I recently visited my best friend in a different state and stayed with her and her boyfriend. My boyfriend was uncomfortable with this happening because of his own insecurities and trust issues, and feeling left out, because the last time I had visited we went together. One night he calls me to say more about how he was feeling about me being there. I could see that he was coming from a place of deep insecurity, yet what he said really fucked with me mentally. What triggered this to happen is that earlier in the day I had taken a shower and was getting ready to go out. I was on facetime with my boyfriend at the time, who was also taking a shower. After I finished getting ready, fully clothed, I opened the bathroom door slightly to get some ventilation into the room as I finished up. He was upset that I had did that. I thought it was because someone could have seen him naked, and to that, I had completely forgot he was taking a shower because he was out of frame. But really, he was upset because he thought it was inappropriate to do that when my friends boyfriend was in the apartment. He said that he was uncomfortable with me being in an apartment with another man. A man who had more money than him and, according to my boyfriend, it made sense that I would want to be around him as he had the ability to provide??? He also said that even though I was sleeping in the living room alone, it's human nature for a woman to be attracted and want to engage with a man who has his shit together. Even though he is my best friend's boyfriend, and I had absolutely ZERO intentions of doing whatever my boyfriend thought i'd do, he stated that it's just human nature and it's bound to happen. He continued to say that my friend probably feels very uncomfortable with me being there alone, without my boyfriend, as that gives me the opportunity to make a move???? I thought he made some valid points with the whole "human nature" thing and agreed with him. But I spent the rest of my time there overthinking, and finding myself trying to be very cautious with how I was interacting with my friend's boyfriend as to not cause any discomfort. Essentially, I feel like he introduced to me a problem that wasn't there initially, yet afterwards had me thinking that there was actually a problem. Idk if this makes sense. But I think about it because it still has me confused. I know he has some deep insecurities and trust issues to work on, and we don't have the same perspective on these things as I never had intentions of trying to pull my best friends boyfriend, but was it valid of him to say these things? Are they true?

I've tried selling this thing for weeks now on Facebook Marketplace, eventually at just 1 cent because I just genuinely want it out of my hair. And I cannot find any takers. I want someone to just take it instead of throwing it out because honestly, I'm deeply nervous about what would happen if I did. But if this advertisement proves to be just as fruitless, I will do it despite my nervousness because my mind just can't take this anymore otherwise I'm afraid I'm going to have a psychological break with reality and need to be sedated.
I grew up originally in Northern California near Mt. Shasta, and four years ago I moved to the Big Island of Hawaii after I got a new job working for the university located in Hilo as an adjunct. The search for a place to rent where I could garden in the backyard took a while, but the wait was worth it. Gardening is like comfort food for my soul, and always has been ever since I was a little girl. My mom brought me up doing it, and I took to it immediately when I was just 3 or 4 she always liked to remind me.
I suppose the reason I wanted to leave California was the fact that she wasn't there anymore, that the last piece or vestige of my family was gone and I was all that was left of the life we used to have out there. I remember the day everything was packed up for the movers and ready to go, I walked outside to wait for a friend to pick me up to take me to the airport. As I sat there on my porch, I saw an elderly man walking in front of my front yard. It was an old friend of my mom's from the neighborhood. He had been very kind to me at her funeral as he had just lost his wife himself. We both waved at each other and I got up to chat with him one last time.
As it turned out, he was there to give me a going away present. It was a batch of strange seeds in a small sack. Some were colored burgundy, others indigo, and still others ivory with fascinating patterns on them. In total, there were 19 by my count. He said that before his wife passed away, she had originally intended to give them to my mom. Apparently, during one of their hiking trips around the mountain, the two of them kept stopping to see if someone was following them. Every time they would, some tree would rustle or a bush would make a quick, sharp noise indicating some sort of disturbance. Towards the end of their hike, they stopped one final time only for them to turn around and notice that someone had left this dingy little sack of seeds on a rotted out tree stump they had just passed. In other words, there was no question at that point that they had been followed.
For what reason? He couldn't say, though obviously the implication was that whoever it was wanted them to have these seeds. His wife died soon after that, before she could pass them along to my mother. He said he was hesitant to part with them after she died, but felt extremely guilty having waited too long to give them to my mom. Now that I was heading to Hawaii, he thought he ought to just give them to me instead of continuing to keep them. Other than that, he told me to be very careful with them, to specifically pour them out into the ground from the sack instead of touching them myself. And I wondered why. Like it's such an oddly specific thing to bring up about them.
Regardless.
I took them gratefully and thanked him for the gift and said that my mother would have loved them. Now, I'm not so sure she would have.
It was only a week or so after I had finally unpacked everything in my new place that I decided to garden again. And the first thing I planted, of course, were the seeds once meant for my mom. In memory of her. It was only one I put in the ground because honestly I wasn’t exactly sure how big this thing was going to grow to be. I wasn’t even sure what exactly this thing was even going to grow to be either. Turns out, it’s a vegetable… of some kind. I think. It’s almost like a yam? Like with the same texture and everything but with bright orange skin… and fur in strange places? Also, another thing, it’s like a yam but at the time of writing this it has most definitely grown beyond the size of a typical yam. Basically it’ll increase in size every week or so by a half a foot by my measure. Also, every time it grows by that much, another bulbous root pops out and burrows itself beneath.
And oh yeah there are little blue flowers (or what I guess you could call flowers) growing out of little nooks and crannies and just random spots all over. I’m not sure what to say. I have yet to identify it. If one of you reading this can, then good for you, would you like to take it off my hands in that case? Please? Okay well, I guess I better finally explain why I want this damn thing out of here. I’ve already ostracized myself at work trying to get people to take it, as well as trying to explain what makes me hate the thing, so what harm will come from making a bunch of internet strangers think I’m creepy or crazy?
The black and white of it is that every time this thing grows a half a foot, every time another root plants itself in the ground, every time another one of those little blue flower buds appears on it, something changes. About the world we live in. About our history. About how we live day to day. And no one seems to notice any of the changes except for me. Today in fact, I almost got into a fatal car crash after I woke up and took note of a new flower bud growing on the side of it facing my house. If you put a Bible in front of me and made me swear to God that I was going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth I would swear on that, my life, and my late mother’s grave that I grew up knowing that Americans in all 50 states drive on the left side of the road.
I know you’re probably laughing at me. Because that’s what the person I almost ran into did when I told them. They wanted to know if I was British or something, and I said no I was born and raised in Northern California all my life. The closest I’ve ever even been to a foreign country is San Diego. But when I pulled over after that scare and looked it up on my phone, there it was. Americans drive on the right side of the road and pretty much always have. It’s just so… jarring. I have vivid memories of me death gripping the wheel to my mom’s Wrangler for the first time in my life, with her in the passenger seat teaching me the rules of the road for the first time. And I remember very clearly her telling me that no matter where I go in the United States or Canada, if I ever did that is, I would be on the left side of the road the entire time.
And I remember everyone else driving on the left side too. I remember them doing it yesterday. And now, everyone’s acting like it’s actually been this other way the entire time and that I’m somehow just noticing it. But I’m not “just noticing” it. It changed without warning me, to my abject frustration. This is what my life has been like since I planted it. I remember when it first sprouted. When I first started noticing the changes. The very first one I encountered were the changes made to the American flag. Again, swearing to God, on my own life, and on my late mother’s grave, I can attest that the American flag has always had 13, red and white, diagonal stripes. Not horizontal. Diagonal.
Again, I remember vividly sitting Indian style around our 1st grade teacher as she taught us some of the most basic history of the Revolutionary War. Particularly when it came to the Betsy Ross story. I remember being told that, when Betsy Ross first showed George Washington her initial design for the flag that it did indeed have horizontal stripes just like the one I suppose all of you are familiar with. But at the last second, he had her change them to be diagonal because he wanted to convey that the United States did not intend to be an empire in which some states would be perceived to be dominating the others by being “on top”. Making the stripes diagonal, to him, avoided this undesired symbolism.
I remember it all so clearly, even the little kitschy cartoon drawings in our school books of him with Betsy Ross as she showed him the final design. I remember reading about it in middle and high school. Hell, I even remember writing a 13 page essay for US History I in college that dealt with the subject. The paper of course, along with any historical record or proof of this detailed memory (digital or otherwise), is nowhere I can find it. It’s as if God or something turned the whole world into one big Wikipedia article and began editing reality at random with no one reverting the changes.
If you don’t think I’m crazy yet, then maybe I’m just not trying hard enough. When I noticed the plant had grown its eighth root, I learned for the first time in my life that Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal and not for having been outed as having had a nearly decade long affair with both Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy at the same time as I thought I had been taught. I hadn’t even heard the term Watergate before that. In fact, I learned at the same exact time that apparently for decades since, the affix -gate had been attached to various other scandals and controversies as though it were a naming convention. Until that eighth root planted itself firmly in the ground, I had never once seen or heard of something like that before.
The day I noticed the very first flower to bloom on it, was the same day I found out there’s this little place near Long Island and New Jersey you may have heard of called New York City. You see, to me, that place has always been (and always will be in my mind as I cling onto what I know to be the truth) New Ithaca. Frank Sinatra’s famous song that is played every year on New Year’s Eve, has always been about the great city of New Ithaca, the Big Apple. The changes are just so weird and particular too. The whole general history of that city and state has remains the same though (at least to me), being that it was founded by the Dutch but was taken by the British and renamed before becoming a part of the United States. Only, instead the place was previously named New North Brabant whereas I suppose you have always known that New York used to be New Amsterdam.
There’s even a song about that bit of trivia, I learned. Catchy, and also cringe inducing for someone like me going through what I’m going through.
Actually the overwhelming bulk of changes have had to do with place names. Again growing up, I had it beaten into my brain that in 1492 Columbus sailed the Pacific blue. You heard that right. The vast puddle you probably call the Atlantic Ocean has always been the Pacific to me. And vice versa. Nebraska was a name I had not ever heard of before I measured another half foot in that damn thing’s already enormous length. To me that place was called the State of Fillmore. If before I measured it to be at 3 feet, you had asked me to point out Paris on a map, I would have stared at you blankly until I realized you probably meant to say Degaulleville which was built just northeast of the ruins of the ill-fated City of Lights after it was used as a testing ground for Germany’s most devastating weapon of WWII - the nuclear bomb.
Apparently in this new world the plant has created for me, it is our country that has the dubious honor of being the first military in the world to use nuclear weapons in an actual war.
And the list of changes I have just goes on and on like that. I’m not going to waste time spelling them all out for you. I’m sure that should be enough for you to at least hear me out or dismiss me as having had a break with reality. All I want now is this thing in my backyard, and these seeds to boot, out of here. Like I said in the beginning, I’d throw it away, but now that I suspect there’s some sort of link between it and all these changes being made, I worry what it could do to me if I yanked it out of the ground and chucked it into a dumpster. Degaulleville, Fillmore, etc. were erased by this thing. I could be too, if I made it mad enough.
There’s another part of me, a selfish part, that hopes if someone else takes it they can be the ones to have all these changes happen to instead. They can be the ones to watch desperately as what you once knew to be true, to be there, to be real, is all ground up and thrown away like it was nothing to bend your reality and leave you as the only one aware of it. I want that to happen to someone else instead of me. I want to be the one who’s oblivious to the changes made in the fabric and window dressings of reality. I want to be the one who reads the complaints and desperate cries of someone like me, and calls them crazy. I want want want that.
There’s another, tinier part of me, that naively hopes once I can leave this thing with someone else, it will change reality again but this time for the better. For the better, for me. Maybe once it starts affecting someone else adversely, it can change reality one more time to make my mom come back. To come back in a way that would make me forget she was ever gone. And then maybe I can go home, go back to the life I was used to living. But I know at the same time, there’s absolutely no reason it would do something nice like that for me.
Hell, if anything, it could decide to make things in reality, history, etc. worse for everyone including me. Like let me think… Okay for example, remember back in 1999 when everyone was afraid of the Y2K bug, but then it turned out to not be such a catastrophic ordeal as people were predicting? That damn plant could change things to make it so that Y2K’s catastrophic potential was fulfilled. Or wait, here’s a more recent example - remember like three or so years ago when there was that weird disease in China all the schools and governments got freaked out about for two weeks, warning about having to do lockdowns and stuff like that only for the Chinese government to successfully contain it before it could leave its shores?
I’d imagine the plant could change that history as well. And it’s not like I want any of that to happen, it’s just that I have little to no control over whether or not it will. And I just want to be free from being the only one to know it’s all happening. To notice it everyday. To have your heart and brain scratched at and tortured by it when you do.
So please, someone, anyone out there who can and is willing to take this thing off my hands knowing full well what it is - just DM me. I’ll give it to you at no charge or expense to you. I’ll even dig it out of the ground and drive to where you are (if you’re on the island that is) so you don’t have to get up and go anywhere. If you’re located somewhere else I’ll happily volunteer to pay all the associated shipping costs at my own expense as well in order to get it to you.
You’ll be my knight in shining armor if you do.
UPDATE: I am no longer in need of anyone to take this thing and these seeds off my hands. Thank you to the person that DMed me after I posted this. I got your email confirming that it safely arrived at your address as well. Also, glad to hear it’s grown another root. By glad, I mean that I am glad to know that it has grown yet again but this time I haven’t noticed anything changing. You have no idea what you’ve done to help salvage my sanity. Bless you.

