Example of special circumstance writing

Hi all, as the title states - I am looking for feedback on my pay plan. I've worked at a large new and used Subaru dealer in MA for the past 2 years. Our current pay plan is as follows:
\ 100% commission based with some bonus opportunities from the dealer and manufacturer, no hourly/base pay **

• $200 mini on new/used, or 20% front end profit after they take $1,000 pack off the top (uncapped)
• after you sell and deliver 15 for the month, you get an extra $30 retroactive
• if your survey scores from the new cars (survey sent from manufacturer) scores remain at 95% (any return below 9/10 tears your score down drastically) you get an extra $850 for the month (from my dealership)
• once you have 3 new cars for the month, the manufacturer pays $70 per new car, and if your survey scores are high enough you get an extra $50 per new car (total of $120)
• our BDC department is oddly structured as a management position here rather than an entry level position (everyone in the role was previously a sales person as well). We call it the INT department, basically internet sales. Their department works with customers over email/text/phone calls (not in person) for scheduling test drives, they also follow up on every lead from online traffic (sales people do not have access to any online leads, we can only meet a customer by answering the phone, greeting a fresh customer when they arrive to the dealership, or by referral from a previous customer). However, if BDC collects a deposit on a vehicle and then hands the deal off to a sales person (the sales person is then responsible for getting all paperwork/insurance info/trade appraisal completed, and once the vehicle is registered we then spend about 60 mins going over each and every button and feature in the car with the customer...) I expect to be with a INT handoff customer about 4-5 hours all-in-all in most circumstances - and my commission is capped on every BDC handoff to $200 - even if there was $7,000 profit after they took their $1,000 pack off the top.

Right now, just about every single car leaving the lot is a $200 mini... we are selling new cars below employee pricing, and I don't think I've hit 15 once so far this year - it's been very rough to say the least. We have no receptionist at our dealership, which means that us sales people are responsible for answering/redirecting all incoming phone calls, as well as taking messages for others. We are also responsible for stocking in new vehicles, snow removal, writing online car descriptions (that one is funny to me because it seems like a task more designated for the INT team, but who am I to decide that?), and so many more tasks that most other dealerships have other employees to take care of. I am feeling so much frustration because management has been promising us for more than 6 months that volume is expecting to be ramping up and it hasn't - if anything, it's been steadily slower and yet they have hired two new sales people (14 of us total now). I am only paid for the vehicle I sell and I feel the work here is not matching the compensation. Hell, even when the market was "great" I did not even clear $7,500 for a 5 week month delivering 18 cars.
I absolutely LOVE my coworkers, and I really do look up to my GSM and SM's - they have taught me so much and do so every day, however they aren't paying my bills. If things do not change NOW, I will lose everything my apartment, my car - it's not like I'm not putting in the hours and the hard work. My closing ratio is high and my surveys/reviews are excellent - the traffic is horrifically low, and its like another slap in the face blowing every deal out to a mini on top of it. I feel as though they are expecting sales people to take the hit and ride out the slow market, all while higher-ups are reaping volume bonus incentives.
I guess my question here is: what is your pay plan like? what are your thoughts on mine? can you give me any advice? thank you in advance for reading all of this, and I really do appreciate any and all feedback. wishing you all a busy and prosperous May!

So I have to maintain a certain “sang froid” at work. I am in the child welfare field. I am a Deputy Juvenile Officer for the State of Missouri. Missouri has an archaic child welfare system our version of “CPS” (Childrens division/CD) cannot assume protective custody of a juvenile, that’s my job. As such I end up working a lot of abuse and neglect investigations. Also my duties include investigating, arresting, transporting and prosecuting juveniles that violate crimes in my judicial circuit, I am generally assigned sex crime investigations and the most serious felonies, I have a military background as a light infantryman and spent nearly two years in active combat. 2 of my coworkers are incompetent, one can’t use a computer or do any function of their job, I took half his work and another deputy took half. I have to write another deputies legal documents as she can’t do it (she works wonders with our behavorial health/special needs kids though so that’s ok!!!). I manage a caseload of over 120 juveniles either for abuse or neglect and felony law violations (I also take probation cases). I have been told by numerous other workers I’m partnered agencies, superiors, and even judges that without me the child welfare system in this part of the state would collapse. I’ve closed a lot of cases and kept a lot of kids safe. Everyone tells me what a great job I do and how happy they are that I’m on their team. The only problem is I can’t keep going everyday. I have to keep my military bearing and stay calm and not react emotionally despite the situation, that’s not a problem. The problem is there’s no relief in sight. All our juvenile detention facilities are full, if a kid committed a murder I don’t know if I could place them in a secure facility. In addition the counties are made at how much detention costs them and are starting to withhold funding. All our foster homes are filled to capacity and then some. We are leaving kids in questionable and dangerous situations because of new state directives to cut the kids in foster care. My agency has been on a hiring freeze for the last 2 years due to budget issues. Our circuit judges refuses overtime payments because she says we can just find time during the week to take off, which is a violation of state regulations, the state I work for. I get to work at 7 and leave at 6. There is no help in sight, I’m drowning, all attempts to address the issues through the chain of command fall on deaf ears and a “we’ll figure it out”, which in the past has been me being told to find a way to get something done (I actually generally have pulled some genuine miracles out of my ass). For ensuring the safety of the children in this area I am paid a total of $42,500. What’s sad is I’m not stressed I’m used to the “it is what it is” and actually feel like my productive and work quality has increased. But what scares me is i no longer have sympathy. Even in Afghanistan I had sympathy for the afghans and even the Taliban. I feel bad for the kids but have no sympathy for the families and that’s what worried me. I just needed to tell someone this. Comment ideas and suggestions the attorney general of Missouri will not return my letters.

Hello!
I hope you are doing well! :)
I don’t really know how to start this post, as you can imagine I would like to find that special someone :D It’s definitely not easy, and I don’t have too much hope when writing this post, but I feel a lot like writing! So maybe I will try my luck!
About me:
I am a pretty normal person, I like simple things and even though I always thought that was bad (when I was an edgy teenager) the older I get the more I am keen on having a simple yet beautiful life. And I am working towards that right now.
I have not had an easy life, let’s just put it that way, so I have dealt with depression for a long time as well as anxiety. I want to be honest about this because it can be a dealbreaker for some people. I am getting better thanks to my therapist and medication.
In my free time I love cross stitching, watching tv shows and listening to music (I am really excited about this Twenty One Pilots album coming soon!) i also love going to the cinema, taking a walk, going to the beach and swimming (although I don’t swim very well) and traveling (I would love to travel more).
I also would love to read more (I feel like I am blocked right now when it comes to book) and learn how to use a camera properly as I also like photography. I also would love to find some penpal friends (in case you’re interested in writing letter let me know! :) )
I consider myself to be a good listener, loyal and trustful. I don’t drink or smoke (never have) and I am looking for someone who doesn’t smoke either or who drinks too much.
What I value the most in a relationship is honesty and communication. I prefer to know the truth even if it hurts than living in a lie. I also like to be able to communicate how I feel and I also expect my partner to be able to communicate with me whatever they are feeling (especially if it is regarding the relationship). I also love hugs and holding hands.
I am greysexual. Sex and sexual attraction are not important for me in a relationship, so if it is important to you, we may not be a good match!
Physically I am quite short (1,54 cm), slim, short wavy hair. I do not really have any style when it comes to clothes but my favorite trend right now is cottagecore and fairycore.
What I am looking for is:
Someone honest, caring and who loves hugs! Who also believes communication and honesty are fundamental in a relationship.
As I said sexual attraction is not important for me, but I really like someone who takes care of themselves (I know this may sound basic, but who showers regularly, who likes to style their clothes, who takes care of their stuff and who is organized and tidy). I do not drink or smoke so I would prefer to date someone who doesn’t drink/smoke either.
Someone around my age and preferably from Europe due to the distance, but I am also open to get to know people from other parts of the world:)
Thanks for reading this! Have a good day/ night!

I know there were some threads about Needle Darts before, but none ever discussed the effect of precious metals, so I thought I'd ask.
Needle Darts (cantrip, all lists) says:

You shape three needles out of a piece of metal in your possession and send them flying in a tight group toward one target. Make a spell attack roll against your target's AC. The needles deal 3d4 piercing damage and might cause bleeding. The needles impart any special properties of the metal that forms them; for instance, cold iron needles deal additional damage to creatures with weakness to cold iron. All the needles are made of the same metal, and the metal returns to you after the attack.

And while the spell gives cold iron as an example, cold iron itself does not actually have the additional effect given in the description (& neither do cold iron shields or cold iron armor). It's only cold iron weapons that do have that effect.
That leads me to believe that the spell is meant to use the effects from the precious metal weapons description, not the effects of the precious metal itself, e.g. applying weakness & ignoring resistance from silver weapons.
Shouldn't this also work with metals like Abysium, Djezet, Inubrix, Noqual, and Siccatite?

