Today I was out meeting a trans friend and when I parked my car, I accidentally left the lights on. (It's a really old car) When I got back, I couldn't start it.
I had dressed cute for my coffee date, with a short wool wrap skirt and bucket hat.
I was trying to be responsible and make sure I got the car back to my place, so I called a friend to help me. Because of where I parked, the car had to be moved before we could jump it. The community where I was has a pretty queer vibe overall. Many of the shops have progress flags, and the cafe right there hosts drag sometimes.
When my friend got there, I couldn't have her push the car, and I thought I could do it, but I'm tiny (52kg/115lbs). There was just a slight incline, and it's a very light car.
I had her pilot the car, and we got in position. I could easily hold the car from rolling back, and I thought I had pushed it forward a bit. But after we got the wheel turned, it was much harder to push. It didn't need to go far, maybe 10m across one street.
I thought I looked pretty silly trying to push this car in a skirt, I've never done that before! I was trying not to worry about the aesthetics of the moment and just deal with the issue, but it wasn't lost on me that this situation had a strangely "gendered" feeling. Pushing a broken down car as a woman at a busy intersection definitely feels different than doing the same action as a man.
When I went to push I leaned in and I realized I wasn't actually going to be able to push it. I was just about to have my friend put the brake back on and look for another plan when...
This beautiful person, with leather tattoos and piercings was walking across the street and called out "Hey! Do you need help?". They were kinda butch femme, and just obviously much fitter than I am.
Before I knew it they were helping me, and the car was moved over in only a few seconds.
I thanked them, and they didn't even miss the walk light as they caught up to their friend.
As I got away and drove home, I thought about how affirming and awesome this little interaction was. In this queer little community I love, my old silly car broke down and my skinny transfemme butt was too weak to push it, thus becoming a damsel in distress. Then in a move which I can only really describe as pride month divine intervention, a person doing gender and queer in a different (and thankfully more muscular) way than I am was sent to help me.
Anyway, I just love my community. All my trans community, all my queer community, specifically this awesome local community. You all rule for making me feel awesome about being me.

I looked in my boyfriends phone, I know it was wrong to do that but I have had a weird feeling lately. We had a baby a few weeks ago and idk if I’m having paranoia or anxiety. I looked in his phone and found that he’s following this girl on Instagram who has a vsco account link in her profile, he keeps looking at her vsco account which has some pictures of her. I can see that he keeps looking at it in his link history. I requested to follow her just to see and he immediately knew about it because she told him. I got upset and asked about her and he said she thought it was funny, he won’t show me what he said back but he says he didn’t agree with her. He also told me he’s had sex with her before he knew me. I got mad and he removed her from his friends but I looked at his phone today and can see he still is looking up her vsco account a bunch. He deleted any messages with her so I can’t see what they said to eachother. I feel upset about this but I looked in his phone so I don’t want to bring it up a second time. Also he said I’m being hypocritical because I’m friends with someone I dated in highschool who is now dating someone and has tried to mainly be friends with my boyfriend to make sure he feels comfortable. I told him I didn’t know he felt that way but I don’t looks at pictures of this friend or look him up for any reason. And I removed that friend and apologized that I made him feel like that. After I apologized I found he’s still looking this other woman up to see her pictures. Am I the asshole for looking in his phone in the first place?

We are a smaller retail store. So, here when you wanna do a return or exchange you just go through the cashiers line.
Today we were pretty busy, it being the last day of our sale. So I had a good bit of a line going. A woman walked into the door, and just stood there, and didn't say anything. Just watched me. I looked up and said, "are you returning or exchanging?" She told me she wanted to exchange her product. I said, "ho ahead and grab what you need, hop in line, and I'll do the exchange for you." She took the old product with her, got what she needed, came back to the front, and waited by the door again. I had 4 people in my line at thie point. When the sale on the first person in line was up the woman by the door said, "You ready to do my exchange?" I said, "hop in line, and I'll get to you." She said, "YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE ME WAIT BEHIND ALL THOSE PEOPLE?!" I said, "well, I wasn't going to let you cut in line in front of all those people." Everyone in line immediately started laughing at her, out loud. I've never seen anyone's eyes pop out of their head that far. My coworker came up to help check people out, and she ran over there to him cutting in front of 3 people. She wanted a manager, and wanted to file a complaint on me. The manager walked up, and she told him what happened. She asked what he was going to do a out it. He said, "ma'am, we don't let people cut to the front of the line for a return. You just have to wait your turn." She got so pissed off a our him not siding with her she just got a refund, and said she wouldn't shop here anymore.
I've never been to any retailer that just let's you skip the line, just because you have a return. It was so weird.

For context, I am a guy who’s not afraid to wear, say, or do traditionally feminine coded things… for example, BBW body care obviously! It’s helped me explore my identity and improve my overall self care routine after keeping it ignored for so long. It’s done wonders for my mental health, truly.
A post was made a little bit ago about men wearing any fragrance, especially outside the ones advertised towards us. I chimed in along as well. I found that I quite enjoy fruity (ha) notes, and I gravitate to them when they’re available. Nothing that screams, “Hey, shouldn’t only a woman use this?” I love my Golden Mango Lagoon and Coco Paradise, thank you very much!
Which brings me to this: I’ve tried scents like Gingham Gorgeous and was on the fence, as much as I like it, I’m almost… anxious to actually go out while wearing it? It’s been sitting forgotten in the cupboard for a while now.
