Aphelions rest lost sector

When Strand first came out, and they interrupted our game play during the story missions to push us in to Strand, I was not too pleased. With all the time and effort they spent on airborne effectiveness, I expected to be swinging from skyscrapers while shooting my weapons. Thank god they don't have me swinging from the rooftops in Neomuna, sniping with Whisper for the seal, because I would suck. /s
Now, I love Strand. I equip it on all 3 characters most of the time. I take it into raids, dungeons, GMs, nightfalls, master story missions, master lost sectors...you catch my drift.
I would say that Shackle grenades are probably the best grenades for general game play outside of boss DPS and certain/specific grenade builds. Probably the best for champions.
I like grapple grenades, but they cannot replace my shackle grenades. The only regret I have is that I cannot also use grapple grenades for better movement. I do not believe that I have used the threadling grenades other than a few times initially. If I could equip both grapple and shackle at the same time, that would have been great.
We can now put together plenty of good builds with the aspects and fragments they have given us. When they released the new aspect, I fully expected a grind on all 3 characters to unlock them. I finished the quest line on one character and went to pick it up on my second, and I could not find it. I went to the pouka pond and was able to buy it immediately on my 2nd and 3rd characters. An account-wide aspect unlock? That is new, after all the tasks we had to go through with Stasis. Awesome change, Bungie.
I have not seen other players comment on their Strand experiences. While we complain about Bungie for most anything, they hit it out of the park on this one and they should be commended.

This build relies heavily on using finishers to make EVERYTHING explode, turn you invisible, give you grenade recharge rate, and then let you continue chaining nuke explosions until nothing is left. I've been fine tuning this and the gameplay loop and I can't wait to try it out in GMs. It does decently in master nightfalls, master lost sectors, and dungeons with a lot of ad density. I think a few of the artifact mods in the last column will really put it over the top, but I still have to unlock those at this point.
I (jokingly) argue that this invisibility build is better than hunters because it actually involves killing enemies. Hunters just dodge to go invisible, and that's cowardly. ^fightme
So here's the build.
Key Stats: 1. 100 Resilience 2. 100 Discipline 3. High Recovery is Good Too
Key Exotics: 1. Severance Enclosure (Chest) (Makes an explosion when you finish an enemy) 2. Rat King (Sidearm). Getting kills makes you invisible and starts health regen (if you have the catalyst). The biggest problem this season is you can't deal with champions with sidearms anymore :/ 3. Vexcalibur (Glaive). Blocking gives you overshields which kickstarts your grenade regeneration. Can use against unstoppable champions this season
Key Aspects: 1. Controlled Demolition (When volatile targets explode near you, you and allies get health) 2. Offensive Bulwark (when you have an overshield you get increased grenade recharge)
Key Fragments: 1. Echo of Cessation: Finishers create a void explosion that makes nearby combatants to become volatile. Also, defeating volatile targets creates a void breach 2. Echo of Starvation: Picking up a void breach or an orb of power grants devour 3. Echo of Persistence: Void buffs applied to you (invisibility, overshield, and devour) have increased duration. You will be using all of these buffs. 4. Echo of Obscurity: Finisher final blows grant invisibility (This allows you to dip in for a finisher and then dip out or go find another target to finish without getting shot at.
Key Mods: Firepower: Creates orbs of power with grenade kills. Grenade Kickstart: Gives you grenade energy back if you have armor charges Charged Up x2: Gives you 2 extra armor charges (5 total) so you get even more grenade energy back when you throw a grenade Proximity Ward: Gives you an overshield when you do a finisher.
Artifact Mods: Unto the breach: creates a void breach when you defeat a void debuffed target Protective Breach: Picking up a void breach gives you an overshield Supernova: Picking up a void breach causes your next source of void damage to create a large weakening pulse Squad Goals: Finishers when you have devour grant your allies devour
Gameplay Loop: 1. Throw a vortex grenade (this sucks enemies into a group and slowly starts ticking their health down). I ran scatter grenade but it would just kill everything outright. I find the vortex grenade is more consistent at ticking everything down into finishing range. 2. Run into the group and perform a finisher (this makes everything explode, you're now invisible, you’ve likely created a void breach which will give you overshield and grenade recharge, and now all the enemies that survived are volatile) 3. Run to the next enemy that can be finished and perform a finisher (if nothing can be finished, find a wounded enemy and shoot it until it can be finished). 4. Repeat until nothing is left.
DIM Link: https://dim.gg/x4gxe2q/Severance-Enclosure-Build-(62023)

I hope this is an acceptable outcome in the end...
(Please tell me whether or not this chapter seems believable... I want it to be as authentic as possible. Thank you) :)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Memory Transcription Subject: Tarva, Governor of the Venlil Republic
Date [Standardized human time]: November 4, 2136
…..
No…
NO…
I will not stand by and watch as I let Meier lose himself. I cannot wait to address Meier…
I will speak… and he will listen all the same
I walk with haste as I burst open the door to the landing pads. The ambassadors call me back in fear of what might happen, but I won’t listen to them. I won’t listen to myself, instincts will not control me to keep from making the right choice. This must be done, for us, and for Meier…
I quickly close the distance between us and surprise him as I speak up to gain his attention. “Meier”, I said his name with conviction.
He jerked up and turned around in surprise, before quickly changing to a more hostile stance as I approached, He stood still as I stepped forward… His eyes showed anger at my presence…
“What is it now Tarva?” he asked with annoyance…
“You are going to come back inside now… there is much more to discuss and I REFUSE to let you walk off this planet until it’s addressed!”
“Wha-?! You dare to threaten-”
“INSIDE now!”
He flinched at my tone of voice, before grumbling as he stared down at me with a predator gaze like the one before… I didn’t flinch… He brought his face closer to mine and looked into my eyes as I did all the same.
There were still people beyond the fence along the perimeter that stared at us in horror. They feared the worst with me face to face with the human like I was.
“Curious… fine…”
Meier stood straighter as he began to walk back into the building. I followed closely behind him. He tensed as I was so close, I knew that Meier would never let himself become this monster he now was. I need him to see the light, and guide us. We need humanity to be the good people I know they can be.
We re-enter the main room where the rest of the ambassadors stood in anticipation for what might happen. It was safe to say we were preparing for the worst.
“What could you possibly want to talk about now?” Meier spoke with even more annoyance than before.
I sighed before looking him dead in the eyes. “Meier, I know you are hateful of us, but we need to have a serious discussion on how to help you.”
Meier seemed taken aback by my reason for having him return to the chamber for discussion, “Excuse me? You? Help me? Is this some kind of Joke!?” He was very much offended by my choice of words. I gestured to the rest of the ambassadors.
“Meier… all of us here all agreed that we would be willing to seek you out and allie with you… to help you rebuild from the destruction that befell earth-”
“You wouldn’t NEED to do any of that if it wasn’t for you LEAVING US TO DIE TO BEGIN WITH! You act as if I can just overlook the entire fact that everything of significance that my people had wasn’t snapped away in an instant because of Federation influence FILTH that refused to listen and heed our calls for peace! You think I can simply ignore the death of billions of innocents?”
…
“Meier”, Cupo spoke up, which earned Meiers attention right quick, he looked directly into the Mazics eyes. “We all left the federation to seek to better understand humanity… to grow better for your sake. The same way you have for us.”
Meier simply gawked at the Mazic, “You really expect me to believe ANY of that? You think yourselves better than any other lifeform for being ‘predatory’ in nature. You have been raised to hate us and I KNOW that you will turn on us and stab you in the back just like you have before!”
I can’t take this… “ELIAS!!! I can’t sit back and watch as humanity becomes the monster we all fe-”
“SHUT UP ALL OF YOU!!!” Meier’s voice began to break, as a tinge of pain from it all came to be present unlike before. “YOU DON’T DESERVE ANYTHING GOOD FROM US!!! YOU’VE BEEN NOTHING BUT A BURDEN UPON US ALL!!! NOTHING BUT A MENTAL NIGHTMARE!!! YOU’RE ALL DISGUSTING AND I HATE ALL YOU’VE DONE TO ME!!!”
“YOU ACT AS IF WE DON’T HATE IT AS WELL!!!”
I was beginning to lose myself in my anger. I was growing Tired of this monster that assumed control of the Meier that I knew and cared for. I need him back, we need him back, even if I have to claw my way through this broken psyche one inch at a time I will make that happen…
“WHAT THOSE COWARDS HAVE DONE TO YOU IS UNFORGIVABLE!!! I MEAN THOSE THAT WERE AT YOUR SIDE AS WELL AS THOSE THAT ATTACKED YOU!!! YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE HATEFUL OVER THE FEDERATION BUT I CAN’T SIT BY AND WATCH YOU BECOME JUST LIKE THEM!!!”
This statement shocked Meier, he seemed taken aback by the idea, anger was ever present, but it wasn’t as prominent as it once was… just like the federation, he would deny being anything like them, just like they would all deny being anything like Arxur.
He seemed to gasp, stuttering to look for the right words. For once, I see a genuine sense of fear in his eyes… a fear of realization. He shook his head as he looked off to the side lost in thought.
“Look”, the Duertian spoke up, earning both of our attention. “Meier you’re letting yourself get lost in rage the same way the extermination fleet was lost in fear…” The Tilfish joined in, “And like us, we don’t want you to ultimately do something you would regret… like we have… it’s horrible what has been done… and if we do need to die to make you feel better? Very well then…”
Cupo joined in the effort as well, “I know under the guise of this monster that has been made of you? There is still that wonderful human that I know everyone can rely on…”
The monster was beginning to break, but Meier was not yet freed, the monster stepped back, “No, NO! All of you hate humans! You’re just trying to lure us into a sense of ease so you can lower our guard and leave ourselves prone to a surprise attack! I will not be weak for you to take advantage of me!!!”
…
“Meier… none of this is your fault.”
Meier looked at me with a look in his eyes of confusion, of shock; he definitely wasn’t expecting me to say that.
“You… are the best leader humanity could ever ask for; and I know that no matter which part of you wins over the other, you will make the choice that will ultimately lead to the prosperity of your people…”
He stared at me, speechless. His mechanical eyes conveyed so much emotion… If only I could see them without his mask. His eyes were sporadic, they looked out at the ambassadors, they felt equal concern for him, a few even had tears in their eyes. They have every right to be suspicious, to be hateful… but it’s all a collective agreement that we must help them, to save both them and ourselves. If we have to be subjected to the torment they wish to inflict…
As Meiers eyes darted around the room, he glimpsed over at the television along the wall… and quickly returned his gaze to the reflection he saw. He remained still, before moving closer to really get a good look at himself. I-... I’m close to finally freeing Meier, he’s hiding deep in the recesses in the mind, behind that monster that has been made of him…
“Meier… I know we can, and will, save humanity from itself… just give us the chance to prove that we want to be better…” I said with compassion. The monster was still there however, and it spoke, “You deserve the monster you filth made of me…” His voice, I could hear him choking up, I could practically feel his tears pouring down his face…
“But a wonderful person like you doesn’t deserve to be that monster… I will not abandon you to this fate… I promise.” My words seemed to have quite the effect… Other ambassadors say this is the time to speak up as well. “We will not abandon you” was the phrase uttered by each ambassador one by one, each with their own flair and expression.
…
Meier looked down at his hands, and began to breathe at an accelerated rate his eyes went to express utter… Horror.
He practically wailed in emotion as Meier finally woke from the depths, He held tightly to his face as he fell to his knees, his extra robotic heads were flailing about all the while… before they began to bite away at Meier’s exosuit… We all stood in horror and awe, Meier was freed from his rage, but he ultimately found himself in the body of a monster.
…
Oh this poor man…
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I've been trying to get the leviathan's breath catalyst to drop and have been farming lost sectors on the throne world to get extra progress for the seasonal challenge. I know lost sector bosses should count as powerful combatants defeated to get the catalyst to drop but I was wondering if hive guardians also counted. If you know a good place to farm for the catalyst drop lmk

