I (F34) have been dating my girlfriend (F49) for less than a year. Id like to begin with saying I deeply care for her and love her. We are emotionally strong together and support oneanother. She feels like home and like a warm bath. However I still have doubts and fears sometimes. For example, she looks older (ofc she is) and therefore has way more wrinkles than me and her skin lookes older. Everytime I introduce here, walk hands with her etc, I feel a bit ashamed about being with her. Somehow I think people will see us and think negative about us as a couple. But apart from that, I can find it less attractive that her body looks older. I sometimes have issues getting aroused in bed with her. I think thats partly because she is female (and if I am honest I am physically more attracted to men, just not romantically). So it might now be age related but it adds to my doubts anyways.
She has two children. She is okay with me still wanting to have children of my own too, but in her mind it should be only one as she is approaching the 50 and doesn't think she will be fit enough for more than one. Sometimes I am okay with that idea, given the fact she already has two so it would be a big family already, and sometimes I wonder if I am making the right choices for myself. Maybe I would want to give birth more than once.
She lately told me she sometimes feels guilty. She feels like I have to offer too much for wanting to be with her and she wants me to think everything over again. Do I really want this? Before she even said this, I was feeling more and more certain about us. But since she said this, I am not sure all of a sudden. It's driving me kinda mad. Can anyone relate to these issues? How did u deal with it?

My wife Shanda is a nurse who has been fired from four hospitals for stealing and consuming patients prescribed narcotics. She has had her nursing license on probation 2 times. Addiction is only one of her flaws. She has been with her husband for 18 years, married for 11. In October of 2022 they went away for the weekend to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary. After returning from their trip, Shanda wasted little time by starting an affair with a co-worker just 2 days later. She had laid the ground work for this affair before leaving town. This winner she cheated on her husband with, is 7 years older than her (50 years old). He is also married, actually been married 3 times. He is also a nurse. She confided or should I say spread lies to her coworker about her husband to gain sympathy and attention from him. She also told him all of her husbands business and secrets.
A little bit abour her husband. They have 3 children 17, 7 and 5 years old. Her husband workes 80 hours a week to ensure that Shanda could buy anything and everything she wanted. He loved her deeply, and tolerated everything she threw at him. Fast forward to 11/29/23. the affair had picked up steam, she spent less and less time at home and taking care of their children. She was 6 weeks in and played her wife role to ensure her husband did not suspect anything. A week prior, her husband was starting to notice weird things like changing passwords, less communication from her on a daily basis and she had become increasing guarded of her phone and spending more time than she ever have had on her social media accounts. Her husband finally had an opportunity on 11/29 when she left her phone upstairs and he grabbed it went straight to recently deleted messages and there they were 490 text messages that chronicled everything, the entire evolution of their affair. By the first week of November they were full blown sexting. She became enraged and assaulted him, saying she didn't love him anymore and didn't want to be with him. He was beyond hurt, he sacrificed his own happiness for years for her. December and January were brutual, she continued to cheat after telling him and the 17 year old daughter that she was sorry, used bad judgement and was going to focus on repairing their marriage. Her treatment of her husband was absolutely disgusting, she would assault him, broke his Imac twice, the 2nd time she hit him over the head with it. She's the one that caused all of this and she felt she had the right to take out her anger on him because he caught her. She had opened up 3 different snapchat accounts because this was her preferred way to communicate with her affair partner. Her husband had been documenting all of her violence and continued to stand by her hoping she would realize how her actions were destroying him and their children. Most of the arguing and fighting took place in front of the 7 and 5 year olds.
By January she was openly cheating in the face of her husband. January 23, 2023, her husband had found a way to have her text messages sent to his phone, that evening she gets home from work, he pours his heart out to her, begging her to stop her affair and recommit to her family. While he is doing this she is texting affair guy lies about her husband, he is telling her how much fun the day before with her was and how he is divorcing his wife and wants her to refinance his house with her, she responds with I need to make plans to leave him and spend the rest of my life with you. The whole time her husband is reading this exchange in real time, he puts his phone down but didn't close out the messaging app, Shanda notices this because the last text sent from her was a blowing kiss emoji. I forgot to mention that in the middle of January her husband got into her snapchat account and found a message from her to him where she proclaimed her love for him. In the beginning of January she was busted by her nurse probation case manager for failing a drug test which resulted in an addtional year tacked on to her probation and mandatory outpatient rehab for 30 days. Anyways after she noticed his phone she got pissed and chased him around the house trying to get his phone from him, grabbing his car keys to prevent him from leaving the house. He shouted for her to stop and not in front of the kids, put the kids to bed and i'll give you my phone he said, but she wouldn't stop. Finally, he grabbed her to get his key from her, he leaves she calls the cops, he is arrested and put in jail for domestic assault. She gets him out the next day, he notices that while he was in jail she spent most of her time on the phone with her affair friend. She tells her husband that she will go to court and not press charges, that was a lie, and on Feb. 3, 2023 she files for divorce telling her husband she was going to have the charges dropped, he knew she was lying because he put a gps tracker in her car and new she as at a divorce lawyers office. February she claimed to have ended her affair, but really it was her lawyer telling her to be more careful with her affair till this is over. Her husband, is devasted by this, but vows to get her to change her mind. she at one point tells him she will stop the divorce and another time says she will pause the divorce to attempt reconciliation. Both these times were straight lies. By this time she is telling her husband "why are you here? No one here cares about you".
She became very emotionally abusive after filing for divorce. So much so her husband contemplated taking his own life and actually staged an event to make it look like he was trying, that all backfired though. Then came March 29th, this was the anniversary of their first date, her husband comes home for work, he notices she has regular clothes on and not pajamas, she always changes into pajamas. She starts an argument on purpose for an excuse to leave and stay the night at her moms house. She leaves, he can't sleep at around 3:30am, he has a funny feeling, looks a her email and notices a hotel receipt from 12:21am that morning. He jumps in the car and races to the hotel, sure enough their is her car in the parking lot of a neighboring hotel and their is his car in the hotel parking lot that matches the reciept. Her husband calls the hotel and asks to be transferred to her room, no answer, he goes in the hotel and asks the front desk to try again, no answer, tries one more time. This time someone picks up but says nothing, he cries to her on the phone asking why? He returns to his car and now can tell what room they are in, he waits, 30 minutes later the punk ass 50 yr old walks out of the hotel and to his car, her husband just stares at him, he drives off. Hours later, she returns home packs a bunch of clothes and moves out to stay with her mom. 3 weeks later her husband has to appear in court for the charge, her divorce lawyer shows up and has the case prolonged for 2 more months. She appears to feel bad and returns home but says no affection or sex and she will let him know if she feels anything. Back up to her moving out, her affair friend started sending text messages to her husband threatening him and bringing up things only his wife knew about him, he crossed the line when the affair guy brought up his daughter's name. By this time it wasn't enough to for her to fuck another man and tell her how much she loves him, she had to mentally torment him and talk of their children to this low life piece of shit.
Now here we are in May, he tries to give her a good mother;s day and she insults him. Four days later, here comes the phone call from CPS. They interview all 3 children and Shanda and her husband, now this has gotten way out of hand, he plans to comply with CPS, Shanda has no plans to comply, that is where we are at right now. She is a cheating whore who never had the balls to tell her husband that she was unhappy before spreading her legs for someone else. She has mentally destroyed her husband and their kids, she never has shown a bit of remorse, she is looking for an apartment because their house will have to be sold because her husband cannot afford it by himself. The kids will have to lose their house and change schools. Her husband is in financial turmoil and he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She never put one ounce of energy into saving their marriage and has never apologized for the things she has done. Mediation is not scheduled till July 22nd, so this is far from over, who knows what the hell will happen next. This is a great example of how one person can destroy another persons life and makes you question if you even know your own wife. I will surely post updates as this seems to be far from over. I apologize for this post being in the 3rd person.

Hi! I'm a 15 year old girl. (Background and characters:) My mother, (37f) is a clean freak with severe OCD. She loves a clean house. She spends a lot of her day cleaning up to three times a day (probably more lol).
My sister N is 18, she has just graduated a few days ago! N is messy, she doesn't care about a little mess. She doesn't do her laundry, she doesn't make her bed, she doesn't clean up after herself. But in her defense, she needs back surgery, so that's her excuse. And she's going through a lot, she's a hard worker, she studies and struggles a lot with her dispraxia.
There's my mom's bf P, he's messy too.
Story: yesterday my sister N was in the bathroom taking a bath. She loves to do that for around 1-3 hours, she enjoys relaxing after studying/anything hard/a hard day overall. The bath was left for a while so obviously it got cold, N waited until the end of the day to get in when it was luke-warm. By that time P had turned the water off to my mothers command. After that N had texted me, asking me to check, so I did and told her it was off.
The next thing I hear is N getting out of the bath, unlocking the door, pounding on my mother's door (she keeps it locked) and P opens
They began arguing, I couldn't hear it all but from what i gather it went like this
P: -unlocks door - wha- N: why did you turn the water off? My bath is cold and I don't even have any water to wash my hair P: your mother told me to. N: well I needed to wash my hair!!
From what I heard from downstairs either P slammed the door on her or she pulled it shut. Then she went into the bathroom, slamming the door again, and draining the water. She began screaming about how she "can't even FUCKING wash my hair in this house" and screamed "FUCK YOU!!!!" and continued talking to herself before my mother yelled from her room to shut up.
The next day.
I had woken up to my mother yelling, "Op! Where's the yellow liquid?" (she's talking about yellow cleaning stuff. I had cleaned the house with it yesterday) I responsed "I don't know, I put it back" But of course she continued yelling, by that time I was up and preparing getting dressed for our appointment at CAMHS (It's a place that helps Minors with high anxiety and depression)
My mother turned her anger to N, yelling about what happened last night. It begun, the screaming match. This is all i can recall as I was also crying (I never cry. I usually just sit in silence, )
Mom was yelling at N, N was screaming back and started bawling about how she's suffering too, about how she's in pain too, and about how mom abuses us and screams all the time (she does) mom screamed back that she's only screaming because N doesn't clean up after herself, and about how she's always a slave to N (something she says often) It goes back in forth with N saying that mom screams all the time and mom screaming back about how she's a slave, and had just lost her sister in the last year, and she never had time to grieve.
I was just in my bed crying. After they were done screaming my mom called me to sort the clothes. Finding what's mine, she saw I was crying and was a bit shocked since I never cry. She talked in a gentle manner to me to just find my clothes.
My mom said she didn't want me to be upset. She said that N was making out to be her fault, I stayed silent, she sighed and said it was both their fault, I nodded and walked passed.
I got dressed and mom said we weren't going to the appointment anymore because it was just to discuss my antidepressants (which I have, its just to talk about how it's going) I said fine, now I'm on the couch typing this out. My mom wants me to calm down and not be upset before leaving. She said she's keeping a close eye on me because she's afraid I'll commit suicide.
I'm just so confused on how to feel. My chest hurts. My cheeks are wet. This can't be normal.
Id really appreciate any feedback at all, maybe about who's in the wrong? Maybe about how i should feel? I'm happy to answer questions...
TL;DF: my ocd mother is screaming at my sister about being messy and rude to her. It ended up becoming a screaming match between the two.

My father passed away last month at the age of 60. Although he had a number of illnesses, with one being from a young age, his death was unexpected. This is incredibly hard to come to terms with as I expect anyone on this subreddit would appreciate. Reading posts of some people on here who have lost loved ones at a young age or in terrible circumstances puts my loss in perspective but its still no less raw or devastating. I read a eulogy at my fathers funeral which I'm going to add below. It's long and most people won't read it but I just want to tell as many people as possible how amazing my father was. I have omitted any names from the eulogy and replaced with NAME. I will say though my dads name was Mark and I hope anyone who reads this sees how incredible he was.
Thank you all for coming.
My Dad was the person I looked up to the most, especially the older I got where I grew to appreciate the incredible man he was and how he lived his life. He had things very hard from a young age with multiple conditions, but he never let that define him. He appreciated the good things in his life, and not once did I ever hear him dwell on the bad that happened to him, his attitude was always to enjoy what he could surrounded by the people he loved for as long as he could no matter what was thrown his way. My dad possessed many qualities which include being kind, thoughtful, funny, loving and he is the strongest person mentally I’ve ever met and I’m proud and fortunate that he was my dad. The challenge to show those qualities became harder especially in the last few years but he never stopped living and being the man he always was, laughing, joking, and enjoying himself around his family.
His sense of humour was witty and dark, and he loved to wind people up, especially my mum. Even in his final hours he had his sense of humour. He was lying in bed that morning and he had a remote to move the bed into different positions. My mum heard him call her, so she went in and the remote was on the floor. My dad said sorry NAME can you pick it up, so she did. 10 minutes later she heard my dad call her again, so she went back in, the remote was on the floor again this time my dad had a grin on his face, my mum picked it up and gave it to him and warned him not to drop it again. He did of course drop it again and my mum saw a big smile on his face like he always had as she came back in. She knew he was winding her up and was smiling as well and I’m sure my dad thought about doing it again, but he knew one more time and it would be wrapped around his neck.
Two of my oldest memories I have of my dad are of stories he liked to tell because he found them funny to talk about over the years and I know he would like me to mention them. I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence they both involve alcohol, but he was a SURNAME so of course he enjoyed a drink.
The first is when I was around 5 and my dad and I were watching tv and he was enjoying a glass of whiskey. He went out to go to the bathroom and I seized my opportunity, grabbed the whiskey, and had a swig. My Dad came back into the room with me screaming it burns it burns pointing at the glass. My dad knew what needed to be done and rushed into action grabbing a can of lager and having me drink some to get rid of the whiskey taste. It did work to be fair and when I was older, I hated whiskey and enjoyed lager, which explains a lot.
The second story I want to share is another from when I was young. My dad would always go out drinking with his brothers NAME and NAME on boxing day. It was usually a nice casual drink and a chance for them to spend time together. However, on this occasion my dad got very drunk. So drunk his brothers had to carry him home which was an incredible feat by itself as he was not a small man. What was even more impressive is they managed to get him home but avoid my mum. They achieved this by leaving him sitting by the bins outside and knocking the door and running off. I don’t blame them, and I think it was a very smart move. However, what they didn’t expect was my dad to get up and manage to fall inside the bin. That was the sight that greeted my mum.
My dad was a great father to me and my sister NAME. He was limited physically in some of the things he could do with us but he more than made up for it in other ways and he was always there for us when we needed him. The only thing my father got wrong when NAME and I were growing up in my opinion is he should have been a bit harsher on NAME. She was always terrorizing me, and I was always calm and never did anything to instigate things, but she couldn’t be stopped. I think my father showed a bit of favouritism there.
At Christmas and other occasions, he enjoyed having everyone around and eating, drinking, playing games and having fun. Trivial pursuit was something he always wanted to play, probably because he would often win. He would always play as the blue counter, his favourite colour and if my nan was there which she usually was she would go on his team as she knew he would get everything right and she could sit back and sip her dissarano. I’m sorry nan but I really don’t think your going to win many games in future.
A memory of Christmas that sticks out is when we were playing a golf game on the Nintendo wii and it was my dads go. He was very competitive and put a lot of effort into his swing as he had to make up for the fact, he was playing sitting down. On this occasion he tried a bit too hard and also forgot to tighten the strap causing the wii remote to go flying off his wrist and straight into the tv destroying the screen. I will never forget the look on his face, a combination of shock and disbelief.
My dad also enjoyed playing real golf, many times with me and his son in law NAME but always with his mum. He caught the golf bug later in life but would play almost every week, sometimes twice a week for the part of the year they could use a buggy on the course. His father also used to go with them to drive the buggy and the sight of it all on the course was terrifying for others playing. A typical sight would be his father with his sunglasses on no matter the weather, driving the buggy with my dad in front and my nan sitting at the back trying to hold on as his father drove way to fast hitting every bump he could find and just about staying upright. He would then drop them off next to their drive which had gone maybe 50 yards at most, which considering their limitations wasn’t bad. They would play their shots with his father laughing hysterically and taunting them from the buggy as their balls went another 50 yards. To just be on the golf course playing with the pain my father was in and the limitations he had was an inspiration to me. He didn’t care what anyone else thought as he was doing what he enjoyed.
There are many more memories I could talk about and many more things he enjoyed doing but we’ll be here hours if I go into everything, and nobody wants that including me. NAME will go into more of my dad’s hobbies and life later, but I hope what the memories I’ve talked about show is how my dad loved being around his family and always lived life to the fullest. I wish we had more years with him, but I can say with confidence that he was happy and content that he had an excellent life.
There are a few milestones I want to talk about that I know would be important to my dad.
My Mum and Dad met working in a bakery. The day he got married to my mum I know he would have felt so lucky to have found someone he loved and could spend his life with or as my nan put it when preparing for today, he married the best tart in the bakery. They were always there for each other, and I know my dad would have very much appreciated the emotional support she gave him especially the last few years. It wasn’t easy for her either dealing with my dad’s illness but I’m so proud of my mum and dad for how they dealt with everything. Susan and I could not have wished for better parents.
The day my sister NAME and I were both born but especially me were big moments for my dad and changed his life forever, hopefully for the better but maybe not always. Also, important moments were when his Grandchildren NAME and NAME were born who may not know how lucky they are to have had my dad around for the time they did but they will when they are older as they look back to Grampys example and guidance.
My dad was so happy that NAME and I had both found what he had with my mum. For NAME it was NAME and for me it was NAME. NAME and I have chosen the easier option of having dogs rather than children which my dad, despite saying he never wanted a dog around or had any interest in them ended up loving having both NAME and NAME around. He would play with them despite it being hard for him and enjoyed taunting them with toys and chews and they would taunt him back by leaving things just out of reach for him.
The day my sister NAME and NAME got married was an emotional and wonderful day for my dad. Getting to walk his daughter down the aisle was a happy and proud moment for him. we didn’t know if he’d be able to do it beforehand, but he wasn’t going to miss the chance, so he got through it as he always did. My dad was not known for speaking in large crowds or being confident at it, in fact it was the opposite. However, the speech he gave at NAME wedding was incredible, funny, emotional, and memorable. He spoke from the heart without anything prepared and I am so proud he not only got through it but delivered an unforgettable speech.
There was never any pressure put on me or NAME. The only thing he wanted for us was to be happy and if we were happy that was ok for him.
I want to finish by sharing what some of his closest family wanted me to say on their behalf. This is their words read out by me.
His Wife NAME says, Mark was the love of my life, my soulmate with so many happy years together. Those years were rich with happy memories with our family. No more pain and suffering now my darling, rest now. My everlasting love always.
His daughter NAME says, I could not have asked for a better dad. You were always supportive and patient in everything I did. Your Grandchildren NAME and NAME will remember you as wise and funny, you always took an interest in what they liked. I will miss you incredibly, but you will forever be in my heart.
His Mother NAME says, Words cannot say how much I will miss you. I get comfort that you are not in any pain now. Sleep my darling until we are together again.
His brother NAME says, I will love and miss you always, brother.
His Brother NAME says, Dear Brother I will start by saying at least you are now at peace and pain free. You will be deeply missed by us all, after all you were the diplomatic one of the family. Mark was the most patient and calm member of us all and nothing was any bother for him to do. Love you Mark God bless you and thank you for being my brother, Love NAME.
His Son in law NAME says, thank you for welcoming me into your family with nothing but love and kindness. We shared a love for formula 1 and I’ll think of you whenever I’m watching a race.
His Niece NAME says, Uncle Mark was always kind and caring to me and you could tell how much he loved his family. Whenever I visited and complained about something he always found a way to spin it in a positive light and give me a new perspective. My last memory is of him in his chair putting his jumper on which got stuck after his arms were through. He made me jump because I thought he was headless and gave us all a good laugh. I feel lucky to have had him as an uncle.
Finally, for me he was my hero. I owe him everything. I couldn’t have wished for a better man to look up to and learn from. My respect for how he lived his life despite the challenges he faced is immeasurable. He never complained, never worried, never gave up, he lived his life to the maximum he could, doing the things he enjoyed around the people he loved right until the very end.
Dad I’m going to miss you beyond words and its going to be hard, but I will draw from what you taught me and live my life the best I can. It is said that a person is never truly gone as long as they are still talked about. Well, the impact You had on those around you means stories of you will be passed down for generations. The memories I have of you will stay in my head and the love and respect I have for you will remain in my heart forever.

