I started using the Goodreads annual reading challenge years ago. I generally treat it as an arbitrary target to see if I can read that many books in a year. I have found myself in recent years enjoying hitting that goal, and have found myself slotting in more shorter books in my reading between larger stories that I'm reading to help me reach that goal. This has in turn helped motivate me to dive in to some older sci-fi and fantasy works, which are usually shorter or standalone.

If I'm a couple of books off the goal I set at the end of the year I don't mind, but it is interesting looking back over the last few years seeing how this goal has shaped how I read since I've needed to adjust my reading habits to maintain a similar number of books now that I have kids.

I thought it would be fun to see how other Tilders approach this, if at all:

• Do you participate in any reading challenges, and if you do, which one(s)?
• Have you found the reading challenge changing how you read, or which books you read?

I’m here to ask the community for help. I know we’re a neurodiverse bunch, so I’ve got good hopes somebody can relate to this.

My son is currently 16 and has always struggled with basic tasks. He’s gone through many tests and trainings when he was elementary school, but executive functions remain a challenge. From previous tests, we know he has an IQ of over 145. Back when he was tested, the psychologist advised to change his school curriculum to get him more engaged. This has partially worked: he’s been having more fun at school and has had some really cool academical achievements. But his struggle with basic day to day tasks and school work remains the same, and keeping focus is by far the most problematic part of it.

With going to middle school came owning a phone and iPad. From day one, these do get his full attention. Me and my son are much alike when it comes to obsessive behavior, so I sometimes feel like I’m looking in the mirror when I see him with his phone. I too can lose myself in a game and binge it in a weekend. But for me, it isn’t 24/7. I can turn it off when it needs to be off. So I’ve always been strict with rules about screen time for him, but these rules have gone out the window in the last 2 years. There has been lying, sneaking and hiding to increase screen time. It has had a negative effect on our family and it’s draining to have to deal with this daily. I think that’s why we’ve somewhat given up on it, it was impossible to keep in check.

In the past 3 years, he has started to really experience the negative impact of his challenges. We’ve attempted to help him plan his days, to plan his school work, to do chores in the house. But nothing seems to stick and he gets frustrated with himself and it is affecting his mood. In an attempt to find out more about what is causing his difficulties with basic tasks, we’ve asked a psychologist to look into AD(H)D. After an assessment, they’ve now come back with their findings. According to them, it cannot be AD(H)D because he can focus on things he likes (a board game was their example). Their rationale is that people with ADHD cannot focus on any task, even if they like them. They are saying it is his IQ, that he’s too bored to focus on basic tasks. According to them, he should force himself to do menial tasks and that we should be there to enforce this with rules and praise. Like we haven’t tried this already without any results. To say that I’m disappointed and furious about this outcome, is an understatement. It leaves us dead in the water and this makes me feel hopeless.

I’m hoping to gain some insights by reading your comments. This attempt might point us in a new direction, because I’m fine if it is something entirely different than ADHD. I just really want him to feel better.

I'm just copy pasting my reddit writeup since that's where the creator is active. For those curious the basic idea of cosmos (https://cosmos-cloud.io/) is home server with a push towards default safety stuff. Reverse proxy over your docker containers configured to not see beyond their world sort of thing so you can safely control access. I believe it's a one person project and still very much in development, but given that so many people just drop "roll your own, you just need to learn...." as the solution I find this to be vastly preferable, and maybe better than things like CasaOS

Post:
I've had less time than I hoped to really poke at this, so it's a bit rambly/stream of consciousness. Figured I'd put this up as a data point for anyone either considering cosmos, or maybe as some feedback. If anyone wants more detail on a specific part I'll gladly dive in, but for now if I don't put this up I never will. A very large thanks to the various people who guided me on the discord.

Techstack/layout/hardware:

1. Cloudflare domain with proxy active
2. Ubiquiti UDM Pro router
3. MS01 on Unbuntu, in default DMZ vlan
4. Client devices on other vlans(a secure VLAN, technically not the default but similar) or external to network

Personal skill level: I code for a living, but that's probably overstating my skill. Mostly light CRUD apps. Network is a MASSIVE blindspot that I know very little about. This project was in part to help fix that by getting me some practical experience. It's also GROSSLY overspecc'd for my skill level with some hope I can eventually do some more ambitious stuff.

Setup: I had installed Cosmos before and run it locally unsecured/self signed (as provided by just clicking on the button in cosmos), just to make sure I understood "intended" behavior.

My initial hiccups mostly revolved around me setting up port forwarding incorrectly in the router, so i'll skip most of that. Short version is misread something, went down the out of date documentation rabbit hole and then doubled down with some AI hallucinations. In the end it's MUCH easier than I was making it.

All i needed to do was setup a 443 port forward to the static IP of my Cosmos box. It's even limited to cloudflare IPs only, which was just taking the list provided by cloud flare and copy pasting it in. There's a section in ubiquitis network interface for this and it's very straight forward.

From there it was configuring the right tokens so I could do the cloudflare DNS Challenge, which is well documented (went the double token route rather than full key.) Once I found the right pages for that it was simple.

Made my tokens, but was confused as hell because in Comsos it says "you don't need to fill everything out" for cloudflare, and there's CLEARLY duplicate entries, so I wasn't sure if I needed to fill out both.

From what I can tell, you need to fill out the duplicates (so you will double enter your email and your key/tokens). You can leave blank things like timeouts or whatever you're not using (key if using tokens, token if using key). Some clarity on the dupe thing might help.

I do think a small guide on bare minimum DNS config would also help. I was using a root A record and a CNAME wildcard record, and I never got it to working with cosmos. Unsure if that's my fault or not, but when I changed the wildcard to another A record (so A record for root and A record for *), it started working. For someone like me who knows fuck all about any of this, there was a lot of stumbling around with DNS.

Of note I did select allow wildcard domains and .local domains on all attempts. No insecure http local access.

From there it, mostly, started working. Https enabled and everyone can connect....exceeeept .local domains.

This is the part i'm still struggling with. There's not a lot of documentation on .local, just "it will work if you check the box". I'm not sure if it clashes with https, or if i need to self sign, or if it really should be that easy.

My understanding is I just make new url for an app, call it whatever.local, and boom I should be able to connect so long as i'm one the same network.

In practice, I see no traffic hitting the server when I try this(unless on the server itself), and get timeouts from local clients (server does work). I got it to work once from a client on another vlan after trying to curl the https://whatever.local, but the next morning with nothing changed (went to bed right after and just left the machines running), it no longer worked.

I did 100% confirm this worked because I used filebrowser to transfer some large data at speeds that NEVER would have been possible if it wasn't over my local network(everything is wired, no wifi, hence the desire for .local access). Also worth noting that I CAN ping the server locally and ssh to it from my other network, so i'm confident the firewall/vlans are configured correctly for that.

Even for that brief moment when it was working, I STILL couldn't hit domain.local. It clearly exists, but if I can hit it (again from the server box or for that one moment from my other machine) I get the "you should use your domain address" text and cannot continue.

I suspect router shenanigans (i do have mdns enabled on all VLANS), but I'm having a hard time finding logs and what not for this. I'm also unsure if I don't know enough and am doing some config that obviously shouldn't work. I have toggled the "allow insecure local access" option in testing once or twice, but it doesn't seem to change anything. Not sure how long the delay should be.

Small things I noticed that might need fixing/expanding: 1. The initial admin account creation "your passwords do not match" help text is not in English. 2. Small thing but while browsing the market it seems there's a few configs that no longer work or aren't supported. EmulatorJS was the main one that seemed clearly done. 3. Hitting the domain, after logging in but not having touched it since forever, just gives you a "user unauthorized" warning but still lets you putter around the setup. 4. Related to that, it does sorta suck that right now even normal users see so much. I would like to hide a LOT of the interface for some of my users(just show them installed visible apps?), and while I can hide something like a new URL, I can't hide the URL screen, or the market, or whatever. It's "fine" but several test members had to be told "yes i know you can see that, no its fine, no you can't delete or edit, yes i know it looks like you can, yes i've tested, etc, etc" 5. In my testing, I did manage to get my domain IP banned by smart shield due to all the logging in and out. Was easy enough to bounce the box and get back in, but maybe a "heavy testing" mode an admin can enable that has smart shield chill for 30 minutes? Dunno how sane that is given the security first focus and I'm sure I could've whitelisted the IP briefly/neutered smart shield somewhere. 6. When entering your license key, you instantly see a "manage your license" button pop up. I emailed about it because I was confused and thought my license was busted, but just needed to scroll to the bottom and hit save. Just a flow thing that might wan to change. 7. Maybe an early "what is your goal" question? Local only vs using a domain vs using a domain and local access with adjusted config process to skip/auto handle things that could go wrong?
8. The "make admin only" checkbox on every app i've installed, that has it, doesn't appear to work. I have to go into the URL config and manually make it admin only from there. Maybe i'm misunderstanding where/how it's doing this, but some light testing seems to confirm that non admin accounts can access until I do that.

Side issues:

At some point in all this my Ubuntu took a spirited attempt at destroying itself and would let me login and then just show me a cursor and nothing else. Couldn't get to the terminal through the recommended ways, but after sshing to the box locally and changing uhh...the display driver I think?, it's mostly been working, but I cannot restart the machine without issues until I hard shutdown (hold the power button). I doubt this is related to cosmos (either caused by, or affecting behavior), but figure I should mention it just in case. Planning a full reinstall later.

Overall:

I do love it. Cosmos is trying to be something that I think should exist and yet for some reason does not. There's so many ways to screw something like this up and the "well just roll your own" approach is hellishly easy to screw up with extreme consequences. I have a few more upgrades/tweaks to do (get .local working, maybe reinstall the OS and the thus resetup from scratch, NAS for storage of some family videos/photos we want backed up in more than one spot), and I have mostly enjoyed how clear Cosmos has been.

