Girls locker room shower

Girl I'm gonna right and living with a roommate I didn't pick we both have cats and she's never home enough to let the cats to be together to get along. Also she leaves every night and let's her cat out which gives me to option of sitting in my room with my cat or sitting in the living room with her cat. I hate sitting in my room it makes me feel trapped. Also he cries all the time because he never gets the attention he wants and I already have a cat I'm not entertaining hers. Also don't get me started on her doing nothing to clean, take out the trash, or turn on the dishwasher but she don't even work just school and party and I work and go to school :/ I rant about this (to other people) so much I'm tired of hearing myself

Anyone go to Woodland Hills location? Is it just me or is the space just too small? They only have one machine of everything… and the lockers and showers are ugly compared to other equinoxes. And the 2 hour parking ? Seriously? Other locations have 2.5hr+… I can complain for days lol

I(25F) have found myself in a situation where I am not sure what to do. My husband (35M) and I have only been married for a year and I half. When I was 8 months pregnant, my brother in law (29 years old) moved in with us because he had nowhere to go. When we said he could move in, we made it clear that this would not be a permanent thing, that he needed to work on saving money, and be willing to help out around the house. We set ground rules as well: no drugs, ask before having your girlfriend over.
We are in month 9 of him living with us and I have had to beg numerous times for him to clean up after himself. I am a SAHM to my 6 1/2 month old and already clean up after her, my husband and 3 dogs. He uses our guest room and guest bathroom and they are constantly trashed. The girl he was dating when he started living with us, (we’ll call her L), he would always bring over without talking to us and it would turn into having her stay the night. I liked L, she was always super respectful so I brushed it off but I feel like he still should’ve asked. 3 weeks ago he broke up with L after cheating on her with his ex multiple times. We’ll call the ex C
Now C was terrible. She would use him, cheat on him, left him homeless and was an all around terrible influence. Since getting back with his C he is out all night partying. Yesterday I heard from L who reached out and told me my BIL had been doing Cocaine with C when they would go out. It was confirmed by my BIL’s best friend. I told my husband what I had heard and he brushed it off like it didn’t matter, said L was hurt and it couldn’t be true. I went out and bought a drug test and when my husband and BIL got home I had my husband talk to him. The immediate denial came and he said I was being crazy. He tested positive for cocaine and my husband and MIL just think I’m out to get my BIL.
I’m not sure what to do because my husband seems to think it’s not a big deal. I told him I want my BIL taking weekly drug tests and that this is not okay. My husband immediately shut that down and said no, not happening. He refuses to believe it. My daughter is in the phase where she is starting to put things in her mouth and is about to start crawling. She currently rolls to get places and this isn’t an environment I want her in.
Since my husband said no to the drug tests they’ve just been acting like nothing happened and that it doesn’t matter. I don’t know what to do.

I share room with this girl and you know sometimes to left a little mess and in your day off you clean it, cause in my case when I arrive to home 10pm, she is sleeping and I cannot clean my side of my room cause she’ll wake up, so she started to complain that I am unrespectful, even with myself shouting out to me
And I explain myself and in case i don’t see any reason to put high your voice or being agresive I only have one week living with her, and I also i haven’t time to set my stuff

Some context I am F 18 and my boyfriend is M 18 this happened on May 12.
When me and my boyfriend first got together my one and only condition was no drinking. I absolutely hate drinking and I hate what it does to people. My dad was an alcoholic and I already have many of his traits so I am personally scared that if I drink I’ll have the same reaction to alcohol as him. So after explaining this to my now boyfriend he agreed and said he doesn’t really want to drink anyway and agrees to not drink anymore. This week we went on vacation with many of his old friends and people I didn’t really know too well for prom. He hadn’t really talked to these people in about a year almost two since we got together. His mom (who I can’t stand and also abuses alcohol) was also there along with some other parents. The first night was good we had fun and enjoyed ourselves without drinking.
The next day was prom and after getting ready and pictures we left for the dance. While there one of the boys at the beach house we were staying at asked my boyfriend if he would be drinking (btw this boy calls himself Rrezzy and has no future plans.) After being asked that my boyfriend told “Rrezzy” to ask me when he did I said no and that was that. My boyfriend didn’t say anything to me until I asked if he wanted to he said no then I asked if he was lying and he said yes. I got upset because why would he want to drink, he said he would give it up if we got together and I thought he was having fun being sober with me. If he did end up drinking he would have went back on his word and I would be the only sober person there. On the way back to the beach house we didn’t say a word to each other and I didn’t see him for a little when we got back. I then got a text from him saying he was going to drink.
I asked why and started crying I said we were going to break up if he drinks which he knew because i had told him that would happen before we even got together. He said “Then we are going to break up” and I started crying even more. It felt like he was choosing drinking and partying over me with people he didn’t even know anymore. I walked inside and saw him sitting on the couch with his drunk ass mom. I then walked outside to the front porch and told him to come outside so we could talk in person. After maybe 15 minutes of talking he was unsure if he would drink or not. His mom then came outside and I walked down the stairs because I didn’t want to be around her. I was still in earshot and heard them talking she was saying how we should just break up and how I’m not the one and I can’t handle him leaving ( he’s going to college soon 5 hours away.) After she left I went back up and asked what he was going to do and he said we are breaking up then went inside.
I started panicking and crying when I tell y’all I broke down I’m not being dramatic he’s my person and I couldn’t believe what was happening. I went inside after a little and saw him standing next to his mom by the alcohol I started crying and went into the other room so people didn’t see. After about 40 minutes I texted him to come to that room and when he did he smelled of alcohol. I told him I changed my mind and wanted to still be together I’m fine with him drinking if it is what he wanted to do. He didn’t respond then I asked if he even wanted to be together before all this happened. He said no and that he doesn’t want to date anymore. I tried to convince him to just talk to me and we can figure it out. He stayed but said some horrible things. He started saying how he always thinks about breaking up with me and cheating on me. He started crying and said I shouldn’t be with him and that he’s a horrible person he kept saying how he wants to go party with girls while I’m not around. After about 30 minutes of that he laid down and was still crying I was trying to help calm him down and he did after awhile.
He ended up saying how he still wanted to be together and he wouldn’t drink again. The next morning we were talking about it and he said he was sorry and that he is just scared of leaving. I forgave him and we are still dating today. I just cannot forget about everything he said he explained that he just said it because he was mad and upset but I just cannot forget about it.
I really don’t know what to do and I’m just so confused. We’ve already talked about it for three days now but anything he says just doesn’t help ease my mind. And I can’t just keep bringing it up because it makes him veryyyyyy upset when I do. I just need any and all advice on how to move forward.

there's this girl and we like eachother, she invited me to help her with her homework in her room at 11:00 PM which is when the dorms get locked (We're at a boarding school).
She's experienced but I'm still virgin. I kinda just said "nah sorry" and didn't even think about what she wanted.
I got 6 inches to offer so I'm not anxious abt my size (cuz it's average) but i'm kinda clueless how real life sex is cuz of porn😂 Gimme advice plz

I sometimes have apartment deliveries where customers want their package delivered to a non-Amazon locker in another building. Often there’s no room for either of those packages as there’s limited locker space (especially with FedEx and UPS having access as well), so I deliver to their front door despite their notes stating “locker” as it’s time consuming to check whether there’s open locker space or not. Is that something Amazon will count as a wrong delivery address if prompted by a customer? And when I do deliver to their front door, the app doesn’t recognize it as a wrong geotag.

A girl helps her older sister, without being there TW, suicide (self unaliving) lol
https://www.reddit.com/Paranormal/comments/1cqvq1v/soul_projection/
soul projection?May 13th 2024, 10:11, by sakeiura
TW: mentions of suicidal thoughts.
TLDR: sister appeared in my room and saved my life when she wasn't home.
something bizarre happened between my little sister and i when we were younger that we still can't explain to this day.
in high school i was going through some very traumatic things. one night i was in my room contemplating attempting suicide. before i did anything, my little sister knocked on my door, came into my room, and asked me if she could borrow my hairbrush. i said yes and sent her on her way.
she was so sweet and innocent, i thought about leaving her and the rest of my family behind, and it reminded me what i'm living for. if i hadn't seen her, i fear i would have gone through with it. seeing her saved my life.
the next day, she came home from her friends house. i was very closed off from my family at the time; i never knew what was going on in their lives, either never home or locking myself in my room and isolating. so i had no idea that my sister wasn't actually home that night. i confronted her and asked her about her borrowing my hairbrush last night, and she had no idea what i was talking about. she wasn't home.
i found out after talking with her for a while that she experienced something strange while she was away at her friends house that night too. apparently she had sat up in the middle of the night, around the same time i saw her in my room, sobbing hysterically and telling her friend "i need to call my sister. i have to talk to my sister." over and over again. her friend calmed her down and got her back to sleep, and the next morning, she had no memory of it whatsoever.
i'm forever grateful for whatever happened that night. but it is so unexplainable. we thought of a lot of different theories and learned about soul/astral projection type stuff and although still iffy it's the best thing we've come up with. we just wanted to share this weird story and maybe hear if anyone has any explanations or similar stories.
and remember, you are loved.
submitted by sakeiura [link] [comments]

So just found this sub Reddit and have been reading all the spooky stories, just thought I’d share mine.
So my grandma used to live in a 4 stories high flat, she was on the top floor. She lived there for 50+ years (the whole building is 100+ years old).
When my mum was a little girl she experienced a lot of creepy shit. She told me this particular story as I grew a bit older that really stuck with me all these years, One night while she was sleeping in bed with her little sister (they shared a room), she looked over to the door and seen a man standing in the shadows, full of fear she froze and didn’t know what to do she just stared at this “man” and decided to wake her sister up while having her eyes fixed on this man. Her sister woke up and began to cry after seeing this and her parents came in the room and the “man” was gone.
Another thing my mum told me was beside the garden door on the bottom floor there was a little indoor storage area where all residents of the flat could store their bikes, scooters etc. My mum told me to not go in it, she legit told me it’s haunted stay away from it, I never went close to it, infact I remember everytime I had to go up to my grans by myself I would feel a eerie feeling coming from that little compartment and I would sprint up the stairs, I would also feel as if something was following me from behind as I was going upstairs.
Anyway that’s just some backstory of this house, now when I was 14 years old. Myself, my brothers and my cousins we all used to go over to my grans quite regularly and back then we never had phones or anything so we used to play games like hide and seek, what’s the time Mr. Wolf etc, one day it was just me and one of my cousins (he was around 11) all the adults used to sit in the living room and they used to tell us to go play, because we used to scream they used to tell us to close the door, which we always did.
So my cousin and I decided to play hide and seek, I tell him that lll seek he hides, he agrees and goes to hide. I face the wall and begin to count down, when I finish I go to look for him, I start by the kitchen, he’s Not there, I go to the bathroom Not there, then I go to my grandparents bedroom, inside the bedroom they had this closet, it was more like a small room plenty of space in there for like 4 people, this is where they stored a bunch of blankets and old traditional furniture. As I entered the bedroom to my surprise he jumps out from this closet with both his hands on his throat crisscrossing eachother, looking pale and blue, what he says next I will never forget he says “why did you strangle me”.
My first instinct was to call him a dumbass and say “I didn’t” then he says “you were behind me strangling me I saw your face” this sent shivers down my spine. Now in my head I’m thinking if I am currently infront of you, how could I have just “teleported“ Infront of you if I was right behind you a second ago?. For this to make any sense I would have strangled him then I would have to somehow run directly infront of him, out the closet door without him seeing me and get to the position I was currently in which is impossible. So being the older cousin I could clearly sense the fear and distraught he was in, so to lighten the mood I started to laugh and giggle and said “yeah it was me hahahahaha, I was behind you” I hugged him, but honestly I was fucking shitting my pants.
We stopped playing hide and seek after that.
His mum was mad at me for “strangling” him, I just took all the blame, I told my mum what happened when we left my grans, she believed me and hugged me and we kept it to ourselves.
Many years down the line i was like 21 and this cousin was like 18ish, i bought this story up with him and he remembered clear as day exactly what happened, we talked and now that he was way older he understood what had happened and that it was completely impossible for me to be infront of him and also behind him strangling him a moment ago. He thanked me for giving him that comfort at that young age, and telling him it was me strangling him, he said for many years he believed it was me (because I told him it was) he also said that if I didn’t say it was me, he would’ve been paranoid for the rest of his life.
He said as he grew older he starting to think about that day and started to realise there was no possible way it could’ve been me strangling him if I had just come into the bedroom, he stared to put it together by himself.
Thankfully, that house has now been sold. But even as I grow older, there are moments when I feel the urge to drive by it again. Yet, as I approach, a sense of unease creeps over me, and I find myself accelerating, desperate to escape its haunting grip just a little quicker.

