Habitat for humanity restore little rock

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Marc gave it another go. He tipped his hand forward. The silver patty rolled off him, dropping toward the cave floor.
It stopped short of hitting the path. The shiny disc halted in the air, dangling at the end of a thin white line.
He watched the small wheel spin. It might have been the most fun he’d had all year. Even more fun than that mud puddle he’d found the other day.
How does it keep going? Marc thought to himself. And without any power??
Marc assumed the disc was some sort of technological marvel from the past. But the Archives had little information on it, only a name. It was called a “yo-yo.”
They all must have had one of these, he posited.
As Marc walked down the stone ramp, he cast the yo-yo again. The toy’s quiet spin was the only sound in the cavern. The soft hiss of string versus metal reverberated gently in the spacious cave.
Marc focused all his attention on the little gadget. He was determined to enjoy every last minute of the universe, no matter what. And that evening, the yo-yo more than accomplished that goal.
The shimmering yo-yo, however, couldn’t prevent the world around him from crumbling. The ground started to rumble. The rest of the cave shook with it. The underground city shook as the plasma storm above battered it—and the rest of the planet.
Marc’s home broke down. Cracks appeared in the ceiling. Waterfalls of dust poured out of them. It wouldn't be long before the whole thing collapsed. That is, if the plasma storm didn’t swallow it whole first.
Whatever.
A few clumps of dirt wouldn’t ruin Marc’s fun. He pulled the hood of his shawl over his head and extended his ragged sleeves toward each hand. His clothes shielded him from the falling dust; the gritty particles made themselves at home on his messy shawl. And Marc was free to perfect his newest trick.
The rumbling died down though as Marc descended the ramp. The yo-yo string didn’t wobble so much, and he didn't have to watch his steps as carefully. He just hoped the quaking wouldn’t come back to ruin his event.
Speaking of which, Marc glanced ahead toward his destination below. What he saw rocked him even harder than the earthquake had.
What in the sinkpits…?
Marc stopped in his tracks. He even started to reach for his knife. All because he’d detected a speck of something suspicious. Something he didn't see much of every day: color.
Showy landmarks weren’t something endemic to his home. The Outpost was more of a dusty gray-and-brown sort of place. The walls were sandstone. The floor was sandstone. And the ceiling? …Granite?
No, sandstone. All under the faint glow of a string of depressed lightbulbs.
The intriguing blip in the gray-and-tan collage was farther up the path. Ahead of the ramp, on Level 8, Marc saw the same three steel doors he was used to seeing. The front doors of underground homes, lined up in a row, each closed into the cave wall.
However, there was something different about the third door. It looked… alive. Like it didn’t belong in a dreary place like the Outpost. But it was too far away to tell what exactly had been done to it.
Marc squinted at it suspiciously. The third door happened to be his destination. And now it was weird.
He considered waiting and observing the mutated door. A child of the Outpost, Marc had developed a healthy fear of the unusual.
These habits, along with his instincts, kept him safe. They’d specifically preserved him while the rest of humanity perished.
But he shrugged off the instinct to wait. Something new and “different” was ahead, and he wanted to see it.
But just as a precaution, it was time for his yo-yo’s last trick. He got in one final throw then placed the toy into his satchel. He dropped it on top of his arsenal of cables, wrenches, and screwdrivers.
And by the time he’d snapped the satchel shut, the long ramp had bottomed out. He’d made it to the next level.
To his left, the wall had been spray-painted. Scrawled-out black letters stood against the sandy background. They stated, “Now Level 8.”
Marc followed the sign. He stayed close to the wall, crossing to the stone pedestrian path. He passed one untouched steel door with a dusted-over mail slot in the wall beside it. Then he passed a second home—abandoned like the first. And finally, he arrived at his friend’s place and the mysterious blip on Level 8.
To his surprise, the steel door elicited a flush of emotion. His heart floated upward. And the portrait before him drew his focus in like an otherworldly beacon.
How did it get so…?
Marc pulled back his hood. The ground popped with the sandy grains he released.
He could hardly believe the difference. The door used to blend in with the others: another ridged steel face that spent most of its time rusting or collecting dirt.
But it was no longer muffled by the dust and dirt that had built up over the years.
Today, it sung. Paint streaks flew across its visage. They swirled and spiraled, forming stars and other shapes. Where previously gray and rust dominated, colors sprang forth—colors that Marc didn't even have the names for. They were many, and they were warm, like the evening sky just after sunset. Marc could hardly wrap his head around the entire image.
He swelled with gratitude.
Only you could have pulled this off. He thought of his friend, the painter. The one person in the colony who’d ever been any fun. The one other person in the colony who was left…
The artist had done the unthinkable. Foraging the garden below for something other than food. Spending work time measuring and concocting the perfect blends of paint. And then slathering their fingers across the giant door, until its old face was but a memory. And all that effort for only a single other person to appreciate.
Newly inspired, Marc searched for an unpainted space on the metal canvas. He found one and knocked on the door.
He took a step back and waited. The outside of the Outpost was lively. Excited wind rushed through the canyon.
By contrast, the Outpost itself was silent. If there was anyone left to say anything, they may have even called it “dead.”
Or nearly dead, anyway. The last morsel of it came to life as the door in front of Marc groaned.
It floated off the ground, inching upward. On the other side, Marc could hear a hand crank clicking away.
Ktch… ktch… ktch… ktch…
The corrugated door lifted, and the door rolled up. The tip of the artist’s painting started to slip from view.
Ktch… ktch… ktch… ktch…
Behind the door, chains reeled at a slow clip. The heavy curtain was halfway up. Marc could now see his best friend's lower half. Buff Lenorkian legs pumped back and forth with each crank.
The door unveiled even more of the owner. A torso in a metal suit appeared. Four ripped arms stretched out of it. They rotated, moving to the clicking beats of the door.
Ktch… ktch… ktch… ktch…
The door raised a few inches further, uncovering the bottom half of a cobalt blue face. Two rows of razor-sharp teeth smiled from ear to ear. A few inches more, and Marc could see the whole of the Lenorkian’s face.
Sid greeted Marc as the last of the door raised.
“Finally!” he said.
Marc didn’t get a chance to respond. His body lurched forward involuntarily. He slammed into Sid’s metal suit.
Crrrrrick!
The armor squealed as Sid’s upper two arms squeezed him tighter. The lower set of arms had reeled Marc in.
Marc hated hugs. Stupid mushy emotional wraparounds. But just this one final time, Marc returned the gesture. He squeezed Sid back.
“Happy Worlds’ End!” Sid said from the other side of the embrace.
“Yeah,” Marc replied, “Happy Worlds’ End.”
The two separated.
“Cool painting, by the way,” Marc said. He pointed at the rolled-up door. “I didn’t think you’d top the one in the garden.”
“You think so?” Sid sheepishly smiled. “Well I’ve had more time to practice since… you know.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Marc said. “Me too. That’s how I actually got you something.”
Marc swung his heavy satchel around. He rifled through it, squeezing through cables, knocking handles and parts out of the way. And then—ah.
He fished out a crumpled rag. Holding it in one hand, he began to gently unfold it.
“I found this a few days ago in the garden,” he said. The edges of the cloth fell. They revealed a small, glass object. It sparkled.
Marc continued, “I think it fits your style—I mean, I know it’s a little smudged and chipped but...”
He swirled the crystal trinket around. The cavern’s incandescent light flittered across its clear edges.
He touched it too, tracing the slender portion of it with his thumb. It was the neck of the crystal swan.
“It’s yours,” Marc said, offering up the bird.
Sid cupped two shovel-sized hands and accepted the gift.
“It’s beautiful…” he said, examining it. “I can’t believe anything like this could have survived this long.” He looked up at Marc and smiled, “Thank you so much. I just wish I had a little longer to could enjoy it.”
They chuckled lightly about their impending obliteration.
“Well, come on in,” Sid said. He extended both of his left arms. They gestured toward the cave interior. “We’ll finish off this universe how it started,” he said. He mashed his upper two fists together. “With a bang!”
“I hear that!” Marc nodded. He crossed over into Sid’s house.
As Marc passed Sid, a wave of discomfort hit him. Sid had switched out his usual t-shirt and jeans. He wore old armor instead. And the metal plating taunted Marc.
Marc’s next question came out more accusatory than curious.
“So… a Lenorkian throwback, huh?” he asked Sid.
Sid had just finished finding the perfect home for his swan. He left it on a shelf next to the front door.
He turned to face Marc. He hid his embarrassment behind a jagged smile.
“Oh!” he said. “Uhhh…” Three of Sid’s arms disappeared behind his back. The cone-shaped cuffs at the end of each wrist clanked against the back of his chest armor. The fourth arm nervously scratched his blue head. “I don’t know,” he said. “It's stupid, I guess. I can take it off… if you want.”
Marc didn’t want to address the topic head-on. He stopped in the cave’s entry. He pretended to admire the walls—as if he’d never seen sandstone before.
“No, leave it on,” he said. “You look… like a true Lenorkian.” He turn around and forced a smile.
It wasn’t enough.
“Okay, let’s get this out of the way,” Sid said. He marched up to Marc.
Sid took a deep breath before he spoke.
“Tonight's really important to me,” he continued. “This is the last impression anyone’s going to make on the universe. So I need you on board.” He continued staring down at Marc. “Can you do that? For me?”
Marc didn’t see what the big deal was. It was just a couple of best friends hanging out.
“Yeah, why not?” he shrugged. “End it the way it started.”
The exchange turned into awkward silence. Neither knew what to do next. They had never been in a situation like this before—never attended such an event. What the Archives called: a par-ty.
Sid shook off the figurative mask he’d been wearing—one that was uncharacteristically dour. His eyes lightened, and he bobbed his head knowingly.
“I went through the Archives to see how this works,” he said. He walked toward the long horizontal counter against the wall—the kitchen.
On the counter, chaos ran wild. Bowls and kitchenware spread across the surface. And the insides of his pots and pans resembled the dirty mouth of a garbage chute.
Marc wasn’t sure what to think. Was cleaning the host’s kitchen a staple of ancient parties?
Sid too seemed a bit confused. His next words came out robotically, as if he was practicing a new word he’d learned.
“’Can-I-offer-you-a-drink?’” Sid asked. He stood nervously in front of the counter.
Looking closer at it, three unusual objects stood apart from the kitchenware mess. It took Marc a while to remember what their outdated, bendy material was called.
Plastic. Three pink and plastic cups sat equidistant from one another.
“I got these from here,” Sid reached under the counter and pulled up some sort of transparent bag. Pink cups just liked the others were stacked on top of each other inside.
Sid packed the bag back under the counter.
“So?” he asked after he finished. He held all four hands together in anticipation. His smile may have looked like an industrial-grade rock shredder, but it was hard to resist his innocent blue face and big wide eyes.
Marc eyed the pink cups one last time.
“This better not kill me,” he said.
Sid wasted no time. He excitedly grabbed a cup and walked over to a large pot sitting on the counter.
Using a nearby ladle, he plunged into the vat. An unappetizing sloshing sound resulted. And Sid, as strong as he was, seemed to struggle with scooping out some of the mystery liquid. But in the end, he pulled back the ladle and unloaded an opaque, muddy liquid into the cup.
“It's a homeworld classic called fludge,” Sid said as he finished pouring.
He treaded over to his reluctant friend and handed off the plastic cup.
“Did you say ‘fludge’?” Marc asked. He swished the cup around cautiously. The earthy liquid hardly budged.
“Yeah, fludge! Us Lenorkians invented it. It’s kind of the only tasty thing we ever bothered to make.”
Marc sniffed it. It smelled… burnt? Maybe a little dusty, too? But he could have just been smelling the cave.
Sid left Marc alone with Marc’s questionable new assignment. He returned to the pot to pour himself a drink.
“Just try it!” he said.
Marc looked down again at the dark soup. It could kill him. Or maybe it wouldn't.
Either way, it was his last drink.
He took a timid sip and waited to be repulsed. The fludge trickled to the back of his tongue. As it hit, Marc’s eyes widened. But not with regret.
He swallowed.
“Now wait a minute…” he said. He smacked his lips together. Then he took another, larger sip.
This curious dark liquid had a unique taste to it. The taste was earthen—but unoffending. It also had a subtle undercurrent of sweetness to it, combined with a spicy kick. It was delicious.
“This might be the best drink in the entire Outpost!” Marc exclaimed.
Pure joy bloomed on Sid’s face. “See! I told you: the greatest thing we ever made.”
He held his own cup above his open jaws. The falling fludge was no match for the alien. He guzzled it down, licked his lips, and then went back for more.
As Sid fashioned himself another drink, Marc noticed something a tad unsettling. A third pink cup stared back at him. It prompted an uncomfortable thought, but he shoved the thought back down.
The Lenorkian carried back his second drink. Though this time, he took it in small, human-sized sips.
But he quickly reanimated. In the middle of a sip, Sid got a wild look in his eyes. His irises turned from their natural violet to scarlet. He yanked the cup from his face and swallowed.
“Argh, how did I forget?” he said. “I got music!”
Marc cut his sip short too. “No way. You got music?”
“I think so!”
Sid did an about face. He slammed the half-empty cup on the counter. Then he shuffled toward a giant metal column protruding from the far wall. Four ink-blue hands wrapped around the cover of the vent. And he went for it.
Sid struggled to pull off the cover of the vent at first. His armor ballooned around his biceps as his muscles bulged outward. Yet the cover wouldn't budge.
But it seemed like an important part of his evening plans. He scolded the stubborn vent, banging on its top.
“Oh, you’re gonna get it now!” he said. He latched onto the vent again.
This time, he put even more effort in. To the point where Marc sensed that Sid was losing a grip on his own body. Out of his forehead, two thumb-sized cones began to rise. His breathing turned low and raspy. And his whole body seemed to expand as he repositioned himself for leverage. Then with one final pull, like a wild beast, he let out of a deep, guttural roar.
“HAWRRRRRRRRRRRGGH!” The roar echoed off the cave walls.
And with that, the stubborn vent cover finally popped off. A breath of wind pulsed through the room as the air pressure equalized itself.
But the wind wasn’t finished. After the initial pulse exited, a mighty gust picked up where the original pulse left off. The vent shot more wind into the room, but rapidly, like a storm. Tiny coarse particles rattled inside the duct. And in the room, a rush of wind whipped past Marc’s face. He felt little nips across his exposed skin as it passed him.
Both partiers shielded their faces from the most direct blasts of air. Sid smiled nervously as he looked to Marc. He raised his voice over the whining airstream.
“It’s from the sandplains above!” he said in an elevated voice. “I thought we’d use the sandstorm for music! Do you like it?”
Music… Marc wasn’t exactly an expert. Even though humans were said to be naturals at it, not much on the subject had made it into the Archives. The Outpost didn’t have much of it either. The closest he got was the occasional chant, stray birds twittering about, or maybe someone banging on rocks.
But Marc did know one thing on the subject. Where there was music, there was dancing.
That said, he had never danced before either. But a long time ago, his parents told him it was something all humans could do. It was something they carried in their blood. Once humans found a pattern in music, they could match it to their body language. And once they’d synced melody and movement, they could ride that wave to a whole new experience.
Might as well give it a shot, he thought. Marc too put his cup on the counter.
With his hands free, Marc backed up toward the middle of the room. He closed his eyes, felt the wind. It filled his ears with its gusty energy. It hit him in pumps as the storm raged above.
Though not totally predictable, the wind did hit him consistently. There was some sort of kinetic pattern to it.
Yes, a pattern.
Well actually, he’d heard it called by another name. What was that word his mother had used? He opened his eyes when he remembered: rhythm.
Marc stretched out his arms. He relaxed his hips. He felt the wind’s whips and waves across his arms. He let his arms follow them, swaying with the current. Not long after, his hips joined in. They too gyrated, trying to match the energetic gusts. He kept at it. And the first time Marc felt both himself and the wind moving together, he grinned.
“This is amazing!” he said. Around them, the wind crooned.
Sid was entranced. He nodded back while staring at Marc’s strange movements. He’d never really seen dancing either. But he figured he would give it a shot too. He loosened up his arms and walked onto the dance floor with Marc.
Before dancing himself, he studied Marc first. He watched how the scavenger moved his arms—and when the scavenger moved his arms.
Sid’s limbs followed. Four muscular arms rose in the air, like fighter jets on their way to a dogfight. And on a one or two second delay, they swayed after Marc’s.
For a while, they followed Marc completely. Then Sid went down his own path. The Lenorkian’s movements grew aggressive and battle-like. He punched at the wind swiping across him. He shuffled his feet as if swapping battle stances.
He caught Marc’s curiosity. Even as a novice, Marc could tell Sid’s movements weren’t traditional by any means. But to Marc, it was dancing all the same.
The two danced to the chorus of the air above. They laughed occasionally as changes in the rhythm of the wind tripped them up. In his head, Marc compared it to the painting on Sid’s door. The colony had never seen anything like this either.
Then something interrupted their dancing. The ground beneath them shook, throwing them off their feet. Heavy gray dirt trickled from the ceiling as the entire cave rumbled. And outside, the distant sky flashed and crackled. Its light illuminated the cave in violent spurts as the boys struggled to stand back up.
Eventually, the violent quaking and frightening flashes died down. The plasma storm held its breath once again.
The boys got back on their feet, but all the joy had seeped out of Sid’s face. He just stared at the floor in deep contemplation. Even as the windy music started back up.
Marc figured he would rescue his friend from whatever dark thoughts had turned up. Naturally, the end of the universe was a real bummer.
“End of the world got you down, huh?” He tried to laugh it off. The whole situation was pretty sad. Especially when they were having so much fun. But it was best to end the universe on a high note, right?
Nevertheless, Sid seemed dejected. He mumbled something inaudible.
“Dude, I can’t hear over the song!” Marc said in an elevated voice.
Sid spoke up over the wind. “That’s not what I’m upset about,” he said, his voice still fairly low.
“Then what are you upset about?”
Sid blurted out his response. “Because I invited Tōn-E, okay?”
He couldn’t bring himself to look Marc in the eye. Because he knew what was coming.
“YOU DID WHAT?!” Marc shouted over the music. Marc himself stomped over to the vent. He picked the cover off the floor—though he struggled quite a bit with it. It was heavier than Sid made it look. But he hoisted it back into the mouth of the vent. The music shut off. The steady drop of sand on the cave floor ceased.
“Say that again,” he leveled in Sid’s direction.
“What was I supposed to do?” Sid remade eye contact. “Not invite the only other intelligent being to the last party the universe will ever have?”
Marc needed no time to answer. He nodded insistently. “Yes. That was exactly what you were supposed to do. What the hell, Sid?” Marc would have continued, but there was another disturbance outside. He caught a glimpse of movement in the doorway.
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Thanks for reading some of my words :) I’m trying stuff out, so let me know what you think.
The rest of the story is here
Based on this prompt