Introduction

Fun Fact: I named my Cat Crono because of this game.

Welcome to Chrono Trigger.
We're playing it for this months CGA.
In my opinion, if you haven't played this game before, you're in for a treat. This game is often considered the gold-standard for JRPGs. Developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi from Final Fantasy, Yuji Horii from Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball.

This year is actually the 30 year anniversary since it's release.
Square Enix has launched some new CDs with the Soundtrack, and a Concert in Tokyo if anyone is interested.
The music is actually what got me into this game. If you want to know, it's this - might be a minor spoiler, but I remember when I first found that music in the game, I was hooked and just stopped to listen. That was the first time since Saria's Song in Ocarina of Time.

So what is this game: I like to think these games are best experienced going in blind, so I will be as vague as possible. (Any additions are welcome). Chrono Trigger is a RPG from 1995. It's got an amazing story, some really interesting mechanics, beautiful characters and an amaing soundtrack. I'll put even the smallest things into spoiler tags, since maybe some people like to go in completely blind.

Chrono Trigger

Versions: Original (1995), PlayStation (1999), Nintendo DS (2008), iOS/Android (2011), Steam (2018)

Platforms: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), PlayStation, Nintendo DS, iOS, Android, Windows (Steam)

Genre(s): Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG), Turn-based RPG

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• Steam -- on sale until Oct 6
• Google Play
• App Store

How Long To Beat:
On a first playthrough, expect about 20-25 hours.
Without giving away too much: there is definitely some replayability.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

• Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

FAQ

October 1st has already hit in some parts of the world, so Timasomo has officially begun!

Posting in this topic is your official entry into Timasomo.

Let everyone know what your actual plans are. What are you going to make?

Anyone who was not already on the notification list will be added with a comment in this topic.

Once the date turns over to October 1st wherever you are in the world, feel free to start creating!

FAQs

Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month": a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of October. (We've been going for SEVEN years now y'all, can you believe it?!)

The best way to get a feel for Timasomo is to check out our previous Showcase topics, where creators share their creations with the community at the end of the event:

• 2024 Showcase
• 2023 Showcase
• 2022 Showcase
• 2021 Showcase
• 2020 Showcase
• 2019 Showcase

There are no hard and fast rules on what you can create. You can make anything!

All of the Timasomo topics will be over in ~creative.timasomo, so if you're interested in participating or following along, make sure you're subscribed there.

All people who respond to this topic will be added to a notification list that I will ping each time I put up a new Timasomo topic. If you do not wish to be added to the list, or you wish to only be notified for the final Timasomo showcase, please let me know.

The Roll Call thread will be posted in ~creative.timasomo on October 1st. That is the official beginning to the event and is where people will formally commit to their projects for Timasomo.

FAQs

This Thread: Planning!

Post your ideas.

Give feedback to others.

Set up collaborations.

Ask questions.

Everything in this thread is non-commital! Bounce around ideas and figure out what you'd like to do in our communal brainstorming session.

Also, please do NOT start work on your project yet! Stage setting, planning, and other preparations are allowed (e.g. getting supplies/materials, setting up workspaces, etc.), but save the creation initiation for the 1st.

Get excited for another GREAT Timasomo!

Flames flicker as the once mighty Orient Express lies on its side in pieces, bodies in cartoonishly thuggish costumes scattered all around. After a long three days full of murder, deception, concerts and romance, its final journey has come to a fiery end.

From the inferno, a single figure emerges in a scorched trench coat, dark hair ruffled by the breeze. He brushes off the coat with one hand and smoothly extends the other, and a solid gold bird swoops down from the sky to perch on it. Red flames flicker along its wings and back, but his sleeve remains perfectly untouched.

He walks away from the burning wreckage, arm still outstretched with gleaming golden bird atop it. Sunglasses descend from the sky and land squarely on his nose. A second smaller pair studded with jewels descends and lands on the bird's beak, managing to somehow look cool instead of ridiculous.

“Time to kick some Nazi ass,” the man declares, and the bird caws.

The train explodes behind them and the air reverberates with a “Yeeeaaaahhhh!”

Note: the above scene may not be 100% accurate or canon.

So concludes the first leg of the Colossal Game Adventure!

We hope you enjoyed your time aboard The Last Express. For anyone who missed the initial boarding period... Well uh, luckily this game involves rewinding time, so you can just rewind here to the Insert Cartridge topic when the train was intact. Feel free to post there if you're just starting the game, or you can post here after finishing even if you're only finding these topics months later.

That said, presumably most of you boarded earlier and had a chance to play the game. As such, this post will not require spoilers to be hidden in dropdown blocks. So if you don't want to be spoiled, please adjust your clock and rewind to the previous post.

Use this post to share final thoughts and impressions, post fun little secrets or easter eggs you found, ask questions if you had to abort your playthrough for whatever reason, link video clips, discuss if you completed any of the meta challenges, etc. Or you can share and express admiration for the very nice official Colossal Game Adventure splash screen made by @Boojum which I meant to link last time on "Press Start", but accidentally pasted the wrong link. I have since fixed it, but that was two nights ago so you probably haven't seen it. And dang it this splash screen is too awesome to go unappreciated!!

Otherwise, we can consider this leg of the journey to be complete. That said, the adventure is only just beginning! Wouldn't be a Colossal Game Adventure with only one game, now would it? You can find the current schedule here. Our next destination will be Chrono Trigger with @ali stepping up as the next host. As for me, my time as conductor has come to an end and I will be joining you all as passengers.

If you intend to continue this journey, you can just grab your luggage from the—uh... *glances at the flaming wreckage* ...Well hey, it'll be a little easier to travel without all that extra weight, right?

Onwards to Chrono Trigger!

THE END

> CONTINUE?

Hi! I'm looking for some fun and interesting casual puzzle games. Some of my favorites, in no particular order, are:

• Sudoku
• Nonogram - like the recent Every 5x5 Nonogram or Picross.
• Tetris - Apotris on GBA is great!
• A few from the Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
• Sokoban
• Catrap on Gameboy, a bit similar to Sokoban
• Dragonsweeper and Mamono Sweeper that people recommended here a while ago.
• Chip's Challenge - Lexy's Labyrinth is a browser-based reimplementation.

I recently joined a tech company purportedly with a mission I believed in. Before joining I had some hesitance about how their product achieved that mission, but I liked most the people I interviewed with and the offer was good. Turns out despite being profitable it’s a dumpster fire of a company led by a terrible person who is actively hostile towards my coworkers and our customers. So, I’ve been looking for a new role to get out ASAP.

Some challenging factors: the market is tough right now and I don’t get as many interviews as I feel I should, SWE interviews remain extremely stupid, and occasionally my brain just shuts off during interviews despite practicing it a million times. So getting an offer isn’t a breeze.

The question I’m wrestling with is should I join another company whose product I’m very skeptical of? It has market traction and many of you may have heard of it, but it’s not very compelling and it’s in the blighted world of social media (which I largely don’t use). My fear is that a bad product may necessarily mean a bad company. The confusion for me is that every single person I’ve interviewed has been incredibly down to earth and genuinely fun to talk to. They all claim to respect work-life balance (it’s remote too) and it doesn’t seem like lip service; they pay very well too. The opportunity to learn skills I can’t learn in many jobs seems compelling.

The role itself is the title I want, but the focus I’m not wild about. It’s a bit more user growth focused than I’d typically want. The problem is my current job is wrecking my mental health and I’m desperate to get out.

I’m interviewing with two other companies with better missions I’d much prefer to work for but both are dragging their feet and lower pay; one pays pretty terrible. I’m rapidly approaching a point where I will likely have a single offer in hand with no guarantee that others will manifest.

Any thoughts or guidance on how to navigate this? I want to approach this as “a job is just a job” and clock in and clock out, but I’ve seen at my current role that is not possible as I carry the stress and despair into my free time. I desperately don’t want to join another toxic company, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse to stunt my career growth either.

Edit: I've made some progress if you want to read the edits at the end.

Last year I started slowly planning out a home server setup with help from Tildes. I've gotten a few things up and running, but have been bouncing off a variety of walls trying to get to the next step.

The first goal was-
"Ok i've got Cosmos up and running for local access using self signed certs. I'd like to get it up and running using lets encrypt and a domain so I can eventually start giving a few family and friends proper logins and external access". Of note, ideally,

This led to a second goal of-
"Gosh it sure would be nice if I didn't have to be sitting at the physical server to do testing and could instead be at another computer in my house. I should probably configure ssh locally (working) and get it to forward windows so I can work in other rooms (not working...)"

"The stack":

Server - MS01 running LTS Ubuntu with Cosmos Cloud installed (well it was, but is currently not)

Router - Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro (of note i've done some minimal guided config of this to try and harden it at a basic level so my cameras and IoT devices are better isolated. Not fully default, but the server is, for now, in the same network/vlan as the rest of my main computers so don't think this should matter.)

Clients - All local windows 10/11 machines for now, although in the off off chance it matters, i'm running nushell in the terminal

Domain Provider - Cloudflare

The SSH Problems:

I have a friend who's set SSH up for themselves with their home server, however they haven't had time to come over and troubleshoot. My rough understanding is "setup VcXsrv, change some configs, then it just works.". Windows these days has ssh built in, and I can SSH to the machine just fine with my key.

ssh -X...less so. I've read some docs, followed some guides, tried copilot, and it all leads to "yeah should work" and it just doesn't. I have configured a ssh config on both machines to allow X11 forwarding, i've started the XLaunch making sure I disable access control, made sure my unbuntu login isn't on wayland and so on. So far, no dice.