I’m thinking about replacing our bath and shower with a walk-in showewet room as we never use the bath. I have a two bed, one bath flat in Hackney, London. Will this impact the flats value by removing the one bath or should it not make a difference?
Interesting to get some thoughts

I will be starting this fall as a graduate student. I am prefereably looking for a 2 bed/1 bath to rent and cat friendly. I am open to places in Endicott, Endwell, Vestal or Owego. Not looking for a roommate. Thank you.

hey everyone! i know this is a shot in the dark but my roommates and i have an open room in our 4 bed 2 bath apartment and we are looking to fill it before north district assigns someone random!
we are all female and 19/20 years old, all 3rd years our 4th roommate is transferring, which is why we will have an open room. if you’re interested, feel free to reply or dm me and we can exchange socials and see if it’s good match!

My wife Shanda is a nurse who has been fired from four hospitals for stealing and consuming patients prescribed narcotics. She has had her nursing license on probation 2 times. Addiction is only one of her flaws. She has been with her husband for 18 years, married for 11. In October of 2022 they went away for the weekend to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary. After returning from their trip, Shanda wasted little time by starting an affair with a co-worker just 2 days later. She had laid the ground work for this affair before leaving town. This winner she cheated on her husband with, is 7 years older than her (50 years old). He is also married, actually been married 3 times. He is also a nurse. She confided or should I say spread lies to her coworker about her husband to gain sympathy and attention from him. She also told him all of her husbands business and secrets.
A little bit abour her husband. They have 3 children 17, 7 and 5 years old. Her husband workes 80 hours a week to ensure that Shanda could buy anything and everything she wanted. He loved her deeply, and tolerated everything she threw at him. Fast forward to 11/29/23. the affair had picked up steam, she spent less and less time at home and taking care of their children. She was 6 weeks in and played her wife role to ensure her husband did not suspect anything. A week prior, her husband was starting to notice weird things like changing passwords, less communication from her on a daily basis and she had become increasing guarded of her phone and spending more time than she ever have had on her social media accounts. Her husband finally had an opportunity on 11/29 when she left her phone upstairs and he grabbed it went straight to recently deleted messages and there they were 490 text messages that chronicled everything, the entire evolution of their affair. By the first week of November they were full blown sexting. She became enraged and assaulted him, saying she didn't love him anymore and didn't want to be with him. He was beyond hurt, he sacrificed his own happiness for years for her. December and January were brutual, she continued to cheat after telling him and the 17 year old daughter that she was sorry, used bad judgement and was going to focus on repairing their marriage. Her treatment of her husband was absolutely disgusting, she would assault him, broke his Imac twice, the 2nd time she hit him over the head with it. She's the one that caused all of this and she felt she had the right to take out her anger on him because he caught her. She had opened up 3 different snapchat accounts because this was her preferred way to communicate with her affair partner. Her husband had been documenting all of her violence and continued to stand by her hoping she would realize how her actions were destroying him and their children. Most of the arguing and fighting took place in front of the 7 and 5 year olds.
By January she was openly cheating in the face of her husband. January 23, 2023, her husband had found a way to have her text messages sent to his phone, that evening she gets home from work, he pours his heart out to her, begging her to stop her affair and recommit to her family. While he is doing this she is texting affair guy lies about her husband, he is telling her how much fun the day before with her was and how he is divorcing his wife and wants her to refinance his house with her, she responds with I need to make plans to leave him and spend the rest of my life with you. The whole time her husband is reading this exchange in real time, he puts his phone down but didn't close out the messaging app, Shanda notices this because the last text sent from her was a blowing kiss emoji. I forgot to mention that in the middle of January her husband got into her snapchat account and found a message from her to him where she proclaimed her love for him. In the beginning of January she was busted by her nurse probation case manager for failing a drug test which resulted in an addtional year tacked on to her probation and mandatory outpatient rehab for 30 days. Anyways after she noticed his phone she got pissed and chased him around the house trying to get his phone from him, grabbing his car keys to prevent him from leaving the house. He shouted for her to stop and not in front of the kids, put the kids to bed and i'll give you my phone he said, but she wouldn't stop. Finally, he grabbed her to get his key from her, he leaves she calls the cops, he is arrested and put in jail for domestic assault. She gets him out the next day, he notices that while he was in jail she spent most of her time on the phone with her affair friend. She tells her husband that she will go to court and not press charges, that was a lie, and on Feb. 3, 2023 she files for divorce telling her husband she was going to have the charges dropped, he knew she was lying because he put a gps tracker in her car and new she as at a divorce lawyers office. February she claimed to have ended her affair, but really it was her lawyer telling her to be more careful with her affair till this is over. Her husband, is devasted by this, but vows to get her to change her mind. she at one point tells him she will stop the divorce and another time says she will pause the divorce to attempt reconciliation. Both these times were straight lies. By this time she is telling her husband "why are you here? No one here cares about you".
She became very emotionally abusive after filing for divorce. So much so her husband contemplated taking his own life and actually staged an event to make it look like he was trying, that all backfired though. Then came March 29th, this was the anniversary of their first date, her husband comes home for work, he notices she has regular clothes on and not pajamas, she always changes into pajamas. She starts an argument on purpose for an excuse to leave and stay the night at her moms house. She leaves, he can't sleep at around 3:30am, he has a funny feeling, looks a her email and notices a hotel receipt from 12:21am that morning. He jumps in the car and races to the hotel, sure enough their is her car in the parking lot of a neighboring hotel and their is his car in the hotel parking lot that matches the reciept. Her husband calls the hotel and asks to be transferred to her room, no answer, he goes in the hotel and asks the front desk to try again, no answer, tries one more time. This time someone picks up but says nothing, he cries to her on the phone asking why? He returns to his car and now can tell what room they are in, he waits, 30 minutes later the punk ass 50 yr old walks out of the hotel and to his car, her husband just stares at him, he drives off. Hours later, she returns home packs a bunch of clothes and moves out to stay with her mom. 3 weeks later her husband has to appear in court for the charge, her divorce lawyer shows up and has the case prolonged for 2 more months. She appears to feel bad and returns home but says no affection or sex and she will let him know if she feels anything. Back up to her moving out, her affair friend started sending text messages to her husband threatening him and bringing up things only his wife knew about him, he crossed the line when the affair guy brought up his daughter's name. By this time it wasn't enough to for her to fuck another man and tell her how much she loves him, she had to mentally torment him and talk of their children to this low life piece of shit.
Now here we are in May, he tries to give her a good mother;s day and she insults him. Four days later, here comes the phone call from CPS. They interview all 3 children and Shanda and her husband, now this has gotten way out of hand, he plans to comply with CPS, Shanda has no plans to comply, that is where we are at right now. She is a cheating whore who never had the balls to tell her husband that she was unhappy before spreading her legs for someone else. She has mentally destroyed her husband and their kids, she never has shown a bit of remorse, she is looking for an apartment because their house will have to be sold because her husband cannot afford it by himself. The kids will have to lose their house and change schools. Her husband is in financial turmoil and he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She never put one ounce of energy into saving their marriage and has never apologized for the things she has done. Mediation is not scheduled till July 22nd, so this is far from over, who knows what the hell will happen next. This is a great example of how one person can destroy another persons life and makes you question if you even know your own wife. I will surely post updates as this seems to be far from over. I apologize for this post being in the 3rd person.

Hey, thanks for clicking on my post!
I'm from the North West of England (think sort of a Manchester accent) I have a cay, she's clingy asf. Love her to bits tho. Big fan of 80's music, video games, movie marathons and the feeling of fresh bedding right after a nice long bath. (I'm that idiot who'll take his laptop in there to balance somewhere and watch the office)
Kinda looking for someone to get excited over again. I love accents! Tell me about where you're from and if you like any yourself. If you play games, huge bonus but not required. Same again for sports, I love watching football and its rare to find a woman into that but hey, you never know!
And I have a bit of spare time in life right now since I'm currently a full time carer for the paps until he's better.
Hit me with a meme or any questions you might have, I'm an open book and you're welcome to ask me anything.
Looking forward to hearing from you!

1 bedroom available in a 2 bed/2 bath apartment starting 6/15 for $1100 a month plus wifi and utilities (utilities and wifi usually come out to about $150 a month).
My current roommate is moving into her own place so I’m looking for a new roommate to renew my lease with! The apartment is 1000 sq ft and you’d have your own bedroom and bathroom. The lease is for 12 months and I have two cats so you’d have to be pet friendly (they stay primarily in my room).
The apartment has central aiheat and an in unit washer and dryer. The apartment building is a block from the Crystal City metro and has a pool, gym, and parking garage. Grocery stores, restaurants, shops, and the metro are all within walking distance!
A bit about me! Im a 25 year old training analyst primarily working from home. I love music, reading, gaming, traveling, and animals! I graduated from Catholic University in 2020 so I’ve been in the DC area for about 7 years now.
If you have any questions or are interested in the room, feel free to send me a dm!

