Today's my birthday (22) and I recieved another rejection email. That makes it number 80.
I have a list of jobs I've applied to and update it when I get rejected or progress to the next stage. I thought I was around 40-50 rejections, but I decided to count them up and turns out I'm at 80. What great news to get on your birthday!
On top of that, I'm no longer in the running for any jobs.
TBH, I shouldn't have even opened the email today. I've been job searching for months after graduating last year. I was meant to take the day away from my job search to chill, relax and regroup (take time to enjoy today). Well not anymore.
After seeing that rejection email - which came after 1 of the only 2 phone interviews I've had and seeing I've now been rejected from 80 jobs made me very upset and feel useless.
I know I shouldn't take it personally, but with today being my birthday and another year older, with no job, no work experience and people just telling me constantly "it'll happen soon" I just feel pathetic. I can't get a job anywhere - I've applied to a range of places including grad schemes, big, medium and small companies, retail (high and low end), restaurants, museums, remote and more.
I've only had 2 phone interviews and been rejected both times. Before the latter one, I asked for advice. I practiced so much, gave good answers, asked good questions and made the interviewer laugh twice - but still I got rejected. From the advice I got and videos I watched, a lot of people said it's easy to pass a phone interview and you should really pass all the ones you have (if you've done some research and have some passion and know why you want the job) - that just makes me feel even more useless.
I sat on my bed for 30 mins doing nothing, just sat there. I then went for a shower to try and get on with my day, but I cried in there and now I feel nothing. I don't even care that it's my b-day anymore.
I'm a failure. I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be at this stage of my life. I even had a baseline for where I wanted to be and I'm far below that. I've seen friends and people I know my age getting jobs and internships so easily. Even in my own family. My cousin had 2 interhsips during uni, dud a placement year, got an internship after graduating and then he took time out to relax and then said "he was bored" at the start of the year and said he'll start applying for jobs - 3 weeks later he had a full-time, high paying job and recently got the month off to go traveling. My other cousin is off to uni later this year (most likely Cambridge), she always gets top grades and had 2 mentors that work at big companies and are high up, well respected and high earners (not sure how she got them). I know already she will get multiple internships while at uni and easily find a high-paying job straight out of uni, (worst case, one of her mentors will give her a job) - even worse is that she wants to go into the same industry as me, she's 3 years behind but 3 years ahead of me at the same time and will probably go way further than me.
I'm the failure of my family, the failure of my friend group, I used to have high hopes for myself, but can't get in anywhere. I've let my parents down big time.
I'm not sure what I want from this post, it's more of a rant.

So there is an elderly man in one of my college courses who I was nice and friendly to at first as that's just who I am.. later on though I kind of felt he probably believed I was flirting with him, which is odd since other girls have also been the same way with him, greeting him and being respectful towards him....
Not to be cocky (since i do take care of myself) but maybe it can be because I take care of my looks and am also seemingly a shy person who one could prob take advantage of as I don't rlly have friends like the other girls?.... ofc there were other girls there who r pretty but they aren't shy/never interacted w this man the way I did...
Either way, I got this creepy impression when one day after class he seemed to insist if we could be alone and see each other out of class... he was like "well, wanna ever study together? When can we get together?" In an insisting and flirty tone which Is when I felt upset that bcz I'm being nice & friendly even older men get the wrong message so that's kind of when I started to avoid him and not talk to him after class as much...
Then another day during lectures he just kept staring at my laptops decorations (in a very obvious manner) and then my face and my body, which I found to be very disrespectful..... (ladies would yall feel the same way too?)
I don't talk to him anymore either because I have to head to work right after this class and I've told him.... I have 55 minutes after that to drive all the way there, have a quick lunch bcz I'm part time so I don't get that, and then brush my teeth/redo my makeup, so I do have to hurry...
I've walked a different way for a while now to avoid him (last time we talked til 1 pm leaving me w 30 minutes to do everything which I find to be stupid in my part to allow that), and still yesterday he tried talking to me agn even though I've showed myself to be distant, so once he started I answered and brushed him off quick going to the bathroom next to me (bcz i had to go anyways), but I found it to be rude. But at the same time I'm busy, I'm not interested and I overall don't like this guy. So why bother and waste my time?......
Is this OK to do this given my circumstances? Is Avoiding him reasonable? Or am I an asshole...

Today's my birthday (22) and I recieved another rejection email. That makes it number 80.
I have a list of jobs I've applied to and update it when I get rejected or progress to the next stage. I thought I was around 40-50 rejections, but I decided to count them up and turns out I'm at 80. What great news to get on your birthday!
On top of that, I'm no longer in the running for any jobs.
TBH, I shouldn't have even opened the email today. I've been job searching for months after graduating last year. I was meant to take the day away from my job search to chill, relax and regroup (take time to enjoy today). Well not anymore.
After seeing that rejection email - which came after 1 of the only 2 phone interviews I've had and seeing I've now been rejected from 80 jobs made me very upset and feel useless.
I know I shouldn't take it personally, but with today being my birthday and another year older, with no job, no work experience and people just telling me constantly "it'll happen soon" I just feel pathetic. I can't get a job anywhere - I've applied to a range of places including grad schemes, big, medium and small companies, retail (high and low end), restaurants, museums, remote and more.
I've only had 2 phone interviews and been rejected both times. Before the latter one, I asked for advice. I practiced so much, gave good answers, asked good questions and made the interviewer laugh twice - but still I got rejected. From the advice I got and videos I watched, a lot of people said it's easy to pass a phone interview and you should really pass all the ones you have (if you've done some research and have some passion and know why you want the job) - that just makes me feel even more useless.
I sat on my bed for 30 mins doing nothing, just sat there. I then went for a shower to try and get on with my day, but I cried in there and now I feel nothing. I don't even care that it's my b-day anymore.
I'm a failure. I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be at this stage of my life. I even had a baseline for where I wanted to be and I'm far below that. I've seen friends and people I know my age getting jobs and internships so easily. Even in my own family. My cousin had 2 interhsips during uni, dud a placement year, got an internship after graduating and then he took time out to relax and then said "he was bored" at the start of the year and said he'll start applying for jobs - 3 weeks later he had a full-time, high paying job and recently got the month off to go traveling. My other cousin is off to uni later this year (most likely Cambridge), she always gets top grades and had 2 mentors that work at big companies and are high up, well respected and high earners (not sure how she got them). I know already she will get multiple internships while at uni and easily find a high-paying job straight out of uni, (worst case, one of her mentors will give her a job) - even worse is that she wants to go into the same industry as me, she's 3 years behind but 3 years ahead of me at the same time and will probably go way further than me.
I'm the failure of my family, the failure of my friend group, I used to have high hopes for myself, but can't get in anywhere. I've let my parents down big time.
I'm not sure what I want from this post, it's more of a rant.

Let me start with the basics so that anyone reading this can have an easier time.
Skin type: combo, acne prone, hyperpigmentation, sensitive
AM skincare routine:

• anua 77 heartleaf toner (1 or 2 layers)
• anua peach niacin serum
• aestura 365 atobarrier cream
• skin1004 airfit sunscreen

PM skincare routine:

• make prem cleansing oil (only on days when i wear makeup)
• skin1004 cica foaming cleanser
• anua 77 heartleaf toner
• axis-y spot the difference serum (usually when i have active breakouts/pimples)
• skin1004 100% centella ampoule
• aestura 365 atobarrier cream

I'm thinking of replacing the axis-y serum with an exfoliating serum. My skin has gone through it lately so i don't want to overwhelm it with too many products in rotation, historically that has been bad for me. That's why I stick to a fairly simple routine with as few products as possible.
I used the revox salicylic acid serum in the past and it worked really well with a niacinamide serum to help deal with my breakouts and fade my acne scars and hyperpigmentation, but I would like to try a korean exfoliating serum. I will mention that I am veeery apprehensive about using a retinol serum as my face is a bit of a princess (for example vitamin c serums dried my skin and absolutely destroyed my skin barrier no matter how sparsely I used them). I would like to stick to something gentle (like a BHA with a lower percentage). I'm not very knowledgeable about exfoliants so some pointers and recommendations would be very helpful.

