How to catch a mouse using simple machines

Have you ever wondered why your vape pen suddenly refuses to charge? For health professionals, understanding the intricacies of vape batteries and vaping style is crucial. Not only does this knowledge equip you to address patient concerns more effectively, but it also enhances your ability to communicate the risks and necessary precautions associated with vaping devices. Let’s dive into the common issues preventing vape pens from charging and how to use this information to promote better patient care and harm reduction.

Battery Basics

Understanding how vape batteries function is the first step in troubleshooting issues. Most vape pens use lithium-ion batteries, which are renowned for their high energy density and reusability. However, these batteries require proper handling to maintain their efficiency.

Connection Issues

Often, the problem is as simple as a poor connection between the battery and the device. Dirt, debris, or a misaligned pin can prevent the battery from charging. Regular cleaning and careful connection can resolve this issue.

Battery Lifespan and Degradation

Like all batteries, vape batteries have a finite lifespan. Each charge cycle slightly reduces the battery's capacity, leading to eventual degradation. Understanding this can help manage expectations regarding device longevity.

The Role of Charger Compatibility

Using the wrong charger can prevent efficient charging and pose safety risks. Always recommend using the charger the manufacturer provides or one that meets the exact specifications.

Temperature Impacts

Temperature extremes, both hot and cold, can affect battery performance. Storing and using vape pens in moderate temperatures can help maintain battery health and charging capacity.

Manufacturer Defects

Sometimes, the issue may be due to a manufacturer defect. If the device is under warranty, contacting the manufacturer for a replacement is advisable.

Usage Patterns and Battery Health

Frequent use and improper charging practices can wear out vape batteries faster. Educating users on optimal charging practices can significantly extend battery life.

Safety Features

Most modern vape batteries have safety features to prevent overcharging, short circuits, and overheating. Familiarizing oneself with these features can aid in troubleshooting and safety assurance.

Troubleshooting Steps

Several troubleshooting steps can be attempted before concluding a battery is defective, such as checking the charger and cable, cleaning the connection points, and ensuring the battery is correctly installed.

Preventative Measures

Preventative measures include regular maintenance of the device, using the correct charger, and avoiding exposure to extreme temperatures.

When to Seek Professional Help

If basic troubleshooting doesn’t resolve the charging issue, it may be time to seek professional help. This could mean returning the product for servicing or consulting with a specialist.

Legal and Health Regulations

Health professionals must know the legal and health regulations surrounding vaping products. This knowledge ensures that the advice is helpful and complies with current laws.

The Future of Vaping Technology

Battery technology innovations continue to improve vape pens' safety and efficiency. Keeping abreast of these developments can help health professionals provide up-to-date information to their patients.

To Wrap It Up

Understanding why a vape pen won't charge is more than just technical knowledge—it’s a vital part of ensuring effective patient care in smoking cessation and harm reduction. By staying informed about the technology and common issues associated with vape batteries, health professionals can guide their patients toward safer vaping practices and a better vaping experience.

ch0 -- [already written]. City Alpha of Ikun, Nyektak-pack is in the Bastion, the official City Alpha residence, working through the annual agenda that the Lawspeakers have passed them for Y932. Along the way, they begin discussing what kind of legacy they'll leave behind after they're dead and gone, whether everything they've built will be torn apart in a day or stand for a thousand years. The pack's alpha Nyektak Tun points out that Ikun stands in a precarious position and what they do now will have a huge impact. The economy is stagnating due to jobs being replaced by robots and automation, the environment is collapsing, leading to huge waves of refugees from the equatorial Dunelands. Further, their geopolitical enemy Koranah city-state is rapidly catching up economically and militarily, and sensing blood in the water with regards to Ikun's hegemony, is becoming increasingly aggressive with its foreign policy. Nyektak Nyak suggests that geoengineering can be used to stabilize things, with tools such as weather control satellites and ecological nanobots. However, this is regarded as a critical security threat by Tun, as Koranah is ahead of Ikun in this field, so if a global Climate Control System is created, then it is likely Koranah-based companies and Koranah technology that will tie the whole system together, leading them to have an outsized role. Such a thing is regarded as politically dangerous, as it could pose a threat to the Hegemony even without Koranah overturning Ikun's nuclear monopoly. And it won't even create many jobs in Ikun, so it won't resolve the economic concerns. Nyak points out that it's not politically viable to simply ban geoengineering without the state coming up with a better idea. After a long discussion, it is Nyektak Aykay who finally has a breakthrough idea. They will create a starship to send a military occupation force to planet TRK-16-3 (aka Earth......). Not only will this create enormous numbers of jobs in Ikun to revitalize the economy, but it will demonstrate to the rest of the world that Ikun still has an unmatched ability to project military force even at interstellar distances, and give the citizens of Ikun hope that they can seek out a better life on another planet. Indeed for this reason, it is called Project Hope.
ch1 -- [already written] Nyektak-pack makes an unexpected appearence in the Hall of Power, where Ikun's Lawspeakers convene, looking to make some deals and exert some pressure in order to get Project Hope put on the annual agenda. They have identified that a certain Lawspeaker Ronyr-pack is the most influential pack in the Lawspeakers' Association at present, and so speak to them first, the idea being that they will be able to pull the strings necessary to approve Project Hope. Although Lawspeaker Ronyr-pack are initially skeptical, they agree to assist after Nyektak-pack promises an array of political favors, including guaranteeing that Ikoin Corporation--which Ronyr-pack own significant stock in--will be the main contractor for Project Hope, and reducing the taxes they collect on healthcare workers, who are present in large numbers in Ronyr-pack's district. However, Ronyr-pack is just the first Lawspeaker that Nyektak-pack will have to deal with; in order to ensure that Project Hope actually gets onto the agenda, they also have to make a separate deal with Ronyr-pack's enemy Lawspeaker Radenkiut-pack, who have the second-largest group of allies in the Lawspeaker's Association. Nevertheless, City Alpha Nyektak-pack gets what they want--zero restrictions on raising funds for Project Hope, coupled with a ban on geoengineering tech and directives to pursue sanctions against other city-states that don't join them in doing so, thereby inhibiting the rise of a Climate Control System as an alternative to Project Hope. As Nyektak Aykay points out, these two agenda items reinforce each other; one can't be overturned without also overturning the other.
ch2 -- Icen-pack is a struggling pack of construction workers in Ikun in Y934, who always have to be on the constant lookout for their next gig, as jobs are scarce and hard to come by. They are currently working on a new skyscraper in Ikun's well-to-do District 7, including the flying buttresses that extend over the surrounding roads to interconnect with the supports of adjacent buildings, as typical with Kyanah architecture. Even now they are already even as they work leveraging advanced algorithms to predict the next opening so they can apply before anyone else. Things are made even more cutthroat by the increasingly widespread use of wearable sensors to identify the best performers, and the fact that immigrants from the Dunelands tend to be willing to work for lower wages, which drives pay down for everyone and often forces native Ikun packs to work even harder to justify their wages. As they work, Icen Korak (who, like Kei and Nuyu, grew up in the industry, as their birth-packs worked in construction) laments that things used to be simpler when he was growing up, and packs didn't have to constantly fight against each other to land building jobs, and there were more full time positions instead of the constant data-driven scramble for gigs. Icen-pack's alpha Naiun, as well as Karok, mostly take this in stride, having not grown up in the industry and thus not being as familiar with it, but the rest agree with Korak. Karok points out that it's not a huge surprise, considering how few buildings are being built in the current economy and how even a skyscraper can be built with just a couple dozen packs with current technology, but still nobody is happy with the status quo. They contemplate trying to sabotage the metrics of their coworkers, suspecting that others will do the same to them, taking advantage of the new wearable sensors that are measuring performance; however Naiun insists that they will be fine if they just work hard and be honest, and seeing as she is the pack's alpha that kind of shuts the idea down. They also contemplate having another pair of young, in addition to their current pair Raktan and Tyorek, but money is at present too tight for that. However, Project Hope is announced to the public in an address by Nyektak-pack on state TV. They are initially all a bit confused why Ikun is planning an interstellar invasion, but Kei realizes that Project Hope will serve as a huge jobs program and speculates that this will have knock-on effects across the rest of the economy, and jobs for them will once again be plentiful, putting the whole pack on a hopeful note.
ch3 -- Ryen-pack is graduating from the prestigious Nktan University (in the neighboring city-state of Nktan obviously) and becoming scholars of the first rank. While they all agree they are going to miss the university, they all look forward to going back to Ikun and what comes ahead, as they will be starting work at a prestigious influencing firm in Ikun, basically working with the government to have laws changed for their clients. Ryen Kerok, the pack's Alpha, is especially eager to change the world, believing that they will be able to do a lot of good by influencing the highest levels of Ikun's government for their future clients. Teren is mostly thinking about the high salary that will enable them to have children quickly, whereas young packs in Ikun have to save for years. As for Kaun, she occupies something of a middle ground between the two. Ryen Konyan has the most misgivings about everything, about leaving Nktan University for the "real world", about the possibility that they'll end up working for corrupt clients and doing more harm than good, and about bringing children into a dying world, especially with the onset of Project Hope, which they all agree is stupid and short-sighted, but don't think the government will actually go through with building the starships and launching the military expedition to Earth. They are also concerned about the geoengineering ban, believing that Koranah city-state and their allies will just ignore it, giving them even more control over the future Climate Control System. And so they make their way back to Ikun to begin their careers at the influencing firm Kortak-Dakayan Corporation, a bit hopeful but also a bit uncertain about the future.
ch4 -- some lawspeakers and the city alpha are being shown the initial stages of technological progress on Project Hope in Y935 at Toryak University, the most prestigious university in Ikun. An enormous supercomputer complex has been constructed, using the Kyanahs' signature mechanical computers and is being used to research interstellar propulsion methods. Although many of the scientists are a little skeptical of Project Hope, they do appreciate the huge influx of funding to pursue their research. Nyektak-pack is impressed that the complex has been constructed in only a year (technically it's still under construction, but experiments are already underway as the city-state has imposed some very tough deadlines on them), but as the lead scientist-pack points out, it wasn't so difficult when they had a blank check from the Ikun government. However, they have some bad news: they've been attempting to design an interstellar engine using nuclear pulse propulsion, but despite their best efforts to optimize the design, it will only be able to reach 4% of light speed, which as they point out means that humanity will possibly be more technologically advanced than their own military by the time Project Hope arrives. The main problem is that the casing and detonation mechanisms of the nukes are basically dead weight. It seems that there may be a way around this by using antimatter-catalyzed nuclear propulsion, where small quantities of antimatter are fed into nuclear material to force a reaction without needing a bunch of actual nukes. However, this further has the problem that it will require grams of antimatter, meaning that a huge particle accelerator in the PeV range will have to be built. But if this can be done, the engines will be able to reach the required 7.5% of light speed. Much to the scientists' shock, Nyektak-pack immediately agrees to fund this accelerator. However, in private this prompts an argument between them as they don't actually have available funds, even if they funnel money from non-Hope agenda items into the project. The realize that Ikun can't do it alone while also building the starships themselves, they need funds and technical expertise from other city-states to build it, and will need to use their influence in the Coalition of Cities to get it, possibly in exchange for dipolmatic concessions that may destabilize Ikun's already precarious Hegemony. Meanwhile, we are also introduced to Nyektor-pack, a student of the second rank working on the supercomputing project while nurturing big dreams to someday be scholar of the third rank, at which point they aspire to start a research group to solve the many technical problems that must be solved for Project Hope to be successful.
ch5 -- A certain Ryen-pack--none other than Ryen Kerok's birth-pack--are working at one of Ikun's top universities, where their life's work has revolved around developing ecological nanobots that can break down pollutants in the soil. However, with enforcement of Y934 Agenda Item 579 beginning (banning technology associated with the Climate Control System), their entire life's work has now been forbidden by the government. Even many of their own students have bought into the official propaganda that this technology is dangerous and unreliable, and must be banned, much to their anger and disgust. They have continued working right up until the day the ban comes into effect, but a pack of university administrators orders them to destroy their research as the police will soon be arriving to shut the department down. Many harsh words are exchanged between Ryen-pack and the administrators, but ultimately there's nothing they can do except wipe their computers and destroy their prototypes before the police show up. After this, they reach out to their son Kerok's pack, which causes Kerok to wonder what is going on in their lives and if they want to be ikoin (kyanah term for friends/allies, but more explicitly transactional) but the elder Ryen-pack is retiring and leaving Ikun for the northern scrublands. Kerok urges them to stay and use their brilliant minds to do some good in Ikun, including the younger Ryen-pack's future children (even telling them that they will name one of their young after the elder Ryen-pack's alpha, Ayen), but the elder pack has made up their mind, they're done trying to pursue science while the government keeps interfering with their work, but tell the younger pack that the young are the future of Ikun, and if they want to save the planet, they must optimize their young for the cause, a message which seems to resonate most with Kerok and less with some of the others, especially Konyan.
ch6 -- Aktektan-pack is a large pack with many young who works long and arduous hours at an Ikoin Corporation factory assembling bombs and missiles for meager pay. After another mind numbing and monotonous day of working and getting into petty fights with coworkers during Y936, they head home to their tiny rundown apartment and engage in their typical pasttime of watching TV, especially Ikun's state TV, which triumphantly reports that Project Hope is already proving to be a massive boon to the economy. The fact that they've receieved a small bonus this year further convinces them that this is unquestionably true. They immediately proceed to spend their bonus on alcohol and pro-government merch. After Nedak realizes that their rent has increased as well by the same amount as their bonus, he angrily accuses their alpha Nyaken of mismanaging their money, to which Nyaken accuses the other females in the pack--Karien and Tanun--of laying too many eggs and creating too many mouths to feed, though their seems to be an undercurrent of jealousy in her rants, which leads to a physical fight between the members of Aktektan-pack. Later, Karien reveals that she's actually laid another egg--actually only one, which is seen as a sign of bad luck, as Kyanah lay eggs in pairs. These arguments ultimately peter out as the pack ends up falling asleep whilst watching a rather jingoistic movie.
ch7 -- Ptorya-pack lives in Adronkin, a city-state in the scorching hot Dunelands that is poorer, less developed, and much smaller than Ikun, where they're assistant administrators at a local textile factory. An unseasonally strong and dangerous sandstorm strikes, causing considerable damage to the factory and disrupting operations. Some workers, including Ptorya Llrien speculates that city-state officials including the City Alpha have been embezzling money intended for fortifying local buildings against sandstorms and spending it on luxury cars and mansions instead, but Ptorya-pack's alpha Rytor advises everyone not to ask too many questions about it and just focus on repairing the factory so they can all get back to work. At their home, which is quite small and spartan; despite them being white collar workers in the top 10% of earners in Adronkin, it would be a poor pack's apartment in Ikun; they notice clouds of irritating industrial smog containing lots of coal dust wafting in from the south and find several dead thukukenoids (creatures which float through the air like balloons, filter feeding on airborne spores and vegetation) lying around their neighborhood; Nekyez notes that they seem to have been dying off in droves as of late, though Rytor dismisses this as probably nothing and tells Nekyez not to worry their pack's young children. As they eat their day-meal, the subject of Project Hope comes up; they seem to be a bit bemused about Ikun's plans to launch an interstellar conquest (as Ntreyn points out, "the blue people always have crazy ideas") but they are hopeful about reports that Ikun is reviving its economy and will continue to remain a hyperpower, as they see Ikun and its military as bringers of peace and order, especially as they provided aid and peacekeeping some years ago when Adronkin was struck by a wave of deadly sandstorms. Llrien offhandedly mentions that she sometimes wishes that they were in Ikun and Rytor says that it would take a long time and be very difficult to get in, but concedes that it would probably be better for their young to grow up there.

