Hi there, recently terminated from my kitchen position at a hospital. it was my first job and i absolutely loved it but due to circumstances i was fired and now im thrown back into the world of job hunting. ive tried indeed and ziprecruiter and a few other job search sites but it feels like theyre all medical jobs or stuff way out of my qualifications.
ideally i want to do something similar but smaller scale due to health concerns but im desperate for just about anything at this point. i feel like im still really at entry level but i want to work my way up and make what i was making at my last job or more. job search sites are endless and frustrating but even going in person doesn’t really seem to help. im at a loss.

I work in the insurance industry and have been at the same company for over two decades. I've had a great career - worked my way up from making 27k / yr doing entry level jobs, to working in the IT call center, to being a software engineer for about a decade. Now I am pretty much maxed out as an individual contributor in the CX department working with data, automation, and the general direction of the area.
My team was one of the few areas of the company that remained remote after COVID, and were told it was permanent. Well, long story short - they're bringing us back next month. And I am not thrilled.
Obviously, in this job market I can't just quit, but I've been applying to other jobs ever since we got the news. 200+ applications and I've only had one soft "interview".
So my choices are:

1. Keep working in my area as an individual contributor with not much room to move up. I would be forced to sit in an open office area that is noisy, distracting, and generally unpleasant.
2. Apply to management positions in other areas (that I am actively being recruited for) where I would at least get a cubicle, more money (only ~ 10k more to start), and can learn a new skillset.

My ultimate goal is to work remotely, and it is not likely to happen where I currently am. I do have some limited management experience (temporary job change for 3 months) and currently participate in hiring, mentoring, coaching, etc. I'm basically managing without the title or pay.
Would it be better to take a management role for the time being with the plan to use that experience on my resume, bettering my chances of getting a remote role elsewhere?

I hope this report helps others as much as the ones before helped me plan!
May 30-June 8
Traveled to Japan from the west coast of US with husband and two daughters, 14 & 11.
May 30 Arrived at Narita Airport around 3 PM. The line at customs was over an hour long and it was stiflingly hot and humid in the customs area. the line wound around 2 giant rooms. We had done the QR code and it didn’t even matter- the line for QR code people and paper form people was the same line. After the long flight there, this was hard on us.
Arrived at our hotel- the FAV Tokyo Hotel in Ryogoku. I picked this hotel because of the price. It was high quality and the staff were super nice. The original room we had, though, was really small- 200 sq feet. we felt really cramped in there and ended up upgrading to a bigger room after 3 nights.
Upon arriving we unpacked a bit, walked around the corner to get some ramen, stopped at 7-11 to get some snacks and I checked the pharmacy for CPAP water. I found “soft water”- which I used and it seemed to be ok, even though they didn’t have official distilled water. We crashed around 8 pm.
May 31 It was a little rainy in the morning, so we changed up our plans and started in Akihabara. We went to a cat cafe and loved it- the cats were all super cute and healthy. They seemed pretty spoiled! We were underwhelmed by the anime stores in Akihabara though- I think you need to be really into it to like them. We were all feeling pretty tired so we went back to the hotel for a bit, then went out in the evening to Senso-Ji. Unfortunately all the vendors in Nakimise dori were closing when we got there, so we didn’t try a lot of the food we wanted to. But it was nice to see the temple when it was less crowded. We went to dinner at a sushi restaurant in Asakusa, and went to a cabaret dance show at Asakusa Kugua- which we all LOVED. We booked the tix through Viator but I think you can book directly. My 11 year old said it was her favorite part of the trip. I loved the shopping area around it. I actually wish we stayed in Asakusa- it ended up being my favorite area of Tokyo.
June 1 We started with day with breakfast at Yoshinoya which ended up being what we did every day, because my youngest daughter liked it so much. Traditional breakfast of miso soup, white rice and salmon. After that we went to Happy Pancake to see what all the fuss was about. I loved them- my daughters didn’t- they thought they tasted like eggs. After that, we did Shibuya scrambled, checked out Loft, went to Takeshita Dori in Harajuku and went to the Puma store in Shinjuku. I think it was a mistake to do these areas on a Saturday. The crowds were something I wasn’t prepared for- obviously I had seen videos but actually BEING in the chaos is a different story. I was really overwhelmed and tired by the end of this long day and I fell asleep by 7.
June 2 We started the day at TeamLabs Planets- which was really cool. We had booked our tickets well in advance and we didn’t feel overly crowded since they do timed entry. After that, we went to Yanaka Ginza, as I had heard that old town was a nice change to Shibuya. It was- but I wished for more- the “shopping street” was not as long as I thought it would be. Luckily it was walking distance to Nezu shrine, which was absolutely gorgeous. It started raining just as we arrived and I enjoyed the quiet, serene setting, watching the raindrops in the stream with koi fish swimming around. It was one of my favorite places in Tokyo.
June 3 This was our “theatrical” day. We started with a Samurai class that I had booked through Viator. Again, you could book directly through Samurai Theater. This was SO MUCH FUN. My husband’s favorite part of the trip. It was an hour long class, we got to dress up like Samurai’s (I’m plus size and it worked), and there’s a fun choreographed sequence they teach you that you do to music at the end. The instructors spoke great English and were just a lot of fun to spend time with.
We then went to Gonpachi- the restaurant that inspired the design of the restaurant in Kill Bill’s iconic sword fight scene. This didn’t disappoint- it’s a super unique interior design and we loved felling like we were in the movie (especially after having just had sword fights of our own!)
We ended the day with a Kimono Tea Ceremony with MAIKOYA Tokyo. This was also fun- the girls loved getting their hair done, getting to choose their kimono and we were all excited to learn how to make matcha tea and learn about the ceremony.
June 4 This was a “free” day so we decided to try Harajuku again on a weekday. It was a little less crowded and the girls were happy to get some fun clothes at ACDC Rags and Punyas. We also went to a puppy cafe. This one wasn’t as fun as the cat cafe. The dogs seemed really hungry- and it made me sad. (They looked well fed, but it makes me wonder if all their food comes through the hand feeding from visitors?) afterward, we went to the Pokémon Cafe for my 11 year old who loves Pokémon. The food was really bad- which we expected from reviews. I didn’t know, though, that you don’t get to take photos with Pikachu- he just does a little show and waves. This wasn’t worth it in my opinion. We then had ramen on “ramen street” at Tokyo station for dinner. We did the seafood ramen- I think I would have preferred a different one.
June 5 We traveled on the Shinkansen To Kyoto on this day. It was relatively easy as we connected through Shinagawa Station instead of Tokyo station. We checked into the Mimaru SHIJO (which was amazing and had free happy hour with beer and sake daily from 5-7!) and went straight to Nishiki Market and my husband tried allll the food. He loved all of it. The girls and I loved the shopping area connected to Nishiki. We did My Only Fragrance- a fun experience to design your own perfume (we had a reservation). I went to fushimi inari alone at sunset and was super excited that it wasn’t crowded and the light was stunning. I was there about 30 minutes. Later, My husband and I went out alone this evening in Gion. We saw two Maiko out and about (we didn’t take photos or harass). We also had the best sushi dinner of our lives in an 8-seat restaurant called Sushi Ninenzaka Numoto. We got REALLY lucky as we just walked in- I didn’t realize so many restaurants require reservations in Kyoto!
June 6 I woke up at the crack of dawn and my 14 year old and I took the Shinkansen down to Hiroshima. We went through the Peace Museum, which made both of us emotional- but her especially. She had to take some time afterwards sitting in the park on a bench while I explored the surrounding area- the dome, the different memorials, etc. we didn’t spend a lot of time in Hiroshima but it was important to me to go, and I’m happy we made the trip. My daughter said she wished I had warned her- had she known how emotional it would be she might have skipped it. I think it’s important that people learn from history so even though it was hard for her I’m glad she came with me. We were back in Kyoto by 2. We took a nap then took the train to Osaka to at least see the dotonbori- which was amazing. Such a great vibe. There was a live concert happening when we got there a girl JPoP band called Shinsekai Hero, and my daughters were super into it. We had conveyor belt sushi, tried some food at the stands and headed back to Kyoto.
June 7 Our last day in Japan. My husband and I went to Ninzaka and Sannenzaka at 10 when the shops opened up- we spent a lot. We loved the pottery shops and the doll shop. So many souvenirs bought. Later in the day we went to Kinkaku-Ji and it was everything I imagined and more. Even with the crowds it’s such a calming place. We tried to have dinner at a nice steakhouse that evening but again- no reservations.
June 7 Took the Shinkansen back from Kyoto to Tokyo station because we had an oversized bag and even with booking well in advance couldn’t get a reserved seat with the oversized bag connecting in Shinagawa. We made our connection (20 minutes!) but just barely and only because I had studied the Tokyo station map. If I hadn’t we would have missed our connection to the Narita express.
All in all- it was a great trip that was definitely a teaser for future trips. I wish we spent more time in Kyoto and Osaka- I think we would have liked those areas more than Tokyo. I also want to see more of the countryside, as I preferred the temples to the wild city.
Lessons learned -The subway was tricky for us- we gave up after day 1 and just took taxis which we not much more expensive than the subway and saved a lot of headache- we used Uber and the go taxi app - my daughter got a cold while we were there- the Payke app was a lifesaver as you could scan a bar code and the label with ingredients and instructions showed up in the app in English - my other daughters glasses broke - luckily there are a lot of eyeglass stores in Shibuya and they repaired them for a small fee - Make reservations in Kyoto - For language, I used “sumimasen” “nan ban nori ban?” and “arigato gozaimas” a lot but the other phrases I learned didn’t come up. I used google translate to type in and show people the Japanese when needed

https://preview.redd.it/qtey58fuzl5d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=bab0bd145a61b35f250fba1166d30009bc57220c

I'm sure you guys see this question a lot, but I would like some tips or help finding a good wfh job.
I've been working retail for the past 5 years, and dealing with the public and a boss breathing down my neck every day is absolutely draining me and my motivation for any of my hobbies, especially the past few months. So, I've been searching online for different types of work from home jobs, and most of them seem to be either over-saturated, becoming defunct, or require different kinds of experience that I outright don't have. I am perfectly willing to take online courses for things and get certifications if needed, though.
So far, I've looked into data entry, medical transcriptioning and billing/coding, and web development. But I really have no guidance on what is really worth going for, looking into, or what would be relatively stressless. If anyone can help me figure this out, I would really appreciate the input. :)

How I passed the NCLEX in 85 without buying resources (eg. Uworld), cause some of us are broke! This is a long post but I wanted to be detailed for those who are super worried and want specifics!
1 Mark K: keep in mind that they are a bit old, the principles are generally the same though and was a helpful refresher. Lectures can be found online along with his lecture notes (search "Mark K free online").