(Apologies to anyone who reads this in full. But this joke is hideously long on purpose. It's effects are best if you actually sit someone down and tell it to them. I took up my workmates entire lunch break with this and he hasn't spoken to me all evening.)
There are one hundred priests of an unspecified religion. They have arrived dressed in the symbols of their faith in a new land to spread the word of their 'Superbook'. This could be any land, France, Egypt, Feudal Japan, the Toronto Film Festival, any land. Absolutely any land you can imagine, Gondor, Pangaea, 1992 or your own home and surrounding lands which are unique to you.
Upon arriving in this strange new land they learn that the people here have no knowledge of Superbook. They decide that the best way to spread the word is to construct a building as a symbol of the new faith. So they purchased some basic tools and set to work gathering wood for their shrine. As there were one hundred priests in their prime the shrine was constructed in under a week.
It was a basic thing. The sort of shrine you would look at and say "that's pretty shit. Did children build this? You didn't tell me there were feral children around.". A central trunk with a roughly carved deity symbol nailed to the top stood in a forest clearing. A few rows of log seats encircled it and around the edges stood a few tall torches burning incense.
The priests stood back and looked proud over their creation, happy that they could begin spreading the words and illustrations of Superbook. It was suggested by one of the priests that "Hey we should go for a drink to celebrate our success!" to which exactly half of the priests thought would be a good idea. So fifty of the priests headed down to the local pub where they spent the night drinking whatever beverages Superbook allowed.
Upon returning from their celebrations the priests were greeted by a horrifying sight. "Have I got beverage in my eyes!?" one of the priests was heard to say "or has something destroyed our shrine!?". The priest was correct, before them lay the ruins of their primitive shrine, a tangle of wood and limbs all set ablaze by the incense torches.
How exactly all fifty priests who remained at the shrine managed to perish as the single tall, thin structure collapsed remains a mystery to this day. As the priests stood in shock staring and mourning over their lost friends, one of them turned to notice something that looked out of place. As he squinted he could make out on the horizon a figure all in black, speeding away on an unspecified vehicle. It could be a motorbike, a sports car, a horse and carriage, a horse without a carriage, absolutely any vehicle you can think of, a bicycle, a unicycle, a pangolin, or a petrol powered pangolin.
But it was too late, the man disappeared over the horizon. As the remaining priests gathered their thoughts, one of them suggested that they should not be discouraged, and that their fallen friends would want them to rebuild the shrine in memory of them.
The priests agreed and set about building a new shrine! bigger and better than the first to remember this tragic day. They quarried stones, they cut down trees and they sewed curtains, nice curtains, I mean REALLY nice curtains, with tassels and everything. It took the fifty priests a few weeks to complete but eventually they were able to stand back and admire their new creation.
It was a quaint chapel on the hill. The sort of chapel you would look at and say "hey look at that quaint little chapel, and oh damn check out those nice curtains!". A trodden dirt path led to the entrance of a small stone structure, inside was the picture of simplicity and modesty. A few rows of pews on a polished wooden floor, and an altar stood in front of a patchwork deity symbol.
As the priests admired their new chapel, they remarked that yes, their fallen friends would be happy with this. One of the priests suggested that they visit a local theme park to celebrate this day. Exactly half of the priests agreed, they spent the day riding deity approved rides, gambling deity approved amounts of money and not riding deity condemned rides.
Upon returning from their celebrations the priests were greeted by a horrifying sight. "Have I got deity approved theme park snacks in my eyes!?" one of the priests was heard to say "or has something destroyed our chapel!?". The priest was correct, on the hill lay a pill of stone rubble, limbs and silky smooth curtain tassels.... which was all on fire for some reason.
As the priests stood staring in horror over their lost friends, one of them turned to notice something that, yes, upon the horizon he could just make out the man in black speeding into the distance. But it was too late, he was gone. As the remaining priests took care of the dead in the way decreed by Superbook, one of them suggested that this should not be the end, and that their fallen friends would want them to rebuild the chapel in memory of them.
The priests agreed and set about pillaging neighbouring villages for building supplies. They gathered glass, mixed cement, smelted iron, mined for gold and expanded their quarry. They didn't just rebuild the chapel, they built a fully fledged church! The sort of church that when you refer to it like "Oh it's up by the church", people would know what you are talking about and benefit from your informative directions. It had taken the twenty five priests six months of labour but there it stood. A paved path led through an iron fence, protection against and would-be-church-destroyers and towards an imposing stone structure. Stain glass windows adorned the front complete with deity symbols, the pews could seat a thousand and a golden forged Superbook sat upon the altar.
The twenty five priests patted themselves on the back and said a prayer for the lost friends. One priest suggested that after six months they deserved a celebratory meal to mark the occasion. Twelve priests agreed whilst the rest stayed to rest, content in the safety of their shiny new iron fence. The twelve priests spent the evening at a nearby Italian restaurant, because everyone is allowed to eat Italian food.
After an evening of scoffing increasingly abstract pasta shapes the twelve priests returned to their church. One of the priests was heard to say "Have I got tagliatelle in my eye!? Or has someone knocked down our church!? AGAIN!" The scene that greeted them was one of sorrow and anger. Sorrow for their dead friends, crushed under heaps of stone and glass. Anger at their dead friends, for placing so much faith in an iron fence. Yet more anger at the figure they could see vanishing over the horizon.
At this point you are probably thinking that these priests are idiots, that surely they can understand the pattern by now that building a church plus staying in the church equals death. You would also think that after the previous events they would not believe that the solution would be to build a bigger church.... as this in no way addresses the problem at hand. You may think that surely he can't just keep rambling on like this and that he will wrap this up soon, after all we have figured out the pattern of the joke and we know where it is going anyway.
So one of the priests, suffering from long term memory loss, suggested that to honour their friends they should build a new monument to their faith. The others, after giving him concerned looks, figured they had come this far and, resigned to their fate, they agreed. The priests then spent the next five years ravaging the lands for resources. They felled forests, flattened hills and drove the critically endangered Pentapus to extinction to use their tears for cement (its like an octopus but it only has five arms... and only has five eyes.)
After a further five years of construction, they were finally able to stand back, crane their necks high, and admire their creation. This was a truly great achievement. This was now a cathedral, the sort of cathedral that architecture student congregate around. The sort of structure that everyone for miles around would refer to as "That massive f***ing monstrosity made of tears" and there would be weird rumors like "at night I've heard that you can hear the pentapusses crying from inside the walls". Whether these rumors were true or not, it was an impressive building. The size of an aeroplane hangar. It had an attached aeroplane hangar. It was the first cathedral built with a solid steel support structure and, for added protection, a moat and barbwire fence surrounded it.
The priests had been at the whole 'building monuments for the Superbook' for many years now and were getting old and tired. One of them suggested that they should take a trip to a local spa for a day of relaxation after this great achievement, "after all..." he said "page 69 of Superbook does proclaim in giant text, 'Thou shalt spa'". Five other priests, who probably had better survival instincts, agreed and the six of them took off. Six remained content in their reinforced structure, even taking shifts to keep watch for added security.
The six who left spent the day wallowing in mud, having cucumbers placed on various body parts and being generally as un-energetic as possible. They were also pleasantly surprised to find that their local infamy granted them free access to all the spas facilities. After they had left in their own time and the spa owner barred the doors shut behind them they headed back to their church.
"Have I still got cucumber in my eye!?" one of the six said as their home loomed on the horizon, "or has someone destroyed our church!?"
The priest was correct. As they approached and crossed the moat they found a towering pile of rubble. There was an eerie silence as they glared at the destruction, picturing their dead friends somewhere inside. The silence was only broken by the sound of the man in black speeding off over the horizon and the joyous cries of Pentapus souls being freed.
The sight of the man in black filled one of the priests with rage. He turned to the others and said "Hey I know what we need to do!" ... The others agreed before he had chance to say what it was.
The priests set about gathering more resources. After the ten years it took them to gather this, they were surrounded by a scorched barren earth. They had felled all the trees for twenty miles, flattened the earth, hunted all life to extinction (I mean all life, even worms... they took all the worms and used them to lure down all the birds. Then they trained the birds to help lift heavy objects for them. Then they ate the birds. Then they made a monument to remember the birds. Then they... didn't really put much effort into maintaining it and it ran into disrepair... the end), drained lakes and sucked clouds from the sky somehow.
It took a further ten years for the small group of ageing priests to complete their construction. For the sake of this story four of the priests died during a slave bird rebellion that was later crushed. Mainly because I can't think of many more advancing stages of church besides going into ghost churches or space churches, though those would be awesome.
Their creation could barely be called a church.Yes it was built in the shape of their deity symbol and inside were super mahogany (like regular mahogany only more awesome) pews and a diamond pulpit, but to all other purposes this was a fortress. The entire structure was titanium, standing thirty stories high. It was surrounded with laser fences, laser moats full of lasers, and atop the building were placed a cluster of guns which shot bullets which were also made of lasers. There were immense speaker systems built into the walls which issued threats as well as religious good will messages to all who approached. It was the sort of church that you wouldn't say anything about... because the church would know what you said and rain lasers upon you.
The doom of the man in black was built. But they needed bait. The two old priests drew straws to decide who would stay. The priest who left made it known that he would be leaving for a day on the beach.
He spent his day pretending to sunbathe, pretending to build sandcastles and pretending to dip his toes in the water. Until he heard a commotion in the distance. He raced back towards his fortress with a smile on his face, the sort of smile you would have if the person who has killed ninety eight of your closest ninety nine friends had been killed. When he could peer over the next horizon however, his smile vanished. All he could see in front of him was a smoking heap of titanium and misfiring lasers. As he peered through the smoke he could make out the man in black making his escape.
Something inside him had told him that this would happen and this time he was prepared. He knew there was no sand in his eyes... he had only been pretending to touch the sand. He ran behind a nearby bush and hopped aboard his Super Priesty Priest Scooter and gave chase.
Through the desolate lands he chased the man, gaining ever so slowly until after hours, to the priests surprise, the man had pulled over. The priest pulled up and approached the man, his face red with rage.
"HAVE YOU BEEN KNOCKING DOWN OUR CHURCHES!?" The priest roared.
And the man replied
"...... no....... "

Fleur had been held under the Cruciatus for too long and her mind had begun to fray. Bits of her personality went first losing the haughty, flightiness of childhood. Then some of her less important memories like her favorite dessert and the names of her imaginary friends.
Then, right before her losses became irreversible, her mind cracked and she lost control of her thoughts. All her consciousness was aware of pain and only pain. She prayed, begged, and pleaded for it to end. She professed loyalty, fealty, her life and all others to anyone who could help, to Krum if he would just stop, but the pain continued unabated.
After an eternity, on the cusp of losing all of herself, the curse was stopped. By this point Fleur had no discernible thoughts and just slipped in and out of consciousness. She saw flashes of a duel; deathly spells and horrific hexes flying between Krum and her savior. It all faded until she felt herself be cradled and red sparks shoot up.
There in the arms of her savior, all she saw was the angelic face of Harry Potter. He came for her. He stopped the curse. Not her parents, not Madame Maxime, not Dumbledore, nor either ministry. No, it was the boy who she had discounted and was proven her wrong multiple times. He had taken out Krum and saved her from an eternity of torture. He came for her.
Harry had arrived late. He had heard the screams several hedges over and anguished as the voice creaked and cracked. He did everything he could to find a way to reach whoever it was. Harry bound and wove through the maze and, eventually after harrowing minutes listening to the voice lose strength, arrived to see Krum standing over Fleur who had long since lost her voice.
A quick back and forth left Harry with no choice but to interrupt Krum to have him stop. The shudder and coughing from Fleur at the release of the spell cause bile to squirm in Harry's stomach. Anger and disgust for the Bulgarian ran through him as his spells became less about incapacitating him and more about casting him down.
After what seemed like hours, Krum fell to the concussive force of a blasting curse. Summoning Krum's wand, Harry turned and checked over Fleur. He saw her breathing level out and become less strained as he lifted her from the awkward position she had been left in. As he tried to lay her down, Fleur seemed to come to and clutch at Harry.
As Fleur stared at him, he felt something in her eyes change. Before the second task she looked at him like an interesting side show. Afterwards, she looked at him like the rest of Gryffindor: there goes the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter. Now, her eyes held something entirely different.
In that brief instant, Fleur's gaze seemed to convey a message of respect and admiration. It was as if she acknowledged Harry's strength, not just as a competitor but as a person. Her eyes held gratitude and promise, a silent acknowledgment of his presence in her darkest hour.

From here it could go however you would want it to. Does Fleur go all crazy and kill off the competition for Harry's affection? Does her obsessive love provide a much needed affection in a time of isolation for Harry leading to two yandere being in love with one an other?

About me: I’m a 24 year old female from England, black, 5’3 and slim. Usually people start with the good stuff but I wanna scare you away with the bad stuff first 🤪

• I’m not very attractive. And I don’t mean that in a being-mean-to-myself fishing for compliments kinda way, just trying to manage expectations because I know it matters
• I have body dysmorphia which really fuels my insecurities about how I look (it’s a face not a body thing for me)
• Because I’m super insecure I don’t like taking pictures of myself and video chatting sounds pretty terrifying. I will send initial ones, but I need time to ease into things like video chatting.
  • I am into cgl which isn’t for everyone (if you don’t know what that is please look it up so I don’t have to explain it, but if you have any specific questions about my interest in it then ask)
• I’m clingy and I would like lots of attention please and thank you
• I’m a Christian and I realised that I really would want to be with another Christian
• I do not want to jump into being sexual with you, off the bat. I’m not looking for a fling, I am looking for my forever person.

Now that I hopefully scared 99% of you away, the rest is for my person 💕💕💕
I would describe myself as an empathetic creative and intelectual person I adore deep conversations about psychology philosophy, theology, politics and I love getting lost in ideas and thoughts. I’m a super bubbly and energetic person, I love to laugh! I’m very feminine and I looooove affection . I’m the kind of person who gives 100% if I’m yours.
Who I’m looking for:
I want my forever with someone who is looking for their happily ever after. I wanna do all the gross cute stuff like writing cute notes and watching movies we dislike for each other. I will always have your back, if you promise to tell me my ugly shoes are the best thing you’ve ever seen.
My hard No’s are someone who already has a gf, I’m monogamous only, and nobody with chieldren.
Please drop me a message telling me who you are and what you’re looking for 😊. I have put ads up before and I’ll be 100% honest and say I don’t always get to read every single message, so if you have messaged me before and I didn’t reply but you feel like we would be a good match, feel free to do so
✨🦋✨🦋✨🦋✨🦋✨🦋✨🦋✨🦋✨

5 stars: ( all lvl 90 expept 2) Hu tao (triple crowned), Targalia, Kazuha (Tripple crowned), Ganyu+sig (almost triple crowned), Zhongli, Cyno, Raiden (triple crowned r5 lvl 90 the catch), c1 Keqing+bis+outfit (triple crowned, c1 diluc, qiqi, c3 jean, itto, aloy, WEAPONS: Thundering pulse, Amos Bow, PJWS, Haran Geppaku Futsu, 2 skyward blades, Mistsplitter, Lost prayer, and skyward pride, (all lvl 90 and most 4 star weapons lvl 90 4 are lvl 80) loads of r5 good 4 star weapons.
Very well kept and AWSOME builds
ar 59 almost characterevery is friendship lvl 10
Almost all 100% exploration completed (rest are 85-90%)
can beat abyss with eas
any questions or offers dm (dont comment)

Would you star gaze with me?
Getting lost in every twinkling light we see.
Walk amongst the forest trees , our feet bare against the ground?
Feeling the earth without making a sound.
Would you hold my hand as we walked?
Our fingers rubbing together to express a hint of admiration.
Would you lie with me in a field of grass all alone, our bodies intertwined beneath the pale light of the moon?
Would you kiss me if I ask you too?
Would you love me as I loved you?
Would you share this moment with me,
This deep moment of beautiful passion.
This yearning for the earth and it's riches.
Making wishes despite our knowledge of them not existing.
Would you let me hold you despite the distance?
We could laugh and reminisce while the earth engulfs us in tranquility and pure Bliss.
Would you cherish this moment, this peaceful night?
Would you love the earth as much as I?
We can gather around around a crystal clear lake, dip our toes in the cool waters of the place.
Feel our bodies as they grow warmer together.
We'd never feel out of place here.
We can walk the distance path alone,
Our feet casting shadows on the dark dirt below.
We can sing with the gentle summer breeze,
Moving along as we dance together with the trees.
We can play all night until dawn returns,
Only then will we rest.
Only then will we go home.
Come play, my gentle soul mate.
Come love me beneath the stars.
For we are one beneath the pale moonlight tonight,
And we are safe amongst the spirits of the earth.

I put down muscle weakness as a condition in my pip. My knee buckled at least once a month. I cannot run or jog, my knee has popped while I’m walking and on the stairs. It’s painful and I fall whenever I do. I have to rest afterwards because it’s so painful. This has been a problem since 11.
I’ve seen multiple doctors and specialists over the years but have lost any proof of this. I can’t access my medical record either because of safeguarding concerns (??)
All I have is physiotherapy appointments from December - Feb 2023. I’m aware that muscle weakness isn’t exactly a disability but mental illness is making things hard for me to complete my physiotherapy exercises and improve. I’ve put down “it varies” but I don’t think it will score any points.

