and an angry or weakened face. no Vishnu idols are known of this category. its purely theoretical.
there was no temple at all - so not even adhama type .
then what is he ?
scholars have been perplexed. if made by man, no sculptor would wantonly violate the rules and create a strange idol. if a man created the idol, then ti was crafted even before the agamas came into existence. thats taking us back to the vedic age, when idol worship did not exist.
so yes, the idol is unique in the fact that there is no other idol like it on the planet. perhaps its the oldest idol in the world. I know people might disagree.
all other Venkateswara idols came later on, based on this original prototype.
I wanted to avoid mysticism in my post but cant help -
"venkatadri samaasthanam brahmaanse naastikinchana . vemkatesha samo devah na bhuto na bhavishyati. "
there is no place, in the entire cosmos, equal to the sacred Vemgadam hill.
there is no divinity equal to Venkatesha in past present and future. "

• Varaha, Brahmanda, and Skanda Puranas. ( with slight variations in the exact sanskrit )

SRI venkatesaaya Namaha . all to his loving, cosmic feet. thank you.

I’ve been an ex Muslim for 10+ years now, I’m very lucky because I denounced Islam when I was super young so I didn’t suffer too much. My family isn’t religious and my mom and sister also left Islam, so I totally wanna acknowledge the privilege I have, sometimes I read some of Yalls story and my heart breaks. However, I am living in the Islamic republic of Iran and it’s disgusting. I find 0 appeal in this religion because everything about it is so disgusting, I can find the appeal in Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, etc (I know some anti theists will come in and say “UhhhMM aLl rEliGioNs sUcK!” , literally don’t care it’s actually quite disgusting how you guys think any religion can come as close to Islam, even Mormonism is basically a Lowkey Islam but still not to islams level) Iranian women are suffering every single day with the stupid ass laws, we can’t live normal, everything is blocked. Etc. this religion wants to get rid of anything that brings you joy or a sense of humanity/ connection. There’s no music there’s no music ,no toys ,no laughter, no dancing, no singing, no love , no art, no games , no drawing, NO LIVING yet pedophilia, rape, murder and war are complete A- okay. I don’t understand the girls in the west who convert to Islam, do you not hear the cries and screams of girls in the Middle East? It’s not a “racist stereotype” , in Islam god really does hate women, Mohammad himself said women have half the intelligence and deen of men. I always believe that heaven will just be somewhere where it’s just complete peace, but Islam shows heaven as this whorehouse, how do you as a women read that passage in the Quran and think “wow I love that that’s so beautiful!” ??? Have yall hit your head somewhere? A Religion that promotes killing of non-Muslims does it never hit you that that’s very fucking weird that no other religion calls for that? Isn’t it weird how in most religions the biggest sin is to commit murder but in islam it’s “shirk” which literally means to just imitate another religion. for example you could be forgiven for waging war against non Muslims, rape , murder, take their kids and wives as slaves (quite frankly you’re following the religion) but if you’re a Muslim and have a Christmas tree oooff how dare you. I wish for the people who are living in the west could see this and understand this when this religion becomes a majority and takes over everyone is fucked. We’re also miserable. Don’t listen to the stupid ass victim card playing Muslims in the West, who talk about being oppressed, they are NOT oppressed in the Middle East. “I’m sad bc in my religion I’m allowed to beat my woman but it’s illegal here, this is discrimination 🥺” “ I can’t openly say I wanna kill gay people but my dean Islam is beautiful and peaceful” I see non-Muslim westerners, even now repeat the things Muslim say “ Islam is perfect. Muslims are not.” Bitch lmao WHAT? Just a bunch of useful idiots. So many women Conver to Islam it actually scares me. Do you guys hate yourselves that much? And I love how all the people were always advocating about the beauty and freedom that Islam give are all in the… west. For those of you that are in the west and saying “ oh Islam is not that bad it’s just racism” guess what! I look very much look Middle easterner, but still I get treated like shit as well in foreign countries because it’s a racism thing not a religion thing. No one hates you because you’re Muslim. They hate you because of the country that you came from and your country has committed atrocities. There’s no such thing as “Islamophobia” , the suffix “phobia” means irrational fear, fearing this religion is just human instinct. It’s not irrational. Sometimes on my for you page on Instagram or TikTok I’ll see these random white ladies open a page from the Quran and start sobbing talking about how beautiful it is. I’ve read the whole entire Quran front and back and to be honest it’s a mid book. I’ve read poetry books (like hafez) a billion times more beautiful than this bs book. How do you read this book that says the most basic philosophical things and then the next sentence is “ and you must kill all non-believers” and you’re like “wow omg 🥹” . So basically my rent is I don’t understand why people convert to this religion. I’m convinced that they’re all lied to. T I’m convinced that they’re all lied to or They’re sick in the head. I need someone to explain to me what is so beautiful about this religion?