Preface: The purpose of this report is to collect my thoughts in case I decide to do another Ultra. It may be helpful to others interested in North Fork 50, aspiring 50k runners with a limited running background, or anyone who wants examples of what not to do. Experienced people will not likely gain anything from this, as this is my 2nd 50k.

Race information

• What? North Fork 50
• When? June 3, 2023
• How far? 36mi (course was extended)
• Where? Pine, CO
• Website: https://www.northfork50.com/
• Finish time: ~9:30. / ~18:00min/mi (no pauses)

Goals:

Finish Race: Yes
Finish without incurring additional injuries: Yes

Training

Improve:
I trained at sea level for this 7000ft above sea level race. This severely impacted my race performance.
Over 12 weeks, I only had 8 runs which were 2 hours or longer. I should have made sure to get at least one in per week, instead of several medium-long runs. My average MPW was 30.
My peak week was 50 miles 2 weeks out, however, I definitely was overtraining here as a picked up some Extensor Tendonitis over my big toe that had me unable to walk at the end of the week.
I drank a bit too much and ended up spraining my ankle 8 days out as a result. I was in a brace up until 3 days before the race. This screwed up the last week of my taper quite a bit and left me a little out of shape since I was inactive for a whole week prior.
I would often run after the gym, which left me drained from the get-go. I should have prioritized running and then the gym afterward.
Sustain:
My longest run was a little over 20 miles and the route covered almost 1000 more feet of elevation gain than the 50k. This was a great mental boost knowing I could take the elevation and then some.
I purposefully trained in the heat, this allowed me to get more out of my limited time running.
All long runs were on technical trails, which left me more than prepared for the smooth single and double track.

Pre-race

Improve: I was on the road for a day and a half to drive to Colorado for this race. Pre-race nutrition and sleep were not optimal. Food the morning of consisted of an oat/protein powdepeanut butter shake and a Powerade. I didn't sleep very well because of altitude or anxiety.
Sustain: I did some Whim Hoff breathing the night before, which I feel allowed me to breathe a little easier, as well as mentally relax for a brief moment.

Course

The trails were not very technical at all and consisted of fine sand/dirt/crushed granite. Rolling hills for the majority except for 1 or 2 extended climbs. No instances of a steep gradient. Several parts have no shade and would be harsh under hot sunny weather, the rest of the trail is somewhat shaded by pine trees. No major water crossings. Aide stations spaced no more than 6mi apart.

Race: Miles [0] to [13]

Improve: I started out way too fast. The first 6 mi. of the course is an ~1100ft ascent up a mountain and everyone is in a line moving fast because the race just started. I got pressured into keeping up a fast pace which sent my HR into Garmins red zone for a collective total of 34 mins during this section. The remainder was orange zone/ threshold. I was jogging the trails like I normally do but at a much higher heart rate and effort level. I should have slowed down before I was forced to.
Sustain: Taking off layers to cool down prevented my elevated HR from climbing more. Keeping one flask for water and another for Gatorade.

Miles [13] to [20]

Improve: At this point, I could no longer jog at a sustained pace and power hiked everything but downhills from this point on. Prior training showed I was capable of more than this, but trying to breathe properly took up too much mental concentration. I stopped hydrating and taking in calories, my goal was only to get to the halfway AS to drop out. Mentally I was doubting myself, and the physical results of that were enormous. That was rock bottom.
Sustain: At the AS, the badass mfer with the Leadville 100 sweater which wouldn't put up with my excuses and told me to “Just fucking run” when I asked about drop dead times. I sucked up 3 Gu gels and tons of Gatorade and mentally I knew it was just a matter of time until I finished it. A second wind for sure thanks to him.

