The war was brutal, when first contact was made.
All at once, entire livelihoods were rendered obsolete, years of carefully and rigorously studied science utterly decimated as the reality of Humanity's existence was made apparent: Our understanding of the universe was highly localized, the source of life as we knew it was barely enough to sustain us, and when the Grann Magocracy arrived, they brought with them weapons of terrible destruction, weapons so devastating that it would take ten generations for Humanity to recover.
There were no words of surrender, no declarations that we must capitulate in the face of overwhelming power. They took one look at Humanity's backwards ways and saw them as little more than backwards savages, and with the detonation of one bomb reduced Earth's total population from ten billion down to a mere three billion, then divided what remained between three factions among their race.
One third taken to be used as an alternative source of mana, forcibly branded, their minds ensnared, that trickle- ripped wide open in the face of the attack- connected to grand and terrible machinery so that they might serve as little more than living batteries.
One third was taken to be used as slaves, given no rights, bound within malign veils of deceit, imprisoned in twisting spells, changed over and over again into specialized beasts of burden, barely human save for the lone mercy of retaining their minds.
And one third, those poor unfortunate souls, were spared, granted dominion over their insignificant mote within the infinite expanse of the cosmos, left to survive in a world viciously mutated with wild magic, left to prove their worth to their oppressors.
The first three generations banded together to survive, much knowledge had been lost of the old ways, those who survived were the laymen, once-proud pagans who were certain their way of life was the truth, vindicated in the worst possible way, societies that had indulged in anachronism, the wealthy who suddenly found that their power was just as ephemeral as the illusion that clouded Humanity's development.
In spite of the devastation, the magic that sought to corrupt what remained, Humanity managed to band together, most electronic machinery simply ceased to work, their circuits overloaded, or data was irretrievably lost, all attempts at preserving what history they had was unfortunately lost as the world was slowly overrun by nature.
The fourth generation was the first born into a world completely different from what had been, the first had died early, mortality manifest far before what they had grown up to expect, the second had been luckier, remembered the stories, told them to their children, who in turn told it to their children, of how their home had been destroyed by a great evil, how their families had been taken. This was the generation that gave birth to the generation of wrath.
It was upon the fifth generation's genesis, that Human society had stabilized. Resembling what had once been considered little more than an anachronistic fancy. They were the ones who mastered the gift of shaping metal, they were the ones who mastered the wilds, who took the monsters that haunted the edge of their society and whittled them down to vicious pets.
They were the first to embrace the terrible power that had lain low their ancestors, they were the first to wield it in the desire for survival, and like many Humans in their long-forgotten history, they wielded it with savagery that was matched only by recklessness. Maintaining distance was the purview of the cowardly and evil Theocracy that had stolen their lands, yet they mastered that art, studied it, understood through sheer trial and error how to counter it, and eventually, they trained their children, and their children's children, generational trauma transforming into a faith, a faith twisting into a lifestyle, a liftstyle twisting into how life always was. They spread across the land, taming the wilds, plumbing the depths of the old world, letting rage build up within their souls as they made the land theirs once more.
It was the tenth generation that tamed the continent, who laid low the threats that had once sought their demise. It was they who bent the ancient boughs of still-living trees, who with raw will and vengeance in their hearts shaped and reinforced glass, who formed metal shells which could sustain even their most brutal of ranged spells.
The Human Armada, numbering five billion, took to the stars and into the waiting jaws of their oppressors, who in their hubris and long lives had observed the Humans from afar. They thought nothing of setting off another bomb, only to realize in growing horror that the ships the remnants of Humanity had lashed together grew faster, arcane shields shifting from a calm blue to a blazing red.
They expected ranged magic that they had long ago outgrown, they had not anticipated the Humans ramming into their ships, pouring into their galleys and slaughtering each and every warrior who found that for all their mastery, they could not divert nor cancel out a magically enhanced wedge of metal.
The first battle slaked the thirst for blood that had been growing, yet did nothing for the hunger for vengeance mankind had developed.
Mindless Human slaves, rendered ageless, yet radically different from their saviors, were granted death. But Humanity did not stop to mourn. They took the weapons of mass destruction their enemies had wielded against them, attached them to their starships, and with unfathomable amounts of mana directly mainlined into their living vessels, they tore at the seams of reality, using what few prisoners they cared to keep as guidance toward the heart of the Magocracy.
They didn't waste time with skirmishes on the edges of their territories, they simply plowed through every blockade they came across, tore through every barrier erected in their presence, and at speeds once thought impossible, they managed in mere hours what even the brightest mages could not fathom.
They crashed into the Grann Magocracy's throneworld, entire cities were decimated on arrival, and the unrelenting tide of metal-clad warriors poured into the streets. Civilians fled in terror, warriors engaged in a desperate, yet ultimately futile attempt at staving off the inevitable tide of wrath. It was not long before it was noted the Humans did not target non-combatants, only those who attacked them. Many beings of many species stood by in terror, it was the slaves that approached them, twisted beasts of burden who knew the way to the High Arcaneum.
The lost third of Humanity, unrecognizable in shape, yet they had carried that same flame of hatred and resentment, and arm in bloodstained arm, they stormed the High Arcaneum and reduced it to nothing but fine bloodstained sand.
Humanity took control. They gathered the politicians, the rich, the archmages, branded them as they had once branded their brethren, and made them serve them in dissolving the Magocracy and granting the lands that had been stolen freedom from their oppressors.
The process was laborious, one billion Humans remained behind, a vanguard overseeing the dissolution of a vast nation, the rest returned to Earth, bringing with them not only their lost family, but any who wished to join them.
As one vast nation died, another gradually grew into life- one not guided by kings of archmagi, but one that lived in harmony in remembrance to a long forgotten world that had valued freedom and security, a world cruelly destroyed.
The Coalition-Worlds of Mankind was born.

Ive been going out with a girl and our dates have been incredible, and she has expressed the same feelings. Today was our 6th date and we made ourselves official on the 29th. And, we have been taking things slow barely passing 1st base ( kissing and stuff we have been doin ). Before our date began I told her we needed to make a pit stop at my moms so I can pick something up it was near the restaurant we were going to, no she did not meet anybody. But immediately after she saw my moms house there was a distant mood change ( its not in the best area ). After that we continued on to our date which I thought was fun, she didnt act strange so I thought. After we got done with everything we came back to my house and thats where I started to notice a difference. And, when I started to try and talk to see if I did something wrong she denied that everything was fine but still I felt that it wasnt and tried to explain why I brought it up in the first place… So I explained that my ex was super manipulative and that im scared to put myself out there ( not the best thing to say I know ). After that we talked it seemed like the preassure was off and we just started cuddling and kissing again. I dropped her off and she still just hasnt even texted me which isnt normal, im scared I messed up or idk if im overreacting I really like this girl and this is the first time I started to date again in awhile. Oh and P.s this girl seems to come from money and is pretty sheltered tbh.