The City University of New York's faculty union rejected a resolution calling for an Israel boycott. The decision may relate more to salary negotiations than to views on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Three years after voting to “consider” boycotting Israel, and weeks after defending a pro-Palestinian student encampment, the faculty union of the City University of New York overwhelmingly rejected a resolution calling for an Israel boycott.
The union’s president actively opposed the resolution, saying that it inappropriately singled out Israel. But insiders say the Professional Staff Congress’ rejection may have had more to do with the union’s salary negotiations than any principled view about the Israel-Hamas war, which has roiled the CUNY system.
The resolution called for the university system to carry out a number of steps that anti-Israel protesters have called for at CUNY and dozens of other colleges and universities across the country this spring.
“Ban all academic trips to the Zionist state, encompassing birthright, Fulbright, and perspectives trips,” the proposal said. “Cancel all forms of cooperation with Israeli academic institutions, including events, activities, agreements, and research collaborations.”
The measure, called Resolution in Support of CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment, also demanded that CUNY divest from all “companies complicit in the imperialist-zionist genocide” as well as for full transparency regarding CUNY’s investments.
The resolution also called for the NYPD, which arrested dozens of people when dismantling City College’s encampment weeks ago, to be banned from campus. It called on CUNY to reinstate professors fired for anti-Israel activism — though it did not specify who it was referring to.
The resolution endorsed a Palestinian right of return to Israel, which many Israelis view as tantamount to the end of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. And it called for a “fully-funded, free CUNY that is not beholden to zionist and imperialist private donors.”
The union’s 300-member delegate assembly, its central policy-making body, rejected the resolution by a vote of 117 to 40, according to a spokesperson.
Manfred Philipp, a former member of the delegate assembly who has maintained ties to the union, said he believes the resolution was voted down because it would have been detrimental to the PSC’s interests, not because of union members’ views on the conflict. The union has an obligation to negotiate salary contracts for its members, and the anti-Israel resolution could have hurt the union’s chances of securing a salary increase from city and state lawmakers who are sympathetic to Israel, Philipp said.
“The basis of the opposition to the resolution has nothing to do with the situation in the Middle East. It has everything to do with the interests of the union and the university,” said Philipp, who taught at CUNY’s Lehman College for decades before retiring around a decade ago.
“The union’s self-interest says they should not take a position on this at all,” he said, adding that he supported the result of the vote.
The PSC says it represents 30,000 faculty and staff across CUNY’s 25 colleges. Its delegate assembly includes representatives from each college’s chapter and the 27 general officers in the union’s executive council.
Ahead of the vote, union president James Davis sent an email to the delegate assembly opposing the resolution, saying the measure had been rushed through without proper input from union members, and that it only targeted Israeli universities, not “universities in countries engaged in serial human rights abuses or committing genocide, a singularity that many of our colleagues would find objectionable.”
Earlier this month, the union condemned a pro-Palestinian strike by its own members. But previously, it has taken pro-Palestinian positions and has drawn accusations of discrimination from Jewish faculty. In recent weeks, the PSC demanded charges be dropped against protesters at the pro-Palestinian encampment, condemned police action against protesters and backed protesters at Columbia University.
A group of Jewish professors sued the PSC in 2022 after the union adopted a resolution criticizing Israel the previous year, calling it discriminatory. A judge dismissed the case. Dozens of Jewish professors resigned from the union due to the resolution.
That 2021 resolution also called to consider union support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.
A 2016 state executive order bars state agencies from anti-Israel boycotts, meaning that a boycott could come with financial consequences for the CUNY system. But the faculty union does not set policy for the system.
CUNY has long faced allegations of antisemitism on its campuses. The university system, the nation’s largest urban college network with more than 225,000 students, has come under fire in recent years from city and state lawmakers for reported discrimination against Jewish students.
Last year, weeks after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered a third-party investigation into antisemitism at CUNY.
The system has been a hotspot for anti-Israel protests since then. In March, Hunter College opened an investigation after protesters chanted that Jews at the school needed to “pick a side.” Earlier this month, two CUNY campuses nixed Jewish events due to protests.
CUNY has taken steps to address antisemitism on its campuses, including by setting up an advisory council on Jewish life and partnering with Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage to educate students about the Holocaust.
CUNY union rejects Israel boycott amid salary talks - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

This is an example of a letter from my great uncle who joined the First French Army near the end of the war. It is a letter that mentions many things that avid followers of the show and books know about (The whole thing was found in two pieces in different parts of the same collection, but there is an english translation for each one).
https://preview.redd.it/k5go18yqpx3d1.png?width=690&format=png&auto=webp&s=41c31b4da3388f3a99ed97ef675f2ec84473da9e

1. First Page
2. Second Page

Like many letters from the WWII time period, they've been kept in attics, boxes, and stored away, hard to find, and maybe even never seen again. You can replace these with whatever you want, photos, survivors, documents, items, and the same thing almost applies. One thing is clear, much of the information of the WWII era is being scattered and lost.
That is why I came up with the website, the WWII Archives (https://wwii-archives.org), which allows for anyone to join to create the most detailed articles about each subject from the WWII era. In doing this we attempt to archive and find all that scattered information, to bring it together to make these articles
Some example articles include people I've interviewed (Joe McPhail, Paul Blackmon), Units (A Co, 116th IR), VMF-323)), and family (Raymond Traumann whose letter is above). If your article even is notable enough we will summarize it in a blog and post it on social media.
https://preview.redd.it/nptkl9lmlx3d1.png?width=190&format=png&auto=webp&s=83290bc4d697958315a95d6909431b52c9bad59d
For this subreddit, although again you may write on any subject from that era, we are interested in people that would like to contribute and write about Easy Company, its members, 1st battalion, the 506th, the 101st, the 82nd, and anything related to those things. There are especially some niche and unknown things about the 101st out there that haven't really been well documented. For example a while back I started looking into a paratrooper named Bernie Gaudreau. If anyone has any information on him and other things we need help with that. Since the 80th anniversary of D-Day any information that can be contributed through that would be great.
Not only would you be able to write about general WWII things, but also about your family, other people from the time, very niche topics, and even things that don’t have to do with the war, but happened during the time period. Most importantly, you would be contributing to the scholarship for that time period in general.
All that it takes is to go to the website, sign up, read the Editing and Multimedia Guides (and Interview Guide if you’re interviewing), and then you are free to contribute!

Tried to post in the ADHD subreddit but my post wasn’t working for some reason so here I am 😊
Hello everyone, I’m very sad and frustrated because my ADHD evaluation came back negative. I got neuropsychological testing done and he suggested I have persistent depressive disorder and anxiety. I don’t feel like I’m depressed since I still enjoy things I like to do. The thing is that I’ve been on anxiety meds but they made me feel numb so I got off of them. I still could only hold on to my job for a year as a special ed teacher with a mental health break (fmla). So when I explained to my doctor I think there’s something else going on she just gave me a different anxiety med. I loved working with special needs kids but everything else made it hell. My therapist said it’s because I was a teache fast food worker only so I haven’t had a chance to find a job I like. Fair but I also struggled in college: constantly being late and almost dropping out even though I think I’m smart.
As a kid I daydreamed and was buried in books. I had a hard time making friends and was very shy and anxious but was gifted. Social anxiety has gotten better as an adult but I still feel like I never fit in. I have to write everything down or I will forget it, I hate getting ready in the morning for work and want to do stuff but it’s hard for me to get myself to do it. I fixate on foods in cycles it’s really weird and didn’t understand until I learned about adhd. I have sensory issues but don’t know if that is an adhd thing. I can obsess over certain things and then get bored super quickly. I had a job as a 5th grade teacher and quit within 2 weeks because I was so overstimulated and could not for the life of me figure out how I was going to execute these lessons and be organized for grading of 28 kids.
I bite my nails until they are bleeding and also have a hard time concentrating on driving and my online schooling. I find the everyday tasks of getting ready, working and then coming home and cleaning and cooking takes so much effort. My working memory was in the 23rd percentile while everything else was average. But he said it was my anxiety affecting my working memory. Two of my sisters have ADHD. I’m so tired of being dismissed by everybody. Im not trying to self diagnose and maybe i am just lazy or have something else. Maybe C-PTSD? All I know is that I need help. I mask and seem normal to everyone in my life, so maybe I am making everything up. Sorry for the long rant. Should I get a second opinion or do all my symptoms sound like depression? Please be nice I am sensitive lol.

