I’m very glad to have discovered this group. I was sober for 7 years. Friday I got fired from a job I loved over a very stupid thing. I’m not going into details because I am taking accountability for my actions. I broke a rule, regardless of how many others do it, I was caught and that’s on me. I didn’t steal or anything. I hit my vape in the walk in fridge and got “caught” by the wrong person (literally what my manager said when he called to fire me). This is the 3rd job I’ve lost in 18 months. I used on Friday and went on a binge that ended Sunday. I knew I need help, so I started attending online meetings during the weekend (while still not sober). Monday I picked up a white keychain and it was incredibly cathartic. When I first got sober, I was very involved in AA. However, it began to grate on me… particularly my struggle to identify and connect with a higher power; the “suggestions”; how many meetings felt pedantic; I kept hearing that people felt like they finally fit in some where and for me… it was sorta the opposite. When my husband and I moved, I stopped going to meetings. I maintained my recovery mainly through running, my family, recovery literature (trying to maintain daily step work) and support of my friends from our previous city. With this relapse, the thing I zeroed in on was that I hadn’t established myself in my new local recovery community. So I decided to try. It is helping, but I am conflicted. I hate hearing “this is the only way” a phrase usually said in every meeting. Again, I began to feel that I didn’t fit in like everyone else did. Then I saw this group and have been lurking. I’m not really sure what I’m asking… I love the list of resources for alternatives to AA/NA. What has worked for those of you who do not participate in traditional 12 step programs? I’m so angry with myself, for losing my job and for relapsing. I am actively working to change these negative self thoughts, but it’s hard. I’m grieving the loss of the job & my sobriety. Therefore I am reminding myself to be gentle- this is going to come in waves. Ok, I’ll be quiet now. Thank you for creating this group.

Violence is on the rise in Chicago, and lawmakers are looking for ways to drive those numbers back down. One stat that has drawn attention in recent weeks is the city's number of carjackings. According to Chicago police, carjacking surged by 134 percent for 2020, bringing the total to 1,415. Rep. Marcus Evans Jr. (D), whose district covers Chicago's South Side, wants a sales ban to minors on violent video games like Grand Theft Auto. Evans is proposing an amendment to an existing 2012 law that prevents the sale of violent video games to minors. Illinois House Bill 3531 (HB3531) has been updated to add the following language:
Modifies the definition of "violent video game" to mean a video game that allows a user or player to control a character within the video game that is encouraged to perpetuate human-on-human violence in which the player kills or otherwise causes serious physical or psychological harm to another human or an animal...
Modifies the definition of "serious physical harm" to include psychological harm and child abuse, sexual abuse, animal abuse, domestic violence, violence against women, or motor vehicle theft with a driver or passenger present inside the vehicle when the theft begins.
The above-bolded text is pertinent to Grand Theft Auto, a widely popular game franchise that allows you to perform carjackings (among other violent and heinous acts). However, what's interesting is that games like Grand Theft Auto and its ilk have been around for decades; this is nothing new. A game like Grand Theft Auto alone couldn't possibly be responsible for the rise in the city's carjackings. Still, lawmakers and city officials are seemingly trying to tie the young ages of some of the carjacking suspects with the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic means that many children are at home, spending more time playing video games.
grand theft auto carjacking The youngest [recent] carjacking suspect was just 12 years old, and a 14-year-old was arrested in January for "taking part in multiple carjackings," according to Fox News.
"I feel like this game has become a huge issue in this spectrum," said Walker in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. "When you compare the two, you see harsh similarities as it relates to these carjackings."
As a counterpoint to the rumblings in Chicago, a decade-long study concluded that this is no credible link between kids playing violent video games and, in-turn exhibiting violent behavior.

Welcome back to another year of Pick'Em threads!
This post kicks off our 2023 Pick'Em series, and can be used to discuss your picks for 03/30/2023. If you have any feedback or suggestions on improving the thread further, drop a comment below or message the moderators. There are one or two suggestions from last year I'm trying to build in from last year's proposals, though with the WBC they'll need a couple more weeks (at least) to be ready... :)
Don't forget: picks must be submitted during the twelve-hour window before Noon EDT on game day, you can only make one selection per day, and missed days count as losses, so choose wisely and don't delay!
Games for Thursday, 03/30/2023:

Matchup and Team Records	Probable Pitchers (Season ERA)	Estimated Win Probability
Atlanta Braves (0-0) @ Washington Nationals (0-0)	Max Fried (-) / Patrick Corbin (-)	68% / 32%
San Francisco Giants (0-0) @ New York Yankees (0-0)	Logan Webb (-) / Gerrit Cole (-)	40% / 60%
Baltimore Orioles (0-0) @ Boston Red Sox (0-0)	Kyle Gibson (-) / Corey Kluber (-)	41% / 59%
Milwaukee Brewers (0-0) @ Chicago Cubs (0-0)	Corbin Burnes (-) / Marcus Stroman (-)	54% / 46%
Detroit Tigers (0-0) @ Tampa Bay Rays (0-0)	Eduardo Rodriguez (-) / Shane McClanahan (-)	34% / 66%
Philadelphia Phillies (0-0) @ Texas Rangers (0-0)	Aaron Nola (-) / Jacob deGrom (-)	48% / 52%
Pittsburgh Pirates (0-0) @ Cincinnati Reds (0-0)	Mitch Keller (-) / Hunter Greene (-)	46% / 54%
Colorado Rockies (0-0) @ San Diego Padres (0-0)	German Marquez (-) / Blake Snell (-)	32% / 68%
Toronto Blue Jays (0-0) @ St. Louis Cardinals (0-0)	Alek Manoah (-) / Miles Mikolas (-)	51% / 49%
Minnesota Twins (0-0) @ Kansas City Royals (0-0)	Pablo Lopez (-) / Zack Greinke (-)	56% / 44%
New York Mets (0-0) @ Miami Marlins (0-0)	Max Scherzer (-) / Sandy Alcantara (-)	53% / 47%
Chicago White Sox (0-0) @ Houston Astros (0-0)	Dylan Cease (-) / Framber Valdez (-)	39% / 61%
Los Angeles Angels (0-0) @ Oakland Athletics (0-0)	Shohei Ohtani (-) / Kyle Muller (-)	63% / 37%
Arizona Diamondbacks (0-0) @ Los Angeles Dodgers (0-0)	Zac Gallen (-) / Julio Urias (-)	39% / 61%
Cleveland Guardians (0-0) @ Seattle Mariners (0-0)	Shane Bieber (-) / Luis Castillo (-)	48% / 52%

1. All columns are Away / Home. Records are typically current as-of the time of posting, and do not always contain the matchup results from the day of posting.
2. A bolded matchup means that there is a "Probability of Precipitation" greater than 50% in a non-domed stadium at the time of this post.
3. An italicized matchup means that it is Game 2 of a doubleheader, which for Pick'Em purposes will not be applicable (only Game 1 is counted, but Game 2 is still included above so that you can be aware that pitching management may be different than a non-doubleheader game day).
4. Probable pitchers and stats sourced from mlb.com (via the MLB-StatsAPI); weather data soured from the OpenWeather One Call API.
5. Estimated chance of winning percentages sourced from FiveThirtyEight’s 2023 MLB Game Predictions, an ELO-based, easy to understand ratings system.

Details such as probable pitchers, winning odds, and match certainty are subject to change. Note that a pick for a team in a cancelled game (weather or otherwise) is automatically counted as a correct guess.
View Poll

It was January 2022. A new wave of Covid hit, and it devastated the workforce in the major cities here. On average, about half the workforce for any industry was home sick for about a week at the same time.
Shelves in supermarkets weren't stocked because there weren't enough workers to keep them full. The number of bus routes were cut in half. The list goes on.
At my retail store, all but two of us were sick. With two people on staff, we couldn't get to everything, so we had to decide what parts of the job we'd neglect. Most of our revenue is from online sales, so we decided to close the store and focus on dispatching online orders. We still had to answer phone calls and emails though, so we were very stressed.
This was only happening in the major cities of course, more rural locations dodged the major disruptions.
One day, I got a call from a customer. He placed an online order the day prior, paid for express post, but noticed it hadn't been sent. He called, asked why it hadn't been sent. I looked on his account, and saw he lived in a rural town hours away. This was the conversation:
Cuntstomer: Hi I placed an order yesterday with express post, why hasn't it been sent yet?
Me: very sorry, there's only two of us on staff because of Covid and we are doing the best we can to keep up with the online orders.
Cuntstomer: but I paid for express.
Me: yes, and as I explained, there's only two of us on staff, we've had to close the store, and there's a lot of orders to pack and we pack them from oldest to newest, we're trying our best.
Cuntstomer: well, your best isn't good enough. I paid for express, it should have been sent out by now.
My best wasn't good enough? What an absolute piece of shit. At this point, I had dealt with enough stress, so I let him have it.
Me: paying for express doesn't mean we pack the order faster, it means that once the courier has it, they deliver it to you faster. That extra money you spent doesn't go to me or this company, it goes to the courier. There are orders older than yours, they have priority, they have waited longer than you and will be packed first.
Cuntstomer: I don't care, you need to ship it today.
Me: I can't promise that. Do you have any idea what Covid has done to the workforce here?
Cuntstomer: no and I don't care. If you don't ship my order today, I promise I'll never shop with you again.
I genuinely laughed out loud at that.
Me: I literally could not care less, it's no skin off my nose.
At that point, I hung up.
For the entrée of my revenge, I purposely skipped his order even though I caught up to it. It got sent the next day.
The main course though, that was tasty. I blocked his account so he couldn't shop with us again. He promised he wouldn't, so I wanted to make sure he didn't break his promise.
He tried to though. He made another account. I recognised the name, and confirmed it was him through the shipping address.
I cancelled the order and processed the refund.
For revenge's dessert, I did something truly petty. When you process a refund, you reverse the payment made by the debit card. You can put a note in it when you do so, so the customer knows why that money is reappearing in their bank.
The note I put was "to help you keep your promise"

Needed to get this one off my chest, and figured people here would understand. If you're struggling with a problem, it's not Godot. It's well made. It's your own code. I'm making a farming game for mobile, and at the beginning of the game, you can harvest wild flowers for some money. I had that working, then suddenly, it stopped. All day I've been messing with it, trying different input functions, changing the collision shapes, reading the docs, nothing. Only after putting in some debug prints to catch input events did I notice something - I had forgotten I was further along than I thought. I'd added an option to put in a roadside stall to sell the flowers, and set it so that they'd only sell if a stall was built. Godot worked perfectly. Hell, my code worked perfectly. I'd just forgotten how to play my own game. So... Either I need to remember what I'm doing, or a tutorial is high on the to do list. So yeah. I feel dumb.

