Why YSK: Chances are most SaaS platforms you use for business (or personal) are likely using our data to train their AI? And they're not making it easy to opt out
Take Slack, for instance. If you don’t want your data helping to train their AI, you need to email them directly with a specific request. It’s not something you’d stumble upon easily since it’s tucked away in their terms of service. You can't click a button. You literally need to email their customer support team.
This isn’t just a small-time practice; all the big names like Adobe, and Amazon are in on it too, and figuring out how to opt out from their services can be quite the headache.
If you're writing on Substack, you’d need to set up a robots.txt file to keep your data private. And Grammarly is also currently using your data to train their models.
Why does this matter? Well, if your data ends up training AI without your clear consent, you could face privacy breaches, unintended biases in AI decisions, or even intellectual property issues. Plus, once your data is out there, getting control back over how it's used can be really tough. And legally, the waters are only getting murkier as data use regulations continue to evolve. So suggest taking time to check your SaaS agreements and opt out where you can to protect your data and keep a tight grip on its use.

Hi, I thought it would be a good chance to get something off my chest. I am leaving my workplace in a few months and there is a girl I have a crush on.The problem is I keep thinking of this girl and it makes me feel quite uncomfortable because I hardly know her, other than a few casual conversations, I would have in passing but they're quite minor. I would consider making my feelings known but I never get the chance because her team are on the other side of the office and there's no reason for me to make conversation or really go there also I don't know if she even likes me (I'm usually good at reading emotions but just not that 1 😭). Also I'm leaving this workplace and she's leaving around a similar time and going to a different part of the country. On the Myers Briggs test I did about 5-6 years ago when I was less confident and in high school, I was an INFP don't know if it helps but it adds more context to me I guess.
So to sum up how do I stop thinking about this crush and just move on.
Extra info: originally posted on healthy gamer but turns out they have a day for this kind of thing and I figured it is probably better here.

What’s in the closet, Kirsty?
He knew I hid a secret.
I smiled, tried to look confused.
He waited, crossing his arms.
I worried that he'd already seen. He had.
What else could he think about the pile?
His wife’s a cheater. She has another life. Another husband. Children.
He’d never believe the truth: I’m not a cheater; there’s no other life; no other man; I don’t know who the children are who visit me at night.
But I did have a secret. And maybe it’s fair to say another life, even if was smaller and against my will.
I should have destroyed those frames, burned the photos within. Now it looked like I saved them, cherished them. The truth couldn’t be farther. I feared to touch anything to do with… whatever they are…with one exception.
“It started last Halloween,” I said to George, my husband, my real husband.
He stopped packing for a moment, working out the impossibility of this statement. “I’m taking the girls to my parents.” He resumed the tossing of shirts, pants, etc. into our big suitcase.
“It’s true,” I said, but weakly. The children in the picture are at least six and four respectively. They were born six months ago.
“They’re not… my kids,” I said of the boys in the photos. They’re not kids is what I almost said.
George stopped and squeezed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Kirsty,” he said slowly, “there are baby pictures. I saw them.”
“That’s-”
He quickly raised his finger, exasperated, angry, done.
“The first picture is you holding a newborn, and…” He swallowed painfully, his throat gone dry. It always does when he’s upset. “And the father in that picture, with his arm around you, isn’t me.”
When I couldn't deny it, he nodded like he knew all along our marriage would end.
We were happy. We really were. George and I had managed to overcome the typical breakdown that often comes with raising children. Only since last Halloween had distance been made by me.
I should have told him as soon as it started.
“Girls!” he called as I followed him down the stairs to the front hall of our lovely home. We’d scrimped and sacrificed to buy and keep this place, our dream by the lake. He’d been so proud. I couldn’t tell him I wanted to leave the first night sleeping there.
Cara and Ella protested through play, ignoring the adults, continuing to jump on an old box they’d long since flattened. Rays from the western sun placed my daughters into an inspired, hallowed light, and I started to cry. He was going to take my babies away.
George opened the door, intending, I’m sure, to drop the suitcase in the car before returning to physically carry the girls out.
But he hesitated in the doorway.
“George?”
The suitcase fell with a solid thud on the floor. “There’s no way,” he said.
“What?”
“There’s no way,” he said, with emphasis on the last word, “you would have had time for…this…”
Not defining "this" as cheating was progress. “Yes!”
He glared, quieting my desperate enthusiasm. I wasn’t off the hook. “Tell me. The truth.”
“I can’t.”
He reached for the suitcase.
“No, not because I don’t want to,” I protested. “I don’t know what’s happening!” I sat on the carpeted steps and stared through blurred vision at my trembling hands. The shriek I’d filled the house with - “happening!” - had put a halt to the box's obliteration. Cara and Ella hesitated for a few seconds before leaping into action.
Cara, the oldest, six, punched her dad in the buttocks. “You have to be nice!”
Ella, four, sat beside me and patted my trembling hands. “It’s okay, mummy.”
Such lovely daughters. Nothing like the boys in those photos when they were this age.
George grasped Cara's wrists and gently walked her back into the house, using his foot to kick the suitcase from the swing of the front door.
"It's alright, girls," he said with weak resolve. "Go and play."
"No!" Cara shouted. She kicked at her father and he pulled her close into a bearhug. Gradually, the girls calmed and were convinced to return to the box in the front room.
"Kirsty," George said, "you have to tell me." He sat down on the step beside me. "Please." I would do anything to take away the hurt in his eyes. "Please."
"I can't. But… I can write it down. Maybe." I took out my phone. We shared Google Drive. When I made a new document, he reluctantly started his phone. The man was a dream. He watched his screen, and waited patiently for my words to appear.
Without preamble, I returned to the awful moment when it all began: a strange and disturbing dream. Words came like an infection from beneath a torn scab. The wound had been opened. Nothing could stop this now.
Sex with another man has never been a desire of mine. I love George. He loves me.
Plus, the man in my dream was a stranger, and not particularly handsome. He has a plain face set to unwavering boredom and unkempt male pattern baldness. Our dream sex felt obligatory, just something we had to do.
I awoke on the wrong side of midnight. November 1st and I was craving ice cream instead of the girls' gathered candy. The freezer left by the previous homeowners came with unopened ice cream. Freezer burned or not, I wanted some.
After retrieving a spoon from the kitchen, I intended to destroy a brick of neopolitan. He waited in his flannel pajamas, barefoot on the concrete floor. His arms were crossed.
"Cravings?" he said.
I dropped the spoon. It clattered down the basement steps. Before I could run away, he disappeared like someone had erased him from head to foot in one clean sweep.
Had to be a dream. That's what I told myself. The spoon stayed in the basement until daylight. Ghost or nightmare, there was laundry to do the next day.
I crossed the concrete floor fast and only felt safer when I'd closed the door to the more modern laundry room. Never thought builder's grade tiles and track lights would make me feel anything but sad.
His voice caught me sorting.
"Kirsty!"
I dropped the cup of detergent all over the floor.
"Shit."
I came out of the laundry room, figuring George had been looking for me in uncharacteristically rude fashion. He hated speaking between rooms. Shouting throughout the house was highly impolite. It must have been important, I figured.
As soon as I stepped onto the bare concrete, however, deep sadness, the kind that seems to physically leech the strength from your body, dominated the room.
"Hello?" I don't know why I said that. The basement is a low ceilinged rectangle. There are no hiding spots except for the laundry room I'd come from. After a deep breath, I walked briskly to the stairs.
"Any day now," a raspy voice breathed into my ear. I jolted and slipped forward, falling and clipping my chin off a step. It made my teeth click painfully. Nobody there, of course. I ran upstairs and George had gone outside with the girls to play hide and seek.
I wanted to tell him. He looked so happy. It's hard to convey in words the kind of smile he showed me through the window. Imagine contentment mixed with unreserved joy and hope. Yes, it's difficult to picture. So few of us can ever have such a moment. Sort of like finding a natural view completely untouched by humanity. Beyond rare and precious.
I’m rambling now to avoid writing about what followed. The point is I couldn’t tell him. I hoped it’d go away and stop.
But, of course, it didn’t, and things got much worse.
I awoke in a great deal of pain. Having already given birth to children, the feeling was familiar. Despite getting up and gasping, George continued to snore in our bed. He’s a deep sleeper, but a quick and early riser. I’ve never heard him complain about getting out of bed either, especially when there’s an emergency.
I might have woken him up but I was disoriented and confused. Part of me believed I was still pregnant with Ella. It wasn’t until I’d gone all the way to the kitchen to avoid waking up the girls, that my brain caught up: Girls. Plural. Ella was asleep in her bed upstairs.
“Ohhhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiit.” I knew the signs of labour. This couldn’t be happening. “Ohhhhhhhhh.”
I was definitely going to wake everyone up if this continued.
My phone was upstairs by my bedside table. We don’t have a landline. I should have called 911. I should have woken up George.
Instead, I went downstairs where I could vocalize pain without disturbing anyone. Such a pathetically passive response. But that’s how I was raised. Keep it down, don't you frown.
His hands seized mine as soon as I descended the last step. Serious and bald without dignity is how to best describe his physical appearance. Cold and cruel is what he is. The lights turned off and, in the perfect darkness of the basement, he was all that I could see.
He produces a red light from his body somehow but his touch is literally frosty.
"Kristy, it's time," he said. No joy there. Just straight facts. Something was coming. I was going to give birth to it. In the dull red glow of his being, the first boy came.
"His name is Hadad," the man said, placing a large, infant boy with a lot of hair and, I swear, a hint of beard, on the bare concrete. Hadad looked like a three month old they use as newborns on TV. He didn't cry. He hardly seemed to breathe as his dark eyes roamed the darkness. His light resembled the man's, a less intense red.
I felt another contraction, and winced.
"She comes next," the man said.
I felt so weak. "Who are you?" I asked him.
At last, he smiled and I wished he hadn't. It made me feel small, insignificant, and beneath his concern. "You know who I am," he said. "I'm your husband."
Pain wracked my entire body. Something didn't feel right. The birth of Cara and Ella had been without difficulty.
"Push," my "husband" ordered. "She is upset with you, and will kill you if you don't get her out now."
"It has to be a nightmare," I told him. Sweat poured in streams down my face. The unborn "she" in question writhed and damaged my insides. I screamed. I couldn't help it.
"Push!"
I obeyed and the second boy spilled onto the bare concrete, coated in blood and dust.
"It's a boy," I said.
The man looked displeased. "The body is male. She is Hebat. No wonder she is angry." Like the other infant, Hebat appeared aware of her surroundings and had far too much motor control for a newborn. The light pouring from her body was dull silver. Her eye sockets were two pits of concentrated despair. I had to look away.
The babies were pressed into my arms.
The man stretched out beside me. "Open your eyes and smile." I resisted. "Do it. Now." What choice did I have? The flash from his cell blinded me. They were all gone by the time my sight recovered. Only the sweat remained as evidence of the ordeal.
It had to have been a hallucination. Some very bad food poisoning maybe. The source could be as simple as an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. I had been stress eating since we'd moved in. I stood up and took some comfort in a Charles Dickens' reference.
"More of gravy than of grave about you," I said. My words seemed consumed by the dreadful weight of the air. "Whatever you are."
Whatever you are: something bad in any case. At best, I'd hallucinated prolonged and traumatic labour and needed medical attention. Yet, when I limped up the basement stairs, all thoughts of waking George vanished. There on the kitchen island sat a propped frame containing the photograph taken only moments ago.
The man looked happy. Only Hadad appeared in this picture, which meant another one was somewhere. I didn't panic. I worried more about what George would think if he saw the photos. I had to find them all.
Hebat and his father and I were mounted in a dark wood frame by the master bedroom. It'd be the first thing anyone saw if they woke up. I plucked it off the wall and, together with the first photo, tucked it under some blankets in the dresser we'd shoved in the small walk-in closet.
You might not believe this, but I went straight to sleep after. I climbed under the blanket in my sweaty pajamas, shut my eyes, and didn't have enough time to deny what had happened. I was unconscious until morning.
George placed a coffee on my nightstand. That's what I remember. He rubbed my feet while I slowly awoke. The girls were watching TV downstairs, munching on apple slices. There was forty minutes still before we had to seriously consider getting ready to take Cara to school.
George would drop her off on his way to work downtown. He chose his hours and always chose convenience for his wife and kids. Ella and I planned to spend the morning gardening. Then we would nap much of the afternoon away until George and Cara returned. A life so perfect is so very rare.
I didn't want to spoil things with a very convincing nightmare. Besides, I felt fine. Not so good that I wanted to look in the dresser to see if those photos really were there, but not ill. So I remained silent again.
November started fine. Idyllic days and nights filled with laughter and joy and television. Just as I started to believe in the dream we'd made, they came again.
The wail of a child's hunger is a powerful call for a parent. When it's a chorus, even of two, it cannot be ignored. Only I awoke to Hadad and Hebat's cries for their "mother" from the basement.
Half asleep, I drifted into the kitchen and searched for their milk bottles. When no bottles could be found, I remembered they were newborns. Milk swelled in my breasts and made my nipples ache. Just like when Cara or Ella would awaken in the night. It was a relief to feed them.
But what the fuck was I doing?
I was acting like the man in the basement and the devil babies were mine. It'd been less than a week since Halloween and that horrible nightmare illusion. I had already taken on the beleaguered newborn mother role without question.
Their cries intensified and flayed the weak resistance of exhausted reasoning.
Don't wake George. Don't wake my babies, my real babies.
"What took you so long?" the man critized, his voice monotone, the question unrhetorical.
"I… was sleeping. I went to the fridge first." Under his severe gaze, I stopped in the midst of the dark room. Hadad had quieted. Hebat cooed as if laughing at her own joke. I couldn't see them because the lights were off. They liked the dark better. Somehow I knew that about them and him.
"You should sleep down here," he said. "A mother should always be close to her babies."
The statement was nonsense but not altogether wrong. I wanted to be close to my babies, the daughters sleeping in bliss upstairs, away from the evil fermentation in the basement.
"Kirsty," he said. "Are you listening?" His hand touched the small of my back. The gentleness surprised me. I squawked and flinched away. "What’s wrong with you? They're hungry." He pressed on my shoulders until I sat on the cold floor.
They came from the shadows, already walking. I wanted to go, but I knew he wouldn't allow it. He pulled my cat t-shirt off over my head and their fierce mouths suckled, relieving the pressure of excess breast milk quickly. It felt physically good and psychologically alien.
I looked down at them once and immediately regretted it. Their emanated light had intensified to a point where perception of them hurt.
Each time I blinked my eyes were drawn to some isolated part of their bodies. The vision got closer to the point of disgust. Everything is gross if you're close enough. There is no beauty under a microscope. If you think there is then you're not using the right magnification.
Hebat's eye drew me in. At first, I saw the dark sphere, and then the strands of her eyelashes. Her gravity kept pulling until the creatures that live in eyelashes were revealed: Demodex folliculorum. I looked the microscopic horrors up.
The babies had more parasites than any child should. They wanted to show me and could somehow do so.
I asked him about it. "Why are they showing me these worms?"
He smiled, contemptuously as usual. "Trying to impress mother. Neither of them understand your horror and insignificance. You are the ant who knows they're an ant. Lucky you. They think you will be proud of the life their corporeal forms produce and host. Give them a few hours. It will pass."
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"I'm not sure what you mean. We're married. Now, prepare to smile." His cell reappeared and I noted the lack of features; it might have been a singed rectangle of spent firewood. He frowned when I failed to smile. "Smile, Kirsty. These are your children."
I managed to stave off the tears and hold the babies close. The smile was more difficult. In the inevitable aftermath of their sudden disappearance, the frames depicted an exhausted, wrinkly woman smiling painfully. It took a second to recognize myself.
The things in the basement sapped my strength. I looked dehydrated, beleaguered. The scale in the bathroom said I'd dropped six pounds. I'd weighed myself the morning before.
"Whoa, you've lost weight," George noted, thinking I'd be pleased. "This place has been so good for us, eh?'
To produce another smile proved as draining as the previous night. "Y-yes," I stuttered too late for him to ignore.
"Hey," he said, touching my forearm.
I flinched.
"Whoa, you okay? What's wrong?"
I should have told him. "Nothing. Bad sleep. A nightmare. I'll be fine."
A lie is an agreement. George wanted to agree, I think. He wanted life to be fine because he was happy for once. We struggled so hard before we came to Bridal Veil Lake. It was supposed to be our dream.
Guilty if I told him the truth. Guilty because I didn't. I began to resent his happiness, though he had done nothing but be the wonderful man he'd always been.
To Cara and Ella I became a body in motion, No brain left to guide them away from harm or answer their questions about nature and the universe.
"I don't know." That's what I told them often.
So they began to treat me like a kind of butler.
"Can I have some juice, please?"
"Sure, sweetheart."
"Mommy, can I have a snack?"
"Of course." And I'd run off to fetch it.
"Cookies."
"Yes, dear."
When Christmas came, I had two and they induced the same level of joy. Visiting the basement to feed and nurture Hebat and Hadad became a nightly occurrence. I'd learned to awaken, if I could get to sleep at all, and go quietly.
He berated me severely if I missed a night, and there were subtle threats made casually.
"I may have to squash you yet," he said, his tone as deep and cold as always.
"It won't happen again," I promised. "They’re getting big." In fact, they were no longer infants. Both had grown to the approximate age of six or seven in a few months. Still, they never spoke. Their dark eyes watched me as they ate food from the kitchen upstairs, food I'd hidden from my family.
"More meat," the man demanded.
"Of course." And I ran to the freezer and gave them frozen sausages in the package. They never complained or demanded the food be prepared a different way. No objections from my "husband" either.
Hebat tore the styrofoam and plastic wrap away and flattened the row of sausages stuck together between powerful molars. Hadad contented itself with licking them like a popsicle.
I'd stay until the photo. Then they'd release me by vanishing. Always with an exhausted breath, I'd trudge up the stairs and search for the frames and hide them in the same place.
They only smiled in the pictures. At no other time did they express any kind of emotion unless indifference counts.
My own children and husband weren't doing much better. Their concerns about my fatigue and ruminating slowly ceased as I repeated the excuse: I’m just tired. It'll pass.
Of course, I did not know when the nightmare would stop.
"When will it end?" I asked him one night, while Hebat and Hadad exercised like they had a mission.
"What do you mean?" he said.
I was surprised he answered. He usually didn't. "This. This. When can I go back to normal and not come down every night? I'm so very tired."
He frowned and I thought some punishment must be coming. Instead, he looked more confused. "I don't understand. You aren't happy? Your children grow into power and strength and will take their place in the world. They will be great and you - you, of all the tiny things, made that happen. Ask yourself what you want out of life, and see if Hebat and Haddad aren't your answer."
Too many words, all at once, for an exhausted mother. I didn't speak for the rest of the night. The infernal trio vanished, and the latter moments of the ritual I carried out with his challenge in mind.
I want my children to be strong, happy, and safe.
"Juice," Cara demanded the next morning, a Saturday, while she watched cartoons.
"Get it yourself!" I hissed, from tired to angry in a second.
"But I can't," Cara accurately pointed out. She didn't look away from the TV. Looking at me wasn't safe, and she knew it. Her and Ella held hands and sat a little straighter. It broke my heart. What had I done?
George came downstairs, attracted by my shouting. "What’s going on?"
Empathy became sadness, and the constant burden rekindled to anger swiftly. "Just children treating me like a servant."
He smiled. "Ah, yes, and how are the royal princesses this morning?"
His levity irked me. "You would know if you didn't sleep in so much."
The smile vanished from his face, and instead of the fight I seemed to want, he mumbled a quiet apology and joined the girls. They climbed onto him as he wrapped them into a cuddle.
"What are we watching?" George restarted his smile, his calm, for the girls. I hated myself. It had to end. Tonight.
After another dreary day of going through the motions, and the girls and George had fallen asleep, I went to the kitchen and chose the knife I thought sharpest.
"Kirsty," he said, his voice a whisper rising from the depths of the house.
"Coming," I whispered back.
"Mom," said another voice, a girl's, and I knew that Hebat had, at last, found herself and the wholeness of her being had been corrected.
I started to cry. I went downstairs and there she was with her brother and her father. He looked tired but some of the grimness had cracked to allow the first real contentment I've ever seen him express.
"Is that for the cake?" he asked. "We already have one."
I remembered the sharp knife. "Meat," I said. "There’s ham in the freezer."
He nodded, seeming to accept the answer.
"Mom," Hebat said, "Do you think I'm…" She gestured to herself, her face, and her body, and I understood the question, born from doubt and a desire to be validated.
I pulled her close. "You are the most beautiful girl in the whole world." We cried together. Hadad cut into a poorly made, asymmetrical cake by the light of his aura. No one cared that he did so on the floor. I brought out the ham from the fridge and we ate slices with our hands.
"It's almost done," he said. "They’re nearly grown. They are strong, and they are happy. You've done a good job, Kirsty." He watched our children fight to smear icing on each other's faces. "I'm sorry if I was mean. Or cold. I've never done this before." And he meant raising children. "It was the hardest, scariest thing anyone can try. I shouldn't have blamed you for… Hebat… It wasn't your fault."
Before I could pat his hand, he and the kids vanished. Darkness so familiar couldn't extinguish a new fear. I went upstairs and found the last frame. I held my daughter in the photo, my beautiful Hebat. He must have taken the photo without my notice.
I took it upstairs but couldn't bring myself to hide it.
I didn't see that one, George wrote into the document.
I forgot he was watching.
He typed again: Are you saying there is something in the basement?
Yes, I replied.
He stirred in the living room. I hadn't moved from the stairs, but I could tell by his stomping how angry he'd become. All of his negative, violent traits he saved for those in the world who would harm his family. George the Protector was fearsome to behold.
But he had no chance against my other husband.
"Come out! Come out you coward!" George bellowed. At first, nothing happened. The moment before calamity, even when the specific consequences aren't known, is still in slow motion. He carried on shouting. The girls rushed into the hall and didn’t hesitate to investigate.
"No!" I shouted. "Cara! Ella!"
Their feet padded down the steps. A violent commotion followed, screams and raging voices, both deep and childishly shrill.
The most unsettling quiet followed.
I chewed through the fear and the horror tearing me apart and finally moved.
No evidence of violence could be seen from the top of the stairs. The concrete looked bare and dusty and the light revealed nothing more. They were gone, all of them.
"Hebat," I whispered. "Cara? George?"
Him, I thought of, the nameless husband and felt no hint of his presence. He'd always been there. I know that now. It had nothing to do with the house. His absence was felt more than his insidious presence. Yet, I felt no relief. George and the girls were gone. I sat on the floor and cried for all my missing children.
When I finally emerged from the basement, the whole house had been filled with night. Their photos were everywhere. The others were upstairs. I gathered them on the kitchen island. How could I explain any of this to the police?
I needed help. I called my parents. It took twenty minutes before my father picked up.
"Kirsty? What's wrong?"
"Dad," I whimpered. "George is gone. Cara. Ella."
"What? What did you say?"
"They’re gone, dad. George. The girls are gone."
I heard his bed springs protest as he rolled out of bed. My mom said something I couldn't hear, and he shushed her.
"Kirsty," he said, "are you alright? Are you hurt? Are you in danger?"
Why was it so hard to understand? "Dad. George is gone."
"Kirsty, who the hell is George?"
It was my turn to be confused. "He's my- you know him. My husband…"
"Kirsty," he said very slowly, "are you on drugs? Did you take something?"
"No. Are you?"
"Excuse me?"
I hung up.
I have their photos. I have all of their photos. That's what I brought to George's parents before the sun rose. They wouldn't open the door and spoke to me through an intercom.
"George is gone," I said.
"We'll call the police."
"This is your son. These are your granddaughters."
I heard my mother-in-law say, "Who is she?"
"We don't have a son," my father-in-law said. "Go away."
I left.
Back to the house. Our dream sat empty and I live there, but none of the people in my family photos are my family.
I remember but the world never does. My parents think I'm ill and that I used AI to create the family I apparently never had.
How did I buy the house without a job or income? With deep concern for my mental health, they showed me a news story. I had won the lottery the day I turned eighteen.
His influence there, payment for services rendered.
A lie is an agreement.
What had I agreed to? I'm afraid I know the answer: I never wanted a family.
God help me. God help them.
I don't know what to do with these pictures.

