Hello, it has become clear to me that romantic fulfillment is a fruitless pursuit, and in a bid to avoid unnecessary suffering, i would like to kill any romantic or sexual desires i may have.
I lack the social grace to charm people, and i have nothing to make up for it. I am prone to limerence, which has lead to some terrible spinouts that are often only visible to me in retrospect. I don't really have an issue making friends, people seem to like me. However, I am terrible at navigating anything more than a platonic friendship.
21, male, Never dated, not due to lack of trying, but rather lack of opportunity, I live in the middle of nowhere, and never went to public school (homeschooled + online college). Real bad ADHD, probably somewhere on the spectrum, on antidepressants, and im sure a litany of other problems i could be diagnosed with.
So far, ive found that, ironically, stimulants are the best answer, at least for sexual desire. Adderall turns me into a eunich for a soild 5 hours a day. Caffeine and nicotine are also highly effective, though the effects last much shorter. I didn't notice any real effect from the SSRI im perscibed (citalopram), maybe a slight dulling in desire. Weed and alchohol are classic "thoughts-b-gone" tools, but they also greatly restrict your ability to do much exept for sit on the couch, at least in effective doses.
Overall, im not looking for a pep talk. If i wanted that, im one google search away from hundreds of websites trying to sell me dating coaches or Betterhelp subscriptions (funny that people just kind of forgot about that whole "unlicensed licensed therapist" thing, those checks gotta be fat).
What I want is an off switch.
If all I have to do is "wait for the right one", id rather not suffer while doing so.

Hi guys, I'm 17 and i just gave neet this year, I checked the answer key and I'm expecting abt 430 to 440 marks. I know it's not great but I don't intend to take a drop, at this marks I checked last year's cutoff a little bit, I'll either get into private mbbs using management quota or bds private. For bds I looked into Mcods which was ranked 2nd among Indian dental college. My other concern is the massive cost of mbbs using management quota, considering all of that which of these two will be a better choice? I've heard that the dental scene in India isn't that great but still mbbs costs almost one crore... I'll be grateful if someone can guide me regarding this. Thanks in advance

This is a very long one. Trigger warning ⚠️
I (19f) have been in and out of long term/short term facilities since I was 12 years old. I’ve had suicide attempts and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. This is definitely not my first experience with a therapist. Over the years I’ve had over 6+. Not because they haven’t worked for me all the time, but because they either move onto another facility or I move onto another phase in life.
Last year I adopted a new therapist “Mere” thanks to my older sister “North”. My current Therapist “Tina” who I’ve been working with for the past 3 and a half years, switched to a facility where my insurance only covers 30 min sessions. North didn’t think that was enough for me at the time since I wasn’t doing so well mentally. The therapist she recommended worked closely with her own and offered 1hr long sessions, so I agreed wanting to try something new since my old therapist seemed to not specialize in trauma and ptsd. Kerr was highly recommended for those topics.
We started our sessions not soon after my sister offered. The first couple months were hard. Our personalities seemed to clash. Not because mine was bad, but because I was deeply depressed. I was not a joy to be around and everyone seemed annoyed with my constant melancholy. Even my therapists seemed sick of me.
Over time I learned to adapt my personality to be more palatable. My therapists loved it now that I was interacting with them and making jokes. I treated them more like friends now instead of therapists and they seemed to appreciate that. I found it funny because a lot of my issues I explained to them was faking my personality to fit into the crowd and adapt. Due to me being f a people pleaser. They didn’t see anything wrong with the change since I seemed to be getting better mentally.
I was better. I wouldn’t attribute much of my success to my therapists tho. It was nice to have someone to talk to since at the time I had no friends, but they didn’t seem to know how to handle my constant depression so I started to hide it from them. Even from myself. Over time I was able to function a lot better. I switched my sessions to only once every two weeks and I was planning on ending them all together since I was doing so well on my own and haven’t need much help in a while.
It seems that I ah e bad luck. Right when I was at my peak recovery and condition, I was raped on the first day of the new year. I spiraled back into my deep deep deep depression worse than any other relapse I had before. I survived on Benadryl and ice cream for weeks. I took the pills so I didn’t have to be awake to long. I ate only food that I liked the most (mainly unhealthily) my health declined.
My mental health was the worst of it tho. The day after the rape occurred I had a session with my newer therapist. I start telling her the details of my assault. The shock was still fresh in my brain and my memories were scrambled. I greatly blamed myself. I thought I was the weirdo.
Mere only confirmed my sentiments. Before I could fully list out the details of the night it happened she immediately started to spew accusations of my intentions that night. Saying phrases like “Well when someone is pleasuring you it’s hard to say no and there’s nothing wrong with that”
I shut up then and just agreed with her but something still didn’t sit right with me. I went on Reddit and there was mixed opinions about it. A lot of ppl validated my feelings and others thought It was my fault. After fully processing this event and fully remembering it in its entirety I can say confidently that what happened to me was rape.
The next session we had I was able to tell the full story. Mede had just said “Oh. Well you didn’t mention all this before. That’s definitely not ok”. The thing is tho, she was the one to cut me off and make assumptions instead of trying to pull out the full story. She knew I had extreme ptsd and I probably wouldn’t be able to give an in-depth detailed explanation of what happened. She still insulted me anyway and brushed me off.
I thought this to be weird but I brushed it off. When you think k you’re in the presence of a professional you don’t often question things especially if you aren’t in the mental space to do so. So ignored her.
There have been times where she’s been short with me. One time she had asked to switch a 12pm session to 5pm. When I refused she said she’d have to charge me a cancellation fee. It seemed that she just wanted to get paid for that session still and wanted to guilt me into paying. I refused and explained that she was the one who cancelled on me and she immediately backed down realizing I wouldn’t be easily pushed around. I didn’t think much of it then.
Another time. I had gone to this tattoo parlor to get my belly button pierced. I took videos and pictures of the process. She requested in our session that week to see the pictures. I agreed to send and emailed them to her in two emails. In one there was all the pictures of the parlor, the. The other had the videos of the full process. Accidentally I had added one singular picture of me. I was at school and I took a picture in the schools bathroom. There was nothing indecent about it I just accidentally pressed on that picture as I was sending the others. IT happened a lot when using your iPhone to email and I didn’t really notice.
She brought it up the next session and started to berate me for sending that singular pic out of all the obvious other intended pictures. She said it’s inappropriate to send her pictures of myself. I explained to her the accident and she seemed shocked. All she said was “oh well ok”. I don’t know why she got so triggered I’ve always kept good boundaries with her. I can’t believe she immediately started accusing me for one picture of me posing in the mirror while having a turtle neck in a jacket and everything.
Those are just a few of the shady things she’s done. Now back to current time. After I was raped. I still continued sessions with her and tried to get back on track. She wasn’t really helping. I would have extreme panic attacks on therapy video calls with her and she seemed at loss of what to do. I distanced myself from her and I started to get a little better, but then I started to have issues with some of my friends. That added onto my load of issues and started to push me to the edge.
I called my therapist the night of my attempt. I try not to call her after hours but I was in genuine crisis. I had spent the whole day being practically verbally abused by one of my friends. I was cracking slowly it surely and I reached out for help.
Otp I expressed to her how I felt betrayed by everyone around me. I asked her why everyone felt it was ok to treat me wrong whenever. Why wasn’t I able to find peace? Why I couldn’t find ppl who cared? My parents are emotionally abusive as well. That all stems into my ppl pleasing habits. I’ve let a lot of ppl take advantage of my nature because I’ve been conditioned to since birth. She knows my history and why I am the way I am. Instead of consoling me she yelled at me. “Well you knew they were bad ppl!” “If you knew they were bad ppl why are you blaming them you just need to stop hanging around bad ppl”. She then told me she had to go and hung up. She did ask me if I was safe but of course I lied. She knows I always try to see the best in ppl. I don’t see the bad till it’s too late most times. Her words stung like acid. I had been prescribed some sedatives to calm me during panic attacks. I had taken two but they weren’t helping. After that call I took the whole bottle. I didn’t want to die alone so I called my mother to stay in my room with me. Then I drifted into a deep sleep for hours into the next day’s afternoon. I had fallen asleep around 10 pm. I woke up the next day around 3pm still kicking but disordered.
I spent two weeks in a mental hospital. During that time I do t have access to my phone. I had my sister contact everyone that needed to be. Even Mere. She knew I was in there. I didn’t call her while I was there bc I was still upset at her after everything.
I was discharged but I didn’t set up a session for weeks. She emailed and called me once but I didn’t respond till I was fully settled back into my routine and okay enough to talk to her. I emailed her this
“Hallo, Sorry. I didn’t mean to ghost you. I just needed some time to get myself together. I called you just now. You are probably busy. I hope everything is doing well on your end. Sorry again. Sent from my iPhone”
I had planned to set up an appointment in the future to talk to her about everything but by the time I checked my patient portal a week or so later I had been discharged with no warning. No calm text or email.
I set up a meeting with her over the phone for 45 mins. When she first came onto the call the first thing she said was “I saw that you put our appointment for 45 mins. I changed it to 30 bc you know I did discharge you”. I thought it was pretty rude so instead of explaining everything I told her about how I didn’t have my phone in the hospital and the hospital themselves didn’t notify her because they were disorganized and were extremely unprofessional. It’s not like she wasn’t updated by my sisters anyway. When I got my phone after I got home I saw texts from her asking if I was still having a session with her. Knowing that I was in the hospital. It seemed she either didn’t care or didn’t believe I was in the hospital. In fact when she had spoken over the phone with one of my sisters she had lied to them about that night. She had told her “After I got otp with her I immediately started praying for her because I m ew something was deeply wrong” how delusional of her to say after she yelled at me and hung up.
Anyway after I explained my reasoning for going MIA she started to realize how fucked up she was and asked me how I was doing. I didn’t say much because I was done with her and she obviously didn’t intend of hearing the full story since she shortened our session. She started asking me why I didn’t want to continue therapy and seemed confused why I didn’t seem to beg her to re admit me. I told her I was done with therapy. She seemed concerned and said that she discharged me because she thought it’d be better for me to find an in person therapist. I knew it was a shitty excuse. I quickly hang up on her and don’t address anything.
I’m only processing this now because I’ve had much bigger things going on. I’m only now realizing how fucked up her behavior was. If I hadn’t spoken to her the night of my attempt I probably wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. I feel cheated out of help. I don’t feel angry at her I have to reserve that for someone more worthy of my rage. I only wished she didn’t use the fact that I would never call her out on her behavior usually. She knew my temperament and took advantage of that. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a therapist again. She victim blamed me, mocked me, berated me in my time of need, and then abandoned me on baseless assumptions that could’ve been easily cleared up if she actually listened to what my sisters and I were saying. She didn’t even say sorry when we were talking. Or express any remorse besides embarrassment for jumping to conclusions. SMH.
TLDR: My therapist berated me for trusting ppl in my life the night of my suicide attempt. Then Discharged me from her care without consulting me first. Blamed me for all her mistakes and jumped to conclusions randomly then never apologized for the baseless accusations. I am at a loss for words and at a loss for trust in therapy again.

