Nearly 3 year relationship over and I feel lost.
I’m trying to find ways of handling it so I thought getting it into writing would help so here goes.
I (25m) met her (23f) online during the pandemic and we got along so well we wanted to meet when the lockdown was lifted. So we did. And from there started a great relationship. We were also long distance.
Like most people, we all have our quirks and things that we dislike about ourselves as people. We bonded over our views on relationships given the fact we both had similar upbringings (being in the middle of divorcing parents etc.). And there was a real sense of connection together that we weren’t going to repeat the same mistakes as our parents. We agreed that I came out of my parents’ situation on one end of the scale, by being more sensitive and affectionate and heart on my sleeve. And she, the other side, generally more calculated, negative and feels that all men end up hurting her. She also had the tendency to completely shut down and shut people out when things became difficult.
But we found the way around it all and fell in love. However, wearing my heart of my sleeve I know that I am that way because I still keep a lot of that hurt to myself and try to fill that void by being a better partner for her than my dad was to my mum. Or at least try to be. I have tendencies to use short term fixes to alleviate the way I feel and stress, through uni, it would be drinking, then after that it would be vaping. She didn’t mind me doing it at all but she obviously preferred I didn’t do anything like that at all. But she knew I was my own person and made my own choices.
During the earlier times of our relationship, I would have a pack of cigarettes that I would keep for a rainy day. I had one. Before catching the train to see her and once I hugged her, she could obviously smell it and asked me if I had one. I said no. I don’t know why but my instant reaction was to hide from it because I knew myself it was wrong. I hated that I do it but I know I lean into it to relieve stress and I don’t want her to think of me any different.
She found that I was clearly lying and she broke down in front of me and her mum. It triggers her because her mum would hide the same thing from her along with her dad who would just lie to her all the time. And she would say that every man in her life would lie to her and hurt her.
She felt she lost her trust in me, but we rebuilt.
Fast forward a year we went on a break for 8 months, we were arguing a lot and I had gotten myself into some stuff with university and needed to sort myself out. During which we had kept in touch and went on dates etc. before getting back together. The dates were strange. Started like she never knew me and I was like a stranger to her. Then she was into me then she wasn’t. It felt awful and I felt like should’ve seen the signs.
Fast forward again, since getting back together I finished uni got my career started (been there 7months now) and I needed to get my finances in order, start driving, those sorts of things. But she didn’t have those burdens as such. She never went to uni so she had no debts of any kind and only recently started driving too. But she always wanted more from me, I was needing to be sorting my finances out so that I could actually treat her the way I always wanted to and more.
She started complaining we don’t do much together, but I disagreed because we would go out on dinner dates, cinema walk our dog little enjoyable things because we didn’t have a lot of money. But even so, she wanted me to pay for everything all of the time and it was putting a lot of pressure on me because I was trying so hard to get myself sorted and eventually be able to start saving for a house and things and she would be annoyed I don’t do enough.
I did a lot for her, bought her new furniture while I was at uni with no money because I saw she hated the stuff she had that was falling apart. I would travel to her ALL the time when she would have reason not to come to me most of the time. It felt very one sided a lot of the time.
But going from that conversation, it was her birthday coming up and I had planned a spa break for the day and she said “oh, so not for the weekend then?” And it was so hard to not retaliate because I wish it could’ve been a weekend but I don’t have the money to facilitate that right now. So I then hired a cabin for the weekend on top of that.
We got there and it was perfect. We hadn’t spent some real quality time together for so long due to family and work commitments and money. We started to reconnect like all the hardship we were facing melted away.
Then she went on my phone to change a song. I don’t mind people being on my phone but after a while I do want it back but I have nothing to hide at all. She said she doesn’t like that but I’ve figured out that she was going through my messages whilst having that conversation with me and found that I had smoked a joint with my friends.
She broke down, left the cabin for 30 mins and came back, clearly crying and upset and she calmly sat down and said that she was done with being with me. She said I lied and didn’t tell her about it and she can’t handle me lying again.
I tried to talk to her but she was done. She drove me to the train station and I went home. She asked to message her once I was home and then we spoke for a bit. She said I need to sort myself out again and need to grow out of this phase of life. She’s ready to settle down with a life partner without secrets. And that killed me off. I didn’t tell her because it wasn’t a big deal to me and it was a one off from a long stressful week at work.
3 years gone down the drain and I feel like I wasn’t enough for her. It could have been sorted in a conversation but now it’s all over. I asked if she wanted me to leave her alone and never see me again and she replied with that’s all we can do. So I removed everything from social media and it’s done.
I feel lost and broken, I want her back so much but family have said that she wanted everything her way which really hit home for me because it does make some sort of sense with how she was with me.
I don’t know what to do, I moved cities to be closer to her and now I’m just left on my own with nothing.
Sorry for the long post

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𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎

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𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

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🔹 𝐌𝐚𝐱 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐈𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝: 0 (We don't need no stinking drones giving us away)
🔹 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐱: 10 (Maximum time between each cargo drop min is 5)
🔹 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐨 𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞: 30 minutes
🔹 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐰𝐧: True
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🔹 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞: 50
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Three companies agree to pay more than $1 billion to settle ‘forever chemical’ claims, was the claim, apropros of which..