Welcome to this non-real time meeting of Overeaters Anonymous! I’m oddreaction3943 I’m a compulsive eater and your leader for this meeting. Will those who wish, please join me in the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Overeaters Anonymous is a Fellowship of individuals who, through shared experience, strength, and hope, are recovering from compulsive overeating. We welcome everyone who wants to stop eating compulsively. There are no dues or fees for members; we are self-supporting through our own contributions, neither soliciting nor accepting outside donations. OA is not affiliated with any public or private organization, political movement, ideology, or religious doctrine; we take no position on outside issues. Our primary purpose is to abstain from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors and to carry the message of recovery through the Twelve Steps of OA to those who still suffer.
Our Invitation to You
The Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous
Abstinence in Overeaters Anonymous is the action of refraining from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors while working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight. Spiritual, emotional, and physical recovery is the result of living the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve Step program.
The OA tools of recovery help us work the Steps and refrain from compulsive overeating. The nine tools are: a plan of eating, sponsorship, meetings, telephone, writing, literature, an action plan, anonymity, and service. For more information, read The Tools of Recovery OA page.
Sponsorship is one of our keys to success. Sponsors are OA members committed to abstinence and to living the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions to the best of their ability. Sponsors share their program up to the level of their experience and strengthen their recovery through this service to others. To find a sponsor, look for someone who has what you want and ask how he or she is achieving it. Will all abstinent sponsors please identify themselves in their post?
According to our Seventh Tradition, we are self-supporting through our own contributions. Our group number is 99038. Please use the group number when making your contribution. As our virtual group currently has no expenses please consider donating directly through this link to the OA World Service Office, who provides resources for OA groups all around the world to carry the message to other compulsive overeaters.
Suggested guidelines for sharing: As you share your experience and strength in OA, please also share your hope. Please confine your sharing to your experience with the disease of compulsive eating, the solution offered by OA, and your own recovery from the disease, rather than just the events of the day or week. When responding to other member’s posts, please focus on your personal experience rather than advice giving. If you are having difficulties, share how you use the program to deal with them. If you need to talk more about your difficulties and seek solutions, we suggest you speak to your sponsor and other members after the meeting.
This is a literature meeting. Today we are studying Book Book Page 12**
My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last.
Closing By following the Twelve Steps, attending meetings regularly, and using the OA Tools, we are changing our lives. You will find hope and encouragement in Overeaters Anonymous. To the newcomer, we suggest attending at least six different meetings to learn the many ways OA can help you. The opinions expressed here today are those of individual OA members and do not represent OA as a whole. Let us all reach out by private message to newcomers, returning members, and each other. Together we get better.

Welcome to this non-real time meeting of Overeaters Anonymous! I’m oddreaction3943 I’m a compulsive eater and your leader for this meeting. Will those who wish, please join me in the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Overeaters Anonymous is a Fellowship of individuals who, through shared experience, strength, and hope, are recovering from compulsive overeating. We welcome everyone who wants to stop eating compulsively. There are no dues or fees for members; we are self-supporting through our own contributions, neither soliciting nor accepting outside donations. OA is not affiliated with any public or private organization, political movement, ideology, or religious doctrine; we take no position on outside issues. Our primary purpose is to abstain from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors and to carry the message of recovery through the Twelve Steps of OA to those who still suffer.
Our Invitation to You
The Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous
Abstinence in Overeaters Anonymous is the action of refraining from compulsive eating and compulsive food behaviors while working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight. Spiritual, emotional, and physical recovery is the result of living the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve Step program.
The OA tools of recovery help us work the Steps and refrain from compulsive overeating. The nine tools are: a plan of eating, sponsorship, meetings, telephone, writing, literature, an action plan, anonymity, and service. For more information, read The Tools of Recovery OA page.
Sponsorship is one of our keys to success. Sponsors are OA members committed to abstinence and to living the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions to the best of their ability. Sponsors share their program up to the level of their experience and strengthen their recovery through this service to others. To find a sponsor, look for someone who has what you want and ask how he or she is achieving it. Will all abstinent sponsors please identify themselves in their post?
According to our Seventh Tradition, we are self-supporting through our own contributions. Our group number is 99038. Please use the group number when making your contribution. As our virtual group currently has no expenses please consider donating directly through this link to the OA World Service Office, who provides resources for OA groups all around the world to carry the message to other compulsive overeaters.
Suggested guidelines for sharing: As you share your experience and strength in OA, please also share your hope. Please confine your sharing to your experience with the disease of compulsive eating, the solution offered by OA, and your own recovery from the disease, rather than just the events of the day or week. When responding to other member’s posts, please focus on your personal experience rather than advice giving. If you are having difficulties, share how you use the program to deal with them. If you need to talk more about your difficulties and seek solutions, we suggest you speak to your sponsor and other members after the meeting.
This is a literature meeting. Today we are studying Book Book Page 12** Bill’s story
My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God? That statement hit me hard. It melted my icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last.
Closing By following the Twelve Steps, attending meetings regularly, and using the OA Tools, we are changing our lives. You will find hope and encouragement in Overeaters Anonymous. To the newcomer, we suggest attending at least six different meetings to learn the many ways OA can help you. The opinions expressed here today are those of individual OA members and do not represent OA as a whole. Let us all reach out by private message to newcomers, returning members, and each other. Together we get better.

For context, I think my guy friend is falling in love with me but doesn't seem to know it. I can just feel it. I just took the hint more seriously right now because he is asking for emotional support from me when he underwent an operation and said to contact him before and after to check on him even remotely as we are long distance.
It wasn't a simple motivation. I had to show my caring side and we promise to eat out together after. I said I cant wait to him getting better and he said he cant wait to eat a lot. There was more and it was really intimate, sort of a life and death situation and there was us trying to defy it.
He literally copied the same situation when I was in the hospital and also need to undergo an operation, he also was my emotional support back then but the difference is I didn't ask him to check on me . He just did. Although i did message him that I got hospitalized.
I think this all started when he constantly became my "rescuer" when I got sick and always checked up on my health frequently. He then ask about my routine, tells me what to do, guides me, creates an excel sheet of what i should eat. He especially loved to be complimented on and he does also compliment me often.
In person he is very silent and can't look me in the eye but on messages, he is very sweet and wants to take care of me all the time. He tells me if I did well and just exhibits signs of emotional dependency.
If I so much as not talk to him for days, he says he gets worried and asked me if I was okay and he asked me this when he was the one in the hospital.
The dependency and the emotional support he wants from me tells me there's something there but I fear that we may be in an emotional affair. I know he had a girlfriend last year and I think it's still going on.

