She who sews quilt kit

Hey everyone, sharing with you the worst heartbreak in my life.
We were only together for 2 months, but I fell deeply in love with her. It's not her fault, I broke my own heart. On our first date, she told me she was leaving the country in 2 months to be abroad for a year and we had a great conversation about what she wants to do with her life, so I understood that completely and was very happy for her.
Slowly, we started clicking with each other a lot more while she was here. At first, we met once a week, then we started meeting up twice a week and before we realized it, she was staying at mine for days.
She was a 10 out of 10 person - empathetic, kind, beautiful soul, family-oriented, understanding, enthusiastic and beautiful in and out. During our relationship, I needed to get a surgery and when I told her about it, she supported me 100%. Even after my surgery, she stayed at mine for 3 nights to help me without asking her - she insisted. She cooked, brought me food, we went on light walks outside and helped me to get around. When she did this for me, I realized she was the one.
We could talk about anything. We were always close to each other, she was looking me with love, but never told me she loved me.
It was the 3rd day when she stayed at mine, we were in bed and I told her she can call me her partner from now on, she said the same and we stayed in bed all day.
During the entire time whenever the topic would come up, I completely supported her decision to go abroad because I believe that living abroad enriches your personality and you develop as a person. I was a 100% supportive of her going to experience this trip the way she wanted it before she met me and was confident in our relationship without it being bearing while abroad. I was going to tell her in the end that I will not bother her while she is there and she shouldn't care about someone abroad while she is living her life there. We said we will still talk on the phone and catchup, but I wanted her to experience it the way she wanted it. Our plans were for me to visit her 3 times while she was there and talk. I met her family on Facetime, she has seen mine, we talked about future life together, plans, coming to her home country and being with her family. She wanted to visit mine too and be together. We would think about the places we will visit in her hometown and how great it will be.
Fast forward to 2 weeks before she was leaving abroad, she needed to go on a work trip. This is when things started getting messed up, I noticed she wasn't responsive or didn't want to talk. When that happens to me, I still message her about my day and asked about hers. I noticed that she was replying slowly or not calling me to talk, so I brushed it off that she was just busy.
Until she came back, I suggested if she wanted to stay at mine until she leaves and she agreed. It was the best 3 days after until one night we both went to bed, I was stressed about work because I was getting booked for meetings at the time when she was supposed to leave abroad, so I kept declining them with my boss. It was 12AM at night and I was looking at the ceiling, on the same night she was very distant with me and pulled out her phone and started texting a friend. I could see that she was hiding it to her own, but I understood she has her boundaries. I stare at the ceiling for 10 minutes, and she asks me: "What's keeping you awake".
I said: "Just thinking about you going abroad", and then decided to tell her about my manager who was booking me on meetings at the time she was leaving. She told me: "see this is what I mean, I have been thinking when I was on my work trip and a friend of mine encouraged me to do it, I think we should break up before I leave, because LDRs never work" This shattered me into pieces, I started crying, and told her: "I want to tell you something, but please you don't have to respond with the same...I love you, and I can't believe we are doing this". I cried a lot.
After that, my life was completely shattered. I didn't know what to do because we were staying together, so we would bring it up from time to time. I realized though she was already checked out, because ever since the news, we didn't have any intimate connection, she became distant, sleeping on the other side of the bed, didn't hug me or showed any affection.
We tried making our last moments together here count, but I just couldn't stop thinking about her leaving and us breaking up when we planned to stay together. This shattered me into pieces, until the last day, I said to myself, I will make her last day best so we had breakfast then a great dinner and went to bed. Her flight was on the next day so I came with her to the airport, we were there and all I was thinking is how I will probably never see her again. The time came, we said our goodbyes, I cried a lot but tried to hold it, she saw I was crying and while I was sobbing I said: "Have the best time with your friends and enjoy every second of it, and never feel guilty about leaving, because you told me from the beginning". She said "This is not over, we will see each other in 3/4 months when you come here for work" and she left, I saw her in the distance leaving and it felt like my whole world was broken, like I lost half of my heart.
Ever since then, we started talking weekly, then it turned into bi-weekly and now I haven't heard from her for over a month. We only texted, but I am always initiating the contact and she doesn't reply consistently. I called her 2 days ago twice and since then, she hasn't messaged me or called me. I also saw she is on dating apps. It broke me, but I am finding peace. Maybe it will work out in the future, maybe it won't, but I love her and I don't know how to stop thinking about her. It's been 2 months since she left and I am still thinking about her all the time.

I (18f) needed to call her so I could make sure she wouldn’t need me on the days I would get my next injection. The injections will be weekly for several months, and that’s only for this specific injection.
She preceded to yell:

• “this has to be done weekly?! You know we have a very busy schedule!” (I’ve told both her and dad that this would be a weekly commitment multiple times)
  
• “we are gone for a couple weeks during the summer! Why did they make you wait until now? It’s incredibly stupid! You’re probably gonna have to hold off until later!” (Once again, I explained multiple times that they wanted to wait until allergy season was about over to make sure any reaction I got was actually from the injection. I also tried to explain that they were lenient; that if I missed a dose, I could make it up. It took about six times until it finally got through moms head.)
  