[D2][PC][CONSOLE] Open recruiting for Cerberus Protocol (Ex Cinere - From Ashes)

📷PC
Excellence through unity, unity through passion.
Howdy folks!
I am here running open recruitment for new members for the clan, Cerberus Protocol.
Now is a fantastic time to take advantage of all that Destiny 2 has to offer. Between the recent seasonal release, Lightfall’s legendary campaign, the new raid and challenges, the End Game of D2 is looking better than ever. However, if you're looking to tackle these activities, you are going to need a clan to do so. Well look no further than Cerberus Protocol.
We are a clan of friendly people who value respect for all members first and foremost. Most active from reset and beyond. In our Discord, you will find members from all over the world taking on the different challenges of end-game D2. From weekly raiding, farming, seasonal story adventures, competitive ladder climb, casual pvp, and Dungeons. There is always something to do here.
What Cerberus Protocol has to offer:
· An active and inclusive place to hangout and make new friends
· The opportunity to experience all Destiny 2 has to offer with a full fireteam
· An active Admin team overseeing a well organized discord
· A dedicated team of Sherpas willing to guide new players through all activities
· A great place to share your interests beyond D2 with other members
Requirements for joining
We try to keep the Clan and the discord a mature and respectful place. With this in mind, certain rules for members include:
· All members must be over the age of 18
· Members must be respectful of other members. Do not openly attack other members for differences of opinions or personal aspects
· Members are expected to be active and participate in the clan. This can include joining discussions or signing up or recruiting for activities.
We operate on a strict belief that real life always comes first. We only ask that anyone that joins Cerberus Protocol acknowledge and respect this belief.
For those interested in joining; Please send a private message to me and I will see that you get an in-game invitation to the clan as well as access to our discord. Look forward to seeing y’all out there.

The basic question is whether I am unreasonable for desiring a certain amount of communication in my cross-country (4-time-zone difference) relationship between a lawyer (me, M28) and a busy second-year law student (my partner, F26). My desired amount of communication would be 2-3 calls/FaceTime sessions (ranging between 20 minutes and 1.5 hours per session) per week, depending on what's going on in our schedules, and at least three text check-ins per day with some details about how her day is going, with one ideally occurring in morning, one in the afternoon, and one before bed (again, depending on schedules).
Is this unreasonable to want or expect? See below for the much longer story of our relationship if you think more context is helpful.
--
We started dating over four years ago when we lived in the same city. I was working a busy job that required about 70-80 hours of week with usually no full days off, and she worked about 40 hours a week with weekends off. We worked at the same place but had quite different jobs. Moved in together after about two months of dating, so pretty soon. About 2.5 years into the relationship, she went to law school about 2 hours away, and we had a mostly long-distance relationship. However, due to covid I was able to spend some weeks at a time with her and work from her place during her first semester. During her second semester, I had to be in person at work more, so we were mostly long distance. She also requested that I spend less time with her in person so she could focus on school more. In the beginning, it wasn't too bad because we would FaceTime almost every night before she went to bed, but eventually she got too busy with school so we reduced the frequency of talking on the phone or FaceTiming to probably a couple times a week (with weekend visits once every month or so).
About 3.5 years into the relationship, I was in a very dark place due to my job and took a new job across the country (4 time zones and about 13 hours of travel by air away from her). My current job is temporary (one year, and I'm already more than halfway done, but we likely will still be long distance when I move back to her time zone later this year). She is now a second-year law student. I now have A LOT more time (I work 40-50 hours a week) and she seems to have a lot less time even though she already has her post-school job lined up. Most of her time is spent reading for class, going to class, being a leader on several high-stress student activities (law journal, trial team, and a couple of others), and hanging out with her friends. We talk on the phone (not FaceTime) once per week while she cleans, usually for 1-2 hours. Most days, she texts me a couple of times through the day, but it won't usually be until late afternoon or early evening her time (so early to mid-afternoon my time) and then she may or may not text me before she goes to bed. Her texts are usually extremely short in nature (e.g., "Went to class and am reading. Had a meeting for X activity today.") as opposed to giving me details (e.g., what she ate, who she hung out with, how she felt that day, how her exercise was, what her friends are up to, what she learned in class). That's usually it.
I raised my concerns multiple times about how I want more frequent communication with her in line with what I outlined above. The response is usually that she'll try to communicate a little more, but she reiterates how busy she is and how little time she has for anything at all and can barely take care of herself. I get that, as I too went to law school. She also says she "isn't good at long distance" and "doesn't know how to communicate in a long distance relationship." Further, she says she expects it to get better once she's a third-year law student, but she is going to have my old job (the 70-80 hour per week job) after she graduates, so I am not optimistic about this in the long term. I know my experience in school is not the same as hers, but I worked four part-time jobs while in law school, was also a student leader, studied my butt off, and still somehow found time to maintain a relationship for two of my three years in law school. For example, she'll occasionally have dinner with her friends but then might not even send me a one-line text telling me goodnight that night. And if she does, she'll say "Had dinner with X" but then provide no details. On some rare occasions, she doesn't text at all in a day, and all I can do is check her location before I go to bed to confirm that she is at home and not in a ditch somewhere. Am I being unreasonable for wanting and expecting more? Are my desires unnecessarily controlling or restraining?
I plan on moving back to her time zone later this year, but we likely will continue to be in a long distance relationship (probably between 2 and 5 hours' driving distance) apart for the next 2-4 years. I want to make sure my needs are being met without putting undue stress or pressure on her. I also feel like discussing this again--we've already discussed it several times--won't do anything beyond make her feel bad or upset (which is not what I want) and won't actually produce any change.
Finally, part of me wonders if she is resentful of me. We've been working through a major issue for about two years now related to having children. I told her when we started dating I would be okay with having kids (she wants kids) and then changed my tune about 1.5 years in. This was NOT okay for me to do, and I've taken full responsibility and am doing everything I can to make up for my mistake and heal so I can want children (or let her know definitively ASAP if I cannot get to that point). I've been in therapy for complex childhood-induced PTSD the last two months to work on this issue, and we've decided to stay together while I work through my internal issues. Our plan is to have a serious discussion concerning this issue and our relationship's future later this year when I move back to her time zone.
Thank you!

I'm 22, English is not my first language, hopefully I can put my feelings into words. I'm not diagnosed with anything and i think that my mental health is average? ( just the normal amount of sometimes feeling really unmotivated or sad for a young person) but 5 years ago or so I developed a really bad habit of not texting my friends back. First it started with days, then weeks and then months in between my replies. I don't even know why I started it and they (my two closest and only remaining friends) have been really patient and understanding with me but at some point I think I just started to feel so guilty for what I was doing. And since we finished school they live in different cities and have different lives and even if I meet up with them I just feel like due to my shitty behavior I missed out on so much of their lives. After I apologize it's back to normal for a few days before I forget to reply to a message and then I feel so guilty for doing it again and avoid reading the messages. I know it's really dumb and horrible but I don't know how to change myself, I already tried but I always fall into the same pattern. And since I moved out I started doing it to my family as well, I don't know what to to. I'm afraid that everyone will hate me and I'll be all alone. I love them so so much I don't know why I treat them like this.
Does anyone know how to change yourself or bad habits?