Hello everyone, I just failed my first OSCP EXAM attempt and just wanted to share the experience with you and point out my mistakes so you can learn from them (and me too lol :))
Before OSCP I Completed all offsec lab machines and done about 20 HTB boxes (ippsec OSCP/AD playlist, completed about 20 boxes from PG grounds TJ_NULL list and also completed OSCP THM path and the buffer overflow room + some other boxes on tryhackme.
I scheduled my exam on Friday at 2 PM (now I know it was a mistake :) ) and I managed to PWN 2 standalone boxes (I guess that would be around 40 points). It took me 18 hours (it's crazy there was so many rabbits holes I wasted my time on as the machines were pretty tight and it was just a small thing I missed at the beginning that made me waste hours) Anyway I took some small breaks about 6pm and 8pm to eat and shower, then it went a bit easier with clear mind so I finished both machines about 8 am (I didn't sleep, I thought I can just crack OSCP in 24hours as I used to work night shifts in the past and spending long hours in front of the monitor is something I really got used to). However about 9 am unfortunately my body and mind got really tired, and I lost motivation to continue on the AD set I was just really feeling like going to sleep and doing a second attempt soon ( I guess it happened because I took my first OSCP attempt as a "training round" subconsciously and I was kinda prepared to fail it after reading a lot of articles where people were saying that It takes a lot of practice and attempts to pass that exam, however after I pwned 2 standalone boxes I was feeling like I would have passed it if I planned the day better, especially because I spent last 2 weeks doing a lot of AD boxes and felt really comfortable about i.
The mistakes that I've done are: - I haven't prepared any healthy food for the day (ordered delivery at about 6 pm and only had some snacks later, during the night I was really hungry as I didn't prepare any food and it made me really deconcentrated

• Didn't sleep enough the night before the exam (only about 6 hours, next time I'm gonna have good sleep for about 8-10 hours before the exam day) and schedule the exam for 9-10 am ( I know I would be able to do 9 to 9 or 10 to 10 OSCP 24 hours run :) )
  
• Didn't acknowledge mentally that I'm ready to pass the exam, but took it as a training session - which in fact still can benefit me as I made a lot of notes which could be useful. I also learned what areas I should improve before starting again.
  

So basically I'm going for a week's holiday with my gf to Spain now and I'm planning to try OSCP after I come back so my body will be well-rested and I will be mentally prepared for the next round.
MY QUESTIONS:
I wanted to ask you what the best way to improve privilege escalation on Linux (I feel like I was struggling on this, I got reverse shell in 1 hour however PE made me stuck for another 10 hours + I went through LinPEAS/suggesters all lines output and everything selectively however I still couldn't see what should I do ( I had no write permission to any file, no sudo access and also wasted a lot of time trying exploits and compiling them on different VMs (GCC WASNT INSTALLED ON TARGET) only to realise that I missed little small thing at the beginning. Also, what do you do when there is no GCC on the victim machine? Does this usually mean that kernel exploits are not the way and it's a rabbit hole? Let me know your opinion. Name the best boxes on PG/HTB if you got recommendations, please.
How do you improve your SQL injection skills? I feel like I faced a lot of static HTML pages, and weird pages without .php or any other backend extensions, but they happened to have web forms that probably could have been exploited somehow but I couldn't find any attack vectors on them, and in the end, made me confused if they were just rabbit holes.
Do you recommend any short-paid courses to improve burp/web penetration testing?
Is there any good app to make a map of your whole operation? ( I use mainly CherryTree for taking notes it's brilliant but sometimes I would like to put the notes/screenshots from CherryTree on a wide map - type of board space.
I hope I didn't spoil anything about the Offsec Exam itself! Thank you everyone for your feedback and answers!
P.S SORRy for bad structure - freestyling this article on the go as I got limited time!
Thank you! M

As the title says..for almost two weeks now I haven’t been able to eat anything solid food. It started when I ended up choking on a fry. It ended up having a sharp piece on it and it scratched my throat. For a while I thought the fry was still there because I could feel something going down my throat, but it eventually disappeared. I went to Urgent Care and the ER and they both just dismissed me because I could talk fine and didn’t show any signs of choking. Only that I was very anxious and my blood pressure was high. I went to my doctor twice and both times she said my throat was pretty swollen and on top of everything my seasonal allergies are really bad and I have Acid Reflux. I have an appointment with the gastroenterologist this Thursday and I’m hoping they just have answers because I don’t know how much more I can live like this.
My throat still hurts. But I was actually starting to feel better so I tried to eat a chicken nugget…as it went down my throat I could feel it and just ended up having a really bad panic attack because I was scared of choking on it. And after all that the pain in my throat came back again and still hurts after 2 days..(I would give is a 4/10 though).
I’ve never been so miserable. I already have other health issues going on and with work stress to add to it …food was honestly my only pleasure to get me through my days…now I can’t have that. I’ve been doing nothing but sleeping to avoid the hunger pains and just hoping lots of rest will help my throat too. My anxiety has been higher than ever where even just drinking liquids freaks me out at times. I still have this feeling of a lump in my throat, but I feel that’s just the acid reflux.
If it wasn’t for my boyfriend I don’t know where I would mentally be right now. I’m still trying to hang in there but it’s hard. I keep asking myself what is wrong with me and why is this my life right now. All I wanted was to be happy again and this is what happens. I just feel so lost and done. I know there are other people out there going through worse than me so I try and do what I can to keep going…
If you made it this far, thank you for listening to my vent. If you have any suggestions please feel free to share as I could really use anything at this point.

Other stories of mine can be found in my wiki
For those who want to go back to the beginning, here's a link to book 1 chapter 1.
An image of Lon'thul
Of Men and Dragons, Book 3, Chapter 45
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The order had finally been given. A bellow arose from thousands of argu'n before everyone surged forward. Dak'ton felt his blood thirst rise as he launched himself ahead, albeit a little more slowly encombered as he was by the new tool Lord B'arthon had insisted they bring with them. Then there was a shout from the enemy lines that preceded the first volley of small spears launched toward them.
Dak'ton hadn't believed they could be thrown this far, but judging by the path they were arching in his general direction, the warrior was suddenly grateful for the large thick wooden planks Lord B'arthon had insisted they carry with them. Raising it over his head, he could hear impacts all around him and a few screams as the wooden planks proved insufficient for some in the face of such a barrage. Dak'ton himself felt a jarring impact as one small spear hit his shield and a second impact as it pierced through the wood and hit his chest plate.
The warrior froze momentarily, wondering if he was dead, before realizing the combination of wood and his bone plates must have saved his life. However, Dak'ton was further delayed by trying to wrench the spear from his chest and planks as more warriors ran past. Finally, there was a sharp jolt of pain as he pulled the spear free. He was dismayed to see a trail of blood leaking out of a wound in his chest, but it wasn't deep enough to be a serious concern, so with a grunt, he threw the spear to the ground and resumed his charge.
Looking around, it was clear others weren't as lucky as him. Several were down when the spears impaled their legs where the wood hadn't protected them. Others had spears piercing through their wood like Dak'ton had, but the spear had gone on to hit them in more lightly armored areas like their arms or sides. One unlucky warrior had his wood now pinned to his arm as he screamed and grasped the small spear in an attempt to pull it out.
As Dak'ton gained more ground, another shout went out, and he raised his wood planks again, this time bracing in place, feeling his blood rush in fear as he waited again for impact. However, he didn't have to wait as long this time and again felt a jarring impact. This time the spear pierced through his planks higher up, punching all the way through and continuing to the ground beside him, narrowly missing his head. Around him, others fared worse a second time. A few had dropped their planks after the first barrage, having been unable to wrench the spears free, and were now paying the price.
Dak'ton blinked stupidly a few times before dropping his planks as instructed and running toward the enemy lines again. Lord B'arthon had told them the enemy would only have time for two barrages before they closed the distance, and rushing there after the second would eliminate the risk of a third, and all Dak'ton wanted was to never experience something like that again. Those small spears traveled so much further and faster than normally thrown spears, and they hit much harder despite their small size.
That was when he looked at the enemy and realized Lord B'arthon had made a mistake. Only half the enemy had fired the second round. The other half was still waiting with those odd spear throwers ready to unleash their second round. Dak'ton had a moment of grudging respect for those workers' discipline before a third shout was followed by more spears launched in their direction. Without the protection of his wooden planks, a spear hit Dak'ton clean in the shoulder, and he felt himself being pulled back as if some large creature had ahold of him and was pulling him bodily to the ground. That was when the searing pain came, as though his shoulder was on fire, and Dak'ton's screams joined the chorus of those screaming around him.
-
Lack'nul had no idea how Jack had foreseen the enemy would have those wooden planks, shields he'd called them, but the guard captain was glad he had. Perhaps the human had even more magic than he let on? He'd even been right about the enemy dropping the shields before engaging in melee, saying they would likely be too crude to wield while fighting due to rushed production. Because of that, the second half of the second volley devastated the enemy's front line in the section in front of his workers.
Further down the line, the warriors of the hill people were hurling more traditional throwing spears to lesser effect, but thankfully the enemy didn't seem to have enough shields to arm their entire front line with, so the spears were still effective.
The spears and belly bows had thinned the enemy front lines, but they were still drastically outnumbered. Lack'nul shouted for the workers to discard their belly bows and take up their spears. The workers threw the bows to the ground a few feet in front of them, hoping to trip up the enemy, then raised their spears and braced for impact.
-
A'ngles frowned from his position overseeing the battlefield. The second half-and-half volley had been unexpected. Not that it had cost them too much in the way of manpower, he estimated in total they'd lost maybe a hundred warriors between all three volleys and perhaps a hundred more across the rest of the front lines to the more traditional spears, only a fraction of the two thousand warriors charging in at the moment. Still, it definitely had an impact on the morale of that all-important center formation. Moreover, they'd slowed enough that the front line had bowed back slightly in the middle. Between that, the enemy's armor, and the obstacle the bulky weapons presented on the ground, the eventual charge had much less impact than he'd expected, with more of his own men going down in the initial exchange than the enemy.
Even all this wasn't nearly enough to change the battle's outcome, but it was just a few reminders that this wasn't their usual opponent, and only the gods knew how many more surprises they had in store.
-
The fighting was starting to get desperate. Lack'nul parried blow after blow with his sword, trying to create openings for the workers next to him to take advantage of with their spears. Occasionally an enemy would go down, taking the spear with him, but then the hill people behind them would hand the worker a new spear, and the fighting continued. Then there were the longer spears being thrust from further behind by the hill people. They didn't account for much in the way of killing blows, but they were one more complication the attackers had to beware of, preventing them from striking with total confidence.
It was strange for the guard captain to be fighting on the side of the hill people against what were likely guards from other villages, but he shoved that thought out of his mind as he parried another couple of spear thrusts around him. He wondered if any of the workers he was now familiar with had already died, but again shoved the thought from his mind as he took advantage of an opening and shoved his sword through an enemy warrior's midsection.
His victim grabbed hold of the blade as he fell, and rather than fight for the weapon and leave himself open for others to take advantage of, Lack'nul let go of the weapon and shouted behind him. "Spear!" Soon enough, the shaft of a spear was pressed into his waiting hands, and the guard captain resumed the fight, spinning the end of his spear in a way meant to shake loose his opponent's grip on their own weapon before thrusting forward and scoring a grazing attack his across the warrior's throat. It wasn't deep enough to kill but more than enough to spook his opponent, who drew back for a moment in shock.
That created enough of an opening that Lack'nul should have been able to get another kill, but then he noticed a spearhead flying toward him from the side, forcing the guard captain to step back and bring up his own spear, spinning the shaft in a way to deflect the strike and allow him to bring his own spearhead around to strike, driving his second foe back before turning his attention to the first, swiping with the butt of his spear before bringing the head around for another strike more designed to buy a moment than land a killing blow.
The guard captain was breathing heavily, wondering how much longer he should try to hold this spot.
-
A'ngles watched intently as the fighting continued, focusing most of his attention on that all-important center line. He could see individual fighters moving back and forth on both sides. Occasionally some fell and were replaced, but the armor on the workers kept them alive longer. But, of course, that also meant they were constantly fighting for extended periods, unable or unwilling to switch out with the less well-armed and armored allies behind them. In a massive battle like this, endurance was the key to victory, and it was just a matter of time before his greater numbers took their toll. Perhaps it was simply his imagination, but it seemed like the enemy line was starting to bow just the slightest amount in the middle. He just had to keep the pressure on...
Turning to two of his aide, the Village Lord issued his orders. "Send a runner to either flank and order fifty warriors from each to peel off and reinforce the center."
The aide nodded and repeated his orders to two runners as the old Lord continued to observe the battle.
-
Lon'thul traveled through the forest with an arrow knocked but not drawn as he crept ahead of the rest. Aside from Jack, Angela, Em'brel, and the wolgen all at the rear, the rest in their group were all hunters, used to moving quickly and silently through the underbrush, but even compared with the proud hunters of the hill people, Lon'thul was the undisputed master of his trade. So he walked ahead of the rest to look for ambushes.
It could have been just another day on the hunt if it weren't for the sounds of battle a little to his right. The hunter was glad non of his friends could see him at the moment, or else they'd notice his characteristic grin was absent in favor of a more stern expression. Something felt off about the forest, and he couldn't quite place a talon on what it was. He felt as if a presence had passed through not long ago, but the only person who could move this subtly was...
That was when the hunter noticed another scout ahead of his position. By Lon'thul's standard, he was moving loudly and clumsily. Looking around to ensure there wasn't anyone else present, Lon'thul took aim while inhaling silently. Once he had his target, he began exhaling while drawing back on the string, letting loose the arrow when he was about halfway out of air. After long hours of practice and countless hunts, he knew the arrow would fly true. However, he couldn't help but momentarily hold his remaining breath as he waited anxiously for a fraction of a second it took the arrow to clear the distance to its target.
As expected, the arrow embedded itself into his target's throat, pinning him to the tree behind him as the scout struggled briefly before falling limp. After ensuring there was no other movement to indicate another watcher, Lon'thul crept up and silently removed the arrow. Jack had once again been proven correct. It looked like B'arthon had sent an ambush to cut off their flanking maneuver. However, if the hunter could get enough of their scouts quickly enough, they might be able to ambush their ambushers. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he mimicked a kovaack's grunt to signal a halt. To his ears, it sounded nothing like an actual kovaack, but other hunters had told him it had an uncanny similarity from a small distance away.
Assuming one to two hundred warriors, they probably had ten to fifteen scouts. As the hunter snuck through the brush, he kept his ears open for any minor disturbances. A shadow out of place, or the sound of a twig cracking where he knew no animal would be. After an agonizingly long minute during which he tried to not think about what was happening in the main battle, he found another hunter, but this one was dangerously close to a second.
Lon'thul frowned, sliding sideways to get a shot from their flank with his back to the position of the one he'd already taken out so he could sneak closer to take his shot. Finally, after a few more agonizingly long seconds, he was in position, and the hunter knocked another arrow.
Standing and drawing in one smooth motion, Lon'thul took quick aim at the further of the two hunters before either knew what happened and loosed his arrow. However, rather than wait for his arrow to hit the target this time, Lon'thul dropped his bow while drawing a knife in one smooth action and flung the blade at the second scout, who was already starting to move at the appearance of the enemy from his supposedly protected flank.
Once again, rather than wait, Lon'thul leaped at his target, who was starting to fall, opening his mouth to shout out, but the hunter wrapped his arm around his victim's throat, slamming his mouth shut on his tongue, turning the scout's shout into a loud whimper as the hunter finished the job.
Lon'thul grabbed his knife and slunk back into the shadows, waiting for more scouts to come to check on the sounds of the scuffle. It was only after none appeared for over a minute that the hunter retrieved his arrow and returned to his bow with a frown. He was confident he'd been quiet enough to avoid detection by the main force, but the next scout over should have heard the twigs snapping as the two combatants struggled. Had he simply run back to report the disturbance without checking on the source of it? Given Lon'thul's reputation, it might have been a good move, but then the whole group would be "ambushing" every medium-sized animal in the forest, giving away their position! It didn't make sense...
The hunter calmed himself. Rather than jumping to conclusions, the only thing for him to do was precisely what he thought they should have done, go and check it out. He'd simply have to trust Angela to inform the rest if he walked into some ambush since she was silently watching everything from his headset.
As he rounded another tree, he found some disturbed underbrush roughly where he expected the next scout to be. As he crept closer, he realized there was a body there. The scout was already dead!
Lon'thul froze, holding his bow and ready to draw in the blink of an eye if any threat presented itself and thought rapidly. He knew he was the only one of his people's scouts out this far, so it couldn't have been any of his men. But what purpose could they have for placing this body here? He'd suspect a trap, but it made no sense. Still, it wouldn't help anyone if he stayed here any longer than he had to, so Lon'thul resumed movement, redoubling his efforts to remain silent and hidden as he moved.
After another moment, he came to another likely location and, after a moment of observation, found another dead scout. This time the hunter crept closer, inspecting the body. The sout's throat had been slit, likely from behind. He could even imagine someone's hand wrapping around the poor scout's mouth to silence any shout before the knife had done its work. That meant someone had walked right up behind the scout as he'd been searching for his own prey. Lon'thul might have been able to pull that off on a good day, but he'd never have risked it with so much on the line. Remembering the presence he'd felt earlier, he realized only one other hunter could pull something this brazen off...
Now Lon'thul was fully alert, scanning every shadow and listening for even the slightest disturbances while waiting with an arrow ready. This time he didn't have the luxury of waiting for his opponent to act first. He had to take the initiative and do it now! But beating his father in a duel wasn't his objective. Outmaneuvering the enemy force was. Putting a hand on the headset, the hunter activated the com and broke silence for the first time. "My position may be compromised, but if you move fast, you can still take the enemy unaware. Tell Jack to charge now!"
Putting his hand down, Lon'thul settled into position and readied another arrow. He knew his father wouldn't kill him like the other scouts, but that didn't mean the old hunter wouldn't try to pull him out of the battle now that he'd given away his location. The younger hunter would just have to be even faster this time...
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wiki