• (when asking to miss one trip so I wouldn’t have to redo an injection) “you can’t just stay home during our trips! Your grandfather needs help, and we are still working on the house!” And “you can’t drive back home just for an injection; you’ll need to wait until we all get back!” (Never once have I’ve been allowed to stay behind from these “trips”. No matter if I have homework, an upcoming test, I have no choice but to go either to work on the house or play babysitter. There is no internet connection to bring my work with me, and this has been going on for 7 years. And now that I’m looking for a job this summer, I bet mom will still try and convince me to help renovate the house).
  
• “why are you starting off with cat, dog, and dust mite allergies? You’re not even allergic to them! (It’s minimal, but apparently I am allergic. Once again, I told mom numerous times that my allergist wanted my to get injections for those before I start with my severe pollen and grass allergies, just to see how well I manage.)
  
• “are you SURE this is not a steroid injection?!” (I’ve lost count how many times I told her this is NOT a steroid)
  
• “if this gets rid of your allergies, why is this not offered to everyone? I think it’s very stupid that this isn’t offered for everyone those nurses are keeping it from people who need it….” (At this point I didn’t know what to say and did my best to wrap up the call so I could actually get my injection.)
  

I swear, this better not be a weekly occurrence. Bad enough as it is I have to keep checking in with her schedule every week to make sure she doesn’t expect me to babysit, volunteer, etc. during my injections.

Okay so, my mom (50) is cheating on my dad (48). They have been married for over 25 years and this was absolutely devastating to hear when I found out.
My sister (18) called a kids meeting, and we all came into the room with her crying. Confessing that mom was cheating on dad with a family friend. She saw texts on her phone while they were driving somewhere - explicitly sexual talk. This is completely out of left field, my mum is an amazing person who takes such good care of us, she is such a kind soul.
Obviously this was pretty hot headed of me, but I said I don’t want to sit on this and we need to confront her now… so we did. We sat down with her and said straight up ‘are you cheating on dad with x?’. She admitted it but said it wasn’t anything more than just talk and text. But we didn’t believe her, she’s picked him up a few times from work and taken him home to one of her BEST FRIEND’S house. Also, my sister has noticed sometimes she turns off her location randomly for periods of time.
Anyway, we said this is horrible and that the communication needed to stop obviously. Now I will admit, dad has not been a good husband and this relationship should have ended a while ago. Not massive fights, they just don’t talk. Dad’s always stressed about work or money and is very hot and cold with affection. He’s a hardass and a traditionalist, y’know the type.
We do have a little brother (15) who has a few special needs, nothing crazy. And mum ‘offered’ to play the happy housewife for a few more years to see my brother through school. We obviously said that’s off the table at this point. Anyway we chatted for a bit before coming back to her and agreed that they need to separate, asap. Take some time to get yourself together, find a job xyz.
I regret this. Dad’s broken now, he’s left the house a few times for days. Pleading that he’s sorry and that they can make it work, he’s committed, like ‘I meant what I said at the alter’, it hurts to see and hear.
And this is completely unfair, Mum gets to stay home while dad goes? BS. We’ve all been pretty distant with her but she’s bad mouthing dad a bit, not a lot, to some close friends. I definitely know he was really poor in the relationship and she put everything into it, sacrificed her career and raised us. But cheating is too much.
It’s been 3 weeks, since we confronted her. Dads gone again, and I think separation is going to be permanent soon. I can’t stand dad being the bad guy, all of us harboring this secret. And I think moms still talking to this guy, caught her covering her phone and she wouldn’t show me.
Please help. I’m not sure what to do now, do I let them split like this, or do I tell my mom I’ve changed my mind and dad deserves to know truly why now she’s deciding to leave. We all just want to be around our dad.
TL;DR - Mom cheating on Dad, kids found out. Told her to divorce, feeling like he deserves to know that she cheated.