Use a d120 to see what you discover!
​

Roll	Result
1	A little iron horse figurine. If held by a creature that tells a lie it grows white hot, dealing 1d10 fire damage per turn
2	A bird's cage containing a wererat.
3	A bottle of troll's blood. If you drink it you regain 10 hit points at the start pf each of your turns for a minute but you are poisoned for an hour
4	Black Flame Candle of Hopus: The character that lights the candle draws the ire of all cats (and cat based races) and frightens all children that seem them for 24 hours
5	A petrified gazer.
6	A mirror that shows a clown (or some scary thing) standing behind you. It isn't really there, and it doesn't seem to interact with you, but is very creepy.
7	A talking skull.
8	A large firefly in a cage that will listen to commands. Glows red with the effect of Light.
9	A heavy old tome with yellowed pages and a blank cover. The book does not match the design of the surrounding books, and has a somewhat homemade feel to it. Nearly all the pages are filled with impressively lifelike sketches of an assortment of common folk, each with a smile on their face. All the drawings seem to be situated in the same village, with a single family and house appearing more frequently than any of the others. The members of that family each bear a slight resemblance to the hag.
10	A jar of candy wrapped in brightly colored wax paper.
11	A cursed gold chain necklace. Once put on it cannot be removed. When the wearer speaks a lie a link is magically removed from the chain, the link clatters loudly to the ground. Lie enough and it begins to choke the wearer.
12	A drum, covered in a mysterious skin.
13	An immortal monkey that looks normal but quickly reveals his undead nature in the moonlight.
14	A fist-sized gemstone to which the astral form of a trickster being is bound. Touching it allows you to see and communicate with the being. It begs that you reunite it with it's body.
15	A black cat sits curled up on a chair. When you approach, he remains unmoved, and trying to interact with him you find him immovable. If you attempt to sit on him/in the chair, you are cursed by the chair as the cat appears upon your lap and is the same as an immovable rod place on your knees.
16	Two voodoo esque dolls of other hags, with faint magic within, from when she tried to create a coven with the souls of dead hags.
17	An Ogre or Giants severed toe.
18	A crate filled with rotted children’s clothing and old toys.
19	A deep water well built into the room.
20	A spiders hoard disguised as a perfect black cube
21	A suit of armor that was once a man.
22	Six inches of orange tinted water on the floor.
23	A book full of delicately preserved wings from butterflies and other small insects.
24	A harp strung with the hair of 100 different humanoids. Plucking a string will make the harp tell the tale of that particular humanoid's fate
25	Star Chart: A map of the night sky in its current position, even when it's too cloudy to see the sky itself. This is an accurate, shifting map that may be used to help a lost party reorient themselves.
26	A set of giant steel manacles that look like they could hold a giant.
27	An unusually large slug in a cage that produces extremely sticky ooze.
28	An origami figure of a stork. Has a faint conjuration aura to it.
29	A cyclops’ eye that has a bite taken out of it.
30	Dried batwing.
31	The preserved, leathery head of a dwarf.
32	A caged rat with gleaming red eyes and a chitters that echoes inside your head; if released the rat will burrow into the nearest persons mind, eating bits of memories, thoughts and goals. The rat cannot do this while the host is under some sort of anti-magic but it doesn’t get rid of it
33	A glass bottle filled with a foul tasting dark blue liquid. If consumed the liquid convinces the person who consumed it that they are going to die as a result.
34	A skull of any local beast, a candle melting upon it. When the candle is snuffed out, the eye sockets glow red. It then materializes the rest of the body as a specter, until the eyes are gouged out. The candle will then re-ignite. While a specter, the creature is a neutral undead, and simply watches and wanders about, being all spooky. Works best as a small creature, like a cat or raven.
35	An Annis Hag has a huge rusty nail, the length of a forearm. The person holding it feels paranoid and cruel, but gains advantage on Perception checks.
36	A ball of snot-like sludge hanging from the ceiling.
37	A fancy paper hat which causes the wearer to attract bees, wasps, hornets, and bumblebees, which remain non-hostile until the wearer removed the hat.
38	A piece of chalk which when used to write a persons full name causes that person to shiver. It ceases to work once all the chalk is exhausted.
39	Chicken feathers sticking out of the ground in bizarre patterns.
40	An active mirror of life trapping.
41	A mannequin wearing a crusty set of fine clothes which appear to have been soaked entirely in blood which has now dried completely. There are no visible stains on the mannequin.
42	A neatly organized tackle box containing a collection of human fingers and toes.
43	A cage with the skeletal remains of two small humanoids, the hand of one clutching the hand of the other.
44	A small child, apparently unharmed.
45	A large white table cloth that can be used to set a table. When its command word is spoken it cleans itself of all stains and food, then folds itself into a neat triangle.
46	A pair of slippers that automatically adjusts to be as comfortable as possible for their wearer.
47	A scruffy, scarred pigeon that nests in the rafters. Its regular sounds are replaced by snippets of the hags voice yelling insults.
48	An old tarnished silver bell. Ringing it casts Toll The Dead once a day.
49	A child's patchwork doll, missing a button eye and stained in blood.
50	A cauldron that can be used as a ritual focus. When used in ritual magic, the DC goes up 1 per person (limited to 3).
51	A broken arrow atop a bottle of rain. Holding the bottle allows you to walk on water. Holding the arrow turns your hand to steel (you do twice the damage of an unarmed strike, but take disadvantage on tasks requiring two hands. You can pry the arrow from your hand—but careful if you take too long both your hands will turn to steel).
52	Dust of sneezing and choking.
53	The hag's kitchen is a marvel of inventive interior design, with hands that stick out of the walls, as though their owners were forced into the stone itself. The hands hold cups, cutlery, a set of keys, a hat, a dark cloak and hanging vegetables.
54	A strange jar of coloured jelly. Upon closer inspection, you find it is a tiny-sized ooze or oblex in a jar.
55	A picture book with seemingly no story, only vivid illustrations of children running in the woods. Flipping back and forth reveals that the children seem to move when not watched, and there’s something they’re running from
56	A cursed ring depicting a smiling Fox that gives advantage on deception and acrobatics checks but will sever the finger off after 1d12 uses. Cannot be removed without magical means
57	Bones from humanoid hands which have been fastened together into a headdress.
58	An ivory comb, inset with swampy green stones, that causes anyone who uses it to make their hair grow uncontrollably and try to strangle them
59	A display case of flattened beast ears arranged in such a way that a distant observer may mistake it for a butterfly display.
60	A journal by a young lass from a hundred years ago. The entries are positive, optimistic, romantic. Somewhere in the her late teens she falls in love for a fellow and at the same time she's visited by nightmares, headaches and visions. Strangely the visions darkly warn her that her lover is dangerous, something she refuses to believe even when other things she sees in them come to pass. She writes that she plans to run away with him before the journal abruptly ends. A knowledge check might reveal that the symptoms she describes are signs of a changeling coming into her power on the path to becoming a hag.
61	An almost person-sized hourglass dangling from a rope tied to the ceiling. In place of sand, tiny teeth of all shapes and kinds flow between the two bulbs, each one glowing with a faint red light. The flow of the device switches directions at random times for nobvisible reason, with no bulb ever holding all the teeth.
62	Glass orb containing the souls of screaming children.
63	Leather wading boots, made from an unidentifiable leather, that allows the wearer to walk on water, but slowly turns the water they walk on into a swamp
64	A shelf of shoes: fond mementos of the humanoids (at least the most delicious ones) the hag has eaten.
65	A freshly baked pie, its crust perfectly buttered.
66	A male human's foot. There's nothing magical about it though, she hasn't gotten to that project yet
67	A purple glazed donut with sprinkles. When you eat it, it switched your highest and lowest stat for one hour, or in heavy moments of exertion, such as combat, ten rounds.
68	A plant pot containing a Shrieker that screams when you touch it.
69	A collection of clear glass bottles with tiny models of houses, ships, wagons, and things inside them. On closer inspection the tiny things are real and even have tiny people trapped inside, living dejectedly.
70	The still beating heart of some unknown humanoid.
71	A copper ring in the dirt that has a rat's chewing marks in it.
72	Eyes of various creatures.
73	Seven jars filled with blood. One of them has recently been emptied.
74	A life size "voodoo" fetish that looks eerily like one of the PCs.
75	A shattered mirror. The mirror shows a decaying and zombie-like version of the players, but a beautified version of the hag.
76	A taxidermy beholder being used as a chandelier.
77	A stomach and intestines hung on the wall, with a mouth connected to one end, and the other end leading into a barrel (I don't recommend opening the barrel). It must be fed regularly or it will jump off the wall and begin eating everything.
78	Erikkson the Philosophical Scarecrow. This scarecrow sits motionless in a part of the room, but will animate when he deems it necessary. He loves to eat straw (and flesh), and loves to tell riddles. He especially loves it when his riddles win him the flesh of others. But he doesn't cheat. He is a genuine and fair scarecrow. He wont eat any more than has been agreed on. If he says he will play riddles for a PC's hand, then he will keep his word. He also LOVES to talk about the metaphysical nature of the world.
79	An eyeball in a tube of yellow viscous fluid, sealed with a cork. The eye moves and looks around.
80	Eye of newt jar. Half full.
81	An aged drawing of the current PCs that entered the lair.
82	A chest with an ungodly amount of sweets.
83	A jar with an overweight toad crammed into it, that sings when lifted.
84	A stack of love letters written in Abyssal penned by a demon who apparently was smitten by the sight of the hag during a planar jaunt. Appears that the interest was unrequited.
85	Paintings and sculptures of prominent townspeople.
86	A large alembic which is currently distilling a medium ochre jelly.
87	Half of a beehive covered in Infernal writing. When the honeycomb is broken, an Imp is summoned.
88	An undead toad in a glass jar with a miniature Sphere of Annihilation in its mouth.
89	A dresser whose drawers are overflowing with loose hairs. A player who searches through the hair will find a vial of antitoxin.
90	A pin board of insects found in the swamp or Underdark, like strange beetles.
91	A wooden chest with a beating heart in it.
92	A basin of murky water that is constantly scrying a young girl, possibly a changeling. Vials of three colors with a dropper sit on the rim of the basin. Dropping the blue liquid in the basin visits the girl with good luck, red delivers bad luck to a someone near her, but the black inky liquid has no apparent effect.
93	A massive tapestry hung from the wall. Strange symbols and stranger images fill every space, chaotically strewn about the threadwork with no apparent pattern. No centralized theme or focus can be made out, but the likeliness of several important figures and deities can be made out amongst alien creatures and other, unknown people. The tapestry is unfinished on one side, making it obvious that the project is still a work in progress.
94	A severed head taken from a rival long ago. The neck seeps blood from its wound, and constantly softly whispers nigh incoherently, saying all that the witch had learnt from her long-lived life, tales of old, hidden secrets and recipes long forgotten, to name a few.
95	A severed foot with many different types of moss and fungi growing on it.
96	A decorative wine glass that poisons any liquid inside of it with cyanide when a command word is spoken (cheers).
97	A massive bubbling cauldron. Inside it is a disgusting mixture of god knows what.
98	A skeleton on an elaborate wooden throne that will suddenly scream and crumple if a PC approaches it, laying a curse on that PC.
99	A giant cookpot carved from granite, weighing several tons. It's big enough to stew several people inside. [MaxSizeIs]
100	A small collection of caged rats.
101	Tentacle from a vampire squid.
102	People converted into anthropomorphic kelp.
103	A back scratcher made from a severed bony hand.
104	A small box lined with teeth, when opened it begins hopping around a chattering loudly. Can be heard by any creature within 50 ft. Strength or skill check to disarm it. On a failed skill check the target is bitten for 1D4 damage.
105	There is an alchemy desk with the accouterments you would expect. Eyes in jars, fingers in candlestick holders, with thin wicks coming out of the tips, animal parts, and grisly looking things you don't think about too much. Despite everything, you can't but find yourself feeling extremely hungry while examining it.
106	Collection of art pieces depicting each PC worst fears
107	A goblin in a cage that speaks common eloquently.
108	The shadow of a rat on the floor, which moves as a normal rat would. However, there is no rat, not even an invisible one.
109	A group of small children trapped in a cage.
110	A broom of flying that wants to avenge the hags and throws off any character once they are high up in air with it
111	Corrupted rings of resistance (which are cursed to grant vulnerability instead).
112	An apple that reveals itself to be rotten if eaten.
113	A overflowing jar of teeth.
114	A small garden growing a bunch of weird herbs.
115	A tattered ball gown, it’s faded green color and shredded edges indicating its impressive age. It drifts gently through the air as if carried by an invisible wind, moving haphazardly but never touching the room. Attempts to grab the dress automatically fail without the use of magic, the dress always fluttering just out of reach. Once grabbed, the dress stops permanently stops moving and shows no sign of its previously magical nature.
116	A cracked hand mirror, which always shows a shadowy figure to be standing behind the one looking in it. Sometimes, the figure moves.
117	A bouquet of flowers, suspended upside down to dry, smelling pleasantly of notes of lavender and rose buds.
118	A dead bird tied to the ceiling.
119	A starved and maimed goblin in an iron cage. He rattles the bars rather than react to the visitors. It is clear it went mad long ago.
120	A crude iron goblet filled to the brim with algae. Drinking the algae makes the imbiber immune to poison for 24 hours, but also makes them immune to healing potions for 48 hours