Hello,It’s my first time in reddit. I'm in grade 11. And there is homework to do regarding science research. I tried to find and offer. But the teacher still doesn't accept the topic. I'm interested in topics related to biochemistry, materials science, and maybe technology. But it must not be tested on people. And there is something new. Please help me. I don't know what to do anymore. I cry every day. It's hard for me. Sorry if I write something wrong. I'm not good at English.

I’m in desperate need of advice and someone to listen. I’m writing this at 5am because I can’t sleep without this off my chest. I’ve been dealing with suicidal thoughts again since I got out of college for the summer. My depression was so crippling that I missed enough classes for me to be dismissed from school. This alone made me feel worthless but on top of that, I don’t have a summer job, I don’t impress my family at all, and I’m so depressed I don’t do much all day anyway. I increased my mental health meds but I only feel worse. I keep telling myself when it gets bad enough I’ll just end it and I think I might be there now. In a last ditch effort to prove that my friends love me and need me here I started planning a party with my bff because her dad is out of town. She asks me to invite a ton of people. So I do, and I know them from all different places too so none of them know each other. My dumb ass doesn’t think of that. Well pretty soon before the party my friend chickens out about having the party at her place and says we need to have it at the beach instead. I understand it and we go to the beach. We all meet up and about 6 people that were supposed to come couldn’t show up. On top of that, pretty much everyone didn’t bring the weed/ alcohol they promised to bring, the alcohol we did have tasted AWFUL, it was way colder than forecasted, there was a cop on our ass all night, AND my friend locked her keys in her car. It was the most awkward event I’ve ever attended and I was the host. I couldn’t keep a good conversation going with anyone and I kept misreading the room leading to weird situations. I gave my friends an awful night and proved to everyone why they don’t need me around. Everything feels like a sign that I need to end it. I just need advice. If you read the whole thing you’ve earned a place in my heart. :) thank you