For context: I was born into a failing family. My dad is a rageful alcoholic with food addiction and hoarding issues. He could be cold and cruel. My mom fluctuated and is inconsistently reliable. At her best, she is warm, nurturing and funny. But she can be vulnerable, manipulative and controlling or distant and in-her-own-little-world at times as well. My elder sibling was resentful of any attention I received and bullied me regularly. When we were very young, my elder sibling violated my physical boundaries intimately in a way I believe left me with long-term fallout that my parents failed to notice due to their self-absorption.
In early childhood I was "painfully shy," even going so far as to hide under furniture when family or friends would visit. I failed my preschool screening not because I could not answer the questions correctly, but because I refused to speak to the person administering it.
We had a turbulent childhood--a messy divorce between our parents, during which we were more pawns than kids, and so much moving around I lose track of how many times I was "new kid." When I started getting bullied for seeming gay (I wasn't out yet, even to myself) in high school my parents didn't notice, even though I went from A student to failing list one semester.
In those preteen years, I started seeing a ton of doctors for what my mom believed was physical distress but what I clearly felt was mental. I went on and off of tons of anxiety meds and antidepressants, but eventually tapered off when I went to college.
Though I flourished as much as was possible for me in college, I was still basically living a half-life. An obsessive amount of worrying went into all the possible ways of humiliating myself. I had very pathological plans to make it to "safe" bathrooms. I went through a huge amount of panic when the university suggested that they might require me to live on campus and share a room (I got out of it). I could not take the kinds of jobs my friends were working in retail and restaurants, only a campus job with very few hours and very little pay because it allowed me to dip out before the panic set in and reasonable access to a bathroom.
When I went to grad school, things got even worse. Insomnia set in. The only night I was guaranteed a full sleep was Friday because I had no obligations on Saturday. I wandered through life as a zombie, clumsy, foggy and with extremely heightened fight-or-flight due to the sleep deprivation. Sometimes I would call in sick because I could not operate my vehicle. In classes where all graded assignments were written, I got straight As. My only Bs came from classes with midterm and endterm final exams, because I was in such a panic being wedged in between two people in silence for three hours that I would not be able to devote my full attention to the exam.
I collapsed and had to return home, where I languished for a year or so. I returned to academia, where I clung on by the skin of my teeth for several years but it was the same exact story: caught between a deep loneliness and desire for belonging and a deeper fear of rejection and utter discomfort in social settings. The insomnia returned and I burned out.
I have been in therapy three times. Once for several months between stints in academia. Once during a grad program to help cope. And most recently for two years during my second languishing period.
I am horrified by how long I've struggled with "launching." I've been seeking help for this life-ruining social anxiety problem since I was a preteen. People have known I have had a deep fear of others since I was a child. It has been so terribly lonely and there have been low moments I've felt so hopeless about ever being to sustain a life in the ways that matter that I have called hotlines. This has probably been fewer than five, but it's been happening since I was eighteen or nineteen.
I feel like every resource I visit underestimates how pervasive this is in my life. If I am correct, the pervasiveness and enduring nature of something like this is precisely what makes it a personality disorder. This has been permanent for me, and even the most recent two years of therapy have not budged me much. Yet no authority has ever made an official diagnosis, not even for anxiety and depression.
It stresses me out, because I can see the severe consequences of this and I worry at times they're endangeirng my very life, but all authorities seem to be somewhat dismissive or act like what I'm going through is typical and something everyone deals with. I'm not insured, so if an emergency happens I'm probably broke for life. I was considering my situation today. I'm wearing glasses with one leg broken off because I can't afford to replace them. I haven't had my hair cut since Christmas because I live in a small town and don't want to answer personal questions from the barber. I have about one pair of jeans and a hoodie that fit. The last time I went to the dentist they said I had bone loss because I wasn't visiting enough. When I get sick I try to wait things out because I'm both terrified of being in public, answering employment questions to the receptionists and also because I can't afford it.
At what point does it stop being "shyness" or even social anxiety? When can we admit that this is something worth naming?
I came across this subreddit via the comments section of a post linking to an article about AvPD. The article discussed the disorder and how it was understudied. It profiled some people who'd been diagnosed with it, and I have never related to anything so much in my life, especially the paradox of wanting to belong but sabotaging all attempts to try. I cried when I read it and came here immediately.
Anyway, I'm sorry for the novel. If you've made it this far, thank you so much for letting me vent. I suspect many people on this sub might be people like myself who simply haven't had doctors, therapists or psychiatrists who recognize how extensive this pattern goes. I hope you all are able to find full care that treats all the many manifestations of this terrible thing we're struggling with.