Initial list built by d100. See it here. Also contributions from here.
List contributors: u/dndspeak, u/robot_wrangler, u/jonnyCbiggs, u/ToMcAt67, u/DM_Brian, u/bbqturtle, u/TimTamKablam, u/ArchangelCaesar, u/it-started-to-rain, u/Locheil, u/Cerrack, u/LongjumpingLime, u/aquaticLandwhale, u/ThePoIarBaer, u/Hwga_lurker_tw, u/dwemthy, u/crimebiscuit, u/Patchwork18, u/ThePragmaticPimp, u/Psychogent30, u/pinkfloyd1986, u/Dragodar, u/Kardinalin, u/yiorgiom, u/WizzyAC, u/blue-car-guy, u/eekbarbadurkle00, u/ok_prairie, u/area51raidsurvivior, u/jaxolotle, u/MaxSizeIs, u/Selacha, u/DerekHostetler, u/1d2RedShoes, u/SquirelKnight, u/Mike_in_San_Pedro, u/ExJacksie, u/SlapDiscPibbles, u/rodythepterodactyl11, u/Malcorox, u/ExJacksie, u/FlyingHorseduck

It's been made clear that a Kwami has to do what their holder says; there are several examples of Gabriel giving Nooroo orders which he has no choice but to follow. But, this turns out to be yet another example of something the show has been inconsistent on. Excerpt from Dearest Family:

Marinette: Tikki! (The kwami continues to feed off the galettes from the boxes.) Tikki, you can't stay here! People aren't supposed to see you! Come with me!
Tikki: I'm sorry, Marinette. I just can't help myself! (puts her hands on her face)
Marinette: You've gotta try to keep it together, Tikki. My family's been re-akumatized! I need you!(Tikki tries to resist but fails, and so she flies to another box, containing a small piece of galette.)
Tikki: Oh, there's only one piece left. It means if I eat it, it'll be all gone! Ohh...! I know how to get more! (grunts as she uses her power, a powerful pink aura of energy surrounding her)
Marinette: Tikki, no! A kwami that uses their power without their owner always causes a disaster!
Tikki: I'm the kwami of creation!!!! (summons a burst of energy, leaving Marinette in complete shock) LUCKY CHARM!!!!!!!!
(Using her power of creation, a large beam creates a ginormous ladybug-patterned galette, overshadowing the whole city of Paris.)

Here we have an example of Marinette giving Tikki some fairly clear instructions, which Tikki then ignores. Marinette says, "You can't stay here!" Tikki stays put. She says, "Come with me!" Tikki doesn't. Marinette forbids Tikki from using her power without an owner; Tikki does so anyway. That last one was just Marinette saying "No!" and warning about the consequences, but even if it doesn't count as an order, there is nothing ambiguous about the following exchange:
​

Marinette: Tikki! I'm begging you! Stop this! Control yourself!
Tikki: But Marinette, I'm just making the biggest galette in the world!!!
(Tikki continues to use her Lucky Charm to create one giant galette...)

Marinette clearly gave Tikki two direct orders: Stop this, and Control yourself. But, Tikki does neither of those things. She is, apparently, fully capable of doing exactly the opposite of what her holder tells her to do; she can even deliberately disobey the Guardian of the Miracle Box!
So, if Tikki can disobey her holder, even to the point of putting the entire planet Earth in serious jeopardy, why can't Nooroo ignore Gabriel's orders? Example: He could use his power independently (because apparently, Kwamis can do that even when they're ordered not to) and communicate with Adrien, telling him "I am the creature who gives Hawkmoth his power. I'm being used by him to do evil against my will. I can't say his name, but he lives in this house with you and wears a striped tie. I can prove this is true - your mother is in a glass coffin in the basement, along with a secret garden where Hawkmoth keeps his butterflies. Get this information to Ladybug however you can!" If Nooroo didn't want to use Adrien for any given reason, he could pick almost anyone else in Paris.
I like to take inconsistencies like this and find convoluted ways to explain it, but in this case, I've got nothing.

Hi!
My name is Dylan and I’m a 21 year old single guy from northeastern Illinois in the US.
So I’ve had a pretty lonely life thus far, I don’t have many life experiences/friends. I live in a pretty rural area and don’t get to interact with people a whole lot right now, and I’ve also been pretty touch starved so I’d really like the possibility of something more flirty.
I’m seeking some kind of close connection with someone either around my age or older is totally cool as well, anywhere from 18-60. With friendship being the main thing, however, I’m definitely open to things getting a bit spicier than that, whether that’s something where we remain friends yet can be flirty or romantic such as a friend with benefits for example.
I like to say upfront that I will always be mindful and considerate of your feelings and boundaries, especially concerning anything flirty or more intimate that we might get into. It’s important to me and we’d never have to do anything we weren’t comfortable with or ready for.
Physically I'm 6ft tall, I'm average/slim build, and I'm white/Caucasian with hazel eyes and dark brown hair. I wear glasses too.
I don’t have any preference on body type for whom I find attractive. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. I’m also attracted to people older than me as well, hence being so open to meeting people.
I’m currently living at home, trying to get a job at a warehouse but long term career goals so far is to do something in the electrical field/trades such as a fire alarm systems technician as I’m good with technical things like that. I’ve got older parents and I live on a main road in a small farm house so I’ve been feeling pretty lonely most of my life. I’ve listed some interests of mine below!
Now that we've established who I am and what I'm looking for, here are a few interests of mine to get to know me better!
• Fall/Autumn season
I had to list this one because I just adore the fall and everything that comes with it. My birthday is in October too so it's always been my favorite month. I much prefer fall and winter over a muggy humid summer. In the cooler seasons there's always ways to warm up.
• Candles and Incense
I love scented candles and incense and stuff like this!! I feel like you don't find guys into this stuff that much but I definitely am an exception. Right now I’m burning a citrus and sage one from Yankee Candle! Smells so nice.
• Technology
I'm good at fixing electronics and I'm quite nerdy in that aspect. So if something breaks I can fix it ;) I'm also good with my hands and quite inclined mechanically and quite the nerd.
• Music
I love genres such as classic rock, alternative rock, psychedelic rock, gothic rock, heavy metal, punk, post punk, hardcore, etc. My current favorite bands are The Cure and Joy Division/New Order. But I like tons of older and newer bands as well. such as: Bauhaus, Velvet Underground, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Type O Negative, Nirvana, Rush, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, the Wipers, Spacemen 3, Meshuggah, Megadeth, Buzzcocks, MC5, Stooges, 13th Floor Elevators, Screaming Trees, Green Day, Alice in Chains, Asylum Party, My Bloody Valentine, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Jefferson Airplane, etc.
• Cooking and Baking
I like to cook and learn new recipes, as well as bake fun things too! It's always nice when the house feels nice and cozy and smells good. I appreciate the simple pleasures in life, a cozy cup of tea and music or a movie in bed or sitting outside is so nice!
• Animals
I love animals of all types, and I currently have an older cat which I adore to death! We rescued her from the local shelter. She's the sweetest thing. (I think I love her more than anyone in the house lol, she just makes me so happy) :) I also don't kill insects or bugs, I catch and release them outside.
• Art
I enjoy art, both creating it from time to time such as drawing, and admiring other peoples work. There's just something so fun about it and seeing things so beautiful.
• Houseplants
I love houseplants and really anything nature related and also spiritual such as crystals and rocks. I love to help my mom in caring for all of our plants and also gardening outside when its a good growing season. Its fun! I also like cottage core and goblin core type vibes and enjoy sitting out on the deck burning incense, its peaceful :)
• Photography
I recently got a DSLR camera, a Nikon D5500 and a D200 and I've really been enjoying taking photos of my cat and nature landscapes! This includes closeups, photos of trees, the fields, etc. I've been working a lot on composition, long exposures, getting nice blurred backgrounds, depth of field, etc. It's interesting to me.
That’s me! I hope you get a good taste of what I am like and if any of this catches your interest I’d love to hear from you and we can get to know each other further. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, hope to hear from you soon.
Me: https://ibb.co/mqNwyRp https://ibb.co/YdxZtcH https://ibb.co/NLLmpvt https://ibb.co/4pT04Kk https://ibb.co/sF4q4TR https://ibb.co/Kj21Tmp https://ibb.co/Hh0n7wN

