Since the entire complex of environmental settings, suit protection levels and affliction risks after the May Update seems to be an even greater mystery than before, I ran a few experiments today when I did some errands at the Red Mile on Porrima III.
These are some preliminary findings, and there are still some things I don't quite understand that would require further testing.
Let's start with the gameplay options for environmental damage:
Environmental Damage & Afflictions: OFF
That one is easy, it removes the entire functionality from the game. Weather conditions, temperature, hazards, none of that will do damage or create afflictions. You can even stand in the middle of a gas fumarole and it won't harm you.
Environmental Damage & Afflictions: NORMAL
This one seems to be the old system from before the update. Whenever you enter hazardous conditions, your suit protection will kick in and produce an audible warning. That't the blinking indicator in your HUD, corresponding with the type of condition (each one has a particular icon). There's also an audible beeping sound. As long as the suit protection holds up, there is no risk of afflictions. The beeping and blinking will grow faster as the suit protection wears off, until the icon in the HUD becomes permanent and is no longer blinking. Counterintuitively, this means that the suit protection has worn off and there is now a risk of gaining an affliction. If you enter your status effects view in the menu, it also describes this.
Now, even more counterintuitively, the type of suit and the environmental resistances it offers (thermal, corrosive, airborne, radiation) doesn't seem to make a difference for the time duration your suit protection will hold up. You can wear gear that offers 85 thermal protection or you can wear one that offers 0, the time the indicator is blinking is always the same as long as the outside conditions are the same. The environmental resistance levels however do seem to make a difference for the chance to gain an affliction once the suit protection has worn off (this one requires some further testing to be sure).
Environmental Damage & Afflictions: ADVANCED
This is the new setting from the May Update that is described as "Environmental Damage and Afflictions are gained from hazards, weather and ambiently on dangerous planets".
This is a little misleading, because this setting functions fundamentally different from the NORMAL one. What it actually does is it adds real environmental health damage on top of the risk of afflictions. So when your suit protection is depleted, you will, depending on your suit, start taking environmental damage to your health. That is the orange part of your health bar that will fill up and can't be replenished by med packs.
Now, the suit environmental resistances (thermal, corrosive, radioactice, airborne) make a big difference how fast this environmental damage will eat up your health bar. I ran a few tests with thermal protection from 0 to 85 in a snowstorm on Porrima III, and suits, packs, helmets with high thermal resistance levels are really important with that setting. Higher resistances also seem to lower the chance of gaining an affliction here.
So, I hope this clears up some of the common misconceptions about these systems. Further testing will be required to find out what exactly the suit environmental resistance levels change. My current guess, again, is that it doesn't make a difference for the "suit protection" (the blinking indicator and how long it lasts), but it seems to make a difference for the chance to gain afflictions and it definitely helps with the rate of environmental health damage you get when activating the ADVANCED setting.

SPOILERS AHEAD
TLDR: After finishing the Penacony story arc I feel like nothing meaningful happened in the story since the prologue and I lost my excitement for this game. Do you guys feel this way too?
Hey folks, I just finished the Penacony story arc this week and I hate to say it but... I am very disappointed by the lack of development in any meaningful aspect of the story.
Now, I know some things happened, we got the reveal of Acheron as an emanator of Nihility, we discovered that all of the popular characters in the Clockie animation are based on the Nameless of the past that helped shape the Penacony that we see, etc.. My point is that for all the cool reveals and new characters, absolutely nothing of any substance ever happens in the story. For example:

• Robin and Firefly were seemingly murdered, but then we got the reveal that they were just transported elsewhere and were fine
• Aventurine gets killed by Acheron at the end of his battle, "proving" that death exists in the dream but then just walks it off
• We defeated an emanator of Harmony, hijacked by the Order, and essentially preserved the status quo
• Even the new event is about restoring the Theather and undoing Acheron's damage

And it is not only Penacony, from the top of my head

• On the Xianzhou, we defeated a fake boy of Phantilia, she even mentions that that loss doesn't affect her in the end
• On Belobog, we hide the truth from everyone and despite Cocolia's defeat the world will remain frozen for centuries
• On Herta's space station... nothing meaningful happened outside the prologue

And on the topic of the prologue, we have a cool set up about how the Nanook the Destruction is a mission to destroy the whole universe and Elio is seemingly trying to prevent it, a script in which we seem to have a pivotal role to play... and that plot line is barely mentioned afterwards, nothing meaningful happened yet.
Overall my excitement for the game has hit rock bottom, what is the point of meeting new characters and exploring new worlds if everything will stay the same as before we arrived ther?
How do you guys feel about the story? Does any of this bother you too or do you think I am being a bit too harsh on HSR?

