I'm in need of temporary employment until my actual job starts in a few months, and I'm having difficulty finding anything I'm comfortable doing. I have worked fast food in the past, but it just really isn't for me. Anything in customer service stresses me out and I'd just really rather not do it if I can avoid it. At my last fast food job, I basically just refused to be on the register and interacted with customers as little as I could.
I work in a lab by myself usually, and I teach small groups of undergrads in a lab setting. I can communicate effectively when there's established roles, but outside of that, I really struggle with it. I'd like to do something where I can work independently as much as possible.
Any advice is appreciated!

Hello 👋 I am travelling to Armenia in couple days from June - august and I am wondering how I should go out getting a SIM card? I am from USA and I have an iPhone 13. I have never been to Europe so I don’t know how European plans work. I read that we have to prepay? And it charges per minute? My plan here is unlimited minutes and about 20 gigs.
I am looking to get around 7 gigs and will I guess I will refill the minutes on my phone but how much will it cost approximately? Please let me know.
Thank you!

https://thewest.com.au/sport/west-coast-eagles/peter-sumich-rates-every-west-coast-eagles-and-walyalup-fremantle-dockers-player-for-round-11-c-10794693
WALYALUP (FREMANTLE)

1. Luke Jackson 9: Outstanding effort after Sean Darcy went off injured. Rucked for most of the game. Ground-level play and speed around the contest was elite for a big man. Finished with 19 disposals, six tackles, 23 pressure acts and a massive eight clearances.
   
2. Hayden Young 9: One of the best half-backs in the league. Uses the ball well and defends without it. Had 27 disposals, nine intercept possessions, 10 rebound 50s and 644 metres gained.
   
3. Brennan Cox 9: Such an important player in the air. His spoiling, marking and coming across as third up was a feature. Amassed 20 disposals, six intercepts and 12 marks.
   
4. Andrew Brayshaw 8: In red-hot form and alongside Serong and is part of one of the best midfield combinations in the league. Work rate is second to none and leadership continues to grow. Had 29 disposals, seven tackles, 20 pressure acts and seven clearances.
   
5. Jaeger O’Meara 8: Played in the midfield and again his use was elite. Breaks away from the contest to give himself time and space. His rotation with Fyfe will be important as the year goes on. Had 24 disposals, seven tackles, 400 metres gained and six clearances.
   
6. Caleb Serong 8: Just keeps producing at the right time during games and is starting to finish his work on the scoreboard. Clean hands in tight. Finished with 26 disposals, five tackles, 17 pressure acts and 332 metres gained.
   
7. Luke Ryan 8: Another solid game controlling the defence and setting up the play. Slowed the game down when needed. Had 22 disposals, 11 marks and 633 metres gained.
   
8. Jye Amiss 8: Becoming a consistent multiple goal-kicker. Has improved his pressure game with 14 disposals, six score involvements and most importantly, three goals.
   
9. Alex Pearce 8: A great captain’s game. Smothered Melbourne’s tall forwards and won the ball himself for 11 disposals and eight intercept possessions. Becoming very hard to pass.
   
10. Bailey Banfield 7: Just seems to do the right thing at important stages of the game. Finished with 14 disposals, two marks inside 50 and kicked two goals – outstanding. His spot in the 22 is safe.
    
11. Matthew Johnson 7: Showed some great composure in tight contests and used the ball well. Had 20 disposals, 20 pressure acts and 360 metres gained. A 193cm midfielder at 20 years of age and building nicely into a very good player.
    
12. Josh Treacy 7: Solid game. In and out of the contest but took a great mark in the third term and converted. Finished with two important goals and two inside 50 tackles. Will only get better as he plays more and understands the role.
    
13. Jordan Clark 7: Shut down Melbourne’s attack on many occasions. Finding some terrific form leading into the bye and should take this into the second half of the season. Had 14 disposals, five tackles and 20 pressure acts.
    
14. James Aish 7: Owning the wing role. Another 24 disposals at 92 per cent efficiency, 20 pressure acts and 314 metres gained. Has got form back after a slow start.
    
15. Nathan O’Driscoll 7: Didn’t get big numbers but played the wing role well and always puts pressure on his opponent. Had 15 disposals at 80 per cent efficiency, with 57 per cent of his disposals from the defensive half.
    
16. Sam Switkowski 6: Looked lively for the whole game with 18 touches. Threatened to break it open with speed but only managed three behinds. Played his role and was important in the midfield at times.
    
17. Brandon Walker 6: Another tough role playing on the dangerous Kysaiah Pickett and kept him to two goals. Nothing to get excited about with his stats but very conscious of his opponent.
    
18. Nat Fyfe 6: Racked up 20 disposals in 98 minutes of game time. His 16 handballs is fine as he brought teammates into the game. Once he gets his marking up and going he will be a real asset.
    
19. Lachie Schultz 6: Quiet day for him with 10 disposals, seven tackles, 25 pressures acts and a goal but still got involved at the right times and created chances for teammates. A good sign when you’re not having a great game but still get involved somehow.
    
20. Ethan Hughes 6: Played down back again and seems to have found his spot for now. Has more composure and is using the ball better. Finished with 17 disposals at 88 per cent efficiency.
    
21. Michael Frederick 4: Quiet game but still had important moments, kicking a nice long-range goal. Had 13 disposals, five marks and three score involvements. Biggest concern is that he didn’t lay a tackle on a day that his teammates had 73.
    
22. Sean Darcy 3: Started well in the ruck but hurt his hamstring in the second quarter and was subbed out. Hopefully not a bad one and can return after the bye.
    
23. Sam Sturt 3: Came on as sub and was solid. Must be more consistent and keep working on his defence but hits targets will ball in hand. Five disposals and five pressure acts.
    

Amapá Iron Ore Mine, Brazil [KDNC] [Flair]

• Cadence owns 30% of the Amapá Iron Ore System which is an integrated mine, railway and port which was previously owned by Anglo American, the mining operation generated profits of $171m in 2011 and $77m in 2012.
• The mine is a major source of employment in the state and when operating previously was the largest employer in the state and represented the largest contributor to the GDP of Amapá amounting to 20% on a turnover basis and 1-3% based on profitability. The mine will employ 600-800 workers and indirectly 4000 workers. The economic prosperity of the region is linked to the success of the mine.
• 2023-01-07 Recent progress podcast:
  • PFS Completed $949m NPV with 10% discount rate and 16 year mine life at 5.28mtpa with profit after tax of US$2.96 billion over Life of Mine
  • PFS allows Cadence to engage with off-take partners, possible JV partners and strategic investors at a project level.
  • "If there is a good opportunity from a strategic investor, the joint venture partners would consider taking that money and for us that would prevent any further dilution in terms of funding going into it by selling off investments that we didn't wish to or raising capital in the market"
  • Options to substantially increase the NPV by reducing CapEx at the port, and increasing mine life.
• 2023-03-01 Corporate Update:
  • DEV Mineração S.A. ("DEV") was unable to meet the 2022 payment schedule as per the settlement deed and although the bank creditors have reserved their rights, the settlement deed remains in full effect with all parties in discussions with a view to agree a new timetable in order to rephase payments so these can be met in light of market conditions.
  • With improving iron ore prices and stability returning to shipping costs, the sale of the 58% iron ore concentrate stockpile is now economically viable. We expect shipping to recommence in the next six months, with the net revenues being used to pay the bank creditors, as per the settlement agreement.