If someone has an end to end guide they trust to link, i'll gladly read and start from scratch. I've been cobbling together so many sources at this point i'm very lost. Lots of things jump quickly to "well just use WSL", which yeah ok i probably should test that next, but I was hoping I wouldn't need to (and am unclear if that'll even help).

The HTTPS/Domain Problems:

So..cosmos cloud.

I like the theory behind this software in that it helps enforce best practices so you don't blow your own head off when you screw something up. Maybe it's not the absolute best starting place, but getting it running without a domain was trivial, and more importantly, shockingly well documented. Not perfect, but for what I understand is mostly a one man show it's better than a lot of professional grade stuff i've dealt with.

And so I figured it'd be easy to just do the setup from scratch but choose https and point to my domain. There's been two attempts here, no DNS challenge and DNS challenge

No DNS Challenge Method

Per their docs it seemed easy enough. I'd never touched a DNS screen before but I configured an A record pointing at my WAN IP (eventually...) and disabled the cloudflare proxy.

Well going to that domain took me to my router login. Hmm. After screwing around with port forwarding and router DNS records I never got it to work and felt like I was playing with fire, so undid everything I'd done and decided I'd try the DNS challenge. Of note I could still access the cosmos cloud page from http directly to the IP, where it confirmed it failed to get the TLS cert, but https to the domain wasn't having it.

DNS Challenge Method

This seemed like I was close, and then nothing. I have no idea if i need to do internal routing on the router for this, it just sorta says "Do the DNS challenge, here's a form, you don't need to fill out all of it" which uh...ok.

I filled out what I think I needed to after setting up a token(not an API key) in cloudflare. I'm pretty certain I got that correct as I saw text files with keys created on cloudflare's DNS page and had I screwed that I'm guessing it couldn't have.

However from what I can tell, that's as far as it got. The files nuked themselves 2 minutes later when the TTL expired, and going to the domain locally gave me the cloudflare "our shit's fine, the server is timing out" page. From what I could tell diving into logs, cosmos had the same error, and I couldn't hit cosmos at all, even using the IP and http.

I do however wonder if maybe it did work BUT since I undid the router DNS record before trying this maybe that killed it? dunno.

Any ideas?

That's basically my situation. Figured i'd throw it here and see if anyone has some guidance or troubleshooting they'd recommend. Aforementioned friend who's done some of this before should be free one of these weekends and can probably help, and I haven't tried again since the second attempt. I've thrown some of the questions i've had on the discord and gotten minimal response(although I'm kinda using the thread as a rubber ducking spot as well). Next attempt is probably just DNS challenge again after more research on it and seeing if that works if I put back on the router DNS record, but i feel like logically that shouldn't work.

Oh also if anyone has some general recommended reading so that I can really understand what the hell it is I'm doing I'd love that. There's a ton of networking books/articles/etc, and in general I'd like to learn more about the subject, but I'm curious if there's a go to for people who are techy and trying to dip their toe in all of it the same way I am and setting up a proper home network and server.

Edit:
So after lots of testing, doc reading, and help from the cosmos discord I:

1. Got the DNS challenge to work according to the cosmos logs.
2. narrowed down that the main issue was my UDM pro router policies. Needed a firewall rule and a port forward, and had only done one of those at a time in my various attempts and not realized they were really different.

Now once that was all working and I could hit the site i was getting "likely a false cert" errors, but since i've got all the pieces I'm probably going to try another clean install later and see what we get. Hurrah for troubleshooting, good docs, rubber ducking, and helpful humans.

Edit 2:

Eventually required:

1. Port forward rule in UDM pro
2. Firewall rule in UDM pro
3. Static IP and DNS entry in UDM pro.

One I’d done those things started working. Killed it after that as now I need to think about architecture

Introduction

July, 1914. Paris.

Tensions are high all around the European continent. A long-growing discontent has reached a sharp peak not even a full month earlier with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In the midst of these ever-uneasy days, a young American doctor by the name of Robert Cath gets a sudden invitation from his best friend, urging him to join him on the now-legendary Orient Express.

As he boards the train, he cannot predict the chaos that will follow. Luxurious as the train may be, this will not be an idyllic trip, but the scene of a murder. Blood will be shed, conspiracies will unfold, secrets will be revealed and romance will have a chance to blossom. With the official beginning of the Great War only a matter of days away, he may be the last passenger to step aboard what will be...

The Last Express

Welcome everyone to the first month of the Colossal Game Adventure! I am sure most people reading this will know the details already given the activity on the setup threads. Just to reiterate though, the Colossal Gaming Adventure is a monthly event where we will be playing through older games together. While @kfwyre organized the voting and nomination phases, each month will have a different host. We have seven months' worth of games already scheduled through March 2026, and I have the honor of being the conductor for the inaugural round!

As you saw above, our first leg of this grand journey will have us board The Last Express, a 1997 adventure game about a mystery on the Orient Express. I myself have not played it yet and will be experiencing it for the first time with most people here, because this game seems to be the poster child for hidden gems. A game that received critical acclaim and praise from critics and players alike, and clearly a work with serious passion and effort, but according to Wikipedia it sold only 100,000 copies on its initial release.

Luckily for us, one of those 100,000 copies belongs to kfwyre, who brought it to my attention with this passionate recommendation back in May. That link has some mild spoilers for the very beginning of the game, so you may not want to read it, but here's the key takeaway that made this game so interesting: this game plays out in real time. As you explore the train, characters will go about their set routines and events will unfold off screen regardless of you being present to witness them. These events can set up unknown domino effects that will impact you, and your own choices can also have unforeseen consequences that won't come into play until much later.

To that end, don't be discouraged by failure. Many adventure games of this era rely on trial and error but in this game failure is particularly integrated into the gameplay. Someone might somehow get the luckiest run ever and manage to complete the game on their very first playthrough without ever encountering a fail state, but ultimately, this game will call for a bit of patience. And maybe guides if you have the original version or the hints don't help. Which I personally think is pretty neat. Doesn't get much more classic/retro than looking up walkthroughs on GameFAQs!

So all aboard The Last Express, and enjoy the ride.

Game Information

Versions: Original Release and DotEmu/Gold Edition. The DotEmu version is a re-release which has additional features such as hints and tutorials, which may make it easier.

Platforms: Windows, MacOS, MS-DOS, iOS, Android

Genre(s): Adventure, Mystery, Point-and-Click

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• GOG, Original: The original 1997 release, in all its 1990’s glory for purists. (Also may come with some extras like a soundtrack and "making of" from a 2011 Collector’s Edition published by DotEmu, but which is now wiped from the internet...?)
• Steam, Gold Edition: The remake/remaster released by DotEmu with added hints and tutorials, as well as interface tweaks. (Note: while it lists macOS, the game is 32-bit, which is unsupported by any macOS versions beyond 10.14 Mojave.) This version is on sale for only 11 more hours at the time of this topic being posted!! An extreme time crunch for sure, so if you see this message, now's the time to buy it!!
• iOS (Apple App Store) and Android (Google Play Store). These ports are also by DotEmu and predate the Gold Edition.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

IMPORTANT: Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

IMPORTANT: Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

FAQ

With all the pleasantries out of the way...

> PRESS START

(Credit to @Boojum for the splash screen. It's too awesome not to include!)

I'm attempting to be more active on Tildes (after my last attempt), and I noticed that there hadn't been a new fortnightly thread, so here's my contribution!

https://tildes.net/~health.mental/1oax/victories_and_challenges_an_a_u_dhd_community_and_support_fortnightly_thread

I had an idea for a game some weeks ago, just as the title says. It would be something like Crusader Kings, it's all about dinasties and roleplay, but set in more modern eras, from the beginning of the industrial revolution until today, or maybe the future, we'll see. And instead of kingdoms, it's all about businesses. It's all about owning global company empires. Being a kind hearted local chain owner, or a sociopathic cutthroat in the 1% that owns the world. Up to you.

And this idea is still stuck with me, and I wanted to get back into game development, so I might as well just try it for fun and see what happens.

I picked Godot, 1) because it's open source, 2) it's going to be fun to see how much it developed in the last decade and 3) it's free, and especially 4) I don't want to use commercial engines and risk being affected by something similar to the runtime fee fiasco

I still have to finish some tutorials and make some simple games to get a grip on the engine and see how everything works, but as a data analyst I already have programming foundations and, I think, this project is monumental for someone like me, but I also think it's doable.

I have a very rough idea of how the code will work for the AI. It will incorporate "ticks" like CK, each tick being a day, and some events fire weekly or monthly, where based on the stats and traits, each individual character will calculate how likely they are to accept or reject that event. This event can be about buying shares, accepting proposal marriages, going on a trip, etc.

My main worry here is if GDScript is good enough to handle "intensive" algorithms. If not, I can always use C#, or C++ if I really have to, and adapt the problematic algorithms.

Another is what would be the best database manager for this, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

As for the world, initially I was thinking about being about the real one, but I realized that I may not want to deal with... Well, accuracies. For example, I don't want these businesses to exist in a vacuum, I'm going to try to make a system that interacts both the world's political events and these businesses. I want to create events, like, a country invades another, which creates demands for weapons, and if you own a weapon factory, good news for you! If you own businesses in the invaded country, well, sucks to be you.

So, I want to do those kind of events, but without needing to worry about things like "Portugal would never invade Japan. What is your AI thinking!?" or "Why is Greece an industrial power house?". If a big studio like Paradox has trouble fine tuning their hundreds of nations in their games, me by my alonesome certainly will not be able to do it.

So I'm thinking just making a fictional world, populated by several countries and empires but not as many as the real world. This way I can fine tune it to my liking and without worrying about being accurate with the real world. This is another challenge by itself, with its own cliffs, but it's more doable.

And so far, that's it. After I'm done with the learning phase, I'm going to start a proper planning phase, lay down some key mechanics and develop a prototype.