I feel like when it comes to discussions about divorces involving children, 99% of the time people say it was better the divorce happened than if two people that didn't love each other stayed together for the sake of the kids. I want to share my story, because that was not my experience as the kid of divorced parents.
Almost two decades ago when I was 10 years old, my parents told my sister and I they were getting a divorce. They said they didn't get along anymore and we wouldn't all be living together anymore, but they would still be our mom and dad and we would live with each of them. I bawled my eyes out uncontrollably that night, completely shattered. In reality, my dad had spiraled down a 9-year-long addiction to opioid pills that meant he was high 24/7, lost his job, and was doing reckless things like drinking and driving, even with me in the car. Not to mention the impact it had on everyday life, vacations, finances etc. It drove my mom to her breaking point where she wanted a divorce, but first helped him get sober with staging an intervention and then getting him into rehab and NA.
Gradually my dad moved out to an apartment nearby, our house was sold and my mom bought a smaller one a town over, my sister and I would go back and forth between staying with each parent each week, and they both started dating. About a year after the divorce, my dad started seeing a woman of a far trashier, immature nature compared to my mom. He moved her in after a month, and long story short, my dad was heavily dedicated to her and changing from her influence, becoming a juvenile 40-something man unrecognizable to me. All while he had two young adolescent kids to raise who just had their world's shattered. My sister and I felt like afterthoughts, and I blame my dad for that as well as my now-stepmom for fully seeing the situation she was walking into, the impact it had on my sister and I, and still diving head-first into it. She quit her job as a nurse pretty early on to be a stay-at-home wife, even though my dad was making just OK money.
As for my mom, she lost her job shortly after the divorce due to insubordination, and then never held a job of the same seniority/salary/importance ever again. She spent the remainder of my childhood staying at home raising my sister and I, who eventually moved in with her full time to get away from being around my stepmom until we went to college. She had a few smaller jobs she'd last a few months at, but that's essentially been her career ever since but with a steady decline. She was a vice president of a Fortune 500 company, and now she's on the phone in a call center making a little more than minimum wage.
She dated a little too, but never got as serious with anyone as my dad did. Part of it may have been that she just couldn't catch the kind of guy she was looking for, but part of it may have been seeing the impact one stepparent was having on my sister and I. I'm sorry she's still alone and may be alone the rest of her life. But I'm also glad we had her full attention and care when we were growing up, because I was thinking about ending my life every day of those years, and the addition of another new strange adult living with me and having nowhere for me to escape to probably would have put me over the edge. I did attempt in college several times, but had a moment of reckoning and decided to see life through.
Part of the reason for her overall decline too has been her descent into alcoholism, starting a couple of years before the divorce but the scope of it not fully visible at the time. From when I was 12 onwards, she's gone through cycles of sobering up, working AA, gradually checking out of AA, functionally relapsing, descending into disfunction/rock bottom and repeat every 18 months or so. Her latest period as a full-blown alcoholic was her worst, and she was more of a mess than my dad ever was. He's relapsed twice over the years, but to his credit, they were relatively brief periods of relapse and he's seriously worked the 12-step program to maintain sobriety otherwise. He now owns a home near where I grew up.
In summary: I absolutely recognize what my mom went through for 9 years with my dad's drug addiction and I can imagine the stress it put her through, the impact it had in shaping those years of her life, and how out of love she must have felt after so many incidents with my dad being high. That said, I've always felt a massive hole in my chest every day of these last 19 years, and hindsight has only further made me feel like the divorce was a mistake. I can't put myself in my mom's shoes, but I wish she had given my dad a last chance once he was sober. He's a better man sober. I can't help dreaming of "What if's" even when it only hurts to imagine. If my parents stayed together, maybe we would have still had our big, beautiful house; maybe my mom's alcoholism wouldn't have been so out of hand with my dad to support her own sobriety; maybe my mom wouldn't be living in a sober house 200 miles away right now with barely a dollar to her name; maybe my dad would have a repaired relationship with his kids instead of barely seeing one and never hearing from the other; maybe I would actually want to have a family of my own instead of worrying there's a chance I really ruin my kids in some way too; maybe I would be able to hold down a relationship of my own without getting anxiety about the future if I had an example of a united family to look up to or even parents that could give me useful relationship advice; maybe my chronic depression wouldn't have started so early or at all so that I'd never eat myself to morbid obesity. Or maybe not.
Look, yeah, we can never know one way or the other for sure. But if they knew then where their lives, my life, and my sister's life would end up, I think they would have found a way to make it work.
I don't think I'll ever fully be ok with everything that happened or how it's shaped me. I wish I could be, and I wish I could move past all of it, but this was all some destructive shit.
TL;DR - I'm sharing this as a counter to the popular idea that divorce is always better, especially for the kids when there's kids involved. My unbeknownst-alcoholic mom divorced my long term opioid pill-addicted dad when I was 10, my mom helped my dad sober up during the divorce. My dad quickly started seeing a trashy woman that he moved in with him and invested most of his time, love, and attention into, and he eventually bought a house for them. My mom lost her job, essentially never held another serious full-time job again, descended deep into alcoholism with a dozen relapses and sobering-ups over the years, is flat broke and never found another partner. It's almost two decades later and I'm a 29-year-old man, and the effects of the divorce left a lasting trauma on me that a life of therapy hasn't and won't fix. It's also influenced my aversion to ever having a family of my own, my struggles to have a serious long-term relationship with someone, and overall plays a roll in my chronic depression.