You ma'am were my everything, from the moment I first saw you walking to my tow truck. I was in aww of you in that moment I was so hooked I can't explain it in any other way. I just needed to get to know the real you. Looking back I wish I could have slowed everything down a lot because we moved so fast. Opened the door for you and got you up into the truck. At first she was impressed I even would do that for her. She said it made her feel special and no one had ever done that for her. As I walked back to my door to get in time for me started to slow as I thought about a million things at once I was so drawn to her wanted everything for her and me to be amazing and guys, it really was great from my seat. She's absolutely gorgeous, sweet yet she's a pretty bad ass chick though. She's into heavy metal and rock over anything. She's my only ginger I've ever dated in my life. She's so beautiful, selfless when she knows u need something she is the first one to get it for you and she's an amazing cook, So incredibly sexy, and no matter what she broken and all was the only woman that I ever bought a real ring for wherever would and that red hair gets me now every time I find one around in my truck or my house. She loves to play with it as her nervous habit I used to say she was marking her territory jokingly but I loved watching her do it I love watching her play with it It was awesome to just be able to look over at her and see her sitting there was the greatest feeling in my life next to having my children and watching them be born. Seeing her smile was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen in my life That's what I lived for I lived for being silly with her and joking around and just having a good fucking time and spending that time with her no matter how much it was. I loved it always. Even when we fought I didn't ever stop loving her I did never stop caring about her obviously I was in it for us. Call me a wuss whatever you want I don't care I honestly have a thing with other people's hair it grosses me out when it is off the body so I'd have these piles of hair is have to immediately get out of the floor of my work truck when id open it for her to get her out of the truck lol it grossed me out but I didn't really care it was more funny that she was nervous cus we were so chill together. I quickly fell for this girl front the start and she was exactly what I said in the title. She's always going to be my blue little sundress passenger seat princess, the only women I've ever actually seen, planned, or dreamed of a future with and I've had longer relationship with kids even. But she has two sweet little girls that are amazing as well and I have become attatched to them as well throughout this 3 years. Especially because when her and I first met and went on our date I knew already that she was a mom of two but I hadn't met either one of them yet. Days after she was still with me and we spent every waking moment together in that truck. And we had a great time It just felt right. After that weekend was over we went to pick up her 3-month-old daughter. We had to go to the next town over and get her from her dad's house. As I got this little girl up into my truck put her car seat in the back of the tow truck I did what any normal person would do when meeting a baby for the first time. Started talking to her just to see her reaction to me. She was so sweet and so damn cute. She smiled so beautifully and was just so amazing it brought back all the memories for me having my kids. And that one really just cemented in the fact that I wanted to do this so much for my girl and I and for these kids cuz they were amazing. I spent my days just working away. Most the time with her by my side. There was times where yes we were not together 100% there's things she had to go do. Which was fine That's what we needed some time apart to miss each other cuz we did spend a lot of time together but honestly As long as we were there in my truck we were amazing together just hanging out while I was working spending time together and she said she loved watching me work. She loved how manly I smelled after and during a days work. Everything was great. So before her and I met I was always working and keeping to myself just trying to focus on myself but I lived in a hotel. So since her and I got hooked up together, we lived in my hotel which was not bad at all it was a fairly big hotel that offered reduced rates for long extended stays and they offered me a corporate discount. So it was fairly inexpensive as far as paying for the place but it was still extremely expensive compared to renting someplace. But it was by my own money because she had no income no job that I paid for everything. Literally everything. So as I worked 7 days a week and worked from time outta bed in the morning until well after midnight. I had no time to find our own place for cheaper living to start new direction for us. So she started searching for our own place to rent. Let's say we got distracted from that because of this damn drama that seemed to always be happening with her life. I'd always listen to what was going on with her and try to help. It's what I do in my everyday life I jump out of a truck when people are at their worst and it makes me feel a sense of joy because I get to get out of the damn truck like Superman get over to them and calm their life down a little bit slow it down for them when they're in their worst moments of the day and just take that weight off their shoulders. I get that fulfillment for my life that joy and it drives me to keep going That's the only reason I push through my days. I lived for it, soon after meeting her she became a big part of that meaning for me so much so I never even realized that it would end up costing me my career because I just couldn't do it anymore getting in that truck And as I open the door I see her there in the passenger seat with a flooded memory that comes rushing in and I get happy really quick like it's all real again and as soon as I sit down take my guys off that seat I look back over when it close the door cuz I'd always smile back at her when I got in the truck and she's not there and it breaks my heart every single time I experienced this so imagine getting in and out of that truck every day all day long and having to do that. I've been such an emotional wreck now that I literally had to go to my boss and quit my job because I couldn't safely do it and this was the job ladies and gentlemen that I prayed for at the end of our relationship I wasn't working hadn't been working for a few months because I just found out that I got cancer in my throat. So I got depressed I didn't know how to tell her my mom anybody being only 37 years old that I'm not going to be here that long Not as long as I thought so it started to destroy me and by this time in our relationship two and a half years in we had had several moves several little breakups but we'd always come back together and we always seemed great afterwards but then it always seemed like something would come up or she would lie or do something that I didn't like or that I wasn't approving of and every time I tried to talk to her about it she would just blow up at me and yeah there was lots of red flags I missed her out of a relationship I wish I could have done so many things different but stress and being what it is and everything you know I let my emotions get the best of me I let my my everything get the best of me every single time because as soon as she starts yelling it makes me louder and I just don't see anybody giving me that kind of a disrespectful stance especially when I'm trying to be calm I'm trying to just talk to them about it and then they blow up and makes me want to blow up right back So yeah my mistake but are honestly feel like it was just to cause me to do that so she could break up or we can break up and she can run away for a couple days and go get what she needed somewhere else and then come right back. That's what I feel like now. Don't know if it was all lie from delusional or what but everything I've read on here it all speaks to me so much that I honestly I really feel like I was lied to the entire time I was made to believe something that was never true This girl told me she loved me like 3 months in and I honestly felt it before that but I really think it was all just a facade now for her We found each other and we were broken pieces everywhere we started putting our lives together picking everything up putting ourselves back together and we felt more complete than anything is the way I saw our lives up until a year and a half into it though it was for me even with the little small breakups and stuff it was amazing It wouldn't trade it for the world soon as I found out I had cancer though guys It broke me I wasn't working I wasn't doing anything for myself and yeah that I regret I regret not just telling her right away because looking back now it may have helped but I doubt she would even cared She probably would have broke up with me then is how I feel now. But I never told her until almost 3 weeks after we broke up. The 17th of this month was my birthday my 38th birthday The day after is her 3-year-olds 3-year birthday. Which I didn't get to go to even though that little girl calls me dada loves me like there's no tomorrow and I love that little girl so so much she was like she was my daughter shortly after I found out I had cancer I was taking care of that little girl not working but taking care of her all day everyday for months in my house with her living here and my girlfriend living here while she worked. Then she's sitting here telling me griping at me that I need to get back working by about she can't be the only one working but then if I did that we wouldn't had a babysitter We would have nowhere for "Our daughter" She always insisted when I would say her daughter because she has a lot of hateful feelings towards her baby daddy. The other thing I forgot to mention is the fact that about 2 years into our relationship she went through a pretty major surgery for herself No one was there for her except for me I sat with her through the whole thing waited for her at the hospital I waited on her hand and foot at my place of living She laid in my bed took care of her gave her everything she needed and would do it again in a heartbeat The point is that I was there stood by her side took care of her in every way I needed to every way I could. In the first part of our relationship all the way through I'd say the first half She was always constantly wondering if I had eaten today or if I needed food or if I wanted her to cook me anything or I mean would she selflessly would do every single time she was happy to do it She loved doing it She loved being at the hotel and me coming home to a cooked meal how she would do it in her bra and underwear because just for shits and giggles you know She was the most sexually appetizing person I've been in with in my entire life number one and from day one of our relationship I never saw any other female on this planet My eyes never strayed not once they only saw her She was my everything. Fellas tell me when you fell in love If you ever felt the same because I know for me there was another woman on this planet that could ever even have compared to my woman she was so sexy so incredibly just mesmerizing for me and having her in my arms I felt complete I felt like a man I felt like I would move to heaven and earth for this woman and I was trying doing everything I could and it always just seemed like our little stupid spats and our bickering was so much more to her than it was to me because she would always end up leaving and going to her sisters. Her sister was and is so incredibly damaging for her mental state that I'm surprised that this woman has not killed herself yet She has no movement in her own life she's a stay-at-home girlfriend for her boyfriend of 16 15 16 years something like that and she is about a cow about 300 lb heifer that has always been jealous of anything the little sister gets that makes her happy that makes her have a better life than what big sister has then big sister has to sit there and destroy little sisters mental state just to bring her back down so she can feel good about her own self So anytime she ever went back there that's exactly what happened Big sister would just tear her down and break her down and it's just sick and that's where I think first mistake for us ever went was allowing her to move in there because as soon as she did seem like everything started going downhill and that's when I started finding things out about how much she was actually lying to me about stupid silly little things because her brother in-law and sister would talk to her about our relationship at night when they're all home together or whenever and they'd be giving her advice when these two are alcoholics they will not ever get married even though they've been together forever but this is just to not lose social security crap it's ridiculous there's a real fear of commitment between the two and a lot of damage between the two and it just fed right into my woman's head and I'm really truly believe it loud it her to be severely poisoned cuz she started turning into a completely different person but yet I still loved her like the day I first met her I still looked at her exactly the same I still do to this day even though she won't have anything to do with me for whatever reason I don't know I never got a reason but after everything we've been through I honestly felt like every time she made me promise never to leave her every time she made me the promise that she would never leave me no matter what blah blah blah I feel like it was all just a game to her now and a game to her family because my woman was the child that was traded off when things got too stressful for Mom she was the kid that was sent to the hospital to you know being the mental ward because it was just too tough for Mom to cope with having two kids and being as destroyed of a person as she is So of course that's led to a lot of emotional damages for my woman and for that entire family It's led to alcoholism and the other side of the family with her sister and her mom being best friends they hang out all day long and it's about the worst family situation you could think of but sadly she will still choose her family over anybody at the end of the day even though they don't choose her like that It breaks my heart to watch honestly the best thing she could do is cut them off from her life but there is a lot of times that she needed them there because she had no other option is what she felt instead of when we fought going there honestly alsoever wanted her to do is just calm down and instead of leaving stay here choose me over that bullshit fight choose me over the fucking nonsense of everything because at the end of the day none of it mattered to me I always forgave her for everything not because I wanted to be the doormat or because I allowed myself to be the doormat but because when I grew up I grew up in a Christian family That's what we do if we fight we work shit through I may not be the best Christian in the world but I know the values that I have in my family were not the same as hers they traded her off when times got tough they never showed her unconditional love so she doesn't even know how to unconditionally love her own children and it's really sad cuz honestly to this day I feel like that little girl would choose me over her own mother and that breaks my heart for her. I realize I've been rambling on for a while now but this one really doesn't sit right with me guys I've never had any issues with any breakup since this one and I know the mental state she was in when she made it and made this choice but the way she did it just recently after having promised her yet again and her promising me that we would never leave each other and to always fight for the relationship. She comes over about a 3 weeks ago we have sex been seen each other in a few days few days prior to that we went and took "our daughter" to her dentist appointment she had to be knocked out at and did great through who'd she want afterwards after she woke up me Not her mom just me to comfort her. So being the dad that I am of course I did that I gave her the comfort she needed we had a great day together but it was short-lived. My girl's been in such a bad spot mentally but she refused to talk to me about it I could never get her to open up and yes I did a lot of things wrong because I was always trying to fix her or trying to help her through it is how I see it She saw it as me trying to fix her and she said I don't need to be fixed. But I know I didn't see it that way and that may have been my mistake because she wasn't looking for advice or whatever on how to try to help her through it but she just wanted somebody to listen to her which I did I can repeat everything she's ever told me about an issue word for word I can almost predict in my head I can sit there and say okay what's she going to say. And then I can literally as she's saying it out loud I can pretty well determine already know what she's going to say while listening though just to make sure I don't miss anything It ends up being the same thing every time and it's always all about her family's issues and things going on between them. It's been this way for the last year and a half probably since she moved in there now just before this breakup she had been for a couple months looking for place for us to go cuz I want out of where I'm at now and she obviously wanted out of there and so she was supposedly looking for it for a place to go That was ours because I got a new job I sat here and prayed for a new job that I had applied for and they just weren't moving fast enough or something I guess because like 4 days before she broke up with me they called and I started working I was so happy I got back in that truck I was doing it for her for us for me for those girls everything was going the way I had invisioned it going. Then like I said two days go by she came over spend some time together We had a little quickie and then we went to her appointment with the psych doctor couple days later she breaks up with me This is how I wake up the next morning after being at work all night long in my tow truck to a text message and I'm blocked on everything every single social media outlet every everything that we had together online I'm just blocked. Knowing the mental state she was in I was like what the hell is going on now I got a short text message that said something like I can't do this anymore This is after going through her girl parts being taken out being with her the entire time waiting on her hand and foot this is after saving her daughter because her drunk ass sister drove home from their mothers house while watching the like 5-month-old baby at the time and ran the car into the fucking house in the middle of the night and we were both working shoot while she was watching her That's why she was watching her So of course I get a phone call she can't leave work and she's freaking out because her daughter was just in the car that just slammed into the house and did thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of damage So what happens This guy goes and rescues the child and keeps the child with him the entire rest of my work night until mom gets off work there's lots of reasons that this woman has loved me completely and tried so hard and there's lots of reasons why I've loved her as completely as I could and tried so hard and tried getting back on track now I used her in those kids and myself to get me back to a point where I could even start to function again after finding out I had cancer and not knowing how to tell her or anybody and what hurts the most is the fact that she just gave up and just blindsided me with all of this if I feel like and it kills me but this is what I had to do because of her putting all her walls up and just stonewalling me with everything and knowing the fact that even on her Facebook she chose to not put family photos of us for up there but to put every other photo of that entire time together on there even ones that she had taken separately with just her and her girls making it look like nobody else was there the entire time She just failed to include the you know few pictures she took all of us. Which are now deleted off her phone obviously cuz she deleted everything of us together She always does that She always does it just deletes them because she never had any good memories as a child so she has an inability to just keep that stuff because it's painful to her now for some reason even if it was a happy memory She doesn't like those happy memories cuz those are painful that they're not going to happen anymore so she just erases everything and gets rid of it because it's easier for her while I'm not that type of person I'm a sentimental person I keep everything So of course when she goes gets her mind off track whatever I start to be sweet and send her you know our pictures together and things because I know she's already done deleted them which gets her nine times out of 10 and gets her right back to where she needs to be and realizing that I'm there for her that I I want her I choose her and I choose to do this together well not this time She completely stonewalled me wouldn't even respond to me for days and it was literally out of the blue So I'm freaking out because I'm thinking she's going to go hurt herself which she's tried to do a few times and she just reapped on all her medication the last time she tried to hurt herself that's what had happened She took all of her medication and thank God nothing happened but now she had you know six new bottles of pills which would have done it so I was scared for her life honestly. So I was literally just freaking out day after day night after night and all while having to work at night now with this new job in the truck that I was freaking out because I couldn't see her in my passenger seat anymore and then I was seeing her and then I was worrying about her and I was concentrating more on her than I was even able to do my job like I said I had to give it up even though I sat there and prayed for her prayed for myself to pray to get the job and it was literally a blessing because they created the position for me they didn't need to fill a position they created it for me I've been doing this job for well over 10 years of my career and I'm damn good at it Just not right now and so for the last month after everything that I found out everything that it's been said This is what I had to do guys and I I can't regret it I can't feel any type of way about it but I've been pushing and pushing and pushing on purpose because I know she's not coming back no matter what That's the way she feels but once I stop trying to fight for the relationship to fight for her and fight for those kids I know she's going to start to feel the feelings of losing me and it's going to start getting into her head so I knew if I stopped talking to her that's what would happen and she would try to slide right back into my life a month later whenever however it would happen she would come back eventually and I'm not going to be in a new place in my life where I would allow her to do that I can't So what I did was I pushed on purpose not only because she made me promise to do it but because I knew it's what needed to happen because I needed my mental state to be better and it's not right now I'm a wreck right now because of this woman because of losing this woman cuz I honestly felt like she's the one person on this planet that I would never let go. So my life is just turned into a fucking wreck on a wreck on a wreck because of her vindictive nature her mean-spirited bullshit when she gets mad She doesn't not have a filter so she uses her daughter against me how's it feel no that you'll never see "her daughter" ever again trying to dig into my heart and just cause more pain This is the type of stuff she would say to me That would just break me down to nothing. I've literally been in tears since the breakup and before that because I I think I kind of knew it was coming but I was just so depressed that I couldn't do anything I would cry every night even a month before we were broken up I would cry every night just cuz I missed her I missed her being next to me but that was her own fault that was her own doing She lied put words in my roommate's mouth that were never there and she couldn't apologize She could not be an adult and apologize to him and then it would have been fine She would have been a loud back at the house She would been able to come see me but she just is not the adult that I thought she was or that she used to be before when we first got together and and I don't understand what happened I can't see where it all just went so terribly wrong except for her moving in with her family. It has been the greatest experience of my life loving this woman but at the same time in the end it has been so destructive so I had to make sure that she would never come back So for the last month I've been pestering her coming at her yelling at her calling her all these names in the book and just destroying anything she ever had for me because I won't let her back into my life I can't cuz I know if I do it will be the death of me so I'm choosing me over the love of my life. The woman that I have lived for for this past three fucking years of my life given everything to worked my ass off so I could fucking just keep going the next day to provide what I could for us as a family mind you have paid for everything every waking moment for the first year and a half of our lives because she didn't have a job She didn't work so I paid for everything and that's everything we needed for the baby as well. That couldn't get bought with food stamps. Literally drained every bit of funds that I had saved up everything Just took me for a rollercoaster ride through hell but I chose me I choose me now And hopefully the apartment that she was finding for us the one that she supposedly went to Once she supposedly is at now I hope her I wish her all the best but I had to sit here and destroy any chances of ever being with the woman that I still to this day want because I know she comes back crawling back I knew that I would take her back in a heartbeat and I just can't do it so I had to get it done and over with for me for her for everybody because I won't be hurt like that I won't be disrespected like that I won't be turned into a monster because she tears me down with her hateful little remarks and digs into my heart that are totally unnecessary when I'm being everything I can try to be and be sweet for her She literally anytime I would try to be sweet would turn it into something it's not telling me I'm manipulating her telling me I'm doing this I'm doing that well okay so that's what I'll do That's what I thought and that's exactly what I did If I'm the monster let me know cuz I feel like it honestly but I know it's for the best. To my little blue sundress princess, the love of my life I'm Sorry I had to do what I did sweetheart I'll always love you no matter what babe Just can't have you walk back into my life and and destroy everything that I build from here on out because I'll end up killing myself and I don't want that to happen so this is goodbye even though I know you'll never read this. Just know that I see you everywhere in every place I go there's memories that fled back to me everyday that are amazing or that are bad or that are just that their memories they will fade eventually hopefully but for now they are still too real for me to just forget like seems like you want to do by going out there and supposedly live in your best life faking it just to make it for the rest of the world being that strong independent woman with that attitude exactly even though I know you're sad inside I know you just buried those feelings All the love you had for me and you're lying to yourself but that's on you now I tried I really really tried to get you to understand that that's where we were headed was the life we wanted so sorry I asked you to choose me and love me for me instead of love me for what I had or didn't have. I'm sorry I needed to do this or even felt like I needed to do this cuz I will always love you no matter what, But now my life is going to be for me and for me only for its remainder because you gave up the fight and I ended it.

