I’m new to League of Legends, just downloaded it today, on Mac (I know, sorry) and I’m already unable to play.
I downloaded it, opened it up and clicked “Start now” for the first tutorial. It plays the sound acknowledging that I’ve clicked the button, but then nothing happens, the button greys over but then becomes blue again after ~5 seconds, that’s all. If I try again, same thing.
I’ve closed and reopened, uninstalled and reinstalled, used the riot clean up app thingy, spent 2/3 hours searching on line and found not one iota of help, please can someone offer some advice or fix, it would be greatly appreciated

Hi Friends,
We know you are still waiting for our Freya Update, while working on it’s prototypes, we can’t wait sharing our Aurora’s progress with you too :) In this hot summer, let’s add these lovely cute Aurora boards and Pads to our shelves!

Aurora V2 Renders

Aurora is created by hobbyists for hobbyists ever since it’s birth in 2020, after experiencing two previous rounds and making our other boards, we have been listening to new features requirements and also come to new understanding for our designs.

What we look forward from Aurora

• A comfortable and pleasing daily driver to work with
• A playable tool for fun and custom typing feel
• A light compact portable board to move around easily

What’s New We Bring with Aurora V2

• New Translucent and Solid colorway
• Tri-mode PCB with RGB
• Aluminium and PC Stitched plate
• 2D and 3D badge
• Aurora Num pad

The structural design idea - Adding more flexibility for mounting structure design and differentiate typing feel for mods and alphas. We replace gasket foams with gasket sleeves, so that we can choose gasket hardness or not to use at all, and add daughter board for PCB to give it more flex. However, we have found that most gasket mounted keyboards have a commonly seen problem - mod keys are too soft and difficult to press on. Therefore, we have partitioned the plate. The PC and aluminum structure makes mod keys stiffer, powerful and sound full, while the alphas enjoy the soft flex from normal PC plate.

Tri-mode PCB with RGB

Update from PCB with daughter board integration to daughter board and PCB separation type. Furthermore, the PCB of Aurora V2 is upgraded to tri-mode with RGB.

Aluminium and PC Stitched plate

The plate of Aurora V2 will be upgraded from the traditional PC plate to aluminium and PC Stitched plat design.

2D and 3D badge designs

Our designer @VAMP has designed these beautiful badge for V2.

• Aurora V2 - 3D Badge
• Aurora V2 - 2D Badges

Aurora num pad

Aurora V2 adds a matching color numeric pad as an option. It can improve the work efficiency and at the same time let you experience a different kind of customization.

Aurora V2 Keyboard Kit Specifications

• Layout: 68%
• Typing angle: 7 degrees
• Front Height: 20.5mm
• Dimension: 345.6x 112.2 x 33 (mm)
• Case material: Injection molded Polycarbonate
• Mounting Method: Gasket Mount
• Aurora V2 Keyboard Explosion Diagram

PCB Specifications

• Hot-swap PCB: 1.2mm thick, flex cuts
• Per-key RGB
• With daughterboard
• Support ISO & ANSI
• Support Bluetooth 5.0 and 2.4G Hz
• VIA compatible
• ESD Protection

Multi-Layout

ANSI, ISO, split spacebars, step caps lock, split right shift, split backspace

Aurora Pad

Aurora Pad - Amethyst Color Renders

Aurora Pad Specifications

• Layout: 17%
• Typing angle: 6.5 degrees
• Front Height: 20.7mm
• Dimension: 112.2x 93.6 x 33 (mm)
• Weight: 240g
• Case material: Injection molded Polycarbonate
• Mounting Method: Gasket Mount
• Aurora V2 Pad Explosion Diagram

PCB Specifications

• Hot-swap PCB: 1.2mm thick, non-flex cuts
• Per-key RGB
• With daughterboard
• Support Bluetooth 5.0 and 2.4G Hz
• VIA compatible
• ESD Protection

Davy Jones' Locker for Aurora V2

We are so excited to work with the designer of GMK DAVY JONES'LOCKER to bring out the Aurora V2 x DAVY JONES'LOCKER collaboration. Welcome to join the Davy Jones' Locker for Aurora V2 discord server and share more ideas.

Aurora V2 - Community Badge Design Contest

We were really impressed by so many aesthetic designs from R1 and R2, and we would love to continue to host such contest and welcome more designs again! And this time, we have both 2D and 3D!

More details here

Thoughts and Ideas

We need your vote to help us proceed! We’d love to know

• Colors you like
  
• Badges you want
  
• Aluminium Aurora or not
  

Please fill in Aurora V2 IC form, join our Discord for more frequent updates!

Want a collab with Aurora board?

If you are a designer and would love to have an Aurora board collab, please email [email protected] or contact our discord @ Harry Vic Wuque. Studio#7057 Or, have a collab you want to see with Aurora? Please leave us comment or fill in our IC form :)
Thank you!

I'm sure that everyone's now heard of the new changes to the reddit API and how expensive it will be, so it looks bleak. If Reddit doesn't reverse course, third part apps are dead. So, devs might need to be creative. Anyone have any ideas? I think that what apps like Sync might be able to do is offer a subscription service for those willing to pay but for those not willing to pay allow users to replace the app's API key with their own personal key which would get them 100 QPM for free. It would be a bit of a hassle but it would work at the very least.

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

A couple of things are just crazy to me and I'd love to hear about others experiences.

1. I KNOW that once I'm a couple of weeks dry, I am a happier more creative person.
2. I KNOW that after a couple of weeks dry, I am more productive at work and have more energy later in the day.
3. I KNOW that after a couple of weeks dry, I prefer the totally sober me.
4. Every morning I wake up wanting to not drink today.

Every evening, my asshole brain is still like "yeah, don't look at all that shit, time for a drink. You should totally go get a drink. Know what sounds good right now? Grab a drink and play some video games to really relax and enjoy your evening."
Brains, man. Brains are assholes.

I see lots of biting during teeth posts but have not come across one that talks about before.
Jist of it is that my 2 month old has clamped down twice while nursing. So far only been happening on the right side.
Not sure if what I am experiencing is indeed biting. But here goes and hopefully someone else has experienced something similar?
My LO is just over 2 month. Just yesterday she clamped down on my right breast during a feeding. Granted it was the “dessert” portion of her meal after she has fed on the left side. When she clamped down, I checked that the latch was fine so I let her nurse a little more and she clamped down again. So I unlatched her and ended the session. Said ouch and told her clamping down hurts mommy. She fussed a little after a few minutes so I relatched her and the rest of the nursing session she was gentle and didn’t have any issues.
The middle of the night feed was on left breast without issue.
Just now I tried to feed her on the right side and she clamped down again. So I unlatched her right away. She kinda feel back asleep and whimpered a little so I changed her diaper instead.
Now she is sound asleep again.
I’m wondering if the clamping down has something to do with her not so hungry and isn’t motivated to eat and want to play instead? Or is it something else? Like developing a habit?

Hi all,
I’m an artist and am about to begin a project for my first gallery exhibition.The theme of the exhibit will be ”Through Light” and I had the coolest idea for an interactive sculpture, I likely Won’t be able to pull it together, but I gotta try! I don’t have the electrical and audio engineering understanding yet but I certainly do have a willingness to learn. Also, my partner is a sound engineer so he may be able to help me do this safely if I can figure out how to make it work.
I want to sculpt 12 figures, each of their heads being made of DIY mini Plasma globes. I would then like each of those plasma globes to play one of the 12 notes or half-tones in an octave when a hand moves close to them.
I’m hoping having a set tuned pitch for each one and volume control through output like a guitar amp would make this a lot easier to build as opposed to needing the pitch and volume control of an actual theremin. But volume control with hand distance would be super cool.
Does anyone have any advice or links for how I can build this and where I might source materials, especially if they may be thrifted or recycled. I live in Sydney Australia so some things might be different access wise but I’m not opposed to visiting a junk yard or car wrecker, finding an old broken TV somewhere… I do have a Jaycar nearby though so can buy some bits and bobs for circuitry. I haven’t built a circuit since high school physics 15 years ago but my brain is lit up with all the possibilities.
Thanks in advance for anyone willing to say something helpful, even those that may tell me I’m bonkers, I’d like to learn either way.

Hey guys! So attached I’ve provided a picture of the 2nd storey floor joists (3x12x14) as seen from the 1st storey. Currently renovating the 1st floor (it’s a duplex with unfinished field stone basement ).
Joist to floor is 10ft, and because it is two different apartments, I am planning on insulating with rockwool ceiling sound and safe + sonopans and resilient channels.
Since I’m not planning on doing any work to the 2nd storey, I would like to find a way to fix the squeaky heart pine floors from beneath. Planks are used diagonally as a sort of sub floor. Can I use screws from underneath and if so anyone have recommendations for types / brands?
Should I add any blockage? Any glues/adhesives, any membranes, etc. ? Basically what would best practice be.
Also, I will note that I plan on isolating the joists from electrical / HVAC rough ins as to avoid drilling holes in the old growth lumber. Going to lose a foot-ish of ceiling height, but that is fine.
https://imgur.com/a/d0SoFgL
Late 1800s 2 storey Victorian cottage that eventually got converted into a semi commercial property and which we are now converting back.