I wrote this post as a way to put my thoughts down, double check with myself if the idea is good.

But also, to check with the tildes community if you have any inputs. It can be anything: ideas, suggestions, warnings, problems that you know that I'll face, etc. I'll appreciate anything that you can give me

Kingmaker was last night. Some minor spoilers to follow.

Party, Level 3

• Marisiel, Elf Witch
• Nok-Nok, Goblin Rogue
• Linzi, Halfling Bard
• Amiri, Human Barbarian
• Titus, Human Fighter
• Valerie, Human Fighter
• Stik, Kobold Monk

Variants in Play: Ancestry Paragon, Free Archetype, Gradual Ability Boosts, Slow Leveling, Stamina. I also allow Hero Points to adjust the degree of success on a check by one step rather than re-roll; this primarily gets used to either mitigate a crit fail or turn a failure into a success.

Realizing they had just under a week before the Stag Lord's bandits tried to strong-arm Oleg's Trading Post for goods again, the party stopped their trip towards the tatzlwyrm lair and immediately turned around to return to Oleg's to stock up and then head towards the fort.

On the way back, they encountered yet more bandits and, on one evening, an owlbear and its mate. Once at Oleg's, they spent a day turning in their quests and buying some of the goods available at the trading post. When ready, they set out. About twelve miles from the fort, they were about to start cooking dinner when some of the Stag Lord's bandits showed up in a neutral manner, presuming the party to be aspiring recruits. Linzi takes the opportunity to try and get some information out of them by indulging their fantasy.

Titus eventually gets bored and challenges one of the bandits to a duel. The bandit rightfully declines, but Titus begins pushing forward with intent to attack him anyways. Linzi threatened to force him to spend his night in a laughing fit to get him to back off, and he calmed down. Unfortunately, after dinner was taken care of, the bandits took their leave, not wanting to be shanked in the night by the crazy man.

The next morning they stop a few hundred feet from the fort and Marisiel sends her familiar, Youmu, forward to scout the hills since the bandits don't seem to be paying them much mind. Youmu returns shortly and informs Marisiel that something's off about the hill; he suspects undead. Armed with that information, the party decided to waltz up to the front door and just infiltrate by providing the password.

Once inside, introductions are made, stories are shared, and after the party learns that there's a late shipment of alcohol and the Stag Lord loves the stuff, Stik taps into their knowledge of alchemy (via dedication) to create a bottle of booze. The Stag Lord quickly comes out and snatches the bottle before returning to his chamber.

Stik is quickly inducted as the brewmeister, but instead of delivering alcohol to the other bandits, they deliver lightning. In a bottle. One Extreme encounter later (as they triggered the entire compound, including the Stag Lord, and the owlbear was let free at some point), the Stag Lord lies dead on the ground along with most of his lieutenants.

TL;DR: I’m interested in your thoughts about this the current problems in UK higher education, and how they can be fixed.

I recently read an opinion piece in the Guardian about the problems currently faced by UK universities and their students. These problems aren’t new, but they’re getting worse year by year, and Simon articulates them particularly well.

It seems to me that there are three main criticisms of our current university system: that it is too costly for students while failing to fund the universities adequately; that degrees do not provide enough value to students; and that there are too many students attending university, especially (so-called) “low value” degrees, but increasingly also “high value” areas such as STEM.

The main solutions being presented are replacing students loans with a “graduate tax”, shuttering low-quality institutions and degrees, and sending more students to apprenticeships or trade schools rather than universities.

My view on this, as someone who has recently graduated university, and will be returning next year to begin studying for a PhD, is conflicted. I can definitely see that these problems are real, but I’m not convinced by the solutions being offered.

Firstly, I don’t think most people discussing these issues and offering their solutions are addressing the most fundamental problem, which is that universities have forgotten how to, or simply stopped, actually teaching. Many degrees only teach you what you need to know to pass the exams and produce acceptable coursework, which is not the point of a university degree.

This is a very challenging issue, because obviously universities must assess their students. But the purpose of a degree, its value, lies not in the assessment, nor even in the certificate awarded upon its completion (despite what many people believe), but in how you can learn and grow to have a deeper and more rounded understanding of your degree area, and the world at large. A university degree should make you a more curious person and build your critical thinking, enabling you to think through and approach many problems intelligently. But instead universities are continuously lowering the bar necessary to pass, because failing students is too costly for them, and thus also lowering their teaching standards.

The problem, it seems to me, is that the purpose of university is to educate, yet many who graduate university do not display the level of education, understanding and intelligence we would expect them to have achieved after investing at least three years of their life and tens of thousands of pounds in their education. This is not a crisis of too many students, but of a lack of quality in teaching. It seems to me that this has been driven by the funding model, which incentivises universities to grow their cohort size in order to receive more funding. Of course, this makes it harder to teach them all, and thus promotes the lowering of assessment standards so that students of sub-par quality - whether it be their work ethic, prior education, or simply learning at university that lacks - can graduate successfully.

If this is our problem, then I don’t think any of the proposed solutions serve to ameliorate it. This problem is equally common to humanities as it is STEM subjects, so the issue is not in students studying in “low value” degree areas. Whilst an apprenticeship might provide better value to a student in terms of the skills they would acquire, it is addressing a different goal and need to a university education. And while a graduate tax might be fairer than our current loan system (which favour high earners who can pay the loan off faster), it would not solve the currently perverse financial incentives universities are subject to.

The solution to this is obvious, but a hard sell. It is necessary to remove the financial incentive for universities to grow their cohort sizes. It seems to me that we must either fix, or at least cap, the funding universities receive, such that it does not grow with larger student bodies. Perhaps it should instead be linked to some performance metric, or maybe the faculty size - the more lecturers and other teaching staff the university employs, the better its funding. Of course, a complete solution to this will require a lot of thought and nuance, but I think it’s clear that the basic issue is the funding model.

The value to be gained (as a society) from a well educated population is massive, but we are currently selling hopeful high school students up the river with underwhelming university degrees that don’t educate them properly. I believe it’s the wrong answer to say that these students should give up on their dreams of a university education. We need to fix the funding model so that universities are incentivised to provide as high quality teaching as possible, not to provide the lowest level acceptable to as many students as possible.

The Setting

For the past two months I've been dealing with a lot of stress because I've been trying to balance two extremely challenging remote university classes at the same time as my work has been asking more hours of me. More work hours are usually good for me because my job doesn't pay all that well, but they can be challenging because sometimes I'm asked to teach classes that are just outside my area of experience, so I need to spend more time learning the details so I can answer student questions.

This is the last week of classes, so right now I'm extra stressed because I'm trying to finish the last week's worth of classwork. I've still got one assignment to do which I haven't really started because I can't make much sense of this week's material; it's due on Wednesday evening. So my plan was to wake up early, go to the gym to get my workout out of the way, and then go to the library to study until my class in the afternoon.

Last night I discovered the mask for my CPAP unit is broken, so I tried to go to sleep without it.

The Day

If you have sleep apnea then you already know what trying to sleep without a CPAP machine is like; it's a miserable experience. I woke up five times last night, and when I woke up I felt miserable. I took so long to get up because of that, even though I couldn't sleep past 6:30 or so, I didn't actually get to the gym until around 9:00. Today was supposed to be a cardio day to give my muscles a bit more time to rest from my more heavy resistance workouts, but even then I only managed to do 20 minutes of fairly light intensity before I was exhausted.

After that I took a seat to cool down and get the sweat dry before I went to do a massage chair session. I pulled up Tildes and saw that one thread that's making the rounds about being attractive. And I'll be real, it came at just the wrong time. I was super angry about it and I spent more than half an hour writing and deleting all the things I wanted to say. I'm legitimately happy for the poster, but every single word they said made me hate them in that moment. My theme for the past year or so has been learning to love myself, but reading that post made me legitimately feeling like I wasn't just terrifyingly ugly and unloveable, but permanently so. To give you the context for why I felt like that would take a novel's worth of text, so I'll omit the majority of that and just tell you that in spite of losing a great amount of weight, I am still grossly obese, and having been so fat before means that my body is permanently deformed in an extremely unattractive way that cannot be fixed without a series of surgeries that are far more money than I will realistically have within my lifetime given my career; heck, I've already given up on the possibility of retiring. if I had the body of someone who was always at my current weight, it wouldn't be that bad, but as things are my body looks like one of those novelty inflatable "sumo wrestler" costumes that have been half-deflated.

While I was spending that time processing my feelings, I finally decided to not respond to that topic at all and simply click on ignore so that I could get it out of my head. Unfortunately, there is no ignore buton in my head. But at that time I was filled with so much nervous energy I needed to find a way to get rid of those thoughts. It turns out the gym is a pretty perfect place to do that; I skipped the massage chair, took a caffeine tablet, and got on the elliptical again. I pulled up a video workout and worked out all of my anger ("60 RPM is moderate? Fuck you!"). Every time I made a wrong move and my arm fat slapped against my side fat, It gave me more fuel for the fire. It got me fired enough to get through the whole workout, another 25 minutes at a much higher intensity than before.

After cooling down and doing my recovery, I went into the locker room, stripped, and took a shower. Taking a shower in the gym is something that I do partially because I sweat a lot and don't want to make my car stink too much, but on a more personal level it's something that I do as a kind of personal therapy. To do so requires me to lose my self-consciousness and body issues, at least up to an extent. It makes me feel just a bit more normal.

Today someone else was taking a shower at roughly the same time, and they just so happen to have chosen a locker just a few feet away from me. When they finished, they took their clothes out of the locker and moved over to a different bench to change. The obvious assumptions would be that they were doing it because they were trying to respect our space, or it was their modesty or body shame. But let's just say that in the moment it didn't help me feel like I was normal.