Ive heard quite a few times that heists on payday 3 don't have the same impact as previous games. I believe it's a problem of the "get out ASAP" game design and just some boring objectives. While I can't suggest anything for the former, the latter goes like this from me!
NRFTW
This heist being the first one excuses the more simplistic design and I agree with it. Only gripes I got are these

• The dye pack timer should scale with player count.

I find it a bit stupid that solo players are the only ones that can't defuse all packs without an ECM. I think that making non 4 player teams (1-3) either risk it or have a dedicated ECM carrier is more interesting. Maybe a voice line from Shade hinting that it's a feature too. It's completely hidden as it is now.

• Script cop spawns near the electrical boxes

The push past everyone to the escape zone has more cops than the "locked down perimeter" a bit beyond it. Nuff said
Road Rage
This heist mostly suffers from being boring on repeat play thrus. The fix is complex to execute but simple as an idea.

• Make the roadblocks dynamic instead of preset.

Add a swat van driving into the path of the van, cops breaking a scaffold etc. The only time players gets caught out is in the very first playthrough, really boring.
Dirty Ice
This is one of the best heists in the game in terms of player choice and freedom. The only problem of the diamond cleaning being useless is also being fixed in the next update too. I honestly don't have any gripes. You stay for as long as you want and do it your own way.
Rock The Cradle
Honestly, this heist needs some sort of restructure. Or item placement changes.

• Remove the blue keycard of the VIP door guard.

Since the game launched people have been exploiting this to skip 50+% of the heist. It's a stupid oversight to stick to.

• Do something about the flip boxes.

Yea real smart. But I'm not sure what to suggest with the locked RNG being in the game. New objective, diffrent way of them working, not sure ngl.
Under The Suprhaze
This heist overall is pretty cool but it can be a bit fatiguing on failed attempts. It's really long in some aspects (both stealth and loud) and if I need to replay it I just groan, seeing how much progress I lost.

• Make the QR codes faster to grab.

Please there's 7 and each takes a small eternity to grab. I'm not wasting a skill to do that.

• Either improve or remove the floor-is-lava rooms

This is a first person shooter, parkour is not the games strongsuit. Mantling or jumping is a gamble, bouncing off of walls on jumps is common, it's not really fun to sweat over it. Maybe it's a skill isue :shrug:

• Rethink the stealth secure point

I honestly cannot play this stealth without a zipline asset. The secure point is a block away from the building, across a very populated park. Is this me being punished for "not planning it out"?

• Make the final assault trigger on last mission critical painting being picked up, not the usb one

Just...why. You can litterally just not pick up the usb painting or pick it up last and circumvent the huge obstacle. Not a fan

• Wi-Fi circles. Nuf said

Gold And Sharke
This heist for the most part is fine, just not as epic as I would have wanted it to be but that's subjective. Anywho-

• The QR requirement for the manager rooms is not needed.

The starting objective needs QR codes to get into manager rooms but it just feels like padding. Scavenging thru the intire bank for random phones to guess what's behind door number 3...or just use tricks/glitches/oversights to basically skip it. Just leave it as locked doors, no need for QRs.

• Wi-Fi circles. Nuff said
  
• The drill should beep when low on oxygen and the marker for where the oxygen is doesn't need to spawn AFTER the drill breaks.
  

I've had countless runs where I just get distracted for a minute and the drill breaks due to no oxygen. It's a simple QOL feature. Also Shade says the drill needs oxygen but waits for it to break before saying WHERE it is. Just spawn it when it's red at least.
99 Boxes
Hoo boy. The more I play this the less I want to do it again. This intire heist is just a really long holdout and kinda just needs a full remake imo, let's see if I can think of something. Where to begin...

• Make the parkour paths harder to miss

Again, the game is not made for parkour. I lose more health breaking my legs than the cops. I'm not even sure I'm getting to some containers the way the devs intended lol.

• Wi-Fi circles. aaaaAAAA

Change them into a minigame or perhaps rerouting the signal of a recently arrived FBI van to get a location signal to spoof instead of damn circles. Maybe have players rotate the dish manually until a signal is caught and then grab the chip before the FBI interupts the hi-jack.

• The spike strip objective is a bit...pointless?

The whole objective is just nothing, grab a consistant spawn object, place it, NOW you can leave. It takes 10s at most. You could change it into players having to move cop cars Brooklyn 10-10 style into a blockade, dissable the cars (shoot tires, break engines etc) and THEN leave. That's way more interactive.
Touch The Sky
This heist is a cool premise but it felt like devs really ran out of steam on the objectives on here ngl. Even Shade knows with the safe in a vault comment.

• Wi-Fi circles...jeez

This is getting tiresome. This could be maybe a rewire objective, follow wires from the console to trick it's current status (door locked or not). Heck, blow it open in loud or something, it's a wooden door with metal lining.

• The red keycard for the main office is a bit boring but mostly fine.

We're breaking into an office of a gun runner and its key is just in a random paper room? Cmon. It could be hidden in the bedroom, maybe even booby trapped so snoopers wouldn't get away with such a steal.

• As Shade mentions, the safe is not necessary.

It's padding. Remove it

• Increase the difficulty of removing the encryption off of the ssd.

Add timed checks to like flick an accept Hoxton breakout style when the ssd asks for one, find a required hash in Masons notes for it etc. Its the last mission of this first chapter but the end goal is a simple hack. Spice it up
Turbid station
This heist is mostly good. Only real problem is the damn security room cart.

• Make the "If the blue shirt guy is dead" objective the main way to get into the cart.

If you didn't know, if you kill the executive guy you get a secondary way to open the train cart. It's way safer and it opens the cart PWLERMENANTLY. Why is the """punishment"""" for not following the plan is an easier route???

• Make hacking SSD make a noise again

This one I'm honestly not sure is the case but I THINK it's completely silent. It wasn't so in 2.
Cook off
This heist is another perfecto, no real problems other than some bugs that may or may not be patched. So only problem from me is this

• Fix the houses proportions.

The doors feel commically wide. Staircase feels commically wide. It's silly.
Syntax error
This one's a doozy. Some things done well, some not so.

• Shorten the main door hack in loud.

In all loud lobbies I've done, everyone knows to stealth the first bit to get the code for the door due to it being faster. A bit silly ngl.

• The red keycard spawns are commically bad for new players.

There are dozens of clips of players running for an hour, not finding the red keycard. The red shelves are not that obvious and are low on the floor. Hang em on the wall atleast!!

• Techie sucks with the current armor system.

The techie so far has had two states. So stupidly OP that leaving her alive or running out to kill her is virtually the same in terms of resource drain. And how she is now, a mosquito with no real threat. Going out to kill her takes more resources than tanking it. The design is stupid with her hiding out. It's never worth hunting her during an assault. More so if you got drone hack skills.

• The park objective is...silly

If you kill cops in the park (as the objevtive says) you won't progress. You need to be in the field and kill park enemies. Bruh-

• The escape should have been further away or in a sewer.

It's silly planning wise to buy thousands of dollars worth of explosive equipment to...cross the street. It's anti climatic imo
PHEW...Let me know your thoughts!

I am an artist.
”Eleven evil wizard schoolgirls in an archduke's library, dressed in red and black Asmodean schoolgirl uniforms, perched on armchairs and sofas”^\1])
Sigh, at least it’s not more catgirls. I don’t even draw them well.
I stretched briefly before starting this one, my arms reaching as far as they could go behind me as I leaned back in my chair. And then my neck, back and forth, side to side, crick and crick.
20 feet away, 20 seconds, every 20 minutes, I mantra’d, looking about the office, surveying the heads above the computer screens, dutifully doing all sorts of art. My eyes met briefly with Bill and we shared something of a nod. Why was he looking at me? Eh, I was looking at him.
I turned back to my work, and began drawing on the screen. It offered me a sort of imprint of what various image gen models would have done across multiple instances. With this heat map, almost as part of my process, I can nearly always imagine some ghost of a previous key work existent - a sort of platonic form of wizard schoolgirls, or maybe an amalgamation of the forms of both schoolgirls and wizards? Who knows. Whoever pioneered the sorcery and teenagers combo must’ve done well for themself.
I began filling in the inverse and emptier spaces with basic sketches of where I’d place each wizard schoolgirl, making sure there were multiple armchairs and sofas (four and 2, yeah, that feels decent). And I’d do something interesting and move these two behind the others, maybe they’re even twins, or is that a common trope and I’ll lose creativity points?
Huh. Somebody thought this first and then drew it, or maybe the artist even then was contracted? Who knows. I started making more aggressive lines, quickly placing each face. Maybe this one’s face is covered with her hair and this one is blonde but she’s dyed her hair black. And to be bold, this one has a ponytail.
Will I make an ‘unattractive' one? I pondered for a moment...
…nah, they say they don’t, but it definitely gets penalized.
On returning pen to screen my hand was a bit too ambitious and malpracticed across the page (one benefit, I suppose, is I do get exposed to quite a few more words than I used to). But this was fine, since the pen had a built-in ‘undo’ tap.
Of course, AI tools made drawing so much easier, but that was before we realized each little shake of the artists’ lines were that much more information to train with, and no this can’t be gamed with arthritis, it’s more nuanced than just arthritic artists.
It’s hard not to be somewhat conscious of this sort of nuance to my pen-stroke, especially as I start thinking about it. So I thought about it as I traced the sofas, and awkwardly tried-not-to-consciously-do-normally-subconscious-things-but-also-is-this art that I’m doing now? Hmm… I thought about it, a weird new style of consciously doing everything you normally leave to the subconscious, by intention… and maybe this even has value in the lines produced, ah whatever, just draw the Asmodean schoolgirl uniforms. Time is passing and I pull up some reference material.
Soon I’m adding details, lamenting the inability to just paste on faces for these girls, but whatever they probably all look rather same-y and simple across the genre and etc. so I sort of just cheat and rush through this part. I make a couple lines more scraggly for good measure, and one of the girls turns out looking a bit… queasy? Sorry, I thought to the poor queasy girl. Ah well, the prompt didn’t really specify more and I get paid by byte of info. More importantly, I need to meet my daily quota.
They had to put a quota, of course, since the artists would just keep waffling about all day! As opposed to being smart like doctors and optimizing for the number of patients seen. And, of course, I think it’s much too fast, but I would think that, wouldn't I.
Now I’m adding some background detail and rather fearfully trying to make that at least a little interesting with what time I might have left, as priorities clash, but I’m more or less finishing up and soon sending it to some poor sop to color. Speaks a lot for my work, I guess, that I feel bad for whoever receives it. Sigh. Adds further diversity, apparently, to mix up contributors, and training data is paramount so I shouldn’t feel that poorly really, that’s not the point. In any case, I’m glad I don’t have to do more experimental work, mixing artists on a piece, yuck. But maybe that’s the way we’re headed.
I take a step back from the piece and sanity check it for a moment, cleaning up my wizard schoolgirls as best I can to be prim and proper, and counting them like a school mistress might on a trip. Maybe it’s like I just took a group picture. I look back to the prompt and - shit! Forgot library. And I hurriedly start drawing book spines of gibberish on a shelf that emerges from the back wall.
Luckily, we haven’t run out of content yet, twelve schoolgirls is quite different from eleven and I could have even been so bold (dumb) as to do an armchair and sofa per schoolgirl! Though I have been known to be an afficionado of mixing mediums, so I’ve got some room for pleasure with new styles. Maybe someday they’ll value more quality data over quantity and filling out this odd possibility space. But I fear that maybe that’s not something that I can even do.
Unfortunately, I never quite keep to my 20 minute cycle, whatever that means for my eyes (bad). I look at the prompt again, I look at my drawing… sanity check number two passed, good enough for me. Now, why anyone would want,
”Eleven evil wizard schoolgirls in an archduke's library, dressed in red and black Asmodean schoolgirl uniforms, perched on armchairs and sofas”
I don’t know. But I guess I get the bigger picture. I actually rather enjoy some part of the process, the human injection is like an iterative challenge. What are all the norms you are trying to subvert without getting meaningless? Even as I struggle with time constraints - to innovate is to be a little guinea pig chompin at the water bottle thingie between wheel runs.
And certainly thank goodness I don’t deal with text! I’ve heard those guys go crazy and just start to babble after some time, although a few people seem to really enjoy that. No, I just get my next prompt,
“dune movie screencap, 2021, dune movie trailer, in the color blue, and there’s a female futar --ar 16:9 --v 6.0.”^\2])
Well that’s a spoiler for the fifth book in the Dune series for anyone who searches that up for reference. And after thinking for a moment, meh, I spent one of my few rerolls.
“Robin Hood and the 7 dwarves at a disco parlor, one is happy, one is sad and those two are staring at each other, one feels sonder, one feels angry and is hopping mad with a baseball cap while one more celebrates a homerun, and one is a catgirl.”
I count in my head... Isn’t this missing a dwarf? … and what the heck is sonder?
And so, I stretched again and looked out across the office of artists. Bill was looking at me again - man we are on the same schedule today, huh. I tried to work a bit faster or slower this cycle.