This is a very long one.
I (19f) have been in and out of long term/short term facilities since I was 12 years old. I’ve had suicide attempts and have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. This is definitely not my first experience with a therapist. Over the years I’ve had over 6+. Not because they haven’t worked for me all the time, but because they either move onto another facility or I move onto another phase in life.
Last year I adopted a new therapist “Mere” thanks to my older sister “North”. My current Therapist “Tina” who I’ve been working with for the past 3 and a half years, switched to a facility where my insurance only covers 30 min sessions. North didn’t think that was enough for me at the time since I wasn’t doing so well mentally. The therapist she recommended worked closely with her own and offered 1hr long sessions, so I agreed wanting to try something new since my old therapist seemed to not specialize in trauma and ptsd. Kerr was highly recommended for those topics.
We started our sessions not soon after my sister offered. The first couple months were hard. Our personalities seemed to clash. Not because mine was bad, but because I was deeply depressed. I was not a joy to be around and everyone seemed annoyed with my constant melancholy. Even my therapists seemed sick of me.
Over time I learned to adapt my personality to be more palatable. My therapists loved it now that I was interacting with them and making jokes. I treated them more like friends now instead of therapists and they seemed to appreciate that. I found it funny because a lot of my issues I explained to them was faking my personality to fit into the crowd and adapt. Due to me being f a people pleaser. They didn’t see anything wrong with the change since I seemed to be getting better mentally.
I was better. I wouldn’t attribute much of my success to my therapists tho. It was nice to have someone to talk to since at the time I had no friends, but they didn’t seem to know how to handle my constant depression so I started to hide it from them. Even from myself. Over time I was able to function a lot better. I switched my sessions to only once every two weeks and I was planning on ending them all together since I was doing so well on my own and haven’t need much help in a while.
It seems that I ah e bad luck. Right when I was at my peak recovery and condition, I was raped on the first day of the new year. I spiraled back into my deep deep deep depression worse than any other relapse I had before. I survived on Benadryl and ice cream for weeks. I took the pills so I didn’t have to be awake to long. I ate only food that I liked the most (mainly unhealthily) my health declined.
My mental health was the worst of it tho. The day after the rape occurred I had a session with my newer therapist. I start telling her the details of my assault. The shock was still fresh in my brain and my memories were scrambled. I greatly blamed myself. I thought I was the weirdo.
Mere only confirmed my sentiments. Before I could fully list out the details of the night it happened she immediately started to spew accusations of my intentions that night. Saying phrases like “Well when someone is pleasuring you it’s hard to say no and there’s nothing wrong with that”
I shut up then and just agreed with her but something still didn’t sit right with me. I went on Reddit and there was mixed opinions about it. A lot of ppl validated my feelings and others thought It was my fault. After fully processing this event and fully remembering it in its entirety I can say confidently that what happened to me was rape.
The next session we had I was able to tell the full story. Mede had just said “Oh. Well you didn’t mention all this before. That’s definitely not ok”. The thing is tho, she was the one to cut me off and make assumptions instead of trying to pull out the full story. She knew I had extreme ptsd and I probably wouldn’t be able to give an in-depth detailed explanation of what happened. She still insulted me anyway and brushed me off.
I thought this to be weird but I brushed it off. When you think k you’re in the presence of a professional you don’t often question things especially if you aren’t in the mental space to do so. So ignored her.
There have been times where she’s been short with me. One time she had asked to switch a 12pm session to 5pm. When I refused she said she’d have to charge me a cancellation fee. It seemed that she just wanted to get paid for that session still and wanted to guilt me into paying. I refused and explained that she was the one who cancelled on me and she immediately backed down realizing I wouldn’t be easily pushed around. I didn’t think much of it then.
Another time. I had gone to this tattoo parlor to get my belly button pierced. I took videos and pictures of the process. She requested in our session that week to see the pictures. I agreed to send and emailed them to her in two emails. In one there was all the pictures of the parlor, the. The other had the videos of the full process. Accidentally I had added one singular picture of me. I was at school and I took a picture in the schools bathroom. There was nothing indecent about it I just accidentally pressed on that picture as I was sending the others. IT happened a lot when using your iPhone to email and I didn’t really notice.
She brought it up the next session and started to berate me for sending that singular pic out of all the obvious other intended pictures. She said it’s inappropriate to send her pictures of myself. I explained to her the accident and she seemed shocked. All she said was “oh well ok”. I don’t know why she got so triggered I’ve always kept good boundaries with her. I can’t believe she immediately started accusing me for one picture of me posing in the mirror while having a turtle neck in a jacket and everything.
Those are just a few of the shady things she’s done. Now back to current time. After I was raped. I still continued sessions with her and tried to get back on track. She wasn’t really helping. I would have extreme panic attacks on therapy video calls with her and she seemed at loss of what to do. I distanced myself from her and I started to get a little better, but then I started to have issues with some of my friends. That added onto my load of issues and started to push me to the edge.
I called my therapist the night of my attempt. I try not to call her after hours but I was in genuine crisis. I had spent the whole day being practically verbally abused by one of my friends. I was cracking slowly it surely and I reached out for help.
Otp I expressed to her how I felt betrayed by everyone around me. I asked her why everyone felt it was ok to treat me wrong whenever. Why wasn’t I able to find peace? Why I couldn’t find ppl who cared? My parents are emotionally abusive as well. That all stems into my ppl pleasing habits. I’ve let a lot of ppl take advantage of my nature because I’ve been conditioned to since birth. She knows my history and why I am the way I am. Instead of consoling me she yelled at me. “Well you knew they were bad ppl!” “If you knew they were bad ppl why are you blaming them you just need to stop hanging around bad ppl”. She then told me she had to go and hung up. She did ask me if I was safe but of course I lied. She knows I always try to see the best in ppl. I don’t see the bad till it’s too late most times. Her words stung like acid. I had been prescribed some sedatives to calm me during panic attacks. I had taken two but they weren’t helping. After that call I took the whole bottle. I didn’t want to die alone so I called my mother to stay in my room with me. Then I drifted into a deep sleep for hours into the next day’s afternoon. I had fallen asleep around 10 pm. I woke up the next day around 3pm still kicking but disordered.
I spent two weeks in a mental hospital. During that time I do t have access to my phone. I had my sister contact everyone that needed to be. Even Mere. She knew I was in there. I didn’t call her while I was there bc I was still upset at her after everything.
I was discharged but I didn’t set up a session for weeks. She emailed and called me once but I didn’t respond till I was fully settled back into my routine and okay enough to talk to her. I emailed her this
“Hallo, Sorry. I didn’t mean to ghost you. I just needed some time to get myself together. I called you just now. You are probably busy. I hope everything is doing well on your end. Sorry again. Sent from my iPhone”
I had planned to set up an appointment in the future to talk to her about everything but by the time I checked my patient portal a week or so later I had been discharged with no warning. No calm text or email.
I set up a meeting with her over the phone for 45 mins. When she first came onto the call the first thing she said was “I saw that you put our appointment for 45 mins. I changed it to 30 bc you know I did discharge you”. I thought it was pretty rude so instead of explaining everything I told her about how I didn’t have my phone in the hospital and the hospital themselves didn’t notify her because they were disorganized and were extremely unprofessional. It’s not like she wasn’t updated by my sisters anyway. When I got my phone after I got home I saw texts from her asking if I was still having a session with her. Knowing that I was in the hospital. It seemed she either didn’t care or didn’t believe I was in the hospital. In fact when she had spoken over the phone with one of my sisters she had lied to them about that night. She had told her “After I got otp with her I immediately started praying for her because I m ew something was deeply wrong” how delusional of her to say after she yelled at me and hung up.
Anyway after I explained my reasoning for going MIA she started to realize how fucked up she was and asked me how I was doing. I didn’t say much because I was done with her and she obviously didn’t intend of hearing the full story since she shortened our session. She started asking me why I didn’t want to continue therapy and seemed confused why I didn’t seem to beg her to re admit me. I told her I was done with therapy. She seemed concerned and said that she discharged me because she thought it’d be better for me to find an in person therapist. I knew it was a shitty excuse. I quickly hang up on her and don’t address anything.
I’m only processing this now because I’ve had much bigger things going on. I’m only now realizing how fucked up her behavior was. If I hadn’t spoken to her the night of my attempt I probably wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. I feel cheated out of help. I don’t feel angry at her I have to reserve that for someone more worthy of my rage. I only wished she didn’t use the fact that I would never call her out on her behavior usually. She knew my temperament and took advantage of that. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a therapist again. She victim blamed me, mocked me, berated me in my time of need, and then abandoned me on baseless assumptions that could’ve been easily cleared up if she actually listened to what my sisters and I were saying. She didn’t even say sorry when we were talking. Or express any remorse besides embarrassment for jumping to conclusions. SMH.
TLDR: My therapist berated me for trusting ppl in my life the night of my suicide attempt. Then Discharged me from her care without consulting me first. Blamed me for all her mistakes and jumped to conclusions randomly then never apologized for the baseless accusations. I am at a loss for words and at a loss for trust in therapy again.

