By my count, there are 15 T5 ships available for just dilithium or a level 40 token, which someone might want a starter build for to help them finish off the episode missions and start the reputation grind. My Strict Budget Build covers the three science vessels, the Baby Step series covers the three cruisers with tactical ensigns, Quick Looks 1 and 2 cover the Hegh'ta Bird of Prey and the Jem'hadar Escort, and there's definitely an argument to be made that some are just bad choices. But there was one more I wanted to take a look at here. This series will not be as thoroughly researched as those previous series, and it will not feature optimized skill builds (there are many resources for that), but the builds will be proven in the Badlands Battlezone and in solo Defense of Starbase One Advanced, as well as extensively parsed in the Wanted (Argala System) patrol with comparisons to similar builds. That should adequately demonstrate that they can get you whatever reputation marks you need, using only mission, basic (generally Mk XII uncommon) Exchange, and Phoenix Store items. Each build will be allowed one Mk XV item to maintain parity with the Strict Budget Build, usually a forward weapon. It's also easy enough to put these together that I could be persuaded to do more if there's a ship that deserves it.
So, why the Vo'Quv? Well it's in the name, it's a carrier. Hangar bays are expensive to boost in this game, but that means they have to be balanced to have pretty good base damage. In this case the two hangars did more than half the damage of most of the other builds in this series with hardly any support for them. The downside to carriers is that they often sacrifice a lot for those hangars. Not so for Flight Deck Carriers, which are pretty much full cruisers, or any of the single hangar types, but the science carriers like the Vo'Quv don't really have an obvious path to getting ship damage, especially on this budget. Their turn rate is terrible, which is a problem for most things, they have only 6 weapons so getting a lot from energy weapons is out, and they don't have a secondary deflector, which did do more on my science vessel build than the hangars did here.
So where did I end up, then? Well, with 6 science ability slots and not a ton of options I couldn't see not using them for some direct exotic damage. And since that required me to face forward, and the turn rate was terrible and I couldn't do much about it, I concluded that I'd have to use turrets in the rear with either beam arrays or single cannons forward, the two widest arc weapon combinations possible apart from pure turrets, although their damage potential is limited. The Chronometric set also seemed like a must have, providing a large amount of EPG and some Polaron cat1 from the tac console, and a bit of aux power from the 2 piece, but I wasn't sure whether I'd want the Morphogenic set or not, since it would mean sacrificing a cannon. Then, I went to the TRINITY DPS Calculator from STO BETTER and started plugging in some rough options. Single cannons outperformed beam arrays even with the Chronometric 3 piece, so that settled that, and getting the crtd from the Morphogenic 3 piece and Cannon Scatter Volley was well worth losing a forward cannon for the torp. Attack Pattern Beta proved a bigger contributor than expected thanks to boosting the exotic damage as well, which is why that's at 2 and CSV is at 1, and easily outperformed including a Torpedo Spread as well. Finally I switched the power settings away from a balanced configuration toward weapons over aux and aux over weapons, and the high aux version did best. So that was the build.
How did it perform? Well it was sluggish, obviously, I expected that. But the DPS was pretty impressive and was reflected in how quickly it got kills. And the survivability was pretty good, with a lot of hull and pretty good healing I really couldn't complain, except that it was so sluggish it was hard to run out of range and heal if I needed to. On the other hand when I did withdraw the fighters kept fighting, contributing to the highest Wanted Elite DPS of any of the builds in the table with only one attempt needed to survive the whole mission (the science vessel could do better by charging in and dying a couple of times, but needed to play cautiously and sacrifice its CPB to survive). They were even powerful enough to handle the Birds of Prey in Starbase One Advanced without any help from the mothership, potentially even without player input, which could be convenient.

Captain Details

Captain Name	Stilt
Captain Career	Science
Captain Faction	Federation
Captain Race	Vulcan
Primary Specialization	Temporal	The best specialization for exotic builds, as well as for ground builds and a good generalist option, it provides debuffs, damage boosts, EPG, and survivability

Space Skill Tree

Rank	Engineering		Science		Tactical
Lieutenant		Advanced Hull Capacity			Advanced Energy Weapon Training	Advanced Projectile Weapon Training
Lt. Commander	Improved Electro-Plasma System Flow	Impulse Expertise	Improved Control Expertise	Drain Expertise	Targeting Expertise	Defensive Maneuvering
			Control Amplification	Drain Infection
Commander	Hull Plating				Advanced Weapon Amplification	Advanced Weapon Specialization
Captain	Defensive Subsystem Tuning		Advanced Exotic Particle Generator	Advanced Long Range Targeting Sensors	Advanced Hull Penetration	Advanced Shield Weakening
Admiral					Coordination Protocols	Advanced Tactical Readiness
					Defensive Coordination
					Offensive Coordination
1 Points Left	8		11		26

Space Skill Unlocks

Purchases	Engineering	Science	Tactical
2	Hazard Emitters III	Science Team III	Tachyon Beam III
5	Battery Expertise	Sector Space Travel Speed
7	Feedback Pulse III	Photonic Shockwave III	Jam Sensors III
10		Maximum Shield Capacity
12			Tractor Beam III
15		Control Resistance
17			Viral Matrix III
20		Shield Drain Resistance
24 (Ultimate)			Focused Frenzy
25 (1st Ultimate Enhancer)			Frenzied Assault
26 (2nd Ultimate Enhancer)			Team Frenzy

This skill tree is my generalist one from Strict Budget Build part 2, and it pretty much needs to be. This build relies on both energy weapon and exotic damage, so it can't afford to neglect either one. There are other generalist skill trees, of course, but that is what you'll need to be looking for, any single purpose tree isn't going to get the job done.

Ship Loadout: Vo'Quv Carrier

Slot	Item	Notes
Fore Weapon 1	Polaron Cannon	The one Mk XV, single cannons are usually a poor choice, but they will outperform beam arrays forward/turrets aft and provide 180 degrees of firing arc
Fore Weapon 2	Polaron Cannon	The Vo'Quv suffers from terrible turn rate so it doesn't want weapons with narrow arcs, but it needs to face forward for the exotic damage
Fore Weapon 3	Morphogenic Polaron Energy Torpedo Launcher	Here for the 3 piece set bonus providing 30% crtd to the whole ship
Aft Weapon 1	Heavy Chronometric Polaron Turret	Mostly need a turret, 2 piece provides some aux
Aft Weapon 2	Morphogenic Polaron Energy Weapon	Another turret, and contributes to the 3 piece
Aft Weapon 3	Polaron Turret	Just a turret
Deflector	Solanae Deflector Array Mk XII Very Rare	Provides more EPG out of the box than any other mission reward
Impulse Engines	Sol Defense Impulse Engines Mk XII Very Rare	With the bonus from getting hit this does just provide the best total turn rate out of the mission rewards at 14.7 degrees/s, replace with Fortified Competitive rep engines
Warp Core	Obelisk Subspace Rift Warp Core	This build only hits 122 aux so this doesn't actually help, could consider Deuterium-Stabilized but the benefit is minimal
Shields	Sol Defense Covariant Shield Array Mk XII Very Rare	2 piece is nice for survivability, alternative would be Jem'Hadar 2 piece for a bit of Polaron cat1.
Devices	Exotic Particle Flood	Crafted in Science R&D. I do have to admit that the materials are a little hard to come by, and Admiralty (with account unlocked ships) is the best source I've found.
	Deuterium Surplus	Evasive Maneuvers in battery form, and you can collect 4 per day from the Alhena system.
	Delta Alliance Reinforcements Beacon	Handy damage boost
3 Engineering Consoles	Console - Engineering - Trellium-D Plating Mk XII Very Rare	Good survivability console, could use a Neutronium instead
	Console - Engineering - Polaric Modulator Mk XII Very Rare	Boosts Inertia, which is rare, as well as turn rate, and slipstream turn rate at warp
	Console - Engineering - House Martok Defensive Configuration Mk XII Very Rare	Boosts turn rate and provides some survivability, an RCS would work too
4 Science Consoles	Console - Science - Temporal Disentanglement Suite Mk XII Very Rare	Nice crit and durability boost, plus some power.
	Console - Science - Temporally Shielded Datacore Mk XII Very Rare	Slightly less EPG than Particle Generators but it makes up for it with the CtrlX
	Console - Science - Particle Generator Mk XII Uncommon	Just need EPG
	Console - Science - Particle Generator Mk XII Common
2 Tactical Consoles	Console - Tactical - Morphogenic Matrix Controller Mk XII Very Rare	For the 3 piece and some polaron cat1
	Console - Tactical - Chronometric Capacitor Mk XII Very Rare	Good EPG, some aux from the 2 piece, and some Polaron cat1, and this build uses all of it
2 Hangar Bays	Hangar - To'Duj Fighters	These provide more DPS than any other hangar that's available by default, and they come with the ship, they will die in heavy AoE content, otherwise use two
	Hangar - Delta Flyers	These have slightly less DPS than To'duj but never die in any content, but do require a level 65 KDF character for Cross Faction Flying, could substitute B'rels for more DPS loss

Officer Details

Bridge Officers
Lt. Commander Tactical	Tactical Team I	Shield distribution and debuff clear, may cause firing cycle problems but I haven't seen it
	Cannon: Scatter Volley I	Excellent weapon damage buff and also spreads APB to up to 3 targets
	Attack Pattern Beta II	Unusual to slot this above the firing mode, but it boosts every damage source and weapon damage is only ~1/4 of the total
Lt. Commander Engineering	Emergency Power to Engines I	More than doubles speed and provides +2 turn rate, essential mobility for any build
	Auxiliary to Structural I	Excellent heal and damage resist, and on a very short cooldown
	Emergency Power to Weapons III	Major energy weapon damage boost
Commander Science	Hazard Emitters I	Good hull heal and debuff clear
	Destabilizing Resonance Beam I	Good exotic damage, used with GW
	Photonic Officer II	Cooldown reduction
	Gravity Well III	Good exotic damage and control
Lieutenant Science	Science Team I	Shield heal and debuff clear
	Tyken's Rift I	Exotic damage, alternate with GW

Traits & Duty Officers

Trait	Name	Description	Notes
Personal Traits	Astrophysicist		A little bit of EPG
	Cannon Training		A little more cannon damage
	Conservation of Energy		Significant exotic damage while solo, but stacks don't last long
	Deft Cannoneer		Boosts turn rate by 1, on this build we need it, from Cannons R&D
	Fleet Coordinator		One of the best traits in the game when on a team
	Give Your All		Excellent hull damage resistance
	Operative		Some extra crit
	Particle Manipulator		The most powerful trait for exotic damage, +50%/+29.6% crth/crtd on this build, from Science R&D
	Photonic Capacitor		Extra Photonic Fleet is nice to have
Starship Traits	None		Unconventional Tactics from completing Strategist is definitely worth slotting here, but I kept it cheap.
Space Reputation Traits	None		You'll start picking these up very quickly, Precision and Advanced Targeting Systems are top picks.
Duty Officers	Projectile Weapons Officer		"Law" from A Fistful of Gorn, a bit of a pain to get there, but worth having
	Projectile Weapons Officer		A common included in my first duty officer pack
	Astrometrics Scientist		Uncommon, also in my first pack, handy to have set
	Conn Officer		From Phoenix, a must have for mobility in any build

This table shows all damage sources in one Wanted Advanced run, with multiple lines from the same source summed together.

Source	DPS
To'Duj Fighters	6594
Delta Flyers	4504
Gravity Well	3571
Photonic Fleet	3170
Polaron Cannons	2889
Destabilizing Resonance Beam	1728
Chronometric Turret	1156
Polaron Turret	1001
Morphogenic Turret	994
Morphogenic Torpedo	855
Tyken's Rift	839
Drain Infection	708
Entropic Rider	144

^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}
Now, let's talk keybinds. In STO on PC you're going to want to learn keybinding eventually, and most of it's not too hard and can be done through the chat window (although it is arguably better to create a separate text file with your binds, that's more complicated). The first thing I always do is to set up a secondary fire weapons button through settings, usually V, just in case I screw up and my intended fire keybind doesn't work. While I'm there I usually set Distribute Shields to Left Shift, it's a pretty good survivability boost, although a lot of people do say it can mess up firing cycles, but personally I've never noticed a problem. Then, the commands you'll want to know are "FirePhasers" or "FireAll", "+power_exec Distribute_Shields", and "+TrayExecByTray # #", where # is a number. Note that the list of commands needs quotation marks around it, and commands should be separated by "$$". So if you typed the following into the chat: /bind y "+TrayExecByTray 0 0 $$ +TrayExecByTray 0 1 $$ +TrayExecByTray 1 2 $$ +TrayExecByTray 1 3" That would create a keybind so that y would activate the first and second abilities in the row labeled 1, and the third and fourth abilities in the row labeled 2 (0 in a keybind means 1 in the UI, 1 means 2, 2 means 3, etc., that's just how it works), starting with the fourth ability in 2 and then proceeding backwards. From there on in it's personal preference, put things where they feel natural to you, where you're used to them being. What I use has evolved naturally over time, I make no claims that it's efficient, just that I'm used to it, and I use it on everything. For fire weapons, distribute shields, Emergency Power abilities, cooldown reduction, often Aux to Structural, and anything else I just want to keep active I use spacebar, like this: /bind space "FireAll $$ +power_exec Distribute_Shields $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 0 $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 1 $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 2 $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 3 $$ +TrayExecByTray 6 4" That's the first 5 slots in row 7, which is usually enough. Then for my firing modes, Attack Pattern Beta, and so on, things with short cooldowns I activate as I attack, I use the 7 key, no good reason for that it just happened, and the first 4 slots in row 3: /bind 7 "+TrayExecByTray 2 0 $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 1 $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 2 $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 3" And finally for my exotic builds I always put Gravity Well and Destabilizing Resonance beam on 2, using the next two slots in row 3, although it is true that the usual logic behind that doesn't apply here, I just did it out of habit: /bind 2 "+TrayExecByTray 2 4 $$ +TrayExecByTray 2 5" That's all the keybinds I use, everything else I activate manually, one at a time, but it does compress 13 keys I might want to be pressing down to 3, which helps a lot.
Now, the difficult thing about this build is that I really don't know how to suggest upgrading it, apart from the obvious necessity of some Competitive Reputation engines to get their Overcharge to improve turn rate, I made sure to use Aux to Structural to pair with the Fortified version of those. The damage is very divided between different types, with about 40% from hangars, 25% from exotics, and 21% from energy weapons, and it's not getting a lot out of any of them, but I'll provide my own ideas and the STO BETTER Basics links for all three. Currently the biggest damage source is the hangars, but trying to improve those would be expensive. Ideally you'd like to pick up Superior Area Denial from the Mirror Strike Wing Escort lockbox ship, or at least the Independent Wingmate space trait, but those are very expensive compared to this build. Even the more minor and less powerful Advanced Engineering – Hangar Craft Power Transmission consoles are starting at 1 million energy credits each on PC for either a Mk XII with a useless mod or a Mk II with an [EPG] mod, or 5 million for a Mk II with [Polaron], while Swarmer Matrix is going for 7 million. If you wanted to work on exotic damage you could of course pick up the Temporal reputation two piece, and then you might want Subspace Vortex or Very Cold in Space to replace the heals with some more damage, but those will cost you 9 million, and really you'd want to pair them with Spore Infused Anomalies from the Somerville or Batlh C-store ships for a truly potent source of exotic damage. You might be able to get good exotic damage out of the Gravimetric Photon and Particle Emission Plasma torpedoes after picking up the Competitive engines, and those aren't as expensive, but they do give you a much narrower arc. And if you wanted to improve the energy weapons, of course there are reputation items you can pick up starting with the Discovery reputation shield, but you're pretty limited by the combination of poor turn rate and forward firing exotics. You could try to switch to dual (heavy) cannons, probably moving the torpedo to the rear and dropping the plain turret, but I don't think I'm a good enough pilot to pull that off even with Competitive engines, which would leave you with single cannons which have underwhelming base damage and very few set items to support them. I just don't know what direction to go in to make a really impactful improvement in this build.
Finally, here's the table of DPS testing in the Wanted patrol for all five equivalent budget builds. The Luna used the original, unaltered Strict Budget Build, using the mentioned swap of Emergency Power to Shields instead of Aux to Structural for better survivability against non-Borg. The Vor'cha sat somewhere between parts one and two of the Baby Step series, meaning it had exactly the same consoles as the Hegh'ta BoP and similar ones to the Jem Escort, and the beam equivalents of the phaser weapons, with exactly the abilities and personal traits in the Baby Step posts. It must also be said that the Vor'cha and Vo'quv were the only builds to never die on elite difficulty, and the Vor'cha was definitely the toughest, although all the builds took about 20 minutes to get through the mission so using them at that difficulty is a bad idea. The Hegh'ta of course used the Quick Looks 1 build, and the Jem Escort used the Quick Looks 2 build.

	Elite (DPS thousands)	Advanced 1 (DPS thousands)	Advanced 2	Advanced 3	Advanced 4	Advanced Average
Hegh'ta Heavy BoP	20.0	20.1	21.5	22.5	23.2	21.8
Jem'hadar Escort	19.3	23.4	20.6	21.8	19.7	21.4
Vo'quV Carrier	27.3	26.3	28.2	26.6	25.2	26.6
Luna Science Vessel	24.8	31.4	28.3	27.9	27.0	28.6
Vor'cha Battlecruiser	15.1	15.0	14.1	14.8	14.6	14.6

^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}

I've been with my partner [28F] for a little over 10 years and this is both of our first relationship. We have always been sort of long distant (different high school, colleges, grad school) but worked it out by visiting once every few months or daily phone calls. I initially had paranoia of why this person would ever like me but after awhile (~2 years), I was convinced that she truly loves me and she is very loyal (so I have no doubts that she will leave me). Now the problem for me is that, I do not know if I should continue this relationship.
I am generally a pretty optimistic person, enjoy hobbies, and have a good friend group. But I am also currently unemployed (for ~2 years now) and most likely depressed (I do see a therapist) because of that (financial instability, wasting away at home, etc.). Maybe my depression is making my feelings about the relationship worse but I don't really know at this point.
I love my partner but I don't know if I'm convincing myself that I do. She is a lovely and reasonable person but I feel like we are too different. She is depressed (for years) and very pessimistic and is almost the complete opposite from me when it comes to interests (food, hobbies, music, etc.). We don't see each other often (maybe once a week or 2) but when we do, nothing really happens (we just kind of just keep each other company and do our own thing). In the beginning of our relationship, there was so much to talk about but now there's nothing really to talk about. Our phone calls are usually just "how was your day" or "what did you eat". She would get frustrated about how I should give her more "attention" or talk about something, but there really isn't much to say. The arguments we have are usually stuff we like that or things disagree on and she cuts me off by saying she doesn't want to talk about it anymore when things go south whereas I kind of want to resolve it right then and there (I know this is a communication thing and probably a case of I should 'listen' rather than 'solving' but this is something I've been working on). I have been telling myself for years that she will change but I have come to realize more recently that I have no control over that. Obviously, its bad of me to think that way to begin with but I was still young and naïve. I have reached a point where I am frustrated about small things that she do but I don't say anything because I don't want to hurt her.
Reading everything above makes it seem like I should break this off and move on but keeps me conflicted are multiple things.

• My partner is moderately depressed and I think that breaking this off will make this extremely worse (suicidal). (She has spoken about this really early in our relationship so this is not a baseless statement).
• My partner does not have many friends, hobbies, or things she enjoys (she doesn't like her job, lifestyle, environment). I have tried to help her by giving her suggestions and advice to improve her life but she doesn't budge, even blames her depression (I understand it is harder for people with depression to break out of that shell). But this just adds on to the first point of why I can leave her, she'll have nobody and will be miserable.
• My fear of what if I can't find someone whose as loyal and loves me for me.
• My thoughts of "it's been 10 years already, I should be committed".
• I have also spent pretty much half my life with her, I don't know how I'll adjust. I'm honestly pretty scared.
• Hopes that once I get a job and become financially stable, everything will work out. But maybe all these thoughts are because I'm of the current situation I'm in and my depression.