April 21st, 9:15 am - Jasper Investigative Department - Interrogation Room
An inconspicuous yellow folder sits lonesome in a dimly lit room. It’s storming outside today, daunting thunder rumbles dramatically, and lighting rips through the sky, illuminating the room for a mere second, the room then being concealed in darkness once more. Footsteps can be heard from down the hallway. Moments later, Cameron Brown walks through the door, a singular officer escorting him inside. He is without handcuffs today, and sits down in his chair without an exchange of words. The officer eyes Cameron carefully, but eventually walks out of the room, closing the door behind him. Cameron sits in his chair, awaiting Officer Garcia. He yawns. He was woken up much earlier than he usually is, and was quite cranky when he was told he’d have to leave his room for the time being. That being said, Cameron Brown is strangely content today. Expressing little to no signs of distress, erratic behavior, or violent mood shifts. He leaned his head back to face the ceiling as another strike of lightning rips through the cloudy sky, subsequently followed by the crashing of thunder. This doesn’t seem to bother Cameron though, as his eyes begin to flutter to a close. Eventually, he manages to fall into a light slumber. His eyelids close, and his breathing deepens and slows. Though, this moment of peace is abruptly interrupted by the door swinging open and crashing against the wall. Cameron jumps up in his seat, almost falling backward. His eyes are wide and panicked. Officer Isabella Garcia charges into the room like a wild animal. Her hair is messy, and her clothes are ruffled. She whips her head around wildly, until her eyes finally lock onto what they were looking for. Garcia practically jumps at the folder, swiping it up into her hands. As she is about to open it, she looks up at Cameron, who eyes her with confusion. She quickly turns her body to face away from him, and only then does she open the folder. She flips through the contaminants, her eyes scanning for any missing documents. Once she is sure all is okay, she turns back around to face Cameron, sitting down in her chair, and gently placing the folder down in front of her. She fixes her hair, pulling it back into a tight ponytail, then quickly flattens the wrinkle in her uniform. She coughs into her hand, clearing her throat, then lowers her arms down to the table, placing her left hand atop the yellow folder as she always does.
“Sorry for my late arrival, alarm clock didn’t go off.”
Cameron shrugged it off, though, his eyes gazed at the folder underneath Garcia’s hand intently. Garcia followed his gaze, pulling the folder closer to her. An awkward silence ensues, as both parties wait for the other to initiate conversation. Garcia pulls her tiny notebook out of her back pocket and then grabs the pen tucked behind her ear. She clicks it three times.
“You ready to start?”
Cameron takes his eyes off the folder, looking up at Garcia. “Oh-yeah, sure.”

Garcia nods, “Start whenever you’d like to.”

The walk to the foot of The Hill was longer than I remermbered it being. The day I tried to take my own life, I could’ve sworn it only took me a little under an hour to get to The Hill. Though, I wasn’t completely shocked by this. It made sense - I was seventeen, disillusioned, and depressed. Not only that, but I suffered major memory loss when I injured myself, then pumped up with medicine and pain killeers shortly there after. Still, though, the walk was long. Gabriel and I also had fifteen pounds of luggage loaded onto our backs. During Palmer’s preparation bootcamp, the group had to decide who were the strongest out of all of us. Gabriel was chosen without much thought, having previously being a D1 athlete, and I was chosen thereafter as the second strongest. To put it bluntly, we were basically used as mules. Anyway, it took us a little over four hours to reach The Hill. Spirits were high all throughout the hike. We sang campfire songs, Elias lectured us on forest foliage for a good half hour, we laughed at James and Mia’s constant bickering. It was nice, fun even. Though, as we reached the forest’s edge, my mood quickly shifted. As soon as my vision laid itself upon the foot of the hill, my body froze. My stomach flipped and churn, dropping down into my ass. The group walked past me, not realizing the paralaysis that had fell upon me. I tried to take a step forward, but I’d lost all control over my muscles. I tried to catch the attention of the others, but my voice fell short, the air catching in my throat. My knees began to quiver, and I began to shift backwards, as if my body were trying to escape back into the woods. The hair stood of my skin, and my arm began to throb right in the spot I broke it. I had to leave, I had to get out. I closed my eyes in an attempt to calm myself, but when I did, my fathers face appeared before me. His face welted and bled, and he opened his mouth to scream. An anguished screech bellowed from his mouth, and my eyes shot open. I fell to my knees as the scream continued, my bag crashing against my back on impact. I clawed at the sides of my face as the scream continued, paying no attention to the barrage of legs running towards me, kicking dirt dust in their path. Palmer dropped to the ground beside me, slapping his hands against my shoulders and shaking me. He was yelling something at me, but it was unintellligeble against the sound of screaming that only seemed to grow louder and louder.
Cameron! Cameron staushdsihdhishd….
Palmer pulled me in closer, until our faces were only inches apart. Though, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t understand him. The screaming grew louder, more panicked. I gripped at my chest, pressing my hand against my body to feel my heart beating. It was beating fast, so fast it felt inhuman. Suddenly, my head whipped to the side as a hand slapped itself across my face. The screaming stopped, and I whipped my hea dback around to face whoever hit me. Palmer, who’s hand was raised in the air, stared at me in shock. I opened my mouth to say something, but Palmer interrupted me.
“STOP SCREAMING.”
I looked at him, confused. Slowly coming to the realization that I had been the one screaming the entire time. I looked around at everyone. They all had fearful expressions on their faces, standing over me like I was deer they’d just hit on the highway. I closed my eyes, my fathers face was no longer there, just darkness. I sighed in relief, and my tense body went limp. I dropped my head onto Palmer’s shoulder, wetting his shirt with the tears that had began to well in my eyes. He wrapped his right arm around me, slowly patting my back. I could hear everyone slowly walking away, their footsteps shifting awkwardly in the dirt. When I picked my head back up, everyone had dispersed, leaving only me and Palmer. I looked up at him. He gently smiled back at me, though I could tell he was hiding a face of worry behind it. His lips separated to say something, but I shook my head.
“I’m fine. I’m calm now.”

