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2023.03.26 01:03 Dungeon_Dice JoJo's Bizarre OC Tournament #6: R4M8 - Errok vs Cody Enfield
The results are in for Match 6. The winner is…
9:25. Just five seconds left. 2095 danced in a furious frenzy, out of rewinds, out of tech, just the purest expression of dance and combat.
9:27. She dove full-body at Jamir, still in his point of central control, embracing him and carefully dipping him to merely an inch or so above the floor, meeting his shocked expression with a gaze of her own passionate enough to ignite the pair where they stood.
9:30. The final wave. The Ventisca De Porcelana sailed over the pair, any errant shards striking 2095 before they would strike her rival as the deep dip is held. What water clones remained were shredded. The android rose rapidly and spun Jamir out of their embrace, bowing deeply in apology for securing her own victory. In the same beat, the music reached its final climax, prompting 2095 to extend a hand with a loud stomp as if to demand the man join her in one last display of fiery footwork.
The android’s mind wandered as she danced face-to-face inches away from her rival. Was the answer always this simple? To act as though your ideal ‘self’ was your own? She took the lead between the two, placing a hand on his chest as the two desperately worked to keep their breath. Would they be friends after this? Enemies? She no longer cared about the ends, her ideal ‘self’ was enjoying the heat of the moment, lost in the passion of exposing herself for the world to see. She spun away from the intimate distance, joining Jamir shoulder-to-shoulder as the final seconds ticked down and their feet seemed to blur beneath them. This is what she had been after, the secret buried beneath the layers of human complexity and illogical behavior, a feeling so foreign to her but one she cannot imagine to live without from that moment on:
Passion.
Her arms lashed out, framing her new ‘self’ perfectly as she shouted with the final note.
For his part, win or lose, Jamir was satisfied. “You did you, just as I expected… no, huhu.. you exceeded my expectations.”
None of his prior aggression was there, he was just a guy congratulating a partner.
“Though… My performance has yet to conclude. There’s a small, special part, just for you.”
Before he could hand the android the contracted thumbdrive, she caught him off guard with another full-body hug. “Thank you! For everything. For helping me reach this new level of emotion! I didn’t even know if…if it was even possible for me.”
Jamir nodded, doing his best to maintain his cool nonchalance as the android continued.
“And Carmelita too…I think I’m grateful for what they did to bring this out, but…” 2095 hesitated. “I also hate them. I hate them so much. Is that right?”
"....huhuhuhu. I have tasted hate in its many forms, in fact I can say I've been molded by it. It's a fire. An intense. Burning fire..." Jamir smirked. This would be very interesting to watch indeed. "How will you use it? Will it be your dance? Will you control it, or will it control you? These are questions I cannot answer for you, you must choose the path you walk for yourself."
As his partner literally processed this information, Jamir took the opportunity to return to his planned remarks. “But this may be helpful to you.”
Still not breaking her hug, he slipped the android a thumbdrive alongside a business card.
“That there is a ’memory recording’, a vessel into which I’ve transferred some of my memories. It’s one of the many services I provide…has commentary I think you’ll find gainful.” He grinned, “Ah. Don’t worry for me, I’ve already made a copy.”
He turned about, offering 2095 a backwards wave as she released him from the embrace.
“I hope you’ll come see me again… As the Merchant of ’Desires’ there’s plenty I can offer you - not that you can’t find it on your own! Huhuhuhu~”
(Shoutouts to u/TheSlyKoopa for the match concept and mechanics!)
Scenario: Pic du Midi de Bigorre, France — 10:46 AM
The search for the lost civilization of Pieduro attracted the attention of many powerful players from across the Mediterranean, all eager to get their hands on its artifacts and technology—most notably, the enigmatic House of Muses and their patron, Cullinan Dwarf Star. But the man spearheading the charge didn’t represent any of them. Over the past several months, Dédalo Viatger and his faithful companion ｢Perdida｣, intrepid explorers and part of the crew of the H.H. Typhon, had discovered several Pieduron outposts and claimed their artifacts for himself. He didn’t want them for power or money—he wanted to protect them, study them, learn from them. And day by day, Dédalo was getting closer than ever to a major breakthrough.
Today, he and a small group of other explorers were on the trail of one such breakthrough. An avalanche had broken through an ice wall on the side of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, revealing the telltale architecture of a Pieduron outpost. The journey would be treacherous, even for an explorer of Dédalo’s caliber. He needed backup.
At the mouth of the cave behind the shattered ice wall, the Pyrenees stretching out behind him like a blank canvas, Dédalo studied a Temple gifted to him by Al; a small glass orb with a crystalline compass needle suspended inside via string. The red tip of the needle pointed straight ahead, leading further into the natural cave system hidden inside the mountain.
“We’re in the right place,” Dédalo announced. “Everyone ready to go inside?”
“Gladly,” replied a shivering Ninian, immediately switching on her headlamp and heading further into the cave. “This outpost had better be a Pieduron sauna or something. Fucking freezing out here.”
“I have spare warming pads in my pack if you need them. Don’t go too far inside!” Dédalo called into the cave. Ninian ignored him, sat down in a corner, and summoned a small pile of hot sand from the recesses of Endless Rest as a makeshift campfire.
Perdida materialized beside him, concerned. “We did try to warn her about the wind-chill. And how cold leather can get in these conditions.”
“At least we convinced them to ditch the fishnets,” Dédalo chuckled. “Grey? Cody? Are you two ready to go?”
Grey Selioutsky took a moment to respond, looking up from his notepad to give a silent thumbs-up. To see a bonafide ancient civilization must have been a dream come true for a history teacher—he could be forgiven for being excited.
Cody, meanwhile, was leaning against the wall of the cave, watching the group with amusement. It wasn’t his first time working with members of the Hundred Head Voyage, having made a temporary alliance with them before to take down top members of Agoraeus. Volunteering to help them on behalf of the Coleccionistas de Karma was an easy decision to make. Plus, he’d rather be the one to be involved with Pieduro than someone like Deimos. He would have been salivating over the ancient technology, if his new body even had saliva.
After their preparations, the party traveled further into the caves, guided by the needle of Dédalo’s Temple. It led them through winding tunnels, around pits of icy stalagmites, and over near-bottomless chasms via convenient stone bridges.
“It’s like they hollowed out the mountain,” Grey muttered to himself. Perdida marveled at her surroundings with a similar look of awe. No wonder Pieduro covered most of the Mediterranean at their peak.
The group suddenly stopped. At the head of the party, Dédalo stared at the gigantic cave that spread out in front of them, illuminated by their headlamps. Stalactites hung from the high hemispherical ceiling, a wide stream of brackish water cutting through the cave and draining deeper into the mountain. Carvings covered the floor, worn by time but still recognizably man-made—words in a language that Cody could only guess was Pieduron, circling in a spiral around an altar-like stone set in the middle of the floor with seven divots carved into it.
“Any idea what this is?” Ninian asked, their voice echoing off the walls of the cave as the group surveyed the chamber. Dédalo shook his head.
“This is definitely Pieduron architecture,” he replied. “But…it’s nothing that I’ve ever seen before.”
Grey traced a finger over the carvings, studying his notebook in his other hand. “I can only recognize a few words. Temple…lock…viewer…a word that means either “Earth” or “sphere”...and heart.”
Dédalo’s hands unconsciously went to his neck. Adjusting the collar of his coat, he pulled out his necklace, a tortoise-shaped medallion with a square crystal embedded in the center. As he held it to the divots, the crystal glowed with a greenish-blue light.
“El Cor Terra…the Earth Heart,” Dédalo whispered. “Perdida, can you call the Pilots?”
Perdida focused and summoned the baseball-shaped orbs of light to her side. The numerous Temples that Dédalo had gathered on his previous adventures began to glow—and the carvings glowed along with it, the greenish-blue shimmer of Cleria Stone now visible underneath the rock. One by one, Dédalo inserted each of his Temples into the divots. His sword, his bow, his boots, his gauntlet, even the necklace that had never left his side until now.
He nodded to Perdida. She brought the Pilots closer to the altar and, with great care, infused them with each of the seven Temples.
Immediately, the carvings illuminated, bathing the darkened cave with a warm glow. The stream of water bubbled and light shone through it, refracting across the walls in an array of dazzling colors. The colors shimmered and focused into spots of light. Then, three-dimensional shapes began to form in the light. A night sky filled with stars, miniature approximations of the planets, and constellations of great beasts and serpents; humanoid figures dressed in unfamiliar but impressive regal garb, surrounded by more in similar clothing; great, towering buildings under construction in mountains and sand dunes and jungles.
“Holograms…” Cody muttered. “Sweet.”
“It’s more than that,” Dédalo wondered aloud. “It’s a theater. A theater of the history of Pieduro.”
Ninian squinted at the holograms showing the Piedurons in wartime, studying their elaborate weapons with a mix of amazement and concern. “Good thing E.E.P. didn’t find this place first. They’d have a field day.”
Wiping an immaterial tear from her eye, Perdida laid a gentle hand on Dédalo’s shoulder. “Dalo,” she whispered. “If these projections show the history of Pieduro…do you think that it shows…the end?”
Dédalo nodded solemnly. “I was thinking the same thing. It doesn’t seem chronological, but-”
“The Piedurons met the same fate as all living things,” a harsh metallic voice announced. “They died, decayed, and disappeared. The true question is…will you suffer the same?”
Scenario—Earlier that day
“Weaklings, the lot of them,” Errok thought aloud. He stared at the party from above, marveling at the naivete so nakedly on display. Studying weapons of great power? Protecting them?
“Hnrh. A weapon’s only purpose is to kill and maim.” An unsightly blemish against the mountain-white snow, he had been following this party of would-be adventurers since the base of the mountain, using his rotten arm to scale a part of the mountain they wouldn’t see him approaching from.
Despite his ability to keep pace, mountain climbing was far from his area of expertise; when Errok couldn’t throw himself up the mountain face with his fell arm, he lumbered and clattered around the uneven surface until he shuffled into the same entrance his prey had used. He spoke to an audience of himself as he stalked across the rafters of this strange complex, hollowed out of the mountain. “This temple could contain only that, yes…some weapon of unimaginable power. Ohohoho…what could such a weapon destroy?”
Errok knew what he was about to say was wishful thinking, but wish he did. However outside his wheelhouse this excursion was proving to be, it was far from the first indignity rained upon him. The Spaniard had left his accursed organs within Errok’s perfect form, and he had been relegated to a mere lowly thief to steal resources from others for his ‘team.’
Bah! It had weighed on Errok, this attack on the warrior of waste’s very soul, and he’d had more than enough. From this moment on, he was striking out for himself; he would suffer these slights no longer and seek a weapon to reduce anything in his path to ash.
“The soul…yes, that would be the perfect target indeed. To destroy the soul is to destroy utterly, to leave nothing behind…” Errok chuckled. “...To truly rot something away; that’s something I’d kill for!”
Engrossed in the dramatic gravitas of his soliloquy (and subsequent fit of chuckling laughter), Errok’s foot met an icy patch, and he slipped headfirst over the edge of the platform, forcing him to swing Gravetender to catch himself.
The sword snagged a crevice, wedging open some stuck aperture. His eyes darted to the opportunity, and his hand reached out to grab it. Lest he fall to the base of the mountain, ｢You Are Blood｣ burst forth, coiling into what must have been the air vent, fingers finding putrid purchase as he swung precariously, holding himself up by sheer brutish strength. Strength that so easily came to him, and let him so easily gradually rappel himself inside the temple proper.
Whatever this was, it most certainly wasn’t the traditional path inside—the creaking of machinery not meant to support him confirmed that he had broken the intended sequence. A smug grin curled across his visage as he shuffled through the narrow passage. “I have defiled this temple’s consecrated path; rot flows from my very footsteps.”
Before him was an empty chamber, grand and numinous in design; if any great and terrible was ever to be stored, it would certainly be locked away somewhere like here. The only sound was the whispering of the whelps above. Even if he did not yet have a weapon to destroy the soul, he had his trusty blade to carve through them all the same. Still ignored, he squeezed out from the vent and brandished the sword with a flourish, spinning it and slamming it into the ground with a mighty
Cody glanced around at the group, weapons drawn and Stands summoned. Ninian looked the most surprised to see the figure below.
“Errok?” She yelled. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?!”
“Nothing of your concern, girl,” Errok spat, relishing the menacing echo that the stone walls gave his voice. “Now, stand aside, lest your blood stain these relics of the past that you find so precious-”
Wait. Where did one of them go?
Errok ducked, nearly catching a surfboard across the jaw, as Cody skid to a stop next to him, having spiraled and surfed down from the group. The rest of the party was most immediately interested in learning about Pieduro, he was just tagging along for help and for fun. Buying them time to make the proper discovery was doing both.
“Damn. Almost got you.” Cody grinned, tucking ｢Surfin’ Bird｣ under his arm similar to Errok’s own stance. “Listen, dude, if you wanted to kill us, just kill us, ‘kay? You look scary enough as is, you don’t have to give a whole speech about it.”
“Ahahaha-” Errok rasped, his armor creaking discordantly. “This temple’s guardian, trying to prevent me from plundering its riches, superweapons sealed away for the destruction they might wreak.”
Cody blinked. “…No, I’m just a friend of Dédalo. He’s the blue-haired dude in the hat. And I’m pretty sure that the Temples are the artifacts; I think this place is actually called an outpost. Besides, we haven’t found any-”
“You haven’t found them yet!?” He barked, a revolting grin spread across his face. “Then I suggest you get out of my way, before you taste the edge of Gravetender.”
Cody quickly glanced up at the higher level. Dédalo had already disappeared, probably continuing deeper inside the outpost with the others. The carvings and holograms were beginning to shift, long-inactive mechanisms whirring to life. A section of the wall suddenly lit up like a screen, showing an image of an age long past. The rest of the expedition party was surely watching the display with academic interest, and if ‘Errok’ was going to disturb them…
“Alrighty then,” Cody pointed at the glowering titan before him. “If you want to get to the secrets of this temple, then you’ll have to get through me.”
“Very well! I will christen my conquest of this temple with your blood!” Errok bellowed, hoisting his sword into the air and tightening the gauntlet containing ｢You Are Blood｣ into a fist. “OPEN THE GAME!”(Shoutouts to u/TreeTurtle_852 for the match art!)
Location: Pic du Midi de Bigorre, France; more specifically a hidden Pieduron “planetarium” recently discovered within the depths of the mountain.
The arena is a 40m diameter hemisphere with each tile being 2x2 meters, a projection of light along the domed ceiling being the only source of light
Over time the maps will change and has 5 stages:
Stage 1 and Stage 2:
Additional Information: The documentary has 5 stages, each depicting a different era of Pieduro - changing the terrain and lighting along with it. Each stage lasts for about 1 minute, with the last stage remaining as is until the fight is over.
Stage 1 - Birth of Civilization
Link to Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!
About a week ago…
“Turn me into a pig too.”
Circe blinked. “From whence do you come, castaway?”
“Serbia. Punjab. Turn me into a pig.”
“...okay, fine.”
And Dirty Ghost became a pig. It felt the sun on its back, heard the snurfling of its piggy companions. There was no need to harm the woman who did this, no desire to disembowel her and wear her intestines as a scarf. The only thing on the swine’s mind were how nice the mud felt on its body and the warmth of the sun felt against its skin. The heat was counteracted by the cold mud, the cold was counteracted by the sun.
There is no need to push forwards. There is no need to find something stimulating and new. There is no emptiness, no boredom, no thoughts of the future or past. There is a mud puddle.
As the swine swaddled itself in its ego death, followed around by the other pigs that once comprised its ship, another castaway landed on the other end of the island. The next morning, Circe awoke to the smell of… fresh-cooked pork? And not only so, but a variety of different smells, incredible dishes made to only the finest of standards. Fresh herbs, meats cooked to perfection, a veritable buffet of mouth-watering, tantalizing meals.
…But why?
Val waltzed to Circe, crouching down to explain, ”The dinner’s almost ready, so prepare yourself for the show of a lifetime!” with that elusive charisma of hers.
Before Circe could interrupt her, she slid dish after dish towards her, pork cooked every which way, bacon, ham, soups, pomegranate punch, fig jam, and more.
”Now, let’s turn to our judge, for the final scores! Were those dishes scrumptious enough to undo my cursed luggage?” She cackled, turning to Circe. When Circe finally agreed…
”This concludes today’s episode of the Valentine Yao Cooking Hour; we certainly hope you enjoyed our program, but we must be going now!”
Val returned to her pigs, now again a realized vessel. She gathered more wood in thick slices of logs and the fibers of grasses, for the braiding of ropes
And she boarded once again, with a barrel of salt-pork in tow and her canvas under her arm.
submitted by Dungeon_Dice to StardustCrusaders [link] [comments]
9:25. Just five seconds left. 2095 danced in a furious frenzy, out of rewinds, out of tech, just the purest expression of dance and combat.
9:27. She dove full-body at Jamir, still in his point of central control, embracing him and carefully dipping him to merely an inch or so above the floor, meeting his shocked expression with a gaze of her own passionate enough to ignite the pair where they stood.
9:30. The final wave. The Ventisca De Porcelana sailed over the pair, any errant shards striking 2095 before they would strike her rival as the deep dip is held. What water clones remained were shredded. The android rose rapidly and spun Jamir out of their embrace, bowing deeply in apology for securing her own victory. In the same beat, the music reached its final climax, prompting 2095 to extend a hand with a loud stomp as if to demand the man join her in one last display of fiery footwork.
10538-2095, with a score of 79 to Jamir O Santos’s 78!
| Category | Winner | Point Totals | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Popularity | 10538-2095 | 14 (3+2) - 16 (4+2) | Voting had a slow start, but as the pace quickened, 2095 held a one vote lead by the skin of her teeth! |
| Quality | Jamir O Santos | 25 (10 7 8) - 24 (8 7 9) | Reasoning |
| JoJolity | Tie | 29 (10 9 10) - 29 (10 9 10) | Reasoning |
| Conduct | Tie | 10-10 | Nothing to report! |
Passion.
Her arms lashed out, framing her new ‘self’ perfectly as she shouted with the final note.
For his part, win or lose, Jamir was satisfied. “You did you, just as I expected… no, huhu.. you exceeded my expectations.”
None of his prior aggression was there, he was just a guy congratulating a partner.
“Though… My performance has yet to conclude. There’s a small, special part, just for you.”
Before he could hand the android the contracted thumbdrive, she caught him off guard with another full-body hug. “Thank you! For everything. For helping me reach this new level of emotion! I didn’t even know if…if it was even possible for me.”
Jamir nodded, doing his best to maintain his cool nonchalance as the android continued.
“And Carmelita too…I think I’m grateful for what they did to bring this out, but…” 2095 hesitated. “I also hate them. I hate them so much. Is that right?”
"....huhuhuhu. I have tasted hate in its many forms, in fact I can say I've been molded by it. It's a fire. An intense. Burning fire..." Jamir smirked. This would be very interesting to watch indeed. "How will you use it? Will it be your dance? Will you control it, or will it control you? These are questions I cannot answer for you, you must choose the path you walk for yourself."
As his partner literally processed this information, Jamir took the opportunity to return to his planned remarks. “But this may be helpful to you.”
Still not breaking her hug, he slipped the android a thumbdrive alongside a business card.
“That there is a ’memory recording’, a vessel into which I’ve transferred some of my memories. It’s one of the many services I provide…has commentary I think you’ll find gainful.” He grinned, “Ah. Don’t worry for me, I’ve already made a copy.”
He turned about, offering 2095 a backwards wave as she released him from the embrace.
“I hope you’ll come see me again… As the Merchant of ’Desires’ there’s plenty I can offer you - not that you can’t find it on your own! Huhuhuhu~”
Located in the French Pyrenees, the mountain Pic du Midi de Bigorre hosts the famous Pic du Midi Observatory! Construction of the observatory began in 1878 under the Société Ramond, until rising costs forced them to hand over construction to the French government. Construction was completed in 1908, and the following year, its powerful equatorial reflector was used to discredit the theory that there were canals on Mars! Today, the observatory is used for international collaborations to advance our knowledge of the cosmos!Silence permeated the snow-packed peaks of the Pyrenees mountain range. The untouched snow and stark landscape muffled any sound outside of the howl of the freezing mountain winds. At this elevation, little life could exist—save for the scientists of the Pic du Midi Observatory and, for today only, their guests.
The search for the lost civilization of Pieduro attracted the attention of many powerful players from across the Mediterranean, all eager to get their hands on its artifacts and technology—most notably, the enigmatic House of Muses and their patron, Cullinan Dwarf Star. But the man spearheading the charge didn’t represent any of them. Over the past several months, Dédalo Viatger and his faithful companion ｢Perdida｣, intrepid explorers and part of the crew of the H.H. Typhon, had discovered several Pieduron outposts and claimed their artifacts for himself. He didn’t want them for power or money—he wanted to protect them, study them, learn from them. And day by day, Dédalo was getting closer than ever to a major breakthrough.
Today, he and a small group of other explorers were on the trail of one such breakthrough. An avalanche had broken through an ice wall on the side of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, revealing the telltale architecture of a Pieduron outpost. The journey would be treacherous, even for an explorer of Dédalo’s caliber. He needed backup.
At the mouth of the cave behind the shattered ice wall, the Pyrenees stretching out behind him like a blank canvas, Dédalo studied a Temple gifted to him by Al; a small glass orb with a crystalline compass needle suspended inside via string. The red tip of the needle pointed straight ahead, leading further into the natural cave system hidden inside the mountain.