Sonora Lithium Project, Mexico (Ganfeng Joint Venture) [KDNC] [Flair]

• Cadence has a 30% Joint Venture interest in several of the tenements in the Sonora Lithium project. The DFS envisages a total of 3.6% of ore associated with Cadence being mined in years 9 to 19 in the current 17.5kt/35ktpa LCE mining plan. Should Ganfeng accelerate production or increase mine life then the Joint Venture areas will be required sooner and in greater volume. Cadence has 839Mt LCE of mineral reserves associated with its Joint ventures which is 18.58% of the total 4,515Mt LCE of that defined.
• 2022-07-02 Recent highlights:
  • Ganfeng plans to accelerate construction
  • Ganfeng reviewing plans for a production rate above 17.5ktpa and an additional 500 hectares of land acquired at the eastern end of the plant site location to allow for future plant expansions.
  • Sonora Phase 1 plan massively increased to 50kt/yr Lithium Hydroxide
  • Ganfeng eyes US OEMs for “strategic” stake in Mexican lithium project. Elon Musk tweets Price of lithium has gone to insane levels! Tesla might actually have to get into the mining & refining directly at scale, unless costs improve.
• 2022-08-14
  • BN Americas reports “Mexico looks to buy out existing additional rights held by UK exploration giant Bacanora”
  • US Inflation Reduction Act to benefit Mexican Automotive Industry
• 2023-03-01 Corporate Update:
  • In 2021, a decree was passed by the Mexican government to reform the domestic energy sector ("Decree"). The Decree stated that lithium would be included among the minerals considered strategic for an energy transition. As a result, no new concessions for lithium exploitation by private companies would be granted. Earlier this month, the Mexican government passed a presidential decree confirming that within a 900 square-mile lithium mining zone in northern Sonora state, existing concessions would "remain safe". This aligns with the general opinion that the Decree passed by the Senate only impacts licenses, concessions, or contracts to be granted, not already those granted, as is the case for the Sonora Lithium Project.

Hastings Technology Metals, Australia (ASX:HAS) [KDNC] [Flair]

• 2023-03-01 Corporate Update:
  • On 25 January 2023, Cadence completed the sale of its 30% stake in several mineral concessions forming part of the Yangibana Rare Earths project for a consideration of 2.45 million Hastings shares, equating to approximately 1.9% Hastings issued share capital. This consideration was a premium over the Net Present Value ("NPV") of the Cadence portion of the mineable material, based on the definitive feasibility ("DFS") updated by Hastings on 21 February 2022
  • Hastings recently published an update on the Yangibana Rare Earth Project, highlights of which are as follows:
    • Significant progress during the last two months on enabling construction and ordering long lead critical items.
    • A total of $146 million in contractual commitments has been made to date, demonstrating the high degree of confidence by the Hastings Board in the future of the Yangibana project.
    • Ore Reserves increased 25% to 20.93Mt at 0.90% Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) grade, increasing mine life to 17 years.

Evergreen Lithium, Australia (ASX:EG1) - [KDNC] [Flair]

• 2023-04-13 Notice of Initial Substantial Shareholder in Evergreen Lithium Limited
  • Evergreen was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on 11 April 2023.
  • Cadence holds 15,830,138 million shares, equivalent to 8.74% of the issued share capital of Evergreen and is its largest shareholder.
  • A further AS$3.47 million (£1.86 million) of shares in Evergreen are due to Cadence on the achievement of certain performance milestones by Evergreen. The pricing of Evergreen shares associated with this consideration is based on a defined pricing mechanism linked to the VWAP and the date at which the performance milestones are achieved.

European Metal Holdings, Cinovec, Czech Republic (LSE:EMH) [KDNC] [Flair]

• 2022-07-02 Recent highlights:
  • Soft debt / EU grants and financing deals
  • Potential plans to double production (by using two shifts)
  • Updated PFS 75% increase in NPV to S$1.94B, using $17/kg. 16% production increase to 29,386tpa. 30% increase in Lithium Hydroxide to $22.1/kg would increase the NPV8 (post tax) to over $3B.
• 2022-10-31 Expect 10-20% reductions of the Lithium Chemical Plant CapEx and OpEx as a consequence of using a simplified hydrometallurgical process, for which a patent application has been filed.

Passive Equity Investments - Notable Developments [KDNC] [Flair]

See the above menus for company links and announcements - noting that additionally Macarthur holds 20% of spin off Infinity Mining ASX:IMI

Analyst Reports and Recommendations [KDNC]

Date	Link	Who	SP	Summary / Price Target
2023-02-28	Kemeny Capital	Kemeny Capital (investment research)	12.9p	"Cadence Minerals has built a robust portfolio of base and battery metals with ample opportunities for shareholder value creation. Recent developments have helped to substantially increase the potential of two of the group’s asset positions, while adding to the overall corporate valuation. Our sum-of-theparts (SotP) indicative fair value is 43.6p."
2023-02-02	W H Ireland Research	W H Ireland (broker)	14.5p	WHI View: Our assessment is that the Amapá mine could be company-maker for Cadence. We are firmly of the belief that the current market cap is more than covered by the legacy investments that Cadence holds in various new technology metal companies and projects and that the addition of the Amapá stake to its portfolio can only be value enhancing. In our opinion, the development of Amapá will be transformational for Cadence and we see fair value at 71p/sh with plenty of upside potential.
2022-07-24	Reddit Post	u/EV-BULL (private investor)	10.75p	Due diligence short term price target: 60p-80p; 1-2 year price target: 130p; Long term bull case price target: 300p+
2022-07-02	Reddit Post	u/Observer842 (private investor)	10.4p	Due diligence Near term: £37.5m (21.5p) - £92m (53p); Medium term: £160-420m; Longer term: £1-2B+
2022-02-18	Daily Mail	Anne Ashworth for the Daily Mail (Journalist)	20.4p	"The white gold rush appears to be an inviting prospect. But if you want to join, remember that fortunes are far from guaranteed in any foray into commodities. Options include the Aim-listed businesses Cadence Minerals and Zinnwald Lithium."
2022-02-18	Edison Group	Edison Group (investment research)	20.4p	QuickView report
2022-01-01	Daily Mail	Justin Urquhart Stewart (fund manager)	28p	Top pick for the Brave in 2022

ICYMI [Previous]

Date	Article	Comment & Quotes
2023-04-21	Cadence Minerals Q&A session with Kiran Morzaria	Most recent of the presentations and interviews with CEO Kiran Morzaria.
2023-04-13	The Vox Markets Podcast / Kiran Morzaria of Cadence Minerals: Evergreen had a very successful IPO and we are the largest shareholder
2023-03-29	Cadence Minerals Investor Presentation March 2023
2023-02-28	Cadence Minerals - value waiting to be unlocked - SoTP indicative fair value 43.6p	6 page analyst Research report from Kemeny Capital which can be obtained for free by qualifying investors.
2023-02-02	WH Ireland Research Report: Cadence Minerals - Developing Amapá iron ore mine and strategic new technology metal interests (sees fair value at 71p / share)	To obtain this 34 page Analyst Research Report for free, (optionally) first register for Research Tree, then whilst logged in, register for WH Ireland (optionally) using your Research Tree account.
2023-01-03	Completion of PFS on Amapá Iron Ore Project	Post-Tax Project NPV10 US$949 million, Internal Rate of Return of 34% and a Project Maiden Ore Reserve Estimate of 195.8 Mt (Cadence attributable of 58.74 Mt) at 39.34% Fe Declared

Anything missing or incorrect? Let us know in the comments or LSE chat - the mods.