This Script is ok for monetizing! Feel free to use this as you wish!
You, The Listener, are a new maid that has been hired into the Dukedom of Flight Thorn. A high-rise estate with an interesting reputation that seems to be as it is, 'interesting'. You could only think of how the job pays well since the estate is rich and profitable in its respectful area. While you were taking your survey around the area before you start your first day, you bump into somebody, only to realize it was the prince himself! You could only think how...'Prideful'? He was? You couldn't tell, but it felt as if he was putting himself in a fake mask...As he lifts your chin up, you could feel a small blush on your face before you immediately step aside and speedily make your way to the other side of the corridor. You think to yourself that you may only have encounter him once and that would be it...Only to see a small flicker of yellow in the distance on the training grounds just a few distance away in the dead of night. You step closer to it, and you see...the prince? What would he be doing here?
​
The Prince’s Pride
Running into the Prince of Flight Thorn
Scene 1
(Distant chatter with Prince Leopold Flight Thorn, talking to his other nobility friends, the sound of distant walking on cobble or marble floor, clacking of shoes.)
*He chuckles lightly\*
You should have seen Edward’s face when I defeated him at dueling swords with him! It was a wonderful expression! It had to be the mix of a newborn fawn and a disgusted baby face, it was hilarious!
*Pause\*
Oh Please! I bet I can sweep you guys off your feet before you can even blink!
*He says with a smug tone, his words hinted in confidence\*
I would like to see you try your best at riding your horse, Charles. I heard that you fell off more than twice, all because of how cowardly you had become when you just barely trotted across a valley!--
*Pause\*
Then maybe you can race against me, unless…You’re too shaken to do so!~
*Pause\*
What’s wrong? Your fear of riding overtaking you already?~
*Pause\*
Well…Guess I just proved how much riding embarrasses you! Maybe I can show off just for—-
*Stops walking, A shuffle clothing sound to imitate bumping into each other\*
Ah my apologies, I didn’t mean—-
*Pause\*
Well….now this is a pleasant surprise!
It seems a new maid has been recruited! And she…
*He lifts her chin to look at her more closely, might be moved closer to sound like his face is close but not too close to theirs\*
Is a lovely maiden as well~
*The listener steps aside and walks away from Leopold, he is dumbfounded\*
H-Hey! Wait a moment!
*He chases after the listener and stops her in her tracks\*
*Tiny scoff\* You…You do know who I am, right?
*Pause\*
*The Listener as she walks away, shoes clicking, hears Leopold\*
Well…that was surprising, to say the least.
*His noble friends walk up to him\*
Ah- W-Well…Maybe they were so enthralled by my presence that it was too much for them!
Besides, I think she seemed more…interesting than she let on…
*Pause\*
Come on, doesn’t she intrigue you guys in the slightest? I mean, she does have some charm in her…call it a mysterious sense…
*Pause\*
(As Leopold and his friends walk away talking amongst each other, the sound of their shoes fades away.)
Scene 2
(The Listener is making their rounds around the palace, the sound of chirping crickets, the swaying of trees filling the air. Only to find Leopold in the training grounds, but to her surprise, reading. She walks slowly up to him, tapping him on the shoulder, he jumps startled.)
*He yelps in surprise\*
*He sighs relieved\* It’s just you…
*Pause\*
Oh! I-I’m…just catching up on some studies is all!
*Pause\*
*He stutters\* Oh- uh...are fairy tales and legends a part of the empire’s history? O-Oh yeah! Of course!
*Pause\*
*He sighs\* I’m not very convincing, am I?... *He chuckles nervously\* Lying was never my strong suit.
*Pause\*
*He places a hand behind his head, chuckling embarrassingly\*
My father…he was very strict with me as a child. So, I…never got to truly experience what I wanted to do as any child would want. Of course, My father could only prepare me for what is to come and…that time has come.
*Pause\*
*The Listener sits down next to him, calmly listening and being empathetic towards Leopold\*
What better way to escape than to dive into the realms of fairy tales and legends. I…never knew what it felt like as a child, and now that I got to bask in it now, I regret not doing this sooner… *He laughs, seemingly reminiscent of the stories he has read\*
*Pause\*
*He laughs softly\* I’m surprised, you seem like you’ve been in my situation countless times before. But that would be impossible now, wouldn’t it?
*Pause\*
*He snickers\* I had a feeling you were a mysterious person, turns out you are just as interesting as an untold tale.
*A brief silence falls between them\*
I know that the maids and butlers make their rounds around the estate at this time of night, but…what brings you all the way out here? I thought you would be closer to the main building.
*Pause\*
I see…Well no need to fret, my darling, tis only me~ *He said, playfully as he winked\*
*Pause\*
Hey!~ I saw that look in your eyes, you don't have to be shy if that’s what’s transpiring! A-Actually! There’s a rule that’s stated that a maid or butler should not stray too far from the main building when doing their nightly chores, you could get into a lot of trouble! ~ You scratch my back, I scratch yours.
*Pause\*
Just, keep this little event a secret, ok? I don’t tell the head maid your presence here, you don’t tell anyone about my reading habits! *He gestures towards the stack of books next to him\*
Deal?
*Pause\*
Perfect!
*He sighs\*, I never…had somebody talk to me like this before…it's a nice change of pace. I feel more…relaxed, when I'm with you, strangely enough. I don’t know why…It’s weird but, It’s a wonderful feeling.
*They fall silent\*
Well, um…I believe it’s time for us to part ways.
*He gets up as The Listener agrees\*
We wouldn’t want to get caught red handed now, would we?
*Pause\*
What say you?
*He offers his hand to pull her up from her seat.\*
(Listener takes his hand and they slowly walk away, treading lightly upon the cobblestone path.)
-End Scene-