The profusion of identical green tents at this spring’s anti-Israel protests struck many as odd. “Why is everybody’s tent the same?,” asked New York mayor Eric Adams. Like others, the mayor suspected “a well-concerted organizing effort” driving the protests. More recent reporting shows a concerted push behind the Gaza protest movement. But it is not as simple as a single organization secretly rallying protesters or buying tents. Instead, the movement’s most determined activists represent a network of loosely linked far-left groups. Some are openly affiliated with well-known progressive nonprofits; others work in the shadows.
The movement also draws on diverse but generous sources of financial backing. Those funding streams may soon be augmented by the federal government. As I chronicled last year in a Manhattan Institute report, “The Big Squeeze: How Biden’s Environmental Justice Agenda Hurts the Economy and the Environment,” the administration’s massive program of environmental justice grants seems designed to prioritize the funding of highly ideological local groups. The Inflation Reduction Act, for example, earmarks $3 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” intended for local nonprofits. Today, hundreds of far-left political groups include language about environmental issues and “climate justice” in their mission statements. If just a fraction of planned grants flows to such groups, the effect will be a gusher of new funding for radical causes.
As the Gaza protests spread across U.S. college campuses, many observers noted an eerie uniformity among them. From one campus to the next, protesters operated in disciplined cadres, keeping their faces covered and using identical rote phrases as they refused to talk with reporters. The Atlantic noted the strangeness of seeing elite college students “chanting like automatons.” Students held up keffiyeh scarves or umbrellas to block the view of prying cameras and linked arms to halt the movements of outsiders. At Columbia University and elsewhere, protesters formed “liberated zones,” from which “Zionists” were excluded. Around the edges of the encampments, the more militaristic activists donned helmets and goggles and carried crude weapons, apparently eager to mix it up with police or counter-protesters. We’ve seen these tactics before—notably during the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, when full-time agitators helped ignite riots, set up a police-free (and violence-plagued) zone in Seattle, and laid nightly siege to Portland, Oregon’s federal courthouse.
In a remarkable work of reporting, Park MacDougald recently traced the tangled roots of organizations backing pro-jihad protests, both on and off campuses. These include Antifa and other networks of anonymous anarchists, along with “various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition,” MacDougald writes. Higher up the food chain, we find groups openly supported by America’s growing class of super-rich tech execs or the anti-capitalist heirs of great fortunes. For example, retired tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, who is married to Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, funds The People’s Forum, a lavish Manhattan resource center for far-left groups. As the Columbia protests intensified, the center urged members to head uptown to “support our students.” Following the money trail of other protest groups, MacDougald finds connections to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and—surprising no one—the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation.
Of course, the current wave of anti-Israel protests also involves alliances with pro-Hamas organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine. Last November, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that SJP and similar groups have deep ties to global terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
For many keffiyeh-wearing protestors, however, a recently professed concern for Palestinians is just the latest in a long list of causes they believe justify taking over streets and college quads. In Unherd, Mary Harrington dubs this medley of political beliefs the “omnicause,” writing that “all contemporary radical causes seem somehow to have been absorbed into one.” Today’s leftist activists share an interlocking worldview that sees racism, income inequality, trans intolerance, climate change, alleged police violence, and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts all as products of capitalism and “colonialism.” Therefore, the stated rationale for any individual protest is a stand-in for the real battle: attacking Western society and its institutions.
In the U.S., this type of general-purpose uprising goes back at least to the riots at the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. In those protests, mainstream liberal factions—including labor unions and environmentalists—were joined by “black bloc” anarchists and other radicals eager to engage in “direct action” against police. That pattern—relatively moderate demonstrators providing a friendly envelope for hard-core disruptors—formed the template for many later protests: the Occupy Wall Street encampments in 2011, demonstrations following the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, 2016’s Standing Rock anti-pipeline movement, and of course, the calamitous summer of 2020.
These uprisings were not entirely spontaneous. In some cases, activists spend months planning mass actions—for example, against economic summits or political conventions—and can recruit street fighters from across the country. In others, an event, such as George Floyd’s death, sparks popular protests involving neophyte demonstrators. Those attract far-left activists, who swoop in to organize and expand the struggle, often tilting it toward more radical action.
That has certainly been the case at the college Gaza-paloozas. At Columbia, the New York Times spotted a woman old enough to be a student’s grandmother in the thick of the action as protesters barricaded that school’s Hamilton Hall. The woman was 63-year-old Lisa Fithian, a lifetime activist, who Portland’s alternative weekly Street Roots approvingly calls “a trainer of mass rebellion.” A counter-protester trying to block the pro-Hamas demonstrators told NBC News, “She was right in the middle of it, instructing them how to better set up the barriers.” Fithian told the Times she’d been invited to train students in protest safety and “general logistics.” She claims to have taken part in almost every major U.S. protest movement going back to the 1999 “Battle in Seattle.”
America’s radical network has plenty of Lisa Fithians, with the time and resources to travel the country educating newcomers about the “logistics” of disruptive protests. And these activists appear to have played key roles in the college occupations. The New York City Police Department says nearly half the demonstrators arrested on the Columbia and City University of New York (CUNY) campuses on April 30 were not affiliated with the schools. One hooded Hamilton Hall occupier—photographed scuffling with a Columbia custodian before getting arrested—turned out to be 40-year-old James Carlson, heir to a large advertising fortune. According to the New York Post, Carlson lives in a $2.3 million Park Slope townhouse and has a long rap sheet. For example, in 2005, he was arrested in San Francisco during the violent “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.” (Those charges were dropped.)
For a quarter-century now, Antifa and other anarchist networks have worked to refine tactics and share lessons following each major action. At Columbia, UCLA, and other schools, authorities found printouts of a “Do-It Yourself Occupation Guide” and similar documents. The young campus radicals are eager to learn from their more experienced elders. And, like the high-achieving students they are, they follow directions carefully. MacDougald asked Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, about the mystery of the identical tents. There was no need for a central group to distribute hundreds of tents, Shideler said. Instead, “the organizers told [students] to buy a tent, and sent around a Google Doc with a link to that specific tent on Amazon. So they all went out and bought the same tent.”
In other words, America’s radical class has gotten very skilled at recruiting and instructing new activists—even from among the ranks of elite college students with a good deal to lose. How much more could this movement accomplish with hundreds of millions in federal dollars flooding activist groups around the country?
From its first week in office, the Biden administration has trumpeted its goal to funnel more environmental spending toward “disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized,” partly by issuing grants to grassroots organizations. Previous environmental justice (EJ) grant programs were small in scope. But, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, a huge pool of grant money became available. EPA administrator Michael Regan told reporters, “We’re going from tens of thousands of dollars to developing and designing a program that will distribute billions.”
More than a year and a half later, it remains hard to nail down just where the Biden administration’s billions in EJ grants will wind up. Money is being distributed through a confusing variety of programs, and the process of identifying recipients is ongoing. To help outsource the job of sifting through proposals, the EPA last year designated 11 institutions as “Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmakers.” These groups are empowered to make subgrants directly to community organizations, under streamlined EPA oversight. In all, the Biden administration has entrusted these outfits with distributing a staggering $600 million in funding. The money is expected to start flowing this summer.
The EPA’s grantmakers include a number of educational institutions and left-leaning nonprofits. For example, the EPA chose Fordham University as its lead grantmaker in the New York region. Fordham, in turn, lists as partners two nonprofits that oppose immigration enforcement. (One, the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, states on its website: “NJAIJ believes in the human right to migrate, regardless of citizenship or political status.”) Neither group claims expertise in environmental issues. Given that the IRA’s eligibility requirements for EJ grants are extremely vague, however, perhaps that’s not a problem. Almost any activity that could help “spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities” (in the words of Biden’s EJ executive order) might qualify.
Perhaps the most prominent—and problematic—EPA grantmaker is the Berkeley, California-based Climate Justice Alliance. The CJA is a consortium of mostly far-left activist groups. It describes its mission as working for “regenerative economic solutions and ecological justice—under a framework that challenges capitalism and both white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy.” The group is a vigorous proponent of the omnicause, embracing almost every left-wing concern as a manifestation of climate change. For example, the CJA website proclaims: “The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” MacDougald notes that the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, one of CJA’s affiliated groups, “organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested.”
The CJA website also includes a section dedicated to the cause known as Stop Cop City. It refers to an effort to halt the construction of an 85-acre police and firefighter training center outside Atlanta. Rag-tag activists from around the country have gathered around the facility since 2021. They have repeatedly battled with police—sometimes with fireworks and Molotov cocktails—and used bolt cutters to enter the site and torch construction equipment. (CJA’s Stop Cop City page features a cartoon illustration of three childlike activists; one brandishes bolt cutters.) The group also backs a legal defense fund for activists arrested in attacks on the training center or in other protests. For those looking for more inspiration, CJA links to an interview with former Black Panther and self-described revolutionary Angela Davis.
The Alliance is not an ideological outlier in Biden’s EJ coalition. On the contrary, when the White House assembled its White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), a panel of outside experts meant to provide “horizon-expanding EJ advice and recommendations,” it chose CJA co-chair Elizabeth Yeampierre to help lead the committee. Like other members of the panel, she sees environmental issues through an ideological, not a scientific, lens. “Climate change is the result of a legacy of extraction, of colonialism, of slavery,” Yeampierre told Yale Environment 360. As a group, radical EJ activists tend not to focus on pragmatic ways to reduce pollution and carbon emissions; for them, the real goal is overturning what they see as an exploitative economic and political system. Since these are the voices the White House chose to help shape its EJ policies, we can assume this worldview will dominate grantmaking decisions.
In February 2023, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, along with fellow committee member Pat Fallon, wrote to EPA administrator Regan asking for more information on the EPA’s grant programs. They noted that the EPA’s own studies of EJ grants issued in previous years showed sloppy supervision. According to an EPA report, an earlier version of the program funded projects that did “not logically lead to the desired environmental and/or public health [result].” Without better oversight and more clearly defined goals, the congressmen wrote, the EPA’s EJ grant machine risks becoming simply a “slush fund for far-left organizations.”
Since then, the administration has done little to reassure skeptics. To the contrary, the EPA has put at least one far-left organization—CJA—in charge of distributing $50 million in grant money. No doubt, many of the EPA grants will go to worthwhile projects. But money is fungible. A group that gets a large grant to, say, clean up dirty parks or teach children about recycling will also be able to hire more staff and divert more resources to political action.
With graduation behind them, most of the anti-Israel college protesters have stowed away their keffiyehs and moved on to summer vacations or internships. But the peripatetic activists who helped guide and intensify those uprisings are doubtless already planning their next actions. After all, two political conventions are looming. This fall, the college protests will likely flare up again, though by then perhaps focused on a different facet of the omnicause. And, with hundreds of millions in fresh funding flowing through the activist ecosystem, the groups that quietly nurture extremists—like those who firebombed “Cop City,” or who chant “Intifada Revolution!,” or who block bridges in the name of “climate”—will be more emboldened than ever.
A Slush Fund for Radical Protesters? City Journal (city-journal.org)
​

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Stay Safe ! Fair Winds Sailing the Seas Captains.