1. ^https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1738589085847937463
2. ^https://twitter.com/Rahll/status/1739003201221718466

Firstly: What is the point of a protest that follows the rules?
Maybe there are critical points about which rules are being referred to but depending on which rules we mean wouldn't such a protest be ignored? Especially if the protest has demands in mind, why would institutions give into demands if they dont stand to lose anything by ignoring them? If everything will go on as normal then why bother?
The Civil Rights Act for example passed with the awareness that if nothing would be done to change race relations in the United States there could be further conflict. They stood to lose something by ignoring.
And as a person how do you protest to change something that is currently the state of affairs if not by ignoring rules that caused you to need to protest? Are you supposed to want "progress" but only until you're off the hook and within the system, and after that everything needs to stay just the way it is?
Now regarding the impartiality stuff that gets mixed into the rule following stuff.
Impartiality is to me a choice to maintain the status quo, which may be the good decision for the situation or not. By being impartial you might be rubbing into a thing that needs to change and you're fighting against the tide since you think keeping the status quo is better. Unmovable impartiality doesn't seem like a functional way to do things, since it neuters you from enforcing rules that defuse a conflict, how do you deal with a student group from protesting that trans teachers shouldn't be hired or whatever without explicitly or implicitly picking a side? Do you just hope it goes away?
Going back to the Civil Rights Act example, that wasn't an impartial decision, that was a choice to fight againt descrimination and segregation when they could have done something else. A choice contested then and contested to this day. But after decades it became what most people think was a good decision. This seems like just what you have to do sometimes if you have the power, pick a side and hope you chose well or do nothing and hope it doesn't matter.

My Potential is Against Legal Marriage in the UK: What Should I Do?

Salam Everyone.
I need some advice about a serious matter that's been on my mind. I've been in a relationship with a guy. known each other for about five years now, and we are considering marriage. We both want to have our nikkah ceremony soon, but we've hit a significant roadblock.
He is strongly against legalising our marriage according to UK law. He believes that the nikkah is sufficient and doesn't see the need for a legal marriage certificate. This has me worried for several reasons:

1. Legal Recognition. Without a UK marriage certificate, our marriage won't be recognised legally. We'll just be considered as living partners, not a married couple.
2. Future Children. I’m concerned about the status of our future children. Will they be considered legitimate under Islamic law but not under UK law? Could this cause problems down the line, especially with things like inheritance, legal rights, etc.?
3. Islamic Perspective. I worry that not having a legal marriage might be considered haram. Isn't it important to follow the laws of the country we live in as long as they don't conflict with our religious beliefs?
4. Personal Preferences. I would feel much more secure and respected if our marriage was legal in the eyes of the law. Ideally, I'd like to legalise our marriage on the same day as our nikkah, if possible.

Given these concerns, I'm feeling conflicted about how to proceed. Has anyone here faced a similar situation? How did you handle it? What would you advise me to do because I actually really like this guy?
Thanks in advance for your insights!

So, I've watched the AITA videos on YouTube all the time, so I thought I would bring a couple of my stories here. (This is a long one, so bear with me.) I tried to post this on another aita page but there were too many rules. I'm sure everyone else has a more interesting story than me. also new here don't know how the app works. so chill on me.
I (19, female) recently moved out of my apartment so I could save for a better one. So, I recently went back to my moms for a bit (40, female) with her husband (35, male). Before I even thought about coming back home, my mom always told me, "Come back home. You can have the room back. Nobody helps me with the dog or clean. We missed you so much; I've been depressed since you've been gone."
Now, before I get to the story, let me give you some background on my (16, female) sister. I'll give her a fake name. Let's call her Nya. My mom would complain about how my sister (27 female), who has custody of my sister, uses my sister's taxes for herself and my niece, and Nya never gets anything. Now, I understand her frustration, but she's a hypocrite. She asked my dad's wife if she could claim me last year. Mind you, I was 18, and if Shes complaining that my sister should've gotten her taxes, then mine should've gone to me, all $5,000 of it, but I didn't trip about it at first. Well, she got me furniture with the taxes after I told her I did not want or need any furniture in my room, so I had stuff I didn't even want when I already had stuff. She told me, "When you move, you can take it." Well, I moved to my boyfriend's mom's house for a couple of months and then got my own apartment. I went to ask if I could get my furniture, and she's going to say, "Oh. Nya sleeps in here when she visits on weekends, and it's set up to be her room." she could've kept my old furniture in storage if she was going to play in my face like that. Nya only visits 8 times out of the whole month unless it's a holiday, no school, or half a day. She could've given me my furniture. I was laying on an old mattress that came from my boyfriend's moms place and it hurt our backs. I was paying so much for rent and just to live that I couldn't afford to get a new one. I really hated Nya because she knew what she was doing. On my birthday, she got gifted more things than I did because she had an attitude. But when it was hers, I didn't get NOTHING. Imagine someone else getting more gifts than you on your own birthday. They had me pierce my own nose at 15, but Nya professionally got hers done. My nose closed up, and we've done this about 6 times, but they got her pierced twice on both sides her nose. When she'd come over, if they'd go out, she'd always ask for something, and if she didn't get her way, she wouldn't speak with my mother or her husband. Almost every time I see her, she has something new that my mom got her. She comes over and uses my mom; she doesn't even hang out with my mom when she's here unless they go out. She hides in the room. And ironically, every time I leave stuff around her, it goes missing. She would steal stuff from my mom too, and the whole time, it would be something of mine that my mom was holding onto for me. Over $300 worth of stuff she's stolen or got CAUGHT stealing. She's able to call my mom a (b word), but I was told, "You can cuss; just don't ever call me a (b word)." Like my sister basically owns her at this point. You might've already seen where this was going.
My mom called me the day I was packing, which was literally Tuesday. It's been no more than 4-5 days, and it's already been so much drama. She had an attitude like she was surprised I was coming back, but me and her spoke several times the month before about it. She swore up, down, left, and right that it was okay. Silly me for thinking my mother, of all people, could be relied on. Well, she picks me up and complains how I had too many bags (it was 5 black bags and like 5 tiny grocery bags. My boyfriend had most of the other stuff, including big furniture that he was taking with his mom because she has a house. my mom has an apartment). I'm not surprised she was complaining; it's all she does. She said she didn't know what to do with the room yet because she "didn't want to pick favorites." The craziest part was Nya herself said I can stay in here and remember that its important.
She waited till about 9 o'clock PM to tell me that I could sleep in there. Now I had several bags, and they would've cried if they were all in the living room, so I took them in the room, but by now, you can probably tell nothing pleases them. A1 complainers. Well, everything was fine at first until my older sister texted me Friday night and said, 'Mom and Nya don't know how to tell you ONCE AGAIN that they don't want you in that room. I'm not trying to start drama; I just want you to know they said you moved Nya's stuff and threw it on the floor.' This did, however, create drama. Also, what does she mean by 'AGAIN'? And I didn't throw a THING on that floor. My sister literally didn't sleep the whole time because she was so ever so sick that I was in here relaxing with my man who came to visit. So, I did text my mom how I felt, and I told her about how she gets everything, but she wants to say 'bull they say you were the princess' when I was like freaking 5, yeah. What have you really done but make me feel less than the other? So comes morning, and her husband came banging on the door telling me to unlock it (the door was already unlocked. Get a load of this guy.), and I'm GROWN; this man really came at me sideways talking about 'get the f in the living room.' Mind you, I have a past with anxiety; I will faint, and they know this. I don't like arguing. I said, 'No, I'm leaving.' Now I didn't know where I was going to go yet because my boyfriend's mom has all 6 of her kids in the house right now with no space. So I had to call my Poppop the WHOLE time my stepfather would not shut up. (Ohh, brother, this guy stinks.) My mom wouldn't stop screaming, and I got stressed and screamed to just stop, and I started crying because of course, I have anxiety and I'm overwhelmed because its 3 people yelling over something they said i could do. My chest was tight, and I was shaking. Then my mom really had the audacity to tell Nya, 'She don't want u in here because she said u stole.' I told my mom to keep that private. My sister was stealing my underwear, and I told her (funny because I literally JUST bought her some clothes and underwear). I asked her to keep it between us. Oh boy, I won't tell her NOTHING again. I forgot she got a fat mouth. Anyways, I called my grandpa, and I'm his baby, so how could he ever say no? He's the only one that ever cares for me anymore. I felt bad because my mom started crying, so I said, 'I'll be back tomorrow it's ok.' Stupid, I know. Because she didn't care when I was crying and using the inhaler trying to get air.
And might I add, my sister said 'no what did I steal. She can come say it to my face.' I wanted to knock her socks off. She literally left to go to a friend's because I was in the room after she said I could be in there. That should tell you she didn't come to hang out with mom. Everything about her makes me mad. She does stuff that I do, and she thinks I don't notice. She took my style, even my personality, and my interests. Like I'm a hello kitty girl. I wear hello kitty pants, Kuromi bookbags, and just hello kitty anything including my decor. And I paint so I have hello kitty paintings (I'm good at it too), and she happened to all of a sudden like it too. My hairstyles are unique; I do my own thing. She tries to do her hair like mine. All the TV shows and YouTubers I watch, she started all of a sudden liking. At first, it was cute; I thought she looked up to me. Until I realized she's just trying to BE ME, and she doesn't even like me. Anyways, I went to my Poppop and my Nanas, and my mom tried to guilt trip me on Facebook, and I told them everything that happened, and they agree with me that my mom is being unfair, considering I will be there for about 30 days and my sister only 8 times out of the month. I told my mother that now my sister won't be comfortable coming here because she doesn't know how to just shut up and just be a mother. My nana said it was so immature to really tell Facebook that we 'hate' her. Also, can I add that I've only been here 4 days because I went to my Poppop's last night. Then my mom had the audacity to tell me to keep the room clean when it was a mess. Then when I went to clean it, she told me to leave the stuff there. My sister didn't have it clean; it was a mess. I moved out this little fireplace and 2 blankets, and that's literally what they were mad about. Excuse me for cleaning your brown smoked out and molded walls and provided more space. Excuse me for cleaning the bedding that had cat fur all over it because I couldn't breathe. Cry a river.
so aita?