(Before you accuse me of Trump Derangement Syndrome, I'm actually trying to help you, here. Call this constructive criticism.)
According to this, the God Emperor took another potentially catastrophic swipe at RFK Junior a few days ago. Unless Trump wants to commit political suicide, he needs to stop doing this immediately.
Junior is the nephew of a President who was:-
a} One of the most powerful, charismatic orators in American history.
b} Governed during what was probably the second most prosperous period in the country's history, after Eisenhower.
c} A martyr of the Deep State.
In the American (and even international) imagination, there is a very thick layer of golden fog surrounding Jack Kennedy; probably the third thickest after Eisenhower and Lincoln. Because of this, Trump attacking his nephew is going to have approximately equivalent optics to him using a double barrelled shotgun to shoot an infant kitten in the face, and then laughing hysterically into a camera.
I know Trump is not a man who customarily cares about how attacking other people, affects his own image; but in this case, he needs to. Junior could very quickly assume the role of America's answer to King Arthur; the proverbial Once and Future King who has come back to not only restore the ideals of his uncle, but of the Republic more broadly. Trump likes viewing himself as an American saviour in the same light; but the difference is that Junior is the real thing, while Trump is a pretender, and Trump's attacks of Junior, and Junior's own responses, have demonstrated that both strikingly and consistently.
That is the first reason why Trump should not attack Junior. The second reason is because it is unnecessary. With very few exceptions, men of anything close to genuine integrity are not permitted in the White House. The cabal will not allow RFK the Presidency; that is not his purpose. His purpose was to serve exactly the kind of distraction that Bernie did in 2016; to provide a seemingly heroic, but ultimately ineffectual and tragic figure, to create the illusion of electoral openness and plurality.
Junior has both a legendary family association, and a degree of genuine integrity. Trump is an aspirant dictator. The ONLY possible effect a comparison with Junior could have on Trump, is negative.
Trump should pretend that RFK does not exist. He should not mention him. He should have nothing whatsoever to do with him at all.

Hello all - I'm having issues dealing with a hostile boss at work and was curious what some of your guys' experiences have been. It's not so bad to the point that I want to confront him just yet but I am taking screenshots of messages and collecting evidence for whenever I do confront him directly. I've been in this job for a year and would say it's going okay. I know there are things they wish I did better and there are things I wish they did better but overall I enjoy working here and do feel valued to an extent. I feel like one of my boss' loves to take jabs at me in group messages that other colleagues are in and this bothers me. He's from the UK and they can be a little smart sometimes but I don't think he would appreciate me being smart/snarky back to him. I know I'm not the only person who has dealt with this and I think people have even left because of him. It's a smaller company that is growing and I'm not ready to jump ship just yet.
What would some of you guys be doing? Or feel free to share some of your experiences with your hostile boss' to make me feel better about mine.
Thank you all have a lovely day

First off, I want to say thank you for taking time out your day to read this post. I am trying to find answers and just checking to see if anyone has had a similar experience. I had an injury 6 months ago. Two days after my injury, I started developing severe panic attacks. The first two months, I had 2 to 3 severe panic attacks a week. After 2 months, they slowed down . I have been struggling with dizziness on and off for the past 6 months. I developed PMDD. My hormones are just out of control. After writing down my symptoms, I noticed my symptoms are extremely worse after ovulation and before my period. I have days when I feel like I'm going to pass out, and I get super nauseous, days I feel like I have air hunger, days when i wake up 50 times during the night, there are days my anxiety is so bad that i cant go to work. I also feel dehydrated when I am clearly not. I also get spikes in my heart rate in the afternoons. The one symptom that I did have before my injury was feeling wired, I felt wired like I was on drugs or something. It happens before or after my period. I also started to develop memory problems. I have been to several doctors, and labs always seem normal. I just need a push in the right direction. If anyone has had a similar experience, please comment.

I can't tell you how often I hear people who I consider very intelligent spout the thoroughly disproven myth that the Earth's population is exploding, that we are all going to starve, run out of resources, etc... Before the internet, it was easy to buy into this narrative. However, even then, the idea of overpopulation always had a racist tinge to it. "Those" people are having too many children (meaning the global poor, mostly non-caucasian). The message was clear, if the poor keep having so many babies they'll outcompete and replace us (this is a common theme for bigoted assholes).
Even a cursory examination of the statistics would show that birth rates around the world were already falling even in the early 2000's: https://youtu.be/fTznEIZRkLg?si=l0Uxa62wNxov1jgM
It was hypothesized that as people grew more wealthy (and I don't mean rich, just as they accumulated enough capital to be somewhat free from the cycle of poverty), they began to have less children, because fewer would die during childhood and labor had shifted from heavy agricultural work to less physically demanding jobs. A more modern twist, posited that skyrocketing costs for childcare, housing and education have contributed to this trend.
However, more recent data seems to upend this hypothesis, as a global contraction of birthrate is becoming apparent, even in countries that have not reached the level of financial security where one would predict that people would start to have less children: https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-dramatic-declines-global-fertility-rates-set-transform
Now, when births per woman are below 2.2 (replacement), the population will begin to decline. For a country with below replacement births, this means that the tax base shrinks as the average age of a citizen of that country increases. This will necessitate increased spending on elder care even as the number of people available to tax decreases. If monetary insecurity is truly a root cause of population decline, then this will only exacerbate the problem.
It's also a problem for capitalism, which is couched in ever increasing consumption. If the number of people available to consume decreases, the economy contracts as well. This is going to wreak havoc on the retirement system of the US especially, since we were sold to financiers by our government, replacing pensions with retirement investments in the stock market. Even if we still had a pension system, the number of people paying into it would decrease, limiting payouts. This is why I have always assumed the following:

1. Social Security will not be available when I retire.
   
2. The government is going to renege on the promises made to us regarding our personal retirement accounts (e.g. the tax free status is likely to go away).
   
3. The government may even take retirement funds from younger generations to pay for the boomers to retire thus continuing a recent trend of fucking over the young.
   

Seems like doom and gloom? Hardly. The fact that the linked article was posted in the Wall Street Journal implies to me that the people who are most worried about this change are our would be corporate overlords. After all, if working age people are scarce, it will be harder to treat them like commodities and pay them subsistence wages. This will directly impact the bonuses executives receive, decimating the private jet, yacht, gated community and vacation house markets.
I think population decline will be the best thing that ever happened to us for one main reason: It is the only thing that can break us out of this current, hollow, exploitative, fiercely individualistic culture that is cheapening our lives and destroying the planet. We are going to have to think long and hard about what it is that we actually want, what makes a life a good life and how we can live responsibly.
I always noticed that in Star Trek: TNG, when the crew would visit other worlds, they were always quite spartan (for cost reasons of course), and I thought this made total sense. These people had access to unlimited technology but used it to live simply and unobtrusively. This is what we need to do.
It's time to start planning how we are going to withdraw from the world and consolidate in smaller, better planned communities. This is going to mean letting some towns and even cities die, letting many simply return to nature, demolishing structures that could become unsafe and clearing out any waste that could contaminate the water or soil if left unattended.
It's also going to mean the end of infinite growth (at least until we get a foothold in space). Before the modern age, the rate of growth per year was something like 0.1%, often times there was no growth. THIS IS FINE! The captains of industry will bemoan the end of the world, but it will be the end of their world, not our World.
Of course, this contraction will also help in our fight with climate change (in the sense that less people consume fewer resources) but it might also make the more expensive options (large scale geoengineering) more difficult to fund. I'm also concerned that a contracting population will lose interest in space exploration and colonization which is, frankly, vital to our survival as a species in the long term.
So, I have mixed feeling about population decline, but for the most part, the future under decreasing consumption, contracting financial markets and fundamental societal reorganization sounds a hell of a lot better to me than a world of ever increasing consumption, corporate oligarchs with ever increasing control and resource wars on a scorching planet.
I'm hopeful we can arrive at the high tech low consumption society of my dreams, and judging by the failure of pro-natal programs, regardless of generosity, to boost birth rates, this transition now seems inevitable.