TBH I'm not sure if I can even go through with this and maybe I'm just venting but I know that she most likely won't either, so I don't know. There's also a lot of details or things I probably missed but that's it for now.
TL;DR - 10 year relationship, both our first relationship. Opposite interests, hobbies, personalities. Making decision to end is extremely difficult (fears, hopes, negative outcomes?).

What is happening with Goodwill? About 6 months ago, on a Thursday evening, left the So Cal Atwater store feeling bullied, humiliated, and ganged up on by employees. It was the worst experience in that it has left me traumatized and still reliving it… Had been a customer of this store for years spending thousands of dollars and mostly for charity. Some of the other managers and employees working there can attest, I pretty sure.
That evening, I had been waiting for a cashier to show up to help for about 15-20 minutes, when a new checkout clerk showed up whom I had never seen in that store before, started to ring up the items of the person behind me because his items were placed by her register. When I pointed out to her that it was my turn, she simply ignored me and rolled her eyes. When she started ringing my things, she looked up at me and said “what are you staring at?” She was agitated but not loud. I thought I had misheard and asked her to repeat, and again she said the same thing. That’s when I paused and asked her louder if she had a problem with me.
The manager on duty, who was helping the other cashier for at least 30 minutes with a customer with 5 gigantic bags of clothes to exchange, and while already frustrated, without knowledge of the situation jumped out of her station, and in a loud tone told me to not talk to the cashier in that tone. I told her what had happened, and she had a stone cold look and did not care at all.
Next thing I know, a very aggressive security woman comes over and tells me to “step outside” so she can match my energy implying she will get physical, very eager to show her power in front of everyone without a care about the incident itself. Then the customer exchanging what seemed her and her children’s entire closet, pulls out her camera to film it all as if it’s entertainment while the security guard asks her to film it and pass it along to her for TikTok and is laughing. This happened as I was walking out. That’s when I got upset with the security guard and said if she does that, I will bring a lawsuit and shortly after went back to take pictures of the people involved. Unfortunately, did not catch a pic of the very aggressive and loud security guard. Her picture in an animated pose would be very. These employees were the WORST! Bored and hateful. They have no business dealing with customers. I couldn’t sleep for a week after that I was so shaken up. With my heart racing, after a couple of weeks, on a Saturday, went back to that store knowing that the Saturday staff knows me and treats me with respect. Was wondering if I can somehow get the name of the security guard and file a complaint with Goodwill. Entering, passed the hallway security guard (a different one) and once in the store was greeted by the cashier on duty who knew me as a customer, and I decided to proceed with the shopping and let things go. About 15 to 20 minutes later 2 store employees and a security guard approach me with a piece of paper in hand telling me it’s a traspass warning due to an incident that happened a few weeks ago (referring to part 1 of this story)and that I am banned from that particular store and if I have questions to contact either the head of security or store management. The cashier who approached me with the trespass note said that he knew I was one of the long time and best customers and apologized profusely but said the ban was mandated by the security and that there was nothing he could do. So humiliated and upset and with no former experience in being banned from anywhere, I left contemplating my next steps. I was so angry that I was entertaining the idea of calling an attorney, but decided that instead I would escalate to the people mentioned by the cashier. After going in circles for a few weeks and leaving messages for the retail customer relations representative and receiving no call back, I somehow had the luck of my call being picked up by a HR person who gave me the work cell phone number for the person (Jose Garces) I had left messages for without a response. After leaving a message on his cell and saying I won’t give up, he finally calls me back and gives me the cell phone number for their head of security once I share the story. After leaving multiple messages for the head of security named Joe Suarez, and never getting a call back, called from a blocked number and he picked up. Needless to say, once he finds out who I am, he is very rude on the phone followed by an email from Jose confirming that the ban remains and threatening that if I speak to the employees about this matter, the ban will get extended from a year. So frustrated, I located the email information of their president and CEO. Sent an email to several of them about this horrible experience, and FINALLY, the director of their customer relations called me back and I felt relieved. I believed I can finally talk to someone about this farce of a situation, the injustice and humiliation, and she will set things straight. Her name is Shavone Turner. Boy, was I wrong. She gave me the run around to only do NOTHING. She kept citing vague and illogical excuses why I need to call back. Yesterday she told me to call back in August which would mark 10 months since the incident and 4 procrastinations and requests for my callback. Does she really underestimate people’s intelligence to that degree thinking she can fool them in thinking she is taking action? Shame on Goodwill SoCal. The so called points of contact for escalation related to a bad experience in a retail store or with a power hungry security guard were useless to say the least. I feel they are not there to help anyone, so not sure why they are even identified as points of contact. Donations including mine are wasted on their salaries? Joe Suarez should be fired. People shouldn’t get away with this kind of behavior. People who have their jobs because of others good will… There are many truly hard working and qualifying professionals that could be filling these high paying positions who would actually do their jobs instead of posturing.

Playing on Interloper, just passed Day 70. I'm trying to get the Tales done for the first time so I'm planning to start Signal Void. Off I go from Mystery Lake to Forsaken Airfield. I get out there, get the walkie, start the quest up. I have enough food on me to get back, around 40 cat-tails at this point. It's blizzarding in FA so I don't hunt there. I decide to head back on the first clear day. In hindsight, I should have hunted.
Anyway, the trip back is not really eventful but I am not doing a good enough job of keeping my condition up. I am definitely pushing too hard to get back to ML faster. Thinking about it now, I don't even know why I was in such a big hurry. I pushed all the way through Broken Railroad (which I have not looted yet) and things are not going too bad, but the Muskeg is windy as heck and my condition drops below 10%. I have to use a stim to get to the derailed train so I can warm up and recover a bit. I use my last birch bark tea and rest a few hours with the fire burning. I wake up, make a couple of coffees and head off to Camp Office in ML. But it's still pretty dang cold (despite me being at +23 gear). My condition slips back below 10% and now I've got a wolf trailing me. I'm not worried about the wolf really but my condition being so low definitely had me focusing on pushing back to camp office. I get back and at this point I have a couple of cat tails left but no other food. The only food in Camp Office is a couple of ruined dog foods, and I don't want to roll the dice with food poisoning when I'm already under 10%.
So I reluctantly decide that I will eat a piece of bear meat. I am about halfway to Cooking 5 at this point so I still have to be mindful even with cooked food. Surely the 1% intestinal parasites won't get me. Well... turns out I didn't have to worry about the parasites. The 30 KG of bear I left in the rock cache outside Camp Office has of course, disappeared because it dropped to 0 condition. Whoops. This is even funnier to me because I almost never bother with a rock cache for anything. I'll just leave the stack of meat in the snow. And this is why! So... I have no choice, gotta try the Dog Food. I manage to get food poisoning from BOTH cans. Luckily I have medical supplies so I take a reishi tea and then sleep. Get up after my needed 10 hours and obviously mission 1 is food. But my condition is still hovering around 10%.
It's not storming out, but there's no deer about, no ptarmigans nearby. I decide my best bet is my two fishing tip-ups in the nearby fishing huts. I take my coal and some sticks out there. I check the first hut and... line breaks. Well, okay. Check the second hut... at this point it is getting dark, so I am pretty sure I am spending the night in this hut and I need to get lucky here. Thankfully, this line does not break. I catch a big fish, one I've never seen before (the high-level tackles can give you different fish) worth almost 2000 calories. So obviously I cook it up. At that point there's no way I'm chancing a return trip across the lake, since I have enough coal to get through the night. I keep fishing and thankfully this line manages to net me a few more fish before it snaps. By then it's time to sleep anyway. I trek back to Camp Office the next morning with about 1400 calories of fish to get me to my next destination. I stopped there, and have not yet decided my next destination. I might try to hunt the deer near the dam or in Ravine, since my condition is still low and I don't want to continue with the Lost Signal quest until I'm healthier.
So yeah anyway if you read all that, congrats you are also a Long Dark addict like myself. A bit of a harrowing tale, but also I feel like it's not very uncommon for any of us that play. Most of my deaths in this game are user error leading to bad luck, or vice versa. In this instance I made one questionable choice (leaving FA) and that fed into another (passing through BR rather than stopping) which led me to bad choices (how to feed myself back in ML because my bear meat is gone). As I am reminded every time I travel there, it's called "The FAR territory" for a reason. In the end I was lucky enough to survive so... we'll see how I screw it up next.
TLDR: Return from a long excursion almost dead, 30 KG of bear meat decayed and vanished in a rock cache. Horror, chaos, etc.

And it's not like there is something special about the tie, it looks exactly a $10 one you can buy at a local WalMart. Perhaps the fabric is of superior quality, yet this detail seems trivial to me, I mean who really cares. I asked him about it once and he said luxury items, such as this tie or his shoes, elevates his spirits, making him feel exceptionally good (especially since he was not well off growing up). He described it as his aura resonating with high-frequency vibrations. I get the meaning of that in an esoteric sense, but practically to me it seems useless, delusional or egotistical. I mean does one need that to feel good about themselves? I get that wealth can boost confidence and ego, but ones sense of self shouldn't be that dependent on it. But he says it improves his life as he is pulsating good vibes at a very high-frequency which brings further success, prosperity and happiness.
Is there actually any validity to what he is saying or or is it merely fanciful thinking? Perhaps he is even getting cause and effect mixed up. To me it seems like hogwash. But I don't judge him, as if that what he likes, then good for him (he is, be all accounts, generally a nice person). I like nice things as well, as we all probably do, so this is not about pretentions virtue signaling. What are your thoughts on this matter? Be honest, no need for societal pretentiousness or even political correctness - but please keep it civil. Your insights are welcome.
Note: it’s worth noting that he is very rich (like a multimillionaire) due to stock options and some good investments outside of work. He has no problem affording this stuff.

Hi everyone. I thought I’d planned my savings well this year, I will max my isa contributions, and upped my mortgage payments. I have maxed out my mortgage overpayment. My question is on my regular savings account, I have the below expected interest earnings for this tax year:

• 1 year bond paying out in June of £10,000 - £400
• 2 high rate savings accounts (max £500 per month total) - £257
• Expected Current account interest- £150
  
• Total expected interest from this year - £857
  

I have just learned about the max £500 interest earnings for higher tax payers, and then we pay 40% after that. I’d like to know if I’ve understood that right.
I don’t want to pay this tax. My rash mind is wanting me to withdraw the 10,000 now from the fixed bond, forfeiting the £400 pay out and then stick it in a pension or overpay my mortgage with it (I would get an overpayment penalty). Then for the rest of the year I could continue to save and not worry about the tax.
I’d like to not do anything stupid, and I think withdrawing the £10,000 now would be. So that leaves me with stopping paying into my high savings accounts for this year and putting the money into a GIA/pensions or upping my monthly mortgage payments again.
Does anyone have advice for my situation? I’m wondering if there is even a point in trying to save if you have £10,000 outside an isa right now. Thanks

"Golden rules" about buying cheap flights, like booking domestic flights 57 days before the departure date, are no longer valid, as there has been a huge shift in the travel industry in what days were thought the cheapest to booking flights. If a study has not been conducted recently, or only one year ago, do not put too much faith in it; there's no reason to worry about booking a flight far in advance. The stellar tips below are current.
Check airlines which don't appear on 3rd party websitesOne of the major weaknesses of Internet search engines is that they frequently will not display the flights of all airlines such as Southwest, Frontier, and Allegiant. To solve this problem, use a free resource like Wikipedia to learn which of these airlines operates a certain airport. Visit Wikipedia, go to their airport page, and search for a section called "Airlines and destinations." You are advised to locate a list of each airline that flies to that airport as well as all the nonstop destinations that airport operates. So, once you become aware of any carriers which did not show up in your first searches, you could now look for flights straight on the airlines' sites.Search one-way & round-trip flightsOnce upon a time the majority of round-trip flights were cheaper than booking two one-way airfare flights. That's no longer the situation today. For instance, Southwest and Jetblue set their prices for their flights on a one-way basis; and a round-trip flight is only the sum of the 2 one-way rates. So, you'll want to check one-way flight rates to ensure you buy the best round-trip deal by pairing two one-way flight tickets, probably on two different carriers.Look for one seat at a timeThere exists a virtually unknown quirk in how carriers price seats which could result in greater prices if searching for many passengers as opposed to a single ticket. Airlines put their inventory in fare classes, or called buckets, which are not always obviously visible to customers. For instance, there may be just three seats left in a fare bucket for $300 each, and the next higher bucket may be $400 for each ticket. But, if you happen to look for four seats, each one would end up falling into the $400 fare bucket.Search alternate airportsAt times the cost of a certain flight is extremely high that it could be a good idea to use your second or even third choice of airports. For instance, you perhaps are aware of the New York area's 3 biggest airports: New York-JFK, Newark (EWR), and New York-LaGuardia. But did you know that Stewart (SWF), Westchester (HPN), and Long Island McArthur (ISP) are also in the region? Several airlines permit you to look for all airports in a region by just specifying the destination as the city itself rather than a certain airport. The ITA Matrix tool is also a great way to look for close by if you do not know the area too well, and Google Flights offers a "Nearby airports" option to assist in this search, too.Don't always travel directBeing flexible with your route you'll be flying is another way to find a cheap flight. For instance, at times it's cheaper to travel to London and use a budget airline to Amsterdam instead of flying directly to Amsterdam from the actual departure city.To utilize this approach, learn how much it costs to fly directly to the target destination. Next, open Google Flights, type in the destination's details like country name to see the rates to nearby airports. If the difference happens to exceed $150 dollars, find out how much it actually is to fly from the 2nd airport to the main destination.Leverage elite statusAlthough having elite status will not allow you to book flights at a discount, you still could use it to save money another way. But with elite status with the majority of airlines let you to standby for earlier flights or perform same-day verified flight modifications. This can permit you to buy a discounted airline flight at an awful time, only to modify it to the flight you really want but at no extra charge. Even without elite status, the charge to standby or make a same-day verified flight modification might be less than the airfare difference between the flight you truly want and the lowest option that day.Use the correct credit cardThe right credit card may very well provide you major savings on flight tickets in a number of various ways. For instance, The Platinum Card from American Express now offers 5x points on all airline bookings made directly with the carrier or with Amex travel, worth 10 cents each dollar spent, based on TPG's recent valuations. That card in addition offers the International Airfare Program, providing cardholders discounts for premium class flights on certain airlines.Search for free hotels and stopover toursWhenever an airline imposes a lengthy layover because of its very tight schedule, the airline will usually offer a free STPC, or stopover paid by carrier, which can include a free tour or hotel room as well.
Don't mind the mythsThe initial and main fact to know whenever locating a cheap flight is there exists no magic trick for achieving this objective. There are however a ton of myths floating online about certain ways to seek cheap flights. Without doubt, you must have run into a lot of them while searching for the best flight deals.Airline companies use advanced technology like computers and pricing algorithms for determining flight prices and offer deals based on various factors like time of the year, weather, time of day, passenger demand, fuel prices, competitor prices, and others. These myths and similar ones will lead you astray. Be flexible in respect to your travel times & datesAirline flight rates vary a lot depending on upcoming holidays, day of the week, and time of the year. August is a major month for flying to Europe, and plenty of people are planning to travel somewhere hot during winter or fly while the kids are taking a break from school.In summation, if you're traveling when everyone is also flying, then logically your flight price will be higher.Flexibility is everything for cheap plane tickets & cheap flight dealsThe more flexible you are, you'll get better cheap flight deals you can book. Here's a new way of doing things: Instead of deciding where to go next, choosing dates, and then searching for the cheap plane tickets to certain destinations on those particular dates, consider first selecting your destination and dates based on the best going deals available. By exercising greater flexibility where you travel and the specific dates you fly, you will have a far better opportunity to find cheaper airfare.Book first, think later for cheap flight finder cancellationTake complete advantage of the free 24-hour cancellation window while purchasing flights. Because of the Department of Transportation's strict regulations, any cheap flight booked to or from the United States could be canceled without worry of incurring a penalty, for 24 hours after the flight's reservation; it must be booked no less than one week before the flight's departure. Yes, it's a very good idea to use a cheap flight finder these days. What this means is that if you buy a flight and the ticket price drops within 24 hour window, you could cancel the original flight and purchase the new, less expensive one.Warning: the 24-hour rule can only work for flights directly bought with the airline or with booking engines such as Priceline.Set a price alert for all cheap flight ticketsYou can choose emails or push notices to your cell phone which will tell you exactly when the flight you are interested in has increased or decreased in price. This may be a great way for getting the best possible price on all cheap flight tickets in the near future. You can do this on the majority of search travel sites and OTAs. Why miss out on potential easy savings? You can then always locate flight tickets cheap when you need them.Buy in foreign currency to get cheap flight ticketBecause regular fliers travel abroad now and then, you could switch the currency on the airline's website to determine if the price would be listed in other monies.You can save big this way. For example, if an airline increased the flight price in US dollars but not in Indian rupee, you could book flights at half the price! But this may require altering either the location or language on the airline's website; or you may change to the home country's URL, where ticket prices are generally cheapest by searching in its local currency. This is how you can in fact find cheap flight ticket to wherever you like to travel.Sign up for an airline's travel rewards credit card for cheap flight bookingOne of the smartest ways to take full advantage from travel credit cards is to use the hefty sign-up bonuses. For example, if you sign up for a new travel card when the airline is offering unusually high quantity of bonus miles, you could score yourself literally thousands of dollars worth of reward points by just opening the card.Although several of these travel cards could have higher annual fees, a big sign-up bonus may amount for months or even years worth of cheap flight booking for you and your whole family.The cheapest day to book flightsEven though you might see great deals flashing on your computer screen for international airfare three to six months out, if you are flying during peak times, or perhaps your plans are not very flexible, it's smart to begin searching sooner. The cheapest day to book flights actually evades many flyers.This does not automatically mean you ought to purchase tickets when hitting the 6-month window; hold on till you book cheap flights online. And, just ignore the old advice that travel experts often repeat regarding booking the cheapest flights at 3:00 a.m. on Tuesday; that used to be true but now airfare prices are updated often and great deals could pop up any given moment when least expected. So, now you can secure a flight cheap most of the time.Utilize momondo to book cheap flight air ticketsUpon finding what you imagine to be the cheapest flight wherever, try searching on Momondo; it will search dozens of OTAs; bear in mind that it may not display the cheapest fares seen on large OTAs and Google Flights. But you got a greater chance to find cheap air tickets sooner this way. Otherwise, only one cheap air ticket may be attained, if tried another manner. Now you too can enjoy when you book cheap flight tickets when you need them.Fly cheap during the low seasonHave you ever scanned flight prices from the USA to Europe's insanely popular cities in August? Surpassing quite easily $1000.00, they can frighten seasoned and expert travelers alike.But are those the same ticket prices in February? So, fly cheap from major hubs in USA to Europe, you could often locate roundtrip flights throughout the winter months for less than $400 or even $300!Fly basic economy for cheap air flightsA basic economy flight ticket could save you money, if you do not require checked luggage or advance seat selection. Pay only for what you need. In theory, you'll achieve cheap air flights via this option.Enroll in the airline's loyalty program for cheap airfareIf you fly one particular airline often, join its loyalty program in order to earn points each time you go anywhere. Then, you can redeem such points for upgrades or cheap airfare in the future. If you accumulate enough miles and achieve a considerable status with the airline, you might receive free upgrades. Now, you can take fuller advantage of cheap air fare whenever you require it.Skiplag to discover hidden-city cheap airfares & last minute flightsHidden-city ticketing happens by booking a flight to a place beyond your final destination, and then end your flight on the layover city. This could help you in getting cheap airfares as well as best last minute flights to most destinations. Think about it: can you imagine a better, more creative way to book cheap air fares while searching the Internet?Prolong your layovers for cheapest flight ticketsSometimes only by extending a layover a few days in another city in-between, you can score cheapest flight tickets to your original destination. In conclusion, more often than not, you'll usually find the cheapest flight ticket by following this method consistently. Why not? A lot of people are discovering that they are by accident getting the cheapest flight via the extended layovers.Don't overlook sales for cheapest flight bookingAirlines are frequently offering amazing deals which you may jump on fast enough and save yourself hundreds of dollars on your next flight. Sign up for your favorite airline's newsletter to be on top of their latest flight deals. This is yet another way to know about the cheapest flight booking that becomes available whenever.Focus on going across the ocean for cheap fly ticketsIf you are thinking to visit a distant location, it could be less expensive to book one ticket to the main hub, and then a second ticket from there to your final destination. For example, if you wish to fly to Alhambra, Spain, it's probably cheaper to book one roundtrip flight from your home to Madrid and a second roundtrip ticket from Madrid to Alhambra than it would be to buy a ticket to Alhambra on one itinerary. In essence, you'll end up with cheap fly tickets by following the above example.Don't overlook destinations with low cost carriers to get cheapest flightsCarriers such as Frontier, AirTran, and Southwest all drive down airfares along their routes. So, it may be quite wise to travel a bit longer to a larger airport with low-cost carriers, because even major carriers flights will most likely be cheaper. Using this method regularly, you are more likely to find the cheapest flights to most if not all your destinations. Why not take advantage of low cost flights whenever possible?Avoid Friday, Sunday flights, & traditional air travel daysThis may mean going away before and returning later than usual, or even flying exactly on the holiday. Pelletier, the air travel specialist, says you can save up to 50% by simply flying Christmas Eve or Day. She said: "We saved $300 per ticket around Thanksgiving for our family of four by flying out the Saturday before Thanksgiving and coming back the Saturday after. Not everyone can swing that with their work schedules, so my advice is to leave Thanksgiving day and return on Saturday for cheaper fares."Begin with a reputable flight search engine to find cheapest international flightsWhile searching for a flight, the initial thing you will wish to do is determine which airlines run a certain route and get an estimated price on the biggest carriers. Opposed to individually visiting all of these airlines' sites, begin by looking for a website which will provide results from many airlines and different combinations of carriers. You may end up with the cheapest international flights this way. So, you could start with Expedia or another such as Orbitz, Hotwire, Travelocity, and Cheap Tickets. Do not ignore Google Flights, which, though a very powerful search engine, know that it's not a booking platform and can't buy a flight ticket there. This is how you could find cheapest flights to many popular locations.Be flexible where you go to book discount flightsIf for some reason or another you cannot be flexible with the time factor of your flight, then try to be flexible with your destinations. It's ideal to be both. However, you still can save a lot of money and book discount flights by being flexible with either factor.You don't have to conduct manual searches, going city by city and day by day. Websites such as Google Flights, Skyscanner, and Momondo provide explore tools and permit you to add your nearest airport and see a world map with all the possible flights on it. This helps you to quickly compare many destinations with no need to brainstorm each potential option.Fly budget airlines/carriersMany years ago, you were generally stuck flying with traditional costly airlines. That's not true anymore. Budget airlines today service both short and medium-haul routes all over the world. For example, AirAsia provides incredible cheap flight deals around Australia and Asia for less than $150 dollars! Indian and Middle Eastern air carriers sell cheap flight tickets throughout Africa and the subcontinent.Book early: how to find the cheapest flightsYou can discover how to find the cheapest flights by booking early. Although flight rates continue climbing the nearer you get to departure, there exists a great spot along the way when airline companies start to reduce or increase flight prices based on demand. Do not wait till the last moment but do not book too far in advance. The ideal time to buy your flight ticket is about 2 to 3 months prior to your departure, or even about 5 months prior if you're flying there in their peak season.