Abysium weapons have one fewer property rune slot, but they deal 1d4 poison damage on a successful Strike, and on a critical hit, the target is sickened 1, or sickened 2 with high-grade abysium.
Critical hits made with a djezet weapon against a prepared or spontaneous spellcaster cause the target to lose one prepared spell or one spontaneous spell slot unless the target succeeds at a Will save (DC 30 for standard-grade or DC 40 for high-grade). The spell is randomly selected from among the caster's highest three spell levels (and then from among the spells prepared in that level, for a prepared spellcaster).
A weapon crafted from inubrix reduces the weapon's damage die by 1 size. However, they ignore the resistance to damage from metal armor's armor specialization effects and the circumstance bonus to AC from metal shields. Strikes with inubrix weapons don't trigger the Shield Block reaction from a metal shield. Weapons that normally deal 1d4 damage can't be crafted from inubrix.
Noqual weapons are inimical to summoned creatures and spell effects that can be damaged by conventional attacks. Against such targets, a Strike with a noqual weapon gains a circumstance bonus to damage equal to twice the number of weapon damage dice. In addition, noqual weapons disrupt spellcasters' concentration, causing them to become stupefied 1 for 1 round on a critical hit.
Siccatite weapons automatically gain either a flaming or frost property rune, for hot and cold siccatite respectively, even if they aren't otherwise enchanted; this rune can't be removed, and it deals 1d8 damage instead of 1d6 damage. This uses one of the weapon's property rune slots as normal. High-grade siccatite gains a greater flaming (hot siccatite) or greater frost (cold siccatite) property instead.

Most of these effects would be fairly weak, as spellcasters don't crit that often vs AC anyway. And I'm not sure if it works with Inubrix: it says you can't craft d4 weapons from Inubrix, but maybe it's possible to magically form needles with it?
However, Noqual vs summoned creatures (+2 +spell-rank damage) and hot/cold Siccatite (+1d8 damage; high-grade: ignore fire/cold resistance) both seem fairly good options for Needle Darts. Does this work?
p.s.: Can you use Warpglass with Needle Darts?

So I apparently misread RSI and the post guidance for how insurance is applied. It's not clear. It looks like if you upgrading to a higher insurance warbond should add both with the higher option applied. I guess what that really means is you have to have some super special opportunity to upgrade from non LTI to LTI? Can someone give an example of what that actually looks like? Like what is the wording in the upgrade menu when that happens? I feel annoyed blowing way more than $40 on a ten year old starter pledge when the whole point was taking advantage of a warbond. I would have just bought the dang thing separately.

2304-2306 Operation Orange Blade: This is a two year short war, fought between the neo-national Separatist the Rangers of Anger, against the Tribes of New Canaan leading the NCR to aid their ally to secure their borders.
2300-2308 Operation Brass Thunder: A slow burn clean up effort to stabilize western and south western Colorado after large amounts of refugees and fatalists flood into the region because of the Wars of Bonita and Escondito.
Side note: it was a violence heavy conflict due to large about of BOS deserters in the region that created powerful militias, use recovered weapons cashes leading to an unexpected brutal slog.
2310-2315 Operation Mountain Reign; Establishing infrastructure through out the Colorado Territory and establishing an alliance network within the region.
2310: The Maxson Madness/ Operation Freezing Icarus
A Impromptu raid and neighborhood shootout of a local ba grill being ran by and housing alleged R.O.T. sympathizers this event ended up setting the ground work for the Venturan civil war of 2313, after several member fled the country and went to Ventura.
2310- ongoing Operation Desert Rain: The Long range regional focus on maintaining stability and peace in and between the allied territories and this extensions while monitoring the Fatalist cult.
2313-2315 The Venturan Civil War: Not to be confused with the War in Ventura, the Venturan Civil War was a conflict that started after the Republic of Texas withdraws support of the fledgling country leading to mass panic and war to ensue in the power struggle. This event was ended by the NCR invasion in 2315 Side note: The NCR would use this opportunity to get the ROT Border with little resistance after hearing the group if Fugitives were spotted around the Ventura area.
2315 The mobilization for the invasion of ROT: Due to the ever-increasing pressure from the Fatalist Cult and their second somewhat loss after fighting two ideological wars against the ROT, an invasion was launched after a Red Raider group was caught trying to sneak into the town of Anonci. Before landing within ROT territory a standby was called due to a weighing political pressure back in NCR against possible ten year long war.
Notable events: the dissolving of the MWBoS ROT Alliance: Due to unexplained circumstances, the Mid-Western Brotherhood of Steel, after mysterious learning about the ROT involvement with the back door funding of the Fatalist Cult and the wild nature of their actions the alliance was broke and War was declared. 2312
The MWBoS-FC War The prolonged finally declared war against the FC. 2312
The NCR-MWBoS concurrent Non Aggression pact ROT/ War effect This discussion series ended with the NCR and MWBoS enacting a nonaggression pact and a semi-alliance as they both declared war against the ROT.
Side note: By this point, the Republic of Texas had expanded into Oklahoma, as well as parts of Louisiana. It had overstretched most of its resources, and trying to keep all areas properly equipped was now a well and weakened state that the FC was willing to turn on their once benefactors.
Additional side note with all these failing and no backers it’s was only a matter of time before subtractions broke off and multifaceted civil war would dissolve the fragile union.
2315-2318 Operation Flash Reaction: The stabilization of Civil War Ventura As part of the invasion plan taking over the only possible ally of the Republic of Texas was mandatory though Ventura has fallen to multiple war lords lead factions it’s largest was still looking to get into the ROT’s good graces. This but if knowledge lead to a Special Interest Task Force being sent into directly eliminate the leader of the largest war lord faction who technically had the remaining standing government and the majority of resources under his control.
Additional side note:
After the dissolving of the ROT the plan to stabilize Ventura took the majority of the newly directed effort. This endeavor took three years but only because it was difficult to squash all the small pockets of resistance across the region. With no hope the ROT would come to help or any other nation to assist, the smaller groups later surrender or fled the nation.
2319-2325 The Rise of the Grizzly Brotherhood and their Clash with the NCR
After the Venturan Civil War and Operation Flash Reaction a couple of the remnants of several different factions came together to form that most terrifying alliance in the entire Western United States. The Grizzly Brotherhood. This Masterminded collective set up shop in the great expanse of Wyoming just out of the NCRs reach but not for long. After a scout patrol ambushed a group of NCR Soldiers a war was waged between the two factions that lasted six years.

Hi all,
I have posted here before (a while back) and I want to post here again to field advice from the online community. I (28F) and my nesting partner (32F) have been seeing a married couple (38,39F) for six months. This happened organically — and we all met at a dinner through a mutual friend. Whilst things were quite slow moving between me and A, my partner and B were quicker with admitting feelings for the other. Since we all realised we have feelings for each other (as in, I like one half of the married couple and my partner likes the other) we have been somewhat of a polycule since.
Now the point: my partner’s girlfriend has been going through severe burn out. And, the state of the marriage between her and her wife hasn’t been the healthiest (think, not having sex, going to therapy, lots of miscommunication). Initially, we all sat down together after trailing seeing eachother for four weeks and I pulled the plug — stating that I didn’t think their marriage was strong enough to handle secondary relationship. After some time apart, we all reconvened and things seemed to have improved from their side. So I agreed that I felt more comfortable and we all proceeded to see each other fully. However, throughout seeing A, I have noticed that in her marriage B seems to defer quite a bit to her wishes. They operate on a primary / secondary basis, and whilst I don’t probe into the state of their relationship beyond what affects me or my partner (think need to know basis) — it’s obvious that Bs burn out, the lack of intimacy between them, and Bs recent resignation from her job have all contributed to their marriage coming under severe strain.
Now I’ve got that context out of the way: at the weekend I politely pulled out of a scheduled sleepover with A because my partner was quite anxious post-Covid and needed my time. Sometimes, she’ll have episodes of anxiety where she’ll feel quite alone and worried about being abandoned — and last week after an illness, she was in that space. This decision seems to have catalysed a big response from A behind closed doors, which affected B (who is burnt out, autistic). Separately, my partner has apparently been rapid fire texting B (her girlfriend) nonsense stuff like “I feel abandoned by you, everyone hates me” etc. this has lead to B sending a text to the group chat (not even privately) saying she has to break up with my partner, step back from the polycule, and she has no energy left for anything.
This has deeply upset my partner, humiliated her, and triggered a shame/abandonment wound. In her frenzy, she’s essentially criticising my every move at home, wailing, waking up in tears or angry at me, and intimating my decision to continue seeing A is a “non ethical” one. When I wished B well — she also told me I was “betraying her” and should be “defending her” (rather than acknowledging Bs decision to step back, as someone who is not well, and wishing her the best).
This behaviour from my partner also extends into other areas of our life. For example, even when things were fine, she told me she didn’t feel comfortable with me having dates over to the house (we have our own bedrooms, space isn’t a factor) — but was fine with A sleeping over. And is now trying to make me cancel a pre planned dinner date I have with someone at the weekend because I’ll be abandoning her if I go.
At this point - I’m stuck. Yes I can be sensitive to where she is at. That might include not having my date over for dinner at the weekend. But I also think her behaviour is not right, and I feel pressured to stop seeing my dates due to her circumstances. What can I do ethically?