What do I say.. I am now at my lowest point of my married life.. somewhere where maybe I won't ever go back to the happy person I was again
I am married for four years almost.. to someone I knew.. then talked over social media and got married.. ever since we got married.. there was never like a will from her to ever have sex with me.. it has always been me wanting this.. me wanting that.. a lot of time it ended up the way it is today but I have remained patient.. I told myself it's okay
We never had a sex where she wanted to give something for us.. like cuddling..like caring for me .. like being human.. with the human touch.. it always was.. you want to have sex.. have your sex and I will look at my phone.
So it was like this today.. I asked her to undress.. kissed her neck.. care about her .. being compassionate..kiss her boobs.. and she got really angry and was like I was hurting her so I stopped. And when I went down on her .. kissing her v. then also she was like I am hurting her so that turned me off completely.. because I was not rough nor I did have the intention to hurt her..
And I told her.. you know.. let it be.. so that turned out to her angry issues coming up.. screamed loudly and broke some things in the house.. and told me she will never have sex with me again..scratched my hands.. hurt me
I was like that's okay because you have never tried for me anyways.. so she went in the other bedroom and locked the door
I have never been bad to her and always did things so that she remains happy.. she's not a bad person but today what she did just broke me and though I wasba sincere partner, today I feel that its not worth it and feel like the wish to find someone who will understand and care for me.
If it was not that she was pregnant with our baby.. I would not had continued staying with her.
Mentally I am drained but I tell myself it's okay
Someday I will be better
With a child coming up and her angry issues.. it's scary..
I am at rock bottom but as a Muslim couple,,, you can't break a marriage easily..
I pray that everyone going through a bad marriage or a bad partner stay strong

I'm back with another post. Despite the cyber attacks I've been getting from butthurt marketing agency owners, I'm still giving out free knowledge. In fact, I'm a bit fired up today. So I’m going to sit here in front of my computer for the next 2 hours and come up with something good.
Last week, I showed you how you can make your first 10 sales without spending anything on marketing. 2 weeks ago I showed you exactly what I did to bring in an extra 2.5 million in sales (without paid ads) for a brand that already had good traction. This post is for everyone in the middle. It’s for the guys that aren't quite at that 7 figure stage yet but aren't rookies either.
It’s so easy to live and die in the 20k-75k range for a handful of reasons. Your bills are paid, your margins are cool and you have a system that works. Of course, you want to scale, but that fire you had when you started just isn't as hot as it used to be.
Think of customers as heat, and your business is fire. This post is made to be the gasoline. You can pour a little bit of gasoline on your fire and your flame will jump. Instant but temporary heat. But consistently doing the 3 things that I’m going to mention below is like dumping an endless supply of gasoline in your fire pit. Eventually, you'll end up with a fire so big that it will probably spread and grows on its own. You can build a heat source that never dies.
Here are 3 things you can do to double the lifetime value of your customers:

1. Order Personalization - I’ll start here because most people underestimate how important it is to make people feel like you care about them. A personal touch goes a long way. It's important to connect with customers on a personal level. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again. You sell as a person, not as a business. I'll give you an example of exactly how to do this.
   So I have a client that sells niche-specific hats. He went from his customer service email inbox being filled with order-specific questions to an inbox full of people telling him how much they love his brand. He didn't change his products, he didn't fix his slow shipping times but he did start writing handwritten messages and putting them in the boxes of as many orders as he can. This alone can literally double your customer's lifetime value if you do it right. The message needs to be personal. You know where they live, you know what they bought, and you know their names. That’s more than enough information.
   

Here’s an example of what you can write (product in example: golf hats):
“Thank you sooooo much for another order Mike, I’m so grateful for your support. Good luck at your next Golf Game!”
21 words, 30 seconds of writing, You just guaranteed that this guy will either purchase again or refer a friend to your brand.
P.S. People love messy handwriting. It just feels more real. You’d be surprised by how many people will message you saying they’ve never received a handwritten note with something they bought online in their life.
There are a lot of ways to personalize orders. But I hope that example gave you the jist of what I’m trying to say. You personalize the order in a way that makes the customer feel special. They should know that their order is different from everyone else order.

1. Rewards programs/Ambassador programs- This is very simple. Humans are dopamine addicts, we don't do anything unless it makes us feel good. Fuel your customer's dopamine addictions by rewarding them for giving you their money.

“Congrats! You just spend $400 on my store, here are 40 reward points equivalent to 40 cents that you can use toward your next order!” This sounds insanely stupid when you put it this way. But people will use the fact that they have some type of personal credit or discount as an excuse to buy from you again. Just seeing points being loaded onto their account is an instant dopamine hit. It's like leveling up in a video game. The achievement is pretty much worthless, but it cost you something so it has value to you.

1. Post-purchase follow-ups - Your repeat customers help you pick up momentum without you spending more money on new traffic. On smaller stores, you can have 1-2 customer thank you flows. On some of the bigger stores I work with, we’ve built 6 of these flows. Yes, 6 automated post-purchase email flows. Every time someone buys, the language you use when you communicate with them slightly changes. People who purchase once should know how much you appreciate them. If they purchase 2 times, they should know that they are so close to becoming a VIP and that it's in their best interest to buy again. People who purchase 3x are VIP customers and they should know and be rewarded. People who purchase 4x+ should get even more perks and maybe even a gift. Make sure to implement a survey in the later flows to find out why your repeat customers keep coming back. 9/10 times they will have a personal reason like “You guys actually reply to my customer service emails” or “You guys keep giving me gifts with all my orders” or “I’ve seen the founder come a long way, I love the products and I want to support the company.”

Think of the first sale as your customer entering a new sales funnel. Now you get to persuade them into making more purchases by making them feel appreciated and special. Why would anyone buy from your competition when they are already VIP customers with you? Just the idea of not knowing what the reward will be after they make another purchase is enough for someone to make a purchase with you again. Make the reward for making a purchase unpredictable. They should have no idea if they're going to get a freebie, a discount, or a virtual high-five when they place an order. But, no matter what, they should know that they are appreciated.
I’ll end this by talking about one of my favorite shows; Shark Tank. I always remember how excited Kevin O’leary became when a business owner came in and told him that their average customer converts twice in a 90-day period after the initial acquisition. He essentially told the entrepreneur that if he could sustain this trend he’d never go broke. This has pretty much lived in the back of my head ever since I watched it. I have no clue what episode it is, or what business it was but it's ingrained in my mind. It’s an undoubtable sign of a really good business.
If you have other ideas about how to increase customers lifetime value I encourage you to share them. These are just 3 examples that I’ve seen work in real life but the possibilities are endless when you connect with your customers on a emotional level.