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/This_Musician7165 posting in TwoHotTakes
User account has since been deleted
Concluded as per OOP
2 updates - Medium
Original - 15th January 2024
Update in a comment - 16th January 2024
Final Update (Link no longer accessible)- 16th January 2024
​
My Step Dad purposefully ruined my $900 prom dress by washing it! Is there anything I can do such as take legal?
​
Edit: Sorry for some reason Reddit took my original post down. This is my first time using Reddit
’ve never posted on here, but I really need advice because I’m so distraught and have no clue what I should do I’m only 17 and don’t know if there’s any legal action I can take. So for a little background I live with my bio mom and her husband since my dad and mom separated and were never married. I originally lived with my dad since I was 2 he won custody during the custody battle. However he later lost custody of me after having a bad work accident that made him paralysed and he wouldn’t be able to take care of me but I still see him every weekend and the whole summer. I moved in with my mom and her husband and their two sons ,1 stepbrother and 1 half brother, when I was 10. And ever since then my stepdad basically directly and indirectly says that I’ve disrupted their lives by coming back into my mother’s life, because I’m an extra person they have to take care of.
I’ve been working since I was in 10th grade and saving up for my senior yeacollege since last year with the money from my job since my mom and her husband let me know that only my mom would only help me with the basics such as my graduation cap and gown, senior dues, and senior class photo. Anything else I would have to pay for myself such as prom.
I get paid about $400 every two weeks from my job which Ive been saving in full, and then making extra money doing nails about $100 a week plus tip which I use as my spending money. Since it’s my senior and last year of high school I’ve been wanting to go all out for prom so I set a $800 budget for my prom dress. My prom is in April and I wanted to get my prom dress early since most of the actual cute ones sell out quick. So I went prom dress shopping in December and found a beautiful dress that’s costed $890. It’s dark green with a long train with rhinestone imbedded into it with glitter in the dress.
When I first showed my mom and stepdad the dress they asked how much it was, which I told them the amount and my mom said that she wouldn’t be paying for a dress that expensive which I replied it’s okay because I have more than enough money saved up to buy it, and I’ll still have a lot of money left over (23k to be exact but only my mom knows that) mom said I could get the dress and that it was very pretty, however my stepdad said that it’s irresponsible and a waste of money and I should use it for better things like helping out the family and paying some of the bills. And get a dress cheaper that’s max $300. Mind you both his son’s own PS5 and multiple $200+ shoes.
Long story short my mom disagreed with him and I ended up getting the dress in the end and she even put $150 toward it.
However ever since then he constantly brings up that I help pay for things around the house since I have so much money to throw away but my mom always shuts it down saying that I work hard for my money to save it and I already help about with paying the Netflix, Amazon prime, and Hulu bills while my step brother (18) don’t pay anything.
Anyway last Saturday we got into a really big disagreement because my stepdad suggested I should help my step brother pay for his prom to which I responded with no. He later called me selfish and said that it’s not fair that I get an expensive outfit while he doesn’t. And I guess I said with in a snarky way I responded with that’s not my child or my problem. He later tried to complain to my mom and she said that I was right and that if anything he should pay for his own prom.
Well today when I woke up from a nap I noticed my prom dress was missing from my closet since it’s in the very front of my closet and looked around for it. I then asked my stepdad if he has seen it since my mother was at work. And he said he had, and in fact he was washing it, while giving me a condescending smile. I immediately ran downstairs and saw my dress being washed on the heavy duty cycle I immediately cancel it and it was ruined. Majority of my rhinestones came out and the glitter was washed out the whole dress had been mangled.
I took one look at it and then threw it a trash bag and left for my friends house with the dress. I texted my mom and sent her pictures but I’m currently at my friends house and laying on her bed. My friends parent hanged it outside to allow it to air dry so my stepdad can’t put the blame on them if the dried it in the dryer. What makes me know he did to spite me because he never washes clothes, cooks or anything since “he’s the man of the house so he shouldn’t have to”, so there was no viable reason he could have for washing it, even if it needed washing.
Is there anything I can do? I know neither of them can replace being they are tough financial situation? I’ll update you guys when mom gets home. So far my stepdad has called 2x but I haven’t answered him. And my mom’s at work and can’t receive calls.
​
Comments
​
Fancy_Association484
My heart hurts for you. Get him to admit it over text then file small claims court.

OOP: He’s not gonna admit I don’t think imma try to get audio but we also have cameras with audio imma try and use them when my mom gets off

​
Rhodin265
I didn’t see this suggested, but since you’re paying for the streaming services, change your passwords and log out all devices. Giant toddlers don’t get their tanties rewarded with their stepkid’s Netflix.
​
Fromashination
It would be a dastardly shame if Step Dad's favorite shoes were accidentally left on the porch in the snow all night.
​
Update - 1 day later
​
Edit 1:I don't know how to add updates so imma just add an edit but my mom and me just got off the phone and she's pissed and otw home. She's currently otw home so me and my friend and her dad are otw to my house and my mom said she was gonna call the cops as soon as she get off the phone so they may be there by the time I get there. We've taken pictures and the uncle (my mom brother) will be over there by 8 bc I contacted him while at work. I've listened to all your suggestions about withdrawing my money out of my account so I thinking and I talked to my dad about that as well and told me I can stay with him
Edit/Update 2:When I got home my friend stayed in the car while her dad walked me in, and my step dad was already gone. However police were at the house. As of now police said they can’t really arrest him because it’s not like he broke the law of stealing (I don’t know how to explain it basically this theft isn’t breaking the law bc he washed it and didn’t keep it) they suggested I can get a confession and get him to pay or take him to small claims court. Also the dress is non refundable if damaged so I can’t return it or anything. While explaining to my mom what happened I kinda fumbled my words and started crying and she hugged me as I cried. And she said that he’s gonna pay for this, this financial issue has actually been a on going disagreement and I think he just pulled the last straw bc she is PISSED. Also I talked to my uncle and he’s actually off work and over his way over here.
Him and my stepdad apparently have a rough history since my dad has had a smart mouth towards him in the past. While explaining to my uncle what happened he said that it would be alright and if anything he’ll buy back the dress before it sells out, so I’ll have my dress by prom but he does expect my step dad to pay me back one way or another so I’m basically probably gonna get my dress for free. Maybe that’s a little win. I’ll update more probably later tonight. But things seem to be good.
Edit: Also to clear up some confusion I pay the streaming service bills bc I really want to watch the shows on those services and my mom works hard but doesn’t make enough to have those services on top so I’ve offer to pay them so we could have them. She not a horrible “I’ll pick my husband over you” mother and she always defend me and he’s never pulled a stunt like this just tries to convince her to control my money and savings. And she’s never spent my saving either. I feel like thats why they always clash because he has a mindset of we have all these financial troubles and your daughter could solve them with her savings and you have access to them.
Edit/Update 4: Okay so my uncle came over and he and my mom had a little argument bc he blamed her for enabling my stepdads behaviour by not leaving him and thats why he felt comfortable to do what he did. And she argued back saying she always defended me against him and has never taken any of my money (which is true). We all talked about it a bit and she revealed that last night they had actually had a argument about paying off a car payment because she made a comment about how all these bills are taking a toll on her, and he made a comment about how it wouldn’t be that much of a toll if she used my savings and didn’t allow me to spend it on foolishness and she got mad and defensive bc he keeps bringing it up.
He also said that the $900 I spent could’ve payed off that car payment for the next 2 months. Btw he only know about my savings because he know how’s much I get paid and that I’ve been saving all of it. So we think that’s what triggered him to throw my dress in the washer.
My mom and stepdad has also been texting back and fourth and he admitted that he washed it to teach me a lesson that I shouldn’t spend that much money on a dress that can be destroyed that easily but he put the setting on heavy duty so he obviously intended to destroy it. My uncle has also offered to replace the dress so I don’t need to worry about not getting to wear my special dress. We called the boutique and explained it to them and they say they can order another dress although it won’t be there until Feb 23 which fine tbh.
My mother sent my step dad a long threatening message basically calling him out shes kinda heated rn so imma try and ask for a screenshot later. Her and my father also spoke and decided that it’d be best that I get my own bank account so that my step dad can’t use the excuse that she has access to my account so that’s also great. My mom and I had a talk about what gonna happen after this and she said shes not sure as of just yet bc it’s all a little too much for her bc she seriously contemplating leaving him, but i guess she don’t wanna actively discuss that right now. Also my stepdad is currently at a friends house. I’ll continue to update possibly may get one tomorrow. My friends parent are gonna keep the dress over their house and imma pick it up tomorrow to have as proof.
Edit:I apologise for not being to update since Reddit took down my post because of a “no walls text rule” that I was unaware of but it’s all good now
Edit/Update 5: My uncle has transferred me $1000 for my prom dress and I’m actually planning on using the money for replace the dress and buy new shoes. He’s very well off, which was one reason I contacted him in the first place.
So I plan on just calling the boutique and seeing if they can reorder it and I’ll just pick it up from there sometime in February. However my step-dad still must pay in some form, or at least we are trying to get him to. My uncle has called my other uncles and aunts (with my permission) to basically vent about the situation.
So majority of my mom side who all live in GA knows about what happened. I woke up to a lot of text about the situation given sympathy, as well as money to have for prom which have totalled to about $300. So this is great. My mom has also contacted my step-in-laws who then spread the news with pictures and I guess most of them are shocked as well other than his mother his is buying his claim that it’s just a dress and it was a accident despite evidence. I got a call from my step-dad sister sympathising for me.
And through conversations with I learned that my step-dad has also been asking a lot of his family to help him with his finances. Because for some reason the dude has bought so many things to pay off he can’t keep up with them.
My mom called my step-dad for answers which we recorded. And he’s basically trying to blame her bc if she didn’t piss him off last night then he wouldn’t have done it. And that he was trying to show me why I shouldn’t be irresponsible with money bc I guess he planned to lecture afterwards.
Also my mom has broken up with him bc he blamed her for caring more about me than him, which is weird. Which ensured in a argument with her saying “you think i care about her more than you, your gonna see just how much I do”
Also they’ve been on a rocky relationship since he can’t manage money and this was her breaking point.
​
Comments
​
TaffyAppl
Just saw this update!! Now that you have the text, please show the police as confession as destruction of property and/or take him to court to pay for it. It’s not fair to your uncle. Once you get your step dad to pay up, you can pay your uncle back. Girl Good luck!
​
sherbear97124
What your step-dad did is called malicious mischief and is a crime. With the confessions and proof, there probably is a case. Just know that because of the monetary value, it's most likely just a misdemeanor charge. Regardless, you definitely have a small claims case against him. Sadly, by the sounds of his financial affairs, you'll be lucky if he ever pays, but it's still worth pursuing. Good luck!
​
Update - same day later
​
Edit/Update 6: Sorry to post on here Reddit keep telling me to try again later so sorry again
Okay so a lot of bs has transpired. Firstly we’ve place an order for my dress, and they are shipping it now and it should be at the boutique by Feb 23 so all that is taken care of. My SD and mom are officially broken up and my mom said she doesn’t now if she’ll move on with divorce proceedings yet bc everything is still fresh and lawyer are expensive and she can’t afford it rn.
Also they have a prenup so they don’t share assent and the house is my mother dad house she inherited (she had a different dad than all her siblings and all her siblings share a dad).
So my step father showed back up with his brother after a while and my step father decided to do and buy me a new dress from Macy that looks similar to dress in color and length but it’s very tacky and ugly. And look nothing like the original.
He then tried to apologise and said it wasn’t his intention to ruin the dress. he said that he was simply gonna wash it and say “see this is why you don’t buy things like this” and then he would’ve bought me another dress…. But that’s make absolutely no sense.
Also my uncle came back to my house after I texted him my step dad came back (he was at the store) and they got into a big argument where basically my uncle demanded to know why he destroyed the dress
And my step dad said he not gonna walk up in his house demanding shit, and my uncle called him a bitch. And then my SD said to call him a bitch again which he did and they ended up fighting. (My SD lost) he threatened to call the cops but we reminded him that he swung first
After that my step dad went on a tirade and cussed us out and left and took the dress with him.
We are actually planning on taking y’all advice and taking him to small claims court given the evidence and the damage. And hopefully we win. Also my SD is staying at his parents house currently.
Lastly for all curious about my brothers they are 15 (half) and 18 (step) .The 15 was at his girlfriend house since Friday so he wasn’t home for any of the commotion but did reach out to me today, I love him so much. And the 18 year basically sided with his dad so that all there is to say.
Also those who suggested changing the streaming’s passwords I have change them. And me and my mom are gonna get me my own bank account later today. Thank you guys for all the support I’ll continue to update as thing come and our plans of action and the verdict and all
​
Comments
​
​
I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

I’d like to begin this invitation of advice or experiences by stating that what I want in life is a partner who feels like home, will always give me their genuine effort, & will love me through all of the highs, mediums, & lows of life.
I specifically want to know about any advice or things I should consider when it comes to the age gap I have with the man I’m seriously considering making a staple & serious part of my life. I (29f) met (40m) 3 years ago & we have been seeing each other for a little over a year. We met at the public school in which we both work- he’s the social worker, I’m a teacher. When I first saw him, he looked like a meat head (he’s pretty muscular, bald, beard, wears hoodies) & I’ve always been into nerds so it never occurred to me that I’d end up attracted to him. The first year we knew each other, it was very surface level, & then, during the second year of my time at the school, I got to know him better, as I did a few coworkers I now consider close friends. This second year of friendship was also a tough period for me as I was going through a divorce from with a man who wasn’t on the same life path as me & kind of made me dislike myself just for being me (wanting kids, needing to be intrinsically motivated in my career rather than financially motivated)- basically he was type A & I am B. I was absolutely enamored with him in my twenties & was crushed that it didn’t work- I spent a lot of time trying to change myself to accommodate his desires.
Anyhow, as I was processing my divorce & creating friendships, I got to know M(40) better both at work & at hang outs with friends outside of work. I watched how the kids at school just flocked to him & how kind he was with everybody. He coached the basketball team, did an after school program with the SRO to help at risk kids, & often stepped in to help others with tasks that weren’t related to his job as social worker. & he always did it with a positive attitude & good sense of humor. People just LIKE him, you know? It became obvious that he was just a really good person. One day, we had a discussion about kids & how we both wanted them. He told me I’d be a great mother because of how I treat the students & I told him he’d also be a wonderful parent. & he cast his spell on me & I slowly started falling for him. I couldn’t quite figure it out. Here I was, recently divorced from a relationship that had a tremendous affect on me mentally/emotionally, & I was gaining feelings for a man who was very different from my ex, & 11 years older than me. Was I just looking for a distraction? Was I using him to boost my confidence up after it had spent so much time at all time low? Or was I simply recognizing that this man had all of the features that I’d been missing in my past relationship & maybe I should pay attention to that? I was worried that my judgement post- divorce couldn’t possibly be clear, so I expressed that I had feelings for him but had to take things very slow. I was a bit of a mess as I tried to take the initial steps to get closer to him. I’d get emotional & have somewhat of a panic attack, or I’d go through some wishy washy phases when it came to wanting to see him in general. No matter what it was, he said that he understood, he wasn’t going anywhere, & that he just wanted me to be ok. He’d always ask what he could do to help & what I needed from him to feel better. If we were kissing & he felt that I wasn’t comfortable, he’d stop. One time he could tell that I wasn’t feeling great & he cried because he thought he’d made me feel bad. Needless to say, he was always there for me & ACTUALLY cared about how I felt. As we got closer, he was always respectful, would leave me flowers on random or special occasions (like when I was in an art show that he attended, or the first day of a new semester at work), wanted to make things like holidays memorable for me (one time I specifically thought was sweet was when he decorated my place with a Christmas tree & lights because “it’s your first Christmas in your new apartment, it should be festive!”). I consistently got solid evidence that he was emotionally mature, ready for a relationship, & wanted the same things as me.
So, I thought, “why is this sweet, courteous, kind, responsible, funny man single?” I’d heard some woman at work “pick” at him about this & say “I just don’t get how you’re single!” & I honestly wondered myself. You always heard that it’s a ref flag if a man dates a woman over 10 years younger & that it’s because “women his age didn’t want him”. Well, there are a few rational explanations I could think of: 1. He’d been sexually abused by his stepsister for years as a child. He’d told me that he’d had a few relationships during his 20s & 30s, but they didn’t last long & he’d had some issues with women not dealing with his anxiety around sex well. With me, this was not an issue, really. We’d taken the physical really slow, & when one of us felt anxiety as things heated up, the other stopped & supported. After a few months, it became a non-issue & we were able to have great sex with no fear that one of us would get anxious. I think us being so patient & supportive in those initial tough moments & making it clear that we were just as happy to show non-sexual affection helped bond us a ton. 2. When he was younger (childhood-20s) he was overweight. He began balding in his 20s & so he shaved his head. Maybe there weren’t a lot of women who wanted to be with the overweight, bald guy? Women can be just as shallow as men.
So, I began to try to look for any signs that maybe this man is “grooming” me or something. I looked for issues as well as green lights. How’s his family? His brother is happily married with children & he is close with his family, seeing them weekly. What are his friends like? I enjoy his friends. They’re nice, fun people & his best friends are in happy marriages. Does he manipulate you? No, he treats me like a princess (I’m not used to it) & tries to establish healthy relationship patterns (he always insists on a weekly date night, suggests activities together, such as me weight lifting with him & him running with me). He also hypes me up like no other- If I’m wearing a risky outfit that I love but know my mom would insult, BAM he is the first one to compliment it as his jaw drops to the floor. Always telling me how strong, sweet, & cool I am. Made me take his gloves when we went on a snowy hike & I’d forgotten mine. Just basically an endless stream of courtesy. Sometimes I worry if he’s just being really sweet to me because he wants to keep me- he’s said he’s trying to be less of a “people pleaser”- but he has always been consistently kind to me in a genuine manner.
I have gotten a lot of evidence that this is a solid person with whom I could build a beautiful relationship & family with. Everything he’s shown me has been positive as far as communication, morals, empathy, kindness & life plans is concerned.
So… is the 11 year age gap a concern? Should I be more paranoid about why he is still single, or are my theories valid? Although he goes to the gym daily & is like a kid at heart, should I worry about his age when it comes to us potentially raising kids? He’d likely be 43-45 by the time I was ready for that.
If anyone has any experience with being the victim of or being a partner to the victim of someone who went through sexual abuse as a child, please give any thoughts of how that might have affected someone when it comes to dating.
If you have any thoughts, please let me know. Truthfully, I do have other potential options if I pursued them & I’m not afraid of being alone, but I’m feeling that I’d like to commit to a relationship.