Admiral Shane stood in the room usually used for training, but had been cleared out so he could make the conference over holophone, and a larger room helped with the scale when they were addressing the entire Federation Council.
It had taken only about 2 ½ days to get to the Golden Egg’s position, as with their progress in the uplifting process - and the fact that they had access to FTL technology - they had been allowed to send a ship out into the Federation, albeit supervised. As such, they decided on sending a military ship, seeing as there was a much smaller chance of an interstellar incident happening with disciplined Marines.
The chamber was a semicircle, with the Chairperson’s seat at ground level, in the center of the floor, with each next row elevated slightly, so that the gathered Representatives were situated in a step-pattern, ascending to the top row of the chamber. He noticed that the ‘insectoid’ species all were situated to his right of the chamber, if he was looking out at them.
Beside him stood Admiral Ree’Scote, being his ‘escort’ into the Federation; Kyle, as the boots-on-ground witness; Officer Kit’Ahnj, being the Federation’s liaison officer; and Captain Vohr’Doe, as the commander of the vessel that found the planet. But of course, it was him that was currently the center of attention.
He had reviewed the team's video logs, and he agreed that whatever was on that planet was likely hostile; the sounds that came from that darkness - not to mention the fear he felt when looking into it - were so… wrong, he didn't feel any other classification would be right. And - after the testimony of Officer Kit’Ahnj, backing up Kyle’s report, and the video - the Council felt the same way; however, they were less inclined to destroy the planet. He was currently being addressed by the Council Chairwoman, a bipedal crocodile, whose title was Chairwoman Hahss’Chom, (which - when she pronounced it - was little more than a hiss, followed by her snapping her jaws shut.)
“We have ways to prevent… whatever this is - from ever being able to exit their system, even if they were to develop FTL technology.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” he said, keeping his focus on her, and not the - obviously - judging races that surrounded him, all of whom represented different animals from Earth, each one the Speaker for their respective races, “We’ve dealt with a mindless force of nature that was only intent on killing…
“Europa was one of Jupiter’s moons, and was roughly 90% the size of Luna. When we began spreading out from Earth, the question of drinkable water became a problem. And while it's - relatively - easy to make it from its base components, Europa was almost entirely water, though not all of it was liquid.
“Once we had developed the technology to land there, we set out drilling to the ocean, which was located beneath a shell of ice that was estimated to be between 10-15 miles deep… We made it four miles before we lost all resistance. The drills were shut down, and new readings were taken; but by the time they realized what was happening, it was too late.
“At first, the teams thought that it was a geyser, which are - were - a fairly common thing, though there had been no signs that one was building up there. Well, they managed to get far enough away before… The ice where they had been working melted, but there was no geyser. What came out of the hole resembled, well, it most resembled a machine AI that humanity dreamed up as a monster in a movie. The one I reference here was basically a metal ball with countless metal tentacles from its ‘back’, and what came out of that hole looked remarkably similar.
“And it wasn't alone. About a dozen of those [‘squids’] came out, and made straight for our people. It was… a massacre; our weapons had no effect on them whatsoever. And after they were done killing everyone, they began dismantling and consuming the ships and equipment. And afterwards, they turned their gazes upwards, launching themselves from the surface of the moon with the force of their limbs, alone.
“Judging from the fragments of their bodies we were able to recover after encounters with them in space, we determined that they were iron of the Fe oxidized variety, so the metal of their bodies didn't interact with the water. They were also incredibly light, especially for how dense they were; it took several missiles to destroy each, and we had no other choice, as they were heading directly at the ships in orbit.
“We retreated to a tactical distance, and while we tried so many different ways to communicate, we found nothing. We even captured one alive, and still, there was no way to communicate. Every attempt was met with the utmost hostility. And throughout this process, they continuously sent out others from beneath the ice, most of them sent towards our ships, yet others were sent out towards the asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. We had no idea what they were doing with the asteroids, whether they were mining them for food, or using them as places to reproduce - or both - so we eventually decided to bombard them with munitions until they crashed into the planet. But this was after we had exhausted every possible avenue of communication.
“We eventually came to a decision - as a people - to destroy the moon, but we had to be smart about it. The Europans had already proven they didn't need to breathe, as they could survive the cold, irradiated vacuum of space without any external protection, which took blowing Europa up off the table.. So - after much deliberation - it was decided to create a ship that could use tractor beams to move the planet. For this, we converted another of Jupiter’s moons - Ganymede - into a ship, and once the construction was complete, we renamed it the Europa Contingency.
“From there, we caught Europa, and towed it to Sol, where we cast it in, to destroy the Europans, down to the last one… It's not something that we’re proud of - as a people - but it was what we needed to do, in order to survive.”
There was a resounding silence after he finished with his speech, and he allowed them the time to process what he'd just told them. He was suddenly very self-conscious, and he felt as if he hadn't explained their plight sufficiently. They were already classified as the most aggressive that their measurement system could register, what must they think of humanity after this. Finally, the Chairwoman broke the silence.
“Though it sounds as if you may have committed genocide on a sapient species… This Council can claim no better. While we have ways to contain FTL travel, this was only put forth as a possible avenue to explore after our predecessors had glassed multiple planets who had turned out to be too hostile to conduct civil interactions with. To have that threat in the same system as you, with no real barrier between your peoples, well, I don't believe any here could truly blame your people for coming to this decision… However, we can't be sure that we face the same threat. Nor can we order anyone to go into the darkness to find out.”
The suul’mahr representative, Grol’Rosh - a solid white coloration to his fur - spoke up, his voice playing out over the speakers, as he was sitting in the topmost row.
“We could send a probe into the midst of it; that could tell us what we're dealing with. And if they are entirely hostile, we could take a specimen up to the atmosphere, to see if it survives.”
He heard a strangled sound of protest, and he didn't need to look around to see the fearful look on Kyle’s face; he gently held up a hand to assuage the Ambassador, as he knew full well what his concern was.
“We believe that the contents of the darkness are… harmful to the generally accepted term of ‘sanity’. And not in the sense of ‘it would be dangerous to any non-human’; as in, to anyone. If - however - you should need a volunteer, then-”
“I will watch it,” Grol’Rosh cut him off. Admiral Shane merely looked at him, sighing lightly as he nodded once in acknowledgment to the suul'mahr. Captain Vohr'Doe stepped up at that point, calling to the hangar to release the drone, and to program it to enter the darkness just beyond the leading edge. A small communication satellite was set out after it to retain contact with the drone when the curve of the planet would render it beyond their scope of reach.
It took several minutes, during which Grol’Rosh inserted earbuds into his ears, and had his personal screen connected to the probe's camera. While he was watching the drone's progress, it was also taking its own readings, and sending them back as text. Which is how they knew when it was breaching the atmosphere, and when it encountered the darkness; Kyle had been right: it wasn't natural.
The reports coming back from the drone were confusing, to say the least; firstly because ‘the darkness’ was actually solid material, though ‘solid’ was used loosely here, as it was more like a ‘dust storm’. Except that it wasn't just dust - as there were readings of sand, and soil in the mess - because nanoscanners inside the drone determined that each grain of soil was coated in a thick, viscous material that absorbed all light that hit it.
The material was what caused the confusion, as when it was analyzed, it was determined to be… everything. There were traces of all genus of races, from canines, to felines, insects, to pachyderms; there was even all manner of aquatic animals, as well. There was no plant life detected in the sludge.
As imagined with readings like that, the drone had more difficulty descending to the surface of the planet than it normally would have, but strangely, not as much as one might expect; it was only when the craft sped up that they realized it was being pulled. The altitude of the drone continued to drop at a steady rate, until it was about 50’ from the ground, according to the readings from the expedition team, as it was heading for the exact location they had originally made camp. However, the drone was sending even more confusing information, as it was now reading the ground to be 25’ away, and moving quickly.
The drone was about 10’ from the ‘ground’ when Grol’Rosh began howling like he’d been stabbed. Looking up in his direction, everyone gasped in horror as he began clawing at his eyes, quickly rending his face, and entirely destroying the delicate orbs within. He wasn't done, however, as he then began clawing at his ears, his Gift obviously activated, as he tore straight to his skull in only a single swipe, the unnerving sound of claw scraping bone filling the room.
Two suul'mahr guards rushed towards him as soon as he'd begun clawing his eyes, and were almost to him when he reached his hands out to the sides, and brought them together - with his head still between them - with obviously tremendous force.
One of the guards - a dark gray specimen - leapt forward at the last second, tackling him by leverage of his left arm. That still left his right arm free, though it had only succeeded in a glancing blow, which still knocked him unconscious with a sickening /thud**. There was a stunned silence that followed that ordeal, until Chairwoman Hahss’Chom shakily gave an order for medics, who soon arrived, two kanfi’doe that - after stabilizing his wounds - quickly carried Grol’Rosh down the stairs, and loaded him onto a stretcher they had brought with them.
The silence reigned for a long minute after they’d wheeled him out, broken finally by the Chairwoman’s subdued voice.
“I call a vote: all in favor of allowing the humans to bring their ‘Europa's Contingency’...?” She tapped a few commands into the datapad in front of her, and there was a quiet flurry of movement as the rest of the Council cast their votes.
“It's unanimous: Admiral Shane, we hereby give the Europa’s Contingency permission to travel to this system, and then to return to Sol when the job here is done. Are we clear on this?”
“Crystal, ma’am. I can have the orders dispat-”
He was cut off as a keen'yohng appeared by his side.

Commodore Vah’Rin came out of subspace, his prey already in his sights. The eight other captains under his command confirmed lock-on status, and his communications officer informed him that they had an opening into their link, though it was protected by an unusually strong defense system.
“Well,” he replied, “We did intercept the report on humans; they have artificial intelligences. They probably have one with that cylindrical ship that has too many guns to not be military. Well, this certainly changes things: an a.i. would be by far more valuable than an entire hold of drahk'mihn. If we can capture it, and reprogram it to obey us, we could drop down far enough into subspace that we could make a trip of several months cut down to as many weeks… Patch me into their communication; I’m done hiding…”
He let a cruel smile play across his face as his entire bridge turned into the Federation Council Hall; his ship would project his image into their conversation, but not those of his crew around him. And there in front of him were the objects of his focus, as he was certain he appeared before them, wearing his black Commodore’s jacket.
“How nice of you to join us, Commodore.”
He turned to the owner of the cold voice that ‘greeted’ him.
“Ah, Council Member Toss’Vah,” he replied cheerily to her, “Good to see you again. How are things back home?”
She regarded him coldly, then almost spat,
“It was widely believed that you were still alive; I regret to have that theory confirmed.”
“What can I say?” he asked, smiling, “This ship was just too good to not take it. Give my regards to the president; this ship truly is state-of-the-art… But, I didn't break into this conversation to speak with you.” He turned to the humans, who regarded him with wary expressions, if his experience with the suun'mahs and kanfi’doe was anything to judge by.
“Greetings,” he began jovially - no reason not to be civilized, “I - as you may have gathered - am Commodore Vah’Rin, and I regret to inform you that you are under the guns of 9 ships, all of which are heavily armed. Now, this is normally the part where I tell you that if you cooperate, then we can get through this with a minimal amount of casualties - someone always has to try to be the hero, don’t they? - but I have a different proposition for you, today: give me you a.i., and we’ll leave this system - and your ships - without any hostilities. Refuse, and… Well, I think you get the idea.” He smiled a predatory smile that was more of a leer than anything.
“This is outrageous;” the current Councilwoman stated, righteous anger evident in every syllable, “We not stand for-” but he cut her off.
“We’re too far away from any Federation outposts, and the nearest suun’mahs patrol is… well, right here.” He gestured to Admiral Ree’Scote.
“So, no matter how this plays out, there’s really nothing that this council can do about the goings-on here. So - as I said earlier - I’m not speaking to you; this has nothing to do with any of you.” He turned his attention back to the humans.
“So, what is your answer? And might I remind you, while you may - or may not - be able to take on our ships at 3-1 odds, one of your ships is not only not made to fight, but is also filled with civilians; are you willing to risk all of their lives?”
“How about this,” the human who was obviously military began, “You choose six of your ships, and use those to square off against us; the other three can hang back, and guard the Golden Egg from leaving. If you win that battle, you can take the A.I. stationed there. If not, then your other ships have to leave us in peace.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name and rank.”
“Admiral Shane of the Sol Defense Force.”
“Ah,” he continued, “Well, Admiral Shane, I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. It’s all, or nothing, which means that even if you feel comfortable taking on all of our ships at once, we will still target the civilian vessel. There is no other option; sometimes you only have bad paths to choose from, and you must take the lesser of the evils.”
Admiral Shane stood taller, and defiantly responded with,
“We of the Sol Defense Force cannot - in good conscience - hand over a single soul to slav-”
But he was cut off by the other human behind him, the one he actually recognized. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved a small blue cube, which he held out as he angrily stated,
“You can have mine.”
“Ah,” he replied jovially, turning to the smaller human, “Mr. Redding, I believe?”
“It’s Ambassador.” The defiant little monkey at least seemed pretty fearless in the face of life-or-death negotiations, so he figured that he deserved at least that recognition; he certainly seemed to realize the value of diplomacy over fighting.
“Ambassador, then; good to see someone here has a level head on their shoulders.”
The cube reformed into a small human, as the Admiral rounded on his civilian counterpart; they both started talking at the same time.
“Excuse me?! You have no right to auction me off like some-
“... hell do you think you’re doing?! How dare you offer up a Sollian to a slaver?! I ought to knock the sh-”
But they were both cut off as Ambassador Redding simply stated, talking louder than both of them,
“Artificial Intelligence Override Code: JKJKLOL69!”
The small android stiffened up, and remained rigid, as if it were a simple robot, while the Admiral recoiled, raising an arm slightly as if to defend himself.
“How dare you?” he said with disgust to the Ambassador, “That’s only to be used in the event of a rogue A.I., this-!”
“This,’ the Ambassador interjected angrily, “Is bigger than all of us! I know what I’m doing.” He turned to address the Commodore,
“You will take it, and you’ll leave. In peace. Give me… 12 Standard minutes - I have to collect the memory core - and we’ll meet halfway between the 'civilian’ ship, and your group, ‘cause you sure as hell aren't coming aboard either of our ships.”
“That sounds acceptable; however, once the transfer is made, you will keep your shuttle in position until we have determined that the package is authentic, at which point, we will leave. If it is a fake, then I won't hesitate to blow your little shuttle to dust, and then I’ll take everyone I can get my hands on; and with 9 ships, we have more than enough space to hold you all. And we will both come unarmed.”
“I’ll be accompanying you,” the Admiral said sternly to the Ambassador, “I need to document everything that happens so I can send it back as evidence in your hearing.”
“Yeah,” the smaller primate answered testily, “You do that…”
With a vindictive smile, Commodore Vah’Rin motioned to end the transmission.