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u/AdClemson said 1 day ago,

This essentially means the Government has fined these companies $1 Billion and has also fined the victims (general public) additional $4 Billions to pay for the damages that was incurred on them by those companies.

...and then u/aitorbk had replied, 1 day ago, quite wisely,

To solve only partly the issue.

As the name implies, it is a forever problem.

I then replied, just now, and,in agreement, Succinctly,

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...and it's an everywhere problem, which, I dunno, sure makes even the notion of remunerative damages sound a little cheap, not to mention that it's,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/revealed-scale-of-forever-chemical-pollution-across-uk-and-europe
One Dollar Thirty-Four Cents per each European Tainted,

"and that's just the Europeans!"

Not like they're getting the Dollar-thirty-four anyway, and it's not like,

New Rainwater

Can Purchased, like, at all, and it's not like there was much of Great Tragedy, even, it's like finding out that those cheap window-blinds that come default in rental apartments have poisoned the entire air, Yes, But They'd Been Saleable and Inexpensive, and, in that respect, convenient; like, in all seriousness, non-stick pans.
Non-Stick Pans.
Stain Resistant Carpets.
...were these good-carpets, keepers, and the more I read,

Fire-Retardants

The Less that sounds like an irreplaceable duty, the more it sounds like an absolute worst-use case for,

• "____," doesn't burn to exhaustion, and it can't be the environmental concern, if the compounds have a half-life,
• In Exchange for the Permanent Contamination of, "unknown gallons of,"

To claim that it's saved lives would be to claim that there has been no alternative to extinguish the fires we've, ourselves, engineered, in the sense that we're not talking, you know, Volcanoes, we're talking, engineered structures and systems with no reliable backstop in the fire-extinguisher-realm of consideration, I dunno, asbestos might have been a safer means to put those fires out, prolly,

PFAS chemicals are widely used to coat paper and cardboard wrappers for fast food and bakery goods

Shouldn't be, should Never Have Been, what a dumb reason to poison the earth face-first, wet leaves found in the yard would have been a better option to coat paper and cardboard wrappers for fast food and bakery goods, we serve the bakery-goods in boxes sprayed down with automobile transmission fluid because of it's unique properties that keep the cardboard box clean while you drive home from the bakery, good idea, Much better idea insofar as I, alone, Will Swallow the Poison With The Baked Treats, shall not have to grieve for the rainwaters,
...and I'd be more impressed with our umbrellas we have received in return for this Eschatalogical Mortgage of the Earth Itself, except, we had goddamned umbrellas in the 19th Century; I'll be honest:
Waxed Fabric exists, just like Wax on Fabric Works Fine, and Pans had been fine-enough to figure out how to use the whole time we've had both fire and Metallurgy, even the Roman Routine of Wine Mulled in Lead Pots because it fucks you up and tastes funny, honestly, as with the transmission fluid hypothetical, that's fine, relative, these sorts of bargains; and the Romans knew, their doctors wrote about it, people, are, just like that sometimes.
Not usually, this much, for such dumb reasons, as, and I swear it's this:

• Saleable, we can convince people to throw out all of their perfectly, fine, pots and Pans, due to some new sales pitch made available through the miracle of chemistry, likewise,
• I was just at a bunch of High-End Outdoors stores with my brother, Waxed, I think, cotton, Fabric Coats those will cost you a good $650 not because it's that expensive for the wax and the cotton, it's just, those are nice coats; I'd feel the Drama of this situation a little more clearly, if there were some wonderous coats we all had to envy, gosh I wish I ever could have one, and it is a shame they're drenched in an eternal poison, but, Handsome, though, no, it's the cheap ones, which, H&M'ed there way, into the front hall closets for when it's wet I guess
• ughh, I mean, I hear they're used in all manner of products and industries, what I don't hear, and this to Tl;DR, is I don't hear a single thing, of some real value, they've enabled us to have and it's not stain-resistance in Carpets that Don't Have Gold-Spun Tapestries, carpets worth keeping, from the 1300's still exist, I have wood floors, all the houses everywhere around me have 100 year old wood floors, area rugs are nice I guess but jesus fucking christ, man, if it had to be bare wood floors, and just, woven, kinda, those rough rugs I guess maybe that would have been fine I guess jesus Louisus So Stupid; we talk about,