“We’re in the right place,” Dédalo announced. “Everyone ready to go inside?”
“Gladly,” replied a shivering Ninian, immediately switching on her headlamp and heading further into the cave. “This outpost had better be a Pieduron sauna or something. Fucking freezing out here.”
“I have spare warming pads in my pack if you need them. Don’t go too far inside!” Dédalo called into the cave. Ninian ignored him, sat down in a corner, and summoned a small pile of hot sand from the recesses of Endless Rest as a makeshift campfire.
Perdida materialized beside him, concerned. “We did try to warn her about the wind-chill. And how cold leather can get in these conditions.”
“At least we convinced them to ditch the fishnets,” Dédalo chuckled. “Grey? Cody? Are you two ready to go?”
Grey Selioutsky took a moment to respond, looking up from his notepad to give a silent thumbs-up. To see a bonafide ancient civilization must have been a dream come true for a history teacher—he could be forgiven for being excited.
Cody, meanwhile, was leaning against the wall of the cave, watching the group with amusement. It wasn’t his first time working with members of the Hundred Head Voyage, having made a temporary alliance with them before to take down top members of Agoraeus. Volunteering to help them on behalf of the Coleccionistas de Karma was an easy decision to make. Plus, he’d rather be the one to be involved with Pieduro than someone like Deimos. He would have been salivating over the ancient technology, if his new body even had saliva.
After their preparations, the party traveled further into the caves, guided by the needle of Dédalo’s Temple. It led them through winding tunnels, around pits of icy stalagmites, and over near-bottomless chasms via convenient stone bridges.
“It’s like they hollowed out the mountain,” Grey muttered to himself. Perdida marveled at her surroundings with a similar look of awe. No wonder Pieduro covered most of the Mediterranean at their peak.
The group suddenly stopped. At the head of the party, Dédalo stared at the gigantic cave that spread out in front of them, illuminated by their headlamps. Stalactites hung from the high hemispherical ceiling, a wide stream of brackish water cutting through the cave and draining deeper into the mountain. Carvings covered the floor, worn by time but still recognizably man-made—words in a language that Cody could only guess was Pieduron, circling in a spiral around an altar-like stone set in the middle of the floor with seven divots carved into it.
“Any idea what this is?” Ninian asked, their voice echoing off the walls of the cave as the group surveyed the chamber. Dédalo shook his head.
“This is definitely Pieduron architecture,” he replied. “But…it’s nothing that I’ve ever seen before.”
Grey traced a finger over the carvings, studying his notebook in his other hand. “I can only recognize a few words. Temple…lock…viewer…a word that means either “Earth” or “sphere”...and heart.”
Dédalo’s hands unconsciously went to his neck. Adjusting the collar of his coat, he pulled out his necklace, a tortoise-shaped medallion with a square crystal embedded in the center. As he held it to the divots, the crystal glowed with a greenish-blue light.
“El Cor Terra…the Earth Heart,” Dédalo whispered. “Perdida, can you call the Pilots?”
Perdida focused and summoned the baseball-shaped orbs of light to her side. The numerous Temples that Dédalo had gathered on his previous adventures began to glow—and the carvings glowed along with it, the greenish-blue shimmer of Cleria Stone now visible underneath the rock. One by one, Dédalo inserted each of his Temples into the divots. His sword, his bow, his boots, his gauntlet, even the necklace that had never left his side until now.
He nodded to Perdida. She brought the Pilots closer to the altar and, with great care, infused them with each of the seven Temples.
Immediately, the carvings illuminated, bathing the darkened cave with a warm glow. The stream of water bubbled and light shone through it, refracting across the walls in an array of dazzling colors. The colors shimmered and focused into spots of light. Then, three-dimensional shapes began to form in the light. A night sky filled with stars, miniature approximations of the planets, and constellations of great beasts and serpents; humanoid figures dressed in unfamiliar but impressive regal garb, surrounded by more in similar clothing; great, towering buildings under construction in mountains and sand dunes and jungles.
“Holograms…” Cody muttered. “Sweet.”
“It’s more than that,” Dédalo wondered aloud. “It’s a theater. A theater of the history of Pieduro.”
Ninian squinted at the holograms showing the Piedurons in wartime, studying their elaborate weapons with a mix of amazement and concern. “Good thing E.E.P. didn’t find this place first. They’d have a field day.”
Wiping an immaterial tear from her eye, Perdida laid a gentle hand on Dédalo’s shoulder. “Dalo,” she whispered. “If these projections show the history of Pieduro…do you think that it shows…the end?”
Dédalo nodded solemnly. “I was thinking the same thing. It doesn’t seem chronological, but-”
KRNK!
All five heads whipped downwards in the direction of the metallic crash that resounded throughout the chamber. Stood to a projection of a Pieduron warrior, a very real armored silhouette loomed over them from a previously unseen lower level, resting their hands on a massive greatsword with its tip planted in the stone.“The Piedurons met the same fate as all living things,” a harsh metallic voice announced. “They died, decayed, and disappeared. The true question is…will you suffer the same?”
“Weaklings, the lot of them,” Errok thought aloud. He stared at the party from above, marveling at the naivete so nakedly on display. Studying weapons of great power? Protecting them?
“Hnrh. A weapon’s only purpose is to kill and maim.” An unsightly blemish against the mountain-white snow, he had been following this party of would-be adventurers since the base of the mountain, using his rotten arm to scale a part of the mountain they wouldn’t see him approaching from.
Despite his ability to keep pace, mountain climbing was far from his area of expertise; when Errok couldn’t throw himself up the mountain face with his fell arm, he lumbered and clattered around the uneven surface until he shuffled into the same entrance his prey had used. He spoke to an audience of himself as he stalked across the rafters of this strange complex, hollowed out of the mountain. “This temple could contain only that, yes…some weapon of unimaginable power. Ohohoho…what could such a weapon destroy?”
Errok knew what he was about to say was wishful thinking, but wish he did. However outside his wheelhouse this excursion was proving to be, it was far from the first indignity rained upon him. The Spaniard had left his accursed organs within Errok’s perfect form, and he had been relegated to a mere lowly thief to steal resources from others for his ‘team.’
Bah! It had weighed on Errok, this attack on the warrior of waste’s very soul, and he’d had more than enough. From this moment on, he was striking out for himself; he would suffer these slights no longer and seek a weapon to reduce anything in his path to ash.
“The soul…yes, that would be the perfect target indeed. To destroy the soul is to destroy utterly, to leave nothing behind…” Errok chuckled. “...To truly rot something away; that’s something I’d kill for!”
Engrossed in the dramatic gravitas of his soliloquy (and subsequent fit of chuckling laughter), Errok’s foot met an icy patch, and he slipped headfirst over the edge of the platform, forcing him to swing Gravetender to catch himself.
The sword snagged a crevice, wedging open some stuck aperture. His eyes darted to the opportunity, and his hand reached out to grab it. Lest he fall to the base of the mountain, ｢You Are Blood｣ burst forth, coiling into what must have been the air vent, fingers finding putrid purchase as he swung precariously, holding himself up by sheer brutish strength. Strength that so easily came to him, and let him so easily gradually rappel himself inside the temple proper.
Whatever this was, it most certainly wasn’t the traditional path inside—the creaking of machinery not meant to support him confirmed that he had broken the intended sequence. A smug grin curled across his visage as he shuffled through the narrow passage. “I have defiled this temple’s consecrated path; rot flows from my very footsteps.”
Before him was an empty chamber, grand and numinous in design; if any great and terrible was ever to be stored, it would certainly be locked away somewhere like here. The only sound was the whispering of the whelps above. Even if he did not yet have a weapon to destroy the soul, he had his trusty blade to carve through them all the same. Still ignored, he squeezed out from the vent and brandished the sword with a flourish, spinning it and slamming it into the ground with a mighty
KRNK!
“Errok?” She yelled. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?!”
“Nothing of your concern, girl,” Errok spat, relishing the menacing echo that the stone walls gave his voice. “Now, stand aside, lest your blood stain these relics of the past that you find so precious-”
Wait. Where did one of them go?
Errok ducked, nearly catching a surfboard across the jaw, as Cody skid to a stop next to him, having spiraled and surfed down from the group. The rest of the party was most immediately interested in learning about Pieduro, he was just tagging along for help and for fun. Buying them time to make the proper discovery was doing both.
“Damn. Almost got you.” Cody grinned, tucking ｢Surfin’ Bird｣ under his arm similar to Errok’s own stance. “Listen, dude, if you wanted to kill us, just kill us, ‘kay? You look scary enough as is, you don’t have to give a whole speech about it.”
“Ahahaha-” Errok rasped, his armor creaking discordantly. “This temple’s guardian, trying to prevent me from plundering its riches, superweapons sealed away for the destruction they might wreak.”
Cody blinked. “…No, I’m just a friend of Dédalo. He’s the blue-haired dude in the hat. And I’m pretty sure that the Temples are the artifacts; I think this place is actually called an outpost. Besides, we haven’t found any-”
“You haven’t found them yet!?” He barked, a revolting grin spread across his face. “Then I suggest you get out of my way, before you taste the edge of Gravetender.”
Cody quickly glanced up at the higher level. Dédalo had already disappeared, probably continuing deeper inside the outpost with the others. The carvings and holograms were beginning to shift, long-inactive mechanisms whirring to life. A section of the wall suddenly lit up like a screen, showing an image of an age long past. The rest of the expedition party was surely watching the display with academic interest, and if ‘Errok’ was going to disturb them…
“Alrighty then,” Cody pointed at the glowering titan before him. “If you want to get to the secrets of this temple, then you’ll have to get through me.”
“Very well! I will christen my conquest of this temple with your blood!” Errok bellowed, hoisting his sword into the air and tightening the gauntlet containing ｢You Are Blood｣ into a fist. “OPEN THE GAME!”(Shoutouts to u/TreeTurtle_852 for the match art!)
The arena is a 40m diameter hemisphere with each tile being 2x2 meters, a projection of light along the domed ceiling being the only source of light
Over time the maps will change and has 5 stages:
Stage 1 and Stage 2:
- Green Triangles are trees
- Small Circles are player starting positions
- Dark Teal Squares are 2.5x2.5 buildings
- Cyan Arrows are Jump Pad Temples
- Pale Red Ring is a floating platform
- Red Frowny Face is the large face that extrudes from the mountainside in Stage 5
- All remaining trees will wilt at the end of Stage 5
Additional Information: The documentary has 5 stages, each depicting a different era of Pieduro - changing the terrain and lighting along with it. Each stage lasts for about 1 minute, with the last stage remaining as is until the fight is over.
Stage 1 - Birth of Civilization
- The lights go completely dark in the circular room as a large spire of Cleria extrudes from the center (18m tall, 10m diameter). A soft, sunset orange glow illuminates the room as holographic farmers start tilling the "fields" around the central mountain. 2m tall trees will also have grown just in time for the “game” to have been “opened”. Over the course of this stage, the holographic farmers will move to areas where trees have been uprooted by players and said trees will regrow with B POW and B SPD. These trees and any components players tear off of them are Stand-affecting.
- The lights dim once more and a crescent moon appears at the peak of the dome. White orbs will start to randomly appear across the stage to further illuminate the area. These orbs have A DUR and can be physically manipulated by Stand and user alike.
- The arena makes sudden changes during this stage. Any still-rooted trees in a 5m donut around the mountain's base will wither away, and that section of ground will rise 5m. 12 2.5x2.5m hollow cubes representing buildings will erect on this new platform, evenly spaced out around the mountain similar to the numbers on a clock. Facing outward on each building is a door, in front of which is a "Temple" artifact resembling a streetlight. These can be easily pulled out of the ground and when activated, will attract all loose wood in a 1m radius around the top "light" portion of it. Also, at the base of the new raised platform in each cardinal direction, a "jump pad" Temple will extrude out of the floor. When activated, the jump pad will consume its energy source and allow its user to jump 15m up into the air and land safely back on the ground. Each Temple can be activated with one of the floating orbs formed in the previous stage. The lighting during this stage also changes to a sky-blue color.
- The lighting changes to a deep purple color as images of famous landmarks from past civilizations appear along the walls of the dome. A large, flat, floating ring appears at the peak of the mountain that pulses with white light. The jump pad Temples from the previous Stage can allow players to jump up to this ring platform. Along the edge of the floating ring, players can find removable "Pieduron candle" Temples that can consume one of the floating orbs to eject a 2m B POW spray of fire - though each of these Temples only has one use. There are about 15 of these along the ring.
- The lighting in the room gradually shifts to an ominous red color as a humanoid face forms on the side of the mountain, the number 0 etched into its forehead. This face takes one whole minute to form, and as it finishes its eyes will suddenly flow red as well. Abruptly, all glowing orbs from Stage 2 will extinguish and all active Temples will deactivate. The remaining planted trees from Stage 1 will wither as well. Oddly enough, the floating ring platform and its pulsing glow will be unaffected. These effects will remain as is for the rest of the match.
- Wood Magnets: Streetlight-looking Temples that can be easily pulled out of the ground. When activated, they will attract all loose wood in a 1m radius around the top "light" portion of it with C Power.
- Jump Pads: Emblemed panels on the ground around the base of a raised platform. When activated, the jump pad will consume one floating orb placed into it and allow its “user” to jump 15m up into the air and land safely back on the ground.
- Pieduron Candles: Small, cone-shaped trinkets that can consume one of the floating orbs to eject a 2m B POW spray of fire - though each of these Temples only has one use.
| Team | Combatant | JoJolity |
|---|---|---|
| Bastards of Barcas | Errok | “I, Nikolas Garland, seek a true God, with true power... not some mythical deity invented to scare children!” Embody the Pieduron element of “Obsidian”, symbolizing power and its contradictory brittle nature in how it can often bring down those that use it as well! |
| Coleccionistas de Karma | Cody Enfield | “That's what I'm screamin'! Walls, zero; Dogi the Wall-Crusher, like, a million! Who needs doors, when they got me?!” Embody the Pieduron element of “Quicksilver”, symbolizing the chaotic flow of nature and how the clashing of the wills of mankind are constantly changing the world around them! |
Link to Match Schedule
“Turn me into a pig too.”
Circe blinked. “From whence do you come, castaway?”
“Serbia. Punjab. Turn me into a pig.”
“...okay, fine.”
And Dirty Ghost became a pig. It felt the sun on its back, heard the snurfling of its piggy companions. There was no need to harm the woman who did this, no desire to disembowel her and wear her intestines as a scarf. The only thing on the swine’s mind were how nice the mud felt on its body and the warmth of the sun felt against its skin. The heat was counteracted by the cold mud, the cold was counteracted by the sun.
There is no need to push forwards. There is no need to find something stimulating and new. There is no emptiness, no boredom, no thoughts of the future or past. There is a mud puddle.
As the swine swaddled itself in its ego death, followed around by the other pigs that once comprised its ship, another castaway landed on the other end of the island. The next morning, Circe awoke to the smell of… fresh-cooked pork? And not only so, but a variety of different smells, incredible dishes made to only the finest of standards. Fresh herbs, meats cooked to perfection, a veritable buffet of mouth-watering, tantalizing meals.
…But why?
Val waltzed to Circe, crouching down to explain, ”The dinner’s almost ready, so prepare yourself for the show of a lifetime!” with that elusive charisma of hers.
Before Circe could interrupt her, she slid dish after dish towards her, pork cooked every which way, bacon, ham, soups, pomegranate punch, fig jam, and more.
”Now, let’s turn to our judge, for the final scores! Were those dishes scrumptious enough to undo my cursed luggage?” She cackled, turning to Circe. When Circe finally agreed…
”This concludes today’s episode of the Valentine Yao Cooking Hour; we certainly hope you enjoyed our program, but we must be going now!”
Val returned to her pigs, now again a realized vessel. She gathered more wood in thick slices of logs and the fibers of grasses, for the braiding of ropes
And she boarded once again, with a barrel of salt-pork in tow and her canvas under her arm.
2023.03.26 00:58 LabRevolutionary2216 Amazon FBA for Distribution?
Does anyone here use Amazon FBA for distribution of a self-published or small publishing house book? How does that work?
Say I write a book, obtain an ISBN, arrange manufacturing, and inventory a few thousand units myself. Can I create a book page and sell it on Amazon, and use their FBA service to inventory at Amazon's warehouses and ensure I get the "Prime Shipping" option?
Amazon's Seller Central says the fee for books is 15% of the selling price plus $1.80 per unit. Are there hidden fees that are not being mentioned? For inventory? Shipping?
Would love to get advice and the community experience on this. Thanks!
submitted by LabRevolutionary2216 to selfpublish [link] [comments]
Say I write a book, obtain an ISBN, arrange manufacturing, and inventory a few thousand units myself. Can I create a book page and sell it on Amazon, and use their FBA service to inventory at Amazon's warehouses and ensure I get the "Prime Shipping" option?
Amazon's Seller Central says the fee for books is 15% of the selling price plus $1.80 per unit. Are there hidden fees that are not being mentioned? For inventory? Shipping?
Would love to get advice and the community experience on this. Thanks!
2023.03.26 00:50 twilightxaddictt Questions for a school project!
Hi! I’m a junior in college and for my theology course this semester, I have to write about another religion. I was wondering if anyone could answer any of the following questions for me for research!
Thank you so much for any and all help!
1) Do you pray/hold services in a language which would not be considered your first language like how Catholics pray in Latin or Jewish people in Hebrew?
2) How do you feel regarding western converts? If you yourself are a convert, how have you been treated by the community?
3) If you have them, do you orient your home altars in a specific direction?
4) Do you practice predominantly privately or through community?
5) Have you yourself read the bhagavad gita? If yes, have you found it adds to your practice? If not, do you feel you need to to further your spirituality? (repeat this question for the vedas)
6) Do you find forum communities to be more spiritually engaging than in person communities for your practice, or do you prefer in person services? Do you benefit from each in different ways? Can you expand on those ways or are they difficult to articulate?
7) Do you prefer solitary practice with digital engagement over public/community practice?
submitted by twilightxaddictt to hinduism [link] [comments]
Thank you so much for any and all help!
1) Do you pray/hold services in a language which would not be considered your first language like how Catholics pray in Latin or Jewish people in Hebrew?
2) How do you feel regarding western converts? If you yourself are a convert, how have you been treated by the community?
3) If you have them, do you orient your home altars in a specific direction?
4) Do you practice predominantly privately or through community?
5) Have you yourself read the bhagavad gita? If yes, have you found it adds to your practice? If not, do you feel you need to to further your spirituality? (repeat this question for the vedas)
6) Do you find forum communities to be more spiritually engaging than in person communities for your practice, or do you prefer in person services? Do you benefit from each in different ways? Can you expand on those ways or are they difficult to articulate?
7) Do you prefer solitary practice with digital engagement over public/community practice?
2023.03.26 00:44 JaredMechanical 23 wanting to become a general contractor
I am 23 years old and currently working in the commercial HVAC field doing installs. I would like to start my own contracting business I would like to get my own trailer where I can store all my tools and materials for that job. I like HVAC but don't want to solely do that. I am not sure where to start. im really looking for recommendations on how to get started, what i should do, and things to consider.
I live in Pennsylvania so according to google. I would need...
plumbing license to perform plumbing.
electrical license only in certain areas/counties/cities- ALSO How hard would it be to get an electrical license, I have a great understanding of electrical, just would take a couple of years for the bookwork I guess.
now I might consider subbing this stuff out just depends on the job.
and of course, I would need to pull permits
I have been watching this guy name RR buildings on youtube. He does post-frame construction and make custom barndominums and garage/shops. I wouldn't mind doing something like that, just don't know where to start.
My experience
went to community college for an HVAC degree (2 years)
5 years HVAC (3 years service + 2 years install)
I've fully renovated 3 houses over the course of 8 years(with my dad)
this consisted of all new electrical, 200 amp upgrade, plumbing, drywall, cabinets, HVAC, siding, windows, doors, insulation, kitchen, bathroom, deck/patio, garage door, and vinyl flooring.
submitted by JaredMechanical to Construction [link] [comments]
I live in Pennsylvania so according to google. I would need...
plumbing license to perform plumbing.
electrical license only in certain areas/counties/cities- ALSO How hard would it be to get an electrical license, I have a great understanding of electrical, just would take a couple of years for the bookwork I guess.
now I might consider subbing this stuff out just depends on the job.
and of course, I would need to pull permits
I have been watching this guy name RR buildings on youtube. He does post-frame construction and make custom barndominums and garage/shops. I wouldn't mind doing something like that, just don't know where to start.
My experience
went to community college for an HVAC degree (2 years)
5 years HVAC (3 years service + 2 years install)
I've fully renovated 3 houses over the course of 8 years(with my dad)
this consisted of all new electrical, 200 amp upgrade, plumbing, drywall, cabinets, HVAC, siding, windows, doors, insulation, kitchen, bathroom, deck/patio, garage door, and vinyl flooring.
2023.03.26 00:10 okgreatness08 A nonprofit where anyone can homestead?
Wouldn't that be cool?
Because I kind of did that. But as I'm learning, when you start from scratch with no ingredients (invested board, nest egg, exposure, etc) it's almost impossible to get it off the ground.
I am just interested in people's opinions on it.