Kahv’Hosh sat in the pilot’s seat, having been chosen to transport the humans out to the meeting spot. They were both currently silent, and the air was so thick with emotion that you could cut it with a knife. They were already in place, and were currently waiting on the pirate ‘commodore’ to reach their shuttle, with an estimated thirty seconds until they made contact. With a solid /thud/, they were connected, and Kahv’Hosh equalized the pressure in the sleeve, and soon heard a slight knock on their door. Kyle and the Admiral had already moved to the door - the large metal cube with the interface screen sitting beside it - and Kyle reached forward to open it.
The keen’yhong walked onto their shuttle, and his eyes immediately fell to Kyle’s waist.
“I thought we agreed no weapons.” The man’s voice wasn’t as hostile as he would have expected, as he stared at the big gun on Kyle’s waist, and the smaller - but still obviously deadly - pistol on the Admiral’s.
“Yeah,” Kyle replied sarcastically, “Because you don’t have some hidden weapon on you…”
The ‘commodore’ simply smiled, and turned to the box.
“This is my a.i., I take it?” he asked, still smiling.
Kyle’s mood seemed to darken further as he reached into his pocket, pulling out the cube that became Kay’Eighty at his command.
“Begin downloading into the core, and commence factory reset.”
He set the cube down on top of an open slot beside the monitor, and a loading screen immediately came up. It only took a few seconds, but it was still a tense few seconds; soon, the box chimed, and Kyle removed the cube.
“I’ll be taking that, as well,” the ‘commodore’ replied, reaching a hand into his jacket; Kyle simply scoffed.
“No, you want to make your own mithril, then you figure out how to make it, yourself. You’ve already got the core, that’s all you need. And that’s all we agreed on. If you wanted the mithril, too, then you should’ve said so; not my fault you failed to specify that point.” There was no amusement as he said it, though it was obvious that he enjoyed that little stunt. And while the ‘commodore’ obviously had his hand on the handle of his gun, he wouldn’t be able to move faster than two humans; the two suul’mahr lurking just beyond the airlock wouldn’t be much help after he was already riddled with bullets.
The ‘commodore’ regarded him for a few moments, then began laughing a cruel, calculated laugh. He gestured behind him, and one of the suul’mahr - all-brown fur - came aboard, carrying the large box onto their shuttle. After he’d observed its successful transfer of the package onto his shuttle, the ‘commodore’ turned back to Kyle.
“As stated before: you will hold this position until either my flotilla leaves, or destroys you for trying to trick me. And this time, I expect you to follow my directions, because you’re already targeted by my lead ship… Well, until next time.” With that, he exited the shuttle, their airlock door closing behind him, both humans remaining staring at the door.
They finally turned away when the shuttle disconnected, moving to look out the viewport to watch the other shuttle go back to its ship. Finally, his nerves got the better of him, and he asked to no one in particular,
“Do you think he will truly spare us?”
“There’s a chance,” Admiral Shane replied, “Depending on what kind of pirate he is; they can have varying codes of honor. He does - however - self-admittedly sell people into slavery, so I don’t know how strong his sense of ‘honor’ may be.”
They were all quiet for a while as he considered this, until Kyle’s soft voice - filled with sorrow - broke the silence.
“I’ve never killed anyone before. I mean, the mahn’ewe were all in a fit of rage; and while I’d fantasized about it, I didn’t exactly plan it. Now, though - with all this time to stop and think about it…” He fell silent at that, watching the shuttle go, though Kahv’Hosh wasn’t sure he was actually seeing it. To his surprise, Admiral Shane reached up and grasped Kyle’s shoulder, his voice gentle as he replied,
“It’s never easy. And while the mahn’ewe can probably be overlooked by your conscience, this is - obviously - a different situation entirely. There’s a chance that you never truly recover from this, but just always remember the innocent lives you’re saving by doing this; they’re what’s going to get you through the low points.”
Kyle nodded in acceptance, and then his face contorted, and a predatory smirk lit up his countenance.
“Have you ever seen one go off?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the viewport.
“Well,” the Admiral replied, a mischievous note in his voice, “I have seen a number of tests; of course, there was that pirate faction that we traced to their base in an asteroid. One on each side, and it was history.”
Kyle let out a cruel snort of laughter, and - not taking his eyes off of the viewport - said,
“Kahv’Hosh, did you ever get around to reading about the women of Weinsberg?”
He wasn’t sure where this was going, but he decided to play along.
“I did," he replied slowly.
“And if you knew nothing else about humans,” Kyle began, a cruel smile on his face, “Would you have accepted that deal?”
He managed to take a breath in before something in his mind clicked. Something had seemed off from the beginning, but he couldn’t place exactly what it was. He’d been given clearance to review the transmission from the part where the ‘commodore’ broke in, and he had been replaying it in his mind ever since then, trying to figure out what was gnawing at his mind like a pup with a bone.
But nothing came out at first, as his mind struggled to form words; he managed simply to point out the viewport to the shuttle - that was almost to its ‘mothership’ - and to look back and forth between him and it, before he finally managed to spit out,
“Wh-... you-... why would the arti-... the ‘override code’: why would it be in Galactic Standard?!”
The smile on his face widened, and he was suddenly aware that he was on a small shuttle with two Class 12 aggressors. Kyle - however - merely pulled the cube from his pocket, and said,
“Kay’Eighty?”
The cube began to dissolve, reforming into the humanoid shape that was her android form.
“Yes, Ambassador Redding?” she replied in a distinctly… robotic voice. Kyle merely scoffed, however, and rebutted with,
“Aw, come on; it’s not like he gave us ample opportunity to talk: I had to think of something on the fly…”
She suddenly became much more ‘sapient’ crossing her arms, and looking off to the side as she sighed.
“Fine,” she replied, “Whatever; what do you want?”
Kyle snorted in laughter, and asked,
“Has he made it to the optimal range, yet?”
Kay’Eighty sighed again, and looked out the viewport.
“Just about, yeah.”
“Then I leave the honors to you,” he finished, holding her up for a better view of the viewport.
“Detonation in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”
Kahv’Hosh found that though he was sure this was going to be on par with their aggression level, he also couldn’t look away; like watching an asteroid impact a planet: he knew something bad was coming, but he just couldn’t bring himself to break eye-contact with the nine ships in formation, the middlemost one having already received the shuttle. And even as he watched, the ships seemed to draw closer together.
At first he thought that it must be his eyes playing tricks on him, but soon enough, not only were they drawing closer together, but they began to spin around the central ship, as if caught in the gravity-well of some insanely dense celestial body. He saw small explosions issuing from the sides. with little bits breaking off into the void of space, only for the expanding singularity - for that was obviously what it was - to suck the life-pods back into its center, where everything seemingly disappeared into nothingness. Soon, the ships themselves began breaking apart, still doing their destructive, tumbling dance around the spot where the ‘commodore’s ship used to be.
Piece by piece, the ships began to break apart, ‘falling’ into the center, where they were obviously compressed beyond what physics would normally allow. He tried not to think about the fate of the people aboard the ships, gravity increasing to the point that you were crushed under the weight of your own skin, having to watch - if they could even survive - as the ship around them broke apart, exposing them to the blackness of space.
He managed a quick look back at the humans, and was granted some small consolation in that the evil smiles had left their faces, and both had looks of somber determination gracing their features. And at that moment, he believed he knew what it was that set them so high on the aggression scale; even they were appalled by their actions - by their own weapons - and yet not even the prospect of becoming a monster would stop them from removing a perceived threat.
Soon, all pieces of the ships were gone, and about a Standard minute after that, the anomalous gravity readings disappeared. And suddenly space had returned to ‘normal’, as if nothing unnatural had just happened. Kyle broke the silence in a neutral voice as he said,
“Well, let’s get back to the ship; Cap’m’s gonna tear me a new one for this…”