Just wanted to see if anyone else has had this issue and if they were able to resolve it.
I was on STEM/OPT that expires in September 2024 and I transitioned to H1B October 2023 using change of status. I don't have an H1B visa stamp and my F1 is expired.
I went to renew my DL at RMV as it expires on the same date as my STEM/OPT. There they couldn't verify my h1b approval notice and said that according to the USCIS database they use, my lawful presence ends in September 2024.
This is so stressful! I am worried about so many things

1. The information with USCIS is incorrect
2. If USCIS thinks I'm still on stem OPT then I'm out of compliance as I haven't done those update forms they require every 6 months.
3. USCIS thinks that the person on stem OPT and the person on h1b are two separate people
4. How do I figure out what the issue is, and how do I correct the information at USCIS

Please help, kindly citizens of reddit.

Long post, sorry in advance!
My older daughter (almost 4) loves her baby sister (10 weeks old) and likes to hold her, bathe her, snuggle her, read to her…however what was minor aggression towards her in the beginning seems to be escalating and I’m worried we are making it worse.
I know it’s a super hard time for first kiddos - the change of status, the time Mom spends with the baby, having to change routines and roles…it’s hard! I want to allow for big feelings, anger, frustration etc. However, she has taken to randomly smacking the baby’s face, going to kiss her and pushing her face against the baby really really hard, or yanking on her arm or leg while the baby is in the carrier. It’s really upsetting and I’ve found myself yelling at her (“STOP!”) or just really shocked. It seems like she surprises herself too. When I try to do natural consequences like me taking the baby somewhere safe (the other side of the baby gate) it feels bad because she’s separated from us and she screams and cries that she’s lonely, can’t stop crying, needs a hug etc.
I’m worried my big reactions are making the situation worse, but it’s hard not the react in anger when the baby gets hurt. We don’t hit or spank at all in our home. I admit I’ve yanked her away from the baby a few times more forcefully then I would like.
Pre-baby I basically never yelled at her and had never pushed or pulled or hit her in her whole life. I am struggling so much here because I don’t want to damage her relationship with her new sister. The baby has really started to interact socially and it’s just heartbreaking to see how much she smiles at and watches her big sister.
I try to make time every day to connect with my older daughter without the baby, during baby naps. We paint or play or read. It just seems like never enough. I miss her too and feel pretty distressed by this dynamic.
Has anyone experienced this kind of thing? Any advice? Hope for the future?

(I LIVE!! I have no idea what's hit me as hard as it did that Friday. But I needed Saturday to recover as well. Clearly wasn't the CPAP as that's working fine now. But good god is this unpleasant. Thankfully I'm clearly on the mend. I think I may have gotten food poisoning from KFC. Pity.)
~First~
Love and Longing
Little Fina’Noir and Dri’Noir still don’t like getting along all that much. So of course they need daddy between them to behave. They lay across his stomach, each out of reach of the other. For all that they ‘don’t’ get along, separating them is worse. They’re clearly best rivals already. They reach for each other and there are tiny puffs of sparks and little tongues of flame. But considering the soft and thin bed of moss on their daddy’s torso, it does nothing but make their little bits of bedding all the more comfortable.
Cia’Noir was visiting again, to be fair she visited so often she had almost moved in, and she was also currently mixing up a meaty broth in the kitchen while humming a nursery rhyme that most of the girls adored. Especially Uma’Noir and Jiti’Noir as they tried to keep tempo with it as grandma semi-swayed, semi-danced to the tune to their delight.
Ari’Noir, Mala’Noir, Gia’Noir and Lia’Noir were all having an extra nap. They had managed to get each other excited and rushing around as best they could earlier and wore themselves out. Leaving Miro’Noir the proud mother to luxuriate next to their shared napping blanket and pillows, casually reading a book.
“Oh? A call?” Vernon asks as his communicator starts buzzing. This grabs the attention of Fina and Dri as he pulls it out. “Observer Wu? Oh, the new ship.”
He activates it and then has the phone levitate away to give a broader look. “Sir, you’ll forgive me for not standing at attention I hope.”
“Yes.” The Asian man says after a moment. “We can excuse the lack of decorum considering that you seem to be thoroughly pinned.”
“What can I say? My little girls are fighters. I’ve heard some rumour about you through The Dark Forest. How may I help?”
“I am doing a preliminary call and evaluation of the situation with humanity off of Earth. We’ve found enough confusion information coming back to us that it necessitated the appointment and dispatching of an unquestionably trusted individual, myself, in order to ascertain exactly what is going on.” Observer Wu stated. “Unfortunately due to the sheer amount of nonsense that’s being sent towards The Inevitable and by extension, myself, I have been forced to place several administrators on duty to sort out the sheer number of calls I’m getting. The galaxy knows this is a second Dauntless Class Vessel, which means more humans.”
“Which means more men, and many women that decided to take a wait and see approach have likely decided that they’ve waited long enough.” Miro’Noir states.
“Indeed that is true madam. I take you are Lady Miro’Noir?”
“Princess, Lady is a more ennobled title. I am a Battle Princess, a military rank, directly empowered by and under the command of the Imperial Family of Serbow, in particular, The Empress.” Miro’Noir says and Observer Wu nods.
“And the third adult looking into this conversation?” Observer Wu asks.
“I am Cia’Noir, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother depending who in this room you are asking.” She says. “My little girl has worked a miracle in that she’s locked down a husband all to herself. So she needs a bit of a hand to caring for her first clutch, no sister wives to assist you see.”
“I believe I do. Still, I have been informed that Officer Shay and Princess Miro’Noir are largely responsible for the excellent relationships the Apuk have with humanity. If you would be so kind, could you tell me how that came about?”
“Oh... it was silly, sweet and wonderful all at the same time...” Miro’Noir gushes. “We met at a bar and I tried to get some attention, a few credits for a conversation. At first I thought he was a Tret.”
“The near human species, yes.”
“Well, I was proven wrong, not only human, but an INTERESTING human as well. A trinity of criminal fools attacked, and as I rose to show off, he did as well. And displayed a terrifying Axiom power.”
“Terrifying power?”
“Transmutation sir. A very complicated Axiom Technique I had stumbled on and managed to create my own version of. Basically I had bumbled into a way to rapidly learn a monumentally difficult trick and make it extremely lethal in human hands.” Vernon explains.
“I see. Are the notes of your research available on The Dauntless?’
“Yes sir they are, I hope you’ll forgive that... hey!” Vernon is cut off when Fina’Noir starts smacking his stomach. “Be nice little lady!”
“Bah! Bah! Bah bah!” Fina’Noir counters as she smacks him in the stomach again and again.
“Fina’Noir you must be nice with family!”
“Adabababa!” Dri’Noir adds in with a smack of her own to her daddy’s stomach.
“Dri’Noir! Don’t follow your sister’s bad example! Be nice!” Vernon chides her and a smiling Miro’Noir rises up after marking her place in her book and sweeps the more active little girls into her arms.
“There, have your talk with your officer now dear.” Miro’Noir says giving him a peck that he gestures for her to come back to and he gives her a longer kiss in return.
“I’ll be back shortly.” He promises before rising up. The communicator floats into his hand and he offers a salute to Cia’Noir who sends one right back. “I’ll be just in the back yard.”
A few moments and the door is closed behind him. The communicator floats out of his hands and he slips into parade ground ‘at ease’ stance. “Sir.”
“This is a preliminary communication. Not that formal. How well regarded are humans by the Apuk?”
“We have been invited to build a community on their homeworld sir. That kind of privilege is usually extended only to species that are sworn to each other in some way.” Vernon answers.
“That’s very interesting.”
“It was a very strategic move sir. The Empress... she’s one of those kinds of politicians where any action you take short of directly opposing them or attacking them is something they benefit from, and they also know how to handle someone directly opposing or attacking them. She’s friendly and benevolent, but when you realize just how many of her strings you’re dancing on... it’s disquieting.”
“I see, so how did setting up a human community on Serbow help?”
“She requested a specific type to explore the human ease at learning Apuk Sorcery. She did this to not only develop a large number of sorcerers that are more mentally stable than most, but to get ahead of the next few sorcerers, put her in well with humanity, distract the more troublesome nobility and likely more. That was one action. One.”
“Ah... one of those types. Is she scrambling to get things done or does it all seem effortless?”
“Effortless.”
“... Frightening.”
“She’s been directly ruling an entire species for multiple centuries. Even if she was originally installed as a puppet of some kind, which she was not, then she would have had enough time to gain all the skills she needs to be an unstoppable force in the political side of things.”
“I see, anything else?”
“You’ll need some context for this. You are aware that Apuk are naturally inclined to breathe fire using Axiom right?”
“I am.”
“Those trained to use it properly manifest Warfire, it’s... hard to describe. A fire where the heat lingers and pervades much more than normal. It’s like the fire contains their aggression.”
“I see, what of it?”
“There are four grades of Warfire easily distinguished by colour. Red is standard, Blue is considered an expert level, Green is the sheer strength of Battle Princesses only, but the final level is White Warfire, and only The Empress can manifest it at will.”
“I see.” Observer Wu states and Vernon shakes his head.
“Sir, Red Warfire can burn a hole into a starship over the course of a few minutes. It takes a single minute or less for Blue Warfire to do the same. A mere moment for Green Warfire and is so instantaneous for White Warfire it would cause an explosion as the solid metal is converted into a gas instantly.” Vernon explains.
“Really? They’re that dangerous?”
“Sir, it’s legally a form of suicide to attempt to fight a Battle Princess with odds any less than five to one.” Vernon says and Observer Wu looks impressed.
“I see, and your involvement with their cultural traditions and such?”
“Well, first was the Broken Shell Tournament. A large martial contest with six person free for all fights. The aim is to break the armour or ‘shell’ of all your opponents, not kill them or force them out of the ring. I made it to the final round before I grew upset at one of my opponents, locked her down entirely, and then broke my own armour and walked out. More or less ruining the woman’s reputation and social standing while imprinting myself into the cultural zeitgeist.”
“What happened to the woman in question?”
“She joined a monastery and after achieving journeyman status I offered her a recommendation into The Undaunted as compensation. She’s taken it from my understanding, but as you can imagine, she and I are not on good terms. Or really speaking terms.”
“I see, and the community that has been built?”
“It... kinda ties into our initial journey through Cruel Space.” Vernon says somewhat ruefully. “A lot of us played all kinds of pranks and jokes and things like that to try and stave off the boredom and cabin fever. One of which was banding around a soldier who has ninjas in his ancestry and... pretending to be his legion of ninjas.”
“... The people that took part in that are mostly in the community aren’t they?”
“Yes sir, we’ve built a hidden ninja village in The Dark Forest of Serbow. A massive communal entity that is simultaneously a single mind and the mind of every single thing in the forest.”
“A communal entity? Wait, you said everything in the forest. Does that include the men currently inside it?”
“And me right now. Think of my like a brain-cell to a larger body if you must. While I cannot ignore the needs of the rest of the body, I can also guide it, learn from it, and it’s strength is mine as my knowledge and skills belong to it.”
“And it’s not a security breach?”
“I’m able to keep secrets from it, but what I share with it stays with it. It has however flash taught me the local language of Cinder Tongue, as well as Classical and even Ancient Cinder Tongue. I know the Apuk language and much of their history better than some dedicated historians. Couple that with the extreme area control and tactical advantages of being bonded to the forest and it’s been regarded as a more than fair trade.”
“Area control?”
“The Dark Forest as an entity can absorb heat and grow stronger. I can cause a temporary extension of this ally to appear wherever I am. And considering lasers and plasma are the most commonly used forms of weaponry and Apuk Warfire, it’s a nearly perfect defence. Couple that with just how much it understands about Axiom use towards animals, plants and the earth itself and I can shatter the ground under me with a blink and refuse any solid ground to stand on to my enemies as well. Add on Woodwalking and I am untouchable to my enemies.”
“Woodwalking?”
“The Forest is alive and on my side. I carry a whisper of it within me wherever I go. The Forest can call me back to any extension of itself at any time. Meaning I can in effect always retreat to a safe location no matter the distance, access the supplies I have stored there no matter where I am, and have backup by my side at any moment. Facing a Dark Forest Sorcerer is such a tactical nightmare that we’re considered direct counters to Apuk Battle Princesses, which may I remind you, are legally suicide to fight one to one.” Vernon says. “To say nothing of the other Sorcerers. The Dreadmoss, The Blood Bark The Burning Stone, The Bonechewer, The City Shaker, The Leviathan Lord. Or my own title, The Bloody Prophet.”
“You’re The Bloody Prophet?”
“I recreated the Plagues of Egypt to stop feuding families from slaughtering each other. I am the only Sorcerer who’s title wasn’t earned with a body count. Even if only by a technicality.”
“A technicality?”
“Dare’Char Crushclaw is the Lydris born son of Brin’Char The Bonechewer. He assisted in one of his father’s rampages against his hated enemy by providing transport. While Dare’Char didn’t kill anyone directly, he still enabled his father in that regard.”
“So those nicknames are for supernatural serial killers?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Please explain then.”
“It’s rather hard to, until I became the first human sorcerer, all sorcerers were the result of an Apuk boy or man being pushed to the breaking point. They then flee in the night and find solace in the shadow of The Dark Forest, it bonds with them, protects them and teaches them. But it also reminds them of what drove them to the forest to begin with. Which means that in a few short years, the former victim returns from The Dark Forest, immensly powerful and filled with unthinking rage. Until humans were on the scene, all sorcerers went on at least one rampage and earned their nicknames from them. Since we showed up... there were only two... technically three. One was Brin’Char finding his ancient enemy still alive, so he was set off. Another was when Cals’Tarn joined us, his home was under attack and we counterattacked for him. Saving his home and family. Then there was mine, but no casualties, does it really count as a rampage?”
“I would say bringing the literal wrath of god onto someone would count as a rampage, yes.” Observer Wu states. “I think we will be speaking face to face in short order. It’s quite clear that you are responsible for some fairly major changes.”
“I look forward to it, is there anything else?”
“Not at this time.”
“Good, because I’d like to get back to my wife.”
“You’ve only been apart for...” Observer Wu checks his watch. “Four minutes.”
“Five minutes too many. If you’ll excuse me.”
“You are excused.” Observer Wu says and he turns off the communicator.
~First~ Last