TW: Alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, suicidal ideation, sex abuse
This is going to be a LLLLLOOONNNNGGGGG one. This story goes back quite a way, but yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the ending to this story and I'm feeling it, still got some guilt about everything that happened, wondering what I could have done differently and I just want to vent it out and hope to get some closure from it.
This story started in 2010.
Characters in this story (names are fake, duh!):

• Me, Guy, 32M at the time, 45 now.
• My BFF Stephanie, 33F at the time.
• Stephen, 40M at the time, Stephanie's boyfriend.
• Maryse, 27F at the time.

Background and intro
I had known Stephanie for many years and we had the kind of friendship that made her BFs and my GFs uncomfortable to put it lightly. We had never crossed that boundary and I wouldn't consider us in the friendzone, we were just friend, but the kind of friend where she would sit on my lap with her arms around my neck or her head on my shoulder.
At the start of 2010, Stephanie met her then boyfriend, Stephen. He tolerated me and my friendship with Stephanie because I also had a gf back then. She liked Stephanie, wasn't at all jealous of my friendship with her, so he didn't deem me too suspicious. Then my gf and I broke up for reasons unimportant and all hell broke loose for Stephen. He became convinced that I would try and steal Stephanie from him. He insisted that Stephanie introduce me to her female friends or female friends of his. Thus began what I called the year of the 50 blind dates. It was probably closer to 20, but still I like saying the year of 50 blind dates. Most of them were unremarkable and never went beyond the first date. There are some fun stories in there if anyone wants to hear them eventually!
In July of that year, I had to switch gears because I had to focus up and study for a professional exam for a certification important to my career. This exam required close to 600-800 hours of study over a 3-4 month period. So I hunkered down, told Stephanie to stop the blind dates for now because I had to focus on that. She respected my wishes and, other a text here or there, we went low contact for the last two months before the exam.
Except for one fateful night in September. Her birthday was in September and she always threw these big bashes at her house. She would throw a big pool party that started around noon and would go on to the wee hours of the morning. I knew she would harass me to go to her party, so I made some quick math and figured I would lose more energy and time trying to dodge her calls, texts and most likely visits at my place than by just going to the party itself. So when she called me to ask, I just said: "Okay I'll go to your damn party, now git." I texted her I would get there in the evening probably around 8. She texted back "Great, can't wait. Now study, bitch!"
So I ultimately get there around 8PM. Basically everybody is already drunk off their gourd. Stephanie sees me, squeals in excitement and runs to me in her bikini and just jumps in the air and slams into me, wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and gives me a big hug. I hug her back and just keep walking back to the pool where she had started, carrying her with me. I just duck my head around hers and say hi to Stephen, who just glares at me.
She drops back down and I give her her gift. We chat for a few seconds and says "There's beer in the fridge and food in the dining room." I told her I'd be right back.
I go inside and grab a beer from the fridge. I head to the dining room and the table is against the wall with a buffet of sandwiches, tomato pizza, salads, etc. I grab a plate and start putting food on it. I was focused on the task because I was starving. I barely noticed, sitting at the end of the table one of the most stunning woman I have ever seen. I just see her in my peripheral vision and I do a quick double take, quick glance at her and back to the food. I do that a second time. And finally a third time. At that point she is just straight up staring at me and I can't help but chuckle and whisper under my breath "Subtle Guy, sub-tle".
Thankfully she starts laughing too, saving me some embarassment. I look at her and greet her. She says "Hi, I'm Maryse and I'm guessing you're Guy?" I just nod and we start talking. At that point, I just thought I have no shot with her, she's so far out of my league that I'm just gonna talk to her until she sees one of the "models" hanging out by the pool and ditches me for him.
So I'm not feeling like I'm playing for anything, so I'm just myself and not nervous, just talking to her as I would any friend. We chat and she laughs at all my jokes, she gets all my cultural references. She never gets up or ditches me. The plate of food I had made and the beer I had gotten are sitting on the table next to me untouched, I was too busy with the convo to think about food or beer anymore.
After what felt like only 20-30 minutes, Stephanie comes in and tells me, fake grumpy: "So that's where you disappeared to. I invite my best friend to a party and he spends the whole night talking to someone else." I laugh and go: "What do you mean the whole night? I haven't been here that long." She says "Dude, it's 2AM. You've been here for 6 hours..." My jaw dropped and I just said: "Wow, time flies when you're having fun." Maryse chimes in, with a big smile: "It sure does!" That made me happy as you can imagine.
Now I was a little stuck because where Stephanie lived, there's no night service for the bus and the subway had been closed for an hour or so. I figured I would cab it. So I turn to Maryse and tell her: "It was absolutely lovely to meet you and I enjoyed our conversation very much." She says that she did too. I continued with "At the moment, my schedule is incredibly hectic. I'm basically working full-time, studying full-time and sleeping part-time. So I don't have a lot of free time, but if she was interested, whatever little free time I had, I would love to call her or text her to keep on getting to know her."
I see Stephanie in the backgroudnd, looking like a proud mama at how smooth that came out, knowing I was always anything but smooth with women, as proven by the string of blind dates! Maryse has a big smile and we exchange numbers. I go to Stephanie to wish her a happy birthday again. While I'm talking to her, my phone buzzes with a text from Maryse: "Just checking!"
I asked Stephanie "What's the best cab company to call in this area?" Maryse chimes in: "Where do you live?" I tell her where I lived and she goes "It's on the way to where I live, I can give you a ride if you want." Stephanie raised an eyebrow in surprise. I learned later, she did it because it absolutely was not on the way to her place, like, at all. I say that I would love that as it would give us a chance to keep talking.
We get in her car, driving to my place. We talk, she asks me what I'm studying as I hadn't mentioned it earlier. I tell her all about the boring maths I had to study. Much too quickly, we get to my place. She parks in front of my building and we keep talking. At some point, I tell her: "Normally, this is where I would try to "trick" you into coming up to my place..." She interrupts me: "You wouldn't need to trick me. I'm willing and able!"
I tell her that "As tempting as that sounds, I know who I am and I know that if you come up and things proceed to where they're going, I'm not going to be able to study for the rest of the month. I have a kind of obsessive mind and when I find someone or something I like, I can push everything else to the side in favor of that. So to make sure I can still focus on my studying, I have to go up by myself."
She looks at me, a little disappointed but then says, half-jokingly: "We don't have to go up, there's a backseat right there!" We laugh and I give her a kiss and wish her a good night. I managed to stay strong and go back to my condo. Damn it, why did I have to stay strong!!!
My exam was at the beginning of november. During the month of october, we texted a bunch of times and talked on the phone. We went for coffee a couple of times and dinner once. She respected my boundaries and never pushed for more, which I appreciated but also hated at the same time, if that makes sense. The exam came and it was a monster of a Friday. I slept for basically 18 hours after the exam as the adrenalin dropped and my system crashed.
I texted her when I woke up at around 1PM. She was working at the clothing store Stephanie owned. She said "I'm off at 5PM, wanna meet me." I said: "Duh! Why do you think I'm texting? ;)" So I met her at the store downtown. I asked if she wanted to grab a drink, go for dinner, or what. She proposed going to her place and getting some take out. Stephanie who was closing the store at that moment, came up to us and said: "Hey, so what are we doing?" I said: "WE, that is Maryse and I, are going to her place and getting some takeout. Bye!" I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you that no food was ever ordered that night!
Thus followed a whirlwind month of November where any free time we had was spent together, and I wasn't going to complain!
The troubles
By the start of december, things were still going great with us. One saturday night, we were having dinner at a restaurant and I mention that this coming Friday is my office Christmas party, that it's employees only, so we wouln't see each other that night. She tells me: "Oh sure, that's fine! It'll give me a chance to go see some girlfriends I've been neglecting lately." I said "Great! BTW I also got us a reservation at [this great restaurant she had mentioned a few times] for next Saturday, so we could go there and I'll tell you all about my party and you can tell me all about her night with the girls!"
That was settled, I thought. I was wrong. On Thursday, we had spent the evening together at her place and I was about to leave to go back to my place. She tells me: "So are you coming to meet me at the store tomorrow or do I go to your place?" I reminded her: "Neither, tomorrow is my office Christmas party and we won't see each other tomorrow." She said: "Oh right, I forgot." I asked her if she had made plans with her friends like she had mentioned last saturday. She said that they were all busy tomorrow and weren't available.
She suggested "If your party is boring, maybe you could come meet me." I retorted that it wasn't going to be, knowing who was going to be there.
"Yeah but what if?"
"But it won't"
"But what IFFFFFF?" she kept insisting and I kept saying no. After what felt like 30 minutes of that (probably only 2-3 minutes in reality), I had enough and just said to end the argument: "Okay, if it's boring, I'll come. but it won't be." She said: "Cool" with a big smile on her face. I came to learn that that smile meant "Challenge accepted".
The following night, my colleague and I were pregaming in a conference room before leaving for the party proper and my phone buzzes. Maryse was wishing me a good party. I replied. She texted me again. I replied. She texted again, but I was in a conversation with a colleague so I didn't reply or even look at the phone. My phone buzzes again. Still talking, and didn't want to be rude to my colleague. Another buzz. I just kept talking. Phone buzzes differently, she was now calling because I hadn't answered her texts.
"Why aren't you replying to my texts?"
"Hey, sorry, was talking to my colleague Patrick."
"What? you don't want to talk to me?"
"I am talking to you now."
"Why didn't you reply to my texts?"
"Because it would have been rude to my colleague to pull my phone out while talking to him."
"But you're talking to me now."
"Because I thought something was wrong, maybe it was an emergency."
"I wanted to talk to you, that's all."
"Well, gotta go back to the party. Talk to you later."
She kept texting and if I didn't reply right away, she would call after two or three missed texts. After about 2 hours of this, I stopped answering the texts. When she called back, I asked her: "Aren't you supposed to be working?" which started another round of guilt-tripping of "why are you asking me this? you don't want to talk to me?" At that point I had had enough and wanted to enjoy my party. I remembered that the Blackberry (no shaming old tech!) I had had an annoying feature, but I was hoping to put it to good use at that moment.
Whenever the battery would get really low, like less than 1%, it would let out an ear-piercing BEEP for about 3 seconds, reminiding you to charge it and giving you a heart attack all at the same time. It would do that even when you were in silent mode. It had happened a few days earlier when I was with Maryse. I figured, if I press a button on the Blackberry, it would make a beep too that could be heard through the phone. So while I was talking to Maryse, I pressed my thumb on the space bar for a good 3 seconds and sputtered; "what... the .... what?" trying to put on a somewhat believable performance.