This post is going to sound like the ramblings of a crazed conspiracy theorist - the kind that everyone rolls their eyes at and pays no mind to. I’m going to ask you all for a difficult favor. Please hear me out first before writing me off as paranoid and insane.
​
You might be familiar with the airline SkyFly. For those that aren’t - SkyFly is an airline originating from Austin, Texas. It started out as a lesser known company, but within five years, it became one of the top dogs in the airline business. They’re also the worst.
​
If you thought United Airlines was bad for breaking guitars, or Delta Airlines for kicking passengers off of overbooked flights, you haven’t seen anything yet. SkyFly takes the cake. The CEO, Felix Thompson is a literal evil genius. He got away with first degree murder by masking it as negligent homicide.
​
Felix made it look like the oh so tragic death of Captain Gary Hurst was a result of cutting corners, instead of him being a specific target. I have proof of this. All you need to do is read the black box transcript from SkyFly Flight 49, which slammed into a field on May 29, 2013 due to a sudden mechanical failure. Captain Gary Hurst, Co-Captain Drew Baltimore, the four flight attendants, and all 250 passengers were killed on impact. There were no survivors.
​
SkyFly paid a good deal of money to keep that transcript discreet. You won’t find it on a Google search. You won’t find any news articles on it, either. This travesty was swept beneath the rug, and thoroughly stomped on to keep it there. What Felix did not anticipate, was for his own daughter to have enough of a conscience to betray him.
​
I’m leaking this transcript, because both customers and employees of SkyFly Airlines deserve to know the serious risk to their lives.
 

Start of Transcript

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1549:49.3 [start of recording]
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1549:50 Captain: Good morning everyone! Thank you for flying SkyFly Airlines! We expect to arrive in Boston, Massachusetts in six hours.
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1549:54.8 [sound of click]
​
1549:57.7 Co-Pilot: I love the feeling of lifting off from the ground. It’s like in John Gillepsie’s poem: “Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings…”
​
1550:14 Captain: Let’s hope this one stays in the air.
​
1550:22 Co-Pilot: What do you mean?
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1550:25 Captain: You don’t feel that rattling?
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1550:25 Co-Pilot: Shit. We need to return to the airport to get it looked at.
​
1550:27 Captain: SkyFly Airlines Flight 49 calling into air traffic.
​
1550:31 Air Traffic: Flight 49? What’s the situation?
​
1550:32 [Sound of click]
​
1550:34 Captain: We just took off and the plane is starting to rattle. The yoke feels stiff as well. Permission to return to the airport for an urgent landing?
​
1550:35 Air Traffic: [Captain], you have been flying for over fifteen years. You don’t need to make such a dramatic move over a little bit of turbulence.
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1550:37 Captain: And as someone who has been flying for over fifteen years, I’m telling you that there’s something seriously wrong with this plane!
​
1550: 38 [sound of clicking]
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1150:40 Air Traffic: You don’t need to return to port! Just keep flying! If it gets worse in the next hour, then we can discuss an emergency landing!
​
1550:43 Captain: Roger that!
​
1550:44 [sound of click]
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1550:44.1 Captain: What a dick…
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1550:45 Co-Pilot: Are we going to be okay?
​
1551:01 Captain: We can only pray.
​
1551:09.3 Captain: To be fair, things have smoothened out. Maybe I was getting paranoid.
​
1551:09.9 Co-Pilot: Why did you have such an extreme reaction?
​
1551:18.1 Captain: I keep getting put in broken planes. The first time, a failure in the elevators had this plane tossing and turning. The second time, there was a sudden explosion in BOTH engines. The third time, the plane literally stalled for a second. Thankfully I was able to land before anyone got seriously hurt, but this is not a lucky streak that I want to press.
​
1551:20.6 Co-Pilot: Let’s try not to let the worst case scenario impede on our current flight. A little bit of turbulence isn’t going to hurt us.
​
1551:36 Captain: What happened to agreeing with me to land the plane immediately and get it looked at?
​
1551:38 Co-Pilot: Air traffic made a good point.
​
1551:40 [the captain heaves a heavy sigh]
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1551:42 [sound of rattling]
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1551:50 Captain: Shit!
​
1551:58 Co-Pilot: What was that??
​
1552:01 Captain: I don’t know, but nothing good.
​
1552:02 [sound of an electronic hissing]
​
1552:31 Plane Warning System: Autopilot disabled. Autopilot disabled. Autopilot disabled.
​
1552:41 Captain: What did I fucking tell you?
​
1552:51 [Sound of click]
​
1552:53 Captain: Hold onto that controller like your life depends on it - because it does!
​
1552:59 Captain: SkyFly Airlines Flight 49 calling into air traffic. We have an emergency.
​
1553:03 Air Traffic: Flight 49? What’s the problem?
​
1553:08 Captain: The plane is shaking like an earthquake, and autopilot has suddenly disabled itself. Permission to make an emergency landing?
​
1553:09 Air Traffic: Just fly it manually! You know how to do that!
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1553:10 Captain: Air traffic, I am telling you that this plane is going to fall apart before we get there!
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1553:11 Air Traffic: Get a grip! Just keep flying manually!
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1553:15 Captain: Roger that, asshole.
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1553:17 Captain: Well, I suppose it’s good practice for flying manually.
​
1553:19 Co-Pilot: Is this safe?
​
1553:21 Captain: Not at all. But what choice do we have?
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1553:28 Co-Pilot: If something else happens and air traffic denies the request to land, maybe we should just do it anyway. There are 250 lives at stake.
​
1553:35 Captain: That’s the plan. I’d land it now, but I’d catch too much shit for it.
​
1553:37 [sound of violent shaking]
​
1553:40 Captain: WOAH!!
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1553:46 Plane Warning System: TERRAIN TERRAIN! PULL UP! TERRAIN TERRAIN! PULL UP!
​
1553:47 [sound of frantic clicking]
​
1553:48 Captain: Oh, thank god. I’m not ready to meet my maker yet.
​
1553:53 Captain: SkyFly Airlines Flight 49 calling into air traffic. We have a serious emergency.
​
1554:24 Air Traffic: Flight 49? What’s the problem?
​
1554:26 Captain: We temporarily lost control of the aircraft. We NEED to land before it happens again!
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1554:32 Air Traffic: [murmuring] I guess we don’t have a choice but to let you land…
​
1554:33 Captain: Don’t have a choice?? What the hell is that supposed to mean??
​
1554:35 [sound of click]
​
1554:37 Captain: Oh shit! That was a scary pitch! I swear, it’s like these gears are covered in rust!
​
1554:50 Captain: Drew, why are you looking at me like that?
​
1554:51 Co-Pilot: Because I just realized that you’ve been put in broken planes for a reason…
​
1554:53 Captain: Air traffic control might be a dick, but they wouldn’t commit such an insane conspiracy with 250 other lives!
​
1555:00 Co-Pilot: I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. They just “don’t want to fix what isn’t broken.”
​
1555:00 Captain: What…
​
1555:01 Co-Pilot: I doubt these planes have had proper maintenance in a long time. Cutting corners is cheaper. If we make an emergency landing, SkyFly is going to have to pay to get the plane fixed.
​
1555:06 Captain: Why the hell would air traffic be involved in that?
​
1555:16 Co-Pilot: CEO’s know how to make friends.
​
1555:18 Plane Warning System: TERRAIN TERRAIN! PULL UP! TERRAIN TERRAIN! PULL UP!
​
1555:19 Captain: MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!
​
1555:20 Co-Pilot: [talking into black box] Melissa, baby, I love you so much. You’re the love of my life, okay? And it’s also okay if you move on and marry another man after me. I want you to be happy, okay? Don’t let this tragedy kill you too!
​
1555:24 Captain: IDIOT!! DON’T GIVE UP YET!! Yank on that yoke as hard as you can!!
​
1555:25 Co-Pilot: Roger that!
​
1555:30 Plane Warning System: TERRAIN TERRAIN! PULL UP! TERRAIN TERRAIN! PULL UP!
​
1555:31 Captain: MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!
​
1555:32 Air Traffic: Okay, Flight 49, you have permission to make an emergency landing.
​
1555:38 Captain: Let’s hope it’s not too late for that!
​
1555: 39 [sound of explosion]
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1555:40 Captain: Air traffic, we just lost control of the vertical stabilizer!
​
1555:41 Air Traffic: Okay, what do you want to do?
​
1555:43 Captain: There’s nothing to be done at this point. We’re in an uncontrollable dive.
​
1555:45 Co-Pilot God have mercy on all of our souls…
​
1555:47 [sound of impact]