• Create your own notes: I followed his notes but also made my own on a separate doc, it made it easier for me to navigate and allowed me to add in extra info from other resources (add info learned from practice questions). I listened to the lectures once. Then I went over my notes a couple days before my exam, highlighting the key info I kept forgetting. The day before my exam I only reviewed the info I highlighted.
• Main topics from him that came up on my exam included adrenal/thyroid issues (eg. Cushing's), peds development + teaching (Piaget), and maternity.
• Warning: you will still need to supplement your studies. He only goes over a handful of conditions. Go through every body system after starting practice questions and write down pertinent conditions, just know what each are in general. I used some old class notes.
• Note: Mark K uses brand names. NCLEX only uses generic. You also do not need to remember lab values for next-gen!

2 Practice questions

• I searched up/downloaded a bunch of old Uworld. Try extra searches online such as "free Uworld practice questions online". One I downloaded by searching "PDFCOFFEE Uworld 2015", I got to about page 1500 on that doc before my exam + did some other PDFs. Warning: some online links are finicky and you have to play around with them/delete many popup tabs.
• When self-scoring, remember SATA questions now give partial points (search up scoring rules).
• Nurselabs: I ran out of time to use this, but used it a bit during school. Tons of free questions + rationales.

3 Free trials

• After you have done a ton of PDF questions, do free trials. You want to do these near the end when you have a decent understanding of question format. Trials will give you exposure to the NCLEX testing format.
• Archer: has a great "24 hr" free trial. You can use it for longer than 24hrs but the question bank will reset meaning it may give you previously tested questions.
• NCLEX BootCamp: also a good free trial. I really liked that many questions have videos of people actually doing the questions/explaining them. It also has a readiness exam.
• Uworld: this trial is not as good but, free is free. It had 50 questions, many of them testing the same topics.
• FYI: if you end up wanting to buy them, there are many discount codes floating around Reddit.

4 Extra resources/tips/info

• Videos: obviously search up videos for topics you need clarification (eg. simple nursing, level-up RN)
• Saunder's textbook (bad idea, big waste of time imo): after Mark K I thought having a good baseline of the material would be best before doing practice questions so I started studying the textbook. It has waaaay too much info that's too specific, you'd never remember all of it. Went through half and it didn't help me answer a single question. It could be helpful for topic clarification but I thought videos on x2 speed were better. If you do want it, it's free on LibGen.
• NCLEX Crusade 7 day training YouTube: when I started questions I was miserable! I was getting everything wrong at first :(. That's why it's best to jump right into questions after Mark K cause they test on the most RANDOM shit that you cannot possibly create a baseline for it all. Learn how to answer questions based on type/format. I watched Crusade x2 speed which gave some helpful tips on how to prioritize. They are long, he stops a lot so you have to skip a lot, only watch if you have time.
  • Important tip: use M-ABC's and Maslow's hierarchy (pain is considered psychological not physical), for prioritization ask "is this a normal finding for this condition?", NCLEX is a "perfect" world.
• Vocab list: make a list of common term you keep forgetting. Questions are hard to answer if you don't know what the symptom means. Go over them a few days before your exam.
• Suffixes: very important to know! It's the best way to get through pharm. NCLEX also tests a lot on procedures. Learn ending such as "itis", "ectomy", "scopy", "otomy".
• Note conditions you see over and over in practice questions. For me i noticed: myasthenia gravis, guillian barre, diverticulosis/itis, pancreatitis, appendicitis, sickle cell. For Canadians, note scope differences between UNAs (HCA), LPNs, RNs.
• NCLEX sample: while they don't have answer keys, the NCLEX website has samples of the exams. Read through a couple just to get a sense of differences between the official thing and practice questions (don't read them all cause the no answers will just freak you out).
• Ask a friend!: there is no shame in asking friends who have written the exam already if you can use the remainder of their test bank subscriptions. I ended up doing one readiness exam thanks to a friend.

5 Overall

• I was answering average 40-50% questions correctly for about 2 weeks at the very beginning and averaged 70-80% correctly near the end. I studied 1 month and 2 weeks while working full-time.
• You will feel like you still know nothing and that you are guessing everything because the questions are so random, that's normal. Honestly, I almost feel like the NCLEX was just made to force us to study instead of testing our nursing knowledge.
• Lastly, believe in yourselves! Hope this was helpful! Good luck!

I'm 19yo looking for a new job, mainly part time to put aside time for education. I'm trying to save for a new phone, PC, savings for certificates, etc, and mainly debts.
We have about $1100 in debts we need to pay not including my gfs student loans. Half is medical bills since she couldn't get health insurance at work at the time. The other half is owed to my mother for borrowing money for car bills, etc.
I'm not sure what I want to do.
I'm more comfortable with going outside and doing stuff like lawn work, power washing since I've seen that some are cheap on Amazon. But I'd prefer something from home and something that doesn't take long to make (not content creation due to follower amounts needed, views etc.)
I don't have many useful skills however I do have a good bit of knowledge when it comes to technology, mainly hardware related, worse on the coding type side, etc. but I do learn fast.

I've been applying to jobs for about 6 months in preparation for my internship ending (which happened about 2 months ago now). I (23F) have applied to around 100 jobs so far, most entry level and have heard back from probably around 10 and interviewed for 2. I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I graduated about a year and a half ago.
Without sounding too cocky, I know I'm highly qualified. I have several past supervisors who are willing to give me glowing recommendations, I'm hardworking, a quick learner, have a BA and a BS with departmental honors in one of them, was a part of my college's honors program, graduated early with a 3.8 GPA, had past internships at recognizable companies, experience in research in both fields I majored in (both social sciences), etc.
And yet... I can't seem to find a job let alone hear back from anyone. I've even tried using my connections from past internships with dead ends. I applied to my local grocery store and they rejected me right away. I live in a pretty big city but I can't find a job or get many interviews. I'm constantly updating my resume to make it more computer-friendly, always write custom cover letters, and so on.
What am I missing? Has anyone had this experience and gotten out of it? I'm just so frustrated but clearly something isn't working.

I have no idea what to do. I have applied to upwards of 40 jobs in the last three months and have gotten interviews for a total of three of them, then either not heard back or been ultimately rejected. I’m 19 and home from college for the summer and I NEED a job. I have experience working as an office assistant, museum docent and an intern at a separate museum. I’ve done babysitting and pet sitting and house sitting/cleaning. I’ve been applying to jobs ranging from within my previous job history (entry level museum jobs advertised for people without or pursuing degrees, SO MANY office or administrative assistant type roles), and hell, I’ve even applied to jobs like bookshop cashier, cookie decorator, barista, construction warehouse employee, dog walker. Nothing. I do not understand why I can’t get hired or even hear back from most places. It’s driving me crazy because I’ve already lost a month of time I should be working and if I don’t get a job I cannot afford next semester of college. I apply with a resume every time that lists my previous job experience and outlines a few of the responsibilities I held for each position, my educational experience including awards like principals honor role in high school and deans list in college, the fact that I’m certified bilingual, my name, phone number and email. I submit references when asked for them, even when it’s optional. Everytime there is a job requesting a cover letter, I write one. I’m at a complete loss. Please please please, I need advice, help, pointers, anything.

Hey y’all this might be slightly long. Thanks to anyone who reads it all lol. So I am a single mom of 3 kids. Their father went missing almost 3 years ago and we found out in the beginning of this year his remains were found. The investigation is ongoing. We are super grateful to have at least an answer but left with so many questions. That being said I needed to go back to work. I have a 7 year old and 2 boys 1 and 2 that are 11 months apart. I was able to qualify for state paid daycare and started working right away while the youngest were in daycare and the oldest in public school. After my husband left I moved my mother in with me to help. The boys daycare has the policy that if a child has a fever he must remain home until he is 24 hour fever free. Anytime one of them would get sick (and it was pretty often. They would catch fevers or green boogers and be sent home, daycares are just covered in germs. Adorable germy monster babies) the daycare would call me at work I would leave to pick them up take them to my mom and return to work. This worked out great until my mother got very sick. Her health continued to decline and anytime one of my kids would get sick I would have to go pick them Up and stay with them as she was no longer able to help. Doing that I was no longer able to maintain the required hours to keep my state paid care and I was dropped. I appealed. Showed proof of their father passing, my mothers health issues and the daycare wrote a letter to the state on my behalf as well. I was not denying I didn’t work the hours I was just asking for another chance. But was not given that. So my options are over nights or work from home. Over nights I don’t think are a good fit yet. My 2 year old doesn’t sleep thru the night and my mother would not be able to lift him or anything like that. So the reason for this post is I am wondering if there are any legit non mlm work from home jobs locally in east Texas? I have costumer services experience. I am a very quick learner and I love to work. I have to figure something out! My husband was an addict and moved us to a cheap neighborhood where I don’t know many people much less anyone I would leave my kids with. If I go to work working entry level jobs that i qualify for I would only be working to pay for child care. I simply can not afford rent bills and childcare. What do people do? So anyway sorry that this turned more into a rant. But if anyone has any ideas or resources I’d gladly accept them! Thanks y’all ❤️

So I recently started working at a psych hospital in an entry level position, and in order to access my work email and schedule on my phone I had to download a company app and download some software. It already makes me uncomfortable that I have to give my job access to the info on my personal phone and download company software, but on top of that, I got just a notification saying that I have to change my passcode within an hour. I did it, but that makes me uncomfortable too because you can access literally everything on my phone (including my payment info) from my passcode. Idk I'm just kind of freaked out, because my job already has a history of being super invasive when it comes to my personal medical info, so I just don't like the idea of them having access to my phone on top of that. I have several friends that work for this same healthcare company, and they were all provided with work phones and don't have to give the company access to their personal devices. I just think it's kind of weird, and I wanted to know if this was standard practice in healthcare and if there are any cybersecurity risks that I could be facing by giving my job access to my personal device?

Hello,
I have pretty bad generalized anxiety on top of my bipolar symptoms. For anxiety specifically, I have tried Celexa (made me manic), Effexor (also made me manic and made me throw up almost daily), buspar (did nothing), hydroxyzine (just made me sleepy), propranolol (all it does is slow my heart rate), increasing latuda and lamotrigine, nothing has really worked for me. I also have a medical marijuana card, which does help a little bit, but I hate smoking/vaping because i’m a singer and after three years I have yet to find an edible dosage that both works and that I can function on in public.
I started a new job at a local coffee shop and have had really severe anxiety about it. I had a panic attack when I was being trained on drive thru and had to go home early because I couldn’t calm down. I haven’t been sleeping well and have been super tense thinking about work. Unfortunately all of the entry level jobs in my town would be just as fast paced and anxiety inducing and I need a job.
I see a psychiatric nurse practitioner and she cannot prescribe benzos and the clinic itself doesn’t prescribe any kind of controlled substances. I was thinking about going to my GP and asking her about a prescription.
This is really long winded I know but I was wondering what different peoples’ experiences with benzos was like and if they worked for you. I am very very hesitant to try any other antidepressants because I haven’t had a hypomanic episode in about 7 months but I have also heard a lot of very scary things about benzos. Any thoughts?

