Important Notes:

• I do my best to include every sale, but at the same time I focus sale with a noticeable price drop, meaning sales start with at least 20% and up. I usually skip anything below that unless it's a worth while title.
  
• Click on the price to visit the store page for that game.
  
• The end date of the sale isn't mentioned, you can check the store page to see it.
  
• All of these sales are based on the US store front, so some sales may not be available depending on your country.
  

[~ PSN ~]

(On Mobile please Swipe left to see the prices and tags)

Game	Price/Link	Tags
Persona 4 Golden	$11.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Modern Japan setting/Highschool life simulatoMystery/Monster collectoSocial link system/Great soundtrack
The Persona Collection (P3P/Persona 4/Persona 5)	$49.49 $89.99	Turn-based/Modern Japan setting/Highschool life simulatoMystery/Monster collectoSocial link system/Great soundtrack
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth PS4 & PS5	$48.99 $69.99	Turn-based/Contemporary Hawaii setting/Yakuza life/Open World/Heavy on Drama and Comedy/Heavy on Mini-games/Class Changing Mechanics
Star Ocean The Second Story R	$39.99 $49.99	Action/Sci-fi mixed with Fantasy setting/Choose 1 of 2 main characters/Expansive crafting system/Affection mechanic for Party members/Choices matteRemake of the original PS1 title
Tales of Arise PS4 & PS5	$14.79 $59.99	Action/Fantasy setting/Anime style/Revolution Story/anime trope heavy/Social links mechanic between party members
Valkyria Chronicles 4 Complete Edition	$9.99 $49.99	Tactical Turn-based/World War Militar setting/Tactical mixed with real-time elements/Sketch or "Canvas" art style/Build your Army with character customization/Mission based story progression/Army management
DORAEMON STORY OF SEASONS	$14.99 $49.99	Farming Simulator/Mini-games/Social Links system
Rainbow Moon	$2.99 $14.99	Tactical Turn-based/Character customization/Fantasy setting/Dungeon Crawler
Terra Memoria	$14.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Pixel Graphics/Base Building/Resource gathering & Crafting
Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters	$19.99 $49.99 [PS4 version]	Turn-based/Female Protagonist/Comedy/fan-service/Parody
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling	$14.99 $24.99	Turn-based/Paper Mario-like/Comedy/Adventure
Monster Sanctuary	$4.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Monster CollectoMetroidvania/Pixel Graphics
Relayer	$11.99 $59.99	Tactical turn-based/Sci-fi setting/Space travel/Piloted Mecha/Female Protagonist/Anime art style
Death end reQuest	$7.99 $39.99	Turn-based/Female protagonist/Cyber World setting/Psychological HorroNudity
Death end re;Quest 2	$11.99 $49.99	Turn-based/Cyber world setting/Female Protagonist/Dark Fantasy/Gore/Fan-service
Shining Resonance Refrain	$5.99 $29.99	Action/Fantasy setting/Dragon transformation/Musical theme/Anime visual style/Social link mechanic
Mary Skelter Finale	$14.99 $49.99	Turn-based/First-Person View Dungeon CrawleDeep & Full party customization/Female Protagonist/Multiple Endings/HorroFan-service
Born of Bread	$14.99 $29.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Paper Mario-like/Comedy/Timed hits combat
DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT	$14.99 $59.99	Action Fantasy/Semi-Open World (zones)/Anime story adaptation/Beautiful animations
South Park™: The Fractured but Whole™	$8.99 $29.99	Tactical Turn-based/Modern Day setting/Comedy/Mature/Dark HumoNudity/Fart Jokes

​

[~ Switch ~]

Game	Price/Link	Tags
Star Ocean The Second Story R	$39.99 $49.99	Action/Sci-fi mixed with Fantasy setting/Choose 1 of 2 main characters/Expansive crafting system/Affection mechanic for Party members/Choices matteRemake of the original PS1 title
Ikenfell	$5.99 $19.99	Tactical Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Pixel Graphics/Female Protagonist/LGBTQ+/Retro
Dodgeball Academia	$9.99 $24.99	Action/School Life Sim/Sports (Dodgeball)/2D Hand-drawn Cartoon Art style
Born of Bread	$14.99 $29.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Paper Mario-like/Comedy/Timed hits combat
Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe	$6.99 $19.99	Action/Fantasy setting/Cooking battles/Female Protagonist/Side ScrolleBeat'em up/Hand-drawn
Fuga: Melodies of Steel	$23.99 $39.99	Tactical Turn-based/Steampunk setting/Anthropomorphic characters/Social Links System/Base upgrading
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2	$23.99 $39.99	Tactical Turn-based/Steampunk setting/Anthropomorphic characters/Social Links System/Base upgrading
Front Mission 1st: Remake	$17.49 $34.99	Tactical turn-based/Sci-fi setting/War & Politics/Mecha/Customization
FRONT MISSION 2: Remake	$27.99 $34.99	Tactical turn-based/Sci-fi setting/War & Politics/Mecha/Customization
Dusk Diver	$8.74 $34.99	Action/Modern Taipei Ximending setting/Female Protagonist/Beat'em up/Anime visual style
Terra Memoria	$14.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Pixel Graphics/Base Building/Resource gathering & Crafting
Infinite Guitars	$11.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Sci-fi setting/Rock Music/Hand-drawn/Robots/Rhythm/Timed button presses
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs - Royal Edition OST Combo	$7.49 $24.99	Tactical turn-based/Medieval Fantasy setting/Social link system/Politics/Comedy
Potato Flowers in Full Bloom	$13.31 $17.99	Turn-based/Medieval Fantasy setting/First-person Dungeon CrawleCustom Party creation/Class Mechanics
Rainbow Moon + Rainbow Skies Strategy RPG Bundle	$23.99 $29.99	Tactical Turn-based/Character customization/Fantasy setting/Dungeon Crawler

[~ Xbox ~]

Game	Price/Link	Tags
Blue Dragon	$6.59 $19.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Class changing mechanics/great soundtrack
Lost Odyssey	$8.24 $24.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting
Costume Quest 1	$4.49 $14.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Female Protagonist/Choices Matter
Terra Memoria	$14.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Pixel Graphics/Base Building/Resource gathering & Crafting
Dodgeball Academia	$9.99 $24.99	Action/School Life Sim/Sports (Dodgeball)/2D Hand-drawn Cartoon Art style
Ikenfell	$5.99 $19.99	Tactical Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Pixel Graphics/Female Protagonist/LGBTQ+/Retro
Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition	$5.99 $14.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Female Protagonist/Pixel Graphics
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling	$12.49 $24.99	Turn-based/Paper Mario-like/Comedy/Adventure

~ Steam ~

If you want to check the games yourself:

~ Link to the JRPGs on Sale list ~

Steam Deck Icons (As explained by Steam itself):

🟦 Verified: Means that the game is fully compatible and works with built-in controls and display.
🟧 Playable: Means the game is Functional, but requires extra effort to interact with and configure .
"--" Unknown: Basically unconfirmed or still under-review.

Game	Price/Link	Tags	Steam Deck
Chrono Ark	$18.74 $24.99	Turn-based/Modern day setting/Roguelike DeckbuildeFemale Protagonist/Anime visuals/Card Battler	🟦 Playable
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night	$9.99 $39.99	Action/Medieval Gothic Fantasy setting/Female Protagonist/PlatformeSide ScrolleMetroidvania	🟦 Verified
In Stars And Time	$15.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Monochrome art style/LGBTQ+/Comedy/Time Travel/Hand-drawn Cartoon style	🟦 Verified
Ni no Kuni™ II: Revenant Kingdom PRINCE'S EDITION	$11.99 $79.98	Action/Fantasy setting/Isekai/Base BuildeArmy Battle/Character CollectoBeautiful art style	🟦 Verified
Born of Bread	$12.49 $24.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Paper Mario-like/Comedy/Timed hits combat	🟧Playable
Terra Memoria	$14.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Pixel Graphics/Base Building/Resource gathering & Crafting	🟧Playable
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2	$23.99 $39.99	Tactical Turn-based/Steampunk setting/Anthropomorphic characters/Social Links System/Base upgrading	🟦 Verified
Fae Tactics	$5.99 $19.99	Tactical Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Female Protagonist/Beautiful Pixel Graphics/Unique Battle system/Monster Collector	🟦 Verified
Dodgeball Academia	$9.99 $24.99	Action/School Life Sim/Sports (Dodgeball)/2D Hand-drawn Cartoon Art style	🟧Playable
Sword and Fairy 7	$14.99 29.99	Action/Chinese Martial Arts Fantasy (Xianxia)/Female Protagonist/Great visuals and Music/Rich Story and Lore/Chinese voice acting with English subtitles	🟧Playable
Ikenfell	$5.99 $19.99	Tactical Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Pixel Graphics/Female Protagonist/LGBTQ+/Retro	🟦 Verified
Astria Ascending	$8.74 $39.99	Turn-based/Medieval Fantasy setting/PlatformeFemale Protagonist/Class system	🟦Verified
Haven	$14.99 $24.99	Active time combat/Sci-fi setting/Heavy on Romance/LGBTQ/Local Co-op support/Exploration/Resource Gathering	🟦 Verified
Crimson Tactics: The Rise of The White Banner	$14.99 $29.99	Tactical Turn-based/Medieval Fantasy setting/Class system/War & Politics/Dragons/	--
Jack Move	$9.99 $19.99	Turn-based/Cyberpunk setting/Female Protagonist/Pixel Graphics/Hacking	🟦Verified
Earthlock	$4.49 $29.99	Turn-based/Fantasy setting	🟧Playable
Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament	$4.49 $14.99	Real Time/Chinese Martial Arts Fantasy (Xianxia)/Rich Story and Lore/Monster collection/Chinese voice acting with English subtitles	🟧Playable
Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament	$4.49 $14.99	Real Time/Chinese Martial Arts Fantasy (Xianxia)/Rich Story and Lore/Monster collection/Chinese voice acting with English subtitles	🟧Playable
Children of Zodiarcs	$5.39 $17.99	Tactical Turn-based/Fantasy setting/Female Protagonist/Card Based/Deck Building	🟦Verified

​

~ General Recommendations (All Consoles) For Anyone Who Can't Decide ~

First off, I won't recommend big or famous games like Final Fantasy or Persona, this is more for lesser know, hidden gems, or just games where it's hard to find someone talking about them.
​

[Valkyria Chronicles]

[Valkyria Chronicles 4]

This one is really hard to explain through words alone, but just in case, the VC series is a World War 2 military setting story, where you act as the lead of a squad and take mission to drive back the enemy. The story is drama heavy and the gameplay is tactical turn-based, but it's mixed with real-time third person shooter.
You can also make your own army by recruiting different types of solders, training them and upgrading their gear. From rifles to tanks, this is a game you have to experience to understand.

[Fuga: Melodies of Steel 1 & 2]

Great game, great art style, and really well made and balanced turn-based combat. That alone is enough to get the game. Then you add the time-management part of the game, where you spend time upgrading the different tank rooms, cooking, exploring ruins, spending time to bond with other characters, and so on. It's also great if you want a game that you can play for an hour or 2 and then put down for later. As the game is played through stages, and once you're done with a stage, you get an intermission to do what you want and come back to it later.
It's not a long game (compared to the usual JRPG), as you mentioned, it's about 20 hours. Story-wise I think it was a bit too short. Gameplay wise it was great fit, because it didn't outstay it's welcome, and it ends when you feel you have mastered the gameplay and want to face the final challenge.
The story is good, but isn't the focus. Gameplay is the main focus. In fact you'll feel that a lot of context isn't told in the story, but instead left for you to either read about in the in-game wiki or just figure out through obvious clues in the story.
There is a big mechanic that this meant to put a lot of pressure on your playthrough (don't worry about it being spoiled because it's literally explained in the first hour of the game). The thing is though, if you have experience in JRPGs or just play in a really well thought out and relaxed manner, then that mechanic might not be as big a deal as they make it seem to be. Yet it's still fun nonetheless.
Fuga 2 is even better. It fixes a lot of the minor issues the first game had, and what's really great, is it improved the "big pressure" mechanic I talked about, and now it actually is a big deal. Then add to that so much little new mechanics added that just makes for a much more fun and challenging game. The 2nd game also continues the same story.

[Ni no Kuni] Series

If you're looking for that great Isekai fantasy adventure feel, then these two games are where it's at. Fantastic visuals and great music, coupled with a great art style, a combo that is perfect for a chill and relaxed gaming experience. Especially when talking about the first game, with the help ofStudio Ghibli, they managed to make a truly whimsical world with that Studio Ghibli classic touch.

- Important Note: The games aren't connected story-wise, so you can start with any of them -

[Wrath of the White Witch]

For a the best fantasy adventure feel, while the combat is a hit or miss depending on your taste, don't let that stop you from actually diving into a true fairy tale world, this is the one with the better story in my opinion, so if you want more story than game, this is for you. Still it has a good share of gameplay, from raising and collecting Pokemon-like monsters, to learning and using different spells, not just in combat but for the overworld too.

[Ni no Kuni™ II: Revenant Kingdom]

This one focuses more on gameplay, with a Kingdom builder, Army battles, Heavy loot focus, and even character collector, this is the one to go with if you want more game than story. Still has the great music and he fantastical art style and setting. Add to that a lot of side activities like beating rare monsters, collecting cute creatures to help you in battle, and even going around the world to gather people to help you build your kingdom. You'll never be short on things to do.
Finally, both of them have beautifully draw world that is just a pleasure to walkthrough, made even better with the amazing orchestral soundtrack.

[Star Ocean The Second Story R]

The original PS1 game was already an amazing JRPG and a classic. But this remake takes it to go even further beyond SSJ3. It should be the standard on how to make a faithful remake on of a classic title.
I don't want to overhype it more than I already did. So to keep this short, this remake does so much:

• All major story events are now fully voice acted. This includes a lot of the private actions too.
  
• Fully redone and better translation of the game.
  
• New Character to recruit to the party.
  
• New Private Actions and 13 new Endings.
  
• New character portraits, not just for the main cast, but also for many other characters.
  
• A complete rework for the battle system to be up to modern standards.
  
• So many QoL features:
  
  • Auto-saving
  • Fast-forward cut-scenes or skip them.
  • Text log
  • All difficulties can be accessed from the start
  • Fast travel
  • 3 different voice dubbing options to choose from (New English, Original Japanese, New Japanese)
  • Your choice of different art styles
  • Choose between original OST and new rearranged OST.
  • No random battles anymore, as enemies can be seen and avoided

And believe me when I say I still haven't touched half of the amazing work that has gone into this remake.

[Sword and Fairy 7: Together Forever]

They did a great job with the presentation of the game. Great voice acting (Chinese), great graphics, amazing music, and an impressive attention to details of the world and it's lore, especially the engineering of the buildings and their decor. Then you have the really beautiful design of each piece of gear, and even just normal attire of each NPC and the disciples of each sect or soldiers of each of the different of each plane (gods, humans, demons).
Then we go to how great looking the monsters and local flora and fauna of each realm. You can feel the intense work that has gone into making and animating each of them. It really is a joy to watch them, as much as it is to watch each environment you see them in. There really isn't enough time to talk about how good the presentation is.
As for the story. First off, I am not an expert in Chinese novels mythology, but I am a big fan of Xianxia and Wuxia novels. So when I say that the story is...good but nothing great, I am saying this as more than just a JRPG fan, but also someone who is very into this type of world and Chinese martial arts fantasy setting. it's nothing that will stick in your mind, apart from the events that take place in some of the beautiful set pieces in the game, or the cut-scenes with beautiful action cheoragphy.
The gameplay is also about average. The side-quests are fun and are worth doing if nothing more than for learning more about the lore and the world. But the actual battles and action gameplay isn't as good as the best ones out there, but it's not bad. I have ran into some bugs, some small, some big, but that was when the game just came out, and it did receive a lot of patches since then. You can tell that they aimed to make a huge triple A production, but didn't have the time or manpower to test a game of this size. It's still fun to play and experience, but the level of gameplay is nowhere near the level of the presentation that the game gives the impression of having just from watching the gameplay or trailers.
If you enjoy walking through magical and fantastic looking JRPG worlds, or if you enjoy Xianxia/Wuxia fiction, then this is an easy choice. Hell even if you don't, it's still worth a go at this price.

[Blue Dragon] & [Lost Odyssey]

These two are classic titles that will probably won't be ported to or remade to modern consoles. That's why this might be the last way you'll ever get to experience 2 classic titles of the genre. Lost Odyssey has great story writing and unique character settings, and Blue Dragon has great exploration and a really fun character class customization system, and one hell of a boss theme.

[Monster Sanctuary]

This is a solid game, everything in is polished and balanced to make sure you are having fun collecting new monsters and customizing your team through evolution/skill trees/gear and making the best in-sync party you can. I only wish it was longer, it's not short by any means, but it's not long either. I would say depending on if you're trying to "catch them all" and explore everything and fight all bosses, this could easily be a 30+ hours game, but if you focus on the story, then it's about 20 to 30 hours. Now even longer with the 2 new free DLC expansion added.
Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining that it's short, but that I was having so much fun, that I wish it didn't end.

As always, please do add your own recommendations, and let me know if there is mistake or if something was missing, and have a nice day.

You are *not* in a country where they speak your target language. You have very minimal budget (can't afford to just fly to the country, or spend a ton on a bunch of language lessons). Your objective is to learn the language as quickly as possible.
MUST be *somewhat* realistic. For instance, there's no way someone could Anki for 12 a day straight, ro jump directly into native level content and be expected to pay attention for that long.
For me, I might say something like:
Target language: German from English.
Week 1:

1. 30 minutes -- Anki cards: Run through German to English frequency dictionary deck. Also, can do sentences / phrases / words Languages on Fire deck. JUST German to English though. Put Anki settings on 0.8 retention goal, which will allow you to study a lot more words without the reviews piling up. Be loose on what you count as correct / incorrect. Give yourself a lot of leeway. If it's "risk" but you said "danger" you can count that as correct, for instance.
   
2. 30 - 60 minutes of grammar study.
   
3. 30 minutes optional of immersive content. You won't understand any content this early, and will have to translate a lot if you want to follow, so literally whatever keeps you engaged, whether you want to translate a lot.
   
4. Take a break. Relax, chill. Exercise. Do low dopamine activities. No scrolling / video games / drugs / alcohol for the remainder of the challenge (with the exception of caffeine / stimulants).
   