Before anyone points out that "Gold cards are optional, you don't have to get them, if you're not having fun playing the game you should stop." Yes, thank you for this profound insight, agreed and noted. That said, after an hour of farming the Waft Emitter for Termite King gold cards, here's some baseline numbers to get a rough estimate of how much time you'll likely need to invest to get the card:
1 Hour resulted in 108 reload attempts. 27 of these attempts yielded a Termite King immediately spawning. The King actually spawns in about 60% of full raid attempts, but if he doesn't spawn immediately then you need to kill other termites and wait for him to appear, which will hurt your numbers in the long run. So, with a baseline of 27 kills/hour, here's a table showing the time it would take to farm the card:

Hours	King Kills	Probability
1	27	23.77%
2	54	41.88%
3	81	55.70%
4	108	66.22%
5	135	74.25%
6	162	80.37%
7	189	85.04%
8	216	88.59%
9	243	91.30%
10	270	93.37%
11	297	94.95%
12	324	96.15%

Now, looking at the chart, you might think "every hour I have a roughly 25% chance to get the card? Ehh, that's not great, but it's not terrible, I can mange that". Oof...
Because of the nature of independent sampling, every hour of effort you put into farming yields a diminished additional likelihood that the total number of Termite King kills will have yielded the card, e.g. farming for 11 hours straight would give you a 94.95% chance of getting the card, but adding an hour on top of that would only increase your likelihood of finding the card by 1.2%. I know on its face the math seems simple, "Oh every kill is a 1% chance to get the card, that's rough but it's manageable". But you have to appreciate that there's about a 5% chance that you could be spending longer than 11 straight mind-numbing hours (without interruptions) of reloading your saves, for ONLY this card. Save-scumming will yield virtually ZERO tangible results in your save file other than this one gold card. There's even a 1% chance that you could be spending 17 straight hours farming this card. And I don't even want to think about what these numbers look like if you're farming the Termite King from his natural spawn point, even with a pre-spawn save established. This is absurd. 5% is a Fluffy Dandelion Tuft. 1% is a Suspicious Ice Cap. These are not impossible scenarios.
The 1% drop chance is really unacceptable with a maximum kill rate of 27/hour. I can kill Black Ox Beetles, Green Stink Bugs, Black Widows, and Moths at a rate much, much higher than this, and those all share the same 1% drop rate.
This issue is often overlooked because 50% of people will get the card in 2-3 hours, 75% of people can get it in about 5 hours. The truth is, even amongst the small group of players crazy enough to get every gold card, most people don't end up in this situation. But some of them do. And the fact that this is even a possibility is an extreme oversight by the developers. Players who go for these Gold Cards are the players who love the game. They're not going for it because it's just a thing to do, they're going for it because they've enjoyed this game enough to the point that they're actively trying to 100% and explore/achieve every aspect the game has to offer. To cut them short like this with 1 card alone (all other cards are not even remotely on the same timescale to farm) is a real disservice to the most hardcore fan base, especially considering the card may drop for somebody who wasn't even looking to get it on their first kill.
Here are some easy suggestions to mitigate or completely remove the issue:
1) Give the Termite King a sub-1000 rage threshold to spawn in a Waft Raid. This way, even though it's far less time-efficient, at least you wouldn't be forced to save scum between each attempt and you could accumulate kills/resources between each run, while removing some of the tedium of repeating identical run attempts over and over. You could even go crazy and allow for the possibility of *gasp* more than 1 Termite King appearing during a raid! Utterly insane, I know...
2) Put a hard-cap on the number of kills needed to obtain a gold card. If you killed 200 of an enemy, I don't care how unlucky you are, you've earned that card. You shouldn't need to potentially dedicate so many hours of your very real time, in your very real life, to accommodate a digital RNG algorithm that just isn't landing for you. At least then you could feel like you're working toward a goal, rather than nebulously wandering around for an achievement that is about as likely to come in 20 seconds as it is 20 hours.
3) Increase the chances of the Termite King dropping a gold card. This would have a negligible effect on the bottom-floor range of how long it would take to get the card, but it would have a profound effect on the potential upper-range of time you might be spending to find it.
The point of a 1% drop rate is to make players feel a sense of accomplishment, or luck, or special status in their save file, to invoke positive feelings about the time you've spent playing the game and the tangible rewards you can point out to demonstrate such. But in the case of this particular enemy, it's completely inapplicable.
TLDR: I think the least the developers could do is make some sort of small change to say "Hey, we see you playing, and we want to reward you for spending that time playing our game" rather than just "Hey, it's a 1% chance, and that's about all the thought we care to put into it, your time be damned."

Hello reddit I'm a 27 year old female that has just realized I have been through narcisitic abuse from my father and im struggling alot and it feels so tangled and confusing. So I want to give my background and explain my situation. I grew up with my mom my dad and my brother. My mom is a colder person she dosent like intimacy as much and she had a tendency to be unfaithful to my dad. growing up she would butt heads with me alot and almost seem jelous of me and my dad's relationship. My dad would spend alot of time with me but I realize now most of our hanging out was always centered on what he wanted to do and his mood always depended on our behaviour and our compliance to every thing he said. It was like the more you sucked up to him and agreed with everything he said, he would treat you better. My mom wouldn't do this and my brother wouldn't do this and he was always much meaner to them. I noticed as a kid that as soon as I didn't agree with what he said or if I was uncomfortable doing something I was emotionally abused, words like "selfish" "lazy" "useless" imprinted into my head. I did everything to be perfect I'd discard my self everytime I walked through the door to see him I loved him so much and I wanted him to love me. I always grew up being told my mom was the bad guy she was bitchy naggy crazy and unfaithful of course. Looking back yeah she was cold and didn't like hugs she wouldn't take me on fun excursions but she seemed more interested in my life and who I was then him. But god did I hate her growing up I felt like she was the reason dad was miserable she was ruining him after all. I would imput my self into there arguments and yell at her and side with him he had me trained well at a young age. My brother who I believe may have been the scape goat in childhood was always fighting with him and bold about his beliefs and you can kinda tell where that went, no affection talking shit about him to me. So fast forward to my adult years my mom finally moved to her home country 5 years ago. I'm living with my dad again but a huge thing that became apparent to me as an adult Is he makes horrible choices he is incredibly uncaring about us emotionally. And when he does things for us feels like he's making a long list of I owe yous. The love feels incredibly conditional, as soon as he's challenged he goes nuts and will threaten to kick us out or threaten to never help us. I'm almost convinced he dosent know any thing about me. I've been so conditioned to shut up that I dont argue push back I still just do what ever he says. If he hurts my feelings he says "you know me this is who I am".
Now how this Has left me. I'm incredibly people pleasing
I keep making friends with people that put me down and use me and i feel stuck in these relationships. It's like a prison.
I have been stuck working part time at a grocery store for 10 years because I'm terrified and I don't know who I am, I'm also afraid of people.
I'm in university but I feel lost, I have switched career ideas 1000 times and I have debt to show it. I did decide to go for a soical services certificate to try to speed up getting a better job to get out of here.
I'm incredibly emotionally unstable, I struggle with critisim
A big one is i feel like I can't be my self around anyone it's make me forget who I am because of masking constantly. It feels like a head prison.
This is filled with ramble and run on sentences but it is so much to even put on reddit it would be like a bible sized book.
I just feel so lost and afraid and I want to find my self and not let this ruin my life.
Oh yeah side note he would triangulate the crap out of us. He'd loudly talk shit about us to our mom so we could year it and vice versa with all family members. Me and my brother are so close now and we leave him out of so much I think it gets to him.
How can I heal what should I do I don't have enough money to leave my car is on its end and I just want to feel Like my self and not a shell.

Hello everyone!
I am writing this today as a call to action. Over the last half year, we have over and over, seen zionists and conservatives alike deny, downplay, or try to justify the amount of violence happening in Gaza. I think one of the biggest things keeping average people from realizing just how horrendous Israel’s actions are, is the lack of a human face on the Gaza situation. All that the average person sees about Gaza is either politicians arguing about it, protests, or specific photos taken by the IOF. If the general public seen real pictures and videos coming from Gaza, I think there would be more of a push from the people to stop Israel’s attack.
So I am asking, no, begging everyone to take the videos and images coming out of Gaza, and post them to all the social media media’s you have. It’s useless to argue with people that do not understand destruction, instead, make everyone aware of the destruction happening. We need mass posting to YouTube, Reddit, tik tok, instagram, Facebook, wherever you know has a lot of viewers. We need to make the current actions in Gaza public knowledge. We need to make those who agree with this behaviour to answer in the face of entire towns being blown up, children missing limbs, fathers passing out after loosing their newborn babies.
There are many telegram channels sending out footage from Gaza, use such footage. It may seem inappropriate or cruel to post such images to public forums, but is a few people being traumatized by the footage worth 15 thousand kids lives?
Please, I’m begging you, help make a change.

I can check Facebook profiles that are public on the PC but on Android it refuses to. I tried m.facebook thing on the url, it just goes into the Meta app, it doesn't work. How do you just force the thing to act like on PC?