I overheard them tell someone that they have a partner. Lot of bad things going on recently and she was the only thing that made me happy. I thought it was going so well too. I'm autistic so I have misinterpreted things before, but a lot of friends told me they thought she was flirting with me as well...
I only found out a couple hours ago, but all of the things that went wrong while I had her to think about are coming crashing back down on me. On top of that I feel like a creep for every move I've made on them so far and like an idiot for thinking they could ever be into me. Just feeling like pure shit to summarize.
Hope everyone who took the time to click on this post and read it is having a better start of their pride month.
❤️🧡🤍🩷💜

This old dark blue couch is uniquely sized (only 55” total depth with chaise) for my shallow living room. I couldn’t find another like it and was quoted outrageous prices to have it reupholstered. I found a guy who sewed the pillow/seat cushions for pretty cheap and I tackled the base of the couch myself. Just used staples and some hand stitches. I also found that chair used for next to nothing and had that covered as well so it all matches.
Overall I think it looks it great and total cost was a fraction of what it would have been to buy new stuff and it’s exactly the right size. Now all I have to to decide is if I want to scotchgard it. I never did that so unsure if it’s good or not. The fabric is nomad snow from sailrite. Same fabric used on a lot of CB2 (expensive) furniture.
What y’all think? Not bad for a newb, right?

31m here. Posted a lot before closer to the time it ended months ago, done all the letter writing, inner work, soul searching and country song listening a man can do to move on. Honestly never been as broke up over a girl, a lot of it is ego being bruised but the woman was an old friend/crush and for years I had always felt she fancied me… the fact that it didn’t work out when it came down to it and was so messy when situationship ended has really had a profound effect on me. Feel like I’ve learned huge lessons on ego and being your best self and recognising becoming too attached… got all sorts of adventures planned, been trying to distract myself meeting other girls but I’m rather picky and I find it hard to meet kind of women who interest me (probably need to move)….
Anyway, I guess had it ended amicably I’d be in better shape, but I’ve been lucky before in every fling/gf before there wasn’t nearly any amount of this kind of feeling or blocking games that this one played. Just not used to knowing how someone is not right for me, yet she’s all I want. Am I broken? 😂 Heartbreak and ego attachments are like a fart in a sauna that never goes away…
Howling into the void here as who can afford therapy right?

I didn't bother calling the DM even though I was upset, because it hadn't worked so far. So next week rolled around we all met up and when we walked in the DM was so happy to announce 2 things. The first was she had made a choice to open up 3.5 into the game. Now I knew a good bit about 3.5 because that's the edition I started learning on and so I was happy. I knew I could make something stronger but I had to ask how would this mesh with 5e? As far as I knew the two systems weren't compatible without a LOT of game knowledge and home brewing to convert the stuff. Knowledge I doubted she had. She assured me however that oh no, the 3.5 stuff wasn't for players, silly me, no it was for her. She would be pulling monsters right out of 3.5 for us to fight no conversion needed just as written that's what we are fighting. Which again to those of us who had played for a while this sounded like a horrible idea.
Her second bit of good news was the addition of a new player. He joined and was making a paladin. She gestured to the guy who looked bright, happy, hopeful, and filled with the thrill of a game to come. Everything in me wanted to pull him aside and just say "run, don't look back, just run!" But instead I found myself sitting down with a fake smile and just said "Good luck."
The game started and we were being stopped by every NPC to just reiterate the quest we had been given, to find out who was attacking travelers. Every single NPC just wanted to tell us the same way so she could see how we reacted and get her roleplay fix, after an hour of this Paladin was still sitting there not introduced just patiently waiting his turn smiling and seeming to dance in his chair with anticipation. We made it out of the city with some harsh words to NPC's and went to searching. Didn't take long before we were at the camp of the bandits.
This was good I thought, bandits were fine and if this had been planned maybe it would be a better fight than the orcs. So we scout the camp and after a couple of perception and knowledge checks we kind out it is a camp of 10 Stone Giants!
Now, I have a good knowledge of monsters and I've DMed a lot of 3.5 games so I knew by heart that 3.5 stone giants were a cr of 8 for one of them, we were level 2! We investigated as much as we could with the veterans and I trying to figure out if there was some trick to this, the only information we got was that the leader was limping like he had a broken leg. Ok injured but that is still 9 fully healthy CR 8 creatures that can sent us back to character generation in one hit. Even the new players were confused, oddly enogh even Bard was confused, seems he knew nothing about this. So we all got to talking. We knew the rule that we weren't getting any XP if we didn't kill anything, however we COULDN'T beat these. So after about twenty minutes of talk we decided to go in and try to talk our way out of it.
The giants were willing to talk and told us their story, that they were driven from their home in the mountains by a threat, they set up a new home in a cave at the base of the mountain but were driven out by another threat. Then they told us if we helped them get rid of one of the threats they would make amends with the kingdom and serve their time for the crimes they committed. After all their best warrior was injured by this threat.
Bard, Barbarian, and Druid all were excited to help the giants while Wizard, Cleric, and I were all looking at each other wondering how the heck we could take on something that was stronger than a stone giant? This is where the story was going though so maybe it was something not strong but clever, something we could beat?
It had been a couple of hours now and Paladin was still waiting patiently to be introduced, still happy and smiling listening to what was going on. Till we finally found him in a giant nest, with three massive eggs. One of which had just hatched a baby white dragon.... Everyone rushed to free him while Wizard, Cleric, and I were telling everyone to run. Bard, Barbarian, and Druid however had other plans. It was a baby after all so they started lobbing lamp oil, alchemist fire, and matches into the nest to kill it. Wizard added a fire ball to hopefully get everyone going, I turned to Cleric and whispered. "There is no way we are fighting an adult white dragon, what CR would that even be?!" She shrugged and the killing continued with people wanting to loot up until the DM interrupted saying.
"The cries of the babies burning to death helplessly in their nest fall silent. Then a massive roar is heard over head, the sun is blotted out by a large shadow moving across the land, wing beats creating hurricane like gusts as you all look up and see far in the distance An elder, great wyrm white dragon making her way back to her nest." Druid "Oh yeah we get to fight a dragon!" Barbarian "Awesome, bet!" Bard "I want to try to seduce it!" Barbarian "Bet bro!" Paladin "DM, you said elder great wyrm, am I safe to assume this means we can't fight it?"
DM "Yep, you have no other choice but to run away, isn't this awesome? Now you have a goal to come back to. Something to really push you to level up. So the party runs away and makes it back to the stone giants, they ask you how you did?"
Long and tedious talks with the giants while we hear about the dragon now going to the kingdom we were supposed to help and destroying buildings because of what we did with the nest pass and we ask the giants about their cave. Maybe we could fix that? We get the full information about it and find out that the cave is home to a male, elder great wyrm red dragon, that since the white dragon is destroying parts of the kingdom it has joined her and those people are now dead and dying.
I look to the DM and try to speak calmly. "So, just to be clear, there is nothing we can do here at our level? Which as I will remind you is level 2 miss DM."
All smiles she looks at me bouncing in her chair and giggling "Yep, you have to run away or you'll be caught up. But now you have something to come back to and beat at a later date. It's such a great story right? You have a goal and that's the most important part!"
We wrapped up and Paladin was all joyful actually walking out with the DM to talk to her about her story telling and commend her on giving us the quest. He had a blast while the rest of us except for bard sat around bewildered. Barbarian was the first to speak and voice his complaints, saying he hated that and felt horrible. If he had known he wouldn't have attacked the nest, Druid felt worse and took it very much to heart that they were the cause of the kingdom being destroyed. We all sat around talking and everyone came to two agreements. The first was no one was happy about this and we wanted to tell the DM. The second was everyone in the group hated confrontation and didn't want to be the one or even back up the one telling her.
I suggested Cleric be the one, detailing my past failures in calling DM and pointing out that Cleric has a way of commanding respect. This didn't fly though because Cleric didn't want to confront her. So everyone left feeling dejected, no one wanted to be the one to say we weren't having fun, and no one was brave enough to just walk away from the game. So we decided one more week, we had our "goal" so maybe, just maybe the story could start? Little did we know.... See you in part 4 for the finally.