America Needs Mourning, Americans need to deal with the Losses

So Much man, you know, I read this thing, on, OK Doomer, about, Parentism, Parentification, and I keep thinking about it; I know these things, differently, competent parents, very, sick sibling, I know these things and I know what she means and I do recognize that in the broader culture; I think of Simone de Beauvoir's claim that sometimes one must dehumanize the tyranical and that maybe that this, also, is what she means, from a different angle, insofar as it's an implied discursive, rather than material, difference, to do so, and that the difference would be that it removes the pretext of a care which happens, in fact, backwards, removes the face of the false authority; I think of how, incredibly, gerontocratic not merely, the empowerment structures, I guess, but their figureheads, and I wonder to what degree this is for the same reason as the late soviet union, and, also, identical to what she means in, "Parentification," insofar as there is some real limit to what one could even imagine responding, to, a Joe Biden delivering his practiced lines about abstract jobs numbers, no one's job in particular and if in particular an prepared particular and Responding, Joe, I think that we need to Bring Back Mourning Cults of the Late 19th Century I think that We Need to Wear Black Ribbons for our Dead, Joe, I'd say, this, to you, and I just did; but one can't even fantasize of the conversation with our fathers of society, "they're just not, there, enough, to believe that they'd have some real understanding, of, anything so unexpected in response to their, I don't know, and Imagine the same with Giuliani Drunk and Hair Dye Streaking Down His Face, a child in the hands of his victimized personal assistant, herself, without any, whatsoever, power over even her own life, the fuck would it even mean to say, to Guliani, "I think that we should all be wearing black ribbons for our dead people."
Even some of the most wicked young men who have led this country, I could imagine, talking, with in depth and for a long time about this.

What is it like
To grind each day
Knowing
There is no
Leg-wrapping,
Craving,
Comfort
Waiting for me
at the end
In that bed?

What is it like
around that table
Of wings and beer
With friends,
my masculinity built
Like scaffold
Around a cavern
Of neglect?

What is it like
Half-awake
In the sunrise
To begin my day
Without those soft moments
Without those caresses
And kisses and deep
Stretches
That affirm
and encourage?
What is it like?
I’ll tell you what it’s like…

GPSt3 here fairly pissed off currently about the workload and wanted to know what everyone else is doing . Our practice has had a bunch of GPs who have left and when I started there were only 2 part time salaried GPs who took on most of the workload , and partners who refused to do much clinical work if any.
Since then, they have increased my patient list to 18 in the morning and 18 in the afternoon (3 hour session).On top of that no real admin time- but we get a 2 hour break before next clinic starts . The admin consists of 30 labs and 30 medication management and a couple of docman. On top of it we get tasks about patients under their names GPs (they’ve not removed the names of GPs who have left) and they delegate the workload of these GPs to myself, the other trainee and if one of part time salaried GP is in then to them too further adding to admin.
On top of this I’ve had to do portfolio. And on top of this they’ll surprise us with meeting/ within that 2 hour break which will take most of that time.
Everyday I am leaving about an hour and a half late. I’ve asked to reduce the workload but I keep being told it’s for my own benefit, not sure how rushing patients out of my room helps whilst feeling like I’m going to tear every single one of my hairs out.
The practice manager keeps a close eye on us and dare we add catch up slots we get into trouble. They use as salaried GPs but treat us as children.
I’m not too sure where to go but I know this is unsustainable for my mental health. I just keep feeling enraged.
Any advice / or stern words if I’m being weak are welcomed. I just need some clarity .

So I’ve recently started training for a half marathon which means I’ve started running for much longer than I have in the past. The problem is it’s often 90 degrees (32 C) and humid during the day so most of my training is done on a treadmill and I’ve found myself incredibly bored. I’m trying to find a new podcast to listen to reduce the boredom.
In the past I’ve listened to Magnus archives and king falls am and really enjoyed them both. I’ve tried a few other horror anthology podcasts but was never able to get fully engaged without some sort of overarching plot. I love it when I feel like there’s a bigger plot or something else going on and I’m trying to put the pieces together to figure out what that is. I also really enjoyed mistholme museum and penumbra podcast. I’m a very character driven listener as well, I like it when the character is very engaging and complex. I’m kind of a wimp and super strong horror tends to be too much for me. Please let me know if you have any suggestions!

TLDR at the end. This happened when I had only just moved from home and got my own place. Super proud of myself as I’d saved like a demon and bought (with mortgage, obviously) my first place. Lovely little 2 bed flat in a slightly rough area but I loved it and it was all mine!
My mum and step-dad came to visit for a few days a few months after I was settled in, nicely decorated in my style, all my own furniture. One of the evenings they stayed I had to work a late shift. They planned to go out for dinner and to the pub and I left them to it. Came home at 11pm and my mum had moved nearly all of the furniture around and all my books and kitchen stuff were moved to different shelves or cupboards. She even moved my bed in my room so when I opened the bedroom door it hit the bed. I was pissed. So I angrily fixed what I could that night before going to bed. Spoke to her about it the next day, explained its my home and I had it how I liked it so stop please. I put everything else back which took hours, she grumbled the whole time that it looked better her way. Their last day I nipped out to the shops to get us some nice bits for lunch and in the hour I was gone she’d done it again. Moved all my kitchen stuff around to where she liked it. Again I told her off, my house, my rules. She still maintained it was better her way and I should just let her crack on. Fine, I let her do what she wanted and put stuff back when they left.
My revenge, I went to visit their house 6 months later and did it to her.
She went out to work one day and I rearranged every bit of furniture I could by myself. Everything. Swapped the dining room and living room furniture over so you had to walk food through the living room and across the hallway to get to the dining room. Swapped their bedroom and guest room curtains over (the windows were different sizes so their now bedroom curtains were 2 foot too short). Even the pointless little things like moving the spoons to a different side of the drawer and moved every photo on the walls to a different wall. Rearranged the fridge. Took me 7 hours. My step dad was home while I did it and laughed his head off the whole time. He refused to help but understood so let me crack on.
Neither me nor my step dad said anything when she got home, we just sat watching tv (which was now in what was their dining room) and I asked her how was work. She didn’t say a word. She walked round the house, taking it all in, for 20 minutes. Then came and sat down, looked at me and said “point taken”. They’d put it back to how it was the next time I visited.
We’ve not spoken of it since.
TLDR: my mum moved my furniture in my new house so I rearranged her whole house in return.