I created a 501c3 nonprofit where any impoverished person or family can become a homesteader with no buy-in, and have immediate employment in a commercial-sized earth-integrated indoor greenhouse to grow a variety of crops with aeroculture and/or aquaponics. We'd pay professionals to overlook operations, create a learning environment, and teach everyone to care for the system. They'd get an earth-integrated house on the homestead co-op and have a say in the organization on many topics. They'd work less than a part time job and get paid more than a full time min wage job. Have the freedom of time to pursue whatever it is they want out of life, just from contributing to caring for the food system. We'd sell all of the fish and produce, take donations, apply for grants, seek corporate funding, and other revenues of income. Homesteaders could sell their own products as the law allows to make extra money for their own families. I'm talking about a national scope. Communities of homesteaders that live and work together. It sounds kinda lame in layman's terms when it's not dressed up in my smart talk.
The mission of Thompson Family Homestead Inc. is to promote sustainability by fulfilling the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of future generations while ensuring a balance between economic growth, environmental care, and social well-being. We will do this by providing job opportunities, promoting self-sufficiency, providing fresh, healthy food, fostering community building, promoting environmental stewardship, offering on-site training and workshops, and creating and sharing online resources.
The objectives of the proposed project are to increase food production, reduce waste, improve food security, promote environmental stewardship, and promote social equity and economic viability. The planned results/outcomes of the project are increased productivity, reduced waste, improved resource efficiency, improved food security, and enhanced environmental stewardship.
Thompson Family Homestead Inc. is committed to addressing the growing needs of sustainable food production, community building, education, and outreach services in the region. TFH Inc. seeks to create innovative and sustainable solutions through the establishment of an earth-integrated aquaponics homestead co-op. Built on environmentally-friendly and resource-conserving practices, TFH INC. aims to create a reliable and sustainable source of healthy, locally-produced food. TFH Inc. also places emphasis on education and community engagement, providing workshops, training programs, and outreach initiatives to equip community members with the knowledge and skills needed for sustainable living.
submitted by okgreatness08 to homestead [link] [comments]
Because I kind of did that. But as I'm learning, when you start from scratch with no ingredients (invested board, nest egg, exposure, etc) it's almost impossible to get it off the ground.
I am just interested in people's opinions on it.
I created a 501c3 nonprofit where any impoverished person or family can become a homesteader with no buy-in, and have immediate employment in a commercial-sized earth-integrated indoor greenhouse to grow a variety of crops with aeroculture and/or aquaponics. We'd pay professionals to overlook operations, create a learning environment, and teach everyone to care for the system. They'd get an earth-integrated house on the homestead co-op and have a say in the organization on many topics. They'd work less than a part time job and get paid more than a full time min wage job. Have the freedom of time to pursue whatever it is they want out of life, just from contributing to caring for the food system. We'd sell all of the fish and produce, take donations, apply for grants, seek corporate funding, and other revenues of income. Homesteaders could sell their own products as the law allows to make extra money for their own families. I'm talking about a national scope. Communities of homesteaders that live and work together. It sounds kinda lame in layman's terms when it's not dressed up in my smart talk.
The mission of Thompson Family Homestead Inc. is to promote sustainability by fulfilling the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of future generations while ensuring a balance between economic growth, environmental care, and social well-being. We will do this by providing job opportunities, promoting self-sufficiency, providing fresh, healthy food, fostering community building, promoting environmental stewardship, offering on-site training and workshops, and creating and sharing online resources.
The objectives of the proposed project are to increase food production, reduce waste, improve food security, promote environmental stewardship, and promote social equity and economic viability. The planned results/outcomes of the project are increased productivity, reduced waste, improved resource efficiency, improved food security, and enhanced environmental stewardship.
Thompson Family Homestead Inc. is committed to addressing the growing needs of sustainable food production, community building, education, and outreach services in the region. TFH Inc. seeks to create innovative and sustainable solutions through the establishment of an earth-integrated aquaponics homestead co-op. Built on environmentally-friendly and resource-conserving practices, TFH INC. aims to create a reliable and sustainable source of healthy, locally-produced food. TFH Inc. also places emphasis on education and community engagement, providing workshops, training programs, and outreach initiatives to equip community members with the knowledge and skills needed for sustainable living.
2023.03.26 00:02 Edward_Stivenson 200 Best Reflective Essay Topics and Ideas 2023
 | What Is a Reflective Essay Exactly? submitted by Edward_Stivenson to students_essay_help [link] [comments] So, you're looking at a reflective essay assignment. If you don't have a clue how to approach it, fret not! We'll break down what it is and how to write a reflective essay before listing potential topics for a reflection paper. A reflective essay requires college students to reflect on (i.e., analyze) their personal experiences and inner emotions. But instead of just describing a past event that you lived through, focus on how you (your behavior, values, opinions) changed as a result. When it comes to the structure, a reflective essay consists of three classic components:
How to Choose a Topic for a Reflective Essay If you're still wondering, ‘What are good topics for a reflection paper?’, we have you covered. Follow these five steps to zero in on the best topic for your reflective essay:
8 Questions to Help You Write Reflective Essays Once you finish browsing reflection paper topics and settle on one, you may end up staring at a blank screen, uncertain how to approach this essay. To help you get started – and craft a well-written essay – we've prepared this list of eight questions. Don't hesitate to use them as your how to write a reflection paper guide:
200 Interesting Reflective Essay Topics for All Tastes Now that we've covered the basics, let's be frank: we know it can be quite challenging to brainstorm a reflective essay topic from scratch. So, we've done a part of the job for you and brainstormed this list of 200 fresh reflective essay prompts. They're grouped into ten diverse categories, from religion and nature to family and relationships. Feel free to use these topic ideas as-is. Or, if you want to give the essay your own unique perspective, you can modify one of these reflection essay topics as you see fit. 20 Reflective Essay Topics on Religion As any essay writing service would attest, religion and faith can be one of the most challenging topics for reflection essay for students. So, let us help you kickstart your brainstorming with these sample reflection paper topics religion:
When it comes to topics for reflection, the case study you choose will depend heavily on your interests and knowledge. That said, here are 20 case study reflection paper topics for college students you can start with:
You may be asked to write a reflective essay on public health even if you study sociology or philosophy. It encompasses a ton of topics for reflection that you can approach from various angles, like the 20 ones below. Don't worry if you don't feel like taking on public health reflection paper topics. You can always buy essay online when you're not up to the challenge!
Need to write a psychology reflective essay but don't know how to approach one? Don't worry: our essay experts prepared 20 easy psychology reflection paper topics for college students!
Want to reflect on your favorite subject? Or simply have to write a reflective essay on sociology? Our college essay writing services have you covered. Our essay experts prepared 20 fresh mental health and sociology reflection paper topics to help you start writing:
You can't underestimate the role your family played in forging the adult you are now. A reflective essay is one way to explore that role. Here are 20 family-related reflective essay topics you'll find interesting:
From childhood friends to a found family, relationships leave a mark on everyone. That's what makes them great as topics for reflection paper. So, if you're looking to explore how relationships changed you, here are 20 reflective essay ideas for you:
You may need to reflect on your personal experiences during an admission essay or for a class. Below are 20 personal reflection paper topics; you're sure to find a compelling one among them. Don't worry if you can't craft a well-written essay. You can always ask us, ‘Please write my college admissions essay for me,’ and we'll be happy to oblige.
From a sporting event to a global pandemic, some events have the power to transform and shape your personality. They can be a compelling topic to explore in a reflective essay. Here are 20 topics to kickstart your writing process:
What place does nature hold in your heart? You can explore it in a reflective essay, of course! Here are 20 essay topics about nature to get you started:
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2023.03.25 22:49 ohtitus- College Acceptance
I was wondering if colleges typically prioritize GPA vs SAT/PSAT/ACT scores. My GPA is significantly lower, and I plan to pursue engineering/computer science at university. When I say my GPA is low, I mean it. 2.7 right now as a sophomore. Even if I managed to up my grade a little bit, I assume it wouldn't get much better. What would help me stand out, and increase my chances at an ok university here in Texas? Do colleges care about community service, clubs, etc?
submitted by ohtitus- to highschool [link] [comments]
2023.03.25 22:37 borkmaster0 EMS Requested at Bergen St - Local to Express
Southbound 2, 4 trains are running on the express track from Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr to Franklin Av-Medgar Evers College.
We're requesting EMS assistance for a person in need of medical attention at Bergen St.
For service to/from bypassed stations, take a northbound train.
submitted by borkmaster0 to nyctransitalerts [link] [comments]
We're requesting EMS assistance for a person in need of medical attention at Bergen St.
For service to/from bypassed stations, take a northbound train.
2023.03.25 22:27 stannenb Cambridge Most Livable City in the US, Study Finds
Niche, a data analysis company, used Census data, surveys and other info sources to break down the best cities in the U.S., taking into account the cost of living, safety, school quality, nightlife, walkability, outdoor activities and more.https://thehill.com/homenews/3910873-these-are-the-most-livable-us-cities-in-2023-study-finds/
Topping the list is Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to roughly 117,000. The city, which is also home to Harvard, “offers residents an urban feel” with numerous bars, restaurants, coffee shops and parks. The public schools are also excellent, according to Niche.
https://www.niche.com/places-to-live/cambridge-middlesex-ma/
What Sets Niche Apart
Niche is the market leader in connecting colleges and schools with students and families. With in-depth profiles on every school and college in America, over 140 million reviews and ratings, and powerful search and data tools, Niche helps millions of students and families find and enroll in the right school for them. For schools, school districts, and communities, Niche’s platform, data, and services help thousands of schools recruit and enroll more best-fit students.
2023.03.25 22:04 katelovesmeiu A Professional Challenger Coach Verified Metafy Partner Seven Years of Proven Coaching Expertise Over 6.500 Sessions Held Over 3.000 Individual Clients US Collegiate Coach Guaranteed Improvement Personalised Coaching Plans Shelbion#8832
About Me
Hey there, my name is Shelbion and I've been an avid League of Legends player for over a decade. In Season 4, I reached Challenger for the first time and even considered pursuing a professional career. However, after much reflection, I decided to pursue other challenges within the game itself.
Some of my notable achievements as a player include:
In addition to my experience as a Player, I am also the Founder of Noxus Coaching - a rapidly growing, educational community on Discord. Our community is a great place to find new friends to play with, have a good time, and most importantly, improve your skills.
We hold various events on a weekly basis, including 1v1 & 5v5 tournaments, meme contests, and more. There are plenty of rewards to be won, including free coaching sessions with me. To join our community, visit https://discord.gg/TuTZAeRbx5 and message me upon joining to receive your role.
Coaching
As a coach with over 6.500 hours of experience, I have a passion for helping others improve and reach their goals. By studying the techniques of renowned coaches such as LS and MagiFelix, I have developed my own unique coaching approach that has helped countless individuals and over 20 teams advance their competitive play across 5 different continents, including members of various College and University E-Sports Teams.
Some of my notable achievements include:
How Does it Work?
We will schedule an initial Interview during which we can discuss your goals and I can provide a more detailed explanation of my coaching services. This interview will typically last for 3-5 minutes.
The First Session is designed to assess your current level of gameplay and identify areas for improvement. After conducting an analysis, I will create a Personalized Coaching Plan tailored to your specific needs. This plan will outline a series of sessions designed to maximize your improvement.
The Coaching Plan may include various session types, such as:
Personalized Support (Available 24/7)
In addition to the structured coaching sessions, I offer personalized support to my clients on a 24/7 basis. Whether you have a specific question or just want to debrief after a tough game, I am always available to help. Simply message me and I will respond as quickly as possible.
AvailabilityPricesPayments
I am able to cover any server and any timezone! Rates for both Private and Team coaching are negotiable. We will easily get the sessions to fit your budget and your needs. Payments are usually done through PayPal, however other forms of Payment such as Direct Transfer can be discussed.
Contact?
Main form of contact is Discord on which you can find me at Shelbion#8832
Feel free to message me either on Discord or through a Direct Message on Reddit and I will come back to you as quickly as possible.
submitted by katelovesmeiu to LeagueCoaching [link] [comments]
Hey there, my name is Shelbion and I've been an avid League of Legends player for over a decade. In Season 4, I reached Challenger for the first time and even considered pursuing a professional career. However, after much reflection, I decided to pursue other challenges within the game itself.
Some of my notable achievements as a player include:
- Reaching Challenger on multiple positions.
- Participating and winning in numerous SR and 1v1 tournaments.
- Playing for various teams(Amateur and Semi-Professional).
In addition to my experience as a Player, I am also the Founder of Noxus Coaching - a rapidly growing, educational community on Discord. Our community is a great place to find new friends to play with, have a good time, and most importantly, improve your skills.
We hold various events on a weekly basis, including 1v1 & 5v5 tournaments, meme contests, and more. There are plenty of rewards to be won, including free coaching sessions with me. To join our community, visit https://discord.gg/TuTZAeRbx5 and message me upon joining to receive your role.
Coaching
As a coach with over 6.500 hours of experience, I have a passion for helping others improve and reach their goals. By studying the techniques of renowned coaches such as LS and MagiFelix, I have developed my own unique coaching approach that has helped countless individuals and over 20 teams advance their competitive play across 5 different continents, including members of various College and University E-Sports Teams.
Some of my notable achievements include:
- Assisting a Diamond 2 player reach Challenger in just five weeks.
- Helping a Silver 2 player climb to Platinum in three weeks.
- Guiding a Diamond 3 player to Grandmaster in six weeks.
How Does it Work?
We will schedule an initial Interview during which we can discuss your goals and I can provide a more detailed explanation of my coaching services. This interview will typically last for 3-5 minutes.
The First Session is designed to assess your current level of gameplay and identify areas for improvement. After conducting an analysis, I will create a Personalized Coaching Plan tailored to your specific needs. This plan will outline a series of sessions designed to maximize your improvement.
The Coaching Plan may include various session types, such as:
- Theory sessions: These sessions will cover key concepts such as wave management, vision, decision making, and more.
- Practical sessions: These sessions will either be VOD reviews or live games, and will be used to put theoretical knowledge into practice and analyze gameplay.
- Reviews: These sessions will occur periodically and will be used as checkpoints to track your progress and identify any additional areas for improvement.
Personalized Support (Available 24/7)
In addition to the structured coaching sessions, I offer personalized support to my clients on a 24/7 basis. Whether you have a specific question or just want to debrief after a tough game, I am always available to help. Simply message me and I will respond as quickly as possible.
AvailabilityPricesPayments
I am able to cover any server and any timezone! Rates for both Private and Team coaching are negotiable. We will easily get the sessions to fit your budget and your needs. Payments are usually done through PayPal, however other forms of Payment such as Direct Transfer can be discussed.
Contact?
Main form of contact is Discord on which you can find me at Shelbion#8832
Feel free to message me either on Discord or through a Direct Message on Reddit and I will come back to you as quickly as possible.
2023.03.25 21:09 foxfernadhdclinic It might get even harder in May to get your ADHD meds
If you have ADHD you might lose your ability to be prescribed your medication over telehealth after May 11th, 2023.
In 6 days (03/31/2023) the DEA will end its open comment period on its new rule proposal regarding Psychiatric Telemedicine Prescribing.
TL;DR We're gonna have to get a very specific written referral from a primary care provider in person or we're gonna have to see our psychiatric ADHD prescriber in person before May otherwise we won't be able to get ADHD meds prescribed. This is a problem because psych providers are far away for some ADHDers and because there's no clinical reason for this extra step. Just a rant from a psychiatry provider who has ADHD and sees most of my patients remotely. I'm worried they're gonna struggle to get an appointment with their PCP much less a specifically worded referral letter from them.
Before COVID we had to see our psychiatry provider in person in order to be prescribed our schedule II controlled stimulant meds. Now they are considering going back to the before times or they will at least mandate that you set up an appointment with your primary care provider so they can give you a referral to see your psychiatrist who prescribes your medication.
The problem is, this rule will essentially force many patients in rural or underserved communities to choose between driving 4+ hours away in order to meet with their ADHD provider in person or make them set up an appointment with their rural primary care provider who is often booked out for months, just for a referral to a provider they already see so they can get a medication they already take.
Primary care providers (PCP) are busy enough as it is and this will be a purposeless burden on an already overburdened branch of medicine. It takes substantial work for a provider to write up a referral of this nature and then submit it to a psychiatry provider. Additionally, many of my patients are not able to make appointments with their PCP because they are booked out for months in rural and underserved areas of America. Over half the counties in America are without a single psychiatrist. This process will create undue strain on two of the most strained specialties in our Country.
There is no clinical psychiatric reason to have an in-person appointment for the evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment of ADHD. There is no physical exam finding or sign of ADHD in the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Patients can easily and accurately obtain their own blood pressure and other vital signs using the exact same automated tools one would find in a clinic. There is nothing gained by mandating an in-person evaluation and referral from primary care to a patient’s psychiatrist.
Patients should be free to seek out a specialist and be evaluated in a way that accommodates the mental illness they are seeking evaluation and treatment for. The only reasonable purpose for mandating an in-person evaluation by primary care with a referral to the specialist would be if this brought value or safety to the patient and it does not. If the goal is to prevent malingering then why not mandate the use of computerized objective testing (e.g. QbCheck testing or Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA)) or you could mandate a minimum length of time for an initial clinical interview visit to prevent overprescribing and under-evaluating.
There are several aspects of a gold standard evaluation for ADHD and none of them require an in-person visit.
We see most of our patients through remote telebehavioral health services for many reasons:
ok, rant over. Just a psychiatry provider with ADHD here fed up with how difficult it is for us to get our medications.
submitted by foxfernadhdclinic to adhdmeme [link] [comments]
In 6 days (03/31/2023) the DEA will end its open comment period on its new rule proposal regarding Psychiatric Telemedicine Prescribing.
TL;DR We're gonna have to get a very specific written referral from a primary care provider in person or we're gonna have to see our psychiatric ADHD prescriber in person before May otherwise we won't be able to get ADHD meds prescribed. This is a problem because psych providers are far away for some ADHDers and because there's no clinical reason for this extra step. Just a rant from a psychiatry provider who has ADHD and sees most of my patients remotely. I'm worried they're gonna struggle to get an appointment with their PCP much less a specifically worded referral letter from them.
Before COVID we had to see our psychiatry provider in person in order to be prescribed our schedule II controlled stimulant meds. Now they are considering going back to the before times or they will at least mandate that you set up an appointment with your primary care provider so they can give you a referral to see your psychiatrist who prescribes your medication.
The problem is, this rule will essentially force many patients in rural or underserved communities to choose between driving 4+ hours away in order to meet with their ADHD provider in person or make them set up an appointment with their rural primary care provider who is often booked out for months, just for a referral to a provider they already see so they can get a medication they already take.
Primary care providers (PCP) are busy enough as it is and this will be a purposeless burden on an already overburdened branch of medicine. It takes substantial work for a provider to write up a referral of this nature and then submit it to a psychiatry provider. Additionally, many of my patients are not able to make appointments with their PCP because they are booked out for months in rural and underserved areas of America. Over half the counties in America are without a single psychiatrist. This process will create undue strain on two of the most strained specialties in our Country.
There is no clinical psychiatric reason to have an in-person appointment for the evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment of ADHD. There is no physical exam finding or sign of ADHD in the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Patients can easily and accurately obtain their own blood pressure and other vital signs using the exact same automated tools one would find in a clinic. There is nothing gained by mandating an in-person evaluation and referral from primary care to a patient’s psychiatrist.
Patients should be free to seek out a specialist and be evaluated in a way that accommodates the mental illness they are seeking evaluation and treatment for. The only reasonable purpose for mandating an in-person evaluation by primary care with a referral to the specialist would be if this brought value or safety to the patient and it does not. If the goal is to prevent malingering then why not mandate the use of computerized objective testing (e.g. QbCheck testing or Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA)) or you could mandate a minimum length of time for an initial clinical interview visit to prevent overprescribing and under-evaluating.
There are several aspects of a gold standard evaluation for ADHD and none of them require an in-person visit.
- An in-depth clinical interview by an experienced provider which addresses the lived experience of the patient within each DSM-5 criteria for ADHD.
- Analysis of empirically validated self-report tests for ADHD which have been filled out by both the patient and an observer of the patient who knows them well. We use the most sensitive and specific tests available for this aspect of our testing, the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale for the DSM-5 (ASRS-5) - This test has a Sensitivity (true positive rate) of 91.4% and a Specificity (true negative rate) of 96.0%. We also use the NICHQ Vanderbilt Assessment Scale - which uses both parent and teacher informants. We also use the Wender Utah Rating Scale for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - which includes 61 questions in order to aid in the retrospective diagnosis of ADHD.
- Objective continuous performance task testing like the QbTest and QbCheck (which are the only FDA-cleared device to assist clinicians in the diagnosis and maintenance of ADHD) can be prescribed remotely and patients can complete an objective computerized test for ADHD that measures their level of hyperactivity, inattention, and impulsivity in the comfort of their own home and using their own personal computer and webcam to gather the data.
We see most of our patients through remote telebehavioral health services for many reasons:
- Our patients often live far away in rural and underserved communities.
- Our patients often struggle with an anxiety disorder or agoraphobia, in part exacerbated by years of undiagnosed and untreated ADHD.
- Our patients often struggle with the organization and planning required to attend in-person visits as a symptom of their undiagnosed and untreated ADHD.
- Our patients are cannot find access to specialists who are skilled in the evaluation and treatment of ADHD near enough to where they live.
ok, rant over. Just a psychiatry provider with ADHD here fed up with how difficult it is for us to get our medications.