My wife Shanda is a nurse who has been fired from four hospitals for stealing and consuming patients prescribed narcotics. She has had her nursing license on probation 2 times. Addiction is only one of her flaws. She has been with her husband for 18 years, married for 11. In October of 2022 they went away for the weekend to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary. After returning from their trip, Shanda wasted little time by starting an affair with a co-worker just 2 days later. She had laid the ground work for this affair before leaving town. This winner she cheated on her husband with, is 7 years older than her (50 years old). He is also married, actually been married 3 times. He is also a nurse. She confided or should I say spread lies to her coworker about her husband to gain sympathy and attention from him. She also told him all of her husbands business and secrets.
A little bit abour her husband. They have 3 children 17, 7 and 5 years old. Her husband workes 80 hours a week to ensure that Shanda could buy anything and everything she wanted. He loved her deeply, and tolerated everything she threw at him. Fast forward to 11/29/23. the affair had picked up steam, she spent less and less time at home and taking care of their children. She was 6 weeks in and played her wife role to ensure her husband did not suspect anything. A week prior, her husband was starting to notice weird things like changing passwords, less communication from her on a daily basis and she had become increasing guarded of her phone and spending more time than she ever have had on her social media accounts. Her husband finally had an opportunity on 11/29 when she left her phone upstairs and he grabbed it went straight to recently deleted messages and there they were 490 text messages that chronicled everything, the entire evolution of their affair. By the first week of November they were full blown sexting. She became enraged and assaulted him, saying she didn't love him anymore and didn't want to be with him. He was beyond hurt, he sacrificed his own happiness for years for her. December and January were brutual, she continued to cheat after telling him and the 17 year old daughter that she was sorry, used bad judgement and was going to focus on repairing their marriage. Her treatment of her husband was absolutely disgusting, she would assault him, broke his Imac twice, the 2nd time she hit him over the head with it. She's the one that caused all of this and she felt she had the right to take out her anger on him because he caught her. She had opened up 3 different snapchat accounts because this was her preferred way to communicate with her affair partner. Her husband had been documenting all of her violence and continued to stand by her hoping she would realize how her actions were destroying him and their children. Most of the arguing and fighting took place in front of the 7 and 5 year olds.
By January she was openly cheating in the face of her husband. January 23, 2023, her husband had found a way to have her text messages sent to his phone, that evening she gets home from work, he pours his heart out to her, begging her to stop her affair and recommit to her family. While he is doing this she is texting affair guy lies about her husband, he is telling her how much fun the day before with her was and how he is divorcing his wife and wants her to refinance his house with her, she responds with I need to make plans to leave him and spend the rest of my life with you. The whole time her husband is reading this exchange in real time, he puts his phone down but didn't close out the messaging app, Shanda notices this because the last text sent from her was a blowing kiss emoji. I forgot to mention that in the middle of January her husband got into her snapchat account and found a message from her to him where she proclaimed her love for him. In the beginning of January she was busted by her nurse probation case manager for failing a drug test which resulted in an addtional year tacked on to her probation and mandatory outpatient rehab for 30 days. Anyways after she noticed his phone she got pissed and chased him around the house trying to get his phone from him, grabbing his car keys to prevent him from leaving the house. He shouted for her to stop and not in front of the kids, put the kids to bed and i'll give you my phone he said, but she wouldn't stop. Finally, he grabbed her to get his key from her, he leaves she calls the cops, he is arrested and put in jail for domestic assault. She gets him out the next day, he notices that while he was in jail she spent most of her time on the phone with her affair friend. She tells her husband that she will go to court and not press charges, that was a lie, and on Feb. 3, 2023 she files for divorce telling her husband she was going to have the charges dropped, he knew she was lying because he put a gps tracker in her car and new she as at a divorce lawyers office. February she claimed to have ended her affair, but really it was her lawyer telling her to be more careful with her affair till this is over. Her husband, is devasted by this, but vows to get her to change her mind. she at one point tells him she will stop the divorce and another time says she will pause the divorce to attempt reconciliation. Both these times were straight lies. By this time she is telling her husband "why are you here? No one here cares about you".
She became very emotionally abusive after filing for divorce. So much so her husband contemplated taking his own life and actually staged an event to make it look like he was trying, that all backfired though. Then came March 29th, this was the anniversary of their first date, her husband comes home for work, he notices she has regular clothes on and not pajamas, she always changes into pajamas. She starts an argument on purpose for an excuse to leave and stay the night at her moms house. She leaves, he can't sleep at around 3:30am, he has a funny feeling, looks a her email and notices a hotel receipt from 12:21am that morning. He jumps in the car and races to the hotel, sure enough their is her car in the parking lot of a neighboring hotel and their is his car in the hotel parking lot that matches the reciept. Her husband calls the hotel and asks to be transferred to her room, no answer, he goes in the hotel and asks the front desk to try again, no answer, tries one more time. This time someone picks up but says nothing, he cries to her on the phone asking why? He returns to his car and now can tell what room they are in, he waits, 30 minutes later the punk ass 50 yr old walks out of the hotel and to his car, her husband just stares at him, he drives off. Hours later, she returns home packs a bunch of clothes and moves out to stay with her mom. 3 weeks later her husband has to appear in court for the charge, her divorce lawyer shows up and has the case prolonged for 2 more months. She appears to feel bad and returns home but says no affection or sex and she will let him know if she feels anything. Back up to her moving out, her affair friend started sending text messages to her husband threatening him and bringing up things only his wife knew about him, he crossed the line when the affair guy brought up his daughter's name. By this time it wasn't enough to for her to fuck another man and tell her how much she loves him, she had to mentally torment him and talk of their children to this low life piece of shit.
Now here we are in May, he tries to give her a good mother;s day and she insults him. Four days later, here comes the phone call from CPS. They interview all 3 children and Shanda and her husband, now this has gotten way out of hand, he plans to comply with CPS, Shanda has no plans to comply, that is where we are at right now. She is a cheating whore who never had the balls to tell her husband that she was unhappy before spreading her legs for someone else. She has mentally destroyed her husband and their kids, she never has shown a bit of remorse, she is looking for an apartment because their house will have to be sold because her husband cannot afford it by himself. The kids will have to lose their house and change schools. Her husband is in financial turmoil and he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She never put one ounce of energy into saving their marriage and has never apologized for the things she has done. Mediation is not scheduled till July 22nd, so this is far from over, who knows what the hell will happen next. This is a great example of how one person can destroy another persons life and makes you question if you even know your own wife. I will surely post updates as this seems to be far from over. I apologize for this post being in the 3rd person.

1 bedroom available in a 2 bed/2 bath apartment starting 6/15 for $1100 a month plus wifi and utilities (utilities and wifi usually come out to about $150 a month).
My current roommate is moving into her own place so I’m looking for a new roommate to renew my lease with! The apartment is 1000 sq ft and you’d have your own bedroom and bathroom. The lease is for 12 months and I have two cats so you’d have to be pet friendly (they stay primarily in my room).
The apartment has central aiheat and an in unit washer and dryer. The apartment building is a block from the Crystal City metro and has a pool, gym, and parking garage. Grocery stores, restaurants, shops, and the metro are all within walking distance!
A bit about me! Im a 25 year old training analyst primarily working from home. I love music, reading, gaming, traveling, and animals! I graduated from Catholic University in 2020 so I’ve been in the DC area for about 7 years now.
If you have any questions or are interested in the room, feel free to send me a dm!

May 30th Move-in available. Private Room in 4 Bed 4 Bath - Apex Housing Monthly rent: $850 negotiable I am looking to re-let a private bedroom with private bath in a 4 Bedroom - 4 Bath apartment from 30th May 2023 till 31st July 2023 (Summer Term), at Apex. 2/3 roommates have moved out and my other roommate might go home during the summer so you'd have the entire house (living area to yourself)

I (31F) have a sister (39F) who has a husband (39M) and 4 kids (16M, 15F, 13M and 8F). About 3 weeks ago, my sister’s bathrooms all started leaking (from the different floors) and she currently doesn’t have a working bathroom, so her kids have been showering at my house. I also have 4 kids (11M, 9F, 6M and 3F) with my husband (31M). My sister and I, as well as my other siblings are all really close to each other, so this isn’t really any big deal.
My husband and I have recently been having trouble with our 6 y/o son, Briscoe. Briscoe just finished Kindergarten, he’s popular and kind to his peers but he has trouble listening to my husband and I, as well as some issues with his teacher towards the end of the year. Some of our issues have included getting our son to go to bed and getting him in the bath.
As I see my siblings often, the kids often all see each other to, Briscoe is very close to Kyson, my sister’s 13 y/o. Kyson like hanging out with Briscoe as Briscoe is a lot like him, and he’s the only other kid who does sports (Briscoe and Kyson have both done little league, as Kyson has done other sports for his junior high). Kyson has really embraced the role of being Briscoe’s rold model.
The first day my sister was here, we couldn’t not notice how attached Briscoe was to Kyson, following him everywhere he went. I was talking to my husband and we thought it might be a good idea to let Kyson try to get him to bathe, as we’ve felt like we’ve exhausted our options.
I talked to Kyson and he said he was on board but wanted me to get a few things for this, I ended up talking to him and I ordered baseball bath bombs and sports themed rubber ducks online. They came a few days later and my husband tried getting Briscoe in the bath with them and it wasn’t working, as soon as Kyson took over, Briscoe started following him and agreed to get in the bath, I was peeking in from time to time to make sure Kyson and Briscoe were ok. It was amazing, Briscoe have him no issue. He was playing with the rubber ducks with Kyson and seemed to be really impressed with the bath bomb and Kyson was playing with him. We also had him help with putting Briscoe to bed.
Apparently my sister didn’t know about this for the first week it was happening, when she found out she told me she wanted to speak about something. I went in our kitchen with her and she said that she didn’t think it was right for me to “push my parenting” onto Kyson and she said I could be causing him harm by pushing adult problems on him. She asked if I was paying him and I told him I wasn’t but I’d be willing to get him something if he wanted, she said that I should’ve been paying him to begin with. I talked to Kyson about it and he sent me a link to a signed jersey he wanted and we ended up getting it for him, he thanked us. This isn’t an issue of money as my sister can easily afford to pay for these things even with her bathroom being repaired. AITA?

Updated May 2023
I recently changed Reddit accounts and it's been about a year, so it seemed prudent to repost this for visibility. :)

Link to the Below Zero guide

https://subnauticamap.io/ - This is an interactive map of the crater. However, be warned that it will show the general location of things you need to find. This can be toggled but if you have zero point of reference for the places mentioned in this guide, this map should provide one.

General tips are at the bottom, however, they rely on you having played at least part of the way through the game so I don't recommend checking them until at least part 3, AKA "Going Traveling"

Subnautica is a game primarily about exploring your environment while overcoming the trepidation that the game sets up in you over doing so. Although there isn't a perfect guide to being able to clear the game, there also isn't an unambiguous path of progression for the player, either.
Consequently new players often find themselves at an impasse in terms of progression and where to go. The following is a no-nonsense, straight to the point guide on how to progress, but it's not a bible. You can do most of this just by exploring and wandering around.
A blind playthrough is critical to the first time player experience. This is often true of every game but for Subnautica it makes or breaks the whole story - you need to have no idea what the hell is going on the first time you clear the game. If you spoil it for yourself you will regret it, please believe me in this. This guide is meant to give you a nudge when you find you don't know where to go next, it's not really meant as a walkthrough, even though it can be used as one. Do yourself a favor friends, don't go wandering /subnautica or the wiki too much and this guide will not lead you astray. It is written specifically for brand new players.

The Beginning

When you first arrive on 4546b, you find yourself with basically nothing. You're hungry, thirsty, your lifepod is broken and your cookies are gone. The Aurora is burning (and you nearly did too) but despite all that, you're alive and this planet is about to get some Ryley in it.
The environment around you has most of what you need to get started. The metal scrap strewn around the shallows provides an easy source of Titanium while you can break limestone and sandstone to get the minerals you need for your starting tools. You'll want the quartz you find for glass.
Although you have a number of options for making equipment, at this stage I don't recommend using resources for the air pump or pipes. Truth is they don't really have much use; they create a breathing line from the surface for when you're diving, but they're expensive and there's better alternatives in your near future.
Once you have a scanner and knife, take the time to scan everything you can. All the local wildlife can be scanned and most of the flora.
Your objective at this point is to build a repair gun, knife, seaglide, flashlight and scanner.

Branching Out

Now that you've got your basic tools and you can get around a little, it's time to begin exploring. At this point you've seen the deeper waters on the edges of the kelp forest.
It's time to go take a look.
The red grassy plains have what you need to progress to deeper waters. You'll want to explore the wrecks there. There are four grassy plains surrounding the shallows at compass points and cave systems exist in three of them which will become relevant later, but are largely out of your reach for now. It is out here that you will find fragments necessary for an important task you must complete soon. Raiding the aurora will require the laser cutter you learn to make here. You'll also want a propulsion cannon, which you can find the fragments to near the side of the Aurora. DO NOT GO AROUND THE BACK OF THE AURORA. SERIOUSLY. You are not prepared for that level of giggling insanity yet.
By now you've fixed the radio and may have triggered the sunbeam event, in which case you will want to go follow that. Give yourself the full span of time to go to the island and explore unless you'd prefer to explore after the event, but don't let yourself get distracted by what you find there and miss the ship arriving. The signals you've been getting are important prompts and need to be checked out when possible, so make sure you take the time to do that. Also, when you go to either island DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACH. DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACH. There is a real risk of it phasing through the ground and becoming inaccessible and then you'll end up on this subreddit asking how to get it back like the other 5 guys a week. Seriously.
Also note that bringing an ion cube to the top of the mountains caves will let you do something interesting up there, but I won't be specific. A scanner room at this spot is ideal not just to track the reaper leviathan on the eastern side of the island but there is quite a lot of shale and lithium here as well, which is probably something you're gonna want.

Going traveling

At this point you should have a seamoth, your basic tools, a laser cutter, propulsion cannon and lead suit. You are prepared. It's time to go to the Aurora... but only if you've gotten the communication from Alterra with the captains door code. Otherwise, you must wait for that radio event. You can go explore the ship anyways of course, but not having the code means you can't get into the captains room, requiring you to go back and get it later. So it's up to you. You can open the door anyways if you get the code off the internet or something but since the game gives it to you anyways, you can always wait for the prompt. If not, the door code is 2679
If you have a cyclops I don't recommend taking it, since reapers hang out at the front and back ends of the ship. However, a seamoth is small enough to fit through the broken superstructure of the ship at the front and thus avoid this danger. There are two ways to access the ship and although it seems impossible, you CAN in fact climb up to access the open one. Otherwise, you can use the prop cannon to move the debris out of the way of the door near water level. Be sure to take the time to explore inside and use the carry-all bags to leave stuff you want to keep from the ship out the front so you can come back and pick it all up later. There's lots of useful stuff in there.
As a side note here, the leech-like things that annoy you in the reactor room are called Bleeders. I hate Bleeders personally, but I noted that if you grab one with the propulsion cannon and fling it into the wall out of sheer spite then other bleeders will be attracted to the body, which makes grabbing and doing the same to them quite easy. Clearing the entire room of those little #*([email protected]'s only takes a couple minutes.
You can get the codes for various rooms inside from the PDA's you find. Also note that some doors can only be opened once you repair them. Sometimes the Aurora glitches and these repair sections don't work but because the ship has two entrances, you can always go around the back to clear the whole thing, which is... annoying. If you don't mind being patient, leaving the Aurora and doing other things for awhile will reset the wreck, allowing you to come back later and potentially be able to repair the doors then.
The codes for the ship are:
Cabin No. 1: 1869
Captain's Quarters: 2679
Cargo Bay: 1454
Lab Access: 6483

Time to go down

With the Aurora repaired you have the ability to wear things other than the lead suit, so it's time to chuck that in the trash 'cuz you won't need it again. It's time to get the outer wrecks in the zones beyond the shallows and hoo boy ain't that gonna be an experience.
The cyclops is your friend here. But what's this, you don't have a cyclops? Well, that's okay. You may have found one of the engine fragments on the aurora in the cargo bay but if you missed it, it's not really a big deal. Your next objective to build one is to go explore mushroom forest and the underwater floating islands for the fragments you'll need. If you've been following your radio signals you've probably been to the aurora rendezvous point by now, but if not, take the time to go thoroughly explore that island. One of the PDAs you need to find the next place is not at the degasi base, but on one of the paths of the island near an arch of rock. You'll need to explore the island thoroughly to find it. Make sure to scan everything and bring back plant samples if you have a seabase. You can use plant pots to keep food trees on your cyclops for easy access to food without worrying about curing everything all the time.
Once you have the cyclops, you need to take the time to upgrade your seamoth to depth so you can explore the various wrecks, supplement your PDA database and establish yourself properly for long-term operations. At this point in the game you should be aiming for or already have:
A seabase, even a basic one. A couple corridors with lockers are invaluable for storage and operations and the scanner room is MISSION CRITICAL. If you haven't built one yet, get on that!
A seamoth, either at or being upgraded to 500m depth
Knife, flashlight, repair gun, seaglide, scanner, laser cutter, propulsion or repulsion cannon, rebreather
Be sure to check everything, then check it again! It's easy to miss things on the island. Be sure to check the buildings on the tops of the hills there too. Although it would be nice to be able to plant land beacons (hint hint, Unknown Worlds), it's not feasible for marking out the precursor gate on the floating island so unfortunately, it's not of much use unless you have your base on one island or the other. I don't recommend the floating island for this for reasons which will become apparent later in the game.

Looking into the abyss

If you've explored most of or all of the wrecks and no longer have missing technology, it's time to go deeper. If you've been following your PDA signals you need to check out the degasi bases and follow their story, as they lead you to a large, deep cave which is the path to deeper places you need to explore.
There are several inlets to the place you need to reach. Northern Bulb Zone where it meets Mountains has a large entrance. Blood Kelp Zone and Trench both have entrances. The last one is in deep grand reef, where the final Degasi base is. I personally recommend either Deep Grand Reef or Bulb Zone but the latter has the most accessibility.
Raiding the final Degasi Base before exploring this cave system will get you the orange precursor key which you'll need to access something hidden at the southern end of the caves near blood kelp trench's entrance. While working down here I strongly recommend making liberal use of beacons as navigational guides if you're new to this place. It is VERY confusing and looks very same-y if you haven't spend a lot of time here.
Deep inside the caves you'll come upon a chamber with a massive skull sitting on a chunk of land in the middle and access to a slightly lower part of the cave system which is not green. This is the Cove Tree Cave and the brine there will not hurt you the way the green brine does. This leaves you able to free dive there to gather materials without needing to rely on your prawn.
This chamber with the skull is, in fact, the central chamber of Lost River. It is an excellent place for building a scanner station and the entire area is ludicrously rich in resources. It's a perfect place to stock up and catch up any upgrades, tools or devices you may be lacking so far. You'll want the resource stocks for later and honestly, it's just a really cool place to have a base in general.
The Disease Research Facility is in the north-eastern arm of Lost River, accessible through the Bulb Zone entrance. A juvenile ghost leviathan guards the path but as with most leviathans, operating in silent running and staying above or below it while sticking to the cave walls will get you by without any issue. If they do notice you, just pop a decoy, go full speed for about 5-8 seconds and then drop the engine to low and stay in silent running until you get far enough for the big ugly to stop bothering you.
The southern part of Lost River holds a large chamber with a ghost leviathan juvenile and houses another rather large skeleton. This area in particular is rich in large ore deposits and crystallized sulfur that you'll be needing for some big upgrades.
By the way, remember the cyclops shield? By now you're probably noticing that using the auxiliary functions on the cyclops eats a lot of power. Redundant power cells are your friend and if you feel you're worried about power costs while exploring, you lose nothing by having a buttload of spare power cells. It can pay off, being able to spam the shield for awhile and run away.
You'll want that shield for what's coming next.