I've been looking for a used truck, and the one I keep coming back to is the first gen (2004 - 2014) Chevrolet Colorado / GMC Canyon. I'm torn on whether the crew cab or the extended cab would be best for me. I tend to lean towards the extended cab because i don't have kids (and don't want them), my partner has a newer SUV for when we need to do SUV things, and most of my driving is done by myself or in the SUV. However, I do have two large dogs (75lb and 55lb) and would like to have the option to take them places when the SUV isn't available. I've really only had to do this a handful of times, and only had to take one at a time, so I can't imagine a scenario where I'd need to have both if them with me.
Pros of the extended cab: more bed space for the same overall length, seems to be cheaper usually
Pros of crew cab: i could fit my partner and two dogs in my truck with me (even though I'd probably never need to do that), seems like the re-sell value would hold up a little more.
Is the extra bed length really that useful? I don't do construction or anything and would mostly be using it to pick up smaller furniture or various smaller equipment that just doesn't fit in my current car.
Thanks.

Guess it's a half empty, half full kind of question.....how do you see it?
Would love to make a new friend, someone to get excited to hear from everyday and to share our thoughts with. A little about me-38, from the east coast, tall, like to work out, love the beach or being outside,huge music fan, recently found love for cooking, pretty much an open book.

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I randomly met a guy at a store near my home and we had a small conversation. I easily found his profile and decided to send a follow request the next day. We had good hour long conversations. He is an extremely sweet and positive person.
I have always been with toxic people or atleast people who have been putting in a lot of efforts in the initial stages and withdrawing the attention altogether afterwards, but he is different. We were talking almost entire day. 3 days after, he had a light day so we decided to meet at a nearby park. We had a good hour and a half long chat and decided before leaving to meet on Sunday asbwe both probably would be free that day
We used to chat every night but I had a night stay plan on Friday followed by his heavy weekend plans due to which we could not talk much and didn't really address our Sunday plan. Its Wednesday today and since the last 2 days he has been replying to me exactly after 4 hours, irrespective of whether he is free or busy. On Monday i told him I got free early and asked if he wants to join me at the park. He replied after 2 hours that he would had loved to but has a couple of deadlines.
He got free early yesterday, yet he replied extremely late. I have a feeling that he is no longer interested maybe but then his replies are flattering. His latest were that he liked one of the videos i shared of my party day that looked embarrassing later. He said he didn't want to be deprived of such videos.
I do think he likes me but the latest conversations are just pushing us apart. I do not want to lose the spark and want to talk to him more regularly. If only we could meet again or talk on phone. If he seems uninterested, I'll accept it but i do not want to go this in haste. How can i express that I am interested in knowing him more?
My idea is to keep myself away from instagram for the next 2 days because his exact 4 hour late responses have been bothering me and are testing my patience. I'll tell him that my next 2 days are busy so that he doesn't feel ghosted.

There were three potential FBI agents in training, two men and one woman. They were given a series of tasks to complete to show their dedication to the Agency, each task more gruelling and challenging than the one before. Fpr months they trained relentlessly until finally the big day came and each trainee was given their final task. Their handler had taken them to an old barn, way out in the middle of nowhere with no one around for miles. The handler began with the first male trainee by handing him a pistol. “Inside is your final test” he said. “Somewhere in this barn is something that you really love. Take this gun and show your dedication and determination to the FBI. If you succeed, you’ll become one of us”. The trainee entered the barn. After about 10 minutes of waiting in silence the trainee opened the barn door, handed the gun the handler and left, never to become an FBI agent. The handler approached the second male trainee and repeated the challenge. Steeled by his predecessors failure, the second trainee grabbed the gun and entered in confidence. After 20 minutes of silence he too returned,handed the gun to the handler and he too left never to be an FBI agent. Finally, the woman trainee was approached by the handler. The handler repeated his challenge. She timidly took the gun from the handler in her sweaty hands and slowly entered the barn. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting a loud CRASH! Rang from the barn. Then more crashing, bashing, following by screaming, squealing… pleading for mercy, help, anything. Finally the female contestant emerged from the barn dripping with sweat and blood, panting. The FBI handler in shock asked “what the hell happened!!!”. After a moment to catch her breath the female trainee finally said “I went in there and found my husband tied to a chair, blindfolded and waiting. But the gun you gave me wasn’t loaded, so I had to beat him to death with the chair”.

My little brother might have neen spoiling them a bit much with grains and (meal)worms. Temps have also been a bit high last few days, over 25c but we provide them with proper shade and water. Is this cause for concern? I suspect it might be a bit of a dietary problem. I think half of their poopies are actually of normal consitency. The 2 1 year old hens we got at the same time have had normal poop with the occacional bit wetter shittle in between but nothing concerning.