In case you missed it and are interested, book 1 is available to purchase in digital or physical form.
If you want to support my work or help me cover the costs of publishing, you can find my Patreon here. Though it's not necessary, I'm really just glad you took the time to read my stories.

[This is a translated excerpt from Clemens Traub’s “Future for Fridays?”. It’s a reflection about his time as an activist in “Fridays for Future” – the German branch of “School Strike for Climate”. The specific problems of western environmentalism adressed therein is germane to the issue of dysfunctional leftism often discussed on stupidpol and as far as I can tell nothing of this unique to Germany. The book is from 2020 and by now the movement “Fridays for Future” basically defunct. Meanwhile, the preferred tactic of current activists is it to glue themselves on main roads during rush hour. This protest method obviously affects working class people most, who usually have to physically show up at work (and often have to use cars to do so), and is less disruptive for the WFH email caste. The result of this is, surprisingly, a staggering 80+% disapproval rating for the climate organization “Last Generation” which is doing this.]
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I know the typical milieu of most “Fridays for Future” protesters well. In a way, it's my own and that of my current circle of friends: metropolitan, left-liberal, hip. A space for the daughters of doctors to meet the sons of lawyers. Gin tasting and discussions about plastic-free shopping and zero waste are equally high on the agenda. Veganism is as much part of the unspoken code of being trendy as frequenting second-hand shops. And the organic grocery store around the corner naturally enhances the location of your own home.
The offspring of the professional class keep to themselves. Does the climate movement represent a cross-section of society? Not even close! Fridays for Future is the rebellion of the privileged, and the movement offers them the perfect opportunity to flaunt their own cosmopolitan lifestyle and talent.
Many of my climate-concerned friends are questioning whether the social background of the demonstrators matters at all. Isn't that absolutely unimportant? The main thing, they are convinced, is that the earth is saved. It doesn't matter by whom. The population has been silent for long enough, and now it is finally time to stand up.
I admit that the consistency of this chain of thought was extremely appealing to me and that using social origin as an argument against a group is of course nonsensical. The outlined combative spirit also enthralled me at first. At the beginning of my participation in "Fridays for Future", saving the world was the only thing that counted for me. It didn’t matter who stood by my side. And it still wouldn’t matter for me today.
But what matters to me is the behavior and reasoning of the people protesting with me. And here the circle closes, because the social background reveals more about the movement than the demonstrators would like to admit.
In fact, I take the view that the exclusive social background of the young protesters is the actual birth defect of "Fridays for Future". But because the movement was far too homogeneous, far too elitist and correspondingly far too aloof right from the start, its members remained oblivious to it. Ultimately, only those who are doing well in material terms have the time and leisure to consider climate protection as the most important and also the only political issue of our time and to subordinate everything else to it.
Located in its ivory tower, the movement doesn't even notice that its criticism is leveled at the lifestyle of many economically disadvantaged people, who for financial reasons do not always have a choice. They are denounced as climate sinners because they don't shop in health food stores but at discounters. It never occurs to the demonstrators that there are people whose worries about ever-increasing electricity bills and rental charges make a discussion about forgoing air travel irrelevant from the outset.
And how could they? In their sheltered world, all of that is very far away. But that is exactly what makes the movement a risk, because it jeopardizes the already fragile cohesion of our society. For a large part of the population, however, other, more pressing everyday concerns prevail. For those who are afraid of being affected by job cuts in view of the announcements by the industry, the slashing and burning of tropical rain forest is currently of secondary importance.
Likewise, the extinction of exotic animal species is very far away for someone who worries every day about their tenuous retirement arrangements. That doesn't mean that everyday worries should completely obscure the problems of climate change, but it does explain why climate change is not the first priority for people with existential concerns.
It also explains why measures to save the climate must take economic concerns into account. And it explains why more and more people are wondering whether protesters will finally also take to the streets to deal with their everyday distress: lack affordable housing, declining pensions... plenty of issues exist.
The entire political discourse, both between the parties and outside of parliament, on the street, completely ignores the reality of life for many people in Germany! And I can well imagine that that's not a good feeling for many. The public discussions, which are often far removed from everyday life, exclude less privileged people. The result: we are all sitting on a social powder keg.
I don't originally hail from this metropolitan milieu, but grew up in a region that is often dismissed as "rural backwater". Publications such as "Landlust" and "Landleben" [trendy magazines promoting life in the country side] fulfill the longing of city dwellers for pure nature, but this dream only seems to apply to those people who consciously decide to have a weekend house in the forest. However, anyone who grew up in a rural environment will hardly benefit from this.
My parents live in the Palatinate. I grew up there too. My heart clings to the region, it is scenically beautiful with rows of wine-growing villages. But for an urbanite in pursuit of self-actualization it has to be the worst nightmare. In case your are unfamiliar with Palatinate’s culture: Schlachtfest instead of whiskey tasting. Very few apartments are actually furnished in this “country style” featured in the magazines. My home village isn’t shooting location for documentaries about gentrification. Maybe a camera team will get lost in one of our many hamlets at a Saumagen-centered village festival. But that would be pretty rare.
Drowsy villages provide the perfect backdrop while growing up. An ideal, idyllic world. But the older I got, the more I was drawn to the big city. I longed for a place that was more vibrant than the Palatinate and which could offer me more adventures and opportunities on the way to adulthood. Precisely this big, wide world I longed for. And I today I indeed enjoy its advantages. Whenever I drive home today, I have a feeling that two worlds that don't really have much to do with each other are colliding.
Shortly after attending my first Fridays for Future rallies, I paid another visit to my old homeland – these are becoming less and less frequent. When I enthusiastically told my acquaintances there about my experiences at the recent "Fridays for Future" demonstrations, I quickly realized how little they were interested. Out of pure friendship and politeness, they listened to me with half an ear.
I was quite surprised by that. What was the most hotly debated topic of recent weeks in my university town was met with absolute indifference among my old school friends here. They were more interested in the last day of the Bundesliga match or their last Tinder date than in the great climate revolution.
To be honest, I was initially disappointed and then increasingly angry at this lack of interest. While we young people in the big cities are trying to save our planet, the people in my home village are letting us down, I thought. Don't they understand that they too only have one planet at their disposal, just like us from "Fridays for Future"? Luckily, out of politeness, I kept those thoughts to myself.
In the days that followed, I started hearing disparaging comments about Fridays for Future with increasing frequency. In the eyes of my old friends, the movement was an "eco-sect", the self-promotion of big-city, left-wing weirdos. Someone called Greta Thunberg a "deranged menace". In addition to insults, they appeared to become increasingly bothered by the patronizing demeanor of many Fridays for Future protesters, who seem to perceive ICE-car drivers and meat eaters as second-class citizens.
The more often this happened, the deeper the wedge was driven between my current city life and my origins in my home village in the Palatinate. Between my old and my new world. For the first time in my life, I was just happy when I was able to drive back to the big city: finally the ideal world again, even if it was on the verge of collapse.
Ever since that visit, I've been quite hypersensitive whenever my enthusiasm for "Fridays for Future" wasn't shared 100 percent. In my eyes, there were simply only climate heroes on the one hand and climate sinners on the other. The absolute good or absolute bad – and nothing in between! It was only later that I realized how much I was already influenced by the “Fridays for Future” movement.
At first I could only offer my my old acquaintances reproaches. I accused them of being apolitical and uninformed about the world anyway. A mechanism of exclusion that is very common in "Fridays for Future", as I later realized. After all, at university I even mocked my old acquaintances as provincials, something I had always hated myself when my new metropolitan friends teased me about it.
But it was so much easier to just dismiss them as uninformed "provincials" than to argue with them and take them seriously. I didn't ask why my friends from my old home country saw "Fridays for Future" as arrogant or aloof, I didn't care at the time. Possible self-doubts could not arise in the first place.
I didn't anticipate, that this would actually fiercely play up in me over the coming weeks! I thought more and more about the experiences in my home country. It just wouldn't let me go. Where does the rejection of “Fridays for Future” come from, I asked myself. Where does the indifference in the face of urgent global climate problems come from? How could it be that my friends didn't see those and that they didn't comprehend the seriousness of the situation? I looked for answers but couldn't find any.
For several weeks, every Friday, there was no longer any plastic dishware in the university cafeteria. This gesture, following the "Fridays for Future" demonstrations, was intended to set an example for environmental protection. What should have caused storms of enthusiasm in theory, however, meant a very special kind of chaos in practice: balancing a piece of raspberry cake on your bare hand without a plate is more difficult than it might sound. Once the first piece of cake hit the floor, a discussion about the plastic boycott quickly broke out in the canteen.
It immediately turned out that the cashiers could only laugh at what they considered to be an idiotic ban on plastic. Their statements shocked many of my fellow students, who are big "FfF" fans. Instead of relaxed humorous small talk, my fellow students reacted with deadly seriousness. In the heat of the moment, the cashiers were even treated with extremely condescending insults. I will never forget how my fellow students lost all human decency that day in the supposed fight for climate protection. For the first time I noticed how fanatical and arrogant many of my "FfF" acquaintances had long since become.
After that event, something actually changed in me. But I didn't want to admit it to myself at first. But the more often I demonstrated at "Fridays for Future", the more alien the movement became to me. Today I know: It took an event like the one in the university canteen or a stay in my old home country to open my eyes and to realize how important sincerely attempting to understand other realms of experience before applying crude labels to people. Due to its exclusionary megalomania, “Fridays for Future” is incapable of this realization. But only a person who approaches other people, takes them seriously and wants to understand their everyday lives will be listened to. Only those people can actually affect something. They might even, in the best case scenario, save our planet!
While "Fridays for Future" was unable to make inroads my home village’s community, the media was showed more interest. Interviews with activists became more and more frequent on television. The talk shows couldn't get enough of them. "Markus Lanz", "Anne Will" or "Hart aber Fair": All of them had at least one "FfF" activist to visit. The more I saw them there, the more their arrogant demeanor bothered me. I suddenly switched off people who I still saw as inspiring personalities a few months ago. They kept raising their index fingers admonishingly. Looking down from the ivory tower at anyone who disagreed.
Finger wagging was slowly but surely becoming the hallmark of the movement. Their image of the enemy was crystal clear. Their worldview is dangerously one-dimensional. My big city friends suddenly fought everyone they saw as being complicit in the misery of the world: the meat eaters, the plastic bag carriers, the ICE-car drivers, the short-haul fliers, the long-haul fliers, the cruise tourists, the farmers, and of course the evil SUV owners. But honestly, don't we all belong to one of these groups from time to time?
Once they suddenly started cursing anyone who accidentally commits a tiny climate sin, even if it's just incorrect sorting of trash, I felt like they were in the ultimate battle against the rest of humanity. Elitist hubris everywhere I looked. In their moral arrogance they were (and still are) completely unaware of how many "normal" people they alienated by doing so. My assessment that "Fridays for Future" is primarily a movement of socially privileged young people has now been backed up by corresponding figures. The Berlin “Institute for Protest and Movement Research” got to the bottom of the social composition of the climate movement. On March 15, 2019, it surveyed “Fridays for Future” protesters at rallies in Berlin and Bremen. The study was financed by the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen-affiliated "Heinrich Böll Foundation".
The study’s results were illuminating: More than 90 percent of those surveyed stated that they had at least completed their Abitur (or advanced technical college entrance qualification) or were currently striving to do so. An overwhelming majority of 90 percent! Not even 1 percent of the demonstrators attended secondary schools [which prepare pupils for non-academic vocational training]. Almost two-thirds of the students considered themselves to be in the upper-middle class. Even before that, I had no doubt that "Fridays for Future" is a movement of the affluent. But what I read in this study surpassed my estimated. "Fridays for Future" does not in any way represent a cross-section of society, as has often been claimed.
I was surprised how little the sobering result of the study was then discussed. Society had to be informed about the privileged background and the resulting aloofness of the young protesters. Doesn't this change the entire perspective on the defining social debate of the last few months?
The figureheads of the movement in particular all come from the “most bourgeois” background. For example, we have Luisa Neubauer, the best-known German "Fridays for Future" activist. She grew up in the relatively expensive Elbe suburb of Iserbrook in Hamburg. Everyone in Hamburg knows: Not exactly a residential area that is known for its social housing. She did her Abitur in Hamburg-Blankenese. It is Hamburg's villa district par excellence. Sightseeing buses now offer tours through the district to present the magnificent villas to curious tourists. She is a scholarship holder of the party-affiliated foundation Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and is also a member of the party. So nothing stands in the way of a career in politics, she says so herself. "I don't want to rule out a career in politics," she told Zeit Campus, for example. [Neubauer is, in fact, a scion of the oligarchical Reemtsma clan; so is her cousin, another figurehead of the movement]
It’s less a rebellion from below and more a case of perfect self-marketing. But now cracks do appear in this underdog stage production. Today Luisa Neubauer can only be reached via her management. Demonstrators as pop stars! And of course you can't just talk to them on the street when you're demonstrating together. At least not with “Fridays for Future”. Please, what a naive notion! Although there are also critics of the excessive portrayal of people within the "Fridays for Future" movement, there is no real change in sight.
In the meantime, the climate movement has become one thing in particular: a career springboard for ambitious young elites. "Fridays for Future" is the perfect stage to make a name for yourself. Many of the educated offspring of academics are of course aware of this. The more media attention, the more attractive it is to be in the front row. Supposedly idealistic activism can now be marketed very well.
But not only the figureheads like Luisa Neubauer want to get some of the public spotlight. More and more "Neubauer disciples" are trying their luck in the "Fridays for Future" profiling machine. There we have, to name just a few examples, Linus Steinmetz, Carla Reemtsma or Sebastian Grieme.
Getting an appearance on a talk show or at least being able to read your name in the newspaper - all of this can become an opportunity of a lifetime. Being in the front row not only feels incredibly good, it is also a kind of free ticket for later professional life. And as if that wasn't enough: A flood of new Instagram followers is of course also a fantastic side effect. With this in mind: full speed ahead!
Who could object? Everyone is looking for recognition. Doesn't everyone want to take advantage of the opportunities in their life? And finally, every society needs ambitious young people who will later enrich politics, business and culture.
At best, people who want to be the center of attention also bear responsibility for themselves and others. So far no problem, you might think at first.
But how will many people with limited financial resources feel when those rebels who constantly lash out at the lifestyles of others take advantage of it for themselves? While many citizens have to accept new climate costs in their everyday lives, they also experience how Luisa Neubauer is offered a position on the supervisory board at Siemens. In view of this, the suspicion of many people that climate activists are making careers at the expense of other citizens is all too understandable.
I have other concerns as well. In our time, the frustration with the elites is growing. The "enraged citizen phenomenon" has become one of the most discussed topics of this decade. Intellectuals around the world are concerned about the cause of this worrying development. Our society is currently experiencing a "rift" between two major population groups. In an anthology they edited, the political and social scientists Wolfgang Merkel, Ruud Koopmans and Michael Zürn differentiate between “cosmopolitans” and “communitarians”.
There are those who benefit from the future and are therefore relaxed about it. Above all, they see opportunities in it and view the globalization of our world with optimism. This group is referred to as cosmopolitans. But many people are also afraid of change. They believe that the future will not hold anything good and, potentially, only the ever-possible economic decline. Given the "opening" of the world, communitarians see the dangers in particular. They often have the feeling that they are not really noticed by society's elite.
The well-known distinction between “anywheres” and “somewheres” by the British journalist and author David Goodhart supports this finding. Goodhart distinguishes "anywheres" who are educated, wealthy and will feel at home in their circles around the world, and "somewheres". They belong to completely different social milieus and are relegated to a specific place where they work, live, have their friends and struggle to assert their status.
Most "Fridays for Future" activists know: the future belongs to them. Many have the classic biography of a cosmopolitan. Because of their social background, they were born with everything they needed to benefit from our system. Everything is just right: the appearance, the social environment and of course the education.
Although they face the end of the world as a constant threat, their future does not scare them. Why? The doors are wide open for them. They master the complicated rules of our individualized knowledge society very well. You will do your internship in Brussels and not in Bottrop. Better the EU Commission than retail, a sector without future anyway. And also: cultivate connections! Your English vocabulary is usually larger than German. Perfectly prepared for the future, come what may - because they are the elite of tomorrow. The dangerous thing about it: most of the demonstrators are not even aware of this.
The well-trained "Fridays for Future" activists prefer to see themselves as misunderstood outsiders in society. Being an outsider is what makes rebellion sexy. At the same time I say to myself: What must a socially disadvantaged person think when suddenly wealthy cosmopolitans like to play the role of the outsider! And they don't just like it the role. No, they are really putting effort into staging it.
The classic distribution of roles between "perpetrator" and "victim" in the social context is thus turned upside down in a negligent manner: no longer the single mother and multi-jobber is seen as a victim of the existing social conditions, but the climate-conscious scholarship holder who has to experience how the consumption of affordable meat endangers our environment.
But that's not all: instead of listening to the concerns of hard-working people, they blame them for their environmentally unfriendly diesel car, which they need for their daily commute to work.
Instead of considering questions of justice with "Fridays for Future", the movement reduced itself from the start to questions of lifestyle. In my circle of friends, too, the extinction of species is simply cooler than poverty in old age and the issue of gender is hipper than low basic pension.
Above all, the privileged know the social code of the new “morally good” life. The new green-bourgeois bearing regulates the friend-foe scheme of the climate debate. A mechanism of exclusion that often pushes fellow citizens who are already worse off even further aside. A good person has long been only someone who can show an ecologically sound certificate of good conduct. The existential feeling of many that they just have to somehow make ends meet does not exist in the living environment of the (upper) bourgeois offspring. In the climate debate of the last few months, worlds have collided that couldn't be more different. Worlds that are moving further and further apart.
----------------------------------
[The author doesn’t mention it, but the social milieu that makes up the bulk of the climate movement is also very fond of importing Anglo-inspired race discourse. Towards the end of its decline, they were increasingly caught in purity spirals. For example: should white musicians with dreadlocks be allowed to play during happenings?
The study from “Institute for Protest and Movement Research” also examined ethnicity of the protesters: they are predominantly of ethnic German stock, much more so than the average German citizen. Who could have known?]