I am a 25f trying to start my life from my family, Let's get started on some back story here, as I grew up I've been emotionally there for adults from knowing about bills to having to worry about when I get my next meal or if the electric bill has been paid. Having to tell my family members that it's gonna be okay and things work out at the end of the day, fast forward to my senior year I ended up being homeless with them and a close family friend helped us get a home. (The house is in my name when they bought it for us)
Over the past 6-7 years I have been keeping my grandma and aunt in this home making sure they are sound and safe, it's been a rough time but it's worked out anyway. (Rough as in they don't work ones on disability and the other is on social security my aunt tends to buy stuff too she doesn't need so she tends to be short on cash for things) my job included doesn't make much due to us living in a small shitty town.
Well since we been here my aunt has met a few ppl who turned into meth heads recently we stopped talking to them, unfortunately for me specifically I got robbed twice in one week by them can't prove it and live in fear in my own home and city. Both times I got robbed my aunt and grandma were in the house the second time they got in they busted through a window to get to my stuff.
This is where it comes into play why I think I'm the asshole here, are close family friend (who is pretty much my brother at this point) offered to help me get out of here, they're worried about my safety my mentle and physical health. They said I can start a new life up in a new state, they always have been my only support too. Unfortunately when I decided to leave my aunt has been far less then supportive of this decision due to the fact I am wanting to sell the home and split ways (and grandma will be okay she's going into a nice living assistance place that even my brother's nana has went too they even want to help pay for it)
So far it's been days of her trying to convince me to stay here change rooms buy more cameras bought pepper spray taser gun and more, I've made it abundantly clear I'm leaving I've stated several times due to the fact I live in fear regardless of it I get more cameras. I am done with this city yet she will not support me, she says I'm abandoning family yet I've dedicated my whole life to helping them emotionally and 7 years financially she says I'm running from my problems yet I can't prevent the problems from happening even if I nail my window shut and change locks. I do not want to give more to who stole from me I want out and I want to start my life I wanna start college to have a better job then working at some small ass crappy company in the middle of no where.
Idk if this all makes sense or if I need to clear things up let me know if something doesn't add up I'll explain, I am really bad at writing due to my dyslexia.

Yup, reposting it from cf4cf.
Again taking RueMint's form for myself and spilling it all out there.
I'll get the selfie out of the way first.
https://imgur.com/a/s1N2A7Y
It's a wee bit outdated because I just shaved my head and it's at the "peach fuzz" stage right now.
Basics - Age is already up above, 5'8 (although looking at the doorway height signs stores put in, they say 6'0, so I like to steal Ron White's joke and say "anywhere between 5'8 and 6'2 depending on what store I walk out of) 215lbs. I have a job, a car, a home I bought, I try to keep tidy, and I make sure the bills are paid, although they slip my mind because I am a space cadet, and I make them get back to current. I am very reticent and much more of a listener, although I have moments where the dam breaks and I am a chatterbox. I guess I would say dreamer, and I want to and am slowly working towards my dreams.
Physical looks - Now, this may be the deal breaker due to my self-esteemed being in pieces and if so, it happens. No tattoos, eventually I want to get one when I feel comfortable as a memorial piece to my dog. I have minimal body hair (definitely the opposite of Austin Powers, that's for sure). Body type is, to be real, dad bod, am getting back into the gym to lift heavy things and put them back down. I do not feel right if I do not have a daily shower, unless I know I am getting filthy, then when it is done I am sitting under a fires of Mordor hot shower until I am clean.
Imaginings - I imagine being with someone who has that open line of communication, be it a silly thought or something that invites discussion. As an old friend once said, "what you ignore is priceless to me." A relationship is work, and it has to be maintained and upkept daily, else the wheels fall off. I believe that while we help our partners, even if we have to be the bad person to be kind at times, and they have an important role in our lives, ultimately we cannot set ourselves on fire to keep the other person warm.
My defense mechanism is my reticence, be patient and let me sort my thoughts when I get upset as they become a whirlwind and I need a minute to settle the storm.
There are plenty of times I am upstairs in my head and "wandering the halls", and those times it's usually elevator Muzak or the Mii theme going on. As was said in the game Bastion, "Not always something to say."
Still reading? Awesome.
Questionnaire
Kids - None. Now, I refuse to become the draconian Childfree person that the subreddit became. I can handle being around kids, the billion dollar answer is I don't want any of my own, I know nothing about parenting and I don't want to take the crash course.
Religion - Agnostic. I believe there's things out there that we can't explain, as long as nobody is trying to force their religion down my throat, I'm okay.
Politics? Pro-choice, pro-science, support the LGBTQ community, I hate Trump, and am vaccinated.
Drink? Smoke? Drugs? Don't smoke, the worst I've been in forever was a Malort with friends, and yes, the aftertaste is absolutely horrid. I don't like the smell of weed, I don't partake in it, I don't mind if someone does, just not around me cause again, I think it stinks.
Have you ever been in therapy? Yes. I have depression and anxiety and while I fell off the wagon in terms of therapy due to financial stuff, I am getting back on.
Do you want to get married someday? Honestly, I don't know, but I am keeping it as an option. I don't care to blow an easy 5 figures to get married, I am perfect happy with a small celebration among close friends and found family, and making memories.
Can anything be funny? No. Some people try to be edgier than Bismuth and while there are dark humor jokes that can make me spit my drink, I believe 1) time and place. 2) the company 3) subject. All three are equally important when it comes to humor. I am so so SO much more of a dad joke and pun guy, or even some adult humor.
City? Country? Somewhere in the middle please. I would like to not be near major metropolitan areas, nor do I want to be out in the sticks. I've done both, and am happy with where I can hide away from the world, and if need be not have to drive 40 minutes just to get something from the store.
Is jealousy a healthy emotion? It is normal, yes. Communication is King, Queen, and Their Eminence when it comes to handling this, however, as this is also something that comes up in a relationship.
Are you looking for someone local? Kind of, I am financially bound to my house for right now, if not then we can cross that bridge if/when we come to it.
Intimacy and sex? I can’t be in a relationship where sex isn’t an important part. I have an above average sex drive, but it does not consume me. Sex, like the relationship, is give and take. Sometimes I like to take control, others I let my partner take the wheel.
Music? I am a bit eclectic (and a basic bitch) and dabble in various genre outside of hip hop (unless you count Lotus Juice?) Or heavy metal, I like to understand what I'm listening to. If anyone knows of any good didgeridoo music, let me know.
Movies? I had been on a Marvel kick, and try to be open minded on various genre. I can live just fine without horror, although I will indulge in Chainsawman, and am happy to keep it away from a partner who isn't interested. Love a good animation, Pixar has wowed me with what I have seen of their works, and I like to watch some good sci-fi.
Shows? I watched a ton of Doctor Who, and most media I consume anymore has been games, outside of reading Fandom to catch up on things I missed, and I will sit with friends to watch anime like Buddy Daddies, Chainsawman (as above), or whatever catches our collective eye.
Games? Here is the big one for me. I’ve grown up on the NES, and consider the SNES to be the golden era of gaming. Of course, there are some crappy stories (I love a good story that will hook me, like Earthbound for its whimsical nature yet dark undertones) such as Lufia 2, but it’s what I consider as media “Fast food”. What I mean by that is that is empty turn off your brain fun, yet hits the itch you can’t quite scratch. I am still a huge fan of the 2D Legend of Zelda series (I love A Link To the Past), and if the trailer is decent enough, I’m willing to give it a chance.
Art? I love digital art. There is a lot of dedication and passion that artists put into their work and I respect the eye and talent that they put into it. Pixel art can be absolutely wonderful and the artists put in a painstaking amount of work to make everything pop. Game Design is something I've wanted to do ever since I was a little kid, and Super Mario Bros blew my mind.
Books?
I used to read, read, read as a little kid. That dream of a library sounds absolutely wonderful, and so comfortable at the end of the day. I think high fantasy and RPGs have helped solidify that is what I want to do at the end of the day. Anything with dragons will pique my interest, and if there is a good story, I will probably devour it.
What are some of your non-sexual turn ons?
A good long hug, where someone holds onto me like I'm about to disappear, as well as hugs from behind. Top of head or forehead kisses. Actively listening, or inviting further discussion on a topic, even if it's something that isn't easily understood. Compassion is a huge one for me, and when I'm falling apart showing patience for me while I slowly put myself together. Understanding that sometimes I need my own space and/or I'm going to stubbornly push on to work through something, because I know if I don't keep pushing forward I'm going to stagnate and I don't want that.
Do you want your partner to have the same hobbies and interests?
Absolutely, doesn't have to be everything I'm into, as having exactly everything match up is a cashew's chance at a squirrel convention. As much as I love a good long cuddle, I don't have to have someone attached to my hip, nor do I want that. If there is something one or the other isn't interested in, then it's okay to not be interested, just don't shit all over it.
I would love to see someone everyday, wake up with them or shortly before and get breakfast prepped or we do it together, or even if there's something that needs to be done by oneself, that's okay too!
If you want to talk more, drop me a DM, and to prove you are not a bot (beep boop) list in the title what game I consider crappy, yet hits an itch you can't quite scratch.