Hi all, I suspect I'm up the proverbial creek financially but thought I'd check here just in case I'm missing something.
I'm 39, live in 59101. Made a bit over 43k last year, will likely make less this year because of time off/short term disability from multiple surgeries. BCBS of MT, Blue Focus POS (bronze) through the marketplace.
I had surgery out of state in April. I searched BCBS's provider finder beforehand and confirmed (so I thought) that the surgeon and facility were in my network. I did this by searching in the zip code of the city they were in, not my zip code, cause duh they're not even in my state right? The hospital, surgeon I went with and the head surgeon all had the note "In your network". I had pre-authorization so I didn't call BCBS to verify what was and wasn't in network which I suspect is now coming back to bite me. I did sign paperwork from the hospital and surgeon about perhaps getting billed for out of network services, which I expected might be the case for something like anesthesia and labwork, not everything. Nothing at all was applied to my in network deductible or OOP. I got a bill for +10k from the hospital and have been trying to get answers from BCBS. My surgeon and the hospital both billed insurance separately, each EOB has notes about being out of network and each line item has discounts/what I owe. On my fifth call about the hospital EOB, BCBS finally said that the surgeon is listed as OON on their side. The rep I spoke to said that I needed to search their provider finder with my home zip code not theirs to see if they're in my network. Does this sound right? The surgeon who performed the surgery bills under the name of the head surgeon of their medical group, they are not part of the hospital, and I got a separate EOB for them. If the surgeon isn't part of the hospital why would that affect things like drugs and facilities?
Here are EOB for hospital and surgeon - https://imgur.com/a/ms404PJ
This is a screenshot of what the hospital and surgeon "in network" notes look like - https://imgur.com/908zYvP
The more specific one is when I search when logged out. Before I called today the first line (logged in search) said "In your network" not "In "" network" which has now got me paranoid. I just quickly got screenshots of surgeon & hospital search results from being logged out showing that it lists being in Blue Focus POS network. Unfortunately I don’t have screenshots of anything that says “In your network”.
I went out of the state because I couldn't find anyone in the state who works with my specific gender expansiveness and/or was willing to operate on my general expansiveness. I'm filing for financial assistance/a payment plan with the hospital, this is especially tough because I've paid already paid my +9k in-network OOP from another surgery in January and my short term disability hasn't even acknowledged receiving my claim for the April surgery. Argh!
Thanks for reading my rambling!