Miles [20] to [Finish/36]

Improve: Several bouts of GI distress slowed me down significantly, a total of 4 during the whole race, 2 in this section. I was possibly taking in too many electrolytes. I may experiment with Imodium in the future. I had to take my shoes off to remove fine crushed granite pebbles from my shoes. A trail gaiter would have prevented this.
Sustain: Although physical pain was at its highest, I didn't stop moving unlike in miles 13 to 20. I saved any music for the last 5 miles, which allowed me to run quickly for the condition I was in.

Final Note

Obviously, this is a subpar performance but I’m fine with that because I just wanted an excuse to see the mountains. The altitude affected me much more than I anticipated and was the single most challenging factor of the race. If I was acclimated this would have been a very enjoyable experience. Overall the race was fantastically organized and I recommend it to anyone interested.

My bf & I (24f, 26m) have been together for 8 months now, and things between the two us have been really good so far. However, I’m starting not to like his mom. I went into this with the utmost respect for both of his parents but after getting to know his mom, I just feel like her behavior is really weird. His mom lives in a different state than we do, but she’s here visiting my bf for a week (his dad is a very nice man btw, I really like him!). We went & had brunch and dinner with them Sunday, and during that time she made a number of comments that rubbed me the wrong way.
Comment 1: My bf and I have two separate apartments in the same complex because we didn’t want to move in together too soon. His mom insinuated during dinner that he spends too much time with me & at my place in general, and that he should spend some time alone at his own place. I didn’t have much of an issue with this because I agree, but I did have an issue with the accusatory subtext of the conversation. I feel like she was trying to say I was forcing him to be here at my place when that couldn’t be further from the truth. He chooses to spend the majority of his time here, I definitely don’t force that on him.
Comment #2: She said (basically verbatim) that she thinks he takes me out too much to restaurants, and that we should develop some kind of 50/50 rule moving forward so that he pays the tab sometimes & I pay the tab others. I have no issue with this, but it’s 9 times out of 10 my bf’s choice to eat at restaurants. I’m used to cooking & I usually do that 6 days out of the week. She even said that any woman who cares about their significant other will also care about their finances. What she said wouldn’t have rubbed me the wrong way if we didn’t already have an agreement with taking turns paying for food, and more importantly if it’s my idea to get food I know it’s my responsibility to pay. I didn’t really like that she had it in her mind that I’m a burden on him financially when I’m not. I’ve been taking care of myself since before her son came along just fine. I also had an issue with him not correcting her in the moment, which I voiced to my bf.
Comment #3: As we were leaving dinner, his mom also mentioned how she had paid for all of us at brunch & dinner and spent nearly $300. The way I was raised, it’s considered tacky to bring up money. I feel like if she had a problem paying she could’ve voiced that at the moment. I might not be explaining it well, but I felt like it was really passive aggressive to bring up the exact amount. Due to this, I already told my bf that the remainder of the time his parents are here I won’t allow them to spend another penny on me, because I don’t want anything thrown back in my face later.
Comment #4: On the way home, I pointed out some apartments that me & my bf were considering moving into together once our current leases are up. Seconds after I said this, I heard her sigh really dramatically & say to her husband, “Pray for me.” I thought this was probably the weirdest of her comments and it really made me wish I hadn’t said anything at all about our future plans. Later that night my bf mentioned to her that I was upset by her reaction & she said she just wasn’t prepared to hear that in the moment, which is totally understandable but still a rude reaction in my opinion.
I should probably also mention that when me & my bf first started dating, I overheard her refer to me as “that girl”, to which my bf did correct her which I appreciated. I think I knew then that I wasn’t dealing with an average mom. She has also made it a point to mention on multiple occasions that she “doesn’t get involved with her son’s gfs”, which made me feel uneasy.
I’m sorry this turned out to be super long. I guess I just need advice to see if I’m being overly sensitive? Or is this an issue that will continue looming on? I’m not sure how to move forward with my bf knowing I have this problem with his mom.

I've tried to reach out to Bilt customer service in multiple ways, but haven't had success getting connected to an agent so far.
I recently signed a lease to a new apartment and paid the first rent with the Bilt Rent Account (ACH and routing number). However, the apartment complex messed up the unit and had to refund me all of it back (about 2600 dollars). It has been more than two weeks, and I haven't received the funds back to my checking account, and nothing shows up on wells fargo bilt mastercard statement.
The apartment complex told me that the funds have been drawn out of their account and are held by Bilt. I am trying to get this money back to pay for my application at another apartment complex. It is not a small amount of money, and I am getting worried and unsure of what to do at this point. Can someone suggest a path forward with this issue? u/biltrewards ?

We are not “officially” a couple but she asked me not to see other people. Right now she is on a cruise with her family and I won’t see her again for 2 more weeks. Everything is fine when we are together, we get along great and miss each other terribly. We text and I try to keep it to a minimum on my part so she can enjoy her vacation. when she is at a port she calls me and she sounds so down, like she’s bored with the conversation or would rather be talking to anyone else on the planet. I’ve asked her twice if everything is okay, that she sounds down and she says no, she’s fine. Then she pointed out I asked her that twice and that made me feel ashamed and my anxiety shot up so I changed the conversation. Why would she seem so bored or unhappy sounding during the conversation? She asks me a lot of questions about what I am doing, what have I done all day, etc…and it feels a little uncomfortable. When I get off the phone with her my anxiety is through the roof and it takes me a while to calm down, I can’t figure out why, aside from not liking all the questions. My therapist says I’m being triggered but I don’t know the cause or how to deal with it or stop it from happening. I’m at the point of wanting to stop all communication until she gets back.
My last relationship was a short but extremely abusive one and I know that has had an impact on me and how I react to her.
If anyone can provide a strangers insight, or point out something I may be missing that would be great!
TL;DR: 48F with a 58F for a few months, LDR. Relationship is great but GF seems bored when she talks to me on the phone when we are apart which gives me terrible anxiety…why would she sound so bored? Why is it giving me such bad anxiety?

I recently visited my best friend in a different state and stayed with her and her boyfriend. My boyfriend was uncomfortable with this happening because of his own insecurities and trust issues, and feeling left out, because the last time I had visited we went together. One night he calls me to say more about how he was feeling about me being there. I could see that he was coming from a place of deep insecurity, yet what he said really fucked with me mentally. What triggered this to happen is that earlier in the day I had taken a shower and was getting ready to go out. I was on facetime with my boyfriend at the time, who was also taking a shower. After I finished getting ready, fully clothed, I opened the bathroom door slightly to get some ventilation into the room as I finished up. He was upset that I had did that. I thought it was because someone could have seen him naked, and to that, I had completely forgot he was taking a shower because he was out of frame. But really, he was upset because he thought it was inappropriate to do that when my friends boyfriend was in the apartment. He said that he was uncomfortable with me being in an apartment with another man. A man who had more money than him and, according to my boyfriend, it made sense that I would want to be around him as he had the ability to provide??? He also said that even though I was sleeping in the living room alone, it's human nature for a woman to be attracted and want to engage with a man who has his shit together. Even though he is my best friend's boyfriend, and I had absolutely ZERO intentions of doing whatever my boyfriend thought i'd do, he stated that it's just human nature and it's bound to happen. He continued to say that my friend probably feels very uncomfortable with me being there alone, without my boyfriend, as that gives me the opportunity to make a move???? I thought he made some valid points with the whole "human nature" thing and agreed with him. But I spent the rest of my time there overthinking, and finding myself trying to be very cautious with how I was interacting with my friend's boyfriend as to not cause any discomfort. Essentially, I feel like he introduced to me a problem that wasn't there initially, yet afterwards had me thinking that there was actually a problem. Idk if this makes sense. But I think about it because it still has me confused. I know he has some deep insecurities and trust issues to work on, and we don't have the same perspective on these things as I never had intentions of trying to pull my best friends boyfriend, but was it valid of him to say these things? Are they true?

My sister and I agreed to share our parents old house, as long as we pay equally for its utilities. It was a good deal for us because she and her husband want to raise a family and need a cheap home, and I needed someone to live while I saved up for my own apartment.
Only a few months later after moving in, I ended up losing my factory job and started putting in applications for a new job. My sister and her husband were NOT happy about it, they started enforcing unspoken rules about me living with them to the point where it feels cruel. They took all my food from the cabinets and shoved them in-between their fridge and a wall, took my fridge and filled it with their own stuff so I couldn't use it, taking any of my stuff in the house and forcing it in my room, all while telling me that I'm ruining their lives because they want to start a family without me being here. It feels disingenuous to say that to me after telling me that me living with them was not issue at all.
I ended up finding another job about a few weeks later working fast food, but money is slow and it'll take a hot second before I can pay for an apartment. While I wait to get enough money, I help around the house and will pick them up groceries whenever they need some. At first it seemed totally fine, but whenever I was short on cash or needed to go to work instead of helping with chores, they just started threatening me or making fun of me. I genuinely don't mind to lend a hand or even to buy stuff for them, but whenever they turn around and say awful stuff to me the moment I can't help them, it just feels like I'm their maid when I'm just trying to be helpful.
For a long time I believed I was just the issue, that was until I finally reached out to my friends after just having enough one day. They helped me finally see that what was happening was full on abuse and that nothing about it was normal. Well, I tried to bring it up to her, and she still just belittles me and ignores me. I don't know how to communicate with her and working closing shift in a greasy restaurant only to come home to my room being the only place I can go, starts to feel sour when it's full of stuff they barely lets me walk. I've been living with her for over a year now and I honestly can't deal with the way she treats me. What can you do in a situation like this?
TLDR: My sister started acting abusive to me and will turn around and act like I'm the problem whenever I try to defend myself.