5. Whenever you're ready, go through this cycle again and again for the remainder of the day.
   

The goal for week one is to get much more acquainted with the language, and to speed run the first 500 - 1000 words so you can begin to pick A1 sentences apart. Breaking up Anki reviews into many different chunks and putting a 0.8 retention should allow you to hit really high numbers in the first week.
After first week:

1. 30 - 45 minutes Anki cards. Continue on previous path, can afford to be a little bit more chill on new cards / day reviewed now, but should still seem like a *mad* number to the regular Anki user. Something like 50 or 60 new cards a day should do the trick. Do many Anki sessions throughout the day, but if they start to get annoying, stop your review session and pick it up later. You could probably accumulate ab 4 hours of anki / day this way and get through a ton of cards.
   
2. Immersion session. Do something like LingQ or Language Reactor. Ideally something where you can test your ability, learn new words, but it not be too terrible. Once you reach ~2000 words or something like this, you can afford to be a little looser on which materials you use to review, b/c you'll begin to understand a whole lot more.
   
3. Optional writing / speaking exercise. You can record yourself speaking about something, or journal about something, and optionally go through and correct your mistakes.
   
4. Rinse and repeat.
   

Throughout this process, I've forgone any explicit grammar study, but basically the idea is that any questions you have about grammar as you go along, you should just research / ask ChatGPT, and optionally make some Anki cards about them. Stay curious and encourage yourself to be wondering a lot / asking these questions, but it should come from a natural place!
Bonus would would what if you *could* go to the target country / had more financial resources.
Eager to hear what you all think!

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SCHOOLS FROM WHICH I'VE HELPED STUDENTS IN :
As of 2021, I have tutored and helped students enrolled at the following U.S. universities community colleges county & city colleges schools for-profit institutions listed below in alphabetical order:

• A - C: American Public University System (APUS) Arizona State Ashford Brigham Young Brown Broward California State (Fullerton) Capella Chamberlain (Illinois) Colorado Technical Columbia Columbia Southern Cornell
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• UNIVERSITY OF: Alabama Arizona California (UC) Central Florida Chicago Cincinnati Florida Houston Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) Iowa Maryland Minnesota Michigan North Texas Pennsylvania Southern Florida Texas Toronto
• U - Z: UCLA Extension Utah State Utah Valley Valencia Walden U Wake Technical Western Governors Wilmington Yale

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HELP AVAILABLE FOR OTHER SUBJECTS:

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• Art & Design: Art History Design Film Studies
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• NOTE: I’m a New Jersey-born Irish/Italian-American, but I have been told that I speak in an erudite & articulate suburban American accent with a “professor style” voice somewhat resembling the voice of actor: Ben Stein.
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• I take my work as a tutor very seriously, and I always aim to do my best to help my students excel in school. I have a solid and sincere passion for academic achievement, and with my help, I am positive that I can help students obtain very high grades with minimal stress and effort.
• Please feel free to contact me if you're interested in my services and would like to learn more. I'm available 24/7 via phone call, email, and text. Again, thank you for taking the time to read my Reddit tutoring ad, and I hope to hear from you soon!

OCT 2021 UPDATE: I am currently offering discount deals for requests for assistance with completing a student's entire course for the Fall 2024 semester (14 - 20 week courses acceptable), as well as discounts for students seeking help with multiple exams and/or multiple classes for Fall 2024. My availability for the Autumn 2024 / Fall 2024 semester will likely become limited very quickly as I receive more and more academic requests. Therefore it would be very advantageous to reach out to me for academic assistance before my schedule becomes too full.
MY CONTACT INFO:
WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657
Call: +1 727 456 9641
Website: hiraedu. com
Email: [info@hiraedu](mailto:info@hiraedu). com

I don't really know who to talk to about this so I figured I'll just write write a post and unfold my sorrow.
We only had like a month, but it felt like way more time passed. We did everything together and got attached really quickly (which, now that I think about it, might have been a part of the problem, since we rushed everything too much; like, I said "I love you" in the first week). I asked her twice if we were moving too fast and she said that it's fine everytime. I guess I should have known better than to believe that...
Things were kinda complicated from the start. My best friend was together with her best friend for 3 years and they broke up, so naturally she didn't like him. She also didn't like any of my other friends. I liked garlic, she didn't. I listen to rock music, she doesn't. But I figured these were just small things that don't matter that much if I just do anything in my power to support her and get her flowers, take her on dates, shower her with attention etc. And she genuinely seemed to like me for who I am.
But today I woke up to a break up text, saying that she can't be with me because certain things were making her uncomfortable. My friend group was obviously a problem, but she also said that she didn't like it when we had sex and she can't get over that, since it is very important for her. And guess what, I AGREE. It is also very important for me and I CANNOT understand why it was that bad. I really don't wanna make it sound like and excuse, but it felt bad from both sides... Especially the last time we did it. I felt the fact that she didn't want it and for me it felt more like a chore. Like, I forced myself to finish just to get it over with because it was just so awkward...
It really hit my self esteem because I've never had this problem. I'm pretty sure that there was a time when my ex from last year was staying with me only because of the fact that she liked having sex with me, even though we didn't get along very well anymore. Another girl from my hometown (with a very high body count) was bragging to her friends that I'm in her top 3. And now my ego is shot to hell... I feel unworthy to even masturbate. I don't even know how I'm going to have sex ever again, I feel very insecure about myself. I hate what I see in the mirror. Were the other girls just lying? My lengths is just above average and I've always thought sex was one of my strong suits but now.. I feel worthless.
She wasn't even rude, she said she still liked me and loves how well we get along. Which just makes me feel like the "good guy" stereotype...
I even started smoking again after I've quit for 3 years. I don't fucking know, sorry if the post is too long. Even writing this feels like I'm playing a victim card and it's making me feel like and excuse of a man..
Anyone got any advice before I go down a road of alcohol and titan gel / viagra usage?

Hello, the things written here with the blue card have helped me a lot in my situation, but I would like to ask another question. I was an EU Blue Card employee for 20 months and 9 days(and 6 months before I got my blue card, temporary work permit). Tomorrow is my last day at my company. They gave me 1 month notice and I made all my applications to the job center. So far I have taken the following measures:

• I have registered as unemployed.
• I have announced that I will be looking for a new job.
• I have applied for unemployment benefit(Arbeitlosengeld).
• I have made an appointment for a consultation at the employment agency.(16th May)
• I have applied to my insurance company for voluntary insurance.
• I have sent an e-mail to the Foreign Office about what I am going through, as I explained to you(they did not answer me)

But after I lost my job, because it was a company decision for economic and some management reasons, I started looking for a job on upwork (software developer) and got some jobs under $400. I also made small incomes from things like tech writing, not more than 150 dollars in total.
So the money I earn from freelancing is forbidden? What do you suggest I do? Maybe I can find a job in 3 months, but I want to continue freelancing. Is it impossible to apply Residence Permit because I am unemployed. Can you please help me?
Thanks!