So I was looking for a second home on and off for about a year. Most of the homes in the area I wanted were overpriced without any updates, with sellers unwilling to wiggle on anything (current housing market is trash tbh).
I got on the phone and cried to my realtor, telling him I was throwing in the towel (this second home wasn’t a vacation home, that’s all I’ll say without getting into detail).
That night, I did SATS. Usually I was affirming, but I’ve noticed that sometimes SATS just works better and sometimes affirming works better. I imagined my realtor saying that he found the perfect home. I imagined myself looking at it with excitement, feeling like I finally found a fair deal on a home that was beautifully maintained and updated.
The next morning, the realtor called me to tell me a previous home I liked wasn’t available. While we were talking, he emailed me some more homes to see. While on the phone, I noticed one of the houses actually looked good. We hung up and I looked at the listing a few more times. My gut feeling said this was the one.
I texted the realtor saying I wanted to make an offer sight unseen (I live 35 min from the area and many times even just driving there to see a house someone would already have made a compelling offer). He went to the home (he was close by) and made me a video. I fell in love and signed an offer that night.
The most important part here is that there was an open house scheduled for 4-5 days away. Most people were doing open houses and making the buyers fight over the house by offering over asking price. The sellers realtor suggested to the seller that they cancel the open house and take our offer (of just asking price) and they ended up canceling it and taking our offer.
We visited the home for the inspection and not only is it perfect to my specifications I was affirming the whole time through affirmations, but inspector said the house was immaculately maintained and in great condition (something I wasn’t seeing anywhere with other houses).
Everything you want is already yours, and exactly how you want it too. Love? Wealth? Housing? Things? It’s all yours. Look at my post history, I found my SP through the law. We are now moving in together and so madly in love. Love I never experienced until I learned the law and decided exactly the kind of relationship I wanted. This house is so beautiful, the price is fair, and life is good.

Introduction: This is probably the most frequently asked question we get when onboarding new clients. I wanted to create a guide of how we decide on the optimal strategy.

Digital Media Budget Distribution

According to multiple MMM tools, the optimal budget distribution on average for DTC/Ecommerce brands is:

• Meta: 65%
• Google: 20%
• TikTok: 5%
• CTV, Programmatic, or other digital channels: 10%

Note: These averages vary across industries. Mature brands that have saturated Meta for years may allocate a higher percentage to CTV or other channels for incrementality and reaching new audiences.

When to Use Google

Google should be your primary channel if there is clear search demand for your products and you’re the best option among your competitors.
Indicators:

• Thousands of monthly search queries for phrase match or exact match terms.
• Users are consciously aware of a "problem or need" and actively searching for a solution.
• Your product must stand out within 10 seconds through clear differentiators (best price, substantial social proof, trust signals).

Considerations:

• Google can be stable and predictable but requires time to optimize (6-8 weeks).
• PMAX campaigns often show inflated ROAS due to brand and near-brand search queries.
• For large SKU catalogs, invest time in optimizing product feeds. Quality inputs, tagging, and descriptions significantly impact performance.

Downsides of Google:

• Learning Period: Google takes longer to get out of the learning phase compared to social channels.
• PMAX Campaigns: Be cautious with ROAS metrics as they often include brand search queries.
• Feed Optimization: Necessary for large SKU catalogs to ensure quality inputs, tagging, and descriptions.

When to Use Paid Social (Meta)

Paid Social is versatile and suitable for most use cases, from awareness to retargeting. It is especially effective for brands where customers are problem unaware or solution unaware.
Advantages:

• Effective for most eCommerce products.
• More forgiving on price comparisons if you articulate product value well.
• Requires engaging, educational, and entertaining content to capture attention.

Challenges:

• Need to generate at least $1.5 to $2.0 RPV to scale successfully.
• Requires constant creative refreshes to maintain efficiency (30% loss in 6 weeks, 40% in 10 weeks).

Considerations for Meta

• Creative Strategy: Ads must be compelling enough to stop users' scroll on social platforms.
• Creative Refresh: At moderate scales, ad creatives lose efficiency over time. Budget for regular creative production to maintain performance.

What Does RPV (Revenue Per Visitor) Mean?
This metric indicates how much revenue you generate per unique click/person. Our recommended minimum benchmark to start scaling is $2.00 for most clients. Brands achieving this can typically spend $50K+ per month profitably on ads. Higher RPV values indicate greater scalability and profitability.

• RPV Metrics:
  • $2.00 RPV: Profitable scale at $50K+ ad spend/month (3% CVR, $67 AOV).
  • $4.00 RPV: Profitable scale at $150K+ ad spend/month (4% CVR, $100 AOV).
  • $6.00 RPV: Profitable scale at $300K+ ad spend/month (4.5% CVR, $130 AOV).
  • Higher CVRs can offset lower AOVs and vice versa (e.g., 6% CVR and $35 AOV yields $2.10 RPV).

Other General Advice

• Master one channel before expanding to others.
  • Allocate 20% of your total media budget to new channels once you've achieved consistent results in one area and give it several weeks to optimize.
• Triple-Check Settings for Google
  • Ensure all campaign settings, keyword exclusions, conversion event configurations & attribution windows are accurate.
• Video Content for TikTok
  • Ensure you have consistent, high-performing video content before investing heavily in TikTok.

Conclusion:
Do you agree or disagree with these recommendations? Have any questions for new topics that I should cover or any learnings you've had?

Looking for advice… I’ve been looking after this adorable young black masked lovebird for 3 months. she belongs to a friend who breeds them (for reasons I’ve never quite understood, but not for money or as pets!). The little bird has some kind of condition that means her head lolls around and initially she couldn’t fly very well, so she would be too vulnerable in the big aviary with dozens of other birds.
Of course she got used to me and became very friendly, would spend a few hours most days out of the cage puttering around while I worked, sometimes climbing on me and whatnot. Unfortunately, I can’t keep a bird as a pet for a whole bunch of reasons, so I never thought of it as a long term thing.
As she got quite good at flying and holding her head up, my friend agreed to put her in a smaller aviary in her yard, with just one other bird who is believed to be a male.
It’s been 2 days and I’ve been back to visit, and each time she flies straight over to me and clings to the cage near me. If I go into the aviary she sits in my hand and won’t leave. It’s so heartbreaking!
I thought she’d love being in a bigger cage with a friend. My friend says she isn’t eating properly and she has to put her inside a nesting box at night because she doesn’t know how to stay warm. It’s not clear if she’s getting along with the other bird, but my friend will keep an eye on it and so far they’re not fighting.
Reading this sub, it feels like it’s just a LOT of change which is hard for her .
I’m happy to keep her at my house for longer if it means helping her adjust - but not sure how to do that or if it just delays the inevitable.
perhaps I could take her back with me for a couple of weeks together with her new (hopefully) birb friend, and give them a chance to bond before taking them back to the aviary? Problem is of course the other bird isn’t hand reared and I don’t have a very big cage, so it would be stressful for him.
Any other suggestions for what I can do to ease her transition?