I’m 25 NB, my gf is 28 F and we’ve been together for 1 year. I have been working on my attachment style in weekly therapy for 1.5 years.
I think I am using self soothing techniques wrong. Instead of actually enjoying them, I do them just as a way to distract from my feelings of abandonment when my girlfriend doesn’t give me adequate attention. How do I start actually enjoying being by myself and stop obsessing about my partner?
so far the techniques i’ve tried are:
-putting my phone on do not disturb for long periods of time so that i’m not waiting for the text notification and am able to use my phone -downloading cbt therapy guides from pinterest for cognitive distortions/journaling -visiting friends or scheduling time with other people to distract from anxious feelings -taking up hobbies that don’t require my phone (cross stitching, crocheting, drawing) so i obsess over notifications less -the newest one i’ve been trying is turning off her message alerts until 5pm every day and not allowing myself to check for her texts until then.
ultimately i’ve found that while these methods can be an okay distraction, they don’t prevent the resentment building up because i still feel unwanted when my girlfriend doesn’t text me during the day. I want to get over this, but the general feedback is “go to therapy” and “self soothe”, both of which I have been doing for awhile and I’m just really hitting a wall. Another piece of advice I’ve gotten is “work on improving your self esteem and finding purpose” but like… how do I do that with tangible achievable steps?

Sorry, bit of a long read ahead .. Bit of background. I met this girl at an event through friends a month ago and we connected over our love of wine and food. We planned a dinner date a couple days after and we had a very engaged conversation for almost 4 hours. Since then, we've gone out on few more simple dates (typically food related) and we've had the opportunity to know each other on a deeper level, we have great conversations about interests, goals, family, needs, wants, etc. She is always engaged when we are together. I really felt some sort of connection, I am hoping she did too.
One thing though, she is a terrible texter. I haven't dated many girls, but all the ones in the past I've dated have been engaged and good at communication. I know everyone has their own preferences and pace, but this girl haven't initiated any texts, it's all me reaching out "good morning, how are you, how did that go, etc". I know life has busy moments, so very often I get left on read for many hours before she replies. Sometimes it'd be a whole day, and she'd send a "I am sorry, today has been busy. - rest of text". Her actual text replies are wordy, but nothing that tries to engage in further conversation. Yesterday, we had a couple texts in the morning, I sent her a few texts with a question, a joke and something that's happening in my day. She read it about an hour later and until now (next day night time), she does not text me a thing. I really like her and want to text her at least once a day, however, it can be bit mentally draining to be left on read for long periods of time when you are interested in someone and having to always initiate. I don't want to seem obsessive either. I am usually a pretty fast responder, I have whatsapp on my work laptop and I always have my phone with me, I don't expect her to be the same of course. Last night, I noticed she posted on her ig at a pretty late hour, which makes me feel even more ignored and not a priority in the relationship. Side note, I am also the person who plans all the dates and has paid for everything (I am ok with that, I can handle the costs).
She's had some tough past relationships and got out of a serious one about half a year ago. So I know she is more cautious and needs her time in a relationship before she opens her self. I am seeing her in a few days and I am planning to ask where sees this relationship headed and that we are on the same page. If she says she does, I will want to raise my issue with her communication style, or to at least understand her preferences on texting. I am planning to not reach out until bit closer to our next pre-planned date (in a few days), as I want to see if she will actually think of me and text me herself. I guess advice I am asking is .. should I wait or just text her as usual, ignoring the fact she just ignored me. Is looking to clarify her thoughts on the relationship fair? It's been about a month since we've met, I think she'd know by know. If she says she is interested in a deeper romantic relationship but needs more time, that's fine with me too. Also, what you guys think of my situation? Does it happen to others as well? Is she just not interested? I will say I know for a fact she isn't just going out with me for the food.

Mirione went straight to negotiating at the top, even her attempt at saying she hopes to negotiate as equals is nothing but empty words. The Earthian representative understood it right from the start, while Mirione didn't and even worse, she was unaware of it at all. Meanwhile, Guel chose to be more human and decided to walk among the people, just so he can talk to a powerless boy from the Earth. It ended up both saving his reputation and figuring out Shaddiq. That one simple decision has been more productive compared to all the grandstanding Mirione did with the Earthian representatives.
Because of this, I think Guel might actually be in a much better position than Mirione to bridge Earthians and Spacians. This is both in terms of character development and diplomatically. Guel's experience in Earth allowed him to have genuine sympathy towards Earthians. On the other hand, all Mirione has are platitudes and token appreciation of what the Earthians are going through. Guel was kidnapped by them, yet he also almost died fighting alongside them. Also, with Propera's attack, whatever credibility the Rembrand family had has all disappeared.
Mirione was naive and lowkey arrogant. She went there thinking she can just go to Earth and broker peace, all so she can be president of the Benerit Group. It may be for harmless intentions but in the end, she never had any deep sympathy with the Earthians. She was just using them for political gain. Even her statement that she wouldn't want the Earthians at the Academy to go back to Earth had a self-serving reason. She wants the Earth school students to stay in space, not because they will benefit Earth, but because they work with her and therefore benefit her company.
Guel, on the other hand, even if he might not be doing it deliberately, is taking much humbler and slower, but better road to peace by being real with where he really stands.

Before my husband and I married back in July we took a break . We weren't together for 5 months. During that time I did some personal growth and sought life advice from my family and others. I knew I still loved him and the more time passed I knew I wanted to be with him. When we reconnected he also seemed to be happier and happy to hear from me. We started talking again. I had full intention to be back with him and it seemed like he did too. It was about a month back into the relationship that I found out he had been talking to one of his coworkers. They had texted back and forth all day everyday and had hour long phone conversations. Something we had never even done . :( I was devastated. I started to wonder if they had started to talk before I decided I wanted to take a break. He said he was devastated when he heard thats what I wanted but I couldn't and still can't shake the thought that he was interested in someone else even before that. I feel haunted. I'm always thinking maybe he only cut all ties with this other girl and quit his job because he felt obligated too. I had made it very clear that it was me or her.. I later met up with this "other woman." Shes the opposite of me. She's blonde, very thin, and has a "i don't give a f**k attitude " shes also a single mom of three who works hard and takes care of them and herself. I have kids too and do my best. I'm taller, im bigger and I have a lot of self esteem issues . Which I know is a turn off. God I hate it!!! Anyways when I met with her she talked my ear off for over an hour. She swore they never did ANYTHING. they hung out a few times but that was it. He took her and her two boys out to olive garden. Which he swear was not a date. Went to her house.... he says only once, to the bar, and to work related events. People at work were starting to even "joke about them being a couple. Towards the end of our conversation she informed me that she "maybe only did one thing that was wrong." She said that my now husband lent her cash for her boudoir session. She said she sent him a picture after the fact. I REPEAT ONLY ONE PICTURE . she showed me the photo. It was risqué but not nearly as much as the others that had been taken. I freaked out. I said that was wrong and that I wasn't happy about it. My heart broke and still feels broken. Considering we've had some major issues with our sexual life doesn't help. I now feel even worse than I did before we took a break 💔 on top of that he deleted every message, phone call, and any pictures that were taken during the month that we were separated. I'll never know the full extent of what was or wasn't talked about. How he or she felt. I can't help but feel like I already do know. I can't talk about it because we both shut down in our own ways. I think he feels like I already know the truth so he shouldn't have to confirm to make things worse. I should just get over it, right? We were separated, We fought, we sorta worked through it but the unknowns still haunt me. Any personal experiences or advice?

I have deployed a website using laravel jQuery and tailwind, my website is deployed on mutual hosting, so I have used cpanel to manage it, The problem is the css is not working properly for example i have some buttons controlled with jQuery if I clicked it will toggle class active and text color in this case the background changed but the text color not changed, in some jQuery functions change text of a div take time or it will changed if click two times. I'm using vite and npm run prod to generate the assets. So is there any config especially for those hosting? Or how I can fix those issues, I'm thinking of returning to bootstrap if there is no solution.