Today, for SAS, I bounced back and forth between getting more Fruity Sherbet Scoop or give Plumeria a go. As someone who’s rather new to BBW as a whole, I’m aware that Plumeria has history as an old, retired scent. But the thing is, the ads focus on that aspect and leaves me wondering if it’s borderline creepy for a (young looking, curse the genes) 30 year old man to wear product that was once worn by teenage girls back in the day.
I hate being indecisive but I’m probably very likely to return Plumeria for something else. 😓
That’s my one vice when it comes to this store - exchanging.

This file comes from accounts of the [REDACTED] incident that took place [REDACTED].
The memories of [REDACTED] were successfully acquired for the best possible retelling.
The account:
PROLOGUE
Weather reports are saying a massive blizzard from the northernmost parts of Alaska will begin making its way down the west coast. Most are saying that the storm will hit us next week. People are calling it the storm of the decade, so sorry folks it looks like spring hasn’t sprung just yet.
The reporter continued but I stopped listening as my dad sputtered out: “Why in the heck do they expect me to believe that? This is bull crap I’m telling you complete bull crap. Blizzards don’t happen in April!”
Part of me wanted to stop and explain to him why the newsman was probably right but I knew my dad wouldn’t believe me. You see, in his old age, my dad had become quite well crazy. He didn’t trust anyone or anything and had gotten really into conspiracy theories.
“Dad, you can’t just dismiss facts and science like that,” My sister Gretchen said.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. They don’t know what they’re talking about, if you had only seen…” My dad was yelling before I cut him off, “Shut up!”
“Why the heck do you think you can talk to your daughter like that!” I screamed at him.
“What the heck, you’re talking like she wasn’t the one who was trying to tell me what to do!” He yelled again, and at this point, I gave up and left the room.
I found Gretchen. She stood in front of the mirror in the hall I stood next to her and looked into the reflection despite me and Gretchen being 9 years apart and having different moms we almost looked like twins. We both had short straight black hair, dark brown eyes, pale complections, and stood nearly the same height.
“I miss how he used to be,” She said somberly.
“I know me too sis,” I said leaning in and hugging her.
“Let's go,” She said softly.
I nodded and we both left, not bothering to say goodbye. I drove the short 20-minute drive to our house.
When Gretchen was 8 her mom died and my dad remarried a year later and they had me. They bought a small 1 story house in a nice rural neighborhood, then two years later they divorced and my mother got authority over us kids. Me and Gretchen never really moved out, because well the house was big. Despite being one story it was quite spacious and oddly built. It was much longer than it was wide. One long hallway ran the whole interior from the fireplace on one end of the house. To the fireplace on the other end of the house. It had a small kitchen, dining room, and four bedrooms along with a tiny library. In addition, it had a basement. The basement was like a large studio apartment with a kitchen/dining room, 2 bedrooms, and a large hang-out area.
Me and Gretchen walked inside and were immediately greeted by May, Moore, and Herman, our three dogs. May and Moore were both Australian shepherds, and Herman was an absolutely massive Saint Bernard.
Herman jumped up onto me, almost making me topple to the ground.
“Woah, easy boy,” I exclaimed, giving the big dog a pat on the head as I pushed him off.
“Hi sweeties,” I heard our mom say from the kitchen.
I stepped into the kitchen and saw Mom busy making dinner. Our mom was short with long brown hair and bright blue eyes
“Hi Mom,” I greeted, stepping over and giving her a huge hug.
“Where’s Chloe?” I asked quickly.
“And where’s the kids?” Gretchen asked after also hugging Mom.
“Chloe's downstairs playing with the kids,” Mom explained.
We both hurried down the hall and then down the stairs into the lounge. A mess of legos was on the floor and playing in this mess was Gretchen's sons.
Her first son was named Alby. He is 8 and is rather quiet, he usually has his head in a book and the only thing that consistently gets him outside is the dogs, or going fishing with his dad. Like his mom, he has straight black hair. He wears rectangular glasses and has hazel eyes.
The Second is Alan. Alan is 5 and is always wanting to play having a seemingly endless amount of energy. He had dirty blonde hair with hazel eyes and is fairly tall and stocky for his age.
Third and last is Aaron. Aaron is 3, and he doesn’t talk much. He is almost like Alan's shadow following him along and doing the same thing as Alan. He is tiny with blonde hair and dark brown eyes.
Alan and Aaron were seemingly having a war with Lego dinosaurs, Alby seemed to be constructing a car, and sitting on the couch behind them was Chloe.
Chloe is very pretty with light silky blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders, icy blue eyes that seemed almost impossible to look away from, pale skin, and an adorable smile.
The moment me and Gretchen were down those stairs Alan and Aaron had run up and hugged her.
“Mommy mommy!” They both yelled in excitement.
Chloe perked up and gave me a huge smile.
“Hi babe, didn’t know you’d be back so soon.” She exclaimed as she got up and hugged me.
“My dad yelled at Gretchen,” I said simply and we left it at that.
The blizzard people are now calling snowmageddon should hit us tomorrow and will likely cause a complete loss of power, and the government is mandating that by tomorrow no one is allowed to exit or leave town. They did not try to better explain this…
Chloe clicked off the tv. The storm was already making her nervous enough and she wanted to hear nothing more about it.
“Are you sure we have enough firewood?” Chloe asked, looking at me worried.
“We’ve got enough firewood to last three winters, babe,” I exaggerated.
“What about food, do we have enough food?” She asked, my words not getting to her.
“We could use a few more things, but I’m going to…” I was saying before Chloe interrupted: “Let's go now I want to make sure we have everything we need.”