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"Specialist" resume: This is the kind of resume where you present yourself as a specialist in set of related skills. Most entry level coders aren't sure about this one because they don't know what to specialize in. The theory is that many jobs use a small set of specific skills and employers hire people for that specific job who have or want to work in those skills.
"Specialist" resumes make a very simple and compelling case to many hiring managers: "You value specific skills for this job and I value those same skills, too" ...
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Patreon Official Subreddit Series Wiki Royal Road
Two items — a crystal ball, and a green leather-bound notebook — sat benignly and idly atop of the black-robed professor’s desk.
The camera lingered on them, giving them what most may see as an undeserved moment in the spotlight.
But to those that knew, to the parties invested in this controversy, this little pause and dramatic zoom-in was accompanied by a hair-raising excitement… along with an untempered nervousness for what was to come.
It definitely caused the investigative duo on the other side of the screen some pause for thought; prompting them to stand intently, pondering both the orb and the notebook.
Ilunor, as far as I could tell, was entranced by the green notebook in particular. Though it wasn’t a trance born out of any positive emotion, but instead, one of abject horror.
“Recommended Reading Materials for the Studious Student.” Sorecar announced with a steady breath, prompting Ilunor to visibly flinch in his seat, as the man reached a finger over to point at the hand-scrawled title of the leather-bound notebook. That finger soon found itself carefully manipulating its pages, opening the cover first, before turning over the internal dust-cover to reveal letters and symbols written in High Nexian, but arranged in a manner the EVI simply could not translate.
“Error: Unable to Translate. Cause: Unrecognized and/or unintelligible organization of local script-forms.”
Yet despite this, it seemed as if both Sorecar and the Apprentice were able to draw something from its otherwise senseless pages. As despite being written haphazardly, with letters and pictograms arranged in no meaningful order, they were able to still draw meaning where the EVI couldn’t.
“Within these pages lie materials for the studious student. Materials are to be found within The Library, and are to be retrieved with great haste. May you make swift work of their contents, and may those after you find only ash in your wake. Seek, unlearn, and remove from the grip of the eternal entity, that which was once a gift but is now a curse. Seek, unlearn, and remove; with the fires of your passion, oh studious student.” Sorecar read aloud, managing to read something verbatim from the nonsensical pages of the book.
Ilunor’s eyes were practically glazed over at this point, as he began bringing his cape over across his chest, tucking his legs towards his chin in the process.
“This is it.” The apprentice announced with a half-cracked smile. “Please, keep going. I’m certain your skills of appraisal far exceed my own, Professor.”
Sorecar obliged by flipping the page, turning over to two pages of complete gibberish, once again watermarked by the EVI’s error message; but proving no challenge at all for the ever-inquisitive professor.
“Section One, A Tainted Reality: A Wretched Collection of Historical Affidavits During the Reconciliation and Reformation of Otherwise Lost Realities.” Sorecar paused, before turning towards the apprentice. “It lists an entire section’s worth of books, in titles held within spatial positions with reference to their potentialities within the ever-evolving library.”
Thacea’s features visibly flinched at that revelation, but similar to the apprentice in the footage, she refused to comment. At least not for now. Her eyes however betrayed a look of mild distress, which subsided somewhat as the apprentice urged the armorer to continue.
Which he did, as he flipped from page to page across the relatively small notebook, only pausing to read in between what he interpreted to be different sections and ‘chapters’.
“Section Two. The Unspoken War and the Treacherous Alliance.”
“Section Three. All surviving works from Alaroy Rital.”
The apprentice cocked her head, as if trying to recall some familiarity in that name. “Alaroy Rital.” She repeated. “I don’t recall hearing of such a name before.”
“Well his full name, as far as I recall, and vastly aided by the book is as follows: Alaroy Rital, Lord-Mayor of the Township of the Two Rivers, Slayer of the Dragon of the Grey Canyon, Repeller of the Tainted Blight of the Orsin, Liberator of the Aether, and Grand Master of the Elusian Guild Hall of Adventurers.” Sorecar responded succinctly, prompting the apprentice to once more clench her eyes shut in deep thought, before finally letting out a sigh of defeat.
“The name is both familiar yet foreign at the same time.” She finally admitted.
“As far as I recall, and mind you, my memory of those years are far from perfect… the man was a local hero of sorts. Though his record was besmirched by some controversy or another.” Sorecar offered, prompting the apprentice to finally shrug, giving up on this particular subject matter entirely.
“There are more sections, yes?”
“Correct.”
“Then let’s move on.”
Sorecar nodded promptly at that, flipping the pages over until he hit the next section.
“Section Four. A Sordid Account of the Most Bizarre of Newrealmer Arrivals: A Death By Harmonization and the Ensuing Investigation.”
That immediately got my attention, causing me to jolt forwards, prompting the armor to quickly follow as it automatically switched from the currently active in-armor-postural-readjustment mode, and back into its active configuration.
“Section Five. The Unfortunate Procedures Against Unruly Realms and the Instances in Which Such Procedures Were Incurred.”
The armorer paused after that, not necessarily due to its contents, but as if puzzled by what lay ahead in the next few final pages. In fact, he flipped back and forth between the pages soon after that, treading and retreading what were effectively the last five pages of the book. “There is an appendix which includes titles not covered by these sections, however it will take some time to read through them.”
“That’s enough for now, professor.” The apprentice offered, prompting the man to quickly pull back, closing the notebook with an unsatisfying thump. “We have our glowing wand.” The apprentice surmised. “The oeuvre of works which are no doubt the subject of this grand controversy. Now all we need to find is the contract which ties everything together.”
“I’m assuming you haven’t forgotten about our second item of interest?” Sorecar gestured towards the crystal ball.
“Of course not, professor. However, the fact we’ve found that book implies that we must be close to its dependent article.” The apprentice responded with a renewed sense of urgency, as she began using that same ornate magnifying glass in an attempt to further pick apart each and every nook and cranny of Mal’tory’s desk.
Part of me wanted to make some joke about how this was every unpaid intern’s dream, to be rummaging through your boss’ stuff.
But that part of me was completely buried underneath the confusion and dread that came with the revelations from within that little green book.
I… honestly didn’t know what I was expecting, but I felt like I’d been suckerpunched, with the wind being knocked right out of me from the implications of exactly what had been selectively purged from the library.
It was a struggle to process it all, which more or less made me dull out the more eccentric aspects of the apprentice’s investigation; as she unlocked drawer after drawer, pulling out pile after pile of magical nicknacks and more documents than what was possible from that finite amount of space.
Sorecar was clearly of the same opinion as the rest of us right now however, as he continued obsessing over the book, his hands once more trailing over to inspect its cryptic pages. The man seemed transfixed on the second and third sections in particular, though his featureless visor made it difficult to really pin down what his reactions were.
Yet throughout all of this, it was clear the reactions on the homefront were much, much more animated, as Ilunor was just about ready to pass out from the stress, and Thacea seemed about ready to burst at the seams if her featureless facade was of any indication.
“That was the book.” Ilunor finally chimed out, just as the narration through the recording had died down during the more tepid phase of the apprentice’s investigation. “I know it.”
“I thought your memories when it came to the whole Mal’tory book burning situation was lost, Ilunor?” Thalmin countered.
“It was. I mean, it still is. But I remember parts of that room. I vaguely recall the emergence of a book that I was forced to…” The Vunerian trailed off, as if struggling to piece together words.
“... to sign?” Thalmin offered in a surprisingly helpful tone which stood at odds with how he earlier regarded the Vunerian.
“No. No you imbecil-” The Vunerian paused, realizing his misstep as he backtracked from what would’ve otherwise been an expected response. “That wasn’t a book of binding. It’s not comparable to the yearbook, if that was where your assumptions were leading to, Prince Thalmin.” Ilunor clarified, gripping the armrests of his seat tight between his fingers.
It was about this point in time that I expected Thacea to chime in, to elaborate on the nature of the book with her encyclopedic knowledge on seemingly every aspect of the magical world.
But she didn’t.
Instead, her eyes remained practically glued to the screen, as I realized that whatever had been revealed thus far had hit much, much harder than I could’ve imagined.
Ilunor, as if taking note of this silence, elected to fill in for Thacea. “The book… is an adjacent artifact. It is, as the apprentice has noted, an eclectic oeuvre of works, a list if you will, to be bound to and referenced by a contract and a spell of binding. The book itself isn’t the binding agent, moreso the reference material by which the contract is hinged upon.”
“So what’s with the illegible text? Are they ciphers or some magical equivalent of it?” I gestured once more at the bird’s eye view offered by the drone, and the pages of indecipherable text currently beneath Sorecar’s hands.
“Those are anchor runes, earthrelamer.” Ilunor answered with a frustrated sigh. “It is frustrating to see them for what they are not. Frankly, it’s as if your sight-seers and memory-shards were designed to mimic the world as it is seen through the eyes of a particularly weak-fielded commoner.” The Vunerian went off, venting his frustrations through a rant before finally calming down. “But I digress. Those runes are referred to as anchors for a reason. For tethered to them are akin to pages of text to be openly read and deciphered within the manastreams. Granted, this form of writing is not common; moreso used for the purposes of contracts and other such magical binds.”
“And on the topic of contracts. I’m assuming that the contract… your contract, is what the Apprentice is currently rummaging for?” I gestured towards the screen once more, at the apprentice who was now buried ankle-deep in piles upon piles of books, documents, and an assortment of scrolls that criss-crossed across the room’s mahogany and carpeted floors.
“Unless she’s a complete nitwit, then I’d imagine so, yes.” Ilunor responded with his signature cattiness. “In any case, the fact she’s even trying proves that she’s barely above a fool anyways.” The Vunerian shrugged. “And before you ask, earthrealmer, let me preempt your question. The contract, at least on the professor’s end, has more than likely suffered the same fate as my own. Namely, its existence is more than certain to be dubious at best. What the apprentice will surely find will be nothing more than ash at the bottom of that bottomless drawer. Which… given its sheer size and scale, and the potential inhabitants within its limitless confines, will more than likely result in even ash being difficult if not impossible to find.”
There was… more than one point I wanted to raise with Ilunor’s statements. However, before I could address any of them, the elf in question finally spoke up once more; now surrounded by an entire archive’s worth of documents and nicknacks.
“Nothing.” Larial spoke with a sullen breath, taking a moment to steady herself as she made a point of not sitting on Mal’tory’s chair. “At least nothing that’s relevant to our case.” She continued, resting her palms flat against the green suede of the desk.
“Were you really expecting anything different, Apprentice?” Sorecar countered, having since moved from pondering the pages of the book to now pondering the depths of the crystal ball.
“I’d assumed the damage to the man hadn’t been so severe.” Larial admitted, alluding to something else that drew all of our collective attention. “When I first saw him in the healing ward… he looked… intact. You couldn’t even tell there was anything wrong with him.”
“And yet they called you of all people, to aid in the ritual.” The armorer surmised, with a tone of voice that now more resembled that of a fully fledged Academy Professor. His happy go lucky persona had subsided completely, at least for now, as he addressed Larial in a manner more akin to what I’d expected of the Dean. “You have been around the Academy for long enough to understand that calling upon the aid of apprentices is unprecedented. Which means that despite how things may seem on the surface, that lurking beneath the seemingly calm waters, is a hydrostorm of epic proportions.”
“This entire situation is unprecedented, professor.” Larial countered meekly. “But you are correct. It… must have been desperate if they required the aid of apprentices. I just… cannot fathom the fact that the professors must have…” The apprentice trailed off, her face scrunching up and breaking eye contact with the armorer as if too skittish to broach the next point.
Sorecar didn’t reply, nor did he complete her sentence for her, simply allowing her to recuperate and reorganize her thoughts herself.
“... brought the man back from the brink.” She managed out, offering what was in effect a euphemism that didn’t seem to sit right with the armorer, if his immediate head cock was of any indication.
“That is the only way you can explain the complete loss of a contract.” Sorecar reasoned. “You were hoping to find it, despite knowing well that it, amongst the rest of his contracts, have more than likely gone up in flames.” It was around that point that he walked around behind the desk, and reached down into the drawer the apprentice had been searching in. His arm sank impossibly deep, deeper than what should have been physically possible inside of that small and limited space. After a few moments, the man finally brought his hand back up, holding within it what appeared to be fine specks of ash that he allowed to filter back down into the dark depths of the seemingly bottomless drawer. “And there you have it — ash. Most of it has no doubt already been consumed by the bottom-feeders. However, what remains is enough to account for what is perhaps more contracts than most would form in their lives.”
The man stood back up soon after, before once more taking his place at the front of the desk.
“Well, I believe that answers our prior speculations on Auris Ping’s potential relations, contractual or otherwise, with Professor Mal’tory.” Thalmin growled out, punctuating the moment of silence within the footage; which soon continued with a resonant sigh from the apprentice.
“I guess, in a way, I was trying to find the contract not so much because of my assigned task, but because I wanted to perhaps prove to myself that the situation wasn’t as dire as my intuition leads me to believe. The loss of all these contracts can only mean one thing.” Larial paused, once more trying to find the strength inside of her to face whatever facts were self-evident in this case. “The man was lost.” She finally managed out through a shaky breath. “His soul must have departed from his mortal coil. And yet…”
“... and yet he remains.” Sorecar surmised.
“They must have re-tethered it before I arrived that night.” The apprentice shot back. “But I felt nothing different when they asked me to aid in the mana-channeling processes. This whole situation is just…” She sighed, prompting Sorecar to cock his head.
“Unprecedented?”
“Yes.” The apprentice once more admitted, sinking her face into her hands and taking a moment to process it all, more or less falling into the same camp all of us were currently in. “Moreover, it brings up a very disturbing question.”
“Which is?”
“If his soul was truly untethered, even for a split second… how exactly were they able to retether it? Or more specifically, through what means are they using to permanently retether his soul to his mortal coil?”
This question seemed to cause some level of concern from Sorecar, as his answer soon demonstrated. “There are… ways of doing so that aren’t exclusive to being spellbound to armor.” The man offered under a dour breath. “Especially if the body is… fresh, in a manner of speaking. Though it requires the use of-” He stopped, halting himself from going down what was clearly a darkening path. “I apologize for prompting this rather… dark and dreary subject matter, Apprentice.” Sorecar offered, as that empathetic, kinder side of him returned without much prompting.
“It’s quite alright. It… it needed to be said, if we are to complete this investigation with any degree of professionalism.” The apprentice concluded with a small smile. “Whatever the case may be, it is clear that we are unable to procure the contract through which the perpetrator of the library’s burning was bound. We have, however, undeniable proof of Professor Mal’tory’s involvement with the scandal.” She pointed at the green notebook. “And of course, a potential interloper who may or may not have been a part of this conspiracy; thereby expanding this from a mere Academy matter, to one which could implicate others beyond its walls.” She pointed at the crystal ball. “Have you discovered anything from your observations thus far, Professor?” The apprentice inquired, prompting the man to nod, as he knelt down to eye-level, pondering the orb from desk-height.
“The inherent limitations of the Echovale make it so that it’s near impossible to transcribe anything following the cessation of a communique.” Sorecar began. “Though of course, you knew this, and hoped that because I am perhaps one of the greatest armorers to have ever lived, that I would be able to aid in this impossible endeavor, hmm?” The armorer’s tone of voice had more or less resumed that flighty, happy-go-lucky one I knew him for.
The apprentice, hearing this, could only smile awkwardly in response. “I wouldn’t have put it that… bluntly, professor. But I do indeed have faith in your ability to make the impossible, well… probable, at the least.”
“Hmph! Well, I couldn’t pin a face or a name, but I was able to pin a definite location if that helps.” The man offered.
“Any stray piece of information will help tremendously, professor.”
“The Crownlands.” He answered without a hint of hesitation, prompting the Apprentice to raise both of her brows up high.
“That’s as far as I am able to draw from the residual echoes within the vale.” He tapped at the ball, generating a series of satisfying clinks in the process.
“So the man wasn’t acting alone. Or rather, perhaps he was consulting someone.” The apprentice pondered. “Then again, that final communique could very well be with Lord Lartia—” The apprentice paused, before placing both palms softly across her throat. “—may his soul rest in peaceful slumber.” Following another moment of silence, the apprentice’s hands soon shifted towards the ball. “In any case, if it isn’t Lord Lartia, then who could it possibly be? Maybe we should…” The apprentice suddenly stopped; as if realizing the dangers of diving any deeper into this growing conspiracy. “No.” She quickly corrected herself. “Whatever the case may be, this is probably now completely out of my purview. I was assigned to collect any evidence I deemed to be relevant to recent happenings, and I believe this should suffice.”
“Whatever you believe is best, apprentice.” Sorecar acquiesced, prompting the apprentice to slowly, but surely, pack the archive’s worth of documents, books, and scrolls all back into the drawer using nothing but telekinetic spells.
This left just the crystal ball, and the little green book, both of which the apprentice promptly pocketed into a small pouch, before placing it somewhere beneath her cloak.
“Though on that note…” Sorecar began, pointing towards the apprentice’s cloak. “If I may ask, how do you plan on divvying up these finite pieces of evidence?”
This caught the apprentice off-guard, as her mouth opened, but no response came through.
“Moreover, are you even obligated to hand in this evidence? Or are you only expected to write a report to all parties involved?” Sorecar continued, pressing the matter further, causing the apprentice to stop mid-stride. “Because if primary evidence isn’t explicitly required, might I offer my services as a master forger?” The man spoke with a hint of mischievousness, the duality of the word perhaps translating equally well despite the language barrier.
“I may need to contact my superiors to ask if a… copy will be satisfactory to their needs. I believe not, but… we shall see. In any case, I am due to submit the evidence along with my report no later than the end of next week. As such, this should give me ample time to organize my findings, which is especially convenient given the roster of duties I am expected to cover over the next few days.” The apprentice took a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose, halting her rambles as she steadied herself with a sigh. “But I digress, I believe I will take you up on that offer, Professor Pliska.”
“It would be my pleasure to welcome you into my domain, apprentice.”
The rest of the footage consisted of small talk between the pair, with nothing in particular standing out as the topics being addressed soon turned from high-stakes espionage, and back into faculty banter.
Yet despite that, none of us broke the silence that now dominated the boring trip back. Not even as the footage came to a complete stop, and there was nothing more left to play.
I leaned back against the armor, eliciting a series of creaks from the couch below me, echoing across the high-ceilinged room and disrupting the tentative peace that came with this ominous silence.
“This explains… a lot.” Thalmin offered, finally breaking the silence with a tentative tone of voice. “It explains your contract, and its abrupt cessation.” He continued, turning towards Ilunor. “It explains Mal’tory, or at least, his current lack of public appearances. And it reveals to us exactly what he was trying to hide from you, Emma.” The lupinor eventually turned towards me. “And I think the sections of the library, selectively pruned, are self-explanatory as well.”
“Section four, and section five, at least.” I replied shortly thereafter. “I have no idea who or what Alaroy Rital has to hide in section three, and don’t even get me started on section two, let alone section one.” It was at that point that I turned towards Thacea, who let out a sharp exhale upon me bringing up section one.
“The removal of all information relevant to… and I quote — Tainted Realities — speaks volumes to the inherent fears of the Nexus. Though I know not what specifically they may fear from your discovery of its deep and now-lost lore.” Thacea offered through a pensive gaze. “There are many rumors, legends that come with the phrase Tainted Reality. Though most are mythical; epics of long lost eras that dwell between the blurry line that exists between history and legend. Perhaps the records within the library were pieces of irrefutable evidence that would’ve shed light on this nebulous subject matter. But even so… that begs the question… why? Why would they hide what is effectively a non-issue when it comes to your discovery of its lore? Taint, and more specifically, the concept of a Tainted Reality, is something that is inconsequential in the contemporary world. Its history, even if it proves to be true, is neither a disruptive political element, nor a practical tool for war, that could be used in countering the Nexus.” The avinor’s explanations were clear, concise, and yet they belied something personal that she clearly wasn’t broaching.
And I wasn’t about to dig either, not when this topic very clearly hit close to home for her.
“This leaves the second subject matter then.” I offered, giving the avinor an off-ramp towards a potentially more palatable topic.
“The Unspoken War and the Treacherous Alliance?”
“Correct.” I nodded.
“That… I have no knowledge of.” The avinor admitted, prompting me to turn to both the lupinor and the Vunerian for answers.
“Don’t look at me, earthrealmer, I’m the one who lost all memories on the subject, remember?” Ilunor countered.
“I’m afraid I’m as in the dark as you are on this one, Emma.” Thalmin replied with a loud huff, leaving me with perhaps more questions than answers at this point.
“Right then.” I nodded. “Well, regardless, as disquieting, confusing, and disturbing as these revelations have been, they are exactly that — revelations.” I took a moment to stand up, resting both hands on my hips, as if adopting Ilunor’s more theatrical approach to things. “We started today off with no intel on Mal’tory, with no idea how we were going to complete The Library’s Seekership questline, and no knowledge on exactly where we stood in this game. We’re ending today off with a firm grasp on exactly what we need to do, what exactly was scorched in the library, and a tentative understanding on Mal’tory’s fate. I’d say that’s an incredible step forward, even if the answers we now have are leading to even more questions.”
“Reality is often filled with disturbing truths, but only when we acknowledge them, can we act to change them.” Thacea offered.
“Here here!” Thalmin reaffirmed through a firm stomp, standing up tall and ready.
“While certain revelations come as disappointments… namely the survival of Professor Mal’tory… it is indeed somewhat satisfying to hear that the man is at the very least suffering for his actions.” The little thing spoke maliciously, as he too stood up. This prompted a look of worry to form amidst all three of us, but instead of reacting accordingly, he instead displayed an expression of confusion. “What? The man was a monster! He actively antagonized not only me, but this entire group! Surely you also feel at least some sense of satisfaction at the consequences of his actions catching up to him!”
“The delight in an enemy’s defeat, best comes from the resistance of the blade against his body. Not from the suffering incurred from happenstance.” Thalmin countered, whilst Thacea and I refused to entertain that line of thought, as I quickly placed a palm across my forehead, bonking it once again in the process.
“Right, well, here’s the game plan. We now have a clear target to complete our first objective — the notebook. We grab that, hand it in to the library, and presto, we accomplish the Seekership questline. Now comes the difficult part… how exactly do we do that?” I turned to the group, as offers and suggestions finally came flying in.
“Take advantage of your life debt?” Ilunor offered.
“I wouldn’t take advantage of that card just yet, Ilunor. Not if we have other options.” Thacea countered.
“What if we steal it?” Thalmin proposed.
“Thievery isn’t a diplomatic approach, Thalmin.” Thacea shot back with a glare.
“Well, Emma here was able to grapple her way, through manaless means, across the outside of the castle towards the apprentice whilst she was in the medical wing. I’m sure we can pull something else off in a similar capacity!” The lupinor countered.
“No, Thalmin. As much as I would like to try, I believe it might be best if we try a more diplomatic approach.” I offered, prompting the three to cock their heads.
“We could just ask, right?”
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(Author’s Note: And there we have it! The first step towards the completion of the Library's questline! We've found exactly what we were looking for, the list of books that were ordered to be put to the dragon flame by Mal'tory. With that being said however, a new series of questions arises... exactly why were these books targeted in particular? Moreover, what exactly was lost as a result? These questions and more will continue to linger in the back the gangs' minds as we push forward! Especially as we now find ourselves in the midst of another conundrum, exactly how are we going to get the book to the library! Regardless, this is still a massive step forward, and one that will surely bring Emma and Ilunor closer towards addressing the first phase of their intertwined fates with the library! I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters!)
[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 84 and Chapter 85 of this story is already out on there!)]