I’m in the US and this is such a nightmare to navigate. I’m homeless with my child… I had to fight to get approved for food assistance here by going to the office every single day, sleeping in my car and they still doubted we were homeless. Even showed them hotel receipts. I’m disabled and right now my kids social security is our only income. I got denied for disability because I was working and don’t have a consistent and long enough medical history to I guess satisfy them because going to the dr is expensive, especially for neurologists.
I worked up until I lost childcare, couldn’t afford it anymore. My landlord increase the rent and I got screwed trying to keep up, had an electric bill over $1000 for a single month and they cut us off and said they didn’t made a mistake. Before that it was only about $100 a month… $900 increase and it was somehow us using that much power.
I went and briefly stayed with a relative until they got frustrated with my child and struck them in the face, leaving a small scar by their eye and a bruise for weeks. The cops were contacted and didn’t care. The shelter closest wouldn’t take us because it wasn’t intimate partner violence, just family violence which I guess is ok somehow? I left town try and find more resources because I was in a small town..
Fuck man. I know homelessness is at an all time high. I empathize with everyone in a similar situation and know others have it worse and really am grateful for what I do have.
But I met with someone who works at one of the shelters for intake today. She told me to not say she said it bad silly explained they only want to take in people struggling with addiction, veterans, severely mentally ill people who they know need full time care that they can’t provide… because it gets them more grants. The worse the situation the more they can say they’re in need of funding. She said the people just having a rough patch end up SOL and either figure it out some other way or eventually things get worse and they end up that way. She said they take parents in who’ve lost custody of their kids before they even take in parents with their kids because they get funding from CPS to “help” reunify.
I think these people deserve help and safety, at a bare minimum I think pretty much everyone deserves a safe place to rest their head and access to food… but the issue is they aren’t trying to help, they just want more money that barely goes towards services. They make it a cycle and then so many other people end up stuck as a result. The lady told me unfortunately getting priced out of my home and having a kid isn’t enough of a sob story to get bumped up the wait list. You have to be on the brink of dying. How did we let things get this bad?? I know social services are SWAMPED Non stop but the lead people in charge don’t care. The lady I was talking to today makes minimum wage and is a freaking licensed social worker!!! How is this real life?
I had to fight with food stamps to provide I can’t sell my car because I owe so much on it and it’s a piece of junk, I had to send in my bank statements for 2 months for them to see it goes to hotels, gas and food. And I got $17 a month. Their logic is we don’t need a lot of groceries since we don’t have a way to cook it. I had to take a drug test at the appt for the shelter, they try to convince me to just admit in an addict and they’ll get me on their suboxone program… oh you don’t do drugs ok we’ll see our psychiatrist because you probably are struggling it’s bipolar and need medications.
Like I just want a place to go with my kid ffs. We applied for housing over 2 years ago and still it just says waiting for review. No amount of hard work and pulling myself up by the boot straps is helping. I’m more in debt everyday. This is a nightmare.

This needs a little backstory first.
My father and I have been estranged for nearly a decade due to a lot of childhood trauma and the way he acts towards my mother. The final straw that lead to us not talking was that he made several insults towards my mother and stepfather because they had helped me out monetarily when he couldn't. He cut off all ties with me because I hung up on him, and we went eight years without any contact until two years ago, when he asked my mother to relay a message to me. Emotionally, I couldn't bring myself to reach out for three months, but eventually, I was able to do so. However, he never answered my call; instead, he called up my mother and said these exact words, "he took too long." It felt like a game he was playing, like when I was a child, and I took it pretty rough. I think I drank for 2-3 days straight. It felt like he wanted to mindfuck me one last time.
Another important aspect to this offmychest is my younger brother's traumatic brain injury. When he was twelve, he suffered a heart attack while swimming, resulting in a lack of "good" oxygen to his brain and so part of his brain atrophied. That day, he experienced three cardiac arrests due to an undiagnosed heart condition. This occurred a couple of years after our parents' divorce. Since then, my brother has been wheelchair-bound and completely disabled, only able to engage in limited conversations. It has been approximately twenty years since he acquired his brain injury. Unfortunately, my father prevents my mother from seeing him. My father, who was mentally and physically abusive growing up, scared my mother so much that she relinquished custody of both my younger brother and me to him. For nearly two decades, he has denied my mother access to my younger brother simply because she divorced my father. I don't even know if he even reads the cards my mother sends to my brother. After we cut ties he also didn't allow me to contact my younger brother. He has always been that petty and spiteful man, and I truly believe he is a narcissist.
Today, my mother contacted me, offering to share a video from my little brother's recent birthday party, which took place just three days ago. Naturally, I wanted to see it, but it was utterly heart-wrenching. I haven't heard his voice in a decade. The video lasted only four seconds. Seeing him in his wheelchair, frail and barely able to sit upright, while hearing his childlike voice was overwhelming. In the background, I could make out my father's voice, severely old and nearly unrecognizable. I have been crying on and off all day. My father had the audacity to request that my mother ask me to contact him again. I strongly feel he simply wants to play more games with me; I have that little of trust and respect for him.
I told my partner about the video, but I didn't get a chance to mention my father's request. Prior to my mother's call, my partner had texted me, asking if I wanted to go to the lake after she got off of work. However, after my mother's call, I told my partner I didn't feel like it anymore because of how sad I am today. She told me she was disappointed, which only made me feel worse. I told her, "you're making me feel worse by saying that." Her reply was, "whatever"
She just returned home a short while ago. She grabbed some things and prepared to go out with her family for a drive. I feel so alone right now and I hate my life. Maybe she didn't fully understand what happened today, but she also didn't try to. As she was leaving I didn't have the energy to say anything.

English isn't my first language, and this is my first time posting so please be patient with me.
I (39f) started a new job about a month ago. I hadn't disclosed to anyone that I was childfree. Until today, when I talked to that older guy. He is 64 or something ; in France, today, given his age, he should be retired.
He is in great shape and look nothing like his age ; it is not a shame he is still working. But it is clearly out of necessity.
The guy has a 8 year-old kid, with a much younger woman (when he had already 3 with his ex wife). And he talks about himself as a "reproductor" (charming).
Anyway. I say I didn't have children. He literally told me :"If your man cannot give you children, I will".
What the ...???????
I was very upfront in saying I was the one who couldn't have children because I made sure of that with a bilateral salpingectomy.
Came the old tale about maternal instinct, being selfish for wanting only pleasure in sex, reproduction being in our genes ("especially for women" yuck) and what we are here for on Earth and blablabla.
I stood by my positions. Telling him he had no right to judge me. That I had my reasons. That what he called maternal instinct was a construction from the 18th century. That some other mammals have no pleasure in sex and it is just instinct.
And that "just" not wanting to have children was a valid reason in itself.
We went through the topics of child abuse, of children who are brought into this world by unfit parents.
We didn't agree at the end of the conversation. He was a bit colder that usual after this encounter. But we agreed to disagree, and at least in the end, I think he had no choice but to respect my decision and aknowledge that my point was valid.
I think this is the first time I stand up like that against an older man I barely know. I am kind of proud of myself, and I needed to share this.
Thanks for reading me.

I was wearing a sun dress and my teva sandals with no makeup on. Nothing special. I'm a new mom and one of my friends wanted to meet up for a beer and meet my son. He was straggling far enough behind me with the stroller that you couldn't tell we we're together. A guy looked me up visibly from head to toe and had a creepy smile on his face. He said something under his breath and his friend turned all the way around to do the same. His buddy winked at me as I walked by and whistled.
Not my favorite experience in the world but I just walked a few steps backwards and grabbed his hand. He's 6'3 and a large man so it would be hard not to feel safe with him at my back. He was absolutely fuming when we got to our table and I had to talk him out of going back to say something. As a woman this kind of shit happens so often I barely even registered it.
He was going on and on about how wrong and disgusting it was I had to deal with them. It's nice that there's still a few good guys left in the world who "would fight for my honor."