My mom has had an affair with a married man since I was 6. I have vivid memories of not being able to sleep because of how “loud” they were being from a young age. To make it worse, the married man in question was my mom’s ex-best friends boyfriend (now husband) who was the step dad to one of my best friends at school- so I knew who he was and was quite confused, and only understood as I got older.
3 years ago, married man claimed to be getting a divorce (stereotypical BS) and that he wanted a serious relationship with my mom🙄. I cannot stand this man, and told my mom straight up initially when she formally introduced me to him that I would not have any kind of relationship with him.
Context on the married man:

• claimed over the decade ago when they first started sleeping together that he wanted my mom not his gf now wife but still married his gf (my mom is deluded enough to think it’s because she rejected him and that they would have the perfect life together if she hadn’t- and says she only rejected him for me and his step daughter- idk how loud sex noises keeping me up at night at 6 when I knew who he was was better)

-mysteriously has a serious Illness he won’t go into detail about around Christmas time and uses it to guilt trip my mom and says he needs major surgery that never happens and flies out in business trips whilst apparently being critically ill. Confidently can use these illnesses to not see mom during Christmas period 🙄

• Used his stressful “divorce” as a way to treat my mom badly/not see her for long periods- or the fact that if didn’t like him (I am literally in college in a whole other city most of the time)

Anyway, since he announced his “divorce” my mom off loads everything he does in their relationship on to me, and honestly, it’s exhausting, I knew he was a POS, but she is surprised by how he acts. This woman called me MINUTES before a VERY important exam to talk about his behaviour, I don’t care about this man and I was more concerned about last min prep for my exam. Since I’ve come back for spring break she cornered me for hours talking about this man and essentially uses me as a therapist, I always tell her that he is a POS and she’ll constantly defend him and blame his wife (who was literally her best friend???) or make herself a victim because she was just a vulnerable single parent and had an affair with him to protect me from having to see her go through relationships (blaming me - I was 5/6?!)
Anyway today she found out that he’s not actually gotten a divorce (shocker), which lead to more offloading and her promising she won’t go back to him. They have actually been “broken up” for a month now and she’s been heartbroken, today she found out he wasn’t even divorced. I’ve taken her to the gym and spent lots of time with her listening and trying to keep her mind off of him, I’ve been patient and loving but I am emotionally drained myself from it and hate that he made my mom feel like this. I’ve told her how I feel she doesn’t care and doesn’t think she needs therapy as in her words she is healed.
I’m not sure if I can take this much longer- I am so convinced she’ll go back to him and I am so drained. Last year I was SA’ed and I didn’t get much support from my mom (who told married man this had happened to me without my permission). I feel like my mom wasn’t as supportive in that situation as I am to her now and it hurts.
TLDR- mom having an affair with married man, is in love with him but he is a master manipulator - uses me to vent about him and I’ve grown exhausted by it and don’t know what to do

Bosnian bros, I am coming to Sarajevo for 3 days in 2 weeks time. I have never been, but I am fascinated by the city's long term and short term history.
I was a boy in middle school during the siege of Sarajevo and I remember the news reports we got in Romania about it and my grandma crying when she saw the news. I have been fascinated with Sarajevo both in terms of the stuff I suppose you guys always get (WW1 - Gavrilo Princip) but mostly the Siege. What should I visit in my time there given all of this?
I am arriving on day 1 at 5PM (so this will be a day of head to the hotel which is in central Sarajevo, maybe walk around a bit, get some dinner, go back and go to sleep).
Day 2 I have to give a presentation to about 100 people so I have to wake up early (say 6:30) - I can't eat breakfast when I am stressed out, so will likely take a slow walk to the conference center, finish at 3PM then have all afternoon free.
Day 3 I have all day free except a lunch meeting between 11-2PM. Day 4 I fly out at 9 AM so have to go straight to the airport when I wake up.
I am a big foodie so would love to try some traditional Bosnian food if I can!
Much love!

I'm not quite there yet. Although I might be - the situation is unusual enough that I figured I'd write about it.
There's me [31] and my wife [32], and our one kid.
We started off seven years ago in 2016. I'd discovered FIRE completely by accident in college trying to find the personalfinance subreddit, and instead typing in financialindependence. Ooops? It sounded like a neat idea though, and my wife was on board with the idea. Retired by 40 as a goal! A difficult one, but possibly doable.
We graduated college (BS in Accounting for me, MD for her) with a combined 30,000 in debt, and a residency position offered for her. There's something of a silver spoon right there, with her graduating medical school with no debt, but as you see the numbers, I think you'll realize the medicine income was never that large of a factor. Just the lack of an anchor allowed us to pivot.
We moved across the country, and medical residency started. For those not in the know, it pays SHIT. $56k/year if I remember correctly, with enough hours demanded that it pays less than minimum wage. Fun stuff.
Since I hadn't know where my wife's residency was going to be, I couldn't take any advantage of college campus recruiting, so I moved 3,000+ miles with a degree and some minor work history.
I bounced from job to job, not quite finding my niche. First job was a temp tax position. Better than nothing, yeah? $18/hour. Only a few months. Second job the owner was embezzling from the investors. Yay. $16/hour. Third job was at a bank, solid $20/hour, decent work. I got shuffled to a team that was struggling, then they shuffled my entire department back across the country. Hopped to another job paying $25/hour, where I left when they kept asking me to forge documents and lie to the department of revenue. Started trying to work for myself a bit, doing freelance Excel and VBA work for people. I knew everyone needed me, I just didn't know how to get my information to people. Managed to get a temporary job at an insurance company building them some very fancy spreadsheets - $35/hour. Then I got a job at the State, $45/hour. Alright! Things were looking up!
Bit of a checkered employment history, to say the least. All the while my wife's working crazy hours, but we pulled through residency in three years, having paid off the combined student loans and socked away a modest $50k or so. Roughly.
And my wife hated clinical medicine. HATED it. Couldn't wait to get out.
So we pivoted. No fancy attending salary, instead another residency with almost no clinical medicine in a field that would be a little doxxy to reveal. Pay was a bit better, now she's at $72k... and moving across the country. RIP my nice little state job, I hardly knew ye.
She took a little sabbatical, hair-raising due to the lack of insurance. I managed to land another job that was only an hour and a half of driving... each way... but for a nice $47/hour. Moving along nicely! Money is being socked away, and we start thinking about kids.
Then COVID hit, and the story goes from typical and boring to somewhat interesting.
At first work tells me to work from home. Props to my manager who called it a week before the company did, and 2-3 weeks before the government did. Basically "This meeting never happened, but we're all working from home until further notice." Little did I know that was the last real day I'd ever work in that office.
We all got sent home, and covid got bad. Real bad. I was working for a healthcare company, and our budgets exploded. Everyone was working twice as much as before... and the decree came from above.
Reduce Hours.
I was a 'luxury' role in my department, and I wasn't surprised to get the axe. I was literally making the reports every day that said we were way over budget, I wasn't surprised that management did something about it.
So here I am, laid off, a kid on the way, and with plans for me to be the stay at home parent. I'd also run out of stories to read on the internet - I was big into web serials - and I said 'you know what? Everyone always says they're going to write a book one day. I'm going to ACTUALLY DO IT. Also all these other stories suck, I know I can write something better than THAT."
Spite's a powerful motivator to start. Thus was born Beneath the Dragoneye Moons.
I sat down, and spent a month plotting, planning, and researching, all while looking for another job (yeah, with COVID raging and my particular niche not having any work in the city my wife was in, fat chance), while also collecting unemployment.
Then my book was ready, right as UI stopped, and I launched the first 20 chapters on Royal Road. I'd written 40 chapters by then, kept another 10 for Patreon, and 10 more for my backlog.
I wouldn't say I exploded or anything so dramatic - but I got my first patron the first day I posted. Literally made me cry - months of hard work was starting to pay off, $4 and change at a time.
And I slowly rolled the snowball. The first year I made $2k - I only launched in October, and various payment holdups delayed things. Our kid was born at the end of the year, and juggling both writing and full-time child care has been my biggest challenge by far. Wouldn't trade her for anything though! The second year I made $125k, and my wife moved onto a government job, finally making $100k. A little less, due to a huge snafu on HR's part, but it ended up there once it was all fixed.
Last year I made $200k, and the amount of money was starting to become Very Real. We started to discuss various plans. How would we move forward? Did we swap who the primary breadwinner was? How sustainable was it all?
Books are very interesting in some respects. It's hard to write a book, then sell and market it. But in another, they have some magic words attached to them - no income cap.
My income comes from a few different revenue streams. Patreon's the big one. People pay $5/$10 a month to read 25 chapters ahead, on top of bonus material and other incentives. Amazon's the other big one. The genre I write in, litRPG, is basically purely on Amazon, no point in being wide. I get a little bit of income from Audiobooks, but at this stage, they're almost a rounding error.
Books also have a crazy long tail. The rest of my life, I'll be getting little trickles of income from the books I'm writing today, even if the check is likely to be small.
This year, we decided that we were going to fully swap to me being the primary breadwinner. I switched some mental tracks - Amazon has a program called Kindle Unlimited, which is like Netflix for books, but not bad. I enroll my book there - exclusivity is demanded - and get paid every time someone reads a page.
And I get paid well.
This year I'm looking at roughly $500k total income on the extremely conservative side, closer to $600k if I'm a little more aggressive with my estimates. Patreon's about half of that, with Amazon being the other half. Within Amazon, KU is 70% of my income.
We're treating this somewhat as a lucky winning lottery ticket. We're not going insane with the money. We're keeping our heads down, buying a cheap but well-built home outright, and socking the rest away in hopefully-safe investments. My wife can retire if she'd like to, and I'm not quite in a position to do the same, but financially, I'm getting quite close. Ethically, I have to finish the book series first - the people who made this possible are relying on me.
And, lastly, it's a ton of fun. So in a sense, I'm already RE without being FI. When I retire, I'm probably just going to... keep writing books that I love.
That's the story!

I played the game 'bad friends' with my close group of friends I've known since school and their partners (25+) They voted me most boring and a few other cards along the same lines and although at the time I laughed it off its really stuck with me. I've always been concious I'm on the quieter side and prefer 1:1 to big groups of people and so make an effort to put myself out there, try new things etc as being boring is a bit of an insecurity if mine. They are aware of this as we are a very close group so it stung quite a bit. If my closest friends think I'm boring, maybe I just am? The problem is I don't know how to make myself more interesting, or connect with people who find similar things interesting. I like reading, gardening, history, new/novelty things I haven't done before like a new exhibit, art, hiking etc. Any tips for how to connect with people in these +often solo) hobbies?