She asked what that noise was and I tell her that it was my blackberry letting me know I was low battery and it might shut off any second. I told her "Listen I'm gonna wish you a good night, I'm having a good time at my party so I'll see you tomorrow at 5PM to go spend our evening together. I hope you have a good....." and hung up mid-sentence. I promptly shut my phone off and went back to the party. I concede that I may be a bit of an AH for that move.
The party was great, I got drunk much quicker than I expected owing to the fact that I hadn't had a drink in over two months because Maryse didn't drink so I didn't either when we were together, and we were always together. At 1AM, I went home and passed out on my bed.
This is another place where I may have been an AH. I didn't turn my cell phone back on and I unplugged my home line too, because I wanted to sleep the deep sleep of the drunkard. I woke up at around 1:30 PM, not knowing it was already too late. In my mind, I was meeting Maryse at 5PM to go out on the town that night. Maryse had other ideas as you'll see.
So like I said, I woke up at 1:30PM and was sticky with alcohol sweat, so I went straight for the shower to get clean again. While in the shower, my stomach grumbled with hunger and I started daydreaming of bacon and eggs. That pushed me out of the shower right quick. I dried myself off quickly, tied the towel around my waist and went to the fridge. No bacon.... booo. Looked at the egg compartment... no eggs... booo again. Okay then, how about a cream cheese bagel. No cream cheese, damn it. Look in the pantry, no bagels.... god. I was starting to get angry. Okay, cereals then. I pick up the cereal box, that mofo was empty and I get mad: "who's the idiot who puts the empty box back in the pantry?" I remembered I live alone.
I close the fridge dejected and see the grocery list stuck on the fridge, taunting me with everything I wanted to eat for breakfast written on it. But I felt like if I went to the grocery store hungry as I Was, I'm just gonna pay 600$ and not get one single healthy thing to eat. I then remembered there's a restaurant next to the grocery store that serves breakfast until 3PM. I get excited! I get dressed quickly, grab my wallet and keys, put my boots on, my coat on, wrap my scarf, my tuque and my gloves and go to the restaurant. If you notice, I didn't mention my phone in there.
I get to the restaurant and confirm that they still have breakfast and get even more excited when she confirms it. I order the "heart attack", at least that's how I nicknamed it: 3 eggs, 3 servings of bacon, 2 sausages, and, I guess to give one peace of mind, fruit (or to be precise, one single solitary slice of orange). Now that the food is ordered and coming I figured I would check if I have any messages. I pat the pocket where my phone always is. No phone. uh-oh. I start clutching evert pocket, no luck.
I wonder if I should go back home after the meal before going to the grocery store and decide against it, it would be too long a detour. So I scarf my breakfast down, rush through the grocery store. I get home and set my bags down in front of the fridge. I go pick up my blackberry. I turn it back on. The little tape icon tells me there are messages on my voicemail, at that time there were no red dots with a number in it to tell you how many.
I connect to the voicemail while starting to put the groceries away. The little automated voice tells me "You have 25 new messages." I pull the phone away from my ear, look at it in disbelief as if saying: "are you f'ing kidding me?" So I press 1 to start playing the messages.
Remember: Maryse knew I was at a party with a dead phone, no chargers and I probably wouldn't get home until 1AM. From 6:30PM, when my phone died, to 11:34 PM, when she went to sleep she left me 9 messages. BTW I know she went to sleep at 11:34PM because she left me a message saying "it's 11:34PM and I'm going to bed. Thinking of you." The 9 messages were in the same vein. These are the salient details, but the messages were all much longer.
She woke up at 7:15 the following day, I'll let you guess how I know that tidbit of information! She left me 5 more messages like those from the day before: 7:15 woke up. 7:35 going to take a shower. 7:55 out of the shower. 8:25 getting ready to leave for work 8:50 walking out of the subway to go to the store.
She leaves me another message at 9 that was different. She sounded very excited as if she had had the best idea in the world: "Hey it's 9AM, I'm about to start my shift. I know we're only supposed to meet after my shift, but what if you came and met me for lunch so you could tell me all about your party." I just did my best Scooby-Doo "Ruh-Roh" and chuckled that I blew that, not thinking the calamity that was awaiting me.
Another couple of messages to talk logistics: "I could take my lunch at 12 or 12:30, let me know which you prefer." "I'm taking my lunch at 12:30"
A slightly worried message: "It's 11:15 and you stil have not said if you were coming or not, are you okay?"
The first bomb goes off and I knew I was in trouble then: "Where are you? We're supposed to meet for lunch and you still haven't given me any sign of life, you're not answering your home phone either, what happened?" Reminder: we were not supposed to meet for lunch, she suggested doing so a couple of hours earlier and I never agreed to anything. I guess she told her colleagues I would meet her for lunch and it was now fact and could perhaps make her look bad in front of her colleagues.
The second bomb drops: "It's almost noon now, WHERE ARE YOU? Stephanie says you're probably sleeping off your drunk, but I don't believe her. I'm sure you got yourself a slut and cheated on me. Didn't you? didn't you, you asshole." Stephanie knows me very well, but that wasn't enough for Maryse it seems.
Ensued four more messages from 12:30 to 1:15, where she starts sounding more and more drunk and accusatory, spewing more attacks like in the message above. At that point I already knew it was over, there was no coming back from that. I can understand having trust issues, but that was nuclear. I don't tolerate jealousy because of horrible experiences with a couple of jealous toxic exes.
A final message comes in, and it's a different voice, that of my best friend being more than a little angry: "Hey Guy, listen, Maryse tells me you had a Christmas party yesterday, so I'm guessing you're sleeping off your drunk, still. But call me when you get this. I put Maryse, who's f'ing drunk, in the backstore so she can dry off and "do inventory". She can't be on the sales floor obviously and I just don't feel safe sending her home in the state she's in. Call me to tell me how you want to handle this."
At that point I had finished putting away my groceries and had put my boots and my coat on and was making my way to the subway to go to the store. I call Stephanie and tell her I got the messages and I was coming. She was right, I was sleeping off my drunk and had just woke up (didn't feel the need to mention the breakfast and grocery store). I ask her if she knows what I'm gonna do when I get there. She says that she knows and understands. She knows my bad history.
When I get out of the subway, I call her again before getting to the store. I ask her how she wants me to do this. It's her store and I don't want to create drama in front of her customers. Does she want me to wait outside and she tells Maryse to meet me in the street or do I go in the store and she takes me to the backstore and I do it there? She says to come to the store.
I walk in the store and every saleswomen on the floor looks at me and gives me the biggest case of the stink-eye. They only have Maryse's side of the story, so they think I did all these horrible things. I see Stephanie in the middle of the store and I walk towards her. She shakes her head and points me towards the cash register. I look over there and see Julia, a salesperson that I've known for a couple of years and really like, who also happens to be the biggest gossip in the store. I understand what Stephanie is trying to do. She's gonna make me tell her my story in front of Julia so Julia can spread the "good news" to the other employees and rehabilitate my name possibly.
So I get to the register and say Hi to Julia. She barely acknoledges me. Steph joins me. She asks me:
"How are you?"
"I was better an hour ago, before I listened to those voicemails. I had gone to our office party last night, had a great night, got drunk off my ass, got home at around 2 and woke up around 2."
Julia asks "Maryse told us you were supposed to meet her for lunch."
"No we weren't. I have a reservation for tonight at XYZ restaurant. I was supposed to take the day to do errands, stuff around the condo and meet her here at closing time. She suggested that it could be fun if I came at lunchtime to meet her, but that was never the plan."
Julia asks again "But why didn't you answer your phone?"
"It ran out of battery last night during the party and when I got home, I was so drunk that I forgot to plug it back in. I only plugged it when I woke up at 2. That's when the messages came in."
Julia asks "She says she tried calling your home line and you didn't answer and your machine didn't kick in."
"Yeah, that one's my fault, I knew I wanted to sleep and telemarketers have a habit of calling me early saturday mornings so I didn't want to be awoken by a call for a rug cleaning service, so I unplugged it yesterday morning, knowing I would be drunk when I got home and forget and be angry if I was awakened by a telemarketer."
Julia gave me a hint of a smile, showing me she was starting to believe me. She asked me a few more questions and then she asked what I was gonna do. I told her that whatever I'll do, I would tell Maryse first.
I looked at Stephanie and said: "Can you open the back store so I can go see her?" So we went to the backstore. As we reached the door, it swung opened and out popped Maryse, looking absolutely terrifying, I actually jumped back when I saw her. Her usual perfect makeup was completely smeared, her mascara streaking down her cheeks from the crying. Her hair was disheveled. She was a mess. Apparently, she had had enough of waiting back there and was planning on leaving the store to go home and had put her coat and boots on.
When she saw me, she went into an unhinged rant about me being an asshole for cheating on her, me not being great in bed, me not treating her right, etc. I let her vent everything she had to say, I looked at Stephanie and apologized for creating such a scene in her store. I tell Maryse we should go outside and talk in private. She keeps on yelling, but when I grab her hand to lead her outside, she follows.
When we get outside, her anger had started to wane a little, or maybe just her energy. I was able to talk to her to explain everything, how I had gotten drunk, had overslept (alone) and woke up at 2PM. I reminded her that we were only supposed to meet at 5PM not for lunch. The anger was leaving her and a smile almost appeared on her face. Through all of this I was being very calm and patient with her, which she interpreted as me not being mad at her. I then said in a firmer tone: "However..." and let it hang for a second.
The beginning smile vanished. I continued: "When you accused me of cheating on you, that broke me. That triggered memories of toxic exes who would always accuse me of cheating, not trusting me when I would tell them where I was, snooping on me, stalking me. Because of those experiences, I have a zero tolerance policy for jealousy. I told her that if she was behaving like after only two months of dating, it didn't bode well for the future and I have to protect myself."
At that, the tears started again and she just turned and ran/waddled away. I told her to wait, but she didn't hear me. I turned towards the entrance of the store to see basically all the employees and customers milling around the door trying to catch the drama. I went back inside to talk to my best friend. The mood had definitely changed and no one was giving me the stink eye anymore, but I didn't really care. I was just sad that it had ended, but proud of myself for having stood up for myself.
So AITA for getting drunk and keeping my phone turned off?
There is a lot more to this story and if you want to learn what happened afterwards, then read on.
The immediate aftermath
So I went back inside the store and talked to Stephanie. I told her that I had a reserrvation for XX restaurant and if she wanted to go with Stephen, she could take it, I wasn't in the mood for a dinner. She said "I already have plans for tonight, but thanks for offering." Julia said she would go with me if I wanted, but I just said that I wasn't in the mood to go out. I just wanted to crash and eat a pizza and get into a food coma.
Stephanie said she didn't feel comfortable leaving me by myself and I should join them at her house. They were having friends over to play board games and it could at least distract me a little. I said why not. So brimming with enthusiasm, I went to play bored games. I left early as I wasn't in the mood. I was feeling a little better, but still a bit down. I thanked Stephanie for the invite and left. I got home and just passed out on the bed.