You know... had to find a place and there is a subreddit for everything. Glad I found this place. I'm just going to write because I want to beat the living shit out of this man every time I see him and I need to calm my ass down. My left leg is itching to land a roundhouse on this man.
A few months ago, I was talking about cars with a neighbor who lived across the street from me. We usually have talks about his car, my car, and my bike, and we talk about old-school cars. Just one dude having a fun conversation with another.
I had left my garage open, and my dogs. I have 2 of them. One I rescued from a family who couldn't keep it. The other landed on my lap and I've been taking care of it and is now considered my own.
Well, these 2 got out, and started roaming around about 70 ft from my property. Started sniffing around and found the scent of another dog and was curious. I didn't notice this at first of course.
They end up in this man's front yard. Who knows maybe they marked their territory a little drizzle here and there on their grass. Anyway, this man comes out and starts yelling "Get your dog off my yard". I didn't hear him at first or could make out what he was saying, and I realized my dogs had gotten out. I call my dogs, and they are well-trained, they both respond quickly and come running back.
I was a bit offended damn man. They meant no harm. Don't have to yell and shit you know. They are smelling another dog. They are interested in finding out more about this other animal that took a shit and piss in your yard. That's what dogs do. Anyway, I yelled back sorry! I meant it, I was sincere about it. I even started walking over there to show concern of course. He does not respond to me other than saying loudly, "Leash your dog". At that point, I'm over it, my buddy and I crack some jokes about the dude to laugh it off.
Like wtf got up this guy ass at 9 pm? Do you stare out the window all night looking for dogs that may end up in your front yard? We have a good laugh and we talk some more car, my dogs are cool with my buddy. Animals know instinctively who is friendly and who isn't. Oddly that's what I've noticed.
The next morning, after I have taken my kids to school. This jackass walks up to me in his version of workout clothes. I have never seen him ever since I've been taking my kids to school every morning but today was a special day. He has his airpods on, sneakers, and running shorts. Then he comes up to me and talks some mad shit. He's obviously spent the entire night thinking about how he's going to put me in my place or some shit. I just tell the guy to walk away. He says to me "What are you going to do about it?" Say what? What is this? Do what, I asked you to get out of my face right?
Jesus man... this dude, is pushing like the mid-50s to early 60's. I'm younger obviously, I'm thinking you trying to go toe to toe? I tell him to walk away. He tells me his wife is Korean and I'm Korean so he's trying to make some level of connection here, implying he knows something about my culture and he is disappointed as he should know there is some level of cultural impact I should have being a Korean and the way I have responded to him is not to his liking. Thus, I must show some level of respect or bend a knee or some weird shit, as if he understood Koreans to be something different than I am. Entitled as fuck this guy. He wants to feel superior and wants to be bowed down to. A total sense of entitlement right? Superiority complex of some kind. Fuck he annoys the fuck out of me. I keep calm and tell him to get the fuck out of my face but nicer. "Just leave man, no need for you to be in front of me, just gotta go move along," is what I told him.
No offense but I'm looking at this white dude here, and look I can say it because my uncle is white, married my aunt and we had a great relationship. No disrespect but who the fuck is this dude to start bringing up Korean this Korean that, we're in the US man. He acts disrespectful to me and gives me the middle finger as he walks away after me telling the guy on at least four other occasions to get going and stay out and away from my personal space. I'm like whatever, I'm over it. He means nothing really. He means less to me than let's say, a piece of rubber or something. I could care less.
Then he went ahead and told the HOA that my dogs had taken multiple shits in his yard, and I have never bothered to pick up after them. I make sure to pick up shit especially if it's on someone else's yard right. Of course, I respond back to HOA, and tell them, they got bigger things to worry about and they really have bigger shit to worry about than some bs complaint.
I'm sure that got that little ball sack of low-life fucking pissed right. I mean I got 2 tiny dogs. Each weighs less than 10lbs. One is around 6 lbs other is around 7.5 lbs. They are not fucking pit bulls here. Apparently, he also said my dogs were vicious.
That never went far. Anyway, yesterday, my kids got home from school, they wanted to visit a neighborhood friend and left the garage open. A lady was walking by. She was Asian, I can tell. How? I have cameras. I was also upstairs and looked out my window which is directly above the garage because I didn't hear the garage door close.
Well these 2 little shits went barking at her. She didn't flinch just kept on walking. I tell the kids close the garage. Today the big man over there and another lady who lives across the street from him, (I suppose birds of a feather flock together) rang my doorbell after I dropped my son off at school. I come downstairs, and this asshole pounds my door to show his impatience. I'm thinking cops? I open the door it's this asshole and his neighborhood lady friend.
I ask them what's the visit for, she tells me that when she was walking yesterday, my dogs "attacked" her and the dickhead standing next to her adds more dramatic impact and says, they even bit her. I'm fucking laughing inside. I saw the whole thing myself from upstairs. The lady my dogs barked at was Asian, her hair was black, I can still see her face from my upstairs bedroom window. I saw my dogs run up and bark at her and sniff her shoes and bark some more before my kids called them in. This lady was covered in long white sleeve and long white walking pants, white sneakers, a hat to cover the sun, and a face mask because she's Asian of course and we all hate the sun. Her walking stature was that of a woman in her mid 40 to 50's, and this lady in front of me that was supposedly attacked was again not Asian, and the lady claiming that she got attacked is about 30 years older, not even capable of walking no more than 200 feet from her property. She does not wear walking attire obviously made in China or Korea. I know because I'm Korean and older women wear exactly that type of clothing in Korea or Asia when they walk in daylight. They like to avoid the sun, but get their walks in. Jesus.... the fucking lies in this shit is humor at this point.
The lady in front of me is too old, let alone is capable to walk past my property or take daily walks. I work at home remotely man, I would have noticed if this lady was to type to take walks at 3 pm. I pick my kids up and I'm active outside during that time.
This lying POS goes a bit further and says, he thinks my dogs even broke skin. I look at her finger. I see nothing. No bite marks nothing, not even a scratch. No blood. Just straight-up lies. I apologize to the lady regardless. I tell her I'll cover her medical expenses (which means medical report, and doctor bill) she stutters a little, says no need. If she broke skin, and my dogs bit her, she would be at my house the minute it happened. Fucking lying ass dumb idiots. This man now dragged this lady into his lies you know.
Then I look at this mother fucker in the eye and my fucking legs are twitching, and in my mind, I want to land a roundhouse, I gauged the distance, and it would land on the right side of his face. Shit would have been a 10/10 perfect kick I'm thinking.... yea dipshit, something else you should know about Koreans, most of us take some sort of martial arts early in our youth and that never really stops. Seeing how you say you know so much about my culture, did that not enter your fucking head?
Anyway, I look at this sorry excuse for a man, a fucking coward and I ask him why he's here? If the lady is the one who got bit, then perhaps this is between me and her, right? He says he's there with her because he cares. Like hell, you do. You dragged this lady in your lies and she's going along with you but it's not the truth. You sorry ass POS, now dragged another individual into your BS. You still can't get over our last encounter and you are dying to come over and start some new shit. I asked you to walk away, but you didn't like it. You felt disrespected. In your spare time, you've been scheming ways to get back because you were never satisfied.
Anyway, he brings my dogs up again and says he'll call the police. I tell him to do what he's gotta do. That pissed him off because I called his bluff and he can't pull through and execute. I'm fucking with his ability to do anything about it. He now feels small again.
He said I should leave the neighborhood. I bought this fucking house, so I tell him you have money? You wanna buy me out? He has none, he says, "I don't want another house" Okay well then shut the fuck up right. I tell him at this point he should leave. The audacity of this little shitbag to tell me to move out of my own house is something else. Once again this sense of entitlement, where do you get it from?
Anyway, he's giving me the middle finger this whole time like a bitch hiding behind his safety blanket or something right. He's doing all kinds of weird shit right now. Like throws both fingers up, turns around does a 180, and gives me another two fingers. He's doing this like 10 times. What the fuck is wrong with this guy right? In front of the old lady which he seemed to have convinced to carry out the lies with him. I can tell at this point, she's about had it. She no longer wants to be involved. Again, if a person got bit by a "vicious dog" and was bleeding, she would not have acted this way right? She got called out on her hand, she tried to play along with his lead, how my dogs broke the skin, getting bit by them... all that, but she's got no bite marks, and my dogs don't bite. I know this. At the end she tells me she doesn't want my dogs on her yard, but she's okay with other dogs on her yard. So it's a personal thing, okay no worries I tell her.
Then he brings up the culture thing again. "You know my wife is Korean.... she's disgusted with you...blah blah" I respond, "I am Korean and my entire family is Korean and they would be disgusted with you," and then I tell him, "You don't understand us Koreans, we have mutual respect and honor, you have none, and that's why you're not getting any"
Guy walks away looking as small as he is, caught in his lies. When I knew all along what happened, his face turns fucking tomato red. Just what the fuck? How sick is this guy in the head? Anyway, I don't expect anything, just thought I'd write, for the internet and the entire world.