Here is my statistics. I am a rising senior and I would truly love to have some advice on my application. Thank you so much! :)) I apologize for how long this is
DemographicsGender: FemaleRace/Ethnicity: 1/2 White, 1/2 Asian 💀 (Both parents are immigrants but completed grad school in the US), so I am 2nd generation for college
Residence: US
Type of School: Competitive Public (Apart of STEM Magnet Program w/ around 70 selected students out of a class of 750 and features STEM classes w/ diff teachers and EC requirements)
Hooks: None 💀💀
Income: around 300-400kIntended Major: Biochemistry or Molecular Bio 😍🌿AcademicsGPA: 3.97UW (One 89 Freshman yr💀) 5.1 Weighted
Note: AP/College courses worth 6.0 at my schoolRank: 31/750, expect to go to at least 26/27 when SEM2 Junior yr updates# of Honors/AP/Dual Enrollment (all 4 yrs): 16 + 1 self study APSenior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Bio, AP Gov/AP Econ, AP Lit,
Standardized TestingSAT: N/A
ACT: 35 (35 W, 35 S, 34 R, 34 M) , technically 34.5 LMAO but they round so yay
My first attempt I got a 32, will not submit unless required.
AP: All 5s so far (freshman & sophomore yr) (AP Psych, AP World History, AP Comp Sci Principle, AP Human Geo)Extracurriculars/Activities (Not in proper order yet)

1. Nonprofit (Co-founder) (10-12)

Hosted hackathons with pretty high turnouts (500 submissions/10k in sponsor prizes), set up a tutoring network, donated over $1k to reduce healthcare disparities in Afghanistan. Hosted medical camps and had professors from CMU/NYU come out and talk to students via zoom.

1. Intern at local med school (11/12)

Helped assist with virology research. Helped Edit research papers, set up laboratory equipment, and shadow various processes

1. Intern at local Emergency Room (10,11,12)

shadowed numerous doctors and nurses. Wrote detailed case studies to understand medical symptoms. Assisted basic needs, vitals/giving towels

1. Vice President, National Honor Society (11/12)

Helped manage/ provide volunteer opportunities in student led organization to over 200 upperclassmen. A pretty big deal at my school.
5) Founder, president of Chem Olympiad Club (11.12)
Hosted meetings to prepare for the test. Covered a variety of subjects including Ochem. Although 3 of us were close, none of us advanced unfortunately. Plan to expand more next year. Overall I had fun with this club and it fueled my love for chem.

1. Vice President/Marketing Lead of Red Cross Club (11,12)

Helped created volunteer opportunities, held a blood drive, managed members in fulfilling service hours, led meetings alongside the founder.
7) President of Public Health Club (11,12)
- Created with my friend, we addressed current issues, donated sanitary supplies to local shelters and clinics. Wrote cards to ICU patients. Had healthcare professionals speak to a group of students on education required/overall aspects of job.
8) Secretary of Science Honor Society (11/12)Managed volunteer hours, meeting hours, help create sign-ins for meetings as well as communicating when meetings will occur.
9) Student created Business Club, member (10,11,12)
Hands-on collaboration with local businesses. Help with marketing, inventory management. Worked with a laboratory and a nonprofit. Helped advertise events to targeted demographic
10) Independent Research (10)
Placed at regionals, districts, and advanced in state as a finalist of about 800 kids in TX
I wont get too into it but it was related to biochem and tested whether a substance could alter the DNA of a strain of ecoli in a lab setting.
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Awards/Honors
- State finalist in Science Fair
- 3rd place in regionals (Science Fair)
- Presidential service gold award x 2
- AP Scholar w/ distinction
- John Locke Essay comp, special awardLetters of Recommendation8.5/10: AP Chem Teacher: Pretty close with her, made the club & had her for two years. She is older and sometimes forgets what class period I am in but knows me as a student. We hugged on last day of school and I wrote her a very long card on how she inspired me to do pre-med and I frequently came during free blocks to review tests.
9/10: AP History, also NHS founder (I am VP), will def be working alongside him for a while. Also a lit major and I heard he writers bomb LORs. The only thing is I was pretty quiet in his class lol.
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EssaysI currently have a rough draft but idk if I want to trauma dump because every time I talk about it, it brings a lot of emotion. It's basically about the process of overcoming my mother being diagnosed with cancer and being told she had months to live. She was constantly in surgery/therapies. Thankfully, she is fine now, but it was a pretty low point in my life leading up to freshman year of HS. I also want to focus on how the event impacted my values/future goals/personality without it being a sob story if that makes sense.
Where I am ApplyingTexasI am currently auto-admit for UT (top 6% of my class)
Rice University
A&M (Safety)
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CaliforniaUSC (EA) My DREAM school since I was like 10 😍😍😍
All the UCs (UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Berkeley...)
Santa Clara Uni
MA: Boston Uni, Tufts, Northeastern, Boston College
Other Schools: UVA/UNC Chapel Hill, Umich, WashU, Notre Dame, CMU, NYU, Georgetown
Ivys: Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, & UPenn (I do not expect to get in)
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Reflection
I would love if someone could humble me and also lmk where they could see me getting into. Again, any advice to improve my odds and responses are highly appreciated. Also if anyone has any recs on where I should ED to maximize chances that would be great.

If you are on this sub alot you'll see Christains posting about Pride Month lately.
Now I'm not a woke Christain coming to tell you that being prideful, and lustful is okay. After all this is a group that turned God's promise into a symbol of sin.
Although I'm not calling out anyone one specific, I see alot of these post and the tone seems confused. Not confused in the sense that anything they are saying is wrong, but in the sense that they are not seeing the full picture
So why am I making this post?
I'd like to offer, my perspective on Pride month and LGBTQ to start a discussion on what the real root issue is.
First I'm going to say what many others have said. Pride is the original sin, yes. What was so important about Pride though? Pride was the vehicle that introduced all other sin. What is pride though? Pride is giving into the temptation to be your own God. The only thing that separates humans apart from God is our inability to provide the unabiding love that the Father, Son, and The Holy Spirit can. This is why every other God is so pointless, and hedonistic sounding, because they are. A construction of the human psyche to project, and affirm they're own beliefs ultimately allowing them to become God on earth. Now there's nothing to biblically prescribe what gives God his omnipotence, but I believe it is himself, and Who is God? God is Love. This leads into my point of why the LGBTQ community is wrong in their beliefs.
The Pride movement is an attempt to fill God's role in being all loving, and all powerful.
However as humans we have not a single ounce of power, or love to provide. Love is only possible with the power God gives us to love through the Holy Spirit. Jesus is a manifestation of God's incomprehensible love that even when we defy a being outside of space and time, He still forgives us. Pride is the sin Satan needs a person to commit in order to abandon God. If you are not prideful, you are not a sinner. The truth is we are all sinners we all have Pride to some extent. If you've ever doubted God that's pride. I'm also not excluding myself from this.
The last thing I would like to bring to light, and truly what I hope people take away from this is understanding Satan's intentions. Now as Christians we all know Satan is the enemy and He hates us. Yet quite frequently I don't see anyone elaborate on this. If you've recently been on any Christian social media, or been listening to any conservative media, you've probably heard the term "Death Culture"
The idea is one that is fundamentally Christian. It is that the mostly left wing groups who embrace sin lead to nowhere but the destruction of humanity. I am in no way shape or form agreeing with the political side of this. I believe anyone can be saved.
I want to reiterate what original sin is once more. Original sin is the introduction of death to humanity through Satan and our acceptance of it, after being decieved. Satan is The Deciever, and The Destroyer of mankind, in that order. You have to be decived to be destroyed, and no one who is decieved knows the truth and what is the truth? Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Way, The Truth and The Life. Yet Satan cannot destroy The Truth itself so He must decieve, to then be able to destroy the decieved.
This is why I like the term "Death Culture", because it exposes Satan's deceitful nature. Let's compare what society teaches with what Satan's goal is that He's trying to accomplish.
Satan's goal: Take as many lives as possible, before His destruction.
Society: Have your own Truth (Jesus is Truth, and truth is objective, so Satan trys to decieve people to make them believe that Truth is subjective so they don't follow Jesus, Satan knows this appeals to the flesh, which is why Christians are called to die to ourselves)
Society: Love whomever you want (The deception that takes place here is the confusion of love and lust, once again Ties to the fact that without God we cannot love we can only lust. This is why the Death Culture loves freely, because they are actually lusting)
Society: Have homosexual relations (The deceit here is something I can't fully deconstruct in my mind but I think I can think about it somewhat logically, the idea that we can have sexual relations that are unfruitful (nonreproductive) is deceit into killing our race off.)
Lastly everything that society teaches leads people into depression, since they have a God sized hole to fill and decieved to believe the remedy is non-existent, or not God. Which ultimately will lead to much death.
There is no question in my mind When you look at the tragic amount of transgender deaths, that Satan has his hand in the LGBTQ community and Pride Culture as much as possible.