“Ok babe, I’ll go get my jacket,” I said standing up from the couch and walking over to the bedroom.
I grabbed my jacket and shoes and met Chloe upstairs by the front door. She seemed excited that she wasn’t sitting around worrying and I think that’s why she wanted to go so bad.
“Hey Mom, Gretchen, we are going to the store, do you guys need anything?” I asked them both who were sitting in the kitchen.
“We need batteries, Joey.” My mom responded simply.
“Ok, batteries, anything else?”
“Nope,” They both said quickly.
Me and Chloe stepped outside the house and walked over to my jeep and got in. I pulled out of the driveway and looked around, our neighborhood had a very interesting layout. The houses were spaced out but not an extraordinary amount, just more than you’d see in the average neighborhood. Each house was probably 400 feet apart from each other. Our neighborhood also had a lot of trees, so many in fact that it was hard to see your neighbor's house through them. I could vaguely make out the Marley's house to the right, and to the left, I saw the Richardson's house. Both were older couples that had far much more than they needed.
But the more important thing I observed was that it seemed everyone was packing up. Multiple cars were out in their driveways with people hurriedly rushing in and out of the house with things. I pulled up next to the Richardsons' car and rolled down the window.
“Hey Greg, y'all leaving?” I asked, giving him a polite smile.
Greg Richardson looked over from the back of his van: “Yep, some people are saying the mountains are going to slow down the storm and that it could be here for a few days, so we’re leaving to be on the safe side.” He explained.
“I haven’t heard anything about that,” I exclaimed, a little more concerned about the blizzard now.
“Yeah, well y’all be safe,” He said, giving us a smile and a wave.
“You too,” I said, giving him a wave and then continuing our journey toward the store.
“Wow, there’s a lot of people leaving,” Chloe exclaimed with a slight shock and fear in her voice.
I let my eyes wander while trying to keep my eyes on the road. She was right, almost everyone was leaving town.
“Do you think we should leave?” Chloe asked me, eyeing the packed cars.
“No point, even if we wanted to, the storm would probably catch us in traffic because of all the people leaving,” I said and noticed her momentary worries dissipate.
After a couple of minutes, we pulled in front of the store. It was old, still styled like a store in the 80s. It was very busy today and me and Chloe had to park on the street. As we walked toward the store I felt a chill in the air. I could tell Chloe felt it too because she wrapped one arm around me and cuddled next to me as we walked.
We entered the store and it looked like a tornado had gone through it. Things were lying on the floor and almost everything was gone. There was a long line in front of the counter where the cashier sat. I knew the cashier, her name was Lacy, she was 17 and the daughter of the owner. Just then the owner Carl appeared from around the corner.
Carl was a very short guy with round glasses, dark brown hair, and a very poor attempt at a comb-over.
“Hey Joey and Chloe,” He greeted a large smile etched on his face.
We both smiled back, “How are you doing Carl?” Chloe asked.
“Doing the best I can, basically everyone who’s staying in town has come to stock up.” He explained, “You two staying in town?” He then asked.
“Yeah, just going to hold out,” I grinned a little excited to spend a few days not having to do anything.
“Alright, well if you need anything just give a holler,” He instructed before hurrying off to do something.
Me and Chloe grabbed baskets and split up to get everything we needed.
We met by the register after and waited in line during which I got a call. I pulled my phone out and saw it was from Dad. I thought about not answering but decided I’d better answer.
Before I could even greet him my dad had started on a rant: “Joey you and everybody need to get out of town right now. You gotta get out of there, they’ll escape from the lab and kill you if you don’t… their creatures they’ll kill you…” He tried to continue but I interrupted him, “I don’t know what you're going on about but I’m done.”
I hung up and Chloe gave me a worried look: “Who was it?”
“My dad, going off on his ramblings again,” I told her simply.
She nodded: “Anything I should know?”
“No he’s just being paranoid,” I explained.
We both stood there for a minute watching more people around the store fill their carts with things. One woman behind us had a shopping cart full of toilet paper. Then I noticed Chloe’s head turn toward the window.
“Hey look, it's started,” She exclaimed looking out the window.
I looked out and saw snow slowly beginning to fall to the ground, and I felt a deep sense of dread as it did.

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I think I'm looking forward to the Lower Decks crossover more than anything else in the upcoming Strange New Worlds season 2. I mean, I love the show, but the crossover has me so pumped.
I remember when it was first announced, before we knew it would just be Mariner and Boimler on the Enterprise, I wondered what it would be like for the entire Ceritos crew to visit their counterparts...
Mariner: Wow, look at the hair! It's even higher than Boimlers!
Ortegas: He'd never admit it in a million years, but he spends HOURS on that do every day. It's like a beloved pet or something.
Mariner: Pet, huh? Does it have a name?
Ortegas: I don't know. I just call it Skippy.
---------------------
Ransom: You're a hot Number One, I'm a hot Number One, it's like destiny or fate or kismet that we should be together.
Una: I wouldn't touch you if you were the last male sentient being in the entire quadrant.
Ransom: What about the galaxy? How about if I was the last male in the entire galaxy?
---------------------
Freeman : Ugh! Why do you have so many steps on this bridge!?
Pike: The designers thought a multi-level bridge would best facilitate communication in crisis situations. I take it your bridge doesn't have steps? Is your bridge all one level? Do you have to talk over your peoples' heads when you give orders?
Freeman: No, my bridge is not FLAT! It's multi-level! But we have RAMPS! Don't you people in the 23rd century care about ACCESSIBILITY!?