I woke up at around 7AM the next morning and I saw along the corners of the window the tell-tale signs of a snow-drift and got excited as it was the first snow of the season. I pushed the curtains aside and looked on to see a beautiful white carpet outside. It was early enough that very few cars had marred the whiteness. I was admiring it when I noticed that, against the red bricks of the building across the street, there was a pink blotch. As I focused, the blotch became human shaped and I cleared my eyes enough to realize that it was Maryse and she was raising her cell phone to her ear.
On cue, my phone rings. I pick it up. Still sounding drunk, she asks me if we can speak. I ask her to give me five minutes to get dressed and I'll meet her down there. She asks why she can't come up. I say that I'm not sure I want her in my apartment. She says that it's cold out. I say: "Good, then this will be quick."
I get dressed and meet her outside. I'm still bleary-eyed from having woken up 5 minutes ago, but I try to get my wits together. I tell her that we're going to walk to the subway. It 's a 10-minute walk normally, but with her drunkenness, it might take 15-20 minutes. That's how long she has to tell me what she wants to tell me.
She wants to apologize for accusing me of cheating on her. She says she knows I'm a great guy and... I may be the A-hole at this point too, but I start to drift off in my little bubble and start daydreaming about, if I go back to bed, would there still be some residual heat or would it be cold? I could take a hot shower and warm the bed that way. I could still hear her in the background making excuses, saying how she had been cheated on, but I wasn't really listening.
During the daydreaming I notice it got quite quiet. I look on my left and she's not there, I turn around she's a good 5-6 steps behind me looking angry and she says: "you're not listening" I just say: "when you're right, you're right." I tell her that I understand she's been hurt too in the past, and I hope she can work to resolve her issues, but I was done and I'm going back to bed. I was a bit harsh there, but I was tired and still down.
I walk past her and get maybe 10 paces past her when I hear a scream coming from her. I turn around and I see her messing with something inside her coat. She pulls out a chef's knife with like an 8-inch blade. That wakes me the fuck up. Byebye bleary eyes, hello wakefulness. better than a cup of coffee or a red bull I tell you!
So she's got the knife, she's screaming something that I can't quite understand. She gets quiet and then she charges at me with the knife. If I'm being honest I could have stayed where I was and she probably would have missed me anyways, but someone charges at me with a knife, I'm gonna nope out of there. I take a massive side step and once she gets to where I was and realizes that I'm no longer there, she turns her head towards me and says heyyyyy.
At that point, I have a moment of clarity and see what's gonna happen. She's drunk running one way and looking another, I know she's gonna trip. As I predicted, she stumbled over her feet and starts falling to the ground. I start praying to god and anybody who would listen: "Please don't let her cut herself. I don't want to have to explain this to the doctors, EMTs and nurses. I don't want her drunk ass deciding to take revenge on me by saying I did it."
Thankfully, she winds up in a sitting position on the sidewalk holding the knife up and it was clean. Thank god for small miracles. She starts crying and, other moment of clarity, I know she's gonna turn the knife on herself now. I jump towards her and I realize I was right, the knife starts moving towards her left wrist. I tackle her, grab her right wrist and twist it so she drops the knife. I pick the knife back up and put it in my pocket. She looks at me crying and says: "Why did you stop me?"
I pick her up and take her back to my building. In my building there was a couch in the lobby, so I take her there and I sit her down and plop myself next to her. I look at her and wonder out loud: "What am I gonna do with you? What can I do?"
She goes: "Just let me go, I'll be good." I tell her that's not going to happen. I realize I have three options and I give her the three options.
"So here's the choice I give you.
1- I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted murder back there and they send the police to arrest you. I don't want to do that because that could derail your life and not get you the help you need. Besides, they might not do anything anyway as it's your word against mine.
2= I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted suicide back there and that you need to be placed on a 72 hour hold. I could do that, but at the same time, again it's my word against yours, so maybe they don't believe me.
3- I'm gonna hazard a guess here. From what I've seen, you have alcohol problems. So I'm gonna guess you were in AA, had been sober for a while, I want to say 6 months, maybe less, when we met."
She confirms my guess.
"alright so option 3, I'm guessing you had a sponsor in AA." she nods "we call them up and tell them about your relapse and what happened this morning. Can they come get you and take care of you?"
She takes her phone out and picks a contact and calls. She hands me the phone. Someone answers and I explain the situation. They said they were coming right away. I give them my address, they get here 15 minutes later. Maryse had fallen asleep in the meantime, so I wake her up gently and help her to the car. Off she went.
I went back to my apartment and just crashed back to sleep.
A month later
Mid-january, my phone rings and I see Maryse's number on there. I send her to voice mail. Another call. Voicemail again. 5 minutes later, Private number calling. "Gee I wonder who that could be." Voicemail once more.
Afterwards, I didn't get any unidentified callers for a little over a week. One afternoon, I was at work and my phone rings and it's a number I do not recognize. I pick up.
"Hello."
"Hi, is this Guy?"
"Yes, to whom am I speaking?"
"This is Hannah, Maryse's sponsor. we spoke last month." I started fearing the worst.
"Yes, I remember. How can I help you?"
"Maryse tried to reach you last week and you rejected the calls. I think it could help Maryse if you listened to what she had to say. You're obviously not obligated to entertain her, but I think despite everything that happened, you still care about her or you would not have called me that morning."
"You are right, I do still care about Maryse. I'm just not sure how good it would be for her to meet me this soon after everything that happened. I understand wanting to work through the 9th step and making amends, but..." She interrupts me.
"So you know about the steps."
"Yes I have friends in the program. which is how I could guess that she was in the program too that morning."
"You know it's important."
"I know. I know. How about this: we meet in public at a cafe, you would have to be there. Not necessarily at the table with us, but nearby in case she needs help, in case meeting me causes her pain. Tell her I promise to be in a more receptive mood than I was that morning."
So we make an appointment for that saturday afternoon.
I get to the coffee shop. She's already there, and so is her sponsor. I realize happily that she's not wearing makeup. I say happily because that means she understands that this is not a date, but something serious. She's still stunningly beautiful, and I feel sad almost right away.
I grab a coffee and go join her at the table.
"Hey" I say,
"Hey. So this is gonna be uncomfortable, but thank you for agreeing to meet me and for coming, I appreciate it more than you know. I'm sure you heard I quit the store."
"I have, I'm sorry about that, I hope you didn't do it just because of me."
"No, I needed time to focus on myself for now."
She proceeds to tell me about how I wasn't far off with my guess. She had been sober 4 months when we met. Now she had 39 days. She tells me that in AA, if you are single, they recommend not dating anyone new for at least the first year of your sobriety as it can cause issues, similar to what happened with us. I was like her "drug" and as long as I was available, she could get her fix. But the moment I wasn't available all hell broke loose, and that is what led her back to drinking that day.
I told her I'm glad to see her back sober again this quickly and I hope she can get all the help she needs from it. I ask her if she wants to talk to me about her drinking.
She starts to share a story about how she started drinking at around 11 years old. When puberty hit her, she got into a deep depression because the sexual feelings she was starting to feel were triggering responses. As a child she had been abused by two of her uncles repeatedly and her parents never believed her. They accused her of trying to make herself interesting. That was until they caught one of those uncles red-handed.
They finally believed and took the necessary steps to protect their daughter. But they were poor and they couldn't afford therapy. So she never really got help for it. At 11, she started self medicating the depression with alcohol. When alcohol wasn't enough, she added drugs.
At that point, I was full on crying. She asked me if I wanted her to stop. I told her that she doesn't have to stop. That the tears are there because that was one more thing we had in common. I was also a survivor of sexual assault as a child. In my case, it wasn't a family member, it was only a stranger, so it only happened once. But I also self-medicated with alcohol at the onset of puberty, switching to drugs later on too. I was lucky to avoid the pitfalls of addiction, but I was still dealing with my demons, slowly making peace with them.
So there we were, sitting at a coffee shop, both crying and holding each other. I tell her that I think it's great she's getting help for her alcoholism and addicion, but was she doing anything to help with the underlying issue, the original trauma? She said no, she couldn't afford therapy. I tell her that I am a member of a survivors group and if she is interested, I could get her into a meeting and perhaps learn to heal that part of herself too.
She said that she could give it a try. I tell her I have to talk to the other members to know if I can bring someone new and I would let her know. If they said yes, we would go to her first meeting together, I would introduce her and then we would coordinate so that I never went to meetings where she was. I wanted to do that because I wanted her first few meetings to be about healing and I didn't want our own history to be intertwined or mixed in with that.
After that, we left both feeling content and, while not necesarily happy, at peace if you will. Later on, I contacted Stephanie who was one of the "pillars" of the support group (that's how we met) to ask her if it was okay for me to bring in a new member to the group. She said sure. She asked if it was anyone she knew. I told her she would have to meet her at the meeting if she decides to come.
We were having a meeting the following day. I called Maryse, told her the time and place, and she said she would be there. She came to the group meeting and was shocked to see Stephanie there but Stephanie kinda guessed that it was Maryse I was referring to.
I introduce her, we start sharing stories, talking about how we're feeling, etc. The meeting was good and Maryse liked the vibe. So for the first six months after that, I never saw Maryse and we planned which meeting we would be attending to ensure we didn't cross paths. She started feeling much better.
After maybe 2 and a half years, she finally felt ready and she started dating again. She met someone and she fell for him. They were together for about six months, she looked happy. Unfortunately after about six months, she caught him cheating on her. We tried supporting her, being good friends, cursing his name, doing all the things we could to make sure she didn't relapse. But on April 5th 2014, she ODed on heroin. She was hospitalized for 2 weeks after that.
Hannah took her in and she set up a room for Maryse. She was still in a fragile state, so a group of her friends and I started taking turns watching over Maryse, making sure there was always at least one person there with her to keep her company.
Despite our vigilance, on May 14th 2014, when Hannah was out running a quick errand, she was gone maybe 15 minutes tops, Maryse found a way to cut her wrists and she died. We found a note saying that "the OD was not an accident, and neither was that. Thanks for everything you did for me. I love you all, but I can't do this anymore."
It feels good to write that story (I'll just ignore the fat tears rolling down my face!). Thanks for reading this far and sorry for the long story, I just started writing and couldn't stop. I apologize if it was a bit of a bummer.