this was inspired by the movie Gravity I would recommend watching it
All or Nothing
I woke to the sound of alarms blaring, I opened my eyes to see nothing just empty black i began to panic but then the planet below came into view, and I was relieved but the realization of my situation began to creep into my mind, I was alone… truly alone. I tried the radio but I knew it wouldn't work I was too far away from anything. Cursing my situation in rage I began to panic once again after about 20 minutes I calmed down. I had a problem (a very big problem) but this is what I was trained for, first things first… stop my rotation and figure out where I am and how long I can survive like this.
I am stable and not spinning anymore and I can survive for another 3 hours like this, but I still have no idea what my orbit is on the upside my last recorded relative speed is high enough that I'm in orbit and not going to be burnt to a crisp. I need to conserve oxygen so I lower the o2% but I begin to feel lightheaded so I turn it back up. It wouldn't be good to make decisions like that. “I need to find a station or an eleva—” Something caught my eye i rotated myself to see what it was i gasped at my luck, it was an old satellite. I used a little bit of my dwindling supply of fuel to get to it (if I could figure out what satellite it was then I could find out where I am). I slowly grabbed onto the satellite I saw a plate with the words “Mars Global Surveyor” I immediately connected my straps to the handles and pulled out my holo map that shows all objects in a close orbit to our craft and found it. I let out a sigh of relief because I am heading in the direction of an elevator, only one problem, I'm moving too slow by the time I get close enough to get to the elevator I would be long dead.
10 minutes passed and I'm still trying to think of a way to get enough velocity to not die of oxygen deprivation. I began to yell my heart rate began to elevate i let go of the handles and punched the satellite sending myself in the opposite direction, when it hit me, use the satellite as a counterweight to launch myself, i could maybe gain an extra 10m/s of velocity and I could also set myself up with a better orbit for a closer pass with the elevator. Anyway, I'm out of time… it's all or nothing
I detached my straps and got rid of my now-empty main oxygen tank all I have now is my emergency tank with only 2 hours of oxygen. I'm ditching all the weight I can so I can get more velocity. I put my feet against the hull of the satellite and with my hands still holding on in 5 seconds I'll jump like my life depends on it. My heads-up display showed a countdown. 5, 4, 3, the seconds felt like minutes 2, 1 I jumped, and as I left the Surveyor behind. I used my maneuvering thrusters to orient and adjust my orbit for an intercept.
Once again I'm floating through space. I got a little bit more speed than expected at 10.8m/s. I begin to lower my o2 to conserve oxygen giving me the largest possible margin for error. As time passed, each minute felt lonelier than the last. I checked and rechecked my oxygen levels, trying to eke out every last breath. The loneliness gnawed at me, a relentless companion in this vast emptiness. I thought of everyone I got separated from, wondering if they even knew I was out here, still alive. As reality set in my hope diminished faster than my oxygen and I began to question the point of all of this. But even as despair threatened to drown me that voice of determination and resilience continued to echo throughout my mind and that's all I needed to know that there is still a way, even if it's a 1 in a billion chance that I survive I'm starting to like my odds.
In the distance, I could see the 5 cables that connect the ground and space i started my minuscule preparations consisting of grabbing the straps that I saved connecting them to my suit, and starting an ETA timer. As the clock ticked down time began to slow. I was still too far from the cables to make contact and I needed my fule to slow down, but I planned for this and I still had the straps that I had when I connected to the Surveyor right before I passed the first cable I braked as much speed as possible using the last of my fule and threw one of the straps around one of the cables and caught the other end that swung around the cable. My heart began to settle but then the strap snapped, unable to control my movement I drifted into another cable and grabbed ahold i used my second strap to connect myself. But, the struggle wasn't over I began to slowly let myself slip down the cable, and after 500 meters of sliding I reached a maintenance catwalk where there was an emergency alert button. I sat down after hitting the button and As my heart rate began to settle I finally noticed the blaring alarm that indicated my oxygen was almost completely gone and I passed out.
When I came to, I was lying on the cold metal catwalk. The alarms had stopped, replaced by a distant sound of machinery reverberating throughout the cables. My head throbbed. With a groan, I pushed myself up and fell, struggling against the weight of exhaustion.
The emergency alert button I'd pressed blinked nearby letting me know it worked. feeling a sense of relief wash over me. Help was on the way, I hoped. As I waited, my mind raced with thoughts. How long had I been out? Minutes? Hours? My oxygen was almost depleted when I passed out; I could only pray it hadn't run out completely.
Footsteps approached, breaking the silence.
A voice reverberated through the ground distant yet reassuring. "We've got a signal, someone's out here!"
Relief flooded through me. I'd been found. I managed to sit up, weakly waving my arms to signal my location. Soon, they arrived, faces covered by helmets, but their urgency was all I needed to know. They rushed to my side, checking my vital signs and oxygen levels. I was hoisted onto a stretcher, surrounded by flashing lights and the sound of people's voices.
"Stabilize him and get him back to the station," one of the rescuers ordered.
The journey back was a blur of motion and noise. I drifted in and out of consciousness, the weight of my ordeal finally catching up with me. When I woke again, I was in a sterile white room, surrounded by monitors and medical equipment. A doctor stood nearby, monitoring my condition.
"You gave us quite a scare," the doctor said with a smile. "But you're going to be alright."
Relief flooded through me again.
"Where... am I?" I managed to ask, my voice hoarse.
"You're aboard Anchor 9 a orbital platform," the doctor replied. "We picked you up just in time. You're lucky to be alive."
I nodded, the reality of what had happened sinking in. I had faced the vast emptiness of space and survived. As I lay there, surrounded by the beeping of monitors, I knew one thing for certain: I was not alone. Even in the darkest reaches of space, there were others who would come to your aid, a reminder that no matter how dire the situation, there was always hope.

My (27) Male boyfriend and I (25) female have been together for almost four years, our relationship has not been the most perfect one and kindly admit I have let pretty bad things slide, including **cheating** **lying** and **manipulation**. All of this time I have separated from him twice.... last time we went back to the relationship after being almost six months apart, because after all his slip ups I decided to come back, I went on a week trip to Costa Rica and he decided to dig in to a USB drive I had left in my apartment, finding pictures of me with two of my ex boyfriends who were highly abusive to me. To be fairly honest, I have not used the drive for a long time, sometimes I upload pictures in that same drive and never see the ones from my ex's, however he got so triggered about seeing me with other men, that we broke up. It seems that he has this sense of being the victim and in my eyes, he is being unfair. After everything I have forgiven him, when it's his turn to see something not exactly pleasant, he OVERLY victimizes himself and makes a HUGE drama. Like if I had to beg him to forgive me. I don't consider him a bad person, but he has pretty bad trauma from past relationships and the main source is in his home, his mother has NOT been a good mother at all..... he is the middle child and always seems to get ignored, mistreated and abused by her.
For the past six months, we've been pretty good, he has slowly but surely worked on his trauma, past self and toxic habits. However, he has a tendency to become angry and other times I have seen him talking very badly about people in general, two months ago he went through a very harsh depression. That led us to almost separate Again. He gets pretty toxic, self destructive and tends to be really pitiful with himself. Over time, I have decided to stop making myself the hero of the relationship and let things be, I was there for him but was not going to interfere in the process. Since, after all, in my mind I think he is looking for a mother figure and I am not that.
Yesterday, I needed to do a one long day trip to my main city, he decided to join me but I warned him that I would be staying with my family, (which he usually gets pretty uncomfortable in, doesn't like family environment) and he agreed. My car's temperature got up and needed to make a quick stop at a gas station to make sure everything was ok. Going back to the road, I started analyzing why I had forgotten to add cooler to my car's engine, which seem like a very simple task, I was wondering why sometimes I tend to forget very easy but key tasks and was feeling kind off down with myself.
Instead of helping me feel better, giving me some words of encouragement or at least listening to me, he started describing to me other scenarios in which I have failed myself precisely by forgetting simple but key tasks. Excusing himself saying that he was giving me ''useful data for me to know how to improve''. I got a little pissed off, since It seemed like he wanted to turn a moment of frustration with myself into a problem of HIS and make me feel worse. I sometimes battle with certain tendencies I have, like PTSD, ADHD and lying patterns, I used to lie to pretend things were not wrong, etc. And I, myself, was honest to him about it around three months ago, letting him know, that I felt really bad with myself because of it. In the car, while on the road, additionally from telling me other scenarios where I had forgotten things, he also took the chance to let me know that It was my last chance before I got '' another little lie'' out, telling me how insecure I make him feel and that I have a big problem. I understood his side, I heard him and let him know multiple times that I am trying my best and that it is in my intentions to continue my therapy to avoid any future conflict or harm to myself or others, but in those interactions all I got was him not listening at all, being conflictive, telling me to stop the conversation because we are going nowhere and cold reactions.
I decided to keep quiet and not make a big deal about it, but something in me is really turned down.... during the visit with my family I did what I had to do and PAID for everything, dinner, breakfast, gas, emergency supplies etc. but I didn't even want to touch him, I feel drowned and had the urge to get away from him. He acted like a cold stone during the entire visit, making it harder for me, instead of being a nice trip. All I can think about right now, is that I can no longer idealize him in my mind, he's bad with me, uses things like this as an excuse for his poor behavior in the past, rubs in my face the changes he's faced to become a better person when angry and acts like a whole pure narcissist. I am NOT a bad person, I know my mistakes and consider this IS NOT FAIR. And I am not going to play this game again. I feel like I'm really done. When we got home, I said absolutely nothing, left him in his apartment and haven't talked to him at all.
AITA for not validating his drama, going after him and talking more sense into him?

The Terran Union Heavy Cruiser, Roanoke, had spent the last 6 months raiding Naalx supply lines in the Flores sector.
They were finally returning to Terran Space for some much-needed refit and some R&R. But first, they were stopping at the Bateri space station orbiting Emsar IV.
She would be meeting a Terran Union squadron to escort her prizes back to the Couster system. 4 freighters, a massive ore hauler, and a damaged Naalx corvette that answered a distress call sooner than expected.
The Roanoke was one of the new Grenville class heavy cruisers, faster and more heavily armed than the other heavy cruiser classes operating as part of a Terran Union fleet.
They were designed as solo raiders able to operate deep in enemy space, raiding enemy supply lines and facilities.
Their design included several newly developed systems, including a new style of radiator for dumping excess heat.
At 500 m long and painted black as night, she was very intimidating to see on visual screens and even more so at close range. Her CrCoNi (chromium, cobalt, and nickel) hull was covered in 12” of ablative armor covered in a black laser-resistant material able to reduce the effectiveness of enemy sensors and target locks.
The experimental Baxter radiators efficiently released excess heat into space but still left them exposed to radiation detection sensors.
Captain Josef Král had been hand-picked to command the Roanoke when she came into service 18 months ago. He was a popular officer with 20 years of combat experience on just about every ship in the Terran Union’s navy.