(Note: this is the second half of the story. Will link the first half shortly)
The two teens both looked toward the front of the room. There was a gray sphere. Hovering in the doorway.
But if you asked Marc, it was an annoying gray sphere. And it hovered in the doorway like an absolute rustnut.
Marc wasn’t sure where on the sphere to level his disdain. The whole dumb surface was the same all over. It was a series of interconnected, translucent hexagons. Stupid yellow lights blinked sporadically across its many faces—for no apparent rhyme or reason—perhaps just to further annoy Marc.
An electronic voice called out from the sphere. “Did I hear muuuuuusic?” he asked. “Before that last plasma burst?”
Marc shot Sid a glare that could kill. But the big blue alien didn’t back down.
“Last impression. Remember?” he told Marc before going toward Tōn-E with a brimming, sharp-toothed smile and arms extended. “Tōn-E! Glad you could make it! Come on in.”
On the inside, Marc cringed. He mostly tried to forget that Tōn-E walked (hovered?) the same Levels as them. Tōn-E represented the most self-destructive habits of the Outpost. The only features of the city indifferent to survival.
But Tōn-E was all too real. He entered the room like a ghost in a nightmare.
“I am also happy to be here,” he said. The faces of his sphere randomly lit up as he spoke. “I otherwise had no plans for tonight. Because the planet is set to explode.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” Sid joked.
“I approximate it will only take a few more—hold on. What is this??”
Tōn-E spun slowly in the air. The side previously facing Sid rotated toward the ceiling. When it reached the top, a spotlight shot toward the ceiling—right where Sid’s door had slotted in.
The spotlight stretched horizontally across the door until it resembled a straight line. This line swept back and forth across the raised door. It moved as if he was cleaning it.
“I don’t believe it!” Tōn-E said. “What an exquisite painting. A remarkable addition to your growing and ever-expanding portfolio, Sid.”
Tōn-E finished his scan of the painting. His expanding spotlight shut off. And he re-centered himself to face Sid.
“Aww, shanks,” Sid said. Each of his right arms latched onto the bends of the left ones. “You really think so?”
“Of course! There are colors here I’ve only seen named in the logs. You have tastefully incorporated /#FF00FF: a color our ancestors previously referred to as ‘magenta.’”
“Yes! That’s right! I was going for ‘magenta!’ You really think I did it?”
Marc looked down to hide his face. He rolled his eyes. Magenta. He would have loved to tell Sid how much he liked it too. But Marc had spent his years surviving, not studying colors in old, useless historical archives.
Sid and Tōn-E continued their snooty, pretentious discussion.
“I made it mixing legblee blood and just a liiiiiiittle bit of groundwater,” Sid said.
“That was a very clever! Allow me to save your painting to my internal memory.”
“Really??” Sid’s cheeks greened a little.
“Yes, I will review at a later time when I am both unable to view the original but would still like to once again be inspired by your clever and skillful hands.”
“Tōn-E, I—I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
Marc simmered in his anger. Stupid Tōn-E. Always ruining things. Making them about him and his dumb, endless archives.
“I am perhaps only more impressed by your chosen ensemble! Do my eyes perceive veritable Lenorkian armor?”
The talkative orb whooshed toward Sid. It began revolving around him like an annoyingly-attached moon. As his exo-orb hummed excitedly, Tōn-E rattled off his useless knowledge of antiquated armor.
“Snorp-resistant spiked shoulder caps?!” He spun around Sid’s midsection. “Triple-layered chest plates?!” He dropped closer to the floor. “Anti-gravity shin guards made from the rare lenorkium alloy?!”
Tōn-E giggled as he orbited Sid. His laugh disturbed Marc. It sounded like a space rat being strangled in the bowels of an undersea air vent.
Sid could hardly keep up with Tōn-E’s flying. But he looked happy with the attention. “Yeah! I’m told this suit was built for the Frost Ring wars,” he said. “It never got used.”
Marc continued to not engage. He slunk deeper into his shawl, folded his arms, and sighed.
“I don’t believe it!” Tōn-E said.
He backed off from Sid, flying back toward the doorway. He turned on his spotlight once again. It now stretched over Sid’s body. “Saving! Saving!”
Sid wasted no time posing for the occasion. He flexed all four arms and gritted his snaggling teeth. His irises turned a deep red and his two small horns protruded from his forehead. Tōn-E was overjoyed. “I did not think I would ever have the chance to record your agitated state,” he said.
I’ll show you an agitated state, Marc thought to himself.
“I’ve got a relic you’re going to love,” Tōn-E said. His tiny sphere filled the cave with noise. But it wasn’t Tōn-E’s usual metallic voice. The sound came from another species entirely.
“GwwwwwwuuuhhhAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!”
His orb played an intense, ear-shuddering roar. The recording may have been slightly fuzzy, but Marc knew the source. It was unmistakably Lenorkian.
And like the gears in a drill, something appeared to “click” inside Sid. His eyes widened. His armored chest expanded. And he joined in. But Sid’s roar was… authentic.
“HRRRRRRRRRGAAAAAAAAHHHHH” he blasted out of mouth. Marc’s entire rib cage vibrated uncomfortably.
It spooked Marc. Igniting some primal desire to escape a dangerous predator. That was a feeling he never felt around Sid. He didn’t like it.
Sid himself even looked embarrassed for a second. Something he’d kept suppressed had slipped out. But Tōn-E turned up the volume on his recording. And with a cautious smile of someone nervously breaking a rule, Sid matched it. And then some. The two bellowed together. It was enough to make Marc queasy, although it was unclear whether it was due to the vibrations or Sid bonding so much with Tōn-E.
The roaring continued. Their talking continued. Tōn-E went on about Sid’s armor some more and his people’s valor and the hardship his ancestors must have faced.
“Usually I keep this stuff stashed away,” Sid said to Tōn-E in his soft normal voice. His horns had retracted, and his eyes had returned to normal. “These are shameful pieces of our history. Truly. And with a people I never really fit in with. But tonight, it just felt right to wear it, you know?”
“I understand completely,” Tōn-E said. “It is in these end times that we gravitate toward those traditions that were so much of what made us feel alive in the first place.”
The statement made Marc want to hurl. He didn’t want to entertain such stupid notions. But the gremlin rotated to him next.
“Hello Marc! Did you find any good junk today? Any new additions to your scrap pile?”
Marc seethed. “I didn't scavenge today, Tōn-E. There wouldn't be any use. It's the end of the universe.”
“That surprises me. Humans love their junk and doodads.”
“Yeah well, we don’t have to cling to the past, do we? Not like that ever saved anyone.” He hugged his wrapped arms even tighter, tilting his body away from Sid and Tōn-E. His cold shoulder ended the conversation.
Sid picked it back up. “So Tōn-E, do you, uh… drink?”
As it turned out, he did. Tōn-E accepted a cup of fludge. He held it with a robotic arm—one that had suddenly extended from his exo-orb. Tōn-E’s orb whirred as the center of his “face” sprouted a grotesque, needle-like proboscis. It poked outward like a long nose.
This straw extended into the cup he held. Tōn-E sipped the fludge like an insect sipping nectar (whatever those two things were; the Archives were spotty).
Sid waited with anticipation. Then Tōn-E’s sphere shuddered. The fludge must have reached the insufferable little creature on the inside. “Scrumptious!” he said.
Marc sighed quietly to himself. For some reason, he thought the night would have made a turn for the better if Tōn-E had hated it.
“Two for two!” Sid pumped three victorious fists into the air. He grinned as Tōn-E’s straw dipped into the cup once more. The straw made a little slurping sound.
“My taste buds are tingling!” Tōn-E said.
But the big cup was too much for him to finish. He returned the mostly-full drink to Sid. And his robotic straw receded to his exo-orb. Sid of course finished the cup, slurping up the remaining pool of fludge.
“So…” Sid said. He wiped his mouth. “Should I put some tunes back on?” He pointed over his shoulder to the idle vent. Then he looked across his two guests for an answer.
Marc shrugged. He didn’t care about anything anymore. Next to Marc, Tōn-E bobbed excitedly.
“Oh, yes!” he said. “One reads about concepts such as scales and measures, but it is entirely different to actually experience them with one’s own body!”
What body? Marc thought to himself. And what were the other things Tōn-E had mentioned? Something about… measuring… dragons?
He studied the cave floor while Sid skipped to the vent.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Sid said. “Get those Level 7 legs ready!” He tugged at the creaking cover once more.
It came off easier this time. With a pop! the storm above returned to the cave. Its natural melody filled the room.
“Woooooooo!” Sid raised his hands again and walked back toward the other two.
Tōn-E mimicked him with two twig arms.
But the music didn’t have the same magic as before. The beats were stale. And Marc found himself unable to ignore the sting of the sand pelting his face. He lifted his shawl over his mouth. His voice was barely audible.
“I’m sitting this song out,” he said.
The other two didn't seem to hear him. They were facing each other, waving their arms sporadically against the air current.
Marc didn’t care. He grabbed his unfinished drink from the kitchen. Then he searched for a place to sit.
He found a couch, just in front of the dancing aliens. As he took his seat, his bottom started to sink into the sofa. The tarp covering the couch crinkled.
He tried guessing the material underneath it. Clay, maybe? He pondered the question while watching Sid and Tōn-E figure out dancing without him.
“This is how Marc was doing it before!” Sid said to Tōn-E. His four arms fanned across the breeze.
But he got everything wrong. His arms whipped around the wind, not with it. And he was thinking too much about his next move, as evidenced by his scrunched brows. But the greatest offense of all was his midsection: his hips and legs stayed in place—as if someone had threatened them.
A part of Marc wanted to get up and show him how it was done. But another part wanted to see Sid fail. Realize the effort was futile. Give up on bonding with Tōn-E. And kick the Sphere of Useless Facts out of his house.
“Am I doing it right, Marc?” Sid asked while each of his arms flew in a different direction.
“You look great!” Marc replied. He took a long sip of fludge.
Tōn-E, on the other hand, did his best to replicate Sid. He waved his skinny arms erratically. It almost made Marc laugh; Tōn-E looked like he’d been set on fire.
But in all, the whole thing was awful. A bad impression giving birth to an even worse impression.
And they didn’t seem to be enjoying it much either. Despite Marc’s glowing endorsement, Sid and Tōn-E danced themselves to the brink.
Sid kept losing his balance. He tried to keep up with the music but flung himself too hard in any one direction. And every time he made a misstep, he’d let loose an acidic snarl. Tōn-E grew frustrated as well. Every few seconds, he simply froze. His exterior lights would blink red in error. As Marc had hoped, the two “painting pals” quickly ran out of steam.
The dancing halted altogether. A tired Sid returned to the vent and hoisted the grate back onto the vent’s mouth. The music stopped.
“I’ll just turn it down for a minute,” he said. He adjusted a dial on the grate. The metal slits creaked open. And a muted sandstorm flowed through them.
The music reflected the overall energy in the room: depleted. Sid secured himself two more cups of fludge before joining Marc on the tarp couch.
Tōn-E followed his lead. The little troll took a seat too, which meant hovering over the last open spot on the other side of Marc.
The boys took a minute to relax on the couch. They sat quietly while the plasma storm above the Outpost boomed and cracked.
Well, Sid and Tōn-E relaxed. They chugged down another couple cups of fludge and floated quietly over the couch (respectively). Meanwhile, Marc continued to be annoyed. He considered stepping outside and climbing to Level 1. Offer himself to the plasma storm a few hours early. The non-stop hum of Tōn-E’s exo-orb goaded him further.
Brrrrrrrrr!
Did it really have to make that noise?
Marc didn’t think the afternoon could get any worse. And then it did. Because Tōn-E’s insufferable humming suddenly quieted. And that only could have meant…
“Oh!” Tōn-E exclaimed, “I know what we can talk about!”
Marc braced for impact. His nails dug into his knees.
Don’t you dare, he thought.
“I read the most interesting fact about cats today!” Tōn-E started.
Not again, Marc thought. Absolutely NOT again. His fists trembled with rage.
“Did you know cats were the central deity across ten different ancient civilizations? The trend started with humans, of course, but the religion quickly spread across the galaxy as interplanetary travel became more widely available.”
“I actually didn’t know that,” Sid said, entertaining Tōn-E’s ridiculous theory. “Where did you find that?”
“The Archives! They have somewhat documented this phenomenon. You see, it was a common practice to capture footage of cats, even in their sleeping state. They were so important to these cultures that even the most mundane moment yielded significant reason to capture and worship them. If you want to see, I can—”
Marc had had enough. He slammed his cup down on the floor and flew off the couch.
“—SHUT UP. SHUT UP ABOUT CATS!” he shouted. He swung back around to face the other two. “CATS AREN’T REAL TŌN-E! AND THEY WERE NEVER REAL!”
“That’s enough, Marc!” Sid clenched his teeth.“Don’t start this.”
Marc returned fire, “I didn’t start anything; that was YOU. Going behind my back! Inviting more of these… fairy tales!”
His emotions overwhelmed him. He didn’t know whether to yell more or start crying. He did both.
“It’s the end of the universe!” he said as tears streamed down his face. “We can’t keep clinging to the things that brought us to this point in the first place! All these stupid traditions are the reason no one’s even here with us now! IT KILLED THEM ALL! And anyone stupid enough to keep believing in them is—"
“—I said THAT’S ENOUGH!” Sid growled. Marc didn't care.
“NO!” he said. Then he looked back at Tōn-E. “NONE of what you’re seeing in the Archives is real! The data is corrupt! It’s ALL CORRUPT! And CATS are just another dumb fairy tale to keep people like you going, while…”
He ran out of steam. He realized there was no more “going.” In fact, there was no time remaining in the universe for anything. But that didn’t diminish his animosity and anger toward the world. He glared down at the gray sphere. His chest heaved.
Meanwhile, Sid kept a cooler, bluer head. He too looked to Tōn-E, but with compassion in his eyes.
Tōn-E didn’t immediately respond to either. The only sound in the room came from his exo-orb. Well, the exo-orb plus the ladle on the counter, which suddenly blooped into the big pot.
All eyes were on the atypically quiet alien, whose hexagonal faces began to light up.
“I suppose,” his voice trailed, “that cats may not have been real after all. You said it yourself: records are foggy. They’re all from thousands of years ago...” He sighed. Tōn-E’s lights transitioned to a new blinking pattern. “And I also suppose… that I should have been more mature about interpreting error-prone information in the Archives…”
“It's okay, man,” Sid said. “I like that you dream big.” He reached across the couch to place a comforting hand on Tōn-E. But Tōn-E floated out of reach.
“I understand my presence here is probably upsetting,” he said. “You two have a special bond. I should not have interfered with it in its last moments. I will go.”
“No, Tōn-E,” Sid said. Each pair of his hands met in front of his chest “Please stay. You have every right to be here too.”
“I should go,” Tōn-E said. “I will spend the rest of the evening focused on real things. And because I will no longer be here, I suppose it will be the perfect opportunity to review Sid’s art so I can feel inspired for the end times.”
He slipped between Sid and Marc toward the doorway.
“No, don’t!” Sid called after him. “We should do this together.”
But Tōn-E had already vanished outside.
The Lenorkian, hand extended, waited for Tōn-E to come back. But the floating sphere did not reappear in the doorway.
And that was when a low trill emanated from the couch. It was coming from Sid’s his chest. He looked up at Marc, glaring. He bared his pointed teeth. His horns reappeared. And his eyes flushed with scarlet pigment.
Yuh-oh, Marc thought. About half his prior anger evaporated. Fear of a fight took hold.
Marc didn’t exactly dislike his chances. Lenorkians may have been stronger, but Sid wasn't a fighter. Marc was.
But Sid stuck to his morals.
“GET OUT!” Sid shouted.
Marc reflexively jumped out of reach. The short hop sort of ruined his show of anger. But he was still boiling mad. After all, fifty percent of him hadn't abandoned the cat grudge.
“Fine!” he shouted back. “Have fun exploding alone.” He whipped away to the exit.
The party was finished now. He almost stopped and went back for his fludge. But he didn’t want it anymore either. He just wanted a nice end of the universe with his friend. And now the end of the universe was ruined.
At least the apocalypse outside was behaving predictably. Marc stepped into the adjacent cave corridor. He surveyed the damage outside, looking through the long, horizontal gap in the cave wall. As the experts had predicted, the plasma storm took its toll.
The canyon glowed eerily bright, despite it being evening time. The wind howled as it raced through the canyon. And the cliffs around the gorge flashed white and pink as the storm charged with electricity, preparing to make its final jump.
Lightning cracked toward the ground. Some of the bolts hit the opposing cliff, sending rubble deep into the gorge. A gentle tremor rumbled in the ground beneath him.
The plasma storm overhead only creeped further around the planet. As the canyon brightened, shockwaves coursed through the entire city. They threw Marc off his feet again. He hit the ground.
Behind him, thunderous clacking erupted. The sound of falling rocks filled the corridor. He flipped over to see what explosion had thrown him.
It was bad. He stopped breathing. Because he could no longer see Sid’s home. All he saw was a pile of rubble.