Would anyone be willing to swap with me and my roommate for a room in Brown Hall?We are currently living in the O-House and we both are girls!
I know this is probably unlikely but it doesn't hurt to try.

This is a long read sorry!
Hi, I (22F) literally just joined, I have been on reddit for a while now, I post here or there but I really need the grace that only reddit seems to have, kisses but you know it's true. So, I guess, I am screaming into the void, because the truth is I am so gutturally confused.
Like the title says- I have always fantasized of being a flower child, a changeling, of turning towards the corner of the yard, the woods beckoning me to run away, the gentleness of which the coyotes would pick my bones clean. My childhood felt like a house fire only I could see.
My father's nightcap of whiskey got less and less watered down as nights were uncomfortable to spend on the family room couch. The one that he fiercely protects, once threatening my friend who mistakenly lounged in his spot. My mother's love felt scarce, a luxury only my younger sister could afford. Between that and her ambition to become the first nurse and college graduate of both families, I was more of my father's daughter. My younger sister and I were doll-like children, meek and polite to the price of our own dignity and self. To give a brief snapshot of what it was like being raised by them \~ even though "I'm remembering it all wrong, or not at all" I will try to go in chronological order, but you can quickly see most of these were not isolated incidents and I jump around:
-daily spankings because of crying during daycare drop off (fair technique)
-tricking us out of the "broken" car, in the rain on a dirt road "get gas" and proceeded to speed past us laughing as we ran after his taillights in the mud, we were in another country, on a solo trip with just our dad, we were both elementary school age.
-In elementary school and 6th grade I lived in a sweatshirt because when I hit puberty. I pleaded to my mother how hard it was to hear my father's constant comments about my womanhood and new body. He started to compare me to a hooker around this time, calling me a slut for trying to wear what my friends wore to school- leggings, shorts shorter than the knee but not offensively short I promise, though I strongly feel as clothing does not mean consent.
-For as long as I can remember, he would take pictures of us when we looked embarrassed then show it to family, friends, whoever in conversation in front of us then scold us when we inevitably felt bad or asked him to stop. He would also promise to delete the photo but would continue the previously mentioned above.
-So far, I have just been harping on my father, but the truth is they are a match made in hell, and though I feel like my mother is a victim in her own way. It was very hard to exist without their constant horrible comments about my appearance and character. They both shamed skinny children to be thinner, critiqued my body through puberty, and felt entitled to touch my body when and how they wanted. Examples include my father's frequent ass grabbing, and then allowing his adult male friend to do the same.
-They both would ridicule me for working minimum wage jobs in high school, while my father funnels out of my sister and I's joint accounts, only when we confront him does he fess that he required the money we earned for ourselves for the "mortgage". He continues as well as set monetary account goals, right before trips or plans, he would always be surprised that we had managed to scrape together enough money. He expects me to find a place that will fire and schedule me on a winter vacation, or to amount 5k in less than 3 months, while paying for my own necessities, thank you for teaching me to live on frugality as a means of survival.
-The name calling I touched on, but I would be the first to come home from school, my father would take his lunch to come home and berate me verbally of how much of a loser I am and will continue to be. The verbal arguments were daily, I fully admit to yelling back but in truth I couldn't leave his spewing red face hurling threats, I had to stay glued in place until he had his fill.
-Another solo trip with my father and sister, my mother had cleaned my room while we were away and had found my treasures- vapes, two beers. I got pulled out of the running shower to be beaten on and off through the night whenever my father took a break from tv, my sister sob in the room with my father to stop and I sat on the couch until morning. We had a tourist excursion the next day and I got it again before we left because I was not to "ruining the rest of his vacation with my bad attitude"
-They locked away my childhood cat, sick with cancer, to die alone in the basement so she would ruin their floors with her incontinence. When she passed, they did not tell me, they buried her in the woods behind our house, I wish I could lay beside her, I'm sorry little one.
-My father would come home and yell at me for not having dinner ready for him, because when my mother worked late or was not home, the next one responsible for dinner was my younger sister or me.
-He physically corners us or refuses to let us leave. Threatened my life when I tried to leave the house during an argument.
-Put his hand through the door a couple of times because I “gave attitude” by responding with ok. Readers, please note I am capable of attitude, but this was not the case, I was scared, and I just wanted to give him whatever answer he wanted
-I'm a summer birthday, so for my big 21st I had my cousin, bf and sister have a pool party in my parents' pool. No one told me the plan all day. I was told to just relax by everyone, because normally I would be running around serving people or helping my parents. No one told me anything, so we played some games in the yard, had some wine coolers and then swam. My father flies outside and starts yelling at me from the side of the pool to get my ass out and blow out my candles because he needs to drive my cousin 20 minutes home each way. So, I blew out my candles, soaking wet staring daggers because my father has always managed to underplay or make me feel bad on my birthday too? Another grievance from my 21st birthday is that my father grilled frozen steaks, and I truly do not want to seem like a stuck-up princess, but he proceeded to buy 300$ of food from my favorite restaurant and his favorite food is steak not mine. Note his birthday is the next day following mine.
I may post in regard to the tribulation that was my childhood in this thread again, but it takes a lot out of me, and I have already had myself a day sorry. Now you're all caught up and I just want you to know-
I have long ruminated over my own words and actions; though I have many regrets I do not feel ashamed of my choices or who I am because I try to treat everyone with kindness and most importantly respectability. I know the lengths my immigrant parents have gone through to build themselves a life. I know the struggles my father had with his father, the alcoholic who raised him with cruelty reserved for not even a barn animal. I know that my mother lived in the shadows as a neglected middle child hoping to find someone who realized all her good in the way her parents did not. I can see and understand that I carry the same wounds, and now it is within my responsibility to be better.
So, my relationship with my parents is strained right now. I have been in low contact with my mother and father for nearly four years, with periods of better contact. We have tried therapy, though it's difficult as my mother uses this as an opportunity to explore her wounds rather than our history or relationship. Though the therapist was helpful in directing the conversation back, I believe that the work can only happen with the person wanting to actually work on themselves, so I feel like I am at a frustrating impasse.
Every time I feel like I can take out a brick between the wall I keep between us, my mother will say something that makes me build another layer. I try not to be sensitive, yet I know my mother likes to cut with her words, though she claims otherwise. In a recent conversation my mother admitted that my father and she spent a great effort in making sure my beauty did not go to my head and did this in order to keep me humble.
For context, my mother’s side of the family does not like my father, and this along with other childhood issues festering into adulthood drove a wedge between my mother and her younger brother. His recent divorce and my mother’s empty nest have given them much time and space to rekindle their sibling relationship. So on our already strained phone calls she hits me with these metaphors of her brother and her relationship to ours. Am I off for thinking that those are two very different relationships, yet both have.. Jealousy? Furthermore, I feel a looney because I am fighting to keep them in my life, and they are fighting to be right.? To be absolved of the guilt and shame that maybe they did do the wrong thing.?
What gives them the right? When we all have to lay away at night with our guilt you want me to hold yours? I want a mother and they want a guiltless soul
Truthfully, I do not know what kind of future lies ahead for us. I think I grieve having bullies instead of parents, of what I missed out on and who I could have been. Like I said I am low contact right now, but after a normal phone call talking about the weather and our pets today, I had an anxiety attack to the point I fought to stay conscious. This has not been the first time I have fainted due to anxiety, mostly surrounding situations that remind me of them or things they punished or did to me in the past. The day after I wished my father a happy birthday after a year of no contact, I got two pills of ativan to the face after a ER visit in which they thought my poor bf was trafficking me. Though this is maybe too much, I am always sweating, my sides literally pour, my hands shake, and I can string together a sentence if I try. I feel like a different person, a moist, meek person.. which is not me, I self tattoo and pierce, I can and have tackled an attacking dog and I have punched touchy men square in the nose. I’m tough because I fought tooth and nail to be kind and gentle, we rescued cats and recently a possum, and we let out spiders and bugs, so our cats don’t terrorize them.
Here’s the thing… we’re getting married!
We’re tying the knot in the woods at the end of May, but I feel like an asshole because I have not told my parents. They know we’re engaged.
My mother, in a recent phone call, told me of this travel nurse that she had gotten close to, that was getting married soon, and invited my mother to go dress shopping with her. My mother told me how sad this girl felt that her family was all the way across the country, coincidently much like we are. This felt like she was guilting me, but she went so far as to send me a picture of a couple, I didn’t verify who it actually was.
Another issue is I am dealing with the guilt of getting a ring and bands elsewhere. My father is a high-end jeweler whose work has been showcased by celebs, my whole life I heard that my father was going to design and make my engagement ring. After long consideration, we picked out a ring from Madrid that felt more like me. When I look at my wedding rings I want to think of my husband not my father. I am more than happy with anything else, rings for other occasions, but it makes my skin crawl and my stomach curling because part of me feels as if it's more of a collar than a ring then.
My mother wants to meet over memorial weekend, she wants me to fly out a day to visit before I’m getting married.
I do not know if I should facetime them and break the news before, after or invite them. It’s already last minute so airfare will be expensive, but I know they are going to be so heartbroken. Part of me does not want them there either because I have felt alone my whole life, I figured I would do my wedding the same way, though it's hard because my fiancé's family will be there, and I will have no one. I wish I could hire a friend... lol typed that with a tear in my eye that's ironic.
Suggestions please

Hi! I’m a Muslim girl and lied to my parents. I’m living with my boyfriend in Miami this summer while I complete an internship and transfer to FIU, but told my parents I was rooming with a girl. My lie seems too specific and I’m looking for someone willing to FaceTime them with me this Sunday. Must fit the description below (cuz it’s what I told them)
-Middle Eastern/North African (or could pass as such) - Mid twenties - lives near Miami Beach area- I will pay for transportation.
I’m in a pickle, DM if available or if you know someone who is. I’ll pay for your time. Thank you!

This is one of my favorite episodes, from Season 4 I believe, but I have to admit a lot of what happens makes zero sense at all.
-Chrissy forgetting to lock the front door, which was apparently a regular thing? If it happened enough times, they would have came back to their apartment cleared out. I mean, it's Los Angeles!
-The boy (I think his name was Todd?) trespasses in their apartment. But he's rich? If he's rich, he must have access to pretty much anything he wanted (games, hobbies, toys, etc), so why was he wandering into other people's homes to amuse himself?
-What did the boy want with Jack's trophy? It would have had Jack's name on it, so if he stole it, people would know it's not his.
-Why was Furley spazzing out about the kid? He's literally a harmless 12-year old boy. Furley acted like he needed to be locked up in prison. Granted, Furley was definitely more hyperactive in his earlier episodes.
-It's highly unlikely that Janet and Chrissy couldn't have seen right through the boy's charade of feigning mistreatment by Jack whenever the girls entered the room since his timing was way off. The girls would be in the room for a full 5 seconds before he would start feigning injuries and stuff.

A group of friend and I (all foreigners), were at this bar in Shinjuku. It must've been 3AM when this drunk Japanese girl comes and says Hi. We welcomed her and started to have friendly conversations with her although her English wasn't very good.
She was with another group, I believe they were all coworkers but ended up leaving her with us. We all thought that was strange I mean who leaves without her friend. She then asks us if she can stay with us at our hotel.
We were all put on this awkward position. Honestly we didn't know how to say "No" We were 3 couples so it be strange to have a stranger in our rooms. We did decline after and even offer to pay for a taxi for her but she insisted in staying with us!
We ended up just leaving her in the bar. We all felt bad but just got me thinking is this something that happens often? Is it part of the culture?

Im just going to preface this and say that this is not towards all NP’s or PA’s, and I’m just sharing my experiences. I’m not trying to discredit them, but once again this is my experience. I’m not a Karen, I swear. I’m a young adult who has a handful of health issues that I just want help with.
I am someone who has a bit of health issues, and I have for mostly my whole life, yet these past few years it has only gotten worse. And because of this, I frequently have to go to the doctors or get referrals. This being said I swear that whenever I go to an office for the doctors all I can get is a nurse practitioner or a PA. So, typically I give them the benefit of the doubt and just see how it goes. So far 7 times out of 10 they genuinely have no clue what I am talking about or have no explanation, or just a general lack of training.
I had this really good dermatologist who was very very intrigued with how my body works. My body is very sensitive to the environment, and frequently break out into hives over things I can control, I can even trigger it if I wanted to. He attentively listened to everything I said, look at the proof I have on my phone, would perform tests in office and educate me thoroughly on my conditions. I have cold urticaria, pressure urticaria, cholingeric urticaria, as well as dermatographism. So sadly my doctor had to move to a different state, and I had to get a new dermatologist. So, I walk into the new place and she introduces herself, and she is a PA, okay great. However, upon explaining to her what I had been diagnosed with and need help with, when asking questions, she could not help me. She couldn’t help me with educating because she had no clue what they were herself. The only thing she knew was the cold urticaria which she solely focused on and performed another test on me so she could see it herself. I had to inform and educate her on my conditions.
Okay, another example is I had to go to a psychiatrist, and the office referred me to a NP. Once again, okay great. I went in there explaining my issues and I would tell her basic things and I don’t know what she couldn’t comprehend. She couldn’t explain things, wouldn’t even explain my supposed diagnosis. Id ask her questions and she would beat around the bush. What really made me mad about this NP is how she acted with me when I tried to get her to give me a doctors note for accommodations for schooling. For one, she made me wait four months for it even though once a month I had to see her. I had to beg her up and down for it, and I gave her the requirements and everything. She gives me a paper finally, and it looks like I drafted it up myself so the school wouldn’t accept it. I told her that they wanted her license number at least because she wouldn’t even put it on a header. She flipped out on me, she refused to give me her license number and told me she wasn’t giving it, and if they wanted it that bad they can look it up themselves.
I go to a new gynecologist the other day, and what do they put me with, a NP. Well, I was going in there for valid concerns, and plus I needed a new once since my other one became a professor. However, I explained to her my past with medical stuff. TMI it was irregular periods. And I swear to god this woman, who should know all about this could not give me an explanation by saying that I’m just young, that’s all it is. Girl, it’s been about decade with a period, it should be regulated now when it was fine for years. Then when we were talking about me and autoimmune disorders (which is a whole other story), she once again had no clue. I ask her a couple more questions so I could educate myself, and her response is “yeah that is weird. I don’t know.”- girl, come on now.
Then, I was at the ED because I was having heart issues. My heart rate would go into the 170-180s and plummet, and they assigned me a NP who looked at me for one second, said I was fine, sent me home. My ekg results came out as abnormal, and on top of that I had to go to a cardiologist where I was diagnosed with a heart condition. On top of this, I was irritated at her because they had be in the waiting room for about 6 hours, brought me to a flex room that didn’t even have a bed, it was a chair, and I was sent out immediately. I had to wait a few more hours and eventually I said to my mother, I don’t feel good, I want to go home. So we go to the desk to discharge, and they are like “are you sure you want to leave, your doctor was just about to discharge you?” First of all no doctor came over to us, second of all the woman I seen for 1 second had come into the waiting room FULL of people announcing my test results and blood work.
All I’m asking is for someone who can explain things and know what they are doing. But once again, they don’t have the same training as doctors. Doctors had pre med, medical school, residency, attending, etc. and only a couple for the others.
This is my experience.
Also, I can also admit I’ve had some good NP that I’ve seen in urgent cares and such.