I've heard a lot that a benefit for using terminal software over GUI apps is that they use much less resources. And that's why its better to SSH into servers rather than have them use up resources for a display server, Quartz X11 Wayland etc. However, things like the Kitty Graphics Protocol seem to blur the lines. I haven't look at this much either but there's also kui.nvim, a terminal GUI framework built on-top of Kitty Graphics and it seems to escape the TUI constraint of only being able to visualize things with text characters, being able to draw elements of any length. There's a comment on this Reddit post showcasing kui.nvim discussing the benefits of a terminal are that it's not a GUI. But if you were to use this, then how much would it be different from just using Obsidian with its various plugins along with with Obisidian-bridge.nvim?
So what makes a terminal a terminal, different from GUIs and full desktop environments? Is it the low resource usage, is it still low with Kitty Graphics and kui.nvim? Is it the keyboard-centric interaction for higher efficiency? Is it because of the other benefits of commands environments, like unix stdin and stdout piping? If you want full blown GUIs in a terminal environment then how is it much different than using a GUI app with full keyboard navigation and text inputs? How do you feel about rendering full GUI graphics in a terminal?
Personally I like the idea of rendering graphics in a terminal environment is it would be overall better than using GUI apps for the reasons listed above, but I'm feeling reluctant on that.

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Edited by WaveOfWire
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Two days… It had been two days that Tracy had gone to sleep while Harrison was working, only to come back in the morning to see him still in the workshop. She knew he was damn productive, sure, but that really couldn’t be healthy. Apparently, it had something to do with the weird bowl of orange… soup… that Cera gave him. No way was it just caffeine; any amount of the stuff would have been filtered out of his system by now. He mentioned a tingling feeling too…
Damn, she did not know enough about drugs to even start assuming what that massive alien had Harrison fucked up on. At least the scanner said he was ‘fine’—if you ignore the other glaring issues the machine brought up. Plus, he said he didn’t mind it. Either way, he managed to complete the weaving component and a few other electrical backbones of the fabricator last night, so the project was practically done, and after seeing the engineer work himself half to death, she was dead-set on finishing it.
She was currently tits-deep into the upper manufacturing portion of the towering machine. It took a tall step-stool—on top of the nearby desk—for her to push her small shoulders through the even smaller access panels high on the everything-printer. It was difficult to fit her torso in, but she managed, holding a flashlight between her teeth as she fiddled with a stubborn series of mechanical ‘hands.’ Nothing new. The situation reminded her of the ‘shop back on Mars; it had the same ever-present scent of copper and industrial sealant. All that was missing was her dad’s ancient tunes blasting through some shitty speakers… Hold on…
The modular component in her grip was successfully attached with a resonating thock. Tracy squirmed out of the dim wire-filled crevice, trying her best to not rip her only tank-top on any bolts or corners, and getting a face-full of the bright flood-lights illuminating the workshop. She scowled and blocked out the searing light with a hand, but she was a bit too late to avoid going half-blind.
“Are the mechanical manipulators in?” Harrison grunted, poking his head out underneath the printer’s floor-adjacent maintenance hatch. She looked down at him as she tried to blink off the spots in her vision. His hair was messy, barely kept in line by his habit of combing through it with his fingers. The areas around his eyes were dark and sunken… Guess that’s what two all-nighters did to a man. He’d be seeing the hat man or start hallucinating if he didn’t get any sleep soon… but then again, the two of them were so close to finishing the fabricator…
“You bet.” She gave him a thumbs up, slamming the panel cover closed. “Feel free to test it.”
He nodded and slid back underneath the machine. “Gotcha”
She gently stepped off the stool and slid off the side of the desk, stretching herself out. If her piss-poor sitting posture or her tank-top puppies hadn’t already fucked her spine up, bending over backward to build this fabricator sure as hell would. She sat down next to the panel where Harrison resided, resting her back against the fabrication tower. Her excited voice broke the muffled noises of the engineer’s work. “So… Harrison?”
“Hmm—”
“—Mind if I play some music?”
The sounds from the hatch stopped, followed by his muffled, shocked tone echoing from beneath the fabricator. “You have music!?”
She smirked at seeing the expression on his face when his head popped out again. “I sure do… Did you seriously not download any to your data pad?”
He slipped out from beneath the fabricator fully, huffing as he took a knee beside her. The scent of melded rubber, wire, and his liquid labor reached her nose not-so-unpleasantly. “You would not believe how much of a pain it is to repair an entire barracks without it… So, yeah, I didn’t.”
“Sooooooooo, whatcha wanna listen to? I’ve got almost everything on here—besides the super niche, of course.” She pulled her data pad out, swiping to the massive music folder
“You wouldn’t like the kinda music I listen to; It’s ancient.”
She gave him a lighthearted, annoyed glare. “Welcome to the club… Now what’ll it be?”
“It’s Old Earth kind of ancient… but alright” He looked up at the ceiling in thought, lips pursed. “Do you have anything from Styx or Sweet?”
She stared at him incredulously, her smirk turning into a fully-fledged smile. “Oh my God. You are an absolute dork! You actually listen to Golden Age music?”
His brows raised, accusatory. “And you somehow know exactly who those bands were and what age of Old Earth music they came from?”
She smugly leaned in closer. “That’s because I’m just as much of a nerd with that kinda music as you apparently are.” She quickly looked upward, addressing the workshop AI. “Sebas, connect nearby speakers to my data pad’s audio.” Tracy elbowed the engineer lightly as the PA system chirped its affirmation. “Now, Mr. Golden Age music, which albums do ya want me to queue up?”
- - - - -
The two of them listened to music for hours, tossing on songs they liked as they came to mind while they worked. Harrison had a ton of recommendations that spanned all over the Golden Ages and some twenty-first century classics. She didn’t even know half of them, but she was vibing either way, adding on her own taste by intermingling some older rock tracks and newer electronic beats. The playlist was steadily built up as the day went on. Thank God her dad showed her a vast array of tunes; she might not have been able to keep up with the engineer if her old man hadn't.
It made the work go by so fast, their conversations blurring as they jumped from topic to topic. They discussed whatever came to mind—old hobbies, old jobs, and old interests. A lot was left behind in Sol… At least she knew that the only other human on the planet was more interesting than a soulless workaholic. It turned out that he was a pretty big history buff, and he apparently read a lot about the colonization of the Sol system and the various wars of independence thereafter. Curious, she asked where the interest stemmed from, and he explained that his grandfather was an admiral in the Slavic-Europan deep-ice submarine fleet, which explained how Harrison’s mother was able to afford to immigrate to Mars from Europa.
He could also play an acoustic guitar, and, unfortunately for Tracy, he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in printing one out, citing that it was a waste of time and material that would be better used elsewhere. That didn’t stop her from writing a note on her data pad to do so later, though. She hadn’t seen someone play one of those in years—the last time was probably in some old music video from the early twenty-second century. What a shame. She would have liked to hear some of the Europan songs his grandmother taught him.
On the bright side, the man seemed to take an interest in her odd hobbies. He brought up the folder of 3D models that she accidentally uploaded to the inter-module system and asked where she got the inspiration for what was in it. Boy, was he not ready for her ‘WarHalberd40k’ lore dump. Props to the guy for not standing up and leaving the workshop throughout her rambling. He even asked questions about the different factions and their weapons, which she was more than happy to talk about.
She also ended up going over the other franchises and hobbies she was interested in, such as robotics and the like. The only interruptions to their chat were the occasional Akula or Craftsman asking for insight regarding the various tasks he had allotted to them, or Shar coming in to check up on Harrison between guard shifts.
The new dynamic of the group was pretty interesting, to say the least. Tracy hadn’t been out to interact with the whole lot of Malkrin, but she definitely noticed how they treated the engineer. They’d started to look up to him in a way ever since he started showing off technology. In a little over two days, the man had shown them that he could provide the materials for a brick house, fine clothing—especially by the alien’s standards—armor, and delicious food. That wasn’t even mentioning the other benefits the technician heard a few of the ‘banished’ talking about over their meals: heating, electric lights, and other assorted machines.
She’d be feeling pretty happy about herself if she was in his position, having so many look up to him and be grateful at the same time. He seemed to view it a lot more robotically, however, only striving to get the basics done. Luckily for him, his basics were their luxury.
That wasn’t all there was to the topic; the engineer lamented about how the colony was going through food just as quickly as materials. The meals weren’t the direct issue he had, more that he had to start focusing on long-term resource harvesting rather than directly preparing for a literal horde of monsters—which wasn’t exactly ideal. It was a good thing that they just so happened to take on an influx of Malkrin then…
Either way, they finally finished the ‘totally legal modification’ for the fabricator, meaning they could at least partially address the latter half of his worries. The whole process of ripping out an old printer and replacing the parts for a new one felt a lot easier than she imagined… even if it took her at least forty-eight hours to complete it… with help from Harrison. Maybe that was why it felt so easy… She supposed the colony overseers didn’t choose the man for no reason, so his skills made sense.
“So… what do we want to print out first?” Tracy questioned, having finished testing the last major component.
The engineer stretched his arms up into the air and rotated his shoulders, then pulled back the desk’s chair and took a seat. “I’ve had just one thing in mind since the start of this whole project.”
Her brows raised in a mix of excitement and curiosity. She leaned forward, looking at the computer monitor from over his shoulder. “Oh? What’s that, then?”
A smirk formed along his cheek, the computer mouse rapidly clicking through the blueprint folder. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what kind of firearm we need since I started dabbling in belt-fed weapon systems.” He opened one final file, a short loading bar preceding the exploded assembly view of… “An M2 Browning machine gun. It’s more than powerful enough to kill in one shot, while also being capable of fully-automatic fire, with a capacity of however many rounds we want in a belt-box.”
“Uh…huh…” She gave a skeptical nod and took a step back, not exactly sold on the idea. “It looks ancient. It’s kinetic, right? Why aren’t we using energy-based weapons? Don’t we have a gunpowder shortage coming up?”
He moved his chair off to the side to look back at her. “We just can’t; Simple as. We’ll need who knows how many more AI cores before we can get started on that level of equipment, Trace,” he huffed, returning his gaze to the specifications of the firearm. “This isn’t the most ‘modern’ weapon we can make, but its twenty-first century counterpart helps with an improved design… somewhat. And, as I said before, it should be more than capable of killing a bug in one shot, so Shar can just tap-fire it to save ammunition.”
Her head tilted quizzically. “Shar?”
“Yup,” he returned confidently. “It’s the perfect weapon for her.”
She raised a brow. “How so?”
He held his hand up, counting his reasons on his fingers. “She’s always on the front line with a shield, she can absolutely handle the weight and recoil, her four arms make reloading it simple, plus she’ll need something with range and power that isn’t a spear. So, why not? And, if for some reason, she doesn’t want to use it, we can just convert it into a turret—which is something I was planning on doing anyways with however more M2s we print out later.”
“I doubt she’ll say no to any gun you give her,” Tracy chuckled while shaking her head, inadvertently causing her bangs to cover her eyes.
“Fair enough,” he conceded with a bob of his head. “What do you think, then? What kinda weapons do you have in mind?”
She reapplied her goggles into an impromptu hairband, feeling a smirk cross her face. “Thought you’d never ask. What purpose do we need these guns to fulfill? Hordes I’m guessing?”
“That’s the idea, yeah. That doesn’t mean they all need to be machine guns, though.” He tapped the belt-fed shotgun beside him.
“Well, lemme see what we’re working with first.” She suddenly stepped forward, leaning over Harrison’s seat to access the keyboard and mouse. Her arms briefly rubbed against him, forcing him to roll his chair backward. She suppressed a giggle at seeing his incredulous frown.
Her eyes quickly traced the hundreds of individual files, clicking through all sorts of folders, each arranged from pre-twenty-first century ‘antiques,’ to more modern iterations of kinetics and particle weaponry. There was… a lot on there—almost too much to reasonably comb through. Why? Did the colony overseers just say ‘fuck it’ and put whatever they could find on here? Were they expecting the pioneers to make a museum of everything?
She sighed, standing up straight and facing Harrison. “Y’know, I’m actually impressed you managed to find that M2-whatever in there…”
He shifted in his seat, resting an elbow on the desk. “Yup, there’s a lot. I’m almost tempted to just make several of those machine guns and just call it a day, but I feel like that’d be too much of a strain on resources, no?”
“I don’t really know enough about how you fight those spider-crab things, or how to get more gunpowder, so… maybe?” She shrugged, biting her cheek in contemplation. “You might just wanna make a few smaller caliber weapons… like, uh… those old kinetic service rifles. If your pump-action shotgun works fine, I’m sure some normal guns would work just fine for now, right?”
He hardily gripped his firearm, hauling it up to his lap. “Depends on what you mean by ‘smaller caliber.’ The whole reason why the KS-23 here works—” he pulled out a massive shell from the ammo belt, displaying it on his palm. “—is because the twenty-three-millimeter round has enough energy transfer to mess up any bug's shell and insides. I’d say the smallest rounds we could use would be point-two-forty-three caliber to get any similar results.”
Brief flickers of grungy orange shells and gnashing teeth marred Tracy’s sight. She forcibly suppressed them, distracting herself with dry humor and a strained laugh. “Guess those fuckers can really take a punch, huh?”
He shook his head somberly. “I couldn’t imagine going up against them without a gun… Anyway, I like your idea of a standard rifle for now. Then, when we have some product lines up, we can go a little more in depth into personal weapons.”
“So are you gonna take one?” She hopped up on the desk, letting her legs swing off the side.
“Don’t think so, no. I’ll stick with my shotty.” The internals of the heavily modified weapon rattled as he held it up and inspected it. “Doesn’t mean I’ll keep it as is. I’m thinking of printing a laser aiming module so I can point-fire it accurately, and maybe a melee-oriented muzzle brake or a lighter chassis to reduce weight… Not sure though.”
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, her cheeks in her palms. “Melee-oriented? Oooooh, like a chain-sword or something?”
His short chuckle coerced a smirk to her face. “No, not like that. More something to use as a bludgeoning tool. Right before the blood-moon, I ended up getting just as much use out of this shotgun as a hammer than as a… well, a shotgun.”
“That’s pretty fuckin’ metal. So are you just gonna make the barrel into a giant bayonet?”
He nodded. “Not exactly a bayonet, but something more like a door-breaching break.”
A short silence settled on their conversation, the faint sounds of the fabricator’s hum and distant woodwork coming to light. Right, there was an outside world… She’d been too caught up talking to Harrison for however many hours it had been. She wondered how successful the fisherwomen were in collecting, and how things had been for the others working on the wood storage shack. Maybe it was already completed? The sun peered through the cargo bay door, proving that it was only about midday. What else would they work on today?
“Hey,” she ventured.
“Hm?” the engineer hummed, his eyes focused on the monitor beside the technician.
She scooted closer to his keyboard. “What’re we doing after this?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned backward, propping herself up on two hands. “Project wise; what’s the next big thing?”
“Uhmmm…” he muttered, interacting with the computer for a few more seconds before finally meeting her gaze. “Well, I’ve just allocated the fabricator to print out the M2, three FALs—wood furniture, of course—then there’s the magazines and ammunition, so we’ve got a lot of time to kill. The next big thing is definitely going to be metal procurement, and— Oh, right!” Harrison stopped mid-sentence, reaching into his backpack and pulling out several finger-sized metallic cubes, a sudden fire in his eyes. “Okay, so a while ago, during an encounter with three colossi, Shar and Akula found a cave with some ‘surface’ metal deposits. I took a piece off to analyze, but never got the chance to until last night. Anyway, we don’t have any machines to examine the ore, so I made use of the recycler and broke it down to its baser components.”
She nodded along, seeing where he was going with his explanation. “I’m guessing those shiny cubes are the metals from the ore?”
“Sure is. So, as it turns out, we have a pretty damn close supply of not only iron, but also, zinc, sulfur, and a small amount of cadmium. I talked with Sebas about it and did a little research. We believe it’s something akin to sphalerite, given its composition and looks, which implies it’s a sedimentary exhalative deposit. That means there must have been some volcanic…”