LONG POST WARNING
Hello everyone,
My partner (24F) and I (25M) returned home from our 3-week Japan trip last week and due to us using this sub a lot during our planning I thought it would be helpful for other current planners to upload a trip report.
Our main interests are Japanese traditions and history, street style/culture, and food so keep reading if these interests are mutual. Read to the bottom to see how much we spent plus some tips and disappointments.
Prelude
We were caught up in the madness at Dubai airport during our layover. Long story short; Airport (and the rest of Dubai) flooded and caused all the flights to be cancelled. What was meant to be a 5-hour layover turned into a torturous 36 hour wait. No staff to be seen, crowds of people arguing, fighting, and crying. We queued for 12 hours to get a new boarding pass for the next flight to Japan. We were meant to fly to Haneda but settled for Narita as we needed to get out of that place as soon as possible but still ended up missing our first day in Tokyo (should have had 5 days). We can’t complain too much as some of the people I spoke to on emirates were in the airport for up to 5 days before getting a flight back to their departure destination. Oh, and our baggage was missing with us only receiving our checked in bags on day 19. Cheers Emirates.
Day 1
Arrived in Shinjuku around midnight. We went straight to Don Quiojte to buy some replacement cosmetics and clothes. The combination of no good-quality sleep for 48 hours and the stimulating nature of the store was very intense! We then started to walk back towards the hostel and passed a Ichiran, so dropped in for some 2am ramen. Not the best ramen I’ve ever had but was still very good for the price.
Steps: 21,643 (includes some airport steps)
Day 2
Woke up and ate the free breakfast at the hostel (this turned out to be a really good money saver for the whole trip as we are not huge eaters in the morning anyway, but it was good to get something light in us before a long day walking). We then walked through the Shinjuku Gyoen Garden – saw some late blooming cheery blossoms and overall, it was a really beautiful botanical garden.
The next stop was Meji Shrine and a walk through Yoyogi park. The shrine was cool to see, especially as it was our first one in Japan. Saw a middle-aged man wearing denim hotpants so short that his balls were hanging out?!?!
Walked to Shibuya to see the scramble. This was cool but also felt it was a bit underwhelming at ground level but the view from Shibuya station walkway was wicked. Lunch was at a conveyor belt sushi place on the top floor of this department store right next to the scramble. This would be higher than average quality sushi in Europe, so it blew our minds that it was available on the top floor of a department store and for so cheap.
Shimokitazawa – We picked up some bargains at 2^nd street and I treated myself some Japanese jeans from a small Demin shop called Bears. The guy in the shop was super helpful and friendly and even tailored the trousers to exactly my size.
In the evening, we first had a poke around Golden Gai and then headed towards Shibuya and stopped in a cool bar where the owner was mixing vinyl while he mixed your drinks (think it was called Q Bar).
We had previously bought tickets to a gig at Circus for one of my fav rappers who I’d been wanting to see for a while. Also really enjoyed seeing the local Japanese warm up acts. Stayed until 5am and then go the train straight to the Tsukiji outer fish market. Was there way too early and had to wait roughly an hour for thing to open. Went to chill by a bench for a bit and by the time we went back to the market it was rammed! Went to bed around 8:30am.
Steps: 32,159
Day 3
We woke up at 2:30pm, got ready, and headed to the Bunkyo civic centre for the free observation deck. We heard it wasn’t meant to be the best Tokyo skyline view but for a free attraction we thought it was very good! Jimbocho book town was also very cool to see. We had a peak into a couple adult movie/magazine stores where I don’t think the owner appreciated our presence as western tourists.
In the evening, we first went for Ramen at Motenashi Kuraki in Asakusa Bashi. Honestly probably the best Ramen I’ve had to date. I ordered the Black Pepper Shio special, and it blew my mind. Even though the staff didn’t speak English they were very accommodating for my partner who doesn’t eat meat (pescetarian but will brave a meaty broth).
We then had a stroll around Akihabara and played some dance mat games in the arcades before heading back for an earlyish night.
Steps: 28,680
Day 4
I couldn’t sleep so got up around 3am and did some admin stuff to try and get our bags back to us ASAP. Chatted to people in the hostel for a few hours.
We arrived at Senso-ji for around 8am. Wasn’t too busy at this time and the temple was impressive. Went for a coffee down the road and had a chill for about an hour before heading into Asakusa. Got admission to the Drum museum which was wicked. Only 400 yen each and had the whole place to ourselves to smack some big fucking drums and make as much noise as we wanted.
We then started to head towards Ueno but made a slight detour to Kappabashi Dougu street to peruse the Japanese chef knives and other cookware. Grabbed lunch from a 7/11 and went and sat in Ueno park which was super busy. There was some food market event on which loads of food stalls had set up. There was also a stage with some J-pop performers and people dressed as ninjas dancing in the crowd. Weird to say the least. By mid-afternoon we were pretty tired so headed back to the hostel for a nap.
In the evening, we headed down to Harajuku and stopped by Big Love records. My partner is really into vinyl, so this was definitely a highlight for her. She picked up Wu Tang 36 chambers in case you were wondering. We then went for food at Afuri as my partner wanted to try the Vegan ramen to which she said it was ok but nothing special. My cold dipping noodle dish was very tasty, however. We then stumbled across this vinyl listening bar called Bar Music on the 5^th floor of this pokey building on the outskirts of Shibuya for a few drinks before bed. There was such a good vibe in there and the cocktails were super good for the price. If you’re looking for a romantic spot, then this is the place to go.
Steps: 31,818
Day 5
Today we headed to Kyoto on the shinkansen around midday after a slow morning chilling in and around the hostel and catching up on some sleep. Checked in to the hostel and had a walk around downtown Kyoto, stopping at 2^nd Street to buy some more clothes.
In the evening, we headed to Kodai-Ji to see the shrine lit up at night. We couldn’t believe how few people were there as it was stunning and truly magical place to be at night. It also has a bamboo grove (much better than Arashiyama, see below). The bar for Kyoto shrines/temples had been set very high.
Walked down Pontocho alley and stopped at a yakitori restaurant which was just ok. We knew it was going to be average when we looked around the restaurant and it was just western tourists dining.
Steps: 25,255
Day 6
First thing in the morning we rented bikes and cycled across the city to Arashiyama. Parked the bikes at the train station and walked up through Arashiyama. We were expecting it to be busy but there were so many people it was almost impossible to move. Had a look around the bamboo grove and was slightly underwhelmed after our visit to Kodai-Ji so we took the tram and then bus up to Kosan-Ji. This was very much worth the 45-minute journey as there was only one other group there and the temple nestled between the trees overlooking the river was breath-taking. On the whole, Arashiyama was way too packed during peak times to enjoy and with everything else Kyoto has to offer we wouldn’t say it was a must see.
We then picked up the bikes from the train station and cycled back across Kyoto taking the long route to explore and get lost. Once we dropped off the bikes, we went for another explore and this time went into WeGo for more clothes shopping. At this point we’d pretty much matched the amount of clothing that we had packed in our checked-in luggage that was still stuck in Dubai.
After a nap we walked towards the metro and stopped at a Katsu restaurant as we wanted to try something different, and it was pretty good. For the price of 1300 yen each we got so much food/sake and left stuffed.
Fushimi Inari in the evening. Like Kodai-Ji, we would recommend visiting Fushimi Inari at night. Firstly, to help avoid the crowds (we got there around 9pm and there was hardly anybody there) and secondly as seeing it lit up at night is a nice change. It was however slightly creepy at night, especially as it was lightly raining. My partner started to get a bit scared once we saw the signs to be careful of the wild boar and monkeys haha. We didn’t make it to the top of Mt Inari as the rain started to get heavy but still very much enjoyed walking through the hundreds of tori gates, stopping off at the shrines and soaking up the history.
Steps: 23,686
Day 7
Today was a late start as even after 8 hours sleep the 25k plus steps a day was starting to catch up with us.
We took the metro to Shimogamo Shrine in north Kyoto. It was very peaceful and quiet however temple fatigue had definitely set in at this point. We then walked through Kyoto to the beginning of Philosophers path. We had seen on this sub that people recommend skipping it unless its Sakura season however we disagree. The path along the river is so pretty and atmospheric, along with the fish gently swimming along in the river.
Kyoto Hand Crafts Centre – if you have the money then this is a great place to pick up souvenirs.
Pre-booked Sushi Iwa for a 15 course Omakase. The food was amazing, but it came to an eye watering 28k yen each. The difference for our western palettes between mid-range sushi and exceptional sushi is negligible. Nonetheless it was a good experience and I’m glad that we did it.
Steps: 23,751
Day 8
Today was an empty day in terms of things we wanted to do, so used it to walk the city and explore.
We checked out the Nishiki market and ate various fried foods on sticks which were all pretty tasty. We then walked northwards, stopping for coffee before reaching the imperial palace. By this point we were very much bored of temples and structures of similar architecture, but we actually ended up enjoying walking the palace grounds and seeing the buildings more than we thought and would recommend it to those who find themselves in north Kyoto.
A leisurely walk back down towards downtown Kyoto, stopping off at a wicked standing soba joint. Forgotten the name but their curry soba was delicious.
Chao Chao gyozas (only veggie gyoza place we could find) for our evening meal before a night cap at the bar across the road before bed.
Steps: 23,304
Day 9
Shinkansen to Hiroshima arriving around 11am.
Checked into hostel and then went straight to the A-dome, peace memorial and museum. We thought the museum was very moving and captured the horror of the events that unfolded very well. A must see for sure.
Okonomiyaki at Okonomimura and then some vintage clothes shopping in Hondori.
Went back out for food in the evening and ended up getting Okonomiyaki again. This time it we enjoyed it a lot more than we did at lunch (probably because we got it covered in cheese). There are a few streets by Hiroshima station with lots of bars and restaurants on top of each other, much like Golden Gai in Shinjuku, however they are not super touristy and has a more laid-back feel to them.
We then went to some bars in the city centre. The best one we stumbled across was called Tropical Bar Revolucion. It was on the 8^th floor and the smoking balcony overlooked the city. Plus, the beers in there tasted so good and I’m not sure why.
Steps: 23,299
Day 10
A hungover morning. Headed to the Hiroshima National Gardens. Going to some gardens is my go-to hangover activity as its low effort, relaxing, and feels productive. These gardens in particular were great and we really appreciated the signs explaining the history behind the space. Overall, we enjoyed this more than the national gardens in Shinjuku.
Public baths near Dobashi in the afternoon. If you’re feeling brave enough to get your kit off in front of 10s of strangers, then this is a good experience. Male and female baths are separate. Can’t go wrong for 400 yen.
Went for a drink at Bar Pretty and then realised the effect of golden week on trying to get a table walking into a restaurant. Walked around for about an hour with no success so settled for food from a department store food court. Sounds miserable but the food was pretty good for the price, and it was busy in there, so it still had an atmosphere.
Steps: 29,487
Day 11
Miyajima Day. Took the ferry to the island arriving at 10:30am. The Ryokan staff met us at the port and collected our bags to take back to the hotel.
Had a mooch around the port area before doing the hike up Mt Misen. The climb to the top on a hot day is not to be underestimated. Sweating buckets, but the route and the view from the top was amazing and one of the standout highlights of the whole trip.
After descending Mt Misen, we bought some beers, oysters and, ice cream and sat along the beach wall and chilled in the sun for a couple hours. The hotel staff then picked us up from the ferry terminal, we checked in and went straight to the Onsen for a couple hours before dinner. Dinner was a traditional kaiseki meal (with more courses than I can remember) served in the banquet hall with the other guests.
While the staff converted our retro ryokan room and set up the futons we had a few more beers before bed.
Steps: 20,803
Day 12
Today we had a chilled morning on the island, having a stroll and stopping for some coffees. We then took the ferry back to Hiroshima, stopping for Okonomiyaki one more time, before taking the shinkansen to Osaka.
Checked into our hostel near Namba and went out for a walk around 8pm. When looking for somewhere to eat we walked past a sign for a vegetarian Indian restaurant called Shama. After nearly two weeks of pure Japanese food we were craving some variety so decided to head in. Located on the basement floor of a particularly run down looking building the restaurant was not the most glamorous. Barely enough space for 10 people, it was hot in there. A constant stream of people was coming in and out of the restaurant and we were lucky enough to walk in when there were two spaces available. From sitting down at the table to receiving our food we waited just under an hour. This would be enough to put most people off but fuck me the food was good when it did finally arrive. We got a selection of 4 different curries, naan breads and samosa. We left stuffed. If you’re in the area this is definitely a place worth checking out.
Steps: 25,502
Day 13
Our first stop of the day was the Umeda Sky Building. Not suitable if you are scared of heights as the glass elevator made our stomachs drop slightly. The views were impressive but we thought the price was a bit steep at 1500 yen each.
We then spent the afternoon wondering about near Namba and Shinsujibashi dropping into shops and picking up some food.
For dinner we made a reservation for a Mexican restaurant near Dotonbori. Massive margheritas, nachos and enchiladas. The food was great, and it shows by how busy the place was still at 10pm. It had been open since the late 70’s with the décor to match and it had a great atmosphere.
Steps: 27,290
Day 14
Checked out Tsuruhashi and Korea Town. Loved the market – dimly lit maze of numerous food and clothing vendors. Stopped to have some Korean stew and pancakes and it was delicious. One of the best meals of the trip.
Shinsekai in the evening. What I can describe as the armpit of Osaka. We loved it. Dirty? Yes. Rowdy? Yes. Rough around the edges with a red light district to top it all off. We had Kushikatsu to finish the evening off. Fried stuff on a stick – of course it going to be tasty but it wasn’t exactly flavour town.
Steps: 23,777
Day 15
Took the train to Minoh and hiked up the trail to see the waterfall. Hike was easy in comparison to Mt Misen and the waterfall was very cool to see. Had a wonder around Minoh stopping for some lunch at a Ramen bar.
We went to the Team lab botanical gardens in the evening. It was very awe inspiring seeing all the installations lit up.
After sampling Japanese McDonalds (I had a burger where the buns were made out of rice) we went for some drinks at Zerro. We liked this bar a lot, the guys working there were very friendly and it had a good vibe.
We then sat and watched the skaters at triangle park with some beers from the konbini before going to see Dj Masda at Circus until around 4am. This area of Osaka was such a vibe and came back here a few times over our 6 days here. Overall, a very fun evening.
Steps: 26,130
Day 16
Woke up chronically hungover but powered on and went to see a baseball game. You’re allowed to bring food and drink into the stadium (as long as alcohol is in plastic/paper cups) so we grabbed some beers and snacks from family mart. We had no idea what was happening but the atmosphere was electric and we enjoyed getting pissed and cheering.
Had a nap and then went to Hafez for middle eastern food. The food was good but not amazing, nothing in comparison to my local middle eastern restaurant back home. Chilled around the Namba park/Big step area. Loved this area so much, we are big into street fashion and culture so this place really ticked some boxes. Lots of skaters and street wear stores concentrated around here. Got an early night watching Battle Royale back at the hostel.
Steps: 22,065
Day 17
Today we went to the Umeda area. Popped into some shopping centres and had Omurice for lunch. It was tasty but not something I will crave when back home. Good experience trying it though. We then walked through Yodoyobashi along the rivers and got gelato and sat in the rose garden. The sun was beating down and we enjoyed just chilling in the sun eating our ice cream.
Compufunk Records were holding a party in their store. Decent gaff with some very welcoming and kind people to party with until the early hours.
Steps: 21,267
Day 18
We reluctantly left Osaka for Hakone today. Very sad to go but onwards to the next adventure. Took the shinkansen to Odawara and then the Hakone romance car to Gora. Checked into our Ryokan and relaxed in the Onsen for a few hours.
Went for a walk around Gora and had dinner at the Ryokan before watching Predator in bed.
Steps: 16,926
Day 19
Today we did the Hakone Loop, starting early in Gora.
Started with the Open-air museum and it was great. We loved the installation and ended up spending 3 hours slowly making our way round. Got some cool photos as well for the gram.
Ropeway to Lake Ashi. This was absolutely terrifying. You have to swap cable cars 3 times on the way over and the warnings of the service being suspended due to the wind was announced at each stop. I’m not going to ruin the surprise, but one section made me literally freeze in terror due to the winds outside so try to do it on a calm weather day.
We then took the pirate boat (bit underwhelming) across the Lake and stopped for some soba noodles and a wander around. Unfortunately it was way too cloudy to even get a chance at seeing Mt Fuji.
Train to Kamakura and checked into our super cute traditional hostel near the beach.
Dinner at an Izakaya from the hostel owners recommendation. Food great and beers slipped down a treat. First time I tried Yuzu Kosho as well – I’m now addicted to the stuff and literally cover all my food with it.
Steps: 19,512
Day 20
A slow start to the morning. Weather was pretty bad but we still managed to hit all the main sights in Kamakura. Big Buddha was a refreshing sight from the temples. Did some shopping up Komachi Dori. Highlight of the day was Hukokaji temple. It was so peaceful and zen in the rain with its very own matcha tea ceremony backdropped by bamboo forest. This turned out to be our second favourite temple/shrine we visited, just being beaten by Kodaji.
In the evening we went for Sushi at a conveyor belt place. Figured this would probably be my last Japanese sushi of the trip so devoured 7000 yen worth of sushi and beer. Went back to the hostel and invited some of the other guests to drink with us. The owner of the hostel had some bayberry homebrew, so we got stuck into that.
Steps: 20,494
Day 21
Enoshima Island is just a 25 min train from Kamakura. Started off the day by walking to the top of the island to get French toast and a beer with a lovely view across the bay. We then headed up the Sea candle to check out the observation deck, still the illusive Mt Fuji hides behind the clouds.
We then bought admission to the caves beneath the island which was pretty cool. I won’t ruin the surprise but there’s something waiting for you at the end of one of the caves.
Had an explore around the rockpools near the caves and took some cool photos. We then had a pizza with fish on which was pretty crazy. Walked around the island a little bit more and I picked up some more Japanese denim which wasn’t the cheapest but the quality of the trousers are great and will last me a lifetime.
Back to Tokyo in the evening.
Went for Izakaya around Asakusa and popped into a couple bars. One was called Not Suspicious and the whole bar was covered in handwritten notes by patrons. Very touristy but quite cool at the same time. Our favourite was a drawing of Mario saying It’s a Me Muthafucka.
Steps: 25,903
Day 22
First stop was Don Quiojte to pick up some Yuzu Kosho (if you know you know) and weird flavoured KitKats.
Kappabashi Dougu street to purchase a fine Japanese carbon stell Santoku. Honestly in love with this knife so much. The people at the store were very happy to hear exactly what I was looking for and even let me try before you buy on some daikon radish.
While in Asakusa I had to return to the place where I put the best thing in my mouth in Japan. Motenashi Kuroki. Switched it up this time and had their classic Shio ramen plus the duck rice as a side. Honestly this place is amazing, and you have to go there if you have time. They aren’t veggie/pescy friendly so my partner went for one last round of sushi round the corner. We met up at a massage chair parlour and spent 30 mins relaxing in the chairs.
We had a bright idea to watch the sunset one last time so headed over to the rooftop park on a department store in Shibuya. Sipping on an ice cold Kirin, the sun slowly dropped behind the distant mountains and we knew our trip had come to an end. How symbolic.
Flight at 11pm from Haneda.
Steps: 23,187
On reflection:
I honestly think this trip was almost perfect in terms of hitting our interests and travel style. There was a good balance of doing the typical first time visit to Japan sights and activities while still exploring and seeing what we came across in the moment.
It hard to pinpoint exact highlights of the trip as everywhere we visited had so much going for it in different ways. We loved the rugged and trendy vibe to Osaka, and I think this would be the city I would most want to live in for a considerable amount of time (If I had to choose). Miyajima was also stunning and a great overnight trip with the Ryokan experience. We also underestimated how much we would enjoy Kamakura with its laid-back surfer vibe and access to Enoshima Island.
One random memorable moment that has stuck with me was when we landed at Narita airport, we took the limo bus to Shinjuku. As the driver pulled away, all the staff at the station turned and bowed in unison. It felt so special to first observe a culture totally opposite to the one I grew up with and was at this point I knew I had embarked on the trip of a lifetime.
If I could go back and change something I would probably miss out Hakone and do an extra day in one of the major cities. This isn’t because we didn’t enjoy Hakone, but we feel like it’s a place that needs more time to soak in what’s going on around you (plus the weather was bad when we were there). This being said the Open-Air Museum was amazing and we enjoyed it more than the Teamlab botanical gardens so the trip up the mountains was worth it just for that.
So, how much did we spend per person (not inc flights)?
Accommodation - £765pp
Given that we spent a couple nights in Ryokans raising the average price slightly, we were pretty happy with the accommodation costs. We stayed in a mix of private room and shared dorm hostels and pretty much all of them were spot on. Travelling as a couple meant that anywhere with a private room split the price between 2. The only hostel we didn’t like was the one in Hiroshima, there wasn’t anything in particularly wrong with it, there was just a really bad vibe from the owner and other guests.
Transport - £344pp
This includes shinkansen to and from all the major cities as well as our suica top ups for metros and buses. Unless your itinerary is something like 3 days Tokyo, 2 days Osaka 2 days Kyoto then there really isn’t any point getting the JR pass now that the price has increased.
Activities – £280pp
It is hard to give an exact amount for activities and food as 1) I didn’t track what we spent our cash on and 2) my partner and I would take in turns paying for things like temple admission. That being said I’ve allocated 25% of the cash we spent to activities such as temple admission. Activities includes our baseball tickets plus club entries as well as temple and museum admissions etc.
Food – £962pp
As above, its hard to give an exact amount for food. On the whole we tried to eat cheap with possible, especially at the start of our trip. There were a few expensive meals peppered in plus we ate out twice a day towards the end of our trip as we realised we were under budget.
The total is a bit skewed as this includes all the alcohol we bought in bars as well as the konbini trips for beers and cigarettes. I estimate that booze accounts for around a third of the total per person. If you would like to do Japan on a budget, reducing the booze will make a big difference.
Shopping/Souvenirs/Gifts – £607 (just me)
We went hard with the shopping. We didn’t actually receive our checked in luggage until day 19 so we had to buy all new clothes and cosmetics. If this wasn’t the case, then I don’t think I would have spent so much (airline is comping us for the additional clothing bought anyway). I also bought a fairly expensive chef knife and Japanese denim pieces, plus lots of gifts for friends and family. Obviously, this number could theoretically 0 if you are on a serious budget and did no shopping but I really underestimated Japanese shopping, especially thrifting. Also, given our cheap choices when it came to accommodation we could afford to splurge. However just to note my partner spent less than half than I did on shopping.
Total: £2958 (582,628 yen at time of writing)
I kept within my budget of £3000. I definitely got a bit frivolous with the cash in the last few days or so, if being as careful as I was towards the start of the trip, I think the total would be closer to £2500.
Disappointments
Takoyaki. We thought it was going to be all about the octopus but were disappointed with our balls of sloppy goo surrounding tiny chewy pieces of octopus. We tried it twice and couldn’t get behind it. Sorry Takoyaki fans.
Arashiyama. Way too busy, especially around the main station and bamboo grove. If it’s the bamboo you are going to see, then Kodaji is a much better spot.
Dotonburi. Albeit we were there in golden week, and it was pretty busy. However, I get the feeling this area has fallen to the past its golden days title and has become a bit of a cash cow for places selling spiralised potatoes on a stick. The area around Namba park was a better option for us.
Tips
Konbini. Absolute life saver for snacks and drinks on the go. The food quality for a convenience store is higher than most other countries so we had no problem with grabbing a meal from one to help keep within our budget.
Don’t over pack – even though we didn’t get our checked in bags, I still packed light so had plenty of space to bring stuff back. Emirates give you your allowance by weight rather than number of baggage so we could check in additional bags on the way back.
Don’t be scared of hostels. If you don’t want to brave the shared dorms, then most hostels offer private rooms with just the shower and toilet shared. Obviously, it’s cheaper if there are two people sharing a room.
Don’t stress about cash. Most places take debit/credit card and if they don’t, you’re never more than 5 minutes from a konbini ATM.
For us, golden week didn’t seem that big of an issue. No problems booking shinkansen around GW. We spent most of GW in Osaka, as such it was going to be busy anyway so maybe we didn’t see much of a difference from normal numbers in the spring.

Hello! I have been accepted into a HUGE trade show as a newcomer who has been in business for under 3 years (me, under one year). I have everything ready to go (manufacturing, marketing, finances, etc.). I need some help...!!
Questions:

1. I don't have a website yet. The marketing firm I'm working with is working on the website. Is that okay?
2. Should I take a credit card machine from Stripe with me? Is there anything wrong with writing everything down on paper and then following up AFTER the show (maybe 2 weeks after) with retrieving payment for orders?
3. I do NOT want to accept any terms: do you think that is okay? Could I even just be there I have never done this by myself before (I have in fashion/clothing)... from what I hear this is very different and the last time I was at a trade show was 2015.
4. How many pieces do you think I should offer wholesale? I was thinking 3. (I am taking 20 pieces to show.) Should I do consignment?

THANK YOU!!! ANY help or advice would be wonderful. I'm so excited. This has been YEARS in the making and I'm excited to take all of my people with me!!! (Bench jewelers, torch workers, setters, financiers, friends, meeeee!!!!!).

• How old are you? What's your gender? Give us a general description of yourself.

1. Either agender and/or pangender. I’m also either asexual and/or pansexual. I live comfortably alone but have a decent number of friends that I maintain communications with. Onlookers seem to believe I am dating all of them (not all at once but individually depending on which one I am “closest” to), which I take to mean that I apply no distinction between a friend and a partner (which I can agree with), hence the asexual/pansexual duality. Not really sure what this has to do with typing but there's a description.