Marked as rant/rave, but I genuinely want to know if my frustration is justified. Sorry this is long.
Backstory: This may or may not make a difference in the context, but it might explain some of my feelings. My family had a small bin of baby clothes that was passed on through generations, which was sadly lost during a traumatic immigration over two decades ago when we made it to the US. I have been planning on restarting that bin for my future generations since I was a child. I'm a new mom in my 30s, I enjoy fashion and clothes and have a very particular style people often talk about. It is common for me to be slightly "overdressed" and I don't mind, even when it's sometimes weird. I also sew and have a hobby of not only restoring vintage clothes but recreating historical fashions – and I have a community in which we wear those for special events. In the topic of restoring clothes, I often take baby clothes for free on Facebook neighborhood groups, restore them, and give them back to my community. I enjoy doing that work. In my community, I am seen as the "resource mom" who knows where to find and how to fix things. I have made a lot of use of the parent free exchange groups, though not so much at all for clothes – I either buy new or make my daughter's clothes.
With all of that said, my daughter's style inevitably reflects mine. Not as in matchy-matchy, but she is often "the overdressed" baby. I don't even particularly always dress her in exclusively "girl-clothes," though she has plenty of tulle, crochet/knitted, hand-made embroidered and smocked dresses - she also has tons of paperboy, overalls, cute unisex costumes, and little suit outfits.
She is almost a year old now, and there seems to be an influx of babies in my larger community, which is great and awesome – since I was worried most of my friends who had had babies either have elementary schoolers now or finished having kids 3-4 years ago (pandemic, right?).
Finally onto it: out of seven moms in my community who have gotten pregnant in the last year, two have lamented having boys because "they won't get my LO's clothing;" two have politely but somewhat indirectly flat out asked me "if they remember correctly I had some clothes to give away" when I never talked about baby clothes or donations with them; one has asked me if I have given away my clothes yet; one has asked about a specific outfit where I bought it when she knows I made it and looked very wishful at me; and one has excitedly told me recently she is having a girl because she will be able to wear my LO's clothes.
Is this normal?
I feel skeeved but can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe I feel like it is super entitled? I initially took these as a compliment and gave them the benefit of the doubt, but then it started feeling more and more pushy and passive-aggressive, especially when my reaction was to gently let them know LO's clothes were not available. I am good friends with most of these women but not super close with any of them. I tend to be pretty direct usually, but the attitude is that there is no reason for me not to, at least, lend these clothes (which I don't want to, because many require special care to clean and I would be sad if they didn't return to me in the condition I gave them, and I don't want to spend time restoring these items, which sometimes won't be possible, nor do I want that to get into my relationship with these women).
I have given away some clothes as soon as LO outgrew them, but was saving for our next children (we plan on 3) and the rest I was going to restart my family's baby bins.
Am I being unreasonable and overzealous here? How would you handle these situations without being perceived as "stuck up"?

Axstrom's Notes

1. The list is here: big jump list
2. The draw (1-5548) is 877, 1520, 4754, 5265, 1478
   1. Drawing 5 so there are backups in case of issues, but the jumper gets to choose among 4
   2. 877 is Earth Final Conflict - A TV show whewre aliens come and uplift Earth but have a hidden agenda
   3. 1520 is Investiture of the Gods - A fantasy tale in Zhou Dynasty
   4. 4754 is Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep - a Disney mashup videogame
   5. 5265 is The Fountain - A film about contuinity across time, grief, death, and growth
   6. Jumper chooses The Fountain
      1. Jump Doc
      2. Reddit discussion
   7. Jumper buys access to The Biosphere Supplement
      1. Supplement Doc

Build Notes

1. Drawbacks - None - Part of the point is that you can't have everything
2. Companions - None - This is the journey of an individual soul
3. Origin
   1. Past: Noble - setting the stage for grander thigns
   2. Present: Inventor - striving for progress
   3. Future: Witness - seeing what has become of the world
4. Perks
   1. Noble Thought - free for Noble, stay connected to the people who are affected by your actions
   2. Noble Deed - free for Noble, your actions have greater impact and are remembered and recorded
   3. Inventor's Vision - free for inventor, studying a problem gives increasing insight in how to improve it
   4. Inventor's Intent - free for inventor, your creations are harder to misuse
   5. Improved POV - free for witness, observe / remember events from multiple perspectives
   6. Bystander - free for witness, events can unfold around you leaving you unharmed
   7. All Together Now - merge all your past origins into a complex mind
   8. 500 Years of Practice (Teaching) - mastery beyond mastery of the chosen skill
   9. Soothing Presence - calm strong emotions and suffering
   10. Absolution - If someone genuinely repents, you can allow them to move
5. Items
   1. Meditation Garden - self-explanatory warehouse attachment
   2. Biosphere - Full purchase activates the Biosphere Supplement
   3. Tree of Life Sapling - Grows six immortality fruits per decade, which can (over very long time) grow more trees

Jump Notes

1. I wake up in my room in the warehouse apartments, after shutting myself in without even checking the Benefactor's Lounge the night before
   1. I'm still lingering on the frustration of not cracking the riddle of Allabar, and not being able to solve the problem permanently
   2. But there's no going back, so I commit to facing forward for the rest of the week, and head to the Benefactor room
      1. Once again, there are four envelopes with me, and my big chart of jumps up on the wall, like something from a Kindergarten classroom
      2. As I affix a sticker saying "The Fountain (2006)" to the big chart, a small round outline appears next to it: "Biosphere Supplement available"
   3. On my way to call a team meeting, I catch a surprise outside the apartments
      1. Three of our bard graduates are slowly exploring the area
   4. At the team meeting, I announce my intention to go solo on the next jump
      1. The decision isn't popular, but most of them have waited while I've done gauntlets before, so it's not a big shock
   5. We set up the entertainment room to watch the movie, even though I don't expect that meta knowledge will be much help
      1. For the first time, we don't all fit in the Entertainment room
      2. By count, there are eleven of us (me and ten companions), the Halflings are now up to fifteen after two recent births, and we have nine new bards with us, so we set up a second showing in the evening
   6. Finally, before heading in to the jump, I make one last check of the Benefactor's office to see if there's more information on the biosphere supplement, but though my note has been removed, there is no response, and nothing on the tablet
2. I awake from a deep sleep in a luxurious bed, it is early morning and the sun is still rising
   1. I can feel the absence of my abilities; I am reduced below even bodymod, to the level of a baseline middle-aged man in a world with primitive medicine
      1. Nevertheless, I can feel a gift reaching back in time to me - and as I accept it, I am calmed, no longer distressed by what I have lost
   2. In this time, I have duties, both in the mundane sense of the tasks those around me expect me to perform, as well as a greater sense in which I must try to make this world better
   3. My new gift becomes invaluable in due time
      1. All manner of petitioners and officers come to me with grievances, and each of them are a storm of emotions - no one comes before their Count to declare how satisfied they are with things
      2. In short time, word of my wisdom spreads, and my council is sought by King Ferdinand
   4. I lobby my King with an eye to improving the lives of all involved
      1. It is the lives of ordinary Spaniards that are the measure of his ability as a King, not the mass of his treasury
      2. Colonialism brings with it dangers beyond the obvious, and responsibilities for ages to come
      3. Allowing the priests to destroy artifacts of other cultures does not increase our glory, but diminishes it
   5. Despite my ability to make my case clearly and seemingly overcome all objections, my guidance is rarely heeded when I leave the room
   6. And before long, it seems I have made enemies of those who stand to gain by plundering the New World
      1. They do not discuss the matter with me, or make their displeasure known by facing me down in violence
      2. But as the breath leaves my lungs over dinner, my last thought is that I have been poisoned by a coward
3. I awake from a fitful sleep in a large bed, my wife still asleep beside me despite the chirping of my alarm clock
   1. My first throught is of the date - It is September 7, 1999 - the first day of fall semester
      1. This will not be my first time teaching CS 101, but this time will be different, I can feel the power in my body, my mind, and my soul
   2. I arrive at my office early, of course, and make sure everything is in order - the syllabus handouts are ready, my slides are in order and proof-read, and my TAs have confirmed their preparedness
      1. The lecure hall is large - so many students sign up for CS 101 without any prior programming knowledge, just to see what it's like, or convinced that they will be a natural
      2. As the students file in, they sparsely occupy the massive auditorium, afraid to sit near people they don't know, not fully understanding that for the vast majority of them, this is their first class on campus, their first opportunity to get to know eachother
      3. I exhort them to move towards the front so they can hear and see better, and a few oblige
      4. The first lecture flows like a breeze, the students hanging on my words as I understand what each one needs to hear to understand what the rest of this semester will hold
   3. By semester's end, the students and TAs are in awe, the CS department chair has asked for my materials and told me that spring registrations for CS102 are higher than ever, both of the student papers have run articles praising my class, and the dean of Arts and Sciences has interceded to clear my spring schedule to prioritize my research work on the condition that I teach 101 again next year
      1. I appreciate my grad students and TAs, but I don't have a real family in this life, so I head into the warehouse for winter break
4. I awaken rested and enthusiastic on a beautiful spring day
   1. It is graduation day for the first group of freshman I taught after coming to this jump, nearly four years ago
      1. They have come so far, and I'm fortunate that some of the best have continued to work with me, and three of them will be graduate students working under me starting in the fall
   2. It is also the first day of human trials for the drug, a new anti-inflammatory
      1. We were hoping it would treat chronic inflammatory diseases, but early testing suggests that it may significantly reduce hay fever, which would be great if we can mass produce it cheaply
   3. My reputation at the school has skyrocketed thanks to the combination of my groundbreaking research plus my teaching perks ensuring high instructor reviews as well as students learning and retaining more
      1. My tenure process has been fast-tracked, since the dean is rightly concerned about losing me to another institution
5. I awaken slowly, and awkwardly, as if from a coma, as a cocktail of drugs is released into my body, still restrained on my cryobed
   1. Our vessel, the Cyllene, is essentially a large asteroid with a hole carved in the middle, stuffed with propellent, equipment, supplies, expansive aquaponics facilities, and a relatively tiny living area
      1. Cyllene was said to have nursed and protected Hermes, as this vessel must nurture and protect us, the first observers, and hopefully, colonists,
   2. As my body and mind resume normal function over the course of 90 minutes, I get a slow trickle of updates on the status of the Cyllene and our mission
      1. The mission clock says it's 202 years since we left Earth, but thanks to time dilation, Earth has experienced 221
      2. Computer Block 5 (of 8) is currently undergoing automated reconstruction as the block with the highest error correction rate at the time the last automated reconstruction completed
      3. 1575 individuals are currently in cryosleep, and 25 (including me) are active, all sufficiently healthy
      4. I am still Dr. John Axstrom, revered teacher and groundbreaking computational pharmacologist, but my consciousness seems to have jumped forward a few hundred years, skipping past the development of miracle cures, life extension medications, and cryogenic preservation of humans
   3. As I realign with my memories and identity, I remember why I'm here
      1. If colonization proceeds, the coming generations are going to need exceptional teachers if they are to learn their place in the universe, and I'm one of the best there ever was
      2. Our mission is expected to take about 750 years from departure to arrival, and though the vast majority of that time is spent in cryosleep, we take shifts being "awake" to ensure systems are functioning and keep eachother mentally and physically healthy
   4. Since the monitoring systems will throw a fit if I straight up disappear from the vessel, I take a long ride out to the external "observation" check, out of the range of most of the sensor systems
      1. There's not really much to observe in deep space - it's like the night sky, as the ancients saw it with no light pollution, but from a different perspective
      2. Here I quickly form a stunt double duplicate, hand over my electronics, and duck into the warehouse
   5. The warehouse clock confirms my suspicions - I'm nearly seven years into the jump
      1. Since it looks like this isn't going to take nearly 1000 years, the team hasn't been going full-stasis mode
      2. The bards have been poring over J-Borg's personal library as well as the impressive collection of the warehouse media room
      3. But the reason I came is the Tablet of the Free - I'm stuck on a large but still confined deep-space vessel until my scheduled return to cryosleep - how is that supposed to entertain the boss?
      4. After confirming nothing interesting is in the warehouse, I head back to the observation deck, and stash the portable door I've been using back into hammer-space before re-merging with my stunt double, and taking the long trip back to the living area
6. I wake up to an unfamiliar synthetic beep - apparently the Cyllene's version of a doorbell
   1. When I open the door, one of my crewmates tells me that our directional antennas have picked up some unusual RF activity that seems to be coming from our destination system, and they want me (as the on-shift programmer) to help the astronomer, comms, and operations staff to help make sense of it, and ensure we're not about to get nuked by a magnetar or something
   2. Initial findings were sparse and inconclusive - just occasional pulses of a signal that must have been very strong and highly directional at the time of transmission, to reach us so far away
   3. But I had access to diagnostic tools that the astrophysicists and comms staff didn't, for all their training and equipment: a series of perks specifically for teasing out the needles of relevance from the haystack of noise
      1. And as I looked at what we were seeing, and what we weren't, the answer became clear: these radio bursts looked just like a primitive form of RADAR
      2. At first my colleagues on the Cyllene were skeptical, but the evidence kept mounting, with 4 additional series of "pings" being detected in the next six weeks
   4. With the spectre of extraterrestrial intelligence hanging over the Cyllene, our XO followed protocol, and ordered the full complement to be wakened from cryosleep to assist in the work to come
   5. Within six months, we had fabricated and installed a much larger purpose-built directional antenna array on the surface of our asteroid hull, and reports of different signals were coming in almost daily
      1. We needed all the extra hands, even our mining and terraforming experts were lending a hand with signal analysis and attempts to form patterns
      2. The whole crew felt the urgency and wondered at the situation - temporally, it would mean that their early experiments with RADAR and initial RF broadcasts would have happened at about the same time as humans did those things on earth, and if they developed at the same rate as us (a big if), they would likely be more advanced when we arrivedd than humans were when we left (and thus the technology of our vessel), and would almost certainly see us coming
   6. The coming months flew past, each bringing further confirmation of suspicious, but with it frustration, as we had been unable to extract a coherent signal - the broadcasts we could pick up didn't appear to be using either amplitude or frequency modulation
      1. More than once I brought signal samples to the warehouse team, but they were just as stumped as us
      2. Even more "esoteric" means didn't work - we tried every variation of "Tongues" and "Comprehend Language" spells on printed, audioized, and even engraved versions of the RF signals we caught, but they all failed and the representations seemed full of too many discontinuities
   7. I could feel my new Inventor's Vision working on the task of how to decode these signals, and about two years after the first pulse was detected, I had my breakthrough
      1. The signals didn't represent continuous audio (like human radio) or even piece-by-piece visuals (like rasterized video), but something of each, and a little weirder
      2. They were composed of many (from seven to three hundred, and not consistent at all) micro-audio clips
      3. It was like making an ultra-low bitrate recordding of the voice of every singer in a chorus individually, and transmitting fifty milliseconds of one, then fifty milliseconds of the next, and so one, in serial, and then starting back again with the first voice
      4. We couldn't figure out why they did this, but once I was able to identify the break points between each "voice", I could layer them on top of eachother to make a composite audio version
      5. And that composite audio could be played, and was a viable candidate for magic translation
   8. The entire vessel went wild when I demonstrated the isolation and recombination of the signals to produce audio
      1. The sound of the thing was somewhat like the sound of multiple birds, frogs, and crickets in a forest, in very brief clips
      2. Of course, I didn't reveal that I had access to magic translation - I figured the comms and signals staff (and the one cryptographer) should have to earn their pay
   9. The remaining year and a half was spent in intense research, for them, while I mostly slacked off and tried to make conversation with the people doing important work on this front, since my actual mission here was to "observe" as humans of this universe underwent a sort of assymmetrical first contact
7. I awaken in my weird little pod bed in my weird little capsule room for the last time, perfectly aware of the remaining hours in this jump
   1. After the initial excitement died down, the majority of the colonists were put back into cryosleep, with only the decoding specialists and those "on shift" like me staying active
      1. There has been a lot of anxiety around the Cyllene for the last few months - we are clearly a colony ship and the intelligent inhabitants of that system probably do not want to be colonized, and may well be easily capable of destroying us
      2. There were discussions about trying to reverse course and head back to Earth, but we could do that any time, and the closer we get, the more information we can gather about the system and its inhabitants
   2. It would be cruel to try to skim supplies from this vessel even if there were something I wanted aboard, so I just wait my time out, helping where I can and secretly translating any communications we receive when time permits
      1. So far it has all been rather uninspiring, which makes me even more curious what kind of species would develop radio technology but not transmit any fiction or speeches or poetry
   3. When it's almost time, I once again make the long trek out to the Cyllene's observation deck alone, and split off a Stunt Double, who can at least stay here for a month, while I slip into the warehouse
      1. When I enter, J-Borg greets me and informs me of a message at the Benefactor's lounge
      2. The note on the door says "Supplement Pending - please attend as soon as possible", so I go in to check it out
      3. With the choices all locked in, the door unlocks and I head out to meet with the team
   4. With the memories of my time in Spain finally restored, I realize how I had been trying to communicate with myself all along, but failing
      1. The need for calm communcation and education will never end - among our closest neighbors or with a civilization 300 light years away
   5. We have the traditional group dinner in the commons, and discuss what's going on
      1. The team did end up spending most of the time in stasis, and the formerly-newborn halflings are a little over a year now biologically, learning to speak and walk
      2. When I mention the Biosphere supplement and how I wasn't allowed to consult them, they naturally asked when it would apply, but it hadn't even occurred to me that there were now definitely too many of us to wait out warehouse changes in the entrance hall, so I checked with the central control
   6. Afterward, no one was complaining when the doors finally unlocked and we were able to leave the commons hall, only to find that the door led to an outdoor path with a natural-looking sunset on the horizon
      1. I didn't want to spoil the whole setup yet, so I said we could tour in the morning, and turned off a number of the facilities and systems for the night, to give me some time to understand what options were available before letting my companions go wild with them
      2. Fortunately, the obvious items like the tree of life and factory complex were on other islands, that would be difficult to reach without the transport disks running
   7. And then I went to sleep again, wondering what the next awakening had in store for me