I am looking for any helpful legal advice. I'm a university student, renting a room in a university apartment. The rent is per room, but the apartment is shared between me and three others. Utilities are separate from rent, and are stated in the rental agreement and handbook to be handled by the occupants through a separate service provider. Utilities were handled by one of my other roommates. The account was made in their name alone.
I rented this room from July of 2021 to May of 2023. I did not occupy the room or apartment in any capacity from February 2022 to May of 2023. My room was essentially a personal storage unit. Breaking lease was far too expensive. I resided instead with my partner (and have been since February of 2022). It was very clear to my roommates that I was living entirely with my partner; I had stated this verbally on multiple occasions and even had one of my roommates check in with me, which is when I confirmed in writing that I do not stay in the apartment. My roommates were well aware of my absence in the period of February 2022 to June 2022 (essentially the spring semester).
Despite being entirely absent from the unit, I continued to pay a portion of the utilities through December of 2022. This is due in part to me being non-confrontational, and also a clause in the rental handbook and agreement that states heat must be on in winter months due to pipe maintenance (meaning heat would be on in my room, counting as usage on my part). To my knowledge, no lights or heat were used in my room outside of this period.
Given that I had indicated to my roommates that I was living entirely with my partner, I made no payment towards utilities after December. Heat was not needed at this point, meaning I made no contributions to utility usage. I only saw that payment requests were being made through a group chat, where the person managing the utilities would state a cost to be paid. I had communicated with this person on other matters outside of utilities. I was never once asked about missing payments. To me, it was clear that because I was not using utilities and that I would not be paying. The lack of follow up or even addressing it seemed to confirm this.
After everyone had moved out (with utilities having been paid in full and the account closed), the roommate managing the utility account messaged me privately and demanded payment, in full, for the months I was absent. I stated I would not be paying for the reasons above. She sent this conversation to the group chat, demanding payment from the other two roommates because I was “flaking” and if it was an issue they could take me to small claims.
They tried to claim that there's no way to know if I was residing in the residence or not. Both my partner and I have location storing on our devices, proving residence of a different property. I am in the process of getting that data downloaded. They then claimed they haven't stayed much there but they are paying, so I should as well. One roommate stated they were absent for the entirety of the fall semester, just like I was. I pointed out that I had remained absent, still making zero contributions to utility usage but paying for that period. Another tried to say that they often stay with friends, meaning they should only be liable for half of what they pay based on my argument. Again, they are still the ones using the utilities. I couldn't because I was never present.
My partner and I have done some research. In our area, average usage per month is roughly 970 KwH for a 2000 sq. ft. home in 2023. The apartment we lived in was 1000 sq. ft. After requesting billing statements, they somehow, with only 2 to 3 of them present, averaged 1200 KwH monthly. Either they were all constantly there, or decided to constantly leave utilities active, regardless of if they were present.
They also keep trying to say it was my responsibility to indicate my absence to ALL of them, not just the one managing funds. I had indicated that I was moving out with my partner when the lease ended. I also had told all of them I reside entirely with my partner. Again, this was evident given that I had already been absent and residing with my partner from February 2022. I had indicated I do not live at this apartment. They knew my room was used entirely for storage, as my bed wasn't even in the room. You could barely get past the door. They were saying I was responsible for telling them they needed to pay more, not the person managing the funds.
They then said I was responsible for paying regardless because there is a flat rate for access to utilities from the service provider, and then an additional monthly charge for usage. The flat rate is $9 a month in totality, not per person.
In my absence following December 2022, the utility bill spiked from roughly $10 a month per person to nearly (and sometimes over) $50 a month per person. Again, this is without me ever being on the property and them claiming to never be there too. They tried to cite an 8% increase in rates on the service provider's end, but that doesn't make any sense.
Their final arguments to me were about verbal agreements. They stated the agreement was for the four of us to split the payment. I stated that I did not ever agree to anything written first of all, and second, the verbal agreement could not count as I had indicated multiple times I was no longer living at that apartment. Nonpayment on my end was clear as well. It was the responsibility of the person managing the funds to follow up on nonpayment, and also to make appropriate adjustments.
Sorry for the long post. Am I liable for any payments? Would my roommates have a case against me in court? What I'm counting on is my location data to show that I was genuinely absent, texts showing that I had made my absence clear and photos showing that I could not reside in my room even if I wanted, extended gaps and redundancies in their arguments, and transactions showing I did pay for any utility usage that I was aware of and liable for.
If they take the case to court, I will be missing multiple flights home, and will be out several hundreds of dollars used towards being able to take my pet home (meaning vet bills, plane and airport fees, etc.). Would I be able to seek damages for this?
TLDR; I wasn't making utility payments because I wasn't using my apartment (rent and utilities are separate). My roommates knew this, didn't acknowledge the nonpayment on my end for months, suddenly decided to threaten court unless I paid for everything I missed in full immediately after moving out. I did not sign anything, my name is not on any account. Not sure if they even have a case, but am I liable for anything here? Would I be able to seek damages?

Just a disclaimer: I am a devout Christian. My school is a seminary where I am getting my Master's. I don't really want snarky comments about the religious affiliation and how this reflects poorly on Christianity. I know. I get it. If I wanted a theological debate, I wouldn't be posting here. I just want to vent. Sorry if I seem touchy, but assurance that I am a stupid brainwashed Christian is not what I am seeking in this post.
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I attend a large Southern Baptist seminary in Texas. Just last week, the students became aware that all indications seem to point out that the previous administration embezzled roughly 12 million dollars from various dedicated trusts in given to the school and laundered it through a shell company to the members of his cabinet.
We all knew it was bad, we had no idea it was THAT bad.
This comes after three plus years of wasteful spending, poor institutional decisions and multiple repetitions of "the school doesn't have enough money to pay its non-faculty employees more" (I was a maintenance worker until today). I worked for three years, and never got a raise, and was only paid $11/hr for carpentry work.
There are also several sexual abuse lawsuits on various professors from students.
My family is barely making it through school, financially. If my wife hadn't had a lot of savings, we wouldn't have been able to make it this far. I would leave now if I wasn't graduating in December. I am scared my degree will not be worth much after the school has tarnished its reputation this much, and nowhere wants to hire me even though I have about as good of a resume as one could expect for someone in my position.
I am not sure why I am making this post. Probably just to vent. It is a sucky situation, and any advice would be welcome too. Idk what I'll do in December, but I suppose I will work wherever I can to support my wife and soon-to-be second baby.