What is your impression of naming, what can they truly do?
Naming was the real magic most people sought after it in the old days. It was supposedly real power. Granted making metal disappear would be useful, but making it appear in whatever shape, however much, and wherever you wanted, that is real power.
I wonder what you can do with the name of these elements? Here are some of the examples in the story;
The name of stone doesn’t let you move it around, just remove what is already there. For example the making of the stone ring and the breaking of the stone wall.
For fire they were able to add to a fire, they could also protect themselves and take away fire. (I just thought of a funny use of this. One could potentially make their fist a giant fireball and either throw it or punch someone causing some burns. It also just occurred to me that if you had a ring of fire, it would make it difficult to shake someone else’s hand.)
For wind, since it is all around us and obviously more malleable, then this may be the reason people sought it out first. Maybe it could be a more versatile, concealable weapon.
Now for iron, my original theory is whatever the material is, the harder it is the more limited it is. But with a relook at the chronicler’s attack on bast in book one, maybe with iron one could make iron out of thin air and attach it to someone’s skin. What else was Devon doing? Was he trying to remove the iron from Bast’s blood?
Maybe he can turn it into mist and he was pelting bast with it. Basically pepper spraying him. Not sure how powerful this would be to a human.
One idea could be that the chronicler could grab his small iron necklace and turn it into an iron knife or even a sword that is as sharp as his mind can make it. Another poster Skeptical said, “a toph Beifong iron suit of armor would be a nice touch” what if that is what was coming next if Cote didn’t stop Bast.
I do wonder how strict the name of “iron” is? I did a quick search about iron as weapons and armor, and without carbon in iron, it is actually pretty soft comparatively. If the Chronicler could reshape his items after every hit this might not be such a big deal, but the armor would not be perfect. If it is thick enough, it could withstand some abuse or he could basically walk around in porcupine suit…
What if he could make like an iron net or whip that could tangle someone up. If he had a sling he could get some inertia on it then guide it kinda like the Star Wars force… or he could go Jackie chan and bust out some rope fighting with a weighted iron spiked ball on it.
idk I guess it just depends on the namers imagination and ability to control it.
Let me know what you think people with naming can do.
P.S. I just thought of a weird power switch in book three. What if Bast tries to follow through with one of his threats and the chronicler just beats him senseless with an iron suit on and an iron Billy club.

I keep hearing how critical it is to have good friends in your adolescence because that's where you learn to be independent and develop the social skills you'll need for the rest of your life, but it’s too late for me to have that. I tried to fit in with other kids but they mostly thought I was weird because I’m autistic, so I was bullied and left out a lot. I never really had a group to do anything with outside of school and seeing other people talk about how they couldn’t have survived their middle/high school years without their friends, or seeing the kind of friendships in coming of age stories that make being a teenager look like a fun time makes me feel I missed out on everything. It really makes me angry to look back at my old yearbooks and see how much fun all the normal kids were having.
I don’t think I can stand knowing that everyone else gets to enjoy their coming of age years when I couldn’t. I never got to go out to a movie with friends or have sleepovers or go on trips together, and I was basically alone for every important milestone of my life. I never got to celebrate with friends on my birthday or when I graduated high school, or have fun at summer camp or anything like that, and I get really depressed when I see young people getting to have fun with their friends because they’re so much more socially developed than I ever was.
My life's really gone downhill because I ended up dropping out of college and my family made me move with them to an isolated area and my family is forcing me to live with them, and they treat me like I’ll never be able to work, and I have no real means of getting out of this area other than running away. I'm 33 and I feel I missed out too much on life since I’ll never know how it feels to be a normal teen and growing up feeling like people care about you or that you have a future. I think what I want more than anything is to get those years back and if I can’t then I think I would rather die than get any older.