8:02pm With a spark of excitement, I took out my bag of dried mushrooms and measured out four grams. I eagerly placed them in my mouth at my desk, ready to embark on a creative journey. I gave myself a reassuring smile and thought, “It’s been a while since I’ve done this.” As I swallowed the mushrooms, I felt my anticipation build for what was to come. I was ready to take on a new art project or whatever else the mushrooms had in store for me.
8:42pm I felt absolutely fine and was still glued to my phone like I always am, which reassured me. I began to relax, leaning back in my chair and waving my hands in the air with a smile on my face. I then turned my attention to the ceiling, watching the patterns twist and distort as I focused my gaze on them. It was only when I paid attention that I saw this phenomenon occurring.
9:30pm I felt absolutely ecstatic as I went about my chores in the kitchen. My mind was flooded with positive thoughts and emotions, and I felt a renewed sense of self-confidence. Even taking out the garbage in the dark was an enjoyable experience. I felt a sense of forgiveness and love for myself and others as I went about my tasks. It was an incredibly empowering and uplifting experience.
10:03 pm I was in a state of euphoria after ingesting 2 additional grams and listening to more music. I felt like I could really connect to the vocal elements of the music and I was able to stay focused on my thoughts without getting too distracted. I was so immersed in the music that I was really enjoying the moment and felt like I could let go and get lost in the sound.
11:41pm I had a fiendish desire to consume an additional 5 grams of shrooms, so I decided to take the plunge. The experience that ensued was intense, and when I went to clean the bathroom I realized that it was a task that I was not up to. I was zoning out and my mind was in a state of mental exhaustion. Despite the fact that I was feeling overwhelmed, I was determined to make it through the night on a positive note.
12:30am I walked back into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, sighing as I tugged at my hair gently. I closed my eyes and felt the soothing massage of my scalp. As I opened my eyes, I was greeted by a mesmerizing sight. The counter top seemed to have transformed into a pattern. When closing my eyes there was 3D colored geometry like a rainbow laser. The more I starred, the more detail emerged and formed, captivating my attention.
12:55am I felt like I was almost done with the experience, but my positive mood had begun to dip. As I watched television, I saw Joe Biden rambling, and this was where I started to feel the most intense effects. I wanted to find something more uplifting to watch, but I couldn't seem to find anything that could help me. Despite my efforts to focus, the visuals persisted and my concentration was waning. It was clear that I had reached a point of diminishing returns.
2:07am I was well into the trip when I started to feel a sense of dread. My imagination was running wild and I was feeling a discomfort in my muscles that I was struggling to shake off. Despite my anxiety, I was able to ignore my hypochondria and focus on the journey ahead.
2:30am I couldn't help but giggle as I went back to my desk and put my ear buds in. The screen of my device had been given a facelift, but after a few unsuccessful attempts, I realized that the update hadn't been applied. I was having difficulty with my executive motor functions, so I found it difficult to refill my mechanical pencil. After a few minutes of frustration, I concluded that the issue was with the pen itself and decided to stick with a regular pencil.
3:06am It was now towards the end of the hallucinogenic effects and I had a few sips of 7up, beer and a saltine cracker to balance myself out. The effects had been intense but the combination of refreshment and sustenance provided me with a sense of resolution. I felt ready to rest and my mind drifted into sleep.

First off apologies if this turns into a bit of a ramble. I decided to create an account to post about my experience of the game so far.
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Bought the game and xpacs around the first week of May and have already wracked up nearly 155 hours. Occasionally I have left the game running while I have been doing other things, but the majority of the time has been in-game figuring things out.
The crazy thing when I first stumbled into the subreddit was seeing all the "I'm still a noob, only X hundred hours played" posts and wondered wtf was going on. Didn't realise people were actually being serious and it was just a joke.
I can honestly say in the ~155 hours I have played I have barely scratched the surface. I completely understand what all those posts were about now.
I have had about 3 or 4 runs at the moment. Each not getting too far in till I decided to restart and try a different strat or start. My main focus has been on the economy. I have to admit this game tickles every single dopamine receptor I have for gaming. My previous go to was Patrician 4 purely because of the logistic side of things and trying to get that efficiency across the Hansa.
So, like I said, I have been focusing on the economy and struggling along, picking up bits of information and refining what I do. The mules and warehouse mod has been an absolute godsend. It just makes getting things moving so much easier.
Admittedly I did have some troubles with it at the beginning where my ships didnt seem to want to transfer anything. I got round this by the following:

• making sure static set to <15% rest was default on dist mules
• let stock build up
• turned off auto buy allocation and set it to max
• turned off auto pricing and set -/+ 10% of avg

This seemed to get things moving around although I do still get the odd time where ships just keeps taking things back and forward.
I have also been dabbling with mining stations. These seem like a good way of keeping output maxed while distributing resources to the required station. Was using L miners to gather and M to move things.
I have got as far as making a hull parts factory most of the time before things start to slow down a bit and I make an attempt at another method of keeping credits flowing in to match the building I have been doing.
My last play I went and claimed the abandoned destroyer from Xenon space and then bought a fleet of 20 Ides Vanguard then created 2/3 ship fleets at each of the shipyard/warfs set as an anchor and then set them to DeadTater. This was pretty decent until activity started ramping up. I couldnt keep up the building and ship losses made that worse.
My current playthrough I have had 2 interceptors set on repeat orders to fly and wait behind the Second Contact / True Sight gate then Collect Drops. I then have a third interceptor set to Inventory Collector (great mod btw). This has been generating some great income which has helped me quickly spin up a mining station, solar station, graphene and refined metals factories.
The only issue with this current playthgrough is the Xenon seem to be pretty aggressive and have wiped out the Argon Warf. I have resorted to using the Paranid Warf as my ship maker for the time being. I dont think this is even that long into the palythrough, around 10 hours.
This has slowed down my build speed as I keep losing interceptors and the Argons were pretty cheap to buy from. I also seem to be stuck with nearly 8m worth of illegal stuff because I dont have enough rep with the HAT Free Port to sell slicers and other items of the ilk. I have been working on this though. I had already completed the initial HAT plot line and have grabbed some other smaller quests.
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Some issues that I have run into:
Stations do not have any traffic.
Literally zero civillian traffic floating around a station. The usual NPC ships come and go but nothing that would turn criminal that you can shoot for rep. Fix this by save and reload.
Stations not being populated with traders.
Walking into the trading area and there is no NPC to speak to. Same with other areas of the station, save the manager, generally. Save and reload to fix.
Game doesn't exit or reload properly. Recently I have found that when I save and reload the game it just gets stuck on initialising. Does nothing after that and I have to force quit and restart the game.
Similarly when exiting the game it just gets stuck on the last scene shown and then I have to open task manager and close it.
Mods I currently use:

• VRO
• VRO Icon Pack
• Mules, Supply and Warehouses Extended
• Cleaner HUD
• Kuda AI Tweaks
• Sector Satellites
• Inventory Collector
• Sector Patrol
• Sector Explorer
• TaterTrade
• Player Restock Subordinates

I Have tried to keep it pretty close to vanilla - I see these as almost required QoL mods.
I have plans in future to try out the SW Interworlds mod. Love the idea of this.

This is a long one, I never post on Reddit but genuinely I don’t know what else to do.
I went to a local 2 year community college after graduating in 2022. My college was completely paid for through financial aid, and even if it wasn’t, my parents wouldn’t pay for it. My dad couldn’t afford it and though my mom had the ability to, she made it very clear she had no intentions of helping me out with college from the get go.
The issue started in the fall of 2022. I was in four classes, two in person, one hybrid, and one online. I did good for a few weeks but quickly the workload became too much for me to handle and I just shut down. I was working part time and was dealing with a lot of family drama with my mom and her husband and I just couldn’t handle it. Looking back, I could’ve done a lot more. There was a point in the semester where I didn’t even check for assignments or anything. It’s embarassing to admit but there was just something stopping me mentally from doing it. I ended up with a warning, meaning I could return for the spring semester with my fafsa but I had to raise my GPA. I decided not to tell my parents about the probation because I genuinely planned on raising my GPA and fixing things. In the spring, I was enrolled in four in person classes. On Mondays, I was on campus from 8:30-5:30 in back to back classes. Wednesday’s, I was there 8:30-2:40 also in back to back classes. The rest of the week I was working, maybe about 15-20 hours a week. At this point, I had enough of what was going on with my mom and her husband and decided to live full time with my dad. It was really emotionally draining for me. I won’t get into details here but it was a lot. I also got into drinking with my friends on our days off. As the semester went on, I just lost touch. I guess it was a mix of everything with my family, long days on campus, working, and then wanting to be with my friends. I fully understand and admit that I could’ve done all these things and still succeeded anyways. I’m not trying to make excuses, just explaining the circumstances around what was going on.
That being said, I knew that I had to raise my GPA or risk losing my FAFSA. It stressed me out a lot but i still chose to skip and not do assignments. I really wish I had a decent explanation for why. I don’t know why I shut down when things get difficult. Everyone I’ve talked to about this says it was just burnout but it doesn’t feel that way. I know I had a lot going on but I still feel like I was just lazy. The semester went on and I didn’t raise my GPA. In May, my dad sat me down and asked me honestly if I was going to class. I told him no, and that I was thinking about taking time off. We made an agreement that while I wasn’t in school I would work full time and help with bills. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I would be suspended academically, but I knew that if I was, I would just be suspended for the summer semester and would be able to return in the fall assuming I could regain my FAFSA. I told my dad that I wanted to take the fall semester off to work and decide on a new major, he said that he didn’t agree but that he supported me and loved me anyways. Shorty after we had this talk, I received an email just like the one I had received in December informing me of my academic probation. It struck me as weird, because I was already on probation and my first warning, therefore the next step would be suspension and losing my FAFSA. I knew in the back of my mind this was some mistake on the colleges part, and that I was on suspension and would be losing my FAFSA. But I held onto hope that maybe I was wrong and had another chance at fixing things. I decided not to tell my dad, as he never knew that I was on probation to begin with. It was probably a good couple weeks before I received another email stating that the previous information was a mistake, I was on academic suspension for the summer and my FAFSA would not be reinstated. I was upset but I knew it was coming. I decided that I wasn’t going to tell my dad, as he already knew I was taking time off. I was going to handle everything myself, appeal my FAFSA and hope I get it back. And in the meantime, hold up my part of the agreement and work full time. I was also informed that I had to pay back part of my FAFSA in order to re enroll, but figured that working full time I would be able to take care of it myself. I did feel guilty about hiding it from him, but I was in so deep I didn’t feel like I could come clean. My dad and I are very close. He has always had my back and supported me and I didn’t want to disappoint him. In my mind, I was an adult and it was my mistakes to fix, and I had planned on fixing them.
This morning, my dad came into my room, visibly angry, and said we needed to talk. He said he was going to give me one shot to be honest about what was going on with school and I told him everything. He said he already knew, that this morning my mom had received a letter addressed to me that informed her of the academic suspension. He is pissed and rightfully so. He said he’s disappointed about school, but more upset that I lied to him. And he’s completely right. He said his first thought was to sell my car that’s in his name and let me figure it out for myself, talking about kicking me out. He asked me a bunch of questions about what happened and I told him honestly. I didn’t tell him about the drinking, but everything else I came clean about. He said everyone else in my family is pissed, and that apparently they told him that they thought I was going down this path, but he defended me to them. It was really upsetting to hear but I deserve to hear it. I have let him down so much and he doesn’t deserve it at all. He told me he wasn’t sure how he planned on punishing me, but that I wasn’t allowed to go out with my friends and I’d only be allowed to go back and forth to work. I will also have to find a full time job as soon as possible, but I was already looking for one. I really don’t know where to go from here. I know this is all my fault, and it’s all a consequence of my own actions, but I don’t know what else to do. I had it really good and I fucked everything up. I don’t think my dad or anyone else in my family will ever be able to trust me again. Im lucky he’s even letting me live here. I don’t know how to make things right and I don’t know what I should do. There’s a lot of detail I’m leaving out, so if I need to elaborate on anything I will.