I’m really torn… I met a lovely girl who dresses in lolita fashion and she invited me to join a local lolita fashion group and do swap meets. I’ve always been interested in lolita but as a bigger girl, it’s hard finding clothes online that’ll fit me comfortably, so I just gave up. I mentioned this to another friend that’s also a gyaru and she said not to do it because I wouldn’t be gyaru if I started dressing lolita. I assured her that I wasn’t going to stop dressing gyaru and she said, no I’m not a gyaru if I wear lolita sometimes. I said that’s sort of silly because going by that logic she wasn’t gyaru either because she was wearing nike sweats at the moment. I work full time as well, so half the time I don’t even do makeup if I wear a gyaru outfit because I’m tired or my skin is flaring up.
I like wearing different alternative styles - I’ve done renaissance faire looks, had a long-standing emo/punk phase that I reallly still haven’t grown out of, and I’ve tried other styles I didn’t like much. As a black woman, I like pushing the boundaries of what’s expected of a black woman and that’s why I was drawn to gyaru fashion. I also struggle with joint and back pain, so I’ve slightly altered my outfits to ensure I’m more comfortable (re: swapping out tight heeled boots for sneakers, looser clothing, etc).
Is my friend right? Am I not gyaru if I wear other styles?

TW: Drugs, overdose & death.
I (27F) am the youngest of 4. My brother (45M), sister A (deceased) & sister B (33F). Sister A was a back & forth heroin addict for 10yrs due to mental health struggles from a trauma when she was a child. She got pregnant with my nephew J while she was in rehab when I was 14yrs old & she was 22yrs old. 3 months after my nephew J was born (2010), she started using again due to her mental health issues & postpartum struggles. My parents took guardianship of my nephew & had on & off custody for the first 7yrs after he was born. Baby daddy hasn't seen my nephew since he was 6 months old. My sister was clean for over a year when she broke up with her boyfriend, moved herself & my nephew J out of boyfriends house & moved back in with my parents around September of 2017. She was struggling to find work because of her record which was supposed to be expunged from completing drug court years prior and her depression & anxiety were really dragging her down because all she wanted to do was provide for my nephew & prove everyone wrong after all these years. She passed away from overdose on Oct 14, 2017. We believe it was her first time using since she had been clean & just got a bad batch her first time using again. I believe her autopsy showed 4x the amount of fentanyl that could kill a person in her system at the time of death. My nephew J, her son, was the one who found her on the bathroom floor when he was just 7yrs old. After she passed, my parents went back to court to get guardianship over him. He just turned 13 a few weeks ago.
Sister B also has 2 boys, (12 & 6), and she takes my nephew J to a lot of what she takes her boys to, as she lives only 15mins away from my parents house where he lives. Nephew J is a pretty quiet, sensitive kid & introverted like his mom and I know he struggles to make friends. Today at his birthday party, I heard from my dad that my nephew J got suspended from school for a day for "throwing a puppet across the cafeteria" after his friends told him to. My sister pointed out that there was a key part of the story Dad left out that nephew J had told her. Apparently, kids were telling him to throw the puppet & when he refused, a kid said something along the line of "it's because your mom is dead" so my nephew got angry & threw the puppet. It has always been one of my biggest fears for my nephew to be bullied because my sister is gone & he never knew his dad. I went up to his room to talk to him after I heard this & I asked if he told a teacher what happened. He said that a teacher was there when it happened & a Dean talked to the bully, but my nephew was still suspended for throwing the puppet. I told nephew J that the bully was a shithead & to never fight because he's the bigger person & that bully will get what's coming to him one day. I went back downstairs & told my brother what happened. He said "you know how to get kids to stop picking on you? Fight them." I told my brother how I told J to never fight because he's the bigger person & bullies thrive off of victims reactions. Obviously, I'm not going to tell my 13yr old nephew to go deck his bully in the face and start him down a wrong path like his parents & my brother before him (all served jail time at one point shortly after h.s.) I'm not sure what advice I'm really looking for in writing this, I just feel so upset that kids can be so cruel to make "dead parent" jokes, I've only ever heard of that exaggerated joke on TV & in movies. Has anyone been the "victim" in a situation like this? Or the guardian of a child with a "dead parent" who got bullied because of it? I fear that the bullying will get worse & somehow kids will find out she's deceased because of an overdose & bully him more.

TLDR: What do you do when you have a plot point that need to happen for the plot, but you can't think of a way to make it more natural and more forced? The big text is mostly context and what my specific situation is.
​
I was in the process of maping a story I'm writing and encountered a couple of problems. Then discovered this reddit, so it seems like the right place to seek help.
So I'm writing the roadmap of my story, doing bullet points for what happen in each chapters and already knowing what are the big moments of my story. However, I'm starting to encounter a lot of problems that kind of make me doubt the quality of my story (If I find problems with the plot and don't like it, then clearly that's not a good sign). However, removing some of these kind of fuck the story itself.
Case and point, my current predicament: Right after a kiss between two characters, the story should then have the love interest be revealed as not human, the Main Character feeling betrayed and the other companions (including a evil mentor of the MC) drive the love interest away.
Now, aside of how cliché the "secret identity reveal feels like betrayal", this feels kinda forced. The problem is that it's also necessary for the plot to continue, as I need the MC to stick with the mentor for a while longer, and the love interest was actively driving a wedge between them. If the love interest reveal the truth to the MC beforehand, then the MC will most likely side with the love interest instead of the mentor, and I need the opposite to happen. But the love interest can't stick with the group hidden because the mentor know that the love interest isn't human, and honestly by that point I'm reallllly running out of reasons for the mentor to not kill the love interest. And I need the love interest alive.
Hence why the reveal and the love interest driven away. And now I'm stuck here, with the only ideas I have being the mentor going "Hah, the love interest is not human and an evil manipulating liar. I am thus right about my evil ideas" and have the rest of the cast actually agree, or have a random fight in which the concealment item of the love interest get yonked off (even if it never did in previous fights). Both seem kinda force, but that part of the story is necessary to get to the next part.
While this story is full of problems, I still want to work on it instead of just giving up when I realized it wasn't as good as I thought. So I'd be happy to hear advices. Any advice here on how to deal with this kind of forced situation where the plot needs it to happen?

So my boyfriend (26M) and I (25F) have known each other for eight years, but with situations as they were, we’ve only been seeing each other for the past 8 months or so. All of that time we’ve been together, it’s been long distance. I’ve been in distance relationships before, and it has been hard, but I’ve made it work as long as I can. He and I discussed not getting into a distance relationship, however I just graduated from grad school and moved home to start work (only place to offer me a job) while he is living at home saving to move out eventually.
Long story short, he is busy. And I mean busy. He’s a full-time manager at a large chain gym, working upwards of 50 hours a week, 6 days a week scheduling and booking personal training clients, along with his own workouts as an elite athlete. I start full-time work soon, in about two weeks, and it’s already hard to see or talk to each other as is now. We don’t get time to talk as much as we should or want to, we havn’t gotten to see each other in a month, and it’s starting to get frustrating because he is also a horrible texter and doesn’t communicate… (ie - literal just thread of me texting him during the day, no response, or absolute minimum).
I love him, we’ve wanted to try to be together for so long, but the circumstances never worked until now. And now I feel like it isn’t going to work at all. Am I being paranoid? Overly needy or clingy? I’ve been thinking about asking him to move up closer to me, and he’s offered the same, but I think he wants me to move in sooner than I’m comfortable with. Is it unreasonable to ask?
Thanks for reading, I know it’s long. Any tips for getting through this or having the conversation of feeling ignored is certainly appreciated in advance…

I currently use a 2020 Intel base model 13-inch Macbook Pro and I find that it often heats up very quickly when I work. It gets uncomfortable to touch and it starts lagging after a bit. The fans are also super loud. The applications I keep open are Slack, Safari, Spotify, and occasionally some other apps (but even those first 3 can heat up my laptop)
For context, I work as a Software Developer for one of the research groups at my University. Since this is only a 4-month position, I go back to school in September so I assume it won't heat up as much as it is now.
So I was wondering, is it worth upgrading to a 14-inch M2 base model MBP? Or should I toughen it out for the rest of my internship and wait for newer models to come out?