Hey there guys, so for context.
I was talking with some friends from other fandoms I'm not in but they write for. Mine is tiny, niche, my fics get few kudos and when a comment happens I get mega excited. (Usually fandom blind when I do exchanges here. I know that sometimes isn't the same as the reader can't fully comprehend the context, but can always say what was good or not if the person puts a bit of effort and isn't looking for just your comment back).
So, I was telling this friends that I'm taking online English courses to improve that aspect because I dream to be able to write on English. While relying less and less on language tools or betas to correct my sentences and be able to if not completely do it by myself, since I'm not a native speaker, to at least do a decent job.
Also to improve my conversational English since, as you can see, I can write, read and understand it, but I'm shy and even when some say I pronounce the words right, I'm clumsy because of my own shyness.
Anyway, this group of people was like: yeah sure English have more engagement in terms of fiction and your fandom is practically dead already so I get it since the English one is barely active. But if Spanish is your language, why to bother? Just try another fandom that sure is more mainstream. One that you like and stick with it because your fics will get views, comments, engagement, and you will feel the progress.
And I do wonder, what should I politely reply to this group of people that doesn't mean insults and a lovely block. Or should I just simply do that?
Thanks a lot and sorry my bad English if I made mistakes 🫂🙏. Have a lovely day/night.

Am i the asshole for wanting to tell my friend I don’t longer want to be their roommate in college
Earlier this year when housing applications were released my friend ( who is in the same major as me and multiple classes with me) asked me If i wanted to be their roommate.
For context my current roommates did not mention wanting to dorm again next year and I brought this up prior to the application process to said friend.
When the applications came out they bombarded me in person about being their roommate. Since this happened while other of our friends were present, I was put in an uncomfortable place where I didn’t want to straight up say no and I didn’t want to lie about having other living arrangements. I expressed that I was unsure about living with a friend due to all the horror stories i have heard and read and they immediately told me that doesn’t apply to us we will be okay . In the following days they kept asking me about it and telling me about their really bad living situations prior to the one they have currently. They told me about being placed with some girls that were to keep the story short were really fucked up. I felt really bad and basically trapped and at some point agreed to be their roommate but I was hesitant the whole time.
Flash forward to a month or so they are trying to figure out a third roommate and ask me if i would be down to room with one of their friends. I said sure. We all signed up to be roommates through the portal and everything was “okay”. In this moment i felt like I couldn’t get out because there was already any other person added.
In the next 2-3 weeks, they asked me to go out to a party to which I was already going to with another friend. I said you can come with my friend and I if you want. All three of us ended up going out drinking and smoking and it was a good time at first. By the third hour we are at a different party and all of us are dancing together suddenly they get in the middle my friend and I and started to get closer and closer to me. Alike to how I have told this story before I am unsure about what actually happened in this next part because I was pretty messed up which was known to both my friends the whole time. As they get close to my body their face started to lean into mine and i feel as if they were trying to kiss me. In this moment i panic and i start dance with my head down and shift my body. Eventually we all went home.
The next day I ask my other friend that was present “hey am so sorry if this is awkward for you but i need to figure out if im just making this up or not” and i explained what i think i saw and felt and my friend says yes i noticed it too but i didt know what was going on. this made me question the situation even more to the point where i am visibly avoiding them whenever i can but i eventually texted them saying “ hey i don’t remember a lot about that night i was messed up so im not sure if i remember right but did you try to kiss me when we went out im just trying to piece what happened together” They denied everything and said no i didn’t try to kiss you .
I decided to drop it because I wanted to trust them. A week later I go i went to my housing application for something and saw that our third roommate was no longer in our roommate group. I text my friend and ask hey what happened to blah blah is she not rooming with us? To which they say “ No she isn’t because i told her about the kiss thing and and said she would feel uncomfortable to live with us”( I was very confused why she would be uncomfortable living with us) and my friend goes on to explain that she had walked into her roommates having sex on her bed one time. Having this information, I can only assume she would feel uncomfortable because of the “ possibility of feelings or something physical happening between me and my friend”
This makes me feel uncomfortable because I am now unsure if the kiss thing was real or what was said to the third roommate in order to make her say that she is uncomfortable. I have not brought it up since but I have also been facing other problems with them too in a more academic setting.
They are very used to being late to classes, this being said they never really know what’s going on and asks me a billion questions then doesn’t listen when i explain and then askes the same things again. On top of this they tend to react like “omg u didn’t invite me or tell me to go eat” if i go out with any one else. I had a recent final exam project with them and they made me waste my whole day waiting at one of the school buildings in order to record and were really inconsiderate of my time and a lot of other tiny things that bother me
What should I do what can i do to leave this situation? Can i leave ? Can I leave without making it weird ? The year is about to end soon and room assignments are completed for more people except for the people living on special community floors ( we got accepted into me of them) i have never needed more advice to how to manage this situation.

EXTENSIVE Rebirth, Remake, and OG FF7 spoilers in here.
This is a continuation of What's Actually Going On in FF7R (The White Materia) where I attempt to make sense of everything the Remake continuity added to the OG FF7 story. It really is best if you read the other thread first, just because this will be easier if i've already explained my theory on the White Materia and it's associated spell, Holy.
Another disclaimer : This is, still, just a theory, aGameTheory. Don't hate me (or square?) in the event it's completely wrong, which it has a decent chance of being.

There are only 2 things about FF7's Story that have fundamentally changed in Remake.
The White and Black Materia. Or more specifically, the Magic granted by them.

But what I want to discuss this time is (what I personally think, as of Rebirth) is one brilliant misdirection from Square Enix...in hindsight, anyway.

The Whispers

Oh no

"....What the hell was Square thinking?" -- You, probably, watching the ending to Rebirth and/or Remake

Well, they were thinking exactly what you were thinking. And they used it against you.
So getting right to it. TLDR;
The Whispers are exactly what they were said to be -- they protect fate by rejecting any changes to the Lifestream. The misdirection here is how YOU have been goaded into misinterpreting this information.
The White and Black Materia can fully explain their existence and purpose. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the OG FF7.
Let's start with what we learned from the previous thread about the White Materia:

So what does the White Materia ACTUALLY do in FF7R?
The White Materia (Holy) gives the user access to the Lifestream. Not just a piece of its knowledge, like regular materia....but the actual lifestream itself. In doing so, they gain knowledge, like all Materia allows them to do. Knowledge of the past, the future, and everything else in flux.
But this is NOT knowledge that you're not supposed to be able to actually do anything with, **because unlike casting Fire or Lightning....**knowing the future allows you to change fate.