---------------------
Uhura: So, your communicator is actually built INTO the badge? And it actually includes a universal translator? Like, with the ENTIRE Federation linguistic database!?
Rutherford: Yeah! It also includes a biosigns monitor, sub-meter positioning system, a personal log recorder, AND it tells you the time!
Uhura: Does it have a stopwatch?
Rutherford: No, but that's an AWESOME idea! I'm gonna make that an upgrade when we get back to the 25th century! Thanks, Uhura!
---------------------
Tendi: Wow! You guys are like, the PIONEERS of space medicine! Some of the stuff you invented is still in use in OUR sickbay! What are you working on now?
M'Benga: Well, we're trying to improve the efficiency of hironolin to reverse radiation damage more quickly in the event of massive life-threatening exposures.
Tendi: Hironolin? You're still messing around with that old crap?
---------------------
Boimler: You store phasers handle-down? You really should store them handle-up for maximum efficiency. In the future we store all our phasers handle up.
La'an: You don't say.
Boimler: Oh, yeah. And you should really put the field jackets near the door, so you can grab a jacket first, then a tricorder, then a phaser. It's the most efficient way to gear up for an Away mission. That's how all the best ships do it in the future.
La'an: Right, so if we could get back to our assignment...
Boimler: Of course, if you REALLY want to be efficient, you'd have a door straight from the locker room to the transporter room. That's how we do it in the future. We're ALL about efficiency in the future.
La'an: Look, purple-hair, if you don't shut up and get back to the assignment, I'm going to show you how efficiently I can KICK YOUR ASS!
Boimler: My god... You are the hottest woman I've ever met.
La'an:

Need help with protein shakes / salads/ soups . Tried making a protein shake today and oof in just not good at recipe making or ratios or anything . Rlly wanna get the most amount of protein (I’m trying to aim for 80-112g protein daily) with three meals a day (no counting) and it mainly being things like salads soups smoothies / shakes / lean proteins / veg .

First, to show why you should even pay attention to such a crazy sounding claim, i present to you the AI risk statement:
"Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war."
It has been signed by the leading experts in AI field, by academics, AI company CEO's, and many other notable figures. Among them:
2 Turing Award winners and AI godfathers, Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio. CEO's of Google Deepmind, OpenAI, Anthropic. Congressman Ted Lieu. Bill Gates. And many others.
From time: "In 2016, Andrew Ng famously quipped that “worrying about AI today is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars.” Until fairly recently, about half of all researchers expected AGI to be at least decades away. AI godfather Geoff Hinton told CBS that “Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general purpose AI. And now I think it may be 20 years or less,” with even 5 years being a possibility. He’s not alone: a recent Microsoft paper argues that GPT4 already shows “sparks” of AGI, and Hinton’s fellow deep learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio argues that GPT4 basically passes the Turing Test that was once viewed as a test for AGI. And the time from AGI to superintelligence may not be very long: according to a reputable prediction market, it will probably take less than a year. Superintelligence isn’t a “long-term” issue: it’s even more short-term than e.g. climate change and most people’s retirement planning."
An AI that is more intelligent than humans, can improve itself better than humans, and this fast iteration can lead to the fast emergence of Superintelligent AI, that is 100x times smarter than humans.
An AI vastly more intelligent than all humans, can outwit humans at any conflict, and can exterminate us if it helps its goals.
Why would AI want to exterminate humans? Because AI is a goal achieving system. It is not hard to accidentally give AI wrong goals. If AI's values and goals aren't aligned with human values, AI will try to kill humans, because humans posses a direct threat to AI. Humans for example, could try to launch another AI to stop the first AI, and to prevent that, an AI will decide that humans need to be killed, to achieve it's goals.
People, wake the fuck up. There is a legitimate risk of total human extinction in the next 20 years. Total extinction.
More details:
What's the elevator pitch for why superintelligent AI might be dangerous? Well, if it's smarter (better at searching for effective plans) than the entire human race combined, it could probably come up with a plan that would kill us all.
But why would it want to? Well, it might want something other than our welfare, and it would be instrumentally useful to either have us out of the way or destroy the environment in some way, such as building a Dyson Swarm around the sun and cutting off our sunlight. It also might lead to conflict between different human groups.
Why might a superintelligent AI not specifically want what's best for us? Well, we don't exactly know what these systems will want, but it seems easy to accidentally get misaligned systems, or systems that are vulnerable to prompt injection. Note that ML systems like MNIST NNs are generically vulnerable to adversarial attack and we have not been able to solve this.
Wake up people! The experts are sounding alarms and having emotional termoil over this:
From Guardian: "Hinton, 75, said he quit to speak freely about the dangers of AI, and in part regrets his contribution to the field."
From BBC: "Prof Bengio admitted those concerns were taking a personal toll on him, as his life's work, which had given him direction and a sense of identity, was no longer clear to him.
"It is challenging, emotionally speaking, for people who are inside [the AI sector]," he said.
"You could say I feel lost. But you have to keep going and you have to engage, discuss, encourage others to think with you.""
From Time: "When the insider conversation is about the grief of seeing your daughter lose her first tooth, and thinking she’s not going to get a chance to grow up, I believe we are past the point of playing political chess about a six-month moratorium."
Paul Christiano, former senior engineer of OpenAI, estimates that there is 20% chance of human extinction from AI. And has stated that AI extinction will probably be the most likely single cause of his death.
I really recommend reading Max Tegmark's Time article The 'Don't Look Up' Thinking That Could Doom Us With AI
I am baffled that people here dismiss this issue.