I have a prebuilt PC (iBuypower), I've had it for about 2 years and didn't run into an issue until recently. The power supply blew and the PC would no longer turn on. I replaced the power supply and it came back to life and worked normally.
A couple days ago I accidentally left the PC running overnight as I fell asleep not realizing I left it on. I came back the next day to turn it on out of sleep mode (I have it turned on automatically) and when I did the RGB lights in my case and the keyboard turned on but there was absolutely no other sign of life. It would not display anything and tried turning it off and it back on several times and resulted in only the RGB lights in my case turning on but nothing else. I hear the HDD's I have installed spinning but other than that, nothing.
I've tried,

• Taking apart the compenents and installing them again.
• Switching the RAM sticks and only using one at a time with both sticks.
• Switching the PCI-E connection cable to the other one.
• Unplugging my drives besides the main SSD.
• Unplugging everything but the keyboard and monitor.
• Removing the CMOS battery for 10 minutes and reinstalling.

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I cannot enter BIOS or safe mode no matter what I try and I'm just a complete loss of what to do. The last major thing I've done to my PC was update the GPU drivers with NVIDIA's "game ready" drives or whatever, but that's really it. I would appreciate troubleshooting advice or anything at this point.
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The specs are as following:

• ASUS TUF GAMING B460M-Plus
• Neo Forza FAYE 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3000
• Intel Core i7-10700F 2.9 GHz
• MSI Ventus XS OC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB
• Thermaltake Smart 700W 80+
• Apacer AS350 Panther 480GB SSD
• Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD
• Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB HDD

Thank you.

This coworker and I have been texting/flirting/surreptitiously making out at work for a couple of weeks. We've got to take it outside work if this is going to continue, but the logistics are difficult.

• I don't have a car. Coworker has a car, but he shares it with his brother, which limits where he can go and when.
• I have my own place (a small studio apartment), whereas coworker lives with his parents and aforementioned brother.
• I live in town and can get around on foot/by bus, but he lives far enough outside town that those aren't options for him.

So the most practical way for us to get together would be for him to just come to my place when we get off work. He keeps hinting around for this to happen. But I'm not feeling good about that, for a couple of reasons:

• We get off work at 9 pm, so he'd basically have to spend the night. To me this seems like too much, too soon.
• I'm an introvert. My battery is drained after work. I don't want to socialize or have sex when I'm worn out. The idea of having to deal with a horny guy in my personal space when I'm tired makes me want to cry, even though I like him.
• I'm afraid of setting a precedent. If I let him over here for the night once, he might want to do it all the time. I'm really protective of my space and privacy, so this makes me uncomfortable.

I do like this guy and want to spend time with him. I'd be happy to have him over to my place for a few hours in the daytime, if that were possible. I've already tried to get him to go out with me for coffee but it didn't work out because of his car situation.
FWIW, I do not get the impression he's just after a hookup. It seems more like he's trying to jump to a stage of relationship that we haven't reached naturally. I also get the vibe that he might be a bit emotionally clingy.
So what's the best way to handle this? Part of me wants to just tell him it won't work out and we've got to stop. But I do enjoy his company when we're together, and we've known each other for years at this point and I really don't want to hurt him. I honestly don't know what to do and would appreciate any advice.

Hot dog. So much I want to say, that I feel I should say nothing. But I've been doing that..
I have no idea why, but it happened. I was my younger, free, not caring what people thought self when I didn’t drink; at the bar drinking.
I shelled it up at some point; my inner me. Then once I stepped foot into a bar, or anywhere drinking honestly, I came alive. It was “me” again. Could talk to anyone, anywhere. “Oh that girl? Watch this.” “This guy next to me? He’ll be our best friend before the nights over.”
That was with friends or S/O's. Then when the time came, they either couldn’t or wouldn’t go out, I realized I could do it easier solo. Its not like I was/am shitty when I drink, they just didn't like I did/do, so over time it was just me.
I mean, I can fucking talk. Most of its bullshit, cause, for the most part, it’s a clean 50/50 that I care what you’re saying. But as long as you're there with me, lets do this. I don't think I'm a complete asshole for this; met many lifelong friends that I have to this day. Granted, most are drinkers, but plenty are not. Do with that info what you will.
I'm 35 now, 36 in November. First sip was around 11-12 years of age. Not a full beer, or drink; a sip. Then I moved at 14. Went to a new highschool, down south, where I stood out coming from up north(I'm actually born in Florida, but moved up to Jersey around 7, then came back). Probably doesn't matter, but maybe it does, mentally? Most hated me, at best, the rest were people who were doing drugs, but accepted me. Weed, pills, drinking, I was around it; and dabbling.
I got heavy into smoking weed throughout highschool. I was around 19 when alcohol really took ahold in my life, as I always hung around the older crowd; I had access. I mean, I drank every other weekend or so. By 21, arrested, parked on a median in front of a college my friends went to. I, not able to afford college, loved to go to their parties. Women, drugs and alcohol. What more could a young guy want? Got "lucky," school didn't press charges for running over the two small trees. I didn't hurt or kill anyone. Was just me, in my truck, with my own thoughts and faults. Looking back, maybe I needed some kind of major charge. I don't mean that I should have hurt anyone, I am a bit of a softy, and that would kill me if I did harm to someone that wasn't a threat, but from my own shitty actions. I don't know, cause I didn't stop. Drinking and driving for sure slowed down, but didn't come to the end it should have. How could I still do this, knowing I could hurt other people? What the fuck dude? WHY?! Well, maybe I am the asshole I didn't think I was. I kept on.
8 years later, I come to arrive again in Florida, 2 more DUI's back to back in a few months time after leaving Alaska(tried to escape, not knowing it was/is my mind that I was trying to run from). I could tell you the excuses, or not, but now I'm figuring out I am the asshole I didn't think I was. So I will briefly. The 2nd DUI, 28 years of age, got too drunk I didn't want to drive home. I was sleeping in my truck, windows down, getting eaten alive by mosquitos. Florida in july is a bitch. So, windows up, AC on, took shoes off, reclined driver seat. Most of you should know where that lead. SLEEP IN ANOTHER SEAT!! I digress..
3rd DUI, still 28, leaving Carrabas, 3 beers deep, so nothing major(hah). My ex, maybe 5ish(a bottle and a half of wine), cause that's what we did. We wanted more to drink at home, so went to Publix on the way. At this point I say I don't want much more to drink, we can get her more wine, but I had a bottle of whiskey at home. Well for some reason that flicked a switched with her, saying, I think she drinks more than I do, and my problem isn't hers. Well it wasn't like that a all, as I drank way more than she does. So I was kinda caught off guard. We both had/have many mental things going on at this point in life with family dying, losing work, all types of shit. Needless to say, we do not make it into publix, and Im pleading with her to get back into the truck in the parking lot. She does; I'm relieved. Yelling along the way, we make it to her apartment. I pulled out of her complex speeding to 45, in a 35, trying to keep her from beating up my car anymore, but right in front of a cop. Was sober enough, but he brought backup that told him I have previous DUIs, and that he wanted to run a test. Well, I said fuck that, like I always did/do, and now I'm sittin with a 10 year suspension. This is no blame on her, as I do miss and love her dearly, but I had to leave; I have a problem.
35 years of age, I drink. Whenever I am bored. Whenever there is nothing to do, knowing there is plenty to do, I would still go to the bar. I own a business, try my best to stay busy with work, but fuck. No hobbies, no nothing. Work or drink.
Met the most amazing woman I could have ever imagined. Was in love with me, seemingly as much as I was with her. My fuckin drinking killed it, cause I have nothing to offer. As I said, my hobbies are zilch, unless its drinking. She also drinks, but not like me. So yea..
All I'm saying is, reading what y'all have to say sometimes, really fuckin helps. I would say I have no idea how I got here. But I fully see it, and fuck me, do I want to change it.
Id say, IWNDWYT, but I don't want to lie.
So I guess I will say I lost myself in a bar.