Once More Unto The Deep

By now you've probably explored Lost River a bit and you're wondering where to go from here. If you've built a scanner room in the central chamber, you'll have noticed that the scanner, when at full range, shows a chamber below Lost River.
This is the inactive lava zone and it is here your answers lay.
You have two access points to reach this chamber. The North-east arm past the disease research facility and the cove tree caves. Both entrances are equally difficult to get through but the first one feels more open, if you don't mind the ghost leviathan circling around above the opening.
This chamber is rich with even more valuable resources, if you somehow haven't got enough already. The cove tree cave entrance leads to the western part of the ILZ chamber. The North-east entrance leads to the north edge of the chamber. The chamber itself is rather oval-shaped, with the western edge of it relatively empty and the eastern part containing a massive lava bubble.
If you wander around down here long enough the PDA will prompt you to take a look at that bubble a bit more closely. You will need two purple precursor keys to access the facility inside. Now that you're down here you'll notice there's a fair number of warpers, crimson rays (who are harmless) and leech-like things which will attach to the hull of your ship and drain power. That sounds like a problem, doesn't it?
Don't worry though, we got you covered. Once you're down here, go grab some kyanite and you can build the cyclops thermal reactor which pretty much eliminates the whole running out of power problem. The shield is a great way to get the leeches off your hull at the same time.
As for the leviathan, the sea dragon isn't actually a whole lot of threat. It might spit fire at you and is capable of picking up and biting the prawn but will mostly ignore you if you don't go hanging out in front of it.
With that said, treat it like any other leviathan while in the cyclops. Drive slow, keep an eye on it and if it gets curious, drop a decoy and move away ASAP. Cutting your engines once you've gotten a little distance will almost always make them lose interest.

But Wait, There's More!

If you've explored the inner depths of the lava bubble, then you have the blue key, ion battery plans and have opened the portal to the QEP. Great! Now coming down here in the prawn isn't a big deal and you don't have to drive the cyclops all the way down here to go grab resources. A small scanner base down here would be great for quickly finding what you need.
As you can probably guess, there's an even deeper chamber than this, which is the active lava zone. You can find the entrance by following the lava flows around the ILZ and keeping an eye on the floor. You'll find a large space big enough for the cyclops to lower down into.
Down here you'll find 2 sea dragons to avoid, so don't you get conservative with your power. By now you'll probably have built ion power cells and those can run your shield and sonar together for a full 5 minutes with silent running going so don't be shy about using them!
Getting into the alien base down here will require two blue keys, one for accessing the facility, the other for accessing the inner facility. It is here you will find the ion cube fabricator which requires the prawn. You can use this to open the warp gates in the facility. Six ion cubes in total are required for this. Four for the warp gates on the upper floor and two in the Sea Emperors tank. One of these leads back to the upper floor, if you find you're struggling to get back out. This gate in particular is about halfway up the tank at the back and sits on a large ledge. An ion cube is provided to activate it, giving you a way to walk out of the tank if you find you're struggling to get out.
And... that's pretty much it, really. After that encounter you'll know where to go and what to do. The paths laid out for you in the final facility lead you to the places you need to go to find the things you require.

Tips and tricks

• Keep floaters in your cyclops. When you're operating above 500m, running out of power, floaters will allow you to passively bring your ship to the surface without power expense so that you can resupply it. This is pretty much a last ditch move but it never hurts to be prepared.
  
• You can fit up to 8 basic plant pots in an observatory, which will grant you twice the amount of growing space as an indoor grow bed for the same amount of floor space while also making the crops more easily accessible.
  
• The engine comparment of the cyclops has a lower deck behind the vehicle bay which everybody ignores, but it's a great spot for plant shelves and marble melons for food security.
  
• Load your vehicles. Dedicate storage in them to supplies. Water, food, medkits, beacons, flares (bonesharks and crabsquids react to them) and spare power supplies for the vehicles. Keep this kit supplied and you will never be caught unprepared for an 'oh crap' situation.
  
• Okay, so you don't want to give up inventory space for your vehicles. The next best thing is then to fill a watertight locker or two with food, water, medpacks and maybe a couple spare batteries and power cells, then drop them someplace with a beacon next to them. Do this a dozen times in random spots around the map as you travel and now you have emergency caches you can access if you get into trouble.
  
• When you reach the point where materials gathering is easy, consider creating vehicle-creation drop points. 2-3 spots on the map with a mobile vehicle bay, a couple lockers with everything you need for a new seamoth and some basic supplies. If you lose your vehicle, it's a lot easier to make a replacement and get the mats than to get the mats to make a replacement.
  
• The propulsion gun is your friend. Use it to grab items to pick up, use it to grab cave crawlers and yeet them into low orbit, use it to pick up rocks and fling them at things you particularly don't like. Use it to collect gas pods from gasopods without getting hit by the cloud. Use it to move debris in wrecks. Bring a spare battery specifically for it because flinging things around uses a lot of power but the sheer utility of the tool makes it worth the cost.
  
• You'll be tempted to deck your seamoth out with all the toys but the truth is once you have the prawn, it's obsolete. Don't fall into the temptation of continuing to build tons of upgrades for it unless you plan to use it for a fast-fetch vehicle for things you need from far away. However, with that said, the seamoth is really the superior vehicle for wreck-diving.
  
• Keeping a second air tank in your inventory and swapping them mid-dive is a perfectly viable option. However, the tanks only refill when wearing them, so make sure to switch again once you're back in breathing space. This can and will save you when wreck diving and two ultra high quality tanks equals 450 seconds of air in total, or 7m30s of air.
  
• Speaking of air, you can use the air bladders alternate use key (F on PC - the same button for self-scanning) to get a few seconds of air out of it into your tank. It's not much - 20 seconds or so - but sometimes, that little bit extra can save your life if you're just out of reach of your vehicle.
  
• You can collect flora and fauna samples as you progress through the game and have a garden base specifically for growing plant samples from around the crater. Obviously this looks really nice (creepvine in an alien tank under the floor provides the room in your base with a nice golden glow) but is also useful later.
  
• SCANNER ROOMS. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. If you're struggling to find the magnetite, go to Jellyshroom. If you're struggling to find Jellyshroom, always remember that lifepod 17 is directly next to one of its exit points. The range upgrades are incredibly important and the HUD chip makes the whole thing work.
  
• Farm supplies! You don't need to work or power anything to grow crops. Consider dropping a foundation with some growbeds, a beacon and your farmables (gel sack, creepvine seeds, creepvine samples, acid mushroom, blood oil and deepshrooms). Now you can stock up on things like batteries, rubber, lubricant, benzene, polyaniline. Keep a few of these crops in your cyclops for planting in new spots and never run out of the stuff you need while keeping your home base nice and lag free.
  
• Creature decoys can be deployed both by hand and by prawn propulsion arm, which lets you pull items out of your inventory to 'throw'. You can also do this with the propulsion cannon by using the F key (the alternate tool use button, the same one you use to self-scan, for all you console folks).
  
• Turning off your engines greatly reduces the chance of a leviathan damaging the cyclops, even if it's right on top of you. Moving is what gets their attention. If one is swimming near the sub, cut all engines and just wait patiently for it to get a little distance, then silent running and max speed for a few seconds. Pop a decoy for good measure if you want to make absolutely sure.
  
• You can access the right side of the Aurora relatively safely by going south to Crag Zone and then banking east into the deeper parts of crash zone. Most of the reapers are up by the ship, sticking to the bottom will keep you relatively safe and net you as much titanium as you will ever need.
  
• Blood kelp zone, the sea treader wreck and the meteor crater in Dunes all have secrets that you may find interesting.
  
• Remember the Bleeders in the reactor room of the Aurora? Bring a grav trap along - they're cheap, it's disposable - and enter through the top door by climbing along the wreckage up there. Pop the grav trap in the reactor room and kill one of them with the propulsion cannon - the others will come for the body and be stuck in the trap, making picking them off much, much easier than it would be trying to find them all individually. You can just leave the trap behind. If you have the stasis gun, you can wait for them to stack up in the grav trap, stun them, then drop gas pods amidst the several bleeders and watch them get bodied.
  
• Gas pods 'o doom also work against leviathans. They work against EVERYTHING. You just need a lot of them, but getting a lot of them is really easy with the propulsion cannon (which can fire them too, by the way).
  
• Reefback barnacles are a good source of copper and silver, but beware the tiger plants on their backs. If you have a reinforced dive suit, tiger plants can't hurt you, but without one they're a pain. You can yeet them with the propulsion cannon. That trick works for drooping stingers too.
  
• Beacons everywhere. No seriously, everywhere. You'd be amazed how few people use them as much as they ought to be used.
  
• Eastern red grass plains has deep caves with a type of plant which can only be found in a few select spots on the map. Bulb Zone's lifepod has caves with some nearby and the Dunes also has some, but a Reaper is guarding them. If you do manage to find the spot though, it's GREAT for rubies!
  
• Scanner room cameras are a good way to keep track of nearby leviathans. They also force the terrain to load, which is required for the scanner room to actually pick things up. Stalkers will snag the cameras and move them around, but they're pretty useful for quickly getting the scanner room working right. The wildlife ignores the cameras too, so if you want a really nice picture of some creature you really hate getting close to, they're a great way to get it.
  
• Breed some stalkers, release them outside your base next to a pile of metal scrap and never worry about finding teeth for glass again. Barring that? Drop a random beacon in the kelp forest and wait for a stalker to collect it, follow it back to their stash and drop a grav trap.
  
• Light sticks can be good for wreck diving, as are flares. Flares provide much better lighting in large open spaces than the flashlight or seaglide. It makes them a good alternative to the flashlight in the early game.
  

• DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACHES. DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACHES. DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACHES.

• The following is a list of zones where one can find particular ores. It isn't a complete list, but will allow you to find everything you need in a timely fashion:
  

Lithium - Jellyshroom, Bulb Zone, Mushroom Forest, Lost River
Loose Lithium - Mushroom Forest, Mountains, Grand Reef, Shale, lost river
Magnetite - Jellyshroom is the only biome with large nodes
Loose Magnetite - Jellyshroom, mountains, cove tree cave, blood kelp zone, lost river
Rubies - Dunes, Spare Reef Caves, Lost River, Grand Reef, Underwater Islands
Diamonds - Lost River, Shale, Inactive Lava Zone, Sea Treader Path, sometimes caves
Table Coral - Shallows, Lost River
Copper - Mushroom forest, blood kelp zone, bulb zone, lost river, limestone, Inactive Lava Zone
Silver - Crag Zone, Mountains, Lost River, sandstone, Inactive Lava Zone
Gold - Jellyshroom, Blood Kelp Zone, Lost River, sandstone, shale
Lead - Sandstone, mountains, crash zone, lost river, Inactive Lava Zone
Titanium - Crash Zone, Dunes, Limestone, Lost River, Inactive Lava Zone
Metal Salvage - Crash Zone, Crag Zone, Kelp Forest
Kyanite - Inactive Lava Zone
Crystalline Sulfur - Lost River
Nickel - Lost River
Uraninite - Blood Kelp Zone, Blood Kelp Trench, Lost River, Inactive Lava Zone, Grand Reef
Quartz - Dunes, Crag Zone, Lost River, Inactive Lava Zone, Red Grassy Plains
If you're reading this guide and have any suggestions for additional information, feel free to share them for the next iteration.

Good luck, survivor!

Updated May 2023
After changing reddit accounts and about a year since posting it, it seemed prudent to throw this up for visibility. :)
Few things are worse than not knowing what happened to a loved one. Which is what convinced Robin Ayou to get into a drop shuttle with a lifepod with basically nothing, then fire herself down onto an ocean planet where the only place that she could investigate was a tiny little patch of barely-even-land and pray she can survive long enough to find a way to get off the planet.
Nobody ever told Robin she was great at forward planning.
https://subnauticamap.io/belowzero - This map will provide direction/orientation for this guide, but BEWARE! It marks spoilers if you turn those on!

Touchdown

Once you've landed, you'll find some food and water to start you off scattered around the ship. You won't have to worry about getting cold, since standing next to your now-burning ship will warm you up and the meteors coming down don't actually paste you, they're mostly to stress you out.
Note that may not be the case later. The weather in this game is a serious thing.
Once you have your stuff, you'll find the drop pod on your HUD. Don't go straight to it, though. As soon as you hit the water, look for an indentation in the ground. You'll find some copper in there. Then, follow the northern glacial wall (That's to your right when you're looking at your lifepod) until you find a small cave, which will have some silver and gold. That'll get you started off nicely. Get to your lifepod, take a look at your fabricator. You'll find that the items you have blueprints for can be pinned to the top-right in your PDA by clicking on them in the blueprints tab, a useful feature when hunting for materials.
Your goals right now are your basic survival tools. Note that the kelp forest is a bad place to hold your stuff in your hand. The sea monkeys are kleptomaniacs and will gank your stuff. You can totally get it back though, it just means chasing after them a bit, which is annoying and wastes time. However, if you pull out a flare and hold it in front of them, they freak out and run away from you for a little bit.

Time To Get Rolling

Your first task, as indicated by the PDA, is to find Delta Island. This becomes relatively easy once you find a compass. If you've gone to the emergency cache you'll have the beacon blueprint so stock up on them before traveling so you can mark things. You're going to be making a lot of these but since you can toggle them it's not so bad, you'll just need a lot of beacons. Its south of where the drop pod lands. As you spread out your searching range you'll find that the sea floor drops down among twisty coral structures.
This area is called Twisty Bridges. It's the main go-to for coral samples and you'll want those. There's small bits of Alterra stuff scattered around the area. It's here you'll find mobile vehicle bay, sea truck and seaglide fragments. When you've been in the area for a bit, you'll hear what sounds like an SOS. It's worth checking that out and you'll find that this spot goes deeper than you might suspect. Makes you wonder what's down there, doesn't it?
Beyond Twisty Bridges lies the thermal spires, an area of volcanic activity and thermal smokers. Many sea truck fragments are here. The wildlife here is noisy and menacing sounding but if you don't hang out next to them they're easy to avoid. Smacking one with a blade will made it instantly turn and get the hell away from you. They don't like being hit. On the border between thermal spires and twisty bridges someplace is a small foundation platform with external grow beds for you to scan, but you can get these at Omega Station later if you're not sweating on it. There are large crevices and a few volcanic fissures out here. Beware the heat vents, but exploring those areas can pay off, later.
On the island, you'll find blueprints you need, as well as some materials like sulfur and horseshoe nuts. The latter are very useful to plant in the seabase you'll be wanting. Take care to look around thoroughly for blueprints you'll find useful, as not all of them are inside the buildings. Also, keep a sharp eye out for music disks which you'll find scattered throughout the game, especially in bases.
On the south-west corner of the island is a precursor artifact you can scan. Look for the beach with all the pengwings on it. The habitat builder can be found on a box outside Delta Station. Make sure to scan the map inside the sea base. There's also a PDA up by the comms tower.