I started my X journey many years ago now with X3TC. Like most folks, I bought the Superbox at some point in a Steam sale and never looked at it again. Over the winter, while cleaning out a closet, I found an X2: The Threat CD-ROM in a box of my partner's things and, so, the idea of booting it up just to see what it was like has been there for a while. Then, I put a bunch of hours into the 6.0 beta for X4, beat Kingdom's End in a day, and started my goal of finishing all the terraforming (as a Boron) for the achievement. One night, feeling a bit burnt out, I decided to go ahead and boot up X:BTF. Now, maybe six weeks later, I just finished the last mission in X3: Reunion. I thought I would share my impressions of the original X games.
X: Beyond the Frontier (1999)
This game really surprised me. To be honest, going into this, I did not expect to marathon through the whole series or even to finish X:BTF. I just thought it might be a fun distraction for a couple hours. Yeah, it definitely shows its age in the graphics and UI, but the gameplay loop is still solid. Good job EgoSoft. They also released a patch in 2021 (who does that), so this game ran the best on my modern PC out of all the old titles. It feels very barebones compared to the more modern games, but I kind of appreciated that. I do a lot of manual remote trading and micromanagement in X4, not to mention personally dealing with constant pirate and Xenon attacks all over the gate network, so I am spammed with notifications and todo lists. I found myself going to X:BTF to relax after a long day at work, just tooling around in my little ship, trading some energy cells and sunrise flowers, not having to worry about all that other stuff. I have a good bit of nostalgia for trading games of this era, so that helped.
The combat is... well, it reminded me of Wing Commander on the SNES, so I'm not sure I'd even call it 'of the era'. Doesn't really compare to games like TIE Fighter or FreeSpace, much less the contemporary entries in those series. Xenon also appear to just spawn around the player, there are no safe sectors, and this is really frustrating early. The weapons/shield scale is very steep so you can't even scratch an M3 with anything less than plasma cannons. Fortunately, the AI can't hit you. At all. Any movement completely throws them off. So the real danger from the Xenon is suicide ramming attacks. Early on, my strategy was to run to a station and call for help, which I could easily do with 20 Xenon on my tail, as long as I didn't turn on SETA, so it was more annoying than threatening. It was VERY satisfying to finally get guns capable of shredding those darn M3s. I spent the last 10 hours of the game engaged in non-stop combat and by that time, I was an unstoppable force, taking out destroyers with ease and the last battle was a cakewalk.
Overall X:BTF took me about 30 hours to complete because I decided to max relations with all five races as a challenge goal. Otherwise, I could have probably finished the plot earlier. But I enjoyed the game a lot. Low expectations probably helped, but it is still a really solid game to just chill with. If you can get past the UI and blocky graphics (you thought Teladi ships were bricks in X3, lol).
​
X2: The Threat (2003)
I will say first that X2 was the most frustrating game to play. It has most of the functionality of the later games, but none of the QoL or UI improvements. It feels like an even jankier X3. It also has a lot of compatibility issues. The main story cutscenes caused crashes and required hunting for workarounds. I had to play part of it on an old laptop. The story itself was really good though and I love the ship models. EgoSoft, why does the X2 Titan and Nova look the best? Bring those designs back. I had to grind missions a lot early to make money. Built a couple SPPs but decided not to waste too much time on the Empire building, since I planned to play X3 next anyway. In the end, I did mobile silicon mining to get the 2 million or so credits to buy and equip a Nova (M3 / heavy fighter), which carried me through the rest of the plot.
The last battle was incredibly memorable, if sadistic in mission design. Overall, the story was a lot of fun and I'm glad that I played through it. In the end, it took 30 hours. I probably could have gotten through faster if I'd gone straight for the Nova, but I originally thought I'd need at least a corvette and tried to set up some passive income. I kind of regret not getting to play around more with larger ships. I'd like to buy one of those Titans. But the number of hours I'd need to grind for one quick romp through a Xenon sector kind of puts me off. I backed up my saves, so if I get bored in the future, I might come back to it.
X3: Reunion (2005)
Since I started the X series, the only thing I've ever heard about Reunion is that you should skip it. I've heard it's a buggy mess, the new games are better, etc. By this point, I was already planning to do a long run through X3:TC after, so I decided to just speedrun the plot. I started by going after the abandoned ship in Menelaus' Frontier, sold it, used the money to fully kit out my Buster, and then all the rest of my money came from selling ships that bailed. Honestly, I probably had the most fun in this one, just treating it like a short story-based game. The plot missions are absolutely nuts. I imagine it was a buggy mess in 1.0, but these days it seems fine. I really liked all the turret missions that people hate, even the one through the city (I got 640 fps there on my 3060 Ti, so I guess that helped). Also, every other mission was "fly inside some structure", cave, station, asteroid, whatever. Between the turret missions and tunnel missions, it felt a lot like Rebel Assault instead of an X game. That actually made it more fun though. I really liked how most of the missions gave you a random ship to fly, let me get away with never upgrading from the Buster, and also try out a lot of different ships and weapon loadouts. Oh, and the final battle in this one and the cutscene when the Terrans show up, EPIC. Overall, A++ experience. Sure, today, you're better off going to AP or FL for the sandbox play, but if you just want to run through the story, the final patched version of Reunion is solid. I had a blast with it.
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So, in summary, the old games are surprisingly playable. X2 is probably in the worst shape, but the overall story arc of X2 and X3: Reunion back-to-back is fantastic (except I had to head cannon that Julian lost all his assets in a high stakes card game in the intervening months. RIP JoulesCorp). All the stories are pretty short, and you don't actually need to grind out a whole Empire, you can finish all the plots in a fighter. If you are a fan and would enjoy experiencing the story of the Kha'ak Invasion and first contact with the Terrans, it's not even that much of a time investment. I've put more hours into Kingdom's End than all three of these games combined.
At some point, I'll get back to my Terraforming, but now I'm off to start my new TC run. At some point, I'd also like to get around to Farham's Legacy and Rebirth. All that should take me long enough for EgoSoft to release next year's X4 DLC, lol.