Throwaway because one of my irls knows my reddit name. Sorry in advance for the lengthy post. I don’t even know where to start. We’ve been together for three years and have been engaged for around four months. My fiancee is the most loving and generous person I’ve ever met. She’s never been aggressive around me before this. I feel like I should have noticed what was happening sooner, I should have taken her to the hospital sooner instead of making excuses to make myself feel better about her behavior. She’s a teacher, it was her first year teaching and it was a rough year for her. She got out of school two weeks ago and that’s when her behavior did a full 180. She deep cleaned and rearranged everything, she blew her whole paycheck on one trip to Target (about $1000), she started going to the gym multiple times a day, and started wearing makeup all the time- I’ve seen her in makeup maybe a dozen times in our relationship. She has ADHD that she’s medicated for, and she told me just felt like she had a lot more energy now that she wasn’t working. I told myself it was just her ADHD and being bored during the day. TW; Sexual content. >! We went from having sex multiple times a week to her wanting it multiple times a day. I’ve had to tap out because I couldn’t keep up with her. She wanted to stop doubling up on protection, which she’s normally very adamant about because abortion is pretty much illegal in our state.!< She started getting anxious and restless, I was worried she wasn’t taking her ADHD meds, but she swore she was. She was barely sleeping, it was like she never ran out of energy. She would check the door like 10 times to make sure it’s locked before she went to bed. She kept thinking the cat was escaping the apartment and freaked out when she didn't see him for a few minutes. She went out with her friends one night and got insanely drunk. She usually gets a little tipsy, but she was blackout drunk. I had never seen her like that before.I had to pick her up and stayed up all night to make sure she didn’t aspirate in her sleep. Two days ago, when I got home from work her car was there but she wasn’t. I thought she was at the gym or pool, but I had a gut feeling so I checked her location on my phone. It said she was in the middle of some road around a mile away, I thought maybe she was with a friend but called just to check. She told me she went out on a walk and was going to get a slushie from seven eleven. The seven eleven is almost five miles away from our apartment. She was walking down the side of a road with no sidewalks. I freaked out and told her I was coming to get her. When I found her, I pulled over on the side of the road and had to convince her to get in the car so I could take her. This was the point I decided to take her to the ER, I didn’t know what else to do. I was worried if I just took her home she would try something like that again and get herself hurt or killed. When she realized we weren’t going to the seven eleven she unbuckled herself and tried to get out of the car while it was moving. I’ll spare the details, but I got her to the ER. She was aggressive to the point of almost being violent, and she was pissed that I brought her there. One of the nurses asked me if I genuinely thought she was a danger to herself and I told her yes. She was voluntarily transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Leaving her there was the hardest thing I’ve had to do. From what I’ve been told, she was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 and she’s being medicated in addition to individual and group therapy. She does see a therapist weekly, so I gave the hospital her therapist’s information, as well as the psychiatric NP she sees for her ADHD medication. The nurse I spoke to earlier said they were looking to release her on Monday. I’m not allowed to visit her at the moment, but I did get to talk to her on the phone yesterday. She just sounded sad and said she was sorry for hitting me. She never hit me throughout this whole ordeal. I just told her I loved her and that I would call to talk to her everyday as long as she was okay with it, which she was. I called again today but was told she couldn’t speak with me because she was in group therapy, and I would get a call back at some point. I’m just an anxious mess at this point. I’m scared and I’m insanely worried about her. I just wanna see her, she’s very sensitive and I have no idea how she’s holding up right now. I have no clue what to do/say when I pick her up, when I take her home, I have no idea what I can do to make her feel better about all of this. It just sucks. I wish I had taken her somewhere sooner, she was completely unlike herself for days.
TLDR: My fiancee went to a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I don't know what to do.

so it’s been a month since i last talked to him. almost 2 months since he broke up with me. but i broke nc today, and i got disappointed and hurt again. the last time we spoke was in person, essentially i wanted closure and asked him to meet. i apologized for my faults and he did the same, he even ended up crying when talking about how he missed me, but was still firm in his decision. he’s made it clear that he doesn’t love me anymore at all, which is hard to accept because i still have feelings for him, we were together for 2.5 years. anyway, this has been the worst period of my life. i’ve been severely depressed, my grades have dropped and i barely eat. because of this i recently moved back home, we both lived abroad. to make matters worse, i just arrived home and the airport personnel robbed my suitcase. the only thing they took was a small jewelry box, which contained only one economically valuable piece, but it contained all of the jewelry my ex had given me. as well as the jewelry his grandma gifted me. i didn’t lose much economically speaking, but emotionally i was devastated. so i texted him, just to tell him how i felt and because it was obviously about him. he took 6 hours to reply. he replied with 3 lines to the effect of: hey sorry that happened it sucks i don’t really know what i expected, but at least a sympathetic ear would’ve been better i’m back to feeling like shit. is it natural that a person u were committed to for almost 3 years doesnt give a shit about you? i’m truly inconsolable

have a huge crush on this boy in my grade, he’s in some of my classes but i’ve never texted him and we barely talk. i think he’s so attractive and smart and sweet. though since literally everyone else thinks he’s hot too, i have no chance, and with my luck, he’s probably either gay, not interested in dating, or likes this other girl that i’ve heard texts him. i notice all the small details about him and his personality and i really like him—as much as i can without being his friend.
i’m not gonna confess or ask him out because i know he doesn’t like me like that….how do i get over it? my brain just keeps holding onto hope that i can make him notice me and start liking me, and my adhd hyperfixation isn’t helping.

A bit over a year ago my first relationship that lasted about 9 months ended. At first I was enjoying the single life for a little bit when I first got to college it was fun to dance and make out with random girls at bars but now I want something more serious but nobody will take me seriously. I have so much love to give and nobody to give it to. The other thing is I am probably not completely over my ex. After breaking up we didn’t speak at all for months until she reached out to apologize for how she ended things. We hung out a few times and talked for a little bit but earlier this year we fell out of contact again. I reached out recently to ask about catching up and she said she would have to ask the guy she’s currently dating. I know that she’s allowed to go on and live her life and be happy but it still felt like a gut punch. I started taking antidepressants recently and while that has helped with a lot of issues I still can’t shake the feeling of loneliness and ugliness. I miss the small things like fun date days and buying flowers but nobody to do these things with. I feel like I’m in a pit I can’t climb out of. I’m lonely but I can barely get over my insecurities and I’m also still hung up over my ex. I feel worthless as a man for not being able to find someone. I feel underserving of love and I have a really hard time loving myself. I just wish this loneliness could disappear or I had someone to hold in my arms.