Let's Go Explorin'

So, by now you've visited Delta Island, have had a good look around Twisty Bridges and you've probably discovered the sea monkey caves in Kelp Forest. If you haven't gone exploring in those, you really ought to. You'll find more MVB fragments there but that's also where the propulsion cannon blueprint can be found, the laser cutter, as well as a fair amount of gold and some precursor artifacts as well. Once that's all done with and taken care of, you've probably got at least a tiny seabase, but if you don't... what are you doing?
Go on, shoo. Go make a base.
...
Okay, got one now? Good! Hopefully it's someplace nice. Your basic sea truck can't get down to where you want to be going next but a depth module will take care of that. A MkII depth module will let you get to the very bottom of where you want to go. Where do you want to go? Koppa Mine. You'll find it on the western side of the island. Take care to look around when you find the door eventually, since there is a databox just inside the main doors, before you head down. It has the moonpool and will allow you to get that much earlier than you would through scanning it.
To drive the seatruck inside the mine, drive north from the entrance of Koppa mine, you'll come across a volcanic fissure in the seafloor nearby which has JUST enough space for you to fit your seatruck through it. The fissure leads right into Koppa Mine, allowing you to drive the seatruck inside!
The other alternative is actually spare air tanks. Totally a viable solution so long as you remember to refill them by equipping them once you're out of the water. You can swap them out mid-dive and extend your breathing time, which is handy since the prawn fragment blueprints you require are kinda far down there. If you're free diving in this way, note that the bottom chamber of the mine has a hole in the ceiling leading to a small cave system which will lead you back to the surface, as well as having a number of oxygen plants to keep you from choking on the way. The entrance to that is almost right next to the Delta Station docks.
Also note that Site Zero, which has useful blueprints, can be found by hugging the northern glacial wall and heading east along it. You can find it by checking breaks in the ice, one of them leads up to a small hidden cave where the base lies. But if you don't find it, you'll be directed here later. It just has some useful things to scan and a lantern fruit tree. There is a music disk here.

Way Down South

By now you've probably answered the SoS. If not, go do that. As you hang out with Al-An, he'll give you prompts to artifacts that you haven't found yet, if you dawdle in looking for the required number. At this point you should have the following:

• A sea base, even a basic one. The databox in Koppa Mine's entrance will grant you the moon pool but if you missed it, you can get the blueprint later following the storyline.
  
• Seaglide, knife, propulsion cannon, beacons, repair tool, scanner, flashlight, builder tool
  
• Seatruck with at least one depth module
  
• Prawn blueprints
  

Building the Prawn is surprisingly easy, but requires lithium, a material you probably haven't seen a lot of yet. There's a little scattered around in thermal spires, but only a little. You can find a lot at purple vents, but be careful to avoid the doom shrimp. A chelicarate hangs out here. There are other things in this area which are relevant to you which you'll want to mark out for later. There is a small seatruck crash site with a variety of fragments out here, if you find it, look around carefully for the music disk that's here.
Following the marker for the unknown pilots last position, you will find a green area rich in confusing cave systems. This area is the lilypads zone. Old girl can be found down near the signal, just look for the shimmering things on the wall, the hive minds. She's near them. Grab the seatruck defense module she has in there. Be sure to pick up the databox directly outside her base to get the stillsuit as well and if you follow the caves down where they turn blue you'll stumble on an old thermal plant of hers, where another databox lies. There's fragments scattered all over this zone as well as The mercury II stern, which lays on the border between lilypads and purple vents, as well as the bow, which is a little further in on the western side of lilypads. Be sure to explore the area thoroughly and take note of the massive crevasse near the middle of the zone. Inside the chunk of land here is Omega Lab, which will net you the external grow beds, nuclear plant, nuclear disposal as well as a couple new beds and the antenna plants. It's in this area you'll need to search for nickel later, so building a scanner station here is a good idea. Deep Lilypads holds an Al-An body part you'll require. Deep Lilypads is also the only place you can acquire the materials to manufacture benzene.
Don't go too close to the Lily Paddlers, unless you like being off your face, in which case go say hi, it's hilarious. Trust me. ;D
In order to disable the satellite for Dances-With-Reapers, you're going to need to wreck dive the Mercury II. Two of its sections can be found in purple vents, while the bow - the largest - can be found in Lilypads, west of Omega Labs floating island. You'll need the laser cutter for this. Your goal is to scan the parallel processors in the wreck, but there's all kinds of really useful stuff in there too, not to mention all the titanium. ALL the titanium. So be sure to drop beacons on these things, bring a spare air tank and bring your pathfinder tool. If you don't have the pathfinder tool, go look around in the caves full of emeralds between Phi Robotics docks and Phi Robotics itself. There is one up on a small ridge in one of those caves. If you can't find it, don't worry though, just bring flares and use them as breadcrumbs while diving to prevent yourself from getting too lost. The alien containment tank, reinforced dive suit, parallel processor can be found in these. A music disk is in the bow section on a bridge console.

LAND HO!

Aaah, glacial basin. How I hate thee. The basin is split into four sections, two for each part of the basin, north and south. South is where you'll probably end up first. You can find the docks to access this area by tracking along the northern glacial wall and continuing west until you come to the eye jellyfish. Check the radio tower next to the docks, there is a music disk there. The upper southern area is where Phi Robotics lays, as well as frost vase plants and spicy peppers. Both of those are excellent crops to grow, as they net you useful things. The spicy peppers scattered throughout the entirety of glacial basin essentially means that you'll not starve while out here so long as you're paying attention to what you're doing. Note that snow stalkers REALLY HATE FLARES. They'll make your trips out here annoying, even in the prawn, which is the best way to ensure the weather isn't a factor for you. Sometimes they're in the caves. Flares will make exploring these much safer.
You can get to lower glacial basin through the upper part, but it's a bit confusing and I prefer to access it via the glacial tunnel. Head south along the western glacial wall from the glacial basin docks and you'll find a tunnel which eye jellyfish are hanging out near. This tunnel leads directly to lower glacial basin and provides a convenient way to access the area without needing to travel through upper GB every time.
Northern Glacial Basin can be accessed by scanning the hydraulic fluid on the bridge, then repairing the bridge to cross it. DO NOT GO HERE WITHOUT THE PRAWN. SERIOUSLY. The grip arm is very handy to have out here and if you haven't found it, use a scanner room in Lilypads to find the sea monkey nests but it's not necessary so don't stress if you don't have it. Just don't use the snow fox. It's useless and handles like crap.
The iceworms here are dangerous if you stay still too long. Take your time, explore thoroughly and mark out any Alterra sites you find with beacons. A couple of these have the blueprints for the Thumper and this is your ticket to working in this area safely. A thumper will keep the iceworms away within a radius, ensuring you don't get whacked while picking stuff up outside the prawn.
Along the western wall of this zone is a small cave with three large ion cube deposits. Keep a sharp eye out for it, you definitely want those. At the north-east tip of the zone you'll find ice worm corpses you can scan that don't put you in mortal danger during the attempt.
Really funny seeing them pop up and chow down on snow stalkers, though. Pay back sucks, don't it? Al-An's body part is out here. Keep an eye out for the precursor cables and make sure to check all the caves, because the master gateway leading to Phi Robotics is here as well. The room containing the gateway leads to a small docks and tunnel with an ice wall you can cut through to easily access the middle of northern glacial basin from the docks. There is a music disk at those docks as well.

Going Down?

By now you're probably wondering where to go. Remember purple vents? The engine part of the mercury II has a crevasse leading down to where you need to go next. Once you've found the crystal caves, you better hope you picked up the defense module at Marg's base. It's sitting inside her room and sometimes gets knocked to the floor when Preston jumps you. You'll be wanting it for what's down here.
The Shadow Leviathan.
Ohhhh boy are they ever aggressive. Good news for you though, they patrol around on a set route and they don't go through the whole of crystal caves. You'll be looking for fragments here, as well as materials. Lots of gold, silver and kyanite in the crevasses in the floor of these caves. An Al-An body part, the final one, can be found at the bottom of a tunnel which is mouthed by a circular formation of crystals. Once you have it, you'll want to go even deeper to find the fabrication facility, forcing you to wander crystal caves until you find the blood crystal caves.

Oh Yeah, It's All Comin' Together

So, you now have everything you need to build your home boy a body. Once that's done, you'll be wanting to wrap up the bit with Sam. If you've explored lower southern glacial basin, you'll have found the cave with the frozen leviathan. Oh, and grab the music disk in the security bunker. Exploring this cave gets you some useful stuff. You know the little caves here with the blinking markers? Explore these with spy penglings! There's some useful stuff in some of them, actually. Including the antidote Sam hid. You can use that on the loader located on the upper part of the leviathan in the cave.
And... that's that! That's the whole game.

Tips and Tricks

• The air bladder can pull a tiny amount of air into your tank. It's not very much but those 10 seconds of extra air can save your life in a deep pinch.
  
• You can find lots of quartz if you hug the northern ice wall and roam east of west, but be careful of the brinewings. They'll freeze your ass, which can be inconvenient if you're low on air.
  
• Frost Anemone Hearts are actually a really great food source and should be picked up any time you can get them. They'll last forever in the fridge.
  
• Made your base with some helpful sea monkey neighbours? After awhile they stop stealing from you and begin trying to help you - but they don't know what you want! If you mark blueprints in your PDA, they'll try and bring you materials for that if they can.
  
• Most predators will back off if you feed them a fish before they bite you. This includes leviathans. You might still get hurt from them slamming into you or something but feeding them a fish will usually cause them to stop attacking you. This doesn't work against the shadow leviathan, it hates you and everything you hold dear. It doesn't know what those things are, but it doesn't care either. It just does.
  
• Spare air tanks are great and can be kept stocked in your sea truck, but remember to put them on to refill them.
  
• Animals will react to your behavior in some instances. Feel tree to try new things with them like feeding fish. You can even ride on glow whales! Some of them really hate flares too, like sea monkeys and snow stalkers.
  
• Surface bases are a completely viable thing in this game and some of the ice sheets have holes in them, allowing you to have a surface base with a dropped section for moonpools and water filters. Water filters will work outside of the water, but you don't get salt and they're much slower.
  
• Get the cold suit as soon as you can. It's in Phi Robotics. It changes your outside time from 2 minutes to 7 minutes, which is a huge difference. Without it, the prawn is the only way to explore the surface without constantly stressing about freezing to death. You can find the tufts of fur in snow stalker caves where the pups are, make sure you have a flare if you don't like getting nommed on.
  
• Can't figure out how to get on top of the ice sheet, but you want a base up there? Swim down deep and use the air bladder to get some height. You can build a hallway up there, then drop a ladder down into the water to make a surface base with an underwater docking section. Alternatively, you can probably get up there with the prawn and the grip arm.
  
• Speaking of the prawn and grip arm, you can totally launch yourself with it. Attaching the grip to the ground and using it to pull yourself into a jump will get you some serious air time, which is helpful for getting up small ridges on the surface. If you break the map and managed to get above it in the prawn, return to the player area. Being up there breaks progression completely and the only interesting thing is a leftover animation testbed east of glacial basin. The collision on terrain is also patchy here and it's possible to fall through the ground into the void. In your prawn. So don't screw around up there too much.
  
• Spicy peppers and coffee will both warm you up while on the surface, which makes the spicy peppers scattered all over the place pretty valuable.
  
• The greenhouse you get sent to can be found in Lilypads on an iceberg. The three large icebergs here all have things to find so be sure to search thoroughly.
  
• The crashed ship is a great place to get a lot of metal very quickly and will basically hand you a free sea base so long as you're willing to go keep picking it up. If you've already looted it all, give it awhile and check back later, sometimes new scrap shows up as the wrecks continue their eventual rot.
  
• Drop emergency caches of food, water, medpacks, batteries, power cells and flares along with a beacon and never be caught short on supplies because you went out looking for stuff and forgot to bring rations. D'oh!
  
• A small base specifically for replacing vehicles is very helpful when you lose one. Have the materials gathered beforehand and you won't have to spend a long time struggling to get them together after the bad feeling of having your stuff crunched.
  
• Be sure to look for creature eggs out in glacial basin
  
• Rock punchers are jerks and will kill stuff in your containment tank, so now you know, and knowing is half the battle. And the lives of your fish.
  
• There is no good way to scan the leviathans, but your scan progress gets saved if you don't scan other things, so letting it chow down on your seatruck and scanning it while it's distracted, then repairing your vehicle after, will allow you to get the whole scan after a couple rounds.
  
• Make scanner rooms everywhere. Solar panels and bio reactors are your friend. Nuclear power is better but not viable in early game. If you need magnetite, go to the glacial tunnel and look at the ice walls just where the tunnel curves upwards, you'll find ore fissures there with magnetite inside.
  
• Beacons, beacons, beacons. I can't stress this enough, litter them EVERYWHERE. You can toggle them on and off in your PDA, so having a bajillion around the map isn't really a problem and they're really useful.
  
• There are more precursor artifacts than Al-An mentions to you. Keep a sharp eye out, look everywhere and scan for ion cubes. Check icebergs for moulins, AKA hollow chambers inside. You'll need a laser cutter to access the ones you find.
  
• Tree Spires has a hell of a lot of uraninite in its cave systems, it's a good spot to stock up on it. Beware the chelicarate in the zone.
  
• The crystal caves are roughly the shape of a spiral. Knowing this makes navigating them a lot less mystifying. Mind you, it's still difficult. As usual, use beacons a lot. Also make sure to explore the cracks in the floor of the cave!
  
• Penglins/Pengwings drown if you leave them in the alien containment tank after hatching :( They have to hold their breaths. If you breed them, make sure to set them free.
  
• There are no large nodes for lead. You must search for galena outcrops with the scanner room. It's pretty much the only way to stock up on the stuff. The other one people have a lot of trouble with is Magnetite, which can only be found in lower glacial basin. You'll want a scanner room to find it. Upper glacial basin has a TON of lithium if you can handle the ice worms... as well as three large mining nodes for ion cubes hidden in a cave.
  
• Keep exploring Upper Glacial Basin even if you find the precursor body part. There are ice worm corpses and a slipgate out here for you to find. The slipgate links to the Phi Robotics slipgate and has a tunnel which leads directly back out to the docks that you can only cut open from the inside. There's also a music disk down there on a crate so keep a sharp eye out when you find it.
  

Good luck, Robin!

I’m a 36-year-old trial lawyer with severe ADHD. I’ve studied several things in life, even dedicated myself fully to them, but this is the first thing I’ve ever done where I’ve actually distinguished myself. I’ve only ever been just okay at previous pursuits. I’m very good in the courtroom but impaired at being part of a small office environment.
My DESR is by far the most problematic part of my ADHD, but my executive functions are badly impaired, too. Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed, the paralysis takes me to dangerously last minute efforts. Like many of us, I’m sure, the threat of a looming deadline helps me GSD, but I’ve come to learn I need capable assistance — also, compassionate assistance — to perform at an optimal level. I’ve always gotten it done in time but I need help to make it all feel less frantic.
I was diagnosed as a child but untreated for so long it sort of faded into the part of my brain I don’t think about. So instead of medication, therapy, and insight into why I am the way I am … I internalized the world’s negative responses to my difficult symptoms and just assumed I was a bad kid/person who didn’t know how to behave because I was bad. So much shame and rejection. Repeated social failures. Low self esteem, social anxiety, and away we go into adulthood.
Somehow, I graduated from law school — unmedicated, undiagnosed, and untreated — with honors. It was my full time job and I just hyper focused and pulled late nights and ran myself into the ground doing it. There was definitely a mental and emotional cost but I told myself it was temporary and white knuckled my way through it.
That sort of white knuckling is a type of masking, I think. We can’t do it forever. Eventually the real us will always come out. Or we’ll regress to the mean. Or whatever.
So now that I’ve somehow navigated to a point in my career where I’ve found some success … and I’m at a place personally where I’m educating myself about how to manage and live with ADHD/PTSD/GAD… I’m fortunate to be in a position to optimize.
That said, the struggle is real. I’ve gone through 3 assistants in 7 years. During A1’s tenure, I was undiagnosed and untreated. It’s hard to recall that time. My memory sucks. But I’m sure the difficulties of working for me — difficulties which, at the time, I had no insight into — were the main reason A1 left.
A2 was capable but not compassionate. Toward the end of their time with me, I was starting to get some insight into my disorder, but by the time I was gaining the vocabulary to explain why I’m not an asshole, there’s just some different things about me that I think we could probably navigate if we tried, the relationship was too badly damaged and they left for another firm.
A3 was a mess. I think we probably shared a couple diagnoses. But they just didn’t have the skills to do the job. Frankly, I made a poor hiring decision. My employer, tired of the turnover, made me lay in that bed I made for myself for a year after the first time I asked to terminate them. Their incompetence and consequences to my clients were intolerably frustrating to me. I was stuck with them and the frustration led me to be short, dismissive and often mean to them. I never wanted to be that way but sometimes the compulsion to say exactly what I thought was beyond my ability to resist.
That brings me to now. I know I’m a good person. I have a partner and a 1 year old and a house. My partner has learned so much and developed so much compassion because she sees me working at it myself.
I want to find an assistant who is familiar with ADHD but, if I can just be real, someone who complements rather than shares my deficits. I want someone to be my body double, my executive functions, my cheerleader and my ally.
I don’t know how to do it. Who has ideas?