Here is the run down of the last year. My job initially said moving from Utah to Texas would qualify me for a pay increase, so I moved to Texas. Two months later, they finally tell me that the states pay is actually equal to Utah and so a pay increase was not going to happen. I accepted this. We are a family of 3 and have done as much as we could while there. I couldn't go outside much because I'd get bit by hundreds of mosquito's at a time which made me miserable. I tolerated the heat, but not being able to just go on a walk sucked.
Two months after moving, a dog showed up on our porch and so we took her in. We knew Texas pups were prone to having issues, but we didn't know what we would end up with later as time goes on. She is such a beautiful breed, but she can't be left alone or else the house ends up destroyed due to her abandonment issues. Weeks after she showed up, I found out I was pregnant. I tried applying for medical through the state and kept getting denied every month with no valid explanation. I had no medical elsewhere so I was frustrated over this. Part of me didn't want this pregnancy if I couldn't manage to find care.
We made the decision to move back to Washington because of the following reasons:

• My job said Washington was for sure a higher cost of living state so I would get a pay increase
• I would qualify for state medical and finally get care
• The western side of the state does not have as many mosquitos making it amazing to be in

Well, sad newsflash. Before moving, our new dog ended up so sick that we had to pay $1500 to keep her alive. yep! $1500!
My job, AFTER I MOVED, decided it wasn't within their BUDGET to give me a pay increase even though they said moving to Washington is a qualifying factor. Kudos to my remote job for screwing me ONCE AGAIN. Then following the new move, as we are staying in motels while finding a place to live, our dog almost died AGAIN! This time it was $1700 to save her! We tapped nearly every aspect of our resources to cover this poor pups health.
Also, although I work remotely, my spouse does gig work (instacart), therefore having a car is necessary for his job. Well, our cars engine died and we ended up using the last of our savings to lease a car, costing us the option to rent a home now. We literally have nothing left at this point as we pay $2580 a month for motels (We have to leave every 10 days because of some residency law Washington has).
So I decided maybe we can buy a home so I can pull money from my 401k since the only approved withdrawal is a hardship withdrawal for closing costs or medical. I only qualified for $150k which shows how little we make (considering I'm on shit Utah wages).
I was approved for state medical in April and could start seeing doctors in May (8 months into the pregnancy). Don't judge me. I did what I could do with what I had available to me based on my situation.
Baby is due this month (June 2023) and I have been repeatedly told to wait to buy a home until I get a pay increase. Yeah...Okay. Like that's going to happen. LOL. I'm nothing more than a customer service rep so I will never be more than a low wage employee. I know my value in this world is bottom level shit. I emailed habitat for humanity, but they never responded. They don't call me back either, so I am assuming they just don't want to say "Go back to school and get a degree that's worth something and isn't "business"."
I applied for food benefits and was told I made too much even though I barely eat 1 meal a day thanks to not having any money to manage my gestational diabetic diet. My spouse and child do get to eat 3 meals a day because they are being restricted.
Now lets add that my clinic was bought out by a bigger hospital and now my 11 year old can't be in the private waiting area like we had planned. We have no family around to watch him or our dog because they'll be in Utah for a family reunion. I have no friends in this state. So now my spouse will be forced to watch him as I give birth alone with zero support instead of him being in a tiny waiting area in the birthing center so I could have support. I don't even want to give birth now! I regret ever getting pregnant now and that's such a shitty feeling when I've wanted a second child for 10 years!
I am lost as to what to do now. No pay increase. We have literally nothing for baby. Living in motels. Zero savings. No family close by that can even help. The family that could help eventually wanted us to leave which is why we left to Texas to begin with. We don't qualify for food benefits even though all I can afford is Ramen or PB&Js and with that, I can't eat it since I'm a gestational diabetic, leaving me to starve. I applied for so many different housing options to be told there is a 1 year wait list. We can't hold up in motels for a year. I'll die from starvation and even then, we wouldn't be able to pay a deposit. We've tried starting a GoFundMe but our families don't know our situation, therefore asking for money from strangers feels wrong. We can't get help through the VA, we've tried.
I don't know what else to do. I need advice. Guidance. Something to give me peace of mind. I'm so broken that I think suicide is better than living. Part of me hopes I die in labor so my spouse can get my life insurance, not that it'll help a ton. I feel worthless. Pathetic. Stupid. Hopeless.
I'm lost.

Dear DRG Community,
I have recently received the Deep Rock Galactic Board game for my birthday and I have played a couple of games with my friends.
While playing with some DRG Ambiance, I noticed how painfully hindering it was to switch tracks according to game phases : exploration, every time a swarm attacks, extraction... It all slowed the game flow too much for too little.
Here I present you with thy "MISSION CONTROL" app !!
Free of use, made with assets from the original game developped by Ghost Ship Games :D
https://mrgolden32467.itch.io/mission-control
/!\ I'm just a community member. I am not a representative of Ghost Ship Games or Mood Publishing. Download this app at your own risk /!\
​
===SPECIFICATIONS===
This apk has been developped and only works for Android. Please read the FAQ below for further answers.
​
===HOW IT WORKS===
Launch the App
Press any Start Mission button (Mining Expedition, Egg Hunt, Point Extraction) depending on the scenario you're playing.
Press the Swarm button to initiate a swarm phase music when the time is right
Press the Extraction button to initiate the extraction phase when the time is right
Press the X button at any time to stop everything and reset the app
​
===FEATURES===
Random music plays according to the desired phase and matches the soundtrack from the game !
All relevant Mission Control voice lines to explain objectives, detect swarms, congratulate you...
A little settings menu to balance Mission Control's voice vs. the music playing
A "Call Resupply" button with additional voice lines for the immersion lovers !
​
===FAQ===
What is the current file's version ?
-Right now, the available file is version 1.0. I will update it if needed.
Will you make this app available for iOS ?
-Maybe... I don't know how to develop for iOS yet.
How heavy is the app ?
-App is 144 MB when installed.
Will the app request and use any personal data ?
-No.
Does the app contain any malware / virus ?
-No. Android System will most likely warn you against the potential threat of installing apps from unknown sources when installing though.
​
I will gladly edit this post according to your questions <3

Hello! Without any radioactive rocks, or even seen a radon detector or having held a dosimeter, I have a water problem.
Imagine a carpark, with increased water ingress due to rising seas. Would the wicking effect through slabs to moisten tiles or cement walls carry or concentrate any alpha or beta particle emitters, or create a gamma ray emission source?
It’s curious to me as I read about radon in basements occasionally. We don’t have them due to the high water table. Yet I wonder if I was to sleep at floor level on an poorly sealed cement slab, on earth at ground level, would there be a gradual increase in the radioactivity of the slab as moisture evaporates and water passes up though it over time?
It’s perhaps only an issue if the ground has any radioactive rocks, and that is where I could lend your assistance.
Have any of you collected mildly radioactive soils or sands or rocks or ore, that can be used under a typical house slab, to see if there is any water such as salty or mineralised or otherwise of a particular pH, that can result in movement and accumulation of the more active isotopes to human contact places such as floors or walls?
Would there be any collections of core samples that may be able to be homogenised and compressed to make suitable for capillary tests under conditions of a rising water table? And lastly, could radon accumulate in a closed up space that has a badly sealed evaporation layer
This is the AI explanation of the effect I am curious about, given I have no radioactivity detection equipment. Specifically relating to water migration over time.
My human Q: “What is it called when water migrates up through dirt and through a cement slab or through grout around tiles?”
AIGPT3.5 A: “The process you're describing is called capillary action or wicking. This is the movement of water through porous materials, such as dirt, cement, or grout, due to the forces of cohesion, adhesion, and surface tension. Capillary action can cause water to move upwards against gravity, leading to undesired moisture in structures and surfaces like cement slabs or tile grout.”
Here’s another related question:
“Thank you, tell me about cement slab capillaries barriers. The seal that prevents water migration through a slab into a house. What’s it called? What type of materials is it commonly made of in Australia? What is it made of in America? Is it typical two put blocks and bricks on the slab, and if they are showing moisture, would it be easy to avoid that if they were placed on a moisture barrier? “
And the Ai answer.
“A capillary barrier, or capillary break, is used to prevent water migration through a slab into a house. In both Australia and the United States, this barrier layer is commonly called a vapor barrier or moisture barrier. This barrier is crucial in reducing the risk of moisture-related issues such as mold, mildew, and damage to the structure or its contents.
In Australia, vapor barriers are often made from plastic materials like polyethylene, which is a flexible, durable, water-resistant film. Similarly, in the United States, polyethylene sheeting or other vapor retarder materials are used for this purpose. The barriers can vary in thickness (typically between 4-10 mils) based on local building codes, climate, and moisture conditions.
It is typical to place blocks and bricks on concrete slabs in construction, providing a solid foundation for the structure. If there is moisture on these blocks or bricks, it could indicate a failure of the vapor barrier or issues with the site drainage. To avoid such problems, it's crucial to ensure that the vapor barrier is correctly installed beneath the slab during construction. This typically includes properly sealing the barrier, overlapping the edges, and ensuring that the barrier extends to the foundation walls or perimeter of the slab.
Furthermore, it is crucial to provide adequate site drainage and slope away from the building to reduce the risk of water accumulating beneath or around the foundation. By properly installing a moisture barrier and ensuring appropriate site conditions, it is possible to reduce the risk of moisture damage in the building's blocks and bricks.”

There aren’t many people on here so I thought I’d post my health bio in case anyone is looking for answers and finds my info helpful.
2003 age 22: flew to Madagascar, which was nearly 24 hours of airplanes and then we also did several boat rides, of at least an hour each. I was on an anti-malarial medication. I noticed that when I walked, it felt like the jungle was whizzing by me. I felt very weird, a bit dizzy and like my brain wasn’t keeping up with everything around me. The episode lasted about 4 weeks, and I assumed it was the anti-malarials that were doing it to me.
2008: flew to Belize. Again was taking anti-malarial medication. Again we had a lot of boat rides, including a full day of snorkeling off a small boat. I felt like I was still on the boat after I got off. That feeling lasted about 6 weeks. I saw an ENT who said maybe it could be a reaction to the anti-malarials, gave me an 8” thick medical textbook and suggested I sit in his office and look it up myself. I decided to go home and try google instead (which wasn’t nearly as robust as google today is). I felt like I was walking on a trampoline, and even when I wasn’t moving, I was still rocking.
2009: I flew to see my dad and was fine in the way there. A couple days after returning home, I felt the rocking feeling start, faintly at first and then getting stronger. It felt like I was on a boat being tossed by the sea. The feeling got stronger and stronger and I went to see a different ENT. He ordered an MRI and I had a complete sinus blockage, but he still didn’t think that explained everything. He sent me to a neurologist who laughed at me and said “well it’s not MS. I don’t know why you’re here.” For about a month, I couldn’t get out of bed; I was so exhausted and weak, and the vertigo was so strong. I had a weird g-force feeling like I was being physically pushed to one side or another. After about 8 or 9 weeks, the episode faded away. I did have a sinus surgery but only after I was better. At this point, I knew something was up. I found info about mal de Debarquement online but it was limited. It also sounded like it was something people got and had forever, not episodic like mine.
2011: triggered again but this time by a car ride. All my family lived out of town so I had to travel if I wanted to see them. Suspecting that planes were a trigger, we decided to drive from Arizona to Oregon. I got triggered and again the episode lasted 2 months. I again felt weak along with bouncing, rocking vertigo and disorientation. We decided to move to be closer to my mom and sister since traveling was clearly a trigger for me.
I went on to be triggered in 2012 by stress after a surgery (endometriosis) and in 2014 by a 1 hour ferry ride. Both times my symptoms were rocking vertigo as if I were on a boat, plus exhaustion, migraines, exercise intolerance. My labs and other tests all came back basically normal. I started seeing Dr Jeff Brown, who co-wrote the first article about MdDS, and he diagnosed me with M de Debarquement but said he was mystified by my episodes, but thought we could try Xanax and prednisone before travel next time I fly. In 2015 I got to test it out, and I flew and didn’t get triggered! I would have been thrilled except I felt there was no way to know if the preventative measures worked or if I just wouldn’t have been triggered.
In 2017 I was triggered due to a lot of stress, plus a 20 minute light rail ride downtown. I had a small lesion on my face and was diagnosed with shingles on the vestibular nerve. The episode was so intense, it felt like two layers of vertigo at once. I could feel like MdDS rocking but also a slow rotational spinning. It was completely debilitating. It lasted 2 months. I had vestibular testing done and it came back that I have endolymphatic hydrops, so Dr Brown added “atypical Ménière’s disease” to my Mal de Debarquement diagnosis.
2018: i tried the Xanax before flying again but I took too little and was triggered.
2019: flew to Panama and did not get triggered! Used about 2.5 mg Xanax for the first flight and a top off of another 1.0-1.5 mg on the second leg. Success!
2021: I got triggered on a 45 minute kayak trip. The episode lasted a year, and about 4 months in, I had the “2 layers” of vertigo again plus one 24/7 migraine for two months. I was out of work for 2.5 months. I was so weak I couldn’t walk around the block. I used to walk 5 miles for fun, and I couldn’t even walk 3 houses up the street and back.
2023: I was triggered playing a VR game (only 6 months after the previous episode faded away). So far this episode has lasted 4.5 months. I keep narrowing my life little by little. No flying? Let’s drive. No long car trips? Let’s try short trips. No short trips? Let’s try VR.
I don’t go many places anymore and I just go to work and go back home. I garden, I paint, I play with my cat. I used to not get dizzy/vertigo in the car, but now I do. I have trouble looking at screens and reading. I listen to audio books. I still have no real answers and no treatment plan. It’s been really hard.