hello, i am a 19 year old who’s currently an undergrad in college. i’m at a good point personally (doing good in school, 2 part-time jobs, feel good about myself holistically) and i know what i want in life. i'm currently living several miles from DC, but i'm originally from baltimore. i would prefer to date someone with similar attributes, age, and close-distance, but i am not limiting myself. i’m looking for someone that can hopefully be my long-term partner!
About Me - ⁠i would describe myself as caring, authentic, hardworking, rational, helpful, organized, efficient, realistic, funny, introverted, and versatile - ⁠i enjoy playing video games, listening to music, animals, basketball, football, sci-fi, hanging with friends, and eating good food - studying engineering - ⁠agnostic atheist - ⁠i don’t smoke, drink, or do drugs - don’t want kids -⁠i’m looking forward to learning how to cook, trying new things, and gaining unique experiences :)

We didn’t have a typical breakup. Although I was the one who started the conversation to initiate it, we both agreed that due to our situation, we wouldn’t be able to continue dating. There were a lot of “I love yous” said during the breakup, and we had a long hug goodbye.
The reason we broke up was that my ex got a new job and had to move somewhere that’s a 6 hour drive away. When he first started talking about possibly having to move, we were both optimistic about continuing our relationship long distance. However, my ex does have a history of mental health issues, and even while he was job searching, I noticed his mental health declined because his communication was becoming worse. We both decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try doing long distance, given the fact that communicating would be harder and even more so if he ever experienced other issues.
However, there’s no denying that I still love my ex, and I’m sure he still loves me. Although we only dated 2-3 months and were still technically in the “honeymoon phase,” I have never felt more drawn to someone. My ex is very mature for his age - he even thought to get me flowers on our first date - and he always made me feel like I could be myself, which is something I struggle with around others since I tend to be more introverted. He was also the first guy who said he loved me and genuinely meant it and the first (and only) guy I have slept with.
I recently saw him when he paid a visit to see his best friend graduate from my college, and he told me he’d make more visits to see friends here and that I could see him when he did. The moment I saw my ex that day, I honestly felt like I fell in love with him all over again. He’s been through a lot in his life, yet he’s made so much of it and he’s always so sweet, understanding, and funny. Not to mention, I always want to melt when I stare into his eyes.
Anyways, I am still in college and plan to go to law school after I graduate in two years, but I really have no interest in dating anyone now because I can’t get over how much I love my ex. I really want to try to get into a good law school that is near where he lives in hopes of reconnecting with him. I don’t plan on limiting myself to that plan for the future, but I know that it’s something I want to consider. My ex and I had often talked about getting married, and even before he left for his job, he refused to take back one of his sweatshirts he’d given me because he wanted to hold onto hope that we’d be together again.
I’m hoping I’m not too delusional about the whole situation, but in any case, having this kind of mindset has helped me deal with his absence.
TLDR: I still love my ex who I am on good terms with, and I am holding onto hope that we can one day be together

We didn’t have a typical breakup. Although I was the one who started the conversation to initiate it, we both agreed that due to our situation, we wouldn’t be able to continue dating. There were a lot of “I love yous” said during the breakup, and we had a long hug goodbye.
The reason we broke up was that my ex got a new job and had to move somewhere that’s a 6 hour drive away. When he first started talking about possibly having to move, we were both optimistic about continuing our relationship long distance. However, my ex does have a history of mental health issues, and even while he was job searching, I noticed his mental health declined because his communication was becoming worse. We both decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try doing long distance, given the fact that communicating would be harder and even more so if he ever experienced other issues.
However, there’s no denying that I still love my ex, and I’m sure he still loves me. Although we only dated 2-3 months and were still technically in the “honeymoon phase,” I have never felt more drawn to someone. My ex is very mature for his age - he even thought to get me flowers on our first date - and he always made me feel like I could be myself, which is something I struggle with around others since I tend to be more introverted. He was also the first guy who said he loved me and genuinely meant it and the first (and only) guy I have slept with.
I recently saw him when he paid a visit to see his best friend graduate from my college, and he told me he’d make more visits to see friends here and that I could see him when he did. The moment I saw my ex that day, I honestly felt like I fell in love with him all over again. He’s been through a lot in his life, yet he’s made so much of it and he’s always so sweet, understanding, and funny. Not to mention, I always want to melt when I stare into his eyes.
Anyways, I am still in college and plan to go to law school after I graduate in two years, but I really have no interest in dating anyone now because I can’t get over how much I love my ex. I really want to try to get into a good law school that is near where he lives in hopes of reconnecting with him. I don’t plan on limiting myself to that plan for the future, but I know that it’s something I want to consider. My ex and I had often talked about getting married, and even before he left for his job, he refused to take back one of his sweatshirts he’d given me because he wanted to hold onto hope that we’d be together again.
I’m hoping I’m not too delusional about the whole situation, but in any case, having this kind of mindset has helped me deal with his absence.
TLDR: I still love my ex who I am on good terms with, and I am holding onto hope that we can one day be together

I'm 25 and had never read a book in its entirety for the past decade plus. The only reading I'd done is sporadic readings for college courses and documentation for my work.
But recently, on a long flight from NYC to Tokyo, I decided to try reading The Three Body Problem on the recommendation of a friend.
I was instantly hooked and could not put it down. I finished the entire thing during the flight, and I started The Dark Forest right afterward and finished it when flying back. I absolutely adore these books.
I'm afraid that I will not have much incentive to continue reading books if I don't find more books as well-written and compelling as these, so please give me some suggestions that will keep my newfound interest in books going!
I can't put into words all of the reasons I love it, because I honestly don't know them all myself.
But to help guide the suggestions here: I think one of the reasons I love it is just the narrative and how it's structured.
It starts off as a somewhat sardonic commentary on the Cultural Revolution ; then slowly introduces a mystery ; then unwraps the layers of that mystery to reveal a cosmic-scale civilizational threat in the backdrop of intense human disaffection and conflict.
I just loved how the books weaved so many things together, jumping from fantastical sci-fi to game theory to psychology to personal narrative to space opera , to tell a really compelling story.
Much of it was just fantastical sci-fi, but there was also so much that was just thought provoking,>! especially the dark forest hypothesis that is explored in more depth in the second book and the linking of our ability to do fundamental research with our ability to technologically innovate.!<
I also really like the writing: pointed, almost satirical, for particularly absurd moments (e.g., in the first book, the struggle session); solemn and awe-inspiring for the powerful moments of self-sacrifice or human triumph in the face of adversity.
At times, the writing is just beautiful, with some passages' being particularly melancholy, chilling, or inspiring.
To give an idea of the kind of writing I particularly like, some of my favorite passages include:
The fleet accelerated with no disruption to its formation, its huge wall blocking out the sun, and then made a stately advance into space with the force of a thundercloud, declaring to the universe the dignity and invincibility of the human race.
[...]
At this moment, all the stars in the galaxy silently held back their light, and Human and God stepped out proudly into the universe as one.
It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race.
This thought determined the entire direction of Ye’s life.
As that distant world held its breath to listen, neither ant nor spider was aware that they, out of all life on Earth, were the sole witnesses to the birth of the axioms of cosmic civilization.
At the end, an adult and a child stand in front of the grave of a Red Guard who had died during the faction civil wars. The child asks the adult, ‘Are they heroes?’ The adult says no. The child asks, ‘Are they enemies?’ The adult again says no. The child asks, ‘Then who are they?’ The adult says, ‘History.'”
Ten thousand times the web could be destroyed, and ten thousand times the spider would rebuild it. There was neither annoyance nor despair, nor any delight, just as it had been for a billion years.
"Look at them, the bugs. Humans have used everything in their power to extinguish them: every kind of poison, aerial sprays, introducing and cultivating their natural predators, searching for and destroying their eggs, using genetic modification to sterilize them, burning with fire, drowning with water. Every family has bug spray, every desk has a flyswatter under it… this long war has been going on for the entire history of human civilization. But the outcome is still in doubt. The bugs have not been eliminated. They still proudly live between the heavens and the earth, and their numbers have not diminished from the time before the appearance of the humans. The Trisolarans who deemed the humans bugs seemed to have forgotten one fact: The bugs have never been truly defeated."
A small black cloud covered the sun and cast a moving shadow against the ground. This was not a common cloud, but a swarm of locusts that had just arrived. As the swarm landed in the fields nearby, the three men stood in the middle of a living shower, feeling the dignity of life on Earth. Ding Yi and Wang Miao poured the two bottles of wine they had with them on the ground beneath their feet, a toast for the bugs.