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Gwzuc complained to his father for what felt like the 10th time about being pulled out of school for an entire week to travel to Demila, a backwater planet just so they could visit on a specific date . His father unrelentingly told him once again “This is an important date for myself and the humans, they call it Memorial Day, a day to celebrate and mourn those lost in the line of duty. Of which the humans have lost plenty in the War of Imperial Aggression. Hopefully you will understand once our day has concluded.”
Krlinn Vol'jin was a former Captain in the Federation Armed Forces, being medically discharged after the slaughter of Demilia which saw Federation ground forces being reduced to a mere 20% of what was sent to the planet in an effort to stop the Tuvili Empire from gaining a valuable stronghold in the fight for the Federations survival.
Krlinn and his son Gwzuc arrived at the memorials entrance and proceeded to a hallway immediately to their left, Krlinn already knew exactly where to go, having been here countless times before. Gwzuc on the other hand only got a quick glance around, the wings of the memorial seemingly dedicated species by species with Humanity’s being the largest.
On the way over Krlinn started to speak to his son using a tone Gwzuc was all too familiar with, it meant that his father was about to start one of his famous lectors and not even a charging Curbat could stop him, with nothing better to do Gwzuc listened while walking, his father choosing to not take the speed assist walkways in an effort to have more time to make his point before reaching their destination.
“Now son I know that you have heard all of this throughout your lifetime but I feel the need to reiterate it due to what you will see shortly. Humans arrived on the galactic scene a couple of centuries ago and ever since then have been an average species in our great federation, not the strongest, nor the most intelligent, no, Humanity simply exists in most aspects of life.” At this point they reach around the midway point where banners from Terra, the Humans homeworld are flown along with a statue, Krlinn stops them both and walks to the statue before looking his son in the eye. “But Son, do not be mistaken when you look a Human in the eye and see nothing but steely resolve looking back at you. Know in your deepest hearts that something somewhere should be terrified.” At this point Gwzuc looks confused at the statue, it appears to be a human male wearing firefighting gear he looks at the plaque in front of the statue which reads
“Dedicated to the brave men and woman, firefighters, police, and EMT’s who lost their lives while helping the citizens of Demila during the war, costing many of their own lives but saving countless others in the process.”
“But I don’t get it. Why die for others instead of saving themselves?” Gwzuc said quite frankly while looking at his father.
Krlinn sighed, the question being poised one he was expecting but was still hoping to all together avoid. “That question is what we are here to answer today. Humans are unique in the federation, most species have an instinct for self preservation, our many cultures only serve to reinforce that instinct. For that matter the human’s have that same instinct, the difference being they can turn it off. That steely eyed look I mentioned earlier? That’s how you know if the “switch” has been flipped in a human’s head.” Krlinn brought his son up to start the walk back down to get to the exhibit that was their goal. In the meantime he could see Gwzuc’s coils phasing in his head as he was slowly starting to understand why his father never talked about his experiences in the war.
“You know son, the humans almost never made it to front line combat units” Krlinn said to his son. His son looked at him surprised and asked “How? They make up almost half the Federation’s forces!” Krlinn replied “That came about partially because of the event’s here. For all the Federation’s upsides it’s bureaucracy is not one, most saw the humans lack of specialization and failure to excel at any one thing to mean that they were useless. While most humans in the Forces were relegated to backline support and logistics, or medical staff there were always a few every infantry company did see at least a few. Hell, one of the member’s on my headquarter’s staff was human.”
There was a long minute of silence following this, Gwzuc looked at his father who had the eyes of a person looking into the past remembering something Gwzuc knew better than to interrupt him when he got like this, after a minute they were at the front of the exhibit.
They had walked into a large hall with statues every 20 yards or so, while they hadn’t encountered anybody on the way to the hall due to them taking the non speed assisted path the hall was filled with people, while all species appeared to be represented it stood out to Gwzuc that the majority was of Humans which he thought odd, until he remembered what his father had told him. That this was a Holiday for the human’s one a day to remember and mourn those who had fallen.
“We could spend all day here looking at every memorial, but instead I want to focus on the Men and Women I personally knew and served with who helped me and others survive.” Krlinn said to his son, bringing him to the first statue, again without needing more than a second to gather his surroundings.
The first statue they came upon was of a woman saluting, the almost bronze statue was so detailed he could see the wrinkles around her eyes, evidently the picture this was molded after was taken of her facing that system's star. Krlinn tells Gwzuc “I will let the plaques do the talking, I didn't know the private well enough to add more information.” Gwzuc walked forward and saw two plaques starting with the one on the left having more and larger writing
“Here lies a remembrance to Private Livia Morrison, a medic who in the battle of Demilia at great risk to her own life ran across a battlefield in an effort to save two marines who were severely injured by an artillery shell. She ran over 300 meters while being actively engaged by combatants to reach the marines. At which point she provided life saving assistance and stabilized them. However after finishing her duties she heard cries coming from a short distance and while moving to provide them care she was hit by an artillery shell. Her bio-metric suit and helmet recorded her last words as “Get those Marines home” before shortly passing away from blood loss.” Gwzuc’s hearts were beating slightly just reading that, not imaging he could ever do something so dangerous. The second plaque seemed to be for information “Private Morrision received a battalion commendation for her heroic efforts. We thank her family for allowing her likeness to be used. It should be noted Morrision had only been stationed on Demila for two weeks when the attack began, it was her first posting out of training and her only.”