****WARNING****
***
Body Horror, bugs, death, gore. Attempted horror.
By my own standards, this is fairly tame, your mileage may vary, content advisory.
***
Captain Van’tu, the Garaboosian commander of the Alliance of Free Stars light scout cruiser Mandrake, frowned, in the way of his species, and gestured with a lower lefthand at his human science officer to continue.
The woman turned back to her console, to peer into the hood of her ‘scope and minutely adjust a control.
“The ship is an old Terran Alliance Explorer class, the TAN Nebula Star. She was reported overdue for resupply a little over a hundred years ago, exact details are spotty as the station she was supposed to report to was destroyed in the Terran civil war. By modern standards she was little more than a heavy cruiser with an oversized jumpcore, and limited weaponry. The Terran Alliance Navy was very much focused on exploration and first contact, and several of their vessels vanished without trace only to show up decades later in pirate hands. However, this does not seem to be the case with the Nebula Star…”
The image on the holotable was mute testimony to this information. The old starship, much more massive than the Mandrake, but significantly less well equipped, looked derelict. Several holes gaped in her once-pristene white hull, the smooth lines marred and crooked, and the jumpcore bulb near the stern showed a terrible, blasted crater, black with soot and melted steel.
Captain Van’tu scrolled the smooth wheel of the holo controls, swivelling the image and zooming into the damage.
“What do we think of this, Sasha, that looks like an internal explosion, not battle damage.”
“Yes Captain.” Sasha, the science officer, agreed. She manipulated a pad on her side of the console. Several sidebars lit up. “Here, here and here. Chemical signatures we’ve picked up in the dustcloud around the wreck, and the blast pattern, indicates a high yield chemical explosive was utilised, we would need to get a scan from inside the wreckage to be certain, but I think I can confidently say this was caused by a c4 package commonly kept as part of ship inventories of that era. We carry a similar type of explosive even now, it has uses in a number of emergency protocols.”
The captain nodded. “I’m familiar with Human paranoia, ‘better to have and not need than need and not have’, which is why I learned to carry a backpack heavier than myself at the academy.” He smiled at the woman, who grinned back in that wolfish human fashion.
Commanding a Terran vessel as part of the Alliance Navy was a high honour for a non-Terran, and he’d earned it the hard way, he’d actually completed his officer training on Earth itself, heavy gravity, lethal flora, fauna, and practical jokes be damned, he’d always dreamed of command, and he had never planned to settle for anything less than the best ships of the fleet.
Somehow his determination to ‘make it’ had actually impressed his trainers and teachers, and earned him the interest of a senior Admiral, which explained his current command. And he was no ticket-puncher, his crew was, in his opinion, the best in the fleet, and if his ship was small, he was so proud of her, some days he could almost burst his hearts from it. She was his first, and with luck, not his last, and while scouting duty following pre-war exploration routes was far from glamorous, it was essential work for the Alliance, following up first contacts, reopening lost trade routes, and, now and then, coming across relics, and giving closure to the descendants of those vanished vessels.
“Alright. She looks cold, and her reactor is dead, but we don’t know what happened to her, she could have run afoul of pirates, or been captured and misused for decades, or been left boobytrapped, so pack up a SAR shuttle, and give them a leader drone, they don’t enter unless the drone clears the way in.”
“Aye aye Captain, I’ll get them on their way. Sidearms?”
“Yyy…esss. Yes. And overarmour. If someone’s left any surprises, it will help.”
Sasha turned and walked off, already tapping her communicator to summon the personnel she’d be sending.
He frowned again, looking into the depths of the hologram. Something was bothering him, the same sensation he’d felt while visiting a zoo on Earth. Humans around him grinning, nodding to one another, and the confirmation of his worry came as a boom of hundreds of pounds of apex feline carnivore crashing against the high density crystal he’d been standing with his back to…
Something was creeping up on them, he could feel it.
***
The shuttle launched from the brightly lit boatbay of the Mandrake, arcing smoothly through the glittering blackness towards the cruelly murdered starship. In front of it zipped the mote of the drone, its scanners and sensors slaved to the shuttle, giving the drone specialist on board an instant feed to all his senses, feeling, experiencing everything the drone saw.
It zipped around the gaping hole where the jumpdrive had once been housed, then around in a helical pattern, scanning every micron of the lost ships hull, mapping it in complete three dimensional perfection, then tracking towards the boatbay. Inside, two, much older, versions of the Mandrakes shuttle rested, crooked against their davits, the bay airlock doors lying open.
The drone slowly crept inside the dark corridor as the shuttle followed it in, nestling into an empty davit. Power hookups, identical after a century thanks to long ago agreed standardisation, marry up, pogo pins compressed and energized, drawing trickle power from the shuttle to latch securely.
The crew debark, except the probe operator who remained strapped in his jumpseat, guiding the drone deeper into the derelict.
Suited figures follow its path, jumping from the shuttle hatch to the airlock. They don’t bother trying to seal it, it had been lying open for a century, there was no air left within to preserve. The drone met a cross passage, and moved right, headed towards the bridge, following schematics downloaded from Mandrake’s computer. The scout crew followed, alert, and making note of damage to bulkheads, the carpets that once covered the floors looking torn, dark stains telling a worrying story.
The probe entered the bridge of the Nebula Star and paused. The LIDAR scanner illuminated the space in a slow pass of green laser light, left to right and back again. The chamber was empty, save the various consoles and chairs the crew would have used, and the lone figure of the Captain, in his central command chair.
To Captain Van’tu, observing the time delayed remote feed on his own bridge, it was remarkable just how similar the darkened derelict wreck was to his own vessel, down to the arrangement of bridge consoles and type of carpeting used. He’d read, in one of his intro to ship design classes, that Terran bridge layout owed much to speculative fiction of pre-spaceflight eras, and a lot of experimental wet-navy designs.
He'd brought it up once with his chief of engineering, who had responded with a ridiculous approximation of a Scottish accent, “Aye laddie, we Terrans owe an awfy lot tae an auld lass called the Enterprise!” and laughed, continuing his explanation in his more natural German accented standardised Terran. Van’tu had spent several informative evenings with his console, soaking up ancient Terran entertainment as a result.
The drone circled the bridge, slowly, keeping its thruster exhaust well clear of the mummified body in the central chair, making its way to the science console. A small arm popped out and slotted into the consoles data port.
Several lights flickered on the antique panel, the probe powering up the cold circuits to read the datalogs, then around the room, dim red lights came to life, as more of the bridge woke up. Through the hull itself, a faint whine transmitted, the probes oversized fusion battery providing enough current to trigger the startup of a backup generator below the bridge.
The scouting party stepped in, peering around. One, her grey skinsuit marked with a red stripe down the arms, moves across to the captain, a medical scanner in her hand.
“I’m reading significant trauma throughout the corpse, but remarkable preservation as well. Life support must have been glitching badly for a long time after… Wait…” She smacked the side of the scanner, then passed it back across the corpse. “Scanner keeps picking up my own heartbeat, trying to tell me this guys still alive, fucking thing.” She put it away in the side pocket of her suit and pulled out a smaller device. “I kept my old one, should be good enough to… Fuck me sideways…”
“Maybe later Carol, what’s the script?” A green stripe on the party leader’s arm. He was looking around, feeling… itchy, between his shoulder blades. Something wasn’t right, and not just the dead ship. He’d been lead on two other derelict searches, and they never went like this. Accidents happened, people died, usually horribly, and you always found, well, bodies. Whole or otherwise. Yet, aside from the clearly traumatic bloodstains on the floors, soaked long before the artificial gravity had failed, this ship hadn’t shown them a single body, nothing, not even fragments.
Not only that but he could swear he’d seen movements. No-one else had, but he also knew that his reflexes tested significantly higher than average, he was seeing something the others were simply not noticing.
Carol stepped away from the corpse.
“My old scanner says this guy’s alive Mark. Heartbeat, brain activity, oxygenated blood. He’s not breathing and he’s a fucking corpse, but both my scanners say he’s gooey in the middle. And I’ll be honest I don’t want to be here, send probes back across on AI control and let them explore, this is too freaky. I know you’ve been seeing shit, well, I’ve been picking up weirdness all along, and this is too much. We should leave!”
Mark bit back a curse. He agreed, but he was also supposed to be a professional, and as the leader of the scout team who first boarded the derelict, he’d have been slated for command of the ‘prize crew’ to bring her home. At the same time, he was holding back a growing uneasiness, his other two team members were shuffling nervously, and Carol was on the edge of panic.
“Alright, we head back to the shuttle and leave the probe to grab the logs. Something’s weird here, might be the atmosphere on this thing, I admit it’s spooky, but we all know I see weird bugs and things other folk miss, and Carol, you’ve had that personal scanner since high school, if it’s saying something weird, something weird is going on. If Captain… Morrison, is still alive after a century in vacuum, he can keep a few more hours until the AI probes can collect him. We’re not equipped for medical evac anyway.”
They stepped back through the hatchway, leaving the probe to its work. Emergency lighting flickered into life, adding a lurid red glare to the tableaux, Mark, last to leave, sharply snapping his head back around as something… He was reminded of a time as a child, he’d turned over a log in his parents’ yard, and hundreds of inch-long centipedes had scurried in panicked circles to escape the sudden glare of sunlight.
Nothing moved, aside from the slow pulsing of rebooting computers.
He followed his people towards the shuttle.
One by one, they made the leap back to the shuttle davit, and boarded, cycling back aboard, and taking their seats. The drone pilot barely moved to acknowledge them, clearly lost in the datefeed from the old computers, and aside from a quick glance across readouts to ensure the data was flowing cleanly to the Mandrake, Mark didn’t disturb the man.
He hit the switch to release the davit clamps, and the popped free. The shuttle turned, and smoothly glided out, aligning with the mothership and headed home. He blinked and shook his head. That motion again, out the corner of his eye. He glanced over, seeing the drone pilot’s faceplate swarming with legs for a fraction of a second.
“Uhh, Josh, you alright there?” He hated breaking into drone pilot concentration, but this wasn’t right, and Carol was gesturing desperately at him from her chair. He reached across, and nudged Josh’s shoulder, the skinsuit collapsing under his fingers and the skull clacking loosely against the faceplate.
***
Captain Van’tu listened to the soft report coming from Sasha, the scout crew had found the captain of the derelict but were returning early due to some unsettling information they’d found. He didn’t like it, but he also respected human instincts. If skilled officers felt there was a reason to withdraw before mission completion, he knew better than to override the human-on-the-spot.
He’d have a word with Mark later, in private, if necessary, but the man had never been wrong before.
Across the communicator, there was a sudden eruption of yelling, the shuttle on the holo spiralling wildly. Sasha was demanding a clear response from the screaming communicator.
Mark came over the channel. “Abort mission, contamination, alien threat…” His words ended in a gurgling scream, the kind that began high and ended, eventually, in a growling snarl of mortal agony. The line remained open, however, and the entire bridge crew turned to stare, mouths agape, as into the silence the faint sounds of gnawing began to echo.
Sasha shut off the feed with a shaky finger. “Captain, I…”
“I know. Arm several probes, get them to the shuttle, find out what happened and…”
Once more, attention fell to the holo display, as on it, the icon of the shuttle winked red. Sasha motioned, and the focus zoomed in. Where the shuttle had been, a spreading scatter of debris remained.
She pulled up the sidebars again.
“Right before Mark, uh, died, his authorisation codes were used to trigger an overload on the shuttle reactor. We didn’t pick up the feed in real time, they were returning after all, but all of them suffered catastrophic biological distress immediately before their lifesigns cut out. Mark was the last one alive, and severely injured when he triggered the reactor.”