Harrison continued talking about underwater deposits and ancient rock formations, bringing up some theories brought forward by the now 4-AI-core-powered Sebas, delving into the current land mass’ history and possible ore output. A lot of it went over the tradewoman’s head, but she still listened intently… Honestly, she could have listened to the man talk about finding metals for hours. It was sort of like the podcasts she used to listen to while completing colonist training, but even more personal and somehow easier to get lost in…
“…find some other minerals further down like silver, but it also might be an active lava zone. Again, these are all theories and this world could just throw the fundamentals of geology away as it does for physics. Anyway, sorry for going on for so long about that, just thought it’d be important for getting some metals in the future.”
“No, no,” Tracy assured, alleviating him of concern with a wave of her hand. “If there’s anything the colony overseers emphasized, it was farming and mineral acquisition. Don’t worry.” She smiled, pointing a thumb to herself. “I just wanna know how I can help.”
“Actually, I’ve a few things only you can do. I’d like to make use of your impressive drone-making expertise for a few applications, if you don’t mind.”
The task of keeping eye contact slipped into an impossible feat in the span of a singular second, planting a pang of embarrassment on her reddened face, forcing her to inspect her fidgeting hands. “I-I wouldn’t say ‘impressive’… b-but what do you have in mind?”
She could see him raise a brow out of the corner of her vision. “Well, after what you’ve shown me with the reconnaissance flyers, I’d like your help in setting up a more permanent ‘net’ of them to scour the meadow and parts of the nearby forest to look out for any approaching hordes. I don’t want to be snuck up on… again…”
‘Again.’
She noted his small frown and sunken eyes, both a little more exaggerated than they already were. It wasn’t like she’d deny his request, but the pangs of empathy over their shared situation all but solidified her resolve. It was the least she could do. She could help him. She would help him.
The technician exhaled slowly, taking on a more serious and understanding tone than before. “I… can do that. For sure. What else?”
“I appreciate it.” He gave a wane smile. “I’ll help you with whatever you need for the project. For the other drones, I’m thinking about a small exploration vehicle to map out caves around us and mark any minerals, as well as a submersible to look for potassium deposits in the ocean.”
“So… search bots?” She crossed her arms, confidence growing; those were her specialty. “Depending on how long the fabricators take and what kind of base drones are in the blueprint folders, I should be able to get those done in no time. All I need to know are the search cues for potassium and how many drones you want.”
He quickly shuffled a few folders on the computer, turning the monitor for her to see some scientific documents with various images and walls upon walls of text. “There’re plenty of resources for that on here for what to look for, and there’s always Sebas, so feel free to ask him since he can just sort through the data for you anyway. If you can, I’d like it if you could focus on the submersible after the reconnaissance drones.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be right on it, then.” She gave him a thumbs up, slipping off his desk and toward her own.
“I’ll bring you lunch in a bit. Imma go check on the others,” he called.
Her stomach grumbled at the mention, her head turning to give him an appreciative smile. “Oh! Thanks!”
\= = = = =
Avian creatures chirped from their perches in the trees nearby. The wind softly rustled red leaves as grass gently gave way to calculated footfalls. A warm sun laid its light on Shar’khee’s neck. It was surprisingly pleasant, were one to take the time to notice. The mainland was a confusing place for the paladin, with its disparate representations of nature contrasting so heavily. Some days were filled with blood and ravenous beasts, while others were left within the domain of simplicity and beauty. She was content to have the latter, yet it felt like a facade veiling the former—a soft exterior covering the maliciously spiked interior. Never could she leave herself to carelessness, no matter how welcoming it might be.
Hence why she worked to ensure the safety of the star-sent’s castles and their inhabitants, her days largely spent patrolling for any roaming swarms that may wish to cause them harm. She typically used the routine to think, but today offered little in the way of solitude. This time, she was accompanied by the previously banished guardswoman, and was tasked with instructing the new one, though the specifics of what such lessons should entail were vague. Still, Shar’khee did all that she could so as not to disappoint Harrison, so she could only attempt to meet his expectations of her.
She told the yellow-skinned female of the threats that the settlement faced, how one was to defeat them, and what to expect from the beasts. The guardswoman was directed to practice her form with the spear in both thrusts and throwing for some time afterward, proving herself to be well-built. Such was expected of her profession after all.
It was pleasing to have another capable of patrolling the settlement’s outskirts for swarms, as it would greatly impact how effectively the colony could react to such a threat. If her routine was to suffer for the colony’s well-being, she was happy to show the new one her patrol route and note what to look out for.
The guardswoman was not a perfect student, however. Shar’khee never addressed it directly, but the yellow-skinned female obviously discredited the danger posed by the abhorrent, not-so-subtly shrugging off any warnings.
…That was until they stumbled upon the ‘hyena-boars,’ as Harrison called them.
The beasts resided in a clearing not too far from the castles, carelessly meandering across the sea of tall grass. Shar’khee quickly crouched, dragging the guardswoman down with her. Once she assessed that the creatures were not an imminent danger, she decided it would be an excellent opportunity to show the new one how to properly engage a threat. She was about to propose the idea, yet her speech was silenced just as swiftly.
Orange flashes darted through the trees around the glade. Taloned feet and gnashing teeth tore across the ground toward the unsuspecting beasts at the center. It was much too late for them. They were slow. Surrounded. Unaware. It was as quick as it was vicious, the forest’s reds turning a deeper crimson hue in a moment's notice underneath the abhorrent’s brutality.
Gangly monstrosities gnawed and ripped at the dead creatures, brief glimpses of raw flesh and white bone protruding from the small spaces between the clumped-up beasts. Repulsive wet splatters of blood and gore overlapped the calm noises of the forest, the grisly scene serenaded by the softest of nature’s symphonies. It was a sickening juxtaposition.
Shar’khee bit back the unease and steeled herself. They were within twenty paces—close enough to smell the abhorrent’s vile stench of rot and bile, yet far enough so as not to be noticed. She briefly considered backing away and retreating, her focus bouncing between the different avenues of escape, or how to cover her footst—
Crack.
Several sets of feral, eyeless maws snapped in their direction, the blood dripping off freshly dampened teeth. The guardswoman gasped, Shar’khee’s gaze following to see the mistake: a singular broken branch crinkled as a yellow-colored foot raised off the splintering twig.
The paladin exhaled sharply and smoothly stood up, brandishing two spears and her shield. Her glare settled on the still crouching guardswoman. “You are to stay behind my shield and let them appr—ch. Rem—ber what I have told you. Aim for their maws when you thrust y—r lance.”
The other female nodded, shakily pulling out her own weapons with unsteady placement hampering her grip. There was an obvious nervousness to her gaze. Hesitance. That would not do.
Shar’khee faced the prowling abhorrent her knuckles shifting hue as she prepared for their advance, for there was no chance that they wouldn’t. True to her experience, the stalking turned to a gallop with several clicks of grotesque tongues, the swarm bolting toward her as one. She snarled and slammed her bulwark into the ground, letting the approaching beasts skewer themselves amongst its spikes.
There were only ten—a paltry amount. She had defended against magnitudes more, and yet she still stood. What is more, they were mindless. Uncoordinated. They would be but stains in the cloth she used to clean her armor. Perhaps, if they were fortunate, they might leave a furrow in her shield to remember them by. Her arms tensed as the first leapt.
One by one, the abhorrent fell, their repulsive green blood splattering under her thrusts. Each awaiting corpse tore across the grove’s grass, lunging to their deaths with gaping maws and unfeeling hunger, yet she did not yield. Their shells were crushed by her shield and impaled by her Goddess-blessed spears, becoming but one more smear across their surface. Ten motionless lumps lay before her, seeping their ichor into the soil, none having passed the barrier she became. Dead, just as the Creator intended. She remained vigilant for a few moments longer, watching for any more of the disgusting creatures.
None showed themselves, finally allowing blood to flow to her fingers once again. The shield’s heavy presence weighed down her back, the blood flicked off of her spears before she returned them to their place.
“Are y–u well?” Shar’khee addressed the frozen Malkrin, wiping away the splatter on her bracers. The guardswoman stared at the small pile of deceased creatures, her heavy breaths and widened eyes moving from the spear from her singular kill. The paladin huffed. “We are fort—ate that there were so few.”
“F-Few? God help us…” Her horrified, stunned gaze slowly met the paladin’s. “Y-You said there were hundreds on the crimson nights? H-How do you… They were s-so fast.”*
”As I h–ve warned,” Shar’khee affirmed.
“You are a paladin! You all exaggerate your feats… I thought it was just a facade!”
“I have no r—son to lie,” she returned tersely, shrugging off the insult to her station and shaking her head. “The mainl—d is far more dangerous than ten gnash—g beasts; more so than that of your island hamlet. Pick yourself up. We m—t inform the others of this incursion.”
The yellow-skinned female snarled, furrowing her brows at the ground in frustration. At whom…? Shar’khee? Herself? Regardless, the female promptly gathered her composure, pushing air through clenched jaws. A step forward had her feet splash in the small pool of blood, the Malkrin nodding toward the paladin to continue back to the castles.
“…for the village.”
Shar’khee paused in her stride and faced her, frowning at the determination and anger leaking through the intent. “W—t was that?”
Her question was returned with honesty, a huffed voice marred by vexation. “Paladin, how am I to defend my village-mates as I am now?”
“‘As you are now?’ What do you m—n?”
The guardswoman stared down at her spear, wood creaking under her grip. “I have faltered before what you deem a paltry threat, and the thought of an even greater one sows dread deep within my bones. I wish… I wish to be better prepared to defend those of my village. I cannot help but see their faces on those of the furred creature in the clearing, and yet, even if I am so close, I am just as unable to protect them.”
Shar’khee stared down the yellow female, a long gaze taking in a rare showing of sincerity. “Y—r fears are one we all share, new one. Do not be ashamed of them. All t—t matters is that you do not let them rem—n mere fear, but make them your strength. So tell me, do you wish to impr—e? To ensure they do not fall while you are support—g them?”
The yellow-skinned female released a shuddering breath that bled off the worst of her indecision, a newly invoked flame flaring within her visage. “I do, paladin. I seek to protect and to be of use.”
“Then, if you wish to make y—rself resilient in the face of all that opposes us, it would be my undertak—g to forge you anew. Fortunately, Harrison has ordered such already, and his guidance shall prove ever useful, should you pursue it.”
The guardswoman shuffled in place at the star-sent’s mention, her eyes slipping downwards. “He is of a great many resources, but I would rather receive your teachings than those of a craftsman… or that of a male, deity-sent he might be.”
She placed a palm on the female’s shoulder. “He is far more than you might ever k—w. Regardless of if you ac—pt his guidance, I commend your conviction. However—” Her hand gripped tighter, though not enough to instill hostility. “—understand that you are protecting more than just your vi—age-mates.”
The new one nodded, staring up at the paladin with stallwart resolve. “Of course. I shall be in your tutelage, then.”
Shar’khee smiled. “T—n let us begin.”
\= = = = =
Akula was becoming increasingly certain that she knew how her parents once felt. The green-skinned fisherwoman was currently rotating between the many tasks placed upon her, guiding the newcomers through the minutia of their tasks so they might live up to the potential Harrison saw within them. She was gratified to have her own talents recognized by the Creator, but it also placed a great many responsibilities in her talons. Of course, she handled each new addition with finesse befitting her heritage, never once balking from the increasing demands. If anything, she felt validated; it was required of her as a female anyway, was it not? The more feminine-appropriate labor and management one undertakes, the higher authority they were granted.
It began with a simple assignment to oversee the chef’s introduction to the star-sent’s provided cooking appliances. As fascinating and convenient as utilities were, she held no interest in preparing any more food than she already had, but teaching another to operate the machines would alleviate such requirements of her. She reluctantly accepted the task when it was proposed, especially considering the fact that Harrison was much too busy with his other projects to bother with something as benign as cooking. His work was more valuable elsewhere.
The task itself went well, and the pink-skinned chef was quick to pick up on the use of the various kitchen devices, as well as the smoker. A grin had grown when she considered the possibility of all males understanding such domestic things readily, yet her mirth at removing the masculine job required of her was short-lived. Despite the newly initiated Malkrin’s success, Harrison had Akula frequently return to oversee the numerous cooking operations being conducted. That was in tandem with the back-to-back fishing trips made by both herself and the newly acquired females.
…Which was something else the green-skinned cycle-worshipper was ordered to oversee.
She had left the chef to his devices after producing another batch of partially seasoned meals, returning to the Creator with hopes of a break. He applauded her efforts with a nod and tersely spoken appreciation, then quickly pushed two spearguns into her hand and directed her to the ocean, where the twins were ‘working with jack shit,’ as the busy male said. She was to give the fisherwomen the tools and make sure they were used properly, and offer additional assistance in acquiring ‘enough fish to have us fed for a little bit.’
So, she left to complete the given task, feeling somewhat appreciative that her speargun was of superior quality to those she would be delivering—the newcomers were only afforded the lesser, roped-bolt version. It was only natural that she was in possession of their greatest assets, of course; the star-sent saw her as the only one capable of wielding such fantastic ammunition, showing trust that was rightfully placed in her. That did not mean the gray-skinned females were unsatisfied with their own gifts, however. The twins were swiftly caught up on the ‘manual of arms’ and sent to work, somehow managing to keep up with Akula in spite of their land-based origins. The two were fast enough to outpace the cycle-worshipper in sheer speed, but their lack of numerous winters spent traversing deeper waters meant they required frequent rests, breaking the ocean’s surface after every third captured fish or so.
Still, she had to appreciate their dedication to their task. They never complained about Akula pushing them further to reach the star-sent’s vague objective. Such a task was entrusted to her—and by proxy, the other two—and thus it would be completed, no matter how much her comfortable bed… couch called her tiring muscles.
The group of three hauled net after full net of fresh meat to the chef—and sewist, who later joined him—forcing him to relegate much of the catch to long-term storage as the kitchen simply could not deal with the surplus. At least three-quarters of the fish were put to slow cook in the now Malkrin-sized smoker. The craftsman had upgraded it with a kit provided by Harrison, who had recycled much of the dining room and workshop furniture to accommodate it. The Creator’s showcased urgency to gather materials was clearly not unfounded… It was admirable how he used what little he had left to ensure food would not be scarce. Additionally, the apparatus exuded an excellent scent for all the survivors to enjoy, the earthy aroma drawing in some of the other Malkrin for their breaks or meals.
Those were not the end of the cycle-worshiper’s tasks, however. She was also required to report on Shar’khee’s progress in training the guardswoman—helping to recycle the small swarm of abhorrent they cleared earlier—as well as the wood storage building’s progress. Indeed, she was advising and assisting however and wherever applicable. To say she was seen all around the settlement would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, she was appreciative to see her efforts bearing fruit by sundown. The processing of their meals from sea to plate was quite efficient, and those that Akula taught were now well-practiced in their duties. The twin fisherwomen dove from wave to wave, bringing fish back to the barracks, where the cook and sewist swiftly worked to transfer the meat to pans and smoker hooks alike. Then, the remnants of the Sea Goddess’ aquatic gifts would be subsequently recycled and given purpose anew as biofuel or perhaps future fertilizer.
The endless onslaught of duties and responsibilities had enlightened her, in a way. She could see where Harrison came from now; having a working project go from one point to another without input nor difficulty was a sight to behold, and it made her swell with pride. It was a surmountable feat to teach the barbaric ground-worshippers to do something properly.
…Well, they were not horrible Malkrin, so perhaps simply calling them ‘uninitiated’ was a more apt descriptor…
No matter the tribulations faced, and no matter how draining her new authority might be, her rest at the end of the day would be one that was well-earned, and it would be had with a sense of satisfaction. She deserved it, and perhaps that extended to the rest of the settlement as well.
- - - - -
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Mine! Mine! Mine!