Overwatch 2 isn't perfect but nothing is. I played overwatch because it was unique, fun, and had that factor that at some point it just clicks. Many great hours playing.
That's half of my enjoyment though, the other half is the community. I joined competitive discords, overwatch subreddits etc and I get being disappointed but attacking people who say they are enjoying the game is insane.
This subreddit and the people on it are way more of a turn off than the game by far.

Henlo, I (19F) got sick last Tuesday. I woke up with a bit of a sore throat and threw up later in the day. Followed by extreme pain in my throat, stuffy nose, almost complete loss of voice, bit loss of smell and taste (but not completely) and cough the next days. First thought it was just a cold, but as I was half suffocating I went to a doc on Saturday morning. Got prescribed 500mg Azithromycin for 3 days. Took my last dose on Monday. The only thing I still have is a bit of cough and my voice sometimes is not 100% therenif I talk for a longer time.
How long should I stay out of sun and when can I go back to do Taekwondo, hiking, playing trumpet?

This is a weird half-thought/half-feeling I've been experiencing periodically for a bit...
A major fraction of the time, especially when dysphoria is pretty bad, I can't wait to start HRT/transition and find myself desperately wanting all the changes that come with it. I get frequent gender envy, the aforementioned dysphoria, dissociation...you get the idea. Doing affirming stuff not only feels good but it brings what is fundamentally relief.
But then there's the rest of the time when doubt hits me in the face like some sort of freight train...and doing anything transition-related feels like it would be wrong. I start to get panicky about the prospect of doing anything. The dysphoria is mostly gone during these times, mostly manifesting as brief moments of longing for a feminine body and some gender envy...but I also start to wonder if being a woman during these times would be "authentic" or something. In many ways it feels like my "male" personality rebels and bubbles up from the surface to suppress the feminine identity I've been slowly getting to know.
And these times are particularly straining because it's a clash of contradiction: irregardless of the fact that most of the time I *really* want to be a woman, during these secondary "phases" I find myself unable/unwilling to accept that I'm a man, I just feel like I inherently am one, against my own volition. Thinking about anything gender-related during these periods only brings stress and anxiety, so I do my best to ignore it and live in the present moment when I feel that way.
I also come back to the same idea when I'm like this: I don't want to *transition* but I want to _have transitioned_... like the thought of changing anything makes me anxious but I can't help but want to picture myself 10, 20 years down as a woman. I picture myself as a woman and I feel warm inside. I hate "phase 2" and it only serves to make me feel absolutely awful and strained...it feels like I'm looking directly at the Sun but am unable to divert my eyes.
I don't want the male side to win. I want Emily to come out victorious in the end. I'm jealous of those who get to transition and get scared that I won't be able to, that I'll have to find some way to live with myself, or worse that I'll be stuck in this "gender hell" forever, and I don't know how long I can live like this. Sometimes I wonder if this desire of mine to be a woman is just a desire for me to be someone else.
I just don't know what to make of it. It stinks. Maybe this is just my brain's way of saying "I've had enough of dealing with dysphoria" and shutting itself down...but like why replace that with a different kind of misery? I know I'm probably not cis at this point and my diary serves as evidence for my past feelings...but there are days when I just want to crawl into a dark hole and never leave because of how shitty I feel.