This post also appears on my blog, but that version has links to my full reviews for everything, as well as the visual card.
My favorite reading challenge is winding down, and for the third consecutive year, I have completed a pair of Bingo cards. I’ll talk more about my themed card in a while (probably after April 1), but today, we’re looking at my first totally unplanned Bingo card. Sure, I went through the recommendation threads last April, because those were a blast, and I planned my themed card, but apart from that, I just read what I read and then checked this week to see if I could make a full card. And perhaps one or two squares are a bit of a stretch, but I did indeed make a full card.
Continuing the bit from the last two years, I have rankings, ratings, mini-reviews, and cliffhanger notes. Do keep in mind that the rankings are just for fun and shouldn’t be taken as gospel. After all, I intentionally excluded anything I rated below 14/20, so the worst of this card is very far from the bottom of my year of reading. And it can be hard to rank books with the exact same score. I have a 20-point scale and not a 50-point scale precisely because sometimes opinions can only get so fine-grained. Ask me again next week, and I may order 16 through 22—or 2 through 5—totally differently.
Anyways, I read some great stuff, let’s get to it:
1. “Falling Off the Edge of the World” by Suzanne Palmer, “Two Spacesuits” by Leonard Richardson, “In the Time of the Telperi Flower” by David-Christopher Galhea, “The Bone Stomach” by Ziawa Jande, “The Empty” by Ray Nayler.
Categories: Short Stories, Published in 2022, Book Club (hard)
Mini-Review: It’s common for Five Short Stories to end up on top of my list because I can just cherry-pick some of my favorites of the year. But all five of these are free—two will be discussed as part of the April 5 session of Fantasy’s Short Fiction Book Club—and I highly recommend checking them out.
Rating: 18/20
Cliff Severity: Short stories may have ambiguous endings, but they don’t tend to end on cliffhangers.
2. The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler.
Categories: Standalone (hard), Published in 2022
Mini-Review: The plot description may sound like Michael Crichton, with an undersea first contact intertwined with high-stakes hacking and an AI-run slave ship, but the storytelling is anything but. It’s extremely contemplative—on the nature of consciousness and of humanity’s treatment of the Other—and written in such a way that it only gets better upon reflection.
Rating: 18/20
Cliff Severity: There’s plenty of uncertainty at the end, but it feels like a story that’s meant to end on some uncertainty and not one that’s waiting for a sequel.
3. Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura, translated by Philip Gabriel.
Categories: Published in 2022, Mental Health (hard), Standalone (hard), Indie Published (hard), Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey (hard), BIPOC Author, Family Matters
Mini-Review: The pacing of a school novel, but without the school, Lonely Castle in the Mirror stars a group of tweens whose individual traumas have kept them out of their local middle school but who find each other in a portal world. A slow read but an easy one, this dives brilliantly into adolescent mental health, making it not just my favorite YA novel of the year, but one of my favorite 2022 novels full stop.
Rating: 18/20
Cliff Severity: Another standalone?
4. Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang
Categories: *Historical SFF, Standalone (hard), Revolutions and Rebellions (hard), BIPOC Author, Published in 2022, Family Matters
Mini-Review: This one is an actual school novel, set in a fantasy Oxford whose translation magic powers the British Empire, and provides an unflinching portrait of colonialism. And as fascinating as the linguistic magic was, the highlight for me was a lead character grappling with a place that has given him his heart’s desire but that will never fully accept him as one of their own—nor will they refrain from using his gifts against his native land.
Rating: 18/20
Cliff Severity: If I keep reading this many standalones, it’s gonna ruin the whole cliff severity bit.
5. Dust and Light by Carol Berg
Categories: Family Matters (hard), Book Club (hard), Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey (hard), Mental Health (hard)
Mini-Review: If you’ve read Carol Berg, you know to expect tight focus on a lead who will go through absolute hell before coming out on the other side. This one sets up a neat puzzle with a lead whose magic art gives him knowledge others would like hidden, and there’s no lack for danger along the way.
Rating: 18/20
Cliff Severity: This is a duology and should be read as such. The cliffhanger isn’t as bad as others I’ve read, but it still sets up a major step into the unknown.
6. Neom by Lavie Tidhar
Categories: Non-human Protagonist, Indie Published (hard), Published in 2022, Mental Health, No Ifs Ands Or Buts
Mini-Review: It’s a short novel that flits through a surprising number of perspective characters, feeling more like mythology in a futuristic context than like a traditional sci-fi (never mind the robot main character). But it’s a beautiful and touching read that deserves more attention.
Rating: 17/20
Cliff Severity: Reads like a standalone, even though there’s at least one other novel (Central Station) and other stories in this universe.
7. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Categories: Book Club (hard), Revolutions and Rebellions (hard), Historical SFF (hard), Anti-hero, BIPOC Author, Family Matters
Mini-Review: This is Chinese historical fiction with a thin veneer of magic, but both the magic and the politics are secondary to an exploration of several characters who don’t fit into their culture’s expectations of their gender. It's intensely character-driven and altogether fascinating.
Rating: 17/20
Cliff Severity: This is a duology and leaves plenty to do for the second book, but there’s enough payoff in the first to make it feel worthwhile by itself.
8. Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo
Categories: BIPOC Author, Cool Weapon, Published in 2022, Revolution or Rebellion.
Mini-Review: Traveling companions swap larger-than-life stories during their time on the road. And then they experience some larger-than-life stories. Despite the mortal danger, this feels like a small-scale piece, and it’s a gorgeous one.
Rating: 17/20
Cliff Severity: This is the third book in a novella series that’s explicitly meant to be readable in any order. The main characters carry over, but there’s no cliffhanger.
9. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
Categories: LGBTQIA List, Book Club (hard), Family Matters, Non-human Protagonist (hard), Mental Health (hard)
Mini-Review: And here is an undoubtedly small-scale piece, as a group of people from various non-human races have to deal with unexpectedly prolonged proximity after an emergency leaves them bunkered down together at a rest stop in space. Recommended for fans of character-driven sci-fi, especially ones who don’t mind the society-scale problems left unresolved while the small-scale problems are addressed.
Rating: 17/20
Cliff Severity: Again, this is part of a series, but many characters come and go—this one feels readable as a standalone.
10. A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow
Categories: Award Finalist, Book Club (hard), Author Uses Initials, Cool Weapon
Mini-Review: How do you rate a very fun, fast-paced fractured fairy tale that you’ll blow through in no time but forget about in a month? It’s hard for me to call this an essential read, but it is so good at what it does, with a lot of humor and a few moments of real poignancy.
Rating: 17/20
Cliff Severity: Another novella series where each is meant to be readable as a standalone.
11. Iron Truth by S.A. Tholin
Categories: Weird Ecology (hard), Self-Published (hard), No Ifs Ands Or Buts, Family Matters.
Mini-Review: This is a giant hunk of epic sci-fi/horroromance, as a woman crash-landed on an inhospitable planet tries to find her brother, while a military leader and his squad seek to retrieve the secrets from a disappeared ship, and an even greater danger lurks underneath it all. This takes some patience, but the payoff is real—a well-deserving winner of the first SPSFC.
Rating: 16/20
Cliff Severity: The main plot resolves, but in a way that asks a whole lot of questions of the sequel.
12. The Last Gifts of the Universe by Rory August
Categories: Self-Published, Published in 2022 (hard), Standalone (hard), Family Matters, Mental Health (hard).
Mini-Review: A fun sci-fi story about excavating dead civilizations—to hopefully find the secrets behind their death—turns into an exploration of grief with a surprisingly touching romantic subplot. Strong (and short!) character-driven space opera.
Rating: 16/20
Cliff Severity: Standalone!
13. City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Categories: Antihero, Standalone (hard), Mental Health (hard), Revolutions and Rebellions (hard), Published in 2022.
Mini-Review: A mosaic novel about a revolution in a weird fantasy city, with a whole host of wildly self-interested characters working at cross-purposes. The writing is engrossing and the politics are fascinating, although there aren’t many characters who are especially sympathetic.
Rating: 16/20
Cliff-Severity: Another standalone!
14. Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Categories: Wibby Wobbly Timey Wimey (hard), Book Club (hard), Standalone (hard), No Ifs Ands Or Buts (hard), Family Matters (hard), BIPOC Author.
Mini-Review: The tight character focus on a trans violinist running away from home makes this worth the read, as do the lush Californian setting and outstanding descriptions of both music and food. A sci-fi subplot and an ending that’s more than a bit too neat detract from the overall package, but the strengths are enough to make this well worth the read.
Rating: 16/20
Cliff Severity: Another standalone!
15. The Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy, March/April 2023, edited by Sheree Renée Thomas
Categories: Two or More Authors (hard), Five Short Stories (hard)
Mini-Review: 16 stories, along with some poetry and book reviews, and nearly all of them are good. The Black Mirror-like “Piggyback Girl” and the whimsical “The Weremouse of Millicent Bradley Middle School” stand out from the rest, but there are a couple entertaining fairy tales, an excellent piece of sword-and-sorcery, a novelette about a cat buying a dragon, and plenty more fun.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: More short stories—some of these actually connect to existing universes (including the Neom world), but they’re readable on their own.
16. The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik
Categories: Urban Fantasy, Features Mental Health, Family Matters, Published in 2022.
Mini-Review: Pays off on so many of the seeds planted in the first two books, with more than one absolutely outstanding sequence featuring edge-of-your-seat tension and buckets of thematic depth. But it’s a bit uneven, with a slow and frustrating start and an ending that felt a little too neat. Definitely worth the read for fans of the first two but probably isn’t for anyone who didn’t enjoy A Deadly Education.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: Last book in a trilogy, so it ends things. You can’t really start here though.
17. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Categories: Published in 2022, Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey, Family Matters
Mini-Review: I expected beautiful prose and excellent character work across all four timelines, and I got good prose and good character work. Some of the pandemic sections felt a hair too on-the-nose, but there was plenty to get me invested. The science fiction elements generally worked fine, though it’s not a book that really breaks new ground on plot. Overall, it’s a solid read, though not one where I totally understand the “best of the year” hype.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: This is readable as a standalone, but I have been told it is loosely connected to other books in the same world.
18. The Hand of the Sun King by J.T. Greathouse
Categories: Shapeshifters (hard), Author Uses Initials (hard), Family Matters (hard), Award Finalist (hard), Revolutions and Rebellions (hard), Book Club (hard).
Mini-Review: This is structured almost like four related novellas, with each section rising to its own climax before skipping ahead to the next step in the character’s journey. The main character progresses nicely, and there’s enough plot development to make for an intriguing setup, though there’s plenty left to do in the sequel.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: Another one that makes a lot of progress but leaves lots and lots of work for the second in the duology.
19. Dead Silence by S.A Barnes
Categories: Set in Space, Book Club (hard), Mental Health (hard), Standalone (hard), Published in 2022 (hard), Author Uses Initials, No Ifs Ands Or Buts.
Mini-Review: This promises a haunted house in space and delivers a haunted house in space. Even as a relative horror neophyte, I was able to predict most of the plot, but the atmosphere is good enough to make it a plenty engaging read regardless.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: Standalone!
20. Dead Star by Simon Kewin
Categories: No Ifs Ands Or Buts, Self-Published, Set in Space (hard), Revolutions or Rebellions (hard), Family Matters.
Mini-Review: This is a fast-paced, planet-hopping adventure about digging into the secret history beyond the sudden and mystifying rise of a small religious sect to galactic hegemony. The villains are a bit over-the-top, and I’d have liked to see more of the story in the first book, but it’s short and very hard to put down.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: This is the worst cliffhanger on the card. It reaches a waystation on the full trilogy arc, but so many of the driving questions are left for the sequels.
21. Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
Categories: Revolutions and Rebellions, Book Club (hard), LGBTQIA List, Mental Health (hard).
Mini-Review: It’s a really touching found family story in which a horse-loving intersex protagonist finds a home in the portal world of the Hooflands, but with a rushed and uninspiring revolution filling out the plot. The description of childhood bullying and cultural expectations of femininity calcifying as early as elementary school are all too real and expertly done. And if the ending doesn’t maintain the level of quality, the beginning is still enough to recommend it.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: Deep into a full series, but I believe it’s meant as an alternate entry point. I’m not sure I buy it as an alternate entry point, but the story is mostly self-contained, with the inevitable connection to the rest of the universe.
22. A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
Categories: Set in Africa (hard), Urban Fantasy (hard), Shapeshifters (hard), Book Club (hard), Author Uses Initials (hard), BIPOC Author.
Mini-Review: Stunning worldbuilding, mediocre mystery plot. Like many of the 15/20 stories, there’s a five-star element and a three-star element mixed together. Here, the magic-infused, steampunk alt history Cairo is the true star, carrying a mystery that’s otherwise the dashing protagonist jumping from action sequence to action sequence.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: It’s a detective story in a world where the same detective has other stories. No problem reading it by itself.
23. The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente
Categories: Author Uses Initials, Book Club (hard).
Mini-Review: This is an expansion of an award-winning novelette with a fascinating and unique narrative voice. It takes place on a floating trash island after climate disaster, and like many climate stories, relies heavily on worldbuilding. For me, the worldbuilding wasn’t enough to sustain full power over novella length, but the main character’s narration kept things interesting.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: This is an expansion of a previous novelette and can easily be read alone.
24. The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
Categories: Cool Weapon, Published in 2022, BIPOC Author, Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey (hard), Shapeshifters, Mental Health (hard), Family Matters (hard), Revolutions and Rebellions (hard).
Mini-Review: Gorgeous prose and a stunningly creative narrative structure buttress a fairly straightforward central story long on violence and…well, long. Unlike some stories higher on my own list, it’s very easy for me to see why some have this as their top story of the year—it takes risks and has a few elements that are absolutely knocked out of the park. But it’s just too long to live on prose and structural experiments alone, and the characters and plot are competently drawn but not quite riveting. Put simply, there’s some exceptional work here, but there are too many slow spots.
Rating: 15/20
Cliff Severity: Standalone!
25. Rose/House by Arkady Martine
Categories: Name in the Title, Standalone (hard), Mental Health (hard), No Ifs Ands Or Buts.
Mini-Review: Apparently I haven’t read many stories with names in them this year, so I have to use the name of an AI house to fill out the card. It hurts me to squeeze out an entry that would’ve easily been top ten in A Desolation Called Peace, but unplanned Bingo can be capricious. At any rate, this one looks like a locked room murder mystery but reads more like a fever dream. It’s a beautiful fever dream with lots of meditation in personhood, but it’s also hard to know just what to take away in the end.
Rating: 14/20
Cliff Severity: Standalone!
Lessons from unplanned Bingo:

• I thought this would be easy, and I suppose I successfully completed the challenge with literally zero advanced planning, so pats on the back for me. But I had to stretch for a couple squares that I noticed in late March hadn’t been obviously filled—particularly Weird Ecology and Name in the Title. I think my choices fit the squares, but I hadn’t noted them down as fits in the immediate aftermath of reading.
• As usual, there were a couple subjective squares that could be filled by seemingly everything. Does anything I read not address mental health and family? Perhaps not. Or perhaps I wasn’t strict enough defining those squares (though my ultimate choices were excellent fits, if I do say so myself).
• On the other hand, I don’t read much urban fantasy, antiheroes, or books with cool weapons. Or a whole lot with shapeshifters, though I was surprised to see them arise more than once. Award Finalist was also tricky, as I read so many books that were currently up for awards—after all, I led the Hugo Readalong and judged for SPSFC—and I had no way of knowing at the time whether they would win.
• Unplanned Bingo didn’t really take away my enjoyment of Bingo. The logic puzzle at the end is fun, but it’s the brainstorming thread at the beginning that makes this my absolute favorite reading challenge.
• In using the same template as my recap post from last year, I was able to notice a few interesting coincidences. For instance, I had an R.F. Kuang novel 4th and my Self-Published square 12th two years running. But in general, my scores were higher this year. Either I’m getting soft with my ratings, or I’m finding more and more good books.

So long story short, a year ago I found a dog when I was moving cross country (went to school on the west coast of US and was moving back to my home state on the East Coast.
In the middle of the desert in Arizona headed to NM, I saw a dog running along the interstate. I impulsively stopped scooped up the pup and continued on my way. She had a collar on with no tags, but it was obviously tight on her like shed been outgrowing it, and she was incredibly skinny. I had hotels reserved for my trip and I didn't want to waste money so I just kept driving. The next stop after scooping her was Albuquerque and I was afraid of what would happen to her if I just dropped her off at a shelter somewhere in a big city. So I cleaned her up, got her back east with me and finally got her seen by a vet. She was atleast 10-15+ lbs underweight (even after a week of me trying to fatten her up) and she was unchipped, so I just kept her. Here's where I'm worried I'm the AH. I did not try to find her owners. By the collar i know someone had her before. I definitely made excuses for myself to keep her. I won't lie I fell in love with how quirky she was. I wanted to keep her, I felt a connection with her. And i know she loves me 100% at this point. When i stopped in NM for pet supplies and told the story to some locals, they automatically assumed she had been dumped so i just kept telling myself thats what happed. Id like to think that if her previous owners truly loved her then they'd just be happy with her in a loving home and not starving in the middle of nowhere, but I know that's me justifying my actions and selfishness if theyre actually looking for her. I was totally capable of atleast posting her photo to a lost and found site for the area but I never did. To be fair a couple months ago I did try and search through a lost and found site to see if anyone had been looking for her, but never saw anything that could have been for her So reddit, AITA? And should I try to find her previous owners, even though it's been a year since I found her?

Hi everyone
I am looking at my first CRE deal and would appreciate some input
I’m talking to a seller of a storage facility from central-south Florida,City has 8000 people.
SF per capita is 9.5. IMO is a little high but when I called the competition the owner picks up the phone in every single one and every single one is 100% full. They didn’t even want to write my details in case they’ll have vacancy .
The guy want 3.2 mil which represent 5.2% cap which I think is over priced but i think I can conservatively bring it to 8.5-9%( converting 5000sqft warehouse to smaller units and build 3000sqft on the lot). Resale will be at 6%
In my opinion this area in Florida gonna enjoy massive appreciation in the next 5-10 years.
I guess my question is , am I crazy for thinking of buying at 5% cap in that small of a market?
I tried to get comp information and competition information via radius and other tools and it all came blank, is there any tool you’d recommend to get data in such rural area?(how do appraisers run comps in cases like this?)
Honestly any input will be really appreciated, unfortunately except of the internet I have no one to consult

I’ve been in a relationship with this guy from Chechnya for almost 2 years now. Although we’ve never met we talk for hours every day. I love him so much, I’ve never met someone who understood me so well. I converted to Islam. I live much more conservatively now.
I live in a very liberal city. There are many lgbt+ people in my family. I used to identify as lesbian. I used to party, drink, and smoke a lot. I had no aspirations or idea of who I was. I get along with my family, but I never felt so close to them. I don’t drink with them or talk about politics or social issues with them.
I don’t wear hijab around my family but when I’m in other places in public I do. I go to mosque sometimes. I try my best to be a good person and treat everyone kindly. I go to the gym quite often because it helps me relieve stress, but I don’t dress as conservatively as I should there. Sometimes I have no idea who I am or what I’m doing. Me and my boyfriend are saving money to see each other. I don’t know how to be honest with my family about everything. Amy boyfriend knows everything at my past and I feel like he’s all I really have who understand me now.

I tried to do some research on my own but could only find OSHA requirements in regards to building codes and door sizes. I’m looking for any regulations in regards to outside exits.
Example: to get on to the campus you have to badge in, an arm then raises and the gate slides open and then you can drive through. To leave campus, a sensor is tripped when you reach a certain point and the arm auto raises and the gate slide open for you to leave. Now they’re removing the sensor and requiring you to badge out, in order for the sequence to happen to finally allow you to leave. Isn’t this unsafe?
If it matters, I work for a utility company that falls under the city; it was explained to me (by the facilities manager) because of this, the campus is public property. (I know, I know, it doesn’t make sense to me that you have to badge in/out or check in with the rentacops at the gate if it’s a public property, but here we are).
Can anyone shed some light?