End of transcript

 
 
SkyFly Flight 49 slammed full speed into an empty field in Dripping Springs, Texas. There were no survivors. Just as co-pilot Drew Baltimore said, CEO’s know how to make friends.
​
A further investigation would reveal that the air traffic control workers heard in this black box recording were being paid $5k check bonuses to keep these broken planes in the air.
​
Maintenance crews gave the clearance for the planes’ safety checks, but never did any real examination into their condition. It was a conspiracy, to be sure. But I don’t think it was about saving money. If it were as simple as that, EVERY SkyFly pilot would have been in a broken plane.
​
It was only Captain Gary Hurst that was assigned to these planes that were not suited for flight.
​
He was such a good pilot that he could land a broken plane without casualties. When one busted plane was forced to go out of commission due to a successful landing, they’d put him in another one. I know you’re thinking that I’m making reaches. After all, why would such a conspiracy involve 250 other innocent passengers, 4 flight attendants, and another co-pilot?
​
Simple: When a CEO commits negligent homicide, they get a $2 million slap on the wrist, and can carry on with their lives. If a CEO commits 1st Degree murder, they risk life without parole.
​
CEO’s kill people everyday though human trafficking, exploitation of labor, negligent maintenance practices, and denying medical insurance to their employees. What’s 255 more in a simple plane crash?
​
Captain Gary Hurst was always the target. The other innocent lives lost that day were simply a necessary collateral damage to get away with murder. I don’t know why my father wanted that man dead. I admit that I don’t have an explanation for a motive.
​
But only one pilot assigned to four consecutive broken planes? That’s not a coincidence. ESPECIALLY when air traffic control was trying to keep him in the air every single time.
​
If you’re a pilot still working for SkyFly, RESIGN ASAP before you become next. If you have a flight booked with SkyFly, cancel it immediately. You could be the next target, or the next collateral damage to kill their target.
​

My father does not care if you die, as long as he gets to live well.

Hi, I wanted to buy my first IEM, and it's been more than 2 weeks, and I am still struggling to choose between the wan'er and the hola.
After my research, I found that both of them have more or so similar neutral sound signatures, and almost the same technicalities.
The differences I found after scrambling over the internet is that the hola has a better cable and build quality compared to the hola.
The reason that I got more attracted to the wan'er is their appearance and the packaging (one of the best presentation in this range). I liked the semi transparent look of the IEM, the looks of hola is not bad as well though.
I am also concerned about the cable quality of the wan'er. Will it get damaged if I accidentally slept on it or after daily use .
Also which one among the two have more bright sound signatures and has more bass.
(idk why I'm still attracted to the looks and presentation of wan'er)

I (23f) have had glimpses of attraction to other girls pretty much all my life. The first time I can remember finding a girl attractive was when I saw Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle at age six. Despite my feelings being quite obvious, my kid brain couldn't make sense of it. So, I told myself I only liked certain scenes because the actresses looked really pretty, or because there was a man involved.

 As I grew, especially once I was a teen, my feelings for girls became crystal clear. I got crushes on friends, watched explicit content, and even briefly dated a girl, albeit in secret. After I broke up with the middle school girlfriend, I told myself I was straight. The only reason I liked explicit content with women was because I liked the sounds they made. There was no way I was *actually* into girls. It was just a phase! When I hit 20, I just got tired. I decided it was time to accept myself. That led me to deciding a label, and I went with pansexual, then settled on bisexual with a preference for women when I realized gender did factor into my attractions. But, then, I noticed something else, too. As I explored my attraction to women in earnest, I found my desire for men shrinking, and then disappearing completely. At 21, I asked myself: "Am I...*gay*?" I couldn't picture myself dating a man without having an anxiety attack. I couldn't see myself being happy in a monogamous relationship with a man because I'd always eventually want a woman. I felt uncomfortable and awkward pursuing men, feeling incomplete no matter how compatible the man and I should've been. Those same feelings were never there when I was with women. With women, I felt happy and whole, like I was expressing my true self, even if it was just a flirtation. Dating a woman gave me butterflies, and monogamy with a woman was a no brainer for me. Yet, I still clung to saying I was bisexual. I know now that it was internalized homophobia. Sure, I liked women, and that was okay, but it was impossible to fathom not liking men, too. That would mean that any ability to be "normal" would be gone. Women were just *supposed* to be attracted to men, right? If I wasn't, did that mean I'd spent too much time exploring my sexuality and had swung too far one way? Had something gone wrong in my head? Would I seem less acceptable? I worried there was something wrong with me. Surely if I just met a good guy and tried really hard... Luckily, I didn't go that route. I kept thinking about it, kept repeating the terms "gay" and "lesbian" to myself. I worked harder to try to understand myself. I didn't want to go back to denying anything I was. This pride month, I am whole. This pride month, I'm relieved. This pride month, I'm happy. This pride month I can finally say, without the pressures of comphet dragging me down, that I am, in fact, a lesbian🏳️‍🌈. 