Where to start. It's going to get long so the people who do read it all fully, I truly appreciate you and thank you for reading my hurt.
I met this girl at work back in December and things were not good from the start. She said she didn't want to be in a relationship cause she had just got out of one 3 months prior to me talking to her. The very 1st day I meet her at work I ended up coming to her house. We didn't do nothing but smoked, drinked. talked and watched Rick and morty, it was awesome and I knew then that I really wanted to pursue this women since I only desired to know her as a person. Things went good after that we talked more and hung out more times. It was building into something.
Move forward a month she starts to get cold feet tells me that she wqsmt ready for a relationship and ended things. Well to my surprise a week later she wanted to work it out and told me that she's never been with a real caring man before and she was scared it was too good too be true and ran away from me and our relationship. We talked about it and I told her to not give up on me cause I would never give up on her. Things went good after that. Until I started to see some changes in her behavior.
A couple months passed and during those months she would hangout with a friend who was a bad influence on her. Her friend always wanted to go out to the club and would put her in some fucked up situations where then she would call me to come fix or just come pick her up. This happened more times then I could remember. One time I was getting shit faced with some buddies and she called me at 2 am to come pick her up since she was too drunk with her friend. It was a 3 hour drive and I went to help her knowing it was a horrible choice due to me being drunk but I loved her and cared about her way too much so the answer was quite easy to go and help her. Another time she was with her same friend and I caught her going live on tiktoc with her friend and she was in bathtub in her bikini with hwr friend and in the mirror I could see another man standing there mid 40s close to 50 without a shirt on asking them if they needed more drink and towels. I commented on the live and she immediately took it down and blocked me. Th3 next day she said she didn't know who that guy was and proceeded to make excuse after excuse. She told me she was sorry and that it won't ever happen again that she wanted to be with me and only me. we dont talk for about a week after this cause i couldnt believe she would do such a thing to me. That was betrayal to me, trying to be sneaky behind my back getting caught then lying to me about it. She came to my house unexpectedly and gave me a letter professing her love and commitment to me something she's never done before. It showed me change and effort, so I took her back (stupid I know but I really wanted her and gave her every chance to change into a better person) a couple weeks if not a month after that incident, she goes to a casino with that same friend. At this point I told her that it wasn't a good idea to keep contact with this friend cause she doesn't care about our relationship and puts her in some fucked up situations all the time. But it was hard for her since this friend was someone she knew since they were 10 it was hard for her to hear my words. So she calls me at 5 am the night she went with the casino with her friend and tells me that she absolutely needs me that she was kidnapped and needed me to come save her. Sp that's what I did. Drove over an hour and 30 min to get to her. She was walking with her friend when I found her and she couldn't remember where she parked her car she said it had to be in the casino parking lot but we couldn't find it. Where was her car? Just a block away from the people who "kidnapped her" at this point I was done. She done lied to me so many times and took advantage of my heart. I told her that after I help her that we are done. She goes to an extreme and says she's going to kill herself and to just drop her off wherever. I lost a friend due to suicide so this one hit at home and I couldn't let her go thru with it, also cause I loved her and still cared for her, of course. We end up taking a trip the day after for 3 days to get away and help her balance her life again. It seemed to work fine. She was so into me and said she wanted to marry me and have kids and start a family. I was excited yet felt it was too much of a rush. So we waited.
Just last month in April she really wanted a kid and by this time things have gotten much better she wasn't hanging out with that bad friend anymore and she would always come over to stay the night or I would go to her place. It was perfect and everything I ever dreamed off to be honest. So we try to have a kid. To complete us and our relationship. She missed her period in the beginning of May and she was pregnant. Something she thought she couldn't become cause she said she tried many times before with her past partners and it never worked. We were both excited. Just last week she told me she wasn't ready for a kid and wanted an abortion. I asked her why since this was the very thing we had hoped for for some time and she simply said it was due to money and not having insurance the bills would be crazy expensive and that she wasnt ready. I supported her decision since we could always have another baby down the line if she wasn't ready then she wasn't ready. I can respect that. A couple days after that she tells me that she doesnt see herself with me and that she doesnt love me anymore. Just out the blue. After everything we have been through. All the times I forgave her and took her back just to be left out in the cold without her giving me a chance to fix whatever the problem may have been. When she told me she didn't love me anymore and that she lost feelings it made me very confused and lost. Why try to have a baby then just a week ago? Why come back to me asking for forgiveness all those times if you were just gonna play me in the end? I asked her these things and she could only say sorry. That's it. That's all I got. I kept asking why how could you do that out of nowhere was it the baby? She just said she lost feelings a long time ago and doesn't love me anymore. Okay then why try to have a baby with me if that was true? why did she make me believe that she was really down for me and committed to me. These answers I'll never know. Since she just tells me sorry and to move on. But real love doesn't work that way. I'm finding it hard to cope with. Last thing she asked me was if I was going to help with the abortion cost. I told her yes cause it was also my responsibility and not just hers. The abortion is the 21st of this month and I dread each day closer to that date.
Thanks for reading.

Background: Lexapro 5mg 7 months for anxiety, onset insomnia. Both fixed.
Since starting Lexapro I wake up frequently throughout the night, if I’m lucky only at 4:00-4:30am. I can go back to sleep most of the time.
I take my pill at 4:30pm and hours later I start to yawn and feel tired, I sleep at 11:00pm no issues.
I am not willing to go up on the pill as I feel it is not needed, I may just be taking it at the wrong time of day. Also not interested in a sleep aid as I can go to sleep ok and need to be cautious due to my asthma.
Does anyone have experience with this, did it help to take right in the AM or PM before bed? Thanks.

My specialist gave me a giant box of this after I told him I was just taking paracetamol and dealing with the pain during a flare up and avoiding all NSAIDs due to past stomach issues/Gerd, 195 x 90mg Tablets to be specific
However I am now reading that the FDA didn't approve it for the US market and that it increases the risk of heart attacks and stroke? and to be honest id rather limp/deal with the pain and pop some paracetamol for bedtime than risk having a heart attack,
Has anyone got any experience with it? and can maybe shed some perspective on these risks (as in am I really rolling the dice for a little pain relief, or is it virtually non existent for a healthy person when used for 1-2 days max at a time)
Starting Febuxostat 80mg in a couple days (after Allo made me an insomniac) so hopefully this will be one of the last few times it's even a concern for me

In this edition of “Odd Titanica”, we are going to dive into the sleazy, opportunistic world of show business. A world that comedian Fred Allen said of, “you can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly, and still have room for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart”. Hyperbolic? Let’s take a look at Hollywood’s response to the Titanic disaster to see that there really is no business like show business.
Dorothy Gibson and the lost, first, film are well worn trivia by now. The traumatized actress rushed into production, her inability to process her trauma causing her mental breakdown, collapse, and retirement from acting immediately after the film was finished - it’s a perfect story to demonstrate the callousness of the film industry. But there is more to the story, and digging deeper shows us that “Saved” may have been the least sleazy project undertaken by the studios.
Dorothy’s account of the sinking and the suffering she endured filming “Saved from the Titanic” are predominantly found in two sources - The New York Dramatic Mirror and Moving Picture World. These were trade magazines, published weekly, and consisting solely of material related to the stage and screen business. These would be announcements of upcoming features, casting news, celebrity gossip, technical news - anything the movie star to the man sweeping the floor at the cinema needed to know. And they included ads … lots and lots of ads.
Immediately realizing that Titanic was not only a horrible tragedy but an incredible business opportunity, Moving Picture World got to work. As people stormed White Star Line offices, and raided newspaper carts for any drop of news regarding the sinking, Moving Picture World provided the latest in Titanic news; or perhaps we should say “Titanic” news.
The headlines of the April 27th issue may have screamed TITANIC, but as the public grabbed their copy and hurriedly flipped through the pages, they found that what they were actually given was ads. Those eye grabbing headlines were followed by much smaller print-
TITANIC EFFORTS... are being exerted by Champion to put before the exhibitors that will make them regular Champ Patrons! Get the following latest [releases] and you’ll be convinced!.
UNSINKABLE … is the reputation of Rep productions, but these two releases will sink into the minds of everyone who sees them and will remain there as worthy object lessons.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN …suggested by the poem of Elizabeth Barret Browning in 2 reels this Tuesday!
THE GREATEST MOTION PICTURE OF NATIONAL INTEREST - THE SINKING OF…. the big battleship. Remember the Maine!
THE DEATH SHIP...a sensational two reel drama of the sea containing one of the most thrilling dynamite explosions imaginable!
For all the slimy marketing tricks, flipping through the pages still has plenty of legitimate ads for real Titanic newsreels, movies, and a specific type of presentation known a Myriorama involving painting, music, and recitation. But, show business would strike again - the ads were legitimate, but what they were advertising was not. History has sort of forgotten the huge demand for Titanic media in the wake of the sinking, something that didn’t really exist. When cinema owners would order these “only surviving genuine negatives of the disaster” complete with lobby display package, they instead received-

our astonishment to find the Lusitania and Olympic, and one or two scratch films of ancient days posing as pictures of Titanic.