The rift between them has caused a lot of tension in my family and now my mom wants to be in the life of her newborn grandson but refuses to address or try to mend things with my wife.
Little history: I probably introduced them too quickly. My grandmother was in town in south Florida about to move here from Illinois for a retirement community. My wife, girlfriend at the time, came with cookies or some form of baked goods like she usually does when visiting someone as a sign of affection and respect. Where it went wrong from here I have no idea. I suppose the initial crack was when wife scheduled a skitrip for her and I to have as a 1 year of dating anniversary present. We are not rich, this is a huge gift that made sense to her since I refused to let her pay rent. Our combines salaries are barely over 120k. So wife calls mom 6 months in advance because she is a planner for the sole purpose of asking my mom to watch one of our four dogs. Wife has already paid in full for the trip. Yet Mom decides it is a great idea to instead use the opportunity to hop on and take a family trip because it is the last time the family will have for a family vacation - I am the oldest of two boys and two stepsisters, my mom married the guy she left my father for who has twin girls of his own that were in the womb during the infidelity. Anyway mom completely takes over and decides to make our one year gift a family vacation, so she books tickets for a hotel nearby. Wife is bold but at the time not bold enough to stop my mom in her tracks for overstepping a boundary. At this time she still respected my mother and kind of let herself get steamrolled.
Probably skippable Family history: Now I have always had issues with my mother, resentment for leaving my father for my stepdad behind my own fathers back and constantly trying to keep brother and I from seeing “Disneyland dad who doesn’t do any of the work but gets all the fun.” my mother was very strict growing up, always bringing us to church and making my father feel guilty for not bringing brother and I on his weekend. So mom marries stepdad age 11, divorces him around 13 after asking me advice for her relationship and i encourage her to move out. Then remarries him and moves us back into his house age 15. Here I begin rebellion and normal teeenager stuff but stepdad won’t butt in because he isn’t my “biological father” so would have my mom intervene brother and i from behind the scenes. For example, I am young and messing around on the piano because music is important and I never had any formal training and mom comes in to tell me stepdad “wants to know when the concert is going to end because it is a little annoying.” Anyway, they have me prescribed adderall at 16 and in the parking lot holding my first prescription I am told that they would like me to move out and in with my father, who had chased us every time mom and stepdad moved several miles away (5 moves from age 5-15 all in one county). Anyway, brother and I are recovering alcoholics with (my) slipups triggered from interactions or visiting my mom, which mom claims is genetics from my father alone and has nothing to do with her. Maternal grandfather, mother, and I have some nasty temper problems which certainly are exacerbated by drinking (at least mine and moms).
Skitrip revelations: Wife and I are on the way to brothers graduation in Chicago, and wife has yet to reveal to me that my mother has taken over her massive investment of a couples ski vacation and it will now be a family vacation for mom, stepdad, brother, two stepsisters who are all getting out of gradschool. On the way to the airport I am told the news by future wife of my one year surprise. So I get upset and call my mom to call it off. She obliges my request and now holds resentment against me and now wife for “ruining her last family vacation.” Fine, whatever. Mother never says a word about it for months until we are out for a distant family members birthday dinner and at a table of about 8-10 people that are having a group conversation and gets real close to my wife’s ear and tells her privately along the lines of “you deprived our family of our last family vacation.” During this time my wife is frantically tapping my leg under the table because my mom can get a little aggressive. My mom saw this and later (privately to me) mocked her for doing it to my leg under the table.
Christmas blessings: Closer to Christmas maybe 2/3 weeks later we went to go see my mom and my mom had a couple drinks in her (not an alcoholic like brother and I just very sensitive to a couple glasses of wine and occasionally some hidden sips of wine or something) and invites my wife to Christmas church and out to dinner after because the family needs photos for a Christmas card and future wife “will be the photographer for it.” Now this can easily be a nothing comment but given the way my mom had been making future wife feel, it was taken as an insult. So wife declined church and showed up to family dinner just in time for photography session to be over.
The distance: Then mom moves to a fancy house up the coast and invites us up to visit. At first it is ok to bring the 4 dogs then the day before she says they will not have dogs at the house and we can easily find a sitter. 2 Dogs don’t get along, they need to be separated always as there has been two attacks on one from the other, so we can’t trust someone to come to the house and keep them separate and we won’t board 4 dogs it’s too expensive for us. Anyway we go back and forth being invited with the dogs then they retract the offer and say pick one dog to bring and leave the others and it’s just annoying, so we say forget it and don’t go. But my brother becomes engaged and decides to throw his engagement party at my mom’s new place near the beach. Great. First all the dogs are welcome, then day before they say it is too chaotic and she will pay for a small hotel room for one night for future wife and her dogs and my one (the attack dog) can stay in a crate at the house with me but I may not leave the dog to stay with her. And no reasonable cheap hotel in the area is going to accommodate 4 dogs. Anyway wife is stressed but feels obligated to come because I am the best man and I stay at the house while she checks her dogs into the hotel. Wife had made a cheesecake and brought it up in a separate car from me, 4 hour drive by the way, and night of.. my mom says no desserts for engagement party dinner, the dessert is themed or some crazy stuff. Wife shows up to dinner a little later and very flustered because of the situation plus I had relapsed on a bottle of whiskey a couple days prior to seeing my mom. Related, I don’t know. Anyway. Mom has had a couple drinks and future wife and I are talking about having children and religion comes up. Mom asks what we were thinking of doing about baptism or not and I jokingly said (guiltily to get on my moms nerves a bit) that he would have a bris and would love it if she would come to the bar mitzvah. now my wife’s mom was forced to convert from Catholicism to Judaism for her own mother in laws acceptance for a failed marriage so wife is not religious, but it hurt my wife and reasonably so when my mom replied “oh, son, I raised you better than that.” Still no acknowlegement of fault from that comment and mom thinks wife is “overly sensitive, dramatic, and childish” for wanting an apology for it.
Weddings: Future wife becomes current wife. We had gotten engaged on our next anniversary trip she planned for us. I proposed on our bike and barge through tulip season in holland with our feet in the water of the North Sea after a picnic in the dunes. her family business manufactures photo albums for professional photographers, so aside from our families all being divorced, estranged, difficult, and us trying to save money, we did not have a wedding, we just did the paperwork within a month of the proposal. I had already decided to have a baby with her before the trip so we were trying. 2 weeks before brothers wedding in Tennessee we become pregnant, so we break news immediately as to not steal limelight from brothers expensive wedding. Mom says she will cover cost of rental car so we can save money. Ok great. She books the tiny car and we pack it and head up the Smokey mountains to the cabins we are staying at. Two cabins for grooms family, one for his mother and one for his father, ten paces from each other: they havnt spoken but twice im since divorce in 1995 but through lawyers. Grandmother, mother, stepdad, 2 stepsisters and one boyfriend stayed in mom’s side. Wife and I stay at father’s side cabin with just his wife. His Wife’s 3 daughters and family’s stayed a town away down the mountain among extended family. Anyway, beautiful wedding takes place. My wife is sent into town to collect flowers and run errands for my mom which she happily obliged to since she is a solitary person and did not want wedding day drama. Day after, we are loading our rental sedan with our bags. Mom and grandma need a ride to the airport and our flight is before theirs so they will drop off the car for us 4 hours or so after we go to the airport 5 hours from current time. We’re loading the car. Stepcousin passed out in mother’s cabin night before and needed a ride. Disorganized brunch for 20 people is trying to be made. Father’s wife’s daughter books a reservation for 10 people which include her family, her sisters, me, my wife, dad, and their mom. My stepdad had left for home at this point as he had taken his own suv instead of flying with my mom and 90 year old grandma. So mom is trying to pack grandma in the car with bags and my wife and stepcousin. At this point mother asks stepmother if she and grandma are on reservation for the brunch. Stepmom says no they are not, she wasn’t sure of their plans. Mom says under her breath “fucking assholes, so typical,” and she goes into a bit of a rage to which my stepmom says here “it’s ok I will call and add you two it’s no big deal.” So we continue packing the car and realize we won’t all fit. So my wife tells my stepcousin to go ride with my father to the restaurant 10 minutes away we will meet you there. Mom says to wife, “no you go with the father.” Wife says “no I am going to ride with my husband” mom gets close to her face with her finger and says “this is my car, you can fucking Uber!” Wife is 6 weeks pregnant at this point and it all escalated from here. wife and mother start yelling at each other swearing at each other and we get into the car, mom behind wife who was in shotgun. 2 occasions on the trip I had to stop the car because mom had taken off her seatbelt to stand over the seat and scream in my wife’s face with so much vigor that spit came on to her face multiple times. I’m trying to tell them both to behave and mom sit down shut the f up. Mom is telling wife to get the f out of the car and find a ride, she has no right to speak because she’s “new here” (dating and living together for 3 years at this point). The following brunch she apologized in a crowd with a hushed voice at a table of 20 people trying to have a group conversation again privately to my wife “I’m sorry you get so upset” and my wife told her “that is not an apology.” The following several hours in the car with grandma and stepcousin and wife were some of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. At a gas station I pulled my mom aside and said I need ther to give a huge apology, that it was so nasty and inappropriate, my brother and I are used to abusive language and aggressive behavior but to my pregnant wife and any other human being it is disgusting and unacceptable. Sitting in the car was quiet for many hours until we got to the airport. No speaking about what happened just mom happy go lucky about Tennessee and Dollywood and wife and I in shock, cousin still half in the bag from a fun wedding, grandma 90 years old probably confused about what happened.
The family groupchat: Im waiting on an apology from my mother to my wife who is extremely hurt and expressed to my mom loads of time she needs to reach out and apologize. We’re not talking until she will do so. It is bugging me and keeping me up at night. My appendix flares up and I am admitted to the hospital with emergency appendectomy. Still pregnant Wife suggests I reach out to mom to let her know what’s going on. So I text mom I’m at the hospital and will have surgery. I send a pic or something that on my end says hasn’t gone through. Mom group texts our family group with stepdad, his daughters, brother and his wife, and grandma that I am in the hospital and attaches the pic I sent of me in there. Then she continues to rave about the success of her startup company and how they got FDA approved clinical trials finally completed or some pivotal moment that made the text about her. Wife and I are in a hospital so the picture comes up on moms end as unable to have been sent. Mom assumes that my wife has blocked her phone, so mom removes my wife from the chat. Wife is rushing home to take care of the dogs at this point and is not alerted on her phone, but on everyone else’s phone it clearly reads “(mom) has removed (wife) from the chat.” Immediately I text my mom and basically say how dare you do that to her she is the one who insisted I let you know out of respect and mom responds with blah blah she did this she did that I will not have it. So I go back to the family chat and remove mother. At this point I let everyone in the chat know what my mother has done and how she refuses to take responsibility for how she made my wife feel, address her feelings, apologize or do anything at all to reach out about the wedding incident or even inquire about the wellbeing of the pregnancy for her first grandchild. Stepdad finally steps in and tells me “enough.” Grandma says “shame on you.” I am dumbfounded. This is a hush hush family that hates to have anything out in the open and likes to maintain a picture perfect image. For examples; 1) I and wife were on the family Christmas card of a photo taken at the wedding that the whole world received except for wife and I. 2)brothers alcoholism was to remain hidden from the family as was his rehab treatment and how it affected his career. Now understand that they like to keep things quiet but that is not how I want to handle my problems, these things trigger alcohol use and violent outbursts on my part that I no longer wish to live through. Now appendectomy’s are pretty simple so I recovered quickly (it don’t rupture we just took it out). But during the time I was scheduled to be under anesthesia, stepdad reaches out to wife to have a chat and clear the air. Wife waits until I come to so i can be there and I hear the conversation. He claims to be here as a middleman like a business meeting to fix things once and for all. Wife and I are like wow great. He then proceeds to double down on my moms behalf that they will not be apologizing or meet any of her demands as she had already apologized as confirmed by 90yo grandma who was in the car and my mother herself. The term he used was stalemate to describe the situation. Wife and I are shocked but she has me keep quiet to show me what he will say. He proceeds to yell at her and they were screaming at each other, again steamrolling the conversation assuring us that he was down the middle yet maintains that mom has made a sufficient apology that needs to be accepted and wife needs to grow up and move on, then wishing her luck with the baby and a nice life. Next day I call stepdad to see how it went. He reassures me that he has done all he can and everything is back to normal. At this point I call him out and tell him I was conscious and explain to him what an apology is. But there is no dialogue with this guy like there is no dialogue with my mother. He proceeds to talk loudly over me like she does and basically call me a piece of shit for the amount he and mother have done for me. I speak to him first time like I never have before by calling him a hands off father and a pussy of a man who finally reaches out while he thinks I am under anesthesia to yell at my wife then pretend it’s cool, and I basically tell him he has never done a single thing for me to try and develop me into a man or nurture me as a child into an adult, but he thinks taking me on fishing trips and ski vacations are equivalent to love and nurturing growth and development just like my mom does. I reassure him that he has no right to talk about family being that he ruined his own as well as mine and couldn’t even tell my dad to his face that it was him who was sleeping with my mom behind his back when my dad came to him very upset as a friend when he got an anonymous phone tip at work one day. Then him and my mom laughed about it in court when my dad brought it up during the divorce. We ended with swearing and I felt very happy for finally giving my true feelings to him.
The birth: Months go by and nobody has said a thing. I can’t sleep at night seeing how much love I am getting from my father and his side for the baby, and my wife’s family, then thinking about how my own mother hasn’t reached out a single time. I’m dreaming about beating up my stepdad and it’s driving me mad. So weeks before the due date I reach out to my mom begging her to clear things up and apologize to my wife. Nothing. A week later i tell her how disappointed and abandoned I feel and want her in the family. Nothing. Baby comes a couple days early. Everyone is excited. Mom texts me begging for photos and to let everyone know. I tell her my brother and two stepsisters have received photos. I ask her to please reach out to wife she still needs to make amends for what’s happened between them and all she needs to do is reach out. Mom’s responses have been defensive, derisive, projecting, playing victim and referring to herself as a kicked puppy. Telling me my wife needs to apologize to her and making the conversation about mother son instead. She is beating around the bush. And she is sending me photos of my own baby that I did not send her. Her friends are congratulating me that I did not tell. Again she is pretending that everything is ok and it is not. She asked me to apologize to her husband for what I said on the phone that day. I said ok, watch this. So I sent the guy a message that was very apologetic and not passive aggressive or backhanded comments in any way. Still my mom won’t say anything.
Now: Baby is 6 days old. He is the best thing in my life and I wish my family were involved but it seems like I am living in a fantasy world where everyone can be happy together. I can be a jerk and have a terrible relationship with my mom, but I want more than anything to just feel loved enough where she can swallow her pride and make amends with my wife. Thats it. And she asked the other day to put a family group chat so everyone can be involved… for real? I know she is stressed with a high pressure job, but it seems heartless to me. She asks what big items she can get for the baby. Mom, baby is here we have everything for a couple months already. I said the biggest thing you can do is reach out and have a heart to heart with my wife so this rift can end and we can at least be cordial if you two can’t get along. I don’t think it will happen.
How do I mend this relationship between my wife and my mother?