After I got out of the gym I got a message from my employer saying I've got a new class scheduled. A good thing, I guess, since many of my other classes have run their course. I could really use the money, and with any luck the classes I'm taking next term are not going to be nearly as challenging.

The Rest of the Day

It hasn't even happened yet. It's not even noon. The title was a lie, I guess.

The question is, then, was this partial day representative of my life? For the most part, yes, it is. I think these thoughts and feel these feelings every day, and I go through the same affirmations and rationalizations to deal with them every day. Today was just a little bit more emotionally intense than normal.

So why did I decide to post it? To be honest, I don't entirely know. Maybe I'm still processing some of those feelings from reading that post that set me off today. Or maybe I just want to say something for people who are dealing with the same feelings. Maybe I'm even feeling a little bit guilty from the impostor syndrome given previous comments I wrote about self-love. But I'm not posting this because I want people to feel sorry for me, or because I need help coping with it. I'm a strong person, and I actually do have a good sense of self-worth and self-love even if it's constantly under threat of the other thoughts in my head. Maybe I'm just selfishly using this public space to process some of my own feelings, or I'm engaging in some twisted form of narcissism. I just hope that you, the one reading this now, have taken something from what I had to say.

For the past year, I've finally been able to have a strong, lasting, cleaning routine. It took me my whole life, but I was never able to go past my own argument of "who cares"? Who cares if the dishes aren't done? If the laundry isn't folded? Only I can judge me. It doesn't matter, ultimately.

But silently, I wasn't happy with that, and I've known I wasn't happy for years, kinda like an addict saying he'll stop but he never does.

One day earlier this year, during winter, while on a good cleaning day, I took some time to look at my old notebooks from college. I remembered a page I had written during some off-time on an internship. I had written a full page of the same line: "I like it when...". I had wanted to just do some introspection and list every thing I liked that came to mind. Stuff like "I like it when I eat pizza", "I like it when I play boardgames with my friend", etc.

Those notes were five years old, you know what was the very first thing on the page? That's right: "I like it when my apartment is clean"

It hit me like a fucking brick. I almost cried right there.

From then on, it was over. The cleaning me had won over the lazy me and I've since been able to keep a clean apartment :)

So, what's your story? How did you overcome a challenge in your life?

I keep getting messages in my email inbox or LinkedIn like:

> Hi, 
> I’m seeking a genuine partnership where only a USA software engineer can truly collaborate with me. 
> I value transparency and real results. 
> Things to do are very simple and I guarantee 3K~10K/month income for you.
> I’m ready to prove my credibility and discuss a win-win business. 
> Thank you!

Hello $their_name,

Why do you need a USA engineer and what do I need to do?

- $my_name

> Thanks for reaching me out.
> 
> I run a software development team with five talented developers who specialize in frontend, backend, full stack, AI/ML and blockchain technologies. Although we have a strong team, we are struggling to find enough jobs right now. As you may know, the economy in Europe is tough and low salary as well, so we are trying to find more opportunities in the US and Canada. However, this is challenging for us because of time zone differences, language barriers, and many US clients preferring to hire local people like you.
> 
> To solve these issues, I'm actively looking for someone who can help us in getting more jobs in the US. Since you are a US citizen, you can create accounts on job platforms like Indeed, Dice, Upwork and Wellfound. I think you may have already heard about Upwork. It's a world famous freelancing platform. After setting up your accounts, if you allow me to use them, I will apply for jobs by myself. When I receive interview requests from clients, I will notify you so you can attend the meetings. During the interviews, I will support you by quickly sending you the right answers to any technical questions that come up.
> 
> Once we secure a job, our team will handle all the development work, including any test projects. We will share the profits from the work we do, with a split of 30% for you and 70% for our team.
> In short, your role would be to connect with clients and help us secure jobs, while our team takes care of the technical work. This is a great opportunity for collaboration and growth.
> 
> And there is one thing I need to tell you about using your account. Several platforms have very strict policies with ip addresses. If i use your account on my own machine, your account will be risky because ip addresses are different. And also they detect VPN, VPS, and some cloud services as well. To address this, we need to use your spare laptop. I will use your account on your spare one using a remote desktop application like Anydesk. Anydesk is a secure and safe remote desktop application.

> Greeting,
> 
> I hope this message finds you well. My name is Cuong, and I came across your information on your website ( WE need it ). I am excited to share that I have a potential long-term collaboration opportunity that I believe could be mutually beneficial.
> 
> We’re a fast-growing IT consulting company based in Malaysia, with a talented team experienced in web2, web3, mobile development, and AI. As we expand into the U.S. market, we’re actively seeking a reliable business partner—someone like you—to grow together.
> 
> Here’s how we can support you:
> - Proactively apply and schedule interviews on job platforms on your behalf
> - Optimize and refine your resume and LinkedIn profile to stand out
> - Provide technical guidance to help you succeed in interviews
> - Take care of the actual development work once new projects are secured
> 
> If this sounds interesting to you, feel free to reach out. We’d love to hear your thoughts and explore how we can collaborate!
> 
> Looking forward to connecting with you.
> 
> Best Regards
> Cuong

Some of these messages are even from people who are well-connected to former bosses and managers and other talented people that I personally know. They aren't coming out of my spam folder.

I know I'm not special in this. I'm not the only one. They are throwing spaghetti on the wall until the meatballs stick, etc.

But I thought... what if I could use this to my advantage? I would still need to do the interviews but they could do the legwork applying for jobs and reaching out to companies, connections that they already have, and then when they deliver the job contract I cut off contact with these nebulous associates? And I join the company like normal.

Thoughts?

I'm starting to use AI increasingly, and am getting some value out of it. I'm curious if paying for paid tiers of the big players (in particular, ChatGPT and Claude) provides significantly better responses.

I'm aware that the paid tiers offer more features and benefits than just higher response quality. For me, those are just nice-to-haves, and not my primary concern.

My main uses of AI are software development and foreign language learning. So far, I've used the free versions of ChatGPT and Claude, as well as "proxies," including Github Copilot and Duck.ai. For both my use cases, I've found the responses usually good and helpful. I just maintain a healthy skepticism about the correctness of the answers, and challenge, test, and double check where needed (especially testing suggested code when developing software).

Have you found response quality to be noticeably and significantly better with paid tiers? I was just randomly thinking, and it occurred to me that the cost of an AI subscription is in the same ballpark as a subscription to a language learning service like Duolingo. So, if I can get value from AI that approaches what I'd get from a dedicated language learning service (even if it doesn't quite match or exceed it), then also getting the value of general AI in the same subscription should make things quite valuable and worth it. Not to mention possibly getting better software development assistance in the same package.

tl;dr - Is it normal for 6 year olds to randomly start throwing massive tantrums. My son up to this point has been very mild mannered and not prone to getting upset. But the last few weeks have been insane.

My son (6) has been going through something that is just really challenging the heck out of me. It started a few weeks ago when we were getting ready to leave for trip to visit family a few states away. He complained that his stomach hurt and began sobbing and begging to take a bath. So we accommodated and let him take 3 baths in a single day because we figured he just wasn't feeling well. We scheduled a doctor's appointment and the doctor just suggested a bland diet for a day and see how it plays out. After that he didn't really seem to have any issues, so we went ahead with our trip.

The hours-long drive didn't seem to faze him at all and we arrived safe and sound, despite a heavy rainstorm on the way. Over the course of the trip, every time we tried to drive somewhere to meet up with family, he'd claim he was sick and if we pushed on it, he'd throw a tantrum. Which is very unlike him, to be clear. And anytime we weren't talking about a car ride, he was acting pretty normal. We thought maybe it was anxiety from the drive there? The rainstorm was very intense at times, and I can see how that could be incredibly scary for a kid.

We spent the rest of the trip hyping him up for the drive home. My wife and I both have anxiety disorders, so we tried to help him understand that we knew how he felt and offered some advice (in a 6yo friendly way, to the best of our abilities). We also maintained a relatively bland diet for him in case he actually was feeling sick. But anyway we were absolutely dreading the ride home.

Just getting him and his sister in the car proved to be the absolute worst day of my parenting life. He threw the tantrum of tantrums, which set his sister off and she kept trying to escape from the car. Meanwhile it was 90F+ outside and our car's AC doesn't really kick in until you start driving. I was hot, upset, angry, scared, frustrated and just not operating at peak parental power. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of trying to hold them into their seats so I could buckle them, and all of it obviously just made the situation worse. I really fucked it up and I'm still trying to work through it all.

Long story short, we ended up separating him and his sister, with him driving home with us and his sister driving home with my parents. Once his sister was out of the car, he calmed down and we were able to leave. The plan was to just drive off and get some gas, let them both calm down, then pick her back up.

I had to go on a work trip shortly after that trip, so I was away for most last week. In that time my wife didn't try to take the kids anywhere, for fear of having a repeat incident, but solo and outnumbered by the kids. When I got back I started trying to hype my son up for the car ride to his and his sister's 6th birthday party the next day. He tried to negotiate saying maybe we could just walk instead of drive. I explained, "no it's a short car ride, but we couldn't walk there".

When the time came to take him to the party, he threw a tantrum, but I redirected using my car's remote start fob (he really liked that) and I talked him down a bit. The ride to the party was fine, as was the return trip. Then yesterday we did a trip to Gamestop so he could pick out a birthday present for himself and again the trip both ways was fine (with zero tantrum!). Although he has yet to get in the car with his sister since we got back from our trip a few weeks back and he has specifically called out not wanting to be in the car with her.

BUT the last two nights he's started throwing the exact same type of tantrums at bedtime, claiming he can only sleep in our bed and he's sick and his legs hurt and all these other things. When told no, he screams bloody murder, starts kicking and hitting, and it's really difficult for me to handle that. The tantrums of course set his sister off and then we have two 6yo twins feeding off each other's sadness and anger like two colliding hurricanes.