If there’s anyone who will relate to this, I know it’s the ENFJ gang: have you had your authenticity questioned when you’re really and truly just trying to show love? How do you modulate your behavior to “correct” for this?
Illustrative example: my best friend’s (ISTJ) spouse (I believe ESFP) used to reeeeeeeeally not fuck with me because of how effusive I am (as I understand it, the spouse thought that I was trying to get with my best friend when there has literally never been aaaaaaaaany romantic/sexual chemistry between us; my best friend is like a sibling to me) (((also not that this matters but I’ve been with my spouse for like 6 years, and the animosity toward me started about 4-5 years ago))). I LOVE to dole out words of affirmation (not trite, hollow words of affirmation like “you’re doing great sweaty” but like “hey man hanging out with you today just reminded me of how lucky I am to have such a dear friend in my life; thank you for always making me feel seen and validated”). So when my best friend’s spouse started to show signs of receptiveness to a possible friendship with me, I think I got a little too excited and sent the spouse a message being like “my spouse and I think you’re awesome and we had so much fun with you yesterday” (this is a major bastardization of the actual message I sent but that’s the general gist). Now my best friend is like “hey my spouse thought that was pretty sus, you gotta dial it down.”
But like,,,,,,,,,,I’m just leading with Fe ): Being a human and navigating the world for the first time (as we are all doing), just trying to figure out who you are and where you fit in, is a pretty difficult yet often thankless job. I feel so happy and special when someone tells me that they love/appreciate me, so when I feel that way about someone in my life, I don’t see the point in holding back. Like why would I NOT want to make your day even just a little bit brighter. Anyways apparently my best friend’s spouse is not the only one who thinks I’m trying to pull some Machiavellian shit; when I relayed this all to my spouse (ESTJ), I learned that my MIL (ESFJ) also internally side-eyes me when I’m effusive with her.
Any ENFJs have thoughts/advice on how to navigate being an extroverted feeler without being (what an Fi user might describe as) “over the top”? How can I show love in a way that doesn’t seem like I have some ulterior motive when I literally just want to tell you that you mean a great deal to me?

With the game being popular and leaving a few choice questions unanswered I think there’s one point that’s been bugging me since I finished the game that I think answers a lot of those unanswered questions
Of course spoilers from here out and sorry for weird formatting I’m on mobile also TLDR at the bottom
So I’ll go over the widely accepted points leading up to this. The pool was created by people from the future to prevent some kind of Mass Extinction event from destroying humanity as we know it and Edward Crow’s father disrupted the process of bringing people back while Edward himself continued the process of mining the roots and further disrupted the time travel device. Pretty much all of that is confirmed in game very explicitly. But there are a few questions that remain unanswered; why choose 1988 to come back? What was the disaster that cause the process to begin with? What are the numbers 2106 supposed to mean?
Now a lot of what I’ve seen for theory’s on the answers above are fairly in line, the disaster was some kind of global warming or climate crisis because it parallels with the Crows abuse of the roots as corroborated with some paintings in blood that appear later in the game. But I have one question that I haven’t seen anywhere else in discussions about the game (not that it isn’t there I just haven’t seen it) that I think provides a better argument for the disaster being a plague caused by a bootstrap paradox.
My question is……..Why in that location specifically? Maybe it’s just bc I’m from the ATL area I was super curious why the British devs chose that area for the setting of the game. Imagine your world is dying and you HAVE to find a way to prevent it from ever happening, (presumably after trying everything else bc I doubt time travel and potentially destroying all of reality is anyone’s first pick) why build your saving grace in Atlanta, Georgia? It isn’t a major metropolitan area, it’s not the capital of the U.S or some huge political force and it’s certainly NOT super open to change especially in the later 80’s. So why Atlanta? My theory is because it’s the home for the Center of Disease Control. That’s the only real reason to pick the ATL area for your last ditch effort to prevent a disaster. If they could get the disease in front of medical experts and have them analyze the infection and create a cure then the disaster would never really happen in the first place.
But then that begs the question of why 1988? Now here’s where I think the bootstrap paradox comes into play.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term it basically describes a thought experiment of time travel when an event is repeated due to itself causing a causal loop. Say a time traveler was a huge fan of Mozart, so he travels back in time to see him but when he gets to the time period where Mozart was popular he finds there is no Mozart. So he decides to write all of Mozart’s music and perform them himself under the name Mozart, thus “creating” the persona of the famous artist. The question becomes who originally wrote Mozarts music? It’s a surprisingly common trope in pop culture: Back to the Future with Chuck Berry’s song “Johnny B. Good” all of Skynet from the Terminator series, even my example above is stolen from Dr. Who.
So how is Crow Country a BSP? I think the time travelers from the future picked 1988 because it was the first time the disease was documented in official records, from Elaine’s trip to the hospital. I also think the disease was caused from the disruption of the pool which is why they never understood its origin enough to re-engineer a cure and why Edward Crow could. In my theory as well I don’t think the tougher and more diverse enemies later in the game were caused by the CC team further excavating the roots, I think it was caused by people who were already infected coming through the portal. It doesn’t really make sense for them to be from Edward digging up more of the roots, he had been doing that for years up until the start of the game. So something else had to change over the short period of time shown in the game itself and I think that’s infected people coming through hoping to be cured since it should have been long enough from when the first “Guest” arrived that the cure had been developed.
Finally for the two endings of the game. The bad ending obviously is the one where you don’t take the cure and decide to (presumably) let everyone die from the infection, thus burying the cure and dooming all of humanity. The good ending is you decide to trust Crow and take the cure, thus saving yourself and potentially others by the cure being able to be synthesized from your blood. I think that’s also why Crow isn’t able to describe the future yet when he comes back out of the pool, because by that point in the timeline you haven’t picked whether to save everyone or not.
TLDR; Crow Country is a bootstrap paradox cause by the bacterial disease that develops from coming out of the pool. That’s why the pool was built(?) in the ATL area, why the time travelers chose 1988 and why the two endings have greater meaning beyond just the fate of your characters that survived.
Feel free to tell me if I’m wrong or poke holes in this theory I just couldn’t stop thinking about it and wanted to put it out there!

First / Previous / Royal Road / Patreon (Read 12 Chapters Ahead)