A friend of mine worked closely with Carl Icahn in the early to mid 2000's. I've been peppering him with questions and I think I see a narrative that fits recent events.
What I found most interesting from my friends depiction was the almost Office level comedic aspect of the whole operation. Apparently Carl is the most brutal good hearted man you can imagine, kind of a story in reconciled duality.
My friends job was essentially to meet directly with the board that Carl just brutally eviscerated and somehow convince them that not only was it not a malicious takeover in the sense that it was altruistic by design and ultimately beneficial to the board themselves. Interestingly there was in fact an altruism buried in the brutality of the hostile takeover and this trojan horse strategy is what will define Carl Icahn for generations to come. A man who wouldn't shy away from fighting the enemy on its chosen battleground should victory mean the company regain principle.
However where Carl’s an historical figure in terms of activism, his post acquisition strategy leans towards split up resale and the conversations discussing alternative strategies Caro and his son Brett routinely engage in should be archived for posterity. Where Carl has a tried and true model of honing in on undervalued companies, especially those maliciously destroyed by a compromised C Suite, enacting a hostile takeover and ultimately breaking it's component parts and to sell at an aggregate profit, to conglomerates with distribution models more befitting the business. Brett, born of a different era, has the marketing and business administration acumen along with a steady finger on the pulse and so he’s keen on maintaining full ownership and rebuilding the brand for exponentially more profit if successful.
The arguments the two have are brilliant, terse, informative and they are always resolved with a gentle agreement to respect one anothers strengths and vision. This is where I see BBBY fit in. Ryan Cohen is the bridge between father and son. He is Warren Icahn, corporate raider and strategic investor, but also master marketer and a finger that seems to be driving the pulse at the moment, and in Ryan Cohen I think the Icahn family found the missing link.
The dominoes appear to be in place. Carl gains control of BBBY. Carl does what he does best, breaks off Buy Buy Baby and sells to Ryan Cohen at a valuation multiples of the current market cap of the entire company, Ryan populates Teddy.com with Buy Buy Baby products, Teddy.com features a payment link directly to the Gamestop Marketplace, Brett takes over Bed Bath and Beyond, a squeeze allows for a share offering that wipes the debt, Brett combines Harmon inventory with current inventory to pivot towards a Bed Bath and Beyond digital marketplace which will have some kind of developing relationship with Ryan Cohen and Web3. The store closings are obviously strategic, the brand name is iconic, it's time to bring Bed Bath to the Beyond that is Web3. Should they pull this off these three men go down in history for tipping the first domino inexorably towards a new, digital, inclusive, unprecedented era ripe with opportunity.

Sorry for the very new account. Where I live using mushrooms apparently gives the world the right to destroy my life and choke me dead but I want to share what I have seen and learned.
This trip is started out like many others and likely would have been utterly unremarkable but It became so much more than that. I've been on this journey of self-exploration for a while, and I've been slowly working my way up to see how the doses of psilocybin would feel as I slowly increased the grams. I took 3.5 dried grams of psilocybe cubensis using the lemon tek. I was in the arms of my life lover and with my newborn third son sleeping on my chest. We watched zootopia and zootopia+ stuff until I told my lover I literally cannot and just wanted storm sounds.
It is then I heard a call. It's hard to describe this feeling, but I felt like I needed to take the rest. It's not the same feeling as "I just wanna stay high" or "Aw this isn't strong enough I need more." There was another 2.5 grams I had saved for my lover, but she looked into my eyes and said, "Take it, its ok."
I will not bore you with the minutiae of the closed eye visuals. They were, though gorgeous, and often ineffable, completely irrelevant. However, the important bit is this: I kept seeing these little pinprick black holes in my visuals that I out loud proclaimed "I've seen you before."
You see… I've had a … well, to call her a spirit GUIDE would mean to invite such silly things as performance assessments and THOSE might come with some unfortunate results such as "Neglectful" "Enabling" and even "Spiteful". But, however, for those who watch over my flock, I am told that this is the way that it must be done. So I humbly accept that this entity is my spirit guide, and that I looked into those pits and I felt her say to me. "Finally, I can show you."
"Brothers and sisters, this one is opening their eyes. This one is going to make it!"
My eyes fluttered open like a newborn child choking and gasping for its first real breath. My blurry vision was instantly overtaken with the images of beings that stretched into the sky. Beings made up of feathery plantlike jewelscapes of immense unfathomable beauty fanning out into the air like the tail of a peacock, the unfurling of a vivid flower, or the technicolor wings of a bird of paradise. Each feather or leaf was a masterfully crafted jewel and as a I gazed into them one by one I was overwhelmed with tales of wonder and tragedy, art galleries and portfolios forged over millennia like carefully curated museum collections, multi act plays with characters both human and inhuman singing tales so strange I was paralyzed with fascination. But they were not perfect. No, in those jewels I also saw the failures, the epic creative catastrophes so terrible that they are beautiful in their own right. The learning process, though messy, was also a thing of wonder and was featured alongside the masterpieces.
Finally one of them, an old one, a painter and a singer, spoke to me. She tried to communicate with me and I was like a baby watching an adult fawn over a newborn whose blinking overwhelmed eyes don't know how to translate the alien words being cooed at it. Her words were forged from technicolor arrays of faceted gemstones and exquisite operatic verses. My human brain was unable to comprehend this language, but I seemed to instinctually understand what she was telling me.
This is what she told me…
"In the end, when our mortal coils shuffle…
So long as the world hasn't choked us dead…
There is always a flock there waiting…
Waiting for that which may sprout from the soil…
…and open its dying eyes."
Let me tell you what I learned about my brothers and sisters…
Let me tell you about what I am.
I am a Jeweler in the Sky.
A Jeweler creates, it doesn't know why.
Their urge is to forge and paint the sky.
Each is a fantastic menagerie of artistic conception,
On display for all to see, unconfined by limits or direction.
At the heart of each is a smoldering, frothing, white hot cauldron of inspiration.
Heated by a messy, hungry, smoking bonfire of wild motivation.
Jewelers love nothing more than the fixated wondering interest,
of those who look upon their facets in both adoration and disgust.
Attempting to least and control our creative fanciful flights,
will do nothing but make us snarl and hiss and bite.
We are loved by all, but wanted by none.
An unwelcome wildflower in your carefully manicured gardens.
But always a welcome sight on a melancholic stroll through those estates,
when you find that the vine of a jeweler was there all along
waiting to show you something unexpected indeed.
Not what you wanted at all,
but perhaps exactly what you were looking for in the end.
I wanted to pierce the sky. I was overwhelmed but wanted to reach up and fan out like them, but I could not. I looked around and saw that I was stuck to the side in the ground, unable to spread anything. I also found that all the jewels I could find in me were shattered hysterical mistakes held together with the slag of failed metal forgings. I was horribly embarrassed with myself and hid them away in shame. I looked around and there were others like me, jagged messy globs that laid there unmoving.
"Where am I? Why can't I paint the sky?" I asked, fully crying out.
"So few of us are born anymore. The macrocosm of the soil so often chokes our kind dead. So it is then that even those who never paint the sky are still celebrated; for their small, scrappy, disjointed jewels are still their life's work. Once the soil reclaims their souls, even those should still be remembered."
"But you will not be reclaimed. You will join us one day. However, for now, your eyes must once again close."
"Why can't I stay?" I asked, like a child crying as it is being sent to bed, knowing its family will be gone in the morning.
"Because, young Jeweler, even the oldest among us, whose facets stretch beyond the sky and form the constellations of the heavens your young eyes cannot yet see, know one simple truth."
"You cannot fan out,
you cannot sprout,
you cannot reach beyond the sun…
until your time in the soil is done."
The rest of the night and early morning was filled with "normal" hallucinatory states that, like I mentioned before, are gorgeous and entertaining but pale in comparison to the gravity of what I just experienced. What I witnessed was not a mushroom trip. The mushroom trip helped open a tiny window and I caught a brief glimpse of what lies beyond. So much of my life makes sense now, and I have gained a lot of closure.
There are wonderful things that await each of us when we open our dying eyes… as long as we are true to ourselves and good to those around us. I'm sure of it now.

It all started 3 days ago, I think, though it could be longer. This thing could've been watching me for ages before then, I just probably didn't know. Oh gosh, where do I start? I just need help! I know it's coming. It comes every night.
I'm going to start from the beginning. It was Friday evening, about 9pm and I was making my way back to my log cabin after a busy day of teaching thirty teenagers how to build a raft. I work at a Summer Camp through the holidays to help me pay for Uni. I remember there being a really eerie atmosphere. The trees surrounding my cabin were casting other-worldly shadows all around me as I walked up to my front door. There were weird noises coming from the bushes and from further into the forest. It just seemed...strange. But it was kind of easy to shrug this off as my over-active imagination as I had been here for over 3 months and not one thing had happened. Tonight was different though.
As I searched through the keys on my fob to find the right one, I caught something in my peripheral. Something strange. Something that moved so quickly, too quickly to be a human, yet having the same distinctive shape of a large man. I stood there, paralysed to the spot staring in the direction of 'the thing', waiting for more movement or a noise or anything. I seemed to be standing for an eternity, just waiting, listening, hoping that nothing else would happen.
After a while, I began to fumble with my keys and the metal clanking pulled me from the almost hypnotic state. I found the right key and quickly entered the cabin and double locked it before taking my first breath in what seemed like a very long time.
It took a lot longer to shrug this fear off. I know humans can't move as quickly as that 'thing' did, and I'm damn sure that there's no animals out there that can move like lightning and look like a 6'6'' man. I mean, I live in the UK. The scariest animal here is a badger! But, as time passed, I was eventually able to jump in the bath and relax, allowing the distant thought to flow further away.
It was around 10pm that the fear came flooding back even more intense than before.
I was just getting out of the bath when I heard a noise from down the hall. It sounded like a metal rubbing against metal with a slight squeak, slowly and quietly.
I froze.
The sound continued as I wrapped a towel around me and nervously approached the bathroom door. Then it stopped. The instant relief of the quiet and empty hallway calmed me as I peered around the door frame.
Man, I'm edgy tonight. I've gotta chill out.
I slowly made my way down the hall in search of what the noise could've been. After a few minutes of cursing myself for insisting that I didn't want a room mate in the cabin and for paying the extra fee to have solitary boarding, I realised that there was only one thing that would make that noise.
The front door handle.
I stepped backwards in realization that someone or something had tried to get in my lodge. An overwhelming urge to run overcame me.
Run where? How? It means I have to go outside and I'm safe in here. Am I?
I walked backwards to my bedroom and jumped on to my bed. I tried to calm myself by insisting that the teenagers were playing tricks on me, but I knew these children were all in bed by now and they weren't your average college type students. These were gifted and well-mannered young boys who were probably tucked up in bed right now listening to David Attenborough audiobooks. Rationalising did however get the better of me after a good half hour of slow breathing and the lack of any other noises.
Somehow that night, I managed to get some sleep because day light soon broke through the gap in my curtains and reminded me that I was safe in the light.
The second instance happened the next evening. This was Saturday night and I was invited to a Staff Camp event after sundown. By now I was dismissing everything that had happened the night before as me just being a scaredy cat and imagining things. It's so easy to do that in the day. As night came, though, I still felt a little uneasy about walking through the woods to the clearing where the campfire had been set up.
As we were celebrating only one week left till the end of Summer Camp, I knew there would be drinking and stuff, so I thought a pre-drink in my cabin would set me on the right path and would also reduce my anxiety about walking to the clearing. It worked.
As I got dressed into my bikini, I stared at myself in the mirror. I really had blossomed into a beautiful young woman. Long brown hair with a slight curl to it, big blue eyes...
Ha! No wonder the thing wants me. I'm kinda cute!
I looked at the clock on my bedside table. 10pm. Oh crap, I'm gonna be late! I twirled around and threw an overdress on, before giggling as I slightly stumbled over to the door.
It was then that I saw it.
It was huge. Around 7" tall with long limbs and a long pale face. It had huge eyes that bore a hole through me as it stood at my open front door, watching me.
I screamed and fell back onto the floor in my haste to get away. Then I froze.
I don't think I even breathed as I watched it come closer, almost gliding down the hallway towards me. A putrid smell filled the air as I tried to move my arms to crawl backwards, but couldn't move a muscle. As it came closer, it reached out an arm towards my outstretched leg and traced a line up my shin with its devilishly long finger nails. I tried to scream but no noise escaped my mouth...I couldn't move or react at all.
It's hand moved slowly up my leg till it reached the inside of my thigh. I could hear it breathing deeply, gurgling...was it sneering?
With all my might, I pushed against the floor below me and managed to crawl backwards to the safety of my bedroom, where I frantically searched for something that I could use as a weapon against this freak. I had always thought that I should keep a knife with me in my bedside drawer, however I've never really anticipated that I would need it. Not until tonight anyway.
I quickly scanned the bedroom again. A hairbrush? A hairdryer?
Yeah that's right Carrie, Blow dry it to death...
Panic overcame me and I started to feel the air feeling lighter than it had been before. Everything around me started to turn into black and white splodges and then I passed out.
After I came around, an immediate panic rushed through me. I jumped up and ran towards the hallway, peering out around the frame of my bedroom door.
Had I imagined it?
Everything was in its right place. The front door was still double locked. The hallway was empty. The dull glow from the lamp in the lounge area illuminated the normalness of the cabin. An empty bottle of chardonnay stood beside an empty glass on the hallway desk and I started to feel silly. I don't know if I really believed that I had imagined it, or if it was just easier to think that way, but I somehow convinced myself that alcohol and having the heeby jeebies had made me become an award winning creative director for my imagination.
I didn't go to the campfire that night. I went to sleep. Wine always help induce an easy slumber.
So that brings me to yesterday. Now you may be thinking that I'm either making this up, or that I truly believe it happened but that I was imagining it. But I swear, what happened yesterday will prove that this 'thing' is real. I even have the scars to prove it.
It was raining yesterday and I was so disappointed as it was my day off from teaching the teens. I was hoping to go sunbathing down by the lake, relax and probably read a certain Peter Benchley novel whilst listening to the ripples of the water breaking on the shoreline. I was gutted.
Instead, I thought I'd make the most of the day and watch a couple of films before getting an early night. The idea of going to bed while it was still light outside was very appealing to me, after the weirdness of the past few nights.
As the evening came, I was thoroughly relaxed and eager to get into my fresh sheets and drift off. I had opted for comedies earlier, so I was still giggling to myself about Tucker running away from the wasp nest with a chainsaw like Leatherface when I drifted off into unconsciousness.
I woke with a start. I could feel someone watching me. I was facing away from the window, however I felt such an intense feeling that there was danger on the other side of it. I slowly turned my head and my heart jumped into my throat. The pale faced thing was staring through the gap in my curtains. It's black eyes locked onto mine as mist appeared on the glass from it's heavy breathing.
For the longest moment, I couldn't move. Realisation that the night before was real hit me, along with the terrifying awareness that it was back. I pulled the covers up around me and shouted...
"GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
The face disappeared, leaving only the mist on the glass which was shrinking by the second.
I jumped out of my bed and ran towards the front door to check that it was locked. As soon as I reached it, I heard the shattering of glass from my bedroom. I froze and tried to think of what I could do. What I should do. Knowing that the 'thing' was probably in my bedroom, I raced to grab my keys and tried desperately to unlock the door, however my body stiffened as I felt warm breath on my back and heard the throaty gurgles of something that was inches away behind me.
A desperate plea escaped my mouth as tears dropped silently down my cheeks. I didn't dare turn around as I felt a cold sharp fingernail scrape down my back, tearing my silk nightdress and cutting into my skin. I held my breath as it trailed down my spine and then stopped. As my nightdress parted and fell to the floor, I slowly turned my head to the side to plead again for the nightmare to stop, but a cold blunt object pushed my head against the wooden door, preventing me from turning.
It felt like hours that I was stood there, crying and trembling, almost wishing for death over what could have been about to happen to me. But as quickly as the 'thing' had appeared, it had disappeared , and I found myself wondering if it had gone much earlier than my fear had allowed me to recognise.
This takes us to now. Its 9pm and in desperation I thought I could get some advice from you here on Reddit. I can't tell my colleagues here as they will think that I've lost my mind. Hell, I even think I have! In the day I'm completely normal. It seems silly and I make excuses for it. I almost told a friend earlier, but they told me to lay off the drink.
I just know that it comes every night around 10pm, which means that I have about an hour left before it may or may not come,
I'm scared. What should I do?