Hi friends! Sometimes we can't go wrong with the classics and today we're doing a Jump Doc Analysis of Burkess's Concept Understand Education Wonder jump! As usual have a secondary link to my past discussion posts.

General Thoughts

I've noticed I always have a lot of fun with Burkess's odder jumps. One of my favorites of theirs is Generic Totally Not Mind Control, which is a hilariously powerful jump depending on the setting you're planning to go to, and this one is also shockingly powerful (there's a perk to become a concept, a perk to bring inanimate objects to life, and an item which can absorb all of the knowledge someone has! It's wild).
This jump is the ultimate one-stop-shop for teachers & educators, which is a VERY good skill for jumpers to master. Jumpers, particularly early jumpers, would be wise to figure out how to do teaching stuff and do it well, as being a teacher is a good profession for a jumper and also mastering teaching is a pretty powerful way to subtly or not so subtly guide, shape, and improve settings. Becoming a skilled teacher is a powerful key to figuring out how to alter the course of jumps without having big flashy powers, and being a skilled teacher is a heck of a way to craft better, or worse, ends for the places you visit.
I'm a member of a setting known as the Shiftverse, which is VAGUELY like a fusion of jumpchains and more generic isekai stuff and in it two skills are top of the line in almost any situation: farming/survival & teaching. Teaching is a critical way to become indispensable to a community or group of people that is in a moderately stable condition, while farming/survival is more critical for communities in dire conditions, but of the two skills teaching is usually the skill that produces the most change over the long-term. Teaching is a vastly underrated skill set for any sort of multiversal wanderer, and in this jump we start to see some of the real power of a teacher come to the fore. So let's dive in!

Items

There's only nine items in this jump, Jumper Academy, The Living Orphanage, Treats & Games, Teaching Materials, Experimental Lab, Book Of Concepts, Media Library, Your TV Show, & Hungry Knowledge.
Two of these items are books, Book of Concepts (the obligatory "You can spread abilities like the ones here throughout the setting) & Hungry Knowledge (which can grant magical knowledge to peeps!). Three of the items are places: Jumper Academy (Generic School item), Living Orphanage (an orphanage which naturally attracts little orphan peeps from throughout a setting), & Experimental Lab (self-cleaning, auto-adjusting laboratory for all of your experiments). Three items are collections of items; Treats & Games (fun prizes and rewards for your students), Teaching Materials (a collection of supplies for teaching stuff), and Media Library (a collection of copies of all of the media you've consumed and will consume in the future). The last item is Your TV Show which is a program you are the lead actor in which will naturally be geared around education in some capacity, AND a network which you control and can create more shows for.
I like these items, they're all pretty solid encapsulations of various scenarios related to learning and different contexts in which learning can occur. Honestly there's just a lot of fun to be had with these items, and a range of different jumpers would be able to benefit from looking over some of what this jump has to display in terms of items. Funnily enough there's no teaching certificate item here, which is a bit disappointing. Though if someone wants that, it's the free item for teachers over in my High School Musical jump which could be a very fun jump to use this as a supplement with.

Perks

There are many pages of perks, as is invariably the case in a jump like this. I have a few standout favorites and I want to talk about them for a beat.
Innovation is an immersive power-modifier that allows you to take all of your powers and figure out ways to creatively use them which grants you new abilities thematically tied to your powers. They Ask Questions & Always Employed are thematically relevant employment perks that guarantee that you'll find that people like and respect you more, and are more willing to ask you to help them learn new stuff. Retrocognition is a fun perk that lets you learn the pasts of places you visit and objects you touch. Some perks like A Customized Approach, Potential Unlock, and What's Your Motivation are perfect for tutors working with singular students or small groups and allow you to figure out how to create the best, most fulfilling stuff you can imagine to work with them and teach them.
Some of the perks here are direct superpowers like Know What I Know which is a telepathy granter, and Uplift Them and Creating Life which is a sentience granter and a life-creator (for inanimate objects) respectively. These perks are interesting, and all grant new contexts for you to mess about with your abilities and CREATE students for you to teach as well as figures you can learn from.
The perks here are a healthy mix of giving you new ways to get people excited about learning, allowing you to learn stuff from people (or even ghosts!), and ways to figure out how to best teach someone something. A lot of this stuff is really good for tutors specifically, as opposed to more modern teachers and lecturers, but make no mistake there's plenty of ways to leverage the stuff here to be handy among larger numbers of people.
The perks this jump offers are worth exploring yourself, but if you've ever thought about having a jumper who either uses a job as a teacher as a cover, or just IS a teacher who likes to explore and learn stuff this jump has a lot of fun stuff for you to snatch up. I think there's just a lot of different, interesting ideas this jump allows you to explore and gives you a set of skills and abilities that will be useful in virtually any context sans something truly extreme like you being in a jump where you are either alone or almost completely alone, or where you are well and truly surrounded by hostiles and you've just got to endure whatever bullshit the jump is throwing at you (and this jump has stuff for that too! Seriously, this is a very intriguing jump).

Conclusion & Parting Thoughts

This is a very intriguing mundane/cosmic citizen jump. I think it's funny that Burkess found some straight up superpowers related to teaching and learning and I appreciate that a jump as minor as this has some real powers in it. I also like that this jump just revolves around an essential skill, and takes that skill to some pretty intense heights without doing the traditional stuff like allowing you to teach someone your superpowers. It's cool to see such creative thoughts put into a jump and made into a fun playground for jumpers to mess around in.

I'm taking my tests "out of order" as of how my college classes hit if you are wondering why I haven't posted before.
My study materials so far is the college class using testout (completed), Mike Myers udemy course, and I'm reading the comptia A+ all in one cert guide as well. I plan to take core 2 after my 10 week summer course starting in June.
Wish me luck and give me a suggestions on what to expect for the in person test at a test center? Thanks!
Edit: I think the automod misread my post lol I haven't passed yet for the actual cert, but I did pass the class. Thanks!