Together, Pale and Kayla dragged the mage back to the cave they'd been using for shelter, barely managing to get him inside before the snowfall began again. Pale tied his hands behind his back and his legs together using some paracord she had in her pack, and the two of them stood over the man, staring down at him.
"What now?" Kayla asked. "Do we wait for him to-"
Pale cut her off by bringing the stock of her shotgun across the berserker's face. He reeled from the strike, suddenly catapulting awake, his eyes wide as several of his teeth came spilling out across the stone cave floor. He coughed, spitting out a glob of blood before fixing her with a harsh glare. Smoke began to rise from his palms, but Pale stopped him by putting the barrel of her gun flush with his crotch.
"Unless you want to lose something, I'd suggest keeping your magic under control," she threatened. "Because if I pull this trigger, there isn't a healer alive who'll be able to give back what you'll lose."
The man snarled at her, but the smoke curling up from his hands stopped all the same. He spat out more blood. "The fuck am I still alive for?"
"I think you know exactly what you're alive for. Now, are you going to play nice and tell us what we want to know, or am I going to have to force it out of you piece by piece?"
The mage grinned at her, showing off a mouth full of missing teeth and liquid crimson. "You really think I'd betray my brothers like that?"
"Last I checked, your brothers are all dead," Pale said absentmindedly. "But still, I was hoping you'd pick the hard way; I needed to relieve some stress."
She let her shotgun hang from its sling, then drew her knife. With her free hand, she grabbed one of his fingers, then positioned the blade at the tip.
"Last chance to offer up what you know," she threatened.
The mage barked out a laugh. "Fuck off. You really think I'd ever-"
His bravado suddenly gave way to an agonized scream as Pale forced the blade of her knife underneath his fingernail. He thrashed in agony as she twisted the knife before roughly yanking it free, taking the fingernail with it. She held the disembodied nail up to him, then flicked it away.
"Have I made my point?" she said evenly. "Because last I checked, you've still got nine fingers and ten toes, not to mention a variety of other things I could poke at and prod at and cut off. And when you run out of those, I can just start skinning you bit by bit."
"Fuck you…" he breathed through gritted teeth. "I'll never-"
She took another fingernail for his troubles. Idly, Pale was aware of Kayla flinching with every scream that erupted out of the man's throat, but that didn't bother her.
Kayla had specified no death, but that didn't mean she couldn't make this hurt like hell.
She again positioned the knife at one of his fingertips, only for him to give a weak, shuddering, pain-filled cough.
"W-wait…" he croaked.
"I see your tongue has been thoroughly loosened," she surmised, though she didn't dare to move the blade even a millimeter away from his next finger.
"What do you have for me?"
"I can give you our leader's name."
"And?"
"What do you mean, and? He doesn't tell us anything, he just pays us and feeds us, like any good leader should."
Pale's expression narrowed. "You had better give me something more substantial to go on, otherwise I have no reason to keep you around."
"Pale-" Kayla began, only to fall silent when she held up a hand. Reluctantly, Kayla backed down, though she continued to look on with concern as Pale's grip around her blade turned white-knuckled.
"Tell me something useful," Pale demanded. "Unless you want to see exactly how much pain I can commit to before I get bored."
"Okay, okay!" the bandit growled. "Fine… our leader's name is Sven Greymane, the warrior-king of the northern isles. He's the one who ordered us to attack certain towns on this continent."
"Is that why you sacked some and completely bypassed others?"
He nodded. "Yes. That was all part of the plan – he'd give us locations to attack, pay us in gold and food to attack them, and then let us keep whatever valuables we wanted afterwards."
"And did he tell you why he only wanted specific locations attacked, while others were to be spared?"
The mage shook his head. "No, and we knew better than to ask questions given how good of a deal it was."
Kayla suddenly stepped forwards. "One of those towns was my village," she growled. "Your friends captured several people, including my father, and took them back to the northern isles."
The mage leaned in, squinting to get a better look at her, before finally shrugging. "I don't know anything about that."
"Liar," Pale hissed.
"It's the truth. I wasn't involved with the attack on any Beastkin town."
"Of course, you'd say that," Kayla said through gritted teeth. "You're worried about what will happen to you if you admit to us here and now that you had something to do with it."
"Don't know what else to tell you. I had nothing to do with the attack on you and yours, and I didn't take any Beastkin slaves."
"Enough of this," Pale snapped. "How long do we have to find her father?"
The bandit cracked a wide grin at her. "You're probably already too late. If the girl's father is anything like her, then he's already been deemed to be useless as a slave – too mouthy for his own good, and mouthy slaves don't last very long among my people."
A vein pulsed in Kayla's forehead as she clenched and unclenched her fists. "Answer the question," she demanded. "Assuming he isn't murdered before we can get there, how long do slaves typically last while with your people?"
"Depends on the slave. Men tend to last longer, provided they're young enough and in good health. Of course, he was taken in the first place, so I assume that someone saw some value in him, at least enough to want him for themselves. Now, that only accounts for a berserker warrior having a bad day and killing someone as a result. If he's unlucky, he'll succumb to the elements before long." The mage shrugged. "It wouldn't make any sense for us to spend all that time capturing and enslaving someone only to let them die so soon, unless they just so happened to be a massive pain in the ass."
"So you claim," Pale said dismissively. "What else do you have for us?"
"I've told you enough," the man grunted. "Now hurry up and let me go."
"And why would I do that?" Pale demanded. "So you can go back to robbing and killing the innocent? Is your life really worth the lives of the people you'd kill if we let you go?"
"It is to her." He motioned towards Kayla, who was staring at him and trembling as she bit her lip, deep in thought.
Pale's eyes narrowed. "Kayla."
Kayla jumped slightly at the sound of her name being called. She hesitated for a moment before letting out a sigh. "...You should let him go."
"You know I can't do that, Kayla. If we let him go, he'll just go right back to doing what brought him here. Either we end this here and now and prevent him from taking more innocent lives, or he goes on for however long it takes for someone else to put him down."
"I know!" Kayla spat. "It's just… I don't know what to do… I don't want to be responsible for someone's death like this…"
"I understand that, but this is war," Pale insisted. "Death is an unavoidable part of that."
"What do you mean, war?" Kayla asked, horrified at the prospects of what Pale had just suggested. "You… you really are a soldier, aren't you? That's why you're doing this – it's a chance to do what you were made to do…"
"War is in my nature," Pale insisted. "It is why I was created. You are correct that this is a chance to fulfill my prime directive, but not in the way that you think." She turned her gaze back towards the bandit. "I need to get off this planet and back into the war I left behind before it's too late to save my creators. If killing this man will get me there faster, then I will not hesitate to do that."
"But… you can't know that killing him will help with that," Kayla pointed out. "He's just one man…"
"Every second spent debating his existence is one not spent working towards my ultimate goal. I ask for your input on what to do with him because I value your opinion as my ally, and do not wish to alienate you by leaving you out of major decisions such as that, but that does not mean I will not try to make you see reason when I think you are about to make a terrible decision." Pale sheathed her knife and hefted her shotgun. "You are concerned with the loss of innocent life, yes? Well, letting me kill this man will save an untold number of them. Is his life really worth all of theirs?"
"You can't think of it that way! He's still a person, too!"
"He is," Pale agreed. "But as far as I am concerned, his right to life is now forfeit, as he used it to torture and murder other people."
The bandit suddenly burst out laughing. "Listen to you two! You're honestly debating whether or not to take a life. How quaint, not to mention innocent. Consider me entertained."
Pale bashed him with the stock of her gun once more, knocking a few more of his teeth out in the process. As he coughed on blood and bone shards, she turned back to Kayla.
"See reason in this," she implored. "Letting him live means-"
"I know!" Kayla interrupted. Her wolf ears flattened against her skull, and in a quieter voice, she repeated, "...I know."
Her tail lashed behind her, and finally, she shook her head. "...I was willing to fight for you," she said softly. "I tried to convince you that you weren't just a killing machine – that you had a sjel, and that it was worth something. And maybe I was right. But even if I was… even if you're not just a killing machine… you seem dead-set on trying to be one. And if that's what you want, then who am I to stop you? Do what you want with him, Pale; after all, it's what you were programmed to do."
Kayla turned and marched out of the cave. Pale watched her go, waiting until she was completely gone before acting.
A single gunshot split the night.

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, Ickbard for the help with writing this story.

Heya! I apologize for the word wall in advance. I'm excited, lol.
As the title says, I'm a person who absolutely adores snakes. To make a long story short, I currently can't get any more than the 9 I already have, so I was looking for a snake pet sim game to live vicariously through, and... there's nothing! The closest I can find are OviPets and Xanje, but neither of those are very close and personal with your pets, so it doesn't scratch the itch.
So, I want to take matters into my own hands and bring that snake pet sim game into existence! I need help to do it though, as I'm admittedly not very skilled in programming, audio, and 3D model work.
In this team, I would be the 'snake expert' (so-to-speak) that guides how the snakes themselves should be implemented to capture the realism of having them as pets (i.e., what sizes their enclosures should be, what they should eat and how often, what temperatures and humidity their tank should be kept at, their body language and personalities, morph genetics, etc.). I'll also conduct interviews with other experienced snake keepers to make sure all of my information is as accurate as possible.
I'd also be primarily responsible for planning how the gameplay works and how the gameplay loop should go, but I also feel like that's something everyone in the team should be able to contribute to if they want to, so that's by no means something exclusive to me alone. Everyone can have a say there.
I will also do 2D art (though not in a realistic style). I can do icons, UI, and other misc stuff as we need it. While I don't see much writing being in the game beyond tutorials and descriptions, I'll contribute all of that, too.
As I also have actual snakes, I will also need to record examples of behavior from them for the team to use as needed.
What I'm looking for is:
-A coder. As I have no relevant experience here, the coding language and engine would be up to this person. As long as it's something that can do 3D games, export to PC, track the conditions the snakes are in and simulate some degree of their genetics system, I'm open to whatever engine and programming language the coder is most comfortable with.
-An audio designer, as no game is truly complete without SFX and background music. Snakes don't make a lot of noises, but the few they do make are important, and we'll need something to fill in all that silence snakes make.
-Someone - or multiple people - to take on the work of 3D assets. Modeling, texturing, animating, and rigging. I know these are all different skill sets so I'm perfectly willing for multiple people to take on various parts of this role. There would be the snakes obviously, but also other assets like decoration pieces to be made. A lot of the fun with snakes and other terrarium / vivarium / aquarium pets is decorating the tank they live in, and I want this game to be able to capture that.
As for how big the game is going to be, I don't picture this being a very big game. Something around the size of Wobbledogs. The gameplay itself could go on forever in the same save file if the player wanted, but the game itself wouldn't be all that complex and would take place in a set amount of space. On funding, my ideal plan would be to get a team that can make a demo, and then see how much crowdfunding money can be gathered on IndieGoGo. That money would be split evenly between all team members to help us during development. When the game is complete and goes up for sale, same thing- profits are evenly split.
If you're interested in joining this project, please get into contact with me! This is a game I'd love to make a reality! Thank you for reading <3

Let me start off first by saying I don’t hate Cameron the character. Been a long time lurker of this subreddit and I know she’s frequently talked about because a lot of people hate her. Just saying her name garners a lot of heat most of the time. But I just wanted to understand why was she so upset about Chase killing Dibala? I know from an ethical standpoint It was a no no. And I’m not even referring to her putting the thought in Chase’s head first. But, didn’t Cameron kill Ezra Powell in season 3? The circumstances were completely different yes but murder is still murder at the end of the day. My only assumption is that the writers needed to write her off the show ASAP and this was the quickest way that they could’ve done so. But am I missing anything else?

• Lesson video
• Complementary video

INTRO

Today you're going to set-up another user on your system. You're going to imagine that this is a help-desk person that you trust to do just a few simple tasks:

• check that the system is running
• check disk space with: df -h

...but you also want them to be able to reboot the system, because you believe that "turning it off and on again" resolves most problems :-)
You'll be covering a several new areas, so have fun!