TL;DR: Partner and I are both ADHD and our adhd life coping mechanisms are not working anymore... how do we restructure our life and household? Looking for advice on how to even think it through.
I was that weird "gifted kid" my whole life. I got through college with a dual BS in mathematics and BA in English lit/writing and a minor in physics from a top 10 university. I have always been a swimmer with absolutely no land-based athletic ability haha and I was coping with stress by exercising like 4 hours a day 5 days a week and an hour or so on the other days. Healthy coping mechanisms haha never met her.
When I graduated and went to work full time, life was suddenly 100x harder at least. My physical health problems started presenting at this point too. I had moved all the way across the country so I was just fumbling through it alone haha. I made it work and my career went on a (successful) roller coaster (data analytics and engineering) until 2021 when I lost my job. That's a long story of me changing positions, covid, 5 managers quitting, chronic health problems, and ableism but I'm also able to admit that I was not a very good program manager so that was a bad fit position.
It took a year to get my physical health under control enough to get a job. I have a job, it's been about 8 months now, another data / architecture tech job at a start up. It's a lot of work and kinda stressful but I do really like it. I'm still quite chronically struggling with my health (lol Chronic) so I have extremely little energy outside of my 8 hour work day. I work from home 6am-2pm ish (time zones make it early).
When I wasn't working, I was able to dedicate more time and energy to running the household and supporting my partner, who is also a super adhd software developer. He hasn't found any meds that help him but he's also really bad at taking meds and he struggles a LOT with insomnia and sleep inertia - waking him up is a great feat of strength.
This man TRIES so hard. If he was doing this stuff, not getting up in the morning, not always doing his work on time, not following through on chores, and not trying, we would have a big problem, I wouldn't be okay with that. But hand to God he tries so hard. I help him a LOT to the point that I'm afraid I'm kind of a crutch, and I'm not a good crutch lol.
My biggest issues are with getting emotionally overwhelmed and having meltdowns (yeah my psych thinks I'm probably autistic too) or being snappy. I have trouble paying attention which frustrates him when he needs my help with a house project or whatever. I have trouble when my routine is disrupted. I have trouble starting and finishing things. I'm extremely sensitive to criticism and I don't want to be.
Sometimes our coping mechanisms conflict, like when I want to have some item like a heating pad in multiple locations so that I have it where I am without having to go get it, but he wants things to have a place where they go, so the heating pads being scattered is stressful. (Heating pad isn't a great example because he gets why I want one in every room lol but other stuff I can't currently call to mind. Random bottles of aleve and benadryl. Bandaid. Papers and pens. Etc.)
We're in a place now where I work a very demanding 8-9 hour day and then require a nap due to my fatigue (work in progress). I work entirely remote. He is a hybrid but mostly remote software developer on a pretty big and well known (to some people) project. He likes his team and wants to keep his job, but he just had a really rough quarter working with a different manager (not his) and getting a bad performance review as a result. Currently he spends a lot of time in adhd paralysis land scrolling YouTube and reddit (but not in a toxic manosphere way lol he's a bisexual vegan feminist), so he's not doing his work or house projects and he just gets more and more stressed as it continues.
I know that (a) my rest and naps are not "free time" because it's required of me and (b) adhd paralysis is also not "free time." But it results in me packing so much work into my actual free time and feeling like he has all this free time that he's not using to help. I know it's not that simple but hey feelings.
We have to figure out. Everything. How do we keep our house functioning and clean. How do we support him in getting up and moving in the morning. How do we set up our house to meet our needs? I need just any advice on how to even think it through.