I had a period of single/dating where I had the opportunity to experience different people and romances and I landed with a wonderful woman. She’s beautiful, sweet, interesting, caring, and smart. From the start of our relationship her communication style or lack thereof was evident. She didn’t text back after the first date until I followed up days later for another date. We’ve been together 9 months since then and are in a committed/labeled relationship. Throughout the months, I’ve struggled with what I interpret as her being “aloof” when it comes to participating in the relationship when it comes to verbal words of affirmation and affection, texting, written love notes, gifts, etc. I’ve expressed a desire for more and she’s definitely improved but recently I was triggered by her lack of thoughtfulness in planning a trip we have coming up as well as actively including me in birthday dinners or events she has. Internally, I’ve been reacting to this negatively that she must not love me in the same way I love her. I’ve confronted her in the past about my perception of her being “aloof” in her active participation in the relationship and she was sad about it but even then it was hard for her to choke out words of affirmation to comfort my insecurity about it. The saving grace has been in person she is very physically affectionate and caring and we never have any friction - she’s very agreeable.
She grew up in a southeast Asian household that was devoid of much physical or emotional love. She has an extremely demanding career. She’s an only child. Interesting as well, she didn’t start dating and claims to not have had much interest until 29. I feel a lot of these factors contribute to my perception of a lack of love for me. She doesn’t express or even potentially have an easy time internalizing love for others. She’s communicated that she doesn’t think she can change at least in the near term but again has shown some progress.
I’m a bit of a golden retriever boyfriend in the sense that I shower her with words, physical affection, gifts, etc. that she loves. Sometimes when I’m communicating intimately with her she gets emotional, some tears, etc. for example when I asked her to be my girlfriend she cried a bit out of joy…I almost feel as though letting her emotions out is like a new thing lol
Anyway, because of the way I express my love, I’m frustrated by the lack of return. Though it’s important to note I’ve always been a bit turned off when my past girlfriends treated me like I treat her. It seems to be a good balance where I’m on my toes a bit and the passion stays lively as I work to inspire positive emotional connection and win her affection.
Anyone else have experience with this? Do you just take and keep the lead in general in romantic affairs? Did you slowly work into it as your partner opened up and trusted that you were on the right path along the way?Sometimes I feel like she’s along for the ride and I’m overly invested. Perhaps this is a natural dynamic that works. Who knows…I don’t have any reason to suspect the assurances she has given me are wrong I just crave more And even get angry about not getting it (like a grown baby lol).

Background. My mom lived with my older brother for about 5 years. My sister in law helped with her care because she's wheelchair bound and prone to falls and accidents. I (29f) took over my mother's care about 5 years ago and she's lived with me and my husband since. This year has been harder but a week ago she fell and completely shattered her collar bone. I'm having to wake up 6x a night to take her to the bathroom, spongbathe her and the only sibling who has helped is my oldest brother and his wife. They come so I can go to the store or go to work. This year, my other brother (30) didn't call or text mom on mother's day. They never call her, or come see her even though they live an hr away. But they always drive 8 hrs to go see his wife's family. My sister 28) texted my mom on mother's day at 9:30pm when she was already in bed. But she also doesn't call or text to talk to my mom. My mom often cries because she hasn't seen her other kids. But I was already not talking to my sister because 2 years ago she told me she'd never take care of mom. I'm annoyed no one but myself and my other brother care. They did the same thing with my grandpa but after his funeral they whinned and cried (we should have been there). WIBTA if I just don't tell them? Like I know it's their mom too but it doesn't seem like they care. The only time they seem to ever want to talk to her is to ask her for money.

Hi, I was together with my gf for a little bit over a year. there is 2 years difference between us, I'm 20 and she's 18. We truley loved eachother. We had better and worse times in our relationship but we had very healthy relationship (at least I think). Last two weeks have been rough for me. I realised in how much trouble I am on my studies and my psychic health was very low. I got very dissapointed in myself after overthingking everything bad that is currently happening to me. It all started whem my gf went to bigger city for a students whole week party. She has older sister and brother in that city so she wasn't alone. When she got there I of course felt a little bit jealous because i knew most of the students there want just to hook up and that's all. I always trusted her and I know she would never cheat on me so it was calming me down. Problem was when she was there we didn't talk much. Of course as everyday I wrote her a goodmorning message and a few goodnight messages. During the first day we didn't even talk much but i get it, she was partying hard and at the end she apologized to me but she was exhausted and told me we will talk the other day. What made me very sad and started my mental breakdown was that in the next couple of days she was responding even less than in the first day. I hate when she is online doesn't read my message and then answears it after few hours but when i answear immediatley she still responds after few hours. I stopped texting her first so we nearly didn't talk at all. One day all our messages were my messages saying goodmorning and then goodnight. After she came back I already felt bad with myself and we talked a bit but she had to rest so another day passed. After she rested she told me she has to cry after what happened on her trip and that she doesn't want to talk about it with me. Of course I felt very sad that there was something which she was not telling me but as I always do I did not ask her about what she was crying. Thing that made me even more sad is that after coming home we barely talked but she immediatley met with her best friend (who is a guy that I was and still am a little bit jealous). In the couple next days we were talking a bit more but it was clear that i felt bad and she realised that she tried to help me. The problem was that i didn't know if i want her help because i don't remember the last time i felt that bad and in my entire life i was always dealing with my mental problems by myself. However after we talked for a bit i felt better. Next day. We were still talking about how i feel, she was trying to make me feel better. While talking she sent me by accident message to someone else that was saying if they can meet some other day to clear something out. I obviousley didn't know who was that message to and what was it about but it made me nervous as for the first time in my life i was afraid she actually betrayed me. After talking about this she told me she met a guy there. A 5 years older guy that she liked by his looks. She told me that when she looked at him she felt something she didn't feel for a long time. I got heartbroken. She still didn't want to talk about it until we meet. When we finally met she already told me that she wants a break. After talking she told me that she liked that guy, that he tried to frenchkiss with her but she didn't want to and that they were sleeping in one bed because there was no other place to sleep. She also told me she gave him a small kiss during some drinking game. I got very jealous as I would never kiss anybody else while we are together. It doesn't matter they were playing some stupid game, she coul've just said that she has a boyfriend and doesn't want to do that but she told me that for her it's not a cheating. She told me that she needs break from us being boyfriend and girlfriend but she still wants to have contact and meet but just like normal friends. It was yesterday. Tonight it suddenly came to me that we are no longer together because even to we agreed we have a break we still acted like a couple( we kissed and a little bit more but not too much). Now I think about all that and I have no idea if she will want to be with me again. I spoke with my bestfreind nad she opened my eyes about how she treats me. Of course noone is perfect but I was willing to do anything for her. I did all I could to make her happy but now I realised I was being treated not in the way i wanted. I told her multiple times that on her instagram )or any other social media) there were no pictures of us together. She told me that she doesn't add pictures with other half because she doesn't like to. I understood that but she adds pictures with other guys that are her friends or like in this case she added a picture with a bunch of guys she met that are mostly her sister's freinds i feel less important than them. I got rly hurt after she uploaded pictures from her 18th birthday party. There were pictures of every single person that was on this party except me. I even took one or two pictures that she added. We don't hold hands together while in public or don't show we love eachouther in public in any other way. I dont like seeing couples kissing on the streets so i get why we dont do that but holding hands is something we were doing at the beggining of our relationship, now we dont do that. She changed her wallpaper from picture of us to some random picture which is also weird because she was the first one to set picture of us on her wallpaper and seeing how happy it made her i did the same and only changed it with different photos of us. There are things like going for a bicycle that she is afraid to do with me but loves to go with her male bestfreind. She is also afraid to go anywhere where we will be alone ( like somewhere on holidays or any other free time we have). She doesn't want to visit me on my studies. We also never had sex. It's not hurting me that much because she told me that she wants to wait to be sure and so that she wont regreat anything but its been more than a year and i was sure i wanted to make love to her. Not only because I love her looks but i love entire her and being so close to the person you actually love must be amazing. Now we have break and we are supposed to act like friends but I am starting to think if this was truley healthy relationship. I told her about some issues multiple times and she didn't change a thing. I want a random person to look at this and tell me what do they think about it all. I just can't see clearly because I still love her and I don't want to abandon her but I don't know if it has sense or if she won't abandon me.
Sorry for bad english btw
oh and also i forgot and now i dont know where should i put this. I always pay for ewerything. It does hurt because i don't have time to work myself and i hate when my parents give me money but if not that money i know we wolnd't spend a lot because she is not the richest person i know and she thinks everything is a waste of money. So when i have to chose between spending money and making her eat or drink something or not it's obvious I want best for her, even if it means I have to spend money everytime we see. I also pay for gas to my car because to meet i have to drivearounf 45 km in one way.
Now i see that even asking total strangers on the internet what they think about it made me feel a bit better