Is this just normal 6 year old stuff? I know they're still learning to regulate emotions and so maybe that's it? His sister went through something like this a few months ago, but it was exclusively about bedtime. She'd throw massive tantrums at bedtime while he'd just quietly go to bed. So that kind of reinforces that this is just a growth spurt of some sort? But I'm getting concerned it's something else, but I don't know what?

I would like to upgrade my aged 8 years old laptop and I'm completely undecided about which laptop to buy right now.

I considered Apple Intel laptops terrible, bad thermals, overpriced, unreliable, touch bar (uggg), I hated every second working on it, when the company I work for upgraded me with a M1, it was such a huge improvement from any laptop I have ever tried, absolutely no noise, incredibly performant and the longest battery life of any laptop by a lot.

I still don't like the Apple ecosystem, and I would prefer to use Linux as my main OS, but I can't find anything that comes even closer for the price of a Mac Air, If I go with Framework I'll get a less performant machine with a way worse battery, I honestly don't think the premium on repairability is worth for me when I don't have any issues repairing more challenging laptops, at the end repairability will be how easy is to get new parts.

ThinkPads have good reputation and repairability, but for what I see, the quality has gone down the drain in their latest models, and if I go with their premium models I get similar performance to Apple with worse battery, Dell has similar issues.

Gaming laptops are not an option, I don't do any PC gaming and the size and aesthetics are a dealbreaker for me.

The main issue seems to be that until ARM processors become better competitors to Apple, the battery life will be always the bottleneck, and I don't know how good the new Snapdragon X Elite compares right now.

Besides web development, photography edition and video editing (4k), I don't do many demanding tasks, I'm more than fine with the performance of a M1 as the baseline.

As an alternative, I'm thinking about getting a powerful desktop for the demanding tasks and a less powerful laptop with a good battery and screen, but ideally I would prefer a single machine.

Welcome to the inaugural thread! It is important to me that this is an inclusive space; and it should evolve to serve the needs of the community.

What is this space?

It is intended as a community space, primarily for those of us with ADHD and/or autism; but it should be open to evolution on what is explicitely encouraged (because all are welcome). It intended as a space to vent about your struggles and challenges in a space where there is implicit understanding of the issues we face with these diagnoses. It is intended as a space to celebrate your achievements and victories with those who understand why those are as meaningful as they are, even the little ones. It is intended as a space to seek support with related issues — like requesting accountability partnering, chunking, rubber-ducking, et cetera. It is a place to post news and articles about ADHD and autism that are of interest to the community. A place for discussion. And a place to be serious and silly together with folks who understand.

All are welcome to participate here. While generally on Tildes I would expect most participants to accept that ADHD and autism and the like are real diagnoses, I would expect those participating here to either have those diagnoses, understand those diagnoses, or if someone wants to learn more, to ask questions here with an open mind — i.e. this is a positive and supportive space.

All are welcome to participate here. Not just those with these diagnoses. The self-diagnosed are welcome. Support is welcome to be sought by those with ADHD-adjacent issues: for example, depression can cause executive function issues such that accountability partnering could be helpful. Feel free to seek such help here.

Your feedback is requested and valued. This community will evolve to fit the needs of those who participate here. What works will be retained; what doesn't work will be dropped. I am your facilitator, not dictator; and while for this first thread I am speaking with my voice, as we evolve things and figure out what works, I will rephrase whatever text that gets posted each time into a passive voice. I just want to reassure you that while I'm taking a leadship position to get the ball rolling here, I will be removing myself from this so it truly is a community space for us all. But to start, you gotta have someone doing the thing. :)

For now, I'll create one top-level reply that requests for support should be posted under. The idea is that it makes it easier for those wishing to volunteer to help can find the requests more easily. We'll see if that works or not.

It is my humble opinion that one should be encourged to post as you wish. If you want to post multiple things in a top level reply that are going on, great. If you want to make two little top level replies about different topics, even on the same day? I think that's also fine. Don't be shy about posting.

I think a fortnightly thread feels about right to start. Too frequent and things can get lost. Too infrequent and the thread might die out before we get a new one. But as with everything else, feedback is desired. By coincidence of when the idea was had, I'm posting this one on a Friday. If you'd prefer a different day, that's feedback that is welcome.

Welcome to your space! Help make this space be what you want it to be. <3

edit: Forgot to post where this came from:

Most recently: https://tildes.net/~health.mental/1oac/proposal_adhd_support_thread_reoccurring

Less recently: https://tildes.net/~life/1o92/how_my_life_changed_with_adhd_medication#comments

That first thread had such a sense of community that I want that to keep going, basically. :)

This is a long mind dump of my history with D&D, my love of it, etc.

tl;dr - I love D&D. I liked DMing briefly. My group broke apart. I miss D&D.

Around 6 or 7 years ago a friend invited me to play D&D for the first time. I met a bunch of new people through this group and while a lot of people came and went throughout our two campaigns, there was always a core group of 3 of us that were always present.

At first it was very nerve-wracking. Not only because I was still learning the mechanic, but also because there's a certain amount of performance and vulnerability in getting into your character. While at home I'm always dropping into silly voices to make my wife laugh and I've gotten pretty good at doing various accents, cartoony voices, etc., at the table I couldn't do any of it. I had stage fright in front of a group of very accepting and kind friends. And it took me a few sessions (and beers) to push through it and be my authentic, goofy self in-person like that. In a way, it helped me grow as a person.

Eventually our DM moved far away and a bunch of players were left without anyone to lead our games, so we just didn't play for about a year. During that year I began thinking about DMing. My grasp of D&D's mechanics have never been great, but in that year Baldur's Gate 3 came out. And I hear some of you groaning because I know it's not a 1:1 match with 5e's rules. But it helped fill my knowledge gaps enough that I felt sorta okay DMing. So I offered to DM.

My first session was a premade campaign from the Starter Kit. Almost immediately I wanted to tweak the story, insert old characters of mine, throw in a few references my friends might get, stuff like that. I think we made it like 2 sessions in before I announced I'd be making my own damn campaign (with the group's support, mind you). But again, between my friends support and pushing myself, I was able to tackle some of my social anxiety because the challenges of running the entire game are completely different from the challenges of being a player.

I dove head-first into this new campaign. I wanted to do this massive campaign as a love song to puppetry because I grew up around my parents running a puppet ministry at church. So between that and Sesame Street, The Muppets, Lambchop, etc. I have this deep love of puppetry as an art form. And somewhere along the way, someone suggested a pirate theme, so I combined them. Thus I began working on a Muppet Treasure Island inspired D&D campaign.

I don't think I realized my capacity for creativity until I began working on this campaign. I never thought of myself as someone who needed a creative outlet, but holy shit was creating the D&D campaign a wonderful outlet for my creativity. I spent hours during and after work just writing and making maps. It was so fulfilling, even though the story itself was, in retrospect, kind of all over the damn place. Yet again, D&D helped me grow a little bit as a person. It gave me a creative outlet. It gave me fulfillment that I was critically lacking at work.

And then we started running the campaign. Session 0 was via Zoom and we all got excited about it. Session 1 was a pretty standard "you wake up as felt creatures on a mysterious beach and are quickly taken prisoner by King Friday, but let loose by his royal advisor X The Owl to help him solve a global problem because reasons" plot. But it was fun and I felt so alive.

Then session 2 one of the players had to bail...and I was not going to let that prevent the session from happening, so we just worked around it. Then by the time I was scheduling session 3 that player bailed completely. Session 4 was a bit messy/rushed on my part...and then everything just started to fall apart. Weeks went by, then months, now it's been nearly 2 years I think? We never even got off the starting island...all the story I wrote...all the maps I'd created...just completely unused. And it was soul-crushing. I felt like I'd wasted my time. I felt stupid for having put so much effort into something that fell apart so quickly.

But that was a bad attitude on my part, in retrospect. It wasn't a waste. I enjoyed every second of it. It was fulfilling. It was fun. So I'm thinking about returning to it and just fleshing out the rest of the campaign a bit more. I'm hoping to watch a lot of Dimension 20 in the coming weeks to get me back in the mood and take what I learn from it and just get back into D&D. Honestly I don't know that I want to DM again because I think that core group is done for when it comes to D&D. And it's hard to imagine finding another group I feel that comfortable with, but maybe? I think it's okay to just worldbuild for worldbuilding's sake, ya know?

But I do miss playing. I miss being in-character. I miss coming up with silly backstories and goofy premises for a character. I miss talking in funny voices for other adults (my kids get the bulk of it, these days). I miss making people laugh and contributing to them having a good time. And D&D was a perfect outlet for all of that. One of these days I'm going to find the motivation and courage to just find a group of strangers to join and try to quiet the social anxiety enough to enjoy it.

After talking about it a few months ago my copy of the game finally arrived. @MimicSquid and I met up in San Francisco today and finally got to play Hide&Seek. It was a good time and it was neat to have a better sense of how the game plays instead of just watching it on Nebula. We're planning on playing again in the not too distant future, so if anyone would like to join in on the next one, please let one of us know (we both thought that it would play better with at least three players).

Epigraph has been a joy, especially when you consider that it's only $3.

I love puzzle games like Portal, The Outer Wilds, Etc., but when I try to explore further in the genre, I often struggle to find many that provide a sufficient challenge.

I found that Epigraph, while short overall, provided a solid 4-6 hours of playtime.

The goal in the game is decipher a series of stones and tablets containing a totally unknown language.

The Zachtronics games are also phenomenal and probably even more difficult overall if you're like me and looking for a challenge.