He’d also provided technical assistance during its design phase so his familiarity with the ship made him the best choice for putting the ship through her paces. This would be the very first voyage behind enemy lines as a raider.
And it’d been a rousing success, hitting targets deep in Naalx space as reprisal for Naalxian raids on Terran border colonies. The First Naalx-Terran war had devastated both species and left them vulnerable to outside forces. The war wasn’t won so much as winding down to a series of raids and counter-raiding. A gentleman’s agreement to prevent raids and border skirmishes from turning into another full-scale war and the earlier consequences.
And Captain Král was very good at approaching that line in the sand without going over it. Several centuries earlier he’d have been a Privateer sailing the oceans on Earth.
This even led to the revival of the old pirate movies of the 20th century but Captain Král preferred likening it to the submarine warfare of the first half of the 20th century. That didn’t stop his crew from giving him a robot parrot.
He claims to hate it but everyone knows he’s been teaching it his extensive vocabulary of curse words, in dozens of languages, that he loved it.
And if you call him out on him walking around with it on his shoulder, he’ll claim he was just humoring the crew.
Captain Král was relieved to see the Terran squadron had arrived before him and ordered his little fleet to dock. It would be good to be able to get off the ship and move around without weapons.
As Captain Král exited the ship, he was surprised to see Commodore Allen waiting for him. It’d been several years since he last saw his friend and previous XO. Taking his prerogative as a Captain, he skipped the formalities, shook hands, and gave Commodore Allen a friendly slap on the back.
“Mike? What the hell are you doing here? This is escort job is for a Lt. to do” He asked
“I was in the neighborhood and volunteered. I wanted to see this new ship of yours and it’s been too long since we got a drink together.” Mike replied
Captain Král took a glance back to his ship and wasn’t surprised to see his current XO, Lt. Commander Nana Ricci had the resupply well in hand.
With a big grin, Captain Král said, “Let me see to my guests and we can see if we can scandalize the ratings like we used to.”
Captain Král approached the waiting station manager. The Bateri bowed in the formal greeting of her people. Not having the tentacles needed to return the bow, he just saluted her.
“Greetings Captain Král of the Terrans, how may we be of service?” The Bateri asked.
“Greetings Ananu of the Bateri. We request the use of your services,” he replied, finishing the ritual greeting.
“I see you returned successful in your raiding,” Ananu said, “How many bunks will you need?”
Unsurprised that the Bateri knew his mission, he replied “ 72 bunks with 3 more for your med bay, if you have the room.”
One of the most important functions provided by the Bateri was allowing for the return of captives taken in raids. This helped to keep things calmer by freely releasing captives to limit the amount of bad blood created during the raids and conflicts.
Crates of supplies, ammo, missiles, and the various other things needed to keep the ship functioning were being transferred from the smaller Terran ships. With her weapon complement being only slightly smaller than a battleship, she could go through a lot of ammunition. Even without being in serious combat, he liked to run frequent gunnery drills. Some Captains would just let their tactical computers handle operating the weapon systems and just have the gunnery crews handle reloads. But some hard lessons taught him that having the gunnery crews able to take direct control, as needed, was essential. He preferred to use up as much ammunition as needed during training to save lives later in combat.
Seeing everything in hand, he walked back to join his friend for a drink. They caught up on the doings of old friends and Mike’s family, toasts to fallen comrades, and eventually to the Roanoke.
‘How did she operate on her first long-range mission?” Mike asked
Taking a moment to organize his thoughts, Captain Král took a sip of his drink. “She handled better than expected. The new engine behaved itself, surprising for being just off the drawing board, the Baxters were damn efficient.”
Taking another sip before continuing, “ We didn’t use the torpedoes or the turreted railguns in combat but the rest performed as expected. That Corvette didn’t stand a chance so we didn’t get a full test of all the combat systems.”
“Going by the number of munitions I brought with me, you’d think I was resupplying a battleship” Mike joked
“Just about,” Captain Král chuckled. “During the design phase, I had to argue for such an increase of armament.” “It seemed to take forever for them to get it through their thick skulls that we’d be out there all alone and couldn’t call for reinforcements.” “So I convinced them to put the 2 particle beam systems in the bow of the ship and give me the 4 torpedo tubes. They had no problem with the pair at the bow but they couldn’t figure out why I wanted a pair aft. I swear I thought about launching them out of a tube.”

“At least they were starting to get it when I up-gunned the turrets to carry two large railguns. They did get upset at wanting to put on a turret in the middle of the ventral side but were relieved I left the other turret on the dorsal side ahead of the command structures”
Commodore Allen asked,” From the glimpse I got as you docked, it looked like you doubled the usual weapon systems?”
“She still has them 10 secondary batteries but I went with dual medium railguns for them” Captain Král replied, “ I put 4 of the quad-mounted autocannons on each side of the ship.”
“ It should let us save wear and tear on the railguns when we catch unarmed ships or against incoming fighters.”
“ I understand and it also saves on missiles, which with 4 heavy and 8 medium is a lot of missiles to carry.” Commodore Allen replied.
“I’ve also heard you were running tests on a more powerful deflector array to do more than just protect against radiation and small debris. Like maybe actual shields that would work on anything smaller than a battleship?”
“Yeah but not with any success,” Captain Král answered, “Anytime we tried to go past the standard low-power output, it played hell with our sensors.”
It was at that moment when Captain Král’s wrist communicator beeped for his attention.
“Just a second Mike,” he said as he keyed the communicator. “ Král, go ahead”
The sound of Lt. Commander Ricci’s voice came through the speaker, “ Priority message from the bridge Captain.”
“ What is the message?” Captain Král asked, not liking the way Ricci’s voice sounded worried
“ Sensor buoy reports large Naalx fleet dropping out of FTL, 2 million km out,” Ricci reported
Commodore Allen gave Captain Král the same concerned look that he was sure was on his face. “How many?” The captain asked
Ricci hesitated for a moment before answering “37 ships with more arriving every couple of minutes.”
Commodore Allen swore
Captain Král looked at his friend, “How long until you get your crews and get out of here?”
Commodore Allen thought for a moment, “ Maybe 20 minutes at the minimum.”
Captain Král muttered to himself, “They’ll be here before that.”
Both men got up, signaled to any of their personnel in the bar, and started out the door. “I’ll buy you the time but I’ll need to undock as soon as I get aboard my ship, maybe I can catch them off-guard. “ Captain Král
Commodore Allen replied, “That’s a suicide mission, there are too many for one ship to handle”
“Yeah, I know, old friend but if I don’t then we all die.” Captain Král explained, “ Do me a favor, I’m going to send you my non-essential personnel, take them and those still on the station with you. Get them home.”
Reaching the hatch to the docking bay, both men stopped to shake hands. “Of course, Josef.” Commodore Allen replied, “But if anyone can find a way out of it, it’s you, my friend.”
After a final salute, both men parted ways to reach their ship. As Captain Král jogged down the docking bay, he sent orders for Ricci to send all non-essential personnel to Commodore Allen and asked if they had sufficient hands to man all combat stations.
Ricci’s reply reassured him, “ Aye Sir, most of the crew on the station are from the 2nd watch, and the few people from the first watch are non-essential.”
“Be ready to launch as soon as I get aboard.” He ordered.
He passed several members of his crew, en route to join Commodore Allen. He stopped to return their salute. At the disappointed look in their eyes, he told them. “I know you don’t want to leave the ship but the Commodore needs some real sailors to get out on time. You know how those logistic guys are. They’ll get lost trying to find their own bridge”
That look reassured them and after a final salute, they headed down the dock to join Commodore Allen
Captain Král reached the cargo ramp and started up it, calling Ricci and telling her to shove off and he’d be on the bridge shortly.
He sprinted down the corridor, leaping over the lower lips of the vacuum-tight doors.
“Captain on the Bridge!” rang out from one of the bridge techs. Aside from the guards and his XO, the rest of the bridge crew kept working. Nodding his approval at their knowing when to discard ceremony for action. He walked over toward his console before speaking.
“What do we have, Lt. Commander?”
Turning to face him, Captain Král could see just how worried she was. “Current count is 48 ships.” Touching the console’s keys to bring up a list of ships before continuing, “ 18 capital ships and a mix of sub-caps, still trying to ID them.”
“They’re just maintaining position for now.” Ricci finished, her voice slightly puzzled.
“They’re waiting for something or someone,” Captain Král answered the unasked question.
“How many crew did we leave behind?”
“641, Sir” the XO replied
“ Helm, are we clear of the station's shielding?”
“Almost Sir,” The helmsman answered.
“Thank you.” Captain Král returned.
Turning to another tech, he said, “Sound Battlestations”

“Sir,” one of his sensor techs spoke up, “We have 2 more ships arriving.”
“ Thank you, Ensign.” Captain Král returned
“What class are they?” Lt Commander Ricci asked
After looking at her monitor again the tech replied, “1 heavy cruiser and something much bigger, waiting for the computer to ID it.”
Captain Král moved to look over the tech’s shoulder before standing up and facing his XO.
“Fleet Command Ship” he informed the tech and his XO.
Lt. Commander Ricci replied, “What the hell is one doing out here?”
“Good Question.” he answered, “And now that the players are on the field, the game can begin.”
Bringing up the sensor information to his console, Captain Král pointed at the enemy fleet. “They haven’t begun to deploy into battle formation yet.”
“That could be our chance.” Raising his head to look at his XO. “If we jump now we can land close and surprise them. After we land, we drive into the center of their formation and head for that big bastard.” He explained
“But Sir, We haven’t fully tested the jump drive!” the XO exclaimed
“No time like the present, “ Captain Král joked