• Is there a medical diagnosis that may impact your mental stability somehow?
Yes.
• Describe your upbringing. Did it have any kind of religious or structured influence? How did you respond to it?
I had a whole paragraph here but I realised it was probably very NSFW so I've decided to remove this part.
• What do you do as a job or as a career (if you have one)? Do you like it? Why or why not?
I’m an engineer, a mix of both hardware and software. I like the work of my job, but I don’t care much for the job or career part of it. I don’t have any career ambitions and would rather just learn the skills that the work can provide me and then move on to becoming entirely self-sufficient and only working for myself. I don’t think it's the other people aspect I dislike here as such, more the lack of independence and control over how I spend my time. That said, it’s worth it to live on my own two feet away from disturbances in the house.
• If you had to spend an entire weekend by yourself, how would you feel? Would you feel lonely or refreshed?
I know I would be completely fine, as I do this regularly. I don’t think I feel lonely nor refreshed. I generally have plenty to do with my time and find ways to occupy myself, even if that involves doing nothing and resting. If I’m interested in someone's thoughts or feelings on a topic I will just message them without issue and I usually do this once or twice a day, but there are many occasions in which I will just be focused on doing my own thing and won’t have contacted anyone.
• What kinds of activities do you prefer? Do you like, and are you good at sports? Do you enjoy any other outdoor or indoor activities?
I do all kinds of activities, from reading to games to sports. I’m very good at sports and enjoy them, but I usually choose to stay inside over doing them. I think to an onlooker a lot of my activities could look more like work than fun, but I get fun out of them. You would be most likely to find me (or not) inside reading some kind of research paper or building a machine. If not that then you’d find me playing a single player RPG/sandbox style game and if not that then you’d probably find me meditating/introspecting. You’d probably only find me outside playing sports if I’d been asked to by a friend.
• How curious are you? Do you have more ideas then you can execute? What are your curiosities about? What are your ideas about - is it environmental or conceptual, and can you please elaborate?
Very curious. I research just about everything in depth and if I had free time I would research even more. It’s become something of an inside joke at work that I will come in and have some kind of new theory or discovery to share with the office about some random topic that has nothing to do with the last. I don’t think I have more ideas than I can execute, it's more that I have more ideas than I do execute. I’m actually not a very ambitious person despite my insatiable curiosity, so there are many occasions where I will do nothing at all. Aside from the theories I create from whatever information/topic I have been researching, most of the ideas I present to others are to do with having fun. I often create small games using the objects we have in our environment (like playing cards or checkers pieces) on the spot, improvising the rules as we go along DnD style. I actually was invited to play DnD once with a friend group but I was something of a nightmare of a player since I would come up with completely outlandish ideas that the DM couldn’t handle. I was never invited to a session again after that.
• Would you enjoy taking on a leadership position? Do you think you would be good at it? What would your leadership style be?
Being a leader isn’t tied to my self identity at all, but it does seem to be the impression other people get about me. I have been told several times that I would make a good cult leader (concerningly) and that I always seem to end up in charge of a situation. I don’t really do this on purpose but a lot of the time I am the only one who will speak up and start moving a group forward when we are in a situation that calls for it. I have been told that I am quite a diplomatic leader that makes sure people get along, have something to do and feel supported. That said, I personally don’t like telling people what they should value. I am of the belief that it is their own choice to decide that. I will however help people by telling them the actions they could take in line with those chosen values. I also think conflict is quite important and I will only try to keep the conflict civil without ending it until both parties are satisfied and have conveyed everything they wish to. This also includes conflict with me, I dislike “sweeping things under the rug”.
• Are you coordinated? Why do you feel as if you are or are not? Do you enjoy working with your hands in some form? Describe your activity?
I think I am. I often feel as though my entire body is under my control and I am very intune with any physical sensations. I fear being paralyzed or losing mental integrity. This is the reason I avoid dangerous and reckless behavior that could result in losing control of my mind or body. I will not partake in highly “extreme” sports such as free climbing and I will not consume any kind of drugs to an extent that it affects my mental state, including alcohol.
• Are you artistic? If yes, describe your art? If you are not particularly artistic but can appreciate art please likewise describe what forms of art you enjoy. Please explain your answer.
I’m not actually sure. I like writing stories and drawing, but I wouldn’t consider myself an artist. I am very interested in art and have been learning how to properly paint and create music on and off for a while now. I think it's probably similar to sports in the sense that I enjoy it but rarely choose it over another activity. I don’t really enjoy going to art museums, I find art to be subjective so interacting with it from such an objective standpoint disinterests me. A lot of my friends are artists and I support them in their endeavors.
• What's your opinion about the past, present, and future? How do you deal with them?
I don’t think about the past much unless I actively make myself do so to search for something there. I am very in tune with the present and am constantly looking out for dangers in my environment and observing people, but it's not my main way of thinking. I am almost always thinking about the future, both in terms of potential futures as well as what future I am aiming for. I have some trouble deciding on a future to aim for since all of the options seem so appealing and I don’t particularly want to close any of them off. There is a part of me that wishes I was immortal so that I could experience as much of everything as possible. This is probably also the part of me that likes stories and hearing the experiences of others since I get to understand a whole other world with its own futures in such a short amount of time.
• How do you act when others request your help to do something (anything)? If you would decide to help them, why would you do so?
I will help immediately. I’m not entirely sure why but I imagine it has something to do with me enjoying solving problems, whether that problem is mine or anothers. I have largely minimized my worldly connections and needs so I often appear to “go out of my way” to help others even if it appears like it's sacrificial to myself. I don’t find it sacrificial to myself at all. I don’t need anything to be comfortable, it’s all just building upon that initial comfort as a kind of “excess” or “abundance”. I could lose everything I own tomorrow and be absolutely fine. All of this to say, I don’t sacrifice myself for others, I just help them most likely because I enjoy it. I do not consider myself a “good” person for doing this, in fact I do not really believe in the concept of good or evil at all.
• Do you need logical consistency in your life?
I think the fact that I immediately thought both yes and no for this question points to me not needing it. I certainly try to be logically consistent, but it's not the end of the world if I’m not. I think it's more important to me that I not be in denial about it.
• How important is efficiency and productivity to you?
I do aim for efficiency but it’s not very important to me. While I do want to make the most of my time in this life, if I don’t feel like doing anything then I won’t. I’m comfortable with being unproductive and “lazy” for as long as I like.
• Do you control others, even if indirectly? How and why do you do that?
I think I’m indirectly controlling. I don’t use force to control people (at least not anymore), I’m more inclined to engineer the circumstances of a situation in a way that results in people choosing to move in one of the ways that I want them to. Nobody has told me I am controlling, nor do they seem to feel they are being controlled. I don’t really do this intentionally, it just ends up being the path that I go down based on the options I have available (perhaps I am being controlled by something as well?). I’m not sure why I do this but if I had to guess it would be to protect myself and others from being hurt, after all you can’t be hurt if the option isn’t even available.
• What are your hobbies? Why do you like them?
See activities. My topics of interest are usually to do with people, nature or technology.
• What is your learning style? What kind of learning environments do you struggle with most? Why do you like/struggle with these learning styles? Do you prefer classes involving memorization, logic, creativity, or your physical senses?
I teach myself things. I always seem to find teachers/tutors intellectually suffocating. Outside of that I take any form of information possible.
• How good are you at strategizing? Do you easily break up projects into manageable tasks? Or do you have a tendency to wing projects and improvise as you go?
I break tasks down instinctively. I do like to plan out the whole project before I start but I have no problem deviating from the plan and improvising if I think of something I like the sound of more. This usually results in the finished project looking very different from the plan and taking longer than it could have.
• What are your aspirations in life, professionally and personally?
None really. I’m content with just existing. However, in terms of what I choose to pursue it would be perfection in all fields, having all knowledge and having experienced everything, as well as transmitting this perfection to everyone else so that they stand beside me. More realistically, I’m trying to buy some land and build a community so that as many people are under my direct protection and responsibility as possible. The world has many powerful people that are looking to exploit the innocent solely for their own gain. I’m not expecting a utopia but I would hope it would be more comfortable for people to live in than the insecurity of greater society. It’s nice to think of spending the rest of my days with this small community.
• What are your fears? What makes you uncomfortable? What do you hate? Why?
As mentioned earlier, I fear losing autonomy of my body and mind. I think I would still be comfortable in this state as I would get used to it but I actively avoid it coming to pass. I don’t think I hate anything, I don’t think in black and white. I’m not even sure I think in shades of gray, it seems more like the whole spectrum of color to me. I mentioned I don’t really believe in good or evil. In the event that someone is judged as evil by the world I can easily look at them and find just as many things people would find good. Does this make me endlessly accommodating of the actions of others? Certainly not. It’s just a matter of managing a conflict of interests, which is not something I struggle with.
• What do the "highs" in your life look like?
I can’t really think of anything that would fit a “high”. I think the closest thing would be my family and my friends. I’m not sure why they are what comes to mind. I mentioned before that I would be comfortable with losing everything I own since I have discarded worldly attachment, but for some reason when I think of losing people it's not such an easy answer.
• What do the "lows" in your life look like?
There was a time just after I had graduated high school and before I had moved out that I was highly depressed. I lacked any kind of purpose or direction in life and thought that I should have it. I also felt immense guilt over the harm I had caused throughout my school life. I believed that I should hide myself away from all life so that I never had the choice to take those actions again. It took me over a year living in this state to finally pull myself out of it. I discarded my need for a purpose or a direction and I discarded the need to be forgiven for the past so that I could live a new life. I discarded any other need that I could find as it is when a need is unmet that you enter a victim mindset, which is a mindset that I really want to avoid in me.
• How attached are you to reality? Do you daydream often, or do you pay attention to what's around you? If you do daydream, are you aware of your surroundings while you do so?
I’m not attached to reality at all. I daydream very often but I do pay close attention to my surroundings while I do so. I think having extremely sensitive senses helps with this. I have quite a vibrant and detailed imaginary world.
• Imagine you are alone in a blank, empty room. There is nothing for you to do and no one to talk to. What do you think about?
I would think about the same things I do as I fall asleep. In other words, I’d just daydream about hypotheticals and the future. Possibly not the future in this case as there might not be one but I imagine I’d be able to entertain myself endlessly in my head.
• How long do you take to make an important decision? And do you change your mind once you've made it?
I think of myself as having 3 decision makers. My rational mind, my sensory body/gut and my emotional heart. If all 3 are in agreement, I am able to make a decision very quickly. If 2 are in agreement, I will take longer to weigh up the options before I choose as often they will end up in agreement after I have thought it through. I will do the same if none are in agreement. In the event that they still can’t come to a unanimous decision I will flip a coin or roll a dice and go with the option that picks. I do this no matter how “important” the decision is.
• How long do you take to process your emotions? How important are emotions in your life?
Apparently I don’t feel emotions in the way other people do (at least according to the people I’ve spoken to about this). I tend to recognise emotions through the bodily sensations they apply to my body, for example, I can tell if I'm angry by my body feeling hot and my jaw feeling tense. With reference to my 3 decision makers, this means I can only figure out what my heart is telling me by going through my body. In chaotic or highly sensory situations where there is not enough time or space to recognise what I am feeling, it’s as though I am not feeling any emotion at all. I tend to think they are just as important as the other 2 decision makers when deciding things, as emotions are the basis for deciding what you value. If you don’t know what you value, you can’t determine what the best actions are for you to take according to those values, which results in nihilism. I think people would be surprised to learn that I consider emotions important. I have an almost entirely inexpressive face and a monotone voice which has resulted in me being called a robot quite often. In the times that I do have an expression, it is usually fake and done to make the other person feel more comfortable.
• Do you ever catch yourself agreeing with others just to appease them and keep the conversation going? How often? Why?
No. If I want to keep the conversation going then I will intentionally disagree with them to see how far they can take their opinion and understand it better. If I disagree with someone, I will inform them of my perspective. I do not wish for them to agree with me to “appease” me, although I will understand if they make that choice. I want them to inform me of their whole perspective so that I can understand it. If they can convince me after all this, then I will truly agree with them. This is not always the case though, I can imagine times that I would pretend to agree with someone, but it would have to be “worth” it.
• Do you break rules often? Do you think authority should be challenged, or that they know better? If you do break rules, why?
I don’t think rules are set in stone. If I disagree with a rule and there are no meaningful consequences, then the rule may as well not exist for me. I make no comments on others' takes on that. I will challenge authority any time I want to. Whether or not they “should” be challenged depends on what you value in an authority, but for my case the answer is yes they should be. In the event I am an authority I would want to be challenged, it would be both an opportunity to test my ability as well as to exchange information with people.

Welcome back to my running series of WWF PPV Reviews from a ‘blind’ perspective (I have no idea what’s going to happen; the results, the feuds or how good any of the matches will be). I have always heard stories of the attitude era and golden age but never watched it myself so I set myself to watching every single PPV event chronologically. I am also watching Wrestling Bios ‘reliving the war’ series to keep me updated inbetween the events with the feuds, and to get excited about upcoming matches.
Before I review the matches, based on the past few episodes of raw and last PPVs I’ll let you know, going into the event, which match I’m most excited for and which feud I’m most excited to see.
Is it even a question? Even though I haven’t watched wwf during this era I’ve heard stories of how fantastic Austin vs Bret hart at WM13 is, feud and match wise this is my most hyped match of the night.
WWF Wrestlemania 13 1997 Review
Four way Tag Team Elimination Match 1.75/5
Rocky Maivia vs Sultan 1.75/5
HHH vs Goldust 2.5/5
Vader & Mankind vs Owen Hart & Bulldog 2.5/5
Stone Cold vs Bret Hart 6/5
Nation of Domination vs LOD & Johnson 3/5
Undertaker vs Sycho sid 1.5/5
In the opener of the match I thought it was just an 8 man slug fest will pinfalls to eliminate each person as they all just start beating the sh*t out of each other but then they go back to the usual tag team corners, a little disappointing but let’s see what this match has got.
The godwins are growing on me… just a bit, not very much but a bit; spitting on people, dancin around like mad men they’re an okay watch from time to time I won’t lie. What happened to lafon and furnas in this match though? Did they just disappear? It felt like a blink and you’ll miss it I swear they didn’t even get in the match but maybe I’m crazy. In terms of an opener with tag teams this was an okay match it wasn’t anything special but it did its job. The headbangers did some cool aerial moves, trying to prove themselves was good to see but not too much to say. It was a little messy with teams literally eliminating themselves, but nothing botched.
It feels like there’s been next to no build up to this sultan rocky match, it was just thrown together as, in terms of main attractions, the wwf was still pretty thin.
The match gets going and rocky is firing on all four cylinders tonight, he’s improved extremely quickly from his first match, show boating, over hyping the smallest of moves he’s getting exciting to watch. The same however can’t really be said about sultan, as soon as he gets control the match really slows down and gets pretty boring (holding a chin lock for all eternity). Rock gets back in control and here we go, he’s really feeling it tonight and his moves are looking really clean, especially his punch exchanges. This match wasn’t really anything too special but it’s great to see Rocky starting to warm up in the WWF. Sultan and sheik assault Rocky after the match and oh my god the splash from the top rope looked so painful for Rocky 💀. Then Rocky’s dad comes out to help and we get a great crowed pop after rock and his dad both slam the iron sheik, this was actually a really cool moment; father and son in the ring. The crowd still isn’t behind Rocky all that much yet still, which is kinda surprising as his wrestling is good to watch but I suppose his character itself is a little bland.
Chyna and HHH come to the ring and the camera pans to a couple of fans signs “HHH + CHYNA WHO HAS THE WILLY” which were f***ing hilarious, the public is always on point. It’s also insane how massive Chyna is here, she actually looks bigger than triple H. You would not wanna walk past her down a dark alley.
Goldust and HHH actually had a really good match, everything they did looked really clean, it was fast paced, good wrestling shown and an okay feud to fuel the fire between them. This is the best I’ve seen Goldust in a while and HHH is really building his repertoire of moves up; They had some great chemistry as well and the crowd starts getting into the match towards the end, a stark contrast to previous events where it would almost be silence until the main event. The match ends with marlena being shoved into Chyna and being literally tossed around like a rag doll I’m surprised her head didn’t come off, triple H hits a pedigree and it’s 1 2 3 goodnight Goldust. There wasn’t anything crazy but I enjoyed watching this match, well paced, good physical moments including Goldust going face first from the top rope into the side of the ring which looked really good.
Mankind and Vader REALLY work as a concept for a team in the WWF during this era for me, very intimidating but also two great entertaining wrestlers. Mix them with Owen hart and bulldog and you’ve got a great match on your hands… right? Well turns out maybe not. The two teams didn’t particularly click well as they were both heel teams with no baby face. This being said they still put on a good show (my god bulldog is incredibly strong to hold mankind up like he did and then do the same to Vader!?) but it wasn’t anywhere near as good as it should’ve been on paper. That finish as well? Why… I don’t know why they’d book that finish in a wrestlemania event, a double count out? 😴. I still think it had its good moments and I did enjoy watching it but like I say it wasn’t nearly as good as it should’ve been.
Now… I’ve heard so much about this match with stone cold and Bret hart at WM13, so I did have high expectations going in, and with a fantastic build up, an iconic series of promos from either side I was hyped I was ready willing and able to sit back and enjoy whatever I was about to see.
I gotta say it exceeded every single expectation I had. The crowd from the first punch to the end submission was absolutely electric, they ate up every single second of this match and I can’t blame them it was awesome!!! This is now in my top 5 matches of all time, maybe even top 3, it had everything I could’ve asked for. No interference from anyone else no weird ending no stupid sh*t going on just two legends having a full on war at the biggest wrestling event of the year. I also love how Austin never tapped and literally passed out from the pain which was a really good booking choice to keep his character still looking really strong. We had blood we had chairs we had ring bells and fighting in the crowd I’m gushing about this match. It was perfectly paced as well even when it ‘slowed down’ it was entertaining. Some iconic images of stone cold in the shooting star press, face covered in blood. Absolutely flawless match and the best match I’ve seen so far in this era. The crowd ends up backing Steve Austin for his efforts and because Bret decided to continue the assault after the bell, finally hearing that deafening ‘Austin’ chant throughout the stadium was really cool. I can’t say enough, if you haven’t seen this match go and watch it right this second you’re in for a massive treat. And this match gets its own 6/5 rating which I think I’ll introduce for matches that are all time legendary matches, in my opinion, and they aren’t gunna come out often but I have to, the whole thing was simply in its own league. WOWOW!
I’m just finding it hard to put into words how entertaining this was I was glued to the screen. A brutal submission when Bret Hart is pulling Steve’s leg off almost outside the ring and Steve is in the ring had me wincing. Also Austin’s selling, and his hype between shots shouting at Bret and giving him the double trouble with his hands it’s all just so iconic, this match must truly have cemented Austin as a main eventer going forward.
This whole match just screamed Attitude era style match and I seriously believe this must have been extremely influential on the wwf going into the coming years. Having seen Austin’s matches in the future I have to say this has got to be one of if not his best technical wrestling match of all time, I can see both wrestlers being even bigger stars after this match it was that good. Top 3 all time favourite matches, wow, well done to both of them for this. Experiencing this for the first time was magical I can’t imagine watching it live or being there, I’m very jealous. It’s currently a Monday evening and I was shouting and on my feet and as I write this I’m pacing back and forth with glee. I’m gunna have to take a break before the next match 😂.
It’s a shame that hart vs Austin wasn’t the main event because there’s absolutely no way anyone could upstage up to the match we’ve just seen, but I’ll try to go into the next couple of matches not comparing it to the previous one.
The LOD vs NOD match was absolute chaos I was literally laughing because it was so fun to watch, I had no clue what was going on there was so much to look at and once again this was another attitude era style match. It was pretty entertaining. It felt a little experimental and I would’ve liked to have seen at least a little bit of wrestling but during the whole bout there was maybe 3 or 4 moves that weren’t hitting each other with trash cans, literally hanging each other with nooses, freezing with fire extinguisher it was nuts.
We’re really feeling the influence of ECW in this match and it was great to hear the crowd so alive and enjoying it, they were probably riding the high of the legendary match we’d just seen as well as me. This was the first time seeing LOD for me and it was great, the reminded me of the Dudley boyz which are my second favourite tag team of all time. But seeing weapons finally introduced into the wwf was amazing and I’m super excited to see future brawls I think this is all taking a huge leap in the right direction for making mid card matches more enjoyable. Post match LOD hits a double flying closeline and on two NOD members and it was a decently booked bout. Not the best but good fun.
Shawn Michaels makes his way to the ring and like him or not it’s always great to see Shawn at wrestlemania, and here we go I’m ready for a great main event, obviously knowing the streak I know the outcome but I’m excited to see what the two monsters of the WWF can do in the ring. Side note, it’s really cool seeing undertaker come to the ring in his vintage attire.
Bret hart comes to the ring just as the match is about to get underway to fully engage with his heel turn in the WWF and I think it felt… a little bit out of place but he gets hit with a power-bomb to the applause of the audience which was pretty satisfying. Let’s get into this massive main event match, and oh boy… the main event.
I was majorly disappointed at this main event especially after the matches we’d just seen it just did not hit at all for me. It never felt like it really got going even in the last part with undertaker kicking out of a tombstone piledriver to a big crowd pop… it just didn’t feel like a main event.
Dont get me wrong Sid’s character is cool and he plays it well but he just cannot perform on the big stage with the big players of the business. I don’t know how you can book such a perfect match like Bret and Austin and then have this as the main event. Bret shouldn’t have interfered either the undertaker did not need it at all. The coolest part of this match was the undertakers iconic celebration afterwards. Please don’t let Sid main event again, he had a great push and was fun to watch but he just can’t do these matches when the time calls for something of this magnitude. Very disappointing, very slow match, and I won’t lie probably the worst main event I’ve seen on my journey through this era. I also looked it up and apparently sid literally sh*t his pants during this match? I’d love to know if that’s true or not. But yeah that’s all I really have to say about this one, not much happened and there was an extremely tedious segment in the middle of the match where sid was going to the second ring rope and dropping a double fist on undertaker which seemed to go on for so long and it was just boring.
Overall the event was pretty decent but the main event really let it down. I won’t let that sour how amazing Bret vs Austin was though, they truly carried this event and elevated it majorly and it’s worth watching even if just for that one match. I enjoyed most of the mid card alongside that as well but with all the build up to such a let down, actually think the main event was the worst match of the night, and that’s coming from a massive undertaker fan.
Overall rating 3.25/5