Message for Deimos or anyone else on Tildes development

I'm putting this here after writing the rest of my post, but could we please get an "expand edit window" option, unless there is one and I'm blind? The preview window's great but the edit window's locked to 6 lines and I would appreciate some more since it would make editing a long post like this much easier. Thanks.

The actual post

There has been a lot of gaming buzz regarding extraction shooters as of late, with the closed alpha of Bungie's Marathon currently underway, the second tech test of Embark Studio's ARC Raiders starting just now, and the recent news of the cancellation of a Titanfall extraction shooter from EA/Respawn. As someone who's played and enjoyed extraction shooters before I've been following these and observing the discourse surrounding them (except the Titanfall one, I didn't even know that was a thing til the news of its cancellation) and I've been somewhat dismayed to see a lot of confusion, mixed messaging, and general disdain for the genre. So I've decided to put my own thoughts and definitions of it down here, and clear up the most common misconceptions or falsehoods I've seen repeated ad nauseam elsewhere.

A brief introduction to extraction shooters

First off, what IS an extraction shooter, what makes it different from other shooters, notably battle royales, and which games qualify as extraction shooters? An extraction shooter, as its core gameplay loop, is a shooter where you enter a map with loot and AI enemies scattered about, and the goal is to gather loot and extract from the map with it. However, you need to get out alive - should you die, you will lose everything (with some exceptions) in your inventory, including the gear you went in with. On top of that, the most popular and successful extraction shooters are PvEvP - you will be competing with other real players for loot, and taking loot off their bodies can be just as profitable if not more so than taking it from PvE enemies. It is optional though, and it is entirely viable to play as a "rat", sneaking around and gathering loot without drawing attention and extracting without anyone noticing.

Not a battle royale

Extraction shooters are also frequently confused with battle royales as both games have players inserted into a PvP map where they scavenge gear. However, the similarities more or less end there. With battle royales, you do not risk losing your items on death as all players are dropped in with nothing and don't have a stash to draw from or store items in, so any "loot" found is merely a means of securing victory for the current round. PvP is also mandatory, as the goal is not to get loot but to be the last team/person standing. To facilitate this in a timely manner, battle royales have a shrinking map mechanic that forces the remaining players into a smaller playable area as time goes on to force them into a confrontation. Extraction shooters do not force PvP or have shrinking maps but do have their own ways of drawing players towards each other, through loot-rich points of interest and extraction zones. Some parts of the map will have greater quality and/or quantity of loot, which will naturally draw players in, and there are a few designated areas where you can actually leave with your loot which will also increase your odds of encountering other players either trying to take your loot before you can leave, or trying to leave themselves. Because it is not forced though, PvP encounters are a much more unpredictable and organic experience in extraction shooters.

What extraction shooters are out there?

So which games count as extraction shooters? The current leaders in the genre, which also happen to be some of the longest-lasting ones, are Escape From Tarkov (EFT) and Hunt: Showdown. EFT is a rather hardcore modern military FPS with a heavy focus on realism - guns are extremely customizable, ammo types and armor can make a huge difference, bullets are extremely lethal even from AI enemies, and a good headshot will drop even the most geared and armored player so there's always risk. It has a cult following but its hardcore emphasis makes it unapproachable for most. It also has periodic progression wipes where players have to start over from scratch to keep things fresh and more fair for newcomers, but is a major turnoff for players that don't like to lose what they've earned. Hunt is an FPS set at the end of the 19th century with a bit of dark magic/voodoo theme. Guns are reflective of the times and rather limited in terms of rate of fire and reload speed, which results in more drawn-out firefights where every bullet counts. For each round, the focus isn't to get loot around the map but rather to track and hunt down a bounty boss monster, then extract with that bounty. These two games are what will come to mind first when extraction shooters are mentioned, EFT more so.

I won't go over cancelled (Titanfall), discontinued (The Cycle: Frontier), or side game-mode (The Division's dark zone/survival) extraction shooters here, which is basically almost all of them sadly, so I'll talk about the two biggest up-and-coming ones instead, Marathon and ARC Raiders.

Marathon and the surrounding controversy

Marathon is a sci-fi FPS that uses the lore of Bungie's Marathon trilogy from the 90's as its setting. You play as a "runner" in a robotic shell scavenging the remains of the colony on Tau Ceti IV for scrap to fulfill contracts for the megacorporations involved in the colony's development who now seek to find out what went wrong. It checks the usual boxes for an extraction shooter - you go in with your own loadout, scavenge at points of interest to fill your limited inventory, defeat PvE enemies and other runners for loot opportunities, and try to extract alive before time's up. There are a couple things of note that have resulted in mixed opinions:

• The art direction for runners, gear, and architecture is a sort of mass-produced, neon-colored, smoothed plastic, blocky style, which is a "love it or hate it" kind of thing.
• The gunplay is very similar to that of Destiny, Bungie's last game, which in my opinion is very solid. However, they did make the decision to have mouse magnetism enabled for PC (your cursor will magnetize to targets) to give it more parity with console players, and that has been very unpopular.
• The only queueing option is teams of 3 and the devs have stood their ground on not having a solo or duo player queue, which is a turn-off for players that prefer solo, or don't want to play with randoms and don't have 2 friends to play with.
• Players do not have full customization of their runners but must choose from 6 runner archetypes that have a set of abilities and a specific look, which can be partially changed with a skin. This is also largely unpopular, as Bungie's past titles have featured high levels of cosmetic customization and this feels largely restrictive and monetization-focused instead.
• There is no option for proximity voice chat, which the devs have said was excluded to protect players from toxicity. This has also proved to be very unpopular.
• It will have seasonal progression wipes which will reset faction reputation and clean out player vaults, which is unpopular among players that like to hoard their loot, especially many Destiny players.
• Supposedly there will be more "raid-like" PvE experiences on an as-of-yet unreleased map that takes place aboard the Marathon colony ship, but how mechanically complex those are or whether or not that will be enough to attract PvE-oriented players is pure speculation at this point.
• It will not be free-to-play, but rather released at a "premium" but not full game price point, which most people are assuming to be $40 USD.

The game is set to release in September this year, but based on the feedback Bungie is getting from players in this very first alpha, they will need to take this feedback very seriously and make a number of changes in the few months they have left, or risk a very rocky release and potentially financial failure. Many players seem to want Marathon and Bungie to fail, notably vitriolic Destiny veterans that feel like they were snubbed out of Destiny 3 for this, but as someone with over 2000 hours in Destiny 2 myself I want it to succeed, whether I play it or not. I'd rather there be more fun and successful games than major failures, and wishing for something to fail just because it isn't what you want is incredibly petty.

ARC Raiders, the underdog

ARC Raiders is a third person shooter set in a post-apocalypse where robots called ARC have devastated the surface of Earth and humanity has retreated underground, sending "raiders" to the surface to scavenge for tech and goods. It's developed by Embark Studios, which is made up of ex-DICE (Battlefield) developers, and their other title is the well-received but niche PvP shooter The Finals. Mechanics-wise, there isn't anything particularly unique about this extraction shooter - limited mobility, limited inventory space, PvE enemies, points of interest, extraction points, etc. However, it seems to check all the boxes of what players want and it does it well while making the experience more casual and accessible:

• There are "safe pockets" where players can store a few loot items they won't lose on death (Tarkov does also have this, Marathon and Hunt do not).
• There is proximity voice, and also a quick emote menu for giving vocal commands, directions, and responses.
• The art direction is realistic post-apocalypse with high graphical fidelity and semi-futuristic robots, which is "safe", but still good looking.
• The audio design is phenomenal. Distant gunfire, supersonic cracks of rounds, bullets ricocheting off surfaces, large bots stomping around from blocks away, player footsteps on different surfaces and within enclosed spaces, quadcopter drones buzzing, larger bots with unsettling and deep "roars", and more.
• There isn't a solo or duo-only queue, but there is solo-matching priority at least, so you're more likely to be placed with other solo players.
• There is a clear progression path in the form of a workshop you can upgrade with scavenged materials, and a deep skill tree with multiple branches.
• Raiders are not class or hero-based and are freely customizable by the players in terms of loadout and appearance.
• Chaff PvE enemies are relatively easy to defeat but still dangerous. Aside from eliminating them as threats, they can drop materials or items to recharge your shields so they're not just a waste of ammo. Non-chaff PvE enemies can be significantly more dangerous and harder to defeat but will have valuable loot.
• There is already an example of a PvE "boss" robot guarding a point of interest which requires some mechanics to collect the loot within it. The boss itself is very challenging to defeat, even with multiple teams fighting it, but should reward top-tier loot.
• While the game was initially announced as free-to-play, the devs have since switched to selling it at at $40 USD.
• There are "battle passes" in the game in the form of shops players can unlock using a currency that is earnable in-game, or purchased with real money (like warbonds from Helldivers 2 for any helldivers reading this).

Overall, the game is shaping up to be a more accessible extraction shooter for the wider gaming audience and very serious competition for Marathon. No official release date has been announced but they are planning on releasing some time this year.

The stigma around extraction shooters

I've mentioned various things about extraction shooters that may be contributing to their unpopularity amongst the wider gaming audience throughout the post, but for the sake of cohesiveness and for all the folks that just want a TL;DR, I will collate and expand on those ideas here:

• Confusion with battle royales - I've seen some people confuse extraction shooters with battle royales and say "the market is oversaturated with extraction shooters, dead trend chasing game" or something along those lines. It's hard to call a market oversaturated when there's only 2 successful and very niche games in it, but if you incorrectly lump all the battle royales in that makes more sense.

• Escape From Tarkov is a bad poster child - When people do think of extraction shooters (and not mistakenly battle royales), they will default to EFT, which is notoriously hardcore and "sweaty". It would be the same as never having played an RPG, and being introduced to it with Dark Souls, which would understandably turn away anyone that isn't looking for that kind of experience.