“We’ll let the railguns and autocannon crews pick targets of opportunity, while we engage the command ship with our particle cannons, heavy railguns, and torpedoes,” he stated
“What about its point defense system, won’t it pick off the torps?” the XO asked
“We’re going to launch all the Hammerheads at it. It should overwhelm the system and let the torps through.” He answered before continuing, “I’m going to save the heavy missiles for now.”
“You’ll need to calculate the launch time of the Hammerheads to hit the point defense system as close to the time for the torpedoes to sneak through.” he ordered, “ But not so far they take out the Hammerheads too soon and let them hit the torps but not so close they set them off either.”
Looking at his XO, “You better get down to tactical Nana, this is going to get ugly, and it’s best we split up.” Captain Král commanded
Exchanging salutes, Ricci simply replied “Aye Sir.” and started for the hatch. Just before stepping through, she turned and said, “Good Luck, Sir.
“What’s the status of the Commodore’s squad?” Captain Král asked
One of his communication techs spoke up, “ They need 10 more minutes”
“Let me know the minute they are clear.” Captain Král ordered
Captain Král turned to comms tech and ordered, “Intraship comms if you please ensign”
“Aye sir” the tech replied before turning to his console and speaking into the mic,” Now hear this, Now hear this. Message from the Captain.”
“ Well folks, this isn’t the fight I wanted but this is the fight we got” Captain Král started
“ I’m sure you’ve heard scuttlebutt about the situation but here it is. We are facing a superior force numbering 49 ships. And we need to give the Commodore’s squadron time to go to FTL and get the hell out of here.” he paused before continuing, “ The plan is to mix it up with the enemy at close range. They aren’t in battle formation yet so we can hurt them.”
“Good luck and let’s make them regret fucking with the Roanoke.”
The sounds of cheers came back over the speakers.
“Helm, are we clear of the station shielding?” the Captain asked
At the affirmative given by the helmsmen, he just nodded
Touching a button on his console, he asked, “Are you in place XO?”
“Aye Sir.” the Lt. Commander replied
“ As soon as we land, be ready to open up with the dual and quad mounts.” He ordered
The XO replied with an affirmative.
“Helm, at my command, jump between 25-50 km to the starboard of the fleet.”
“As soon as we land, hard to port and get us in the middle of them. Be ready for rapid maneuvers, maybe we can throw off their laser battery tracking systems. Might let us survive a little longer” Captain Král ordered. “Aye Sir” the helmsman replied
Taking a quick look around to make sure his crew was ready, he turned back to wait for the signal the jump drive was ready.
At the signal, he ordered “Jump”
He felt the ship lurch forward and shudder. It took less than 5 seconds to jump from the station to within the targeted range, but it felt like forever.
And then they were less than 5 km from an enemy battleship.
“Oh shit!” exclaimed the helmsman and steered to avoid it. Captain Král hid a moment of panic with a joke, “ Someone make note that the jump drive targeting system needs work.”
His joke brought a chuckle from his crew and got them back to focus on the taste.
Stabbing a button on his console, he ordered “XO, fire secondary batteries,”
There was nothing to see or hear from the massive volleys of the secondary batteries coming to life. But he knew the gun crews were already raining devastation on enemy warships. “Helm, Hard to Port!” he ordered, not tearing his view away from the main viewscreen.
Captain Král looked at his console at the images sent to the bridge from the various gun cameras.
He could see the flashes of light from projectiles hitting their shields. He watched as other high-velocity projectiles punched through their hulls. He could just make out the impact of the explosive-tipped slugs fired by the autocannons.
Captain Král turned back to the main viewscreen. “Hard to starboard!”
“Head for that big son of a bitch!” he ordered
The Naalx were slow to respond but they began to return fire with some trying to gain some distance to clear the line of fire of other ships. The helmsman’s evasive maneuvers were also giving the enemy’s gunners fits from repeated misses.
But the damage sensors on the armor told of an increasing number of hits as the Naalx began to respond in an organized manner. The resistance coating reduced the damage from the Naalx laser batteries but didn’t completely nullify it. “Helm, get me a clear shot at the command ship.” the Captain ordered
A bright flash to starboard marked the death of an enemy cruiser. Status reports listed 2 sub-capitals holed and venting atmosphere. Dead or damaged, they were out of the fight.
One capital ship was dead in space with another missing its bow.
5 down too damn many to go The captain muttered
He watched and waited, ignoring damage alarms and the occasional shudder as shots began to get through the armor and explosively decompress a compartment when they penetrated the hull.
He finally saw what he wanted, an unobstructed line of fire to the command ship.
His finger smashed down on the console button. “ XO, Launch Torpedoes. Take the gloves off the main batteries. Drop the hammer!”
He watched the glitter of the particle beams as they bridged the gap between the Roanoke and the Naalx ship. In a moment, he caught sight of the torpedoes' thrusters as they left the tubes and picked up momentum. Holes and brief explosions marked the impact of his weapons. But the sheer volume of Naalxian fire was beginning to take its toll. The armor was failing or had failed in over a dozen spots. 3 autocannon and 1 railgun mount were out of commission.
2 minutes after they launched the torpedoes, the sight of more than 100 Hammerhead missiles was marked by the flare of their drives. Another volley of Hammerheads was launched the moment new missiles were lifted into the racks.
Captain Král called down to tactical, “XO, hold off on another volley for hammerheads.”
Checking his console, “Launch Shrikes at targets of opportunity with no shields, rear tubes target enemy capital ships and hope those torpedoes get through.” he ordered.
Multiple small explosions let him know the point defense systems were taking on the Hammerheads. And a moment later, a pair of massive explosions told him the nuclear-tipped torpedoes had hit their target.
“Captain, The Commodore’s squadron has escaped.” one of his techs announced.
“Thank you,” he answered
“Distance to command ship?” he asked
“ 250 km Sir” was the reply
“Helm, continue advancing on the command ship and pass her on our port side. We’ll give her a broadside and go to FTL after we clear.”
A tech from the damage control position spoke up, “Captain! FTL is down and jump drive is destroyed”
“Ahh hell’ cried the Captain.
“Damage report!” he ordered
“ Ventral turret destroyed, railgun mounts 2 and 5 destroyed, mount 9 damaged but functional. Autocannon mounts 11,13, 23 and 25 destroyed. Hammerhead launchers 3 and 8 destroyed.” The tech checked the screen before continuing, “ Explosive decompressions on decks 3 and 5. Explosive decompression in Med Bay. Ablative armor badly damaged and penetrated in around 20 spots. Engine #3 is down. Power unstable in many areas of the ship”
“FTL down, engineering needs an hour to fix. The jump drive is destroyed. Long-range comms are down” The tech finished.
“Casualty reports!” Captain Král ordered
A different tech replied, “249 dead, roughly 800 wounded with 327 too injured to fight.”
“Thank you.” he returned. Doing the math in his head he had just over 1300 combat effective and 482 of those were his Marines, the other 18 were left behind.
After thinking a moment, “Helm, same course as before but since we can’t go to FTL, circle to the aft of the command ship and lessen the incoming fire for the moment”
Looking over to the comms tech, “ Get me the chief engineer on the horn.”
Tapping the switch on the console, he called down to tactical. “ XO, I’m taking us around to the aft of the command ship and play peek-a-boo.”
“We’ll pass on her port side and I want a broadside from all batteries that can hit it and launch half the Shrikes we have left at it.”
“After we get to their rear, target enemy aft batteries, I want them all hunks of twisted metal.” Captain Král ordered
“Aye Sir.” Lt. Commander Ricci replied. “Ammo count update Sir.”
“Go ahead,” he replied
“Only the two forward tubes are loaded, aft tubes empty, railgun and autocannon are down to 30%. Dorsal turret is at 10% but they are working on transferring surviving ammo from the Ventral turret.
We can launch 4 more full racks of Shrikes and 5+ Hammerheads.” She finished
“Understood. Thank you” Captain Král replied
“Captain, Chief Engineer on the line” a tech relayed
“Route it to my console,” he ordered
“ I need you to place charges on the computer core, all the experimental equipment, engines, and fire suppression control. If we go down, I don’t want them getting a damn thing but blood and pain.”
“Aye Sir.” The Chief replied.

Captain Král turned back to watch as the Roanoke passed the command ship to port. He watched as massive explosions rippled across the enemy flank and dorsal surface. They were too close for the point defense to pick off the majority of the Shrikes.
As the Roanoke got behind and slightly below the enemy command ship, she slowed and allowed her surviving batteries to silence the command ship's aft batteries.
Captain Král called down to tactical, “XO, fire half our remaining hammerheads into her engines.”
“Affirmative,” replied the XO
Captain Král watched as the hammerheads impacted the command ship’s engines and saw the thrust nozzles dim as the engines went offline. The enemy batteries stopped firing and she began to drift.
“Helm, get us 500 km from the command ship and line up to fire our last 2 avalanche torpedoes.” Captain Král ordered
“Aye Sir, 500km bow towards the enemy” the helmsman repeated
The Captain called down to tactical ” Nana, We’re positioning the ship to line up the front tubes and we’re going to kill that bastard. Stay on the line and fire on my order.”
“Aye Sir, we’re ready.” The XO answered
“Helm?” Captain Král asked
“ 3 seconds Captain.” the helmsman replied
Captain Král watched and as soon as he got the angle he wanted, “Fire Torpedoes!” he commanded
The whole bridge crew watched and waited for the impact. Both torpedoes struck amidships and tore massive holes in the hull. As they watched, lines of explosions traveled across the hull and began to rip the ship in half. The bridge crew let out a yell and the rest of the ship after the Captain had the information broadcast over the intercom.

“ Helm, get us the hell out of here. Maybe we can outrun the bigger ships and buy time to fix the FTL.” Captain Král ordered
But before the helmsman could act, there was a massive jolt.
“What the hell?” he yelled
A tech answered, “ We were rammed by a Naalx cruiser and several smaller ships are closing in.“
But instead of ramming the Roanoke, they launched breeching pods.
His finger stabbed down to open the intercom. “ All hands, Prepare to Repel Boarders! Security teams, tactical will relay their access position. “ He ordered
He pulled out his sidearm and checked that it was ready. Several other techs did the same, while his security detachment moved to defensive positions to watch the hatch.
“Target those pods!” Captain Král ordered but he didn’t need to say it, his gunnery crews were on it. Here and there a brief flash of light marked the destruction of a pod.