Just needing to vent a bit. TL/DR: had to abruptly change plans and leave my baby at home for a 4-day work trip, so my baby is having to go on formula for a few days (she been exclusively on breastmilk) and this is my first time away from her.
I returned to work 6 weeks ago. My daughter turned 5 months old a week ago.
Back when I was pregnant in the fall, I put in a request to attend a conference out of state, not realizing how difficult it might be to get away with a little one at home (I'm a first time mom and didn't have a realistic understanding of what my life would look like post-baby).
Anyway, when I returned to work, my boss asked if I still wanted to go, and if so, to go ahead and make my arrangements (flights, hotel, etc.)
I decided to go because it was something I'd been interested in before. My biggest concern -- since I've ended up exclusively breastfeeding -- was how I would feed her. I determined I wasn't able to pump enough extra each day beyond what I sent her with to daycare to stockpile almost 4 days' worth of breastmilk, so I actually convinced my mom to join me to watch the baby during the day.
Well, the last week and a half I was sick. It was a bad cold I could not kick (not covid, never had a fever). Lost my voice on my first Mother's Day, couldn't taste/smell much due to congestion. I assumed it was something i picked up from my baby since she's had a constant stream of snot from her nose the entire 2 months she's been at daycare, and this is the 2nd time I've been sick in that time. It didn't get better until the doc gave me antibiotics and a steroid. Since I was SURE i caught it from her, and since I knew she was exposed to me before I was sick, I didn't stay away from her. I took sick days while she went to daycare, and rested up. Thought we were in the clear. My husband started getting sick 2 days ago, but that was kind of expected.
I spent hours yesterday figuring out the perfect configuration of bags to pack her stuff and mine. Practiced with our new travel stroller so I'd be a pro getting it in and out of the car, etc. I spent an hour fussing with the airline to get her appropriately added to my reservation as a lap infant. I called the hotel to get a bassinet put in our room.
Then last night -- 12hours before we were supposed to board the plane -- she came down with a fever. It was too late for me to cancel the trip and get money back (my organization's money, not mine, but still), but my mom was able to cancel her travel. I had to repack everything and got almost no sleep between the chaos and staying half awake to attend to the baby's nose (yay, nose frida!), check her temp, etc.
I feel defeated and heartbroken. She's having to go on formula-- there was only enough for my husband to feed her today, and maybe part of tomorrow... and i also realized tomorrow and Tuesday will be the first days I won't be with her since i brought her into this world 5 months ago. I had plans to explore the zoo on our trip, and was feeling like I was accomplishing something awesome and hard by taking her with me on a work trip -- like i was perservering. I'm sad she's sick (but I'm sure she'll recover fine) and that i won't be able to cuddle her and make her smile. We're not sure how she'll handle formula -- I've been dairy free since she has tummy troubles, so i bought her a soy-based formula at 10pm last night (hoping her allergy isn't actually soy!).
My husband was briefly annoyed with me because he thought i shouldn't care about my organization losing out on money if i canceled... for about a half hour he had me questioning if i was a terrible mom for going forward with the trip... but later he realized he was putting unnecessary pressure on me when the reality is that he would be able to still go if it were him... he's just not breastfeeding! (Obviously if we had to take her to the hospital my plans would have changed).
It's just all around super shitty timing. I guess it's an early lesson on how best laid plans can be upturned, especially with kids!