• PvP and losing progress - The game always having a PvP element is already discouraging to PvE-focused players, and this is only made worse by the chance to lose your gear if you die. Many players are strongly opposed to losing progress, and losing multiple times in a row due to other players defeating them when they just want to do PvE and get some loot is an awful experience that they don't have to have in a different type of game.

• Progression wipes are anathema to hoarders - On top of potentially losing progress on a round-to-round basis, seasonal progression wipes also threaten to reset progress entirely between seasons, While they are effective at keeping things fresh, players that like to have 400+ items stored away in their vault that they will never use and just admire from time to time revile this concept. Less hoard-minded players may be concerned about their potential inability to max out their progression, the fear of missing out induced by temporary progression, or the pointlessness of even progressing if it gets wiped anyway.

I didn't read any of that, are extraction shooters for me or not?

Well, that depends. If you:

• Don't mind or enjoy a mixed PvEvP experience
• Are ok with the idea of loot and progression being temporary
• Like the higher stakes of potentially losing your inventory and gear, or taking someone else's
• Are ok with inventory management, even in the middle of a round
• Are not terrible at shooters

Then yes, extraction shooters may be fun for you! They certainly aren't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with not enjoying one or the genre in general, but if you do, they offer a very unique gaming experience. If you are interested, keep an eye on ARC Raiders and Marathon - they aim to be more accessible than previous extraction shooters and it's a lot easier to get in on a new game than join one with a veteran playerbase.

I have been playing Pikmin 2 on Dolphin and have been enjoying it quite a lot.

For the most part, progress has been slow, but today I found the blue Pikmin (I somehow managed to find the yellow ones first and played a bunch of the game without the blue ones), and that just got me so excited that I basically completed Valley of Repose in just one day (the two remaining, farthest caves and every treasure above ground). I’m on day 13 now, have over 90% of the debt paid off, and not a single Pikmin has died on me.

You don’t need to understand the previous paragraph if you don’t know anything about Pikmin. My point is that I’ve been playing through the game rather fast and better than I would on real hardware.

Why?

Save states. ❤️

I love emulation, but I don’t like how “janky” it can be. I don’t like that it doesn’t 100% emulate (pun intended) the “feel” of playing on original hardware.

But boy, oh boy, do I loooooove save states. 🥰

They enhance the gameplay experience so much for me. They enable me to have perfect playthroughs, both in terms of the game’s objectives, as well as my play style (like me not wanting to sacrifice any of my Pikmin, for example).

Do save states make the games too easy at times? Perhaps.

But that’s the point for me.

You see, I don’t want video games to challenge me.

Life already challenges me enough as it is.

I play video games for fun, and I’m not having fun if I’m struggling too much to beat a video game. When I finally beat a difficult challenge in a game, especially if I had to struggle to do so, then I feel frustrated more than I feel that I achieved something.

Is my dislike of challenges, whether in real life or in video games a character defect? A sign of weakness?

Perhaps.

I do face challenges in real life. I have to, or else I won’t survive.

But when I come home and sit down to play a video game, I want it to be a fun and chill experience. I want to feel like a champ who breezes through the game. I also don’t want to waste too much time trying to beat one overly-difficult game, but rather experience as many different games as I can.

Life is too short and I don’t want mine to be wasted by challenging video games.

I have nothing but mad respect for you if you play video games for the challenge, but that just ain’t me.

As one of my favorite YouTubers Mr. Sujano would say: “Don’t temp fate, save your state.”

tl;dr: Happy (?) ending

I wanted to post a short follow-up to my post last week, as things have progressed very quickly.

The most important thing I would like to say is "thanks" to everyone who chimed in with your very helpful advice, well wishes, and support. I took everything you said to heart (which is probably a risky thing to do from random internet folks, but this community is simply different).

Everything just clicked for me as I was going for a run last Friday and talking out loud to myself in a sort of stream of consciousness manner. I probably looked like a crazy person. Honestly, I don't know where the words came from, but it was all crystal clear.

I went home and asked my wife to talk "just one more time... and this time it will be different, I promise." I told her that I have come to terms with her decision and I respect it. I also asked her if my understanding of what went wrong made sense, and she said I hit the nail on the head. So I have a starting point for what I need to start working on personally.

We talked for a long time and started going through logistics. We are both on the same page about raising our son in a healthy manner. We will be doing equal shifts (week on, week off) and will find places to live relatively close to each other. We plan to remain friends and meet up regularly for our son.

On top of all of these things that happened VERY quickly on Friday, I found out that my mother fell and broke her hip on Saturday. She's got a bunch of other issues so a hip break is NOT good for her. We all packed up and hit the road to drive ~4 hours to the hospital. Mom is recovering now. It was a very surreal experience, this new form of bonding my wife went through over the weekend. We're now just friends, living together for the time being; yet still doing everything we can to help each other out.

I'm still very tired and not sleeping, and I'm CERTAIN I'm not even one step into the grieving process, but I feel better right now. I am working on moving on and moving forward. I feel as if I have stepping stones that will make me a better person AND I can work on the issues that caused all of this in the first place so I can learn how to pass that wisdom on to my son to make sure he doesn't run up against the same challenges as I did.

Again, I am sharing all of this because you all gave me some very frank, direct, and compassionate advice and support. Reading through the comments as they came in helped to keep me grounded and on track. I have archived all of the messages in my Obsidian notebook and I will read them in the future to remind myself to stay focused on self improvement. Thank you, once again.

Preface:

• Beware: long, scattered post incoming.
• I'm not having suicidal thoughts. No matter what happens, life is still worth living.

I'm spiraling right now. I'm so confused and lost that I need to just put this out there, somewhere, anywhere. Here goes:

I've been happily married for coming up on 8 years next week. Our relationship has always been strong, we've always considered each other best friends, and I've always felt that our love was built on a rock-solid foundation.

Lately, my wife has been acting very distant. Enough so that it started ringing some alarm bells in my head. I took a personal inventory of several of the "disconnected" events and sat down with her last week to ask if we were okay. Her response was indifference. After a bit of a pause, I asked her if she still loved me, to which she responded "I don't know." Of course a lot more was said, but the summary is that I was completely floored and she was emotionless and indifferent.

I asked one thing: that we would set up marriage counseling sessions. She agreed. Our initial individual sessions start next week.

Since then, I've spent every single moment trying to examine myself and my flaws, where I've damaged our relationship in the past, and what I can do in the future to be a better person for her.

On Monday, I actually had some massive discoveries about myself, and blindspots in my emotional maturity. I discovered one little thing, which led to two or three more. By the end of this very exciting and motivating self-reflection session, I was PUMPED UP! For once in years, I felt like I've discovered this whole new region of growth in my brain.

I also had a session with my therapist that same day, in which I shared the recent events and my bout of epiphanies. She mentioned that "sometimes it takes a major life event to get people out of a rut and start a growth journey." I left the session feeling really good, really motivated, like there is a whole new and great future ahead of me and us.

I also came to a realizations about how I've hurt her in the past. The long and the short of it is that I'm terrible about empathizing and listening to feelings, and my insecurities put me into a defensive mode rather than a supportive, listening, partner mode.

A week later, and I'm still buzzing, reflecting, discovering more emotional epiphanies, and REALLY looking forward to marriage counseling. However, I've also forced myself to keep all of this to myself and just start showing that I am growing by taking actions. It hasn't been the time to share any of this with her, especially because I've said a lot of words in the past about changing that never seemed to materialize. I knew that the right time would come.

And then, last night happened.

"I had a session with my therapist today. I've made the decision that we need to divorce."

Commence spiraling.

The first thing I said was: "Please, I'm begging you, go through the marriage counseling sessions with me."

She said "I will go to marriage counseling, but I'm only doing this for you."

I then decided to share with her all of the personal discoveries I've made and the growth journey I'm embarking on, how I've realized that I hurt her in the past when she needed me most, and how I'm committed to growing and working on myself and our relationship because I love her and I made that vow to her when we married. I told her that I realized finally what this heavy feeling in my heart is: it is the physical manifestation of love, and I know that because it hurts so much, and if it wouldn't hurt if there wasn't love.

She said she went through a similar process of pain and grieving last year (there's some really deep and heavy stuff that went down, in short, she discovered that her father was not her biological father; she started the journey of meeting her new family and my response at the time came from insecurity and jealousy). She said that she was done processing those emotions and that she has moved on and is focusing on herself and our 3 year old son.

She said that she loves me and cares about me, she even held me and hugged me. But that made it hurt even more. I feel like I am being led on.

I went for a walk to clear my head, and when I got home, she asked if I was okay, and I said "No. But I'm treating this as a challenge. Your love has always come easy and I've never had to fight for it. For the first time, I am going to actually fight to earn your love."

I didn't sleep last night. I decided to go into the office this morning to knock some stuff out early so I could take a personal day. On the way out the door, I asked her to promise something to me: I said "when we go to marriage counseling, please don't do it for me. Please do it for us. We've gone through so much together, we made vows to each other when we married that we would stick together through the good and the bad. Please, let's just give it one last ditch effort." She said "Okay."

This morning, some questions have started popping into my head, uninvited: "how will custody of our 3 year old work?" "Will I be removed from his life?" "Who's going to get the house?" -- and I'm really trying to remove those thoughts from my mind right now because I don't want to even entertain the possibility at this point. These are questions I never in a million years I thought I would be asking myself.

Now I'm at a coffee shop, typing this message. I have an emergency appointment with my therapist in a few hours, although I'm not sure what that will solve at this point.

I am questioning the very core, foundational things I thought I knew about myself. I am confused and lost and heartbroken.

I'm also not really sure why I'm sharing this message with you all. Perhaps because it is therapeutic to type all of this out, and perhaps I trust this community.