But they didn’t stop. Animated Weekly advertised that they were “the first to reach the wreck… chartered a tug from Cape Breton and rushed to the scene while the survivors were still in the water”. Cinemas began to promote footage of the sinking. Audiences wrote their disgust to Moving Picture World-

These representations are to the point of criminality … Take, for instance, the picture showing the Titanic with about a sixth of her forward length stuck into the iceberg. Everybody knows the collision did not occur in that manner!

They pointed to the following ad as an example - FIRST PICTURES OF THE TITANIC OCEAN DISASTER. The cinema owners responded by noting that they had misread, crammed in tiny letters were the words “sunk in” so that ad actually read FIRST PICTURES OF THE TITANIC sunk in OCEAN DISASTER. It was the customer's fault, they said, to be stupid enough to think anyone could have actually filmed the sinking.
Once this ruse was discovered, the studios shifted gears. The next step was to advertise film along with presentations by “A Lecturer who was on board”. When the audience realized the lecturer was not on Titanic and demanded a refund - the response from the managers was

Those signs didn’t say he was a survivor.

… and any attempt to charge him with the crime of fraud was absurd because, in his own words-

Of course I didn’t give him his money back. The sign didn’t misrepresent anything. West was on the Titanic, the sign didn’t say when he was.

…which was true. The lecturer, Eugene West, had visited Titanic while she was under construction at Belfast.
As for the movies themselves?

We said we had pictures. If people were foolish enough to think we meant moving pictures, that was their fault.

This particular cheated audience member was told if he wanted his money back, to go on the street and sing for it. Whether it was this, or something else, eventually the public snapped and began hauling out cinema managers and beating them in the streets. By May, the mayors of Boston and Memphis had banned the showing of any Titanic pictures - moving or still- within the city.
But, where was Dorothy in all this? Tucked in the very back of the magazine, after another newsreel ad,, we get to the celebrity sighting and gossip section. Ed Lux of the Rex Film Exchange was in town, Dan Markowitz of Fox Pictures was as well, Arthur Schmidt of the Victor Film Company was seen having a lovely spa at a Turkish Bath, Sam Gobel of the St Louis Motion Picture Company has been walking up and down 42nd street, we don’t know if Southern film maker Henry Wasserman is still here but he might be, Dorothy Gibson survived the sinking of the Titanic, and the Director of Selig Pictures took some actresses to Santa Catalina for a swim and a photoshoot and they had a great time.
By the following edition, on May 2nd, Moving Picture World was also able to provide its readers with the first stills from “Saved from the Titanic” and a feature on Dorothy. Along with this, tucked in the editorials, the magazine finally published a piece of truthful news about the Titanic disaster-

Senator William Alden Smith … declined to grant permission to have the cinematopgraph make a record of the sessions of the committee. “The sessions” he is quoted as saying…”are solemn affairs and must not be hippodromed or commercialized”. He is, however, falling into a serious error in judgement-

…they sniffed.

As a matter of right, the camera man ought to have been permitted. The day of the enfranchisement of the motion picture will surely come .. which will give equal rights to the cinematographer and the newspaper man.

Then, among the illegal false advertising and reports of public brawls at the cinema, they ended with-

The lesson of the Titanic disaster and all its incidents can be made far more impressive by pictures that move than by mere words in cold letters.

my nephew is 3, turning 4 in august. he was born in covid so my sister still lived with us then😭
anyway, he goes into my room a lot and looks at all my miku merch. first time he said ‘whos that?’ and i told him her name is miku. he cant pronounce his K so he says ‘mitu’. whenever im in the car with my nephews they say ‘hey…hey…hey…i wanna watch miku’ until i play a video of her💀
my younger nephew (turned 2 in april), doesnt understand that he cant touch my figures and merch (he likes throwing stuff…😭) so i dont let him in my room, but my older nephew understands so he often goes in my room, points at all my vocaloid merch (even if its not miku, but maybe meiko or something lol) and gasps before saying ‘ITS MIKU!!’
anyway lol i just wanted to share this :)
he kinda knows rin and len but he says ‘rin??? len???’ when seeing them😭 sometimes calls them miku. (‘whos this?’ ‘miku.’ ‘thats rin actually. can you say rin?’ ‘RIN????’)
he also got excited when i went to miku expo (told him im going to see miku) and he said he wants to go.
i understand he just wants to be like his uncle, so hes mimicking, but its still cute😭
maybe one day if he likes miku when hes older i’ll take him to a concert :) but we’ll see
once he said ‘where’s miku?’ when i picked him up from school

Hey guys! Let us take a little break from the shitstorm that's Modern Horizons 3's leakage and have some fun. We all know and love the three-colored combinations. Whether we control the board while slamming huge artifacts in Esper or we attack for the win in Mardu, it's quite easy to see why it's awesome to play three colors. We know what they do mechanically. But what about their philosophy? What are those colors standing for? To make this really fun, let us associate this with a common trope or type of character. Let's start with the shards.

• Esper (WUB) - Esper is the mysterious antihero. Esper is the guy that comes into your salloon on Thunder Junction and you suddenly see all your patrons hiding in barrels or jumping through windows. You know his reputation. You know he could tear you and your salloon a new asshole if he wanted. But you also know he lives by a code. He has the power, he has the knowledge, and he's really messed up. But he tries, in his frustrating ways, to better the world. Media examples: Dexter Morgan, Stannis Baratheon, Magneto
  
• Grixis (UBR) - Oh boy... Grixis is a bully. But he's not your typical bully who used to give you wedgies in middle school while laughing with his idiotic jock friends. He doesn't do that shit... personally. For Grixis, is way more fun to make you believe he's your friend and then make you do stupid crap. He's charismatic. He's fun. He's wicked smart. He's a rulebreaker. He calls the teacher an asshole to his face. But following him and getting to know him, you realize he doesn't care about you. He's a narcissist. He only cares about himself. Grixis wants power and control. You are just his means to an end. Media examples: Greg Heffley (come on, you have to be a Multiverse-conquering Grixis psycho to hurt Rowley), Emperor Palpatine, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
  
• Jund (BRG) - If Grixis is the manipulative villain, Jund is the minion who asks "why should we sneak around when we can kill them now?" That village sits right on that mana-rich deposit you want to tap in and they don't want to evacuate? Send Jund. He'll clean up the village. Jund is rage, passion, and hatred all in one crazy package. For Jund, might makes right and if you've no might, you'll get his right... in your face. But Jund's not totally brainless. Jund loves freedom and, as powerful minions often do, scoffs at being a minion. That green part of him keeps him grounded, preventing him from giving in to his darkest urges, like Rakdos might do. Media examples: Sarah Kerrigan (Infected), Tuco Salamanca, pretty much any monstrous beast that acts on instinct...
  