I didn’t date until I was 18 years old. I never really got asked out and I really wasn’t that outgoing so I probably wouldn’t have said yes anyway. “My first date” if you can call it that because I definitely don’t claim it as one. we went to college together and one of my friends at the time convinced me to go out with him. He was funny but that was about it. He really wasn’t that cute, with acne all over his face long shaggy hair, facial hair that really wasn’t coming in and very bushy eyes brows. Hopefully you get the picture.
I really didn’t want to. But i think I went because I told him that I would and really value my word and I don’t like following through with what I said. I texted my Mom about it to let her know where I was going just to be on the safe side. We went to Chick-fil-A down the street we drove separately thank the lord I really don’t think after the conversation we had or should I say he had that I would have road back with him.
So I got there and he told me that he had forgotten his wallet at home so I being the nice person I am paid for his meal.
I honestly don’t remember eating and I barely remember most of the conversation. I just remember him going on and on about himself and about his family. I think the BIGGEST thing that shocked me to my core and left me speechless and still has me kind of like lost for words all these years later was the fact that his sister if she liked you she would bite you. And she would bite him and her fiancé all the time. He tried to play it off like it was a normal thing because I guess it was in his family but I was just token by surprise and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Needless to say I never went out with him again and ether he was just using me for a free meal or he knew that I wasn’t going to see him again.( I honestly think it was the first option) he didn’t text me after that. Thank the lord, I’ve never wanted to get away from someone so fast. But now I’m happily married to my best friend who also went to the same college and who pursued me even though I turned him down several times. But that’s a story for another time.
So do you guys think he was just getting a free meal and he made all that stuff up and he was being a bad date on purpose? Or do you think any of that was real?

I’ll keep this short and sweet. I would binge drink 2-4 nights a week in college from 19-21. Once I turned 21 during Covid the drinking slowly progressed to a daily occurrence until I got to a point where for 7 months I basically needed 12-16 shots a day just to survive. Did a detox and a year long outpatient recovery program. Continued to binge drink during recovery program but limited enough to pass a weekly drug test. However, since turning 23 and having some mental health crisis’s, I’ve decreased my alcohol consumption to 10 or less drinks a month and never more than 6 in one sitting. Some people say it’s too slippery of a slope and I should avoid alcohol altogether, while others tell me that since I’ve been able to maintain those rules for the last 1.5 years that I’m okay as long as I can continue that level of moderation. What do you guys think?

“Did that Human just hit my ship?” Admiral Carney of the Saigor Empire peered out of the viewport. His voice tinged with disbelief. His ship, the Gavaron, a superstar dreadnought 10 kilometres long and brimming with every weapon the galaxy had to offer, was being propelled backwards past the fourth planet of this insignificant solar system by a man dressed in a blue suit and red cape. The crew, initially stunned, began to regain their composure and halt the ship.
“Sir? What should we do?” His second-in-command looked at the screen in disbelief. “That hit destroyed the forward shield generators and the forward main cannon!”
“Ehhh? That has to be a hologram. Scan for whatever weapon they used and send in two frigates to destroy whatever that thing is.”
His order was followed, and he saw two of the frigates that had been held back speed past him, launching rockets at the target, only for the rocket to be blasted by some red laser from this human's eyes, according to the video feed.
“Are you seeing this? What in the fifth unholy hell is this thing from? Is it a droid? “
“Scans say it's biological, and there is no technology detected, and according to our files, it looks human.”
“LOOKS HUMAN?” Admiral Carney turned to the science officer. “Does that look like a normal biological being to you? Those rockets are made of Dirunium. We can launch them through a damn sun if we want to.”
He turned to see this human grabbing a frigate and slinging it towards them. The other hightailed out of there, jumping into light speed in whatever direction they were facing. Smart kids, he thought.
“Brace for impact!”
“Brace for impact, but the shields?” His first officer looked at the helmsman as he shouted out the warning. Admiral Carney sighed and looked at him. “He destroyed them, remember? Move the ship out of the trajectory, turn the ships around and get us out of here. We can't fight that thing.“
“What about the shield? We can't jump without a shield?”
“Have a support ship land on the bow, and have them extend their shields over our damaged area. Then, let's get out of here. “
“Sir! The human is approaching us.” The words made it go cold down his spine. How could that thing, man, move that fast without any tech?
“Is he attacking?” He managed to keep his voice calm but he was getting worried. Was he to die here? In what was supposed to be a simple invasion to teach the recruits how to do the job.
“No, he is just watching us.” The words calmed him down. Maybe they could survive this. It was a defence system; it had to be, so if they just left, it would leave them be.
“Then ignore him, and let's get out of here.”
When he finally had time, he went over the reports. Earth was not supposed to have such a being as its defender. He had never seen or heard anything like this. This might cost him his job, but there was no way in the five unholy hell he could ever win over that. He logged the report and got himself a drink. He looked at his own fist. The green muscular fist would never be able to do something like that. They will cut his horns and blind his third eye for this, but he would survive. He could leave the navy and find a job on a starbase far from the capital planet. Yeah, it might be for the best. He got out the pad, wrote down his resignation, and sent it to the headquarter.

Five years later

Jar Carney had been working as a bartender at the Gustun star base for five years now, a trader base that saw creatures from all over the galaxies. Here, nobody knew or cared who he was, though he had heard the stories about the admiral who quit his position after attacking Earth, and a single human beat them back. It was a very popular story among some of the travellers. The only thing Jar found funny was that they often got the species of the admiral. In fact, mostly, it was somebody else than a Cunar like him; it tended to change. Lately, it was a female admiral of the Surion empire. Carney had to smirk at how the story had changed, and then he turned to the new Surion bartender, Saris, a young woman with a serious face who always kept to herself. She was pretty for a Surion; her soft yellow and black striped fur and the short tale made her cute, and her feminine movement had already made a few brave patrons try their luck. However, she ignored them all. “Hey, I didn’t know you guys had female admirals?”
She froze as he spoke, and Jamir, the local drunk, chuckled. “Only if they are royalty, they are given a fleet and told to show what they can do. But this time, this princess went to Earth, which was such a stupid choice. I thought they had learnt by now.” He then winked five of his 15 eyes at Saris.
Both Carney and Saris turned to him and said in unison, “What?”
Jamir laughed and finished his drink. “I’m the Funasta Admiral they spoke about last year. Unlike the smart invaders, I managed to land on that cursed planet, and while that demon tore through my fleet in space, I had to face something even worse. We set up a teleport point and just started to send in our mech units. They suddenly faced a green giant behemoth of a human. The more they shoot at him, the stronger and more dangerous he became. Then, we launched our troops and drone fighters. The humans responded by sending in more of these demons. First was a man in red who ran faster than we could see. Then a man dressed in old armour and a hammer of all things came, he controlled the weather and everywhere he struck was also hit by lightning from a clear sky. The green behemoth and the hammer guy are just as strong as the demon in the sky. They just can't fly like him. Besides the red blur that will zip around and disarm your troops, the ground support of those two monsters is a few other demons. There is a man with metal claws that could heal any wounds we inflicted on him. He is aided by a woman who tore through our men like they were paper. We had managed to defend the teleporter, so we poured in our drone clones. It didn’t matter.” He took another drink as he got lost in the nightmare that would follow. It took a second before he continued.
“The worst happened when night came. They made the dead rise to fight, Led by some bloodthirsty beast who drained our officers. Then came the humans, who turned into predatory animals and were immune to anything we threw at them. At that point, we finally had enough and ran away. We teleported home since all our ships had been destroyed and destroyed our side of the gate. So, of course, I was expelled.” He smirked, showing maw of short teeth.” But I had recorded too much evidence for them to ignore it, so we sent spies to try and find a weakness in their defense, and then we found out we were not the first to face them like this.“ He held out his glass for refill, which he got.
“We discovered that they have defeated at least eight invasions this way. And” He stopped for dramatic effect. “ We discovered their weapon. Those monsters are not real—well, they are real, but they are the result of human imagination. They have this technology that allows them to pull their —what’s the word? Ahh, now I remember superheroes and monsters from their books and movies, and for as long as people needed them, they would protect them from the enemies of the Earth. You see, they vanish once the invasion is over. Then the humans plunder the battlefield for tech.” He chuckles as he looks at his clawed hand. “Yeah, so here we sit, three admirals fracked up by imaginary monsters because nobody would believe it before seeing it with their own eyes. I mean, would your rulers believe such a fracked-up story.”
As always, let me know if you post it anywhere else. I'm okay with it as long as I get credit and am notified.