Notes on the Fountain Jump Doc

1. Honestly this doc has been on my to-try list since I saw it - I really enjoyed the movie and gladly rewatched it again when it came up in my random draw.
2. The author took some liberties with the source material, which makes sense because of how focused on Thomas the story is, and the extensions largely make sense
3. There were a few confusing things in the jump, such as how you get essences and what powers you bring with you into each phase of the jump, but a close reading makes them clear enough
4. The jump has a few really standout purchase
   1. the inventor's intention is the answer to a lot of concers that "do-gooder" jumpers are likely to have in their careers
   2. the full tree of life is an amazing item - the ability to grant perfect health and immunity to aging within a regrowing item solves a lot of problems
   3. 500 years of practice is amazing if you have a particular skill or art in mind - literally centuries better than the "10 years of practice" equivalents that you find din many other jumps, and has a lot of potential to synergize with other perks that scale off your skill in a particular area
   4. Biosphere is super cool if you want your fiat-backed warehouse to grow into something more
   5. The Dagger of the Path is a great example of a conceptual weapon, and something I probably would have picked up if I had a bunch more points
5. How you're supposed to interleave the three eras is a little unclear, and maybe I'm not a creative enough author to pull it off. I don't believe SJ Chan ever got around to writing a fictionalized account of jumping to it, unfortunately
   1. If anyone else has done a good jump fiction of this jump, please let me know
6. Overall absolutely a fantastic jump. Obviously a great option for anyone who likes the movie or wants to solve one of the specific problems available
   1. I'd especially recommend it for an early-chain jumper because of the generally low danger level and great variety of rewards

Notes on the Biosphere Supplement Doc

1. I knew this was something I wanted to pick up when I first read the fountain jumpdoc several months ago
2. I use the "Personal Reality" warehouse which was co-authored by SJ Chan, and this supplement feels perfectly tailored to supplement that
3. There are lots of good pickups for people with various interests, or those who just want to keep their options open
   1. Observation Deck seems like the real must-have since a lot of the other buys are controllable through it
4. The structure of the biosphere was a little confusing at first - I thought that there was an island, a void around the island, and a hard shell, and wasn't sure why you'd want to increase the shell thickness, but further reading cleared that up
5. On the whole, a good pick up, especially considering it only cost 400 CP in the jump, and normally buying warehouse upgrades with CP has a very unfavorable conversion, but in this case, the biosphere purchases all seemed cheaper than they ought to be.

(Builds to come in a separate post due to length restrictions)

"You don't want to root for them to kill Burnham or anything, but you want to root for them to get away [from the Federation and Breen Imperium] and be free. That was important to me. The best part about the whole thing was the love story for me and trying to get that across, make people empathize with the characters, was the most important thing."
In the care of Dr. Hugh Culber aboard the Discovery, but still in custody of the Federation, as the Breen Imperium closing in on them, the severely injured L'ak makes a bad call in order to give Moll an opportunity to escape.
Explaining how he viewed the events of L'ak's actions in Sickbay in "Erigah," Toufexis states, "That’s what it was — a gamble. I didn't play it as a straight up sacrifice. He didn't know that he was going to die. Just that he knew he could die because he was taking a big chance. Moll's safety and freedom is more important to him than anything else. Of course, he wanted to get out of there [with her]. He even says, 'I'm sorry I took too much. I didn’t mean to do it.' He apologizes because he didn't mean to do it. He knew the odds weren't great, which he hints at when he says, 'You’re not going to like it,' about his plan. They didn’t have a lot of options."
"In retrospect, after watching the episode, I wish I could have played up seeing that she's still there after all this," Toufexis reveals. "That he just wanted to get her out of there, but now that he's dying, recognize that she came back and was there with him. He trusts her; they're married. Even if the plan didn't work out, she could do whatever it takes for their freedom, or her freedom at least. That's why he says, 'You'll be okay.'"
At the end of "Erigah," Moll reveals their married status to Breen Primarch Ruhn in another gambit to escape both the Federation and the erigah's clutches, and potentially resurrect her late lover. Despite not being privy to Moll's plans, Toufexis ponders how things could have played out if L'ak would have survived, "If he was still alive, he obviously would say, 'No, no, no, we’re not doing this.' But given the situation, he would understand why she was doing this. She has to get away from the Federation."
"While we built Moll and L'ak as maybe they're not so bad, maybe they could join up with the Federation," Toufexis muses. "And the first thing Moll does when L'ak dies is stab the Federation in the back and throw them under the bus [with the Breen Imperium]. He does trust her."
Link (StarTrek.com, Warp Five):
https://www.startrek.com/en-un/news/warp-five-discovery-elias-toufexis-breen-erigah

My cousin is in the ICU and we don’t expect her to come out of this. My siblings and other cousins are trying to figure out what to do to help her and I have some general questions. We are located in Northern California.
For context, my cousin, Kathy, is 60 and has worked for a private insurance company for 27 years and she’s now an assistant manager. Her adult son passed away 2 weeks ago unexpectedly. Her mom and dad passed within 9 months of each other during Covid (3 years ago). Kathy was the heir and trustee to their house and money. Kathy does have a nephew, Chris, who is (maybe) 19 and away at college. Chris’s dad is incredibly shady and was married to Kathy’s sister (who also passed 10 years ago). We have not notified Chris or his dad about her being in the ICU yet.
Here are my questions in order of urgency

1. If we tell her employer she is incapacitated are they legally obligated to maintain her medical insurance in California?

Her co worker is shielding it from other co workers because we don’t want them nosing around the hospital. But Kathy is in unpaid status and we need to keep her insurance going. We were going to pay it on her behal directly to the employer but now I’m thinking we need to notify her employer for her protection.

1. How can we get a medical directive for her? She has no close family here except cousins who are all very close to her and know her wishes and want to protect her but we’re only cousins. I lost my mom this same way many years ago and say how the whole system worked and am concerned she doesn’t have a husband or son to make those decisions.

My other question have to deal with her estate and her moms estate but we’ll have to deal with that all later.
Hopefully I gave all the important details. I’m going to do some researching tonight and we’ll probably have to go through a lawyer soon but we’re concerned about these two main things over the next few days.