• Naya (RGW) - Naya is the rebel (with or) without a cause. For Naya, freedom is the most important thing, even more important than Jund. While Jund wants freedom for himself, Naya wants freedom for all. Naya is the guy who runs naked through a packed stadium with "Stop big oil" written on his asscheeks. Naya is the ecoterrorist. If your plane's leader turns into a dictator, Naya will be the first to rebel against them. While an individualist, he can fight together with others if that means achieving his purpose. Media examples: Wildlings from ASOIAF, pretty much any Brujah vampire from VTM that hasn't fallen to the Sabbat and so on...
  
• Bant (GWU) - You're in the schoolyard and two of your classmates are having at it. All your fellow students are yelling "fight! fight!" You're the one who yells "Stop! Why can't we all be friends? Teacher!" Congratulations! You're Bant. Bant is the idealistic nerd. He believes in the rule of law. Bant thinks the Multiverse will be improved tremendously if only everyone will drop their weapons and hold hands. But that doesn't necessarily means Bant's defenseless. He's charismatic and his nice and optimistic nature helps him gain a lot of friends. Bant might not harm you. His fresh-out-of-prison friend, pierced from head to cock, will certainly do. Media examples: Rowley Jefferson (take that, Grixis Heffley!), Neville Longbottom, the Tau from 40K.
  

Now... the wedges!

• Abzan (WBG) - It's Thanksgiving Day and your Aunt Selesnya comes to dinner. You know what's going to happen. She's going to talk your ear off about how society isn't what it used to be anymore, how healthy values are thrown into the garbage for new, shiny stuff that will end up ruining society, how people today are too individualistic and don't give a shit about community. Then she's got too many beers and falls asleep... but Uncle Abzan, on the other hand, doesn't fall asleep. He agrees with what Selesnya's saying but unlike her, he's got the power and the ambition to change society according to his views. Abzan is making a webpage. Abzan's gathering followers. Abzan appeals to those in society who think like him. Abzan's creating a cult. Abzan takes control. It will take years, as Abzan's conservativism will not want sudden change. He's not Izzet, for fuck's sake, right? It will take years. But he'll manage it. Media examples: Logan Roy, Nurgle
  
• Sultai (BGU) - Sultai looks at the world with disgust. To alleviate some of it, he starts eating a banana. But... it lacks something. A bit more... je ne sais quoi, a bit more... more! He'll know it when he'll feel it. But how to modify that banana to be what Sultai wants it to be? Well, he'll enslave a village, use the villagers' blood in an arcane experiment, and create the perfect banana. If Sultai believes something can be improved, he'll do it at any cost. The entire Multiverse is his banana and we are Sultai's villagers. Media examples: Apocalypse, Clan Tzimisce from VTM
  
• Temur (GUR) - Temur is the dashing wilderness explorer, going where no man (or elf... or dragon) has ever gone. He's curious, courageous, clever, and comely. So many C's, he makes Kozilek envious. Temur feels at home both in a lab and in a bear cave. He's not afraid of pushing boundaries but he's mostly well-meaning. Media examples: Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Reed Richards.
  
• Jeskai (URW) - You're a young kid whose ass was kicked by some punks. You want to never have to experience something like this ever again. Thus, you want to train, both your body and your mind. Here comes Jeskai-san. He's wise. He's seen things. He's done things. He trains you. He's an asshole. He makes you wipe the floorboards. You see no sense in it. But when the time comes for you to wipe the board, who better than someone versed in Jeskai's ways to do so? Media examples: Miyagi-san, Hank McCoy
  
• Mardu (RWB) - Remember that Thanksgiving dinner? Well, here comes Uncle Mardu and boy, he makes Selesnya and Abzan seem like well-balanced folks. Mardu's a military man, like his father and his grandfather all the way to an obscure 19th century lieutenant that served in the Union Army and then retired to a farm in Rhode Island or something (but your Uncle Mardu knows everything about him). Mardu sees you and thrashes your parents for raising a "sissy". He tells you to eat more meat to gain muscles. The Army has no need of matchsticks. Mardu is a warrior through and through. His troops hate his fucking guts but they know he's efficient. He's not nice, though. Media examples: Pretty much most of the 40K Imperial Commissars, Madara Uchiha
  

Whoa! That's pretty long. What's your take on shard/wedges type of characters/philosophies? Do you have any other examples?