Sorry for the delay, had things to do yesterday and didn't want to upload too late.
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March 21, 2019
When I got to the pool, I couldn't believe my eyes on what I was seeing, the thing I had only ever dreamed of before and maybe seen in one or two videos, it was a shirtless male, and it also was Jerryl, Jeerial, Jeriel? She honestly couldn't remember, but there he was sitting in the same spot he was before but now he was reading some kind of book, while being SHIRTLESS, 'The goddess must be looking out for me' I thought as my upper and lower brain started a really heated argument.
'He is obviously doing it on purpose, he wants you to make a move.'
'Or maybe he is just reading a book and is shirtless because is hot today and it's normal for males to be shirtless around here, and you are just a touch starved pervert.'
'Then why would he be seated at the same spot?'
"I don't know maybe he just LIKES that spot, do you ever think on something that is not sex?'
'Can't blame me this planet is full of sexy space babes.'
'Quit it you two' I said to myself trying to get control of the situation and organize my thoughts.
'He is an alien from the alien planet in which we are on, even though they are weirdly similar to us,'
'We are going to approach with all the normalcy in the world, because the last thing I want is to scare him off'
'We just need to walk to the door and start from there'
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"Hey there cutie." was what I heard coming from my left side, I turned to see one of the marines, but none of the ones I knew, she was bigger, and not just in height, you could say she was an unit, a purple unit.
"What you doing alone here at night?"
'She doesn't even know proper english, but knows the word cutie?' I asked myself as she approached.
I sat up as I didn't know where this was going, "Uhh well jus- just reading"
"Reading ay? With no shirt in the middle of the night all alone by the pool?" She asked while licking her lips in a not so attractive way, more in a disturbing way.
"Well, yeah." I said, now a little uncomfortable with how close she was.
"Reading is boring, I know something better that we can both do." She said as she stroke my hair, even though I tried to shrink to get away.
"I- I'm sorry, I d- di- didn't get your name" I said now being really uncomfortable
"Oh yeah, I guess such a beautiful sight made me forget, the name is Margna." Margna said as she leaned in even closer
"You know what I think m- my mom is calling, she must be worried of where I am." I said as I tried to get up but was unsuccessful when Margna's Shaquille O'Neal's size hand pushed me back into my seat.
"I don't think they would worry too much, I am here to protect you, and have a good time." Margna said while having her hand still in my chest, even though now she was more of roaming over it than pushing me down.
Then I heard screaming from the door, and it wasn't any human language, when I turned I saw Delara, and she was heavily walking this way, then an argument started, one I could obviously not understand.
"YOU GET AWAY FROM HIM NOW" Delara said in an angry but almost crying voice.
"Ugh, Piss off small tits, this one is mine and it's none of your business."
"LOOK AT HIM HE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO TOUCH HIM"
"Oh please a shirtless lonely guy in the middle of the night, he is asking for it, but you wouldn't know anything about it, now piss off before I demolish you, before he can demolish me."
Delara was ready to jump at Margna, when suddenly we all turned our heads to a new voice that screamed from the door.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE EMPRESS IS GOING ON HERE"
It was Sergeant Lyria and she looked pissed, not even that she looked beyond pissed, in that moment Margna removed her hand and stood up, both of them doing what I assumed was their way of saluting.
"Margna was molesting the human, ma'am." Delara said while pointing between Jeriel and Margna
"She's lying ma'am, she's just jealous that I was talking to the human." Margna responded while looking desperately between Delara and Sergean Lyria.
"You two come and stand here." ordered Stg Lyria as she made her way towards me.
"Hey uh- Jeriel am I right?" she asked after she kneeled to which I nodded.
"Where them two harassing you or causing any trouble?" she asked in what sounded like the tone of a caring mother talking to a scared child, which to be fair felt that way, because of the size difference.
"Uhm her, she was touching me." I said while pointing at Margna, which in return made her look at me but quickly returned to facing forward when Sergeant Lyria stared back, "Delara was even defending me."
"Are you sure?" She asked.
"Yes ma'am."
"alright thank you and I am really sorry that you had to go through this." Sergeant Lyria said as she stood and turned to face them, and spoke again on Shil.
"Private Margna follow me, and Private Delara, I summon you later, now let's go."
Then she left the are with Margna following her, and just left Delara standing there, that now that I could really take a look at her I noticed that she was wearing a two piece bathing suit, to be honest it looked more like gym wear, it looked quite like a sports bra and workout shorts rather than swimming wear, but dear lord that uniform, or armor that she always wore, didn't do her body justice, my annoyance grew legs and walked out of my mind when my eyes took over, now, other than her magnificent assets, seeing her without her armor really showed how attractive purple skin was
"Heyyy Delara." was what I said as the gears in my brain started turning.
“Delara?”
She was just standing there, she didn't seem to be staring at anything specifically, if anything it reminded me of the people in Inside out when they are thinking.
"Do youuuu want to sit?" I asked her, unsure of how to act.
"Oh ah- thank you." she said as she sat down kind of trying to avoid me or at least trying to avoid my gaze.
'Alright the crazy bitch is gone, what do we do now?'
'Whe ask him about something, but what?'
'The night? No too basic, the weather? no what is this high school? Maybe his book, yeah ask him about his book.'
"Ahem, what is that you reading?"
“Oh this? It’s called ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth'."
"What is it about?"
"About a journey, to the center of the earth..." I responded unsure of how to answer that.
"Oh yeah that makes sense" Delara didn't really understand what that meant but she understood Center and earth, so maybe it was a geology book, maybe he was the nerdy type.
"But what about you? What brings you here?" I asked trying to keep the conversation going.
"Oh me? I got off my patrol job and wanted to go for swimming, Shil'Vati really like water, we swim really good"
"Didn't know that, interesting." I said while still looking at her still trying to avoid me.
"Is there something wrong? You seem trying not to look at me." I asked if there was something wrong maybe I could fix it.
"Well uhhh, Shil men are never without shirt, so it's weird seeing you without shirt on."
"oh, OH" I said as I scrambled to put on a my shirt, 'was I flashing her?' I thought as I turned as red as my face allowed, which passed more as pink than red.
"You can look now" I said as I finished putting my shirt on.
"Uhh thank you, I guess?" Delara answered as she turned showing her deeply blue face.
'So they flush blue huh?' I said to myself
"Soooo do you want to jump in the pool?" I asked her because that was the main reason I came out here in the first place.
"The pool?" she said as she looked around, her eyes eventually landing on the pool, "Oh yeah the poooool yeah yeah, sure."
"Alright then" I said as I got up and jumped right in.
After resurfacing I turned to face her, but there was no one it was completely quiet except for some crickets somewhere, that until she landed on a cannonball next to me, which could have killed me right there and there with a heart attack.
Then after clearing the water off my face I tried to look for her but she was no where to be seen then looked down to see if she was still submerged, but what I wasn't expecting was for her to poke me from behind, to which I jumped, jumped more than I would like to admit.
"How did you get there?" I asked after catching my breath.
"I told you we swim really good." Delara said while chuckling.
"Could you swim to the other end of the pool and back?" I asked her, I wanted to see this properly.
"Uhm sure." She said before submerging and torpedoing to the other end and on the way back, it was impressive for also not having fins or anything that could help her swim.
Delara emerged from the water and turned to me while fixing her hair "How did I do?"
"Really well I guess, at least compared to humans, are you considered good for other Shil'Vati?" Water sports would be crazy if there were people better than her, which I assumed there were, or maybe she used to be a professional swimmer.
"Oh no I just swim for fun, there are people way faster than me, but there is this species the Helkam they are REALLY good swimmers, they are like what you call fizh."
'Wait are mermaids real?' was the only thing that crossed my mind.
We swam for a while then we spotted Sergeant Lyria approaching our way.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your swimming but I need to take Private Delara with me." She said with that same motherly tone, but now was like telling their kid that they had to leave and go home, to which we got out of the pool and dried ourselves, said our goodbyes, but before leaving Sergeant Lyria approached me.
"Is everything okay?" she asked.
"Uhh yeah, everything's alright." I answered a little confused on why she was asking me this.
"I am deeply sorry again for Private Margna's behavior, I took care of her."
"Oh uhm thanks?" I responded not sure if it was the right answer.
"Alright, on a different matter, the lockdown is coming to an end and we still need to discuss your family's situation, so I need you and your mother to come see me tomorrow at 10 after breakfast, we need to discuss relocation and other pending matters." She said with a more official tone.
"Sure I'll tell her."
"Very good, Good night Jeriel." She said as she turned to start walking to the door taking Delara with her.
"Oh uh- Good night Sergeant." I said as I waved at Delara goodbye, gesture which she returned.
'Relocation...'
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I got out of the elevator and walked towards Mom's room, then I knocked, to which surprisingly she answered instead of Miranda.
"What's the matter son?" She asked in Spanish.
"Uh I wanted to check on you and tell you that Sergeant Lyria wants to talk to the both of us tomorrow morning after breakfast." I told her.
"Did something bad happened?" She asked, her tone jumping from half asleep to fully worried.
"Uhm no nothing happened, but she wants to talk to us about where are we gonna go after this, she talked about some kind of relocation."
"Oh alright, is that everything?" She said her tone shifting to a different kind of worried.
"Uh yeah that is everything."
"Bendición ma." I told her as I went in for a hug.
"Dios te bendiga hijo, buenas noches."
"Amén, buenas noches." I answered as she closed the door and I headed for my room.
When I got inside the first thing I did was take a shower to get the chlorine out of my body, followed by me laying on bed with the television on watching Pair of Kings which is one if not the best sitcom Disney ever came up with, well watching is a bit of an overstatement, I was more concentrated on the ceiling above me and what Sergeant Lyria had said, where were we going to go and what were we going to do? I really had avoided thinking about that let alone discussing it, but tomorrow it would all have an answer.
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First / Previous / Next
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What would happen on the next chapter of Semper Imperialis? Tune in next time to find out.
Again sorry for the delay, but the important thing is that we are here, on another note thanks to everyone for the support so far, I really enjoy reading the comments.
As always if there is anything to correct or any suggestion you can go right ahead and leave it in the comments.
Thanks again.

hi
I'm turning 27 in a few days and I've been late and failing the majority of my life. im repeated this year for the fourth time in uni and I was diagnosed with major depression and low processing speed. my psychiatrist put me on adhd meds three weeks ago and I've been doing things so easily and going to appointments at 8am on time. I was given an extension to submit my assignments but even with the work I've done it feels like there literally isn't any progress. I tried to put time blocks for each assignment but id find myself nowhere near done with one and continue doing it and I get stuck for hours. I dont know what to do I know I sound very entitled and I wish I was on adhd meds 200 years ago because I didn't think they'd actually work like this. I literally cry every time I think about it but I try not to think about it until im done with finals. I dont think my assignments will be accepted at this point but they hold a big percentage of the total grade and I really need to submit them because ive been on this cycle forever. I find myself trying to perfect every question and I dont know how to do them fast. I feel so slow and I am so frustrated I cant afford to fail this year I will be kicked out :( and im so frustrated with myself for not being on adhd meds years ago. I feel like that would've literally changed my life. how do I finish 12 assignments in 12 hours. most of them are labs and it takes me forever because I have this need to listen to the recordings of each one and write every single thing down and then start doing it how do I approach this and submit pls
I know I feel so entitled and I am so grateful for all the chances I've been provided it just makes sick to my stomach thinking of how my life would've been if I was on the meds earlier
- finally on adhd meds but its still taking me forever to have tangible progress even if im focused and every assignment have been due even with the extended time what do I do how do I finish them quick and still be efficient please advice thank you

I got diagnosed about a year ago with vestibular migraines and POTs after living my life thinking I just had really bad allergies. By the time my symptoms caught up to me, they were completely out of control and I was basically unable to leave my house for several months because of sound and light sensitivity as well as super bad visual auras that made me occasionally lose my sight. We tried several meds which somewhat helped but I didn’t see marked improvement until I tried Aimovig. The injection has been a serious game changer to the point that I can drive again. It’s been amazing and made me feel super hopeful. The thing that sucks is that without insurance it costs about a grand per 30 day injection.
Before my symptoms started, I had a super stable job with great insurance. Due to not being able to leave my house I was forced to resign this job, but had the health benefits for a bit. My injection was $40. I found a new job making less than half of what I was making but it is full time wfh and I needed insurance to pay for my shot. Well turns out I had to fight to even get them to cover it and finally got it approved, just to find out my copay is $250. I’m so tired and over this BS. It’s so discouraging to have to pay a huge amount of money to work a job I’m overqualified for and only took for insurance to pay for a drug that is still extremely expensive.
I got extremely depressed when I first got diagnosed and was dealing with all of the fallout. Regaining some independence has helped me not feel so down. Days like today make it hard though

Hi guys, i tried to install a node recently but stupidly i didn't go through all the documentation and now i suspect that the slow chain sync problems that i see are derived from the disk i chose, my current setup is 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1235U , 32 gb ram and disks composed from a 500Gb WD_BLUE SN570 (where i installed the system) and a 2tb Samsung 870 QVO that i used to extend the lvm root partition to 2.3tb total, in practice I've been trying to sync (nethermind + lighthouse) for almost two weeks but in all I downloaded about 220Gb and from the logs it seems to me that it is still trying to sync. Beginner's question how do I figure out how much is missing at full sync? What do you recommend to do? Format everything and install on a single 2tb nvme (i would use a wd black 850) ? The fact that i already funded the validator keys is a problem ? (when i checked the queue was more than 30days, so i assume that if i fix the setup before 30 days i should not get any penalties, right ?) Ps. this is my network performance Testing download speed.. Download: 69.55 Mbit/s Testing upload speed.. Upload: 7.17 Mbit/s
could be a problem this parameters ? Thanks