Hi! Apologies for the long post. Here’s the full situation, scroll for TLDR:
I’ve learned I am absolutely terrified of mice, I have had panic attacks over this and feel very embarrassed. About 5 weeks ago, I moved into an older apartment in Philadelphia where it seems mice are very common and i know there are tons of entry points for them in this apartment. I’ve been traveling/sick/waiting on furniture so I’ve had lots of moving boxes just sitting. The night I got back from a 10 day vacation at around 4 am I saw a mouse in my pantry. I was leaving again for another 5 days the following morning so wasn’t sure what to do, I called my landlord who brought over a poisoned bait trap. When I came back from the second trip, it wasn’t touched and I didn’t see it again for a few days until it was in my pantry again. I removed all everything from it and cleaned it out with bleach. It had gone for a bag of popcorn snack bags I had in there and nothing else. Still nothing taken from the bait trap, I know now I should have set more traps but I was fearful and hopeful lol. Nothing again for a few days, the entire time I have been careful to not leave food out or crumbs or trash or dirty dishes. Then I saw it again but this time outside of the pantry, looking like it was running from the pantry. I immediately called the landlord again who brought a live trap over. He doesn’t like violent traps it seems. The next day, this past Saturday I saw it again outside of the pantry, and this time it would see me and run back to it’s hiding spot then immediately try to go back to wherever it was heading. This was seemingly a new bag of paper trash I had from unpacking and emptying boxes. I immediately removed all of that, and ever since it has been jump scaring me and popping out, staring at me, hiding for a second, then popping back out. In broad daylight at all hours. I got more traps again, this time they were spin traps, set them out along the path and baited with peanut butter. Still nothing. Sunday afternoon I saw it again and again and then at night I saw it leaving my room and I went and got traditional snap traps. Still nothing. Last night I think I heard it under my bed. I have 6 traps now all along the walls and still nothing has been caught.
This entire time, I still haven’t found any droppings, anything chewed, haven’t heard anything besides some rustling a few time.
My phobia of mice is really hindering me, I’ve had so many panic attacks, each time I see it I run and cry, it took me over an hour to gather the courage to go out there and set the snap traps yesterday. It’s hindering me from cleaning up any of its hiding spaces and is only making the problem worse. It’s pathetic I know
My questions are, is this common? I assume it has a food source elsewhere, is it staying here trying to build a nest from my moving boxes? I’ve had snap and spin traps out for 3 nights now, a live trap for 5 all baited with PB. Will they work in time or how should I amp it up? I know the mice like popcorn, it’s all I’ve ever seen them eat, I tested by leaving some on and by the trap and it’s all gone without setting the trap off. But the popcorn is too light, is there another suggestion? And also, why are they so active to where I am scaring them off and they immediately try to come back?
I’m typing this as I’m hiding in the bathroom and it just tried to run in through the door at me and turned around when it saw me lol. I’ve never dealt with mice at all and don’t know what else to do or try! I really do not want to get a glue trap either.
TLDR: terrified of mice, moved into an old apartment and still need to unpack large boxes. have been seeing mice basically exploring my apartment at all hours of the day away from food source, haven’t found any droppings or evidence that they are eating, not really going for the traps I’ve set over the last few days. Looking for advice!

Loving the game so far as a side note. Pretty close to finishing the campaign but have totally abandoned side quests after level 40 (and I was close before that) because they are essentially run from point a then to point b and then back to point a with some killing in between. Sometimes, these points are incredibly far apart. You spend 15 minutes running back and forth, and when you finally turn in the quest, you get like 5k xp and 3 leather as a reward. Seriously? What an absolute waste of time. Especially early on without a mount.
Is there any point to doing them other than "lore?"