I've been applying for entry-level minimun wage food service/retail jobs since January but haven't got any interviews. I recently earned some certificates and added new qualifications to my resume. I apply both online and by handing out resumes at stores/malls. I want to work from July to December this year. Is it still possible to get callbacks during this time period?

I (28f) lost my job two years ago as a geologist. I was making quite a lot of money, bought a car, a house, and no kids so I was quite comfortable.
When I lost the job I immediately started a business (I was still positive about my life and my future). We were running errands for people which was great for a year and started failing in the last year because we were not getting enough clients.
Concurrently with running the business, I enrolled in a data science bootcamp, so I know how to code (python) and am very much tech savvy.
I have started looking for jobs again :( I have been applying for jobs in geology and haven't been lucky in getting any entry level jobs in tech either.
It's the weirdest thing to say but I've lately been thinking about how I understand people who unalive themselves. I am not there yet, but my hope is balancing on wet toilet paper. In all honesty, my biggest fear is not being able to get back to the state of comfortable life that I used to know and that really scares me so much.
I am looking for assistance in getting a job. I am also open to jobs in sales, customer services, waitressing (I have previous experience) to get myself back on track and take control of my life again.
Would also love to hear your stories (if you have any) of how you regained your financial independence.
TYIA

Is this a good starting offer?
-110k, 1800 billable hours, entry level
-2 weeks PTO, After 1 year a 3% match to 401K, After 90 days, medical vision and dental insurance.

I have low support needs autism and I'm about 24 this year. High IQ (former gifted program kid) but extremely intolerant of routine, burnout and get exhausted very easily. So far I haven't been able to hold down a job, from retail to admin or warehouse pack jobs. Had this nail salon job that I loved but developed a red rash on contact with product so I had to quit.
I like working with my hands and I don't think I could handle a 9-5, some days I'm exhausted while other days I can work for ten hours a day.
Have never been able to hold down a job except for the nail tech job since I started working at 17. Tried retail, admin, physical labor jobs, serving and any other sort of entry level work under the sun, but all of that has failed. I'm learning coding but I just feel useless and can't understand what's being taught no matter how hard I try. I'm always a failure.
I've tried working with autism support advocacy groups but they're all focused on giving higher support needs and lower IQ people work, I don't feel like I'm doing anything worthwhile with my life and the past two companies I worked for under the agency shuttered. I don't want to work a basic job for the rest of my life either, I want to do something, leave a mark on the world and make something of value people remember.
I've considered starting up a webcomic or writing books, but I understand how hard it is to make a living from creative work, however I have tried, and cannot realistically hold down any other job.
Right now I'm considering learning how to tattoo as a full time job since I already have illustrative skills and working on my webcomic in my spare time until I get a publisher deal. Hopefully I can then work on the story, it's always been my dream to tell stories to people that make them happy.
Manual labor pay absolute dogshit here because of how many foreign workers the government imports to drive down prices - not a single entry manual labor job like construction or HVAC is open to locals and I've checked for years.
I'm not sure if I have any future, I've been contemplating suicide because the alternative is working min wage until I die from exhaustion or stuffing myself into a cubicle until the metaphorical voices in my head overwhelm me. The end result is the same, me in a casket... How fun.
That or marrying a person who is willing to support me. That also works.
End of the day, I just want to fucking succeed. I want to succeed so damned bad but nothing I ever do works. I'm working on a webcomic now with the goals of serialization and eventually getting a game or series deal but... I don't have much hope. I don't want to be a NEET, I want to work, I want to do something, I want to be valued for my fucking work instead of getting fired five weeks in.

Good marrow, bonelickers!
Early last month I announced the 19th Speedlang Challenge. I broke the mould with it a little bit by confining how the ambitious among you would actually put together your speedlangs rather than defining a number of requisite features. The bulk of this process had speedlangers root all their creative linguistic decisions in a small set of natlangs, and these natlangs specifically had to be native to areas representative of a chosen clade of organisms. To ensure the clade of organisms was well represented, I also asked for a number of lexical items and conceptual metaphors that had to be specifically inspired by the clade in some way, as well as some aspect of the phonology.
Like last time, I'll provide my thoughts about what I think makes each submission special and the features I particularly like. Afterwards, I'll quickly review what was inspired by the chosen clade, in case that has any bearing on what you kind readers might like to check out, and give out brownie points for any easter eggs I spot, whether intended or not.
Overall this has been a deeply creative round of submissions and I learned a lot, both things I set out to achieve when I thought up this particular challenge. I hope it was just as rewarding a challenge for everyone who submitted as it was for me getting to read up on each entry, and I hope it will be the same for anyone who reads up on them, too.
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Seba Bàsa by Miacomet

Gyps (griffon vultures); Chamic, Bengali, Santali & Mundari
With a name including the element Bàsa, I knew this had to have Indic flavours of one sort of another, and indeed it does! This conlang is largely Austronesian in origin with sound changes from Old Cham, but it has a lot of Bengali influence and is well situated in the Indian subcontinent, and I greatly appreciate the nod to Parsi funerary traditions as an inspiring reason for choosing Gyps. Amusingly, this conlang has many features that fit right into the inspiration for the last speedlang challenge, which I find just delightful, with some split-S marking, dative enclitics, and grammaticalised constructions for simultaneous and sequential events, and light pronouns. Therebeside, the historical clipping, CVK syllable structure, postpositional pronouns, and aspectual auxiliaries speak to sensibilities in my own conlanging, and the dissimilation processes in some of the affixes are a nice touch, too. I'm also a big of fan just how the split-S system is implicated in some verbal polysemy, and I really like how the few voices seem kinda muddy but have clear use cases. What really sets this conlang apart, though, is the consideration paid to the effect of prestige languages. Some phonemes are restricted to loanwords from the local prestige language, and one is even only confined to prestige language-educated speakers, which causes some allophony other speakers don't have. Loaning processes are detailed, too, and the number and classifier system also draws nice lines along the prestige axis with a total of 3 parallel number systems, spread out across both divisions of native vs. loaned classifiers, which themselves have specific semantic domains they each classify, and across divisions of prestige language education. The story at the end, too, is a real treat: it's a translation of Hindu vulture myth, perfect for this project.
Seba Bàsa's Gyps-inspired phonology includes the development of creaky voice from the loss of glottals, glottalised consonants, and final /s/ in Old Cham to recall vulture cries. It's inspired lexicon includes some fun polysemy of vulture behaviours like circling = waiting or sheepling = looking for something desirable. I'm also a big fan of kite (the bird) = messy eater. It's inspired conceptual metaphors include dividing the beginning, middle, and end of a process into eating skin, meat, and bones, respectively, and equating head height/position with one's health or comfortableness as inspired by how vultures droop their heads when ill.
We're starting off string with double brownie points for meeting both the space epic easter egg by calquing the Ewokese word for 'outsider' and the empress easter egg by referring to Buddha's Birthday!
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Kogëdek by u/Porpoise_God