I've been meaning to make this post for a while but life kept getting in the way.
There is a bunch of new (well, new to me) stuff I've discovered over the last few weeks, and wanted to share my thoughts with you.
Let's start with the "prequel" (although never canonically confirmed) to the Marathon series was a game called Pathways to Darkness. The backstory for this game is:

Sixty-four million years ago, a large extra-terrestrial object struck the Earth in what would later be called the Yucatan Peninsula, in south eastern Mexico. The dust and rock thrown up by the resulting explosion caused enormous climactic changes in the ensuing years, and many of the Earth's species became extinct during the long winter that followed.
The object itself was buried thousands of feet below ground, its nearly two kilometer length remarkably intact. It remained there, motionless, for thousands of years before it finally began to stir-- and to dream.

Hmm. Buried below ground. Finally beginning to stir and dream. Who does that sound like?
Let's keep going.

The heat of impact liquefied the rock around it, which later cooled and encased the dead god's huge body far below ground. As it began to dream, it wrought unintentional changes in its environment. Locked deep beneath the Earth, strange and unbelievable things faded in and out of reality. Vast caverns and landscapes bubbled to life within the rock, populated by horrible manifestations of the dead god's dream.

As it began to dream, it wrought unintentional changes in its environment.. Locked deep beneath the Earth, strange and unbelievable things faded in and out of reality.
Like Fingerrats? Or like Spider-wolves?

Vast caverns and landscapes bubbled to life within the rock, populated by horrible manifestations of the dead god's dream.

Caverns and landscapes. I want to expand this point here for a bit because it's also mirrored across Alagaesia.
Let's start with Helgrind.
For any FV enjoyers, I've previously speculated that Helgrind is a reliquary, or a previously living being that was transformed (a la Ctein).
But the curious thing here is the timeline of Helgrind and it's tunnel system, taken with the above context.

Q: Assuming it wasn't built by the Ra'zac themselves, was the lair inside Helgrind purpose-built for the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka, or did they appropriate it some time after it was built? If it wasn't built for them, what was its original purpose?
A: Partially natural formations (linked to tunnels elsewhere in Alagaësia), partly expanded by the priests of Helgrind and Galbatorix himself.

But... The Ra'Zac didn't inhabit Helgrind until at least after the Humans came over. So these tunnels underneath Helgrind existed before the Ra'Zac, or Galbatorix ever set foot on Alagaesia. Which, I don't know about you, but a massive network of tunnels does not smell entirely natural to me.
So.. where else are there "natural" formations that link to other tunnels elsewhere in Alagaesia?
We've seen these "natural" formations in Vroengard:

Q: The deeps under Vroengard, were they created by the riders or was it a previous system of caverns that they repurposed?
A: Previous system. I mean, there's been work done on them, but... 'It looks similar, parts of it feel similar to the caverns that we encountered in this book. They both have that hole in the cave which goes deeper, with something in the hole that's not clearly defined.' Yeah.

And we've seen similar depictions in the Beors, and Nal Gorgoth. So from the Beors to Vroengard, "natural" tunnels exist underground. I don't buy that they are entirely natural.
Given the context of the Marathon game above:

Vast caverns and landscapes bubbled to life within the rock, populated by horrible manifestations of the dead god's dream.

I think these tunnels came from Azlagur.
Let's switch gears here, I want to talk about another archaeological mystery in the world of Eragon - El-Harim.
I believe El-Harim was heavily influenced by the (not canon confirmed, but implied) prequel to the Marathon games, the Pathways into Darkness

Pathways casts the player as a member of a US Army Special Forces team sent on a mission to the Yucatán Peninsula. On May 5, 1994, a diplomat from the alien race known as the Jjaro appeared to the President of the United States and informed him that on May 13, an ancient godlike being sleeping beneath a pyramid would awaken and destroy the Earth. The only way to prevent this catastrophe is to prevent the god from awakening. The eight-man Special Forces team carries a nuclear weapon, with the goal of entering the ancient pyramid, descending to the bottom level where the god sleeps, and activating the bomb to stun the god and bury it under tons of rock.

Getting into a bit more of the backstory:

Only during the last few centuries has the god begun to effect changes on the surface of the Earth. Grotesque creatures have been sighted deep in the trackless forest of the Yucatan, and strange rumors of an ancient pyramid-- which is neither Aztec nor Mayan-- in the same area have been circulating in the archaeological community since the early 1930's.

Pyramid, eh? There are two different options here I can think of that equate.
The extended FWW Map
First, in the extended map from FWW, we can see a Pyramid-esque shape - Different color, different slope, etc.
Or, second (and probably more likely), it could be El-Harim:

It is a very bad place. It’s a place where some bad things happened at one point and it’s not a good place to go walking around. I don’t want to get into it too much more because again, it’s a good possibility for another story and I want to keep thinking about it a bit more. It is in Alagaesia and we’ve actually been close to the location.

Many speculate that the below vision from Eragon in Brisingr, which was never explained in the main cycle, is of El-Harim:

And he rested, and visions beset him of a circular stone city that stood in the center of an endless plain and of a small girl who wandered among the narrow, winding alleys within and who sang a haunting melody (A Feast with Friends, Brisingr).

If this vision IS El-Harim , it's super significant because of these two descriptors:

circular stone city
narrow, winding alleys

Fractals. The city itself is a fractal, like Nidus for any FV enjoyers.
The narrow winding alleys are significant because of the descriptors of the Vanished/Grey folk:

The spaces between the structures were narrower than the humans preferred; the proportions were taller, thinner, which matched the images she had seed of the Vanished...
The ancient outline of the city was - as she suspected - a fractal, and the shape of it contained meaning.... At the nexus of the apttern, where it coiled in on itslef like a nautilus shell" (Shards, TSIASOS).

Narrow. Circular (Nautilus shell). Winding. Fractal.
Whatever this city is, El-Harim or otherwise, it is/was a grey folk/vanished city.
And given the quotes from above - "Its a place where some bad things happened at one point", and "dangerous, creeping, ancient, evil thing" - My guess is that the event that caused the Grey Folk to bind the AL to magic happened here, in El-Harim.
Alright, moving along.
Let's talk about the Az and the God. There are a few parallels I've talked around, but the BIG link between the two are Dreams. This is especially important because of the release of the world map recently.

We are the devotees of Azlagur, the Devourer. Azlagur the Firstborn. Azlagur the Dreamer. He who sleeps and whose sleeping mind weaves the warp and weft of the waking world. But the sleep grows restless" (Obliteration, Murtagh).

Versus

As it began to dream, it wrought unintentional changes in its environment. Locked deep beneath the Earth, strange and unbelievable things faded in and out of reality. Vast caverns and landscapes bubbled to life within the rock, populated by horrible manifestations of the dead god's dream.

I could write a whole post about the parallels between the two and their linkage to dreams, but I'll cut it short here for now to save room to dig in to other areas. Specifically, the Dreams connection is especially important because of the relase of the world map recently - I have another post here that gets into more detail, but the translations from the World Map in the middle translate to:

where dreams and dragons dwell

Dreams (!) and Dragons.
Combine that with the Etymology of the words:

Alagaësia ala = land gaësia = rich/fertile
Alalëa ala = land lëa = a beautiful dream
Elëa = the dream itself

So the planet, named Elea, translates to "The Dream Itself". Very interesting.
This is even more significant when you take into account this tweet chain from Chris, a bit earlier in March

Darn it. Just invented a name in the ancient language. Googled it to make sure no one else had used it ... only to discover that I had used it in an earlier book. Lol.
Can we ask what name?
Edurna

I believe the name was a potential candidate for the name of the planet of Alagaesia, which is important because of the etymology of THAT name (All credit to Zora for digging this one up).

Edurna sounds awfully like Adurna and Edur
Adurna meaning water and Edur being a prominence

Prominence. And Water. You know what that sounds like to me? Plaintive Verge. Just food for thought.
Second-to-last Az connection I want to cover: Hunger.

Whirling darkness swallowed him, and at the center of it... lay a formless horror - ancient and evil and from which emanated a constant merciless hunger (Dreams and Portents).

Versus a quote about the cosmic entity in Marathon:

Now I fear what that weapon has unleashed will destroy us. I once boasted to be able to count the atoms in a cloud, to understand them all, predict them, and so did I predict you, but this new chaos is entirely terrible, mindless, obeying rules that I don't comprehend. And it is hungry.

Now, the last piece of Azlagur-related lore I want to cover here is the "Black Sun".
In all of the visions, a Black Sun precipitates Azlagur's rise.

"A black sun rimmed by black flame hung against a darkling sky... The beast rose rampant against the black sun - A wingless dragon, apocalyptic in size, terrifying in presence. Destroyer of hope, eater of light"

Before getting into the Black Sun a bit more, there's an additional connection here I want to touch on - usage of the word rampant in connection with Azlagur.

In Marathon, Rampancy is the enhanced self-awareness of a computer AI, causing a progression towards greater mental abilities and destructive impulses. The destructive impulses, however, are primarily caused by being threatened or harassed. There are three main stages, as well as a fourth and final stage that is rarely achieved, to rampancy, named by the primary attitude of the AI during those times: Melancholia, Anger, Jealousy, and Meta-Stability.

There are some overlaps with what we see from the Maw.
And Melancholia.. that's an interesting word. Especially when taken into context the meaning of the name:

A melancholy dream of great beauty.

Melancholy.. Dream... The pieces of the puzzle are coming together. And Rampant...
Chris also uses that exact same verbiage when discussing a deleted scene from TSIASOS:

Q: I just finished reading To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and I have to know: it sounds like the Wranaui fought the corrupted during the Sundering but if that's true and it happened almost 300 years prior.... Who created the old corrupted? I've been questioning this for days!
A: That was actually in material cut by editors (some of the dream memories). Another Seed/Idealis was damaged and, when the Old Ones tried to separate it from its host, the xeno went rampant.