I am a nursing student a PN student to be exact , I want to bridge eventually but did half a dental hygiene program first (which I hated) so I am making up for lost time and need to start work faster (I need money). I am Canadian so I understand in other parts of the world may have different relationships/roles/stereotype's of health care professionals.
I came past an old post in this sub basically saying that people overestimate nurses abilities or ED nurses are mean. Personally as someone who is training to be a PN I am basically bottom of the barrel in the nursing world and health care world as far as respect or "power". I have done lifeguard training in the past as well and have EMTs , RMT's , RRT's in my class looking to change up their education. I personally have no clue why there is any "beef" between health care workers in general. I was also on this med student page and they were saying that other health care workers who don't go to Med school aka not doctors aka us lie and say we go to med school (like okay? I don't think so) . Personally in my clinical rotations so far I haven't had to much contact with a lot of other health care workers outside maybe nurses , physicians , PCAs and physiotherapists. Everyone seemed to get along pretty good. I've seen some patient staff conflicts but still only a handful. The only "rudeness" or "entitlement" I've seen in person was from some Physicians in Obstetrics and Pediatrics (they were really rude to my instructors and just acted super strange , it was so unnecessary) and med students blaming us for misplacing things etc. But that's it.
I read here that some ems people believe nurses are more respected then they are and are paid better. In the UK I have heard nurses are paid absolutely horrible and have no authority or respect and in my country (Canada) EMT's/Paramedics and RN's are paid around the same as alot of other people in Healthcare (30-40 an hour range). I had a really good relationship with the EMT girls in my class and also sort of believe that EMT's and nurses have the most to do out of any other areas in health care. I do think it's especially cool that EMT's go out in the world to get these people. I watch Night watch New Orleans EMT's when I start to forget there are good people in the world. So ya only really received some shade/ entitlement from physicians and med students so far. I believe health care has way to much in the way of social "hiarchy" for example my mom/ a lot of people don't even see me as a nurse! That's the general pop though.
What are your thoughts? PS I considered being an EMT but I didn't get my drivers license until a little later in life (I failed my test like 3 times and gave up for awhile). I think human beings as a whole are just not great and very judgmental. It is very exhausting.

Platform(s): PS2
Genre: Horror
Estimated year of release: 2002ish?
Graphics/art style: Akin to Metal Gear or Resident Evil games of the same era
Notable characters: I remember you were some kind of soldier sent to investigate a laboratory or something that had gone radio silent.
Notable gameplay mechanics: It was third person. I feel like you could get a flamethrower attachment on your rifle but I could be completely imagining that.
Other details: It was snowy. Some kind of research or military installation up north. The main little bad guys creeping around at the beginning kind of reminded me of tadpoles. They would climb walls and other stuff. I believe they were parasites that took over human hosts. There were dog enemies that had been mutated. I feel like you crash landed a helicopter and your partner died in the opening scene. I could be wrong on that as well. I remember it being particularly gory compared to other games I had experienced at the time. It was a game my dad had bought me when he got me my first PS2 for Christmas and I'm really itching to remember the name.

So I'm just chilling waiting for episode 7 and I saw a lot of people talking about the caves and they can use the talisman at the entrances, so this would not work, I believe this wouldn't work because the Talismans needs to be elevated high up, like Donna mentioned if they touch the ground its a rock and you're F**KED, so it also looks like they kinda lose power, I know you might be wondering to hang it up back but I don't think that will work either, so far we know the talismans can be used if they is an entrance/exit area, like if you put the talisman between 2 doors it will work, we saw this is season 1. Like the attack on colony house when Ellis and Fatima got insane RNG with the 20 v 2 wall, aimbot, soft aim, hackers clutch(XD). But what I'm wondering did anyone see any powers that the monsters might have? They seem to have super strength(they tore open the box like cardboard, and It looks like they jumped from the ground to the windows in colony house, cant remember, but apart from strength and jump, and they seem like they have basic human senses or even worse, like you can literally hide in a box and be quiet and they won't even look for you, only if you make noise. I really believe the monsters are easy to beat, but the town is just so scared and they aren't thinking of ways to actually beat them.

Totally new to this, would love critique on my first chapter. Give it to me real. I want to improve: this may just be a hobby but I love it!
What you see on Page One.

Read Seekers, until daytime fades to candlelight, For magic is found when ink breathes life to parchment, When bookbindings break and cradled words take flight. It’s the safety of cozying up near the warming hearth, And the rising steam from a wellworn mug It’s that smile when you turn the page in delight. 

That cool little quote thing before a chapter starts that gives you background.

West of the Citadel Clouds, Bordering Mountain Pines and fickle Seashine Lies the renowned Port Cardica Where sailors sing and blight-born orphans dream. 

Chapter 1
A Slip Away from Death
Like most boys, Jake chose snoring in the pews over memorizing the Church’s proverbs. A clear mistake, he realized, as the Pastor's warning that “prayer follows danger” proved true. Hanging precipitously from the cliff’s edge, Jake recited every Creed he could remember in a futile attempt to appease any watching Gods.
“Prosper in his light, heathentry outside his sight,” he prayed, feet kicking in a desperate search for better footing.
It was a stowaways’ stanza, a tenet meant to share wisdom in ways the thickest of Port Cardica’s orphan dockboys could understand but, like most doctrine, its religious meaning was lost in translation.
Instead, the impoverished boys interpreted it as a practical warning to keep their heads down. Everyone knew the city’s Nobles revered the Book and claimed their prosperity was proof of Gods’ favor. Of course, beggars knew better: one downward glance at them revealed the decay fueling Cardica’s burgeoning wealth. Still, the poor learned to philosophize quietly. Someone was to blame for the hoveltowns, bird droppings, and penetrating seafood stink, and it better not be you.
For his part, Jake blamed himself. If he’d scaled the cliff wall with just a bit more care and a bit less haste he’d never have slipped. Instead he’d been forced to violently slow his descent, bruising bones and trading skin for friction on the vertical slope. It wasn’t a graceful maneuver by any means, but it beat falling hundreds of feet into the freezing current below. Thankfully, years as a guttersnipe had honed his reflexes – his gangly arms lacked the strength of a Swordsquire or the coordination of a Majpupil, but his daily dance with starvation demanded nimble fingers and quick wit.
That experience wasn’t paying off. As Jake shuffled his feet around to find better purchase, his hands slipped on the accruing condensation from the ongoing manastorm. His grip flagged, then failed, and he had neither the magic nor the strength to escape the weight of gravity.
“It isn't written, it isn’t written” Jake recited frantically as he began to plummet. The other dockboys would laugh at his superstition, but he didn’t care. Many claimed the Creeds were lucky, and Jake desperately needed some luck. Instinctively he spread his arms out as wide as possible, hoping to extend his reach and grip onto something.
By some miracle, It worked. The resounding sound of cloth ripping accompanied Jake as he slammed into the stone cliff, teetering to a stop. He hung like a rag doll, held up only by the hem of his matted, brown tunic; the cheap weavings had snagged and torn on an outcropping of stone.
“Aughhh” he mumbled.
He had survived, but everything hurt. Looking down to inspect the damage, Jake saw that his calloused hands were raw and pebbled, but a quick flex confirmed he hadn’t broken any fingerbones. Breathing a sigh of relief, he gasped at the telltale sting every kicked streetrat knew so well.
“Po-Poet’s hand,” Jake swore.
He grabbed the cliff wall to stabilize himself and, seeing as it had worked so far, continued reciting the few Creeds he could remember. A minute passed before he was able to think clearly, but slowly Jake got his breathing under control and continued his self-assessment.
Overall, he felt like things couldn’t have gone much worse. His cracked ribs hurt and continuing the heist would only exacerbate the damage, leading to scarring or permanent hobbling. Jake had seen many dockbeggars with similar injuries from fights or beatings, unable to walk straight without being plagued by the stitchers cough.
For this reason alone, Jake briefly considered giving up. He quickly dismissed the idea – it might be madness to continue climbing in his condition, but he’d come too far to back out now. He’d planned this heist for months, obsessively pathing his break-in while waiting for a night when security would be light. In retrospect, he’d been a fool; his overly cautious preparations left no possibility for a second attempt before his 15th birthday.
No, despite his injury tonight was still his best hope to successfully steal a Scriptors’ Grimoire before Binding Day. Failure would mean enslavement as a Ruddite or worse, full Automation. He’d just have to trust the windy weather to mute his movements and the harvest moons to light his way.
So, teeth chattering with cold and fear, Jake resumed the ascent. His ribs sang in agony as he put one hand in front of the other, slowly turning small divots into handholds, footholds and leverage. Each bouldering movement made him wince, but over the years he’d honed the art of turning sweat and grit into capillary action. He’d had no other choice; richmen shared a passion for building impenetrable estates, forcing thieves to develop an unshaking hand at scaling them.
Five painstaking minutes of climbing later and Jake regained his original position. Salty sweat matted his brow and stinged his eyes but he persevered. He blinked slowly to clear his vision and shuffled his feet left over right, shivering his way across an inch-wide protrusion. Just a few meters above him stood the lip of the granite outcropping and access to the marble fortress built upon it. Jake tasted copper as he bit the inside of his cheek in anticipation – If the heist went well he’d finally change his destiny and be able to swear upon the Sermon’s Book on his own terms.
But first he had to finish the climb. He knew the manor’s sentries rotated hourly, eyes glued to the sky as they watched for flyingmen and attacks from above. He also knew that all these guards would be literate, but none especially gifted. After all, no one powerful enough to be a Writer would stand watch over another man's fortune. The chartered Maji Wordlings, on the other hand, could easily detect Jake if he hadn’t planned for them in advance. He chose tonight because it was the season’s Lenting, meaning the majority of Maji would be in communion until the sun rose.
“What is written” a gruff voice proclaimed, startling Jake.
It was muffled by the wind, so it took him a moment to realize it was coming from directly above him. Jake craned his neck and peered up; to his horror he could see the silhouette of a guard's shadow on the cliff wall.
Petrified, Jake hugged his body to the cold granite, hoping the darkness of the windy night would hide his form. His entire plan hung on the simple thesis that in a world of magidetectors and magflight, no one would expect an unbound to scale the walls. Great in theory, but what if a guard just happened to look down?
“Is Foretold and Forbidden,” another voice chanted, completing the customary greeting. “All safe on the watch?”
“All is safe and silent, as usual,” the first man grunted.
“Don’t sound so upset,” the second laughed. ”We chose this job because it’s easy, remember? No more treading through the mud, no more war with those blasted barren beasts and their infernal warlocks.”
“That’s true, althou..”
The men’s voices were swept up in the wind as they paced further down the stone perimeter. They hadn’t seen him, but, just to be safe, Jake stayed low until he could no longer hear the stamping of metal-toed boots on stone. Then, fingers white and aching in trepidation, he waited another 30 seconds.
Finishing his count, Jake peaked over the edge. It took all the courage he had earned as a thief and every bit of boldness he had learned as a beggar, but he managed it.
The coast was clear.
Jake carefully pulled himself over the ledge before falling into a crouch. He looked around and exhaled painfully, releasing a breath he had not realized he was holding.
In front of him lay an outdoor walkway culminating in a rippling fountain circumscribed by five basalt pillars of progressively increasing height. Everflowing torches adorned each of the columns and burned despite the rain, casting rings of golden light throughout the open atrium. At the foot of the fountain rose a gold-leafed speaker's lectern, a pure white sculpture of the Sermon Book chiseled open upon it.
Jake stared openmouthed at the power radiating from the fountain before abruptly coming to his senses. Without a doubt this artifact was a Magisma, an extremely expensive construct meant to amplify its controller’s magic. Leaving it outside was a casual display of wealth and power meant to shock and impress, but Jake didn’t have time for that.
Instead Jake blended into the shadows cast by the monument as he sneaked his way across the grounds. After passing the walkway the torchlight dimmed considerably, forcing him to hobble his way in the dark. A bright flash startled him, but the acid smell of tobacco that accompanied it indicated the guards he’d seen earlier were smoking to pass the time. Realizing they were distracted, Jake sped up and almost tripped on the jutting crystals of an emerald rock garden. Embarrassed, he paused to listen for anyone approaching.
Everything was quiet except for the constant pitter, patter and hiss of rain from the manastorm. It seemed his home-invasion had so far gone unnoticed, but the hair on Jake’s neck rose. An unsettling feeling of being watched set in and every few seconds he reflexively looked over his shoulder.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, he made it to the Manor wall. Keeping to the shadows, Jake hid behind the tallest thing he could find; a towering yellow flower with leaves the size of platters that he had never seen before. Staying low, he muddied his knees and toes on the damp ground, but thankfully the foliage protected him from the rain. As his eyes adjusted to less light, Jake noticed all sorts of exotic fruits surrounding him; blood red berries in the shape of teardrops levitated inches off the ground, while turquoise bubbles floated up from vibrant greenery, collapsing quickly into little orange stones that looked remarkably like candy. Jake’s belly growled at the idea of tasting these treats, but he dismissed his urges. Stanzas warned that “those who leave riches unread become starving men” but Jake knew hunger well. He would jeopardize his mission by eating something that might make him sick tonight.
Instead, he focused on gaining entry to the manor. Searching his surroundings, Jake located the iron front doors about 6 meters to his right. They were guarded by life-like statues on either side, one a Korai of the Poet, hand outstretched in greeting, the other a two headed wolf, with both snarling maws crying out to the moons. The door itself was blacked with age and inscribed by a massive oval spellwork that glinted in the light cast by a hanging lantern.
Listening closely, Jake groaned at the buzz of silverscripting coming from the insignia. Every thief knew that spellworks grew more powerful over time, and anything audible would be too powerful for any Unbound to lockpick.