I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but the last few years have been wild for airline travel. It seems like not even a week can pass before a new viral video is circulating the internet, showcasing some idiot on a plane or airport screaming, shouting, and even starting fights with other passengers and flight staff for no apparent reason.
I’m sure it’s entertaining when you’re sitting at home and come across these videos while casually scrolling through Reddit or Twitter. You might laugh, or shake your head at the stupidity and not give it a second thought. Unfortunately, this isn’t an option when you’re the one on the job.
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had to call security to deal with a rowdy or straight-up violent customer in the airport over the last couple of years. Most of the time, the things that set people off are surprisingly minor and avoidable issues.
They want to board now but it wasn’t their turn so they start harassing me and my co-workers. Another passenger looked at them funny so they get into a screaming match. A baby is crying so the grown adult starts whining even louder. The person in front of them took the last chocolate donut with sprinkles from the airport bakery so they start throwing punches.
You would not believe the stuff I’ve seen. Needless to say, I got tired of it. Getting up to go to work, wondering what kind of unhinged maniac was going to make a problem for me lost its appeal. So, I started to look for a new job.
A few weeks into the job search, I began to get doubtful that I would find a suitable replacement. Seeing as my only tangible skills and experience were in the airline industry, I didn’t have much more than other airline jobs within realistic reach. Though I didn’t have a problem with relocation, if it meant I was going to end up in another major airport, I had no interest.
During one 3 am job search after my long shift at the airport, running on nothing but the jittery movements from the room-temperature coffee, I found a new job listing. One Pine Airport, a rural airport in the midwest. I sat up and took another sip of coffee. The pictures for the place gave an idea of the size and it looked tiny. Only a couple of runways, a single terminal, and a cute internal design reflective of the forestry that surrounded it. Perfect for me, I thought. I imagined there would not be nearly as many people to deal with.
I scrolled down to the job details and to my relief, it was for the exact same job I had already been doing. The only difference was that it required frequent night shifts. I had done plenty of night shifts before, but doing a few more of them made no difference to me. Surprisingly listed was the pay. I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were offering more starting than I was being paid at the airport I had been at for over three years.
Now wide awake, I eagerly uploaded my resume, filled out all of the application questions, and even spent the next hour crafting an unnecessary cover letter. I headed to bed with the hope that my days at overflowing airports might be over. The next day as I was getting ready for work, I opened my phone to scroll through notifications and check emails.
To my disbelief, I had one from the job I had applied for only hours earlier. The manager at the airport, who had posted the job, requested an interview over Zoom. I quickly replied and we settled on a time during my lunch break that very day.
The first few hours of work breezed by and as I boarded flight after flight of passengers, I couldn’t help but think about the upcoming interview. When it came time, I was nervous as hell but my fears were diffused within the first minute. A bald, well-kept, and well-dressed man joined the meeting room and greeted me with a warm smile. He introduced himself as James.
I couldn’t have asked for a more friendly interviewer. He welcomed me and after some small talk and a few questions about my relevant experience, he gave an overview of the job's details, that being the same job I already had with better pay but more frequent night shifts. No problem with me. After affirming that I knew all the details of the job, James cracked another wide, friendly smile and asked an unexpected question.
“When can you start?”
I spit the out sip of coffee I had just taken back into the cup. I looked back up at James and tried to find the right words but I was unprepared.
“You uh… aren’t gonna give me a call back like later or something? Don’t you have more interviews and… and paperwork waiting to clear and, and…?”
James waved his hand dismissively at his webcam.
“You’re the only applicant we have, and we couldn’t have asked for a better one. As for the paperwork and such, we’ll figure that out when we figure it out. The job is yours, whenever you can start, that is. Preferably soon?”
Though the feelings of shock and confusion remained, they were pushed to the side by my excitement. Throughout the remainder of our conversation, James and I reviewed our schedules and set up a start date before ending the call. I sat back in my break room chair with a sigh of disbelief and a chuckle.
I am well aware that it is standard to give at least a two-week notice to your employer and moving across states for a job is supposed to take quite a bit of planning but I was dying to get out of my current job. Through both eagerness and maybe a little stupidity, we settled on a day only a little over a week away.
At the end of my shift that day, I let my manager know I had to be done in a week. Though she wasn’t happy, she assured me it wouldn’t be a problem.
My final day was nothing short of horrendous. A couple had come up, demanding and screaming that I refund their tickets for no apparent reason. On top of that, they still wanted to fly. After hearing that no, they would not be able to fly for zero cost, the husband, followed by the wife, both started shouting threats. Security was quickly called to the terminal.
As soon as they arrived, I checked my watch to find that my shift was over. I let out a sigh of relief and excitedly walked away. As deprived of sleep as I was, with a long and undoubtedly stressful drive ahead of me, I was still more energetic and in higher spirits than I had been in a long time.
Surprisingly, the drive went off without a hitch. I arrived earlier than expected and checked into the motel room I rented for the week so I had time to get the move figured out. After dumping a few boxes of personal items and a suitcase of clothes into the room, I turned off the lights. I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I energetically awoke that evening to prepare myself for my first shift. I quickly got dressed and started the drive in hopes of arriving plenty early. Naively, I hadn’t considered how my unfamiliarity with the roads would slow me down, and after a staggering amount of wrong turns, I arrived at the little airport with only minutes to spare.
The airport was even smaller in person than I had imagined it to be from the pictures. I quickly walked through the entrance and was greeted by the small team of security. After notifying them that I was there for work and that James had been waiting for me, they hurried me through without so much as a question. The security, the architecture, the beautiful scenery that surrounded it, nothing about this airport couldn’t have felt more welcoming.
I walked through to find the single terminal inside, devoid of any passengers, with James sitting behind a counter at the end. After a moment he looked up and upon making eye contact with me, his tired face lit up. I was about to apologize for my tardiness but didn’t have the chance as he rushed to show me the employee locker room where he had my new employee uniform and badge waiting inside my very own locker. He told me to get changed and to meet him outside right away.
I did as he asked and within a couple of minutes, I walked out to find him back behind the console at the counter, gathering his belongings. He noticed me approaching and glanced up, thanking me for showing up and starting so soon as he handed me a fresh cup of coffee. He also apologized for not being able to stick around long for my shift but he sounded sure that he wasn’t all that worried.
“I have to be going now, I’ve been on duty for 17 hours. I know you’re plenty familiar with our systems and software, you know what you’re doing.”
He assured me with a pat on the back before walking out from the desk. He turned and added
“It’ll be a quiet night for you anyway. No flights scheduled. Just sit back, relax, and uh... Oh yeah. Most importantly, I nearly forgot”.
He reached into his bag and pulled out a single sheet of laminated paper and held it in front of me.
“Give this a read as soon as you can. Go over it a few times if you need, don’t deviate from it”.
I took it but before I could even get a look, I noticed James begin to walk toward the exit, along with every single one of the security guards and the cashier who had just closed down the only shop in the airport. I then noticed that all of the scanners and metal detectors at the security gate were shut off. I started to panic.
“Hey! James? Where is everyone going?”
I shouted. The first words I had managed to speak to my new boss since arriving. He stopped and turned back again
“Oh yeah. Another thing I ought to have mentioned. Everyone except whoever is working the night shift in, well, your position takes off right around now. Don’t worry, security will be back sometime around 5 am. You’ve got this place to yourself. Grab a magazine from the little store in there if you get bored. Feel free to snag yourself a couple of snacks too”.
He began to walk away again before briefly turning and pointing at me.
“But before you do anything, read that list. You’ll need it”.
I stood, dumbfounded as I watched my new boss along with all of the other airport staff leave. I started to wrap my head around the fact that I had an empty airport to myself for 10 hours, with nothing to do and no one to deal with, all while I was getting paid the highest wage I had ever earned.
As much as thinking about it delighted me, I turned my attention turned toward the sheet of paper I almost forgot I was holding on to. James said to follow whatever list was on it, so I figured I ought to take a look. I walked behind the airport counter and sank into one of the seats behind it. I took a sip of coffee and finally took a serious look.
A total of 6 rules were neatly spaced on the sheet.
Rule 1: All lights in the airport are to stay on at all times. If one is off, or if you are to accidentally turn one off, turn it back on as soon as possible. If a light seems to be broken or is out and unable to turn back on, calmly exit the area. Report the outage to James or maintenance when possible. Do not listen to the sounds. Do not listen to the voices.
Rule 2: Rule 2 pertains to rainy or stormy weather. If it is raining or storming outside, disregard rules 3, 4, and 5. They will not be a concern during these types of weather conditions. Stay inside at all times. Do not use the men’s restroom and avoid going near it entirely if possible.
Rule 3: Sometime between 11 pm and 1 am, a young woman will walk out of the women’s restroom. She will enter the terminal and sit, occasionally getting up to walk around or change seats. Her name is Elizabeth. She will attempt to make conversation but you must not reciprocate. You may look at her, you may give nonverbal communication such as a head nod, you may write as a means of communication, or you may shake her hand but do not speak to her. If you refuse to speak to her, Elizabeth should be gone within a few hours. If you happen to make such a mistake, go to the men’s restroom and wait for her to leave.
Rule 4: At around one or two in the morning, a janitor in blue coveralls will arrive at the front entrance. Crack open the door and ask for his name. If he says his name is Simon, let him in. If he gives you any name other than Simon, shut the door and lock it without another word and walk away. If the janitor is Simon, he will attend to the janitorial needs of the airport. If he asks to clean where you are standing, oblige him. Simon will not interfere with your duties otherwise. He is not hostile or dangerous. You may engage in conversation with Simon. He will leave the same way he came when he feels it is necessary.
Rule 5: At around 3 am, you may notice that a black and red Cessna Skyhawk has landed on one of the airstrips. You will never see it land, and you will never see it take off. It will just appear when you’re not looking. After spotting the plane for the first time, do not look at it again. Avoid looking in its general direction if at all possible. There is a picture of the exact plane displayed inside the terminal, behind the counter.
Rule 6: Later in the night but sometime before dawn, a group of men claiming to be from TSA may arrive at the airport. They will have their own key and let themselves in. Some could be armed. Often, they exhibit panicked behavior. They may search through the airport, sweep room to room, and ask questions. They are permitted to search anywhere in the main airport building that they please, and you may oblige to any questioning but under no circumstances are they permitted to enter the sky bridge. They will not enter without verbal approval and they cannot harm you.
After reading over it a few times, I set the laminated sheet down and leaned back further into my seat before taking a long sip of coffee, wondering what on earth I had just read. I hadn’t taken James to be the imaginative type. Most of all, I hadn’t taken him to be anywhere near the unprofessional type. Though as I thought about it, it was unusual how rushed this all was and how he left in such a hurry, leaving so few details.
I began to wonder if I was being pranked, I considered that maybe this was all some sort of messed up joke or setup. I ruled that out pretty quickly. This was, in fact, a real airport. I had done plenty of research by the time I got here. At least a few real flights were coming in or going out each day. James has been working here for years and I couldn’t think of a reason why he would jeopardize his job or reputation just to get a scare out of me.
After chuckling to myself at the absurdity of my situation, I decided to indulge and see what would happen. Maybe it was a “test” for me as a new employee. Maybe James wanted to see if I could follow orders.
After glancing at the list once more and realizing the impact rule 2 had on the number of things I would have to keep track of, I brought up my phone to check the forecast. Clear skies, not a chance for rain or storms all night. Great, I thought to myself. I had to watch out for these Elizabeth and Simon characters to show up and I suppose “not” be on the lookout for a random plane to appear on the runway.
I stood up and grabbed my coffee, walking to the glass panes. I took another sip from my cup while admiring the lit runways along the airfield. It sure was a pretty nice sight. As I was raising my cup to finish what was left, I began to hear the click of shoes on the floor somewhere behind me.
Startled, I spun around abruptly, dropping my cup and spilling the remainder of the coffee in the process. At the other end of the terminal seating stood a young woman, around her mid-twenties in my estimation. She was holding two large leather suitcases in each hand and had an old-fashioned sense of style with a skirt and heels. Most surprising was her stunning beauty and welcoming smile.
“Oh I’m sorry dear, didn’t mean to scare you”
She expressed with a sincere tone. I opened my mouth, ready to assure her that everything was fine but I stopped myself. I recalled the list. At this point, I was certain that she was here at James’s request, a paid actor determined to make me break the rules. I was more determined not to. Instead, I simply fixed my posture, straightened my uniform, and looked back with a smile.
She walked to the counter where she placed her leather suitcases on the ground before closing the distance between us.
“Looks like we’ve got this fabulous airport all to ourselves. I am Elizabeth”
She said, reaching out her hand. I shook it, but she didn’t seem quite satisfied.
“And your name?”
I continued to smile and lock eye contact. Her grin grew for a moment before she remarked
“You don’t seem to be much of a talkative one”
And with that, she turned and started to walk away. I returned to my seat behind the counter, watching her closely as I did. Elizabeth proceeded to the unattended airport shop and after a couple of minutes of looking over magazine covers and occasionally taking a peek inside, she returned carrying a small stack of reading material. She approached my counter before placing a National Geographic magazine in front of me.
“I figured you might like this one. Enjoy”
She said, winking before settling on a seat in the first row of the terminal, straight across from where I had been sitting.
Remarkably, her intuition was spot on. I may have lived in cities all of my life but I loved nature, despite how little of it I had gotten to see. National Geographic was a favorite of mine, one I had been familiar with and enjoyed on work breaks from time to time. Rarely was I given this long to be able to read. I was almost tempted to break the rule and thank her for her rather thoughtful act, though I didn’t. I stuck to the rule.
The next couple of hours were uneventful. Elizabeth and I read through our magazines, occasionally looking up at each other to exchange glances and smiles. Within that time, she had attempted to get me to talk at least half a dozen more times. I almost gave in when she asked me if I wanted another magazine.
At a little past 1:30, I could hear a knock at the front entrance. Elizabeth and I both looked before she remarked
“Oh, that must be the nice cleaner man”
With a giggle before returning to her magazine. I walked over to the front doors and sure enough, there stood a man around his mid-thirties, sporting a blue janitor suit waiting patiently at the door. I unlocked the door and opened it. As he took a stride to enter, I remembered the most important detail from rule 4. I closed the door halfway and sternly commanded
“Wait”
The man looked up at me with a surprised look. I asked him the question.
“What is your name?”
The man stared back at me as an innocent smile formed on his face.
“I’m Simon!”
He announced excitedly.
“The Janitor here. Did James let you know I was coming tonight?”
I stood there for a moment, thinking over the rule, before nodding my head and opening the door once again to let him in.
Once inside, Simon walked with purpose to the janitor's closet which was positioned near the men’s restroom. I followed him somewhat suspiciously for the next few minutes as he began to clean but I eased up once I got the feeling that he was just the janitor around here and that James made up the whole “ask for his name thing” to make into one of his rules.
I returned to my counter in the terminal and continued to read. Occasionally, Simon would pass by, off to do his duties in some part of the airport or Elizabeth would stand up to look at the various pictures and paintings on display in the terminal. A good half an hour of this would go on before Simon approached the terminal counter with his mop in hand. He seemed to be eyeing up the two leather suitcases Elizabeth had set there.
Assuming he wanted to clean where they were, I got up to move them. I grabbed each one by the handle but failed to lift them off of the ground. Confused, I stepped back to see if they were stuck on something. They were not. Just two suitcases, left right where Elizabeth had set them.
I tried to lift just one. Again, I failed. I tried both hands, putting my back and legs into it with all that I had. It wouldn’t budge.
I looked back up at Simon who nodded his head in Elizabeth’s direction. I turned to look at Elizabeth, who after noticing my stare, and my apparent inability to move her luggage, smiled and stood up.
“Let me get that for you”
She insisted. With ease, she lifted both leather suitcases and moved them closer to her seat before lowering them, this time letting them drop a few inches. When they hit the ground, a boom echoed through the airport and I flinched in surprise. I looked back at Simon, who hadn’t seemed shocked at all. He just continued to mop.
I slowly made my way back to my seat, not taking an eye off Elizabeth for one second as I did. After a few minutes, she looked back up from her magazine, noticed my stare, and returned to her reading with a grin. She seemed to find my shock amusing. Eventually, Simon noticed my surprise as well. He paused his mopping and approached me before raising his head.
“I know, I know. Stick to the rules and everything will be just fine, trust me”
He stated quietly. I nodded my head in response.
Simon went back to his cleaning. A few minutes passed before Elizabeth had something new to say.
“What a remarkable aircraft!”
She exclaimed, looking out the glass panes facing the runways. I followed her gaze to the lone, black, and red airplane positioned on the runway. I turned around, looking at the picture displayed behind me. It certainly looked like a match. I turned back to the window and felt my heart sink. A silhouette of a person now stood next to the plane, facing the airport and the windows of the terminal.
“Stop looking at it”
Simon sternly muttered from behind me. I looked back at Simon who quickly cowered, seemingly ashamed to have raised his voice at me but I was grateful he had. I read over rule 5 again, specifically where it stated to not look at the plane twice. I murmured insults at myself under my breath but they didn’t have much room between my now heavy, frantic breathing. My eyes darted through the other rules. I chose to focus on that sheet of paper. At least it was something other to look at than the plane outside.
This went on for a good ten minutes or so and my breathing started to calm down. I had begun to pray in my head that whoever and whatever that was would go away when Elizabeth suddenly approached my counter. I snapped my head up in a jittery movement to make eye contact with her.
“I’m going to get some more reading material. Want another one of those?”
She asked, reaching a hand out to my National Geographic magazine. I looked up and nodded, forcing a smile. As She moved away, my gaze didn’t, and once again I found myself looking at the plane on the runway, the silhouette now standing hundreds of feet away from the plane, even closer to the building, and still staring in my direction.
Chills ran up my spine as I snapped my gaze back to my desk. I began to shake with fear and the manic breathing returned. Moments later, Elizabeth returned and placed a new magazine on the counter before running a hand over my shoulder, seemingly to comfort me. Simon then put his hand on my back.
“He’ll be gone soon and so will the plane. Just don’t look at it again”
He assured me.
“Mind if I clean here?”
He then asked.
I got up and walked to the end of the counter, watching Simon thoroughly clean the floor before I looked up and let out a soft
“Thank you”
He nodded and smiled back.
“What was that?”
Elizabeth asked. I turned towards her.
“Oh, I was just thanking Simon for-”
My error occurred to me before I could finish speaking. My eyes locked on Elizabeth as she stood up from her seat and her smile faded. Her eyes and nose began to bleed profusely as she started to sob, lightly at first, then hysterically. She let out a bellowing screech, a mix of pain and anger. She picked up one of her suitcases and hurled it at me, I barely dodged the ridiculously heavy object before it crashed into the wall behind me.
Luckily I was quick thinking this time and made a run for the men’s restroom recalling rule 3. She chased after me but I slammed the door shut in her face and locked it. Elizabeth pounded on the door with furious anger a few times but gave up quickly.
“So that’s how you dance, is it love? I can play that game”
She snickered before flipping a light switch outside of the bathroom. The clicking of her shoes faded away. A few minutes of silence passed before laughter started to become audible from the other side of the door.
One voice grew to two, two voices grew to three, three grew to ten. While others continued their now hysterical laughing, some began to scream. I crumbled to the floor, covering my ears as the voices went on, only stopped by another flip of the switch. Light beamed through the bottom of the door.
“It’s over now. She’s gone, and so is the plane. I’ve gotta be getting out of here soon”
Simon’s calm and friendly voice called out. I reluctantly exited the bathroom and followed him back to the counter, where he had prepared another coffee for me.
“Wish I could have done more there but you’ll come to find out that when Elizabeth gets angry, you just gotta let her do her thing”.
I looked up at him, still with my distraught face, at a loss for words. Over the next few minutes, Simon finished cleaning Elizabeth’s blood from the floor before putting everything back into the janitor's closet. He looked down at his watch.
“I better get out of here. Good luck with the rest of your night. I hope I’ll be seeing you soon”.
He said, letting out a sigh as he again looked at me in pity. I think he knew how shaken up I was. It was like he had seen people in my position before. Something told me he doesn’t have a choice on when he leaves. After I watched him exit the door, I returned to my seat behind the counter. I began to feel alone and afraid, but the loneliness wouldn’t last at least.
Only minutes after Simon left, the doors swung open and men in tactical gear, most of which had their faces covered in masks and goggles, rushed through the door. I sprung back up from my seat and watched as they did, with not much else I could do. They swept room to room, checking every nook and cranny at gunpoint, ignoring my existence at first.
As they cleared the entire building, the twenty or so armed men made their way to the terminal seating area. A lone man in a suit, whom I had not noticed enter, made his way to the front of the group.
“I’m with TSA, I’m going to need you to answer some questions for me”
He demanded. I nodded in affirmation.
“How many individuals have you seen in this airport since the security team left the building?”
“Besides myself, 2 Inside, one outside”
I answered confidently.
“Was the individual outside next to a black and red Cessna Skyhawk?”
“Yes”
I again responded confidently. The man in the suit nodded and paused for a moment before making another demand.
“We’re going to need to search the air bridge”.
I glanced back at the sheet of rules on the counter. Making sure I had read it right before. I took a step forward and straightened my uniform.
“No”
I replied. The man in the suit looked irritated.
“If you do not step aside and give us permission to search, I’m afraid I’ll have to detain you”.
Already tired and worn out, I wasn’t going to break the last rule. I decided to give a not-so-smart remark to the man in the suit
“Looking a little well-armed for TSA, wouldn’t you agree?”
He ignored my comment.
“Last chance, step aside”
“No”
Again, irritated by my response, the man in the suit turned to his right and raised his chin to give a signal. Gunshots rang out and I collapsed to the floor. I felt as though my life left my body before it all faded to black.
The next thing I remembered was the feeling of my hand gripping a water bottle. Then came James’s voice.
“I see you made it through the first night intact. Looks like you got to meet Simon. He’s a nice guy, you’ll get to like him. And Elizabeth, she’s…well, she’s something else, isn’t she?”
I opened my eyes and looked up at James.
“Am I dead?”
I asked in a raspy voice. James chuckled in return.
“No! No, you did great. You’re fine. It does, however, look like you might have been a little assertive to our undead TSA special forces wannabes. I would recommend sticking with the less aggressive tone and word choices, maybe I ought to edit that into the rules sheet… In any case, they can’t hurt you but they can still get a jump out of you, as you saw”.
Once again, I was at a loss for words. I slowly made my way back to my feet from the ground and looked at the sunrise over the airfield. James held out an envelope for me. I opened it, revealing a stack of crisp $100 bills.
“A little bonus for your first night. It sure is a lot to go through for the first time but I promise, you get used to it all”.
I turned to James with an angry look and finally spoke up.
“What the hell is wrong with you? What makes you think it’s okay to put someone through this without any warning? I'm done, keep your damn money. I’m gonna go call the cops”.
I started to walk towards the exit when James stepped in front of me.
“Look, I know it isn’t fair for you but it wasn’t fair for me either. It wasn’t fair for any of us. It’s not okay, I know. But what do you expect me to do? Someone needs to be here for the night shift. You wouldn’t believe any of this if I told you ahead of time. You would have thought I was some sort of nutjob and the police will think of you the same if you tell them. I needed you to see it for yourself”
James was starting to get worked up and stoppeto breatheth before continuing.
“This money is yours, no strings attached. You’re free to leave now and never come back, there will be no shame in it”
I also started to calm down but I couldn’t bring myself to look James in the eye yet.
“If you choose to stay, I’ll see you in my office to finish up your paperwork”.
And with that, James walked away. Facing the front of the airport, I watched the first passengers of the day come through the entrance. I just stood there for a few minutes. Whether I was ready for this job or not, I knew right then I sure as hell wasn’t going back to another overcrowded city airport.
I turned and headed for James’s office.

I have been on fin (topical, then both topical and 0.5mg oral), min (topical, then 2.5 mg ED oral) for just under 2 years. Have been on RU for one year (with a brief experiment with pyrilutamide). I had massive initial gains for the first year, but when I started using tretinoin 0.025% roughly 1 year ago, had a phase of aggressive diffuse thinning and now, way below baseline. Have lost 60%+ of my density, receded temples well on my way to being bald.
To be clear: while I suspect tretinoin had something to do with my hair loss, I know that correlation does not equal causation. It’s perfectly possible that the cause is underlying progression of the disease, stress, lifestyle factors (etc.). I’m also aware that retinoids are used to TREAT hair loss/increase absorption of topical minoxidil. The evidence linking topical tretinoin to hair loss is murky/mostly anecdotal, and reported in a small minority of tret-users.
Nonetheless, I’m going to stop tretinoin for 2 months and see if my problem gets any better. I will keep the rest of my routine identical. I will post updates of any changes.
I am healthy, in good shape (natty) and train 3-5x a week.
I’ve been using toppik fibers to cover up thinning/ bald patches on my scalp, but will remove them periodically to see if there’s improvement.