Credit to SpacePaladin15 for coming up with this amazing universe.
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Memory transcript: Starfreighter operator Cli! from Sillis, Date: [Standardized human time] September 11th, 2136
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“If at any point you try to trick me, I will burn you to ashes. Am I understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Said !ar!, his legs shaking, but I wasn’t one bit better off, I was terrified to death, frozen in place. We’ve never had a weapon pointed at us. And it tuns out, it is a terrifying position to be in.
“Then start talking”. Said the old exterminator lady.
“We’ve been searching for a place to build us a custom adapter, and we’ve found this place called ‘Electronics Abound’, where a very bored female venlil pointed us to this store of yours.” I said with shaking voice. I was moving my hand towards my bag slowly for the connector, when she jerked the flamethrower in my direction, and shouted at me.
“Hands where I can see them! How do you know the expression ‘gold-pressed latinum’?”
“The female venlil told us to tell it to you. She said you can help with our problem. Can I show you?” I asked humbly.
“Give me the bag!” She shouted at me.
I took off my backpack and threw it at her feet. Handling the weapon with one hand, she reached into my bag with the other one. She rummaged in it for a moment, then brought out the CNCQ connector. The moment it was out of the bag, her eye was glued to it, looking at it as if she has just witnessed the founding of the Federation. “Where did you get this?” She turned to us and said, while holding the part.
“In our ship’s spare part compartment.”
“I am going to ask you a simple question. If you give me the correct answer, you will live. If you don’t…then lets just say I will have a lot of cleaning to do. So tell me, what exactly am I holding in my hand?”
“Ni!ita, please help us, this female venlil in front us tells us she will burn us to death if we wont identify the connector part.” I said out loud.
“Who the damnation are you talking to?” Replied the venlil, turning more hostile at my question.
“It is a universal CNCQ connector for a Type 3 socket, manufactured probably between 180 and 200 years ago in !errigan’s electronics factory on Sillis, if I remember correctly on an island just off the coast of her domain.” Said Ni!ita to me. It was an exhaustive answer, I hope it will be enough for our aggressive venlil.
“Ma’am, it is a universal CNCQ connector for a type 3 socket, manufactured on Sillis about 180 years ago in an electronics factory just off the…” I tried to repeat the lines Ni!ita told me, but Kelra interrupted me.
“It seems you know way more of this item than I do. But I do know that part of what you’ve said is the correct answer. Sorry that I’ve spooked you…”she said, as she turned off the flamethrower and put it down onto the floor”…but the codeword you’ve just told me implied you were coming to capture me. You seem to know more of this item than even the exterminator office. So, you’ve said you’ve found it in a compartment of your ship. Am I correct by assuming you are flying a non-federation standard starship?”
“Yes, you are.” !ar! replied.
“Okay. Do I assume correctly that you have a CNCQ module, to which you would like to connect something, maybe a datapad?”
“Correct, again.” I said.
“So you have a ship capable of interfacing with a CNCQ module. Why would you want an adapter for it then?”
“It is not for our CNCQ module, it is for an other we’ve found.” I explained.
“So you have 2 modules? How did you get a second one?”
“Cli! found in on Venlil Prime at the starport, it was lodged into an engine pod of a shuttle which collided with it in space.” !ar! said to her.
“I see. And why would you like to connect it to a datapad, when you could connect it to the ship?”
“We don’t want to connect it to the ship, we don’t trust her enough.”
“Her? I am confused. Are we still talking about the computer core of your ship?” Kelra said, probably just as confused, if not even more, than when we were told of CNCQs a day ago.
“Maybe it would be better if you’d tell us how do you know about this technology, and what do you know about it, before we attempt to explain our situation.”
“Would you like some fresh-baked strayu, or some fruits for the tale? Maybe a glass of water? Anyway, my story begins about 30 years ago. “She begins, as she goes up to the cabinet in the room, and fetches 3 glasses on a plate, and wanders over to the sink. “I was a young lass back then. Both my parents were exterminators, so it was natural that I also aspired to be one. But I had dreams, I wanted to see the galaxy, it was not enough for me to prowl the sewers and fields of Venlil Prime. So I’ve signed up for service, and thanks to my heritage, I was easily accepted into the exterminator fleet as a mechanic. You know, the fleets that are dispatched to untamed worlds to cleanse them of predator taint, to turn the planets into habitable paradises.” She put the glasses down onto the table in front of us, and then went back to the cabinet to take out some fruits. “I rose quickly in the ranks, Iin no small part because of my knack for recognising patterns. I’ve provided plenty of observations about predators and their behaviour that my contribution could be actually felt on the quality of work we did as a team. This, naturally, resulted in promotions not just in rank, but in responsibilities. I was given my own ship after only a scant 6 years. As the wave of colonization efforts died down, our focus changed, and so did my duties. We were tasked with finding battlesites, prowling through wreckage and removing arxur taint, and, if possible, retrieving casualties.”
Kelra stopped for a second to drink a little water, then went on. “But everything changed on that fateful paw. We patrolled this very system’s outskirts, when a dark object appeared on our sensors. They barely picked it up, we would have missed it if it didn’t reflect so much light, and the system thought it discovered a new star in the distance. After a quick error checking, we recognised it was a ship, and not a new star. It didn’t tumble much, drifted in the endless void silently. I gave the orders to go in for visual check, which we did, and what we had seen was unlike what we’ve ever seen. The craft looked neither federation nor arxur, it was oddly organic in shape. I have sent out teams to scour its hull for an entry point, and to evaluate the possible design purpose of the ship. An agonizing claw has passed before the first reports started coming in – it was clearly a weapon of war. An incredibly amount of missile launchers covered its surface, all empty, with some point defence lasers dotting its hull. A team has found an entry point, though they didn’t had to look very hard, practically the ship was broken in half. I have ordered the teams to rotate back and sent fresh teams into the derelict. I will never forget what I have seen on the camera feeds of my troops, tilfish corpses littered the inside, heaps upon heaps of dead, frozen tilfish strewn everywhere. By the time the ship was completely investigated, we’ve counted over 20000 dead. That sight, the memories of that day will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
Kelra stopped again, clearly in great emotional distress, and I could see tears forming in her eyes.
“You don’t have to continue Kelra.” I tried to persuade her to stop, but the put her paw up, and went on.
“I do, I have to. Someone has to know, and you, at least partially, are privy to the truth. I don’t think any better candidate will come my way anytime.” She took a deep breath, and continued.” In that cursed ship, my team found a single piece of machinery still being powered. It was fed by some kind of emergency power source we could not locate the source of. It was the computer core, or CNCQ, as you might know it. I have no idea why the designer of the vessel dreamed this craft up this way, I can not fathom why one would want to keep a dead ship’s core powered, but I guess that question will stay unanswered. Anyway, we decided to extract the core, and mark the craft for salvaging. The dead crew has been collected and incinerated in our drivecones’ exhaust.” She stopped for a moment, thinking about the memories and the feelings they’ve awoken inside her, then continued. ”We’ve spent the next months trying to interface with the computer core, which eventually resulted in the gadget now you seek. I am willing to part with it, but in exchange, I would like to take a peek at your computer core.”
We sat across her in stunned silence for a long moment, weighting if that would be a wise idea. For what exactly are we endangering ourselves, a custom piece of cabling so that our stowaway can talk to the world?
“Cli!, you are in deep distress, I can feel it, what is the problem?” Came Ni!ita’s voice out of nowhere in my mind.
I tried to recall the story I’ve been just told, so that she might understand the reason for my anguish.
“You should ask her why the existence of this adapter is dangerous. It makes no sense. A crucial piece of the bigger picture is missing. A more important question is, why is she afraid?”