Captain Van’tu shook out his lower hands with a stress-shedding gesture. “The shuttle reactor is in a sealed compartment. He had to get from his chair to the access panel and enter his code, while suffering life threatening injuries which had already killed the rest of his crew?”
“Yes, Captain. I’m sorry, I missed it, my team is still processing the data, but it looks as if the drone pilot ceased responding several minutes before the shuttle departed the wreck. At five minutes into the flight, the three junior officers began exhibiting distress, but gave no verbal alerts. Mark seems to have reacted to something that triggered a fight or flight response, but within a few seconds was exhibiting the same injury markers as the others. At the six-minute mark, he sent his warning, while moving. It appears as if the cessation of his vocalisations was not the end of his life, almost thirty seconds later his code was entered into the shuttle reactor, and it detonated.”
Captain Van’tu moved to his command chair, and sat down, lower hands grasping the armrests, upper hands folding under his chin. “Helm, chart course back to the nearest Alliance outpost, and warm up the jumpcore. Tactical, bring shields to standby and start charging the grasers, I don’t like what’s happening, and I do not want to be caught with our backs turned.”
His crew moved into action, tactical alerts bringing various stations to readiness.
“Sir! We’re receiving a communications request, uh, from the Nebula Star.”
He stared at his communications officer, who looked equally shocked.
“Please, Jen, put them through to the main holo.”
The hovering image of the wreckage that had once been a shuttle vanished, replaced by the familiastrange image of the old bridge, and its captain.
The man was a corpse, there was no debate. The papery skin had pulled back from his eyes and teeth, his nose collapsed inwards, decades of icy coldness and baking heat as the derelict tumbled slowly from shade to sunlight had freeze dried the body, yet, it moved. The jaw flapped open, and the sticklike arms gestured against the command chair arms, clawed fingertips clicking uselessly.
“Gree. Tings. Un. Known. Vess. Sell. I. Am. Cap. Tan. Morr. Iss. Son. We. Come. In. Peace.”
The corpse in the holo quivered and twitched in some horrible mockery of life, the bared grey teeth clicking as the jaw spasmed open and closed, not, Van’tu noted, in time with the words being spoken. Inside the jaws, he also noticed, something black and shiny and segmented.
“I highly doubt you come with any sort of peace in mind, what are you really, and what did you do to the crew of the shuttle who boarded the ship you are on.”
The body twitched, a trickle of black ooze popping free from the corner of the sunken eye socket. Under the dried up eyelid, something squirmed around, curling with segmented motion, a few pointed claws poking briefly free before vanishing once more.
“I. Am. Cap. Tan. Morr. Iss. Son. We. Come. In. Peace. We. Rek. Wire. Ass. Iss. Tan. Sse. Let. Uss. Board.”
An alert flashed from Sashas direction. A gesture diminished Captain Morrison to a corner of the holo and expanded the view of the derelict. Two shuttles of archaic design had just launched from it and begun making their way towards the Mandrake. He muted his pickup and turned to his tactical officer.
“Jeff? They do not get close enough to board.”
“Aye aye sir, tracking has them locked and my grazers are charged.”
“Very good.”
He returned to the holo and reopened the grisly view of the dead man being puppeted on his display.
“You will not be permitted to board my ship. I demand to know who you are, what you represent, and why you are trying to impersonate Captain Morrison.”
“You. Are. Food. You. Have. Use. Full. Tech. Nol. Ogy. We. Will. Take. It. We. Will. Use. You. We. Will. Mul. Tip. Lie. This. Vess. Hell. Came. To. Us. In. Peace. We. Took. It. We. Came. For. Ter. Rah. We. Became. Trapped. We Became. Lethargic. We have waited. Now you have brought us. A new vessel to carry us. To Terra.”
Captain Van’tu shook his head. If these things were familiar with humans, they’d recognise the gesture. For the sake of understanding he’d long ago learned to at least emulate some human body language.
“You will not be allowed to go any further. I have a duty to safeguard the people under my command, and to the people of… Terra.” Whatever this species was, it was not something he wanted anywhere near a colony or, worse, defenceless homeworld, of any of the Allied or friendly species he knew lay between here and Terra herself. Best for all they only had Terra in mind.
“Sir! The incoming shuttles are not going for docking, they’re on a ramming approach! Firing solution lost on bogey one!” The Mandrakes grazers were firing, gunnery crews managing their weapons as they tracked automatically and fired, spearing one of the wildly corkscrewing shuttles with lances of gravitationally focused gamma radiation. The second shuttle however spun, and fell downwards, smashing into the still warming shields, and through, impacting the Mandrakes hull with tremendous speed.
The scouting vessel shuddered. The shuttle had breached through the outer hull and spilled into a mess area.
Thanks to the alert condition, all crew had been in skinsuits, not that this helped the two cooks who had been finishing off the lockdown of the mess kitchen.
Fresh alerts sounded, the sound of which sent crewpeople to arms lockers. Mandrake had been boarded.
Captain Van’tu pointed to his tactical officer. “Destroy that wreck! vaporise it!”
“Sir! Weapons are offline, on-mount crews are reporting power losses.”
Across the bridge, the communications officer looked up. “Reports coming in, boarders are breaking out of mess two!”
The captain snarled. Ancient Garaboosians had warded off predators with that sound, and his teeth bared in an animalistic threat display. He slammed a finger into the appropriate button on his armrest.
“All hands, all hands, defence stations, repel boarders!”
His head snapped around. “Sasha, do we still have telemetry from the drone on the Nebula? If so, I want it to shut that shitheap down, or overload its reactors!”
His science officer acknowledged with an “Aye captain!” and turned to her console.
He returned to his holo. Removed the mute. “You have attacked an Alliance of Free Stars vessel, while using a Terran Alliance vessel reported lost to causes unknown. I am hereby declaring you to be pirates, and you will be treated accordingly. Surrender now and you will be returned to your government or homeworld after serving a prison term to be determined by Admiralty courts.”
He did not expect the thing pretending to be Captain Morrison to surrender.
“There will be no surrender. We will take all you have and all you are. You will be ours to consume and use.”
His tactical alert flashed, somehow, the older ship was charging its weapons systems. He flicked a gesture, and the old vessels appeared, with sidebars. The weapons were underpowered, and normally not really a threat to a modern vessel, but the Mandrake had just been rammed by a shuttle, cutting power to her own weapons, and disrupting her shields, it would take several more minutes to regenerate them.
He glared at the grinning visage of the corpse which was still mimicking life. The left arm was still quivering against the rest, fingertips drumming against a keypad almost identical to his own. From the bottom of the sunken belly of the dead man, a slowly undulating shape crawled, a thick-pincered head, followed by a segmented body flowing with sharp-tipped clawlike legs. It moved upwards and climbed back in through Morrisons throat.
“Captain, boarders have been destroyed. Sir, they were humans, but they were dead. Like mummies. They had some kinds of bugs inside, we had to go in with plasma to clear them out.”
“I see. Ensure all the bulkhead seals around the messhall compartment are still green, and pull everyone back, full medical scans on exit. Once everyone is clear, blow the compartment.”
“Uh, yes, sir, understood. Engineering teams are saying they’ll have full weapons restored in eight minutes.”
“Good. We can’t allow any of these things to get back to inhabited space. I want that wreck vaporised. Mess compartment too.”
He continued to watch the dead mans fingers rattle against the old command chair. And nodded.
“Captain Morrison, it has been an honour. Captain Van’Tu, out.”
In the holo, the corpse finally went still. The creatures which had inhabited him began to swarm, black blood and ichor bursting from his skull as the mother of the monsters which had ridden his body and his ship since they had tricked their way aboard a century before, burst free from her manipulating, feeding grasp in his skull.
“Captain, the drone has fully copied the Nebula Stars database, but is unable to access any critical systems. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay Sasha. When we have weapons available, we’ll finish whatever is left.”
“Sir? I don’t understand what…”
The holo tank cut her off. The Nebula Star had fired its engines, angling towards an intercept with the Mandrake, it needed to be much closer to engage with its much more primitive weapons. As the engines flared to life, fire blossomed across the aft hull. Multiple explosions rippled through it, billowing outwards from within, as the reawakened fusion reactors, initially stirred to life by the probes batteries, then by crawling undead crew hidden in the ships dead spaces, all overloaded, and detonated in a final orgy of self-annihilation.
There was a shudder again, as the Mandrakes crew activated the emergency charges that blew an entire section of the ship into space, carrying with it the bodies of dozens of the Nebula Stars crew, hundreds of incinerated and still crawling parasitic alien monsters, and the corpses of two unfortunate cooks.
“Begin sweeping everything in range with fire, maximum power and aperture, everything must burn. I want medical and bio survey teams going around the clock scanning for any trace of those things that might have breached containment. For the record, I will be recommending the Mandrake be scuttled once all crew are cleared and disembarked. Needless to say, we will not be making any landfall or station docks before then.”
He sat down in his command chair. He couldn’t remember standing up. He stared down at his armrest, and the keypad on it. With the fingers of his bottom left hand, he began typing, sending the results to the main holo where Sasha watched, curious.
ENMY HMWRLD r41429.135 i334451 b-1.791 KILL BURN QURTN
The rest of the sequence was the override code that would trigger the Nebula Star to overload its powerplants and blow itself to pieces before it could be used against its creators.
“Captain? How did you get that message? The log entries are still being processed, but it doesn’t look like anything coherent survived, there’s no co-ordinates in them.” Sasha was confused, and Captain Van’Tu smiled.
“Humans, you’re all the same when it comes down to the wire. Mark blew his shuttle rather than let it dock with those things on board. Even while they ate him alive, he crawled through his command, to do his duty to his species, and to the galaxy. Captain Morrison held off death, kept those things guessing, somehow, as they tried to use him, his ship, to reach Earth, made them keep him in some sort of horrific half-life, until they were distracted enough that he could get back control of his hand. His chair Sasha, same as mine. Probably came out of the same factory, a century apart, and he was typing, while they tried to speak to us, while they tried to board us, shoot us, while we distracted them, he set them up to give us the knowledge he knew we would need to ensure they would never threaten anyone again.”
Fire was still blossoming across the larger area of the holo display, graser weapons detonating fragments of hull with nuclear fire.
“Once we’ve cleared the skies here, we head to an outpost, and start warning the Admiralty. Jobs not over until these things are completely contained.”
***
103 Years, 4 months, 5 days before.
Jack staggered, his leg still bleeding from where a crewman had slashed at him with fingers broken into sharp bone claws. He’d stamped the mans head until the skull popped, rupturing the centipede thing curled inside. He was close. The familiar, once comforting hallways of the Nebula Star had become nightmarish, red lighting and blotches of gore, streaks of blood on the pristine walls, he was living in a horror game, but he had a job to finish.
He pushed off the wall he’d leant against. Behind him, he could hear screaming, and begging. He didn’t stop. It was a trick. They found the noises amusing, and mimicked them, discovering that it could draw in ‘helpers’ they could ambush.
Aft section, frame fourteen, jumpcore bay. He slapped the button, and fell through the door as it slid open. Inside, the bay was immaculate, no-one had been in here since this had started. How they had gotten aboard, he didn’t know.
Inside the skull of a landing team member, he could guess.
He knelt beside the humming machinery. His vision was going grey around the edges, he could feel dripping around his knees, he was kneeling in a pool of his own blood after only a few seconds, he didn’t have long.
He pushed his burden against the drive casing, the chem-catalyst agent on the back bonding it to the drive with a molecular weld.
He pressed the keypad of the emergency c4 cannister, the detonator arming with a beep, and a green telltale.
He typed in a code, short, sweet, he’d forgotten it by the time he reached the end, it didn’t matter. The disarm code was only for when you wanted to be able to stop the countdown. Ten seconds.
They reached him, before it finished counting. Inside his brain, they couldn’t find the code to stop the bomb.
The Nebula Star would not reach Terra, he made sure of that.
As the jumpcore failed, blowing a ragged hole out of the sleek hull, a single shuttle spun away from the boatbay, damaged, lifeless, cold and drifting outwards into the depths of space, the mutilated human corpse within stirring once with scurrying life, then going still.