Hey reddit, hoping to get your thoughts and general life advice on this pretty messed up situation.
I'm a 30 (F) and my husband 31 (M), we recently married 9 months ago but 6 weeks into our marriage everything went to hell.
Context: We met 7 years ago, both fairly young and immature, but we had chemistry. That said, back then my partner acted like quite the playboy and did a lot of disrespectful things on nights out that really undervalued his commitment to me (e.g., allowing other women to touch him, general vulgarity, etc.). His behavior didn’t change despite me trying to discuss our differences, and explicitly noting how his drunk blackouts left me feeling awful. Separately, he also had a pretty close female friend, who he called about 1-2x a week quite late at night to chat unbeknownst to me, before we moved in together (to this day, he swears they were just friends, but this was a secretive, sustained closeness, that I deem emotional infidelity).
Nonetheless, all this behavior constantly left me wondering if I had made a mistake about my ex, who did not treat me this way at all and showed me the utmost respect. So, 10 months into dating my now husband, I met my ex back in his hometown as closure, but sparks rekindled and we ended up hooking up. I never pursued my ex after this event, and cut ties. I 100% know this was wrong and am not trying to shift blame, but because it was so heinous, I never told anyone, not a soul, just kept it to myself, swallowed the guilt, and never again strayed, not once.
Current Situation: Despite the bumpy start, we still loved each other enough to ultimately marry. But my now husband always had curiosity about what happened on the trip where I indeed met my ex, and I never fully admitted to it until 6 weeks into our marriage after he came across a very old text exchange between me and a friend noting the incident (I had lent him my old phone, while his was getting repaired). The result was catastrophic, and sent my husband on a 3-week rampage whereby his only communication with me was via low-key threats, disparaging names, and absolutely zero affection. He even slept in a separate room and contacted my ex's current partner via LinkedIn to get his full side of the story.
As crazy and toxic as it all is, I understand that my husband's actions were motivated by deep hurt, and that he wouldn't feel this bad if he didn't really love me. But, I’ve apologized, expressed my side of the story as to what fueled my actions, and have kept forging ahead – trying to be as thoughtful and supportive as possible for the past 8 months. Whereas, my husband treats me like his roommate, the only things we chat about are work and our parents; he won't bring up any topics that have to deal with us moving forward (e.g., kids, house, even a simple vacation); he hasn't kissed me since October (8 months ago) and certainly won't initiate sex (he says he's too depressed and therefore, has no sex drive, but he masturbates on occasion, and two months ago I caught him on a website for female "escorts", likely thinking about some sort of vengeance I guess). So yep, we're basically living in an emotionless, frozen tundra where I feel extremely unwanted despite me trying so hard to move forward. We've tried couples therapy, but my husband quit after 8 sessions because he didn't find it useful in validating my recollection of the incident 6 years ago versus what my ex's partner told him! It's like he's permanently stuck living in the past.
Complicating matters even more, I moved from the US to Europe for my husband, where we’ve been living for the past 2 years and where he has a full support network and I have none. While I know this current sitaution is largely my fault and I genuinely feel terrible, I can’t allow myself to also get stuck in the cycle of past hurts; I want to start a family and feel as though I’m wasting precious time. I'm geniunely torn between abandoning my husband that I do sincerly love, and being married to someone who freezes me out and holds a past mistake over my head forever.
I get that this is a serious violation of trust but I cannot understand why he lacks the conviction to make a decision to move forward - whether that's with or without me. Why is he wasting his own time? Part of me is upset that he can't just let bygones be bygones and accept responsibility for his own actions, and look to forgive.
So what the heck do I do?
TL;DR: Living in a frozen, emotionless marriage, 8 months into being married.

So I met someone about a year and a half ago on Hinge and we met twice in my home city. (She's demisexual in case this important of note). After the second date she told me she was to move to another town 2 hours away. I honestly didn't think that big a deal of it and we ended up still texting each other over the year and kept our bond strong. We ended up kissing before leaving after the second date too and we seemed to leave happy.
Fast forward to this year and I shot her a message asking if we could get together for a possible third date to do something fun. She said no due to her work life, BUT she asked me if I wanted to be her plus one for her cousins wedding. I agreed and had a lot of fun meeting her family. However the she constantly texted me saying that her family is very big (like it's family coming from 5-6 different states, outside of America and Canada too). I kept this in mind but honestly meeting them they seemed like very nice people and were a lot of fun. However I couldn't help but notice they kept hinting things to and about her and me. They said they hope they see me again, and even nudged her into catching the bouquet for single ladies after the wedding. (This wedding was for the majority her cousins and uncles but I can say almost 90% of them had partners). During the wedding I asked if she wanted to dance. She said yes but we only danced to party music and once the slow dance music came on she wanted to stop. On the other hand though, we have a lot of fun together, we both check on each other's well being, she was always excited to introduce me to her family too. As I'm typing this the wedding is still going on I had to leave a little early as I have work tmrw.
I really like this girl and am beginning to develop feelings but I don't want her to be in a relationship with me if she's only doing it if she's being pressured by her family. I want her to be happy and not forced into a life she doesn't want to live. Should I ask her about this? When should I do it if yes? Immediately or give it time?

Anyone else having issues with the Prime Video app? When I launch it I get an error message that rotates between different languages but not English. I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling but it still happens. The app works perfectly fine on my iPhone and iPad. I have the latest Apple TV on the latest OS version.