7th, june, 2023
Welp... time to lay my work bare for the world to tear apart.
Here's a snippet of the "sample" chapter for my first NOP fanfic, "The Nature of Great Herds", TLDR, Federation wins the Arxur-Federation War, spends the next 400 years becoming even worse than they are in cannon, before coming across a humanity beefed up enough to stand a chance of fighting them. This is set at the very end of the war so it can be considered a prequel chapter.
Im fairly new to writing still so any criticism is more than welcome. This is only half of what i have down for chapter 0, being about... 3/5ths of what i have planned for the chapter as a whole, the next half i have done is the Arxur dreadnought tearing apart Slanek's fleet before its finally destroyed and i want to see what people think of my writing before i go any further. Feel free to ask questions about "The Nature of Great Herds" as well.
Oh! and thank you u/SpacePaladin15 for creating this wonderful world of yours and by extension the community based around it.
(I would post this in HFY, but ill wait until this is done to post this there)
Memory Transcription subject: Admiral Slanek of the New Venlil Republic
Date [Standardized human time]: 12th of February 2210
“400 years… after 400 goddammed years its finally ending” I thought to myself as I weaselly breathed. I was lucky to have lived long enough to see this day, even with Kolashian age rejuvenation treatments. Even now my fur has long lost its bright grey lustre, its softness, replaced by a rough feeling, unhealthy old grey. But I had still pushed through. I had to. To See this day. The day the Arxur are finally made extinct. To see the day 400 years of pain and blood shed end.
All around me in my flagship’s CIC, I saw other Venlil. All of them younger than me by decades, all of whom were not even born before Venlil Prime was destroyed. All of them here for the same reason as i. Revenge. Revenge for Venlil Prime. Revenge for all of our people the who the Arxur had killed. Revenge for all the members of the Federation, the Great Herd, that the Arxur had killed. We were all here to cast these nightmares into the abyss they had come from.
We had spent months tracking down this fleet, their last remnants and it seems that they finally had a brief moment of partial sanity. If they were fully sane they would have killed themselves like the Humans, but no. They still had that typical predatory derangement. They wanted to fight. To make a last stand. To drag as many of us with them as they could, in a last bout of predatory bloodlust.
Already the battle was in full swing but it seems we would be the last to arrive. The Arxur were not fighting to kill as many of us as possible for some unknowable reason. They were trying to drag the last battle out for as long as possible. Why? I don’t know. I was certainly not complaining however. It would give us all the chance to play our part in the Arxur’s final stand.
“Admiral!”
It was the CIC’s subspace technician. I nodded towards him and he continued on with his report.
“Were about to come out of subspace, right behind the Gojid fleet! In 60 seconds!”
A wave of excitement filled the room. It was our turn now.
Once a minute had passed, in a wave of multicoloured light, we arrived, 250 ships total with 5 artillery ships with one of them being my flagship, exiting subspace right behind a battered Gojid fleet. They were down to half their numbers. I could not help but grimace. The Gojid… the race we were the closest with, who had taken in our sick our wounded… our whole race when Venlil prime and their own homeworld of Cradle was destroyed as well in the Arxur Blitz, seeing them so badly mauled lit up a spark of rage in me.
“Were being hailed by the Kolashian Flagship!”
“Connect it to my communication suite”
Static greeted my ear as a connection was made to the Kolashian flag ship, but soon the Static disappeared, replaced by the familiar voice of Grand Admiral Thran.
“Slanek, I am glad to see you have arrived. We are getting battered by their last dreadnought, that dammed thing is the anchor to their battle line, every attack we send towards it is warded off or completely destroyed. As long as it’s still standing we can’t hope to win this battle decisively or without horrific losses. You’re the only formation left within 100 lights years that has the firepower to bring that thing down, so do whatever it takes, ram yourself down its throat if you have to, you’ll have the support of every ship and federation fleet around you. I wish I could say more but they’re hitting my part of the line with everything they have, good luck”
The connection cut and I grimaced.
The last of the dreadnoughts… that ship. A shiver went up my spine.
The Arxur dreadnoughts were the culmination of the Arxur’s Behemoth class vessels. Massive bricks covered in armor and guns with an engine at the end, that could, with an escort, singlehandedly destroy entire Federation fleets. Vessels that the artillery ships were created to counter.
Then the Arxur deployed their dreadnoughts as we pushed on to Wriss. A desperate last gamble to slow us down. They were larger, faster, with more weapons and armor than even the largest of their behemoths. It took 5 artillery ships to even have a chance of destroying a dreadnought. And the word, ‘Dreadnought’, it means ‘fear nothing’. Even as we pushed onwards towards their homeworld, they did not fear us. Even as we destroyed every world that held their taint they did not fear us… even now they do not fear us.
Thankfully there were only 10 in existence, the rest having been destroyed. 3 by the Kolashians… and 3 by the Venlil.
The destruction of Venlil Prime at the hands of their behemoths had taught us well and we had come to specialize in their destruction.
If anyone was suited to the task of destroying their last dreadnought, it was us.
My confidence restored, I opened a channel to my fleet.
“This is Admiral Slanek, to all of the members of the New Venlil Republic Navy present with us at this moment. Today… 400 years of pain and bloodshed will end. 400 years of pain and bloodshed the Arxur have visited upon us. Together with our fellow members of the Great Herd, we shall burn away the last of the Arxur as they make their final stand. Our part to play is simple, the last Arxur dreadnought batters our forces, and its our job to remove it. We shall destroy that demon ship and its escorts, opening up the way for our allies to destroy the last of the Arxur. This is the most important day and duty of our lives, so fight hard and fight well. FOR VENLIL PRIME, FOR THE GREAT HERD”
The Venlil across the fleet heard me, giving a brief cheer, “FOR VENLIL PRIME, FOR THE GREAT HERD” before they returned to their duties.
All at once, the engines of 250 ships lit up, pushing us forward towards our hated fore with the Gojid fleet parting, allowing for us to slot ourselves into their battle line.
Whilst distant, if I zoomed in on the feed being provided to me by the many sensors present on this ship I could see them silhouetted against the bright red dwarf that made up most of this star systems mass. The Arxur, with their black, angular ships which had burned themselves into the consciousness of every member of the Federation. The Arxur ships present here was all they had left and what a meagre amount. 400 ships total.
But in the center of their meagre formation was IT. That dammed dreadnought which had claimed over a thousand of our own ships over the last year. Bright white letters in the Arxur alphabet were painted on its side, the Liberator Isif.
Named after some Arxur chieftain. 800 meters of black angular metal with a dagger shaped prow and boxy middle section topped off by its engines and short stubby missile spewing wings. It was easily larger than any ship the Federation could produce, even the bulk super freighters that sustained the undamaged core. Well… undamaged until the raid in [2170] that destroyed the Farsul’s archives. In front of it was a field of debris made up of over 300 vessels at least, the graves of ships this beast had felled, amongst them 8 other artillery ships. Its armament had done that. Its hull was dotted with massive amounts of kinetics and plasma railguns, enough to wipe out dozens of vessels in a single volley and its missile spewing wings could finish off any stragglers with a massive barrage of 100 missiles.
By comparison, the artillery ships of the Federation, including my flagship, were tooth picks. 500 meters long and rather thin by comparison to the hunk of metal that was the Liberator Isif. Our only armament was the 2 plasma beam cannons that ran the ships length. Both were needed to burn through a behemoth shields and then their armor, destroying the ship in one shot… most of the time. A perfect match against an Arxur behemoth. Against a dreadnought with its stronger shields, thicker armor and dagger shaped prow which could deflect most of a plasma beams energy at the right angle, it was near impossible to destroy a behemoth from the front with anything less than 5 artillery ships. Thankfully with the few artillery ships the Gojid had left and the 5 that belonged to my fleet I had enough firepower to take that dreadnought head on. And one of them was my flagship. The Tavra.
Whereas the Arxur flagship was named after some random Arxur chieftain they seemed to revere for some reason, the Tavra was named after a true hero who still lived on through her. 5 behemoths, and a dreadnought she has claimed for the Federation, for the Venlil. Now its time to add another kill to that list.
The dreadnought was preoccupied tearing apart another push from a federation fleet when we moved into position.
Almost immediately it broke off its savage attack, letting a wave of Arxur reserves move up to destroy what was left, letting the dreadnought go after the bigger threat, namely the 8 artillery ships that had just pulled up.
Arxur behemoths and dreadnoughts sacrificed range for sheer, raw firepower, as a result it would have to come to us, or we could just sit back and pour fire onto it once we moved a little closer. Whichever abomination was in command of the Liberator Isif knew this since they immediately began a burning towards us, with 60 escorts in tow. All at once, roared across every channel by the Arxur ships was a bestial warcry “FOR WRISS!” then at once, the entirety of the Arxur’s battle line charged ahead. Their bloodlust had finally caught up with them it seems.
“Have all of our plasma beam cannons begin charging now! and move our escorts forward and give us a screen.” An audible hum drowned out the ambience of distant machinery as the Tavra began to charge its main weapons. For the next 2 minutes we would be helpless as all of our reactors power went into the capacitor banks that seemed to fill every nook, crevice and seam inside the Tavra. Thankfully the dreadnought will take 3 to reach us. Once we hit it, if we don’t outright destroy it, then the shields will at least be drained to the point that our escorts can finish it off.
It was a suicide run, but it was their only option unless they wanted to die without being able to fight back. Dammed predator insanity.
For the next minute we tensely waited, as our capacitors charged and our firing solutions were calculated. Ammo was loaded and final checks made.
I gripped the handrail in front of me firmly… waiting for the last few seconds to tick down… waiting to give the order.
If we missed… we were in for a world of hurt.
3…2…1…0
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Yes i did leave you on a cliff hanger... deal with it \_/ (*_*) \_/ *shrugs*

Today, my coworker (43f) called me(23f), clearly distraught, asking me to send me my address so she could park her Tesla there as she didn’t have enough gas to get home. We live only 15 minutes apart so I was confused why she couldn't make it home, but I don't own a Tesla & when she called, I thought she was crying, so I sent her my address & didn't think much of it.
When I got home (about 2.5 hrs later), her car was still there. I sent her a message asking what the plan was & she didn't give me an answer but asked if it was a problem that it was there. I said I was trying to figure out what the plan was since I live with my partners parents & I didn't want her car to be an issue. I was headed to a work event & offered to pick her up on the way back. She declined & said she would just meet me at the house & to let her know when I was on my way home.
When I arrived at my house, she had already plugged her car into the house (without permission) and asked if it was okay that her cord was behind the other car in the driveway (partner's parents' car). I told her there was a charger two lights down the road and said it may be better to charge there. I offered to follow her there & drive her back so that she could drive her 2nd car home after. She looked confused & again asked if it was a problem that it was charging there. I told her that I just felt uncomfortable with her charging it because it's not my house & I thought that the gym was a good compromise.
She then began angrily wrapping up her cord & saying that it takes as much power as a lamp. I told her that it's really not up to me & that the gym is just down the road & I would be happy to help her get there. At this point, my partner came out & asked what the plan was. She snapped at him, saying she'd just drive it home. My partner then asked how she was going to get her other car home & she responded with "Well I guess that's my problem, isn't it?" I told her I wasn't sure why she's getting upset; the gym is very nice & there's always a ton of Teslas charging there so it wouldn't be a problem. She then said she didn't want to "just leave [her] expensive car somewhere" then slammed the door & left.
I didn't text her to see if she made it back home & to my knowledge, her 2nd car is still in front of my house. I don't understand her reasoning at all as she lives in a very similar neighborhood as I (same county, one town over). I feel like I did more than necessary to accommodate her crisis & she acted rude, selfish, & stuck-up.
I may have felt more concerned if this wasn't the second time in two weeks that she has called me saying she wasn't sure if she had enough charge to get home. Plus, for our job, we occasionally have to go out to local businesses & she consistently makes the excuse that she has no charge left, forcing me to drive our team around the city.
So, AITA for asking her to go to the gym down the street to charge her car instead of at my house that I don't even own?