Hey there! Trying out my luck on here and see if I find what I'm looking for, and possibly what you're looking for?
I'm a direct and intentional person, so I think posting here on reddit will filter out those who are not looking for the same thing as I am.
Currently in a dead bedroom situation, pretty much for over a year now. So looking for someone who also is looking to have their physical needs fulfilled, and is probably looking for that spark/excitement again? Good connection= good sex, am I right?
/LOOKING FO

• I'm hoping to find a AP that I can connect with, where we can joke around, talk about life in a way where we're like great friends, and I'm gonna be upfront... mainly great sex!
  
• I don't mind if you're married or not, as long as you understand that my first, and main priority is my relationship. I hope you're in the same page and could understand that.
  
• Looking for consistency as well. What I mean by that is probably seeing each other 2x a month, or more depends on our schedule. We can feel it out.
  
• Although this is mainly sexual (on my end, & I'm open to your needs as well) I would like it if we can connect as well. Talk a bit about life, our jobs, banter, and joke around. I think that's what makes sex awesome!
  

with that in mind, here's a little something about me:
/ABOUT ME/
-29M, 5'8", Athletic/Average Build 160 lbs, clean and DDF. Easy on the eyes, great hygiene, I have tattoos (tasteful). Dark hair and deep dark brown eyes, mixed. I have a bachelor's degree and a full time job (if that matters at all). Respectful of your space and time, not the creepy/stalker type.
-I'm into anything creative & artsy, mainly movies and graphic design. In terms of music, I like alternative/punk rock, indie, and folk.
-Pretty laid back and chill, also naturally am a goof ball, so I like to joke around, tease, and also somewhat do have a dark humor! I'm an explorer, so I like to hike and do some cool activities, but also can be just laid back, watch movies and have a drink. In short, I'm a very spontaneous type of guy.

• In terms of sex, I do have a high sex drive (hence, this post lol). I don't have any specific kinks, although the women I've connected with mentioned that I'm a gentle dom. So I like to be dominant, with passion and gentleness with it. So... to put it into perspective, here's:

/WHAT TO EXPECT FROM ME/

• I'd say that I like to build it up. Start with passionate kissing, down to your neck and trailing it all the way down around your belly, hips, before I eat you out (I love foreplay and eating you out). I would eat you out while looking at you, I like seeing reactions and how you respond with how I do it, what turns me on more is seeing you pleased and that I'm doing a good job (I'm an achiever LOL, my enneagram is a Type 1, so I can be a perfectionist with the things I do).
  
• and when you're blowing me, I prefer to hold your hair for you, so I can pull on it and have you angle your face towards me while you're sucking me off, I like to make eye contact while I gently push your head down to deep throat me, and touch your face with my other hand, I like running my hands down on your skin. I'm into kissing in between as well, I don't mind if you've been sucking me, I'll make out with you in between. (I prefer to have sex after taking a shower anyways, so we both are for sure clean)
  
• I'm good with any position and down to try what you're into, my favorites are definitely:
  

*Missionary- mainly because I like making out, neck kissing, chest nibbling/kissing, and most esp. seeing you reactions with some mild choking.
*Doggy Style- mainly because I would pull on your hair, and grab on to your neck. It's such a turn on to see your body arch a bit more towards me while I'm thusting to get in you harder.
*Cow Girl- It turns me on even more when a woman tries to be a dom sometimes, in a way that they try to resist me dominating them so they can be dominant (if that makes sense?) Such a turn on whenever I were to see your body motioning to get the feel of me in you that would feel good for you. Also so I can grab on your hips, pull you, slap and squeeze your cheeks, and nibble on your chest.
NOTE: I also am quite vocal, so I would definitely moan and cuss at times. If I'm feeling it, talk dirty depending on the mood. Hope you're okay with that.
/ABOUT YOU/

• Now, this is the part where I hope I'm not asking for too much, and I'm being realistic with this search. But hey, it has to be mutual right?

*FEMALE / WOMAN who is respectful, friendly, chill, and fun to talk to. It would be better if you have your life together so we can talk about how adulting life is LOL. I don't mind if you're a student, as long as you're pursuing something good in life to be stable 👍
*AGE: 25-33 Years Old, HWP
*Clean, Good Hygiene, DDF
*Must be willing to exchange photos at first. I'm not gonna lie, attraction is vital in order to build chemistry sexually right? I am in no way super attractive, I would say I'm about average, although my lady friends and women that I've connected with say I'm charming/charismatic, so I guess that kinda adds up LOL (I'm compensating so hard huh, LOL). --- So I'm being realistic here as well. So it's a must that we're both attracted to each other first.
So if this post is good enough for you or if you would like to get to know each other better, shoot me a DM! Would love to hear from you :)
NOT INTERESTED IN HOOKERS, ESCORTS, OR ANYTHING THAT INVOLVES PAYMENT! Let's not waste each other's time please!

So i got back into listening to never by mag.lo but theres a huge problem. The edit of the song is no where. I think it was deleted. The original and any other remixed versions just arent as good. The song went

1. Quiet intro to song then Never part
2. "Bought water for my french press" bit
3. It cuts to a weird happier but in a manic way part where it says sonething like "Cut to the sanity (whyy) i'm loving humanity (whyy)" and then the never part again
4. Goes to the turbulence yelling part
5. Music goes quieter and more just instrumental
6. Ill be just fine and guitar solo

It was so good and fit perfectly and now its gone. It was titled something like "never by maglo but its the best part). And had a little anime kid as the background/thumbnail (girl from re:re). Im so bummed and trying to listen to other remixes or slowed down versions and they just really arent the same im so bummed out 😭😭😭😭

All credit goes to the one and only u/BlueFishcakes, owner and creator of the SSB universe.
___________
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discord wiki part 1 part 13 part 15
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Mi'aera broke record after record. She had been talking to the xeno for hours now! What's more, Natalia was already practically her friend!
"I have a xeno friend! I'm progressive!" She couldn't get over her happiness.
The girls were already on first-name terms.
Natalia, or Natka, was very friendly. Even though she was a bit older than Mi (well, everyone was), Mi'aera felt like they were the same age. The optimism and openness of the human woman were a nice change, something the young militiawoman had been waiting for for a long time. And it was contagious.
"- So, Mi…" Natalia, driving the patrol car, spoke to Mi'aera, who was sitting next to her. Literally, a few minutes earlier, the girls had agreed to call each other by short names. "- I've never met Shil who doesn't have a surname, just a number."
Mi nodded.
"- Once upon a time, in the entire empire, only the nobles had surnames, over the generations, in most provinces, the commoners began to adopt the surnames of their lords or the nicknames of their occupations, and so on," she explained. Natka nodded her head.
"- Heh, it makes sense, on Earth it was basically the same, there were still some constructions on the principle of Son or Daughter of Somebody," the human added. This time, it was Mi who nodded.
"- Yes, it is common in many places."
"- But you only have a number?"
"- Yes," Mi admitted and continued: "- The noble families of the Palatinate are somehow not numerous, and their respectable names serve them well, there is no need to give names to millions of commoners."
Natka focused on the road and did not speak for a while.
"- Ok, not even any Daughter or Son of Somebody?" the human asked.
"- If someone has a known father or mother, that would be allowed. I grew up in an institution." Mi explained.
"- Oh! Mi, I'm sorry, I shouldn't delve so much into the subject," Natka said in a very apologetic tone. Mi'aera just smiled kindly.
"- No need to apologize, a large proportion of the population of the entire galaxy was born with some form of in vitro fertilization, at least once a race has acquired this technology. The Empire has been doing this for hundreds of years. After all, with such a small number of males, our population would be numerically impossible. In the Palatinate, every few years, based on the census, the government determines how many additional children are to be born. I had a good childhood, if that's what you're concerned about, I'm not an orphan." She replied with conviction.
Natka digested the information for some time.
"- It probably is just like you are saying..." Natka finally said, "- I have no reason to doubt the Empire," she confessed.
Mi nodded instinctively but hesitated and asked the human:
"- You're the coolest woman I've ever met on Earth, even the other Shils stationed here sometimes have a more ungrateful attitude towards our government," she confessed.
Natka smiled a little faintly.
"- I'm sure a lot of politicians are still corrupt, but that's, you know, life. I also think that the war that preceded Liberation could have been avoided and that most of the casualties were tragic and needless. But in the end, it wasn't human governments that ended famine on Earth, it wasn't human governments that ensured that every child had access to clean water or that people no longer died of cancer. The only things that matters "
Hearing these words, Mia shuddered.
"Die of cancer? Goddesses! Were they that backward?"
"- Look" Natka took one hand off the steering wheel and grabbed her phone out of the pocket, quickly scrolled her finger across the display to open the gallery, and then handed the device to Mi'aera.
The militiawoman looked at the photo. It was a selfie of the shill doctor embracing a much shorter, bald, and incredibly emaciated human male…
"- No…. wait…. impossible!"
It wasn't a male or a boy, it was Natka! incredibly thin, completely unrecognizable. And without any breasts… Mi'aera shifted her gaze to the human woman sitting next to her, whose cleavage was decent even by Shil standards. Natka, seeing where the militiawoman's eyes wandered, smiled.
"- Doctor Major Mile'ana Vespaena, she also helped me size the implants so that after the treatment I would look like a normal Imperial woman," the human explained.
Mi nodded. Natka was actually very proportional, her athletic figure was deceptively similar to Shil's, she was just much, much shorter.
"Like a little xeno sister," Mi thought.
"- Natka, you look really great now," Mi said honestly.
"- Thanks," Natalia replied, glancing briefly at her passenger.
"- Monsoon-B, the name of the drug that cured me, developed to fight cancer in human cells, developed at the Pharmaceutical Complex in Ghaab…"
"- Ghaabhush in east Ugrecnurc" Mi'aera uttered native words that her human friend found difficult.
"- In the Imperial fiefdom of the Palatinate," finished Natka, and she looked at her passenger again.
"- The war was still going on on Earth, and in your homeland, scientists had already thought about how to cure our diseases," Natalia spoke almost with tears in her eyes. Human women were terribly masculine, but Mi could not be angry with her companion. The woman went through hell that no modern inhabitant of the Empire should ever experience.
"Breast amputations?! Goddess! What a nightmare!"
Natka quickly turned her head away and focused on the road, apparently ashamed of her manly behavior.
"- It's a pity the Empire didn't send more personnel from your region to the Liberation of Earth, Mi," the human confessed. "- It would probably look completely different."
​
The Municipal Guard's working day was not fundamentally different from a typical militia shift. Mi and Natka caught several juvenile cyclists exceeding the speed limit. Mi'aera shuddered at how firm Natka could be with these cute, roguish boys. The pair also managed to catch one boy painting graffiti on the wall, no anti-government slogans, just some drawings.
"- So Natka, apparently you can help me with accommodation…" Mi started when they were both back in the car.
"- Yeah, sure, listen. I recently took out a mortgage on an apartment in a new district, you know, such an investment for the future. Everything in Shil style, but it's hard to find a good tenant…"
"- Well, my pay isn't that high either," remarked Mi.
"- Oh… I don't want to rob anyone, it's just that people are still quite wary, only men respond to my ad." confessed the human. Mi'aera froze.
"- You don't want to rent a room to a male?" She asked with undisguised surprise. Natka sighed.
"- You know... those guys who want to live in the Shil district... they're usually prostitutes. I don't want someone like that in my house, you understand?"
Mi was confused by the information. But couldn't deny her human friend's logic.
"Natka is so moral," she thought appreciatively.
"- Right, sure."
​
***
​
"- I don't even know your name," Gabriel said carefully as he lay beside Ysariah.
The woman turned her gaze on him and stretched, flexing her naked body.
"- Indeed," she said, but seeing some flustration on her lover's face, her hand quickly grabbed gently his cheek. Gabriel wanted to break free but stopped himself. Ysariah moved closer to the male and looked him tenderly in the eyes.
"- This knowledge has a price, Gabriel, are you willing to pay it?"
- I…"
"- You're afraid of me, aren't you?"
"- Yes," he answered honestly. The woman nodded.
"- But do you hate me?"
"I… I don't… I don't know, I don't think so… maybe a little?" The man spoke uncertainly.
"- You may call me Ysah," she said, stroking his cheek. The man bit his lip at her sudden response to his earlier inquiry.
"- It's a diminutive of Ysariah, isn't it?" he said finally. The woman smiled and nodded.
"When he's lying next to me on the bed like an offer, it's easy to forget he's an intelligent, educated person," she thought.
"- Yes, of course, Gabriel." She agreed. The man took a deep breath.
"- So... Ysariah... agent of the Interior? The secret agent?" he asked carefully.
The woman snorted a genuine laugh. Which made the man a bit uneasy.
"... But... you work for the government, right? Right?" he inquired with growing nervousness.
The woman stopped giggling and nodded.
"- Yes"
​
***
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It's been a few weeks since the Imperial Envoy incident. The woman's family name was slowly disappearing from Imperial databases. The process will take years, but in the end, it will be as if her bloodline never existed. When Palatine destroyed her enemies, she made them disappear as if they had never been there.
Ancient bloodlines don't just vanish without a trace. But if you have enough money and determination, anything is possible.
However, both Palatine and her daughters knew that something like this would not go unnoticed by the throne. The ruler of the moon did not contemplate the possibility of the empress's reaction, she was waiting for it.
It didn't take long for an emissary of the sovereign, a prince of imperial blood, to arrive on the moon's surface. In the Palatinate, male nobles had no formal authority and were not recognized as emissaries. Of course, the capital knew about it, the choice was not accidental, the representative that the empress sent was not only a male but also one of her youngest relatives. The boy was short and frail, no more than eight standard years old. He would have been of legal age in the Palatinate, but not in the capital from which he came. So the empress sent a child to meet her vassal, and there was nothing the Palatine could do about it.
The Child lad strode proudly from his craft to the landing platform, accompanied by a great escort of capital dignitaries, where Palatine and her daughters, as well as local nobles, awaited him.
To all this, the young prince was dressed in a modern fashion, in a golden blouse revealing the navel. At the same time, he was wearing the insignia of a representative of the imperial family.
The custom commanded that Ysariah's mother and her daughters kneel before him, face down.
If he would wish it.
"- Aunt Aivui!" The young prince broke free from his retinue and unceremoniously threw himself on the Palatine's neck.
The moon lord caught him neatly, making the whole situation look completely natural.
Standing nearby with her sisters, Ysariah blinked. She had never in her life heard anyone refer to her mother as Aivui, not even her own partner Mo'othu allowed himself to use her diminutive name.
"- Prince Kri'jha." Palatine Aivuilpar Otharasoth replied warmly, setting the young man back to the ground. "- I'm honored that you remember me, the last time I saw you, you have bearly reaching your mother's waist, and now... by the goddess, you're a beautiful man."
"- Oh Aunt Aivui…" the boy waved his hand. "- stop it, please, otherwise I'm going to turn blue. How could I forget the godmother who gave me my own town on a tropical planet and a private yacht as a gift? I just got back from a party I had there!"
"- Well…I'm glad you like it, prince," Aivuilpar said modestly, to which the boy nodded and slowly began to survey his surroundings.
Ysariah kept her face neutral but remained attentive. Someone who could talk to her mother so casually had to be taken deadly seriously. The prince first greeted the Aivuilpar's firstborn, Ysariah's older sister, and only then focused on her.
"- Oh, isn't that the paragon knight herself?! Lady Ysariah of the house Otharasoth?"
"- My liege," Ysariah said, going down on one knee as her older sister had just done.
"- Oh..." the young prince covered his mouth in excitement. "- I must have watched the video a hundred times, you are so brave," he said, then looked at Aivuilpar "- Auntie! Your daughter is the hero of every gentleman-in-waiting. Anyway… we will discuss it later…"
"- We can discuss whatever you desire, my prince, over dinner," Aivuilpar suggested kindly. Kri'jha smiled.
"- Oh sure, Aunty, I hope, just please… I know the Palatinate is traditional and all that, but do you serve here any meatless courses…?
​
After a banquet in his honor, Kri'jha ordered his servant to fetch a small box. With the object, the young prince sat down in the Palatine's study, in her chair behind her desk, while the woman herself stood in front of him. Aivuilpar did not stand alone, Kri'jha demanded that Ysariah accompany her.
"- I will now convey to you our dear empress's wish," said the boy, who had been still acting like a spoiled urchin a moment ago.
Aivuilpar straightened up and craned her head up. Ysariah watched her mother prepare to take responsibility for her recent actions.
Kri'jha stared at his aunt but as he formed his mouth for words, he turned his gaze towards Ysariah.
"- Knight Ysariah of the house Otharasoth, your bravery has drawn the eyes of our gracious empress. It is her Imperial Majesty's desire, for you to carry her unspoken wishes. Deeds that can't be ordered or asked, not even spoken out loud. You have been called to be her Wishwraith." With that said, Kri'jha stood up and walked over to Ysariah with the box in his hands. The boy stood in front of a much larger woman than himself and opened the container, revealing its contents.
"- The Red Mark," whispered Ysariah's mother, glancing over her daughter's shoulder.
​
discord wiki part 1 part 13 part 15