YOUR TASKS TODAY

• Create a new user
• Create a new group
• Create a new user and add to an existing group
• Make a new user a sudoer

Follow this demo

ADDING A NEW USER

Choose a name for your new user - we'll use "helen" in the examples, so to add this new user:
sudo adduser helen
(Names are case-sensitive in Linux, so "Helen" would be a completely different user)
The "adduser" command works very slightly differently in each distro - if it didn't ask you for a password for your new user, then set it manually now by:
sudo passwd helen
You will now have a new entry in the simple text database of users: /etc/passwd (check it out with: less), and a group of the same name in the file: /etc/group. A hash of the password for the user is in: /etc/shadow (you can read this too if you use "sudo" - check the permissions to see how they're set. For obvious reasons it's not readable to just everyone).
If you're used to other operating systems it may be hard to believe, but these simple text files are the whole Linux user database and you could even create your users and groups by directly editing these files - although this isn’t normally recommended.
Additionally, adduser will have created a home directory, /home/helen for example, with the correct permissions.
ATTENTION! useradd is not the same as adduser. They both create a new user, but they interact very differently. Check the link in the EXTENSION section to see those differences.

ADDING A NEW GROUP

Let's say we want to all of the developers in my organization to have their own group, so they can have access to the same things.
sudo groupadd developers
On most modern Linux systems there is a group created for each user, so user "ubuntu" is a member of the group "ubuntu". But if you want, you can create a new user directly into an existing group, using the ingroup flag. So a new user fred would be created like this:
sudo adduser --ingroup developers fred

ADDING AN USER TO GROUPS

Users can also be part of more than one group, and groups can be added as required.
To see what groups you're a member of, simply type: groups
On an Ubuntu system the first user created (in your case ubuntu), should be a member of the groups: ubuntu, sudo and admin - and if you list the /valog folder you'll see your membership of the sudo group is why you can use less to read and view the contents of /valog/auth.log
The "root" user can add a user to an existing group with the command:
usermod -a -G group user
so your ubuntu user can do the same simply by prefixing the command with sudo.
Because the new user helen is not the first user created in the system, they don't have the power to run sudo - which your user has by being a member of the group sudo.
So, to check which groups helen is a member of, you can "become helen" by switching users like this:
sudo su helen
Then:
groups
If you try to do stuff only a sudo user can do, i.e. read the contents of /valog/auth.log, even using the prefix sudo won't work. Helen is not a sudo and has no permissions to perform this action.
Now type "exit" to return to your normal user, and you can add helen to this group with:
sudo usermod -a -G sudo helen
Instead of switching users again, simply run the groups helen to check. Try that with fred too and check how everything works.
See if any of your new users can sudo reboot.

CLEVER SUDO TRICKS

Your new user is just an ordinary user and so can't use sudo to run commands with elevated privileges - until we set them up. We could simply add them to a group that's pre-defined to be able to use sudo to do anything as root (like we did with helen) - but we don't want to give fred quite that same amount of power.
Use ls -l to look at the permissions for the file: /etc/sudoers This is where the magic is defined, and you'll see that it's tightly controlled, but you should be able to view it with: sudo less /etc/sudoers You want to add a new entry in there for your new user, and for this you need to run a special utility: visudo
To run this, you can temporarily "become root" by running:
sudo -i
Notice that your prompt has changed to a #
Now simply run visudo to begin editing /etc/sudoers - typically this will use nano.
All lines in /etc/sudoers beginning with "#" are optional comments. You'll want to add some lines like this:

# Allow user "fred" to run "sudo reboot" # ...and don't prompt for a password # fred ALL = NOPASSWD:/sbin/reboot 

You can add these line in wherever seems reasonable. The visudo command will automatically check your syntax, and won't allow you to save if there are mistakes - because a corrupt sudoers file could lock you out of your server!
Type exit to remove your magic hat and become your normal user again - and notice that your prompt reverts to: $

TESTING

Test by logging in as your test user and typing: sudo reboot Note that you can "become" helen by:
sudo su helen
If your ssh config allows login only with public keys, you'll need to setup /home/helen/.ssh/authorized_keys - including getting the owner and permissions correct. A little challenge of your understanding of this area!

EXTENSION

If you find this all pretty familiar, then you might like to check and update your knowledge on a couple of related areas:

• Restricting shell access
• Linux Password & Shadow File Formats
• What's the difference between 'useradd' and 'adduser'?
• How to create users and groups in Linux from the command line
• Learn how to use the $EDITOR environmental variable to set your default editor to vim. With this done, visudo will use vim rather than nano for editing.

RESOURCES

• How To Edit the Sudoers File
• Sudo – An Advanced Howto
• A cartoon that should now make sense!
• Basic Linux Permissions: sudo and sudoers (video)

PREVIOUS DAY'S LESSON

• Day 12 - Transferring files

Some rights reserved. Check the license terms here

I am incredibly excited and proud to say that our first bill, IL HB5840, has been sponsored by Rep. Windhorst and is moving through the Illinois House of Representatives. HB5840 "Amends the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act. A provision involving ethical principles for legislators in the event of a conflict situation, defines conflict situation as any circumstance that (i) involves a legislator, the legislator's immediate family, or a business in which the legislator or the legislator's immediate family holds a direct or indirect economic interest, (ii) is related to a specific matter pending before the legislator, and (iii) may result in a private pecuniary benefit to the legislator, the legislator's immediate family, or one or more businesses in which the legislator is involved." Please write our IL State Representatives showing support for this bill! Passing HB5840 is a crucial step toward establishing legal recourse by which we can hold our elected representatives accountable when they misuse their office.

Hello. I have a question: What are the best practices for connecting to a database in FastAPI?
To provide some context, I want to write code to connect to a MongoDB database using Motor. My idea is to create a single connection and use it in all the controllers that need it through Dependency Injection, but I am not quite sure how to do it. So let me show you a simple code example to illustrate this idea in a nutshell:
database.py:

from motor.motor_asyncio import AsyncIOMotorClient, AsyncIOMotorDatabase from dotenv import dotenv_values class Database: _client: AsyncIOMotorClient None = None _db: AsyncIOMotorDatabase None = None @staticmethod def connect() -> None: config = dotenv_values(".env") Database._client = AsyncIOMotorClient(config["ATLAS_URI"]) Database._db = Database._client[config["DB_NAME"]] @staticmethod def close() -> None: if Database._client is not None: Database._client.close() else: raise ConnectionError("Client not connected") @staticmethod def get_db() -> AsyncIOMotorDatabase: if Database._db is not None: return Database._db else: raise ConnectionError("Database not connected") 

main.py:

from fastapi import FastAPI, Depends import uvicorn from database import Database from contextlib import asynccontextmanager from motor.motor_asyncio import AsyncIOMotorDatabase @asynccontextmanager async def lifespan(app: FastAPI): Database.connect() yield Database.close() app = FastAPI(lifespan=lifespan) @app.get("/") async def main(db: AsyncIOMotorDatabase = Depends(Database.get_db)): await db["books"].insert_one({"hello": "world"}) return "Done" if __name__ == "__main__": uvicorn.run("main:app", reload=True) 

As you can see, i have a Database class that is designed to manage the database connection. In main.py, within the lifespan function, we start the connection to the MongoDB database before the app starts running and close it when the app stops. Finally, as an example, we have a small endpoint that obtains the database instance through Dependency Injection and creates a simple document in a collection called 'books'.
The idea is to divide the code in the future into Models, Controllers, and Services to create better code. However, this isn't the focus of the current question, so I've chosen not to provide an example code.
I would like to know what you think about my solution. Are there any ways to improve it? Am I following the best practices? Can you identify any potential issues? Any suggestions are welcome. If you have another approach, feel free to share it.
Thank you so much for reading :D

Non-traditional CA resident applicant. Graduated from UCSB in 2022. Was looking to apply to PA school but switched to dental after completing my 1000 hours as an EMT. Couldn't get my materials in order to apply last cycle so I am applying as early as possible this cycle.
GPA: 3.7
DAT: AA-23 TS-24 BIO-24 GC-24 OC-24 PAT-22 QR-20 RC-21
CA resident
Major: Biology
Have C's and B's in some science courses freshman year but show upward trend.
Shadowing experience:

• General Dentist 120 hours. Split between 3 offices the majority at one office
• Periodontist: 20 hours

Volunteer

• Surfrider club: 100+ hours of beach cleanups
• Volunteer at Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation: ~50 hours

Employment

• After graduation I worked at a restaurant until I became an EMT
• EMT 1000 hours Jan 2023 - June 2023

Took some time to Study Dat while working as a beach lifeguard which I have been doing every summer since 2018

• Behavior Technician: Working with autistic children Oct 2023 - May 2024
• Trader Joes: Needed money and was close to home; Jan 2024 - present
• Dental Assistant: Didn't apply for this earlier because I didn't think Id get hired with no experience. Feb 2024 - Present.

No research
Extracurricular

• Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity (entirety of college)
• Surfrider (last two years of college): Special events coordinator

No Awards or Scholarships
Deans Honors List for 5 quarters
LOR: 2 not strong science professors. Didn't get to know them so feel lucky they even agreed to write one. 2-3 Dentists which will be strong.

• If you have any advice on what any of of the writers should include In the LOR let me know.