So, I'd like to preface this by saying that I do think this show is quality, and knowing people who loved the second season, I think it's a completely valid take on the show. This is more going to be a rant/vent about how I personally felt about the show, mostly about the second season specifically.
So, my girlfriend recommended me TWL after we watched Beef together and I recommended her Succession. I watch the first season and, honestly, I found it pretty fucking cool. It's not my favorite show ever, but some moments were legitimally hilarious and I found most of the character beats interesting, even the characters I disliked were interesting to talk about. Also, great performances by the cast all-around.
Here's what I need to vent about tho: I couldn't stand the second season. GF had her suspicions about me not liking it when she recommended it to me, saying that Portia speficially was the kind of character I usually can't stand, and honestly, that was kind of underselling it. Portia ended up being a non-issue. Her character was actually something I was completely fine with through the show, and at least her plot line was interesting to me.
My main issue came from the change of focus. It's no secret that the show went from wealth/socio-economical commentary towards more focus on sex and relationship dynamics in the season season. Now, it's not like the first season didn't have a decent amount of those in it, but the second season is practially *just* that. Even the social commentary, which you'd think would be pretty hard to miss considering the setting and characters in place, takes a major step back and instead the whole season I felt like I was watching a soap-opera or a discount, comedic version of Eyes Wide Shut.
While the first season had multiple chaarcters serve as 'straight man' in different moments, that would balance the tone of the show with it's satire of rich people (characters like the family's son, Armond before having his breakdown, Belinda, Kai, even Rachel at times), I felt like those characters were practically non-existant in season 2. Pretty much every character from Sicily was such a caricature that I had a hard time taking pretty much anything seriously. Albie is such a shallow nice-guy stereotype, Cameron is such a shallow douche stereotype, the two italian girls we meet are literally, again, shallow prostitute stereotypes, Mia even wants to be a singer for fuck's sake! It's like they are all just character templates.
And then the drama, it felt so artificial to me. Like, infidelity is a fascinating subject, sexuality is a fascinating subject, love and how it can go stale are fascinating subjects, but this season in my opinion dealt with it in a way that came off more as an edgy attempt at commentary full of fanservice with beautiful actors and actresses rather than any actual insights. It felt so artificial that at times it gave me the feeling I was watching something like porn. I mean, ''the douche character wants to bang his shy-bad-husband's girl, she gets mad at him for a misunderstanding about a condom being left on the couch and even more misunderstanding ensue!", really? A condom wrap? Maybe she could have found lipstick on his shirt lapel to add flavor as well?
I think that's my problem with this. It's such a caricature of infidelity and sexuality and sicily and rich people and yet, this time, unlike the first season, I didn't feel like there was any character playing the role of hammering that point home, of making it worth my time. First season had fascinating arcs between Armond's complete descent into madness or Quinn's journey to learn about himself, or even Rachel's dilema or the father's arc... this season just didn't have anything grab my attention like that. Valentina's arc could have been interesting, but it took more than half the season for it to make even the slighest progress instead of just ''she's in the reception, angry at her staff speaking with her crush''.
Just had to get this into text because I can't be bothered to go on a rant like this irl with the people I know who are actually fans and this was a way to organize my thoughts on it. Again, my opinion in this is far from absolute, and I still think the quality of the show's production and performances is undeniable.