This is part of my little series about the adventures of Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick. If you'd like to read previous parts, they're linked below, along with brief summaries in case you prefer to just jump right into the new part:
Part One: Alien learns what "sleep" is and how humans prefer to do it in a comfy bed with blankets and pillows. And they find it utterly adorable.
Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick are sent on a survey mission together. Things go south, Aldrick makes sure they're safe, and then Vr'ocria learns what human sleep is and how vulnerable humans are when they sleep. Vr'ocria's people don't sleep, but enter stasis, a form of rest in which they typically stand, and they are still slightly aware of their surroundings. Vr'ocria finds human sleep utterly adorable, and also decides she will protect Aldrick while he sleeps. And she also develops a massive crush on him. (Her scales turning purple is her version of blushing)
Part Two: An alien + human adventure with such shenanigans as poison drinking, befriending dangerous wildlife, and fighting a space pirate. Oh, and they have a huge crush on each other.
Part Three: When a cold-blooded alien has to cuddle a warm-blooded human for warmth
Part Four: A human leaves a hickey on his alien lover. Her nestmate doesn't understand what a hickey is, and thinks the human injured her
Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick end up assigned to be partners. Vr'ocria is a witness to both human shenanigans as well as human durability, but she also begins to learn about the limits of the human body--they are not invincible.
She and Aldrick begin to fall in love, and they finally confess their feelings for one another when Vr'ocria admits to accidentally forming a mate bond with him. Vr'ocria's nestmate, Galek, is not very happy about her being involved with a human, but begrudgingly respects her decision.
Part Five: Space pirates make the grave mistake of attacking a human's loved one. They very quickly learn what happens when a human is angry and full of adrenaline
Pirates come for Vr'ocria in revenge for her killing one of their own. Aldrick goes beast mode. 'Nuff said.
Now for the new story!
(Some of y'all are already picking up what I put down taps nose...)
"'Bumps and bruises' he says," Vr'ocria muttered. "Bumps and bruises!" She crossed her arms. "Bumps and bruises don't bleed, Aldrick."
They were back on the ship, in the med bay. Aldrick was lying on an examination table, naked except for a blanket pulled up to his hips. He was sedated, so he couldn't hear her anyway, but that didn't stop her from grouching.
As soon as they'd boarded the shop, Aldrick began fading fast. He was suddenly slumped and stumbling, eyes tight with pain, and they had to be beamed directly to the med bay. He'd been covered in so much pirate blood that the blood of his own injuries had gotten lost in the mess. Once the med team got to work cleaning him up, all of the cuts, claw marks, and stab wounds began appearing, and as soon as the orderlies let her, Vr'ocria was rushing back to his side. By now, most of his wounds had been closed up, but she still vividly remembered the bloody, black and blue skin that emerged when they peeled his shirt off.
Dr. Fen continued fussing over Aldrick. She was Lymeran, a species similar to humans, made distinctive by their flat noses and bone ridges that curved around the outer corner of their eyes. She swept her dark ponytail over her shoulder as she reached for a new tool. "He also has several hairline fractures in both arms and three cracked ribs," she reported briskly. "Honestly, these humans are going to be the death of me."
Vr'ocria's spine tightened with worry, her scales flushing red. "How could he go so long without collapsing?" She asked.
"Adrenaline," Dr. Fen explained. "It's a hormone that releases into a human's bloodstream during times of great stress. It makes them faster, stronger, more alert." She placed a small and round boneknit device on one of Aldrick's affected ribs. "But it also makes them immune to pain for a short time. That helps them keep going in a life or death situation, but pain exists for a reason. It alerts the body to injuries, it tells you when something is wrong and where. When you don't feel pain, you don't know when you're hurt, and you don't know when to stop if you're pushing yourself beyond your body's physical limits."
"Moons above," Vr'ocria murmured. She moved closer to the table, reaching out to stroke Aldrick's hair. Under sedation, his face was relaxed and free of lines, and she tried to take some comfort in that. "Will he be alright?"
"Oh, he'll be fine," Dr. Fen chuckled. "I'm good at my job, and humans are sturdy. He just needs to follow my orders for bed rest, so don't let him be an idiot and go running off."
That drew a smile from Vr'ocria.
As Dr. Fen continued bustling around Aldrick, she shot a sideways glance at Vr'ocria, a mischievous look in her eye. "So it's true that you guys are like…a thing? I noticed your scales have pink tips."
Vr'ocria blushed purple.
"Ha!" Dr. Fen smirked. "I knew it!"
"Shut up," Vr'ocria muttered.
"What? It's cute! And totally obvious. The whole ship knows at this point."
"The whole ship?"
Dr. Fen laughed. "Oh come on, it's not like you two are any good at hiding it. Anyone who knows anything about Ethyrian physiology knows what pink scales mean–full pink means you're experiencing strong feelings of love, right? And even when you're not particularly emotional, your neutral green with pink tips indicates you're within proximity of your mate. And the way he looks at you–"
Vr'ocria blushed harder and covered her face. "Oh planets, why are so many people invested in our relationship?"
Dr. Fen shrugged. "Well, historically, Ethyrians don't tend to mate outside of their species. It's not every day you see one mate another species, much less a human."
Vr'ocria couldn't help smiling. "Well, it's his fault for being so cute."
"He sure is," Dr. Fen winked.
"Hey," Vr'ocria jabbed a finger at her, "professionalism."
Dr. Fen raised her hands. "I'm very professional! I also have eyes and can acknowledge that you're a lucky girl, and I hope the two of you will be very happy together."
Vr'ocria kept stroking Aldrick's hair, her scales easing into a strong pink. "Me too."
—
By the next day, Dr. Fen had skillfully mended both skin and bone. She discharged Aldrick and let him return to his living quarters, with the caveat that he rest for at least a week.
He and Vr'ocria walked through the corridors arm in arm as she escorted him back to his quarters. They weren't even pretending anymore, and they drew plenty of stares and whispers as they passed by crew members milling about. There weren't many humans onboard to begin with, so Aldrick already stood out. Walking arm in arm with an Ethyrian must've looked even more bizarre.
Despite all the attention, Vr'ocria decided that she wouldn't be embarrassed anymore. She pulled Aldrick a little closer and held her head high as they passed a group of giggling ensigns. My human. My mate.
Aldrick's quarters, like hers, were small but comfortable. The door opened into the living space. Aldrick had decorated it with various Earth flowers and plants that sat in pots scattered about the room, some hanging from the ceiling. The lush greens, pinks, reds, purples, and yellows, made the place feel warm and inviting. The back wall was almost entirely windows with a plush couch pushed underneath them, so that one could recline and watch the stars fly by.
Vr'ocria ushered Aldrick straight into the bedroom, which was similar to the living area, just smaller and furnished with a bed, a nightstand, and a small armchair. "You're going to bed," she ordered.
"Aw, come on," he whined as she shoved him onto the mattress, bending down to pull his boots off.
"Doctor's orders." She put his boots aside and stood, placing her hands on his shoulders to push him down onto the pillow.
"I'm not tired!"
"Liar." She could see the bags under his eyes that she'd come to learn was a sign of exhaustion, and despite his protests, he didn't try to fight her off as she settled him in and pulled the blankets up to his chin.
He couldn't help chuckling. "I haven't been tucked into bed since I was a kid."
She sat on the edge of the bed with a smile. "Well, that's what I'm here for."
He rolled over onto his side and took her hand, placing a kiss on her knuckles. She squeezed back, and then made to stand to turn the lights off.
"Wait."
She turned back. Aldrick had pushed himself back into a sitting position. "Something's been bothering me."
She frowned. "What is it?"
"How did the Norvidians know you were the one who killed that guy?"
She blinked. "What?"
Aldrick twisted the sheets in his hands. "How did they know it was you? They knew exactly who you were and where to find you. The only people who knew what happened on Theta-7 is our superiors and people in our department."
Vr'ocria sank back down onto the bed. "What are you getting at?" She thought she knew the answer, but she didn't want to say it out loud.
Aldrick met her eye. "What if someone sold you out?"
Her spine grew tight, yellow rippling across her scales. "...No," she whispered. "No, that can't…who would do that?"
He chewed his lip. "I don't know. I hope I'm wrong, I really do…but…" he blew out a frustrated sigh. "I could blame a leak for them knowing you were the one to kill the guy. Someone could've carelessly mentioned something somewhere, I don't know. But there's no way they would've known exactly where to find you unless they were told. That was a brand new mission, no one knew where we were except for Command."
Vr'ocria felt sick. She didn't want to think he was right…but it made too much sense. "What do we do?"
"I don't know," he said with a pained look. "There's no telling who it could be, and if it's one of our superiors, we'd only tip them off if we approached them with this."
It was a conundrum Vr'ocria could hardly believe was real. Sure, she and Aldrick had some basic combat training, but soldiers they were not. They were survey agents, their job was to explore and study, not fight. And she certainly wasn't supposed be the subject of conspiracies and espionage or whatever was happening here.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Let's worry about this later. You need to get some rest."
Aldrick reluctantly laid back down, but blushed when she bent down to press a kiss to his cheek. It was the first time she'd kissed him since Gamma-5. "I could get used to that," he murmured as he snuggled into the pillow.
"You should," Vr'ocria giggled as she rose to her feet. "I'm not going to stop anytime soon." She switched the lights off, then returned to settle into the chair next to the bed, pulling her file pad out of her pocket. The screen's soft glow was the only light in the room. "Now, go to sleep."
"Yes ma'am."
—
Vr'ocria worked quietly on her file pad for the next few hours. Data entry was tedious, but somehow, she found a comfort in doing it while listening to Aldrick's slow, deep breaths.
So she was quick to notice when his breathing pattern changed.
Aldrick groaned and shifted in his sleep, rolling over onto his back. His breath began to quicken, and Vr'ocria lowered her pad to look over at him. By the low light of the pad's screen, she could only see the silhouette of his chest rising and falling, faster and faster.
"Aldrick?" She whispered.
"Nuuh," he moaned, beginning to thrash.
Alarmed, Vr'ocria stood and flicked his nightstand lamp on, dropping the pad on the table. "Aldrick," she said a bit louder.
His eyes were still squeezed shut. He was tossing and turning now, gasping through parted lips. He cried out again, and Vr'ocria felt her blood rushing fast and hard through her veins, her scales rippling between red and yellow. What was going on? Was he still asleep? She'd never seen him like this before, and it frightened her.
Tears were beginning to seep out from under his tightly shut eyelids. "No…no…" His voice rose in volume as he clutched and clawed at the sheets. "Vr'ocria!"
Whatever held Vr'ocria frozen to the spot snapped the second she heard him scream her name like that. She bent forward and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. "Aldrick!" She cried desperately. "Wake up!"
"VR'OCRIA!"
"ALDRICK!"
With a strangled cry, his eyes snapped open. His pupils were blown wide and the whites were bloodshot as he stared at her in shock, still gasping for breath, his hands grasping her arms in an iron grip.
She took his face in her hands. "What's wrong? What's going on?"
He only continued to stare at her, the fog slowly clearing from his eyes.
"Say something!" Vr'ocria demanded, resisting the urge to shake him again. "You're scaring me, what's the matter? Does something hurt?"
Aldrick surged up, throwing his arms around her neck and pulling her down to him. She fell forward with an "oof" as her weight landed on top of him. "Hey," she protested with the side of her face pressed into the pillow, "I can't be laying on you, your ribs–"
"You're alive," he rasped into her ear.
She stopped struggling to get up. "What?"
He was shaking, and it took her a moment to realize he was crying. "You were dead, they killed you–I watched them–God, I watched you die–you weren't moving, your eyes–"
He was babbling almost incoherently, and Vr'ocria was terrified.
She finally managed to push herself off of him, and tugged him up into a sitting position. She pulled him forward into a hug, taking care not to squeeze his ribs. "Calm down," she tried to soothe as he clutched her tight, still shaking. "Just breathe." She didn't know if she was even helping, but she didn't know what else to do.
But it seemed to work. After a few minutes, Aldrick managed to slow his breathing down to a more reasonable pace, and she felt his muscles sag in her arms as the tension drained away.
"I'm sorry," he finally croaked. He pulled away and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" he struggled to find words. "I'm sorry for making a scene," he finished at last.
Vr'ocria placed one hand on his hip and the other on his knee. "What happened?"
Aldrick wrapped his arms around his middle. "I had a nightmare."
She furrowed her brow. "A night…mare?"
"A nightmare is a bad dream," he explained.
"...I don't understand."
"Sorry, I guess you wouldn't, since you don't sleep…uh…fuck, how do I explain this…" he ran a hand through his tangled hair. "When humans are asleep, even though we're unconscious, our subconscious brain is still pretty active. One thing it does is create dreams. During dreams you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste things that aren't there. Sometimes dreams are pure nonsense, just a mess of sounds and images. Sometimes you might have good dreams–maybe you fly, or go on crazy adventures. But sometimes, you have bad dreams. We call them nightmares."
Nightmare. What an awful word. It sent shivers over Vr'ocria's scales. "So just now, you…"
"I had a bad dream. A very, very bad dream." He dug his fingers into his temples. "When you're dreaming, in most cases, you don't know that you're dreaming. It feels completely real. And bad dreams are usually brought on by stress or fears you have. And my fear–" he broke off.
She squeezed his knee. "It's me dying?" She supplied quietly.
He shut his eyes as if he was in pain. "When I saw what those fucking pirates did to you–I've never felt so much fear in my life. I was so scared they would kill you before I got there, or that I would fail to save you, or–" he covered his face with his hands. "And I dreamed that I did fail. I watched him stab you. I watched you bleed. I held you and you were–your eyes were so blank–"
Vr'ocria didn't want to hear anymore. She yanked him forward, hugging as tight as she dared. "It wasn't real," she whispered. "I'm here. I'm right here."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." His arms still trembled and his voice was thick against her neck.
"Stop apologizing," she said firmly. "You have nothing to apologize for. None of it is your fault, not the attack, not the dream, none of it."
She felt him take a shuddering breath and let it out slowly. "Thank you, my love."
Her spine tingled.
"Come on, lay back down. I'll lay with you." She pulled back the covers and crawled underneath next to him. They settled down into a familiar position–him clutching her to his check, her arms around his waist, their legs tangled together. His heart was still pounding, but she listened as it gradually quieted to a gentler pace. Soon enough, Aldrick was asleep. This time, he slept peacefully through the night.
Nightmares can fuck up your whole night, man. I've had nightmares that were so vivid they stuck with me for days afterwards. Shit sucks, and I wish I had someone to cuddle with afterwards lolol
Thank you for reading! Until next time ;)