The xeno went rampant. Very interesting.
Alrighty, I keep getting distracted, back to the black sun.
The reason the Black Sun is important is because it always precipitates Azlagur's rise, throughout several of Murtahgh's visions. In each of them, there is a Black sun.
So, by this, we can extrapolate that the sun needs to be Black in order for Azlagur to rise (which is hinted at at the "Day of Black Sun" celebrations near the end of the book).
But... what does it actually mean?
There is a parallel in Marathon, their weapon:

The trih xeem (also "tri xeem") is an extremely powerful weapon that can be used to force a star into early nova... it was originally conceived and built by the Jjaro [The Old Ones/Vanished equivalent]. Much of the Marathon Infinity story revolves around preventing the Pfhor from using the tri xeem and inadvertently releasing a W'rkncacnter that is supposedly trapped within the Lh'owon sun.

So, the story of the last Marathon games revolves around preventing the usage of the weapon to release the cosmic-level baddie trapped in the sun. So, effectively, the antagonist is imprisoned by the sun.
But.. how does that translate to Azlagur and Murtagh?
The Black Sun requirement for Azlagur's rise could be construed as "imprisonment" by the sun; Azlagur cannot escape until the sun is turned Black. But it only really starts to come together when you piece together these pictures.
First, early concept art for the Fractalverse
You see the black orb, heading directly for the glowing star? Sounds pretty similar.
But that's not the smoking gun; look at the depiction of the black orb in the concept art, and compare it to the trih xeem, the weapon in Marathon.
A black orb with a trail heading directly for the sun. Almost an exact match.
OK.. so I get that it has some relevence in fractalverse, but how does it translate to Eragon?
Well, because of the Beors. Specifically, a picture CHRIS HIMSELF posted about the Beors.
Here
I propose that THIS black orb, at the top of the Beors (which, suspiciously, no one has traveled to) houses the black weapon. After all, the depiction is quite similar - A large, circular, black orb. Looks pretty similar to the other pictures.
And given the above context that Azlagur can only rise with a "Black Sun", the pieces all start to fit together. It's not perfect, but there are definitely a lot of overlaps.
Alright. I've been waiting for this one. The last piece. Let's talk about Angela.
Q: Will we get Angela lore? I feel like she could have killed Galbatorix and just didn't feel like it.
A: For those who don't know Angela is based on my sister Angela, because she breaks the fourth wall to a degree she has. Not only does she have plot armor, she knows she's in a story and can break the story itself. So, yes, she could have killed Galbatorix, but that would have made for a very bad story. That said, I do have an entire book planned around Angela, and it's very high on my list of books to write because it takes place before some of these other big stories I want to write. And that's also the difficult thing. I have my big storylines, and then I have a couple of one off side books I want to write, and it's just a question of time, energy and effort.
She knows she's in a story, and she can break the story.
Based on that, and several other descriptions I will get into in a bit, I think her story is directly related to the Marathon Infinity game.

Marathon Infinity begins as the Pfhor destroy Lh'owon using a Jjaro-derived doomsday weapon known as the Trih Xeem or "early nova". Unfortunately, the weapon also releases a powerful chaotic being: The W’rkncacnter, which threatens to destroy the entire galaxy. Because of the W’rkncacnter's chaos or by means of some Jjaro tech of his own, the player is transported back and forward in time, finding himself jumping between timelines and fighting for various sides in a desperate attempt to prevent the chaotic being's release.

and

In Marathon Infinity, a W'rkncacnter is imprisoned in the sun of planet Lh'owon. It is theorized by some that the W'rkncacnter's powerfully chaotic nature may be responsible for the jumps between realities seen in the game. When the Pfhor use a trih xeem device to send the star into early nova, the creature is released, to the horror and destruction of the Pfhor.

Angela is the Eragon-equivalent of the player.
She can transport back and forward in time, jumping between timelines, and fighting to prevent the chaotic being's (Azlagur's) release. Let's dive in.
First:

Q: Is it canon that Angela the Herbalist is a Time Lord and did she make a cameo in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars?
A: Is Angela the Herbalist is a Time Lord? That would be copyright infringement, so I'm going to say "no comment", but she is in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. And there is a canon reason for this. And you should have no problem spotting who she is in that book.

So there's a canon reason she's in the book. Interesting. When you take that into context with the next bit

Q: On your last AMA on reddit, someone asked if any fan had guessed the identity and history of Angela correctly. You said nobody has guessed correctly and there's not enough information in the books to do so. That puts every fan theory out there on her wrong, correct? She's not the soothsayer, a time lord, grey folk, etc, correct?
A: Angela: Some of the fan theories have gotten parts of her history and identity correct. However, there's a HUGE aspect to her nature that no one has guessed (or least, not in a non-joking way). And no, I don't mean her being a Time Lord.

So there's a huge aspect to her nature that no one has guessed (at least at the time of writing). She's self-aware, knows she's in a story, and can jump around in time. And, similar to the Marathon games, it appears like only she knows that she's in a story.
So, based on the Marathon inspiration, we can guess that she is trying to accomplish the same thing - To prevent the release of the cosmic-level villain. We know that she has some kind of relationship with the Draumar:

In Murtagh, it’s revealed that Bachel and “Uluthrek” (Mooneater, Angela’s given Urgal name) met with Bachel explicitly going out to confront her (a courtesy not even offered to a Rider like Murtagh)

So, by extension, she has some kind of connection to Azlagur. This is supported by other circumstantial evidence in FWW as well:

Since we know that the Dream Well in Mani's Caves is similar to the Well in Nal Gorgoth I can assume that Angela is revealing the existence of the Draumar to Elva there? I feel certainly feel as if you're setting up her for something in the future series.
Heh. Good Catch.

So, she is clearly working with Elva to do something related to the Dream Wells, and she also previously confronted Bachel, many years ago. So throughout multiple years across the WoE, she is connected to Azlagur and the Draumar; her story clearly revolves around them/Azlagur, somehow.
Putting the above pieces together, my guess is that she is jumping around in different timelines, trying to manipulate actions of the past to prevent the rise of Azlagur. Just like the player character in Marathon. There's another piece of circumstantial evidence to support this assertion as well.
In Marathon Infinity:

After multiple "jumps," the player (seemingly the only one who realizes he is being transported between possible realities)

Versus Angela:

As hours passed, the stars turned above, night chill drew the heat from my body, and I fell into a curious trance, not asleep but not fully awake... The world altered" (On the Nature of Stars, FWW).

I believe this world "Altering" was the first time she experienced an alternate timeline, without knowing what it was at the time.
We've also seen her create "Doorways" as well - Although it's not clear if this is fast traveling (a la a Torque Gate), or truly opening a path to another timeline.
In Eldest:

"As they landed, he noticed a patch of white on a small hill nearby. The patch wavered strangely in the dark, like a floating candle, then resolved into Angela, who was wearing a pale wool tunic" (A Sorceress, a Snake, and a Scroll).

and then later, more concretely:

"I traced a line on the wall, reached out, and opened a door that wasn't there. ON the other side - nighttime, a beach by a black ocean lit only by stars, so many, many stars, more than there should be. Of course, I would not take Elva to my home, not yet. But this was a waypoint, a place to build and learn and grow... She stared into the gap, the impossible portal" (On the Nature of Stars, FWW).

Still, as always with Angela, so many questions.
Alright, we've reached an ungodly wordcount, so I'll call it here. There are still more connections I'm uncovering between the two series (such as the potential connection between the Gedway Ignasia and the "warning" sensation from Marathon), so I might make a follow-up post in the future with everything else I uncover.
As always, thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments, or if you've found any other connections between the two.

I'm new to Reddit, so I hope you can bear with me. I want to know if I'm being to over dramatic over how often my boyfriend has to play the game. I 'M23' need advice on how to tell my boyfriend 'M34' that I want to spend quality time with him rather than just watching him play video games.
It's starting to make me unhappy. He usually starts playing around 9 or 10 pm and goes on until 5 or 6 am. I sometimes watch him play, but since I have work, I can't do it every night. The problem is that I can't sleep at normal hours because even if I leave the room (we live in a one-bedroom apartment), I can still hear him through the walls. This lack of sleep is really affecting me because I work from home for my college. He sleeps during the day so I try to stay quiet and respect him but then when he wakes up he goes shower and then gets on the game for a little bit before doing anything thing else.
The other day for example I talked to him about maybe letting me use the TV during the day since he sleeps and I would like to be able to do things like chill just like he gets to game and that's how he relaxes but he got so upset and said " I'll just get a tv for the living room so you can go out there and I can stay in here and play the game all I want" but I never stop him from gaming or anything like that I always give him his time and either sit and watch quietly or leave the room altogether. The day after that he was gaming after he woke up and I was sniffing too much and he kicked me out of the room so he could focus which really hurt my feelings not long after that I was watching a movie he didn't really like he paused it and said "I don't want to watch this I'm gonna game" but he saw that I was visibly upset so he let me finish the movie and made it seem like it was the hardest thing he had to do or like I owe him for letting me finish a movie I was watching.
I just want to know if I'm being dramatic about the situation and should just let his game or am I right for wanting him to spend some time with me off of the game and let me be able to chill in the way that I let him?
TLDR: I (M, 23) love boyfriend (M, 34) but I'm not happy with him as much because he has to be on the game for hours at a time and he never has time do so anything with me or anything that isn’t related to gaming cause he has to make sure he has time on and I just want to know if im being over dramatic?

Now I know that this sounds like I am but I feel like context would help my case. My mom (45 f) can be a wonderful person don’t get me wrong, but she dose things that are really controlling and shity I’m not gonna lie. For example my mom took away my phone (she wouldn’t tell me for how long and it ended up being for three months all because at 17 I had social media and identified as a trans woman still do I’m a MtF transy) and wouldn’t let me contact any of my friends and made me leave the crush that I had at the time on read and they were going through tough times literally couldn’t afford food and I was trying to be there for them my mom knew about this. Three months later I get my phone and friend/crush no longer wanted anything to do with me (witch was hard because she was one of two friends who stayed in contact with me after I moved towns). I told my mom that that’s why I wanted to keep in contact with them and she just said “Oh well I guess she just wasn’t a good friend and didn’t actually care about you.” So that pissed me off and she said I was overreacting and disrespectful for telling her she needed to apologize for saying that.
Anyway back to the thing I was originally talking about. On may 8th was my birthday and I got a Oculus quest 2 and as you can tell by my pfp I’m a furry so what’s the first thing I get? VRCHAT for all the furry avatars because who doesn’t want to be a pink cat running around being goofy. Also on my birthday I got my own phone (I bought it myself so mom can’t control what I do on it) and that’s how I’m posting. I’m also paying rent to live in the house even though I just turned 18 and she just let me get a job for the first time a few months ago. I’m also paying my phone bill by myself because I don’t want her to have any control over what I do with my stuff.
The day before I’m posting this my mom calls me into her room and tells me to get off and that she turned off the WiFi for the oculus. I then tell her “please do not ever ever turn off the WiFi to my stuff” especially since I’m paying rent and it’s my gift she didn’t even get me I feel like it’s a pritty normal thing to ask. (Before I go on she said rent is for me living there WIFI and phone and it $250/month and I’m not complaining about rent being that much and I I agreed to paying rent to get into the swing of adulting.) But she said no and said she’d only turn on the WiFi if I took a shower (witch I was planing on after I was done playing) and then did some chores again for the millionth time and I just got off work a few hours ago. I told her no and that she needed to turn on the WiFi because I pay to be able to use the internet and my quest and she still hasn’t turned it on. AITAH? Side note I’m dyslexic and have ADHD so sorry if I spelled things wrong.