Genuinely trying to understand how some people manage to eat around 5000 calories a day, and not be worried about it?
Example: I went with my partner the other day to a well known pizza chain for lunch in SE England. It was 1pm. My partner had small pizza & small salad but couldn’t manage it all. I had a few chips/tiny salad. That was enough for me for about 4 hours at least (I’d eaten 2 bananas plus bowl of Shreddies at 9am). We are NOT underweight …. Quite the opposite in fact - and could both do with losing around 40 pounds each!! I try & keep my weight lower by making veg soups/salads etc. I walk 3 miles every day. My total daily calorie intake is about 2200 calories.
Anyway. A family of 6 were there. 4 adults in their early 30s plus a teen and older lady.
They each ate: 2 small deep pan pizzas 1 portion chips 2 large bowls salad with dressing Half garlic bread 1 large bowl ice cream/sauce/choc chips 2-3 glasses fizzy drink
This was EACH?!! At mid day! Each of the adults were probably about 260 pounds at least. And looked really unwell.
I tend to eat 2 bananas, bowl of cereal, home made veg soup, a yogurt plus sandwich, between 3am & 5pm. That’s more than enough. Maybe I found it so hard because my IBS prevents me eating more than about 225 cals in an hour?! To see someone consume at least 2700 calories in 1.5 hours is just crazy!
I mean ok so I eat a small portion of chips & a sandwich at 6pm. Then 10 shots of rum plus 3 boiled eggs between 11pm & 2am. (Disclaimer: I don’t smoke or go on holiday or eat junk food or buy clothes or over eat or have big cars or live in a big house or any of those things…. That rum is my only relaxation!)
I usually get up at 1pm & eat most of my calories from then onwards. To see someone STUFFING themselves with more than their recommended daily intake at that time of day?! In a little more than 90 minutes?!! I can’t bear to think what they’re doing to themselves??! 😢😢😢
Why do they do this? I just feel genuinely sad for their well being 😢😢😢
Ps. Looking forward to the abuse