Setonix & Macropodidae more generally (quokkas + kangaroos & wallabies); Noongar, Pitjantjatjara, Wajarri, Guugu Yimithirr, Miriwoong, Guniyandi, Dyirbal, Mbabaram
Aside from the one splant you'll soon see, I think this entry gets the prize for the most unique chosen clade by being A) not a bird, and B) not an ungulate. As great as birds are, quokkas are pretty amazing, too. I'm not too familiar with Pama-Nyungan languages but this did a good job of affecting some of the features I've come to know them for, including but not limited to the phonological natural classes of peripheral vs. coronal, coverb constructions, and the word for 'dog' bearing a striking similarity to English. Split-ergativity features across the noun-pronoun axis, and there's a unique set of duals that specifically refer to sibling, parent-child, or spousal pairs of individuals that I might have to steal for myself. The case marking includes a lative case I haven't seen before, and implicates the comitative in a neat way in comparative constructions. I also appreciate the what-looks-to-be resumptive subject pronominal proclitics; very speedlang 18, and a great example of a fossilised mistake, which I always love to see! The verbs also feature multiple conjugations, and the imperative is implicated for its tenselessness in certain subclause constructions, which has a certain type of quirkiness I'd expect out of some past speedlang challenges.
Kogëdek's Setonix-inspired phonology included a /ç/ in the proto-lang, which bears some resemblance to quokka calls, although it was lost to /s/ and /x/ in the modern language. The inspired lexical entries include roots for different kinds of macropods and styles of jumping, and conflates jumping with breathing. Some of the idioms include "pouch-baby" for pejorative "mama's-boy" and using kangaroo badassery as a metaphor for all sorts of less than ideal situations.
Brownie points for a particularly insidious word-form for 'father'.
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Yatakang by Lichen

Bubalus (water buffaloes); Hindi-Urdu, Thai, Vietnamese, Khmer, Burmese, Malay
This one's a little rough around the edges, but it's a good foundation for a nice mix of both SEA features, like the isolating morphosyntax, and unique features, like the class agreement system. It's also got clicks limited to avoidance speech! Diachronics from a proto-lang where considered, and I really like how the typologies of the inspo langs were used as targets for the sound changes. I'll have to keep this workflow in mind! Some of the sound changes include expanding the number of stop contrasts to match the average number of contrasts, or eroding the number of vowels to match that of Malay. Phonotactics were carefully considered with full structures for both mono- and disyllables as well as bare roots vs. compound stems. Grammatically, morphology is mostly limited to a host of different reduplication patterns, which in itself is something I'd really like to see more of! Where this really shines, though, is with its agreement system: nouns are sorted into a 3x2 matrix of 6 classes, portmanteau agreement particles mark for the class of both the subject and the object, the system implicates the social hierarchies common to many SEA languages, and the position of the particle marks modality. Incredibly inspired to pack all that into a set of maybe 36 particles, if you ask me, never mind how it helps to disambiguate fluid word class and how it might be implicated in future plans for Indonesian object-oriented verbs. I'm also a fan of how the temporal question verb patterns like an agreement particle to mark for tense by co-opting the modality marking. We also get some prosody-syntax interfacing with different pitch contours at clause boundaries operating as different sorts of conjunctions.
Yatakang's Bubalus-inspired phonology includes a combination of creaky voice and syllabic nasals to affect a mooing phonaesthetic. The lexical entries exhibit some nice semantic drift from water buffalo activities and behaviours towards more human behaviours, and the planned phrase of hat-hand stroke fur for "suddenly realise a problem, and then pretend there isn't one" just feels exactly like an observation a water buffalo would make observing its human, which I really like. The inspired metaphors are also simple and straightforward, likening roundedness to goodness or knowledge to food, which makes for some brilliantly idiomatic language like "I ate the book" to mean "I read and understood the contents of the book."
Extra brownie points for including both halves of the space epic easter egg to placate both sides of nerddom; the term 'tax-man' is everything it ought to be.
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Kurikiri by Jjommoma

Casuariiformes (cassowaries and emus); Dhuwal, Motu, Tok Pisin
Compared to most other entries, this one's very short and sweet with some Australian sounds and some head-final Papuan grammar (however loose a description that is). That being said, Kurikiri is very inventive in being partially signed with much of its grammatical marking encoded by actions done with the foot, including number, case, definiteness, and some basic TAM.
Aside from the cassowary foot action grammar markers, as well as some lexical entries there-related, Kurikiri also equates flightedness to being ostentatious, disdaining flighted birds out of envy, which I think is a fun thought process for these terrestrially confined birds. There's also some neat phonosemantics in the taboo word for predator being especially difficult to pronounce.
This wasn't the intent, but I'm giving some space epic brownie points for the foot grammar if for nothing else than that it reminds me of Paul Frommer's Thark from John Carter and its telepathic grammatical and verbal lexical expression.
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Whaynisiday by u/Fimii

Spheniscidae (penguins); Māori, Xhosa, Quechua
What do you do when the entire population of penguins achieves human-like levels of intelligence after some gene splicing and they start calling for a language to call their own? Why, you do exactly what the prompt of this challenge asks for and combine the languages native to the homeland of the blue, african, and humboldt penguins! The write up for this conlang does a great job of pointing out what features are from which language exactly, and plays a fun balancing game between some of the phonological and grammatical extremes in its sourcelangs. In so doing it has a few quirks that really tickle the intersection of my linguist and conlanger venn diagram, specifically the presence of what I'd have to interpret as onset morae, as well as semantic noun class marked solely through agreement (which is very Varamm, so I'm not at all biased towards it). There's a handful of fun, rare cases, and the simulative mood fits right into the inspirations for the last challenge to create some vaguely Tupian simultaneous actions. There's a bunch more little grammatical bits that are fun, but impressionistically I appreciate how the more isolating grammar of Māori was incorporated into the synthetic common ground of the other 2 sourcelangs.
Whaynisiday's Spheniscidae-inspired phonology includes a couple syringeal sounds to complement the otherwise human capable inventory. The highlighted lexical entries pay special attention to how penguins locomote with basic stems for different kinds of movement options both on land and in the water, as well as a split in breathing for whether its on land at rest or in the water being active. The conceptual metaphors include a great model of time with the past on land and the future in the inky depths, and the very adorable notion that safety = community, and so naturally a farewell would be a wish of friendship.
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Poro by The Inky Baroness

Rangifer tarandus subsp. (domestic reindeers); Proto-Samic, Komi-Zyrian, Tundra Nenets, Chukchi
Where do I even begin with this one? I was excited to read this one when I first received it, but it was even better than I could have hoped when I got round to reading it! Although, not for any linguistic reasons: the first half of the doc reminds me of Gillian Teft's Anthro-Vision as an anthropological account of reindeers written by a fictitious Finnish researcher rather than any sort of sketched reference grammar, which I love dearly. The latter half, meanwhile, goes into great detail about what went into the first half, including all sorts of motivations or reasons for the decisions made. Some diachrony is detailed, as well as the effects of language contact rooted in actual historical events relevant to the chosen sourcelangs, which is just great to see. I loved the ways in which each of the different sourcelangs were all represented in the final product with it being Samic in origin but including some phonological and grammatical borrowings from Komi and Nenets like the lack of consonant gradation, the verb-final syntax, some vowel changes, and a fantastic predestinative affix that interacts with the conceptualisation of time in some neat ways. All the while, care was taken to do a wealth of research at every step in the process with a fairly extensive bibliography. Hoof clicks all around for this one!
Poro's Rangifer-inspired phonology includes a deer bellow as some sort of epiglottal obstruent that actually patterns with the Nenets glottal stop, as well as some other approximated reindeer vocalisations including what I presume to be grunts or chuffs, both oral and nasal. Care was also taken to think about what a fully reindeerised descendant of Proto-Samic would look like as accords with the included etiological myth for reindeers and reindeer husbandry, but this was well beyond the scope of a speedlang. The lexical entries include all sorts of terms for reindeer physiology, including but not limited to antler velvet, different types of vocalisations, and hoof clicks. These lexical entries feature in some wonderful idioms using antlers to describe social hierarchy, useful- or uselessness, and glibness or malicious intent, as well as an equivalent to "when pigs fly": "to catch a bird between one's hooves."
Extra brownie points both for the nominal hierarchical exaltation of mothers baked into reindeer culture and inclusion of an anti-imperialist message in promoting the research of the under-represented and often stigmatised language and culture of traditionally reindeer herding peoples. Also do keep an eye out for Dr. Dolittle easter eggs: Inky will reward you handsomely if you can spot one!
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Kiwi by NerpNerp

Apteryx & Novaeratitae more broadly (kiwis + cassowaries & emus); English, Māori, Traditional Tiwi, Miriwoong, Bardi
Given the number of bird entries with Indo-Pacific flavours, I'm almost half surprised this was the only kiwi entry: they're such good birbs! As might be expected, this conlang endeared itself to me just as its namesake does. The phonology has all sorts of trills and rhotics, and limits itself to high vowels; it's also got some neat phrase level prosody to mark different sorts of modal information and focus, even including an intrusive glottal stop at the sentence level. Noun incorporation is varied and detailed, and can create some polysynthetic constructions as a consequence of just how exactly the rest of the otherwise fairly analytic morphosyntax works. I'm a particular fan of the deictic categories including 7 different degrees of deixis characterising both distance and motion, and I'm also a fan of of the grammaticalised time of day. Heximal numbers and coverb constructions also feature. There's even a kiwi-capable featural alphabet that each of the examples show off!
Kiwi's Apteryx-inspired phonology includes the trills and high vowels being inspired by kiwi calls and I imagine a little of their anatomy with those long, thin bills. The inspired lexemes include specific types of smells humans can't detect at the expense of any colour terms, reflecting kiwis nocturnal, smell-based lifestyles. The idioms for "a long time ago" or "once upon a time" is absolutely delightful--"when kiwis flew"--and the grammaticalised time of day subdivides the night but not the day, as might be expected from a nocturnal beastie.
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Asamiin by Christian Evans

Asamina (pawpaws); Ottawa, Unami, Tuscarora, Mikasuki, Chitimacha, Timucua
The speech that nourishes! And a splant, too, no less; I was hoping for at least one of these! This one's made all the better by delving into some Eastern North American languages and I really like the flavours this lends itself to. Syncope is abound with all sorts of morphological obfuscation through detailed phonological processes, and animacy plays a key role in the verb complex. Care was also taken to find a phonological common ground between all the sourcelangs, which made for a really interesting set of vowels with a basic 6 vowel inventory, but with 2 nasal vowels that can surface as vocalic allophones to the nasal consonants. The grammar is fairly straightforward but has a few quirks that I really appreciate, including but not limited to the fluid O placement to make for some syntactic focusing strategies I so adore and the optional, enclitic case marking narrowed by various postpositions used as another, separate means of focus. Overall just really well laid out and the formatting is really cute, something I've now come to expect after Yumpịku last time.
Asamiin's Asamina-inspired phonology includes a pharyngeal approximant to recall the really long taproot pawpaws grow, as well as regressive sibilant harmony to recall the mimicry the flowers employ to attract pollinators, both of which are some really inspired departures from the sourcelangs.
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Ekaangäq by Atyx