It's really not going to look like anything special tbh. The Vocab cards would just be the Spanish word on the front then, answer on the back with an example sentence and a contextualizing image or clip on the back... if relevant.
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But I wasted alot of time curating a personalized example sentence for (almost) every single vocab word I discover. Key word is discover imo.
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Right now my example sentences contain a simple concept I already comprehend, atleast within the context of that sentence, for the word that I am learning to be applied to. Like my lunes card is ´´lunes es antes martes´´. As I create the vocab cards I try to keep main vocab word part as the primary focus in usage and less that of the sentence itself for the sake of simplicity which means that the vocab card usually ends up as the first word of the sentence unless I personally see no reason actually care. Like another card I have that was luckily easy to make for desde is ´´el imperio de mongol duró desde a 1206 a 1368''. Every example I create is with words I already know or do not feel a remote need to understand - to understand the sentence. but IDK. Also I'm more concerned with audio than I am with imagery though. But If I could make the back into a really simple clip and very quickly that would be nice, but I dont care about imagery too much as most of it is going to end up in immersion anyways. Sound matters for me though. Sound is really so i can read something out loud before I hear what it sounds like, which helps me make comparisons and judge myself while I flag cards to make filtered decks out of later. And of course, for words that I already knew before starting studying I do not even consider making vocab cards out of as it will be fluff. completely random words like mañana or lanzar are weirdly glued to my head specifically because I have a specific memory with them. like for lanzar I watched a little game trailer and a text prompt showed up saying ''lanzar roca'' for this fucking kid to just launch a whole ass rock at a dude across a bridge. which is goofy as fuck. the game was called pedros adventures btw.
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Also on the back of one of my vocab cards for the word 4th... I literally just put ''cuarto y cuarto'' fucking 10 times. because if you say cuarto 10x fast, it sounds like Squidward in Japanese which is fucking HILARIOUS.
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But if I could imagine imagery in a specific way it would really just be for nouns and numbers... and anything that has a very concrete meaning with just an image. like for example, you could have a game where an image flashes on the screen and you need to translate that image in your head or if you want by typing it or speaking it out loud. And you get feedback for elements of the image relayed... but I haven't spent much time thinking about that kind of thing cos its not on any to do list, but it would be pretty cool.
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its quite easy to curate examples as I'm watching these dreaming Spanish videos which is why id like to make some kind of sentence cards out of the clips. this is really because there is like a mix in my head between a sentence card and an example sentence on the back of a vocab card. Vocab cards are really the gateway for sentence cards imo. For any vocab card that has multiple definitions I need only create 1 vocab card for its primary use, and create sentence cards for its primary use and its different usages as I discover them through immersion. I can work out the nuance as I watch, read and write. and then as i immerse and gain enough vocabulary i will eventually bury more and more vocab cards and instead replace them with sentence cards. But of course, still using both in a balance.
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And ideally, all of this comes from something I highly associate with in my head. As in English; for any single word and phrase and etc., I have in my subconscious a lil smth-smth associated with that word in so many ways that I do not even realize. But I do not care to understand the little neural networks, just as I do not care to actually develop some stupid ass grammatical understanding before I even begin speaking or listening. but only to just create a 24 7 immersive study environment conducive to an almost gamified consumption that gradually improves my abilities over time. Right now it feels like i'm just trying to make a build, and I cant even start grinding the way I want to. I have tidbits here and there but I haven't worked it out entirely.
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And I do apologize if I seemed like there was friction between me and watching the dreaming Spanish videos when you had brought it up. it was just that as of now; everything I've been doing is just thinking of how to make this situation fairly seamless without needing any weird in-between steps just to do a single repetitive task. Like tagging and flagging cards is something you dont want to do manually, you want to do it with a key stroke or command. Books are easy to get, and I will be consuming the dreaming spanish videos now that I'm feeling how helpful they are compared to what I was doing before... Spanish dubs... alot of scrolling in tiktok... ALSO that one Spanish youtuber for chess called rey engima. He's like gotham chess but for Spanish which i absolutely love because I love chess and I needed a spanish way to consume it. Ive made alot of Spanish accounts for things and translated alot of UI into spanish. and I also downloaded urban VPN but i think that part was unnecessary asf.
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But really the annoying thing was how to approach anki. also, that 4 hour video I linked is really just an oversimplified text book to just get a general idea of a concept. Which is all I care about. Things like grammar are terribly taught in classrooms and that video just goes about it in a way I really like, atleast compared to every other explanation ive seen. I planned to just do just 30 minutes per day on that video as I focused on other things. but I got caught up with other random shit and then I kind of just set that video to the side... which is why i only watched 20 minutes of it.
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I am a really slow thinker, and things get to expedited when I get a foundation.
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In regards to what I mean when I said 'gamified element'. I don't mean to say things like grind and such like this is some MMORPG. I mean gamified in the sense that I get some kind of gamified feedback or feeling in a dopamine inducing form that encourages me to do really weird things to lock in that I dont anyone actually does. Like if im at the microwave and the numbers are going down, im literally saying those numbers in Spanish as they go down because in the end the main goal is to entirely quit using English as a crutch for the language and reach a point where you need only convert your conceptualizations into language and vice versa i.e., other Spanish speakers. But gamified elements provide for me an extremely significant way for me to engage with the language that I also really enjoy... cos im a weirdo. Being able to see how long I've spent on each card and other visual inputs about the outputs of my efforts are also cool, especially if displayed in a consumable manner to increase my receptivity.
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Anyways, hopefully I could at least give you an idea of what's going on in my head and what my goals are. This process has been poopoo stinky, and my brain is very poo poo stinky.

I recently lead my first writer's room as a head writer! I've been working on a personal project for a while and when we finally got backed and financed, it was crazy! I don't have enough experience to be a showrunner, so we hired someone else. However, being in a writer's room and not just a PA was mind blowing. It kinda felt like knowing how to swim, but now it's my first time in the deep end. I'm sure there are more experienced people on this subreddit with better advice, but I just want to talk about what I learned.
Context: Even though I can't say which show it is right now, I can say that it is for cable and is a 13 episode, half-hour drama. Including myself, there were seven writers.

1: Don't be afraid to redo the pilot!

• They say "writing is rewriting" and this couldn't have been more true for me. Once we actually sat down and talked about what we wanted the season to look like, the pilot had to be rewritten. The pilot I wrote had won a screenwriting competition and has got many glowing reviews. However, I'd be lying if I said I put as much thought into the other episodes as I did the pilot, simply because I didn't want to waste all that effort on a show that might not even get made.

My showrunner really showed his experience by pointing out the flaws in the pilot, not based on the telling of the story in the pilot, but the pay offs we wanted to happen later in the series.

2: Confidence, confidence, confidence!

• This wasn't my first pilot that has been picked up, but it was the first that had actually been put into pre-production instead of just being optioned again or being bought to collect dust in development hell. I was the least experienced in the room and it really made me nervous. People who had some serious skill were asking me questions about my story that I genuinely never thought about before. After our first session, I honestly thought I shouldn't even be in there.

I talked about it with one of my producers and she encouraged me to just do the best I can. After all, you can't really be wrong or mess up something that doesn't really exist yet. The writer's room was really a place for everyone to just figure out what was going on and the first season is always full of experimentation. As my confidence grew, I was able to talk about my characters and core themes with a lot more depth, like I had when I was talking to myself. This made everything way easier to write and had I just had the confidence from the beginning, I feel like we wouldn't have started off so slow.

3: Lean on everyone's specialty.

• I always knew writers had preferences in genres and writing pillars like dialogue or structure. What I didn't expect was how rewarding it would be to have someone prop up your weaknesses with their skills. I usually write alone, so having people help fill in for my weaknesses was great! Leaning into what everyone else does best kept things going at a good pace.

4: Try new stuff till it sticks.

• I had ideas for the show that flat out did not work. Looking at the overall season, some of the episodes we wanted to do, didn't actually add up to the type of emotional pay offs we wanted. Out of the 13, only 5 (including the pilot) of my original episode ideas actually stayed. We came up with a bunch of stuff that was great, but didn't really fit. In the end, some of our random ideas worked better than ones were were sure of.

Even after we got everything off of index cards, sat down and wrote the scripts, there were holes and weaknesses in the season that wasn't as obvious before. Always looking at the big picture and the pay offs we wanted was key. Don't be afraid to try something new if you think it can improve the script or season, no matter what stage.

5: Communication

• When we were ready to start typing, there were some people who wanted to write certain episodes and others who didn't care which. However, we found out that everyone has an episode they really want to do and some people just didn't speak up about it. My showrunner talked with everyone together and individually to make sure people were not only writing for the show, but writing something they really wanted to sink their teeth into.

Other times when people were "too quiet", he made sure to make those writers give opinions on the topic at hand. Sometimes they had ideas they thought were stupid, but actually were really great.

6: Be friends

• Yeah, you can't be friends with everyone. It's true. Even so, our writer's room really felt like it kicked into high gear as we all got to know each other. We talked about what inspires us, what we do outside of writing and how our lives were going in general. It made it feel less like a job and more like the discussion you would have with your friends at a bar after seeing a movie. Awesome feeling. We even attended one of my writer's birthday party were he proposed to his long time girlfriend. After that, writing felt like butter. It's way easier to debate and fix things with people you get along with. I can't imaging being in a room with someone for that long for months with people I don't like or don't know well.

7: Check the ego at the door

• This is something my producer told me and something my showrunner said up front. We all are going to be wrong sometimes. If something needs defending, defend it, but not to the point to where it may cause a problem. Honestly, I couldn't have written this season this well on my own. Teamwork made the dream work.

We are scheduled to start shooting the pilot later this year, so I can't wait to see what happens next. It's far from over and there's a lot that still needs to happen before it even goes to screening, so I hope everything works out! If you have had any experiences in writer's rooms or advice, I'd love to hear it! I just thought I'd share this. Happy writing!

First off, I hate myself and think I’m a terrible person already, so I don’t care if it makes people hate me more. FFS if you were homeless everyone would hate you just for that, so why wouldn’t you want to go a route as such just to win and stop being a victim and away from all the a holes and the evils of the world. People get r word and k word out there. (Reddit doesn’t like these words, but they’re not hard to figure out what they are).
Also, what many people consider a scam is sometimes technically legal. Like “how to get rich doing this” courses. As long as you disclaim that results aren’t guaranteed, and that you’re just teaching ways that COULD make you rich, you’re committing no crime. In fact you might even help people. College is just as much as a scam as that, because degrees “don’t guarantee jobs”, and many people now they there are TOO MANY degrees, so I guess there are more college graduates than there are jobs available.
I’m so fed up with looking up ways to make money online and every result being a get rich quick guru, so maybe that IS the way, telling other people how to (POSSIBLY) get rich.
It’s like the entire system is broken, capitalism/supply and demand, by design there HAS to be people in poverty, and SO MANY jobs REFUSE to pay a living wage (I even read about a grocery store that chose to close down instead of raising pay by $4 more an hour, so instead of paying employees more, they chose to stop making money completely, wtfh?
It seems like all these great promising opportunities come out but then they get over saturated, like GME and crypto and NFTs, they all seem pretty dead now.
Society respects rich frauds more than humble people struggling to survive anyway. And I rather be DEAD than homeless or in prison, or any type of isolation/imprisonment, even if the police rescue you you’re just going to end up homeless anyway, there are reasons victims of abuse stay and don’t leave.
AI is making life easier AND MORE FAIR, but people aren’t willing to pay as much if at all for something that they can themselves tell AI to do for little to no cost.
I’m gonna be SO GLAD when self driving cars make human driving illegal, I’ll VOTE FOR IT, then I can never be stranded or disqualified purely because I can’t safely and steady control a death machine surrounded by other death machines with police constantly watching to ruin your life even if you didn’t ruin anyone else’s life.
I’ll never understand how most people work better jobs for years and years (although supposedly most people DO experience getting fired at least once, maybe that’s normal now) with all the psychological tricks and gaslighting and secret languages and communications they use to test you, and all the awkward focus on things that aren’t really that important.
But just in general despite all these it’s BS you’re not allowed to make more than a set amount per hour, AND not allowed to work either less, OR MORE hours than you want or need. Having to work more than 40 hours is kind of BS, but it’s also BS to not be able to GET 40 hours.
And lose your job lose your health insurance and then have to go into massive debt until your credit card is cut off and you go into withdrawal from 4+ meds and then end up in the ER with even more debt and the police might kill you and they send people to prison to be annually rapped it’s part of the prison punishment system.
But yeah people with the best ideas succeed average barely survive and disadvantaged suffer and die.
They’re never going to let me out of this because they know I’ll sue them and get millions and THEY’LL go to prison and get annually rapped. If that’s what’s really going on, it would explain A LOT.
But idk how tf you be financially successful in modern day USA. All the opportunities for the untalented are quickly oversaturated and the market lose interest. I guess everyone just stuck wage slaving until the next thing? Maybe some have secret methods they’re not sharing but most probably have nothing but the wage slaving until the next opportunity is created and released and they HOPEFULLY catch it before it takes off.
Like this “go to a job and do meaningless bs for less than a living wage” can’t be the only way the masses can access.
I stopped even writing fanfiction or anything really creative for enjoyment because im too worried about money. My parents want to retire in a few years and im already 28 now.
They’re now telling me I should look into applying for disability to supplement my job, solidifying I’m a failure.
I don’t want to be a victim of my circumstances anymore, I lost most of my life already, my parents even told me that I’m getting “up in age”, all that “you’re young you have time”was worthless BS for me, the time passed and I’ve barely been able to progress.
I rather be a con artist than a bum and/or a mooch off the taxpayers and/or be homeless, I rather be DEAD than those things.
I don’t understand why life is so hard, but it has become clear to me that it’s all a contest, and many must lose and suffer for less to win and succeed and thrive.
I just want to be able to generate income remotely and be left the hell alone from society, even without being homeless I rather be away from society, be left alone.
Most jobs don’t really benefit or attribute to society anyway.
There has to be something I can create that goes viral and somehow has advertising/marketing opportunities…….
But even if I did it’d probably be very cynical reflecting myself, but much of media is and people love it.
Hmm, I’m honestly kind of waiting for AI to do more like generating VIDEO and editing and all that. But then everyone else will be using it and over saturating the market the likes history has never seen, it will be completely unprecedented.
But AI allows more people to create without all the technical requirements getting in the way.
Nobody even understands what the hell I’m saying. I swear I really am on a different dimensional plane of existence.

First off, I hate myself and think I’m a terrible person already, so I don’t care if it makes people hate me more. FFS if you were homeless everyone would hate you just for that, so why wouldn’t you want to go a route as such just to win and stop being a victim and away from all the a holes and the evils of the world. People get r word and k word out there. (Reddit doesn’t like these words, but they’re not hard to figure out what they are).
Also, what many people consider a scam is sometimes technically legal. Like “how to get rich doing this” courses. As long as you disclaim that results aren’t guaranteed, and that you’re just teaching ways that COULD make you rich, you’re committing no crime. In fact you might even help people. College is just as much as a scam as that, because degrees “don’t guarantee jobs”, and many people now they there are TOO MANY degrees, so I guess there are more college graduates than there are jobs available.
I’m so fed up with looking up ways to make money online and every result being a get rich quick guru, so maybe that IS the way, telling other people how to (POSSIBLY) get rich.
It’s like the entire system is broken, capitalism/supply and demand, by design there HAS to be people in poverty, and SO MANY jobs REFUSE to pay a living wage (I even read about a grocery store that chose to close down instead of raising pay by $4 more an hour, so instead of paying employees more, they chose to stop making money completely, wtfh?
It seems like all these great promising opportunities come out but then they get over saturated, like GME and crypto and NFTs, they all seem pretty dead now.
Society respects rich frauds more than humble people struggling to survive anyway. And I rather be DEAD than homeless or in prison, or any type of isolation/imprisonment, even if the police rescue you you’re just going to end up homeless anyway, there are reasons victims of abuse stay and don’t leave.
AI is making life easier AND MORE FAIR, but people aren’t willing to pay as much if at all for something that they can themselves tell AI to do for little to no cost.
I’m gonna be SO GLAD when self driving cars make human driving illegal, I’ll VOTE FOR IT, then I can never be stranded or disqualified purely because I can’t safely and steady control a death machine surrounded by other death machines with police constantly watching to ruin your life even if you didn’t ruin anyone else’s life.
I’ll never understand how most people work better jobs for years and years (although supposedly most people DO experience getting fired at least once, maybe that’s normal now) with all the psychological tricks and gaslighting and secret languages and communications they use to test you, and all the awkward focus on things that aren’t really that important.
But just in general despite all these it’s BS you’re not allowed to make more than a set amount per hour, AND not allowed to work either less, OR MORE hours than you want or need. Having to work more than 40 hours is kind of BS, but it’s also BS to not be able to GET 40 hours.
And lose your job lose your health insurance and then have to go into massive debt until your credit card is cut off and you go into withdrawal from 4+ meds and then end up in the ER with even more debt and the police might kill you and they send people to prison to be annually rapped it’s part of the prison punishment system.
But yeah people with the best ideas succeed average barely survive and disadvantaged suffer and die.
They’re never going to let me out of this because they know I’ll sue them and get millions and THEY’LL go to prison and get annually rapped. If that’s what’s really going on, it would explain A LOT.
But idk how tf you be financially successful in modern day USA. All the opportunities for the untalented are quickly oversaturated and the market lose interest. I guess everyone just stuck wage slaving until the next thing? Maybe some have secret methods they’re not sharing but most probably have nothing but the wage slaving until the next opportunity is created and released and they HOPEFULLY catch it before it takes off.
Like this “go to a job and do meaningless bs for less than a living wage” can’t be the only way the masses can access.
I stopped even writing fanfiction or anything really creative for enjoyment because im too worried about money. My parents want to retire in a few years and im already 28 now.
They’re now telling me I should look into applying for disability to supplement my job, solidifying I’m a failure.
I don’t want to be a victim of my circumstances anymore, I lost most of my life already, my parents even told me that I’m getting “up in age”, all that “you’re young you have time”was worthless BS for me, the time passed and I’ve barely been able to progress.
I rather be a con artist than a bum and/or a mooch off the taxpayers and/or be homeless, I rather be DEAD than those things.
I don’t understand why life is so hard, but it has become clear to me that it’s all a contest, and many must lose and suffer for less to win and succeed and thrive.
I just want to be able to generate income remotely and be left the hell alone from society, even without being homeless I rather be away from society, be left alone.
Most jobs don’t really benefit or attribute to society anyway.
There has to be something I can create that goes viral and somehow has advertising/marketing opportunities…….
But even if I did it’d probably be very cynical reflecting myself, but much of media is and people love it.
Hmm, I’m honestly kind of waiting for AI to do more like generating VIDEO and editing and all that. But then everyone else will be using it and over saturating the market the likes history has never seen, it will be completely unprecedented.
But AI allows more people to create without all the technical requirements getting in the way.
Nobody even understands what the hell I’m saying. I swear I really am on a different dimensional plane of existence.

I would like to share some tips that helped me do well on all my ATI exams! For reference, I got a level 3 on all but one ATI exam! Fundamentals was my first ATI exam ever which I got a 2, and it helped shaped the way I continued to study for ATI. I hope this helps anyone who is either struggling with ATI or wanting to increase their scores.

• This one is obvious, but ATI is your best resource. Start early. Utilize the book. It’s not a typical textbook so it is easier to get through compared to your average 2,000+ page textbook. If you start early and it’s not huge like the med-surg one, you can get through the majority of the chapters before test time. You do not have to read every word.