I've heard a lot that a benefit for using terminal software over GUI apps is that they use much less resources. And that's why its better to SSH into servers rather than have them use up resources for a display server, Quartz X11 Wayland etc.. But terminals aren't just outputting raw text, they have text and background colors per character, TUI frameworks have been made for them to essentially have GUI-like elements, like Neovim and Ranger. Things like the Kitty Graphics Protocol seem to blur the lines. While I don't know the technical details (please explain if you can!), it's nice that it can render images in the terminal, but how is it different, especially the technical details and resource demand (CPU GPU RAM etc.) to display servers?! Does it work without a display server running on the client, like a "raw" linux terminal where the desktop environment isn't loaded?
I haven't look at this much either but there's also kui.nvim, a terminal GUI framework built on-top of Kitty Graphics and it seems to escape the TUI constraint of only being able to visualize things with text characters, being able to draw elements of any length. There's a comment on this Reddit post showcasing kui.nvim discussing the benefits of a terminal are that it's not a GUI. But if you were to use this, then how much would it be different from just using Obsidian with its various plugins along with with Obisidian-bridge.nvim?
So what makes a terminal a terminal, different from GUIs and full desktop environments? Is it the low resource usage, is it still low with Kitty Graphics and kui.nvim? Is it the keyboard-centric interaction for higher efficiency? Is it because of the other benefits of commands environments, like unix stdin and stdout piping? If you want full blown GUIs in a terminal environment then how is it much different than using a GUI app with full keyboard navigation and text inputs? How do you feel about rendering full GUI graphics in a terminal?
Personally I like the idea of rendering graphics in a terminal environment is it would be overall better than using GUI apps for the reasons listed above, but I'm feeling reluctant on that.

Burner account for advice:
So me and wife have been in and started our relationship with the idea of it being free love and open. Both agreed on..with terms. Terms being
1:) No lies or hiding it
2:) No making sure another takes our place as the number one
3:) No exs
As of the last month or so, we have been in the process of moving. Moving close to where a former, last ex, lives. All of this happening sudden and very much like my how my last wife acted before she cheated on me. I didn't suspect my wife of anything at all but brought forth how it was kinda oddly triggering. Assured each time how there was nothing and never an interest or how dare I even assume.
So two days ago, month before move, I'm casually told she does want to change our rule three to sleep with this ex and always wanted to revist it from the start in her mind. I expressed how it made me feel, which was still a "no that's a boundary..and I feel we set it to avoid sparking any old flames and any new people would not be people be previous had romantic relations with. Especially not ones we dated for ten years". I was told instead it was made so I didn't sleep with one of "my" abusive exs and that hers, who she left for me, was cool and chill. I was also told if I had a nice ex I would be ok with it, which no, I would stick to my guns still. Because I would fear the same..I've seen it happen.
As I stood my ground peacefully, she got more and more angry as she tried to continue this sell and not just let it go. Saying how it would be the true test of our relationship and its better to be someone we know than a stranger we get to know and give them those terms. I still disagreed and stuck to my boundary of the old candle outlook and said no. She didn't want to see it that way and said it would be emotionless sex and nothing to worry, yet threw hours into emotion about being told how I felt. Putting myself in the other shoe, I know I would drop it automatically, thats it. Also I expressed how thinking of this for it this long made me feel kinda hurt and mentally she wanted to do this when our whole relationship..all while she's hiding that she wants to change that for the person she just left for me. Told that was my hang out up from previous exs. Mind you, me always talked about our rules and stated "yes those are them". Never agreeing that we could change this and if anything, add things. Never questioned till we move 3 miles from said person..
I was told open means anything can go and no one is off limits and how I don't get it. I told her that even if a new person came around, we both still had to agree and could disagree and that's what makes it healthy. That in order for it to work, any book or Google will state it..even my other poly friends agree
Instead it seemed like more passion was put into this than ourselves recently over being able to break this rule. I will state..I have been depressed for sometime and haven't been all there due to circumstances I've just finally tried to get ahold of, but I feel that shouldn't be an excuse or reason to break a boundary. Sickness and health, wasn't mentally well for 5 months and it got worse when my father passed.
Right now we are on no talking terms, we have a child together, newborn. I've been giving her space and thinking everything over and not knowing what to do. I feel my boundaries aren't be accepted and just rolled with and instead I'm being sold on something and punished for not agreeing to it. She doesn't want to talk without bringing up how I was sad previously, angry at work and being sad about that, upset at my medical problems and me stupidly not listening to her to get them fixed, my crazy ex wife, or my adhd causing me to sometimes forget some things and I may take a minute to get there. All things I've shown Improvement on, even in her words..but all civil talk is broken down to whatever current thing I have to say is counteracted with a past thing.
When asked if she can ever move past it all and us be us again, she never fully answers and it seems that allowing rule 3 to go way is the answer..
Any thoughts at all..brutal or honest, doesn't matter.
Thank you

Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.