Hey! So, I’ve been posting these analysis compilations for each team in their respective subs, however, I am banned in the Patriots sub, so I figured I’d post this one (and only this one) here.
Round 1, Pick 3 - Drake Maye, QB, North Carolina:
NFL: Maye has prototypical dimensions and an exceptional arm. The comparisons made between Maye and Buffalo’s Josh Allen are real when it comes to his size, arm strength and leadership skills. Maye lacks the experience of other QBs in this draft, but if he can iron out some of his inconsistencies, he can be a superstar for the Patriots.
CBS Sports: B. He might need some time on the bench, but he has the talent to develop into a good starting quarterback in this league. He just needs to fine tune a few mechanical things. The Patriots had to get a quarterback.
ESPN: They didn't overthink it. In need of a potential franchise quarterback, and open to trading the pick if a big-time offer came their way, the Patriots landed a player who gives the organization the same type of hope that Drew Bledsoe did after being selected No. 1 overall in 1993. Now comes the important part of developing Maye with quality coaching, and ensuring he doesn't have too many voices in his ear.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Freaked out when a bird got into his house last summer and knocked over a lamp.
Round 2, Pick 37 - Ja’Lynn Polk, WR, Washington:
NFL: I wonder if the Patriots weren't hoping for Coleman to fall to them. Polk has some nice physical traits, possesses really nice body control to adjust to passes outside his frame and stepped up nicely when Jalen McMillan was hurt midseason last year. But I saw Polk's upside as lower, viewing him more as a third-round talent. He'll add size to New England's smaller WR room, though.
CBS Sports: B-. Complete wideout without stellar athletic traits who tracks it awesomely. Flashes of YAC wiggle and power. Fun, versatile piece to add to the offense that needs it. A tick early for him though.
ESPN: The Patriots had explored trading back into the bottom of the first round on Thursday night but couldn't strike a deal, according to sources. So they regrouped, traded down three spots in the second round (from 34 to 37) to improve 27 spots later in the draft (from 137 to 110), and then grabbed the player they probably would have picked at 34 in Polk. A Bill Belichick-type move from the new regime that will be judged, in part, by if they should have gone with WR Ladd McConkey (selected at 34) instead.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: He is currently binging all 14,000 episodes of Days of Our Lives.
Round 3, Pick 68 - Caedan Wallace, OT, Penn State:
NFL: Wallace is a thick-bodied right tackle who developed into an NFL prospect later in his six-year college career. With 40 college starts, he has experience, but it's almost all at that position, and Coleman was considered something of an underachiever earlier in his career. A reach for me.
CBS Sports: C-. Sizable framed OT with lumbering feet. Average-at-best athlete. Plays with good calmness and accuracy at second level and has quality power but overall athletic profile was severely threatened often in college. A concern for his NFL future. New England did need to add some OL depth. Worried about his upside.
ESPN: The Patriots' top need areas entering the draft were QB, WR and OT, and Wallace caps off the 1-2-3 approach in filling them. He was mostly a right tackle in college, but Wolf said the team believes Wallace has the athletic ability to move to the left side. First-year offensive line coach Scott Peters comes from the Browns and his presence ties to Wallace, who at the least will be counted upon to be a top backup as a rookie.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: I’m just saying, if you know, you know.
Round 4, Pick 103 - Layden Robinson, OG, Texas A&M:
NFL: It's funny, if you hadn't told me Eliot Wolf was running the Patriots' draft room, I might have just assumed it was business as usual in Foxboro, with Bill Belichick overseeing things. Robinson, like Day 2 picks Ja'Lynn Polk and Caedan Wallace, were semi-value reaches. Robinson is a hard-nosed guard-only who improves the depth up front, but was it a massive need?
CBS Sports: B+. Mashing guard who plays more athletically than his workout. Tremendous burst off the snap on a routine basis. Could add more strength at the next level. Serious length but hands are late often. Nastiness is there for the run and pass protection. Upside blocker.
ESPN: With starting left guard Cole Strange attempting to return from a late-season injury that could affect his availability early this year, the Patriots are loading up on the offensive line to give themselves as many options as possible. Robinson has been a pure right guard, where 2023 fourth-round pick Sidy Sow is the projected starter. The team also has 2023 fifth-rounder Atonio Mafi, so Robinson joins the young pipeline up front. One scouting report referred to him as an "absolute freight train in the running game," which seems to reflect the style of lineman the team is looking for under the new coaching staff.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: You don’t stop the rock It to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie.
Round 4, Pick 110 - Javon Baker, WR, UCF:
NFL: I figured the Patriots would double up at receiver, and there was some talk of Baker being a Day 2 pick. I didn't love all of his tape, but he clearly features big-play prowess. UCF didn't fully unleash his talent, but Baker also needs to hone the details of his craft before he can be in a featured role.
CBS Sports: A+. This is a future No. 1 wideout. While not a burner, he plays faster and has the complete skill set. Releases at the line are good, flexibility to get open at intermediate level, YAC prowess, and especially rebounding skills are high-end.
ESPN: Baker is a big play waiting to happen, as evidenced by his five catches of 50-plus yards last season. So after the Patriots selected Ja’Lynn Polk in the second round, they doubled down with Baker -- which reflects how director of scouting Eliot Wolf is decisively addressing one of the team's top deficiencies. Wolf grew up in the Packers' system, and they have had recent success taking a similar approach at WR and TE. If there is a knock on Baker, it's that he has 14 drops over the past two seasons.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: His favorite movie of all time is Scream.
Round 6, Pick 180 - Marcellas Dial, CB, South Carolina:
NFL: Dial has decent length and has gotten his hands on a lot of passes the past three years, and he has a chance to make it as a jack of all trades in the secondary, with experience at multiple spots.
CBS Sports: A-. This is tremendous value. Zone awareness for days. Didn’t see the football thrown in his direction much. Outstanding ball skills when it does arrive. Doesn’t miss many tackles either. Hard to find a clear flaw to his game.
ESPN: Christian Gonzalez (2023 first-round pick), veteran Jonathan Jones and third-year player Marcus Jones are at the top of the CB depth chart, followed by a group of younger players whom Dial (6-0, 190) will compete against for a roster spot. That group includes Alex Austin, Marco Wilson, Shaun Wade, Isaiah Bolden and Azizi Hearn. As is often the case at this point in the draft, contributions on special teams figure to be a notable factor if Dial ultimately breaks through. Dial said he visited the Patriots before the draft (among the three teams he traveled to see) and had a feeling he would land with them.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: If you send the right mod $10,000 they will sell you the sub.
Round 6, Pick 193 - Joe Milton III, QB, Tennessee:
NFL: Milton's bazooka arm figured to make him a late-round flier, but I didn't have him landing in New England after the Patriots took Drake Maye with the third overall pick. Some teams have toyed with the idea of turning Milton into a Logan Thomas-like TE conversion.
CBS Sports: C+. Will immediately have one of the strongest arms in the NFL. Grew a lot as a passer after transfer to Tennessee. Accuracy is very hit or miss and he’s an average athlete. Coverage-reading needs to improve. Big frame.
ESPN: After taking Drake Maye No. 3 overall, and then Milton, this marks just the second time in team history that two QBs were selected in the same draft (1983 with Tony Eason and Tom Ramsey). Milton's physical traits stand out -- he's 6-foot-5 and 246 pounds with a powerful arm -- and some believe he could transition to tight end in the NFL. When looking at Milton through the QB-specific lens, the Patriots obviously view Maye as their hopeful long-term option, with veteran Jacoby Brissett the current projected starter until Maye is ready. They would still be looking to carry a No. 3 option. Bailey Zappe (2022 fourth-round pick) and second-year player Nathan Rourke are also on the depth chart, and their spots on the roster could be in jeopardy if the Patriots view Milton as the ideal developmental option.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Totally cried when he read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
Round 7, Pick 231 - Jaheim Bell, TE, Florida State:
NFL: Bell was a versatile enough athlete that he played running back at South Carolina because of injuries, but his best chance to make it in the league is as a "move" tight end with his smaller frame.
CBS Sports: A+. H-back type with explosive YAC traits. Cutting skill and natural ability to absorb contact and keep the legs churning. Won’t be a natural separator but when schemed open he can be a fun asset in the New England offense.
ESPN: Coach Jerod Mayo said by this point of the draft, the Patriots were selecting the best player regardless of need. The 6-foot-2, 242-pound Bell played more than 40% of his snaps last season in the slot, so he's an H-back-type option more than an inline TE. The Patriots have veteran Hunter Henry atop their depth chart, with top backups Austin Hooper and Mitchell Wilcox on one-year contracts, so Bell gives them a developmental option with the future in mind. If he breaks through, he could be a safety valve for a young quarterback on safer, underneath routes. His 897 yards after the catch since 2021 rank second among FBS tight ends after Brock Bowers.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Consults the farmers almanac every day about the weather.

Hey everyone, I’ve finally turned to the Reddit community. I’m not sure where’s the best place to post this but there is an element of GERD and is very likely and a root cause for at least a large portion of it so will try here first. Apologies for how lengthy it is.
I’m a M38, obese through childhood and young adulthood, hypertension since teens that was treated with metoprolol (had palpitations as well) and even high cholesterol that was finally treated with statin in early twenties. Around the age of 25 I took last 2 years to lose about 150 pounds going from 360 to 210, (all natural from diet and exercise).
Shortly after this, I started getting one side numbness and tingling, rate headaches, and sometimes along with or separately bouts of chest pain and palpitations, sweating, hot flashes, left shoulder pain, arm pain, dizziness. This lead to a decade long investigation that lead to no real solution. Countless stress tests, echo/ekg, holters, blood work, head and neck MRIs, dopplers, EEGs, etc, no real diagnosis was made. The only thing that change was about 2 years after switched from metoprolol to losartan, as it was more appropriate now after the weight loss, which a doc thought was just the right thing to do and had no explanation for my symptoms otherwise. No more rate control since 2015.
Ultimately, after 10 years of this… For the neurological symptoms, it was a deemed hemiplegic or basilar migraines, with aura, with or without headache. I was told hey, it hasn’t killed you yet, so that alone tells us at least it’s not fatal. For the cardiac symptoms, anxiety or some type health anxiety, or something in the psych realm was deemed the culprit. I was told it’s best you ignore it, or jump on a medley of different drugs, which I was told likely won’t benefit me. Imagine having to live with all this, and being told by doctors to essentially ignore it all. I asked the crucial question, at least to me, that I’ll go ahead and listen to their advice, but what is my threshold? At what point am I to rush to an ER? Most people would run to one if they had these symptoms, as neuro could be stroke, and cardiac could be heart attack. They had no answer for this. After this decade long hunt, I spent a year in misery, personal issues, my blood pressure medications was doubled in dose after a breakup, then doubled again 2 weeks later (it was stressful), all during Covid year 2020. Unfortunately over the decade I slowly gained back 100 of the weight I had lost. Back 290 pounds. During this year I lost 30 of it again, down to 260 In 2021, I had pretty crazy bout of chest pain, and was offered do a coronary CTA, came back completely clean. No obstruction at all in vessels, and zero calcium score. This was reassuring enough to me at least cardiac wise I can rest easy(to some degree). For the neuro side, CGRP antagonist was on the table to try, but it would just be throwing medications at it, along with gabapentin and topamax as options. The latter were tried, but were not tolerated at all. In 2022, I had my first bout with covid, moderate, it left its lingering symptoms (which are hard to discern as I had a large amount of the symptoms of long covid for years before this too) An endoscopy was done. As a GI doc said since you’ve been having such a long list of symptoms for so long, let’s explore the GI route since you’ve ruled out the rest from what it seems. Endoscopy found a small hiatal hernia. And the trail went cold. Can a small one perhaps cause such symptoms?
Which brings us to the most current situation. March of 2023 I decided to do the stationary bike, high resistance and high effort for 30 minutes with HR at about 130, then 5 more minutes I ramped up effort even more to HR of 150. Towards the last minute or two o started getting chest pain. I obviously should have stopped but I figured hey I get some type of pain like this time to time let’s just hit the 35 minute mark. Big mistake.
When I stopped, the pain persisted. And took a while to get better. Like an hour or so. And it felt different than anything I’ve felt before. Felt radiating to arm and jaw. By nightfall it was fine, next morning it all started again when I got out of bed. I wish I had gone to ER so at least they’d run some tests on the spot. I contacted my cardiologist, who I saw four days later. He said there’s nothing to be done, even though I told him these are different symptoms, and seem to come from exertion. He offered me a repeat of the CT or a trip to the cath lab. I let him decide and he went with CT since it was non invasive.
2 weeks later I got the test done, and this time they found a 10% Non calcified plaque in the proximal LAD, the calcium score still zero. He said this doesn’t explain your symptoms, but since we have evidence of CAD, you have to be put on aspirin 81. Additionally, he offered Ranexa, as he thought maybe this could be microvascular disease. Ultimately he did not believe this to be new and different like I’ve been saying and jumbled it all into the last 15 years or so. No enzymes got tested, which I really wish had been.
*****I now had this exertional left arm pain, wrist pain on the outside, numbness, chest pain, pressure, dizziness, jaw pain, pain behind left ear, left side of neck headache, bouts of nausea and sweating, shortness of breath even. This was all way worse than what I used to deal with. And different too
My pcp advised against his trial medicine, as it has a very little success and plenty of adverse effects. Days past by, no improvement, I’m getting these symptoms on the daily. An incident 3 months later in summer after swift walk to the car after eat a large cookie (I include that because maybe it was GI?). For hours I felt tingly in the chest, light headed, just confused. My girlfriend even noticed I just seemed out of it. Chest felt tight and painful. It eventually got better many hours later.
Mid summer I went for a pulmonary consult, at my doc’s behest, only for this doc to rush me to an er on suspicion of an aortic dissection. They did a full CTA of head neck chest abdomen and pelvis….. nothing but unnecessary radiation and contrast exposure.
Late summer I had a week of sweating and light headed ness, now 6 months out from the exercise incident from March. I went to another cardiologist, who had no idea why my pressure was suddenly 90/60 (literally no changes have been made). I was told to cut my medication dose in half. Could this be due to the contrast from the CT earlier??
He ordered a stress test, my first one since then, which came back subpar 6-7 minutes only but I did hit the target rate. I may have called quits 1 minute or 2 early as I saw my blood pressure skyrocketing. It was considered a normal test regardless. That night I had the worst left arm pain lasting hours, but I was told there’s no explanation. I did start getting very intense headaches, ones that I still get
Interestingly, 1 month later, my blood pressure was suddenly now high, 150/80. Suddenly. no explanation why it was low then, and none for why it’s high now. We went back to regular dose of the medication.
I got a neuro consult again to see if it could all connect, autonomic testing was done for dysautonomia, came back normal. Back to Square 1 again.
In the fall of 2023 I tried a bout of PPI as all docs were pushing for this , nothing changed, but it did help with the occasional heartburn I got. I even gave a month try to benzodiazepine as to rule out psych causes, and then tried an Ssri for 2 months. Nothing, other than sedation.
This new year I caved and started metoprolol again. I was told maybe it will help if it’s microvascular disease. It wasn’t exactly indicated but at this point I was willing OT try it all. Initially it had some benefit I think, then dose was doubled in February but not much changed. I still take it presently, as my base HR had recently been higher than normal anyways.
In these last few months, all of this persists. And subjectively I think it’s getting worse. I’ve been feeling cold for months, but then feel like sweat at the same time (not drenched just clamy). Get bouts of nausea even at rest. All of the cardiac symptoms episodic pain dizziness with chest shoulder jaw back neck ear, etc all still there. Even from left arm it runs down like into the palm and pinky. I even get them during sex I just power through. Stressful moments also incite them. I cannot say for sure, but possibly food or spicy food can do it as well.
My cardiologists still believe nothing is new here, even though it feels completely different to me after that exercise incident. They suggest coping as is, or going in for another coronary CTA, or finally take a trip to a cath lab. Essentially they say objectively they see nothing, but if I keep complaining those are the best routes.( I was offered nitro as well but scared to take it) My neuro says unlikely they are related, but it they could be to the possible migraines. At least the new headaches. There’s some possible link with migraine and chest pain. Only way to know is try a cgrp. He’s going with Qulipta. My GI doc says it could be vagus nerve related, and/or esophageal, so let’s try a TCA, amitriptyline. I’ve also been suggested to try a higher dose of Xan.
——— I have no idea which trail to follow????
My labs are normal, -except CRP (I believe around 40 if I recall correctly) which is often elevated, -hsCRP of 1.8 which was moderate risk category, -and CPK which is often high as well around 400 but my docs blame it on statin use or maybe exercise (idk about that no one entertains it as cardiac but they must have their reasons)
I really don’t want to sit on all this and find out later I didn’t take the action necessary. I’m afraid of something serious happening. And daily this is interfering with my life.
My concern is maybe during that exercise I did something. Initially was concerned about damage from really high blood pressure during, coronary dissection maybe? Something else damaged? Or something missed? Did I make something worse? Does anyone think it’s all related to my past symptoms?
What could have happened with this exercise incident??
Any input, advice, suggestions, similar stories, appreciated.
If you made it this far. Thank you so much for reading. Take care.

Howdy Once again reddit I'm looking for someone to fill an empty spot in my Monday group for DND 5E
For some context: One of our group members has gone MIA for over a month now, he was the heart of our party and it was very much unlike him to just ghost us out of the blue like this. Our worries aside the game has gone on due to factors I'll be listing below. Normally we would wait a bit longer for him, but during this weeks session a PC died so I figured it was a good time to get a new player to introduce along side the other player whos making a new character.
Things you should Know:

• Homebrewed setting, specifically in the homebrewed version of the Underdark known as the Underdeep. a vast, mostly alien subterranean world. I do have Documents that are OPTIONAL READS if you want to know more about the setting(I know some DM's make those mandatory to play and can be a turn off) While the Underdeep is the Primary setting of the campaign originally I will say expect to leave it in bits and pieces from this point as the hunt for the big bad will likely involve going to other planes and the like. High fantasy stuff.
• Party is now Level 8 as of last session and the bigger plot of the campaign has officially begun to unfold as the group is setting out to hunt down a powerful pseudo-lich who tricked them into reviving him and was responsible for the previously mentioned PC's death.
• The original concept for this campaign was to have two groups operating within the same setting at the same time and eventually would have them meet up for one big final battle but that plan is half out the window at this point. the main rule thats come as a result of this is no inter-campaign spoilers with the wednesday group.
• I am RP focused and looking for players who can quickly immerse themselves in the world and the roleplay. There have been times were the group can go multiple sessions without combat and just deal with inter-character drama or planning.
• The entirety of the game is handled via Discord and google Docs. No Roll20 or other such VTT sims. I have never had the patience to figure those out... As such, working Mic is required.
• I need to Preface that the discord server in Question is originally a NSFW art community, as such all applicants are to be 18+. Though the Subject matter of the campaigns themselves is NEVER to exceed PG16 at the worst. (SFW role that hides the NSFW content is available upon request)
• As stated in the title, we have our games every MONDAY at 7PM EST. I am looking for someone who can consistently make that day every week.
• While you will be joining the campaign fairly late (Original intended level range was going to be level 10, though now is more realistically looking to be around 13-14) Know that the campaign will likely continue for a number of months ahead, so please do not be dissuaded by the fact your a late joiner.
• All Applicants are welcome to stay in the discord server as One shots are held on the occasion and we have other people who host other DND games in the server as well (we currently have a Curse of Strahd game going thats ran by one of the wednesday guys.) We are a DND community and we welcome whoever wants to stick around. we also host movie nights and game nights regularly so even if you arent chosen for the Monday Night games your free to spectate the other DND games hosted on the server or participate in the other activities and conversations held in the server. While it started as a NSFW art community (and still does host NSFW content, fair warning) Its no longer just that and serves as a bigger gaming community.
• LGBTQ+ Friendly

That is all. If you wish to Apply, add me on Discord and shoot me a DM. My name on there is "Ceekon". I hope to see you there and hope you have a good time :)

So today was it and I called the CPS hotline.
My Q is my wife, and we've been in this fight about 3 years now. She tried to kill herself about a year ago with with a fist full of ibuprofen and Benadryl. Shortly after that I took her car to the interlock shop and signed up under their voluntary program, and that was probably my worst mistake. By getting a breathalyzer installed before a DUI she never really faced any consequences. Just replaced blown out tires from curbs and body panels from hitting street signs. We have two kids under 10 and my thought was the breathalyzer was protecting them.
Well that may have stopped her driving drunk but it didn't stop her drinking, she just saved it for the evenings, or on the weekends, and suddenly it became always me bringing the kids places or they couldn't go because she couldn't start her car.
Then last fall she started drinking hand sanitizer. Purell Omni defense...I Guess they didn't put the stuff in it that makes you throw up like they do for mouthwash. So that's been the last 6 months of so of finding those bottles everywhere. Arguments fights threats even getting kicked out for a week didn't stop her. Tried naltrexone to no avail. Two weeks ago started on antabuse and I don't know how, but STILL drinking. I didn't even know that was possible.
Wednesday she drank sanitizer because she "found an old hidden bottle and had a moment of weakness"
Friday she drank because she"wanted to hurt me"
Saturday I took the 8 year old fishing at 5am, left the 5 year old with her, and came home by two to find her flush faced, bloodshot eyes and bumping into walls and chewing my ass for nothing.
I had threatened CPS before but this made it clear she wasn't on the right track. So I called my therapist today and went over what happened. She agreed that engaging in self harm by drinking sanitizer while the primary caregiver crosses a line and that she would call it in as a mandatory reporter and that I should too.
The call took about 5 minutes, they gave me a case number and hung up all in less time than it took to write this post. They said they follow up within 24 hours.
Haven't told her yet as I want her to have one last night of peaceful sleep before whatever happens happens, but I imagine the next few days may be tough.
When she doesn't drink she's great- wakes the kids up, cooks breakfast and does homework and gets them to school on time, and it's a real Dr Jekyll Mr Hyde. If I engineer a family trip for a week where we are all together say in the woods camping it's love and sunshine and roses but as soon as we get back and she slithers off to her stash the monster comes out.
I mean I just can't get over hand sanitizer! I even went on junky forums where druggies and alcoholics give each other tips and everyone there says nah man don't drink sanitizer that's dangerous!
But I can't take it any more. I can't wait for her to go too far or to kill herself or to find out she's shot her kidneys or liver and have to tell my kids why didn't I do more while we bury their mom.
Anyway that's my rant, I can't tell my family or friends so I'm telling you all. Thanks for the support and someone tell me I'm not wrong for finally bringing her hopefully into the world of consequences.