How I utilized ATI textbooks:

• For courses that required an ATI exam, I read the chapters that corresponded with the lectures - except med-surg… have you seen that thing? I relied on the Lewis Med Surg book that was required for our class because our Med-Surg 1 & 2 class HEAVILY tested on that book.
• I get highlighter happy at times, but I tried to limit myself to highlighting important things that would jump at me if I had to later refer back to a chapter. I highlighted drug names in green. I also highlighted measures/numbers/lab values and random facts that ATI likes to throw at you in. Like if you have a latex allergy, you can be allergic to strawberries kinda thing.
• Do the practice questions at the end of the chapters. If you don’t want to read the chapters, at least do the questions (usually only 5) to see if there are any gaps of knowledge. If you get something wrong, refer back to the book to read over that section.

Practice Exams/Dynamic Quizzes

• Plan to complete all dynamic quizzes for that subject. If you can only do ONE thing, complete all the quizzes. I can’t emphasize that enough. You hear it over and over again, but read to understand rationales, writing out the ones for unfamiliar topics or easily forgotten details. They will help in future ATI exams! The goal isn't to memorize practice questions, but to learn and understand. Refer to the book for content review when needed. If you know you have 400-1,000 questions to get through, start early. Mark the ones you get wrong or guessed correctly so you can review later and when your exam gets closer.
• Take Practice A & B exam and take it seriously. As tempting as it may be, do not google the answers. These exams give you an idea of areas you are struggling with. I recommend doing focused reviews because it takes you to the exact area where you missed the question. I would hand write the areas I missed.
• If you see the same thing over and over again during your quizzes and practice exams, pay attention. ATI is giving you hints on what you may see on the exam.

Extra Tips for ATI

• Be familiar with National Notifiable Conditions for those dreaded “which one do you report?” questions. You don’t have to memorize them — just know the main ones. There is a page in the Community ATI book with some of the main ones, but the CDC website is a quick reference. Bookmark it!
• Know antidotes, especially to common drugs.
• Know what you can delegate to UAPs and LPNs. In short, do not delegate what you can EAT (Evaluate, Assess, Teach). Remember, LPNs can only reassess after the RN has done the first assessment. This includes if a patient came back from surgery. The RN will assess and do vital signs if the patient has come back from surgery or is unstable, not the LPN and definitely not the UAP. Also, LPNs cannot do the initial teaching, but they can reinforce the teachings (example: self-administering insulin).
• Review frequently missed content because a lot of that stuff may be on your exam.

Outside resources

• The only resource outside of ATI I used are the LevelUpRN videos, which I am sure many of you already know about. Her playlists follow ATI closely enough without her getting sued again lol. If you can get your hands on her cards, that’s great but do not neglect the quizzes.

Test taking prioritization strategies you have to understand:

• Least invasive vs most invasive, acute vs chronic, unstable vs stable, expected findings vs unexpected findings (aka complications), & ABCs go without saying.
• Go through the NurseLogic 2.0 modules (under the learn tab) if you need help with prioritization. This is often what gets us the most but you’re always going to RUN to the patient who will die without intervention first. If you see a patient with stridor vs chest pain, who do you think is the priority? What about the patient with laryngeal edema or the stroke patient with hemiparesis? The patient with a sudden, severe headache or the patient with heart failure and 2+ edema? The asthmatic patient who stopped wheezing or the patient with chronic angina clutching their chest after walking?
• In a disaster situation (moreso for the community & leadership ATI exam), the patient who will die without intervention, but can survive with intervention is the priority (red tag). The patient who is dying (SCALP, not facial lacerations, fixed and dilated pupils) is the least of the priority (black tag) due to limited resources.

Other test taking strategies

• Go with what you know, but if you see 2 answer choices that are basically the same but worded differently, eliminate those. If you see 2 answer choices that are opposites, one of them may be the answer.
• When in doubt, avoid absolutes like “always, never, only, everyone” (unless it’s something accurate like ALWAYS practice hand hygiene lol but ATI usually doesn’t use absolutes like that)
• Look for keywords. Is the question asking what the nurse should do FIRST or what is the best nursing action?

It’s true that ATI will test you on things from other courses (some you haven’t taken yet), but the majority of it will be over the course you are studying for. The goal isn’t to get every question correctly. The goal is to use prior knowledge and test taking strategies to help you at least narrow down to 2 answer choices, and hopefully choose the right one. After doing a bunch of questions, you start to see patterns and understand how ATI wants you to choose the answer.
I know this is a lot, but I just wanted to be as thorough as possible. Please let me know if you have any questions! I am happy to help! 😊

Hi Morgan, Longtime listener, first time writing in. My best friend and I are having trouble figuring out the right thing to do in this situation and wanted to get an outside perspective. Buckle up because this is a LONG one because theres a lot of backstory that’s necessary.
Would we be the assholes if we didn’t attend our childhood best friends wedding?
There is a lot of context in this storyline so I’ll try to give a lot of detail. We start in January of 2023, my best friend, Greta(26F) and I(26F) get in contact with one of our childhood best friends, Laura (26F), and plan a visit to catch up on the past 10ish years that we’ve been apart. Laura moved away from our hometown when we were 15. Now Greta and I live about 2 hours from where Laura moved to when we were young, so we reached out and invited her and her fiancé Logan(26M) up to stay with us and hang out.
They come visit, we have such a great time, her fiancé was pretty quiet and distant the whole time, but the 3 of us together were big talkers so I just chalked it up to him not being able to get a word in and they left. In March they came back to visit again and announced to us that they were moving a few states away. We were really sad, but happy for them since they were getting to move somewhere that they’d wanted to be for a while. They were going to elope together after a few months but Logan had a university study abroad for a month in Japan so they were going to wait until after.
So, he leaves for Japan in May, and while he is away a girl reaches out to Laura from the college that Logan attends. This girl tells Laura that her friend had been getting really close with Logan, uncomfortably so and she wanted to give Laura a heads up that she thought they were romantically involved. Greta and I were worried but Laura brushed it off and said it was probably nothing, so Greta and I dropped it because we didn’t feel close enough to Laura to tell her we felt like she should look into it more.
Flash forward 2 weeks into Logan’s study abroad, he calls Laura at 5AM to let her know that he doesn’t think he wants to get married anymore. She’s distraught but has to go into work that morning and calls us after to let us know. We support her, you know he fucking sucks for doing that not only over the phone but right before she went into work, real shady. Greta and I are very worried about Laura because Laura really wants to make it work, but we still don’t say anything because we just want to be there for her.
He gets back and agrees to go to couples counseling, they do couples counseling for 2 weeks, during this time he repairs her car. Replaces a tire, breaks, oil change, the works, he’s been working with cars for a long time, so this was no biggie. Well after that two weeks, Laura comes home to all of Logan’s stuff packed and he tells her it’s over and he’s moving back home. He leaves. She’s devastated. We comfort her, come up and visit her, and tell her that she doesn’t need him and she slowly starts getting over him. Meanwhile she gives us A TON of context about her relationship with Logan. She paid for his college, he has had no job for the past 2 years while getting his degree, so she had been financially supporting them both. She paid for his trip to Japan, he put her in 20K of credit card debt, and more in personal loans, etc. Then in couples therapy told her he wasn’t attracted to her because she made money and he didn’t (so weird).
So immediately Greta and I are like, “Girl, we had a bad feeling, we wanted to tell you but didn’t want to upset you, we’re just glad you’re finally out of that mess”. She tells us that next time we should come to her and be honest with her, we apologize and agree. Then one day Laura calls us to tell us that she almost got into a really bad car accident. She lives in a mountainous area and her breaks went out on her when she was driving on the interstate on a hill, she managed to pull of into a grass median and slow the car down.
She gets the car towed to a mechanic that night and heads to work the next morning. Mechanic calls her midday. He asks he who worked on her car last, she said “My ex” and he said “Is he still in your life?” she said no. And he said “Good, Because I’ve never seen anything like this in my 20 years as a mechanic.” Her brake fluid hadn’t been connected so all the break fluid drained out. Her brake pads weren’t fastened/screwed in to the wheels, the were just placed in there. And he back tire bolts were stripped so hard that he said he tire probably would’ve come off had she kept driving.
Later that week, Logan asks to talk to her, she agrees only to get closure on the situation. Well he calls and begs her to get back together, she says no absolutely not. Then he asks” How’s the car?” She said, “Well I almost died last week”, he immediately jumped to the defensive “Well, that had nothing to do with me, I didn’t do anything” a very guilty response, so we were all convinced he tried to kill her. She filed a police report on him and started moving on. This is in July.
Now we move into part two of this debacle. My partner and I go up to visit her in September and she’s doing well on her own, she’s having fun, dating around, putting herself first, in therapy, just doing really well, were happy for her. She hasn’t really made any friends which is making her lonely but we were telling her to get involved in clubs and meet people, etc.
We leave our trip which was really fun and head back home. 2 weeks later, Laura says she’s met this really great guy, its almost October at this point, she’s gone on multiple dates with him and really likes him, were happy for her, still a bit concerned, but if she’s happy we’re happy. So Laura, Greta, and I plan a girls trip to come up and visit Laura for a long weekend. Laura wants us to vet this new guy, make sure he’s a good dude. She tells us she really values our input and so Greta and I are so excited to go on this trip with an open mind. November rolls around, one month before our trip and Laura announces that the new guy, we’ll call him Will (29M) has moved in with her, bringing his dog with him. Greta and I are a bit shocked but we didn’t say anything bc we’ve both done stuff like that before and Laura was struggling to keep up with rent on her own (she was still in the house that her ex fiancé left her in) so we knew she could use a roommate.
December is finally here and Greta and I hop on a plane and Will and Laura pick us up from the airport, first impression in the car was fine, he seemed nice, he drove us back to their place and we walk into the house. I come face to face with a completely different living room than I saw in September, all of Laura’s art and stuff are moved out of the living room replaced with the following: a giant poster of Elon Musk smoking a joint, a poster model of a rocket, a poster of Jesus riding a dinosaur with a machine gun. And a bookshelf full of Will’s books and Lego sets on display. Alarm bells are going off in my head and Greta’s at this point. We have a little conversation and because it’s late, we go to bed. We sleep in a room that outside of the house in the backyard, it has full heating so its basically just like a bedroom with a deadbolt. I double lock the dead bolts and we go to bed.
At 3am I’m woken up by Greta shaking me in a panic, asking me if I remembered to double deadbolt the door, I told her I did and that were okay and we both went back to sleep. When we woke up the next day, and she told me she had a weird feeling that he was gonna come in our room in the night. I agreed, and told her that was why I double dead bolted the door.
We go through our girls trip which ended up not being a girls trip at all, Will was by our side the entire time. Laura and he talked about looking at ENGAGEMENT RINGS, they bought a ring sizer, she was picking out her faves. He never let us have girl time except for one hour trip we took downtown to window shop. He would come sit in Greta and my room when we were talking with Laura, he would watch movies with us, he went everywhere with us. Not only that but in the middle of conversations, he would pull out his guitar and just start playing in the middle of us talking, or when we sat down to watch a movie. There is one bathroom in the house, and the main house part is very small about 650 square feet, my friend Greta has bathroom anxiety, she doesn’t like to poop in public places so she asked Laura and I if we would grab Will and the dog, and just go for a quick walk around the block while she used the bathroom. It was no biggie, so we got ready and went on a walk, we got 20 feet out the door and Will starts griping about how he doesn’t want to be outside and that Greta is a selfish pooper, and continues to complain the entire time were outside. We don’t even go for a walk, we stop at the corner of the street and just stand there because he doesn’t want to go any further.
At this point I’m annoyed with this guy, he just seems really controlling. To add to it, he didn’t want to go for a hike in the mountains, so Laura didn’t want to go so we ended up spending the entire weekend inside their house basically, even though we were in a beautiful area, and hiking is a group favorite, because he didn’t want to go. We didn’t. Also this is a personal anger of mine but I bought a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts (they were $18, which is crazy) and he ate EIGHT OF THEM. it pissed me off so bad, I had to hide the box that night just so I had 1 donut left over in the morning. Anyway onto the big finale.
Our last night there we finished up watching a movie and the events that unfold all happen within 3 minutes, keep that in mind. Laura had taken an edible so she was pretty out of it, like laying on top of the dog, whispering, just all around sounding really tired. Will says hes gonna take her to bed and Greta and I say were gonna get ready for bed in the bathroom. Bedroom and bathroom are five steps fro each other. I brush my teeth and use the bathroom while Greta is brushing hers and then I walk out of the bathroom and tell Greta that I’m grabbing my stuff to head over to our outside bedroom. I grab my bag from the kitchen counter, which is right next to their bedroom door. The bedroom door is open so I say goodnight to both of them and tell Greta I’ll see her in a sec, she’s just finishing up. Maybe 45 seconds pass and I’m waiting in our bedroom when I get 3 texts from Greta “OH MY GOD” “HELP” “HOLY SHIT”, Greta comes running out of the house, slamming the back door, and I run up to her.
She tells me that they were loudly having sex in their bedroom with the door open, mind you the bathroom is 5 steps from the bedroom. the kitchen counter is right next to the bedroom and Greta had to walk over to it to grab her stuff.
We are freaked the fuck out at this point not only was it super disrespectful but Greta was super affected by it, which who wouldn’t be it was disturbing. Because mere moments before Laura went to bed she was so high. And I smoke regularly so I know what it looks like when someone is super high and I hadn’t gotten that high in a long time. She was very out of it. So this really bothered us both.
The next day, were ready to go home, we get to the airport where they drop us off and once the two of us are in the airport we both look at each other and both just say “that was horrible”, we both felt like the entire trip we had a bad feeling about him and didn’t want to ruin the vibes of the trip so we just didn’t say anything about it. So were sitting in the terminal writing down a list of all the red flags, all the instances where he gave us a bad feeling. And overall just as a person he gave us a really bad feeling. Just gross, nasty, icky feeling. Not sure how to describe it well but I just knew something was off and Greta said she felt the same.
Laura had asked us to give our opinion on what we thought of him so we drafted up a letter to her, with key moments and points that we felt were big signs that he may not be a good guy. It includes everything we went over in this story, I didn’t want to supply to much of our opinion on the situation but I know that my bias comes out in this story a bit.
We wrote to her, and she responded to us with basically “I appreciate your concern, I will take your opinions into consideration” Its worth it to note that they were talking about getting engaged in March of 2024 (It is Early December 2023 at this point) and in our letter we told her that she should give their relationship more time, and get to know him better before they get engaged.
Our relationship with her after that became very one sided, Greta and I tried our best to keep messaging her but she really never responded so we kind of gave up. End of January we get a text from her, a picture of her and him she has an engagement ring on, “We’re engaged!” Greta and I respond with a Congrats! and a heart emoji, we’re super concerned but we have genuinely said all we can in that letter a little over a month before, so It didn’t feel right to say it again.
March she posts her “I said yes to the dress post” with Wills mom and his two sisters. She still doesn’t have any friends up where she lives so it makes sense for her to bring his family along. She didn’t message us about it, which is fair because we hadn’t been talking. We just thought they were getting eloped, because Greta has always said she wanted something small since she isn’t super close with her family (they’re not great).
So we left it there until last week I received an invitation in the mail to their wedding. Its this September on a Monday night.
Greta and I would have to pay around $500 each in order to even go to the wedding, calculating in airfare, shared rental car, shared hotel room, and that doesn’t even include, food, gas, wedding gift, etc. The two of us are not well of financially, we both live paycheck to paycheck so it would be really hard for us to go in general not to mention that the wedding is on a Monday night, so I have to take off extra days of work that I really don’t have. Same with my best friend, were in the same industry so wen have the same days off and all of that.
And I know it took us a while to get here but would we be the assholes if we decided not to attend her wedding?
TLDR: Best friend’s ex fiance tries to kill her in past relationship, she moves on two months later, her new partner moves in with her 3 weeks after dating. We go visit her and meet him, he’s go a lot of red flags, we tell our best friend, she distances herself and gets engaged weeks later. Invites us to her wedding in September that is also on a Monday. AWTA?

I booted up my computer about yesterday with the intent of watching YouTube, and my computer started stuttering a lot. It was noticeable in the audio mostly but it was clearly more than just an audio issue as my entire PC was lagging. I tried restarting multiple times and nothing worked. Checked my memory through Windows and SSD health with CrystalDisk, no problems. CPU and GPU temps were fine running at normal Clock speeds, displayed through Ryzen Master and ASUS GPU tweak. Task manager hadn't been showing anything out of the ordinary. I don't know what could've possibly caused this issue. I also hadn't made any big changes to my computer during this time.
It took about an hour of trying to fix it yesterday before I just gave up, which is when my computer just started to work normally as if nothing had happened. I'm writing this post today because it happened for a second time. It seems like my computer might "fix" itself after being booted for a while.
Before this random change in behavior, my PC never had issues, however, I did notice a few days before the issues started that my PC did feel a bit laggier than usual. However it could have just been me.
Other smaller problems that arose:
My computer randomly sorted my icons on my desktop this morning (I do not have auto arrange)
When moving around the tab for task manager around my desktop it continues to slide in a random direction every half second and then corrects itself.
Specs
Graphics Card: GTX 1060 6GB
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
Memory: 16GB Crucial 2666Mhz
Motherboard: B350m Pro-VDH
SSD: Acer Predator GM7000 2TB (Bought about 2-3 months ago)

Edit: If you are going to comment on the length of this post, please don't. This is not a simple snark but rather an actual critical think piece about feminism and Taylor Swift.

Introduction

Pertaining to Taylor Swift, "Female Rage" has deviated from its intended meaning after Swift debuted a new performance of The Tortured Poets Department during the Eras Tour. Now, according to Swift's use of the phrase, female rage is interpreted as public backlash against Swift's dating choices rather than as a response to the broader injustices against women and women's rights. This post examines Taylor Swift's flawed feminism, philanthropy, branding, and the controversial trademark petition for the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical". Swift's background as an entertainer, indeterminate politics, and alignment with capitalism over feminism pervades her legacy, again threatening her public tolerance as not just an individual but as a brand.

Once Upon a Female Rage...