Worried about being a non-traditional applicant. Didn't take anatomy which limits some school choices. Not sure if it would make sense to take them over summer or next fall at community.
Misc: Mother had medical problems so I had to work to help pay the bills and take care of her for a little less than a year.
Not sure what schools to apply to other than CA schools and Roseman. Don't want to go to midwest but open to pretty much anywhere else. Not applying to NYU due to price.
LMK if you want any other info.

Just finished a 10 day mediterranean cruise on Resilient lady. Having only previously cruised on Scarlet lady in early 2022 at a third capacity on a 5 day Caribbean itinerary, I thought I would share my impressions.

1. This cruise was at capacity which I was worried about how the experience would differ. Overall, it did not feel busy to us. We didn't really have to wait in any lines, we were able to see all the shows we wanted, and we were able to book all the dinner reservations and gym classes we wanted. I will note that we knew to book restaurants as soon as we got on the ship and as soon as the exercise classes opened at 3pm. In comparison, this recent experience was much more lively and active. The previous cruise was creepy at times with venues often being empty.
2. This cruise seemed like a much older crowd than our previous experience- they said average age was 52. We are in our late 30's and it didn't seem like there were many younger passengers. With that said, the 5 day Caribbean itineraries are more likely to have a younger party crowd so we were partly expecting this to be an older demographic. There were a number of people who walked out of some of the performances making comments about having an agenda pushed down their throat, but overall, didn't feel like the "come as you are" vibe was impacted. The only issue I saw was that many of the older passengers seemed to not be aware of the option to order at your table in the galley. Most mornings, there were lines forming at the various breakfast counters unnecessarily, which made it often difficult to walk around. We ordered from the staff at our table and were able to be served and complete our meal within 30 minutes. So keep in mind you can use the red flag to order at the table- no need to line up! Another concern was that there were a lot of obviously sick older people coughing, etc. The amount of times we saw people touch things without using the readily available hand sanitizers after wiping their noses and coughing was quite astonishing. Yes, this happens on all cruises, but this seemed a bit more frequent than we have seen before.
3. All of the port tender and shuttles went really smoothly! Longest we had to wait for a shuttle was about 10 min in Crete. Disembarkation was also super quick as we were off the ship carrying our luggage within 10 min.
4. We bought the 5 day thermal spa pass for $259 each person. We aren't big party people or drinkers, so we would often go to the spa in the evening after dinner. If you do this, note that on one of the days you get a special sugar scrub and lotion to use as part of the mud room which was lovely!
5. We had a $600 bar tab which we used despite not drinking much. We had specialty coffees at each breakfast and also bought non-alcoholic drinks such as Humm Kombucha and Kin Euphorics. Also, each restaurant and bar seemed to have at least one or more non-alcoholic or low alcoholic options. Finally, if we did decide to have a drink, we splurged on expensive glasses of wine (Caymus, Moet, etc) which was a nice experience.
6. We booked an excursion at each port and all were pretty great experiences. Of note, I didn't think the excursion prices were that much more expensive than what I found on trip advisor, etc, so I preferred to book with the ship for flexibility and securing tender spots where needed.
7. One of the few negative experiences we had was the room location. I mentioned we aren't big on partying and treated this trip as more of a wellness and relaxation vacation. We booked an XL sea terrace about a year before the trip using a travel agent. I didn't bother to look at the room location and unfortunately we had 8330Z, which had a speaker from the Red Room right below. I'm not kidding when I say the room shook from the sound system- to the point where we had to disassemble the mini fridge shelves and pull out the drawers as they were knocking around so much and the noise was absurd. Even if you were hard of hearing, the vibration and shaking alone would make it impossible to relax and fall asleep. We reached out to sailor services who said they could offer ear plugs, but that was it. Luckily on the 2nd day, sailor services called us and offered us a room change to 11350A, an XL sea terrace (without hammock), which we gladly accepted. Note that Red Room entertainment goes to 11pm, so this would only be a problem if you are early to bed and early risers like us.
8. We had on board credit so decided to do the behind the scenes tour. It was definitely a good one-time experience and we learned a lot of interesting aspects. For example, all the restaurants cook the plates per order (yes there's prep, but there's not plates just sitting under a warmer waiting to be served). All pastries are made on ship. One of the striking impressions was that the staff seem to genuinely enjoy their job. Several times they said they were promoted quickly, there's lots of perks including being able to eat at the restaurants and book excursions, and they liked that they can show their tattoos, piercings, have hair of any color, etc. They also said there's purposely no visible rankings, uniform differences, or countries of origin listed. They want everyone treated with the same level of respect- you may actually have encountered the captain and not know it. It's a bit refreshing from the over the top interactions that staff on other cruise lines show. Staff seem genuinely in a good mood on Virgin.
9. Overall, this solidified that we love Virgin Voyages. We did an Alaska itinerary on Royal Caribbean (Quantum of the Seas) last summer and Virgin is a much better experience in our opinion. On RC, we felt like everything was an upsell or shopping centric and run down (yes it is an older ship than Resilient but it seemed grimy). Areas were over crowded on RC and overall felt chaotic. Virgin seemed to have longer stays in the ports than we have experienced on RC (less concerned with shopping and casino sales?) Also, not having kids on the cruise makes a big difference. Food is much better on Virgin, apart from us really liking the sushi restaurant on Quantum- note that we did the unlimited specialty restaurant package on Quantum as we thought the dining room quality had gone down and we don't like buffets. Overall, I feel that while Virgin is more expensive up front, it is a better quality experience. We will likely go on another RC cruise as my parents are avid cruisers and won't try another line despite our encouragement, but we are definitely sold on the Virgin experience. We used the book your next voyage promotion on the ship and will be going on Brilliant Lady in 2026 in a suite. Having a suite on the 2022 voyage and an XL terrace on this recent voyage, we feel the cost is worth it for the suite, although the XL sea terrace was still a very nice experience.

Happy to answer any questions you have!

Tuesday, May 21 Good morning! Today's Morning Brief is all about strategists revising their 2024 year-end predictions. Nasdaq record highs: The Nasdaq rose 0.65% to a record close as the S&P 500 gained 0.1% Monday. The week's optimism came on the back of a few revised S&P 500 year-end calls (see both today's Takeaway and the Chart of the Day!). ‌
JPMorgan's succession story: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon noted that his retirement was both closer than "five years away," his standard stock answer over the years, and that a succession plan was "well on the way." Talk of the CEO's departure moved the stock down 4.5%, despite the bank's good news: It revised its 2024 revenue expectations higher due to two potential rate cuts. The cuts would increase its net interest margin, a key banking metric marking the difference between what banks pay for deposits and what they make from them. ‌ Microsoft's new vision for AI: Microsoft announced its "Copilot+ PCs" on Monday, giving the world a look at how the most valuable company in the world plans to integrate its AI capabilities into consumer computers — capabilities that it hopes will reignite the PC market. Using specialized chips on the devices (no need for cloud processing), the ChatGPT-4o-based system assists users by seeing and analyzing what's already on the screen, integrating a key communication step. The software will be on Surface tablets as well as PCs from the usual suspects: Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung. The stock rose 1.2% Monday. ‌ 'A good position to hold steady': Monday's round of Fedspeak had Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson and Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr concurring with a suite of their peers who have reiterated their wait-and-see approach to rates. One month of encouraging data isn't enough for them, and as Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week, three months might be better. ‌
Rising metal prices: Gold and copper hit records Monday as silver hit a 12-year high. Gold has been on a roll of late thanks to demand from central banks and potential Fed rate cuts. And copper, as a non-precious metal, has seen its value spike due to higher demand from machinery and wiring applications. Another picks-and-shovels AI trade, perhaps. What we're watching Morning Brief is written and edited by Ethan Wolff-Mann. For the web version, click here. Follow all the action throughout the day on Yahoo Finance and on the Yahoo Finance app.
Taylor Swift's economic boost is traveling from the US to Europe. ‌ Amid uncertainty around Social Security, here's what financial advisers are telling clients. ‌ Audi furthers EV push into China with new platform agreement.‌ Housing experts revise mortgage rate forecasts for remainder of 2024. ‌ Secondhand Rolex sales surge in 'underdeveloped' US market. ‌ Wall Street's biggest bear flips, raises S&P 500 price target by 20%. What we're reading
Today's Takeaway is by Myles Udland, Head of News. ‌ One of the most notable bears on Wall Street finally flipped this week. Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson raised his price target for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months to 5,400 from 4,500, a 20% jump amid a market Wilson sees defined by "higher than normal uncertainty." Josh Schafer has more on Wilson's call here. ‌ And in his report, Wilson included a chart that serves as a note of caution to stock market bulls looking for lower rates to power the next leg of this rally. ‌ "[There] is a wide array of return outcomes across history following the start of the cutting cycle," Wilson wrote. ‌ "In many ways, this analysis encapsulates our outlook well — a balanced risk/reward profile in the average/base line view, but the potential for a wide array of scenarios to play out. Once again, get ready for some notable swings in sentiment, positioning and prices."
Interest rate cuts have a complicated history with the stock market The S&P 500's average annual return is around 10%, making the 12-month returns that follow rate cuts, on average, well below this bogey. And with the exceptions of 1974, 1989, and 2019, year-ahead returns for the S&P 500 after rate cuts have typically been well outside this historical average both high and low. ‌ All else equal, lower interest rates benefit riskier assets like stocks, bringing down the return hurdle that makes stocks preferable to something like fixed income. ‌ What Wilson's data reminds us, however, is that rate cuts aren't something the Federal Reserve typically does "just because." ‌ Even the winning years in Wilson's chart are reminders of precarious moments in financial market history — the 1994 bond market crash gave rise to James Carville's famous complaints about "bond vigilantes," and 1998's emerging market crisis and collapse of LTCM forced the Fed to take drastic action to save a single hedge fund. ‌
Go back 18 months and Wall Street expected a recession to prompt rate cuts. Today, the Fed is looking for "greater confidence that inflation is moving down sustainably toward 2%" as the catalyst to lower rates. ‌ Last year's view on rate cuts was in line with history: A negative shock prompts the Fed to move. The current view is anomalous. ‌ Though as Wilson notes, in the current market, what else would you expect? ‌ "The last couple of months have been a microcosm in this respect as economic growth data have once again cooled after a period of strength, while inflation data have been bumpy," Wilson wrote. ‌ "In short, macro outcomes have become increasingly hard to predict as data have become more volatile. We see this environment persisting." The Wall Street consensus for the S&P 500 has been shifting, with three strategists boosting their outlook for the benchmark index. Let's round up the latest changes. ‌ ‌ ‌
Chart of the day BMO Capital Market's chief investment strategist Brian Belski boosted his year-end target to 5,600 from 5,100, noting that momentum in the market is "likely to persist." On Friday, Deutsche Bank chief equity strategist Binky Chadha boosted his year-end target for the benchmark to 5,500 from 5,100, noting robust earnings growth and an improving macroeconomic consensus. Then, on Sunday, one of the biggest bears on Wall Street over the past year joined the crowd. Morgan Stanley chief investment officer Mike Wilson now sees the S&P 500 hitting 5,400 in the next 12 months, up from his prior call that the index would fall to 4,500, driven by solid earnings growth.
As Myles writes in the Takeaway, there are notes of caution in Wilson's "bullish" call. Macro consensus has become "increasingly hard to predict" in the current environment, with the market shifting back and forth between a "soft landing" and "no landing" base case. Investors, he wrote, should be "ready for more rotations." ‌ But as our chart of the day shows, with Wilson no longer calling for a market decline, few on Wall Street see any further "rotations" sending stocks sinking to end the year. ‌ And to JPMorgan ... we are waiting patiently. ‌ — Josh Schafer, Markets Reporter