Those were very good questions. Ni!ita seems to be very good at paying attention to details, and noticing inconsistencies. I decided to ask them from Kelra.
“You are an observant tilfish, Cli!, those are perfectly valid questions. I am willing to give you some details as a show of faith, and to sweeten the deal, I will give you the computer module after you’ve fulfilled your end of the deal. Is this acceptable for you?”
“We can agree to this Kelra.” Said !ar!.
“The adapter is a piece of technology that allows connection between federation systems and a technology that is deemed dangerous by the federation. Though I think the protocol itself is a remnant of a conflict that has been scrubbed from the records of the federation. The information we’ve discovered in the core pointed to a conflict between the tilfish and the Federation, before you’ve been officially found by the Federation. The ship was fleeing Sillis, and it was pursued by a Federation suppression fleet. The core must have been damaged in some way, as we could not extract much from it, apart from navigation data and some damage reports, despite it being full of information. I am in potential danger, because I am in possession of this information. I know, because I know the regulations, some I’ve even helped write. Now its your turn.”
“You can not take a look at the CNCQ modul you would like to investigate, because it is not our decision. It is, after all, her body, not ours.” I told her in confident tone.
“Whose decision? What are you talking about?” Asked Kelra, apparently being very upset about what I’ve just told her.
“Its Ni!ita’s decision, she lives in it. The CNCQ is not a computer core, you see, it is a housing of a virtual brain of a long-dead tilfish queen. Among other things.” I explained her.
“Are you pulling my tail? This is a sorry excuse for a joke. There is nothing in my computer module!”
“You’ve just said, it is full of data. Yours, and our original, are essentially coffins, of a long-dead tilfish’s neural transcript. The one we’ve found on Venlil Prime is still alive however.”
“Lets assume I go along with your outlandish explanation. Why do you need the adapter?”
“We basically made a deal with her. We will not leave her on the scrapyard if she does work on the ship. Considering her…disabilities, she is unable to do any physical work, and we are reluctant to hook up her to the ship. So, we thought if we gave her the means, she could be our logistician. She could scour the digital world for work more efficiently than us. If you give us the adapter, we can prove this to you.”
Kelra thought for a very long moment, confusion was clearly wrecking her mind. It would be wrecking ours too, if we were subjected to such a situation she was pushed into. On second thought, we were in her position just a paw ago. Hm, how easily one’s world view can change in short amount of time. Suddenly, she got up, and walked to the cabinet in the room, she leaned inside and pushed something, after which a hidden compartment revealed itself in the wall opposite us. She walked up to it, and retrieved the adapter, and her CNCQ module.
“Lets go to your ship, then.” She said with determination in her voice. Then she walked out of the office into the store, and we heard the door unlocking. “Are you coming or not?” She asked from us, practically shouting from the street. I’ve jumped up and ran after her, with !ar! right behind me. By the time we’ve caught up with her, she was almost at the corner of the block.
The walk back to the ship went in silence, we did not talk, at all. Her knowledge of the city was evident, as we’ve walked considerably less to the starport now, than how much we did earlier today. But the night still caught us outside, by the time we’ve reached our ship the starport was bathing in blinding artificial lighting, projected from floodlights dotting the tarmac. We approached the ship from the front, and Kelra’s eyes shot wide open at the sight of it.
“Is this your ship? It does not look like a Federation ship, at all. In fact, it resembles the ship I’ve encountered all those years ago.” Kelra said, while gawking at our craft.
“It is indeed very different. Actually, we are having a lot of problems finding parts for it. I guess you can imagine, it is not a common ship in Federation space.” I added.
“May I have a look inside?” She asked.
“Well, we have walked around here, it would be rude from us not to let you on board.” !ar! replied.
We all walked into the ship via the crew ramp, and headed to the storage room where Ni!ita “lived” currently. Kelra handed !ar! the adapter, and he connected his datapad to the module with it. For a few moments, nothing happened, then Ni!ita’s began speaking to me.
“Hm, interesting gadget. Is this the famed ‘datapad’ you’ve connected to me? The software is…difficult. I have to be careful while talking to it, as if I was walking on eggshells, made of extra-brittle glass which have already been broken but is still in one piece. Extremely sloppy engineering. Oh dear, the amount of unnecessary protocols, the duplicate lines of code, the pointless bloatware…do you truly need a live update of the weather on all federation planets? And why am I bombarded with articles, like ‘14 symptoms of predator disease’ or ’21 ways the Federation keeps you alive without you knowing’?”
“What now?” Asked Kelra from us. “Is it working? I would like to speak to her. Can we talk somehow?”
“Hello alien!” Came a voice from the speaker of the datapad. The most soothing, feminine, smooth voice I’ve ever heard, it made the hair on my body stand upright, and even Kelra’s wool has straightened a little. A chilling feeling ran though my body, from my head to my abdomen, sparking a feeling of happiness and joy from every cell of my body, as if they started dancing at the same time.
Kelra’s mouth hang open at the unexpected voice. She looked around, looking for the source, but she found nobody. “Hello, mysterious occupant of the CNCQ module. I am Kelra.” She said to the datapad, after she confirmed that the voice could not have come from any other place.
“Greetings, Kelra, I am Ni!ita. Thank you for your generous gift adapter. Finally, I can do something else, other than chatting with these 2 drones, they are quite boring, frankly.”
“What and who are you?” Inquired Kelra.
“I am Queen Ni!ita, the neural transcript of queen Ni!ita from Sillis. I am a Command and Control Queen, or CNCQ. And who are you, Kelra?
“I am a former ship leader and exterminator.” Said Kelra.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, and aliens in general. It is my first time, but I suppose the rest of my kind met yours almost 2 centuries ago.”
Kelra froze at that comment, probably thinking back to the corpse-filled ship. She must have been thinking wether she should tell her story to Ni!ita or not. The Federation did not meet the tilfish under pleasant circumstances.
“Well, Kelra, do you believe us now?” I’ve asked from Kelra.
“I do. It is incredible. In my wildest dreams I have not though this was the purpose of the module, this also explains why the ship was designed to keep the module powered no matter what. And since you have the proper equipment, maybe you could look into my module also, probably it would reveal more than what I could dig up with my improvised tools.”
Kelra spend the next hour chatting with Ni!ita, carefully navigating around the topics that would expose the Federation’s involvement with the ancient tilfish. They discussed technology, culture, especially music. Ni!ita was extremely interested in venlil music. But the time came when she had to go back to her life.
“Thank you for your warm welcome, but I must be going now, my daughter must be worried sick. May I have your contact so that we can stay in touch, Queen Ni!ita?” Asked Kelra.
“I don’t have any objections. And, please, call me Ni!ita, no need for long-forgotten, meaningless titles.” Replied Ni!ita. Kelra went over to the CNCQ module, and sent over her contact. Then she turned around, thanked us for our hospitality, and left, leaving her own module on the floor by the door.
We looked at each other with !ar!. This has been a tiring day, and we haven’t even secured a new job for ourselves. Suddenly, it dawned on me, Ni!ita can now take over that role from us.
“Ni!ita, since you now have the means to do some work for us, how about you start looking for a job for us?”
“I have already done it. We will depart in the morning.”
“Wow, you are fast.” Said !ar! surprised.” Would you please fill us in?
“I’ve managed to secure a contract for you, for the short-term future. A roundtrip between 3 locations, though the end of the roundtrip is Venlil Prime. I know you have an aversion to that place, but still, it pays very well.”
“That’s great news! What will we be transporting?”
“Titanium, steel and aluminium sheets and profiles, processed lithium and a myriad of other metals in smaller quantities. The full container amount will be loaded, each to their full capacity here, on every round. At the next stop we will be loading food, machinery and building materials.”
“What’s the fee?
“A nice round 40 million credits for a single round.” Ni!ita said, like it wasn’t a fortune in and of itself.
“Ok, this is too nice to be true. What is the catch? What is the third stop, Wriss?” I asked jokingly.
“No. It’s a planet called Earth.”