Sanjay stood there in shock. He had been at Hogwarts for more than five years and had never seen a portal that could transport Muggles into the wizarding world.
Sanjay: "This is unheard of! If bad people or any other Muggles find out about this place, it would be a disaster. We need to talk to Professor Dumbledore. He'll know what to do."
He then explained how great Professor Dumbledore was, his wisdom and power unrivaled in the wizarding world.
Sanjay: "Professor Dumbledore is the most powerful and wise wizard. He's the headmaster of Hogwarts and has faced and defeated dark wizards before. We need his guidance."
Sanjay urged them to return to the Muggle world for now and not to speak of this to anyone else.
Sanjay: "Don’t talk about this if there’s anyone else around. Just go back home for now. We’ll figure this out later."
The trio nodded in agreement and returned to the Muggle world. As soon as they were back, Toby pinched Fin to check if he was dreaming.
Toby Fletcher: "Fin, are we dreaming?"
Fin laughed, and Lily joined in, but Sanjay remained serious.
Sanjay: "Remember, not a word to anyone."
That night, none of them could think about anything else. They couldn’t sleep, their minds racing with the day’s revelations. Fin lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the events of the day. Lily, meanwhile, was scribbling notes in her journal, trying to make sense of everything they had seen.
The next morning, Fin called Lily and Toby. They decided to talk about what to wear for their next visit to the magical world.
Fin Sparks: "We need to blend in better this time. Any ideas on what to wear?"
As they were discussing this, Fin's mom, Charlotte Sparks, entered his room.
Charlotte Sparks: "Fin, why are you up so early and getting dressed?"
Fin quickly ended the call and turned to his mom.
Fin Sparks: "I got a part-time job at a café far from here."
Charlotte nodded, but Fin had one more question on his mind.
Fin Sparks: "Mom, do you know anything about Dad? Why didn't he come back when I was five?"
Charlotte’s expression changed, and she looked nervous.
Charlotte Sparks: "Your dad was an amazing person, Fin. But... well, that flying car incident you keep talking about was just your imagination."
Fin could see she was hiding something but chose not to press further. He changed the subject.
Fin Sparks: "My friends are heading the same way, so I'm going with them."
Charlotte smiled.
Charlotte Sparks: "Alright, just be careful."
Fin met up with Lily and Toby outside.
Fin Sparks: "Remember, always say we’re working part-time after school. I told my mom I'm working at a café."
They all agreed and made their way back to the alley, returning to the magical world where Sanjay was waiting for them with four broomsticks.
Sanjay: "Follow me."
They followed Sanjay to a car that soon started to fly. Lily, scared, hugged Fin, causing her to blush. Toby teased them.
Toby Fletcher: "Guys, get a room!"
Lily turned red with embarrassment. They traveled until they reached a random field bathed in sunlight. Sanjay started telling stories about Professor Dumbledore.
Sanjay: "Dumbledore is the greatest wizard alive. He’s the headmaster at Hogwarts and knows everything about magic. You’re going to love him."
Fin's excitement grew. The car, orange in color, landed in a forest.
Sanjay: "Before you meet Dumbledore, you need to learn some basics."
They landed the car roughly in the Dark Forest, home to unicorns. Sanjay laughed at their rough landing.
Sanjay: "Get used to it. It’s not always smooth."
He started teaching them how to use broomsticks.
Sanjay: "Place your broom on the ground and say 'Up'."
Fin tried and succeeded on his first try, impressing Sanjay.
Sanjay: "Wow, you're a natural!"
They moved on to spells. Sanjay taught them:

• Accio: A summoning spell.
• Lumos: Lights up the wand tip.
• Oculus Reparo: Fixes broken objects.
• Muffliato: Fills ears with a buzzing noise to prevent eavesdropping.
• Petrificus Totalus: Full body-bind curse.

Fin accidentally used Petrificus Totalus on Toby, causing everyone to laugh, but Sanjay remained patient.
Sanjay: "Use it carefully, Fin."
He also introduced them to Expecto Patronum and many more spells. Finally, he mentioned the deadly spell, Avada Kedavra.
Sanjay: "Never use this spell. It’s extremely dangerous and only a master can control it."
Toby accidentally used it on a bird, causing a minor scare. Fortunately, the bird was only injured, and Sanjay healed it with a spell.
Sanjay: "Be very careful with that spell. It’s not to be used lightly."
Lily was a quick learner, mastering spells rapidly. Toby, however, was more interested in how the magical car worked and the repair spells. After an intense training session, they were ready to meet Professor Dumbledore.
Fin Sparks: "We’re ready. Let’s meet Professor Dumbledore."
With a mix of excitement and nervousness, the trio prepared to meet the legendary headmaster.
End of Episode 3

please share your thoughts!!!!!!!
alright, ive finished the game around a month ago but have spent the past month LIVING off of hl memes and ominis content, so i still remember most of the game vividly.
i think theres foreshadowing to a sequel, here's why:

• if you dont turn in sebastian and talk to him, he'll understand your pov on the goblins and listen. if you do hand him in, ominis will talk to him and report that this has only made him angrier (..for whatever reason). this made me curious, because, well, by the time you do this quest it should be almost endgame, hell for some people they do the 'in the shadow of the...' quests AFTER endgame. it just seems an odd detail to add rather than 'oh yeah i talked to sebastian and he understands and hes sorry, the end'. maybe the devs set this up for a conflict point in the future, if you hand him in, for a sequel (or more likely a dlc).

-anne sees what sebastian has done to solomon, and this deathly sick (!!!) girl runs away to... where, exactly? again we get conflict that hasnt been resolved.
-less glaringly important but we get almost nothing about ominis. in the house cup bit hes just sitting down despondently because hes just lost his only friend and has to go back to his abusive family, who used crucio on him. also, ominis is quite vague about said family. leaves an open space that can be filled in with a sequel, because i would actually give my right eye to learn more about the gaunts ;)
-the MOST obvious plot hole - sebastian, in his usual delusions, seems to convieniently forget our emotional undercroft heart-to-heart about 'ill use ancient magic to save anne', before he goes and harnesses the power of a dark relic that causes only desctruction. (i ADORE seb but ominis is just so much better im sorry ;-; )YES i know theres the whole 'theyll become husks with no emotion if you take away pain', but sebastian hasnt been TOLD that. for all he knows, WE are the answer!! but nooo he must control the inferi because he is a teenage edgelord and nobody understands him. so yet again, unresolved conflict that could be saved for another time!!
-another huge plot thing - i personally went mostly goodie-goodie (except the unforgivables because come on!) in my first playthrough as a slytherin (going as an evil gryffindor next, lol). so this means i left the power of the resevoir alone. BUT! i have seen playthroughs where the resevoir is taken for the players own personal gain. is there any difference?... ...literally no. which is just ??? so maybe in additional gameplay, we could learn to 'hone' whatever new skills this grants us (more sequel-worthy than dlc-worthy, imo.)
-more a dlc thing, but quidditch. need i say more?
my thoughts:
there is enough material here to make a worthy sequel.
not only did hl DESTROY its sales expectations (even with the boycott), its been so popular that it has a subreddit with over 300k people (thats where we are now weee), which is kinda insane for a 'spin-off' game.
they would be stupid NOT to make a sequel or dlc, considering the absolute bank they made from this one + they now know what people want, meaning the next game would be even better.
the plot could be-

• you start 6th year as normal. you'd probably be on the train because no special entrance for you! you're slumming it with the normies now. if youve handed sebastian in last game then hes not here and you can skip anything to do with him until i say so.

-if you didnt, seb is still here. he thanks you for all you've done, blah blah blah, and acknowledges the goblins innocence. hes worried sick for his sister who has ran away and wants to find her. you are dumb and havent learned your lesson (duh), so no matter what you say he'll convince you to help once you've found your feet in sixth year.
-ominis walks into your compartment. he looks terrible. you ask him if he's alright and he slips some gaunt lore about his family and on their.. ideas of fun, because come on i have a mad obsession with this dude, and if im the one writing this plot, we're getting ominis angst, suck it up. if youve handed in sebastian, itll just be you two. there'll be a train cutscene and boom, you're at school.
-this is where it gets tricky.
IF youve handed in sebastian. he'll be in prison. youll probably get some angsty moments and npc quotes along the lines of 'he seemed like such a good kid'.
if you HAVENT handed him in, the story gets weird, because a) more awkward time with seb because hes free and 2) he knows the goblins are mostly good. the actual hl doesn't have this big of a rift, so its hard to say what happens. however, its good because it gives us loads of choice, the lack of which in hl caused a lot of complaints.
-if he's in prison, sebastian escapes,(not azkaban, gotta keep with the canon. maybe because he is a minor he is sent to a lesser facility.) still blaming the goblins and holding such a hatred for them now that in his eyes, they escaped punishment and that it's his job to kill them all while extorting the cure for anne OR finding us to cure her.
-if he's free, we can either have a storyline of him NOT learning his lesson and maybe going to prison then instead of after he commits uncle-cide (dark magic go brr, because sister is gone) or some other storyline that would be more about our magic (!) and ominis' story.
-for the latter to happen, we'd have to have taken the resevoir's power. OR we can make up a rowling-worthy excuse of 'well MC was exposed to the resevoir power for too long so even though they left it alone it still diffused into them or something! [happy]'. i honestly dont know, this is why i want YOUR THOUGHTS!!!
-to make the selection pool shallower, lets go with the excuse. this will allow us to have seb's story, our magic story and also some ominis story (i am obsessed.)
-whether seb escapes or is already free matters, but in the end its the same result - hes not in prison. the only difference is that free seb doesnt hate goblins, and isnt on the run, and vice versa for escapee seb. both want to find anne and cure her. both now remember you have the capacity to do so (but they dont know about the taking-away-pain-turns-them-into-living-husks thing).

• we could go with the 'find escapee seb and convince him we're right and he believes us and everything goes back to normal' route, but boring.

-maybe escapee seb finds us, and ropes us into the same 'help-me-find-anne' crap free seb does to us on the train. yes, that means we dont have a choice, but there has to be SOME adventure. the goblin-hatred would def play in somehow - its too specific of a thing to include in the endgame to just leave it be like that! maybe his hatred causes him to do unforgivable things to some innocent goblins and he has a 'mAyBe Im ThE mOnStEr' epiphany moment, who knows. maybe it ties in to something bigger.
-the main story would then be along those lines. im still brainstorming the climax and ending but nobodys gonna read this anyway lmfao
-main quests would consist of lessons, sebastian-is-a-little-too-obsessed-with-anne-quests, and honing our magic.
-side quests would be mainly ominis-centric regarding his family/the gaunts, with a decent lot of poppy and garreth. we've already resolved natty's entire life at this point tbh💀💀💀.
-id like to think there's a happy ending. idk what will happen to escapee sebastian, will he go to prison or not?? this is literally the equivalent of a crackfic in my head, i WAS NOT expecting to write this much when i started writing this.
SO AGAIN GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS. PLEASE. ON EVERYTHING FROM THE PLOT TO MY SEQUEL THEORIES TO FEATURES AND INCONSISTENCIES. THANK YOU!!
nowww some features!:

• quidditch, because yes
• morality systems would be a bit null here considering we're literally helping an escaped convict. but uh, we can try! just, like, dont cast the unforgivables everywhere you go ;)
• friendship systems with all side quest characters. like going from ehhh... to hellooo! with a side character would be awesome. the one thing hogwarts MYSTERY of all things got right was this.
• friendship and enmity systems BETWEEN characters, like, every sebastian needs their ominis ok. plus i want to help ominis bully puffskien dunkein I BEG, you cant tell me they dont have some rivalry going on ;-;

-romance? idk, not a romance person, this is for you sebastian fangirls to figure out for yourselves
-prejudice. literally what made harry potter, harry potter. there is like ONE audio with a negative view towards muggle-borns, and ONE that uses the word mudblood to my knowledge. everyone's just ok with everyone now? do malfoys and other death-eater's grandaddies not go to school here??? hello??????? this could and SHOULD be a topic for discussion in game or maybe even a side quest or side quest chain.
-extra but when/if seb escapes it should be on the daily prophet that ominis will show us in the undercroft or smth, i dunno
inconsistencies with my plot:

• loads of things havent been planned out. this is like a professional crackfic. (still has better plot than the cursed child though lets be honest :3 )
• everyone is easily convinced 'oh ok lets find your sister even though youre a dangerous escaped convict!'. sorry.

-itll be hard to mash everything in. but a half-assed plot is still a plot <:
-since its a continuation of 5th year, we already know many spells. there arent many useful ones left. HOWEVER!!! we can consult the fandom spell page, take offensive spells and stat boost them more than the 5th year ones >:) ALSO YOU LEARN ABOUT DARK ARTS IN 6TH YEAR, SO. ominis is not gonna have a fun time with those ones 💀
-because we'll be searching for anne, like the actual hl game, less school time, :( sorry
-everyones just ok with us disappearing (if seb is an escapee). someone should pull a hermione and go 'hmm, MC starts disappearing shortly after sebastian escapes, and they never say what they're doing.'
probably ominis or poppy because a) favouritsm on my part and b) ominis knows us best and i headcanon poppy as knowing us well and knowing the dark arts and how theyre used a tad bit more than she gets credit for.

• since this wouldve been 5th and 6th year covered, it would be expected for a 7th year to happen. naturally, i have exhausted all my 3 brain cells writing this, so screw it, 7th year doesnt need to exist right now. i havent even figured out all of 6th.