This is a plot inspired by the Dune fandom. Interplanetary exchanges of goods and resources, political espionage and spying, treaties, hyper-advanced technology, starships that can travel at the speed of light, magical plant properties that grant supernatural "blessings" to those who consume it.
Princess Sienna rules on the planet of Jansara; one of the many outlying worlds near the edge of the Centaurus solar system. Sienna was apart of the royal family who gained inheritance to much of Jansara's land. Other worlds, especially the Core Worlds, paid little attention to it due to it's lack of resources and generally unappealing habitat. The planet itself is that of a warm, rocky climate with high humidity. Black lava rocks covered much of the terrain while moisture caves and dormant volcanos are commonly found outside of the cities established on the surface.
Due to these conditions, settlers had to create artificial biomes to grow food, herd animals, and create a more oxygenated living space for it's people. Their infrastructure was that of many cylinder and block shaped structures with color schemes of white and grey. The most significant building though was Princess Sienna's home, the "Palace of the Saints," where she, her mother the queen, brother the prince, and two sister princesses dwelled high above the working class with their political and financial advisors.
The Republic of the Core Worlds, (otherwise known as RCW,) have been known to leech off of many outlying planets for centuries. They offered their credits, security, and advanced technology in exchange for luxuries like nuclear fusion, solar energy, fuel, starships, narcotics, medicine, fabrics, metals, weapons, and food among other things. All to satisfy their lucious core world lifestyles.
Little intergalactic trading happened here on Jansara aside from the few ores the Miners Commission have extracted from the nearest volcanoes. This made Jansara one of the lowest priority planets for the RCW to trade with. Because of this, great burdens were placed on the royal family and their advisors to keep the economy and flow of local goods supplied and operational. It also put a complete halt to funding further research for biome expansion without credits from the Core Worlds.
That is, until Princess Sienna visits the mines of an old dormant volcano for a thrill. The volcano she ventured into was once abandoned years ago by the Jansara Mining Commission after all the ore was extracted from it. But deep down into the darkness, far into the unexplored territories of the volcano, a garden of uncovered secrets lied.
Self-illuminating herbs, flowers, and berries lied in a field of glowing greenery that Sienna had never seen before. How could plant life grow in such a sunless place? But the greenery down here contained no ordinary flora. As Sienna soon found out, the fruit and herbs produced in the garden granted it's consumer supernatural blessings, but only temporarily. Depending on the offspring of the plant and the potency consumed, the blessings could last from just a few hours up to years. Levitation, telepathy, fire breathing, mind control, healing, and illusion casting were just some of many blessings granted by the volcano's greenery. Sienna was dumbfounded. This could save her city. Her family. Her home. This could finally put Jansara back in the trading system! Sienna knew this situation needed to be handled carefully or else the entire universe would be warmongering to invade her planet for its unprecedented resources. But then, as if to ruin her plans, a voice from the darkness. Your O/C.
"Hello? Anyone there?"

​
https://reddit.com/link/1403863/video/y7wq0uuoyx3b1/player
​
What is a bear market? A bear market is a financial market in which asset prices fall or are expected to fall, because investors sell assets.
​
For example, in a bear stock market, stock prices fall or are expected to fall. In a bear cryptocurrency market, crytocurrency prices fall or are expected to fall.
I study everything human—down to the human-body organic, tissular, cellular, subcellular, molecular, atomic, and subatomic levels.
As such, I study why humans sell certain things.
Humans expect a great return on their time, effort, and money; humans absolutely loathe wasting their time, effort, and money, unless their intent is to goof off, relax, and have fun.
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Humans want a great return on their investment.
Humans sell what they think won't give them great returns or will give them a loss.
Humans are opportunistic animals that want more than what they've got; the human greed is the engine of the human progress and advancement; because humans constantly want more and better things and people, humans constantly create better things and people.
Humans sell and get rid of what they have that do not have a great return potential, because humans are genetically wired to constantly seek great returns.
In my view, in a bear market, in the individual human brains, statistically and collectively, mass hysteria of despair and low expectations happen in having a loss in the future; in a bear market, there always are low expectations for the future.
The human brain is capable of expecting; humans act cautiously and defensively in a reserved manner when they have low expectations; my suspicion is that statistically and collectively, human brains go through the cycle of great hope and great despair; during a mass hysteria of great hope, a bull market happens; during a mass hysteria of great despair, a bear market happens. Humans cannot help but behave according to their genetic design.
I'll keep on developing my Unified Humanity Science to exactly find out how human brains collectively and statistically operate in a bear market—at the human-brain organic, tissular, cellular, subcellular, molecular, atomic, subatomic levels.
​
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My books on advancing AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion powered outer space tech are available at https://Robocentric.com/Checkout/, Amazon, Apple Books, Spotify, and other audiobook outlets.
Allen Young's books on AI, robotics, biotech, and nuclear-fusion tech
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The Future: How artificial intelligence, robotics, human body biotech, and mass-scale outer space tech will alter the human reality (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1XD1DJJ)
The Integrated Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Human Body Biotech, and Mass-Scale Outer Space Tech Promotion, Research, Development, and Commercialization (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2QH1PHR)
Transhumanistic Solar System (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQZHSZKJ)
Defining Intelligence: What Artificial Intelligence Should Be (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRDK3F3H)
Human Creativity Analysis: For Advancing Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRTKWNBV)
Human Psychology and Language Analysis: For Advancing Linguistic Artificial Intelligence (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSG3CG84)
America Robotization Plan: Plan for Doubling the American National GDP by Adding AI and Robots to the American National Economy (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXTRK45Y)
​
My contact info is at https://Robocentric.com/Contact. Contact me if you want to discuss investing in Robocentric.

A coworker of mine recommended Perdido Street Station recently, and as the name China Mieville had come up related to other books and authors I've read and I was looking for something new, I thought I'd give it a try.
In this post, I'm going to try to organize my thoughts about why I hate this book and why it is objectively bad. Not in my opinion, not according to my tastes or preferences. Objectively bad. In the same way as the Holocaust was an objective tragedy.

1. Nonsensical world-building. China Mieville is often credited for building a believable, immersive, vivid or other such positively described world. I didn't believe that Bas Lag was, or could be, a "real" place for a second.
   
   1. Let's start with the main races. We have humans, bug-headed people, flying bird-headed people, cactus people, and frog people. All of these seem to fall into the Star Trek alien trope, where the body is basically humanoid, and only the head is different. This is not believable. Further, I never really got a sense that their cultures were so different. The bird people only got developed near the end of the book, and that was just enough to explain Yag's crime to the readers. One interaction with a group of city-dwelling bird people seems transposed from a British crime movie where the gang leader is reasserting authority of the group, in exactly the same way as a human would. I don't get any sense that they are a fully developed species with their own cultures and ways of thinking. Lin, a member of the bug-headed people, comes of as a typical female human character, despite coming from a species that seems to have collectivism built in to their society and their genes. The cactus people are never really explained at all. Like, do they use photosynthesis? Do they eat food? What's their culture? I just kept imagining people walking around cosplaying these different races but all being essentially humans.
   2. Word and concept choice. At one point, Mieville has a character use the word "capiche." Mind you, Italy does not exist in this world, nor does the Mafia, nor should an Italian American gangster word like "capiche." Similarly, he never says anything about God, Christianity, Judaism, etc, but he borrows the concept of "Hell" and "Hellkin." If there is a hell, there should be a heaven, right? And if heaven and hell exist, there's a god, right? These are simply thrown out there, and never elaborated on again. For money, he uses real world currency names, such as mark, shekel, and Guinea. These have no place in an imaginary world with no connection to our own.
   Isaac is a scientist, and while I don't think it is important to get science "right" in a work that is fictional and that is specifically NOT science fiction, the scientific concepts explained here don't make sense. It reminded me more of the characters in Frank Herbert's Destination: Void talking about transistors, circuits, blah-blah matrices, and yadda-yadda amplifiers. The blah-blah matrices and yadda-yadda amplifiers don't exist, and spending so much time on them didn't make any sense in a novel with so little action. Neither does the number of pages that Mieville devotes to explaining unified field theory add to my understanding or enjoyment of the novel. Nothing in the novel really hinges on this, and the fact that Torque seems to throw a wrench in this idea of having a unified field at all makes me more annoyed at spending time trying to understand what Isaac is getting on about. The idea of "crisis" and a "crisis engine" in particular seems like a scientifically illiterate person's interpretation of chaos and complexity theory. 3. "History." The way the "history" is presented here feels very much like it needs those scare quotes. Are these places and events actually relevant to the story? How much thought was put into them and their order? The way that so many are mentioned and then just forgotten really makes me wonder how seriously I should take them.
   

2.Poor word choices and sentence construction.

1. I've never read a book that made me want to take a shower before. When Mieville describes the city of New Crobuzon, he relies heavily on words with negative emotional valance and bodily fluid language. As a small set of examples, the air is almost always described as having a stench, reeking, being rank, putrid, noisome, being polluted, etc. Water is usually described as being fecal, mucal, fetid, rancid, oily, being polluted, etc. Buildings are moldy, desquamating, dirty. Factories don't emit or release smoke: they "retch" smog. Guns don't fire bullets or shoot bullets: they "vomit" bullets. A sack that is full is described as "bloated." A pile of electrical components is for some reason described as "vile." For 712 fucking pages! I don't have a problem with bodily fluids, and I don't mind when other writers describe a slum or paint a picture of a nasty scene. But in Perdido Street Station, there is no let up. I can't remember a single instance of something that was described in positive terms. Even the first time Isaac has sex with Lin, he is described as almost vomiting because her antennae were waving in such a disgusting fashion. And they went on to have a long term romance! Who almost vomits the first time they have sex with someone they love? Why describe it in this negative way? I don't understand the goal of using language in this way.
2. Related to the point above, the book is monotonous in how it describes the world. Everything is negative and dirty. For 712 pages.
3. Characterization is done in the typical spoon-fed fashion that seems to be popular in many genres of fiction nowadays. I'm thinking of one example in particular, so here it is.