“XO, fire all remaining missiles. Pick your targets,” he commanded “All batteries, open fire.”
He left the tac net open to track the status of the enemy boarding parties.
He listened to the cacophony of noises coming over the tac net.
“Security team alpha to section 7, level 3. Bravo team section 2 level 1, Charlie team section 12, level 5” Lt. Commander Ricci ordered.
“There’s too many, fall back to position 2…” an unidentified voice ordered
Another voice firmly stated, “Hold your ground, nothing gets past us.”
“Theta team down, a handful of Naalx heading for engineering!” a panicked voice exclaimed
And dozens of others just like it, always with the sound of combat in the background.
“Captain, more breaching pods en route!” a tech exclaimed
“Get me the Chief Engineer!” the Captain ordered
At the Chief Engineer’s response, he ordered “Detonate all sabotage charges except the main computer. Set that one on a manual trigger at my console with a 20-minute timer as a backup. And then set the reactors to overload, we’re not going to hold the ship much longer. And set a charge to breach the hull and decompress Engineering as soon as you are clear”
“Affirmative, Captain. She was a good ship” the Chief replied
Turning to his bridge crew, “Give the order to abandon ship. Have all the pods head for the station.”
The Captain called tactical, “Lt. Commander Ricci, all hands abandon ship. Get as many of them home as you can.”
“ I understand, Sir.” She answered, “I’ll see you at the station.” she said hopefully
“I'm afraid not, Nana. I’m the Captain and I’m going down with my ship.” he stated, “And someone needs to make sure they can’t shut down the overload.”
“Transfer all fire controls to my station and get the hell out of here.”
“Aye Sir, It’s been an honor” the XO replied
“The honor is all mine. You are going to make an excellent Captain. Goodbye my friend” Captain Král finished.
His bridge crew tried to convince him to go with them but he declined and ordered security to get them into the escape pods.
Then he sat and watched as his consoles began reporting each pod as it launched. He also kept an eye on his sensors and concentrated fire on any Naalx ship that was moving to intercept the pods. They knew better than to fire on them but nothing said they couldn’t capture them.
He also prepared a probe with all the ship logs and combat data and fired it toward human-held territory. It would run silently until it exited the system and then begin broadcasting a coded signal for pickup.
He was dismayed at how few pods had left the ship and regretted so many young lives had been cut short.
As he saw the last pod clear the battlefield, he sat back for a moment and then triggered the charge on the main computer.
A hard pounding came from the other side of the hatchway. But there wasn’t enough power to open it. He guessed the pinging on the door was them firing their lasers and trying to blast it open.
He wondered if it would work but a huge rumble, a bright flash, interrupted, and the long career of Captain Král was finally over.
News of the Roanoke’s final battle flashed across news channels on hundreds of worlds. Her courageous and foolhardy charge at a superior force. The damage she did to the Naalx fleet before her destruction. How, of the 1859 members of the crew that went into the battle, only 108 survived.
The videos taken from both sides during the battle played over and over again.
How the Naalx picked up all the escape pods and released them on the station immediately.
And even recovered the bodies of any human they found while gathering their dead.
Naalx losses were the command ship, 2 capital ships, 9 sub-capitals destroyed, and a dozen other vessels damaged in one form or another. Naalx casualties were over 50,000 dead
Only the Naalx’s immense respect for courage, audacity, and bravery in the face of danger kept the skirmish from blowing up into a war.
The Naalx rendered full military honors as they turned the Human dead over to Lt. Commander Ricci.
The Captain Král, A Grenville-class cruiser, was launched 2 years later. Captain Nana Ricci in command.
Authors note- I hope you enjoyed this story. It's based on a historical event. Which according to an idiot on youtube is plagiarism.
If you feel like leaving a tip https://ko-fi.com/tomcarey

Hey everyone just wanted to get on here and tell everyone; DO NOT USE THE GAME OPTIMIZER, OR NORTON AT ALL. I recently built my pc a few weeks ago , 4070 super , 13700kf, 32 gb ram, and a etc, for a while I was using a Tv as a monitor and for the life of me i was getting the absolute WORST keyboard input lag and tearing. Games like Fortnite, Starfield, Valorant, even singleplayer like RE 2. I’m thinking it’s because of how my tv isn’t really meant for this type of stuff. So I upgrade my monitor. Dell G2742D, 144 hz. STILL TERRIBLE KEYBOARD INPUT LAG. i’m running on ultra 1440p settings so i drop to high…med…low! Maybe my hardware is just sht? Or wifi… SO I BOUGHT FIBER WIFI. STILL HAVE SHTTY INPUT LAG. For like threee weeks i was upset I had to use a ps5 controller to play video games on my pc.(For some reason the controller wasn’t affected by it or mouse) I researched everywhere for answers. Even thought about changing my keyboard too. Out of nowhere I get a notification from Norton and open it up. I notice “Game Optimizer” is on. I just had the gut feeling that was the root of my problems. Lo and behold; It was the damn game optimizer. Now i’m getting the FPS , Smooth high quality gameplay i paid for. F*ck you Norton.
TLDR: If you’re experiencing bad keyboard input lag and are a pc noob like me, uninstall Norton and Mcafee. Absolute dog sh*t Services that will slow your gameplay. Just use windows defender

Sometime around 2010-2015, there was a children's show on YouTube, it was British and there was only two characters. One lady (British lady with brown hair and bangs, she wore purple, if I recall correctly) and one man (British man with dreadlocks), they each took turns exploring places and jobs using a machine who chose for them what they were to do that day and it dressed them for the occasions. In one episode I can remember, the man was chosen by the machine and he was meant to travel back in time to ancient Egypt. During the episode, he helped find Cleopatra's(played by the same lady described earlier) cat, who got lost, he visited the marketplace, and he saw how the pyramids were built. The theme song was like, them singing about what they want to be today, I want to be a fireman, I want to be a doctor, etc. The entire show is cartoon except for the two main characters who were played by people. That's all I can remember, would anyone be a dear and tell me what this show is called? 😔

I have a Christensen AR chambered in 6.8spc, not sure what happened to my gun (my brother used it for a bit but said he has no idea what happened 😅) but the bolt catch is broken and two of the pins that hold the trigger in have come out. As I did not need the pins at the moment I removed them from a separate 5.56 rifle to use in the 6.8. However the pins in question slip all the way through the receiver and do not hold in place. The Christenson trigger is made by trigger tech. I emailed christenson and they have not responded. If I order new ones how do I know if they will fit and where can I get them? Additionally, if I order a new bolt catch are those specific too?

After about 60 hours, I have finally put the XIII Trilogy to rest with Lightning Returns. I went into this game with only vague high school memories of a bad story, a boring world, and a mediocre combat system, so my expectations were low. But damn, was I entirely wrong. Let’s get into it!
The Story
The Good: I really enjoyed the main narrative here, Lightning’s journey to save her sister and, begrudgingly, as many people as she can slowly turning into a journey to save her own soul is great, and I felt it satisfyingly wrapped up the overarching narrative of the trilogy. I also enjoyed how the side quests expanded on the concepts and themes of the plot and helped undermine some of the facts stated at the start (like Lightning not being able to save the dead or only humans having souls).
The Neutral: I wish that the ending had been a bit more explicit in the fates of the party, because it was dissatisfying not knowing if Serah and Snow ended up together finally and if everyone stayed in touch. I also think the scenes before the final dungeon could have been fleshed out more, especially when Noel returns.
The Bad: they gave Noel Brynhildr and let him take Sazh’s place in the finale. I was very satisfied with Sazh’s story in the main game, but damn was he done dirty in the end. He should have been there while Noel searched for Serah’s soul. The dialogue writing was also quite messy, lots of repetition and “reveals” of things we’d already known for ages.
The Characters
The Good: I loved all of the original main party members in this game. Seeing them all reduced to their absolute worst, desperately needing someone to come and snap them out, was awesome, and I loved seeing them all come to their senses. I also really liked the role Lumina played, intentionally antagonizing each main character after Lightning beats some sense into them to light a fire in them and make them, in a way, save their own souls.
The Neutral: While it was awesome to have Fang as a party member, I wish she’d stayed with you even after the main quest, and that Noel, Snow, and Sazh had been party members after their quest lines as well.
The Bad: there’s not much else beyond Sazh’s sidelining in the finale.
The Music
The Good: the new compositions are generally very good, with the area and most of the battle themes in particular standing out.
The Neutral: I wish they’d used less music from previous entries, it made the soundtrack as a whole feel less fresh as I played through it.
The Bad: there are a few battle themes that are quite repetitive and mediocre, and the game runs into a common open world issue where there’s not enough variety, internal or external, to area themes to sustain large amount of playtime in a given area. Loading screens also cut off the soundtrack, even in continuous zones like the Ultimate Lair, which really ruins the vibe.
The World
The Good: exploring Luxerion, Yusnaan, and the Wildlands was a lot of fun, lots of books and crannies to find treasures and NPCs with quests or interesting dialogue. Having Odin/Angel in the Wildlands helped that zone feel more manageable as well.
The Neutral: The Dead Dunes were a bit too big to not have any real alternate mode of transport. The teleportation statues are a nice feature, but we definitely could have used something like Odin here. I also found Yusnaan confusing to navigate at times, though it got better as I went on.
The Bad: The Ultimate Lair and final dungeon were a bit of a letdown, very simple in their design and mostly just enemy gauntlets. I also found the Temple Ruins in the Dead Dunes tedious to navigate.
The Combat
The Good: Combat in this game feels amazing. Switching schema is a ton of fun and very fluid, and figuring out the optimal ways to stagger enemies is great. I like that the game encourages unique and personalized builds to tackle most challenges as well, and the multitude of healing options at your disposal keep things from feeling too bleak. I also like that you can permanently eliminate monster species with enough effort, it really makes the combat feel meaningful.
The Neutral: enemy variety could definitely have been better, even just having multiple enemies in a “family” like the Vali/Hanuman line. It certainly would have been less repetitive than skewering a Gremlin over and over. I also wish movement outside of attacking was faster.
The Bad: some encounters are incredibly annoying, especially large monsters before the last few days and Archangeli, which just suck to fight. I also strongly dislike the Stagger indicator, which doesn’t tell you anything and would have been better served being the gauge from XIII/XIII-2.
The Character Progression
The Good: having so many ways to customize Lightning is really cool. Between earning your stats from the different quest types, to choosing between specializing or generalizing your abilities, to the various ways garbs, accessories, weapons, and shields interact, to the upgrade systems for abilities and gear, it really feels like you can tailor Lightning to your playstyle. It’s cool that NG+ can be used to continue pushing your stats up to and even beyond their limits. I also loved the dress up aspect for the most part.
The Neutral: it’s unfortunate that equipment upgrading is NG+ only. It’s a system that would have been nice to have access to earlier, at least so you could start gathering the material. Upgrading abilities also takes a fair amount of resources to do, and the lack of input on auto-abilities for them is a bummer.
The Bad: the interface for ability upgrading is just bad, and makes an already tedious process even more so. There’s also a pretty large disparity in the usefulness of some garbs, and I have to say it: while the changes to appearance are cool, some of these costumes are ridiculous and wildly out of character for Lightning to even consider wearing.
The Content
The Good: I like that there are categories of quests. Some of them are passively ready to be completed as you kill enemies, some require much more interaction and may reveal some cool lore, and of course the main quests that can be picked up and dropped at any time are a solid feature for a game like this. I also like that some side quests are integrated into the story, not always necessarily needed to complete the game but certainly helpful. There’s also no minigames or puzzles, which is a huge win after XIII-2.
The Neutral: the quest board rewards feel a bit underwhelming, especially for the ones that functionally require the extinction of a species, and the stat drops in NG+ are a bit drastic.
The Bad: turning in quests at the board is a slog, another victim of the poor menuing in this game. Some quests feel half-baked, and cool concepts brought up (like robots having souls) aren’t elaborated on.
Conclusion
Overall, I absolutely adored this game. It’s got a lot of rough patches, but the good parts more than make up for them. This has rapidly become one of my favorite games in the series and one of my favorites overall. I give it a 9.5/10, second only to the original XIII in this review series.
Thanks for reading if you got through all that. There was a lot to talk about this time. I’m planning to wrap up some NG+ runs and then dive into Type-0 for the first time, though I may detour and try to finish Tactics A2 again. We’ll see, I suppose. Until next time!