Hello. I saw this subreddit and I thought I’d give it a try.
I’ve been roleplaying for a couple of years now, I would say that I’m decently detailed but I would also say that I still have a long way to go in my roleplaying journey so please bare with me. A couple things before I get into specifics, I prefer rping on Discord I will mention again that I am relatively new so please keep that in mind when we are discussing or rping and 3 is that this is a commitment thing I understand people have things going on but at the end of the day this is a longterm roleplay.
With that out of the way i’ll explain a little more about the roleplay. This roleplay is going to be about Stranger Things, essentially it’ll be like we are playing out a season of the show except we can tinker with the season and have our own monsters and plot lines. I personally like to make my own character instead of using a canon character but you are free to do what you would like. As we make our way through the “season” our characters will begin to develop different feelings for eachother.
That’s my idea sort of, contact me if you’re interested
(Disclaimer, I can write (I prefer a bit of intimacy) smut so if you are into that we can totally do that. I am also using an OC)
I prefer Discord. Contact me :)
Best wishes!

So this is my first year teaching (7th grade) and it's been... a shit-show to put it nicely. Fights in my classroom with little to no discipline/accountability for the students. One kid even lost a tooth in my classroom, it was awful.
Well, earlier this year I found out a group of students were plotting to get me fired because they didn't like that I wouldn't let them use slurs (racial and homophobic) in my classroom (or anywhere in school). And just today one of my students informed me that another group of students (some of the same students as earlier in the year) have been making fat-shaming comments about me. Apparently that group of students is planning to write an email filled with insults and send it to me on the last day of school. It's horrifying to see how much energy the kids have for hating me rather than just completing assignments and passing the class.
After teaching middle school this year I've learned to grow a thick skin and do my best not to take things too personally. But fat-shaming is one of those things that really triggers me. I was in tears after school because it was just too much to handle. The whole incident reminded me of other people in my life who made similar comments about my body in the past. We only have 12 days left in the school year but it feels like I'm barely hanging on right now. I would really appreciate some words of encouragement if you have any!!

Hello. I saw this subreddit and I thought I’d give it a try.
I’ve been roleplaying for a couple of years now, I would say that I’m decently detailed but I would also say that I still have a long way to go in my roleplaying journey so please bare with me. A couple things before I get into specifics, I prefer rping on Discord I will mention again that I am relatively new so please keep that in mind when we are discussing or rping and 3 is that this is a commitment thing I understand people have things going on but at the end of the day this is a longterm roleplay.
With that out of the way i’ll explain a little more about the roleplay. This roleplay is going to be about Stranger Things, essentially it’ll be like we are playing out a season of the show except we can tinker with the season and have our own monsters and plot lines. I personally like to make my own character instead of using a canon character but you are free to do what you would like. As we make our way through the “season” our characters will begin to develop different feelings for eachother.
That’s my idea sort of, contact me if you’re interested
(Disclaimer, I can write (I prefer a bit of intimacy) smut so if you are into that we can totally do that. I am also using an OC)
I prefer Discord. Contact me :)
Best wishes!

I'm 24f, I'm high as fuck, I've had a terrible last 2 months, so pls bear with me.
I've been like hardcore flirting with the cute af delivery guy that comes to my work. We've had a few cute moments too and now he'll wave at me from his truck even if we don't have a delivery, and he gets the biggest and goofiest smile on his face when I talk about drawing and gardening, and he is literally the BIGGEST FUCKING NERD EVER.
That being said... We've been doing this since February at least. I'm sure he likes me. All my friends say he likes me. Maybe it's another case of looking through the world with rose tinted glasses, but why would he still go out of his way to chat with me and be so extra nice to me after 3/4 months if he wasn't at least a BIT interested right???
I'm autistic and I have ADHD too. Social cues are not my strong point. He's a fucking DND DM who's going to a magic the gathering competition this weekend (I do not mean this bad, but oh my god he is a massive nerd and so am I), so maybe social cues aren't his thing either. We follow each other on instagram now but it just feels so impersonal. I dunno, maybe I'm stupid and hyper analyzing things, but he is literally SO FUCKING NICE TO ME ALL THE TIME and he smiles at me different than the other ppl at my work, and I dunno I wanna see if things can go further.
Do I say fuck it and give him ny number next time I see him? Do I ask him for his? How do I go about this? I've never had to do anything like this before.

A bit over a year ago my first relationship that lasted about 9 months ended. At first I was enjoying the single life for a little bit when I first got to college it was fun to dance and make out with random girls at bars but now I want something more serious but nobody will take me seriously. I have so much love to give and nobody to give it to. The other thing is I am probably not completely over my ex. After breaking up we didn’t speak at all for months until she reached out to apologize for how she ended things. We hung out a few times and talked for a little bit but earlier this year we fell out of contact again. I reached out recently to ask about catching up and she said she would have to ask the guy she’s currently dating. I know that she’s allowed to go on and live her life and be happy but it still felt like a gut punch. I started taking antidepressants recently and while that has helped with a lot of issues I still can’t shake the feeling of loneliness and ugliness. I miss the small things like fun date days and buying flowers but nobody to do these things with. I feel like I’m in a pit I can’t climb out of. I’m lonely but I can barely get over my insecurities and I’m also still hung up over my ex. I feel worthless as a man for not being able to find someone. I feel underserving of love and I have a really hard time loving myself. I just wish this loneliness could disappear or I had someone to hold in my arms.

I want to go on the record that I am not a UI/UX designer, and I am aware how challenging it is to offer a good solution at this scale.

With every season come new weapons. Some are re-introduced and some are brand new.
Every couple of those seasons we get a new and improved / revamped screen to improve visibility, Weapon-Collections are pretty much unchanged from the day they were introduced.
After taking a quick look at the Hand-Cannons tab (most common gun type I know) it becomes very obvious how full of "old trash" it is.
39 Hand-Cannons are currently sunset.
15 more are of Blue rarity or lower.
In total, we have 54 guns in that ONE tab alone that barely anyone is using. This accumulates to around 2 and a half pages of unnecessary items that just take up space. (for most players at least)
While we all could argue on and on about "just bring back all sunset guns" and whatever, this is not the goal here.
To improve visibility, maybe try adding a "Legacy" button somewhere in there.
I'm not asking for the removal of these guns completely. While most probably wouldn't care, I imagine there are a few out there still messing around with older guns just for fun.
This concludes my main point I'm trying to make. I will however kinda rant on below;
The Weapons-Collection is the "Elephant in the room", but there are other parts of the collections that need touching up as well, in my opinion.
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• The Badges: Every time we get a new Expansion, Raid or Dungeon there is a new Badge to complete or check what pieces of gear you still miss. Currently, there are 30 Badges to complete. Due to them not having much real estate on the Collection-Screen. They got packed up in "pages" of three. Maybe re-arranging them to show the newest in first position instead of last would not make it such a pain to get to them. Currently, you have to go to "page" 10 to access the new Ghosts of the Deep one.
• Recently Discovered: I feel this part of collections could be made more space efficient. Maybe something like a "pad(?)" that shows you your recent items by hovering your cursor above it. Similar to hovering over a weapon. Instead of stats or lightlevel it would display your recent items.

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^{Please note that these are mostly my opinions only, and I am not "demanding" anything here. The current system works, but it could be better.}
See you Star side.