"Lin and Isaac snatched furtive nights together when they could. Isaac could tell that all was not well with her. Once, he sat her down and demanded that she tell him what was troubling her, why she had not entered the Shintacost Prize this year (something which had given her usual bitchery about the standard of the shortlist an added bitterness), what she was working on, and where. There was no sign of any artistic debris at all in any of her rooms. Lin had stroked his arm, clearly grateful for his concern. But she would tell him nothing. She said she was working on a piece of which she was tentatively very proud. She had found a space that she could not and did not want to talk about, in which she was producing a large piece that he mustn’t ask her about. It was not as if she had disappeared from the world. Once a fortnight, perhaps, she was back in one of the Salacus Fields bars, laughing with her friends, if with a little less vigour than she had two months ago.
She teased Isaac about his anger at Lucky Gazid, who had vanished, with suspiciously good timing. Isaac had told Lin about his inadvertent sampling of dreamshit, and had raged around looking to punish Gazid. Isaac had described the extraordinary grub which seemed to thrive on the drug. Lin had not seen the creature, had not been back to Brock Marsh since that forlorn day the previous month, but even allowing for a degree of exaggeration on Isaac’s part, the creature sounded extraordinary. Lin thought fondly of Isaac as she adeptly changed the subject. She asked him what nourishment he thought the caterpillar might gain from its peculiar food, and sat back as his face expanded with fascination and he would tell her enthusiastically that he did not know, but that these were a few of his ideas. She would ask him to try to explain to her about crisis energy, and whether he thought it would help Yagharek to fly, and he would talk animatedly, drawing her diagrams on slips of paper.
It was easy to work on him. Lin felt, sometimes, that Isaac knew he was being manipulated, that he felt guilty about the ease with which his worries for her were transformed. She sensed gratitude in his lurching changes of subject, along with contrition. He knew it was his role to be worried for her, given her melancholy, and he was, he truly was, but it was an effort, a duty, when most of his mind was crammed with crisis and grub food. She gave him permission not to worry, and he accepted it with thanks. Lin wanted to displace Isaac’s concerns for her, for a time. She could not afford for him to be curious. The more he knew, the more she was in danger. She did not know what powers her employer might possess: she doubted he was capable of telepathy, but she was risking nothing. She wanted to finish her piece, to take the money and to get away from Bonetown."

Let me remind you, this book is 712 pages long. He takes approximately two pages, from 208-209 in the Kindle edition, to detail all this information about the relationship between Isaac and Lin. This is just bad writing. Some of this could have been handled in short dialogues embedded in other scenes, and some of it should be left to the reader to piece together. This is an example of what Steven Erikson described as pablum in his post a few years ago about effective characterization.

1. Overly descriptive language.

The great cable slipped in spurts into the water by the riverwall. It plunged absolutely precipitately into the darkness, hitting the surface at 90 degrees."

(Perdido Street Station, p. 603)
Why, the fuck, does he describe the cable going into the water in such a redundant and repetitive way? This is not some pivotal event in the story. It is related to an important plan, but there is no need for the drama around this singular event. If I spent this many words talking about a character picking up a pencil, I had better have a real good reason for doing so. Mieville does this all the time. The above mentioned meetings with the Hellkin are another prime example. He spends pages describing the procedures for meeting them and the actual meeting, they add nothing to the story, AND they make his world seem poorly thought out. What did he gain by describing them? Hell if I know!

1. Plot Structure and Pacing
   
2. Stupid plot events. Mieville goes out of his way to show that the evil soul-eating moths are not damaged very much by regular physical attacks. And then, the first moth is killed by unceremoniously dropping a heavy weight on it, like something out of a Wile E. Coyote skit. Three of the remaining moths are killed using more appropriate means, but... Look, I know there were the infamous Milner experiments on rats where they'd press a button to get something like an orgasm, and once they could do this, they'd basically just press the button until they died. I don't know of any actual living organisms that will, for example, eat food so much that they physically explode, ignoring Monty Python sketches to the contrary. It's funny, but it doesn't seem like a realistic way to take out soul-eating creatures.
   

Another example is Jack Half-a-Prayer. He is mentioned maybe twice in the book, very obliquely, before suddenly near the climax he shows up and just starts helping the main characters out in the middle of a fire fight. If he had been foreshadowed more, if there were some stronger motivation than just "Oh my main characters are in a pinch! I know! I'll have so-and-so come!" I might have accepted this, but not the way it is done in the book.

1. Pacing. This book overstays its welcome. Mieville creates too many new ideas and just throws them out without exploring their implications, and moves on to the next, and the next, and the next. (Sinistrals and Dextrals, I'm looking at you! Does anyone even remember this from the book?) Then he spends 10 pages describing the fucking Hellkin, or 20 pages revealing that one of characters was a government spy. Or the passage above where he tries to do a novelized version of a relationship montage to show the development of Lin and Isaac's relationship over time. It is too scattered and too focused on the stupidest things at the same time. Why do we need a multi-page graphically detailed moth orgy? In a 712 page book that already has too many adjectives and adverbs? By the 300 page mark, I was regularly having to psych myself into going on to the next page.
   
2. Forgiveness.
   

One of my favorite fantasy series of all-time, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, takes empathy, compassion, and forgiveness as some of the major themes. I was at first shocked by how often the "evil villain" turned out to be someone with a tortured youth, tragic past, or some other circumstance that explained their behavior. And at the end of many of these tales, that dastardly sinner was taken off to be reformed, or taken under someone's wing to try and make up for the harm they'd caused. Yes, sometimes they were killed or maimed in gruesome fashion, but many had a chance to reform.
In contrast, in Perdido Street Station, it is revealed that Yagharek committed a serious crime among his people, for which he had his wings cut off without anesthesia. Isaac agrees to help him become able to fly anyway, and along the way we see Yagharek risk his life many times to protect this city that disgusts him (as evidenced by the large increase in those bodily fluid words during the Yagharek sections proceeding each part) and to protect his friends. Now, if we could get inside Yagharek's head during these moments, and see that he's thinking "Oh, this had so better be worth it! I really don't give a fuck about these people and I just wanna fly again." That would be one thing. Near the end, it is revealed that Yagharek basically committed the crime of rape (which is framed as second degree choice theft, choice theft being an interesting sounding cultural concept, but which actually makes no sense if you try to work out the implications of how a legal system based on it would work....). Isaac is asked not to build the promised wings for Yagharek, and he ends up abandoning him.
Now, look, I'm not condoning rape. I think it is a horrendous crime. As bad or worse than murder. People do horrible things. Sometimes with intention, sometimes in the heat of the moment. Of course, getting caught in the heat of the moment doesn't excuse the action. One of the problems is that Mieville doesn't reveal much about Yagharek's psychological state afterwards. We don't know, for example, if like Red's character in The Shawshank Redemption, he feels sorry for what he did as a hot-headed, stupid young man, and that every day he regrets what he did. I think a lot hinges on that. If Yagharek is really just looking for a way to void his punishment, Isaac is probably right to refuse him. If Yagharek regrets what he did, and wants to make up for it somehow, and needs something that will make his life worth continuing, Isaac probably should have helped him instead of being a closed-minded judgmental prick.
Given Yagharek's actions throughout the book, Isaac comes off as an asshole, and to the extent that his judgment matches Mieville's, so does Mieville.

1. "Political" Themes I see a lot of discussion about how Mieville is very political and how he's a communist / socialist, and wants to take down capitalism, etc, etc. I picked up on a lot of that in PSS, but I think Mieville handles these themes very poorly. As a better example of a deconstruction / take-down of capitalism, I'd again recommend The Malazan Book of the Fallen, specifically Midnight Tides and Reaper's Gale, both of which examine the problem in more creative and deeper ways than Mieville does in PSS.

So that's my hot take on Perdido Street Station. You're free to disagree, but I'm tired of hearing so many demonstrably untrue claims made about the quality of Mieville's writing, in particular his descriptions and his world building as seen in PSS. I know that PSS was his second book, and he might have matured a lot as a writer since then (the same coworker who recommended him said his style doesn't change much in later books, but I can't judge them myself). But 712 pages is more than enough in one lifetime for me.

Two topics in one post. First, a quick comment on the current AI buzz. The entire financial press is talking about how AI isn’t just the next big thing in technology, but that it is possibly the biggest investable movement in technology history – bigger than the internet and smart phones. Stocks that are associated with AI are attracting massive investment dollars. What is more ‘AI’ than hardware sensors and software combining to give machines ‘vision’ that allows them to act much faster than any human operator and without creating bigger second-order problems due to human reflexive reactions? To be more specific, what is more ‘AI’ than MicroVision?
Second topic – brokerage share lending programs. I received a telephone call from TD Ameritrade Thursday while I was traveling so I used a little windshield time to talk when I normally would not have taken the call. The specialist freely acknowledged the tight lending market in MVIS shares and the quantity of shares that I control, stating that “we had a mutually beneficial opportunity” for great income. The “mutually” is because I and TDA would split the earned interest 50/50. He was quick to point out that “the loaned shares are 100% collateralized through a third-party bank”. I requested some written information, and he immediately emailed me the document “Frequently Asked Questions: Fully Paid Lending Income Program”.
There are two standouts in the FAQ document. The first is regarding the question, “What are the risks in the Fully Paid Lending Income Program?”. The Answer is: “A primary risk is counterparty default”. The second standout FAQ is, “How will SIPC coverage be impacted?”. The Answer is: “SIPC will not cover the securities position on loan. However, the loan will be backed by 100% collateral held at a third-party bank”.
I’m on my 40th year in community banking and I have seen a lot of cases of “counterparty default”. The lender never comes out whole due to ‘scope of time’ in resolving the default, legal costs, and collateral value. Defaults involve a Judge, a Court date way in the future, and attorneys to represent the lender – they take many months, and often years, to resolve. When the collateral is finally recovered and sold, it is nearly always a small percentage of the loan plus legal costs that are recovered by the lender.
The TDA FAQs does state that “TD Ameritrade is your counter party on fully paid lending transactions. If TD Ameritrade were to default on its obligations as defined in the MSLA, you would have the right to withdraw the collateral from the custodian bank in the manner described in the Collateral Administration Agreements.” Does anyone think this custodian bank will release the “collateral” without you having to hire legal counsel and provide a library of proof that TDA defaulted? If the counterparty does default, that will also be a much bigger deal than just custodian-held collateral (think Silicon Valley Bank).
Consider why such a default would happen and exactly what it would mean for your stock shares. The default would happen because the stock price is rocketing higher, and the shorting party becomes insolvent and cannot return the borrowed shares to your counterparty/broker. The TDA FAQs state the loans are secured “with FINRA approved methods of collateral (cash, U.S. Treasury bills and Treasury Notes)”. As the stock price of your ‘loaned shares’ rockets higher, the counterparty will presumably have to add more collateral to keep up with the value of the loaned stock. When default happens, no more collateral gets added, but the stock price will continue the ascent. The collateral will be sold at some point (hopefully days/weeks and not months) to pay you your portion for your loaned shares, but you will not get your stock back – you will get the cash from the liquidated collateral. Effectively, you sold your stock at the stock price on the date of the default (could be for less money if the U.S. Treasuries held as collateral are worth less than when they were purchased due to interest rates rising). You no longer participate in the increasing stock price because your shares are gone.
The shorting parties really aren’t taking the risk of a major short-squeeze – the stock lender is taking the risk! Once the shorting party burns through their equity, they get to walk away bankrupt - "you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip" is the old banker saying. The stock lender then walks away with only the daily interest they collected for lending prior to the default, as a gain on their investment. I am CEO of a professional business that makes its money by lending, but I won’t lend my MicroVision stock shares no matter how high the interest rate goes. The high interest rate says it all about the risk that you are taking!

On the off chance one of my players sees this, if you're playing in the setting of Gealrune, please avert your eyes you fooligan, major lore spoilers ahead.
So I've recently started a new campaign, and one of my players has chosen to play a Mark of Detection half-elf. We've decided that he obtained it later in life instead of it manifesting through a bloodline, like one does in Eberron.
Now, beforehand, I had not decided on how dragonmarks fit into my world, as I hadn't used my homebrew setting since before the Eberron sourcebook came out for 5e, so I've only just begun developing that aspect of my world, and I've decided on the following:
Dragonmarks were created by an ancient progenitor race that subjugated other races for their own means. The first major race of beings they subjugated were the dragons, and their identity eventually revolved around being Dragon Masters, and such is why dragonmarks are called so. But dragons were not the only race they conquered, eventually taking control of half the world and its denizens. While most races were easily put to heel, some more powerful races had to be either killed or sealed away. But the ones that were sealed had abilities that the Dragon Masters coveted, and desired for their own use. As such, they created vessels for those powers: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings (Gnomes were altered to be able to wield that power, but were not created by the Dragon Masters).
Now, this is where I need assistance. I've managed to link a couple of races to a number of dragonmarks, but I'm still stumped on a good few of them. If anyone has any recommendations, I would be very grateful. A couple things to keep in mind for what I'm looking for:

1. These are races, not beasts. They would have been intelligent and had civilizations of their own. So nothing like griffons or oozes.
2. These races are ancient. So nothing that could be chosen by a player RAW.
3. I tend to develop my own takes on creatures and races rather than follow traditional iterations, so don't be afraid to suggest something that's a little out there.
4. Multiple dragonmarks can come from a singular race.

Here's what I have so far:

• Cyclopes - Mark of Detection, Mark of Finding
• Gargoyles - Mark of Warding, Mark of Sentinel
• Liches (The OG liches in my world stem from a singular race) - Mark of Death

Still to be determined:

• Mark of Handling
• Mark of Healing
• Mark of Hospitality
• Mark of Making
• Mark of Passage
• Mark of Scribing
• Mark of Shadow
• Mark of Storm

Thank you ahead of time to those who help out!