This post expands on a comment I made in last week's scuffle thread about a multi-decade disagreement about what color the now-defunct Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) used to paint its steam locomotives and by extension, what color the 491, a now-restored locomotive operating at the Colorado Railroad Museum (CRM), should have been painted during her restoration. Tie a red bandanna around your neck, grab some popcorn, and sit back for a two-for-one hobby history and drama.
First, three short disclosures. One, I am associated with CRM, but I did not participate in the restoration of 491. Second, I have no preference what color 491 should be, I'm just glad she’s running. Third, 491 uses she/her pronouns. That’s not woke, it's historically accurate. Deal with it, you friggin’ lopsided, melting snowflake.
Before we get to the drama, let’s get a bit of context and background. The D&RGW railroad was founded in 1870 and eventually became a part of Union Pacific in the 1990s. D&RGW built and operated routes in the US states of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. For a long time, these tracks were among the very few ways to easily travel west of Denver and through the Rocky Mountains. Those corridors were, and still continue to be, foundational parts of the US rail network.
Over time, D&RGW became renowned around the world for operating in some of the most beautiful but technically difficult terrain in North America. The passenger trains themselves became destinations, and the mountainous routes fascinated historians, railroad photographers, and model railroaders. Seriously--just look at this train going up a mountain like a goat. In addition, the railroad was notable for operating an extensive network of "narrow gauge" tracks—the rails were 3' apart instead of the standard 4' 8.5". Without getting too far into the technical weeds, narrow gauge worked better than standard in mountainous terrain.
Another thing that made the D&RGW a darling among railroad enthusiasts is that while they got rid of the steam locomotives on its mainline tracks in late 1940s or early 50s, just like most other railroads did, they kept on chuggin' down the narrow gauge tracks until 1968. To put that in perspective, that's the year the White Album came out, and the year that Planet of the Apes and Night of the Living Dead were released. 1968 was the year before Woodstock and Apollo 11, and only 15 years before the Internet was invented.
1968, in other words, is incredibly recent. It is within the lifespan of some of you reading this post. It should be kept in mind that when we talk about the D&RGW and the 491’s service life, those things, while distant, have not yet faded into history. There are many still-living people who worked on this railroad, operated specific pieces of equipment, and saw it around their communities. There are far more people who had a father, grandfather, uncle, or other relative involved in this industry. We aren’t discussing events in the distant past, and the people who care about this aren’t just hyper-fixated arcane details of history. For many people, the presence of this railroad, and the continued preservation of its remnants, are intensely personal.
Before we move on, let's take a moment to get some additional context on how railroads used color on their equipment. Today, you might notice that most railroads have a set "livery" that they paint on their locomotives. (UP yellow, BNSF orange, CSX blue, ect.) Prior to about 1900, steam locomotives were just as colorful, and were often decorated with elaborate trimmings made of polished metal. This is actually where the idiom "all the bells and whistles" comes from. Most toys, clip art pictures, and children's television programs depict steam locomotives from this era.
However, after about 1900, the appearance of most steam locomotives became far more utilitarian. The Victorian maximalist style had fallen out of favor across the board, especially after the wars, and most railroads in the US accordingly preferred unembellished equipment. Now, their locomotives were most often painted black with minimal amounts of gray, white, or silver trimming.
By about 1900, railroads companies had also noodled out that keeping a brightly colored and decorated locomotive clean enough that it didn't reflect poorly on the company required a lot of labor. Remember, these machines— this is worth harping on both because it's going to be a plot point in a little bit and because modern readers might not fully grasp what “steam power” means—are ON FIRE AT ALL TIMES WHILE OPERATING. A very messy chain of events results from this intrinsic property:
1.Where there’s fire, there’s smoke.

1. Where there’s smoke and exhaust steam going out the same smokestack, there is the creation of a thick, jet-black sludge of train-dirt.
   
2. The smokestack belching train-dirt is attached to a locomotive that is usually moving forward, which means that cancerous inky puke blows back onto any and every part of the locomotive situated behind the smokestack.
   