After about 60 hours, I have finally put the XIII Trilogy to rest with Lightning Returns. I went into this game with only vague high school memories of a bad story, a boring world, and a mediocre combat system, so my expectations were low. But damn, was I entirely wrong. Let’s get into it!
The Story
The Good: I really enjoyed the main narrative here, Lightning’s journey to save her sister and, begrudgingly, as many people as she can slowly turning into a journey to save her own soul is great, and I felt it satisfyingly wrapped up the overarching narrative of the trilogy. I also enjoyed how the side quests expanded on the concepts and themes of the plot and helped undermine some of the facts stated at the start (like Lightning not being able to save the dead or only humans having souls).
The Neutral: I wish that the ending had been a bit more explicit in the fates of the party, because it was dissatisfying not knowing if Serah and Snow ended up together finally and if everyone stayed in touch. I also think the scenes before the final dungeon could have been fleshed out more, especially when Noel returns.
The Bad: they gave Noel Brynhildr and let him take Sazh’s place in the finale. I was very satisfied with Sazh’s story in the main game, but damn was he done dirty in the end. He should have been there while Noel searched for Serah’s soul. The dialogue writing was also quite messy, lots of repetition and “reveals” of things we’d already known for ages.
The Characters
The Good: I loved all of the original main party members in this game. Seeing them all reduced to their absolute worst, desperately needing someone to come and snap them out, was awesome, and I loved seeing them all come to their senses. I also really liked the role Lumina played, intentionally antagonizing each main character after Lightning beats some sense into them to light a fire in them and make them, in a way, save their own souls.
The Neutral: While it was awesome to have Fang as a party member, I wish she’d stayed with you even after the main quest, and that Noel, Snow, and Sazh had been party members after their quest lines as well.
The Bad: there’s not much else beyond Sazh’s sidelining in the finale.
The Music
The Good: the new compositions are generally very good, with the area and most of the battle themes in particular standing out.
The Neutral: I wish they’d used less music from previous entries, it made the soundtrack as a whole feel less fresh as I played through it.
The Bad: there are a few battle themes that are quite repetitive and mediocre, and the game runs into a common open world issue where there’s not enough variety, internal or external, to area themes to sustain large amount of playtime in a given area. Loading screens also cut off the soundtrack, even in continuous zones like the Ultimate Lair, which really ruins the vibe.
The World
The Good: exploring Luxerion, Yusnaan, and the Wildlands was a lot of fun, lots of books and crannies to find treasures and NPCs with quests or interesting dialogue. Having Odin/Angel in the Wildlands helped that zone feel more manageable as well.
The Neutral: The Dead Dunes were a bit too big to not have any real alternate mode of transport. The teleportation statues are a nice feature, but we definitely could have used something like Odin here. I also found Yusnaan confusing to navigate at times, though it got better as I went on.
The Bad: The Ultimate Lair and final dungeon were a bit of a letdown, very simple in their design and mostly just enemy gauntlets. I also found the Temple Ruins in the Dead Dunes tedious to navigate.
The Combat
The Good: Combat in this game feels amazing. Switching schema is a ton of fun and very fluid, and figuring out the optimal ways to stagger enemies is great. I like that the game encourages unique and personalized builds to tackle most challenges as well, and the multitude of healing options at your disposal keep things from feeling too bleak. I also like that you can permanently eliminate monster species with enough effort, it really makes the combat feel meaningful.
The Neutral: enemy variety could definitely have been better, even just having multiple enemies in a “family” like the Vali/Hanuman line. It certainly would have been less repetitive than skewering a Gremlin over and over. I also wish movement outside of attacking was faster.
The Bad: some encounters are incredibly annoying, especially large monsters before the last few days and Archangeli, which just suck to fight. I also strongly dislike the Stagger indicator, which doesn’t tell you anything and would have been better served being the gauge from XIII/XIII-2.
The Character Progression
The Good: having so many ways to customize Lightning is really cool. Between earning your stats from the different quest types, to choosing between specializing or generalizing your abilities, to the various ways garbs, accessories, weapons, and shields interact, to the upgrade systems for abilities and gear, it really feels like you can tailor Lightning to your playstyle. It’s cool that NG+ can be used to continue pushing your stats up to and even beyond their limits. I also loved the dress up aspect for the most part.
The Neutral: it’s unfortunate that equipment upgrading is NG+ only. It’s a system that would have been nice to have access to earlier, at least so you could start gathering the material. Upgrading abilities also takes a fair amount of resources to do, and the lack of input on auto-abilities for them is a bummer.
The Bad: the interface for ability upgrading is just bad, and makes an already tedious process even more so. There’s also a pretty large disparity in the usefulness of some garbs, and I have to say it: while the changes to appearance are cool, some of these costumes are ridiculous and wildly out of character for Lightning to even consider wearing.
The Content
The Good: I like that there are categories of quests. Some of them are passively ready to be completed as you kill enemies, some require much more interaction and may reveal some cool lore, and of course the main quests that can be picked up and dropped at any time are a solid feature for a game like this. I also like that some side quests are integrated into the story, not always necessarily needed to complete the game but certainly helpful. There’s also no minigames or puzzles, which is a huge win after XIII-2.
The Neutral: the quest board rewards feel a bit underwhelming, especially for the ones that functionally require the extinction of a species, and the stat drops in NG+ are a bit drastic.
The Bad: turning in quests at the board is a slog, another victim of the poor menuing in this game. Some quests feel half-baked, and cool concepts brought up (like robots having souls) aren’t elaborated on.
Conclusion
Overall, I absolutely adored this game. It’s got a lot of rough patches, but the good parts more than make up for them. This has rapidly become one of my favorite games in the series and one of my favorites overall. I give it a 9.5/10, second only to the original XIII in this review series.
Thanks for reading if you got through all that. There was a lot to talk about this time. I’m planning to wrap up some NG+ runs and then dive into Type-0 for the first time, though I may detour and try to finish Tactics A2 again. We’ll see, I suppose. Until next time!

Have been using Runalyze since the start of the year and it's really made a huge difference to how I train, it's become pretty much invaluable to my running progression. I feel like generally I've gotten a decent handle on the various outputs, but one in particular has been driving me crazy as I just can't figure it out, the 'diff' function when viewing laps. I'm sure there's a very rudimentary and simple explanation for this that I'm just completely blanking on, but I'm giving in and asking you kind folks for the answer rather than racking my brains for any longer. Cheers!

Have been using Runalyze since the start of the year and it's really made a huge difference to how I train, it's become pretty much invaluable to my running progression. I feel like generally I've gotten a decent handle on the various outputs, but one in particular has been driving me crazy as I just can't figure it out, the 'diff' function when viewing laps. I'm sure there's a very rudimentary and simple explanation for this that I'm just completely blanking on, but I'm giving in and asking you kind folks for the answer rather than racking my brains for any longer. Cheers!

After about 60 hours, I have finally put the XIII Trilogy to rest with Lightning Returns. I went into this game with only vague high school memories of a bad story, a boring world, and a mediocre combat system, so my expectations were low. But damn, was I entirely wrong. Let’s get into it!
The Story
The Good: I really enjoyed the main narrative here, Lightning’s journey to save her sister and, begrudgingly, as many people as she can slowly turning into a journey to save her own soul is great, and I felt it satisfyingly wrapped up the overarching narrative of the trilogy. I also enjoyed how the side quests expanded on the concepts and themes of the plot and helped undermine some of the facts stated at the start (like Lightning not being able to save the dead or only humans having souls).
The Neutral: I wish that the ending had been a bit more explicit in the fates of the party, because it was dissatisfying not knowing if Serah and Snow ended up together finally and if everyone stayed in touch. I also think the scenes before the final dungeon could have been fleshed out more, especially when Noel returns.
The Bad: they gave Noel Brynhildr and let him take Sazh’s place in the finale. I was very satisfied with Sazh’s story in the main game, but damn was he done dirty in the end. He should have been there while Noel searched for Serah’s soul. The dialogue writing was also quite messy, lots of repetition and “reveals” of things we’d already known for ages.
The Characters
The Good: I loved all of the original main party members in this game. Seeing them all reduced to their absolute worst, desperately needing someone to come and snap them out, was awesome, and I loved seeing them all come to their senses. I also really liked the role Lumina played, intentionally antagonizing each main character after Lightning beats some sense into them to light a fire in them and make them, in a way, save their own souls.
The Neutral: While it was awesome to have Fang as a party member, I wish she’d stayed with you even after the main quest, and that Noel, Snow, and Sazh had been party members after their quest lines as well.
The Bad: there’s not much else beyond Sazh’s sidelining in the finale.
The Music
The Good: the new compositions are generally very good, with the area and most of the battle themes in particular standing out.
The Neutral: I wish they’d used less music from previous entries, it made the soundtrack as a whole feel less fresh as I played through it.
The Bad: there are a few battle themes that are quite repetitive and mediocre, and the game runs into a common open world issue where there’s not enough variety, internal or external, to area themes to sustain large amount of playtime in a given area. Loading screens also cut off the soundtrack, even in continuous zones like the Ultimate Lair, which really ruins the vibe.
The World
The Good: exploring Luxerion, Yusnaan, and the Wildlands was a lot of fun, lots of books and crannies to find treasures and NPCs with quests or interesting dialogue. Having Odin/Angel in the Wildlands helped that zone feel more manageable as well.
The Neutral: The Dead Dunes were a bit too big to not have any real alternate mode of transport. The teleportation statues are a nice feature, but we definitely could have used something like Odin here. I also found Yusnaan confusing to navigate at times, though it got better as I went on.
The Bad: The Ultimate Lair and final dungeon were a bit of a letdown, very simple in their design and mostly just enemy gauntlets. I also found the Temple Ruins in the Dead Dunes tedious to navigate.
The Combat
The Good: Combat in this game feels amazing. Switching schema is a ton of fun and very fluid, and figuring out the optimal ways to stagger enemies is great. I like that the game encourages unique and personalized builds to tackle most challenges as well, and the multitude of healing options at your disposal keep things from feeling too bleak. I also like that you can permanently eliminate monster species with enough effort, it really makes the combat feel meaningful.
The Neutral: enemy variety could definitely have been better, even just having multiple enemies in a “family” like the Vali/Hanuman line. It certainly would have been less repetitive than skewering a Gremlin over and over. I also wish movement outside of attacking was faster.
The Bad: some encounters are incredibly annoying, especially large monsters before the last few days and Archangeli, which just suck to fight. I also strongly dislike the Stagger indicator, which doesn’t tell you anything and would have been better served being the gauge from XIII/XIII-2.
The Character Progression
The Good: having so many ways to customize Lightning is really cool. Between earning your stats from the different quest types, to choosing between specializing or generalizing your abilities, to the various ways garbs, accessories, weapons, and shields interact, to the upgrade systems for abilities and gear, it really feels like you can tailor Lightning to your playstyle. It’s cool that NG+ can be used to continue pushing your stats up to and even beyond their limits. I also loved the dress up aspect for the most part.
The Neutral: it’s unfortunate that equipment upgrading is NG+ only. It’s a system that would have been nice to have access to earlier, at least so you could start gathering the material. Upgrading abilities also takes a fair amount of resources to do, and the lack of input on auto-abilities for them is a bummer.
The Bad: the interface for ability upgrading is just bad, and makes an already tedious process even more so. There’s also a pretty large disparity in the usefulness of some garbs, and I have to say it: while the changes to appearance are cool, some of these costumes are ridiculous and wildly out of character for Lightning to even consider wearing.
The Content
The Good: I like that there are categories of quests. Some of them are passively ready to be completed as you kill enemies, some require much more interaction and may reveal some cool lore, and of course the main quests that can be picked up and dropped at any time are a solid feature for a game like this. I also like that some side quests are integrated into the story, not always necessarily needed to complete the game but certainly helpful. There’s also no minigames or puzzles, which is a huge win after XIII-2.
The Neutral: the quest board rewards feel a bit underwhelming, especially for the ones that functionally require the extinction of a species, and the stat drops in NG+ are a bit drastic.
The Bad: turning in quests at the board is a slog, another victim of the poor menuing in this game. Some quests feel half-baked, and cool concepts brought up (like robots having souls) aren’t elaborated on.
Conclusion
Overall, I absolutely adored this game. It’s got a lot of rough patches, but the good parts more than make up for them. This has rapidly become one of my favorite games in the series and one of my favorites overall. I give it a 9.5/10, second only to the original XIII in this review series.
Thanks for reading if you got through all that. There was a lot to talk about this time. I’m planning to wrap up some NG+ runs and then dive into Type-0 for the first time, though I may detour and try to finish Tactics A2 again. We’ll see, I suppose. Until next time!