Materia are orbs containing knowledge of the ancients. In effect, they contain information from the lifestream itself. The White Materia's magic (Holy) is special though. The magic it contains seems to allow the user to traverse the lifestream itself. This means, in effect, the ability to interact with (and take knowledge from) the actual memories of the Lifestream.
As we know, the Lifestream is everything, everywhere, and every time. All life comes from the lifestream, and when something dies, it returns there. And its memories stay there forever, as physical places within the lifestream.
This is something Tifa observed for herself in Rebirth. In her brief time floating with the WEAPON, she was reunited with her very own memories...in a very literal fashion.
Tifa, inside the Lifestream in the middle of the Gongaga Reactor
This is the Mako pool in the Lifestream underneath Gongaga. We literally watched Tifa fall in, and physically swim to this location........so why is Tifa's house here? Along with...the Nibelheim Mountians?
A Fragmented Nibelheim, including Mt Nibel and the Bridge that Tifa and Cloud almost died on in the past.
Tifa's memories are not only being played out here....they are physically real. This is because she's inside the Lifestream. She hasn't gone anywhere, she's still in Gongaga, but look at the extent to which this pool of Mako is able to interact with one person's memories.
And also....wait a second.
This space beneath the reactor is filled with White and Black Whispers.
...I thought we killed all the whispers? What are they doing here?
We'll come back to this later.
Lets back up a bit.

Why you [probably] hated the Whispers.

Hear me out.
The "OG Storyline" has never existed in Remake. It's not a thing. And the Whispers have nothing to do with it.
\"Oh, the Whispers came because Reno doesn't die in the original game\" -- You, probably

"The whispers were put into the game as a meta commentary on how the developers just want to create their own story, but the fans won't let us, so the party fucking KILLS FATE so that Nomura or Nojima or whomever is most annoying can write whatever they want." -- The Internet. Also you. Probably.

Everyone thinks the Whispers only existed in Remake in order to ensure that the story never deviates from the OG FF7 Storyline. Every time something important is about to happen that didn't happen in the original game, the whispers intervene and correct the timeline.
This is the typical, widely accepted "Meta Commentary" explanation of the Whispers.
But it's wrong.
No, not just because this theory says so. This interpretation was ALWAYS wrong.
So the whispers are canon police, but are just gonna IGNORE stuff like this?
FF7R's storyline is self-contained. If the whispers existed to "protect the old events", then why is even Remake chocked full of shit that never happened in the OG and would actively change the story if it did?
But don't be confused -- the writers ABSOLUTELY wanted you to think this way. It's what bothered me about Remake's ending. But they were actually clever about it, and Rebirth vindicates this decision.
"Changing the Future", "Defying Fate", and "The Future is Unwritten" has nothing to do the OG FF7.
Okay good we got this out of the way, I can stop talking about Meta Analysis and get to the actual good stuff.

What the whispers were ACTUALLY doing

Remake explained what the Whispers are verbatim.
They protect fate -- the Lifestream. From Aerith, and Jenova.
The Lifestream IS Fate.

Red -"Perhaps best described as arbiters of fate. They are drawn to those who attempt to alter destiny's course and ensure they do not."
Tifa - "And you're saying that flow is somehow...fixed?
Red - "Yes. For it is the will of the planet itself."

Barret then speaks about possible bad fates. And Red XIII says this:

Barret - "So if we're destined for a bleak future, these Whispers will try to keep us on that course?"

"....Now wait just a damn minute. How in the hell could you possibly know any of that? Spouting that cryptic stuff -- which could all be bullshit!"

Red - "When Aerith reached out to me...I found this knowledge of the Whispers."

In the previous thread, we explained how Aerith has been messing with the Lifestream by mistakenly using the White Materia to obtain information she has no business knowing. The Whispers are simply reacting to her blatant misuse of this, and act to correct it.
This is very consistent, even in Pt1. The Whispers in Remake ONLY appear when someone is either:

1. Using forbidden knowledge from the Lifestream
2. Manipulating events by sharing forbidden knowledge from the lifestream
3. When something foreign attempts to force its will on the lifestream

This is the only time they act. But the THIRD one is the most important. I'm going to go through a few examples in Remake and show exactly what's happening that is causing the Whispers to intervene, and explicitly why.
After I show you this, please go back and watch videos of all these sorts of events in Remake. You will see exactly what I mean.
Okay, buckle up kids!

Violation #1 Using forbidden knowledge from the Lifestream

Watching the first appearance of Aerith in Remake gives us full clarity of what's actually happening.
Aerith is attacked by an invisible force.
Aerith is being attacked by Whispers. This is because she possesses the White Materia, and has constant access to knowledge she isn't supposed to have. They are taking it from her.
Thing to note here. Cloud cannot see the whispers. This is because he is not violating any of the 3 rules.
Sephiroth makes an appearance here.
The appearance of the \"Mental Static\" used in both Remake and Rebirth
This is a Red Herring...in fact, this is THREE brilliantly placed Red Herrings. Because the "Memory Static" that appears here belongs to both Cloud AND Aerith, and serves to confuse you on what it actually means.

1. Aerith sees Cloud, and immediately gains knowledge about them both that she is not supposed to know. Also, if you pay attention, Aerith is NOT frozen during this sequence. This is her scene just as much as it is Cloud's.
2. Cloud has yet another vision of Sephiroth, caused by his Jenova cells. This is a huge misdirection, to eventually make you think Sephiroth is popping up in places he "shouldn't be."
3. This is where Remake starts to fuck with your head. They're using the same memory effect for two different characters, for two different reasons. But the result is essentially the same -- the characters involved are having their perception altered. Remake does NOT distinguish between static caused by Holy or static caused by Jenova. They are treated equally in Remake.

The biggest red herring here though is Sephiroth.
It SEEMS unnatural that Sephiroth is appearing here, this early in the game. But it isn't unnatural -- Cloud is plagued by these visions all the time in this continuity. This is why the game gave us a Sephiroth appearance immediately after the Bombing Mission.
Now. Notice how, despite being attacked by invisible whispers, Aerith mostly seems unbothered by this.
...Almost as if she's used to it. Similar to the way Cloud is equally used to visions of Sephiroth. They BOTH carry on with the conversation as though NOTHING has happened.
The game is explicitly showing you that both of these occurrences are seen as normal for these characters. Suggesting that they have actually been dealing with them for much longer than you would think.
Aerith has another Whisper attack. Cloud is once again very confused, until this happens:
Cloud's violation of #1 through contact with Aerith
Aerith touches Cloud.
We learn later that Aerith touching you gives you knowledge you're not supposed to have. Thus, Cloud is now in violation of Rule #1 -- Forbidden Knowledge. He can now observe whispers for the rest of the story.

Violation #2 Manipulating events by sharing forbidden knowledge from the lifestream

The Church Scene is a great example of this. In fact, most of the moments in Rebirth involve Aerith doing this to some degree.
The White Materia is explicitly the cause of the Whisper Attack in the church, and the game goes out of its way to make it very obvious.
Cloud Memory Static, this time it's Holy, not Jenova. (I don't have enough attachments to spell this out, so please go look at the scene after you read this.)
This is another VERY good example of Remake fucking with your head.