First
Memory transcription subject: Luke Schmidt, Human Businessman
Date [standardized human time]: December 18th, 2136
I was the only human in the bar. I chalked it up to timing and chance, as it wasn’t a hostile bar. Aside from a few glances and the fact that people passing by my table took great care not to touch me, I had no issues. I could barely keep my head off the table, but that was more a function of tiredness than anything. I had arrived on Venlil Prime only a few days ago, and the goofy sleep schedule messed with my brain. Barlethy Shipping did provide us with blackout curtains to set up over the windows of our bedrooms, but it was still challenging.
That wasn’t even mentioning all the work I’d been doing. I was a salesman for Barlethy Shipping, which had been established for about 50 years prior to First Contact. FTL ships were horrendously expensive, and usually only the government had access to them, but the Barlethy billionaire family cared quite a bit about expanding their business on this frontier, and were willing to pour millions into private FTL ships for their employees, as well as efforts to ensure that the Venlil legal system wasn’t a hassle. I was meant to set up business deals with aliens, using a variety of methods of varying moral standing, and although others had already done so, there was still a whole planet of opportunity.
As such, I had been talking to Venlil, viewing their wares, and traveling almost all the time I’d been here. When I wasn’t doing that, I was eating and sleeping. I really needed a break, so after fourteen hours of business, I arrived at the bar for a much-needed drink. I’d made a few successful deals thus far, so hopefully Barlethy Shipping wouldn’t mind the downtime too much.
I wasn’t really paying attention to the aliens around me, as I was rather exhausted, so I didn’t notice when the unfamiliar alien walked up to me. I did not recognize which species this was, which energized me. New things always did. The species was honestly rather ugly, which was weird because all the aliens I’d seen thus far were either cute or sleek, in my opinion. They had rough gray elephant skin with sparse thick, black hairs scattered around it, which made them look more like a hairy human than like an alien with fur. The top of their snout dangled down over their mouth, and they had short tusks and weird little giraffe horns. Their tail curled up like a squirrel’s, and their fingers were long, thin, and far too numerous. They looked like a squat, mammalian Arxur. And then, they sat down across from me.
“Hello there. You’re unique too! Isn’t that fun? Being the only one of your kind in sight really isn’t all that fun, but you get used to it,” she said, in a friendly, conversational tone that was apparently female, according to my translator.
I didn’t think that unfamiliar aliens were willing to get within an arm's length of unfamiliar humans. Maybe the Venlil or our other good allies, but I had never seen this race before. I said as much. “Pardon me, but who and what are you? I have never seen your species before, and I don’t think you’re allied with humanity.” I figured that she must be a regular here, since nobody gave her a second glance. Maybe she’d expressed wanting to meet a human for a while. I still had no idea what her deal was, though.
I think I came across a little harsher than I intended, but she didn’t seem to mind. She began, “Oh, pardon my manners. My name is Polkif, and I am a Zhetsian. You’re right, we’re not allied with humanity, and there aren’t a whole lot of us on Venlil Prime, so you probably haven’t heard of us. We don’t have a very large diaspora. I’ve been here a few years, and I’m used to being a novelty.”
I hummed, interested. Some part of me was always eager to talk to aliens, and I could indulge that now. Most of the time, my interactions with aliens were distinctly more… hostile, than I’d like, but that was unavoidable. Well, here was an opportunity to avoid hostilities! Though, I was still wondering why this wasn't shaping up to be hostile, so I asked, “Why are you comfortable walking up to random, unfamiliar humans? Even people who have been here since First Contact with us and who generally like humans aren’t often comfortable doing that. Especially since we have a reputation for being aggressive when drunk.”
Polkif snuffled, which my translator told me was laughter. After a few seconds, she said, “Well, we’re Zhetsians! We’re expected to be bold. We do have to be mindful of other species’ norms when offworld, but I don’t think they’ll kick my door down and drag me off to the predator disease facility just for being excited about talking to a human. I suppose you don’t know if they will until they do it, but I’ve gone this long without biased officers bagging me, so I figure my logic holds up. Besides, I don’t mind standing out and having to make an effort to fit in if it means I can avoid the current issues on my native planet, Miluja. Well, the issues are everywhere in Zhetsian space, but they’re especially strong there.”
I was intrigued, and thoughts of tiredness were out of my mind. Of course, there were a whole lot of aliens with all different cultures and histories, but this was new, even compared to other aliens I knew of, and was shaping up to be exciting. I would be especially tired later, but I didn’t mind the adrenaline that interest and excitement gave me right now. I prompted her, “What kind of issues?”
Polkif obliged me. “Civil unrest issues. All five Zhetsian planets are having issues with stampedes, mobs, protesting, and armed rebellion, but on Miluja it’s devolved into a civil war. Or Colony World 3, as it’s known offworld. They don’t like that we landed on naming it after Milu, since they say he had predator disease, but it’s tradition to call it that, and I like it better than the generic name, at least.
“Once the Cilany broadcast came out and reached us, it was pandemonium. Due to the anti-predator religion, a lot of people assumed that we were predators, so we split from the Federation. All the death cults and secret predator or predator-diseased sympathizers came out of the woodwork declaring this to be proof that they were right all along, and now everyone should join up with them and make a utopia, or something. Of course, all the elements that prevented those guys from making themselves known before were still there, so the government and the Federation-sympathizers cracked down on them. The rebellious elements were emboldened, though, and had quite a few guns and lots of repurposed farming equipment, so they fought back. This led to all the sympathizers still in the government to come out and support the rebellion too, except they were discovered, and you had tusk-fights in offices everywhere. It devolved from there, and now the whole planet is engulfed in civil war.
“The other planets are doing better, though not by much. Nitto is probably doing the best out of all of them, since the overwhelming majority of the government and populace was able to unite around the Nitre Rebellion’s legacy and kick the Federation out. Kipresa and Colony World 4 are undergoing low-level fighting and their share of unrest; their problems are mitigated by the fact that most of Kipresa just want to make money and aren’t up for fighting, and Colony World 4 knows that its denizens are mostly criminals, so they have a habit of not looking too closely as long as you don’t cause problems and there continue to be people willing to buy their ore. Mother Plains, our homeworld, has had more luck with the government cracking down on rebellion and dissent, but there are still decently sized patches that are held by rebel forces, and the Federation and government are growing more unpopular by the day.
“In short, there’s fighting and disruptions everywhere, though the last ship that came from Zhetsian space came a month ago, and I’m not sure how it’s progressed without me. The fact that no more ships have come is troubling enough. As for alliances, I can’t imagine that the UN wants to get involved in our civil wars, especially since most of the official governments would reject them anyway. So, we’re not allied with either the Federation or the UN, and I think we're best off focusing on getting ourselves to a stable position before helping anyone else with their problems.”
I sat back, stunned. Of course, in the back of my mind, I had figured that there might be intraspecies fighting somewhere in the Federation, but I’d started to discount that as a possibility, with how herd-focused and timid the Federation seemed. Species-wide civil wars and unrest was not what I expected. Though, if that’s what the situation back home was like, no wonder it seemed perfectly safe walking up to strange humans. I’ve known a few people from countries with civil unrest issues, and while some of them are intensely paranoid, some are fearless and barely blink at what normal people would consider notable dangers.
She continued after a few seconds. “I’m not quite sure where I stand on the issue. I am quite willing to call my home Miluja, and I have a lot of family who are farmers and on that side of the conflict, but you get leery of supporting such people after long enough away. The walls have ears when it comes to expressing dissent, you know. You’ve got to be on high alert if you want to do things the Federation government doesn’t approve of without them knocking on your door. It gets exhausting to hold such opinions after a while, in the face of all the opposition to them.”
She shook her head side-to-side slightly, and it occurred to me that she was probably looking for listeners in her blind spot. She had lowered her voice, too, so that I had to strain to hear her over the din of the bar. Even with how milquetoast that bit of opposition to the Federation ideology seemed, she didn’t seem like she wanted people to notice it. I’d had my share of paranoia, certain that the aggressive and somewhat underhanded negotiation tactics I’d used would be revealed, and I’d be fired and cause a huge diplomatic incident that would end in me being burned to a crisp. Well, her concerns couldn't have been that bad, since she seemed to settle down quickly enough. After she was done, she tipped her head back a bit to sip from her drink. Her snout prevented her from tilting the glass to her mouth all the way.
I decided to talk about myself a bit, since she seemed inclined to sit in silence, though she didn’t move away from my table. “Well, I’m sure you know about Earth. I’m here because I’m a representative of Barlethy Shipping, and I’m supposed to be negotiating deals with aliens, mostly Venlil. It doesn’t sound like we’ll be dealing with Zhetsians anytime soon, if it’s as bad as you say over there. I’ve been here for about a week on this trip, though I was here for a few weeks already during the Battle of Earth, and I’m already exhausted. Work and a weird sleep schedule will do that for you. After I’m done here, I’m going back to my hotel to sleep.”
Polkif responded, “Ah, I see. I’ve been an offworld business rep before, and it is not fun. Seeing other planets is enjoyable to a degree, but the schedule is grueling, other planets always have weird day/night cycles, and people tend to look down on Zhetsians as rebellious. I left for Venlil Prime about five years ago to help run a new branch of the farming equipment manufacturer I did sales for, though they try to hide their Zhetsian origins, and I exclusively work in non-public-facing roles. I was supposed to come back last month, but that didn’t pan out for obvious reasons. Oh well, I’ve got stable employment, since they’ve kept me on, and I think I can manage.”
I checked my holopad, and noted the time. It was 30 minutes until I wanted to go back to my apartment and sleep, since I’d scheduled an hour for this. A few thoughts flashed through my mind, most notably that getting back earlier would result in even more sleep, and that Polkif seemed nervous about discussing certain topics where others could hear. An idea sprang to mind, and I voiced it. “It’s been a pleasure talking with you, but I probably ought to start heading back to my hotel room. Do you want to discuss more things on the way? I’d love to hear more about you and your species, but it’s rather crowded in here.”
Something glinted in her eyes, and her fingers started twitching madly, bringing to mind images of sea anemones with bony tentacles. She responded, in a rather weird tone, “Oh, I’d love to do that. I don’t need to be anywhere for another three claws, so I’d be glad to discuss things on the way. Why don’t we finish our drinks and go?”
I’d almost finished my drink, so I downed the rest just as she chugged over half of her glass at once to finish it. As she hopped off the stool, I stopped leaning on the wall behind me, a poor substitute for a backrest, stretched my back a bit, and then grabbed my things and followed her.
It was rather empty outside, with only a few scattered and easily-avoidable groups of Venlil here and there on the street. I started towards my hotel, and Polkif followed. Once we’d gotten a decent ways away from anyone, Polkif started talking in a quiet but still conversational voice. “So what would you like to know?”
“Anything interesting,” I said. “Perhaps why you have a reputation for being rebellious, or why your government doesn’t like this Milu character, or why some of your planets are having it worse than others.”
“The walls have ears, but I have better vision and probably better hearing than you and most Venlil, so I’ll stop talking if there’s a chance of unwanted listeners. Do note that what I'm about to tell you is not the official history, and I could get in very serious trouble if people knew that I believed, or at least seriously considered, this stuff. I can drag you down with me if you start telling people about it. Capiche?”
This sounded serious, especially since her tone had gotten noticeably sharper. She seemed a lot more alert and less casual now, even considering the comments she made in the bar about the officials who handled predator disease, which reminded me of the old “knock on the door” of governments who took away people who opposed them, now that I thought about them. That was worrying, but it was probably something that required more context to understand. Also, it did not occur to me that aliens would have a word that translated to “capiche”, but I considered that it was context-appropriate and nodded. Polkif continued.
“Alright, so the first thing to know is that unwanted ideas and movements that spring up among us never quite manage to die, however much the Federation wants them to. We have quite a few dissident groups that are officially labeled “death cults”, as well as a lot of rebellious movements that the Federation has been working to stamp out. Many of these groups have survived centuries of opposition, and sometimes they preexist First Contact. The most notable of these groups are Linked Chains, the Steward Branch, the Inside, and the Nitre rebellion stuff on Nitto. Though, Linked Chains has spread offworld and has a pretty significant non-Zhetsian membership, so it isn’t near-exclusively Zhetsian like the others.
“What you should know is that, apart from a handful of bog-standard criminals and a few people looking for an excuse to cause harm, nobody dies or supports dying or misery in those groups. The Steward Branch is a religion that, especially now, is suspected to have been the original, true religion of Zhetsians, and which has as a core doctrine the idea that all life is precious and necessary for gaining true understanding. Including the predatory life. Linked Chains thinks that predators are necessary for the ecosystem to function properly, something that you humans seem to agree with. The Inside and the pro-Nitre stuff are the anti-Federation movements on Miluja and Nitto, respectively.
“The official accounts are pretty accurate as far as the origins of three of the movements, though Bilte is not evil, stupid, or manipulative like they portray him, the non-Steward branches are likely some combination of invented or blown way out of proportion by the Federation, and they like to underrepresent the amount of animosity that lingered after the Nitre rebellion’s resource issues were handled. Really, you need unofficial sources to get good histories for anything involving those movements. The thing they lie the most about, though, is the origins of the Inside on Miluja.
“A little over a century ago, Miluja, then only known as Colony World 3, started a program of reintroducing certain predators onto the planet in order to deal with pests. We’re a farming colony, you understand, so dealing with pests was a rather large priority, and sheer practicality overwhelmed the propaganda in this instance. The Exterminators Union threatened to withdraw over these changes, the planet called their bluff, and they left, only to realize that nobody wanted them back. A bounty system was implemented for unapproved wild predators, but a lot of other predators besides the original pest-killers started hanging around and coming out from the unannihilated parts of the wilderness that had been left when the Union left. People stopped minding, apparently. You can still access The Seven Sons of Aboulo TV show if you know where to look, it tells you something about what it was like back then. Much better than the contemporary first iteration of The Exterminators, which was a piece of over-the-top propaganda, though I digress.
“Of course, that wasn’t going to last forever. I can only imagine the reason we didn’t get shut down instantly was because we were, and remain, a bit of a backwater, and they all bought into their own lies enough that they thought we’d collapse on our own due to our changes. We didn’t, so they started helping the process along.
“The Farsul showed up to Zhetsian space and started poking around. The Farsul poking around in an unimportant, obscure species like ours can only mean trouble. They did some preliminary reconnaissance, then they threatened us if we didn’t disarm all of our civilian ships. We had the bright idea to retrofit all of our ships with guns, but apparently that encourages predator behavior, or something. Those made up almost all of our fleet! We really couldn’t afford the sanctions, scrutiny, accusations, and ostracization that would come from defying the Farsul, so we dutifully disarmed our ships, and shortly thereafter the Arxur showed up.”
At that, Polkif stopped talking, and a Venlil suddenly came out of a building that we had assumed was closed, almost hitting us with the door. The Venlil only heard the last part about the Arxur showing up, according to my calculations, and after a look of startlement that he shared with us, he turned around and headed the opposite direction. Polkif exhaled, and said, “The annoying thing about Venlil Prime is that there isn’t a night when everyone sleeps. There’s always a sizable portion of the population awake and active at any given moment, so you can’t avoid people staring at you nearly as much as you’d like.”
I bet a lot of people stared at Polkif. She seemed to be a regular in that bar, but elsewhere? Given that Polkif had stopped talking before I noticed the Venlil coming out of the building, I got the feeling that she was hyper-aware of scrutiny and always thinking about how people would perceive her every move. The walls have ears, after all. No wonder she was so noncommittal in the bar, compared to here. I figured that I should keep my observations to myself, though, and responded, “I can see that. On the bright side, not having a night means there’s nowhere you shouldn’t go at night. Wait, does the Federation even have street crime?”
Polkif snorted, which my translator told me indicated derision, same as for humans. “You’re more likely to get reported for predator disease for being out alone than to get mugged. But, yes, that will happen on occasion. Usually it takes the form of criminals running up, grabbing your bag, and running off again, no violence or confrontation involved. I know for a fact that there’s more violent crime than the Federation likes to admit to, though. Anyway, back to the story? Nobody’s watching.”
“Please.”
“Alright, so where were we? Farsul, ships, Arxur… Ah yes, the Arxur raid. After our fleet was significantly reduced, a fleet of more than a thousand Arxur ships showed up to Colony World 3. Normally this would be a death sentence, but a combination of tactics, guts, and on-the-ground resistance ended in us decimating the Arxur fleet, which then retreated with almost no cattle. Miluja hasn't had any Arxur problems since; they say we taste bad, and decimating their fleet probably put us firmly in the “don’t bother” camp. Fine by us! Anyway, during the battle, we’d asked around for help, but the other planets weren’t willing to divert resources, and I also suspect they wanted to avoid retaliation. They had to have known about the Farsul ship order. We also sent a few scouts further away to ask for help from other species, and that fleet did show up! Once the battle was already over and the Arxur were already retreating. Lazy cowards barely fired a single shot.
“As you might imagine, that fleet, known as the Assistance Fleet, stuck around. They offered to help us rebuild our bombed infrastructure and almost-annihilated fleet, for a hefty sum of cash and quite a lot of food. The other requirement was that we revert all of the changes we had made regarding predators and accept what was essentially an occupation. Our remaining pristine wilderness? Gone. Our new and unique ideas? Either well-hidden, taught away, or trapped in the minds of those stuck in facilities. Our wildlife? Mostly gone, although the original netry birds and jutalem are still around, despite the best efforts of the exterminators. Stubborn little bastards, they are. Some have taken them as a sort of symbol.
“The last important bit from that period is Milu. Things really sucked after the Assistance Fleet established themselves, as stated previously. Milu was a bureaucrat who schemed to smuggle out a whole bunch of information that the Outside occupiers wanted to destroy, subverted a great many efforts to diagnose people with predator disease and kill predators, and even worked to convince the physical fleet to head home instead of being threatening in our orbit. All around a stellar guy. He eventually got found out, diagnosed, and sent to a facility. The Outside tried to publicize it, for whichever reason, maybe to demoralize the Inside. It instead turned into a huge scandal, which ended in somebody blowing up the facility Milu was kept in, which resulted in several staff members dying and most of the inmates escaping, including Milu, who was never seen again. People started calling the colony Miluja around that time. Means something like “Milu’s Continuation” in the old Zhetsian language that people use to name things. As you can imagine, the Outside does not like that name, and while using it isn’t enough for a diagnosis, it will get you a whole lot of scrutiny that can easily lead to one.
“So, that’s that, mostly. Lots of fighting, lots of rebellion, lots of farmers telling their children all the things they don't teach in schools, and always the looming Federation ready to squash anything they don’t like. Personally, I’m quite surprised you lot managed to get a foothold. They go so hard on the propaganda.”
That was… a lot to take in. ‘Why does the Federation let them be like this?’ and ‘How horrible can the Federation be?’ were hardly original thoughts at this point, so I latched on to the one thing I understood well. “Well, Tarva was nice and nobody rushed us until we could handle it, and those were the lucky parts. Beyond that, it’s really a matter of time, as people see us not snapping and eating them. Personally, I suspect that the Federation going so hard on the propaganda was their undoing. They tell everyone that predators are pure evil, then predators who aren’t pure evil show up, so people figure the old framework no longer applies and they start judging things more rationally.”
Polkif hummed for a second, then responded, “That’s a decent theory. One would hope that some of that tolerance would extend to me, but I suppose you’re new, and old habits die hard. You know, there’s a few places on the planet I can’t go because of how riled up the populace is about predators, especially lately with you humans arriving. We’re the rebels, so I must be doing something horrible! Clowns, the lot of them.”
I imagine Polkif couldn’t get away with much, if what I took from her was accurate. Her race may have had some leeway with how deviant they were expected to be, but everything about her told me she was always under a lot of scrutiny. Though, this information didn’t seem like someone who perfectly obeyed every law and whim of the Federation would know about. So, I asked her, “If you’re under so much scrutiny, how do you know all this stuff? These unofficial histories don’t seem like something you could easily access.”
Polkif spoke again, but slower and with a weird cadence. “There’s more scrutiny for the Zhetsian diaspora than for Zhetsians on Zhetsian planets. That’s not to say that you aren’t always on high alert at all hours of the day because you never know who’s watching, who’s listening, who’ll report you, and what they’ll take as a sign that you have predator disease, or need your assets confiscated, or what have you. It just means that you have more trustworthy confidants and more leeway on Zhetsian planets. More people who can tell you stories and pass around contraband.
“As a relevant example of contraband, have you ever heard of The History of Non-Sapient Predators?”
I said, “No, I haven’t.”
She started twitching her fingers again, and the front of her snout flopped around a bit. I wasn’t aware she could move it. Then, she spoke. “The History of Non-Sapient Predators is one of the most well-known contraband books, at least amongst Zhetsians. It’s generally considered unsafe for us to get involved in movements offworld, and I’m not sure what contraband books exist elsewhere. Anyway, it’s up there with The Wild and Wondrous Deep, The Linked Chain, and The Social Strain. It’s an anthology of documents from the Galactic Archives, detailing the rise and fall of Colony World 3’s anti-Federation movement, as well as the context it takes place in.
“Most of the documents are publicly accessible in the Galactic Archives, just arranged in an unflattering manner. Some of them require special credentials to access, and a few are definitely not in the Archives, or reference documents that aren’t. It’s a common rumor that the Farsul Government Employee Registry doesn’t exist and is either completely hidden for some reason or a code for something else; also that many documents that used to be on the public network but classified were deleted or moved to a secret location or network after this book was created.
“It’s published under a pseudonym, and there are many theories on who made it. Whoever created it would have had to go to the Farsul homeworld, since the Archives are located there, and would have had to find a way to access non-public documents. It was definitely compiled before Milu, since neither he nor the name Miluja are mentioned. It cuts off after the Rebuilding starts. It was likely made by either a Zhetsian from Miluja or someone who greatly values Miluja, since it’s really only our history, despite the broad-sounding title. I’m sure there are other books detailing other species’ forgotten histories and interactions with non-sapient predators, but I don’t know about them. This is the history of our non-sapient predators.
“Anyway, that book is the defining source of the actual history of the Inside and Colony World 3. Copies are rare, but I used to know someone who had one back on Miluja.”
Wow. With every word that came out of Polkif’s mouth, a picture was being made of the side of the Federation that was so old and paranoid that it wouldn’t reveal itself, even now that Federation narratives were being questioned across the planet, or especially now that that was happening. Though, apparently Polkif wasn’t so paranoid as to hide it from me. I knew that my status as a human made people assume I was comfortable with predatory things, but I found that I did not take Polkif for the type to trust anyone she wasn’t extremely confident in. So I asked her, “Why are you telling me all this? I know I’m a human, but I could tell people. I’m a stranger to you.”
She snuffled again. “Remember when I said that I could drag you down with me? Well, I’ve actually been looking into you for a bit. You’re the only human I’ve seen out here, what can I say? I was interested. I’m quite good at navigating electronic things, and I happen to have discovered several dossiers of blackmail that your shipping company has provided you to help you make deals. Perhaps not as predatory as it could be, but I’m sure I could portray it properly if I needed to make this known to appropriate parties. I’m sure you know how illegal it is and how much of a diplomatic incident this would create.”
Wait.
She knew about that?
Sudden terror gripped me. I liked to think of my activities as aggressive business tactics, but her statement reminded me that it was still blackmail and would likely end in jail time and a diplomatic incident if I were caught. She also refueled the paranoia of getting reported for it that had been plaguing me ever since I arrived on Venlil Prime as a businessman. And, since this random alien who was simply interested in me could find it, that meant that I was in a very precarious position. Out of fear, and desperation, I shot back, “If I reported you, wouldn’t law enforcement just take you away before you could do anything, and wouldn’t they not listen to you if you’re a known predator? You seemed to imply that back at the bar.”
She replied just as quickly, “Exterminators. They deal with cases of predator disease, or really any crime involving the Zhetsian diaspora as they like to assume that we all have predator disease. Anyways, as you’re a human, they’re much less likely to believe anything you say, and that combined with experience and security measures means I will absolutely have time to send it off before they get me. I can be anonymous if need be. And don’t you try to delegate reporting to anyone or do it anonymously; if anyone comes knocking on my door, I’m blaming you, and out this goes.”
Well, damn. I stopped in the middle of the street to think, barely noticing Polkif’s eye glittering as she stopped next to me. I really should have known that someone like Polkif would only reveal anything to anyone if she was very sure that they wouldn’t reveal anything. Whether because she trusted them as people, or because she held something over them. I drastically misjudged her; she was intensely paranoid, but so good at masking that you never knew until she was already acting against you.
The aggressive negotiation tactics already stressed me out. When combined with Polkif’s knowledge of them, they made me feel far out of my depth. My mind was racing, but something did occur to me, and I asked her, “Do you do this frequently for the sake of it, or do you want something from me? You don’t seem the type to task unnecessary risks.”
More snuffling, of what I thought was a distinctly different character than previous snuffling. Probably a malicious laughter, if I had to guess. “I did have an idea that required a human. When I said that I had no copy of The History of Non-Sapient Predators on Venlil Prime, I lied. Had to see how you reacted, after all. I do indeed have a copy that I took with me from Miluja, and have made copies of it since. I was thinking that humanity having a copy would be useful. You guys can translate it, make copies, get famous and make boatloads of cash off of it, or whatever else you can think of. The Federation doesn't have eyes or tendrils on Earth, so the book, our history, won’t die, or at least it has a greater chance not to. I have no clue how many copies there are across the Federation, but I know it’s not that many. I was under the impression that humans quite liked the preservation of knowledge and history, based on what I’ve seen of humanity’s reaction to the Cilany and Yotul situations. So, you wouldn’t mind preserving important history that's been suppressed by the Federation.”
That was… surprisingly benign. I was about ready for her to demand I fork over all of my money, go rogue with my company ship, or commit crimes against exterminators and the government. A little bit of smuggling, especially of something this important, was nothing, especially compared to the activities I’d been engaging in. I already had to smuggle in some of the negotiation material, anyway.
She continued, “As I said, this book is very, very illegal, and even as a human you’re likely to get in a lot of trouble for having it. As you’ve already been able to hide all that blackmail, you shouldn’t have a problem hiding this, but do be careful, and do not get caught. Only look at it once you’re back on Earth, away from prying eyes, and don’t let your company find out until you don’t need their support. I'd recommend keeping your identity wholly separate from your ownership of that book. As for getting it to you, I happen to know that you’re going to be going to a certain library to do research on Venlil agricultural history tomorrow - you really shouldn’t use the DailyMemo112 app, it has poor security - so when you get there, look out for the book titled “History of Agricultural Exports of Venlil Prime: Volume 18” by “Bitsly” in the agriculture section. It’s a fake cover, obviously, with a few fake pages too, but it's what you're looking for, so take it and go. You should probably buy a few other books about Venlil Prime trade, for cover. Any questions?”
Aside from the fact that she casually mentioned that she knew about my daily schedule for the remaining 2 weeks of my trip, that was surprisingly straightforward. A few plans for what I'd do with the book were even percolating in my mind; I'd translate them to English, of course, and then I could post them anonymously online, maybe I could put a paywall or tip jar in there to make money off of it? I didn't need the money, since my job paid me well, but this could blow up, and I wouldn't be one of Barlethy Shipping's spacefaring employees if I didn't keep an eye out for opportunity. None of these ideas were something I needed Polkif for, though. So, I replied, “No. Uh, thank you for telling me all this? Fascinating stuff.”
“You’re welcome, and thank you, if you pull this off successfully. Oh, and don’t tell the UN. They care quite a bit about Venlil laws and sovereignty, you know. Them knowing will attract attention that neither of us want. Never tell anyone anything unless you absolutely have to, you know. Now, I believe that is your hotel right there?”
I looked away from Polkif, and noticed that we were indeed in front of the huge, gray hotel building I was staying in. I wasn't sure how Polkif knew it was mine, but I probably shouldn't have been surprised at that point. It spoke to how adrift and detached from all non-business endeavors I was on Venlil Prime that I didn’t recognize the area around the place I was staying until it was pointed out to me. With a sudden bout of melancholy washing out some of the paranoia, I said, “Indeed.”
She flopped her snout around a bit, twitching her fingers all the while. I assumed, or at least hoped, that this was the Zhetsian version of smiling. “See you never, probably. Further contact would only be suspicious. The walls have ears, so be careful. Goodbye.”
I watched her walk off, back towards the bar. I entered my hotel, feeling dazed now that everything had time to settle in. The adrenaline was wearing off, and with nothing new or exciting to occupy my attention, I crashed hard. Exhaustion, combined with the events and emotions of the past hour, made me incapable of having thoughts more complex than a sense of paranoia and a desire to go to bed.
I stumbled up to my room and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, without even pulling the blackout curtains over the window.
Previous