Crafted by combining 4 leads with 4 arrows for 8 "Tether Arrows", this allows a player to shoot an arrow from a bow or crossbow, and for the arrow to have a Lead Entity trailing behind it. When the arrow sticks in a block or entity, the Lead Entity stiffens, and remains completely straight from the player.
i.e. if the player shoots an arrow into the ceiling, they can swing from it like Indiana Jones' whip or Spider-Man's webs.
These arrows can be launched from a bow or crossbow, or can be thrown without a bow, albeit with 40% the range. This incentivizes players to use a bow or crossbow, but doesn't punish players who don't have one.\
It's a fairly simple concept, and I am not quite sure how I could expand it;
Steve shoots arrow into ceiling or wall, and can then swing from it like Spider-Man, Tarzan, Indiana Jones, or Luke Skywalker (Think Death Star, rescuing Princess Leia)
I cannot think of a single person that does not want this or would be opposed to this feature.
A secondary feature, while we're at it, by using a Tether Arrow, you can create a lead between two fence posts.
If a Tether Arrow strikes an entity, instead of disappearing, it latches on to the entity like a lead. Then, when the player left-clicks, it yanks the entity toward the player.
This also includes players. Sort of like Mortal Kombat's Scorpion's chain. "GET OVER HERE"

Ahhh I can’t believe the policy for refund is if you used their “benefits” at all they won’t refund anything.
Even though we’ve been loyal customers since 2019!! We just let too many credits pile up last few months. Redeemed one two days ago to start catching up which is when we noticed how many we had. Didn’t think anything of redeeming. But nope since we redeemed a credit now they won’t do anything for us.

hey
so I'm not a techy computer person at all but I do play videogames! I was gifted a new computer and I've had it for 6 months now, it worked great the first 3 months, but now it is not great!
I will turn my computer on, log in, and within 5 minutes my computer will freeze, the monitor is completely frozen, the tower is still using the led lights, if I have music playing there's a buzzing in the headset, I can't move my mouse or use my keyboard. it basically renders my computer useless, how am I to use it for school/games/work if it doesn't even function, right?
now I am not confident but I'm pretty sure it's a hardware or hard drive issue? something physical because I have reset my windows twice (the one I did today, as soon as it finished and I got my computer set up, it froze within minutes), I've used the sfc /scannow and it says I'm good, ive done a bios update (it worked for about a week before my computer started crashing more often than before!), it isn't an overheating issue, i dont think its a cpu or memory thing either.
I really am clueless hence why I am asking for help here. Any ideas? I would love to give you the specs but I can't even access them before my PC freezes :(
I know it's a Nvidia gforce rtx 4060 and that's about it, it's a really really great and nice computer other than it randomly freezing.
please and thank you <3

The whole scene is nothing but characters acting stupid for the sake of plot and nonsensically out of character. The whole problem with the scene stems entirely from 4 points: 1) Adam shouldn't be there. 2) charlie being ill prepared. 3) Sera being stupid. 4) exterminations being a secret.
1) Adam shouldn't be there: Everyone knows Adam is an idiot and a loud mouth, that's his main character traits, so why would Sera, the immortal angel who has been in an important position of power in heaven for millennia, ever think it's a good idea to trust him with anything that requires the most minimal amount of intelligence and subtlety? She shouldn't do that because Sera isn't supposed to be braindead, braindead people don't stay in positions of power for long, if Sera was half as smart as her position requires her to be she wouldn't have put Adam on the trial because he would obviously fuck up, i know he was going to fuck it up, you knew he was going to fuck it up, how did Sera not?
That blunder was so unbelievably stupid i feel it deserves it's own section.
2) "Charlie being ill prepared*: Charlie already begins the trial wrong by bringing in a bunch of definitions, which not only doesn't prove that souls can be redeemed, but is also offensive to the people she is pitching the hotel to because it's a tad belittling. Also not only are those papers with definitions and drawings her opening statement, that's all that she has, which is weird because she was more prepared when she met Adam, in fact she was doing well with Adam, she was explaining what the hotel, what it does, and why they should accept it and even appealing to his clear laziness, the only reason she failed was because Adam doesn't do the exterminations just because they are his job, he does for fun too. If Charlie actually put in the same amout of work and competency she would have brought with her and showed Serpentious to give his own statements about the hotel and his stay there, he made remarkable progress despite being in the hotel for 5 months at best. But instead Charlie is ill prepared and she ends up relying entirely on luck, imagine how much more different the trial would have happened if Angel Dust had been just sleeping, or in the salon cutting his hair, or wanking, or doing literally ANYTHING else.
3) Sera being stupid: Literally every mistake Sera could make, she did.
3.1) she is against the hotel: from the get go Sera is needlessly against the idea of the hotel and sees it as a danger for quite literally no reason, if anything the hotel is a good thing to heaven because the main reason hell is a threat is due to their numbers, the hotel redeeming sinners evens that plain field.
3.2) she interrupts Charlie's opening statement: as i explained before, the definitions were lame and a bad first impression to the council, since Sera doesn't want the hotel she shouldn't have sustained the objection, that would have made her pass for a nice person giving Charlie a fair shot while following the basic principle of "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.".
3.3) "why isn't he here then?": When that question was asked relating to Angel the answer was obvious, in the words of a much more competent character with divine stuff around him "one good action doesn't erase all the bad, and one bad action doesn't erase all the good", i through of this answer as i was watching the scene, how did Sara, the immortal angel who rules a section of heaven didn't?
3.4) "You didn't know": throughout the whole song Sera does literally NOTHING, she just runs like a headless chicken while going "you don't know" a thousand times over, but if she actually had the competency necessary for holding the position she holds she would have put her cock on the table and said "No! We don't know exactly what gets someone into heaven, that's for god/the sector that makes that judgement to know, what we do know is that it's our position to ensure that your people, the murderers and rapists won't come up here to murder and rape. You, Charlie, have shown yourself to be a petuland and emotional child so this trial is over!".
4) Extermination being a secret: Extermination is a very simple thing, in order to ensure that hell can't grow strong enough to invade heaven and rape everything in sight Adam and his gang of goons go there to kill some sinners, it's a secret in two fronts: to sinners it's said that the exterminatons happen due to over population. To heaven it's kept hidden. Both of these are stupid.
4.1) telling hell the exterminatons are due to over population: if you want to ensure hell won't rise up then telling them "look here, bitch, look at how easily i can clip out your strength with a small platoon, try anything and you are ALL dead" would be a good use of fear factor.
4.2) Not telling heaven the exterminatons happen: what do you gain by keeping the exterminaton a secret? Nothing! You just give whoever reveals it first control over the narrative, it's super easy to paint the exterminators as true heroes who every year venture to the land of the depraved to ensure those of good will and morals in heaven stay safe, so why go through all the trouble of keeping it a secret?
Literally every single action taken in this scene is stupidity after stupidity that doesn't makes sense for the characters, Adam and Lute are cocky dumbasses, it makes sense for them to make the mistakes they did, the mistakes from Charlie and Sera don't make sense.
tl dr: the Trial Scene is a complete failure from a writing stand point, nothing makes sense, characters act stupidly out of character.

Nothing much. Was just wondering how lonely my life is. Umm…it would be so nice to tell someone the most unimportant events in your life right.? You call them and talk about how the weather makes your hair fall worse, or about how your TV remote stopped working, and all the big chunks of joy and pain to each other. It’s just so simple, pure and beautiful. To be seen. To be heard. To know and be known. And what a privilege that is.
There used to be a time when I was afraid that this would never happen to someone like me. But by days bygone the thought of all these things became very distant. I can feel myself wonder how could I even start believing that this would happen to me anytime. It almost seems blasphemous now. As if it’s wrong to even wonder about this. Maybe not wrong- just too far-fetched an idea. Too ambitious. Relatively, So high an expectation that someone who thought that she would get into Columbia easily could never fathom….