2023.03.25 20:50 MiyoXIII Street Fighter Duel Drama Update - Community Call Result and Sketchy Updates
**Community Call - 03/24/23 Summary*\*
Since my previous thread, the call went through and went as I predicted due to Crunchyroll's nature of dealing with controversy when it comes to their gacha community. First things first, no apology for all of the drama that transpired.
It seems from what was discussed the CM is most likely on a last-warning basis. However unfortunately that was it. More or less it was the acknowledgment that attitudes were not done in a professional manner and improvements would be made in tackling conversations in the future.
The only thing that was remedied was the unbanning of a prominent Youtuber that doesn't shill for the companies he covers on his channel and those that defended him. Unfortunately, those that got banned have to send a mod mail to have the mods review their cases to determine a decision of repealing the bans.
I pretty much figured this was the case. Bare bones acknowledgment of the mess-ups that transpired and lack of apologies.
Seeing that this call still has not alleviated the concerns about the future of the game. Let me make it clear for those that ponder about CRs attitude towards gacha gaming.
Crunchyroll is Boltrend with more money due to its anime streaming service. All their games have one goal which is short-term pump and dumps.
Here's a list of casualties under their ownership:
**Update 03/25/23 - Stealth Patches*\*
The game went through some stealth patches without announcement that later levels that whales managed to reach were not giving out rewards needed to progress through the game. The issues were present since the start of the game and nothing was done about them until today.
Not only that despite promising to release patch notes on updates. They failed to implement them.
With the upcoming Akuma banner on the horizon, still no word on how they will handle his release due to a lack of communication with the developers.
There's also rumors that A-Plus is making majority of the decisions on global treatment due to what was indicated in past calls.
submitted by MiyoXIII to gachagaming [link] [comments]
Since my previous thread, the call went through and went as I predicted due to Crunchyroll's nature of dealing with controversy when it comes to their gacha community. First things first, no apology for all of the drama that transpired.
- No apology for changing a collab character that would've been f2p friendly into something that required at least $500 to max out due to the nature of the possible hidden script.
- No apology for the actual scripted rolls aka 1.3 multi-collab unit rolls, 50 fixed gssr rolls, and twenty roll gssr on Divination.
- No apology on making the collab gacha 90% paid currency only. (Only way to roll on the banner as a f2p is to play the event for a fixed amount of rolls.)
- No apology for the behavior of the CM nor for how community members were treated during the time the whole drama was happening.
It seems from what was discussed the CM is most likely on a last-warning basis. However unfortunately that was it. More or less it was the acknowledgment that attitudes were not done in a professional manner and improvements would be made in tackling conversations in the future.
The only thing that was remedied was the unbanning of a prominent Youtuber that doesn't shill for the companies he covers on his channel and those that defended him. Unfortunately, those that got banned have to send a mod mail to have the mods review their cases to determine a decision of repealing the bans.
I pretty much figured this was the case. Bare bones acknowledgment of the mess-ups that transpired and lack of apologies.
Seeing that this call still has not alleviated the concerns about the future of the game. Let me make it clear for those that ponder about CRs attitude towards gacha gaming.
Crunchyroll is Boltrend with more money due to its anime streaming service. All their games have one goal which is short-term pump and dumps.
Here's a list of casualties under their ownership:
- - Danmachi Memoria Freese (Game was confiscated under their ownership and self-published)
- - Last Cloudia (Game was confiscated under their ownership and self-published)
- - My Hero Academia (Reruns until EoS)
- - Overlord Mass of the Dead (Abandoned updating and EoS. Game still running in JP)
- - Eminence in the Shadow (Paid event shop drama. Anime game will have same fate)
- - Attack on Titan Tactics (EoS. Drama with banners)
- - Mitrasphere (EoS)
- - Naruto x Boruto: Ninja Tribes (EoS)
**Update 03/25/23 - Stealth Patches*\*
The game went through some stealth patches without announcement that later levels that whales managed to reach were not giving out rewards needed to progress through the game. The issues were present since the start of the game and nothing was done about them until today.
Not only that despite promising to release patch notes on updates. They failed to implement them.
With the upcoming Akuma banner on the horizon, still no word on how they will handle his release due to a lack of communication with the developers.
There's also rumors that A-Plus is making majority of the decisions on global treatment due to what was indicated in past calls.
2023.03.25 20:48 guineawheek [Highschool Robotics] How bad quality control and a few extra gears taught thousands of FRC and Vex students how NOT to cover-up your hostile workplace problem
Content wrning: sexual harassment, coercion, predatory behavior, toxic workplace environments, self-harm, general traumatic experiences
To achieve Dean’s goal, FIRST decided to model a highschool robotics competition after a class the late Woodie Flowers taught at MIT. In this competition, hereafter referred to as the FIRST Robotics Competition or FRC, highschool students and adult mentors would work together for six weeks to construct a robot. This robot will then perform a series of game tasks (that change year to year) in 3v3 competition matches to try and score the most points. These competitions usually have a qualification match pool and an elimination bracket.
Despite the competitive element, the community values inter-team cooperation and sharing resources, as at the end of the day, the value is in student growth and development rather than trophies and banners. This sense of competitiveness without toxicity often gets thrown under Woodie’s favorite slogan of “gracious professionalism.”
The robotics competition element is something better shown rather than told, so here's the kickoff video for the 2022 season and here’s the final match of said season where you can see the robots themselves go.
The online FRC community is centered around ChiefDelphi, an early 2000s PHP forum converted to Discourse, and the FRC Discord, which mostly spectated events (a common theme of any dramatic happening in the FRC community). Much of the discourse around this story happens on ChiefDelphi.
This partnership would become the company known as Innovation First International. They would mass produce control electronics for FRC robots in these early years, and would additionally produce server racks in collaboration with Dell under the subsidiary RackSolutions, Inc. as seen on Linus Tech Tips. (They use that video everywhere on their website, by the way). Additionally, they would create the Vex line of classroom robot kits, the more widely recognizable Hexbug brand, and miniature Battlebots models marketed under the Hexbug and Vex brand. While different divisions, they mix employees and generally all still report to IFI’s CEO. IFI’s culture is more or less unified across all their divisions, for worse or worse.
Over the years, their FRC-specific product lines (under the brand VexPro) have also included various gears, wheels, pre-drilled metal structure, and motors, and they have become an established vendor in a small industry that has popped up around selling parts specifically to build FRC robots as part of what we call the Commercial Off-The Shelf (COTS) Revolution. No longer does a team need to machine their own wheels and gears to compete – they can simply place orders online and have them shipped to their workshop.
The Vex Robotics Competition is run by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, (RECF), a nonprofit set up by primarily IFI for financial reasons — easier to get other companies to sponsor STEM competitions if the money’s going to a tax deductible 501(c)3 organization, after all. (protip: if you have a robotics team, make a 501(c)3)
Now, RECF claims independence from IFI, but practically speaking, this is debatable. Until recently, they even had the IFI CEO Tony Norman on their board of directors, and have historically had many prominent VEX employees at pretty much every level of their organization, from event volunteers all the way through their leadership. Their facilities even have an IFI logo on the floor, which they have recently bought a literal rug to cover up.
Despite some shipping delays, the Falcons would eventually ship. And indeed, they were good motors…when they worked. On February 11, 2020 a user posted a video to ChiefDelphi of their Falcon 500 making a weird noise. Further posts of similar reports soon cropped up, and it was soon discovered that what had happened was the screws that held the motor’s output shaft had all become loose — in a few instances, they became so loose they rubbed onto other parts of the motor, destroying it as it tried to turn. One common cause of these issues were that sometimes, the motor’s screws would not have threadlocker applied when they should’ve – an often blue substance you add to screws to make them not loosen.
While VEX would eventually address these complaints, despite their assurances of fixing QC, these issues would persist in the 3 years hence. They would even sell kits that would help fix some of these issues. While teams still bought Falcons because they were good, there was building frustration with needing to make sure each motor you got was built correctly.
On November 3, 2022, an alumni posted a thread to ChiefDelphi making a long post about the continuous QC issues both his former team and the wider community had encountered with VexPro products like the Falcon 500, the fact that VexPro sold fixes for their broken products, and finally recounted an incident where VexPro sent too much of a particular product and charged his team for it unless they were returned. This is illegal according to the Federal Trade Chall-sorry, Commission, but they didn't fight it because of the intimidation factor of going after a vendor they relied on to build their robot.
However, the greater FRC community didn't just see the thread as an opportunity to vent about exploding Falcons or poor sales practices. People saw it as an opportunity to dig into IFI itself.
In particular, the first link in the thread was to IFI’s Glassdoor page — a mix of some good reviews that were superficially short and some genuinely horrific ones. Some highlights include:
And people had been more defensive of IFI in the past. On one past instance of discussing IFI’s ethics (in particular how they were flying employees on a private jet for golf trips in late 2020, mid COVID pandemic with no masks in sight), a certain [Lead Mentor] would say, "Tony Norman has personally made your life better, and you didn’t know it."
But something was different this time — a former VEX employee came forth and said:
More damning and detailed posts would come out. One post detailed his experience as an intern at HEXBUG, discussing how:
This was soon followed up by another prominent former VEX employee who detailed his own traumatic experiences, detailing how:
A few other IFI employees would share their inputs. Each of these blockquotes are different people.
Out of the 9 elite #TeamIFI teams, all but 2 of them would soon announce they were dropping IFI’s sponsorship and planning to divest their products. The first of these teams to drop, FRC 1678 Citrus Circuits, was at an offseason competition the weekend they announced their divestment and rumor has it they had taped over the IFI sponsor logo on their robot mid-event.
The two teams that remained, 148 and 3310, are very intertwined with IFI financially and mentor-wise, so it was expected they would not leave as it would likely kill their teams. They're likely equally worried about the question, "What if IFI leaves us?"
Community members questioned the ability of VEX and RECF to provide a safe environment for their students — especially when a former coworker and acquaintance of the accused groomer came forward and straight up asserted that the person in question "was a key actor in the cultural issues discussed [in the original ChiefDelphi post about IFI culture issues in general]: during their tenure at IFI. Many no longer felt particularly enthusiastic buying parts from their one primary vendor. Some questioned whether they should continue their involvement in VRC at all. All in all, the community wanted answers.
The CEO of the REC Foundation, Dan Mantz, made a post to VexForums basically stating:
And soon enough, a response from IFI would indeed come, on both ChiefDelphi and VexForums. And boy, was it a response. This is in fact, one of the responses of all time, dare we say.
Just another day, completely not taking any responsibility, playing the victim, accusing everyone who spoke out as trying to sabotage them for their competition, and asserting how they have never had any complaints ever (and totally not because they were shredding the reports).
Let’s see some of the immediate reactions, quoted here verbatim:
Internally, IFI and RECF would make snide comments about this post, which would then also get brought to light, resulting in an apology from Dan Mantz.
Tony Norman would announce that he would step down as CEO of IFI, and RECF would remove him from his board. However, he still owns half the company, so he’s not really gone. To date, IFI has still not found a replacement CEO, and Tony still is likely to show up at the next Vex World Championship as usual.
A local paper would cover the story…heavily biased towards Tony. ChiefDelphi was, very reasonably, not very happy with this one.
#TeamIFI effectively no longer exists, as it is negative reputation for teams who care at this point. 148’s 2023 season robot notably did not show any sponsors in their reveal video.
IFI products now have a stigma in FRC. Some now call Falcons "bigot motors" as a joke. That said, IFI would continue to make at least a couple million on “new” Falcon 500 v3s, which were very expensive ($220), limited in total quantity for the entire season due to supply chain shenanigans, and still had QC issues.
The supplier West Coast Products, which sold quite a few products of their design under Vex SKU as a rather significant proportion of VexPro’s mechanical products, clarified that the products they make that are resold under Vex do not make Vex any money.
A side effect of this whole drama was that several other sexual predators in the FRC and VRC communities got publicly outed. Some of these had been banned from FIRST, but unlike some other youth organizations, FIRST generally does not publish their banlist so it remains to be seen if they will stay gone.
The [Lead Mentor] is no longer with 148 or IFI, but he’s still involved in the community – he now works for the company that makes the Falcon’s motor controller, and mentors a team who vehemently claimed he did not mentor them to others.
The entire Hexbug brand and Battlebots toys line was to be sold off to Spin Master.
submitted by guineawheek to HobbyDrama [link] [comments]
Background info
This whole development is remarkably hard to explain to people not already familiar with the particular highschool robotics programs involved, so here’s our best shot at summarizing.FIRST Robotics
Circa 1992, eccentric Segway billionaire Dean Kamen figured that America needed more students to go into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). To achieve this end, he founded the nonprofit For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, commonly abbreviated as FIRST.To achieve Dean’s goal, FIRST decided to model a highschool robotics competition after a class the late Woodie Flowers taught at MIT. In this competition, hereafter referred to as the FIRST Robotics Competition or FRC, highschool students and adult mentors would work together for six weeks to construct a robot. This robot will then perform a series of game tasks (that change year to year) in 3v3 competition matches to try and score the most points. These competitions usually have a qualification match pool and an elimination bracket.
Despite the competitive element, the community values inter-team cooperation and sharing resources, as at the end of the day, the value is in student growth and development rather than trophies and banners. This sense of competitiveness without toxicity often gets thrown under Woodie’s favorite slogan of “gracious professionalism.”
The robotics competition element is something better shown rather than told, so here's the kickoff video for the 2022 season and here’s the final match of said season where you can see the robots themselves go.
The online FRC community is centered around ChiefDelphi, an early 2000s PHP forum converted to Discourse, and the FRC Discord, which mostly spectated events (a common theme of any dramatic happening in the FRC community). Much of the discourse around this story happens on ChiefDelphi.
Innovation First International
In the early years of FRC, Dean Kamen’s approach towards creating the initial set of teams was to go around to various engineering firms and academic institutions to get them to create teams with their employees to mentor them. Examples include the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Xerox, and Renesslaer Polytechnic Institute, but also a particular E-Systems Inc (now part of Raytheon). This company would then start a team in Greenville, Texas (now known as FRC 148, the Robowranglers) and get two local employees to mentor it. With their help, the team would go on to win the 1993 National Championship, and the two employees, Tony Norman and Bob Mimlich, would realize they worked really well together.This partnership would become the company known as Innovation First International. They would mass produce control electronics for FRC robots in these early years, and would additionally produce server racks in collaboration with Dell under the subsidiary RackSolutions, Inc. as seen on Linus Tech Tips. (They use that video everywhere on their website, by the way). Additionally, they would create the Vex line of classroom robot kits, the more widely recognizable Hexbug brand, and miniature Battlebots models marketed under the Hexbug and Vex brand. While different divisions, they mix employees and generally all still report to IFI’s CEO. IFI’s culture is more or less unified across all their divisions, for worse or worse.
Over the years, their FRC-specific product lines (under the brand VexPro) have also included various gears, wheels, pre-drilled metal structure, and motors, and they have become an established vendor in a small industry that has popped up around selling parts specifically to build FRC robots as part of what we call the Commercial Off-The Shelf (COTS) Revolution. No longer does a team need to machine their own wheels and gears to compete – they can simply place orders online and have them shipped to their workshop.
The Vex Robotics Competition and RECF
The Vex Robotics Competition or VRC is a competition that IFI has significant involvement in. Basically, it’s a competition a lot like FRC, except with much smaller robots (they must fit in 18”/45.72 cm sizing cubes) that are built almost entirely out of the IFI-designed and produced Vex kit of parts. The Vex kit of parts is a lot like an Erector set, except if the parts were designed to be used to make robots.The Vex Robotics Competition is run by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, (RECF), a nonprofit set up by primarily IFI for financial reasons — easier to get other companies to sponsor STEM competitions if the money’s going to a tax deductible 501(c)3 organization, after all. (protip: if you have a robotics team, make a 501(c)3)
Now, RECF claims independence from IFI, but practically speaking, this is debatable. Until recently, they even had the IFI CEO Tony Norman on their board of directors, and have historically had many prominent VEX employees at pretty much every level of their organization, from event volunteers all the way through their leadership. Their facilities even have an IFI logo on the floor, which they have recently bought a literal rug to cover up.
The Falcon 500
Sometime in late 2019, IFI’s VexPro brand would announce a new motor for the FRC market: the Falcon 500, or the “only motor you’ll ever need.” Its integrated motor controller made it one of the smallest motor + controller combinations on the market, while being lighter and more powerful* than its rivals. It even advertised this cool “Field Oriented Control” feature, that would totally not get released 3 years later behind a DLC paywall. But to say people were hyped about this was an understatement. After a quick confirmation that programming them would be the same as the previous motor controllers, teams were racing to spend the $140/motor, with a team pre-ordering 45 in one go.Despite some shipping delays, the Falcons would eventually ship. And indeed, they were good motors…when they worked. On February 11, 2020 a user posted a video to ChiefDelphi of their Falcon 500 making a weird noise. Further posts of similar reports soon cropped up, and it was soon discovered that what had happened was the screws that held the motor’s output shaft had all become loose — in a few instances, they became so loose they rubbed onto other parts of the motor, destroying it as it tried to turn. One common cause of these issues were that sometimes, the motor’s screws would not have threadlocker applied when they should’ve – an often blue substance you add to screws to make them not loosen.
While VEX would eventually address these complaints, despite their assurances of fixing QC, these issues would persist in the 3 years hence. They would even sell kits that would help fix some of these issues. While teams still bought Falcons because they were good, there was building frustration with needing to make sure each motor you got was built correctly.
The open letter and IFI’s Glassdoor
However, the greater FRC community didn't just see the thread as an opportunity to vent about exploding Falcons or poor sales practices. People saw it as an opportunity to dig into IFI itself.
In particular, the first link in the thread was to IFI’s Glassdoor page — a mix of some good reviews that were superficially short and some genuinely horrific ones. Some highlights include:
- "Toxic work environment"
- "Bullying management culture"
- "DANGEROUS culture for women… genuine harassment happens frequently"
- "Discrimination happens all the time"
- "Unless you are homophobic, like to abuse people, and are a cisgendered white man, you won’t be welcomed here."
- "Fear-based management structure"
- "Misogynistic executive level"
- "Textbook sexual harassment suit waiting to happen"
And people had been more defensive of IFI in the past. On one past instance of discussing IFI’s ethics (in particular how they were flying employees on a private jet for golf trips in late 2020, mid COVID pandemic with no masks in sight), a certain [Lead Mentor] would say, "Tony Norman has personally made your life better, and you didn’t know it."
To those here who are commenting about the Glassdoor reviews, as an ex VEX employee, I will openly state that the culture was sexist and homophobic. Folks openly made some racist jokes at the time and during my time there, I saw plenty of gaslighting, horrific behavior from management, and was gaslit myself specifically by my boss at the time.This credence given to the Glassdoor posts would be the spark that lit the gasoline-soaked fire pit. Conversation shifted away from initial posts on VEX’s QC issues to ditching VEX products and the ethics of where FRC teams put their money. But more importantly, it paved the way for more stories to come out.
The floodgates open.
One well-respected mentor shared a story where he had recommended a recent female alumni of his team for a Vex internship, to which a (then?) current Vex employee warned in an email,I’m not sure how well someone from an all girls robotics team will fit in with the ‘boy’s club’ we have going on here. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for breaking it up… and maybe this is the best way to do it, I just don’t want her to be uncomfortable with the situation.An anonymous user posted "I was at VEX. I was bullied." and described in detail the deleterious effect of that bullying on their mental health. Later, they followed up with more information.
More damning and detailed posts would come out. One post detailed his experience as an intern at HEXBUG, discussing how:
- IFI hired interns and co-ops for cost reasons
- IFI management encouraged female interns to go to dinner with Tony Norman for their own career prospects
- Employees being berated by Tony for filing complaints to """HR"""
- Various threats of violence and abuse
- Tony celebrating a divorce in the office followed by tracking his ex-wife’s car
- …Tony Norman and those around him constantly harassed female employees
- …Tony would also just harass everyone else on "personal appearance, intelligence or [perceived] productivity"
- …booze and firearm-filled parties hosted by Tony were implicitly mandatory for career growth at IFI
- …an executive aimed a .45 gun at his back while working a long weekend, thinking he was an intruder, commenting "I do not know what would have happened that day had I not heard this executive announce their presence."
- …IFI’s preferred hotel in China when managing overseas manufacturing happened to be one busted for human trafficking
- …"Guaranteed" bonuses were just tools of financial retaliation by Tony if you stepped out of line
- …IFI’s own "Girl-Powered" initiatives aimed at promoting women within their own Vex robotics competition were just virtue signaling
- …said Vex Robotics Competition was definitely racially profiling teams at their events for checking that teams were adhering to competition rules
As a former IFI intern myself, I’m disheartened to see just how futile the efforts of those inside to fix the company were. Educational robotics should be one of the best places to work given how high reward the products’ potential impact is. It’s a shame that we’re at this point today.
I’m not ready to speak about my experiences here, as the road to recovery is a long and personal one that I’m still working my way through. But I do want to validate everyone who has spoken anonymously or openly about their experiences, your courage is awe-inspiring. Don’t let anyone cast any doubt on anyone’s experiences and trauma; what they went through was very real.
I was not enough of a part of the “in crowd” at IFI to have to deal with much of the toxicity, but it was there to see and hear in rumor around the office. The stories and experiences told here should be enough, but I’m sure anyone who worked there could go on…
The treatment was not just at IFI, the treatment came over to RECF, saw good people get hurt time and time again, including I who was a target by power hungry staff because I just did what I was told to keep things running smoothly, while still to this day allowed to be involved. I saw what protecting me was doing to my colleague and friend, and it was destroying him.