Krlinn quickly brought his son to another statue giving him barely enough time to absorb what he read before his father began to speak “This is Sergeant Rhett Dunlap, while I would not have considered us friends due to a myriad of reasons he was a good man, from what I hear those whose lives he saved donated the cost to get this statue built.” Gwzuc took a good look at the statue. It showed a short human male who one would call diminutive if not for the fact that his muscles made him look extremely stocky. The statue showed him in a kneeling position with a light machine gun in one hand, the other arm missing below the elbow, his uniform tattered and shrapnel sticking in all parts of him. Gwzuc started to read the quite long plaque
“Here lies Sergeant Dunlap depicted by request of his brothers in arms to show his final moments. The Sergeant was severely injured in an artillery blast resulting in his arm being blown off. It is noted when asked about it he told his superiors “Just a flesh wound” before laughing, A few moments later the imperials began another push and the Federation had to fall back or be enveloped. The Sergeant then picked up a machine gun and hoisted it onto a nearby wall before telling his platoon leader that he would cover the retreat. His platoon leader accepted, seeing no alternative. The Sergeant proceeded to hold off imperial forces single handedly for over 4 minutes resolution in his platoon making a full retreat with no casualties. For this Sergeant Dunlap was awarded a Titanium Novastar”
Krlinn put a hand on his son’s shoulder after seeing Gwzuc finish reading, startling his boy. His father spoke in an uncharacteristically quiet voice “I saw it you know. His final stand, we had a drone in the area to make sure the retreat went as smoothly as possible. He wouldn’t, couldn’t stop. Even when he ran out of ammo he pulled his knife out and used it. When we finally took that sector back his corpse was surrounded by imperial bodies. I shudder to imagine what he could have achieved without already being injured.” Come son there’s one more statue you need to see.
With that Krlinn brings his son to the final statue, which was also the largest and in place of honor in the middle of the room, it was a simple statue similar to the first one they went to showing a tall but skinny human male saluting, due to others in the room they must wait for a handful of minutes before being able to read this statue's plaque. This appears to be the only statue with an accompanying piece on display, it appears to be a name tag ripped off a military uniform that says “Saunders”. The entire wait, Gwzuc noticed his father had not said a word and appeared to be in his own world. Gwzuc read the plaque
“Here Lies lieutenant Caleb Saunders dubbed by many as “The Savior of Demila” whose actions caused a total rout of the Imperial forces on the planet during the Battle of Demila. While Federation forces were in a near collapse the lieutenant grabbed a targeting sensor and spent 12 hours sneaking into an Imperial Ammo facility in an effort to place the sensor in a way to be able to bring artillery accurately onto imperial lines from far off batteries. Helmet footage that was being transmitted to base showed that in the process of activating the sensors a patrol of Imperials found him. Instead of engaging the sensor and retreating he valiantly activated it while receiving multiple injuries, allowing said artillery to destroy the facility and cause a chain reaction destroying a large number of Imperial Assets at the cost of the Lieutenant’s life.”
Gwzuc quickly moved onto the second plaque his two hearts racing, a thought forming in his mind. “This statue was paid for and commissioned by the Federal Armed Forces. For them we thank the ability to remember Lieutenant Saunders. For his actions Saunders was awarded a Federation Star of the People, The federation’s highest military honor. We also thank Captain Krlinn Vol'jin for donating Saunders name tag. It is said he ripped it off before allowing Saunders to attempt the mission in an effort to ensure his sacrifice would not be forgotten.”
After reading the last sentence everything fell into place for Gwzuc who turned to his father, however before he could get a word out his father said “Some of the human’s have a term for this type of thing you know? That’s how damn common it is for them. They call it “Broken Arrow.”” His father motions his son to step away so others could read the plaque Gwzuc witnesses a sight so rare he forgot it possible his father was in tears. Full blown tears “Caleb was a damn good man you know. Had a wife and daughter, he was going to engineering school on the side, he had every reason to live. That’s how I learned about the human’s now famous look. That was the first time I saw it, you know? We were trying to set up a final line of defense, something, anything to slow the imperials down, buy time for civilians to evacuate, reinforcements to show, hell just praying anything would happen other than our deaths. All looked hopeless, we were in a staff planning meeting. When someone pointed out how close the ammo dump was to their motor pool. A glaring oversight but one an overconfident enemy makes. Saunders had made a comment that was true, if we could get one of our Targeting sensors on the building we could call in a strike to blow it up. The atmosphere and jamming made anything but direct positional targeting impossible, the device had to physically be at a location to be used. It made bombing near impossible for us and they knew it. Sadly we had no explosives to make use of.” Krlinn at this point took a minute to compose himself and finish his story. “We all agreed it would work, but no one would risk their lives like that, it just wasn’t done. Caleb finally said he would do it, I didn’t believe him however seeing the other human’s heorices I should have, and said ok to the plan thinking it was just bravado and he would back out. He just prepared his pack and sensor so I saw him off. When I saw that look in his eye, that look that meant he already knew he was dead and just waiting for it to happen, I thought for just a minute, maybe just maybe he would go through with it, so I took his nametag and sent him on his way. Not putting much stock into it succeeding goddess not even watching his helmet cam, that was until he broke comm discipline and his comm burst with the sound of gunshots and screams, until finally all he said with a grunt was “Standy for target acquisition”. Following that was one giant fireball a few minutes later…” Krlinn looked at his son after giving his son a minute to understand and absorb all of the information he was given. He felt guilty about being annoyed at his dad for taking out of school. After a while all he said was “I’m sorry” before they began to walk back down the hall, Gwzuc looking at every human present through a new lens, partially in awe, partially in fear of what they are capable of.