Haliaeetus pelagicus (Steller's sea eagle); Chukchi, Alyutor, Koryak, Itelmen, Ainu, Nivkh, Evenki, Uilta
A bird that escapes any Indo-Pacific flavours? Well I'll be! Instead of South Pacific this one gives all sorts of North Pacific energy being spoken by a population of eaglefolk native to the Sea of Okhotsk and representative of the languages spoken along its coasts. The Ainu flavours are especially strong with both an Ainu-based consonant inventory and a kana orthography, among others. The vowels also show some interesting lopsidedness with 2 creaky vowels complementing an otherwise fairly straightforward 6 vowel system that feature in a front-back vowel harmony system, though I'm a real fan of the sandhi rules at word boundaries that cause all sorts of fun consonant alternations. Word stress is also detailed and has funky placement rules at odds with my understanding of theoretical prosodic processes! Grammatically there's a few quirks that really stand out to me and tickle my curiosity: a dual distinction on the nouns but not in the pronouns, and polypersonal agreement in a transitive alignment system, the only departure from direct, accusative, and/or ergative alignment in this round of submissions. I also appreciate some of the syncretism in the pronouns!
Ekkangäq's Haliaeetus-inspired phonology includes entirely unrounded vowels and a lack of any labial consonants to reflect the speakers have beaks, as well as the 2 creaky vowels as rooted in their physiology, a common theme for this challenge. The lexicon includes some distinctions between diving and eating as it applies to different kinds of prey. The conceptual metaphor, though, I think is really great equating the passage of time with ice: an iceberg calving off a glacier is birth, melting is ageing, and melting all away is dying. Great stuff!
I think I actually have to give negative brownie points for this one: as much as I appreciate 3 separate orthographies (Kana, Cyrillic, Latin) for some historicity, they are all at odds with the anti-imperialism the brownie criterion requires, and there's no girl power to balance it out.
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Taqồpaq by accruenewblue

Gallus (jungefowl); Hindi-Urdu, Burmese, Thai, Punjabi, Tamil, Indonesian
I'm a little surprised this is, I think, the only truly tonal submission despite all the SEA birds, and it's less synthetic than most in this round of submissions. In either case, this one does a great job of illustrating some tonogenesis and some recent and still very transparent synthetic developments from a formerly isolating language. The tones are simple registers, but they interact with morae in some neat rightwards reassigning sandhi patterns, and they complement a system of 12 vowels in a 3x2x2 matrix of height, frontedness, and roundedness. There's even some vocalic nasal allophones (which is twice now in this round of submissions), and labial consonant-vowel harmony to boot! Grammatically I greatly appreciate all the call-outs for similarities to natural languages, and I wanna shout-out the use of a positive tag question instead of negative. The numbers have this funky sexagesimal base with an octal sub-base and remnants of an old decimal sub-base, which recalls some of the duodecimal remnants in the otherwise decimal system of many European languages.
Taqồpaq's Gallus-inspired phonology includes the tonal system being described as recalling a rooster's crow. The lexicon includes roots for all things chicken, including using the word for 'wattle' as a classifier for hanging things, which is so delightfully what I wanted out of this challenge. The more idiomatic language makes use of chicken behaviours as descriptors: dust baths are metaphors for something useful but not everyone's cup of tea, and continuing to brood after the chicks have hatched is a metaphor for doing a good thing so long it has negative consequences.
Extra brownie points for exalting queen Trưng, first queen of Vietnam, and a nationalist hero who fought against Chinese imperialism. Double whammy right there!
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Ngālin by u/borago_officinalis

Aptenodytes forsteri (emperor penguins); Awabakal, Māori, Norwegian
We already had a penguin splang but this one's a nice twist by focusing on the territorial claims of Antarctica rather than the ranges of more temperate inclined penguins where there are actually native languages. This does a great job of shirking the indigenous implication in the language selection step of the challenge (although I'm very glad to see no English or Spanish), so there's a really neat mix of isolating Māori particles with a fusional Germanic verbal system, and I was able to easily pick up on both reading through the doc. The verb system actually pleases me greatly with a strong/weak contrast and a V2 word order wherein the strong verbs mark tense through stem change and the weak verbs with a tense auxiliary, all whilst maintaining a very Polynesian aesthetic despite the very Germanic number of vowels. The Māori possessive system is also really fun, I think. I can't speak to the Awabakal influences, but I was able to pick up on the one, tiny Mapudungan influence of tone tag particles before it was even explicitly mentioned! Not sure where the negation system came from, but it implicates the weak verbs in a way I so adore. Really sweet, despite the fun grim facts about emperor penguin hatchlings, and I found this one just darling. The myth at the end about how penguins lost their ability to fly is also real treat and is a perfect fit for the project.
Ngālin doesn't have any A. forsteri-inspired phonology, but it makes up for it with the inspired lexicon and idiomatic language. The emperor penguin breeding cycle is detailed with translations for all the important terms along the way, including but not limited to the ritual of transferring egg from mother to father and "motherless" to refer to a newborn, whose mother hasn't yet returned from the sea. There's some great, everyday idioms elided down from full phrases for greeting and consoling another penguin being "which way?" and "next year", and conceptualising a long distance as specifically the distance from colony to see is a nice touch. I also appreciate how the relationship between creche-mates is more important than that between (half-)siblings.
I have to give queen exaltation brownie points purely for the one illustrative example of āmā o pipa "hatchling's mum" grammatically indicating the senior authority of an empress penguin.
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Honourable Mention

I've been kept somewhat apprised of a Urile (North Pacific cormorants) splang by u/PastTheStarryVoids. It's still very much in the works, but it sounds funky with both some polysynthetic flavours, no doubt inspired by some PNW languages, I imagine, and some formorant (cormorant formant) analysis! Keep an eye out for it, I'm sure it'll grace the sub in due time!
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And that's everything I've seen in the time I put together this showcase. I know there were a few among you all who felt inspired but couldn't put anything together during the course of this challenge. I remember mention of a banana and a tree kangaroo splang on the announcement post. If anyone ever uses the challenge to inspire a future project of theirs, please keep me apprised! I'd be interested in seeing them if for nothing else than to see some more projects outside of South Asian and Oceanian birds, as great as those birbs are. I can't believe I didn't see a single monotreme or non-ungulate eutherian, and that there weren't any non-avian reptiles or anything fully aquatic! And no fossil clades, too, for that matter! I'm positive there are the makings of some really funky splangs if the relevant modern continental and climactic boundaries didn't yet exist.
In any case, I hope all parties involved had a great deal of fun through the course of this challenge! I know I did! Until next marrow, bonelickers!