Initial community reactions
ChiefDelphi and #TeamIFI
To say that teams were appalled would be an understatement. Many teams immediately committed right then and there to phase out Vex products — even the powerhouse teams sponsored by IFI as influencers in the community as part of #TeamIFI. For context, these are some of the highest performing teams in the world. FRC team 254, the Cheesy Poofs, for example, has the most World Championship wins to their name of any team, while the others regularly make Einstein, the last final bracket that leads to Championship Finals.Out of the 9 elite #TeamIFI teams, all but 2 of them would soon announce they were dropping IFI’s sponsorship and planning to divest their products. The first of these teams to drop, FRC 1678 Citrus Circuits, was at an offseason competition the weekend they announced their divestment and rumor has it they had taped over the IFI sponsor logo on their robot mid-event.
The two teams that remained, 148 and 3310, are very intertwined with IFI financially and mentor-wise, so it was expected they would not leave as it would likely kill their teams. They're likely equally worried about the question, "What if IFI leaves us?"
VexForums
The Vex Robotics Competition also has an online Discourse instance, called the VexForums, and they had been tracking the developments on ChiefDelphi closely given that their main competition has been run by IFI, and several of the former employees who came forward also posted their accounts on VexForums as well. They were also pretty upset too. Similarly to FRC, products sold for their competition also had massive QC issues and hostile business practices, such as batches of the only legal motor for their competition dying 30 seconds after first use, and their crackdown on resellers/secondhand sales of their products. Among other things:- Community members were not happy that the #GirlPowered initiative was really PR speak and demanded answers from RECF
- They were also furious at Tony Norman’s general debauchery, such as the time he bullied the city government over a hanger lease for IFI’s private jet (that he mostly seems to use for himself), along with all the other previously described abuse of his own employees
- Fun fact: the private jet doesn’t even have a PIA, unlike Elon’s jet. For the past few months, it’s been supposedly sitting at a maintenance facility in Colorado.
- People discovered that two former toxic IFI execs who left got reinvited to run a competition for RECF with Tony Norman’s blessing
- A VRC student came forward and discussed another instance where Vex also violated FTC regulations regarding sending extra products to buyers and attempting to charge for the extra product or have it be returned
- An IFI employee claimed that these instances should have been impossible — it turned out that sales dept was so segmented the individual representatives were just doing this on their own without management’s knowledge, making these instances more of an incompetence rather than malice
- Several forum users started using an edit of the antifa logo titled Anti-IFI Action as their profile picture
Community members questioned the ability of VEX and RECF to provide a safe environment for their students — especially when a former coworker and acquaintance of the accused groomer came forward and straight up asserted that the person in question "was a key actor in the cultural issues discussed [in the original ChiefDelphi post about IFI culture issues in general]: during their tenure at IFI. Many no longer felt particularly enthusiastic buying parts from their one primary vendor. Some questioned whether they should continue their involvement in VRC at all. All in all, the community wanted answers.
IFI's Response
Of course, IFI and RECF weren’t going to sit there while in hot water. They would, in fact, respond to all the allegations.The CEO of the REC Foundation, Dan Mantz, made a post to VexForums basically stating:
- That RECF is independent of VEX and IFI with their own "independent infrastructure, executive staff, operations, processes, HR department, employee handbook, etc"
- How RECF isn’t just VEX and they pick VEX because they think it’s the best option
- How IFI is going to make a response that will address community concerns
And soon enough, a response from IFI would indeed come, on both ChiefDelphi and VexForums. And boy, was it a response. This is in fact, one of the responses of all time, dare we say.
Just another day, completely not taking any responsibility, playing the victim, accusing everyone who spoke out as trying to sabotage them for their competition, and asserting how they have never had any complaints ever (and totally not because they were shredding the reports).
Let’s see some of the immediate reactions, quoted here verbatim:
- This is so bad I can’t tell if it’s a troll
- You’d think that after skimping on Falcon QC costs, IFI would be able to afford actual PR services, but evidently not
- This thread will probably be used in court. This is worse than saying nothing at all. I had thought we hit rock bottom. Apparently not.
- https://www.chiefdelphi.com/uploads/default/original/3X/e/d/ed50b9e460f6e2ab8d136ab93e6e1d2467e70977.jpeg
- If this statement went through lawyers, fire them
- https://i.imgur.com/pyjo9Gg.png
- The largest unofficial Vex Robotics discord’s immediate reaction
- Just wanted to share I’m actually Pcrisis communications manager for a living and uhhhhh I will be using IFI as a case study for the rest of my natural life.
- https://i.imgur.com/mpMCjAj.png
The Testimony that killed the Vex Forums
Of course, everyone was Not Happy. But there was one last major bombshell post forthcoming from yet another former IFI employee and former alumni of FRC 148, one of the IFI house FRC teams. To summarize the post:- 148’s lead mentor for most of the 2000s and 2010s was something of an idol. He had a popular blog (that went down the moment the IFI drama broke -- he's also requested takedowns of all Internet Archive copies too) and a figure many in the FRC community looked up to. He was also a relatively prominent figure within IFI,
- The same extended to to 148 itself — everyone wanted to be close with the Lead Mentor. It was the difference between collaborating with him on the robot design itself or just being yet another sheet metal fabrication body.
- As a result many students, including the post’s OP, would try and build close relationships to [Lead Mentor]. In retrospect, this practice was Really Weird — as said [Lead Mentor] would then attempt to date her after she graduated.
- 148, including [Lead Mentor] had a culture of their mentors above the age of 21 buying alcohol for mentors that were not at least 21 years old
- 148’s (as of now, current) mentor drive coach being something of a womanizer and a manipulative, irresponsible boyfriend
Internally, IFI and RECF would make snide comments about this post, which would then also get brought to light, resulting in an apology from Dan Mantz.
The fallout
Things settle down at this point, especially since Thanksgiving was that week and IFI was on holiday. But things were not done yet.Tony Norman would announce that he would step down as CEO of IFI, and RECF would remove him from his board. However, he still owns half the company, so he’s not really gone. To date, IFI has still not found a replacement CEO, and Tony still is likely to show up at the next Vex World Championship as usual.
A local paper would cover the story…heavily biased towards Tony. ChiefDelphi was, very reasonably, not very happy with this one.
#TeamIFI effectively no longer exists, as it is negative reputation for teams who care at this point. 148’s 2023 season robot notably did not show any sponsors in their reveal video.
IFI products now have a stigma in FRC. Some now call Falcons "bigot motors" as a joke. That said, IFI would continue to make at least a couple million on “new” Falcon 500 v3s, which were very expensive ($220), limited in total quantity for the entire season due to supply chain shenanigans, and still had QC issues.
The supplier West Coast Products, which sold quite a few products of their design under Vex SKU as a rather significant proportion of VexPro’s mechanical products, clarified that the products they make that are resold under Vex do not make Vex any money.
A side effect of this whole drama was that several other sexual predators in the FRC and VRC communities got publicly outed. Some of these had been banned from FIRST, but unlike some other youth organizations, FIRST generally does not publish their banlist so it remains to be seen if they will stay gone.
The [Lead Mentor] is no longer with 148 or IFI, but he’s still involved in the community – he now works for the company that makes the Falcon’s motor controller, and mentors a team who vehemently claimed he did not mentor them to others.
The entire Hexbug brand and Battlebots toys line was to be sold off to Spin Master.
In conclusion
Vex and RECF continue to exist, and IFI will still rake in money. But it’ll be harder for them to find impressionable interns to do cheap labor for them, and many FRC teams are now eyeing alternatives if at all possible, especially given the difficulty of buying new Falcons anyway.2023.03.25 19:43 LeylaHaggard Di ko na matiis
Wala talagang perfect. Ok naman na sana lahat- mabait na asawa, mabait na parents-in-law, except sa nakakapunyetang hipag. Kasal na kami ni hubby for 5.5 years na with 1 son. Nakatira kami sa parents nya kasi masyadong malaki yung bahay para sa dalawang matanda and para din may kasama sila. Wala akong problema sa kanila, napakabait nila. Pero sa bawat pamilya, di talaga mawawala yung bwisit. So eto na nga, yung kapatid na babae ng mister ko ay nag migrate na sa ibang bansa. Umuuwi sila ng asawa nya dito sa Pinas and nagsstay for like 2 to 3 months at mas pnprefer nila magstay sa amin kasi nga madaming bedrooms dito, and umuwi lang sila dito for bonding and reunion na din. Tuwing umuuwi sya, nasstress ng bongga ang momshie nyo. Lahat ba naman kasi pinapakialaman at walang araw o oras akong narinig na hindi sya nanenermon sa asawa ko o kahit sa magulang nya. As in-- walang oras at bagay na pinapalagpas.24/7 parang 711. Nakakastress pala pag may kasama ka sa bahay na ganun. Pati halaman sa bahay di nakaligtas at bakit daw yan ang tinanim namin kesa sa ganito. Bakit yung platong hinugasan hindi pa ganito. Lahat na lang ng nakikita nya mali. Pwede bang magenjoy na lang yung mga tao sa bahay dahil minsan na nga lang sila bumisita tapos naging bwisita pa sya.
Ganito birada ng sentence nya lagi: Puna + sermon + then comparing what she did as if anak sya ng Diyos at perfect.
"Bakit ganito yang xxxx nyo, ako nga blah blah blah." Examples: 1. Furnitures sa bahay na bakit yun daw binili, bakit di ganireng style, samantalang sya ang binili daw nya sa kanila ay blah blah (hindi naman galing sa bulsa nya yung binili namin) 2. Yung anak ko daw bakit ganito ang schedule ng laro at ligo blah blah. Bakit daw pinagaral sa private school na hindi christian school blah blah (take note, wala po silang anak) 3. Sa work ko daw wag daw ako makikimingle sa mga foreigner kasi mahaharot daw at mahilig manloko ng Pinay (the hell I work in US based shared services and half ng teammates ko dito sa Pinas ay mga kano; take note, unemployed sya for almost a decade until now simula nagmigrate sila. I don't know kung di sya natatanggap o sadyang umaasa lang sya sa asawa nya-- and the hell, they migrated but not even in US for her to know how Americans work) 4. She even mentioned na dapat daw nagiinvest ako and madami pa syang sinasabing funds and everything (teh, I came from a family of bankers, early college palang ako may mutual funds na ko. Kailangan pati pera uungkatin? Private matter na naming magasawa yun) 5. Bakit daw suv ang binili naming kotse e pangit daw (wala naman syang alam sa specs ng kotse at lalong hindi naman sya nagbayad pambili)
Nung early years na nakilala ko family nya on some formal occasions and celebrations, I already saw her attitude, pero hinayaan ko na lang kasi naisip ko a ok baka sya yung alpha dog sa family nila. Akala ko hindi magiging burden sakin to, nagkamali pala ako. I don't disagree naman all the time (open minded ako) sa mga unsolicited advice nya pero alam mo yung condescending tone at feeling entitled na nagtuturo as if walang alam yung sinasabihan nya. And in the first place, pag hindi naman nanghihingi ng advice, mabuti pang shut up the mouth na lang. Nakakapuno pala pag may kasama ka sa bahay na bukod sa sya lang matalino, judgmental ay self righteous din. Yung di tumatanggap ng sinabi ng iba. Take note, active na active sila sa church pero yung pagiging judgmental said sa buto ko. May mga remarks din sya about sa "mga pangit na bata" at "lgbt" nung minsang nanunuod buong fam ng tv. what the hell, pati ba naman yun kailangan pa ijudge and you are proud to say na christian ka. Nauubos na ako sobra. Parang minsan gusto ko na lang sya sagutin na pwede ba tama na, pero hanggang sa utak ko lang yun. Kasi tahimik akong tao. Ni hindi ko nga nachika to sa ibang asawa ng mga kapatid nila kung alam nilang ganyang ugali ng isa nilang hipag. Wala lang ako mapagsabihan ngayon, ayoko kasi gawing big deal sa asawa ko. Pero nasabi ko na before na kung dadating yang magaling nyang kapatid, magsstaycation na lang ako somewhere. Nagmakaawa lang yung asawa ko na baka maging big issue daw kasi kung aalis ako. Nakakasaid talaga pag may ganyang kasama sa bahay. Kahit nagsstay ako sa kwarto maghapon, may times na nadidinig ko yung boses nyang nanenermon at namumuna. Iniisip ko na lang na buti natitiis sya ng mister nya sa ugali nya. Minsan gusto ko na lang isumpa na sana may masamang mangyari sa kanya. (Sorry po ang sama ko sa part na to). Ngayon naintindihan ko na yung mga napapanuod ko sa pelikula na mabait tapos masama magalit, parang magiging ganun na kasi ako.
submitted by LeylaHaggard to OffMyChestPH [link] [comments]
Ganito birada ng sentence nya lagi: Puna + sermon + then comparing what she did as if anak sya ng Diyos at perfect.
"Bakit ganito yang xxxx nyo, ako nga blah blah blah." Examples: 1. Furnitures sa bahay na bakit yun daw binili, bakit di ganireng style, samantalang sya ang binili daw nya sa kanila ay blah blah (hindi naman galing sa bulsa nya yung binili namin) 2. Yung anak ko daw bakit ganito ang schedule ng laro at ligo blah blah. Bakit daw pinagaral sa private school na hindi christian school blah blah (take note, wala po silang anak) 3. Sa work ko daw wag daw ako makikimingle sa mga foreigner kasi mahaharot daw at mahilig manloko ng Pinay (the hell I work in US based shared services and half ng teammates ko dito sa Pinas ay mga kano; take note, unemployed sya for almost a decade until now simula nagmigrate sila. I don't know kung di sya natatanggap o sadyang umaasa lang sya sa asawa nya-- and the hell, they migrated but not even in US for her to know how Americans work) 4. She even mentioned na dapat daw nagiinvest ako and madami pa syang sinasabing funds and everything (teh, I came from a family of bankers, early college palang ako may mutual funds na ko. Kailangan pati pera uungkatin? Private matter na naming magasawa yun) 5. Bakit daw suv ang binili naming kotse e pangit daw (wala naman syang alam sa specs ng kotse at lalong hindi naman sya nagbayad pambili)
Nung early years na nakilala ko family nya on some formal occasions and celebrations, I already saw her attitude, pero hinayaan ko na lang kasi naisip ko a ok baka sya yung alpha dog sa family nila. Akala ko hindi magiging burden sakin to, nagkamali pala ako. I don't disagree naman all the time (open minded ako) sa mga unsolicited advice nya pero alam mo yung condescending tone at feeling entitled na nagtuturo as if walang alam yung sinasabihan nya. And in the first place, pag hindi naman nanghihingi ng advice, mabuti pang shut up the mouth na lang. Nakakapuno pala pag may kasama ka sa bahay na bukod sa sya lang matalino, judgmental ay self righteous din. Yung di tumatanggap ng sinabi ng iba. Take note, active na active sila sa church pero yung pagiging judgmental said sa buto ko. May mga remarks din sya about sa "mga pangit na bata" at "lgbt" nung minsang nanunuod buong fam ng tv. what the hell, pati ba naman yun kailangan pa ijudge and you are proud to say na christian ka. Nauubos na ako sobra. Parang minsan gusto ko na lang sya sagutin na pwede ba tama na, pero hanggang sa utak ko lang yun. Kasi tahimik akong tao. Ni hindi ko nga nachika to sa ibang asawa ng mga kapatid nila kung alam nilang ganyang ugali ng isa nilang hipag. Wala lang ako mapagsabihan ngayon, ayoko kasi gawing big deal sa asawa ko. Pero nasabi ko na before na kung dadating yang magaling nyang kapatid, magsstaycation na lang ako somewhere. Nagmakaawa lang yung asawa ko na baka maging big issue daw kasi kung aalis ako. Nakakasaid talaga pag may ganyang kasama sa bahay. Kahit nagsstay ako sa kwarto maghapon, may times na nadidinig ko yung boses nyang nanenermon at namumuna. Iniisip ko na lang na buti natitiis sya ng mister nya sa ugali nya. Minsan gusto ko na lang isumpa na sana may masamang mangyari sa kanya. (Sorry po ang sama ko sa part na to). Ngayon naintindihan ko na yung mga napapanuod ko sa pelikula na mabait tapos masama magalit, parang magiging ganun na kasi ako.
2023.03.25 19:36 YardFuzzy Is this legit?