On the treadmill-like walkway back he heard his father say to himself a poem, but for the first time listening to the words and truly taking their meaning in.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

His father finished his almost mechanical repeating of the poem before saying to his son “Human’s won’t throw their lives away, but they will sacrifice them if needed”
A/N This is my first time writing a short story like this since school, so I’m happy with any criticism. I do hope however you enjoy it! The end poem is not my own work as I hope you all know. All credit for that goes to Dylan Thomas the Poet.

Hi there! I would love some advice. I’m a woman in my late 20s that just moved across the country for a long-term internship.
Let’s back track a bit: I met the landlord a week ago and told me she thinks I would be a good fit for the two gentlemen that already live there. Age? I don’t know. But they work for huge companies in the area, one of whom is at my workplace as an engineer. (That alone could be a pro and a con; power dynamics Not knowing about my roommates didn’t bother me too much at the time. I signed the lease and she took a picture of me to send to the other two roommates so they didn’t freak out when I went to drop off my items before flying back home to pack up the rest of my things.
Fast forward to yesterday: I land at the airport, pick up a few things and realize my delivered mattress was brought inside by one of the roommates. Great. So they must know I’m arriving.. right? I’m at home organizing with my bedroom door closed and I hear someone come in. I didn’t want to open up my door and say hi as they were coming in for fear of scaring them or having them think I was attacking them as soon as they got there. First impressions, you know?
But today I woke up and it seemed there was no one home so I couldn’t introduce myself. Go out for most of the day and come back with heavy disassembled furniture and as soon as I open the door, I hear talking stop upstairs, footsteps rushing, and the slamming of a door. Uh. Okay. So I guess I’m not introducing myself now either. Then I’m going in and out of the house for five trips to the car, up and down the stairs carrying heavy furniture (which would’ve been nice to have help but then again, how can I ask for help if I haven’t even gotten the opportunity to introduce myself yet..), but no one came out. I texted the landlord to ask for the Wi-Fi password and she sent me the number of one of the roommates. Yay, this could be a great chance to introduce myself! So I did. In the text, I wrote who I was and that it seemed we kept missing each other so we never got a chance to be introduced. I thanked them for bringing in my mattress and that I would like to treat them to a drink or lunch to get to know them and say thank you. I then followed that response with asking for the Wi-Fi password so I can complete my work trainings before I begin. But no answer……
Am I overthinking this? I’m getting so much anxiety because I fear they (or one) aren’t/isn’t cool with me being a woman in their house (we all have different cultural backgrounds so that may be playing a role.) Mind you, these people have lived here for several years so they may just have a routine and keep to themselves. Which is totally cool. I can respect if everyone wants to keep to themselves. It would just be nice to be on friendly/civil terms.
Should I have asked the landlord to meet them before I moved in? When I toured the apartment, there was no one home so it wasn’t an option then. But now I feel like that could have been a mistake. I know feel like I need to wait for the perfect time to enter or exit the place so that interactions are kept to a minimum. I hate feeling like I need to sneak back home and avoid contact with people, especially when moving across the country by myself to live on my own for the first time is quite lonely in itself. What should I do? 😭

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(Ooops. Long post. I like to whine.) I was having an ok day. Not a lot of orders, but I was getting better than average tips so I was earning, but my phone was acting up. The last couple of days I’ve noticed the battery has been charging slower and slower. Today I started with 100% charge and the phone still was at 50% a couple hours later with my phone plugged in while I was driving. Finally as I’m looking for an ATT store to try to get some help, my phone dies. I found my way to a store and spent an hour there doing some updates and clearing some storage space. My phone is charged. I’m a little annoyed I had to stop to deal with a phone not working when I’m still paying it off, but I go out to continue with more deliveries. The first job that comes up I thought said 1.2 miles for something like $12, so I thought it’d be an easy order. Unfortunately I didn’t look close enough at the map and mileage before I accepted it because it was more like 12 miles. Still, not terrible, but I was finding all this out as I was going through with the order. First the pick up restaurant wasn’t easy to find. It was on the 3rd floor of a weird multi story outdoor shopping, eatery. The signage for the restaurant was non existent. I had to call the restaurant to find out how to get to it. It was a very fancy Italian restaurant. While I’m walking back to my car with the order I see a text message from the customer saying to use the main entrance when I get there and to use the tablet by the door to get buzzed in. I think that’s helpful, but I’ll deal with that when I get there. I start off to the customer and see it’ll be 15 minutes before I get there. More disappointing news, but I’ve accepted at this point that I’ve misread the mileage and I’ll just finish the delivery and move on. As I get a few minutes away, the GPS has mw pull into a parking garage of what looks to be a very busy mall. I’ve delivered to a couple high rise apartments/condos that shared a parking entrance property with an outdoor shopping center before, so I thought this would be the same, but no, I find out once I’m in the garage that the GPS is leading me into a maze and the condo building is basically at the opposite area of where I’ve pulled into. The gps is changing on me as try to find my way around the parking maze. I try calling the customer to ask for help. She doesn’t answer. I leave a message stating my gps has led me into a parking garage that isn’t taking me to her buildin and that im having trouble getting to her. Im expecting understanding and some help. But instead she texts back “I left you the instructions to get into my building.” In order to get out of the garage and around the outdoor parking lot to where her building is im stuck in stop and go traffic for way too long. I finally make it though thr traffic, get to her dumbass high rise and drop off her order outside her door per the request. I send a final text with the photo explaining that the app gave me poor directions and apologized for the inconvenience. The whole order took an hour and ten minutes. She tipped $2. I feel a deep hatred for yuppies and UberEats right now. Mainly yuppies who are assholes. Being stuck in mall traffic while you’re trying to drop off a delivery to a woman who’s probably bad mouthing and insulting you is a day killer. Die yuppie scum (I don’t mean that).