Hello all - Regular reader using a throwaway account, and looking for the community’s thoughts on our housing budget determination. My wife and I are looking to buy a house and have developed a preliminary house budget of $550k with 10% down (DP already saved up). Breakdown is below. We'd welcome any feedback or advice. Thank you in advance!
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Monthly net income: $11,400
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Other debt:
$500/month for student debt,
No car loans, CC debt, or any other debt
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Saving:
$1,100/month savings acct,
$600/month invested in brokerage account,
Our 10% 401k contributions are excluded, deducted prior to take-home net pay.
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Allocated Spending:
$2,200/month average (for food, dining out, gas, transit, etc.),
$700/month on bills and utilities
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Housing Cost, including mortgage (P+I), taxes, and insurance:
$4,000/month
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Remainder (Discretionary / Add'l savings / Allowance for future expenses):
$2,300/month
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Other Info:

• We are looking in a HCOL area in the USA, so this price range just barely gets us into a comfortable move-in ready 3 bed / 2 bath house.
• The $4000/month housing cost includes $3,200 for P+I and $800 for taxes + insurance. That roughly equates to a $495k mortgage loan ($550k - $55k DP) based on my rough math. We have excellent credit (780+) and I’ve approximated a 6.75% interest rate. Taxes/insurance cost is based on my research on average in our area for this price range.
• We do not currently have any children but will probably start trying within 6 months to a year. We are planning to eventually have 2 kids.

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Edit: Added a few details and clarifications.