[OC Intro: The game is modded to increase basic jobs cost, seasonal events are disabled. Much of the crash details are based on NASA/SP-2008-565 Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report recommendations especially Chapter 3 "Occupant Protection".]
The ship is without power, and Tightniks can't run the radar much without draining the batteries. He has only a few minutes of APU power left, goes over the best clearing he can find, and radars it. It varies by only a few feet from the aerodynamic glideslope there. He spots it out on the cameras and circles to go after that spot. He's only at two hundred feet now. With one hand on the stick, he uses the other to open the pressure equalization valve on the side hatch, then at one hundred feet, gets it undogged. Depending on how much damage he's going to get, it's less likely to be stuck closed and trap him. The dynamic vacuum this pulls in the cockpit rips most of the survival pack data cards from that rack and scatters them across the landscape. Crap, I'm gonna need those! Refocusing on surviving the next few seconds, he turns on the radar for the final approach, takes a last look around, then straight ahead at his forward camera and PFD, he clicks his HANS and shoulder strap locks in; after that, he can barely move, but that now is better than dying in this crash with a broken neck. He's a decent pilot and brings up the flare gently. Bringing up the alpha on this delta-winged ship, he balloons a little, but keeps the nose going up and restores a zero aerodynamic sink rate just above the highest terrain indicated by the radar altimeter. The ship bumps a little in the ground effect, and he can see the radar altitude cycling irregularly up and down about five feet at a time. Rougher than it looked from higher up! The body flap protecting the dead engines hits first, and the nose comes rapidly down. It hits, the screens go blank, and Tightniks is surrounded by airbags, some lifting his feet from the rudder petals and his hand from the control stick. It's blinding, it's disorienting, it's noisy, and, to his relief, it's long! It takes several seconds before the crashing cockpit stops moving. How many times did he flip over? Did he go sideways and roll? Am I rightside up? Are we really stopped on the ground? The airbags deflate, and he can move his arms. He gets his restraints loose and inspects himself. "Uck!" he says out loud (without the 'f'). No broken bones. His pressure suit can take his blood pressure. 116/81, pulse 112, blood oxygen 99 reads off on his left arm, I'll friggin' take it!
The ship is amazingly intact from what he can tell. He can't get any readings. The systems test meter seems to be working, but can't find any voltages anywhere. The ship seems to be completely dead. Behind him, 10 passenger seats are all surrounded by airbags and the back of the cabin ends in some sort of dirt-and-gravel and there's a bit of daylight seeping in around the edges. He was the only one on board, though, so their deployment was mostly academic (they might have stiffened the structure a little during the crash, but that's probably trivial.) Tightniks gets out of his spacesuit. The air on this planet is actually breathable. He gets the hatch open, steps outside and-
"A green shimmer erupts then disappears, and you hit the ground."
The human emerges from the glowing green mist and hits the ground. Groans. Pushes against that ground, trying to get back up. Where am I? What's my name? I remember nothing. Aren't babies born naked? He's got a dark blue button-down shirt on. A uniform? A shoulder patch. Gets up, looks around. I feel really heavy. I'm not that fat, am I? He picks up a small stone from the ground, this also feels heavier than it should. He rises to his feet and holds it out somewhat (he's unable to fully extend his arm) and lets it go. The stone hits the ground near his feet quickly and with remarkable speed. It's the gravity, it's greater than it is on- ...where am I from? This is- ...not my home planet? "Oooh..."
"Ka?" it says.
What is that? It's cute, at least.
It is not tame. He has no hope of catching it on foot. The creature seems to like the berries. Maybe if I gather some of those into one place and set some kind of trap...
33s: First trap.
I got one! The human lumbers up to the trap and gets the catch open. Do you bite? It doesn't matter much to me; I'm so friggin' screwed.
It doesn't. It looks at the human with a sense of wonder, actually. A blink and tilt of the head. Seems almost to be asking, Is it you? My purpose? My savior? Once out of the trap, which is totally wrecked, he has to make a new one from scratch, it follows him around like a imprinted hatchling bird.
Wiry little fella, you are. You're going to need some bulking up to do anything useful. The- ...'trimp', I guess... The trimp seems just barely able to feed itself. The human lets him into the broken ship's intact cabin, and it curls up comfortably in a passenger seat for a nap.
1m03s: Second trap.
"Apparently the Trimps breed if they're not working. Doesn't look pleasant."
What are they doing?
The trimps appear to be androgynous, and these two have paired off in the back of the ship. They're holding something carefully within a few hours, feeding it berries, grass, and- ...corundum.
Corundum?? Whatever that is, it isn't a baby.
1m35s: Third trap.
Only it IS a baby! The third trimp he trapped immediately joined the other two in raising it. They have a strange diet of food the human has found compatible with his own body, but they also eat rocks! They're careful to crush and sort aluminate minerals from silcate ones and only eat aluminate. Actually, they don't eat aluminate, they're only feeding it to the baby.
2m06s: Fourth trap.
All four are raising the same child, who is just starting to toddle. It seems these fellas have alumina or maybe even aluminum bones. The human takes a nap and wakes to find the first child grown up and they're starting to raise a second child, all five of them.
2m46s: Huts.
The human found a working bit of electronics. He calls it a pad, but maybe it's more like a smartphone. It has plans for two residential structures. The first, the smaller one, he can build right away, but the second one needs something called "drywall", and he has to figure out how to make that before he can build it. Huts and houses, apparently.
3m13s: 10 pop, full, first farmer.
The trimp he trained to farm and make paper took an incredible 50 units of food to get bulked up to do the work, and now it's not participating in rearing the child. But less than an hour after the trimp started farming and pulping, the child was out on its own, and the trimps did not start another. The ten seats on the ship were all full. Well, eleven counting the one up front that the human sleeps in. The pilot starts exploring the area.
3m28s: Battle.
Wait, what are you do-
The hostile roars and charges at the human, but one of his trimps jumps in front of him with a stick and they fight. It started right when the human got far enough away from the ship that the hostile non-trimps away from the ship began to regard him as leaving his own territory. After the trimp defeats the first enemy, it continues after other hostiles.
3m53s: Shield I in Z1c5.
The human is easily able to recover the loot in the territory cleared by the fighting trimp. Then he sees something glinting in the- That can't be! What the heck is that? It's a data card that fits his pad. It quite clearly regards trimp combat. He gets it loaded into his pad and studies it. I can do this, it just takes some wood. He returns to the ship to discover that they had already started on a new child before the fighter had even expired in battle. The human concentrates on his research.
4m38s: Mskel in Z1c11 defeated.
The remains of this one seem rather white and shiny. It's titanium! This enemy had titanium bones! He'll store them away. They'll be useful someday, I'm sure.
5m52s: Dagger I in Z1c20.
Where are these data cards coming from? The human wonders as he loads this one into his pad, It's for a weapon it calls a dagger. He blinks. I don't know what a dagger is. I'll take your word for it, data card. Needs metal. He has gathered some, but ore is plentiful. He can just dig and smelt it whenever he wants. For now, I'll continue researching.
6m18s: Arable in Z1c21.
It's an old cave that trimps like to live in. Why weren't they able to live there before? How could these friendly critters be confined to only the exact spot where THAT thing, he looks back where he came from, not remembering that he piloted the wrecked ship to its current resting place, crashed? This is really strange. I'll let them fill up this cave before advancing further. Wait, what about defenses? The hostiles never try to reclaim territory that they've lost, so he stops worrying about that fairly quickly.
8m22s: First hut is 0.3% first ever AP.
The trimps seem fairly easy to please in terms of living quarters. Two move into his first hut and start raising a child. The human has his tent, uniform, and the heater pilfered from his space suit. Not much of a mud fan.
9m59s: Miners in Z1c30.
Oh, what's on this data card? Sl3niw? Oh, I'm holding the pad upside down. Miners. I can teach trimps how to mine ores and smelt met- 200 units of food? Each job is getting more expensive to train a trimp for. He puts his bee nickels to his eyes and spots another data card probably 10 enemies away. "Sc"? Does that means science? I can teach trimps to do science??
13m57s: Scientists in Z1c40.
Due to the expense of training trimps, the human couldn't afford to build them shields until now, he's got Sh1-3 made for the fighter to capture the science training data card. 14m02s: One head went into that turtlimp shell, that of his fighter, but two came out: his fighter still has his head on, and he managed to get the turtlimp's head off. It rushes off after the deadly penguimp in the next cell. The shields are not doing all that much good, actually, but they're better than nothing. The human picks up and loads the science data card and- Holy runny sugar-free fudge crap! 1000 food units, but it'll endow them with the ability to speak. Good. I'm getting bored with no one to talk to.
14m28s: Bloodlust purchased and AutoFight enabled (that delay after getting it is an effect of jacking up the job cost.)
As the human buries this expired little trimp warrior, he comes to the sobering realization that he has more trimp graves in his growing trimp colony than he does live trimps. And yet they seem more hopeful now than before I got to know any of them. They seem to think I'm the solution to all their problems or- Those two look east somberly, then notice that he's watching them and smile back and wave at him. ...one problem that is specific, but very, very huge for them. [The only reason I say 'east' is because that's right on a map, and the game advances right across a row, then up. I might say 'northeast' on occasion for that reason.]
20m47s: Z1c73, Miners taken.
Are you my new mining foreman? The trimp who took to the mining training has dark brown fur that lays flat on its head. It's unusual in not having any bits that stick out from its head, ahoge or whatever. This one is relatively quiet, and while it has assimilated the mining and smelting knowledge, it needs to bulk up to do any mining. Smelting is relatively easy, and getting a strong natural draft going in a furnace is almost trivial with the increased gravity. This trimp builds furnaces like nothing. And likes to nap in holes it digs right on the spot; it's weird that way. [Puchim@s Yukipo, and furnaces are not explicit in Trimps.]
21m58s: Farming in Z1c80.
The resourcing "books" are not data cards but paper scrolls, apparently lost to the trimps. It seems that they were civilized in the recent past and some calamity swept over the planet to reduce them to this. Did I have something to do with it? Amnesia sucks harder than a Dyson- ...what's a Dyson? Whatever, it sucks. This disaster happening just before I crash in the only spot with trimps still alive would be a seriously crazy coincidence! Something is really, really wrong about all this. [The author has not sought or received product placement permission or fee from Dyson Technology Ltd. or any resellers of their stuff, just they literally suck balls and made my favorite vacuum cleaner.]
23m50s: Builder in Z1c90.
They've rescued an, I dunno, gelding trimp? It just started to build a shed around the piled lumber I left to build one. It's really slow compared to me, and just banged its thumb, but it is super cute with that long reddish head fur. That particular trimp is also fascinated with pink ribbons and likes to decorate its head fur with them. Because of its inherent inability to participate in rearing children, it isn't counted in the population. [Puchim@s Io, builder on the basis of Iori seen building in 1x10.]
26m02s: Zone 2, 44 pop, 5.5s RC with Z0/1.
It's some sort of tactical manual - tactical coordination. Coordination! He's starting to sort out some trimpese on the research he has done so far. It needs a lot of metal, so they won't be able to implement it for some time. Hopefully, they're still good one at a time, but these enemies seem to be getting bigger as we go along. Uh oh!
27m33s: Gym in Z2c5.
It's some sort of training dojo or sporting arena. The human examines the ruins, I think I can back-engineer drawings for this, get one built, and see what happens.
29m02s: 1g, 47 pop, 10.8s RC with Z1/2.
The two fighting trimps now with their gym and coordination are dodging and blocking enthusiastically, and making much faster ground against the bad guys then a little while ago when it was just one trimp fighting at a time and unable to avoid the enemy hitting back.
40m46s: Fresh turkimp in Z2c74, 63 pop, 7.9s RC, Sh1-10, Da1-5, Bo1-3, Ma1-3, Hm1-3, 6g.
Oh, wow, the laborers seem really hot after this turkimp. He cooks it up and tries a slice. It's really awesome! I have to work alongside his laboring trimps to share it, but I'm getting used to the gravity now. That scroll we found back in Z2c10 really helped. Trimps' techniques and appliances for handicapped individuals, and I'm really handicapped in this higher gravity. He joins the woodcutters with the turkimp; they're the most numerous resource laborer right now, building more gyms, enough that the block/dodge ability of the fighting trimps is almost caught up to the enemy's ability to cause damage.
43m15s: Zone 3, 63 pop, 7.9s RC with Z1/2.
I'm neglecting my science and trimp scientists are really expensive. Curiously, that grey-haired one can't speak all that well, only says "Tai" and "Shijou", but it can write and draw like nobody's business. It's the only scientist so far. [Puchim@s Takanya: Online references probably still claim that she can utter the first two syllables of any word, but she can actually utter only the first two kana syllables of someone's name, most often the given name of basis human Takane Shijou, who also has that habit. (All the utterances of the puchidoru are based on the speech foibles of their basis humans except maybe Piyopiyo, where I haven't seen anything match up so far.)]
47m32s: Finally, we can make drywall and houses. 59m30s: Z3c77, 94 pop, 7.8s RC.
Oh, those poor things are really struggling up at the front. These trimps are enthusiastic and know no fear, but I still feel like telling them to stop for a while. I don't have the heart to keep them from trying while they're still doing some damage.
1h05m24s: Zone 4, 107 pop, 9.3s RC with Z3/4. 1h15m26s: Zone 5, 120 pop, 8.2s RC with Z3/4.
"What is that?" the human asks. He has three scientists. His first does all the writing, but the other two can actually speak. One of them hops up on a rock spire beside the human to reach his eye level.
At the next ridge line, over the lowest and most passable gap in the terrain, this really mean looking hovering sausage monster.
"I dunno," the scientist trimp shrugs, "But it's making me hungry. Looks like a perfectly cooked frankfurter from here." [John Morell's dubious dirigibles.]
"Oh, yeah," the human nods, "that's a blimp."
"A blimp?" the trimp tilts its head quizzically at the human, "How could you know?"
"I wish I could tell you, little buddy," the human extends his arm braces to descend the pass on the side of the zone boundary in the boss enemy's direction, then grunts, "Let's go kill it."
1h16m11s: Z1c9, 120 pop, 10.3s RC with Z4/5. 1h33m34s: Zone 6, 151 pop, 7.4s RC with Z4/5.
1h33m54s: TP in Z1c3.
"What's this?" the human asks, having picked up the little square document with the curling corners.
"Oh," the hungry scientist looks at it, "It's a garden path, follow me."
"You want to lead me down the garden path?" the human says.
"Yeah," the scientist says.
"Are you kidding?" the human asks.
"No," says the other scientist, "We don't get human humor. Listen, these fighters can't go, let them wear themselves out here, then we'll take the next group through this garden."
"Okay," the human nods, watching two more trimps join the fray as he issues the Z5 coordination orders, "they're doing pretty well after all that block training research we just wrapped up." [That's a common artifact, even in normal games, Z5 Traintacular combines with many gyms, enough population to add several trainers, affording Blockmaster, which is expensive on a run zero, plus a break on Tion Z5, a 40% all-stat increase. I don't think Zach designed it into the game on purpose, it just worked out this way.]
1h34m07s: 151 pop, 10.5s RC with Z5/7. 1h37m44s: Drop from Z6c39, TP for 3.
"Now we have these access map frags we can use to route through the old trimpopoli," the scientist explains, "Atlimpis for food, Morimpa for gems, Everimp for metal, and Impazon for wood."
"What about the garden?" the human asks.
"Well, we got lucky with Tricky Paradise," the scientist says, "but you can randomize the route and maybe get lucky. What's with that look?"
"Somehow, I'm remembering 'frag' as something that blew up with deadly pieces," the human says. [Different video games - ones with better graphics and worse gameplay Ｏ(>▽<)Ｏ]
1h39m59s: Blues back up to the top on series I...
"Tai, Tai!" the first ever trimp scientist stops the human just before he upgrades the mace and dagger to Mk.6 and Mk. 8 respectively. It has a note for him.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" the human asks, "Do you think that's my name?"
"Shijou, Shijou," it nods as though to indicate, I KNOW it is. Then it proffers its note again. The human takes it and reads, "Don't upgrade the first row equipment right now."
"Why not?" the human asks.
"Shijou," it points at the end of the mapped route, where there's a scroll sticking out of the thistles.
2h24m07s: Zone 8, 224 pop, 12.2s RC with Z7/12.
"Your settlement is getting crowded, there's Trimps in the streets, and you're taking heat. You feel a sudden strong desire to create a map, though you're not quite sure how that would help."
2h49m10s: Zone 9, 357 pop, 9.5s RC with Z8/15.
"You can't shake the feeling that you've been here before. Déjà-vu?"
The trimps really seem to like the new high capacity mansions, and the village has rapidly expanded since they started building them.
"There's something familiar about this," the human says.
"Tai," the grey one that writes clings to his arm and shows him a note that says, "Don't give up now."
"We must persist," says the yellow one has found a foothold it can grab onto and grabs the human's shoulder gently, "If you give up to early, we'll never solve this. You'll be stuck here forever."
The human puts his hand over the trimp's paw on his shoulders, then looks at him, "I can die, too."
"No, you can't," the trimp says quietly, "Please don't test that, tall one."
"Death is just another path..." he remembers.
"Gan," the grey one squeaks. [That's the first two kana syllables of "Gandalf"]
"...one that we all must take," the human continues, "The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it-"
"A green mist," the yellow trimp interrupts, "flash of fire, we're all gone and our progress forgotten. The wandering stars return to that day, and you again crash that ship- ...a little better every time."
"Wait," the human looks around, "have I been here before?"
"I-" the yellow trimp tries in futility to share what little it knows, "...or... somebody got just a little coolant into the-"
"Into the what?"
"This side up," the grey one's note says.
"Into the that," the yellow one points at the note, "It really helped. You- ...I don't think we've ever had mansions before."
Well, of course they didn't have mansions before. That was one of my ship's data cards. How did it get way out here? Will anything start to make sense?
3h02m13s: Zone 10, 387 pop, 8.7s RC with Z8/15; '28s: 11.1s RC with Z9/19. 3h16m41s: Tough snimp after food book, L10 rand dept from lo-hi-med 118/25/96, 4 Items.
"That's twice our frags led us to gem-rich Moria," the human says.
"Morimpa," the new red trimp scientist corrects, there now being 5 scientists. [There'd be more if there were more turkimp.]
"The question is how do we use all these gems?" the human looks at the village zoning plans again, "I like those mansions and all, but they use hardly any gems compared to, well-" he gestures at the pile of over two dozen thousand gems they've gathered, "-that! And still a lot of wood and lumber."
"I think there's something," the yellow one sighs, "I wish I knew more."
Quite some time later, after they're done looting that route for equipment plans, the trimps are again advancing through Zone 10, and he hears it.
"Tai?" the grey one wonders.
"Where are you going?" the yellow one asks.
"To the farm," the human answers.
"Whatever for?" the red one seems exasperated.
"Shijou?" the grey one sighs, then looks at the fighting front. It's been around long enough to remember, "Shijou!"
"You guys already get so much to eat this doesn't do you much good," the human explains.
3h32m33s: L11 112/35/78 rand sea, dropped from Z11c6 with disband, 4.
"What's wrong?" the red one asks.
The human comforts one of the wounded. Once trimps start into a zone fight, they have to finish before they bleed out. He's really bothered making them desert in front of that second turkimp. "They had a lot left in them," he sighs, rubbing his eyes, "but we can't keep that much dead turkimp at once, we have to leave it alive to use up all of this one."
"Shijou," the grey one presents a note, "We need this map right away, anyway. Don't worry about it, Tightniks."
"Tightniks?" he looks at the grey one, "Is that me? How do you know?"
"Tai," the grey one points at the top of the human's left breast pocket.
"Ah, crud," the yellow one curls its tail around in front of itself as trimps do when they're embarrassed, "Is that really a name tag?"
The human hadn't even noticed it since the green flash blew up his memory as he was stepping out of the ship.
4h04m22s: Block (sub-8h AP is only 0.3%), taking it, 504 pop, 9.8s RC with Z10/24.
It's a pretty thick book about using shields for block instead of hit points. The pad has the stats analysis. Sh3-1 is only giving us 9% of our hit points. Turning to his trimp scientists, he says, "It seems to me to be worth it."
"Let's," the yellow one nods.
"Shijou," it hands him a note, "It scales badly, but that won't matter for a long time. I think there's a way to undo it before it matters."
"Doing it." The human takes out his pad and starts scanning.
4h29m05s: L14 rand moun 137/26/80 is really good for a lo-hi-med. 4h30m52s: Hotels.
"Ah," the yellow one says, "I knew there was something. That must be it."
5h08m09s: L15 lo-hi-hi rand gard 129/28/82 (just got explorers). 5h09m32s: Picked up Wall.
"Dam," the human says.
"Damn?" the red one chuckles.
"No," the human says, "Earthen wall dam; it's a thing that makes artificial lakes by holding rivers back."
"Lakes?" the yellow one asks, "Rivers?"
"Oh yeah," the human says, "This planet doesn't have enough rain for those..."
5h48m21: Leaving Wall from about c70 to fetch Tion Z15.
"You can't resume the map from the same point if you start another," the human reads the grey one's note.
"We can go back to the same point on that route if we hold there and finish Zone 15, right?" Tightniks asks.
"Shijou!" it seems to be saying yes.
"Yes," the yellow one adds, "but we're out of Series III upgrades, and you need a fresh map route to start up Series IV."
"We should be okay," Tightniks says, "but if we have to start it over, I don't see that being a big deal." As they advance through the rest of Zone 15, Tightniks resumes his usual duties at the research desk instead building and running traps like he was before.
The trimps seem hopeful at this decision.
5h49m10s: Fresh turkimp. 5h50m16s: Zone 16, 1071 pop, 13.4s RC with Z15/75, 13m43s turkimp (skel in c1.)
"Z:16 Seriously? Another Blimp so soon?"
"So," Tightniks lowers his bee nickels and looks at the red one, "is it going to be boss fights at the end of every zone from now on?"
"Hmm," the red trimp looks up past the human at some random rock spire or cloud.
"Well?" the human persists.
"Yup," he says.
"Hmph," Tightniks grabs a Sw3-1 of the rack and advances towards the front, "Before then, we have another Mister Titanium."
"What does he like about skeletimps?" the red one asks the grey one as the human marches off.
"Shijou?" the grey one seems just as confused by that.
"He's not going back to the ship, and he's not getting himself killed," the yellow one smiles, "so I'll take it."
5h58m32s...
"Hey guys, go for the mortar!" the human suggests to his 75 fighting trimps in the Wall's boss fight.
"I can tell from your bedtime stories that you're used to the artillery in that other place," the yellow one gripes, "but fighting works differently here, there's no artillery."
And the human instantly collapses laughing, the scientists a little worried he might have injured himself in the planet's severe gravity. But he's okay, at least physically, "Mortar is the stuff between the bricks, fellas. That's is a brickimp, right?"
5h59m18s: Wall, 1076 pop, 13.3s RC, 1% AP for sub-8h finish, first L16 roll good 156/35/84 moun, 10 for the metal.
Beyond the Wall was a more edenic section of the trimpolis ruins, doubling the production of the lumberjacks. The trimps are actually really happy with the mode of all of the laborers moving between the three big jobs, along with the turkimp, except for the foremen specialized at leading the job. It isn't enough to boost their productivity, but the human goes to them with trays of sandwiches.
6h06m52s: 50 map run 0.3% AP...
6h19m13s: Zone 17, 1141 pop, 16.0s RC with Z16/94, no turkimp.
"Z:17 You climb a large cliff and look out over the new Zone. Red dirt, scorched ground, and devastation. Is that a Dragimp flying around out there?!"
"Hmm," the human surveys the new zone with his bee nickels, "Looks like crap. Any ideas?"
"You're the idea man," the yellow one groans.
"Set the map flag," he puts his bee nickels away, "We'll run a depth for practice and to load up on gems for more hotels."
"Righto," the red one gets to work.
6h44m34s: First DCP. (Draglimp Care Package; I refuse to call it a tribute.)
"Oh," the human says, "It's tame now, so it brings back gems in exchange for food?" He looks at his gaping scientists, "That's what it looks like, huh? Guys? Yo!"
"Tai..." the grey one sighs.
Draglimp, the dragimp imprinted on Tightniks, lands beside the human, drops some gems at his feet, and accepts some scratching behind its horns before diving into the food bowl.
"You tamed a dragimp???" Grey's note says.
"Well," the yellow one huffs, "I guess that happened."
8h18m53s: L20 depth of 154/27/79.
"Mapping up here?" the red one half closes one eye and tilts his head.
"Yeah," the human says while fitting together the depth map fragments, "With the coordination book not right at the end, we have an extra mark of coordination to take advantage of. Let's take our housing up to 2000 or so, shall we?"
"Okay," the yellow one says from a pile of logs, "What's all the wood for?" They had been collecting it for days now.
"The series upgrades follow a rather specific pattern," Tightniks explains, "Just on the other side of this blimp is Zone 21, where we should be able to find the Shield series V, right?"
"Shijou!" the grey one nods.
8h56m17s: 1% AP for 100 map runs, leaving it, 1751 pop, 24.8s RC with Z20/232. 8h56m54s: Zone 21...
"Ooooookay," Tightniks growls, "There is something off about this thing."
"Shijou?" the grey one looks at the yellow one with concern about their human starship pilot friend.
The human stoops, picks up the little green gem on the ridge between Zone 20 and 21, looks at it, huffs, and asks, "Any idea where this comes from?"
"Err..." the red one seems hesitant to say, "I think you made it."
"Really?" the human huffs, "How could that be?" Then he tosses it at Red, "See if anything reacts to it. It might be radioactive, so we should take turns to minimize exposure."
"Really?" Red's holding it now, "What makes you say that?"
"Because I'm pissed off for no reason I can figure out," the human says, "I think it's coming from that."
"Frags," the red one says quickly, "I think it's arranging a route. You're good with maps," it tosses the gem to the grey scientist.
"Shijou," the grey one says hopefully, and has a map drawn within a few minutes. [Whether it looks like the one in Puchim@s 1x61 is anyone's guess. That one annoyed me as well as Chihya.]
9h02m37s: L21 moun first roll was a decent 160/26/84. 9h21m00s: Starting run 5 of that map...
Tightniks had taken his anger out on some food and wood to build about 8000 traps. Now he's leaning against a rock spire in his increasingly tattered uniform. A nap begins, perhaps unintentionally.
Wild trimps are examining the pile, finding it unwelcoming, and also finding no place in the town, just mill about. It looks like they want to help.
"Ku?" it's a blue trimp, probably a farmer waiting for stuff to grow, climbs up on the rock spire the human is leaning against, starts patting him on the head, "Ku. Ku ku." [Puchim@s Chihya.]
9h23m09s: Still working that lap...
Tightniks wakes up from that nap, and the grey one is standing there. "Shijou," it says with a note of concern, although not much of one. The note it holds says, "It wasn't me."
"Oh, what wasn't you, buddy?" He stretches out a bit, feeling somewhat refreshed. It feels like somebody washed his face and hair while he was sleeping.
The grey one is also holding a small mirror, apparently broken off from a larger mirror and with the sharp edges filed down to make the edges safe.
The human takes it from the grey trimp and holds it in front of his face to discover that somebody has bound up all his hair into about twenty little pigtails. He touches them with his other hand to confirm. "Eh, whatever." He hands the mirror back and goes back to sleep. [Puchim@s Koamimami.]
9h30m08s: The following run...
"He's not throwing stuff every which way yet," the yellow one whispers to the red one, watching the human snoozing with his pad on his knee.
"You remember that, too?" the red one asks.
"'Remember'?" the yellow one turns to face the red one, "I s'pose that's better than imagining it."
"I remember it, too," the grey one says via a playing card sized note.
"If we're stuck in a time loop," the yellow one sighs, "maybe this cycle will be different."
"Tai..." the grey one admires him for a moment. Then thumbs in the direction of the mountain, "Heh, Shijou!" it laughs.
9h35m58s: Run 8, c9 of that map.
The scientists nap and take notes, and meditate and take notes, and draw stuff. The grey one often storyboards for the other nine because it's the best at drawing stuff. They have come up with a list, and most probably "order" (they're debating whether their ranking means "order" (sequence of things happening over the various loops) or "frequency" (what proportion of previous loops they have happened in). But they've come up with this, from first (or perhaps most often) to most recent (or perhaps least often):
- The ship crashes (they're pretty sure that happens every loop) - The human builds huts - The human teaches some of his trimps to speak and do science - The human builds houses - The human makes maps - The human builds mansions - The human blows up and gets himself killed somewhere around Z17 to Z21, often on a dragimp - The human only recently/occasionally builds hotels - The human only recently/rarely tamed a dragimp - The human only recently/rarely maps the Dimension of Anger
They're all agreed that that they have never finished the Dimension of Anger. What they are not all agreed on is that they've never done this conference to figure out whether they're in a time loop or what that might mean. [See also Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect" ...which was sort of a time loop but they weren't going back in time. It's very interesting, but its meta makes no sense - no one ever went looking for the Bozeman in 80 years? No one who went looking for the Bozeman also got stuck? No one noticed the passage of time outside the little area of space where the not-quite-a-time-loop was happening? Errr... sci-fi writers, don't be half-assed about your time loops, lmao! Be like Harold Ramis- ...what am I saying?? (That would be Groundhog Day, which grafted a time loop into a romcom; there are no other sci-fi elements. But it was a full-blown time loop and not half-assed like "Cause and Effect".)]
9h54m06s: Dropped from Z21c95...
I think it would be a bad idea to bypass that green area, as much as I'd rather not face it. Both his domesticated trimps, which are breeding up a new group of fighters, and the wild trimps he has decided just now not to open the traps for, stare at him and point in that direction. He shoulders a huge Shield V-3 and grabs an Mace IV-2 as well and announces, "We're doing it." Thus equipped, he marches off into the Dimension of Anger.
10h27m53s: Taking Pi4-2; recently had taken Pa4-2...
The group at the front had expired, and the snimp in DoAc95 glares at the advancing colony of trimps, which had halted only because of it. It refuses to counterattack the vulnerable colony and its human, instead snorting and huffing, waiting for the next bunch of 232 fighting trimps to come in range.
Tightniks runs along the line of traps, releasing the recently tamed trimps, singing a song that he doesn't remember the meaning of, that he doesn't remember was crafted by an ethnically Chinese guy out of an African language, and later mastered by two caucasians over the internet before they ever met in person. "Baba yetu yetu uliye, mbinguni yetu yetu amina..." because it just happened to be stuck in his head. [Because the Doylian author decided on a whim to. Christopher Tin got it into Civilization IV and at the time (2010 July), I made the best video for it on YouTube, which got subsequently blown to shreds when Peter Hollens and Malukah re-recorded the song from scratch in their own voices and instruments in 2014, pity with no English translation, the purpose of my video.]
Noticing the last batch of metal he needs coming out of the furnace, he waves the waiting grey scientist to fire up the forge [to use the term properly and not as the game does], for it was time to wrap up the forging dies for the Spetum IV, Mark 2 pike heads.
"Shijou!" the grey one cheers, setting aside a snack that looks like maybe ramen, and starts jumping up and down on the bellows handle.
It takes a while for the human to chip out the tip in the two halves of the forging die, and then polish it, and then heat it up in the forge, and then quench it, inspect it, and put it into service crafting thousands of new pike heads for the fighting trimps.
But only one second passed on the map frame clock (10h27m54s) four cells behind that snimp, in the case being brooded over by this huge, and if it's honest, rather concerned megablimp.
10h35m45: Portal PB, 45 He, 4.247 He/hr, 1891 pop, 22.7s RC with Z20/232, no turkimp.
The last head of the map's boss monster goes limp as one of the fighting trimps' mace heads bounces of it, and the huge thing settles on its tail, resting on the package that seems to be the prize of this map. And there's a popping sound, and then something mechanical.
Is that a scroll compressor? Tightniks looks at the package. The deflating monster's lifting envelope material drapes over everything underneath it. "Red, Shijou!" he snaps and points, "roll up that side of it. Keep this part from sucking down on the extractor nozzle!"
All ten of the scientists jump in, literally, pushing the gas in the bag towards the compressor. Tightniks as well, rolling up the front.
Until he kicks, and nearly trips over, a smaller package that might be the explanation for the reason why the center of the monster's defense seemed to be a little away from the big package he could see. It's in the right place, he realizes. He gets it uncovered and reads stenciled-and-sprayed block letters on it:
"DT TIME PORTAL / THIS SIDE DOWN"
Perhaps the Dimension of Anger is so named because of the rage suddenly rising up in Tightniks' throat. It isn't so much as the free-floating aggression suddenly has an answer, there is definitely a fresh batch of rage and anger as he grips the nearest Mace IV, Mark 3 with both hands and gets it over his shoulder, its target obviously this object, anger at the realization he screams at the top of his lungs, "We are stuck in a mutha FAH-king time loop!!" His swing begins. [Tightniks almost never cusses, unlike Snugniks.]