• Aerith brings up her White Materia in conversation
• Cloud looks at the back of Aerith's head. He has a memory static attack, and then immediately has a vision of the White Materia.
• Cloud ignores this phenoemon, because things fucking with his head is completely normal to him. He doesn't skip a beat, and suggests Aerith just doesn't know how to use it.
• Aerith playfully agrees.

The Red Herring here is obvious -- the vision of Aerith's Death. Yes, it was a vision of her death. But her death wasn't the important information the game was showing you in this scene. The White Materia was.
Regardless, the whispers did not intervene here, despite Cloud obviously glimpsing forbidden knowledge.
So why DID they intervene?
\"...Huh?\" - Cloud
Because Aerith couldn't keep her mouth shut.

1. She tells Reno that Cloud is her bodyguard. He isn't. Reno is.
2. She exposed that he was a Soldier. Reno explicitly does not like Soldiers.
3. She already knew that Cloud was doing mercenary work, and used this to persuade him.

Cloud told her none of this information. But it caught Reno's attention. And what was the result?

*Sizes Cloud up*

"Well, you're weird enough to be one."
\"What Class are you?\"
Reno doubts Cloud's Identity as a First Class Ex-Soldier. And Cloud violently reacts to protect it.
The whispers stopped Cloud from killing Reno, NOT because Reno survives in the OG game...but because Reno's life wouldn't even be at risk here if Aerith didn't instigate this fight.
And just like the Flower scene, Remake actually sets this one up with prior character information too. -- Cloud was shown from the beginning of the game to be prone to extreme violence. He would have also executed Johnny without Tifa's intervention. So we KNOW he would have killed Reno if the Whispers didn't intervene.
Hopefully you're beginning to see a pattern here.
Here is the most obvious example of this rule triggering the Whispers.
Aerith attempting to stop Barret from doing something....
In this scene, we see Aerith clearly knows something she isn't supposed to. She wants to share with Barret that killing the President isn't a good idea...And the whispers immediately appear, threatening her to stop. By this point, Aerith is beginning to become aware of why the whispers are harassing her so much.
I covered this scene in my last post, so I wont again...but this scene is crucial towards understanding what's happening in this game. Everyone should watch this scene again. Pay attention to what happens to Aerith the moment she says "Follow the Yellow Flowers". Aerith is clearly not herself as she says this. It's almost as if someone possessed her to say it. And the Whispers absolutely swarm her as a result.

Violation #3 -- When something foreign attempts to force its will on the lifestream

And here we go. The one that caused like 90% of the confusion in Remake. To be fair, this could only really be understood in hindsight after playing Rebirth.
There are many cases in Remake where the Whispers do something that seems...odd, given their explanations as arbiters of fate. Like attacking Sector 7, silencing Hojo, or literally helping Sephiroth at the end of the game. This is because although it's clearly whispers doing it...in Remake there is no visual indication of which Will any given Whispers serve -- The Planet, or Jenova's.
They all LOOK the same.
But they absolutely ARE NOT the same -- they are separate (black and white), just like in Rebirth.
But Remake included subtle clues as a nod to this reveal in Rebirth.
The Whisper Attack on Sector 7
This is another situation where you're expected to believe that the whispers are causing a ruckus because Cloud isn't going on the second bombing mission with Avalanche. Which is something we know he does in the OG game.
But that's just because we likely misinterpreted the clues that lead up to this moment that explain exactly why this is happening : The white whispers are attempting to correct the deliberate isolation of the main party by the black whispers.
A whisper is seen lurking around in Sector 7 the day before this happens. It's extremely easy to miss.
A whisper was present in Seventh Heaven. This was shown immediately after Barret told Cloud he wasn't on the next mission and has to leave.
See...if you're comparing Remake to the OG, then this whisper shown here is 100% going to force you to misinterpret what it's doing here.
In Seventh Heaven, multiple things happen that result in a break up of the entire main party.

1. Tifa is feeling anxious about the next mission. Jesse goes out of her way to voice concerns about her involvement, leading to her getting kicked off the team for the mission.
2. Jesse then tries to aim to get Cloud placed on the team instead. Barret refuses to do this because he "doesn't want the team leaning on him."
3. Barret pays Cloud, tells him he isn't wanted on the next mission, and kicks him out the bar.
4. A whisper will literally stop you from entering Seventh Heaven again after this happens to make sure you can't fix it.

The side mission with Jesse happens.....and then this.
A whisper with Sephiroth's voice trying to keep Cloud sleep
A Whisper with Sephiroth's voice approaches Cloud in the morning. He wants him to sleep through Barret, Jesse, and Biggs going on the mission. This would have likely isolated Barret, resulting in his death. Something Jenova tries again towards the end of the game.
She really does not want Barret to stay alive, because he is the glue of Avalanche, and the main reason the events of the story begin the way they do. Cloud also likely never would have met Aerith in the church.
Jenova's whispers are trying to prevent Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and Barret from getting together. This event would have succeeded in separating all of them.
That's why the whispers are at war with one another.
The Black ones are trying to isolate you. The white ones are correcting their meddling.
The game even STOPS you mid-combat to bring attention to the fact that the Black Whispers are being exposed.
Black Whisper being made vulnerable by something external

• You don't have to do anything to these whispers for this to happen.
• The entire screen gains a Static Memory effect....as though Cloud is being shown the truth. He even comments on it.
• After they go vulnerable, they become Black/Purple until they die.

They stop attacking after a whisper manages to isolate and injure Jesse, at which point the battle is over and all whispers leave.
And of course....there's most obvious example of this kind of massive violation from Remake....The Infamous Chapter 18.
But that's gonna have to wait for another post.
I'm out of attachments again.

TL;DR : FF7R is messing with your head.

Aerith using the White Materia in Remake is literally going through the events of the story the exact same way the player did -- with "forbidden knowledge" about how things are "supposed to be".
In Rebirth, the White Materia is empty. She no longer has knowledge of what's "supposed to happen", and thus has to accept that whatever happens, happens. This is why the "The Journey is Unknown." Not because the party killed the whispers, therefore the writers can do whatever they want. But because Aerith hid her knowledge of the future (Holy) from herself. She used to be able to know what was going to happen. Now she can't. The real Meta thing is that FF7R only really starts to make sense when you willingly abandon what you thought you already knew about the story. Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows.
Now go back through Remake with the new perspective and tell me that everything doesn't make way more sense.
Also, please tell me im crazy so I can stop writing these.
Otherwise, stay tuned for pt3 -- The Black Materia.
....Oh. One final hilarious mindblowing. Remember this?