 | submitted by YardFuzzy to CUNY [link] [comments] |
2023.03.25 19:25 Johnny_Boy398 Hans Hüttig and Arfikareich facelift proposal (Part 1)
 | Oh boy, here I go writing another 30 pages of unsourced fanfiction! submitted by Johnny_Boy398 to TNOmod [link] [comments] Good old Hans Hüttig: as legacy as legacy TNO content gets. From the independent foreign policy to the Himmler driven 4D chess insanity, to the flawless SS coup the story of Hüttig and German Africa is practically crying out for a rework. It is simplistic, 2 dimensional, and no longer in line with TNOs development philosophy. And frankly its boring. I think we can do better. But despite all that, Hans and what he does narratively is also utterly necessary. The south africa war is the first piece of “major” content for post-GCW Germany and the US playthrough. The collapse of the Reichsstaat kickstarts africa content, and trying to balance three more enormous RKs into German gameplay would be all but impossible. Hüttig is currently the linchpin on which all african content south of Cameroon rests. So, rather than redesign all of south/central africa from the ground up, or try to work through a increasingly unworkable bit of legacy content, I think it would be best to instead integrate Hüttig as well as the sudden loss/collapse of the German african holdings into modern TNO as best can be done. And in this post I will tell you my proposed new story of Huttig and his state, from bloodhound to generalissimo to cornered animal to death. If that sounds interesting to you, then keep reading :) (FYI this is part of my larger project of proposing an expanded rework/facelift of the current African content. The important parts for this post are that the Reichskommissars are Carl Krogmann for Zentralafrika, Bernhard Ruberg for Süd-West Afrika, and by 1962 Theodor Eicke for Ostafrika. Everything else should be explained in post.) Nazi propaganda poster reminding and boasting of their old colonies. Though Hitler was always uninterested in Africa most of his nationalist and revanchist supporters thought otherwise, and wanted very much to regain their old territory. As German boots marched from Iran to London to Moskow, the dreams of these men were allowed to go wild: can the new master of Europe truly deserve the title if he is not also the master of Africa? In order to answer what Hüttig and German Africa should look like, we must first answer how Germany came to control Africa in the first place. After all Hitler was apathetic towards the African continent, always in favor of pushing his mission to colonize eastern Europe. Yet Germany takes over all of central africa: why? For this we must delve into forbidden knowledge: how Germany won WW2. We know from leaks that Italian East Africa never fully fell to the allies: that a guerrilla campaign succeeded in bogging down allied forces until Italo German reinforcements came through egypt. But it seems unlikely to me that Axis forces would have gone much further south than that: the soviet and middle eastern fronts demanded the men, and the capture of the suez had been accomplished. On the allies side men were needed for the defense of the home isles and operation torch. As such, the German occupation of africa would take place after the wars end. Operation Torch: the opening of a new front in west africa via amphibious landings in Morocco and Algeria would have still gone forward. Just as in OTL it would have been done with the cooperation of anti-axis elements in the vichy france army/administration in africa, but unlike OTL the attack would not have gone nearly so smoothly. With Germany continuing to win in the east the french commander in Africa François Darlan remains committed to collaboration, and the allies fail to take Algiers by coup. The French forces in africa are split between Darlan and Charles Mast, and the battle for french africa devolves into a messy civil war. In the end the north of french africa, supported by the Germans and Vichy France, remains loyal to the collaborator government while the south, via the bribes and invasions of Free france with British assistance, falls under Degauls control. The battle for Algeria meanwhile will devolve into a bloody stalemate, with American troops being supplied through a captured Morocco and British Gibraltar fighting German troops supplied through Tunisia. The balance is finally broken when Spain intervenes on the side of the Axis. In return for control over Morocco and German economic assistance, Franco joined with what he now considered the winning side and fatally damaged allied supply into north africa as well as critically weakening the british navy. Seeing that their attack had failed, the allies made a fighting withdrawal back to Britain, where they scrambled to defend the Home islands. As the Americans suffered reverses in the Pacific and the Soviet Union began to fall apart, allied morale began to collapse. For our story this has important implications for what remained of allied controlled Africa. In South Africa Jan Smuts had to resort to increasingly authoritarian measures against pro German sabotage and a surging pro-neutrality movement. North and South Rhodesia saw a sharp upswing in pro-federation opinion and an increase in war weariness more generally. Though initially enthusiastic and furnishing large numbers of volunteers, the British Africans now saw the probable fall of the mother country and wondered if there was a way out. The Belgian Congo, held by free Belgium forces, faced similar issues while British held South-West africa saw a Nazi insurgency spring up. In this atmosphere of fear and pessimism several actions were taken: fearing that they would soon be forced into isolation the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland elected to confederate, seeking strength in unity and numbers, while British Uganda sought to make room for an expected flow of refugees. The Bechuanaland Protectorate was occupied by South African forces. But no one declared independence or sought to make a separate peace. Rough map of Africa at the end of the war, but before negotiations. I don't have photoshop, so let me paint a picture in words: Anglo-Egypt all the way down to IEA is occupied by Italy. Northern and southern Rhodesia are confederated with Nyasaland. Bechuanaland is occupied by South Africa and southern French Africa is controlled by the Free French. All other borders should be accurate. Instead the fate of Africa was decided where it so often had been: at diplomatic tables in Europe. Though the Axis armies had failed to conquer all of Britain the atomic bombing of Hawaii sapped the last of Anglo-American resolve, and a ceasefire was signed on July 16th, 1945. In the ensuing negotiations German dominance over africa was decreed in the manner typical of the Nazi’s: bold, broad declarations of conquest with very little prior planning. The main forces pushing for this was the Office of colonial policy under Rudolf Asmis, in alliance with German business concerns who saw great potential for profit in the dark continent. Hitler by this point was fully engaged with constructing his new order in eastern Europe, and largely left questions of african policy to others. This lenience, as well as the general atmosphere of triumphalism, allowed the ambitions of the colonialists to run wild. The former German colonies of Cameroon, South-west Africa and East Africa were handed over without concession, while Belgian, British and some French holdings were signed away for mere promises to “respect the lives and properties of European settlers”. Kenya was transferred to Italian East Africa. The only area which retained some semblance of autonomy was the newly formed Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Here Germany would grant internal political autonomy and even the right to maintain a limited semi-independent armed force in return for economic concessions, the right to garrison the federation with German troops, the extension of anti-jewish and racial purity laws into the federation, and an annual payment from the rhodesians to cover the costs of German occupation in the federation. As such Rhodesia officially ceased to be a British colony and became a German protectorate, but much of the pre-war structure remained. Finally the Germans also annexed Bechuanaland, but here they hit a snag: the south africans refused to withdraw their occupation of the area, and unilaterally annexed it. Even as the policy of neutrality became the only possible course of action, Jan Smuts refused to cede yet more British territory to Germany. Smuts would sign the peace treaty, but in his last days leading the south african government he would do all in his power to keep South Africa out of German hands. For their part the Germans briefly considered seizing the area militarily, but were talked out of the idea by their allies in the South African political scene, who believed they were on the verge of winning the government via elections. One final hurdle needed to be overcome however: the old governments needed to be evicted from the territory now claimed by the reich. Hitler’s apathy towards africa and insistence that demobilization continue at a swift pace meant that the colonial ministry would never get the troop numbers it requested: the issue of overextension was present from the beginning of German Africa. In many areas this was not an issue: British Africans no longer had any stomach to fight so long as their rights were respected, and in Sud-west africa the German population welcomed their new masters with open arms. For the vast majority of the black natives, the news that the flag was changing yet again was met with a shrug: this was hardly the first time land in africa had changed hands, and one European was assumed to be much the same as another. The African intelligentsia however was nearly in a panic, fearing for their positions and lives. But at this point modern native political organizations had only just begun to form, and even fewer had real experience in warfare: the black africans would not yet offer united resistance. The only real resistance would come from the Free french and belgians. Though it took months, the promise of respecting settlor institutions and the decisive defeat of Free French forces in Gabon ultimately won over most of the new territory. The Belgians had been pacified, and the French were forced to retreat far into the north where the Spanish, Portuguese and French State promised to finish them off. So it was that by the end of 1946, Africa looked something like this: Africa in 1946. Though the Portuguese colonies would later be taken and Rhodesia placed under tighter oversight from Ostafrica, these basic divisions remain in place at game start. (Namimia=Sud-West Afrika, all are in their base RK states instead of their post collapse names as seen here.) After this many things happen: the northern border of Zentralafrika is pushed back by native revolt, the free french are saved by iberian interference and American support, the portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique are invaded and added to the kommissariats, and Rhodesia is pressured to fall further under Ost-african suzerainty. But this post is about Hüttig and the Reichsstaat, so let's stay focused on that. --- Hans Benno Hüttig was experienced in East Africa, having fought there in WW1, but was even more experienced in the German concentration camp and prison system. During the war he gained a reputation for being a ruthless troubleshooter, suitable for fixing whatever issues he came across and being ideologically devoted. And when he arrived in Ostafrika in 1951, he found a situation in dire need of fixing. The second Reichskommissar Albert Hoffmann had bumbled the colony into a massive slave revolt, with the garrison keeping control of the urban settlements but large parts of the countryside rendered unsafe for German travel. For this Hoffmann would be the only Reichskommisar to be recalled from office, and was replaced by an SS man: Theodor Eicke. The Eicke administration had only one goal: the pacification of Ostafrika by any means necessary. To this end the new Reichskommisar leveraged his old SS connections to bring in some trusted hands, and among them was Hans Hüttig. Hüttig would spend the next decade growing intimately acquainted with the Reich’s african territories, and with all the dangers and rot therein. In keeping with his reputation in Germany Hüttig proved to be a merciless and harsh man who would seek to “rectify” any issues he found. Steadily rising up the SS hierarchy as well as gaining the trust of Eicke for being one of the few uncorrupt men in Africa, he quickly became known as East Africa’s bloodhound. He was empowered to seek out and destroy dissidents, often chasing his prey beyond Ostafrikan borders into the other Kommissariats, and even into neutral territory such as South Africa. Additionally he was instrumental in advising the “African system” of concentration/labodeath camps in East Africa. In all this he was protected by his patron Kommisar Eicke, and became a figure of hatred, envy, and fear. By 1962 Hüttig is 68 years old, and many looked forward to his retirement. But they had no such luck. Though Hüttig did resign his field commands he was tapped by Eicke as the head of security in Ostafrika: a job which he accepts in early 1962. The white devil had won his prize. But Hüttig's rise has been due more to his political reliability and personal ties than his actual competence. Though hardly a moron it is clear that he has been promoted beyond his capabilities. He is unimaginative, relies heavily on protocol and “statistical methods”, and his personal political radicalism makes him see enemies where none exist, and gets in the way of cooperation with other forces. Though successful in suppressing several native revolts his methods have caused damage even to white lives and property in affected areas, and have not prevented later flare ups in the same region. Though his network of camps have successfully pacified parts of east africa it has come at the cost of high expense and economic stagnation. Even his battlefield record is mixed: though he performed well enough against poorly equipped native revolts, his SS forces performed poorly in the war against Cameroon. Finally, and perhaps most damningly, his system of fortified villages and punishment camps has not succeeded in ending the state of insurgency in Ostafrika. Though all African RKs have resistance movements to contend with Ostafrikan resistance is without a doubt the most damaging and intractable, despite the ever escalating cycle of violence. only the Tanganyika coast and Bouhlerstadt can be said to be truly pacified and under German control, with other areas either in a state of low intensity warfare or administered by autonomous Europeans. Philipp Bouhler (right). A career long member of the Reich Colonial Office, he was the first Kommissar of Ostafrika, when it was in its original, smaller form. Recalled to Germania after the death of the prior head, he now acts as the highest authority on African colonial matters. However he and his office are weak: unable to thrive in the cutthroat politicking of the NSDAP, the colonial office has consistently been outmaneuvered by the foreign office, business syndicates and the SS. By 1962 only Sud-West Afrika truly follows his commands. In short, Hüttig is seen by most white men in Africa as a grumpy prison warden who has grown too large for his own good, whose inflexible mindset causes almost as much damage as it prevents. For those who have lost their property or status to Hüttig's black band he is a dangerous radical whose witch hunts and blank cheque do nothing to entrench German rule and do much to undermine it. And for the black and Asian Africans whose families he has murdered, whose sons he has enslaved and whose daughters he has tortured, for the vast majority of African men and women Hans Hüttig is the devil himself. A symbol of absolute evil who is hated nearly as much as he is feared. But for many of his men and the African SS as a whole, Hüttig is the thin black line keeping the barbarians at bay. When a gaggle of naive nuns get themselves kidnaped who is sent to rescue them? Huttig’s men. When some petty chief or mercenary gets delusions of grandeur who is sent to beat out the fire? Huttig’s men. When a flat footed bureaucrat thinks he is above the law and steals from the volk who knocks on his door? Huttig’s men. Without them and Hüttig, they say, Afrika wouldn’t last a year before it dissolves. As such young fanatics see in Hüttig the image which has been cultivated for him: an incorruptible man of iron who one can anchor themselves too in these times of uncertainty. Where others see stupidity they see determination, where others see a lack of foresight they see a man of action. And most importantly this is how Hüttig is increasingly seeing himself: surrounded by such voices and with the weight of the world on his shoulders, how could he not? In normal circumstances this would be the end of Hüttig's road: he would spend the last years of his career as the right hand man of Eicke, slowly losing control of the massive territory until he retired into obscurity. But this is not the fate destiny has for him: for to the south a fire is burning. In South Africa the post-war 1948 election did indeed bring the National Party into power, which immediately set about implementing its policy of Apartheid and upholding the status of white supremacy more generally. Additionally they sought to open trade relations with Germany and Japan after having been isolated from these markets by the war. They were soon to be disappointed however: the Japanese had little interest in inviting “foreign competition” into their market, while the Germans insisted that South African desires could only be granted if they integrated into the Pakt more generally. America meanwhile suffered from economic recession and took a dim view of the National Party. With politics interfering the south african economy slowed to a crawl, and other issues began to make themselves known: tensions between the Boer and English populations, the creeping fascistization of the National Party, disagreements over the scope and means of segregation, and continued pressure from black organizations attempting to tear down apartheid all have led to increased tensions within South Africa. The minutiae of this conflict is not worth going into in this post, but suffice to say that the National party is split, and the entire nation threatens to split along with it. Johannesburg civilians train in small arms, as part of a local political militia. Despite the governments assurances that South Africa is safe and stable, the popular fear of black revolution or simple crime continues to dominate. Reich propagandists and agents, in a rare case of agreement between the colonial and foreign office, have fanned the flames of this fear by supporting those who claim that the National Party is not doing enough to ensure white rule in South Africa. Hüttig has always been of the opinion that the fate of South Africa would not be decided by votes or speeches, but by blood and steel. For years he has been bitterly disappointed by the South african policy of not permitting him to pursue groups or individuals across the border into south africa, and contends that the reason his policies have only had limited success is because of the softness of South africa, Italian East Africa and Zentralafrika giving fugitives a “safe zone” in which they could escape his wrath. With his rise to leadership of the Ostafrikan SS and head of security this contention has only become more important. There is very little he can do about the policy of any of these states, but in South Africa the question of fugitives from the north has become a political issue. Since the establishment of Ostafrika and the conquest of the Portuguese colonies there has been a steady stream of migration from the north into south africa, for economic as well as political or social reasons. As bad as the Boers were, they would at least pay you something for your work. Hundreds of thousands have traveled to south Africa either in hopes of making a new life for themselves, or more often to earn money which could be sent back home. And along with these migrants more than a few were political dissidents. The question of what to do with this influx has divided the country: more moderate members of the national party have been happy to exploit this group as cheap labor, willing to work for almost nothing. Liberal whites and several religious groups also wish to maintain the system, as preferable to aiding and abetting Hüttig's reign of terror by capturing his dissidents for him. The ANC, representing black south Africans, has declared itself open to these migrants as well in the name of pan-african solidarity. Finally, the geopolitical situation must also be considered: if South Africa were to intercept and return all the people fleeing German Africa as Hüttig wished it would be tying themselves irrevocably to the German system: unacceptable in the face of the ongoing strategy of neutrality in the cold war. Of course, there are those who say white South Africans should never have become so dependent on black labor, that aligning with Germany is in their best interests, and that not cracking down on this trend is an unacceptable security risk. The question has come to a head with a bill which would make it law to deport black Africans back north kicking around parliament indecisively. In 1962 the bill is brought to a referendum, and quickly grows to be seen as a referendum on the future course of the nation: will south Africa become tied at the hip to the Germans and follow a more authoritarian path inspired by nazi and fascist successes, or will it maintain its course of controlled democracy and international compromise? But as said before many in the German administration have no faith that a democratic vote will bring south Africa to sense. As such, though they will lean on South Africa to attempt to swing the referendum their way, they are also preparing contingency plans: arming and training more radical groups as well as forging ties with economic barons and other Boer VIPs. If elections will not bring South Africa where it needs to be, perhaps a march on Cape Town will… But Hüttig is not a man to rest on idle hopes: he believes that even this will not be enough, and behind closed doors has advocated for the armed takeover of South Africa, citing the Dutch and the English as nations which could only be brought into the new order through force and arguing that their African cousins would be the same. This is yet another example of his ill-advised radicalism to most, but when the referendum brings South Africa to a state of civil war, he will be seen as a profit. Even a broken clock is right twice a day it seems. When Hitler dies and the fatherland suddenly has its hands full with the following chaos, German Africa finds itself in a difficult situation: communication with the colonial office is sparse and contradictory. Thousands of German soldiers have been stranded and resupply denied. The financial and material strength of the German colonies has been severely constrained, and as such all three do as one would expect: they hunker down, plan to conserve their strength, and wait for the chaos back home to subside. But their prior actions will not give them this option. Radicalism fostered by the Germans themselves has borne fruit in post-referendum south Africa in the form of violence and riot from all sectors of society. Just as Germany is falling into a succession crisis, South Africa falls into civil war. Initially the Reichskommissars see this as unfortunate, but not something they could afford to get involved in. But poor command over radical officers and units close to the border inevitably draws them closer to the conflict, until finally the report comes in that south African forces attacked an SS group in German territory. Whether this was a case of accidental fire, revenge, or even a false flag from the SS itself is unknown, but the result is inevitable: German boys have been killed and no true Nazi would settle for anything less than a war in response. The RKs intervene in South Africa, despite some reservations. But why worry? The south Africans were divided, weakened by degenerate ideology and outnumbered, German forces would sweep into Cape town in no more than a month. And in the end all of Africa would be under German guidance, finally elevating them from being the eternal black sheep of the empire. Another reason for German confidence in their \"defensive attack\" was their superiority in armored vehicles, especially tanks. The German tank fleet has been rightfully criticized as overly large considering the state of warfare, but it has benefited the afrikan administrations by giving them a great deal of older models as surplus. Of course Afrika mostly lacks the facilities to repair or replace these machines, but so long as the war does not last longer than a few months this should not matter... With these thoughts in mind the German forces hastily marched southwards to fulfill their mission of “self defense”. And when they attacked alongside their political allies, they discovered that the enemy was not nearly as weak as they had supposed. Though initially successful anglo and black south africans rallied against the German invasion, and soon the uncoordinated and relatively flimsy German force found itself bogged down, and the OFN having been invited in by their opponents. It was clear: the light “anti-bandit” forces were no match for American tanks, and the three week operation was going to be anything but. The Kommissariats needed to unite, to reform, to strengthen, or else they would come undone before Germany proper could return to them. They needed an African Oberkommando. Hans Hüttig is not the best choice for generalissimo: he is not trained in the command of large armies, he is broadly disliked and distrusted by the Wehrmacht, and his age is beginning to show. However, he is also the only choice for the position. He alone commands an organization that commonly works across RK lines, Ostafrika is providing the majority of the troops for this war, and without his cooperation the supply chain to the front would be endangered. With no one who clearly outranks the rest and Hüttig having been the only man to seriously plan for a conventional war to the south, it becomes clear that Hüttig's men will accept no one else for the job. The various other armies of German Afrika never had any intention of following the Oberkommando to the letter in any case, and so after a period of resistance they bow to the inevitable: Hüttig is the war master. As his first act as commander, Hüttig does something surprising, for perhaps the first time in his life: he arms the natives. For years Hüttig had been the staunchest defender of the colonial offices policy of maintaining an all-European armed force, but even he could not deny the math: if German men were going to die in their thousands to the south, then they would need to be replaced by their thousands in the north, and all the conscription in the world would not fix that. Though he still considers the natives unfit for frontline action Hüttig does have experience in turning native against native: the Kapo. The Kapo was a concentration camp prisoner who was given administrative and supervisory tasks in return for privileges in the camp itself. The necessity of this system meant it was already institutionalized in camps across Africa, turning prisoner against prisoner. As such, in order to fill in the gaps behind the lines, this system would be expanded: in return for the promise of a better life, prisoners would be given the option to act as “anti-bandit” forces or as porters bringing material to the front. Of course these units would be commanded by German officers, and deployed in areas they had no personal connections to, but this is still a radical change from the prior policy of tribalization, enslavement or extermination. Drawing of a European Kapo and his wards. Faced with the ever present issue of manpower even before the war a system of turning the prisoners against each other was necessary. Considering the dire conditions of the camps those willing to sell their souls in return for their food were not hard to find. The issue was to ensure their continued loyalty and diligence. For those who were suspected of falling short, the typical punishment is to simply be stripped of their status and returned to the prisoners to do with as they wish. The second order of business is to build an arms industry from almost nothing. Throwing financial caution to the wind, Hüttig shall seize relevant property and take out massive loans, and rush the construction of ammunition and other such factories. For this project Otto Förschner will be called to service, having had experience with factory slave labor for years dating back to the V2 program during WW2. The third and final task is the most difficult: corralling and coordinating the armed forces and policy of the other two RKs. While Theodor Eicke is generally in agreement with him, Carl Krogmann of Zentralafrika and Bernhard Ruberg of Sud-West Afrika neither trust nor support him. They were willing to accept the “Kapo” units as a sad necessity, and agreed in abstract that native labor should supply while Europeans should fight, but they are resistant to truly integrating their armed forces with Hüttig. As such Hüttig is forced to rely on the African SS, and on threats more than true consensus. As the war drags on, all will become more desperate, approving policies they never would have before. For Hüttig this works to his advantage, to a degree. The generals and administrators will fall even more in line as the war situation deteriorates. However it will also force him to desperation: Kapo units will be expanded with penal conscripts and sent to the front, when loans are no longer able to be forced out he will resort to outright confiscation, even the ancient practice of slave raids will be revived to feed the ever-growing war machine. As the number of reliable men available decreases, backline units resort to more terroristic methods, trying to foster fear which will do what their actual strength cannot. Overall, the Afrikan RKs will be run to exhaustion, with ideology and sustainability being increasingly sacrificed in a war that can no longer possibly be worth the cost. But the only thing worse than a pyrrhic victory is a crippling defeat, and so the Germans will have no choice but to fight on. When Germany rights itself and the new Fuhrer is empowered the efforts of Hüttig will be aided, but his position will be maintained, for there is no war in south Africa. Both America and Germany want to win, but both also want to avoid escalation: Africa is not worth risking nuclear Armageddon for. As such Germany will send supplies, advisors, “volunteers”, air systems and intelligence. But much as America cannot risk an outright declaration of war against the African RKs, Germany cannot risk directly taking over the war effort in Africa. With this final dynamic of German aided RKs and National Party radicals fighting OFN aided national party moderates, the war will see its end. It may end in three ways: The Germans and Boers successfully march to Cape Town and South Africa is reorganized as a One-Party state under the Boar led National Party radicals, both sides are unable to continue fighting and a ceasefire is agreed to, or the African RKs begin to unravel as the war becomes too much for them and Germany is forced into a unilateral ceasefire, giving up much of the south to OFN South Africa. Regardless of the outcome, the RKs will be left badly destabilized and all the leaders will blame everyone else for everything that went wrong, with thinly veiled accusations of treason flying between rivals. Clearly Germany cannot leave Africa as is, and so a conference in Dar es Salaam will be called to discuss current issues in Africa and decide on a new policy, or at least however much of Africa is left after the war. And it is here that Hans Hüttig will take power and become the Master of Afrika SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Benno Hüttig, posing in front of a newly constructed punishment camp near Dar-es Salam. As Obergruppenführer of the Ostafrikan SS and the head of security in Ostafrika, Hüttig commands the largest number of troops by any single person in Afrika, with Wehrmacht garrisons typically being dispersed. After the South African war, he is without a doubt the most militarily powerful person in Africa, win or loose. (To be continued tomorrow) |
2023.03.25 19:23 SolhWellnessOfficial Link between Climate change & Mental Health Solh Wellness
Climate change is a worldwide issue that affects nearly every aspect of human life. People's mental health is increasingly jeopardised as temperatures rise, weather patterns shift, and natural disasters become more frequent and severe. Climate change has been linked to a variety of mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to research (PTSD).
Solh Wellness, a preventive mental health platform, has identified climate change as a major concern for mental health, along with contagion, conflict, and conformity, and is working to address its impact on individuals and communities.
Direct Cause: The immediate consequences are noticeable and often severe, having a significant impact on your daily activities.
Some of the most serious consequences are as follows:
Trauma: Natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires are more likely to cause PTSD, which is distinguished by intrusive thoughts, avoidance behaviours, and hyperarousal.
Anxiety and Depression: Because people are concerned about the future and their ability to deal with environmental challenges, climate change can cause anxiety and depression.
Suicide: People may feel hopeless and despair as a result of increased environmental degradation and loss of livelihoods caused by climate change, such as low harvest, increasing their risk of suicide.
Climate Change's Indirect Effects on Mental Health: In addition to the direct consequences, climate change has an indirect impact on mental health. Among the most serious consequences are: People may lose their homes, jobs, family, and friends as a result of climate change, leading to isolation and disconnection from others.
Economic Difficulties: The financial difficulties brought on by climate change can amplify stress and anxiety.
Health Impact: Climate change has the potential to aggravate infectious diseases, air pollution, and heat-related illnesses, all of which are detrimental to mental health.
Food insecurity: Climate change-related food scarcity and malnutrition can exacerbate anxiety and depression.
How Can Solh Wellness Help?
Solh Wellness understands how critical it is to address the effects of climate change on mental health. The organisation provides a variety of services to assist individuals and communities in dealing with the effects of climate change, including:
Professional Help: Solh Wellness offers counselling and allied therapy services to help you discover what moves you, as well as immediate assistance to help people deal with the emotional and psychological effects of climate change.