If you were cognizant in the early 2010's, you've heard countless jabs at Taylor Swift in the media. Magazines, radio, or online. Music critics did not take her seriously as a songwriter; parents put a woman on an unrealistic pedestal as the ideal role model for their children; she dated too much and used men as lyrical fodder. No matter the story, it inevitably spread, conjoined with everyone's respective opinions, and you'd be left to wonder, "Why does everyone hate this girl so much?"
Taylor's target demographic has always been young or adolescent girls, more so when Swift herself was one. She made music that spoke to the awkward misfit, cultivating a para-social relationship with fans on MySpace, then later twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, where Taylor posted relatable vlogs showcasing the life of a homegrown American girl. Taylor had a delayed public "growing up" and, compared to her female pop contemporaries, Swift never "gratuitously sexualized her image and seems pathologically averse to controversy" (and, apparently, never even had a sip of alcohol until she turned 21). She was more than happy to spin this narrative to allude to an inherent moral superiority above other women in the industry (Better Than Revenge, heard of it?), engaging in the very slut-shaming that she herself endured (the Madonna and Whore archetypes). The victim complex arose with the need to prove Taylor as a different type of pop girl. Based upon her holy and clean image, Swift had been dubbed "a feminist's nightmare", and that "[To Swift] other girls are obstacles; undeserving enemies who steal Taylor’s soulmates with their bewitching good looks and sexual availability." Feminism and Tennessee-Christian country values don't exactly mix, it seems.
Years later, Swift befriended Lena Dunham and thus experienced white feminism osmosis, where Dunham taught Swift that real feminists defend rapists, makes insensitive jokes about rape and abortion, and prioritize all-white casts. Swift then declared herself a feminist in 2014, saying,

"Becoming friends with Lena – without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for – has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so."

I suppose the male-centric songwriting subject that permeates Swift's discography contained covert feminism and that we just didn't see that. Perhaps, the "Bad Blood" song and music video were written only in jest and not about poor Katy Perry, for Swift, as a feminist, would "never make it a girl fight" or tear other women down (though all Katy did was date your terrible ex-boyfriend and allegedly steal three backup dancers from your tour). In 2013, Swift said, in response to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's joke towards her serial dating, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
There was that time in 2015 Taylor said that Nicki Minaj was "invited to any stage [she is] on" (as if Taylor expects to have access to every stage, award, and platform that Nicki might not otherwise have as a black female artist...yikes!) in response to Nicki's criticism of the white + thin VMA nominations. Later, Nicki responded with confusion, as Swift continued, "It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..". Of course, this 'beef' was 'squashed' when Nicki performed with Taylor at the VMAs, with Nicki quite literally only having 38 seconds of stage time without Taylor. Maybe all that parading around with a legion of famous white women - similar to the way Taylor might've done with her numerous 1989-era handbags - was in fact a stance against gender inequality, and that this display of "girl power" should be enough to constitute Swift as a feminist icon.
Even while Swift says that Dunham informed her feminist outlook, she dances around the exact contents of those beliefs: "what she believes, what she says, what she stands for" is not exactly insightful towards what beliefs Swift might have inherited. Taylor never broaches women's rights topics such femicide, FGM, forced pregnancy & marriage, sex trafficking, women in slavery, women's financial and political oppression, women's educational rights, women's health, or women's autonomy, so we can assume she only gives a fuck about "girls supporting girls" (whatever that fucking means).
Despite some questionable (and sometimes vindictive) behavior, Taylor as a young woman did not deserve every media lashing that she received. We cannot deny that most headlines and criticisms perpetuated a misogynistic rhetoric which has plagued Swift for a majority of her career. Acknowledging events such as the development of her ED, her sexual assault trial, "Famous" lyric and MV depiction of Taylor, and the explicit Twitter deepfakes, for example, as both disgusting and unfortunate things that happened to a young woman in Hollywood does not negate the fact that Taylor is mostly a performative feminist.

Get Your Fucking Ass Up and Be a Philanthropist, It Seems Like Nobody Wants to Be a Philanthropist These Days

In 2013, Taylor Swift cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the Taylor Swift Education Center at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. The donation amount - $4 million - was the largest individual artist gift ever donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is, of course, mentioned on Swift's website. The two-story facility features three classrooms, an instrument room, and an interactive children's exhibit gallery. Swift also performed at "All for the Hall" charity shows and has donated numerous artifacts from her career (such as notable guitars, tour costumes, etc) to the museum.
This was over 11 years ago, and it is still the only notable philanthropic contribution Taylor Swift has made.
For a woman of her net worth and stature, and a woman who recognizes the difficulties for women in film and music, you would think that Taylor Swift might establish a scholarship program for women to study the arts or something. Perhaps Swift might even consider becoming a member of organizations that support female artists, or one that supports LGBTQ+ causes (since she is now proudly an ally), yet she remains superficial with her graces. Broader philanthropy, such as donating relief aid to Palestinian women or women impacted by violence and discrimination will probably never receive any financial support from Miss Swift because then she'd be using her money towards philanthropies involving anyone but white entertainers.
She even says herself in Miss Americana, "My entire moral code as a kid and now is a need to be thought of as 'good'." Well, she's certainly thought of as good, though her actions say otherwise. She's more than happy to do a vaguely altruistic song and dance for a clip-worthy interview quote and mass appeasement, then fuck off to one of her mansions on a 20 minute private jet flight, rather than actually contribute to anything pertaining to the causes she has endorsed. Yet, far too many people continue to give a woman such as her their money, time, and energy, and she hoards these resources to herself.

I Like Some of the Taylor's Songs, But What the Fuck Does She Know About Feminism?

Swift continued with her self-proclaimed feminist campaign, positioning herself as a political activist and LGBTQ+ ally in the Miss Americana documentary. The primary focus of the documentary consists of the sexual assault trial, Andrea Swift's cancer diagnosis, Taylor's ED and body dysmorphia, media scrutiny, and, largely, finally speaking up about her politics publicly, mostly her opposition to the 2018 Tennessee Republican senate candidate, Marsha Blackburn, and Blackburn's beliefs. Swift says, following a scene discussing her experience during the trial,

"I just couldn't really stop thinking about it. And I just thought to myself, next time there is any opportunity to change anything, you had better know what you stand for and what you want to say."

We must ask ourselves, though: when has Swift ever spoken up to change anything? Okay, pulling her entire catalogue from Spotify because they didn't pay their artists enough and similarly pulling her catalogue from Apple Music are changes that she leveraged due to her revenue potential and power, but they are not pertinent to the average woman's rights. Moreover, these are issues that directly impacted Taylor's income, which was enough reason for her to protest in the first place. Swift has sold the most units for a female artist in first week sales, is the first female artist with 100k monthly Spotify listeners, is the first female artist to win the Album of the Year Grammy 4 times, and is the first female artist to do X, Y, and Z, all while being inoffensive and family-friendly to boot. The actual Taylor Swift seems unwilling to compromise the brand of Taylor Swift by contributing in meaningful ways to feminist causes, especially if it is for women outside of America and Hollywood.
The reason political anthems such as "The Man" and "Only the Young" of the Lover era feel disingenuous and corporate is because, well, it is. Taylor has taken every opportunity to advance her career or public image at the expense of other women. What is truly genuine to Taylor's outlook on other women is vying for male attention, taking down female competition, and vocalizing feminist injustices only if they directly impact her and her money. Some will argue that it's satisfactory for a woman with such a huge platform to even TALK about feminism, but that just isn't enough. It's even less impressive when you candidly look at the scope of her feminist lens: "If I was the man, then I'd be THE MAN", or "I really resent the ‘Be careful, buddy, she’s going to write a song about you’ angle, because it trivialises what I do", and, of course, "We all got crowns". Feminism, but only when it happens to me. It gets worse when you look at Taylor's track record of copying other famous women and removing other female artists as potential threats to her pop prowess.
It's good for PR to align yourself with certain blanket feminist and political beliefs, therefore good for branding, therefore good for ticketing and merchandise sales, therefore good for business. And Taylor Swift is a business.
She's not a feminist. Taylor Swift is a capitalist.

I Can't Pay Those Sweatshop Workers a Livable Wage or Benefits! How Else Would I Make My Billions?

Recently, Taylor's team filed to trademark the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical" after Taylor said during Paris N1 of the Eras Tour,

"So you were the first ones to see The Tortured Poets at the Eras Tour...or as I like to call it, 'Female Rage: The Musical'."

This trademark petition was filed last week on Saturday, and news comes about just as numerous unofficial fan-made merch designs have cropped up with this phrase plastered on Fruit of the Loom basics. I'm of the opinion Swift's team motioned for a trademark so that they can send out cease & desists to all those that make knockoff merch, which disrupts potential sales for Bravado, UMG's choice merchandising company; however, since it was filed earlier, perhaps Swift has bigger plans with the bizarre use of the gendered phrase. One Swiftie referred to the phrase "female rage" as "a funny Eras Tour joke". Could it be a possible fourth version of the Eras Tour Movie? Whatever the reason, the motion to capitalize off of such a concept is disgusting, but not unsurprising, for a woman that profits on her vain feminism.
Swift, through her company, TAS Rights Managements, has also trademarked over 200 phrases, including "1989", where she owns the property rights to this calendar year on keychains, phone cases, sunglasses, stationary, bags, beverage ware, clothing, entertainment services, your subconscious, and, of course, Christmas ornaments.
The vapid consumerism in Swiftie culture is, frankly, disgusting. Bravado's sustainability statement is non-existent, the quality control is abysmal, and the materials they use are horrible. The materials, such as acrylic and polyester, are made from petrochemicals. This means they are non-renewable, shed microplastics, and are quite toxic in production. The manufacturing process to make all of those lazy-rushed Eras Tour logo graphic tees is a huge blow to environmental well-being. Apparently, though, Swifties don't give a fuck. They sell out products in seconds and either have to face the manufactured scarcity or buy from a scalper that resells for 200% of the already ridiculous retail price. This doesn't include the environmental impact of vinyl records, CD, and cassette production, of which Taylor produces many variants that sell unsustainable amounts.
If we're talking about women's rights violations, why is no one acknowledging the women that work in the inhumane sweatshop conditions that have to pump out fugly t-shirts and hats? The millions of plastic microfiber dander they are inhaling, or the toxic dyes that touch their bare skin? Are they being compensated fairly for their skilled labour and are they in safe working environments? Do these women have minimal bargaining power, and do they have authority over their worker's rights? Is Taylor Swift female raging at their injustices? Does Taylor Swift ever feels bad that her wealth was built on the backs of women of color, disadvantaged by the demands of the global economy and garment industry? Do you think she ever says a little white feminist prayer for them before she goes to sleep at night?
What's even crazier is not that Taylor herself doesn't care, it's that Swifties don't care. There CANNOT BE ethical billionaires. You only make a billion dollars if you are exploiting other human beings for capital gain. Based on public perception of the possible "Female Rage: The Musical" trademark, it seems like Swifties are already asking for merch with this phrase. "If Taylor made it, I'd buy it." Oh, cool. So not only do you champion Miss Swift's avarice and billionaire status, but you also are unashamed to admit to your blind consumption of her music and merchandise, no matter where they might originate in production or sincerity. Just as Swift takes and takes and takes, Swifties' consumerism of Taylor Swift cannot be quelled.
The tortured artist's most vulnerable and sincere poetry...available now in 21 different versions!

I Am Tortured Poet, Hear Me Whinge

Look - even if Taylor's intention is to characterize TTPD as more "tortured" and "angry", the main thread of the album is "I was ghosted by my decade-long situationship with a controversial indie boy and my fucking stupid fans wrote a 'Speak Up Now' open letter prompting me to drop him" anger, which is adequately expressed in the lyrics and performances. The extent of Taylor's "female rage" on TTPD is on tracks such as "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?", which contends with relentless media scrutiny; "But Daddy I Love Him", where Swift firmly states she'll date whoever she likes no matter how "Sarahs and Hannahs" may react; and "The Albatross", a track mythologizing her reputation and the consequences of dating her. Of course, these coincide with deep psychological wounds that formed during Swift's early years in the media, and so, from her feminist perspective, these subjects tackle the misogyny and double standards that she faced.
Yet Taylor Swift still has no grounds to be claiming that TTPD best exemplifies female rage and therefore she, in the context of this album, is female rage incarnate. As the daughter of a stock broker and mutual fund marketing executive, Taylor was born into wealth and allowed privileges like trips and subsequent relocation to Nashville all so that she might get a record deal. Her father even invested at least $120,000 into the then-fledgling label, Big Machine Records, which ensured Taylor's place with Borchetta after leaving her dead-end development deal with Sony. The fact that her parents were able to buy her a fucking brand new guitar for Christmas and pay for music lessons says so much about the financial security and safety of her childhood.
Money is privilege and protection, and despite Swift's experiences with misogyny and loser boyfriends, she does not know what female rage is.
Her rage is derived from her frustrations with her obsessive fans pulling the moral superiority card on Taylor in response to her rebound with Matty Healy. That's literally it. She's just pissed that the monster she created is no longer obediant, it's become a feral, sovereign entity that depletes the world of its natural resources and thinks it is more intelligent than it actually is because it's mommy has started to talk to it with big words. Apparently, 'illicit', 'elegy', 'nonchalant', and 'precocious' are considerably big words for the oafish monster, and I find it strange that this level of literacy is present in a group of fans that allegedly have GPAs of 3.5 or higher, but I digress.
Taylor Swift has never been one paycheck away from destitution. Taylor Swift has never experienced racial discrimination. She may have instances of gender discrimination, but she possesses the ideal white, blonde American beauty standard and therefore reaps the benefits of being a conventionally attractive woman. Taylor Swift has sufficient social capital. Taylor Swift is a billionaire woman prolonging her victimhood though she, as a woman, has mostly had control over her image and music (unlike her contemporaries). Taylor Swift is NOT entitled to be championed for her "female rage", nor should she be. Taylor Swift has never even been the struggling artist, for fuck's sake. I don't give a fuck if she's trying to fill the empty lunch tables of her past. Taylor Swift purporting herself, her unpolished album, and her lukewarm feminism as a musical bleeding with female rage is asinine.

Sigh Try and Come For My Job, Poors

Out there in the world right now is a 23-year-old woman, a recent college grad, who works as a barista. She has to wake up and get ready to go into a minimum wage job because she cannot get a job in her field. She doesn't have healthcare benefits or sick time, so she has to go into work no matter how she's feeling. All day long she is berated by vicious customers and creepy men, and, exhausted from being on her feet, she knows she has to go home to her shitty roommate that never does the dishes and her roommate's shitty dog. To comfort herself, she considers getting a treat, but thinks against it when she remembers that matcha lattes cost $15 and they taste like milky dirt. She knows that she needs to buy groceries this week, and so the woman resolves to go home, but notices that her gas tank is low. She goes to put gas in the car, but the pump stops at $27.86 because that's all that she has in her checking account. The woman, bereft and reeling, sinks into the driver's seat. "Well," she thinks, her head in her hands, "at least I don't have Taylor Swift's job. I just couldn't imagine."
Fame is somewhat of a choice. If at any moment Taylor feels that she is misunderstood, misconstrued, or overwhelmed by public opinion, she can LEAVE the public eye - Lord knows she has the retirement fund and residuals to do so. In "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart", the TTPD song about meeting the demands of your career-zenith mega-tour while in the relationship trenches, Taylor ends the song by rambling,

"You know you're good when you can even do it with a broken heart...you know you're good...and I'm good, cause I'm miserable, and no one even knows!...try and come for my job."

Yeah, obviously we wouldn't know, you recently passed the billionaire threshold and are the most famous and in-demand performer in the world right now. Taylor Swift makes an estimated $10 to $13 million dollars A NIGHT on the Eras Tour. Furthermore, the Eras Tour movie grossed $261.6 million globally, (which, as the producer, Taylor takes home 57% of the ticket sales) not counting the streaming revenue from Amazon Prime Video and the estimated $75 million deal that Disney paid to have it on Disney+. We're not even considering the income from cheap plastic popcorn buckets and drink cups plastered with colored squares in her Era-specific likeness.
It's funny. Taylor Swift often said that being famous wasn't hard, that she "isn't complaining". I'm sure it is difficult to always have to present in a good mood, else you'll end up misrepresented in the media, and I'm sure it's invasive to virtually have no privacy or semblance of anonymity. Still, Taylor Swift shows up each night of tour and performs. For a majority of her career, she has penned her sad songs while on the road. Most of "Red", her breakup album, was written in the thick of the Speak Now World tour. Now, some Swifties say they almost "feel bad" for attending the Eras Tour with Swift's revelations in this song, that they have had a 'dimmed experience' upon hearing Taylor's misery whilst performing. Despite the fact that Taylor said that "this was the happiest she's ever been" at Gilette Stadium in May, the lyrics "boohoo, woe is me, smile for the cameras and make the fans happy!!!" are jarring for Eras attendees.
While Taylor Swift was making double-digit millions a night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and feeling miserable, Ana Clara Benevides Machado passed away due to heat exposure. The concert promoters, Time For Fun, are now the subject of a criminal investigation due to their lack of adequate hydration and safety. Taylor Swift cancelled the Sunday show that was to follow and offered VIP tent tickets to Benevides Marchado's family, which was a kind gesture, but perhaps incongruous to the incident of which they were offered as consolation. Everyone grieves differently, of course, but I'm not sure attending the very show at the very same venue that my daughter or sister passed away in two days prior, where the singer CONTINUED the show despite her death, would be healthy for closure.
There was no female rage at the show as Swift never saw Benevides Machado pass out. There was no female rage towards the disregard for fans as humans while Swift elected to proceed with her Brazil tour dates despite the country being in historic heatwaves (at risk of overheatting herself). If Taylor Swift was so shaken by touring with a broken heart or a fan's passing, she wouldn't have added an additional North American leg of Eras just two months after the Matty breakup. She's brokenhearted but willing to mend the cracks with your money and move onward with her worldwide female rage induced pillaging.
No matter what happens, even if you die at a Taylor Swift concert, Taylor collects a big fat check and flies away. She doesn't know you as anything other than a conversion rate or earning potential despite what her nearly 20-year long parasocial relationship with fans might otherwise indicate. She knows that, while some Swifties are without disposable income, they feel obligated to spend on a "48 Hours Only!" exclusive vinyl variant instead of necessities because they are so entrenched in Taylor Swift's intoxicating celebrity, they'll prioritize materialistic fandom before their needs. This is good enough for her because this means she can expand her real estate portfolio and finance her cat's lavish lifestyles. They're worth an estimated $100 million dollars. Her three cats could pool their net worth and solve world hunger.
While you and I might be denied bereavement leave and barely surviving the current political and economic climate, Taylor Swift has to, instead of gets to, perform for stadiums at full attendance for three nights in a row across the globe. You and I might be replaced by AI at our longtime jobs, but Taylor Swift is threatened with losing more and more money each time you listen to a "Stolen Version" of her songs. If we don't buy every variant of all of her albums, then who is going to pay for the fucking cats?
It is tone deaf to spend as she spends and lives as she lives in this economy, but this is her reality. She was able to donate $100,000 to all of her tour truck drivers, and that's wonderful, but it leads me to wonder about the ethos of the 2020s where one woman can hoard such life-changing amounts of money. Remember in 2014 when she gave a fan $90 ($120 in today's money) to get Chipotle because she had no fucking clue how much it cost? This is a 34-year-old woman who is increasingly out of touch with the reality for working class people and women in general. Normal everyday adults must wake up and go to their thankless jobs, and yet Taylor Swift, despite all her riches, incessantly references the lows of her life and career as a public figure and entertainer to farm sympathy and drive sales. And still, the corporate women have latched onto "I cry a lot, but I am so productive! It's an art!" as their cubicle battle cry.
Do you think that, from up in her private jet, Taylor Swift gazes at the world through her poetic, tortured eyes, and thinks, "All the little people, in their cars, walking, going about their lives...all those girls that don't support girls...do they know that I've made an album about female rage?"