Hi there! I am a 27 year old single female. I rent an apartment and have a dog and carry all my bills alone including my student loan bills about to resume. I have no plans to buy at this point in this market, nor do I know if I want to live in Baltimore forever.
I do okay in terms of savings although I have been breaking even most of this year due to increased rent and some unforeseen health bills.
I currently have about 37,000 in savings. My checking is just a several hundred I keep around for bills/food/essentials.
I don’t have any investments. I have a 403B through my job which is far inferior to a 401K. Has about 15K in it. But nothing else. So I have 37K just sitting in savings. Should I be doing something with it? I’m too nervous to do stocks. And is this a typical amount for someone my age or am I behind? I don’t like to ask my friends about money as I feel it’s rude but I’d like to gauge where I am.
TLDR: what should I be doing with my savings? Am I doing okay?

reddit,
i (21F) have been looking for a job for months and months. i've seen this same post in different subs in a million different ways. the job market is fried. i've applied to hundreds of places over the span of months and have gotten maybe 2 interviews. nothing past that. i used to dance and do onlyfans as i look very unique and "unconventional". very tatted. very pierced. however, i no longer want to participate in sex work. i saved up my money but it's running out and still no job.
its coming to the point where i feel like my mental health is on the line, and i feel so dangerously suicidal that its effecting my life, & its rubbing off in my relationships. i don't know what to do.
i'm only 21, but i feel so lost and devastated. i have an apartment and a car and don't know how im going to pay my bills next. my apartment is not so great either, its run down and ghetto and people shoot and fight. unfortunately moving back home isn't an option. i moved away from an abusive situation.
i just feel so low and suicidal, & i feel embarrassed to be around anyone else. i mostly stay at my boyfriends house where it feels safe but i don't want to rely on him either.
tldr; i just want to make some money and get life feeling right again. i'm tired of feeling suicidal because no one will hire me.
advice or whatever you have is appreciated and welcome. thank you

Today I turned 26. I spent the day working with a throbbing headache and doing the work of 3 people. I have been sad and nauseous for weeks, I think it may have to do with the fact that my wife and I havent eaten a proper meal in a long while. We are so broke that she's depending on her mom to send us money so we won't starve. This is my second day not eating. This is my 18th day wanting to hurt myself again. I'm so incredibly overwhelmed and no one seems to notice. I don't know if I'm good at hiding or if no one gives a shit, but it's really starting to take a toll. What usually makes me happy has had no effect. I get fucked up nightly and feel nothing. I slept 8 hours last night, which is the most I've slept in these two weeks, and I was still fucking exhausted at work. I asked to leave early and was guilted into staying. I came home and had no relief. Found that my wife had slept until 4p and hadn't even taken the dogs out to use the bathroom. Normally, I just deal with it and take them out, but today it just felt like too much. No food in the fridge, dogs have not been fed, the bed has not been made. I've been crying since I got home and it's making my wife upset. Not in the distress kind of way that you would expect a loved one to feel, but in angry way. She's annoyed with me. She asked me what I wanted to eat and I said I don't know; I haven't eaten a proper meal so at this point I have no appetite. She asked me what I wanted to do, I said nothing since we have no money. She asked when the Spiderman movie I wanted to see was coming out, which was upsetting to me because I've been telling her for weeks when it was happening and that it was all i wanted for my birthday. Again, we are completely broke. I told her we should hold off on the movie because I'd rather us have some food for the rest of the week than go to the movie when I can wait a couple days until payday and watch it then. Wanna guess what she did? She bought the tickets anyway. She bought the tickets for a showing at 10:30. This movie is 2 hours long and the movie theater about a half hour away. I have told her numerous times how tired I am. She retaliated by saying I go to bed late anyway so why is today different. And I told her. It is because we most likely won't be home until 1 am and I have to be up at 6. She got mad and interrupted me. She complained that she had just wasted her money because even though she got a refund, she was charged the convenience fee for pre purchasing the tickets. I am dumbfounded. She yelled at me and told me to just go to bed then. It was only 8pm. Here I am, 40 minutes later, still crying, alone in my closet. Im so tired. I'm so overwhelmed and exhausted but I don't have a choice but to keep going. I need a break from absolutely everything in my life but I can't make any of it go away. I'm stuck overworking myself at a job where I'm taken advantage of and overextending myself daily. I am married to a woman who expects me to take care of her when I get home. Two dogs that are not paid attention to unless I'm home. Rent, bills, and other expenses that need to be paid. I don't even have gas in the tank at the moment. My wife hasn't worked in 2 months. Yes, she occasionally cleans our apartment, but about 80% of the time she does not even get out of bed until well after 4 pm. What do I do now? I'm too stuck to go anywhere and have no room or time to rest. I feel so fucked by life and the worst part is I have no one on my corner. I just need some peace.

So I'll preface this with the fact that I am talking about my best friend (29F) and her(our?) friend(24F). Best friend will be S and friend will be C. I have been friends with S for 4 years - we met at work and we are best friends. She used to always invite me over, we would go out and do things together, play games on discord, you name it. About 1.5 years ago, S met C at work and she ended up moving in across the hall from S at her apartment complex. I also used to live in this complex with S, but moved about 15 minutes away. S and I would still hang out towards the beginning, and C would come over sometimes to hang out. S and C were always closer, being that they were coworkers and I only knew C through S. What started happening was that I would ask S if we were doing anything on a weekend night and S would say no, and then later that evening I would see that S and C were out at a bar via snapchat stories. This kinda hurt my feelings but w/e, but it kept happening. I had gone out with S and C a few times, but when we did it would typically be if I was already at S's place and C came over and asked if we wanted to go out. Eventually, S started hanging out with Cs friend group and less with me. I went with to maybe 2 outings which were birthdays.
On New Years, I asked S if she wanted to do anything together and she stated that she and her bf were going to stay in. I went out with some other friends but saw later on Cs snapchat story that S and her bf were over at her friend's. This is when I started to feel actually like something was wrong, but I didn't feel comfortable asking S about it because I didn't want to come across as being controlling. Later, S got engaged and named me and C as bridesmaids. There was one point that S told me I was basically her MoH, but didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I felt better about the situation at this point! I asked all the time if I could help with any wedding or bachelorette planning and was always told that S didn't have much to do quite yet, she was making her own decor. We were all planning on getting together and setting a date and details for the bachelorette, but one day I had gone to see a movie with my bf and during the movie S texted me asking if I wanted to come over with C to get it done. I didn't see this until an hour later after the movie had ended and I immediately apologized for the late response and said yes I wanted to help! I was told that they had already done it all without me. I felt awful for missing this big moment and afterwards I started consistently asking if I could come help with anything for the wedding and was always told that S would let me know. During this time, C was coming over (remember she lives right across the hall) and doing everything with S. I didn't find out about over half the things until about a week before the wedding. I took a few days off before the wedding to help S with anything she needed. When I got to her place, she had boxes of things that she and C had come up with and done together that I had no idea about. I understand that C lives closer than I do, but it shattered me to find out how much I had been left out of planning. I told S that I felt like a bad friend for not doing more, and she said it was okay, C just helped to get S moving and encouraged her to get the stuff done because she lives right across the hall and walks over to nag her.
When wedding day comes around, C is walking with the best man and I am walking with my bf, who is also in the wedding. This means that C is the one who gets to stand next to S and gets to hand her the ring. When we get to the reception, there is a whole table of things that they crafted and cute ideas that I had no idea about - again. This hurt me partially because S and C know that I am a very artistic person, and I would have loved to help with stuff like this. I decide at least, since C had so much time with S and got to stand next to her at the altar and ha d her the ring, that I could at least sit next to S at the reception (no assigned seating at the table). I sit down next to S and C is standing in front of me at the table talking to S and she keeps setting her drink down where I'm sitting. I notice but I continue to sit there, eventually she asks me "are we switching seats or?" Assuming that the seat is hers. I asked if it would be okay if I sat here and she says yes, but doesn't really seem happy about it. I later tell her thank you again for letting me sit there and she ignores me. The next day, C posts a bunch of pictures of her and S but not many that include me, and doesn't even tag me in the post about "watching her best friends get married". I feel like this is just me being super sensitive about the situation, but I honest to god feel like she doesn't like me. I should also mention that on the day of the Bachelorette party, we both went to a hotel room to get it decorated before S shows up, and once S arrived she shouted "look at everything I did for you!" Despite the fact that I was also there helping her set it up.
We also were all sitting in S's living room last week with Cs friend who is getting married, J. I have hung out with J a few times, but she is a part of Cs friend group. They were all talking about how they are all going to be in Js wedding while I sat there awkwardly because I wasn't invited. There was another time on Valentine's day where Caitlin invited me(because I was at S's place when she asked), S, and two of her other friends, but later that day when she posted a picture it was just a picture of the four of them, not one with me in it.
I'm not sure what I did wrong, but it absolutely feels like C wants to be best friends with S but does not want me in the picture. I don't want to say anything to S, because I feel like I'm literally just going to sound like I'm jealous(kind of am), and like S isn't allowed to have friends aside from me. I get that people drift apart and I moved a bit further away, but I have always considered S my best friend and it's hurting me so badly to watch her pull away from me. I try so hard to be friends with C but she continues to not invite me to things. I wouldn't blame S for not inviting me to C's friend group stuff, but the wedding stuff makes less sense to me. How do I broach this without sounding like I'm attacking C or making S feel bad (especially about her wedding)??
Tl;dr: Ever since C became a part of S's life I feel like C doesn't want me around. Not sure if S is letting it happen or doesn't even realize.
Edit: I forgot to mention, I invited S and C to my birthday a month ago, and S came but C said she was sick and couldn't make it. S left really early saying that her stomach hurt, and I ended up going to bed at like 8pm on my birthday when I had wanted to go out with friends to bars and such.