Host mom here. I will preface this by saying we have an absolutely amazing au pair - my toddler just adores her and she is great at her job. My 2 year old is at a stage where she is just obsessed with our au pair. I am so happy that they have such a strong bond and I couldn't feel more fortunate to have such a great role model for my kid. Going into this I knew that there would be moments where my daughter would choose our au pair over me, and that's ok! That being said, sometimes our au pair can be a little overzealous in helping to the point where I kind of feel like I would like some control and personal space back. I think she takes a lot of pride in feeling like the "parent" and therefore has maybe taken on some extra responsibilities that we didn't ask for and that we frequently remind her that she is not obligated to do.
For example, I love getting my daughter ready in the morning - dressed, fed, hair brushed. But sometimes our AP will come out a little earlier than her start time and say "It's ok, I can do all of that" and of course my daughter prefers her right now so then she is saying "only au pair can do it! not mommy!" and I kind of get pushed out of the way.
AP spends a LOT of time with us in her off-hours and while our previous au pair would step back and let us parent during these times, our current au pair still does a lot for our daughter and still takes on the role of caregiver (again, my husband and I are trying to take over but my daughter prefers au pair right now and would rather us just "go away" lol). Another example is when my daughter is misbehaving or whining and I am trying to reason with her, au pair will step in and try to help by offering her certain things, giving her choices, etc. While her strategies aren't bad and probably work for them during the day, I still would rather be in control of the situation and have my child respond to me and work through these difficult moments with her.
I am looking for suggestions on how to approach this, because I don't want to sound like I am complaining about a very helpful au pair! I would like to mention something next time but I also don't want it to come off as me not appreciating her, because it's absolutely not a bad thing that she wants to help and it's also not her fault that our daughter prefers her right now. I just need a little space to be the parent!

Throwaway for health reasons - and repost from yesterday to try to get a reply. For a bit of background, I am a 27 year old male, around 5'9" and 145lbs, who lives in the southern US. Not super active due to work, but my kids keep me busy. I have always had some issues with back pain, hands that fall asleep at night, along with a history of Lyme disease which kicked off inflammation issues in my teens (food sensitivities, stomach issues, constant feeling of dehydration, lips feel swollen internally but are not, etc, brain fog) - so it may or may not be relevant.
Over the past year and a half, I have been having a good bit of random inflammation issues mainly related to my skin. Additionally I have struggled to feel hydrated and have noticed that small wounds will take months to heal and then stay red in perpetuity. Frankly I have felt dehydrated for years despite constantly drinking water. I admit that I had been drinking alcohol more heavily than I wish for the past 6 years (moderately w/ occasional binge), so my initial concern was due to that. I went to my primary care and/or urgent care a few times due to a few unknown rashes, red marks that won't heal, random atopic dermatitis and genital itchiness that went undiagnosed. I received blood panels, glucose checks, STD checks, thyroid checks, and other than slightly elevated cholesterol I appeared to be fine.
I was recommended to urology and dermatology for the various skin issues, and was ultimately treated for light eczema. To be fair, the majority of itchy patches has gone away through topical treatments (except for Red Scrotum Syndrome - which is thought to potentially be a spinal nerve related issue). I never truly felt like I got to the bottom of the issue.
Flash forward to 6 months ago, my new psychiatrist/ psychologist team officially diagnosed me with ADHD and after a few trial and errors I ended up on Vyvanse - I have never felt more mentally sound than now and had a great few months following. My drinking has almost disappeared and I never consume on a day that I take my meds.
Flash forward to 8 or so weeks ago and my hands and feet have been very red/puffy/tight/dry most of the time, very blue on others, and quite cold most of the time (especially when jumping out of the shower or changing temperature quickly). I told my prescriber and we decided that it was likely Raynaud's caused or brought out by the medication due to vasoconstriction - should be harmless as long as it is not overly uncomfortable. I started going light on my medication and only took it maybe 4 days of the week mainly for work. I also began taking b multivitamins, fish oil, niacin, and magnesium as I heard that they could potentially help.
Flash forward to 4 weeks ago, both arms suddenly started to feel like they have carpal tunnel. My shoulders/elbows both feel pinchy and my hands feel weirdly tight, dry, cold, and tingly. They have a dull ache that sometimes feels sharp in my palm or fingers, with that cool tingly numbness feeling always lingerning - but always in different places. My knees, shins, and feet also feel and look that same way.
4 weeks ago I stopped taking all medications/alcohol to cut out variables but am still dealing with most of it. The tingling feelings have somewhat gone away, but my hands and feet still feel either hot or cold and tight. A warm coffee cup is all of a sudden very painfully hot to touch, and my fingers feel stiff. My elbows, knees, lips, and scrotum all are red, itchy, and feel swollen.
At this point I was thinking this is some systemic neuropathy caused by alcohol/other and perhaps potentiated by the Vyvanse due to vasoconstriction. This resparked health anxieties so I went to urgent care. The doctor's initial thoughts were due to excess drinking. The blood tests (below) showed my liver and kidney function to be fine...same as last year's multiple tests. Also showed my glucose levels to be normal (below) - does this rule out diabetes? They also showed that I am very dehydrated (high hematocrit) which he wrote off - this concerns me however because I drink at least 80oz of water on a normal 24/hr cycle. He recommended me to a neurologist who I won't be able to see until August. He also recommended a visit to the rheumatologist even though my ANA factor came back negative - because RA runs in my family. I won't see them until next month.
After the unfruitful testing and thousands spent last year I am also hesitant to spend more money on my health - but I have a family to stay healthy for. Any recommendations or thoughts on what this could be or steps to take (besides eating healthy, cutting alcohol, and exercise)? Thanks in advance!~
Pics of my hands: https://imgur.com/a/9rFsXHU
Blood tests:
TSH+Free T4 TSH Current Result: 1.830
T4,Free(Direct) Current Result: 1.50
CBC With Differential/Platelet
WBC Current Result: 4.2
RBC Current Result: 5.39
Hemoglobin Current Result: 16.8
Hematocrit Current Result: 51.3
MCV Current Result: 95
MCH Current Result: 31.2
MCHC Current Result: 32.7
RDW Current Result: 11.9
Platelets Current Result: 217
Neutrophils Current Result: 57 Reference Int: Not Estab. Unit: %
Lymphs Current Result: 31 Reference Int: Not Estab. Unit: %
Monocytes Current Result: 7 Reference Int: Not Estab. Unit: %
Eos Current Result: 4 Reference Int: Not Estab. Unit: %
Basos Current Result: 1 Reference Int: Not Estab. Unit: %
Neutrophils (Absolute) Current Result:2.4
Lymphs (Absolute) Current Result: 1.3
Monocytes(Absolute) Current Result: 0.3
Eos (Absolute) Current Result: 0.2
Baso (Absolute) Current Result: 0.1
Immature Granulocytes Current Result: 0 Reference Int: Not Estab. Unit: %
Immature Grans (Abs) Current Result: 0.0
Comp. Metabolic Panel (14)
Glucose Current Result: 89
BUN Current Result: 13
Creatinine Current Result: 0.91
eGFR Current Result: 118
BUN/Creatinine Ratio Current Result: 14
Sodium Current Result: 140
Potassium Current Result: 4.3
Chloride Current Result: 100
Carbon Dioxide, Total Current Result: 25
Calcium Current Result: 10.2
Protein, Total Current Result: 7.1
Albumin Current Result: 5.5
Globulin, Total Current Result: 1.6
A/G Ratio Current Result: 3.4
Bilirubin, Total Current Result: 0.7
Alkaline Phosphatase Current Result: 53
AST (SGOT) Current Result: 26
ALT (SGPT) Current Result: 36
Sedimentation Rate-Westergren
Vitamin B12 Current Result: 1033
C-Reactive Protein, Quant Current Result: <1
ANA by IFA Rfx TitePattern Current Result: Negative

Looking for help regarding my partner. She works in a GP surgery, her manager is a bully. I’ve lost count of the amount of times my partners come home in tears or upset. Frankly it sounds like an awful place to work.
Recently theirs been an ongoing issue of temperature within the surgery. Its been freezing cold over winter (I’ve witnessed this myself). The manager refused to put the heating above 16c assuming due to energy costs).
So the girls are all sat freezing in reception everyday. They are not allowed to use portable heaters. Meanwhile the managers sat lovely and warm upstairs with multiple heaters on etc.
My partner suffers from Raynaud’s and shes really struggling to get through each day. Today the manager turned the heating off completely and my partner has turned the downstairs heating on.
As a result shes been dragged into the office, had her job threatened and been berated for having no “common sense”.
This is one of many incidents, the manager is horrid. She shouts, threatens and bullies all of her staff (not just my partner). I’ve met her, she has a horrible attitude and is completely unapproachable.
What realistically can be done in these situations? My partner is worried about complaining as she feels she’ll either be sacked for doing so or will suffer for it.