Hey beautiful people,
well how to start off? I'm currently gaming, smoking some tasty hookah and writing this stuff down on my pc. Pretty rainy weather here in Germany.
I'm not looking for anything in special, just let’s see what happens, if we click well. Let’s just see where the journey will go.
You're tired of getting ghosted after just one day talking? Yeah?Well me too. You want to rant and vent about your day? Go for it. You need someone to tell the newest gossip? Damn, I'm your man! You want to talk to someone, who is really interested in your well-being? Finally hit the "message-button"!
Well, I'd say about myself I'm pretty empathetic guy with a good sense of humor and sarcasm (I guess no one who's actually funny, would write this down lol. You should find it out by yourself.)
I can be pretty smart but hella dumb in the same breath. Does that even make sense?
I'm 5'11 tall, am pretty fashionable I guess and rocking a man bun. I'm more of a stocky guy tbh.
My hobbies are pretty boring, I like video games a lot, I enjoy baking and try myself more into cooking! Of course I like to hang out with my friends as well.
I'd say about myself that I'm more into chubby/curvy women, but that doesn't matter if you're not dry in responses. I appreciate any type of women. All of you are beautiful, just the way you are. Keep that always in mind!
You shouldn't be dry in responses, be open-minded and up for someone who can talk very, very much! Even more as I'm on staycation the following week lol.
Do you appreciate my effort and you are ready for a journey? Show me and leave a message with a bit about yourself!

Hi all, longtime listener, first-time caller. Please see my query and first 300 below.
My biggest question is this: 95% of the story takes place in 2014, but the book opens in 2020 when my main character receives a letter from the California Dept of Fair Housing & Employment informing her of an investigation into behavior at Chatpic. Receiving the letter spurs her to tell the story of what happened back then. The book checks back into 2020 in the middle as my MC tries to get more information about the investigation, and then it ends back in 2020 again when she decides what she wants to do about the letter.
The reason the story takes place in 2014 is because the time period--pre #MeToo/Donald Trump/the workplace reckoning of 2020--informs the decisions the MC makes back then, and she's looking back at it from a wiser perspective. If you've read The Rachel Incident, Caroline O'Donoghue does a similar thing as she retells a 2008 abortion story from the perspective of present day.
In the end, the investigation is not a driving force of the plot--so my question is how important is it that it's mentioned in the query? I ask because I've found that trying to add that piece to what I've already written starts to get convoluted, though obviously I can work at it. I think it's very clear once you read the first 300, but for agents who don't want a sample, is it clear in the blurb that this story is looking back to a time gone by?
Mostly looking for insight on this question specifically, but if you have further feedback about the letter for first 300, open to that as well. Thanks!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear [Agent],
Thank you for the opportunity to submit my query for TERMS OF SERVICE, a true-ish fictional story about a young woman in a nearly impossible workplace a la UNCANNY VALLEY meets THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (with shades of 9 TO 5). TERMS OF SERVICE is complete at 95,000 words.
It’s 2014 and down-and-out celebrity blogger Maggie Clarke is desperate for a fresh start. Not only is she broke in New York City, but at 31, she thought she’d be writing something a little less embarrassing than Justin Bieber listicles by now. When her longtime internet friend Aron York–recently named the world’s youngest billionaire–offers her a lucrative position at his massively popular social media app Chatpic that puts her at the center of his inner circle in Los Angeles, it’s exactly the step-up she’s been waiting for. As Maggie learns to manage the always-on hours, the slew of acronyms, and the unlimited access to free cold brew, she encounters another more complicated problem–the boys’ club. Except this isn’t the typical ham-fisted sexism she’s used to–this is the tech bro variety: insidious, inexorable, and infuriating. When she meets an ambitious young reporter who encourages her to speak out, Maggie has a shot at revenge. But in a world before mansplaining and microaggressions, is blowing the whistle worth the risk? And is anyone ready to hear it?
Like Maggie, I was also plucked from internet obscurity by the world’s (then) youngest billionaire, [redacted], to come work at his massively popular social media app, [redacted company]. I was a founding member of the company’s content team, and all I have to show for it is six footnotes in the [redacted company] biography [redacted title] and the brutal feminist awakening that inspired me to write this manuscript. Before that, I was a full-time writer in New York whose work has appeared on MTV, Rolling Stone and Elle. Currently I’m a content and editorial consultant in Chicago, and I’m also on TikTok where 21,000 people watch me rant about work and office culture. (It’s also where 2M people enjoyed my show-and-tell video about the “sentimental” stock certificates [redacted company previously mentioned] gave a few early employees–that were worth exactly $0.00.)
As the agent who represents [Author 1] and [Author 2], you have a strong list when it comes to complex female characters embroiled in complicated social dynamics. TERMS OF SERVICE would be a great addition to this track because, while similar themes of class and workplace are explored, my flavor of levity and sarcasm makes my work distinct from [Author 1] and [Author 2], bringing a new facet to your program.
If you are interested in reading TERMS OF SERVICE, I would be happy to forward a sample of any length you suggest. Thank you for your consideration!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
First 300:
Chapter 1
2020
A lot of people might revel in the idea of receiving a letter announcing an investigation into their ex-employer.
One might, for example, envision draping themselves in a mink stole, lighting the cigarette at the end of their old-timey cigarette holder, and dialing the investigator’s number from a rotary phone atop a solid wood desk under shadowy, film noir lights. One might then imagine whispering I knew this day would come into the receiver between bursts of psychotic, hysterical laughter as they rejoiced in the long overdue arrival of the long arm of the law.
But me, I wasn’t so sure. Maybe because I didn’t have a mink stole.
No, I was crouched on the ground of my parents’ musky basement in Des Plaines, Illinois, knee-deep in piles of old diaries and CDs when I received notice of one such letter. It was month four of COVID, and Dad and I were only halfway through his cleaning list. He was already a germaphobe so a global pandemic was all he needed to justify a top-to-bottom disinfection of the entire house. And since my routine trip home in the middle of March turned into a hapless extended stay when the world shut down, it was the perfect excuse to put me to work. Just like the good old days.
We wiped down every square inch of the place. We soaked the faucet heads in lemon juice, we scrubbed the coffee mugs with baking soda. We vacuumed the damn fridge.
Reorganizing the basement shelves was a beast. Every box was like a Russian nesting doll of useless crap: old TV Guides, corroded double-A batteries, dried-out cans of paint primer, an unsettling number of hand saws. I made decent headway through the “tools” and “electronics,” but I lost all steam when I got to my high school stuff—faded Polaroids and folded-up notes stopped me in my tracks.