First
Previous
Sorry for the delay in getting this part out; been away visiting family so not had much time to put fingers to keyboard, plus I managed to have my phone stolen by a roller coaster and it took a white to get it replaced and be able to get into a few things - stupid two factor authentication! Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
+++++++++++++++++++
Y’Lek and K’Rim slowed their mad dash as they neared the armoury; there was no telling whether the Swarm agents had left any traps for them and the armoury was full of extremely energy dense materials and weapons which could potentially jeopardise the structure of the ship if employed in the right way. Grabbing some handy footholds they stopped and considered the imposing door in front of them.
After a few moments of effort K’Rim had eased off the casement off the door’s locking mechanism but could detect nothing amiss with the crystalline structure beneath. Bypassing the outer interface she placed a grasper to the innards and a small spark of bioelectric energy jumped into the crystal which glowed briefly as the uniquely patterned waveform was parsed and compared with the patterns of those permitted access. The door slid aside as they were granted entry with no unwanted surprises being triggered.
With a relieved chitter Y’Lek started inside only to be pulled back sharply as K’Rim pulled on his leg.
“Stop. Just because the door opens, doesn’t mean that it is safe.” K’Rim warned as she pulled a small disc out of one of her utility pouches. Snapping it easily she gently tossed it through the doorway after slowly counting out a grasper of seconds. The exothermic reaction had reached the point where the disc glowed fitfully in the infrared, while it emitted a clear UV light. K’Rim watched it carefully and her antennae twitched with the effort of picking up any slight sound.
The glow-disc struck some of the lockers which filled the armoury and ricocheted off around the room but nothing seemed to react to the heat and movement.
With a decisive clack of her mandibles K’Rim pulled herself through the doorway and into the armoury. Y’Lek followed close on her tarsus. It was immediately obvious that several sets of warrior equipment had been removed, along with copious numbers of weapons.
Y’Lek was surprised when K’Rim didn’t make for the remaining warrior gear but instead to the emergency pressure suits. Seeing the confused tilt of his head K’Rim explained “Although the room appears safe, we don’t know what they may have done while they were here but it is safe to assume that they would have ensured any of the most dangerous equipment could not be used against them.”
She passed a bundled pressure suit to Y’Lek and continued “The emergency gear and non-powered weapons are the least likely to have been tampered with and have the least amount of capacity for harming us even if they have been so we will have to make do with them until we can thoroughly check the rest of the equipment.”
Y’Lek thought for a moment before bobbing in agreement and starting to pull on the pressure suit, careful to sheath his claws with the hardened “gauntlets” integral to the suit before powering up the spiracle gas exchangers and carefully sealing them in place against his thorax. “Yes, I can see the risk now. Though it will potentially leave us vulnerable, it is better to be certain of our equipment than to die of over confidence.”
The emergency pressure suit came together quickly, living up to its name and the pair were quickly sealed against the cold, dry, and slightly strange tasting air that the aliens had been pumping into the Far Flung Seed and supplying them with a more familiar and moister mixture.
K’Rim passed him a set of the ceremonial but still functional weapons and the harness to hold them. They wouldn’t hold up long against a fusion blade or a particle lance but they were durable enough to give them a chance and were completely inert so could not have been sabotaged.
Only a couple of minutes after entering the armoury they swam back out into the corridor and sped off towards the arboretum.
+++++++++++++++++++
Smithy quickly sprayed a fluorescent marking on the uneven and root covered tunnel junction to identify which way they had come from. “How can such a small ship have so many damn tunnels?” he growled to himself.
“It’s not the size of the ship, it’s what you do with it that matters” quipped Hall.
“Yeah? Well, apparently in this case it was fill it with bloody tunnels.” deadpanned Smithy in response.
“Can it.” broke in Stroud before anyone else could get involved “You can discuss the relative merits of alien design philosophy on your own time; for now you need to focus.”
A chorus of “Sergeant” came back over the radio and the remainder of Delta and Echo buckled down and continued sweeping what even Stroud was prepared to admit was a seemingly endless series of tunnels with apparently zero overarching logic to their layout. Up until a few minutes ago they had been getting directional updates from some supposedly friendly ET’s in the control room but apparently they had suddenly just buggered off so now they were picking junctions that appeared to take them in the vague direction that had been indicated to them.
Stroud again cursed the fact that the maintenance drones brought by the initial engineering team hadn't been able to access this part of the ship and map it due to the tightly sealed blast doors that had protected the forest from the vacuum. Who could have imagined that there would have been so much structure hidden underneath and between the normal corridors and rooms? The three dimensional map they had been creating as they advanced was like something Jackson Pollock and H R Giger might have come up with on an acid trip.
They approached another intersection and slowed. After a quick glance between them, Mears and Jackson moved forward, taking cover behind Mears’ shield. They crept up to the junction and Jackson poked the muzzle of his shotgun, and its camera into the ragged space beyond. The feed showed several small tunnels radiating off at all angles, way too small for any of them to fit down. One navigable tunnel appeared to curve off back in the direction they came from, while another looked like it might go the right way.
Suddenly the camera and the end third of Jackson’s gun disintegrated into a cloud of superheated vapour, shards of glowing metal and smoking composites. With a scream Jackson jumped back, the outer weave on the gauntlet of his left hand shredded and smouldering. In a stunning display of muscle memory he ejected the internal magazine and disconnected the weapon from the backpack feed almost before his mind had caught up with what was going on.
Hands grabbed him as he was yanked further back into the corridor. He flung the remains of his shotgun down and it clattered and bounced down the tunnel in the vague direction of the junction. Jackson was conscious of Mears backing up towards him, shield held protectively to block as much of the tunnel as possible, while Smithy grabbed his forearm and inspected his hand. Stroud stepped over him and took up guard on Mears’ shoulder, weapon trained forward and sweeping what could be seen of the slightly larger space beyond this section of the tunnel.
Another “FOOOM!” as the tumbling wreckage of the shotgun was vaporised as it spun across the opening of the tunnel.
“Fuuuuuuuck me!” said Jackson, at last able to form words as the adrenaline induced tunnel vision started to clear.
“Well, how about you start by showing me whether you can still use your fingers and we can take it from there, eh?” Smithy said from where he was turning his hand from prone to supine again. “Looks like the inner layer of your glove is intact but both Simmonds and Jones complained of numbness after being hit. How’re you feeling?”
Jackson gingerly flexed his fingers and made a fist a few times but grunted as he felt the tips of his fingers tingle where they pressed into the material of his gloves “Feels weird - tingly like I sat on my hand or something.”
Smithy grunted to acknowledge this “OK, well shout out if it gets any worse; got it?”
He pulled Jackson to his feet and slapped him on the shoulder before they both turned back to face down the tunnel again. Jackson surreptitiously flexed his hand a few more times as he pulled out his sidearm and secured its retaining strap to his right wrist. He wasn’t too hopeful that the small pistol would be able to do too much against the ET’s, but it was better than walking around with nothing.
Stroud backed away from the junction where he had been very gingerly checking all the passageways with a camera barely poking out from the mouth of the tunnel they were in.
He stood up and turned to the security team “Ok, looks like there is something stuffed into one of the narrow tunnels - kind of like those shoulder guns the ET’s have, along with a stand and power supply. My guess is it has some kind of automated fire mode and decided that it really didn’t like Jackson’s gun waving around in front of it. Question is, how are we going to get rid of it? We can’t leave it behind in case we need to come back this way in a hurry.”
“I guess it will probably shoot anything we throw at it so grenades are out?” mused Mears
There followed a number of suggestions and comments.
“Can we get an angle on it and just shoot it?”
“How about we let Jackson distract it some more while the rest of us blow it away?”
“We need to avoid the power pack if the two dead ET’s from the corridor are anything to go by.”
Stroud listened for a minute before cutting the chatter short. “Ok, so I think our best bet is to use the ballistic shield to bait it, while someone else blows the top off it from the other side of the tunnel; Mears you and Jackson handle the shield; keep a tight hold on it as those shots release a lot of energy when they hit. Smithy - I’ve marked its location so you hug the other side of the tunnel and draw a bead on it. Wait for it to hit the shield before popping out and taking your shot; and for the love of all that you hold dear do it fast, Ok?”
The team nodded in agreement.
“I will be there to pull Smithy back as soon as he has popped out of cover, just in case.” concluded Stroud before ushering them to their positions. After a few moments of shuffling around each other in the tight space they were ready.
Smithy led the countdown. “Ready. Steady. Go!” Instantly Mears and Jackson shoved a third of the ballistic shield out into the corridor and planted themselves on top of the section remaining in the corridor only a moment ahead of a bright flash and the shield heaving under the impact.
Seemingly almost simultaneously Smithy leaned out and fired, the boom of his shotgun mingling with the “foom!” of the vaporising surface of the shield. Stroud almost bodily lifted him as he pulled him back from the edge.
For a second they were still as they sprawled around the opening.
“A good hit!” called Stroud as he reviewed the few frames of footage from Smithy’s gun camera between jumping out and back in again.
Mears stood up and inspected the sorry remains of his ballistic shield, now missing most of the top edge. “Great, well I hope there aren’t too many more of those hidden around as I’m running out of shield.”
+++++++++++++++++++
N’Dar’s antennae quivered inside his protective suit. That last series of weapons fire had been far too close for comfort and he still had two more locking systems to bypass. With a furious click of his mandibles he redoubled his efforts, running his bioelectric patterns through a series of filters, amplifiers and other signal processing systems to trick the door into thinking he had a right to open it.
The rot take the claw that had been delaying the aliens! He was supposed to have more time than this!
Next

I feel like a horrible person, and no matter what I do, I can never be redeemed. Before I got a hamster, I knew I wouldn't want her to be in a small cage, so I did some research on hamster cages, and my research told me that the minimum cage size for a hamster is 450 square inches, so I found a cage a little over 450, thinking it would be ok, but it turns out the minimum isn't even 450, it's way bigger. Even then, I gave her an appropriately sized wheel, a sand bath, hideouts, and other enrichment for her well being. But I felt like it wasn't enough, so I bought her an even bigger cage, over 850 square inches, and bought her even more hideouts, but I still feel like an incompetent owner, and no better than an animal abuser. The only reason why I'm still alive is because if I'm not around, no one will be able to take care of her, I can't give up on her. I'll never forgive myself for the mistakes I made, and I don't expect anyone else to forgive me either, and no matter what I do, I'll never be redeemed. When she's gone, I'll no longer have a purpose on this planet, and I can't make any more mistakes that could possibly affect someone else.