Support Groups: Solh Wellness provides 35+ support groups centred on the most common issues that people face. Individuals who have suffered trauma as a result of climate change, such as natural disasters, can share their stories and listen to others'.
Personalized Tools and Solutions: Because everyone's problems are different, solutions must be customised for each person. Solh Wellness provides its users with a diverse set of self-help tools and solutions, journaling and community support groups, on-call medical practitioners and counsellors, and allied therapies.
Awareness: Solh Wellness works to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness in order to advocate for policies and practises that promote environmental sustainability as well as mental health.
Conclusion
Climate change is a disaster that has an impact on all aspects of human life, including mental health. Solh Wellness understands the impact of climate change on mental health and provides a variety of services to assist individuals and communities in dealing with its consequences. Solh Wellness promotes mental health and resilience in a changing climate by providing a nonjudgmental, AI-powered safe space for people to express themselves and seek support in order to prevent clinically diagnosed mental disorders.
submitted by SolhWellnessOfficial to u/SolhWellnessOfficial [link] [comments]
Solh Wellness, a preventive mental health platform, has identified climate change as a major concern for mental health, along with contagion, conflict, and conformity, and is working to address its impact on individuals and communities.
Direct Cause: The immediate consequences are noticeable and often severe, having a significant impact on your daily activities.
Some of the most serious consequences are as follows:
Trauma: Natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires are more likely to cause PTSD, which is distinguished by intrusive thoughts, avoidance behaviours, and hyperarousal.
Anxiety and Depression: Because people are concerned about the future and their ability to deal with environmental challenges, climate change can cause anxiety and depression.
Suicide: People may feel hopeless and despair as a result of increased environmental degradation and loss of livelihoods caused by climate change, such as low harvest, increasing their risk of suicide.
Climate Change's Indirect Effects on Mental Health: In addition to the direct consequences, climate change has an indirect impact on mental health. Among the most serious consequences are: People may lose their homes, jobs, family, and friends as a result of climate change, leading to isolation and disconnection from others.
Economic Difficulties: The financial difficulties brought on by climate change can amplify stress and anxiety.
Health Impact: Climate change has the potential to aggravate infectious diseases, air pollution, and heat-related illnesses, all of which are detrimental to mental health.
Food insecurity: Climate change-related food scarcity and malnutrition can exacerbate anxiety and depression.
How Can Solh Wellness Help?
Solh Wellness understands how critical it is to address the effects of climate change on mental health. The organisation provides a variety of services to assist individuals and communities in dealing with the effects of climate change, including:
Professional Help: Solh Wellness offers counselling and allied therapy services to help you discover what moves you, as well as immediate assistance to help people deal with the emotional and psychological effects of climate change.
Support Groups: Solh Wellness provides 35+ support groups centred on the most common issues that people face. Individuals who have suffered trauma as a result of climate change, such as natural disasters, can share their stories and listen to others'.
Personalized Tools and Solutions: Because everyone's problems are different, solutions must be customised for each person. Solh Wellness provides its users with a diverse set of self-help tools and solutions, journaling and community support groups, on-call medical practitioners and counsellors, and allied therapies.
Awareness: Solh Wellness works to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness in order to advocate for policies and practises that promote environmental sustainability as well as mental health.
Conclusion
Climate change is a disaster that has an impact on all aspects of human life, including mental health. Solh Wellness understands the impact of climate change on mental health and provides a variety of services to assist individuals and communities in dealing with its consequences. Solh Wellness promotes mental health and resilience in a changing climate by providing a nonjudgmental, AI-powered safe space for people to express themselves and seek support in order to prevent clinically diagnosed mental disorders.
2023.03.25 19:22 TAangrydisappointed I made awful decisions when I was 23 and can’t move past them
Using a TA for this. I (f) feel like an awful person. I just can’t seem to get passed this no matter how hard I try. I’m currently 27. When I was between 22-23 I went through the worst years of my life mentally. I had made an attempt a couple of months before my 22nd birthday and afterward I downward spiralled, drank too much, dabbled in drugs. As much as people hated covid when it came along I was almost 24 and still a mess and the lockdown got me back on the straight and narrow and I will never feel more grateful because I know how much heartbreak it caused other people but I feel like it saved my life.
Back to the story, at an all time low my self esteem was on the floor, I had gained weight and when I tried to meet guys that’s all they saw and weren’t afraid of telling me. I hated myself. I met a guy I clicked with and we talked for a while and I was crazy about him. He was a bartender in one of the college bars he said he didn’t have a girlfriend and one night when he had a night off we all were out got drunk and ended up going home together (not sex but did other stuff) the next morning, I was told in a group chat that he had a girlfriend. I messaged him asking and it was radio silence. I was distraught and angry and mortified but still was mad about him. Fast forward about a month we had to see each other a lot as we played for the same sports club. The Christmas party came around we again were all drunk, one of my friends at the time invited everyone back to mine for an after party. I was trying to speak to another guy but he kept trying to grab my attention. Somehow during the night we ended up sitting beside eachother on the couch with a blanket over us. He started to touch me down there. At the time I didn’t stop and I’m so angry with myself that I didn’t. Nothing more happened but it was enough, I still feel to this day like a cheating fool. That was the end of him.
Fast forward a couple of months I leave college and get my first grown up job. I’m still in a bad headspace, in therapy and on two different types of anti depressants. I don’t know if this is relevant or not but at the time I was being treated for anxiety, depression and borderline personality. I was put in with a guy about 10 years older than me to train me and we hit it off straight away. He was so easy to speak to would always talk to me and we would flirt away, everyone said there was something there. I found out randomly one day he had a girlfriend of 10 years, I was upset but I left it at that. One of the girls who I was friends with in the job bought a new house and she held a house warming party. Needless to say there was a lot of drink involved and I still didn’t how to pace myself. We ended up being the the last two awake when he told me he really wanted to kiss me, I told him no he had a girlfriend, he left it a few minutes then leaned in and kissed me. I felt ecstatic and awful at the same time. He explained to me how he was in a loveless relationship, she cheated on him a few years ago and he hasn’t got over it that he’s just gone with the motions since. I hate to admit it but it made me feel a little less bad. We ended up cuddling but nothing more. A week later we had our work Christmas party (I hate Christmas parties now because of these stories) he showed up late and told me he had finished up with her. I was so happy, we had a little kiss and that was it. We grew so close would talk into the early hours, sexting, talk about our families hobbies etc. I was completely in love with him. He then decided to go back to her and I was distraught. I’m ashamed to admit this but when they did get back together we did sext for another week. They broke up again and got back together another time over the next few months, we were still really close friends, but there wasn’t anything else although I was still head over heels for him. He text me one day asking me to respond to his Snapchat saying I messaged him by accident because apparently his girlfriend seen one of my messages on his phone, I, like a love sick puppy did - I’m so angry at myself even typing this out. I was so angry at him I told him it wasn’t fair he needed to come clean that I felt awful and like I was gaslighting another girl. It took him a while but he finally told her and she admitted to him about her cheating. Thankfully not long after this covid hit and we started working from home and I didn’t have to see him, I felt like messaging her telling her how sorry I was because at this stage I had started to stabilise mentally, but I never could I chickened out. I think they are still together.
Anyway the reason for me typing his long winded post is I feel like a homewrecker. I hate cheating, I don’t condone cheating and when I have been in a relationship it never crossed my mind. But these two incidents kilk me inside. I haven’t tried to meet anyone since because I’m so ashamed and I don’t know how I would explain. It may not sound like it from the above but I’m a straight arrow I always have followed the rules, these two years I just went so far off track. I am so embarrassed about all of my behaviour back then. I am now thankfully completely stable off my medication, been discharged from the mental health services and I haven’t touched drugs in years. I also am now the sensible friend when I go on a night out. So much has improved for me and I know I would NEVER do anything like the above again but I am so lost and feel so awful I don’t know how I’ll move past it. If you read all of this thanks. I know I am a horrible person and fully expect to be told so. I would also appreciate any advice
Edit: I forgot to mention this but I no shape or form to I want to excuse my actions by blaming the drinking/ mental break
submitted by TAangrydisappointed to offmychest [link] [comments]
Back to the story, at an all time low my self esteem was on the floor, I had gained weight and when I tried to meet guys that’s all they saw and weren’t afraid of telling me. I hated myself. I met a guy I clicked with and we talked for a while and I was crazy about him. He was a bartender in one of the college bars he said he didn’t have a girlfriend and one night when he had a night off we all were out got drunk and ended up going home together (not sex but did other stuff) the next morning, I was told in a group chat that he had a girlfriend. I messaged him asking and it was radio silence. I was distraught and angry and mortified but still was mad about him. Fast forward about a month we had to see each other a lot as we played for the same sports club. The Christmas party came around we again were all drunk, one of my friends at the time invited everyone back to mine for an after party. I was trying to speak to another guy but he kept trying to grab my attention. Somehow during the night we ended up sitting beside eachother on the couch with a blanket over us. He started to touch me down there. At the time I didn’t stop and I’m so angry with myself that I didn’t. Nothing more happened but it was enough, I still feel to this day like a cheating fool. That was the end of him.
Fast forward a couple of months I leave college and get my first grown up job. I’m still in a bad headspace, in therapy and on two different types of anti depressants. I don’t know if this is relevant or not but at the time I was being treated for anxiety, depression and borderline personality. I was put in with a guy about 10 years older than me to train me and we hit it off straight away. He was so easy to speak to would always talk to me and we would flirt away, everyone said there was something there. I found out randomly one day he had a girlfriend of 10 years, I was upset but I left it at that. One of the girls who I was friends with in the job bought a new house and she held a house warming party. Needless to say there was a lot of drink involved and I still didn’t how to pace myself. We ended up being the the last two awake when he told me he really wanted to kiss me, I told him no he had a girlfriend, he left it a few minutes then leaned in and kissed me. I felt ecstatic and awful at the same time. He explained to me how he was in a loveless relationship, she cheated on him a few years ago and he hasn’t got over it that he’s just gone with the motions since. I hate to admit it but it made me feel a little less bad. We ended up cuddling but nothing more. A week later we had our work Christmas party (I hate Christmas parties now because of these stories) he showed up late and told me he had finished up with her. I was so happy, we had a little kiss and that was it. We grew so close would talk into the early hours, sexting, talk about our families hobbies etc. I was completely in love with him. He then decided to go back to her and I was distraught. I’m ashamed to admit this but when they did get back together we did sext for another week. They broke up again and got back together another time over the next few months, we were still really close friends, but there wasn’t anything else although I was still head over heels for him. He text me one day asking me to respond to his Snapchat saying I messaged him by accident because apparently his girlfriend seen one of my messages on his phone, I, like a love sick puppy did - I’m so angry at myself even typing this out. I was so angry at him I told him it wasn’t fair he needed to come clean that I felt awful and like I was gaslighting another girl. It took him a while but he finally told her and she admitted to him about her cheating. Thankfully not long after this covid hit and we started working from home and I didn’t have to see him, I felt like messaging her telling her how sorry I was because at this stage I had started to stabilise mentally, but I never could I chickened out. I think they are still together.
Anyway the reason for me typing his long winded post is I feel like a homewrecker. I hate cheating, I don’t condone cheating and when I have been in a relationship it never crossed my mind. But these two incidents kilk me inside. I haven’t tried to meet anyone since because I’m so ashamed and I don’t know how I would explain. It may not sound like it from the above but I’m a straight arrow I always have followed the rules, these two years I just went so far off track. I am so embarrassed about all of my behaviour back then. I am now thankfully completely stable off my medication, been discharged from the mental health services and I haven’t touched drugs in years. I also am now the sensible friend when I go on a night out. So much has improved for me and I know I would NEVER do anything like the above again but I am so lost and feel so awful I don’t know how I’ll move past it. If you read all of this thanks. I know I am a horrible person and fully expect to be told so. I would also appreciate any advice
Edit: I forgot to mention this but I no shape or form to I want to excuse my actions by blaming the drinking/ mental break
2023.03.25 19:02 Edward_Stivenson 200 Best Narrative Essay Topics and Ideas
 | Imagine being put in a time capsule with an artificial intelligence chauffeur who asks you, 'Which one of your memories would you like to access?'. submitted by Edward_Stivenson to students_essay_help [link] [comments] This scenario is rather accurate for a narrative essay. Your storyline, voice, and writing style distinguish this type of writing from others. The best option to satisfy your professor's demands and the criteria outlined in the grading scale is to acquire prompt academic assistance from the SuperbPaper's term paper writing service. Continue reading to find out how to write a narrative essay like a true professional and have a look at our narrative essay examples below! Narrative Essay Definition and Types of Essay Before we continue, let's briefly discuss what is a narrative paper. A narrative essay definition is a form of academic assignment that uses a tale about the author's personal experience to make a point. It's not enough to merely tell an amusing tale. Narrative essays rely on settings, character growth, dialogue, conflicts & resolutions, and turning points. The other purpose of such writing is to stress reasons for sharing the episode and the significance of the experience provided. The narrative essay structure is less rigidly organized than the persuasive essay. Speaking of which, a narrative essay format follows a typical layout. Everything in these papers needs to maintain a predetermined chronology and have a distinct beginning, middle, and end. How to Choose Narrative Essay Topics? In order to hone your writing skills, first you need to learn how to start a narrative essay. It begins with selecting a decent topic for your piece. Here are some tips for making a right choice with your narrative essay topics. https://preview.redd.it/pdtt3xzsmwpa1.png?width=3120&format=png&auto=webp&s=233117b5aee82b0f8d442283e5ca5bd188b1da8b 1. Keep in mind that narratives tell stories The theme you choose should make it possible for the audience to connect to your personal experience, skills, and the valuable life lessons. 2. Pick useful ideas to discuss If you have a passion for something, select issues that you have struggled with. This is a unique chance to avoid writing about things that make you yawn. 3. Be ready – don’t miss the planning stage Your paper has to prove a particular point, so be sure to check how much information you need to collect on different topics. 4. Keep experimenting throughout Experiment by, for instance, mixing various episodes from your life with different topics. Think of the subject that will guarantee the best emotional experience for your readers. 5. Recall the essay’s structure An academic paper always requires a golden formula in terms of its structure. For the list of ideas you may choose from, consider whether it is possible to develop relevant, logical sections according to the intro-body-conclusion organization. As the body section of your paper will require at least three paragraphs, decide whether or not you will be able to come up with at least three claims (topic sentences) to support your thesis statement. Our college admission essay writing service has compiled a whole list of narrative essay topics with descriptions to help you. Scroll down to find some excellent narrative essay topics for college students. Experience Is a Teacher Write down any experiences that come to mind using a pen and paper. Your encounter could start negatively but be pleasant, or vice versa. The fascinating aspect of a bad event is how you handled it and, ideally, prevailed. Give your reader a sense of place so they may experience this moment of transformation with you and feel a part of your tale. Consider the following literacy narrative essay examples:
https://preview.redd.it/qtnjvdyfnwpa1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=274092e35bddafa6cc38ed5c8ce12b0116053071 Personal Narrative Essay Topics A personal narrative essay is about your personal experience. It needs to have an emotional effect on the reader. In order to do so, the picture you are creating (with words) has to be vivid and appeal to the reader’s emotions. Using a lot of details is a great way to achieve this goal. Some personal narrative topics include:
Narrative essays aim for the reader to see exactly what the writer has been through. Since you cannot show your readers a picture, you need to create one with words. Make sure you pick something that you remember well — as providing all of the details for the reader is essential.
Cultural narrative essays allow you to show an aspect of culture to the reader yet make it informative and entertaining. Culture is a very vast and complicated system, therefore avoid touching upon several aspects at one time in the same story. Cultural narratives are great discussion starters as people get to ask questions about culture and explain what kind of prejudice they might have towards a culture or certain aspects of that culture. Here are some examples of cultural narrative essays:
A narrative argument essay examines something that has intrigued you or has had a big impact on your life — through the form of a story. It also needs to include a point that has come from your narrative that is persuasive or argumentative. Your story acts as your argument and an example with which you persuade the reader.
Take a trip down memory lane to your sincere and younger years and find a crazy story to share. If you have a setting, an idea, but no story, you can always make one up. Make it convincing, and people will think that your life is fascinating! Write about a childhood experience that showed the importance of teamwork.
Everyone is nostalgic for their school years in one way or another. It is a time of knowledge, development, and growth — or skipping classes and looking for trouble. Find something exciting from your high school experience and turn it into a narrative essay.
Relationships start with family. As a person grows, their relationship with their family extends to their friendships, romantic interests, business relationships, and far beyond. Explore the vices and virtues of the people you’ve met.
Laws keep the world in order. Or do they? Students from all over the world discuss plenty of challenging moral questions. The time comes when a person has to choose – do the legal thing or do the right thing — according to their set of ethical standards. These points make morality an infinite pool of inspiration for writing.
Hobbies are the things that people enjoy doing most of all. Hobbies can end up sparking lifetime interests or involvement in one’s community. Most people end up being happier when their hobbies can be incorporated into their jobs. Additionally, people attract each other based on the things they do and the places they go. Ask yourself “What do I enjoy doing?” Or “Why do I like this particular type of music?”
Ever had that moment that inspired you to do great things? As students, we often get inspired by the most straightforward observations. Whatever your source of inspiration – whether it is a field trip, a beautiful view, a film with a moving story, or a classic book like ‘Catcher in the Rye’ – you can always turn it into a fascinating piece of writing.
Going to college means getting catapulted into a new world enriched with new impressions – new circles of people, a new system of education, student living conditions, and much more. All of the craziest stories happen in college; whether you’re there to party or use textbooks for pillows, there's plenty of narrative essay topics for college, and about college, that you can write about.
Narrative essays usually require students to write about their lives. What are the exceptions? Frequently, narratives get dramatized in favor of telling a great story, over blatantly stating facts. ‘Imagine If…” scenarios can be massively dramatized versions of reality, making them one of the most popular sub-genres in essay writing. Enter the realm of free-flowing imagination and see where it takes you:
You should not necessarily discuss only places from your memories; it is also possible to describe locations that you would like to visit and provide reasons for doing so. Some ideas may include:
This one is similar to your “hobbies”, yet slightly different. It is better to focus on what you do well and share some useful recommendations instead of fake memories. Describing something you have a passion for always adds a dynamic perspective.
If you believe you are an expert in a particular field, offer the reader some tips and tricks on how to succeed in the same area. Recall personal experiences and factors that have helped you. It may look like recommendations, but do not forget you are writing a narrative essay – involve more creativity and descriptions.
All of the previous narrative essay topics are tied to a particular genre or theme. Still, there are plenty of good narrative essay topics you can pick from that are quite random, yet fun to write about. Check out some additional topics for narrative essay assignments that we have thought up:
This section is a pleasant bonus for our young readers! A good sense of humor is an excellent ace up your sleeve in writing. You may be able to turn a serious situation into something fun and relaxing by involving a relevant joke or anecdote. The rest of your essay will then feel more alive and exciting. These ideas will help you get inspired:
Each of us has their own personality. It is possible to express yourself in any light by choosing to write a narrative paper about your strengths, weaknesses, characteristics, mood, etc. We have analyzed some of the best topics for you.
Any topic related to gender is a sensitive one. Essay writers should be careful not to tread on corn. A paper about sex and gender should be objective and written in a neutral tone. Here we are with some issues that you may find interesting to discuss:
After finding a topic that suits your mood, do some brainstorming. Write all of the possible scenarios on a piece of paper and organize them into a unique narrative essay outline. Follow the instructors of your professor. Most of your questions have probably been answered there. Our essay service has compiled some writing tips to help you manage your essay without any hassle. |
2023.03.25 18:42 heythereanny I’ll graduate college this year!
First the obligatory sorry for formatting, I’m on mobile.
So this may not seem like a huge deal but I just had a discussion with my advisor and I happily told my family who were quite indifferent about everything.
A little back story. I’m F35. For most of my 20’s I was in an extremely toxic and abusive relationship with my daughters father. I started and stopped college more times than I can probably count.
Undiagnosed ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety coupled with an abusive partner that would tear me down and withhold the tools I needed to succeed (car, internet, money, etc) meant I failed every time. Hopping from community college to community college, long enough to max out my loans, give him the check cause I was “bad with money” and fail my classes. It was a game we played often and I was blind to it.
I eventually left with my daughter in 2017 and moved closer to my parents (which isn’t a great relationship to be honest but at least they never broke my bones).
In 2021, with a new sense of freedom and my self esteem higher and my mental health treated, I decided to go back to school. I started in July 2021 and was set to graduate in early 2026 due to work and other commitments taking up some time so I’d have to cut back on school a little.
Since July 2021, as soon as I was eligible, I made presidents list at my college every semester and currently hold a 4.14 GPA. I took the winter semester off because I ran out of financial aid and will run a shortfall and I wasn’t in the position to pay the shortfall in the winter.
I took the winter off from structured classes at school and did classes on Sophia (online learning platform that I can do classes at my own pace and the credits will transfer in and it’s completely free). I’m now 70% of the way completed with my coursework. I spoke with my advisor yesterday and the plan is to come back in the spring (starting next week) and do my regular course load for this semester while taking Sophia classes as well and I’ll pay the $434 shortfall. It’ll be rough because I’m already living paycheck to paycheck as a single mom, but I’ll make it work. I’ll take the summer semester off, continuing to do Sophia classes during my time off in the summer and then I’ll come back in the fall. My graduation credits will kick in for the fall semester and I won’t owe anything for my last semester there. I’ll have all my credits for graduation at the end of fall.