-loads of other things i havent seen, SO

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SHARE THOUGHTS, THIS TOOK ME AN HOUR TO WRITE AND I ONLY WROTE IT TO SEE WHAT PEOPLE THINK! TYSM. (I SHOULDNT HAVE WRITTEN THIS, I HAVE FINAL EXAMS TOMORROW 💀)

youre all amazing yayayayayaya

Let's not expect other teams to do our job for us. If we don't finish in the Top 2, it's because we didn't do our job well enough when it mattered most.
🔆 The pitch was a murder story brewing to happen, and the victims were the bowlers. We could go on and on about how we didn't get any wickets in the powerplay and allowed two domestic batsmen to plunder runs against us, but it doesn't change the fact that the pitch had nothing to offer the seam bowlers. And no, new ball and overcast conditions don't mandatorily induce swing. This pitch was as barren as the white Rann of Kutch. So a decent mix of non-threatening bowling coupled with brave shot-making of the PBKS batters resulted in that inflated powerplay score. The team selection was definitely done keeping the pitch in mind. Cummins more or less should have been aware of the batting conditions, and accordingly, a batting-heavy team was selected to both test our chasing capabilities and put the primary bowlers under pressure before the crucial playoffs.
🔆 Vijayakanth was bashed a lot during his spell by the fans. But people need to stay connected to the fact that he's not a mystery bowler. He's not going to extract something out of nothing. As a traditional leggie, he did what he was conditioned to do under these situations. He went on the defensive and stuck to a leg line to save himself from the attack. A match and a player in cricket should truly be judged after the conclusion of both innings. Given the PBKS spinners gave away at an economy of 11.3, VV's economy of 9.2 looks mild in comparison. That being said, he didn't bowl a perfect spell. When the ball was gripping a bit around his first spell, he continued bowling a defensive line and length. More often than not, he bowled short to the PBKS batsmen, for which he was punished accordingly. Would I still keep him in the squad? Yes, absolutely yes. More than another enforcer with the bat, this team desperately needs a wicket-taker in the middle. That's the very reason SRH should continue gambling with VV over GP, even if it doesn't pay off. Similarly, Nitish will be branded as a fraud with the ball looking at his stats at the end. And it's fair to an extent. Bowling your first ball of the spell as a no-ball more often than not spoils spells for fast bowlers, and it happened as such for NKR. Despite being hit for a couple of boundaries, he remained persistent with his lengths. This predictability worked against him against Russow and Jitesh. It's a good thing that Cummins entrusted him to bowl three overs under these tough conditions. Figures as such can make a bowler or break his confidence for good. It's a trial by fire, and let's hope we get the better version of NKR, the bowler, out of it.
🔆 Head's wicket was a brain fade. As explained by Brian on-air, he was too late to bring his bat down and the ball just snuck through. He showed signs of rustiness after the long break and he definitely would have benefited from being subbed during the latter part of the first innings. Abhi is a frustrating tale for me. Those who have followed my posts for long should know that I've been one of his biggest supporters ever since his arrival. That's why it's so frustrating to see him be so inconsistent with his batting this season. Despite suffering so much because of the lack of feet movement, he continues playing lazy shots far away from his body. Bowling far away from him and having a dominant off-side field has been the plan against him ever since the CSK match, and he continues giving in to those tactics. Even in this match, he played a couple of unnecessary slices over the point region to the very same area where CSK managed to hole him out. The couple of times he did move around and try to cover the line, he managed to hit handsome boundaries. This modification in technique does not happen overnight and usually takes a fair bit of discipline and time. That's why it's very important for him to keep his head down, block out outside noises, and work on that issue. That being said, he beat the allegations of being ineffective without the support of Head. And that's a step in the right direction.
🔆 Trips turned back the clock! I've always emphasized Trips to be more suitable for opening than batting first down with a semi-new ball. When the ball doesn't move that much and is still hard enough to be hit well, Trips is a different kind of batter. And from the very first ball, he showed glimpses of his past self. Rahul Tripathi is and always has been a confidence player. His performances on the field are reminiscent of the peripheral confidence he gathers before and during his stay in the crease. The less he gets beaten, the fewer Dot Balls he faces, the more confidently he goes through with his shots. I won't say anything new regarding him that I've not said already in here.(Do give it a read if you've not already) Judging by his innings tonight, he'd definitely get his place back in the playoffs. The onus is entirely upon himself to turn the situation around and not ruin his legacy with us. NKR had a decent partnership with Abhi despite struggling initially. He did have luck in his favor a couple of times there, but he made sure to keep up with the RRR to never let the match get away. Klaas, on the other hand, teed off at the start and eventually slowed down after the fall of wickets to secure the win. It's shame that he didn't finish the chase, but that's a discussion that should've taken place had we bottled this.
🔆 This win was necessary for multiple reasons. I wanted a 200+ chase before the end of the group stage so that our batsmen don't carry a burden into such a crucial phase. The RCB match set a precedent for the opposition to score 200+ by batting first against us, and rightfully so, our batsmen failed to comply with the NRR pressure. It showed a definitive weakness in our batting for opponents to exploit, and this match mitigated those worries to some extent. I said 'to some extent' as we made it a little more difficult at the end than we should have. It wasn't 100% confidence-inducing, but it was something at least. There's always a place to start, and I'm glad we started in the right direction.

I wish I’d researched how the portal handles mixing cabin classes.
Every year (besides normal work or vacation travel), I visit family in SE Asia. After taking every airline combo possible for years to save money I finally reached the point where I could afford to take Singapore Airlines. The long haul flight from New York is that much more bearable when the service is so good.
I figured I had might as well benefit from this by always booking the flight on a good travel card. Unfortunately, when booking through C1 the myriad options for mixing cabin classes between Economy, Premium and Business are just not there, at least for SA. All the lovely options for customizing say, the return flight with an upgrade, don’t show up, nor are some cabin classes an option for even round trip flights that are available at the SA website. Calling customer service confirmed this. You get what you get.
Is the best solution to book the base flight at C1 and then try to upgrade a leg via SA? I don’t love how complicated this makes what used to be a simple trip to plan, on top of the uncertainty of how well I’d be accommodated by SA if a trip booked by a third party went wrong.

I (37f) have been divorced from my ex husband(41m) since 2020. My mother(57f) and he were very close following my father’s passing but I never thought anything of it. In 2019 I went to a work party and ended up making the worst decision of my life and sleeping my with my coworker. He immediately shamed me after the affair and told everyone we worked with and then decided to message my now ex husband all the details on Facebook. I am not looking for sympathy. So my mother and and ex husband have stayed close over the last few years and I wasn’t happy about it but I just kind of accepted it. While I figured there relationship was completely platonic I started suspecting something was going on. My mother was over back in February and I noticed text messages coming in and saw my ex husbands name, this really bothered me. So I went to Myrtle beach for a week with my sister and decided to stop at my mothers vacation home in OBX because she had mentioned about being there this week for a getaway before the reality company took the reins for the summer. I didn’t tell her I was coming and arrived at 11am yesterday morning. As I pull up the driveway I see an orange KTM motorcycle and the first thing that came to mind was how my ex husband had an affinity for KTMs and already knew what I was going to walk into but I couldn’t even fathom what I was about to see.. my mother getting plowed from behind by my ex husband bent over the kitchen counter. She freaks and takes off into the bedroom and he just sits back on me and says sorry and lets out a chuckle and shakes his head. So I leave and head back to DE and I’m literally shaking and balling my eyes out the whole ride. I speak to my mother first thing this morning when I woke up and she doesn’t apologize and says I’m the one over reacting. She said that he was better to her than me and my sister ever were and that all I cared about when my father died was my inheritance and that he made her happy and it was all my fault for loosing him because I was unfaithful.. she goes on to tell me that they have been seeing each other for almost two years, plan on moving in together and basically tells me to deal with it, you made your bed and now have to sleep in it. I have paid for this affair greatly, me and my coworker were both fired following an altercation about the affair so I was forced to take a way lower salary position, my last boyfriend left me for his HS sweetheart and basically kicked me out and I had to find an overpriced apartment I can’t afford, and now my mother is with the man I truly still love.. I asked her to stop seeing him and she said to get over myself and stop over reacting to the situation. i was want an honest opinion if I’m overreacting and just need to accept it?

So I F55 have been single, living with ex (paranoid hoarder) for a few years. It was exhausting & constant stress. We all know what clutter does to an aspie!! I finally had enough & decided to move closer to my kids&grans 1200 miles away. Ex moved out. I've been trying to pack my stuff (imagine trying to find my stuff in the hoard) bought a shuttle to live in/haul my stuff, still had the exs cats, dog, for months. I've had 2 surgeries in the past 6 months, both pushed my timeline further back. I've dealt with all of this ALONE. It's just been chaos & I'm really pushing myself. I have a 4 hr round trip commute, on top of an 8 hr work shift, 5 days a week. A friend there, invited me to a FB group to maybe meet some more friends there before hand. I got a few responses & over a period of a few months, 1 in particular, (F62) were seeing each other. She came to visit. Visit went fantastic. I understand she's a manager type personality & was fine with that, until I told her I am Aspie. Within a few days, I was being instructed on how to deal with bosses, friends, finances, when to work on my resume, tasks, chores, etc. I occasionally get overwhelmed & take a night off from tasks. I had set Mem Day as my "goal" tho kept the reality of rain, & things not working as planned (I had a date to get hitch installed, they screwed up reservation, & rescheduled next week) perfect example! I was planning on driving my shuttle down, coming back for camy dog. SHE decided, to buy a plane ticket for Mem wknd, to drive my car down for me. She's never pulled a trailer, nor dealt with midwest storms. She would also have my dog in that car. When I mentioned the given time frame, she dismissed it. My concerns: The shuttle is older and may break down. It's custom, so finding parts may take weeks. I also brought up midwest storms, her response was "its just rain we will keep going". I brought up straight line wind, derechos, etc. Was still blown off. So now my stress & anxiety are peaking. Monday night, we chatted until late, Tuesday, i had a texted a typo, & she was offended I didn't fix it. I had a horrendous busy day. She texted that I must be busy. I said yes. Note: that was all the text I got from her as well all day. When I left work, I texted that I was out. Didn't get the typical "drive safe" response. I texted that I got home. I got 'yay' in response. I then get voice message telling me she can't imagine how much stress im under, she doesn't want to be my stressor, etc. She offers me a night off of our nightly chat so I can decompress. I'm thinking omg she's amazing, thank you ty TY! Then... she sends me a vm of how I'm exhibiting VERY BAD passive aggressive behavior, full of red flags, she's going to take this as a concern, etc. I apologize & say today Im overwhelmed. Now I'm being told, she was upset about my typo, I didn't fix my typo, I didn't text much, how that made her feel ghosted, that her gut was right that I was bullshit, that I'm just too immature to handle what she has to offer. At this point, after a very long stressful day, I'm in critical shut down. I reject calls- texts, tho the texts come in nose to tail. Constant voice messages,texts, emails, voice mail,... I'm just here panicking in silence. So she starts harassing my adult daughter. I tell my daughter to block her. Now the accusations start. Then threatening to visit my elderly (80+) neighbors, (she's been to my place - driveways line up, she know where they live they are my only neighbors) harass THEM until I conform. (PS: she works with the elderly) & she can't see why I now don't want anything to do with her.
Things she's said/ texted-unedited:
-Until I hear different, I am flying out Saturday the 25th. I will get an Uber to your mom and dad's house because I have the address and we're gonna figure this shit out.
-I'm gonna have so much fun with you. You're gonna wish you never met me because I gotta tell you I gave you everything fucking everything trust sex psychological bullshit. I gave you fucking everything and you know what autism on the Spectrum all that fucking bullshit is that it's bullshit.
-I think you were too immature to handle what I can give you and you laid on yourself by being a fucking pussy and that's bullshit because I know you better than that. Why can't you just own that you need to communicate better
-I will constantly call you until I have an answer. That's the bottom line. Don't be a fucking pussy.
-Do you like women to chase you because you were fucked up? Do you really like that or do you like togive amends so it could be done?
-I will keep calling because I want an answer because I am not a fucking pussy. I want to hear it from you.
-You by far are the biggest shit that I've ever ever known. Well played the biggest fucking shit I've ever known.
-I use your white T-shirt to pick up dog shit and it made me feel happy. Isn't it cool that I can text you and you can't respond to me talking about bullshit.
-It totally sucks to be you lol I'm loving this and if you never read it, I'm still loving it
-I'm gonna have so much fun with you. You're gonna wish you never met me because I gotta tell you I gave you everything fucking everything trust sex psychological bullshit. I gave you fucking everything and you know what autism on the Spectrum all that fucking bullshit is that it's bullshit.
-You like the fat girlfriend because it makes you feel skinny and being with someone who's not fat makes you feel insecure
-I think I'm done with you for now enjoy and there is a feed for our text messages just so you know it's awesome
-I think that you just don't think and now there is no way of you to contact me thank you you did this. And I shot those emails out about mom and dad. Do I know where they live fuck no I wanted to get your attention. You chose to read them to use it against me.
-That makes me really sad and yes, I said things to get your goddamn fucking attention And you take it personally although you know me I don't even know mom and dad's address you fucking think about it. You dumb bitch OK use autism as an excuse. You're a dumb bitch autistic people think clearly.

• I totally get it but you didn't tell me you were not an adult and you did a passive aggressive bullshit on me. You know you did. I claim I would be at mom and dad's house I don't even have their fucking address you idiot fucking Idiot, I was trying to get you to talk to me New York and yeah, you really should I believe that

-And you know what your daughter yes I said that fuck your daughter. You need to get her permission to do shit fucking grow up.
-Yes, I lashed out because you didn't talk to me. Yes, to all of the above, but the bottom line is when I love someone I fucking love them and I talk to them, which you did not because you were a fucking pussy, so prove me wrong
-For the record, we could never be more than friends if this is how you handle stress, not my jam at all, but I can certainly be your friend. Do you have a whole lot more growing up to do or a whole lot more realizing your disability in terms of being autistic and on the spectrum.
-I don't care if you're autistic or not you're not fucking stupid, that's passive aggressive Berni and fucking deal with it that was wrong and that was mean you were mean and yes, I lost my shit because I didn't know what was going on

I'm working with a patient who is being changed in bed at night, she does not have a hospital bed, it doesn't go up and down or have weals. The left side of the bed is against the wall, and she is always very close to the edge of the bed and is unable to follow instructions to scoot toward the middle. The bed is rather low about thigh high (I'm 5'5").
So to roll her over and change the tapie brief you are stooping and not using good body mechanics due to the height, and also in order to reposition her to safely roll her over I have been instructed to pull the bed pad with two hands toward the wall from the foot of the bed, this is putting a lot of strain on my back, I told my LPN about the problem and she said just to pull the bed pad to get her in the middle. So I stand at the end of the bed and put one knee on the bed and lean over and try to pull her bed pad too move her over. This is putting strain on my back and I can literally feel the difference when I leave the room. Idk what to do,
Normally I would just temporarily pull the bed away from the wall and stand at the side of the bed, and raise the bed higher so I'm not stooping. But she is not going to get a hospital bed unless she goes on hospice (not likely)
I feel the way they want me to do this makes a back injury inevitable. I'm not weak, I can dead lift 300lb and regularly reposition 250lb people with ease, if they have a bed that allows me to use good body mechanics.
What can I do to either make the situation work better for me, or figure out how to get them to get her a new bed (the family would have to buy it out of pocket, unless she is put on hospice) Is this normal? To be asked to do something that puts your back at risk? Am I being unreasonable?