I actually wrote a paper on this in college, but I just feel like both in the US and in Europe, we spend way too much time and money getting invested into sports. I mean you have athletes and owners raking in tens to hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of just a few years… I just feel like all of this revenue and time could be spent on much better things. I don’t know, just especially when you’re paying $15 for a generic hot dog and $10 for a Dasani water bottle. But I guess it’s just supply and demand right? It all feels very “modern-day colosseum” to me. Keep the normies occupied with this stuff and do all the real work behind the scenes.
Edit: ok so perfectly understandable but it does seem the point here is flying over the average commenter’s head. No I don’t think musicians, actors, authors, artists etc. fall into the same category as athletes. Politicians yes they of course would… anyway the point I’m trying to make is that throwing a ball through a hoop or kicking one into a net is not as impactful or significant as say writing a best-selling book full of life-changing advice or really inspiring, creative music. To each their own I guess. Please use common sense here, I know that’s hard for a lot of people in 2024.
Further Edit: again, please also try to remember there’s a reason I posted this in unpopular opinion. Two very key words there. It’s just an OPINION, you are welcome to yours I’m welcome to mine.
Last & Final Edit: there seems to be some confusion here, and that’s partly on me. I’m not talking about youth, high school, collegiate or even community sports. I’m talking almost primarily, specifically, about professional sports.
Final Final Edit: as a consolation prize and general crowd pleaser, you can throw the kardashian/jenner clan and any other similar figures in the same category.

I tried quitting porn and doing sr for two years. I tought i will never get pass one week. It took me a year to reach where i am now. I am so glad my journey went like this at first, i started meditating only 5 min a day sometime 3. After a month, i started gratitude journaling idk why but i love it. I do it everyday never missed a day. I saw somewhere on youtube that cold showers could help i implemented cold showers also but still no avail kept failing and relapsing. I started reading books around 10 pages a day. I quitt smoking and i started doing breathwork before meditating , still i kept watching porn amd relapsing. However, i kept all the things that i added. I joined a gym and started a diet 3 months ago. I tried to water fast for a week before that but i relapsed a lot. There was no food in me, but i was relasing all the time. I didnt watch porn, but i was always on snapchat relapsing. I delted snapchat and unsubscribed from channel that have any soft porn . I was still relapisng. Finally, i decided to quit sugar and food with high gi index. At the same time, i read a book could your brain on porn. They talked about how porn blockers might help. I was so skeptical, but i said why not. I am losing either way. I downloaded one, but it wasnt free. I am cheap. I never buy for apps, but i said why not its like buying a pack of ciggrattes. I also found an app to track all my habits it was free. Its called habits nothing fancy, but it does the job. My take is that quitting porn and doing sr is not easy. You do it one step at a time. Just keep the good habits, and try implmenting new good ones. Just be kind to yourself and passiant with it. Like teaching your kid how to ride a bike. Ig u will not scream and treat your kid badly he falls off the bike. My wish now is to finish 90 days. I feel different. My mind before was sad and feeling lonely. All my thinking was how to get girls and sex. I feel now that i need to help people and my family. Girls are not my priority now. Good luck to anyone be strong u can make it.

I’ve (F36) been with my boyfriend (M34) for 2.5 years, long distance. In the beginning, obviously things were great. However, early on, I started to see some red flags.
He would lie about the stupidest things…things that didn’t even make sense to lie about. For example, I had visited him and made up a bunch of breakfast sandwiches for him to take to work. After I had gone home, he called me one morning saying that the sandwiches were great. He verbatim said, “I had one while I was running around the house getting ready and another one while I was driving to work.” Later in the day, I said “so those sandwiches were good, huh?” He said “what? I told you I was rushing today. I didn’t have any time for breakfast.” It honestly really scared me, and we never got to the bottom of it. His final comment on the situation was “it worries me, I don’t remember saying any of that to you.”
For reference…he has had multiple head traumas due to abuse by his mom and her boyfriends, abuse by his stepdad, dirt bike accidents, getting kicked in the head by his horses, and when he was married, he mouthed off and got whacked in the head with a frying pan by his ex…
Anyway, he’s VERY generous due to his high paying job and supports me with $1000/month which I apply to my rent (which is $1750). The other day I texted him saying I was craving a margarita, and he immediately sent me money to go get myself one. I didn’t need the money, but the gesture was thoughtful.
But lately, he’s just been really sketchy, mean, and self centered.
Sketchy: During the day, he is great about letting me know where he’s going and what he’s doing, usually; come evening though, he will sometimes just fall off the face of the planet and I cannot get a hold of him. He claims he doesn’t hear my calls or texts but he has a watch which is connected to his phone, so I know he’s ignoring me. We’ve talked about it a lot but he just says that he doesn’t need to give me an update every 10 min. And it’s like, no, you don’t…but once every 2 hours should be doable.
Mean: Today I was just having a rough day accompanied by a terrible headache. I called him because I knew he was off work and I just wanted to see if talking with him could put me in a better mood. Regarding my headache, he threw in a quick “you’ll be fine” line. When I told him I was feeling depressed and sad that he never asks how I was doing (more about that later in the “self centered” section), he said “you always tell me! I don’t need to ask! You BOMBARD my phone with 20 messages about your day so there’s no need to ask! I’m not gonna text you every hour and be like ‘how are you?’ I haven’t done that since junior high!” First off…I do text him sometimes, sure, but I do not “bombard” him. And the first thing that came to mind when he said that to me, was ‘he’s insecure that I actually DON’T text or call near as much as I used to, so he’s making things up to make himself feel more important and needed’. I said “well do you prefer that I don’t text you during the day and just wait til you’re off work to talk?” He said “umm no. That’s a game. Don’t play games with me.” I thought it was a possible solution…
Self Centered: Today, he knew I had a long commute in very stressful traffic. Instead of asking how my drive was, he texted me that he had broken his truck window, followed by a picture. Honestly, he’s not great at responding to my messages, and since I was driving, I didn’t respond. He eventually called to tell me the WHOLE story in FULL detail, not once, but twice! This is very common. He will tell me a story, and then tell me the same exact story again. And if I say “oh you already told me that”, he gets angry! So I just have to listen and come up with a new reaction, otherwise he will say I’m being rude. It’s like, he just loves the attention from his stories.
Later on, we were talking about my work and I started to tell him a story. He thought he knew what I was going to say so he tried to finish my sentence. I gently said, “oh, no that isn’t what I was going to say.” He said “oh, well that’s what I’M going to say.” I responded with an “ohhhkay…” which caused him to loudly exhale and say “FINE, what were you going to say?! My God!”
He can really be so mean. And we’ve tried talking about it, which just results in him talking over me, and not listening to anything that I say.
It’s been about three months since we have seen each other and I’m actually supposed to head his way next week for his niece’s wedding.
I know that he will be working the whole time I am there with the exception of the day of the wedding, so we won’t have to spend a lot of time together. Pretty sad to say that.
I just feel like he’s such a broken person who has been through so much trauma in his life. He really does have a lot of amazing qualities, but I feel like I just see less and less of them. I pray about the relationship all the time, but is there a point that I need to leave and just let God handle him when he’s not in a relationship?