My ex, who dumped me over a month ago, contacted me when she was drunk asking if we could “talk about us” and that there’s “a lot to say”. The next day I messaged her and her replies were blunt, she said at some point she wants to talk, then she didn’t reply to my last message. That was 4 days ago.
Feel like I got my hopes up only to have them crushed again. My energy was getting really good and I feel so weak and tired again, I’m trying to get stuff done, exercise, good diet, and working on some projects but I’m not doing anywhere near as much as I want to. Am I being too hard on myself or do I need to push harder.

it's my birthday today. i dont really celebrate it but i came to realize the reason behind it was how i was treated growing up. that's a whole can of worms tbh. but today... i'm not really expecting anything but at the back of my mind, i hoped someone remembers.
no one did. my partner is out of town, busy with their career. i dont want to bother and/or make them worry about my bullshit. ive a complicated relationship with my family. and i no longer have friends. acquaintances, yes.. but people i can open up to and know me well, either we've lost touch, life got in the way, they cut me off, or i cut them off. i never really had a lot of friends to begin with. most of them i met in my turbulent years and were just taking what we need from each other without much thought.
my partner who has a huge social circle even if they're introverted doesnt really understand how alone and empty i feel with my current situation (even if im trying to be more responsible and healthy with myself)
i especially feel lonely this year bc my dog passed away early this year. she was my anchor and im missing her so much today. my newly adopted cat has outgrown his clingy kitten phase and doesnt really want anything to do with me.
to somehow get through whatever im feeling today, i turned to my bad habits. ive never felt this alone and i thought it'd feel like an accomplishment to be still alive this year

This question is from my uncle who refuses to join Reddit but is always bugging me to read and browse Reddit when I am with him.
Uncle J retired to the Philippines about three years ago. Lives in Pasay, is enrolled at the VA nearby and is otherwise enjoying retirement. He met another retiree upon arrival and they recently married. They actually had two legal ceremonies: one locally in Manila, and another in California.
Uncle J wants to add her as a dependent but is unsure of its even possible because she is not a US citizen. The form to add dependents asks for spouses social security number but can also submit without a SS# -- it just asks for explanation in comments/notes section.
Uncle J is rated 100. He had never been married before, so he has never had any dependents listed. He just wants to know if its worth the hassle or even if its possible.
Hopefully someone has a similar experience they are willing to share or simply knowledgeable enough on the topic .
Uncle J and I are hanging out for the next three days so he'll read any comments straight out of my phone.

Hi all.
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I have a 2.5 year old, spayed, female Shetland Sheepdog who diagnosed at around six month old with congenital kidney disease. They told us she had a cyst and that we could expect her to live 2 to 5 years at the absolute most (though they emphasized 5 was highly unlikely).
At our vets' advice, we put her on the Royal Canin renal support diet and began using a phosphate binder, and so far in life, she's been indistinguishable from a perfectly healthy dog.
Recently, she's start throwing up somewhat frequently (every 1-3 days) and showing a slightly decreased interest in her normal food and treats. She's done this before, a few months ago, but it seemed like a phase that quickly passed. She is still excited about dropped pieces of ham/bread, on the very rare occasion that she gets them.
We're obviously keeping an eye on this behavior, her general appetite, her weight, her energy levels, etc., and we have the vet standing by in case things begin to noticeably worsen/decline.
I'm hoping someone can provide me some guidance/advice regarding eventual end of life care. My first dog passed away via euthanasia at the emergency vet after a series of strokes, and I am very much not eager to repeat that traumatic, painful, late-night experience. But for this dog (Cozy), I'm not sure what to look for or when to "call it," so to speak. Our vet continues to speak in sort of vague terms like "we'll see," "we'll monitor it," and "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
But I'd like to know what to expect and what to do before a crisis happens, you know? I'd like to have a plan and a general sense of how it's all going to go down and what I should be on the lookout for. Honestly, any advice/words of comfort/experience/very general guidance on expectations and/or suggestions would be very welcome.
Thanks y'all. Hug your pups for me. <3