If anything on the locomotive isn’t painted black, in other words, it will very quickly become black unless it is being cleaned almost daily. Since corporate penny-pinching is always historically accurate, most railroads did the math and realized it was better for their bottom line to paint things the same color as train-dirt than it was to pay people to clean up train-dirt.
There were some exceptions to this preference. Often, railroads painted passenger locomotives to distinguish them from freight locomotives or to fit into the paint scheme used for every piece of equipment on a specific train. Two good extant and operable examples of colorful locomotives are the Southern Pacific 4449 and the Norfolk & Western 611. Other railroads preferred colorful, but very dark shades of paint for at least some of their locomotives. One of those railroads just so happened to be the D&RGW: There's documented evidence that instead of using black, they painted some of their locomotive a shade of dark green. For the curious, it is approximately hex code 1E3D0E.
Speaking of D&RGW, let's jump back to the 1960s and introduce the specific steam locomotive at the center of this drama: D&RGW no. 491. For you nerds—you know who you are—she is a K-37 Class superheated, outside-frame, 2-8-2 Mikado. She and nine other K-37s were built in-house by the D&RGW in 1928. 491 was taken out of revenue service in 1963.
As an aside, it was actually really rare for railroads to build their own steam locomotives. D&RGW decided to do this because of an entirely different historical drama which, though at the time was complex enough to max out the character limits of gossipy telegrams, can with hindsight be briefly summarized as:
Baldwin Locomotive Works: "Fuck you, pay me."
D&RGW: "NO."
Luckily for the K-37s, by the time they were taken out of service, there had emerged a very dedicated coalition of people actively working to preserve steam power in general and Colorado’s unique railroad history specifically. They were resoundingly successful: All but 8 of the 10 K-37 locomotives, and numerous examples of many other classes, were saved. All tolled, there are about 15 former D&RGW steam locomotives in operable condition or being considered for restoration at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, the Cumbres & Toltec railroad, and the Colorado Railroad Museum. Additionally, most of the heritage railroads in Colorado operate on routes decommissioned by the D&RGW.
Two of the K-37s—the 491 and the 493—have been restored to operating condition. The 491 got her second lease on life at CRM in the early 2000s-2010s, and the Durango & Silverton returned the 493 to service in 2020.
While D&S made some purposeful modifications to 493 to render her more suited to 21st century operation, CRM set out with the goal of restoring 491 as close to historically accurate condition as possible. They were in fact contractually bound to do so, since the museum had applied and received significant funding from the Colorado State Historical Fund, and the terms of that grant required that any change made to the locomotive would have to be backed up by records or photographs preserved from her days in revenue service.
That should be easy, right? We just talked about those revenue days that were very recent, didn't we? Hit the independent brake and the automatic brake and throw on a handbrake just for good measure, because historical accuracy can be VERY tricky for railroad preservation.
Given that, the revenue service life of most pieces of equipment was, on average, about 40 years, many have been overhauled or significantly modified while in service. Others have been subjected to "Red Green this thing out of my shop and get it back on the mainline" types of repairs that, while technically accurate to the period, were not the typical or best practice and are inappropriate in a preservation setting.
There are, in other words, sometimes multiple and equally well documented versions of “historically accurate,” and it becomes a matter of opinion as to which one is best to recreate. Because of the very powerful personal connections to the equipment we discussed earlier, those opinions are often VERY passionate. It's at this point where we FINALLY where we get to the meat of this drama, because the restoration of the 491 put one specific question in the crossfires of that passion:
What color did the D&RGW paint the 491 and, more importantly, what color should CRM paint her?
Most people assumed that since the 491 showed up at the museum painted almost all black and silver, she would be painted the same way during her restoration. However, given that she had been in service for 35 years, it was possible that she had been repainted at least once or twice. In fact, for a long time, and I mean longer that the internet has even been around long, there has been a dogged faction of people who that believed the 491 operated at least some of her revenue service with her boiler jacket(a thin, metal sheet that holds insulation against the boiler and protects the boiler itself from the elements) painted dark green. As evidence, they pointed to old shop records, a few eyewitness testimonies, and cans of paint found in various facilities. This faction made it known that they wished the 491 to be painted green, and those who preferred black or thought black was better documented raised their objections.
It should have been easy to figure out which color was 'correct,' right? Didn’t you say there are records? There are, but the catch is that while those records amount to a pretty good body of evidence that the D&RGW used green paint at some point, on some of its locomotives, they don't provide a comprehensive record of exactly which locomotives were painted what color at what time. There’s nothing substantive that the 491 herself was painted green.
The next best bet, you'd think, would be to look at photographs. Unfortunately, this isn't reliable. Most of the revenue service photographs of the 491 and her sisters are in black and white, and it is difficult to conclusively determine which colors are being depicted, especially when they are very similar like black and the shade of green in question. Team Green indicated that some pictures render the boiler jacket in slightly lighter shades of gray, meaning it must be a different color, and Team Black counters that the difference might be due to shadows or that paint being more glossy than what was used on other components. Besides, they say, if 491 had been painted green, wouldn't more people REMEMBER her that way? Team Green has a hand answer for that, too: The K-37s simply spent most of their service lives too dirty for the green paint to be seen. That sounds like a stupid ass-pull of an answer, but until we cleaned her up a few weeks ago, I genuinely forgot that 491 was (spoiler alert) painted green.
For YEARS, this was such a hot debate that it probably could have raised 491 up to operating pressure. Some of the source threads I’ve linked to are from the early 2000s—note that many of them mention discussing this issue in the 80s and 90s—and this debate was brought up in pre-internet railfan publications and correspondences. It came to a head when, in the process of the restoration, staff at CRM found flecks of green paint while inspecting and cleaning 491 for restoration. The samples were collected, compared against known samples, and shown to people who were familiar with 491 and other D&RGW locomotives while in service. This exhaustive, almost forensic investigation proved that the 491 had, in fact, been painted green, so proponents of a black boiler jacket revised their position in the face of new evidence.
Just kidding of course.
While there was no question that CRM's restoration of 491 was very well done, there was, and is, a lot of grousing about whether those paint flecks were enough to prove that she was ever painted green. Some say that they were not present in great enough quantities to prove definitively that the paint came from the 491 or to determine exactly what parts of the locomotive had been painted that color.
Others point out that while the 491 and her sisters were built by the D&RGW, the railroad used boilers that had been assembled by Baldwin Locomotive Works earlier than 1928. Unless their customers requested otherwise, Baldwin painted the locomotives and parts it produced green as a default. The presence of the flakes, this opinion states, is only proof that the boiler was painted green at some point, not that it was painted green while it was part of 491.
The complicating factor is that Baldwin appears to have been very inconsistent with how they mixed up their “Baldwin Green:” Sometimes it was a very dark emerald. Other times, as with some paint on the tender 100% established to be Baldwin Green, it is an almost tan shade of olive green. Since we don’t have extant representations of all of those variations, the counterargument goes, we can’t definitively rule out that the boiler jacket samples came from Baldwin.
The most vehement of the anti-green coalition imagined a full-tilt, “Red Alert, folks, Andi in Kansas, you're on the air” level conspiracy about where the paint chips actually came from. They propose that they might have been, *ahem,* conveniently put there by someone who definitely wasn’t a D&RGW employee and who most certainly was not working on the 491 between 1928 and 1963. I don’t want to say much on this, because these folks just won’t be convinced, but that opinion is out there.
Who was convinced that the chips were good evidence, though, was the State Historical Fund, which approved changing the color of 491's boiler jacket to green. That’s how she is to this very day. There’s still some grousing that the she should have been painted black, and the broader debate about exactly which members of the D&RGW fleet was painted green is still a point of contention among narrow gauge railroad enthusiasts. I want to stress again that even though this drama might seem overwrought, most of it comes from a heartfelt dedication to preserving things “correctly,” and very personal reasons to prefer a certain version of “correct.”
I’m going to end this post, though, by saying this: It doesn't really matter what color the 491 actually is, because we also strive for historical accuracy in how often we wipe her down.
Finally, if you ever get a chance to visit the museums or heritage railroads mentioned here or others that weren't relevant, please by all means do so! There are many people working as hard as they can to keep this history alive, and we can always use your support and patronage.
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RWBY, whether you love it, loathe it, or are somewhere in between, we can all agree RWBY are supposed to be the main characters or at least have a good amount of focus. However, the past three volumes have relegated the W, Weiss, to a side character. This is especially glaring because volumes 7 and 8 took place in her home kingdom, and she wasn't given much in volume 9 after being screwed over those two volumes.
To briefly recap, Weiss started off very strong in volume 1 as Ruby's sort of enemy, being racist towards her teammate (Blake), and being an insufferable rich girl all around. Over the next two volumes, we learned more about her mess of a family, why she chose to attend school in a different kingdom, and we even met her sister, which explained a lot about her personality. She maintained an edge, but became much better with emotions, becoming friends with her teammates and missing them dearly after returning home.
As with Blake and Yang, volumes 4-6 were her primary development. She had to deal with who she wanted to be, how she fit in in her family, and eventually escape her overbearing, mean father to stumble upon her true family, team RWBY. She ended up finding Yang first after being kidnapped by her mom (one of the funniest scenes in the show btw) and gave her a big hug. Later when she and Yang reunited with Ruby, she was invited into their sisterly hug, solidifying their bond.
However, in volume 6, we got the news that the group was going to Atlas, which Weiss bemoaned. Ruby said not to worry and that team RWBY wouldn't leave her side. That barely ended up happening as volumes 7 and 8 introduced a million new characters and we had so many cut perspectives. I guess Blake held Weiss' hand when she saw her father again? Weiss yelled her sister's name from the sidelines as Ruby saved the day.
It should be noted Weiss did have something of an arc in volume 7. As ex-heiress in the kingdom, she was supposed to find intel that could be used. She snooped around her family's mansion for a bit and...her mom gave the vital info to her, rendering Weiss' contributions useless. She also finally won her first 1v1, so she wasn't completely useless. Also, despite this, Weiss actually spoke the third most in volume 7, only behind Ironwood and Ruby. It's just a lot of it was exposition for the audience about Atlas' inner workings, not much that advanced her character.
Volume 8 was more or less the same as volume 7 with Weiss being there to give Atlas exposition and support Ruby. However, the finale changed things up with Weiss being the last team member standing as she presumed her other teammates dead. She was only one of two who fell into the void (AKA Ever After) who knew Jaune killed Penny. Jaune did not reunite with team RWBY until halfway through volume 9, so you'd think this would be important but nope.
Volume 9 was a much needed Ruby-centric volume, yes, but you would expect Ruby's supposed BFF to have more focus. She became comic relief, stressing out over the absurdity of a world from a fairy tale, and only conversed 1-on-1 with Ruby one time. Weiss didn't even tell Ruby Jaune mercy killed Penny nor did she talk to Jaune about it, it was A. either revealed off-screen or B. will be discussed later. Oh, we did get to see Weiss mourning the death of her kingdom briefly, but that was kinda brushed over. Ruby acknowledged her feelings on it, but was too caught up in her depression to do anything else.
So, at the end of the volume when RWBY + Jaune were ready to go back to their world, Ruby found herself again, Jaune overcame past trauma, Blake and Yang became a couple, and Weiss? She was right where she started, mourning her kingdom's death. One shouldn't expect the best writing from RWBY, but can they at least not ignore one of their mains for so long? If it weren't for her glaring lack of activity in her home kingdom and the spinoff series Ice Queendom, which heavily focused on Ruby and Weiss' frenemyship, maybe it wouldn't have been so noticeable. All I'm saying is it's sad that Weiss barely does anything anymore after being such a key player early on. Let's hope it changes.