Conclusion/TLDR

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your critical insights towards this entire ordeal: TTPD, the trademark, the implications of it all.
TLDR: Taylor Swift is a bad feminist and is delusional to think that the TTPD eras set exemplifies female rage at women's injustice.

I checked my physical mailbox today and in it was a letter claiming to be from Discover. It seems legit and had a "Presorted first-class mail US postage PAID dfs" disclaimer in the stamp spot. The letter said "Thank you for your interest in Discover Personal Loans" and it continued "We are writing to you to let you know that we could not approve your loan request at this time because: Too few accounts in current status, requested loan amount is too high, high ratio of open bank revolving accounts to total open accounts."
Thing is, I DIDN'T APPLY FOR A LOAN. I don't even have a Discover card. I used to be an "Authorized User" on my ex's Discover card, but I thought I had gotten all of that taken care of. As far as I know, I haven't been an authorized user on that card since like 2018 or 2019. That card still shows up on my Credit Karma account, but it always reads $0 and doesn't appear to affect my score. My credit scores are pretty good (over 780), and I only have 2 credit cards including a store card, both of which I pay off regularly. Could this be my ex attempting to apply for a loan? Regardless, what do y'all recommend my next steps be? Should I do a written response to the address provided in the letter from "Discover"? Should I freeze my credit? Change my passwords?

You know that feeling you get when someone is oddly familiar, but you’ve never met them? This was exactly what it felt like when I saw him for the first time. It was a chance encounter, but I later realized I had simply delayed the inevitable. I’ve always struggled with crippling alcoholism on and off. I would often go through waves of sobriety mixed with periods of drinking, and the night before all of this started was a particularly heavy alcohol binge. I was used to waking up in odd places with little to no memory, so when my crusted eyes saw I was in an alleyway near my house, I was disappointed, but not at all surprised.
It must have been around ten in the morning, and the weather was beautiful, adding insult to my sorry state. I staggered to my feet, bracing the wall, and took some slow breaths. All I had to do was make it a few blocks, and I’d be home, to my wife, a bed, and maybe some hot food if she wasn’t too angry with me. God, she’s so forgiving. I can’t believe she hadn’t already left me by this point.
I began walking out of the alleyway, and turned left to start my walk home. I noticed a man a few inches taller than me crossing the street, and I instantly felt the feeling I mentioned earlier. I consider myself a decent looking guy, six foot, semi-muscular build, blue eyes, but he was like a modern day Hercules. He was a few inches taller, tanned, with big-but-not-too-big muscles. And not only were his eyes also blue, their sharpness but mine to shame. He was carrying a bag of groceries, and very politely excused himself as he brushed past me on the street.
Snapped from my trance, I ignored my unsettled feeling and continued towards home, around ten yards behind this tall stranger. I was nearing my street, and he turned onto it ahead of me. I found this odd- my neighborhood was tightly knit and I’d never seen him before. At the time though, I’d assumed he was from out of town, a relative of one of my neighbors. As I also turned down my street, I noticed him walking up my driveway. This made my stomach drop. This situation had adultery written all over it.
Quickening my pace, I yelled at Hercules, who was reaching for something in his pocket. Seeing me moving towards him, he quickly pulled out a set of keys, unlocked MY front door, dashed in, and closed it. Now teeming with rage, I pulled out my own keys, and made for the door. Thinking about what to say to my wife, and what to do with this piece of garbage in my house, I put my key in the lock, and turned. But the key wouldn’t budge. I took it out, looked at it, and it was definitely my front door key. I tried again. Still nothing. By now I was really starting to freak out. I banged on the door.
I yelled to my wife to let me in, so we could talk. I heard rapid footsteps and the same blue eyes appeared in the small window of the door. He asked me what I wanted with his wife, and demanded to know who I was. I screamed back that I could ask him the exact same thing. Then I saw Alice appear behind him. Scared, she looked to the stranger for reassurance, and said something I couldn’t hear. He told me that if I didn’t leave, he was going to call the police. I said go ahead, they would help me sort this out.
I stayed on the porch until an annoyed police officer arrived, and explained the situation to her. He knocked on the door, and seeing that the officer was in our presence, they opened it, but did not step outside. I could smell my house! I could feel the memories that place held through me, like adrenaline. But I felt like an outsider, looking in at a long lost memory.
The tall man went on to explain that I, a complete stranger, had followed him to his home, and harassed his wife. The officer eyed me suspiciously, and I knew instantly that she didn’t believe me anymore. I looked haggard, and it was two against one. The officer asked me for some I.D, and I pulled out my wallet, but all of my cards were missing. The only thing that remained inside was some bills and loose change, and an old condom. Seeing this, the officer told me I needed to leave, and to stop bothering my wife and the stranger. I begged Alice to stop this facade, that I’d learned my lesson, but she just avoided eye contact with me as I was slowly pushed back to the street.
As I sat on the curb, in slight disbelief, an idea came over me. The officer was getting into her car, but I yelled at her to wait. I pulled my phone from my pocket and ran over. I explained how I had pictures with my wife and that these could prove my story. The officer said nothing, but didn’t get into her car. I unlocked my phone, went into the photos app, and saw hundreds of photos of my wife, but with the tall man. How was that even possible? It was as though I’d been gently plucked from every photo, and replaced.
The officer took one look at these, grabbed my phone, and threw me into the backseat. I watched with despair as she walked to my house, and gave my phone to the stranger. Just before he closed the door, I could have sworn he looked at me and smirked.
I was dropped off a few kilometers away, and warned once again to not go near my house. I slowly made my way to a dingy internet cafe, where I’m writing this all out, as evidence for the future, if I ever need it.
The sun’s going down.
I’m going back to my house tonight. I’m going to set things straight.
I’m going to kill that tall man.
I went back. And I’ve come to a realization that I need to get off my chest. But I have to first write down the rest of what happened, even though it doesn’t matter anymore.
Once the sun went down, I took a bus to my neighborhood. When I got on, it was just me and a really, really, old man, who was sitting all the way at the back. He had an odd face, one that was long like that mask from V for Vendetta. He had a long beard, and a faded red tracksuit. He laughed and laughed, staring at me for the entire trip. Once I’d gotten off, he looked at me through the window with a menacing grin, and waved as the bus drove away.
I began down my street, moving slowly, with my eyes on a swivel. I’d decided that the best place to go into the house would be from the fenced in backyard. I inched my way around the side of the building, and as I did, I could hear faint music, and laughing. This only furthered my anger. I quietly opened the fence gate that was never locked, and went into the tool shed that sat at the back of the yard.
From here, I had a decently clear view of our upstairs bedroom, the kitchen, and the back porch. At the moment I could see the stranger and my wife cooking together, all dressed up, wine in hand. My wife looked so damn happy, happier than I’d ever seen her. I sat for what felt like hours and hours, watching as they ate, danced, and slowly moved upstairs. As the stranger got into bed with my wife, I heard a faint ‘I love you’ float from my wife’s mouth and out through the open window.
It was then and there that I realized I wouldn’t be setting foot in my house. I wasn’t going to kill that stranger, and oddly enough, I wasn’t angry anymore.
I think I died in that alleyway.
I think this is all some twisted version of hell where I’m forced to watch the man I could have been taking care of the one person in this world who means anything to me.
Alice, if by some impossible coincidence you find this, I’m so, so, sorry. I wish I could go back, because I swear to god, I would have done so many things differently.
Goodbye Alice.

Hi everyone!
I wanted to give a detailed review of my experience with sm global package for taemin’s metamorph concert in tokyo at the nippon budokan. I am months delayed in posting this (thanks to grad school) but I initially wrote it out of post-concert depression prior to returning to the states back in March.
buying the global package, twin ver:
the package was announced sometime in december 2023 if im not mistaken and I stayed up until midnight (pst) on 1/22 to book a twin package for ‘course c’ which was 2N3D (sunday concert 3/10) for my friend and I. The packages that included all three nights (5D3N) of the show sold out the quickest, but there were still packages available for individual show days. As a tip to make things easier, make sure to have your friends’ passport info to input in advance so the booking goes easier if you are booking a twin package. If you are the one making the booking, make sure to have the global package app downloaded as they will send you notifications along the way about day of show schedule, merch preorder, etc. They ask that you relay this info to your partner when you purchase a twin package, as you are the primary reservation holder. You also cannot split the cost while booking, it must go on one card through paypal. When booking, you have the option to request extending your stay at the hotel through sm c&c, but since we were planning to go to Kyoto after the concert, we just checked out the day after the concert as planned. Also we didn’t have any ACE memberships, but if I remember correctly, you can enter that info to get an exclusive MD benefit.
merch preorder:
Prior to arriving in Japan, we got a notification at around 6pm pst on 2/28 (11 days prior to the show) with our exclusive merch preorder links which went live at midnight that same night. The prices were in yen and you pay using paypal. I had no problem getting the MD I wanted, however since there were limits on the amount of MD you could purchase (including the 2 different pins, which were 1 per order) I had to ask my friend if I could purchase an additional pin through his MD preorder link since there were 2 different pins in this specific concert MD. The day of the show (3/10) at around 10am, we picked up the MD we preordered with ease and pulled our concert seat tickets and received our global package exclusive gift (a mag safe wallet) and let the staff know which transports we would be taking (round trip bus or one way to/from the venue). I was a ljttle disappointed in the global package benefit MD as I had seen what the metamorph show in Korea had received (I think it was a handwritten letter from Taemin and a little lego figurine of him 🤧). Everything was smooth and efficient. Even after the concert, I was able to get into the MD line to purchase more, even though most of the MD was sold out.
checking in/out of the hotel & hotel review:
We stayed at the Hotel Monterey Hanzomon which was really close to the venue and across the street from the Hanzomon subway line, so it was very accessible by public transit. My friend and I both flew into Haneda and it took a little less than an hour to get to the hotel from the airport via public transit, but after a 12.5 hour long flight it was exhausting. When I asked the people at the airport if there was an airport limousine to the area, they said it wouldn’t take me close enough to the hotel and recommended I take the subway. We had met a few people in line for the MD pickup who said that we (allegedly) had a nicer hotel than those who did the NCT 127 global package for their Tokyo dome show (same weekend) but all in all, Hanzomon was an economy hotel with nothing to write home about. I will say the breakfast buffet included was really nice and I’m glad we didn’t skip out on it. When we checked in the day before the show, we just showed our passports and checked in like any other hotel. In the lobby there was a whiteboard with all of the concert info (opening times for md pickup, bus schedules, and concert schedule) displayed in english, korean, chinese, and japanese. I was a little bummed to find out that the concert (which took place in the middle of the afternoon) was only going to be an hour and a half maximum, even though NCT’s concert was almost 4 hours (!!!) in length.
day of show:
We had breakfast in the lobby around 8:30/9ish then after that we got to the sm desk at 9:45am to pick up our md and pick our tickets for the show (thanks to the tip from another fan on reddit, well worth getting there a little before the booth opened). I did notice the ACE membership MD benefits were nice, but neither me nor my friend have any fanclub memberships. It was relatively straightforward, they checked our passports and handed us a lanyard that acted as our bus pass and then one person per twin package picks the pair of tickets at random (in sets of 2 so you sit with your friend) and we got seats in section A3 (floor) which were great. They asked us if we wanted a seat on the bus ride round trip or one way and we originally said only one ride to the venue, but my friend decided to take the bus back too once we got to the venue so we notified the SM staff and they added us to the roster for the ride back easily. When we got to the venue (an hour and a half-ish before doors) they escorted us to the front and we were let in immediately. The efficiency was incredible. They didn’t check my bag prior to entering like how they would for a concert in the US so I didn’t bring a water bottle into the venue but thankfully they had vending machines inside and concessions on the top levels of the venue. We also went to a booth upstairs to pair our lightsticks for the show, since the Japanese Shinee Lightstick app is only available for Japanese phones, so we showed our ticket locations and they were able to calibrate. The show was short yet sweet, we did not see anyone ejected for taking photos/videos but we were too scared to risk it. If you are caught filming or taking photos they will make you delete the photos/videos and kick you out with no sign of return, but I think because it was the last day and we were in the middle of a crowd, it was a little easier to get away with. There was a sadness in the air because it was Taemin’s last concert as a soloist under SM, but overall the show was incredible. One thing of note though is Japanese audiences are very quiet, they tend to clap rather than scream in between songs and there were times where you could hear someone from the rafters sneeze and it would resonate, so be prepared for that cultural difference. We still screamed when it felt appropriate to do so and the fanchants were loud but it was definitely strange to be golf clapping in between songs, especially in comparison to shows in the US where fans are barking 💀. It was nice to be able to hear Taemin speak uninterrupted during the ments, without pick-me fans interjecting their screams. He spoke exclusively in Japanese and there was no translator so we were left to guess what he was saying. A K-fan next to us was live Papago-ing his ments to Korean and I would peek and read what the translation was. Also shout out to this lovely K-shawol because she let my friend borrow one of her lightsticks! Once the show ended, everyone queued up to leave the venue in an orderly fashion and we cleaned up any trash we saw and we went out to the MD booth to buy any last minute MDs before going to the bus. On the bus, they gave us each a (unthemed) bag with some strawberry cookies and a waterbottle and we had a fun time air-dropping photos and videos from the show with other (braver) global package attendees. Everyone we met was so lovely and everything about the global package went very smoothly and efficiently.
edit: I forgot to mention that Japanese fans who had floor seats (most likely ACE club membership) received some sort of paper goods (postcard, photocard, folder etc.) upon entering the venue, a benefit that global package members did not receive. I only saw it because I went upstairs to the main entrance to sync my lightstick. I was too afraid to ask about the benefits, but I think it also might have had to do with which company you bought your ticket from (?) or where you preordered the album from (?)
closing thoughts:
the day after the show, we took advantage of the free breakfast and checked out with ease. The SM C&C staff left the whiteboard in the lobby and left a nice note for us and we wrote our thank yous on there. Overall, the package cost was $1559 for 2 people ($779 ea, 2 twin beds for 2N3D) and even though it was pricey it was so worth the convenience of not having to try to buy tickets locally, which I heard sold out entirely during fan club presale. Please note that this cost did not include airfare or transit to/from the airport. The concert coincided with my spring break and Taemin is one of my ults, I just wrote a paper on him for grad school so it was a no brainer, I had to be there no matter what lol. I was a bit disappointed in the lack of theming (I heard the concerts in Korea come with themed rooms, themed snacks, etc) and the lack of transportation to and from the airport (which I heard is sometimes an option for shows in Korea and would have been a great benefit). But otherwise the hotel was clean and convenient (a little small, but that’s how it is normally in an economy hotel in Japan), breakfast was good, SM staff were helpful and nice, and we made some new Shawol friends in the meantime :)
overall, I would absolutely book with global package again, but I would definitely want to see a show in Korea to compare the benefits. It was an unforgettable experience to be apart of the pearl aqua ocean 💎
if you have any questions ask away! prior to booking this package, I took the advice of another fan under a different thread, and it was really helpful so I wanted to offer any insight based off my experience.

Not sure how else to phrase it, because I love him but he has a really bad way of being thoughtless and selfish. Our first Christmas, I was impressed with a gift that he made for his mom. It was cheap, literally just a bunch of notes in a paper bag labeled "reasons I love you" and each was a sentiment or story or inside joke. It was cheap and I understood because he was a broke-ass teenager who couldn't hold down a job.
Since then, though, I've come to experience his assumption and expectation for what he will be receiving for birthdays and Christmas. For example, he'll assume we were going to spend a few hundred dollars on gifts, and ask for it in cash instead of gifts. He asked for us to renew his medical weed permit ($250 at the time) and claimed that's all he wanted, then acted all shitty when there wasn't much else to open. He knows he gets money from his grandpa, so he's asked for advances on it. Every gift he treats as an expected transaction, taken for granted, not as a gift. For Christmas, his mom got him a necklace I think, that was sort of silly but there was a reason she got it. If he didn't like wearing it, I didn't blame him, but he could hang it from a tac on his wall or something. Instead, he actually gave it back to her right there within moments of opening it, saying it wasn't his style.
What finally pissed me off enough to write this was Mother's Day. I asked him weeks ago what he was going to do for his mom. He's 24 and no longer lives with us, but he has a job and is still getting food stamps from his brief unemployment, Actually has more than he needs to the point of stocking up before the benefits expire. Anyway, I remind him weeks ago that Mother's Day is coming up, his mom doesn't want anything but a nice heartfelt card or note because we know he's working hard and trying to save for a car and a better place. We tell him Mom wants to go to ihop, nothing fancy at all. We didn't offer to pay, but I assumed we would. We pick him up and take him after work. While we are waiting for our food, he gives her a card.
The card was literally a picture on the front and a sentence on the inside that he said "this kinda says how I feel so I didn't write anything else." And to be clear, what I mean is: the card had a sentence printed on the inside. He did not write anything, he didn't even sign his name. If we wanted to return the card, we could have. It was literally right off the shelf, and obviously a last minute purchase that he bought from work just moments before we picked him up.
Number one, I hate how shitty it makes me feel when WE show emotional investment in him with not only our thoughtful gifts but also very sincere cards and notes. We show a ton of support, love, and appreciation for him and everything he does and has done. For him to gloss over that while searching for the money inside the card is like holy shit, you're an adult, are you not aware of how selfish you look? If you're going to be an asshole, at least pretend to not be one in front of us. Second, and this is important: You will not be successful in relationships if you are an emotional slug like that. I can't imagine how his girlfriends would feel or how his wife would feel with this approach to her birthday or anniversary. You cannot half-ass something that is significant to you in any way, especially when it is equally or more significant to people you love.
My wife, who often suppresses her reactions to these kinds of things, actually broke down and told me how disappointed she was when she got that Mother's Day card. If she's willing to say something about it, I can only imagine it's more than what she's expressed because she doesn't want to be negative toward her son. I get that. So I can't imagine how low she felt when after all that she's done for him, especially in the past year, his only gift is a last-minute purchase of convenience, no thought, and not even his own words. Not even a signature.