(TW: Slight Transphobia, Swears)
I had planned on coming out today. This morning over breakfast my mom was on a rant about Transgender people and washrooms in high schools. I was listening to her, not really saying anything and she got mad at me for not talking about it. Her opinions are as follows (some are about Queer people in general):

• There should be gender neutral washrooms
• There shouldn't be pride flags
• They keep saying they don't want to be treated differently but they keep making themselves different
• Her opinions on my cousin Maddie M->F, who she sometimes deadnames and calls her a he-she (I don't really know her or like her but damn she has been transitioned for at least most of my life) -Queer is a bad word

Anyways my mom was mad because I wasn't really making conversation even though I'm usually quite opinionated. I didn't really wanna start a fight or lie, I did sorta agree on her washroom stance, but she sorta kept going on about 'them making everyone else uncomfortable'
She is the only one I'm really worried about coming out to. I'm not even coming out as Trans, just a lesbian, but I am worried she will think I'm just confused because I was in a longterm relationship with a man, essentially he was my "exception" if you know what I mean. My sexuality isn't rock solid.
Anyways taking advice, probably still gonna come out this month.

I'm making a comic and the Dark Seldarine are involved in it for the political plotline. I thought it would be nice to have some lighthearted stuff about them sprinkled in with the constant edge they seem to have. I'd love some input because I can't find anything about this question that can answer it.
What do you think the they do in their spare time? Like, when they aren't working, when they take one day off out of the year or something.
The gods in question are Lolth, Keptolo, Eilistraee and Vhaeraun. I want to make their interactions more believable and not static. Here's all I know about them and what I personally came up with in regards to their personalities or relationships:
Keptolo: I know Keptolo is Lolth's consort and he's one of the first elves created, given godhood when Corellon personally named him. I know he was one of the first to immediately side with Lolth as well. I wrote him as someone who actually likes Loth for who she is personality-wise. He thinks she's smart, has a similar sense of humor as him, is confident, loves her artwork, and really liked her for her. They were genuine friends in Arvandor, just hanging out, gossiping about shit, sometimes sex, but it was a true friendship that they both enjoyed.
Lolth: We all know what Lolth is like, let's be real. For her artistic title, I made her more of an artist that practices the more methodical forms of it compared to Corellon, who's more about emotional expression and in the moment artwork. I also took her original goddess of destiny/fate as a somewhat Cassandra archetype. She weaves the most probable fate in her work to get the best idea of what they can do to either achieve that fate or avoid it, but nobody listened to her because the Seldarine (especially Corellon) are chaotic and "fate isn't set in stone", thus fulfilling said fate by trying to ignore it.
Eilistraee and Vhaeraun: my favorite gods in DnD, I love these two so much. I know they both had bad blood between them for a long time, but now have a true friendship between one another and a truce was made after the second sundering. Vhaeraun even changed some of his ways that he wanted his followers to interact on the surface, and Eilistraee made her clergy no longer a matriarchy. I wanted to make them act like a healthy concept of what siblings should act like, even though they have different lives and ways they live.

So I'm ashamed and disgusted to even type this. And no, this isn't some troll post or gross fetish post (as I've seen posted here in the past). I'm posting this on my personal account as I doubt new ones are allowed to post, but I'll be deleting it later.
Me and my girlfriend just broke up, and she just moved out completely. I visited a few "adult" subreddits to get my mind off of it (which I haven't done in years). In the last picture I checked, I didn't even recognize her at first. It only took me a few seconds to notice it was our bathroom at my parent's house though, and I clicked off of it faster than someone on meth
After the dizziness subsided and doing a few reality checks, I went back to her profile with thumbnails turned off and she had about 10 posts, ranging from the start of the year to a few weeks ago (the one I saw)
My daughter turned 16 just a few days ago, meaning that all of these were posted when she was 15.
My daughter has opened up to me about feeling lonely and depressed in the past, and was cutting at one point. Lately she seems better and has gotten into sports, but she did open up very recently about being upset since she never had a boyfriend or kissed or anything. I told her I was a hand holding virgin up until I was 19 and didn't care at all
Even if she deleted the account, I know some of those fuckers absolutely saved the pictures and will trade it/post it elsewhere. And my daughter looks pretty young (and even had her fucking birth year in her username - 2007) so I'm sure some of the guys who saw the picture and were begging for more/to send her money were def aware that she's actually underage. she still has fucking braces and weighs like 80 pounds