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/mairia-cahill-michelle-oneills-belated-apology-for-storey-funeral-is-a-distraction-tactic/a1179279534.html
Never was there a starker illustration of the state of Northern Ireland, and the state of Stormont’s handling of the Covid pandemic, than images from December 2020 of ambulances full of patients, queuing outside hospitals full to capacity.
Michelle O’Neill, then deputy first minister, was quick to offload blame on to her coalition partners in the DUP, telling RTÉ’s Morning Ireland: “Let’s not tar everybody with the same brush… I have never deviated from the public health advice.”
She had a short memory. Only six months earlier, O’Neill had been in Milltown Cemetery in Belfast — disregarding all the public health advice to socially distance — posing with others to have their photographs taken at the funeral of former IRA man Bobby Storey.
Afterwards, she had the ­audacity to act as if she had no apology to make for going, no responsibility for the thousands of people on the streets, irreparably damaging trust in government and the public health message.
“I will never apologise for attending the funeral of my friend,” she said the next day.
Crowds line the Belfast streets for Bobby Storey's funeral. Photo: PA My beloved grandmother’s funeral was just five days before Storey’s. We had to watch from a distance as masked men in blue boiler suits lowered her into the ground.
In contrast, the Storey funeral saw republicans travel from all over Ireland, including leading Sinn Féin figures such as Mary Lou McDonald who attended the funeral and an event at Milltown cemetery, where Pearse Doherty and O’Neill addressed thousands of people.
It later transpired that there was no need for anyone to be there at all — Storey was cremated miles away. All this, in the midst of the worst public health crisis to befall us in a century.
The resulting row almost collapsed the Stormont executive. Last week, Arlene Foster told the Covid Inquiry in Belfast that it was “a moment of maximum risk” for her to try and keep things afloat amid pressure from colleagues to walk.
Last Tuesday at the inquiry, O’Neill finally apologised for her attendance: “I also know equally that my actions compounded the hurt and that horrible experience that those families have gone through. I also know that my actions also angered the families, and for that I am truly sorry. I am sorry for going…” It only took four years.
Where is Mary Lou McDonald’s apology? Or Pearse Doherty’s? Or Matt Carthy’s? Previously, defending her attendance, McDonald said: “If I were taoiseach, if I am ever honoured with being in that role and leading a government, of course I would still go to the funerals of people who are friends of mine. Why would I not?” She added: “I was pleased to have the opportunity to say goodbye to a friend of mine.” Where does O’Neill’s apology leave McDonald now? What does it say about McDonald’s political judgment?
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald The minutes of ­a Stormont meeting the day after Storey’s funeral show O’Neill was bullish about her attendance, stating that in her mind there was “no dilution” by her of the public health message.
She now accepts that “that was wrong, because clearly I did”.
She’s under pressure, a far cry from a few months ago, when some secretly harboured a wish that she would take over from Mary Lou McDonald. This was reflected in a Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll in March, which showed O’Neill a clear 16 points ahead of the SF president. The poll was taken just two weeks after O’Neill’s fluffy Late Late Show appearance, where she gave a smiling, polished performance.
Overly buffed surfaces tend to tarnish with the slightest scratch. Michelle O’Neill is affable, and can repeat the party line, but she lacks the ability to foresee the consequences of her decisions. In government, this is a liability. But in a government during a pandemic, it can be lethal. Asked at the Covid Inquiry if she realised at the time “the hurt and anger that going to the funeral would cause?”, O’Neill’s answer was short. “I didn’t, but I ought to have.” Still, she insists she led “from the front” — apart from that one time.
So why apologise now? Perhaps she is truly sorry, but her apology also distracted the media from probing further the fact that her witness statement to the inquiry — where she denied using informal messages to discuss policy — was, in the words of KC Clair Dobbin, “wrong”. Had Arlene Foster not provided her messages, the official record may well have been different. Despite legal advice, O’Neill deleted her devices — meaning no records or conversations stored on her work phone were provided to the inquiry. That is an extremely serious matter and needs to be addressed. Weeks before the pandemic, I highlighted Sinn Féin’s woeful record in Stormont’s government in this paper, and invited people to scrutinise it, so they could see how they would govern in Dublin. I rest my case. Even in a pandemic, the party came first.

Im just curious on how i can make my psp roms all open in ppsspp instead. I figured they would all load on ppsspp by default but it seems that some of them dont. Is there a way i can make sure they open through the emulator i want them to?

I’m sort of caught in the gears of academic life, university is no joke, I tell you (sigh). Alongside my studies, I’m on personal quest too… trying to piece myself together, to heal and grow. It’s a little like wandering through a maze, gets quite lonely at times but hey, it’s all part of the journey (or so they tell me).
About me:
I’m a man of contrasts. I have a romantic soul, with a twist.
You might be curious about what exactly I mean. Imagine I'm returning home from a tough day at work, and you're there to let me unload all of that tension, whether by simply getting on your knees and giving a passionate... (readacted but ask if you're curious) ;) I’m interested in taking c*ntrol, but I also enjoy the idea of cooking you your favorite meal and taking you up as my passenger princess or simply cuddling as we binge our favorite tv show. This represents the fusion between the heartfelt romantic and the masculine side (with a playful streak) that is me.
Interests? I’ve got 'em:

• Philosophical debates over a Hot Beverage
• Deep dives into books (Fiction to Nietzsche, I don’t discriminate)
• Stargazing with a side of existential musings
• Finding the best local eats or snacking at nights (Foodie is an understatement)
• Movies, Music, Sports, Videogames, Writing, Reading, Poetry and what not.
• Exploring unspoken languages — like the art of touch

Here’s what you get:

• A listener, talker, thinker, dreamer—all rolled into one slightly-overanalyzing package.
• No pressure, no rush—just two souls figuring out how much fun we can have along this wild ride.
• Respect, coziness, and a willingness to share the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of our stories.

I'll stop now, if your heart did that weird little leap while reading this, maybe we’re on the same wavelength.
If you’re down for a bond where we can cheer each other on through life’s weirdness.. with the occasional detour into cuddle town, then hit me up. Let’s keep it light, but let’s also make it matter, you know?
We might not have all the answers to life’s big questions, but maybe we’ll figure out a few together.

I've been thinking about how I'd rearrange things in OTH to firstly maintain characterisation of our favourites and offer challenges and the drama we all know and love!
The first alternative I thought of was Haley and her music. Instead of making Chris Keller some random guy used to get between Haley and Nathan as a romantic threat (that completely overshadows Haley's passion for music and performing), rename him and make him Haley's older-brother who never went to college, works at the record-store and encouraged Haley to sing/play in his band to break her out of her shell. Have the band play regularly at any opportunity that presents itself - the Burning Boat, gigs at the university etc - and really show Haley as invested in a future as a performing musician. Develop her song-writing through her relationships with Nathan (slow things down!) as well as Lucas, because he's incredibly important to her. Tension can arise within the band when they are approached by a manager who starts rearranging things, bringing the focus to Haley instead of her brother because of her voice/appeal to a younger, female demographic, especially with the subject-matter of her songs. Create more tension when they've recorded the album and are presented with the opportunity to tour. Have Haley's brother be the one to break Haley out of whatever bubble she's in with Nathan - if she doesn't do this now, she'll never get the opportunity; when would the Haley he grew up with ever sacrifice her dreams just on the off chance she could have a relationship with a guy?! Haley's parents sign over guardianship of Haley to her older-brother; she has to home-school while they tour so she doesn't get off-track.
Nathan is hurt by Haley leaving but appreciates it's her dream, and he's going to do the same with High Flyers. He and Peyton become closer: they start dating, this time being kind to each other. Nathan shows just how much he has changed - or rather, how much of the kid he's always been has been brought out by Haley's influence. He lets Peyton in this time - we see her try in S1 but he brushes her off, as if it's a big joke - and she supports him with High Flyers etc. However, they reach a point in their relationship where they decide they are better as friends, and split amicably.
Haley struggles while on tour because of the demands and the lifestyle. She's exhausted, her sleep-cycle is messed up, she's overwhelmed, but her brother's there every step of the way to support her. They have a serious conversation about whether she wants to continue touring or if it's too much for her too soon, and they need to find another female vocalist/guitarist, so she can return home, finish school then figure things out. But the key point is this: Haley doesn't give up her dream because she feels pressure from a guy. She takes a detour because her mental-health is suffering. It would make a great storyline feeding into her adult depression, where being away from her family and friends (especially Karen and Lucas) severely affect Haley's wellbeing. The rug's pulled out from under her and she can't handle the instability.
As for Dan, instead of giving him a heart-condition, he could have ALS, Lou Gerhig's disease. It's an incredibly serious, debilitating disease and I can see Dan using it heavily to manipulate everyone around him, possibly over-exaggerating his symptoms until he's no longer pretending and realises too late that he's pushed everyone away with his behaviour. I can see Dan using his illness as a way to get back into Nathan's life ("I just want to see you play at Duke before I die") and manipulate his way into Lucas' ("I want to make things right before I no longer have the ability"). But I'd like to see Karen and Deb continue to support each other where Dan's concerned, with Karen supporting Deb as she pushes for her divorce despite Dan's diagnosis, helping talk Deb out of her guilt etc. And bring back Royal and May. I can definitely see May Scott returning to take care of her son, while Royal would become the next big-bad, going after Lucas and Nathan for not wanting anything to do with their dying father, attacking Deb for abandoning Dan in his time of need etc.
After the dynamics we saw in S1 with Royal and May, their addition would be very interesting, especially seeing Royal play off of Whitey and how Royal and May's relationship would suffer when she sees Royal bullying the boys, and May supports the two women wronged by her own son. I think it would add a lot of depth to Dan's character when he sees Royal starting to bully the boys, and he decides to devote what time and independence he has left to being the boys' protector, ensuring that neither Nathan or Lucas turns out like he did. Dan redeems himself through his genuine support of Nathan and Lucas - and possibly Karen and Deb too.
What do you think? What would you do?

We’ve been married 15 years and have 4 kids.
Wife has history of various mental health issues — extreme anxiety, severe post-partum issues, depression, etc.
Within the last two months she started taking a new medication, prescribed by her psychiatrist, that is primarily for borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. It’s front and center in our medicine cabinet. I just noticed it. I say primarily but as far as I can tell those are the only approved uses and I don’t see any common off-label uses. She’s never told me about having or being diagnosed as BPD or bipolar disorder.
Should I ask about it? If so, how would you suggest?
Within the last year or so she was diagnosed with PMDD Neither with the PMDD nor the newer medication has she said anything about it to me. I learned about PMDD from her family/friends indirectly. A friend of hers referred to potential side effects of the new medication she had just started recently - so I was similarly tipped off indirectly.
I’m very private about health matters myself. But I always share with her — just not with others outside of immediate family typically.
I’m glad she’s finally seeing a psychiatrist (but wish she was seeing a therapist too — which she was doing for a while).
The last few years have been terrible and often abusive emotionally and it is a relief to know she is privately figuring out (PMDD for example) that she has things to fix and I’m not crazy for objecting to behaviors of hers.
Im sure the unwillingness or inability to share diagnoses and reveal the vulnerability or “being wrong” is somehow part of the mental health picture. But it would be huge for me if she could just talk openly about what is going on — I worry that if I pry (eggshells etc) that she’ll blow up or even stop trying new medication. And, seriously, the last few weeks have shown improvement — much better than usual. I think this medication is helping.
I’m less concerned about her being private about health matters than making sure she’s addressing things. However, it seems obvious that not being able to tell me about medication or diagnoses is not good. We have four kids in the house and her mental health stuff doesn’t just affect me. Seems weird that friends but not husband know what she’s taking.
I don’t know if she’s been diagnosed with BPD (which, as a non-doctor seems like a match — but also stigmatized — her friends partner has it and she’s ripped on him for years about it and encouraged the friend to leave him because of it, for example). Or maybe it’s off label use for PMDD?
I think she should share with me what she’s taking and why. But I don’t want asking about it to backfire, turn into a crazy fight or set back her efforts to finally get some help. Seeking advice? Btw, I don’t want to mention her friend sharing about new medication because I don’t want to throw that friend under bus for over-sharing.