This is where Remake starts to fuck with your head. They're using the same memory effect for two different characters, for two different reasons. But the result is essentially the same -- the characters involved are having their perception altered.
Remake does NOT distinguish between static caused by Holy or static caused by Jenova. They are treated equally in Remake.

Rebirth DOES distinguish the visual effects of memory alteration.
But only for the player.
Cloud still can't tell the difference.

About a little over a week ago, I was a passenger in a car accident. It was a mini roundabout, and our right of way, but this person did not stop when supposed to and drove straight into the passenger side of the car which is where I was sitting. The car tipped a bit but it did not flip or anything, the passenger airbag went off as well which hurt my side. You couldn't open the passenger door, and the back door only about an inch, the car was a write off.
But beginning of July, I'm supposed to start driving lessons. We currently have a courtesy car until the insurance pay out, but I constantly get a huge heart rate spike, I just think the other cars arent going to stop anymore, and I know it's still a month until i drive but I'm worried. When my friend had to give me lifts to school, I didn't get the heart rate spikes so it's just with my parent driving but they are a good driver, and have been driving for years, and I trust them with driving but I just can't stop thinking other cars are not going to stop, and there's gonna be another accident.
I don't know whether to start my lessons in August instead or just see how I go when I have my first lesson.

I need advice regarding my relationship and decision that I’ve made. I want to know if I made the right decision. I (21f) met my (25m) bf at a tobacconist. He approached me and was very polite and asked for my number and if he could take me out. I asked him about his age and if he works because these are important things for me to know before even giving out my number. He answered and said he wasn’t working at the moment because he just got out of house arrest and I asking him if he’s not working, how will he take me out? He told me money isn’t an issue he’s just not employed. I got what he was trying to say. He took me out on a date and it was perfect. He was polite, sweet and a gentleman. It felt like love at first sight for me. We began dating and then he got arrested near my street when he came to drop off a motorcycle to someone and then came to see me. At this point, I knew him for 5 weeks in total and we spoke about a lot of things and I told him hypotheticallly if he was to be locked up again I would hold it down for him. I don’t think he believed me at the time I told him but when the situation arised, it wasn’t even a question for me and I did hold him down. It took a few weeks for him to get processed and call me. I wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be with me anymore. Right after his arrest, I tried to track him down to which jail he was at and sent him letters with words of encouragement and reassurance that I am here for him as promised. In those three weeks of no contact, I also got his BPAY details to put money in his account and have been this whole time. Around $30-$50 per week. He usually spends that money to call me twice a day for 15 minutes per call. Sometimes he calls me 3 times a day. In the weeks where I couldn’t send him money, he never asked for money but I realised the calls were only once a day as he was trying to space out the calls for the week as he was low on money. Still, he never asked me for anything. He’s always given me reassurance during the 6 months he’s been inside and speaks to me kindly and gently. When we do have issues, usually on the first call he will say something that’s not quite right and upset me but always fix it by the second call when he’s had time to think about it. I’ve felt lucky af to have him because he’s been the most sweetest and romantic person I’ve been with yet. All of his friends know bout me and message me when it comes to important information regarding his trial. His mum has also confided in me for the last 6 months and has told me that I’m like a daughter to her (although in the last 1 month she’s ghosted me). I had a face to face visit with him last month because his mum took me with her and it felt amazing to be able to see him and hold him. He has lied to me about a few things starting off with his ethnicity. When I met him he told me he was two different ethnicities but I later came to find out drop his mum that he’s actually 100% Indian and doesn’t have any roots of those other two ethnicities. His mum showed me her entire family as proof and his dad’s family. His mum has also warned me numerous times to break up with him because he’s been in and out of prison since he was 20 and every time he says he will change but he doesn’t. He’s also gotten expelled from school so he never finished school either. He has never had a normal job but has been making money in other ways so money isn’t an issue. I also think he might be addicted to drugs but I am not sure. He has gotten people to transfer different amounts of money into my account and for me to transfer them to other accounts. I did become suspicious of what’s going on but I kind of turned a blind eye to it and told him he better not be making me do something I shouldn’t be doing. He’s always told me if i don’t want to do it it’s totally fine and he can get someone else to do this for him. I am confident I am the only girl he’s talking to as I can book visits every week and I can tell other people are not really visiting him except his sister and mum sometimes and his mum’s also given me reassurance that he is talking to me only me and that when it comes to relationships he is soft hearted. I also do think he is soft hearted. I have experienced a lot of adversity from people and people definitely have looked down on me and have told me all sorts of negative things but I tried to stay strong and stay in the relationship. I have always brought up with issues and we have fixed them. Anyways, he gets out in 10 days and last week I went on to reddit to read peoples posts about dating someone that’s in prison and it scared tf out of me when I saw that all this sweet romantic talk is just “prison talk” and that they will switch up once they come out. I have sent him lots of pics of me too and I saw other people talking about how they sell and trade photos of women and I think I know him enough to know he respects me to not do that to me but all of these things just freaked me out. I am really scared of getting hurt so I tend to withdraw from relationships because the other person can leave me or hurt me to leave him. I know it’s something I struggle with but I have held it down for 6 months even though I only knew him for 5 weeks prior. I have tried to support him in every way I can and I have never missed a call from him. I am not strong enough to break things off over the phone because the calls are timed and I am afraid that if he does give me reassurance over the phone rn it’s probably “prison talk.” I would never ghost him or not give closure so I sent a message to be passed to him to his friend. In the message I basically talked about the reason why I’m leaving is because i don’t think he loves me and probably only feels so strongly about me because he’s in jail and all he’s got is time so now he’s infatuated with me but when he comes out that may change. I don’t want to hold him to promises he’s made while being in there and I don’t want to subconsciously force him to be with me I did write all that in a panic state. Anyway, I think he got the message. He did try to call me a few times after he got the message and I didn’t pick up. I love him a lot so deep down I do want him to try and prove me wrong and give me reassurance that it’s not just prison talk and that he does love me and want to be with me. He’s always made it clear he loves me over the phone. Do you guys think I made the right choice and that if he truly does love me, he will understand how I have been feeling on my end? It’s very difficult to be a loved one of someone that is incarcerated. You feel lonely and always in an emotional roller coaster. I stuck through and didn’t abandon him during his sentence but now that he’s coming out, I’ve kind of just set him free so he doesn’t feel guilty about treating me differently when he comes out if he realises his feelings are not as strong as they were once he was locked up.

I've been looking at AC chargers in the sub$100 range(I'm a middle school student without the money for a power supply) ,and the Imax b6ac v2 and ISDT 608ac seem like good CHOICES. Should I go ahead and buy it? Or are there other better options? I'm generally charging 2-3s and not more than 2500 mah. Thanks!