I'm a 20 year old and I live with my mother. My parents are divorced and I know nothing about my father's side of family as I was very young when it happened. My father is from a "low caste" (as they call it) and my family had not approved the marriage but my mom still got married and lived separately for sometime. My father was abusive towards my mother and was a drunkard. He had a wife about whom he had not told my mother. My mother stayed there for a while and then eventually decided to leave. My mother's family gave their reaction.. they said things like, "we told her and she didn't listen. She deserves that." My mother took me and we lived in a rented place for years. It was just me and her. There was no one to take care of me while she was in office and so she would leave me at my friend's place. I would stay there as soon as I got back from school or when I had holidays. Finally years later, when I was 7 or 8, my mother took me to see her family. I remember the look in their eyes. They didn't even bother if I was there (they = my mother's 1st younger sister. She had 3 sisters). I could not understand what they were talking about so I don't remember. I was very naughty and stubborn back then. I was a revolting kind of kid and I did receive some lessons from my mother to make things straight. But as time went by, I went to visit the grandparents and my uncles. They were nice. I had one more aunt (my mother's youngest sister) who lived abroad, I met her as well. Now idk why but whenever I made a mistake or something they would indirect bring up my father. They would say things like "you are his daughter afterall." Even if I had just made a small mistake. At first I didn't feel anything but looking at my other cousin brother, they didn't say anything to him even if he made a mistake. I used to envy him and kind of felt left out. I used to go to a boarding school and so I only came back home for my vacation. There were no phones allowed there so when I got home, I would listen to music, dance, watch movies and videos. My family members would give me a "you are too much. What is she even doing her" kind of look to me every single time. I would visit my grandparents place and I would always feel left out. Maybe I was just expecting too much from them. Now I was a teenager when things got worse. I had an argument with my mother once and my first aunt (let's call her aunt A) Aunt A called my other aunt (the abroad one.. let's call her aunt B) aunt B and told her all nonsense. You know when you tend to make things bigger, you mix up all kinds of spices and what not just to make that a big issue.. that is what my aunt did. Aunt B called me and scolded me for no reason because of all the other additional things Aunt A had told her. This happened a couple of times. My mother got sick and had to go to Delhi for treatment and Aunt A went with her. The other family members took me in that time and would help me get to my hostel, bring me home for holidays and took care of me. My cousin brother's mother was also sick a few months earlier but she had returned home. One morning I told my grandmother that I wanted to talk to my mother but she refused so I took the phone secretly and called my mom. She said she had reached and told me not to worry. But when my other family members found out that I had called my mom, they all started scolding me. "Your cousin brother is a god-like kid. He never called or asked for his mother. While you, you have the behaviour of your father. You will eat your mother alive someday." I was 9 or 10 years old then.
I got into high school and the same thing happened. I would have a little argument, Aunt A would eavesdrop our conversation and add things up and say it to Aunt B. Aunt B would come home for festivals and would scold the hell out of me. She would compare me with all the other kids in the area and especially my cousin brother. One time I had opened a Facebook account and they found out. They literally stalked me account and called my mother and told her that I had only men in my friend list. She said, "Your daughter does not have a pure blood. She is her father's daughter afterall. She is impure and I know she is up yo something bad." (Basically she tried to tell my mom that I would hook up with boys just like my father had married his wives). Time went on and they said what not. "We are your family only till your mother is alive. After that you go do whatever you want." "If you do this, if you do that, remember we are not your family. Don't call us that time." If they heard me sharing my problems with my mother, they would say "You are going to kill your mother. She is sick because of you." One time I was separating my old and new clothes and my mother was also there sitting in the sofa near me. I was tossing of my old clothes near the door so that it would be easier but then the next day after my classes I got a call from Aunt B. She told me that I had done the most terrible thing ever. Someone told her that I threw my clothes at my mother's face. She said "I love my sister (my mom) but seems like you will never love her." I was so done. She also blamed me for talking bad about my other cousins when I hadn't even done that. I used to joke with my mom saying that she cares for my younger cousins way more when I am away in hostel. But that thing took a turn. Still they tell me a lot of things. "You are showing your father's behaviour" this one is the most common one. I am a short-tempered, stubborn kid and I accept it. I could be at fault, too (and I do apologise for that). They call me "Kami", this might be a very communal thing to bring out, but yeah, it's basically what you call a SC if you are in a Nepali community. They sometimes use it to mock people as well. My family does that. I don't want to feel like way and try to be as optimistic as possible, but it is like that because for the same mistakes that are made by my other cousins, they never said anything. Every mistake, every situation, every argument, I am the bad guy. Why? Because my father who left years ago, when I couldn't even remember his face, was a drunkard, cheated on my mom and hated my mom's family because they did not like him and I am his daughter. The only person with a different title/surname in the family. What should I believe? Is it verbal abuse? Or? Please, someone tell me.

I'm a 20 year old and I live with my mother. My parents are divorced and I know nothing about my father's side of family as I was very young when it happened. My father is from a "low caste" (as they call it) and my family had not approved the marriage but my mom still got married and lived separately for sometime. My father was abusive towards my mother and was a drunkard. He had a wife about whom he had not told my mother. My mother stayed there for a while and then eventually decided to leave. My mother's family gave their reaction.. they said things like, "we told her and she didn't listen. She deserves that." My mother took me and we lived in a rented place for years. It was just me and her. There was no one to take care of me while she was in office and so she would leave me at my friend's place. I would stay there as soon as I got back from school or when I had holidays. Finally years later, when I was 7 or 8, my mother took me to see her family. I remember the look in their eyes. They didn't even bother if I was there (they = my mother's 1st younger sister. She had 3 sisters). I could not understand what they were talking about so I don't remember. I was very naughty and stubborn back then. I was a revolting kind of kid and I did receive some lessons from my mother to make things straight. But as time went by, I went to visit the grandparents and my uncles. They were nice. I had one more aunt (my mother's youngest sister) who lived abroad, I met her as well. Now idk why but whenever I made a mistake or something they would indirect bring up my father. They would say things like "you are his daughter afterall." Even if I had just made a small mistake. At first I didn't feel anything but looking at my other cousin brother, they didn't say anything to him even if he made a mistake. I used to envy him and kind of felt left out. I used to go to a boarding school and so I only came back home for my vacation. There were no phones allowed there so when I got home, I would listen to music, dance, watch movies and videos. My family members would give me a "you are too much. What is she even doing her" kind of look to me every single time. I would visit my grandparents place and I would always feel left out. Maybe I was just expecting too much from them. Now I was a teenager when things got worse. I had an argument with my mother once and my first aunt (let's call her aunt A) Aunt A called my other aunt (the abroad one.. let's call her aunt B) aunt B and told her all nonsense. You know when you tend to make things bigger, you mix up all kinds of spices and what not just to make that a big issue.. that is what my aunt did. Aunt B called me and scolded me for no reason because of all the other additional things Aunt A had told her. This happened a couple of times. My mother got sick and had to go to Delhi for treatment and Aunt A went with her. The other family members took me in that time and would help me get to my hostel, bring me home for holidays and took care of me. My cousin brother's mother was also sick a few months earlier but she had returned home. One morning I told my grandmother that I wanted to talk to my mother but she refused so I took the phone secretly and called my mom. She said she had reached and told me not to worry. But when my other family members found out that I had called my mom, they all started scolding me. "Your cousin brother is a god-like kid. He never called or asked for his mother. While you, you have the behaviour of your father. You will eat your mother alive someday." I was 9 or 10 years old then.
I got into high school and the same thing happened. I would have a little argument, Aunt A would eavesdrop our conversation and add things up and say it to Aunt B. Aunt B would come home for festivals and would scold the hell out of me. She would compare me with all the other kids in the area and especially my cousin brother. One time I had opened a Facebook account and they found out. They literally stalked me account and called my mother and told her that I had only men in my friend list. She said, "Your daughter does not have a pure blood. She is her father's daughter afterall. She is impure and I know she is up yo something bad." (Basically she tried to tell my mom that I would hook up with boys just like my father had married his wives). Time went on and they said what not. "We are your family only till your mother is alive. After that you go do whatever you want." "If you do this, if you do that, remember we are not your family. Don't call us that time." If they heard me sharing my problems with my mother, they would say "You are going to kill your mother. She is sick because of you." One time I was separating my old and new clothes and my mother was also there sitting in the sofa near me. I was tossing of my old clothes near the door so that it would be easier but then the next day after my classes I got a call from Aunt B. She told me that I had done the most terrible thing ever. Someone told her that I threw my clothes at my mother's face. She said "I love my sister (my mom) but seems like you will never love her." I was so done. She also blamed me for talking bad about my other cousins when I hadn't even done that. I used to joke with my mom saying that she cares for my younger cousins way more when I am away in hostel. But that thing took a turn. Still they tell me a lot of things. "You are showing your father's behaviour" this one is the most common one. I am a short-tempered, stubborn kid and I accept it. I could be at fault, too (and I do apologise for that). They call me "Kami", this might be a very communal thing to bring out, but yeah, it's basically what you call a SC if you are in a Nepali community. They sometimes use it to mock people as well. My family does that. I don't want to feel like way and try to be as optimistic as possible, but it is like that because for the same mistakes that are made by my other cousins, they never said anything. Every mistake, every situation, every argument, I am the bad guy. Why? Because my father who left years ago, when I couldn't even remember his face, was a drunkard, cheated on my mom and hated my mom's family because they did not like him and I am his daughter. The only person with a different title/surname in the family. What should I believe? Is it verbal abuse? Or? Please, someone tell me.

Intro

Hello, I'm Goody. I make TFT content on YouTube, Twitch, and occassionally Reddit.

This time I'm here to discuss Zoe Reroll, a comp that has caused a little bit of a stir on the PBE due to her buffs in 14.10

I honestly think Zoe is insanely OP now (I mean just watch this clip I posted a few days ago).

But there are those that say Zoe is a terrible unit

The most prominent of which is Mortdog who said "Stop playing Zoe. She's not good. Despite the buff even"
(VOD Timestamp of this here)

Challenger Zoe One-Trick: LIGhtYgo

I've been playing a lot of Zoe Reroll on the PBE, but recently in my stream CuLe TV told me about a Challenger on the Japanese server who one-tricks Zoe Reroll called LIGhtYgo. His lolchess page is here if you want to read it
And coincidentally, I've been playing the same comp they play amongst others that I'll share with you today

TLDR:

If you want a TLDR, this timestamped section should cover that

VIDEO FORM

(The video also has Spanish and Vietnamese Subtitles)
Disclaimer: I tested these comps on the PBE and I have not played them in ranked. For transparency, here is my lolchess
And my Exalted only account here

(Highly recommend trying this btw, it's very fun)

But let's get started!

Ghoe Reroll (Ghostly Zoe)

So let's start with what LIGhtYgo plays which is this comp here
(Teambuilder here)
I couldn't find any VODs to link from LIGhtYgo but here's some of my gameplay of this comp on the PBE
From looking at their match history, LIGhtYgo tends to reroll Shen + Zyra or Zoe + Illaoi (1 tank + 1 carry) but sometimes they manage to 3 star everything alongside Aatrox.

Give Zoe Shiv

LIGhtYgo also frequently itemises Zoe with Statikk Shiv, 3 star or otherwise, to stack Zoe's passive as much as possible.

Passive: Kills increase the number of ricochets by 1 for the rest of combat.

Now, I should mention that Zoe's tooltip here is misleading and frankly incorrect. Zoe gains more ricochets if she participates in a kill, also known as takedowns.
And that is why Statikk Shiv is so phenomenal for Zoe. Not only is she reducing the MR of enemy units (helps Ghostly and your Magic Damage Dealers) but the damage from Shiv will give Zoe takedown credit once those enemy units perish.
So, even with just a Shiv and at 2 star, Zoe can be very impactful as her passive continues to easily stack.
Thus Zoe has great synergy with other AP carries like Zyra, Morgana, Teemo, Alune etc as they soften enemy units for each other to clean up.
And so Zoe is an incredible secondary carry as she needs very little to come online
You can infer this from LIGhtYgo's match history as they tend to succeed more when Zoe isn't their primary carry but rather secondary.
Although the buff to Zoe in 14.10 should change that, especially combined with the buffs to Ghostly, Warden, Aatrox, Behemoth and Jax.

Zoe's Weaknesses

From my games, I've felt Zoe has 2 main weaknesses

• Firstly, she can struggle into tanky frontliners as it'll take her more time to stack her passive.
• Secondly, Zoe can lose 1v1s as her ult will no longer ricochet (no targets left to bounce to)

These weaknesses can make Zoe feel very binary: - she either gets 3/4 takedowns and nukes - or she gets stuck, gets no passive stacks, and does nothing

Spooky Solution

But that’s why Ghostly can provide so much value to Zoe.
Those Spectres will help Zoe get through tanks and once they're concentrated, Zoe's single target will nuke which even allows her to win those 1v1s

Problems with Ghoe Reroll

From what I tried on the PBE, I did find this comp to be very powerful at level 9. However it could be a struggle getting there as you also need to reroll Zoe who can be contested by Fortune, Arcanist, and Storyweaver players

Is it a Player Diff?

I also find there to be a really odd tempo where I need to find Zoe 3 but also hit level 9 to find Udyr. I did learn later that you don't really need to 3 star Zoe to get to 9, and it's certainly not impossible to hit Zoe 3 at level 9.
Although, it seems that LIGhtYgo resolves this problem by keeping the option of Zyra Reroll open. (They play boards akin to this one occasionally)
Also, sometimes the Inkshadow item doesn't tend to be that useful, especially if it's Tattoo of Bombardment, as you don't have an AD carry.
Lastly, the position of the Ghostly units is really important so the Spectres concentrate onto Zoe's target(s). This can be really awkward if your primary Ghostly tank has a Stoneplate.
I have lost games because I moved Zoe away from my Ghostly units last second :(
But by far the biggest problem I have found is how much better the comp becomes at 9 than level 8. I personally find rerolling at level 8 to be the easiest to find 3 star Illaoi, Zoe, and Galio 2 whilst also being able to field 8 units which enable many important synergies.
Essentially, I don't like rerolling at either 7 or 8 with this comp. So I decided to comp up with a new comp to address this problem which is Altruist Arcanist.

4 Arcanist 3 Altruist Zoe Reroll

So here's a new variant of Zoe Reroll that has an incredibly strong level 8 (you play Rakan at 9) that gives you more time to reroll and find Zoe 3. This makes this comp so much easier to play and in turn, I have had so much more success with this variation particularly.
Teambuilder here
[Here's the full game from that clip with this comp]
This board also has a primary tank option between Amumu or Illaoi so you can play around whichever you manage to 3 star.
Although your secondary carry here is Lux who also holds your utility items like Morello and Shiv.

The Lissandra Nerfs really hurt...

Honestly, this may be extreme bias due to a bad few games, but I find a Lux 2 to be more reliable than post-nerf Lissandra. Lux feels like she needs a lot less to function better as she CC's more units, usually targets and slows down the enemy carry, and softens up enemy units for Zoe.
(VOD of why I don't like Lissandra)
The combination of Lux, Amumu, and Illaoi feels incredibly solid
Now the reason why I don't give Zoe Shiv on this board is due to a few reasons - Altruists prolong combat due to the mana reave, damage reduction, ally healing, and the trait resistances - That allows your frontline to be super beefy especially since the resistances are great for Bruisers/Wardens (loads of EHP) - Lux will have more AS than Zoe (Lux: 0.7x1.5=1.05 vs Zoe: 0.75x1.2=0.9) - And finally, opening up that item slot allows you to give Zoe a third damage item

Why not itemise Soraka?

Your secondary carry items should be going to Lux as she has more AP from Arcanist.
While Soraka can do a lot of damage, you only really care about her mana reave because it's such a powerful utility ability.
Regardless, Soraka will gain AP naturally from her passive as your frontline will continue to heal during combat. As she gains more AP, she heals your frontline more, who then stall for longer.
Lastly, the following 2 combinations are literally perfect for Altruist Arcanist.

Lux, Teemo, Thresh, Volibear, Galio, Morgana Darius, Bard, Soraka, Galio, Lissandra

4 Warden 6 Arcanist

Here's the board for this one
Teambuilder
(Here's some Footage of this Comp in Action)

Meta Report from Khym and YBY1

In the 14.10 Meta Report by Khym and YBY1, Arcanist Zoe is described as an Easy Top 4 Comp (if I'm reading that correctly)
Khym also has a guide on how to play Zoe/Illaoi RR here
And what's great here is that, again, as you reroll you have option between Amumu or Illaoi 3 as your tank (however Illaoi is better due to the Arcanist AP)
Also, with the 4 Warden buff, this frontline feels great and buys plenty of time for Zoe to scale.
And this variation certainly has the highest ceiling out of all the comps if you get a Porcelain Spatula

6 Arcanist, 4 Warden, 4 Porcelain is extremely powerful.

Luckily, you can easily pivot into this board from Altruist Arcanist but pivoting is a tad more difficult to do if you're playing Ghoe.
Similarly, both the Warden and Altruist boards can tech in Hwei at 8 to make hitting the 3 stars easier.
4 Warden Hwei 4 Arcanist 2 Altruist Hweimothy
So if you're low rolling Zoe, Hwei can easily save the day.
Regardless, all 3 comps make up for at least one of Zoe's weaknesses. They either buy her plenty of time to scale or they tremendously enable her damage and, in turn, her passive.
And, at the very least, Zoe is great item holder due to her buffed passive
Speaking of which, let's talk about Zoe's items now.

Zoe's Items

Of course, as I've mentioned, you can give Zoe Shiv so she can get takedown credit and stack her passive quickly
But generally, MR reduction is necessary (even if it's not on her) so Zoe can kill units and stack her passive. Shiv is far more preferable to build but Ionic still does the job.
But I'm a simple guy, I want to see BIG damage numbers and huge ricochets, thus I forgo Shiv on Zoe for pure damage items.
But before we get into those items, let's talk about which casting item Zoe will want

Casting item: Shojin vs Adaptive Math

First cast:

Zoe is 0/60 and Shojin/Adaptive give 15 mana

Shojin:

0.75^-1x3 = 4 seconds

Adaptive:

0.75^-1x4 = 5.3 seconds

Second Cast onwards

Shojin:

0.75^-1x4 = 5.3 seconds

Adaptive:

10 mana after 0.7 seconds 40 mana every 3 autos every 4 seconds Then 1 more auto for 10 more mana
Thus Adaptive: 0.75^-1x4 = 5.3 seconds
So Shojin will get Zoe's first cast off sooner however after that Zoe's cast frequency between Adaptive and Shojin is the same.
Considering Adaptive gives more AP, is not dependant on auto attacking, will continue to generate mana even if Zoe gets stunned (or has to walk up) and it grants MR (useful against magic damage), I believe Adaptive is the superior mana generating item on Zoe if she has no bonus attack speed
If Zoe has just a Shiv, then her cast frequency is much faster [(0.75x1.2)^-1x4 = 4.4 seconds] with Shojin.

TLDR:

• Give Zoe Adaptive if you're going solely damage items on her (Rabadon/Archangel's + Jewelled Gauntlet)
• Give Zoe Shojin if she has any bonus attack speed (Nashor's/Shiv/Pumping Up)

AP item: Rabadon or Archangel's

Of course, Zoe is a Mage and so she wants as much AP as possible which is either Rabadon or Archangel’s
I prefer Rabadon because it's more upfront AP alongside a great damage amplifier. However Archangel's can be more realistic to build and eventually it will outscale Rabadon's AP.

Increase Casting/Damage Multiplier

Lastly, you can give Zoe an item to increase her casting frequency like Shiv or Nashor's Tooth. Both of these items maximise Zoe's Kill Participation.
Or you can give her more damage amp for more, well, damage. Those are items like Jewelled Gauntlet or even items like Guardbreaker or Giant Slayer.
Although if you go the pure damage route, you need Zoe 3 and a ton of AP, so Zoe can stack her passive by one shotting whatever she touches.

SUPER TDLR:

Generally great build : Shiv/Nashor's + Shojin + Rabadon/Jewelled
My favourite: Adaptive + Rabadon + Jewelled

Bonus: Luden's Tempest

Luden's Tempest feels amazing on Zoe. With her ricochets, she gets so much takedown credit so quickly with it and it's so much damage.
[Here's my gameplay of Luden's Zoe in action]
And what's nice is that Zoe formerly built Luden's in TFT's spinoff game League of Legends. So it's a great callback
Although I've never played Zoe before...can I pretend to have a sense of nostalgia?

Kayle Upgrade

It's Blue.
20 AP is 20 AP. You're already building Shred so Green is Redundant, and the Attack Speed from Red is only 12%.

Pivot Potential

Zoe's items are very flexible so if you don't hit Zoe 3, you can pivot them to other AP carries like Syndra, Azir, Lissandra and Lillia.
So you don't absolutely need to reroll Zoe, you can just as easily use Zoe to Fast 9 instead, especially around Storyweaver, and pivot into a Legendary board.

Fin.

That is all the information I currently have on Zoe Reroll
Hopefully this was helpful but I'd like to ask for your thoughts
What do you guys think about Zoe?

Do you think it's as OP as I believe or is Mortdog right?

Also, I usually do Patch Previews for each patch (for example here's my 14.10 patch preview), but I'm curious whether you guys would be interested if i made that into a Reddit post as well.
I imagine it'd be similar to how they do it on the LoL subreddit but I'd include my thoughts as well.
For example, I think Low Interest Rates is turbo giga insane in 14.10 because you can hit max interest rate at 2-6 (by the latest) at which point you're earning 6 gold a turn.
Lastly, I'm currently working on a Rek'sai reroll comp that is incredibly funny so look forward to that!
But yeah, I'll leave it on that note I think

Let me know if you have any questions!

I shall answer them as soon as i wake up lol

Thank you for reading <3