I took the plunge and pre-ordered the Ace, and I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last couple of days. I’m pretty deep in the Sonos ecosystem, and I’m a big headphone collector, so I’m tossing in my thoughts here for those thinking about taking the plunge on these $450 cans.
TL:DR - the Aces come in at a high price point in the market at $450. At that price, these may be a tough sell for many. The overall sound is very good - but not definitively better than the category leaders in the market, many of which cost substantially less. Early/Gen1 bugs will leave some thinking that the product is half baked or leaves them out entirely, especially Android users. All that said, this is still a Sonos product, so there are enough things done well about the Ace that it could be a decent proposition - especially if you catch a sale and/or after upcoming software updates. Hard to hate, hard to love.
Now to give some context and get into the deeper review. As mentioned, I am pretty deep in the Sonos ecosystem because I’ve steadily added to my setups over the years. I started with a 5.1 system, Playbar + Sub + two Play 1s about 10 years ago (now in my kid’s playroom) and now I have Sonos in my whole home - another Arc-based 5.1 setup (media room), a Playbase 5.1 setup (living room), a Beam (bedroom), Move (outdoor patio) and a Roam (travel).
I am also a headphone collector and have 22 pairs, ranging from “consumer” stuff like the Ace, AirPods Pro/Max - and all the way up to high-end reference gear from the likes of Audeze, Sennheiser, Meze, Focal, etc. I listen to many types of music, from hip-hop to classical, and I also do quite a bit of gaming. I have a young kiddo so have the need to use headphones for TV viewing pretty often.
Starting with the overall design, comfort, control and included accessories - Sonos does a mostly solid job. The design isn’t overly striking in any way, but it is a well-refined “standard headphone” type of design with clean lines. The Aces are light while still feeling solidly built, have a smooth but appropriately firm sliding hinge for headband fit, have easily removable pads, and while they don’t completely collapse, they get compact enough to fit in the included zip-up hard shell carrying case.
The respectable carrying case isn’t the only included accessory. A USB-C cable is included for both charging and USB-C audio (no included wall charger), and a USB-C to 3.5mm cable is included as well for plugging into analog sources. The inclusion of these cables and capabilities gives the Aces a lot of general versatility and are good things at this price point.
The design lends itself to an overall very comfortable headphone. The band has a very soft cushion and connects to the cups in a way that distributes the weight very well. The cushions of the cups are a well-padded and very comfortable faux leather situation with a firm but not too imposing pressure on the head. These are easy to wear for hours without discomfort for me. I will note that while everything is fine for me, the cups are not particularly large, and the pads are angled, so people with large ears may find their ears touching the cups a bit.
The controls are also well designed. Sonos chose to avoid any type of touch controls with the Aces and has just three buttons - one for power and Bluetooth pairing, one for ANC/transparency/on-device voice assistant, and one for volume and track/audio source/phone call control. It reads more complicated than it is for the controls to become second nature. It is a very good overall control scheme. It’s not quite as good as the Digital Crown design of the AirPods Max, but I’d give it a strong second to that.
When it comes to hardware design and general ease of use, Sonos has always done well across its product range, and that continues here. Grade: A
Sound is one of the most subjective/difficult things to review, and I’m going to try and be as neutral as possible and use some good points of comparison. Overall, the Aces perform fairly well for the product category, and while they bring their own approach to the table, it is very much debatable whether what they bring in terms of sound is worth the fairly high $450 entry point versus $450 for the AirPods Max, $299 for the Sennheiser Momentum 4, $328 for the Sony WH-1000XM5 or $379 for the Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra - all very mature and respectable market leaders with similar product features in this category. There are wireless headphones out there that are priced higher like the Focal Bathys ($799) or the Bowers and Wilkins Px8 ($529), though one could argue that those are catering to the luxury and/or audiophile market (all Amazon US prices as of this writing), where the sound expectations have a higher hurdle to overcome.
Let’s first talk about tonal balance. The general tuning of the Aces is very similar to all of the other products I mentioned above, which is a version of a “V-Shaped” tune; bass is boosted, and treble is boosted, creating what has become commonly known as a “fun” type of tuning that I call warm and sparkly. While all of the products I mentioned do this in some way, each does it slightly differently, resulting in a slightly different overall sound presentation, the Aces are no exception. Let’s dive in.
The bass on the Aces is very noticeably boosted throughout the entire band, and the biggest boost is in the sub-bass region. This means the Aces bring slam, boom and rumble to the listen. It could be argued that these get into bass head territory, and I believe those that like bass would be happy with the Aces in that department. While the bass is certainly very prominent, it is not overly loose and still maintains a decent level of control. It is a thick but fairly clean bass. It hits thicker than the AirPods Max but less so than the Momentums and XM5s. If you like to feel those big explosions and soundtrack moments in your TV viewing and gaming, the Aces will fit the bill, as the depth the bass can reach is impressive. The downside to the bass tuning is that since the entire bass band is boosted, if you are listening to a track that has a lot of action in the bass region, it can be overwhelming and lack detail. It can also lead to some bleed into the lower midrange on certain tracks.
It is the midrange on the Aces that surprised me the most, though when I think about how Sonos likely dedicated as much thought to how these sound for TV as to how they sound for music, it makes sense. In a usual “V-shaped” tuning, it is the midrange that is the least present or gets a bit left out of the mix. This often results in vocals and many common core instruments and pieces of the mix somewhat veiled, and is the reason many audiophiles don’t like the V-shaped tuning. The Aces mostly avoid this. The midrange balance is pretty on-target with the exception of a bit of a dip in the upper mids. This means that you get a very full-bodied core sound when listening to the Aces, and that’s a very good thing. Male vocals are very often put on full display because of the added warmth of the bass boost. Female vocals can sometimes take a bit of a back seat, along with instruments like guitar, as a result of the dip in the upper mids, but to notice either of these, you’d really have to be a focused listener (more on why later). The story of the midrange is that it’s better executed than many in the category. This translates well to TV/gaming as well, as dialogue is typically easy to make out, even when there’s lots of other action going on.
The treble on the Ace, as mentioned, is definitely boosted, but in a targeted way that overall, works. I mentioned that the upper midrange where female vocals and some higher instruments live is a bit de-emphasized. Well, the treble is boosted in the “sparkle” region, where sounds like symbols reside - as well as the “s” and “t” sounds in vocals. This boost makes details shine a bit more, and it also hides the under-emphasis of the upper midrange a bit because it still pulls forward the sparkle of all vocals. This upper midrange and treble boost combination is also seen in some well-regarded higher end headphones from the likes of Sennheiser and Meze Audio, just to name a few, so kudos to Sonos for pretty solid execution on the treble. The downside to boosting this region is that some people’s ears are sensitive to this frequency range, and can find sounds like snare drums, loud symbols and the like in this region to be grating to listen to for long periods of time. I don’t find the boost to be extreme, but it is there, so those that are treble-sensitive, just something to note.
This is a good point to make note that this has all been related to the default tonal balance of the Aces right out of the box. Connecting to the Sonos app does allow you to adjust the frequency response - though it is a very basic EQ just like other Sonos products - a simple treble/bass slider. Most of the options at this price point offer greater level of control with a at least a 3-5 band EQ, but it’s better than nothing.
Last in the sound department is a bit about the staging and technical performance. Again, the Aces do what they do fairly well for the category, but whether what they do is definitively better than their peers is debatable. The sound that comes from the Aces is crisp and clear, and one of the most immediately noticeable aspects of the presentation is the good horizontal spread of the pieces of the mix - everything is placed very well with pretty good separation. The sound stage isn’t overly wide by any means, and we aren’t talking about a 3D/holographic sound stage (unless you’re using Dolby Atmos, which I’ll come back to), but the sound does indeed go ear-to-ear horizontally. Even so, the focus of the Aces is always front and center. The stage is very center-focused and intimate, with the edges of the left and right channel wrapping around to the ears. It is a pretty in your face presentation that works well. The center position also has a small but distinct depth and separation from the mix, which is impressive for a wireless headphone (I had to wonder if the fact that the inside of the pads of the Aces are angled contributes to this). The fact that the stage is so center-focused also keeps the vocals and heart of the mix emphasized, and this pairs well with its midrange tuning. This presentation also is another testament to being well-designed for both music and TV listening.
I am not always a fan of Dolby Atmos for headphones, as what the technology can do is often overhyped, but the Aces do handle Atmos mixed sources (or multichannel sources when using TV Swap) very well. It essentially makes the sound stage a bit bigger, along with more precise positioning of the pieces of the mix. I find it best for video content and hit or miss for music.
The overall sound package that the Aces deliver is solid, well-executed, V-shaped listen. The sound is warm, crisp, clean, dynamic/lively and is presented very well, in a way that will work for many genres of music, TV and gaming. The aces definitely deserve to be in the conversation among the market leaders, but each of these market leaders also have strong overall presentations that are arguably just as good, if not better - and allow for a bit more control with more EQ personalization options. The Ace’s premium price relative to this competition has to be taken into consideration as a point of comparison in evaluating overall sound. Grade: B+ / A-
I realize that when evaluating a pair of wireless headphones nowadays, the technology feature set is a big factor as well, and that’s where things get even more interesting for the Aces. This is because depending on your particular Sonos setup, mobile device setup, and general home listening setup, the technological features of the Aces are various levels of either lacking or unfinished.
Let’s start with the good. Regardless of the device you’re using to connect, you get to experience the active noise cancellation and transparency modes of the Aces, and both are very good. The noice cancelling mode isn’t quite as good as Bose, and the transparency mode isn’t quite as good as Apple, but both are respectable compared to anything else, a good showing. You can also enable head tracking in the Sonos app when connected to any device audio via Bluetooth, which for Android users may be an added convenience, depending on your device (for Apple users, this is a feature built in option at the system level between any iOS device and AirPods). You also get a fairly good mix of codec support, including some lossless options if your device supports it.
Now, the not so good. When Sonos announced the Aces, the company very accurately talked about how headphones were one of the most requested products of the community, and everyone in this sub can probably attest to that. But what has been released, at this point in time especially, IMO misses the mark by not doing the thing we want the headphones to do most - connect seamlessly to our larger Sonos systems. On top of this, it highlights the challenge of forced obsolescence when dealing with home theater speakers and advanced technology in the same package.
The best way to illustrate this is to state plainly that the Aces are first and foremost Bluetooth headphones. They connect to your Sonos system indirectly via the app on your Bluetooth device, not directly to the system itself via WiFi (mostly). This means a few things. If you’re envisioning using the Sonos app as a main hub for navigating your music library across sources and handing it off between your Sonos speakers and headphones, that’s not in the cards with the Ace (ha). As a matter of fact, you can only use the Sonos app to play and pause media playing on the Ace, not select and navigate.
If your goal is using the Aces to listen to your TV, it can be done via a feature called TV Swap, but the situation isn’t exactly pretty for a lot of people. You can press a button on the Aces or within the Sonos app to trigger a direct WiFi connection between a TV-connected Sonos speaker, but at launch and of this writing, it only works on the top-of-the-line Sonos Arc soundbar. This support is coming via software update to the Beam and Ray at an unannounced date. This means that for folks like me that have been building a Sonos ecosystem for years, arguably the most loyal and valuable customers of Sonos (and the ones requesting this product for years), the usefulness of the Aces may be substantially reduced. Out of the four rooms that have Sonos sound bars in my home, again, all purchased within the last ten years or less, only two will ever work with the Aces. My Playbase and Playbar are forever excluded, and if you’re using something like the Sonos Amp to connect a turntable or other device to your Sonos system, you’re also out of luck. If you are an Android user, the picture is even uglier, as the TV Swap feature doesn’t work AT ALL, meaning that until an update arrives, also at an as yet unannounced date, the Aces are essentially a regular pair of Bluetooth headphones for Android users.
For me, this is the most disappointing thing about the Aces. Unless you are a fairly recent inductee to the Sonos ecosystem, the Aces probably are really more general Bluetooth headphones that can connect to a Sonos speakeTV than Sonos headphones that also connect to Bluetooth devices. This is in a world where there are certainly other options for connecting headphones to your TV’s audio. Many smart TV’s and set top boxes now offer a direct Bluetooth connection, and if you have an Apple TV, using AirPods via AirPlay is a much more seamless experience. All of these things, combined with the recent revamp of the Sonos app that took away features and left many unhappy in the name of updating the app for future products (including the Ace), should make you think twice about if the Aces are the best way to get TV audio via headphones for you and your setup - and about the longevity of your particular Sonos setup in general. I realize there are technical challenges that make better Sonos system integration a challenge, and that for some, the issue about older products isn’t an issue at all, but it is worth bringing to light for those making a long-term purchase decision.
The second most disappointing thing about the launch of the Aces is the continued trend of companies releasing products at full price that are essentially unfinished. I already discussed that for Android users at launch, there is no TV Swap at all, so these are effectively just regular Bluetooth headphones with no Sonos system integration at all. I also touched on the fact that TV swap support for the Beam and Ray is missing for all platforms. There is also a very cool-sounding form of TruePlay that Sonos is calling TrueTune. This will calibrate the room, so that when using TV Swap to listen to audio, you’ll get an even more “immersive” listening experience that takes Spatial Audio and head tracking to the next level by trying to actually mirror the acoustics of the room as if you had no headphones on at all. I can’t report on that because, you guessed it…the feature is coming at a yet unannounced date. On top of this, there are bugs out of the gate. Sometimes my Aces don’t show up in the Sonos app, and TV Swap sometimes doesn’t trigger or glitches out.
All of this makes judging the technological features of the Aces difficult. On the side of being Bluetooth headphones - the ANC, connection possibilities/versatility, multi-device connection, head tracking/spatial audio support, and battery life, the Aces are a strong showing. On the Sonos side, your experience will be highly dependent on your current Sonos setup, source setup, how you like to navigate your music library, your level of patience to receive updates, and your trust/level of care for when/if Sonos will release an update that breaks something between your Aces and your existing setup or releases a new speaker that doesn’t work with the Aces. These are all considerations that again make the $450 asking price seem steep when there are other options in the market with equal or greater capabilities for a substantially lesser price. Grade: C-
Overall, I view the Aces as a solid pair of Bluetooth headphones, and as Bluetooth headphones for day-to-day needs, they are worth considering, though arguably not the best value in terms of overall sound quality and features. The AirPods Max, Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless, Sony WH-1000XM5 and Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra all bring comparatively good sound and feature sets at the same or a substantially lower price. Whether that premium is worth it because of the Sonos interplay, well, your mileage may vary, depending on your setup. They have the potential to be pretty great for some, while at the same time being annoying for some - hard to hate, hard to love. I hope this review was helpful for those taking a look at these or building a Sonos ecosystem in general. Happy listening!