SYSTEM SPECS: OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro v10.0.22635 CPU: Genuinelntel 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11800H @ 2.30GHz GPU #1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (6GB GPU) GPU #2: Intel TigerLake-H GT1 [UHD Graphics] PHYSICAL MEMORY: 12.21 GB/15.75 GB
I’ve dropped another 100+ hours into Fallout 4 since the show, and since launch across Xbox and later PC I have 1,200+ hours total. Without looking up tonight I gave my wife directions through downtown Boston to get to Mass Fusion. She wasn’t wrapping the main quest, she just wanted a bobble head for her elaborate Sanctuary build.
Since I feel like I’ve done the vanilla quests too many times from too many angles, and looking for something that can make big changes to my game, especially from an RPG perspective.
I tried this myself, and had a functioning load order with 500ish mods covering changes to the dialogue, loads of new DLC sized quest mods, everything I could load into the workshop menu, with some texture, environment, and weather mods thrown in for spice.
Everything was going great as I was RPing an escaped gunner conscript building up Red Rocket into a safe base for himself, prepping for the inevitable Gunner attack somewhere in the commonwealth. I’d built a large warehouse (warehouse extended is fantastic) wrapping around the Red Rocket, with a loading dock home to my power armor and crafting stations, an indoor market area not dissimilar from the market in Rivet City, when I saw my wife using settlement mods I didn’t have because they were only on Bethesda and not on Nexus.
I downloaded those mods and brought them into Vortex, and that was the straw that broke the camels back. Started getting immediate CTD’s. Not wanting to give them up, I started reviewing crash logs and trying to find other issues I could fix while keeping the new ones. But after several hours of troubleshooting, updating settings, downloading drivers I could only get my save up and running with 12-15 FPS… in an untouched Sanctuary.
So I’m starting fresh. The role play is a Gunner conscript escapee trying to survive in the wasteland, constantly looking over his shoulder, before being brought into the Minutemen and deciding to do something more noble.
The foundation I was to build on is the following:

• Smoothout - 2024 FO4 Ultimate FPS and Optimization Guide
• Fall UI and all of its components - Be exceptional perk overhaul
• Extended Dialogue Interface
• Roleplayers extended dialogue
• Silent Protagonist
• Sim settlements 2

From that foundation I want to build out a new Commonwealth wasteland story for my self. I love building the bones of settlement and then using Sim Settlements to bring them to life.
Graphics and texture mods are nice, but if grab any I want to keep them light so I don’t tank my performance. I would like to use all the faction overhaul mods, and maybe something like War in the commonwealth, but I don’t know if that part of my prior issue.
Basically looking for mods that change the wasteland so I don’t think I know every ghoul waiting for me at a train station, and play nice together. I’m intrigued by the hunkered mod and “people live in series”.
I plan on doing America Rising 2, but what are a few other large quest line mods that I can include on this round? For my settlements I will use vanilla extensions and mods with decorated assets and prefab structures as much as I can. I don’t place every object, but I do build around a theme.
I prefer lore friendly, and I don’t need all the guns from every shooter of the past 10 years. Add one from other Fallout games or polish on what is already there are good for me.
I’ve had bad experiences with collections, but if there is a good one out there I’m not opposed to it.
Long story short I am trying to make an experience where I build a settlement for 12 hours, and then need a break from that and go in an adventure that is new to me. Because war never changes, but mod lists can.

Yes, it’s exactly what you read in the title. I think I have feelings for guy I haven’t met in person. So, a few years ago, I matched with a guy on Tinder. He and I have been messaging each other for a few years on Snapchat until recently. He and I have each other’s social medias, but not one another’s phone numbers.
He and I are close in age,early twenties, and from the same state. He goes to a college a few states away, so we’ve never met in person or when he was back in the same state. In the beginning of the messaging, he and I were consistent with the back and forth. There was flirting, jokes,etc.There were some points where I was more into him and he was more into me, it seemed we were never on the same page. We shared deep personal conversations and light hearted funny conversations. I think he’s really handsome, funny, intelligent, and geeky. And so much more. When I realized my feelings were strong, I tried to make the first move and invite him to my birthday celebration, he respectfully declined and explained that he wouldn’t be able to make it . He had a valid reason, he’s extremely bright(Physics Major, like Math, but Rocket Science) and got into a lab in another state for the summer, great opportunity, so I was very happy for him.
I tried to keep conversations after the fact, but it seems like I just wasn’t clicking with him like I was before. Seems like I was forcing it, and it was very one-sided on my behalf. Having feelings for somebody and having them on all your social media isn’t fun seeing them have fun and just seeing them accomplished things it truly truly makes it harder to keep my feelings to myself. I’m happy for him, but it hurts because I want to be a person that he shares this with.
Me, being states away didn’t help anything it’s not like I would be able to see him or if we pushed the boundary into being something more it would work necessarily. I had hoped though after starting more conversations, yet getting the same results of it feeling like I was bothering him, I kinda just took a break from social media. It’s been roughly 2 months since we’ve spoken. To be honest with you, I think he just forgot about me. Understandably he went to a college that was hours away. He had his friends there. I think his final year of college was this year. He probably even graduated. Which means he’s coming back to our state, his birthday is coming up and I want to spark up conversation by telling him “Happy Birthday” and maybe confessing my feelings to him. If I can’t work up the confidence to confess my feelings, I think I should start by offering my number and seeing where it goes from there? Hopefully, meeting him in person!
He’s a great guy and if being his friend is all I’ll ever be. I’m OK with that. I like having him in my life. He talked me through a lot of things and hopefully it’s the same for him. Any advice?