I just wanted to say it out into the void. I never thought I’d be at this point almost 6 years ago when I made my escape.
submitted by heythereanny to TrueOffMyChest [link] [comments]
So this may not seem like a huge deal but I just had a discussion with my advisor and I happily told my family who were quite indifferent about everything.
A little back story. I’m F35. For most of my 20’s I was in an extremely toxic and abusive relationship with my daughters father. I started and stopped college more times than I can probably count.
Undiagnosed ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety coupled with an abusive partner that would tear me down and withhold the tools I needed to succeed (car, internet, money, etc) meant I failed every time. Hopping from community college to community college, long enough to max out my loans, give him the check cause I was “bad with money” and fail my classes. It was a game we played often and I was blind to it.
I eventually left with my daughter in 2017 and moved closer to my parents (which isn’t a great relationship to be honest but at least they never broke my bones).
In 2021, with a new sense of freedom and my self esteem higher and my mental health treated, I decided to go back to school. I started in July 2021 and was set to graduate in early 2026 due to work and other commitments taking up some time so I’d have to cut back on school a little.
Since July 2021, as soon as I was eligible, I made presidents list at my college every semester and currently hold a 4.14 GPA. I took the winter semester off because I ran out of financial aid and will run a shortfall and I wasn’t in the position to pay the shortfall in the winter.
I took the winter off from structured classes at school and did classes on Sophia (online learning platform that I can do classes at my own pace and the credits will transfer in and it’s completely free). I’m now 70% of the way completed with my coursework. I spoke with my advisor yesterday and the plan is to come back in the spring (starting next week) and do my regular course load for this semester while taking Sophia classes as well and I’ll pay the $434 shortfall. It’ll be rough because I’m already living paycheck to paycheck as a single mom, but I’ll make it work. I’ll take the summer semester off, continuing to do Sophia classes during my time off in the summer and then I’ll come back in the fall. My graduation credits will kick in for the fall semester and I won’t owe anything for my last semester there. I’ll have all my credits for graduation at the end of fall.
I just wanted to say it out into the void. I never thought I’d be at this point almost 6 years ago when I made my escape.
2023.03.25 18:18 CFUsOrFuckOff Why Ukraine is the turning point for humanity and what must be done
This is not a political position, but a thermodynamic one. The world is heading from a time of excess to a time of scarcity. With more people enjoying fewer comforts, humanity is faced with the direction it takes for the rest of our species' future on this planet and others: we can't fight each other for what's left or we can share with each other what we need.
This isn't - or has never before been - a serious question because this world has never felt universal hardship before. In the past, when any major scarcity was faced (with the exception of 536) there was always a neighboring ally to buffer the loss or an enemy to subjugate; until now, there has always been more. Climate change is a global pressure on a globalized economy. There are no external economies that are thriving to prop up the luxuries we've come to feel entitled to. When that luxury can no longer be provided, people are trained to blame each other and ask for the boss to complain about our level of service.
This is the attitude fueling the shift to the right "all this liberal 'science' bullshit has turned my country into a place i dont recognize. Time to get my country in order!", but like how the long term side effects of COVID will be blamed on the vaccine rather than the virus, humans are apparently hardwired to look for a person or institution that's responsible for their problems, because they live in a world that's manifestly run by humanity. Politicians don't help with this because they promise change that a large bureaucracy isn't capable of... every time they step in front of a mic. Politicians feed the sense that the world is divided into teams and the team that's running things is doing harm. They are the anti-vax evangelists of a world simply running out of good time as a result of spending all the good time since the end of WWII.
Humanity cannot fly. That shouldn't be arguable. It's a fundamental limit of our physiology that cannot be overcome without shedding everything about us that makes us human; brains are heavy. When we get on a plane, we are not 'flying', we are taking a bus full of people, strapping a rocket engine to it, and firing it in a ballistic trajectory toward our destination. For all the celebration of progress in the tech age, we still can't figure out how to move something forward without throwing something out the back. That's not just why planes are absurd but why they cannot continue to be considered a good invention. Think of how much fuel would need to be burned to rocket yourself across a lawn, let alone through the sky; it's an insane amount of fuel and an absurd justification for burning it, especially virtually all domestic travel can be accomplished by rail or bus... which also use the same principle of throwing out enough exhaust gasses out the back to displace the weight of the thing that's burning the fuel. When this thing is on the ground, it burns much less fuel than pushing it through the sky.
Humanity assumes novelty is benign. Im not sure if this is one of the hidden rules about capitalism that we all follow as a culture "have you seen the new x!? It's amazing and works way better than x-1!", or if we're evolutionarily programmed to assume new is good and the direction we should be heading in. In either case, it has allowed us to adopt planetary destruction as a necessary aspect of each of our lives. It isn't anything we do consciously, it is the background of our lives that feeds big industry and steals time from the future. It's our commute, our food, our total acceptance that running a furnace is fine despite getting all worked up about oil spills and fires when we see them uncontained. The maze we all run was designed to have as much distance as possible between you and the cheese at the end so you would spend half or more of your cheese burning calories to get from the start to the finish and repeat all over. It is why people feel the problem is too big for them: there is nothing one person can change in the part of the life they control that will redirect the planetary system away from collapse because it is the pattern of our lives that is the destructive part.
Since our shared pattern is so destructive, it is self limiting. We are feeling the effects of that now with COVID (forests being pushed toward ecological breakdown leads animals to look for new territory and new food, leading to conflict with species already there and malnutrition from food with an incomplete nutrient balance), extreme weather doing damage to vital infrastructure and shipping losses.
Which brings us back to Ukraine. The world needs a beacon. A Western country with the courage to model a sustainable lifestyle through active change. I assumed that would have been Canada but I was wrong. Instead, with Ukraine being forced to rebuild in a time where supplies have never been more expensive, and in a state where its people have gotten used to living without luxury, it can either be an incubator for redesigning human life to restore the environment rather than destroy it.
There is no stronger people to take on such a challenge and the world that has been paying for weapons to defend. If we can send explosives to break, we must send hands, tools, and materials to rebuild. If we rebuild the same way, the world will fall into war since the causal push of all existing conflict is space and resources or their control, and we will continue to pretend that individual human choices are to blame for war. We will continue to refuse to look deeper and will soon find ourselves in a position where taking up arms seems like the only solution left to us. If, on the other hand, the rest of us find the courage to look one step deeper and ask "why is the world falling to war? What is driving conflict?", we will see it is the same thing driving our thirst for more luxury and, hopefully, realize that the only survivable path to the future is one where we change our behavior to relieve the force that's pushing us in that direction.
When more is never enough, less is a horrifying concept. Without a model for how to happily live as a human in a self sufficient community, there will be no "green transition", there will only be more disease, more scarcity, and more conflict on the edge of that scarcity. The more each of us takes, the more we contribute to conflict around the world.
There is no way to make a car "green", just like there is no way to make a compostable battery. The problem isnt the means of conveyance, it is the distance we need to cover to survive. Whether or not we change our habits to adapt to this reality is inconsequential to its eventuality, it just seems absurd to ignore the reality of hardship until you're being strangled by it simply to "enjoy the time you have left".
If the war in Ukraine ends and the world moves in to turn it into the first net zero country, there is hope for a future for our species. If we act like everything was fine until a mad man decided to invade a sovereign country, war will spread like a fog descending on the world. Demands will be met by force as a result of people pushing for impossibly cheap access to resources. Slavery will return as the foundation of the global economy and, in all this horror, we will be hastening and worsening our own conditions.
Like a train whose tracks go over the grand canyon, humanity needs one last train stop to see what it looks like to live somewhere other than a train at constantly increasing speed. We need a model for a future that is too nebulous to explain: it must be seen and experienced, how much living can be done as humans on and with the land. If nothing else but to illustrate that a train going over a cliff was not a predetermined consequence of "human progress", and that a choice has been made to define that progress with the inventions of a few men, all of which run by stealing energy from the past and stability from the future. It would allow us to see the train from the outside and force us to question the value of a murder-suicide pact.
For the demonstration to be compelling, there can be no or very little carbon footprint for the country. Structures must be built from salvaged (cheap) material, focusing on isolated but functional communities.
We have already lost the battle to save most of what we recognize in our world but we don't need to continue to burn it all down. Since there is no more track for this paradigm, there is no consequence for trying something new and certain death and misery by doing the same. This message can be shared in every possible way, but without a demonstration of what it looks like on a cultural level, we will never have the discussion that leads to the choice to keep going or get off the death train.
We are not the creations or technology we obsess over, we are an ape descended species on a planet we're stuck with and have killed 80% of in 50 years. We cannot survive on a lifeless world because we are alive and life feeds on life to survive. I have a hard time getting people to relate to the rest of the living world as a branch of the same tree we belong to because of how separated we are from other life. The more life that's lost, the less we'll care about it being gone and the more committed we will be to our preoccupations to avoid having to face reality.
The cowardice ive encountered when it comes to facing reality has been incredibly disappointing and disturbing. We will pass laws in our country to prevent poaching and hunting in other countries where our emissions and lifestyle -guided by our laws- are pushing the same animals to total extinction. We will talk about this from a position of moral superiority, only, and will take no responsibility for the conditions our behavior has already created. There is no "border crisis", there are people being pushed out of their homes by new weather that has made those homes incompatible with survival. I've heard lots of Americans talking about moving north in response to climate shifts as if that is something completely different from what is happening on their southern border or in Europe. No one leaves their ancestral home to cause problems in another country, but if that country is responsible for the force that pushed them out, they should either stop pushing people out of their homes or open their borders. To refuse either is to accept that you live a life of evil and as the person that will one day deny you shelter to protect what they have.
These a new times with new stakes and new bad guys. The only good thing about being the bad guy is you can choose to stop, while your victims can only beg you to stop and, eventually, resist/insist on a different course. It is up to each and all of us how the future plays out. The party is over. No one gets to sit this out.
submitted by CFUsOrFuckOff to ClimaticConsequences [link] [comments]
This isn't - or has never before been - a serious question because this world has never felt universal hardship before. In the past, when any major scarcity was faced (with the exception of 536) there was always a neighboring ally to buffer the loss or an enemy to subjugate; until now, there has always been more. Climate change is a global pressure on a globalized economy. There are no external economies that are thriving to prop up the luxuries we've come to feel entitled to. When that luxury can no longer be provided, people are trained to blame each other and ask for the boss to complain about our level of service.
This is the attitude fueling the shift to the right "all this liberal 'science' bullshit has turned my country into a place i dont recognize. Time to get my country in order!", but like how the long term side effects of COVID will be blamed on the vaccine rather than the virus, humans are apparently hardwired to look for a person or institution that's responsible for their problems, because they live in a world that's manifestly run by humanity. Politicians don't help with this because they promise change that a large bureaucracy isn't capable of... every time they step in front of a mic. Politicians feed the sense that the world is divided into teams and the team that's running things is doing harm. They are the anti-vax evangelists of a world simply running out of good time as a result of spending all the good time since the end of WWII.
Humanity cannot fly. That shouldn't be arguable. It's a fundamental limit of our physiology that cannot be overcome without shedding everything about us that makes us human; brains are heavy. When we get on a plane, we are not 'flying', we are taking a bus full of people, strapping a rocket engine to it, and firing it in a ballistic trajectory toward our destination. For all the celebration of progress in the tech age, we still can't figure out how to move something forward without throwing something out the back. That's not just why planes are absurd but why they cannot continue to be considered a good invention. Think of how much fuel would need to be burned to rocket yourself across a lawn, let alone through the sky; it's an insane amount of fuel and an absurd justification for burning it, especially virtually all domestic travel can be accomplished by rail or bus... which also use the same principle of throwing out enough exhaust gasses out the back to displace the weight of the thing that's burning the fuel. When this thing is on the ground, it burns much less fuel than pushing it through the sky.
Humanity assumes novelty is benign. Im not sure if this is one of the hidden rules about capitalism that we all follow as a culture "have you seen the new x!? It's amazing and works way better than x-1!", or if we're evolutionarily programmed to assume new is good and the direction we should be heading in. In either case, it has allowed us to adopt planetary destruction as a necessary aspect of each of our lives. It isn't anything we do consciously, it is the background of our lives that feeds big industry and steals time from the future. It's our commute, our food, our total acceptance that running a furnace is fine despite getting all worked up about oil spills and fires when we see them uncontained. The maze we all run was designed to have as much distance as possible between you and the cheese at the end so you would spend half or more of your cheese burning calories to get from the start to the finish and repeat all over. It is why people feel the problem is too big for them: there is nothing one person can change in the part of the life they control that will redirect the planetary system away from collapse because it is the pattern of our lives that is the destructive part.
Since our shared pattern is so destructive, it is self limiting. We are feeling the effects of that now with COVID (forests being pushed toward ecological breakdown leads animals to look for new territory and new food, leading to conflict with species already there and malnutrition from food with an incomplete nutrient balance), extreme weather doing damage to vital infrastructure and shipping losses.
Which brings us back to Ukraine. The world needs a beacon. A Western country with the courage to model a sustainable lifestyle through active change. I assumed that would have been Canada but I was wrong. Instead, with Ukraine being forced to rebuild in a time where supplies have never been more expensive, and in a state where its people have gotten used to living without luxury, it can either be an incubator for redesigning human life to restore the environment rather than destroy it.
There is no stronger people to take on such a challenge and the world that has been paying for weapons to defend. If we can send explosives to break, we must send hands, tools, and materials to rebuild. If we rebuild the same way, the world will fall into war since the causal push of all existing conflict is space and resources or their control, and we will continue to pretend that individual human choices are to blame for war. We will continue to refuse to look deeper and will soon find ourselves in a position where taking up arms seems like the only solution left to us. If, on the other hand, the rest of us find the courage to look one step deeper and ask "why is the world falling to war? What is driving conflict?", we will see it is the same thing driving our thirst for more luxury and, hopefully, realize that the only survivable path to the future is one where we change our behavior to relieve the force that's pushing us in that direction.
When more is never enough, less is a horrifying concept. Without a model for how to happily live as a human in a self sufficient community, there will be no "green transition", there will only be more disease, more scarcity, and more conflict on the edge of that scarcity. The more each of us takes, the more we contribute to conflict around the world.
There is no way to make a car "green", just like there is no way to make a compostable battery. The problem isnt the means of conveyance, it is the distance we need to cover to survive. Whether or not we change our habits to adapt to this reality is inconsequential to its eventuality, it just seems absurd to ignore the reality of hardship until you're being strangled by it simply to "enjoy the time you have left".
If the war in Ukraine ends and the world moves in to turn it into the first net zero country, there is hope for a future for our species. If we act like everything was fine until a mad man decided to invade a sovereign country, war will spread like a fog descending on the world. Demands will be met by force as a result of people pushing for impossibly cheap access to resources. Slavery will return as the foundation of the global economy and, in all this horror, we will be hastening and worsening our own conditions.
Like a train whose tracks go over the grand canyon, humanity needs one last train stop to see what it looks like to live somewhere other than a train at constantly increasing speed. We need a model for a future that is too nebulous to explain: it must be seen and experienced, how much living can be done as humans on and with the land. If nothing else but to illustrate that a train going over a cliff was not a predetermined consequence of "human progress", and that a choice has been made to define that progress with the inventions of a few men, all of which run by stealing energy from the past and stability from the future. It would allow us to see the train from the outside and force us to question the value of a murder-suicide pact.
For the demonstration to be compelling, there can be no or very little carbon footprint for the country. Structures must be built from salvaged (cheap) material, focusing on isolated but functional communities.
We have already lost the battle to save most of what we recognize in our world but we don't need to continue to burn it all down. Since there is no more track for this paradigm, there is no consequence for trying something new and certain death and misery by doing the same. This message can be shared in every possible way, but without a demonstration of what it looks like on a cultural level, we will never have the discussion that leads to the choice to keep going or get off the death train.
We are not the creations or technology we obsess over, we are an ape descended species on a planet we're stuck with and have killed 80% of in 50 years. We cannot survive on a lifeless world because we are alive and life feeds on life to survive. I have a hard time getting people to relate to the rest of the living world as a branch of the same tree we belong to because of how separated we are from other life. The more life that's lost, the less we'll care about it being gone and the more committed we will be to our preoccupations to avoid having to face reality.
The cowardice ive encountered when it comes to facing reality has been incredibly disappointing and disturbing. We will pass laws in our country to prevent poaching and hunting in other countries where our emissions and lifestyle -guided by our laws- are pushing the same animals to total extinction. We will talk about this from a position of moral superiority, only, and will take no responsibility for the conditions our behavior has already created. There is no "border crisis", there are people being pushed out of their homes by new weather that has made those homes incompatible with survival. I've heard lots of Americans talking about moving north in response to climate shifts as if that is something completely different from what is happening on their southern border or in Europe. No one leaves their ancestral home to cause problems in another country, but if that country is responsible for the force that pushed them out, they should either stop pushing people out of their homes or open their borders. To refuse either is to accept that you live a life of evil and as the person that will one day deny you shelter to protect what they have.
These a new times with new stakes and new bad guys. The only good thing about being the bad guy is you can choose to stop, while your victims can only beg you to stop and, eventually, resist/insist on a different course. It is up to each and all of us how the future plays out. The party is over. No one gets to sit this out.
2023.03.25 18:06 Janeistall Happy with Rutgers, but I guess I'm losing hope lol
I kind of just feel like i wasted my time lol
Demographics:
Gender: Female
Race/ethnicity: Asian
State: NJ
Type of School: Public school, one of the worst public high schools in new jersey LMAO. most people who go there usually go to community college or into the military.
URM, first generation, legacy, athlete, etc.: only first gen
Intended Major(s):
Economics and maybe international relations
ACT/SAT/SAT II:
Didn’t submit any, wasn’t proud lol
UW/W GPA and Rank:
GPA: 99.307/100
Rank: 2/323
Coursework:
School didn’t offer lots of APs and honors but took 5 APs and 8 honors. This year, I’m a high school co-op intern at a huge investment bank in my city so i only take three classes (ap calc is a double period) and the rest of my day i go to the internship.
Extracurriculars:
They’re not the best but:
9/10; I think they were pretty good tbh, i wrote my essay on how i almost burnt my house down when i was like eight and i had three of my english teachers read and edit it and they liked it!!!
Acceptances:
NJIT
Montclair
Rutgers
Fordham
Pace
Pepperdine
Waitlists:
Steven’s Institute of Technology
Northeastern
Rejections:
USC
Boston University
Still Waiting on:
Columbia ED -> Deferred :O
NYU
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
UPenn
submitted by Janeistall to collegeresults [link] [comments]
Demographics:
Gender: Female
Race/ethnicity: Asian
State: NJ
Type of School: Public school, one of the worst public high schools in new jersey LMAO. most people who go there usually go to community college or into the military.
URM, first generation, legacy, athlete, etc.: only first gen
Intended Major(s):
Economics and maybe international relations
ACT/SAT/SAT II:
Didn’t submit any, wasn’t proud lol
UW/W GPA and Rank:
GPA: 99.307/100
Rank: 2/323
Coursework:
School didn’t offer lots of APs and honors but took 5 APs and 8 honors. This year, I’m a high school co-op intern at a huge investment bank in my city so i only take three classes (ap calc is a double period) and the rest of my day i go to the internship.
Extracurriculars:
- My City’s Wide Student Council: Assistant to the President (2 years) - 11th, Event Chairperson 12th, Assistant to the president. Represented students in the school district, worked with lawmakers and board trustees.
- My High School’s Student Council: City Wide Student Council Representative (4 years). 10th, Treasurer. 11th/12th, CW Representative. Founded school's first food pantry, organized annual breast cancer walks, fundraised for graduating class
- My City’s Science Center: Volunteer (4 years). Communicate with visitors directly to ensure they receive best from each visit. Acquire training & practice in customer service. Presented to guests.
- Economics Laboratory: Researcher (3 years). Coauthored & published research, NYC COVID impact & meetings with NYC lawmakers. 2nd paper on climate change impact in NYC.
- National Honor Society: MembeTutor (3 years). Tutored students across various subjects after school & during lunch time. Assisted with raising funds for school and organized events.
- Investment bank Co-Op: High School Intern (Current). Paid internship in the Alternative Investments department. Assists with shares and data with clients across the US.
- Research Organization: Researcher (3 years). Researched, created, & published a database full of 100+ resources from around the US for the AAPI community to use during AAPI hate.
- Policy Research Organization : Researcher (2 years). Researched & published 3+ papers on policies in USA. Research includes abortion laws, climate change, COVID-19 & more. With 400k+ monthly viewers.
- Journalism Organization: Staff Writer (3 years). Staff writer for three years. Published 10+ articles on issues around the world. Used my voice as a teen to educate others.
- Cleveland, Ohio Policy and Budget Summer Research: Researcher (Summer). Took Economics 50 course. Worked with Cleveland, Ohio City Council to publish original research on Cleveland Policies & Budget.
They’re not the best but:
- Honor roll
- principals list
- City Wide Student of the Year
- (economics research summer program) Symposia Honorable Mention
- SSRN top ten research list lmao
9/10; I think they were pretty good tbh, i wrote my essay on how i almost burnt my house down when i was like eight and i had three of my english teachers read and edit it and they liked it!!!
Acceptances:
NJIT
Montclair
Rutgers
Fordham
Pace
Pepperdine
Waitlists:
Steven’s Institute of Technology
Northeastern
Rejections:
USC
Boston University
Still Waiting on:
Columbia ED -> Deferred :O
NYU
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
UPenn