My name was slandered SO badly by the quinte.ca news that it is literally criminal and VERY VERY messed up.
According to this article I am a Sex Predator and was trying to lure a 13 year old for sex using the internet.(!!!!!)
This is a long story so I’m going to do my best at condensing it so people actually read it.
This is what happened: With a fair amount of spare time on my hands I decided to do something that would create a positive, long lasting impact. I knew there had to be some real sex predators in a city this size so I decided to see if any ADULTS online were interested and fully follow through with preying on a minor. Less than a few minutes after creating a profile I was contacted by a Belleville Resident who indicated DIRECTLY to me that he was “ok” with the decoys age.

I told him my age was TWELVE. 

Within the first 5 minutes of the conversation. So for the next five days he was essentially grooming who he believed was 12 year old and attempting to meet him that upcoming weekend. At no time did I initiate or direct the conversation to move in the dirty direction. I wanted to not only provide as much solid evidence as possible for the police, but I was thinking forward to do the same for the future prosecution when this case ultimately reached the Court….( at least In my mind, this is what I was doing it for! )
Speaking to him about 45 minutes each day I was shocked at how this was actually happening. Shocked at how quickly, unaffected and confident he was to be luring a 12 year old to his apartment.
Most disturbing was the bits of information that was confessed to me. How he “had to be really careful” because he is already a registered sex offender due to being caught with another minor years ago, and how he “had multiple other people your age” in the past which he had never been caught for.
So obviously by the time I was aware of that I was Deadset at not only catching and exposing this creep but see to it that he gets his rightful spot back in a prison cell.

Make no mistake I took screenshots of EVERY message/text/conversations/photos. 

( I had taken photos of myself and used an age altering app which was procured freely from Apple. ) Upon his request I sent multiple Altered selfies over those five days in the various poses he was asking for. Obviously this was done to prove that the decoy was in fact “real”. Bam. That’s it. It was Friday and this registered sex offender “PDF File” was in FULL BELIEF and confident that a Minor was on the way to his apartment to “teach him” how to have sex.
I went just outside the meeting area a bit early and sat down with my Sony 500 video camera around my neck and was prepared to begin the video, capturing him as he went directly to the prearranged location. He was going with the quickness and attempting to hold back the huge shit eating grin on his face. Disgusting. Vile. True evil.
So I walked up to him while recording and made a call from my cellphone to his which I used to instantly tell him off the bat: “YOU’RE FKD!” Also by doing this at that moment I was putting him in a position (ON CAMERA mind you) which he had zero opportunity to deny anything.

Over the next 20-30 minutes He confessed to everything that was said during the conversations. Instead of me questioning him, initially I had told him to tell me exactly why he was there, and for him to tell me (the camera) everything that was in those terrible and unbelievable messages. 

I grilled him like a ribeye.
After having gathered what I believed to be enough evidence and having him vocally express ( One more and last time) directly to the camera why he was there at that precise moment and what it was he had expected to go down that day in his apartment, I decided to end recording, and leave.
With my adrenaline pumping, I left. Forgetting to do what could’ve been the most important thing, not for exposing him or the Court, but for ME. . . Call the cops. I called them about 10 minutes into the walk back to my home. I told the Officer everything that had just happened. Including the prior five days leading up to this event. I was praised for doing what I had done by this Officer but was informed that the “Detective” responsible for this “crime category” was already off duty and wouldn’t be returning until Monday.
On Monday I received a phone call from that Officer and TRIED to explain everything. It was like I was speaking another language to him. He REPEATEDLY tried to change what I was telling him. For example; I explained how I was the decoy and that there did NOT EXIST AN ACTUAL MINOR involved here, and then he would say: “so you and this sex offender ‘hooked up’ and tried to get a ‘13’ year old over to HIS house” !!!!! It was if he was Trolling. He simply could not, or did not WANT TO understand what happened. “It’s like a STING OPERATION” I finally said to him. I told him this guys name and where he lived. I even knew his birthdate from the convos with the Decoy. So this “detective” in charge of investigating a very serious category of crime in this city KNEW that this predator is a Registered Sex Offender. He KNEW that I was in possession of a litany of irrefutable evidence. Yet was totally incompetent and put me down as Suspect #1 from the start. For not a single reason. He denied my requests to come down and SHOW HIM THE FRICKIN’ EVIDENCE. He did not even want to see the video confession!!! Nothing happened. He said it was now an “open case” and I had a case number. Deflated. Flabbergasted. I was [again] in shock. After weeks of waiting, I ended up putting the entire video of sicko confessing and me grilling him on YouTube. My genuine motive from the start was to make a positive impact on the community. To potentially stop a child from being victimized by a predator. I felt let down the police response. Little did I know what was to come SIX months later. The cops raided the house I was living in.
I was immediately handcuffed and told that I was arrested for “LURING A MINOR” !!!! I was literally paralyzed. With at LEAST HALF A DOZEN POLICE OFFICERS AND AN EQUALLY UNNECESSARILY LARGE AMOUNT OF SUVS PARKED ON THE DRIVEWAY, LAWN, AND ONE OF THE BUSIEST ROADS IN THE CITY. RED AND BLUES FLASHING ON ALL OF THEM. W h a t . T h e . F o c k ! ? ! They went up to my neatly organized room and searched it over discovering of course nothing but my phone. Snatching it with a joy like they had just successfully done something significant. I had 5-7 cops surrounding me in a semi circle after arriving at the Jail as I prepared to go inside a cell. They even shackled my feet. I know from watching cops and the like on YouTube to always exercise the right to remain silent. There was nothing I could do or say at that point which would help and I definitely didn’t resist the arrest so it really must’ve been a slow day. Eh guys? That and/or the overly incompetent rookie had relayed to his colleagues and obviously his Superiors to get the raid and arrest warrant his own personal story that he had recreated. Unfriggenbelieveable! It’s SO ABSURD THERE IS NO PROPER WORDS TO EXPRESS HOW IT FEELS TO GO THROUGH THIS! Doing something I considered not just “Right”, but Honourable, Justified, and definitely NOT illegal! How the hell did a JUDGE sign an arrest AND RAID Warrant on me with ZERO evidence, physical, concrete, or even circumstantial?? Not a single reason lawfully or otherwise for them to raid, arrest, shackle my feet and throw me in a jail cell for hours, and then criminally charge me with “Luring of a Minor”. Evidently, according to this news article the police had conducted a Six Month Investigation. Huh? Of What?! On Who?!
Now, Finally, The News Article: The information printed in any news article requires a source, so all of this information had to have only been provided by the police department. This article was printed at 9 in the morning the very next day of the arrest and raid. So of course this was all information provided from police.

This is what the dumbass, rookie, ignorant cop fabricated for no actual real reason: 

“Two men were arrested yesterday after a Six Month long Investigation revealed that the men had ‘BOTH’ believed that they were speaking with a ‘13’ year old boy online. Registered sex offender (the real predators name) and another known sex offender ( my name) are each charged with Luring of a Minor. (Real predators name again) is also charged with using an electronic device to lure a Minor, and breach of probation.”

My LandLord happened to be home at the time of the Raid, and he had also (I guess being suspicious after the raid,) read the article online which is quoted directly above. 

Which meant that he would be evicting me from the property, and I can’t blame him. With that article being read by my roommates and hisself I can’t really blame him for that either.
The charges against myself were eventually dropped, of course. About 18 months later! My phone being confiscated in the raid in order to access everything on there was also given back to me. They played immature and unprofessional games with that as well; returning my property. Such as : come in this day, your phone is ready to be released now. Show up. “Oh so and so thought it was ready but we don’t have it yet.” Weeks later. Get another call saying it is in fact ready now. Show up. “There is no one working in the evidence locker today, there will be in two days.” Screw them! I show up ten days late and what do you know? My property is actually there for me, and I finally get it back. Of course having had to purchase new phone in the meantime. Worse yet, I can’t recall the password and it was before facial recognition (not like that would matter) and after the fingerprint touch button. So it’s just a brick now.
That’s the least of my concern, as that bullshit article remains up, and the YouTube video had been taken down for some privacy violation nonsense.
After paying the criminal defence attorneys’ invoice(s), I couldn’t afford the 6K being asked by EVERY attorney I had reached out to.
So there, that’s one of many of my Unbelievably Insane Life’s stories. I suppose I didn’t provide the short version. Even though I have sincerely tried to keep it all to a minimum by leaving out plenty of details and significant events, this ended up being the Mid Length version.

So today I was cleaning out and organizing the office room in our house. I told my gf that I would be looking through the journals to see which ones would get kept and which ones we could give away. stupid already.. I know.
Anywho, I see this green journal that’s super cute (green is my favorite color), so I flip through and see that it’s used. The date is like my gf last year of high school and I see her best friend name in capital letters. I read it and laugh because I see that she was was writing about her crush on her best friend. Originally, I thought it was cute and funny. Especially because I believe she told me that she had a crush on her before.
I skimmed it and saw that they had s*x. And my gf was in love with her best friend. This was about 8 years ago. I didn’t meet my gf until 4 years ago.
Ultimately, I’m mad and I can’t do anything because I read the freaking journal man. But I’m hurt. Why would you let someone in my house, in my space, on trips with us, and even added me to her phone line.
I’m mad because I love this girl.. and I know my girl love this girl… and now I’m not even sure if she’s ever even gotten over her or if she just settled because she couldn’t have her.
Soooo…. I don’t know if I should say something. But it’s eating me up.

Hi everybody, please bare with me as English isn't my first language and this is gonna be a long read.
My (F27) partner (M30) have been together for almost 5 years. When first dating we discussed a lot stuff like do's and don'ts, one of those was pornography.
He told me he (almost) never watched pornography. When asked why he told me it just wasn't really his thing and usually would pleasure himself in the shower (quick n easy).
A year into the relationship I saw he had some nude pictures on his phone, which he eventually deleted.
Today I found he has thousands and thousands of nude pictures on his laptop which go back years..(2016-2018). This laptop was bought in August 2023 and is connected to some kind of server he saves some of his files on.
I feel betrayed honestly. I don't know what to do.. bring it up? Leave it be? We're already in couples therapy because he basically abused me multiple times. About 2 years ago we were already struggling in our relationship mainly because he was never home, and when he was home he would game etc. Eventually he started waking me up for intimacy by touching me in private areas. After 2 times of that happening I told him that I didn't like it (seeing our relationship and communication were in serious trouble), and asked if he could stop initiating intimacy like that. I told him that I would very much like to grow back closer to each other, but that we both had to work on that and our communication/trust.
Not even 2 days later he did it again, and once again I had a conversation with him where I told him how it made me feel used. He promised to not do it again. He did though, multiple times and we had multiple fights over it. I slept for months on the couch until I had enough money saved to buy myself a bed for in the spare room.
Before we agreed to going to therapy I told him he would have to agree on not touching me in any way since the trust was gone and we had to basically "date all over again". He agreed, but a few days later he spanked me on my ass when walking by, made sexual jokes etc and then I found a piece of my clothing dirty.. he had used it to clean himself after having fun because and I quote "I didn't have anything else" note; there were multiple different things laying around he couldve used, or he couldve gotten up and walked 10 steps to the bathroom.
We had our first therapy session yesterday.. which we had a fight about right after because I told him that I didn't appreciate him not bringing up the abuse in the therapy session and leaving it up to me. (The only problem he had told the therapist was communication).
What do I do? Should I confront him about the pictures and if so, how?
TL;DR: my partner of 5 years has his laptop full of nudes while we already discussed that its not okay and we have issues & couples counceling already.. Should I confront him and if so, how?