In my country, the only way to access my dream job is through an extremely competitive national exam. The study load and the candidates-per-place ratio are so insane that the average successful candidate spends several years off work (hence no income) to be able to study all day (up to 12 hours a day).
I can’t afford that. I can only afford not working for half a year and I already spent a lot of my savings on an academia to help me with the preparation. On Friday I received my materials: a huge pile of textbooks, a book with real exams from previous years, some mock exams, and pre-recorded video classes for each topic along with their respective presentations.
I skimmed through them with excitement (I love my field), then I went to bed and spent the weekend crying. How can I learn all of this in 6 months? How can I retain it? How can I get in front of the candidates that have been preparing for years?
Then I told myself that even if it seems impossible, getting stuck in learned helplessness won’t make it better. I want to try anything in my power to make my dream come true. I am very aware that the methods that have worked for me until now (writing summaries by hand, studying them, then writing flashcards by hand and practicing them, and then answering practice questions) are not an option anymore due to the workload and the lack of time. I searched for alternatives and it brought me here. Honestly, I think that if I have any hope and chance, it will be Anki.
I am completely new to this so I will be really, really grateful for any advice on how to approach this adventure. Anything would be more than welcome. From things like “type X of Anki is my favorite because” and “separate/don’t separate your subjects by decks” to advice on whether to skip reading and highlighting the textbooks and only go for PowerPoints and Anki or whatever. Anything, really. I’m a lost soul but I’m willing to put in a lot of work and effort when I see a spark of hope. And, as wild as it sounds, I think I saw a spark of hope.