Approximately in October 2021 my Mother was ill and needed to go to the emergency room. I called her primary doctor to let him know and he told me that she had a “spot” in her lungs that he believed to be cancerous and to let the ER doctors know. (Side note: Yes I’m fully aware he broke HIPPA, but he knew my mother would never tell me or anyone else about “the spot”). She was treated for pneumonia and sent home.
Fast forward a bit, she’s still weak, unable to walk and wasn’t looking great. I called her primary doctor and told him I needed to know what was going on with her health. I couldn’t help her if I didn’t know. At that time I stepped up and began making and taking her to the doctor appointments. All the while she denied that she was sick and by no means she would never admit she had the big C. The only reason I knew was because her doctor told me. She made me swear that I would not tell anyone else, including my two Sisters. This was an extreme secret to be burden with, clarification my mother was not a burden, the secret was!
This was a woman who beat the odds a few times in her life, including surviving a brain aneurysm and two strokes in 2008. It was a long road to recovery, but she beat the odds back then and I guess she thought she could beat the odds this time. She had labs, X-rays and tests galore the results for all of them came trickling in and it was confirmed she had stage 4 lung cancer that had spread to most of her bones. The image showing where the cancer had spread to was lit up like forth of July( you’ll understand the irony in this statement shortly).
She started spot radiation treatments that lasted about 3 weeks, after that she started chemo treatments. Which they did not help, they only made her feel worse.
She never admitted to anyone that she had cancer, she just said she was sick and the doctors didn’t know what they were talking about and that she’d be fine. She obviously had extreme denial.
Through out all of the medical procedures and even on oxygen she still continued to smoke. I had purchased a hospital bed for my house so she could stay with me after her treatments. Her last chemo treatment was the week before Mother’s Day 2022. I called hospice and they began providing some services, but most of her care was overseen by me and my family.
Over the next couple of months her health declined, she was unable to walk,to go the bathroom, take medications on her own and her mental state deteriorated very quickly.
We had to change her diapers, give her medications, feed her, give her drinks, and watch over her 24/7.
Once an able body, competent person she became nothing more than literal skin and bones. She stopped eating and drinking and was in pain constantly. Til the very end she asked for cigarettes and even acted like she was smoking as the cancer spread to her brain. Smoking was so ingrained in her brain and being that it was the only thing she wanted.
For many years when anyone asked her to cut back or stop smoking she would reply “I’ll smoke til the day I die”. Cigarettes literally had a death grip on her until the day she died.
Smoking robbed her of many things: the chance to see her youngest grandchild grow up, the chance to see her oldest Grandchild graduate, the chance to do so many things.
Smoking didn’t just rob her, it also robbed her family of so many things: spending time with their Mom, their Grandma, sharing laughs, watching the grandkids grow up, seeing great grandkids, weddings, birthdays, and so much more.
She was only 71 when she passed away on July 4, 2022.
I promised not only myself, but my children, and spouse that I would not put them threw the horror of lung cancer. I do not want them to have to change my diapers, give me sponge baths, and provide 24/7 care…..all because I was addicted to smoking. I told myself I’d stop smoking by my 45th birthday, I missed that goal, but I’m proud to say as of today I am 12 days smoke free. Stopping the smoking addiction is not easy, but I refuse to put myself or anyone else through that.
If my Mom’s story helps just one person, then her death was not in vain.

Our son is 2 1/2 suspected autistic and severely behind in language. As you can imagine it makes a hard day dealing with an almost 3 year old who can’t convey what he wants. BUT HE WANTS TO. Lots of screaming, tantrums, etc. He also doesn’t sleep well. With 2-5 get ups per night at 20 mins-3 hrs a piece. I do them all.
Anyway, im a SAHM and my husband works 2-3 days a week. We eat fast food literally every day. Because he refuses to cook. And I just find it the biggest chore on the planet.
First I have to do all the dishes in the sink. Because I’m literally the only person who ever cleans them. Then I spend 1-4 hours making some meal and then it takes 10 minutes to eat it and then I have a bunch of dishes afterwards? And then while making said food, and during the dishes, and after that I still have to take care of my son.
It’s just easier to grab take out. But I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of stuff to make food. I found some recipes that still take prep, dishes, etc but cut out the standing at the stove part. Like today I made broccoli cheese soup.
My husband says “Oh okay as long as you’re not just throwing stuff in a crock pot.”
I say a joke is meant to be funny.
He says “I mean it was a little funny, just because your soft doesn’t devalue the joke.”
I say “Our whole lives we eat takeout every day. And I’ve been working very hard on trying to make food. I’ve done so 3 days in a row now. And all you have to do is put me down. Way to show me that if I put forth effort I just get made fun of.”
He says “Okay sorry I hurt your feelings. I thought you were tougher than this.”
It feels like no matter what I do it isn’t enough. I don’t cook he complains that I never cook. And that’s apparently what SAHP are supposed to do. So then I make food in a crock pot, but then he complains that it’s taking the easy way out. Again, he never cooks at all. But when I bring that up, he says he goes to work.
Am I crazy here? How would you guys handle it?
TLDR; I made food in a slow cooker and husband acted like I didn’t do much to make dinner and had an easy day. I feel devalued. Am I crazy?